Argonne's nuclear energy research moves toward greater reliance on computer
simulation
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ARGONNE, Ill. (Nov. 27, 2007) — The U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National
Laboratory is taking its nuclear energy research into new territory – virtual
territory, that is.
With the recent arrival of the new IBM Blue Gene/P and the lab's development
of advanced computer models, Argonne has a critical role in making it possible
to burn repeatedly nuclear fuel that now sits as waste, thus closing the nuclear
fuel cycle and reducing the risk of nuclear proliferation.
The move toward greater reliance on computer simulation and modeling to conduct
nuclear energy research is a progressive trend seen in other areas of scientific
research supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
"High-speed supercomputers are increasingly tackling difficult problems
that could once be addressed only in a laboratory setting," said Argonne
Director Robert Rosner.
"The traditional approach to developing nuclear energy technologies is
to do a bunch of experiments to demonstrate a process or reaction," said
Mark Peters, deputy to the assistant laboratory director of applied science
and technology and Argonne's program manager for the Global
Nuclear Energy Partnership. "What Argonne is doing is creating a set of integrated models
that demonstrate and validate new technologies, using a smaller number of experiments."
Moreover, "advanced simulation can greatly reduce facilities' costs by
allowing us to better identify and target the physical experiments which underlie
their design," said Andrew Siegel, a computational scientist at Argonne
and the lab's nuclear simulation project leader.
Siegel and a team of Argonne computational scientists are in the throes of
refining computer codes that will eventually be used to conduct the underlying
scientific research that will support the development of next-generation nuclear
systems, such as advanced fast reactors. "We will use advanced simulation
to improve and optimize the design and safety of advanced fast reactors," Siegel
said.
The Sodium-cooled
Fast Reactor (SFR) design, which was born at Argonne, is a key
part of President Bush's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, a strategy that
will significantly reduce the radioactivity and volume of waste requiring disposal
and reduce the risk of nuclear proliferation. SFR designs are safe, capable
of reducing the volume and toxicity of nuclear waste, and econo mic ally competitive
with other electricity sources.
Using internal lab funding initially and GNEP funding more recently, Argonne
computational scientists are designing a modern suite of tools called SHARP – Simulation-based
High-efficiency Reactor Prototyping, Siegel said. The SHARP toolkit is a collection
of individual software components that digitally mimic the physical processes
that occur in a nuclear reactor core, including neutron transport, thermal
hydraulics and fuel and structure behavior, Siegel explained.
SHARP has been developed to fully leverage the new Argonne
Leadership Computing Facility, which is made up of the Blue Gene/P, an IBM computer that
is designed to operate at a sustained rate of 1-petaflop per second and capable
of reaching speeds of 3 petaflops.
SHARP will build upon and may eventually replace existing computer codes that
are used to conduct safety evaluations of today's portfolio of aging nuclear
power reactors. Those older codes, while adequate for evaluating the scoping
designs of next-generation reactors, are not as well equipped to validate the
performance of new reactor concepts now under design, Siegel said. A simulation
tool like SHARP, which is being written specifically to test SFR design concepts,
has the potential to shave millions of dollars off reactor design, development
and construction.
Argonne's modeling and simulation work in support of advanced nuclear energy
systems is a natural outgrowth of Argonne's expertise in nuclear energy. "We
see Argonne as the one place that can pull off the creation of advanced simulation
tools that will be able to successfully replace some types of experiments," Siegel
said.
Argonne has the nation's largest concentration of scientists involved in fast-reactor
design and fuel reprocessing technologies – expertise that is essential to
refining SFR design concepts. "This is the center of brain power for nuclear
energy research," Siegel said. Argonne's nuclear and che mic al engineers
have already been collaborating with the lab's computer scientists to develop
precise computer simulations of the physical changes that would occur in an
SFR, as well as other important aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle, such as
separations and processing technologies.
Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology.
The nation's first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic
and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne
researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities,
and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific
problems, advance America 's scientific leadership and prepare the nation for
a better future. With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed
by UChicago
Argonne, LLC for
the U.S.
Department of Energy's Office
of Science.
For more information, please contact Angela Hardin (630/252-5501
or ahardin@anl.gov) at Argonne.
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