NEUP Funded Projects
Projects by Year
FY 2024 Research and Development Awards
DOE is awarding more than $44 million through NEUP to support 25 university-led nuclear energy research and development projects in 22 states. NEUP seeks to maintain U.S. leadership in nuclear research across the country by providing top science and engineering faculty and their students with opportunities to develop innovative technologies and solutions for civil nuclear capabilities.
A complete list of R&D projects with their associated abstracts is available below.
| Title | Institution | Estimated Funding* | Project Description | Abstract | Project Type | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fundamental Understanding of Ambient and High-Temperature Plasticity Phenomena in Structural Materials in Advanced Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Elastic/Inelastic Nuclear Data Development Project | Idaho State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Heterogeneous Recycling in Fast Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Thermodynamic Development of Corrosion Rate Modeling in Iron Phosphate Glasses | Missouri University of Science and Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Subspace-Based Hybrid Monte Carlo-Deterministic Algorithms for Reactor Physics Calculations | North Carolina State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Improvements to Nuclear Data and Its Uncertainties by Theoretical Modeling | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Sharp Interface Tracking in Rotating Microflows of Solvent Extraction | State University of New York at Stony Brook | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Bulk Nanostructured FCC Steels with Enhanced Radiation Tolerance | Texas A&M University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Fuel Performance Experiments and Modeling: Fission Gas Bubble Nucleation and Growth in Alloy Nuclear Fuels | Texas A&M University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| SiC Schottky Diode Detectors for Measurement of Actinide Concentrations from Alpha Activities in Molten Salt Electrolyte | The Ohio State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Computational Design of Advanced Nuclear Fuels | University of California, Davis | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Data Collection Methods For Validation of Advanced Multi-Resolution Fast Reactor Simulations | University of Idaho | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Simulations of the Thermodynamic and Diffusion Properties of Actinide Oxide Fuel Materials | University of Michigan | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Adsorptive Separation and Sequestration of Krypton, I and C14 on Diamond Nanoparticles | University of Missouri, Columbia | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Alternative Technetium Waste Forms | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Quantification of UV-Visible and Laser Spectroscopic Techniques for Materials Accountability and Process Control | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| High-Fidelity Space-Time Adaptive Multiphysics Simulations in Nuclear Engineering | University of Nevada, Reno | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Simulations of Failure via Three-Dimensional Cracking in Fuel Cladding for Advanced Nuclear Fuels | University of Texas, Dallas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Mesh-Enabled Monte Carlo Capability for Multi-Physics Reactor Analysis | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Ab Initio Enhanced Calphad Modeling of Actinide Rich Nuclear Fuels | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Diffusion Barrier Coatings and Deposition Technologies for Mitigating Fuel Cladding Chemical Interactions (FCCI) | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Thermal Properties of LiCl-KCl Molten Salt for Nuclear Waste Separation | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Neutron Damage and MAX Phase Ternary Compounds | Drexel University | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Atomistic Calculations of the Effect of Minor Actinides on Thermodynamic and Kinetic Properties of UO2+x | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Maximum Fuel Utilization in Fast Reactors without Chemical Reprocessing | University of California, Berkeley | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Developing a High Thermal Conductivity Fuel with Silicon Carbide Additives | University of Florida | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Fabrication of Tungsten-Rhenium Cladding Materials via Spark Plasma Sintering for Ultra High Temperature Reactor Applications | University of Idaho | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Ionic Liquid and Supercritical Fluid Hyphenated Techniques for Dissolution and Separation of Lanthanides, Actinides, and Fission Products | University of Idaho | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Improved Fission Neutron Data Base for Active Interrogation of Actinides | University of Michigan | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Utilization of Methacrylates and Polymer Matrices for the Synthesis of Ion Specific Resins | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Improved LWR Cladding Performance by EPD Surface Modification Technique | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Models of LWR Pressure Vessel Embrittlement for Low Flux-High Fluence Conditions | University of California, Santa Barbara | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) | FY2009 | ||
| Irradiation Creep in Graphite | Boise State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Modeling the Stress Strain Relationships and Predicting Failure Probabilities For Graphite Core Components | Cleveland State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| TRISO-Coated Fuel Durability Under Extreme Conditions | Colorado School of Mines | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| An Innovative and Advanced Coupled Neutron Transport and Thermal Hydraulic Method (Tool) for the Design, Analysis and Optimization of VHTR/NGNP Prismatic Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Removal of 14C from Irradiated Graphite for Graphite Recycle and Waste Volume Reduction | Idaho State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Millimeter-Wave Thermal Analysis Development and Application to Gen IV Reactor Materials | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Accurate Development of Thermal Neutron Scattering Cross Section Libraries | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Understanding Creep Mechanisms in Graphite with Experiments, Multiscale Simulations, and Modeling | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Verification & Validation of High-Order Short-Characteristics-Based Deterministic Transport Methodology on Unstructured Grids | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Microscale Heat Conduction Models and Doppler Feedback | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Optimizing Neutron Thermal Scattering Effects in Very High Temperature Reactors | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Multiaxial Creep-Fatigue and CreepRatcheting Failures of Grade 91 and Haynes 230 Alloys Toward Addressing Design Issues of Gen IV Nuclear Power Plants | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Investigation of Countercurrent Helium-air Flows in Air-ingress Accidents for VHTRs | Ohio State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Testing of Performance of Optical Fibers Under Irradiation in Intense Radiation Fields, When Subjected to Very High Temperatures | Ohio