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Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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Nuclear News 40 Under 40 discuss the future of nuclear
Seven members of the inaugural Nuclear News 40 Under 40 came together on March 4 to discuss the current state of nuclear energy and what the future might hold for science, industry, and the public in terms of nuclear development.
To hear more insights from this talented group of young professionals, watch the “40 Under 40 Roundtable: Perspectives from Nuclear’s Rising Stars” on the ANS website.
Emily Shemon, Yinbin Miao, Shikhar Kumar, Kun Mo, Yeon Sang Jung, Aaron Oaks, Scott Richards, Guillaume Giudicelli, Logan Harbour, Roy Stogner
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 197 | Number 8 | August 2023 | Pages 1656-1680
Technical papers from: PHYSOR 2022 | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2149231
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) program has developed numerous physics solvers utilizing the open-source Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) framework for multiphysics reactor analysis. These solvers require input finite element meshes representing the discretized spatial domain. Typically, reactor analysts turn to licensed tools for the creation of reactor geometry meshes. Recently, open-source functionality has been added to the MOOSE framework to mesh common reactor geometries and improve MOOSE-based nuclear reactor application user workflows. The new functionality is primarily contained in the new Reactor module of MOOSE and includes support for hexagonal pins, assemblies, and cores, extended Cartesian geometry support, options for modeling static and rotating control drums within a hexagonal assembly, core periphery triangulation, and automatic tagging of pin, assembly, plane, and depletion regions for easier post processing of physics results. A set of reactor geometry mesh builder objects further streamlines the construction of hexagonal and Cartesian cores and allows mapping of materials to regions during mesh generation.
The meshes produced with the MOOSE Reactor module may be used directly within MOOSE-based applications or exported as Exodus II files for use in other finite element solvers. The tools have been demonstrated and verified using a variety of NEAMS physics solvers on a range of reactor applications, including a sodium-cooled fast reactor core analysis using Griffin, a fast reactor assembly thermal deformation analysis using MOOSE Tensor Mechanics, and a heat pipe–cooled microreactor coupled analysis using Griffin, Bison, and Sockeye. MOOSE’s Reactor module provides significant advantages compared to the use of external meshing tools when analyzing Cartesian and hexagonal reactor lattices using MOOSE-based applications: immediate accessibility (open-source) to the end user, low barrier to entry for new users, speed of mesh generation, volume preservation of meshed fuel pins, and simplification of analysis workflow when used in conjunction with MOOSE-based applications.