Upcoming Events

Today's super computers enable the calculation of neutron flux at a new level of resolution. An important area of research is developing algorithms to perform transport calculations efficiently on these computers. To translate that research into a usable product, however, rigorous verification, validation, and accreditation (VV&A) is required. This talk begins by discussing three novel methods that were added to the massively parallel deterministic transport code Denovo. Results show the methods have been successfully used together on 275,000 cores. Dr. Slaybaugh then shifts to discuss VV&A considerations in the context of a real-world example. The responsibility of designing reactors to be built in the near term requires a robust qualification process for all software involved.

Geologic disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste can be implemented using open or closed emplacement modes. In closed emplacement modes, waste packages are in direct contact with encapsulating engineered or natural barriers. In order to preserve the functionality of these components, their temperature must remain within prescribed limits. This study proposes an analytical approach to determine temperature peaks in a generic repository configuration, particularly suitable for scoping analyses. The proposed model, implemented in a MATLAB® program, was applied to perform thermal analysis for combinations of projected waste inventories (from selected once-through, modified open, and closed fuel cycles) and geologic settings (clay/shale, salt, crystalline rock, and deep borehole), and to identify important relationships between waste package size and capacity, and the duration of surface decay storage needed to comply with the established temperature limits.

Nuclear fuel cycle policies have been rather inconsistent throughout history, arguably due to the complex interdependencies of technical, social, economic and environmental issues involved. Sophisticated fuel cycle simulation tools are being developed to aid the decision makers with defining future fuel cycle strategies. However, the value of these tools for policy making has yet to be demonstrated. This limited success may be partially attributed to the fact that the large amount of technical data generated by these tools obscures the actual policy tradeoffs. This talk will introduce a conceptual framework for the nuclear fuel cycle optimization that can serve as an interface between engineers and policy makers. A number of representative examples will be presented to demonstrate the idea and effectiveness of such fuel cycle optimization framework. From the recent simplified analyses, it was discovered, not surprisingly, that in order to address nuclear waste and resource sustainability issues, the construction of fuel reprocessing infrastructure along with fast spectrum reactors has to be pursued as soon as possible. This policy, however, has a significant economic penalty due to the high cost of fast reactors and reprocessing plants. Decoupling these two parts of the infrastructure would thus allow their gradual introduction, reducing the economic burden and increasing the chances of success. The talk will briefly discuss two reactor technologies that can allow such decoupling: Light Water Reactors with high conversion ratio and fast reactors with low enriched uranium startup.

Speaker Bio
Dr. Eugene Shwageraus earned his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Nuclear Engineering from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel and Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from MIT. He joined the faculty of the Nuclear Engineering Department at Ben-Gurion University in 2003. Between 2009 and 2011 he served as a Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT, where he was a contributing author to the interdisciplinary study on the Future of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle. His research focus areas are design of advanced nuclear reactors and innovative fuel cycles.