State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| A Distributed Fiber Optic Sensor Network for Online 3-D Temperature and Neutron Fluence Mapping in a VHTR Environment | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Investigation on the Core Bypass Flow in a Very High Temperature Reactor | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| CFD Model Development and Validation for High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor Cavity Cooling System (RCCS) Applications | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Study of Air ingress across the duct during the accident conditions | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Verification of the CENTRM Module for Adaptation of the SCALE Code to NGNP Prismatic and PBR Core Designs | University of Arizona | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Integral and Separate Effects Tests for Thermal Hydraulics Code Validation for Liquid-Salt Cooled Nuclear Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Mechanisms Governing the Creep Behavior of High Temperature Alloys for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems | University of Cincinnati | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| ALD Produced B2O3, Al2O3 and TiO2 Coatings on Gd2O3 Burnable Poison Nanoparticles | University of Colorado, Boulder | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Experimental Study and Computational Simulations of Key Pebble Bed Thermomechanics Issues for Design and Safety | University of Idaho | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Prediction and Monitoring Systems of Creep-Fracture Behavior of 9Cr-1Mo Steels for Reactor Pressure Vessels | University of Idaho | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Understanding Fundamental Material Degradation Processes in High Temperature Aggressive Chemomechanical Environments | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Multi-Scale Multi-physics Methods Development for the Calculation of Hot-Spots in the NGNP | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Corrosion and Creep of Candidate Alloys in High Temperature Helium and Steam Environments for the NGNP | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Creation of a Full-Core HTR Benchmark with the Fort St. Vrain Initial Core and Validation of the DHF Method with Helios for NGNP Configurations | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Fission Product Sorptivity in Graphite | University of Missouri, Columbia | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Identifying and Understanding Environment-Induced Crack Propagation Behavior in Ni-Based Superalloy INCONEL 617 | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Graphite Oxidation Simulation in HTR Accident Conditions | University of New Mexico | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Non Destructive Thermal Analysis and In Situ Investigation of Creep Mechanism of Graphite and Ceramic Composites using Phase-sensitive THz Imaging & Nonlinear Resonant Ultrasonic Spectroscopy | University of Rochester | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Tritium Sequestration in Gen IV NGNP Gas Stream via Proton Conducting Ceramic Pumps | University of South Carolina | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Materials, Turbomachinery and Heat Exchangers for Supercritical CO2 Systems | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Experimental Studies of NGNP Reactor Cavity Cooling System with Water | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Assessment of Embrittlement of VHTR Structural Alloys in Impure Helium Environments | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Modeling Fission Product Sorption in Graphite Structures | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Liquid Salt Heat Exchanger Technology for VHTR Based Applications | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Effect of Post-Weld Heat Treatment on Creep Rupture Properties of Grade 91 Steel Heavy Section Welds | Utah State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Alpha Radiolysis of Nuclear Solvent Extraction Ligands used for An(III) and Ln(III) Separations | California State University, Long Beach | $1,390,252 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Predictive Maturity of Multi-Scale Simulation Models for Fuel Performance | Clemson University | $614,690 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Freeze-casting as a Novel Manufacturing Process for Fast Reactor Fuels | Drexel University | $1,149,327 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Fuel Performance Experiments on the Atomistic Level, Studying Fuel Through Engineered Single Crystal UO2 | Idaho State University | $650,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Development of A Self Biased High Efficiency Solid-State Neutron Detector for MPACT Applications | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $810,141 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Development of a Innovative High Thermal Conductivity UO 2 Ceramic Composites Fuel Pellets with Carbon Nano-Tubes Using Spark Plasma Sintering | University of Florida | $894,042 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Exploration and Modeling of Structural Changes in Waste Glass under Corrosion | Pennsylvania State University | $1,377,444 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Evaluation of materials for interim storage of spent fuel for more than 100 years | University of Michigan | $931,603 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Implementation of On-the-Fly Doppler Broadening in MCNP5 for Multiphysics Simulation of Nuclear Reactors | University of Michigan | $406,712 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Methods and tools to allow molecular flow simulations to be coupled to higher level continuum descriptions of flows in porous/fractured media and aerosol/dust dynamics | University of Missouri-Columbi | $541,286 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Characterization and Modeling of Materials for Kr-Xe Separations | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $989,800 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Modeling Solute Thermokinetics in LiCl-KCl Molten Salt for Nuclear Waste Separation | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $616,073 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Advanced Aqueous Separation Systems for Actinide Partitioning: Develop Fundamental Understanding of An(III)/Ln(III) Separation | Washington State University | $1,451,784 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Consistent Multigroup Theory Enabling Accurate Coarse-Group Simulation of GenIV Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,046,277 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Studies of Deteriorated Heat Transfer in Prismatic Cores Stemming from Irradiation-Induced Geometry Distortion | Idaho State University | $1,287,921 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Carbide Coatings for Nickel Alloys, Graphite, and Carbon/Carbon Composites to be Used in Fluoride Salt Valves | Johns Hopkins University | $1,183,239 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Design, Testing, and Modeling of the Direct Reactor Auxiliary Cooling System for AHTRs | Ohio State University | $1,366,627 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Monitoring microstructural evolution of Alloy 617 with nonlinear acoustics for remaining useful life prediction; multiaxial creep-fatigue and creep-ratcheting | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development and Validation of Multidimensional Models of Supercritical CO 2 Energy Conversion