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Skip Navigation LinksFY16 IRP Awards

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​FY 2016 Integrated Research Projects Awards

The Energy Department is awarding $15 million for 4 Integrated Research Projects (IRPs) that will deliver solutions to high priority nuclear energy research challenges, including fuel performance simulation and validation, risk-informed safety margin characterization model validation, dry cask storage evaluation techniques, and enahnced nuclear waste glass development. 

IRP award recipients are listed below.



​FY 2016 Integrated Research Project Awards​
Title Lead University

 

Funding Amount* Project Description​

NEUP Project 16-10905: Transient Reactor (TREAT) Experiments to Validate MBM Fuel Performance Simulations

Utah State University

$5,000,000

Researchers will work to make significant progress toward benchmarks for validation using combined computational and experimental research as well as integral TREAT experiment data sets to mitigate uncertainty. The multidisciplinary team will i​ntensively characterize: 1) Fuel fracture/fragmentation, 2) ZrHx cladding failure, and 3) Transient water boiling using special effect modeling and experiments. These will inform the design for twelve integral TREAT experiments (multi-SERTTA vessel).

NEUP Project 16-10918: Development and Application of a Data Driven Methodology for Validation of Risk-Informed Safety Margin Characterization Models

North Carolina State University

$4,000,000

Researchers will develop and demonstrate a comprehensive data-driven methodology for the validation of risk-informed safety margin characterization (RISMC) models for nuclear power plant safety analysis. The project will advance simulation-based uncertainty analysis techniques to enable effective implementation of the methodology. The team will apply the validation methodology to guide the validation of flooding simulation code NEUTRINO and for system thermal-hydraulics analysis code RELAP-7.​

NEUP Project 16-10908: Cask Mis-Loads Evaluation Techniques

University of Houston

$3,000,000

Researchers will develop a probabilistically-informed methodology, which involves innovative non-destructive evaluation techniques, to determine the extent of potential damage or degradation of internal components of used nuclear fuel canisters/casks during normal conditions of transport or hypothetical accident conditions​​.
NEUP Project 16-10925: Understanding Fundamental Science Governing the Development and Performance of Nuclear Waste Glasses

Rutgers University

$3,000,000

Researchers will supply actionable information to DOE to reduce costs and risks associated with nuclear waste vitrification. Primary information will be compositional dependence and glass chemistry effects on undesirable processing outcomes (such as low waste loading, crystal formation, technetium volatility, and salt formation) and long term performance (chemical durability).​​
Total  $15,000,000  

*Actual project funding will be established during contract negotiation phase.​