April 2019

April 29, 2019April 25, 2019

Enhancing Nuclear Plant Economics and Safety Through Online Monitoring and Prognostics

SPEAKER:

JAMIE COBLE

DATE/TIME:

MON, 04/29/2019 at 4:00PM - 5:00PM

LOCATION:

3105 ETCHEVERRY HALL

Spring 2019 Colloquium Series

Enhancing Nuclear Plant Economics and Safety through Online Monitoring and Prognostics

Abstract:

The current approach to operations and maintenance (O&M) relies primarily on periodic inspection and maintenance activities scheduled to preclude in-service degradation and failure; however, this approach often leads to unnecessary work and wasted effort. Current trends in the nuclear industry are moving away from these time-based practices toward risk-informed scheduling, based in part on online monitoring of key components. Ongoing research to develop online equipment condition assessment and failure prognostics for active equipment in nuclear power plants helps drive the industry toward more cost-effective O&M. This enhanced situational awareness will be critical for the future fleet of advanced reactors with new concepts of operation.

About the Speaker:

Dr. Jamie Baalis Coble is an Assistant Professor and Southern Company Faculty Fellow in the Nuclear Engineering department at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville where she has been since 2013. Dr. Coble’s expertise is primarily in statistical data analysis, empirical modeling, and advanced pattern recognition for equipment condition assessment, process and system monitoring, anomaly detection and diagnosis, failure prognosis, and integrated decision making. Her research interests expand on past work in nuclear system monitoring and prognostics to incorporate system monitoring and remaining useful life estimates into risk assessment, operations and maintenance planning, and optimal control algorithms. Prior to joining the UT faculty, she worked in the Applied Physics group at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Her work there focused primarily on data analysis and feature extraction for detecting anomalies and degradation in large passive components, advanced active components, and nuclear fuel reprocessing systems. Dr. Coble is currently pursuing research in prognostics and health management for active components and systems; advanced control strategies for integration of small modular reactors with deep renewable penetration; and process monitoring and accountancy for safeguards of nuclear fuel cycle facilities.

April 21, 2019April 29, 2019

21st Century Nuclear Energy

SPEAKER:

TODD ALLEN

DATE/TIME:

MON, 04/22/2018 - 4:00PM TO 5:00PM

LOCATION:

3105 ETCHEVERRY HALL

Spring 2019 Colloquium Series

Abstract:

An interesting new narrative has arisen around the need for nuclear energy and how an emerging set of privately funded companies are attempting to take a new set of nuclear energy products to commercialization. This presentation will describe the energy system trends driving this innovation, how the federal government is creating or adjusting their programs to support innovation, and how the language we use for describing nuclear energy needs to change to support innovation.

About the Speaker:

Dr. Todd Allen is currently a Professor at the University of Michigan and a Senior Fellow at Third Way, a DC base Think Tank, supporting their Clean Energy Portfolio. He was the Deputy Director for Science and Technology at the Idaho National Laboratory from January 2013 through January 2016. Prior to INL he was a Professor in the Engineering Physics Department at the University of Wisconsin, a position held from September 2003 through December 2012. From March 2008-December 2012, he was concurrently the Scientific Director of the Advanced Test Reactor National Scientific User Facility at INL. Prior to joining the University of Wisconsin, he was a Nuclear Engineer at Argonne National Laboratory-West in Idaho Falls. His Doctoral Degree is in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Michigan (1997) and his Bachelor’s Degree in Nuclear Engineering is from Northwestern University (1984). Prior to graduate work, he was an officer in the United States Navy Nuclear Power Program.

April 15, 2019April 23, 2019

Hastening Innovation in Materials for Energy

SPEAKER:

DR. MICHAEL P. SHORT

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
MIT

DATE/TIME:

MON, 04/15/2019 - 4:00PM TO 5:00PM

LOCATION:

3105 ETCHEVERRY HALL

Spring 2019 Colloquium Series

Abstract:

Energy production and availability is the root driving force behind economic development and prosperity.

The energy sector employs 5% of all Americans, with 7% of new job growth attributed directly to energy. Its sustainability and cleanliness drives our largest modern international agreements. It is also one of the largest sources of lost value when things don't go as planned. The reliable production of clean energy comes down to the structural materials used in carbon-free energy production systems. After all, things tend to be made out of materials, and when those materials fail, so do the systems in which they reside. Due to the intense energy flow, regulation, and risk aversion in large-scale, green power production systems, material improvements are difficult to ideate, and even harder to implement at scale.

In this talk, we will discuss the technical causes and solution to two of the biggest problems in geothermal and nuclear energy systems - fouling and radiation damage - which together contribute to the loss of over 0.25% of the GDP of most developed nations. First, a rare geothermal/nuclear utility partnership has resulted in a universal anti-fouling coating design principle, as the conditions found in geothermal wells and nuclear power plants are surprisingly similar. Matching the optical properties of a coating is the key to avoiding fouling in extreme conditions found in large-scale energy production systems. Second, a new type of non-destructive evaluation (NDE) promises to hasten the qualification of nuclear structural materials by a factor of 1,000. This has the potential to reduce the timescale of experiments from years to hours, as we will show in a first-of-a-kind experimental demonstration. Together these results show that rapid innovation is possible in energy systems, provided the problem as posed takes scientific and societal inputs on equal footing.