Systems for Nuclear Power Reactors | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $475,005 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Microstructure and Property Evolution in Advanced Cladding and Duct Materials Under Long-Term and Elevated Temperature Irradiation: Modeling and Experimental Investigation | University of California-Berkeley | $1,320,667 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of Barrier Layers for the Protection of Candidate Alloys in the VHTR | University of California-Santa Barbara | $995,232 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Investigation of a Novel NDE Method for Monitoring Thermo-Mechanical Damage and Microstructure Evolution in Ferritic-Martensitic Steels for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems | University of Cincinnati | $833,109 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Fission Product Transport in TRISO Particle Layers under Operating and Off-Normal Conditions | University of Michigan | $966,581 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Microstructure and Property Evolution in Advanced Cladding and Duct Materials Under Long-Term Irradiation at Elevated Temperature: Critical Experiments | University of Michigan | $1,181,379 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Three-dimensional NDE of VHTR Core Components via Simulation-based Testing | University of Minnesota | $1,366,163 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Failure Predictions for VHTR Core Components using a Probabilistic Continuum Damage Mechanics Model | University of Minnesota | $854,542 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of a Scanning Microscale Fast Neutron Irradiation Platform for Examining the Correlation Between Local Neutron Damage and Graphite Microstructure | University of Missouri-Columbia | $703,064 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of Thermal Transient Flow Rate Sensors for High Temperature, Irradiation, Corrosive Environment | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $451,269 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Novel Methods of Tritium Sequestration: High Temperature Gettering and Separation Membrane Materials Discovery for Nuclear Energy Systems | University of South Carolina | $1,366,626 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Heat Transfer Salts for Nuclear Reactor Systems - Chemistry Control, Corrosion Mitigation, and Modeling | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,352,040 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Pulsed Magnetic Welding for Advanced Core and Cladding Steels | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $525,206 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Corrosion in Supercritical Carbon Dioxide: Materials, Environmental Purity, Surface Treatments, and Flow Issues | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $651,447 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Multiscale Concrete Modeling for Aging Degradation | Mississippi State University | $345,941 | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability | FY2010 | |
| Development of an advanced computational fluid dynamics technology for the next-generation nuclear reactor system analysis and safety margin characterization code | North Carolina State University | $418,199 | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability | FY2010 | |
| Precursor Derived Nanostructured Si-C-X Materials for Nuclear Applications | University of Washington | $899,518 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Development and Testing of an Open-Loop Oscillator for Small Reactivity Worth Samples | Idaho State University | $597,252 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Understanding the Irradiation Behavior of Zirconium Carbide | Pennsylvania State University | $870,613 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Modeling investigation of the stability and irradiation-induced evolution of nanoscale precipitates in advanced structural materials | University of Tennessee-Knoxville | $380,653 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Investigation of Laser Shock Peening for Enhancing Fatigue and Stress Corrosion Cracking Resistance of Nuclear Energy Materials | University of Cincinnati | $1,242,019 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Irradiation Accelerated Corrosion of Reactor Core Materials | University of Michigan | $798,943 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Study of Interfacial Interactions using Thin Film Surface Modification: Radiation and Oxidation Effects in Materials | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $538,032 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Novel Engineered Refractory Materials for Advanced Reactor Applications | North Carolina State University | $1,129,304 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Quantification of Cation Sorption to Engineered Barrier Materials Under Extreme Conditions | Clemson University | $1,171,380 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| In-Pile Instrumentation Multi-Parameter System Utilizing Photonic Fibers and Nanovision | Idaho State University | $1,199,990 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Development of Plasmonically Cloaked Nanoparticles | Idaho State University | $800,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Fission Product Transmutation in Mixed Radiation Fields | Idaho State University | $800,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Life Prediction of Spent Fuel Storage Canister Material | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $899,826 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Active Interrogation using Photofission Technique for Nuclear Materials Control and Accountability | Oregon State University | $900,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Anisotropic Azimuthal Power and Temperature Distribution on Fuel Rod: Impact of Hydride Distribution | Pennsylvania State University | $631,956 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Sorption Modeling and Verification for Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Microemulsions and Aggregation Formation in Extraction Processes for Used Nuclear Fuel: Thermodynamics and Structural Studies | University of California, Irvine | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Optimized Processing Fabrication Paths for Larger Heats of Nanostructured Ferritic Alloys | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Basic Physics Data: Measurement of Neutron Multiplicity from Induced Fission | University of Michigan | $973,364 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Radionuclide Incorporation and Long Term Performance of Apatite Waste Forms | University of Michigan | $862,500 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Actinide Foil Production for MPACT Research | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $156,897 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Enriched Boron-Doped Amorphous Selenium Based Position-Sensitive Solid-State Thermal Neutron Detector for MPACT Applications | University of South Carolina | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Development of Advanced High Uranium Density Fuels for Light Water Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Developing the User Experience for a Next Generation Nuclear Fuel Cycle Simulator | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,200,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Preparation and Development of Polymer-Supported Extractants | City College of New York, Hunter | $363,716 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| One-Dimensional