About the Speaker:

Michael Short joined the faculty in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering in July 2013. He brings 15 years of research experience in the field of nuclear materials, microstructural characterization, and alloy development. His group’s research is a mixture of large-scale experiments, micro/nanoscale characterization, and multiphysics modeling & simulation. A core mission of Short's lab is moving into industry in a five-year timeframe, from ideation to implementation. Short’s research focuses on: non-contact, non-destructive measurement of irradiated material properties using transient grating spectroscopy (TGS); preventing the deposition of deleterious phases, such as CRUD in nuclear reactors, as fouling deposits in energy systems; and quantification of radiation damage by stored energy fingerprints. This last project was recently selected for an NSF CAREER award.

April 10, 2019April 16, 2019

Berkeley Students Win Awards at 2019 ANS Conference

Wednesday, April 10th, 2019

Undergraduate students Andrew Dong and Emily Vu won awards for their presentations at the American Nuclear Society Conference this past week, April 4-6, held in Richmond, Virginia.
Andrew Dong was awarded Best Presentation in Materials Science and Technology. While Emily Vu took home Best Presentation in Mathematics and Computation.

See here for the full list of award winners.

Great job Andrew and Emily, you make us proud!

April 8, 2019March 19, 2019

Isotopic Feedback and Stability in Fission Waves

SPEAKER:

ANDREW OSBORNE

DATE/TIME:

MON, 04/08/2018 - 4:00PM TO 5:00PM

LOCATION:

3105 ETCHEVERRY HALL

Spring 2019 Colloquium Series

Abstract:

Under the right conditions, self sustaining fission waves can form in fertile nuclear materials. These waves result from the transport and absorption of neutrons and the resulting production of fissile and fissionable isotopes. When these fission, additional neutrons are produced and the chain reaction propagates until it is poisoned by the buildup of fission products. Fission waves are a form of breed-burn reaction and it is typically assumed that they are soliton-like and self stabilizing in the absence of thermal feedback and unstable when it is present. However, we show that the situation is more complicated. In uranium, coupling of the neutron field to the 239U->239Np->239Pu decay chain can lead to a Hopf bifurcation without thermal feedback. The fission reaction then ramps up and down, along with the wave velocity. The critical driver for the instability is a delay, caused by the half-life of 239U, between the time evolution of the neutron field and the production of 239Pu. This allows the 239Pu to accumulate and burn out in a self limiting oscillation that is characteristic of a Hopf bifurcation. In the presence of thermal feedback, the hardness of the neutron spectrum dictates whether the fission wave is stable, unstable, or will undergo a Hopf bifurcation. Time dependent results are obtained using a numerical implementation of a reduced order reaction-diffusion model for a fast neutron field. Monte Carlo simulations in combination with a linear stability analysis are used to confirm the results for the full system and to establish the parameter space where the Hopf occurs.

About the Speaker:

Andrew Osborne obtained his Ph.D in high energy physics from the University of Glasgow in Scotland working on optimization methods for track identification in particle detectors. After his Ph.D studies, he worked as an analyst for the JP Morgan Chase investment bank in Glasgow and New York City where he developed software for risk management of credit derivatives under complex market scenarios. He returned to academia as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, where he worked on the application of high performance computing to the design and analysis of advanced nuclear reactors. Andy began his appointment as an assistant professor at the Colorado School of Mines in January 2018. His research interests are high performance computing for reactor multiphysics, numerical methods and software engineering.

April 2, 2019April 2, 2019

Visiting Student Markus Alfreider wins 3rd place in Poster Contest

Visiting Student Markus Alfreider Wins 3rd Place in Poster Contest

April 2, 2019

TMS2019 Poster Certificate Third Place - Mechanical Behavior

Markus Alfreider is a visiting student from Austria, funded through the Marshall Plan fellowship. He won 3rd place in the TMS 2019 poster award in "Mechanical Behavior Related to Interface Physics III". The contest took place in San Antonio, Texas. This work was a collaboration between Leoben and Berkeley.

Congratulations, Markus!

April 1, 2019April 8, 2019

Multi-physics Modeling and Simulation of Advanced Reactor Concepts Using MOOSE: A Cohesive Computational Framework

SPEAKER:

DR. RICHARD MARTINEAU

DIRECTOR
NUCLEAR SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY’S (NS&T) MODELING AND SIMULATION

DATE/TIME:

MON, 04/01/2019 - 4:00PM TO 5:00PM

LOCATION:

3105 ETCHEVERRY HALL

Spring 2019 Colloquium Series

Abstract:

In 2008, Dr. Martineau’s Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project enabled the development of INL’s Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) computational framework. The development of INL’s Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) computational framework has resulted in a multitude of MOOSE-based code efforts funded by Department of Energy (DOE). MOOSE is known for its ability to “cohesively” couple MOOSE-based codes. And recently, through a process known as MOOSE-Wrapped Apps, MOOSE can couple MOOSE-based applications in a “cohesive-like” manner to external (non-MOOSE) or legacy codes. Here, Dr. Martineau will present the MOOSE framework and much of its capabilities with a focus upon multi-physics coupling. He will then describe and show results from several Advanced Reactor Concepts that UCB directly and indirectly plays roles in.

About the Speaker:

Dr. Richard Martineau is currently the Director of Nuclear Science & Technology’s (NS&T) Modeling and Simulation and is responsible for those aspects of developing advanced numerical methods, scientific numerical packages, high-performance computing frameworks, and multi-physics analysis tools for nuclear power applications at the INL. Dr. Martineau has twenty-nine years’ experience conducting numerical methods R&D and computational engineering investigations and his expertise includes computational fluid dynamics, nonlinear coupling methods for multi-physics applications, compressible material dynamics, fluid dynamics and heat transfer theory, and thermodynamics. In 2008, Dr. Martineau’s Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project enabled the development of INL’s Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) computational framework. He currently manages the MOOSE team and is PI on RELAP-7, Bighorn, Sockeye, and Pronghorn code efforts.