Nanostructures for Neutron Detection | North Carolina State University | $455,629 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Feasibility and Safety Assessment for Advanced Reactor Concepts Using Vented Fuel | Oregon State University | $600,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| High Temperature Transducers for Online Monitoring of Microstructure Evolution | Pennsylvania State University | $455,628 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Laser-Arc Hybrid Welding of Thick Section Ni-base Alloys- Advanced Modeling and Experiments | Pennsylvania State University | $536,117 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Correlates of Sensitive Technologies | Texas A&M University | $509,467 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Improved Safety Margin Characterization of Risk from Loss of Offsite Power | Texas A&M University | $600,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| A High Temperature-Tolerant and Radiation-Resistant In-Core Neutron Sensor for Advanced Reactors | The Ohio State University | $455,629 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Pathway Aggregation in the Risk Assessment of Proliferation Resistance and Physical Protection (PR&PP) of Nuclear Energy Systems | The Ohio State University | $534,471 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Preparation of High Purity, High Molecular-Weight Chitin from Ionic Liquids for Use as an Adsorbate for the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Alabama | $338,260 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Selectivity in Ligand Binding to Uranyl Compounds: A Synthetic, Structural, Thermodynamic and Computational Study | University of California-Berkeley | $500,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Seismic Isolation Systems Using Periodic Materials | University of Houston | $538,154 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium from Seawater | University of Idaho | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Austenitic ODS Strengthened Alloys for Very High Temperature Applications | University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign | $538,154 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Enhancement of the Extraction of the Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Transient Safety Analysis of Fast Spectrum TRU Burning LWR with Internal Blankets | University of Michigan | $599,475 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Novel Sorbents for Uranium Extraction from Seawater | University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Radiation Behavior of High-Entropy Alloys for Advanced Reactors | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $538,159 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Rapid Computer Aided Ligand Design and Screening of Precious Metal Extractants from TRUEX Raffinate with Experimental Validation | Washington State University | $500,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of an Efficient Meso-Scale Multi-Phase Flow Solver in Nuclear Applications | City College of New York | $505,858 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Multiscale Modeling and Uncertainty Quantification for Nuclear Fuel Performance | Colorado State University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Fundamental Studies of the Role of Grain Boundaries on Uniform Corrosion of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Materials | Drexel University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Phenomena-based Uncertainty Quantification in Predictive Coupled-Physics Reactor Simulations | Texas A&M University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Characterization of Modeling of Grain Boundary Chemistry Evolution in Ferritic Steels Under Irradiation | University of Michigan | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Development of Multiscale Materials Modeling Techniques and Coarse-Graining Strategies for Predicting Materials Degradation in Extreme Irradiation Environments | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $750,000 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Diffusion, Thermal Properties and chemical Compatibilities of Select MAX Phases with Materials for Advanced Nuclear Systems | Drexel University | $535,927 | Document | Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) | FY2011 | |
| A New Light Weight Structural Material for Nuclear Structures | North Carolina State University | $399,490 | Document | Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) | FY2011 | |
| Experimental Investigation of Convection and Heat Transfer in the Reactor Core for a VHTR | City College of New York | $1,118,856 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Graphite Microstructural Characterization Using Time-Domain and Correlation-Based Ultrasonics | Johns Hopkins University | $1,199,997 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Methodology Development for Passive Component Reliability Modeling in a Multi-Physics Simulation Environment | The Ohio State University | $533,457 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Pebble Fuel Handling and Reactivity Control for Salt-Cooled High Temperature Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $612,721 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Self-Sustaining Thorium Boiling Water Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $1,145,932 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| High Fluency Low Flux Embrittlement Models of LWR Reactor Pressure Vessel Embrittlement and a Supporting Database from the UCSB ATR-2 Irradiation Experiment | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,199,607 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| A Research Program for Fission Product/Dust Transport in HTGR's | University of Missouri-Columbia | $1,157,367 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Development and Validation of a Lifecycle-based Prognostics Architecture with Test Bed Validation | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $846,315 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| In-situ Condition Monitoring of Components in Small Modular Reactors Using Process and Electrical Signature Analysis | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $650,000 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Technical Development for S-CO2 Advanced Energy Conversion | University of Wisconsin | $815,000 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Ag Transport Through Non-Irradiated and Irradiated SiC | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,055,456 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Critical Heat Flux Phenomena at High Pressure and Low Mass Fluxes: Tests and Models | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,199,781 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Modeling and Test Validation of a Reactor Cavity Cooling System with Air | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,199,988 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Transient Mixed Convection Validation for NGNP | Utah State University | $635,860 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Alternative High-Performance Ceramic Waste Forms | Alfred University | $840,000 | This project aims to advance fundamental understanding of the kinetics of structural evolution of crystalline ceramic waste forms. The structure/property relationships will be identified and will reveal new formulations, improved processing routes, and strategies for improved performance or ceramic waste forms. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Surface Layer Bulk Glass Interface Evolution with Aqueous Corrosion | Alfred University | $880,000 | This project will investigate the links between the morphology, structure and chemistry of surface layer-bulk glass interface and the long-term corrosion-reaction kinetics using in-situ and ex-situ experiments. The understanding will result in improved models for long-term predictive behavior of high-level-waste (HLW) glasses under repository conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Optimization of Deep Borehole Systems for HLW Disposal | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $850,000 | Researchers aim to carry out a comprehensive evaluation of the deep borehole option for disposal of used nuclear fuel and high livel waste. The models developed will predict potential movement of water through natural and engineered barriers and release of radionuclides to the biosphere which will aide in site selection. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Scholarship for Nuclear Communications and Methods for Evaluation of Nuclear Project Acceptability | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will work to develop a model to characterize the factors affecting social acceptance of nuclear projects with potential stakeholders. The resultant model will strengthen the ability to design and implement large projects more efficiently, leading to higher rates of success of future nuclear projects. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Accurate Holdup Calculations with Predictive Modeling and Data Integration | North Carolina State University | $875,000 | Researchers will develop and use state-of-the-art radiation transport codes to account accurately for the fissile material in a nuclear materials processing facility. An accurate estimation of the materials will allow for ensured radiological safety, security, waste management and efficient plant operation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Testing of Sapphire Optical Fiber and Sensors in Intense Radiation Fields, when Subjected to Very High Temperatures | The Ohio State University | $885,000 | The researchers on this project will investigate the performance of sapphire optical fibers and sensors in reactor environments. The project, if successful, will result in improved instrumentation to understand the behavior and predict performance of nuclear fuel systems at the microstructural level. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Concrete Materials with Ultra-High Damage Resistance and Self-Sensing Capacity for Extended Nuclear Fuel Storage Systems | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | Researchers aim to design a new class of multifunctional concrete materials. This project, if successful, will result in a novel multifunctional concrete material that possesses inherent degradation monitoring capability and is suitable for an extended storage system for the used nuclear fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Probabilistic Multi-Hazard Assessment of Dry Cask Structures | University of Houston | $865,000 | This project aims to investigate the performance of dry cask storage systems under multiple hazard systems (earthquake, tornados, combined with aging effects) using a probabilistic multi-hazard framework. This framework will be validated based on experimental research and will provide improved models for safety and reliability of spent nuclear fuels during storage and transportation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Electrochemical Corrosion Studies for Modeling Metallic Waste Form Release Rates | University of Nevada- Las Vegas | $790,000 | This project aims to use advanced electrochemical methods to investigate the corrosion related degradation of metal alloys used for housing fission products. The data obtained from this study will allow for the prediction of the long-term behavior of the metallic host phase materials over geological time-scales. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Development and Experimental Benchmark of Simulations to Predict Used Nuclear Fuel Cladding Temperatures during Drying and Transfer Operations | University of Nevada- Reno | $745,000 | Researchers will conduct experiments to investigate and develop advanced computational models of heat transfer in post-pool-storage drying operations. This project, if successful, will result in tools that can be used to design efficient drying processes to as to ensure suitability for dry-cask systems for long-term storage and transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Seismic Performance of Dry Casks Storage for Long-Term Exposure | University of Utah | $873,319 | Researchers will evaluate the mechanical performance of dry-cask storage under seismic loading for mid-term operational periods. Simulations will include scenarios for freestanding, anchored, and vaulted casks. The experimental tests will also evaluate the dynamic seismic response of freestanding and anchored dry-cask storage prototypes, providing recommendations for optimal Interim Spent Fuel Storage Installations (ISFSIs) design. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Coupling of Nuclear Waste Form Corrosion and Radionuclide Transport in Presence of Relevant Repository Sediments | Washington State University | $885,000 | Researchers will conduct experiments to understand the mechanisms responsible for the corrosion of nuclear waste forms in realistic chemical environments. The data generated from these experiments will enable increased reliability of the models used to predict the waste form performance in repository environments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| ABR for TRU Transmutation with Breed & Burn Thorium Blanket for Improved Economics and Resource Utilization | University of California- Berkeley | $450,000 | The research team will use detailed neutronic analysis for a new Advanced Burner Reactor concept with low conversion ratio. The concept will use a new core shape to improve the utilization of neutrons to perform breed and burn. | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2012 |
| Atomic-Scale to Meso-Scale Simulation Studies of Thermal Ageing and Irradiation Effects in Fe-Cr Alloys | Boston University | $874,997 | Researchers will develop predictive, multi-scale simulation tools for iron-chromium alloys, which are expected to be key components of advanced steels envisioned as fuel cladding and structural components for Generation IV reactors. Such modeling is necessary to avoid resource intensive and costly thermal and neutron irradiation experiments to obtain required performance data. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Validation Data and Model Development for Fuel Assembly Response to Seismic Loads | George Washington University | $862,435 | Researchers will conduct experiments that will provide comprehensive data characterizing the dynamics of the fluid and the structure in Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR) fuel assemblies under seismic loads (earthquakes and loss of coolant accidents). Completion of their project will greatly benefit the safety of existing and future nuclear reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Uncertainty Quantification and Management for Multiscale Nuclear Materials Modeling | Georgia Institute of Technology | $743,444 | Researchers will address the question of uncertainty propogation and error estimates associated with model prediction of material behavior under irradiation. Their work will facilitate a better understanding of the connection of various unit processes to collective responses in a multiscale model chain enabling the development of high strength and high ductility materials. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Nonlinear Ultrasonic Techniques to Monitor Radiation Damage in RPV and Internal Components | Georgia Institute of Technology | $877,000 | Researchers will explore new nondestructive materials evaluation and monitoring techniques utilizing nonlinear ultrasonic measurements . This technique will allow researchers to assess remaining useful life of select reactor components. Breakthroughs in this area will lead to the ability to characterize radiation damage in reactor pressure vessels and other components-leading to a clearer definition of reactor safety margins. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Intergral Reactor Containment Condensation Model and Experimental Validation | Oregon State University | $871,119 | Researchers will conduct experiments to enhance the safety and efficiency of small modular reactors (SMRs). This project will assess the impact of high-pressure steam condensation on steel containment vessels to be used for SMR deigns. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Irradiation Performance of Fe-Cr Base Alloys | University of Illinois- Urbana Champaign | $876,332 | _Researchers will perform post-radiation analysis and develop tools for future development and application of the Fe-Cr class of alloys. The results of this research will lead to better modeling of performance and development of an alloy designated as the primary choice for reactor fuel cladding and structural applications in advanced systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Experimentally Validated Numerical Models for Effects of Non-Isothermal Turbulent Mixing on Wall Stresses in High Temperature Reactors | University of Pittsburgh | $876,422 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive experimentally validated computational framework for the turbulent mixing in the lower plenum of a very high temperature reactor (VHTR). Through CFD modeling and experimental validation, the results from this project will lay the groundwork for future stress analysis, failure and fatigue studies, and uncertainty quantification for the VHTR system. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Mechanical Behavior of UO2 at Sub-grain Length Scales: Quantification of Elastic, Plastic and Creep Properties via Microscale Testing | Arizona State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop techniques to measure properties at sub-grain scales using depleted Uranium Oxide samples. The project will provide a framework to measure sub-grain scale mechanical properties, as well as provide experimental data to improve the understanding of advanced oxide fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| The Impacts of Pore-Scale Physical and Chemical Heterogeneities on the Transport of Radionuclide-Carrying Colloids | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will identify the dominant transport mechanisms to develop models that predict radionuclide distribution in porous materials. Experimental and computational models will be created that couple pore-scale geometric and interfacial structures. Simulators such as these are a necessary step towards fully predictive models for field-scale applications in the future. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Polymer-Supported Aminophosphinates as Selective Extractants | Hunter College, CUNY | $399,999 | Researchers will prepare a polymer-supported extractant for the recovery of uranium from seawater. The project will focus on primary amines that could provide a 3-fold increase in uranium capture capacity than current methods. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| In-pile Thermal Conductivity Characterization with Single-laser Heating/Time Resolved Raman | Iowa State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a time-resolved Raman-based thermal conductivity measurement system to improve remote in-pile thermal conductivity measurement. These measurements will provide new insights into the behavior of materials exposed to extreme radiation and temperature environments. Understanding the behavior of materials at the microstructural level will support optimized fuel designs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Organic Speciation and Interactions in ALSEP - One Step Partitioning Process of Minor Actinides, Lanthanides, and Fission Products | Oregon State University | $600,000 | Researchers will investigate the Actinide-Lanthanide Separation (ALSEP) process organic phase prior to aqueous phase separation and after aqueous separation phases of bare and metal-loaded acids. Quantifying these effects can be used to determine how an engineering scale process will perform and generate an accurate chemical model for the system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Glass Composition and Solution Speciation Effects on Stage III Dissolution | Pennsylvania State University | $700,000 | Researchers will study the chemical and structural triggers of long-term vitrified nuclear waste form behavior. They will study a range of waste glass compositions in corrosive environments. The study will improve understanding of the long-term residual rate and may provide new options for environmental control of glass dissolution rates. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Correlating Thermal, Mechanical, and Electrical Coupling Based Multiphysics Behavior of Nuclear Materials Through In-Situ Measurements | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will use in-situ experimental techniques to monitor the influence of extreme conditions on fuel cladding. The project will establish an in-situ experimental setup that can predict change in thermal properties and their correlation with mechanical properties and correlate such changes to changes in microstructural and chemical features. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Creation of a Geant4 Muon Tomography Package for Imaging of Nuclear Fuel in Dry Cask Storage | Purdue University | $440,000 | Researchers will develop a simulation and analysis package to aid in the non-destructive assessment of sealed used nuclear fuel dry casks using cosmic ray muons. Cosmic ray muon tomography allows for non-destructive assessment that can independently verify and identify weapons grade material sealed within dense dry casks. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Fuel Cycle Data Packages for Two-stage Fast Reactor Fuel Cycle Options for Optimum Resource Utilization and Waste Management | Purdue University | $400,000 | Researchers will evaluate the two different two-stage fast reactor fuel cycle options that will offer efficient use of uranium resources and the ability to burn actinides and long-live fission products. Evaluation of these fast fuel cycle options will serve as a useful complement to the options currently being considered in the Fuel Cycle Options Campaign. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Mixed Metal Phosphonate-Phosphate Resins for Separation of Lanthanides from Actinides | Texas A&M University | $650,000 | Researchers will use ion exchangers to cleanly separate lanthanides and curium from reusable actinides. The study will assist in the development of an inexpensive, simple way in which to separate lanthanides from actinides found in used nuclear fuel rods and to recover a large portion of the usable fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Safeguards in Pyroprocessing: an Integrated Model Development and Measurement Data Analysis | The Ohio State University | $626,151 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive and effective safeguards approach for a pyroprocessing facility to support safeguards for future fuel cycles in the United States. The new approach and design will focus directly on the special nuclear materials in the electrorefiner where actinides are separated from fission products through electrochemical process. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Using Ionic Liquids for the Development of Renewable Biopolymer-Based Adsorbents for the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater and Testing Under Marine Conditions | University of Alabama | $400,000 | Researchers will explore the fundamental engineering parameters for a renewable high-performance adsorbent for the extraction of uranium from sweater based on a recently proven ionic liquid (IL)-chitin platform. The project will use the platform to develop a versatile, modifiable adsorbent and characterize its performance and degradation in marine conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Developing Ultra-Small Scale Mechanical Testing Methods and Microstructural Investigation Procedures for Irradiated Materials. | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop new small-scale mechanical testing techniques to allow for the estimation or direct measurement of bulk properties. The combined experiments and modeling will significantly enhance the statistics and information that can be obtained on small radioactive archived samples, as well as new ion beam irradiated specimens. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Improved Delayed-Neutron Spectroscopy Using Trapped Ions | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will develop innovative spectroscopy techniques to measure the decay of fission fragments. The resulting data from these new techniques will be used to better understand reactor kinetics under accident conditions and failure scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Thermally and Chemically Responsive Nanoporous Materials for Efficient Capture of Fission Product Gases | University of California, Davis | $750,000 | Researchers will create new nanoporous materials that will be highly effective at capturing fission product gases. These materials would be relevant to both reactor fuels applications and reprocessing operations. Tests will be performed in carbon based and nitride based nanostructures, with the most promising materials from the modeling perspective undergoing further testing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Multiphase Nanocrystalline Ceramic Concept for Nuclear Fuel | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | Researchers will study the use of nanoparticles and nanostructured ceramics to create new materials that can extend the service life and increase efficiency for nuclear fuel. Multiphase nanocrystalline ceramics will be used to design simulated nuclear fuel that can provide added plasticity, better radiation tolerance and improved thermal conductivity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Novel Porous Sorbents for Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Chicago | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a highly porous sorbent for the extraction of uranium from seawater. Previous research has established sorbent performance. This project will use past foundational studies to design and investigate a new nanocomposites that will be processed into tacks or braids for field tests in seawater tests. The technology may also be used for other metals. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Microwave Readout Techniques for Very Large Arrays of Nuclear Sensors | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,937 | Researchers will develop a powerful readout technique based on microwave transmission and reflection. The technique will enable very large arrays of diverse sensor types for nuclear materials quantification and tracking. It will provide more accurate data on material composition and quantity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| BiI3 Gamma-Ray Spectrometers for Reliable Room-Temperature Nuclear Materials Safeguarding | University of Florida | $799,999 | Researchers will develop gamma-ray spectrometers based on BiI3 single crystals for MPACT applications such as burnup validation quantification, improved assay of plutonium, determination of uranium enrichment and overall monitoring spent fuel within the fuel cycle. The project will improve energy resolution, efficiency and environmental performance with this new gamma-ray detector. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Innovative Coating of Nanostructured Vanadium Carbide on the F/M Cladding Tube Inner Surface for Mitigating the Fuel Cladding Chemical Interactions | University of Florida | $760,276 | Researchers will develop barrier coatings on the inner surface of fuel cladding tubes to improve performance of materials at elevated temperatures and high neutron exposures in fast reactors. The project will develop and test a low temperature coating process of nanostructured vanadium carbide that will provide a benchmark for use in future studies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Doubling the Life of Concrete Structures | University of Idaho | $800,000 | Researchers will use nanoscale techniques to develop methods for doubling the service life of concrete structures. They will study the effect of temperature load and temperature cycling (freezing and thawing) on the durability of concrete with nanoscale viscosity modifiers. The project will benefit from non-destructive evaluation of concrete performance through electrochemical techniques. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Off-Gas Treatment: Evaluation of Nano-structured Sorbents for Selective Removal of Contaminants | University of Idaho | $785,910 | Researchers will evaluate nanostructured sorbent materials for their effectiveness in removing and immobilizing radionuclides for the off-gas treatment from used nuclear fuel recycling operations. The project aims at achieving near-zero emissions of radionuclides by capturing them from the off-gas of recycling operations, allowing for the development of advanced fuel cycles. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium and Transition Metals from Amidoxime-Based Sorbents | University of Idaho | $399,864 | Researchers will develop a new two-step elution process to achieve total recovery of uranium and effective recycling of the sorbent. The extraction process would selectively remove uranium from the sorbent with little or no damage. The process would then remove transition metals and regenerate the sorbent for repeated use, making uranium extraction from seawater economically viable. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Performance of a Steel/Oxide Composite Waste Form for Combined Waste Streams from Advanced Electrochemical Processes over Geologic Time Scales | University of Illinois at Chicago | $700,000 | Researchers will develop and validate a mechanistically-based corrosion model for cermet-type waste forms, creating a testing protocol and modeling approach for predicting long-term performance. The study will apply novel electrochemical testing and modeling methods to the behavior of metal/oxide phase boundaries to evaluate waste form performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Enhancement of the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland, College Park | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and optimize novel adsorbents for uranium recovery from seawater. The team will use radiation-induced grafting of organic phosphates onto polymers. The experiments will use ocean water, with mechanistic analysis, to provide a solid basis for large-scale demonstration of the performance of the new adsorbents in ocean environments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Improving the Understanding of the Coupled Thermal-Mechanical-Hydrologic Behavior of Consolidating Granular Salt | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will increase the understanding of granular salt seal materials for shafts, drifts and boreholes. By coupling thermal, mechanical and hydrological responses, the study will result in greater confidence in granular salt consolidation as a principal strategy for closure and isolation of long-term waste repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Fission Fragment Yield Data in Support of Advanced Reactor Technology | University of New Mexico | $399,816 | Researchers will produce a highly accurate data set for thermal fission. These precision data are necessary for high-accuracy simulations of nuclear criticality, transmutation rates, radiation effects and heating as well as for nuclear fuel, material accounting and identification needs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Molecular dynamics-based simulations of bulk/interfacial structures and diffusion behaviors in nuclear waste glasses | University of North Texas | $700,000 | Researchers will generate accurate atomic structural models for use in Monte Carlo simulations of the dissolution of nuclear waste glasses. Large-scale molecular dynamics-based computer simulations will be used to investigate self-diffusion behaviors, interfacial structure, and other structures formed during dissolution of these glasses. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| U3Si2 Fabrication and Testing for Implementation into the BISON Fuel Performance Code | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will fabricate, test and model a high uranium density, advanced nuclear fuel that operates at a much lower temperature and stores less energy. The work will deliver key research data on creep and grain growth, improving economics, through possible power uprates, and advancing accident tolerant fuels research. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Structural Health Monitoring of Nuclear Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of South Carolina | $738,618 | Researchers will develop a nuclear structural health monitoring system based on a sensing technology that monitors material degradation and aging for dry cask storage systems. The low-cost, low-profile sensors will perform on-demand monitoring of the structural integrity of individual components as well as the entire system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| ORIGEN-based Nuclear Fuel Depletion Module for Fuel Cycle Assessment | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $755,181 | Researchers will develop a flexible reactor analysis module for the CYCLUS fuel cycle simulator based on established tools for reactor fuel depletion and decay. They will use ORIGEN, a mature and experimentally validated code, affording greater flexibility and allowing for accurate evaluations of impacts of both present and future fuel cycle options. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Cost and System Analysis of Innovative Fuel Resources Concepts | University of Texas at Austin | $295,960 | This project will develop and test braided polymer fiber adsorbents that surpass the sorption capacity, selectivity and durability of the best existing technology to recover uranium from seawater. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Risk Assessment of Structural Integrity of Transportation Casks | University of Utah | $789,296 | Researchers will assess the loss of structural integrity of transportation casks and fuel cladding after extended storage. This risk assessment will conduct experimental tests and simulations to evaluate the structural performance of fuel, fuel assemblies and cask components when subjected to vibration and impact loads during transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Market-Based and System-Wide Fuel Cycle Optimization | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $612,731 | Researchers will create market and economic optimizers to improve calculations for the CYCLUS fuel cycle simulator. The team will leverage existing optimization software frameworks within the simulator to resolve top level policy questions. The optimizations will allow CYCLUS to move beyond static material compositions, providing a holistic view of the fuel cycle system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Optical Fiber Based System for Multiple Thermophysical Properties for Glove Box, Hot Cell and In-Pile Applications | Utah State University | $799,975 | Researchers will use a small pressure vessel to develop a robust technique for the measurement of multiple thermophysical properties at very high temperatures. The technique will lead to a system design moving toward the eventual measurement of irradiated fuels in a glovebox and/or hot cell with all sensors and electronics outside of the glovebox and/or hot cell. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of a Nano-Modified Concrete for Next Generation of Storage Systems | Vanderbilt University | $796,268 | Researchers will use nano-sized and nano-structured particles based on enhanced reactivity to develop a superior concrete for the long-term storage of used nuclear fuel. The project will use state-of-the-art experimental chemical and mechanical characterizations and computation analysis to assess the performance of nano-modified concretes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Fuel Cycle Data Packages for Thorium Fuel Cycle Options | Vanderbilt University | $797,995 | Researchers will develop six fuel cycle data packages for multi-stage, thermal fuel cycles which incorporate thorium. These new fuel cycle data packages will provide the opportunity to examine fuel cycle options beyond those which have traditionally been considered. A thorium fuel cycle database will also be assembled as a basis for thorium literature for future evaluations of the thorium fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Enhanced Shielding Performance of HLW Storage Packages via Multi-Component Coatings | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $796,947 | Researchers will develop a multi-layer composite that will enhance long-term storage and facilitate safe transport of storage packages. This novel multi-layer, multi-component coating would create an outer shield material that is resistant to the corrosion, radiation, diffusion and thermal cycling processes that affect fuel packages during long term storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Managing Zirconium Chemistry and Phase Compatibility in Combined Process Separations for Minor Actinide Partitioning | Washington State University | $700,000 | Researchers will address unique challenges for combining TRUEX and TALSPEAK processes for partitioning of lanthanides and minor actinides. The project will develop improved information on the thermodynamics of fission product zirconium and develop a framework for an organic phase solvation model. Combined process development could streamline separations processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Advances in the Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Studies Under Real Ocean Conditions | Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution | $398,882 | Researchers will provide infrastructure and expertise for marine testing of currently available adsorbents in real ocean conditions. The team will move adsorbent research from the lab to field testing in order to quantify sorptive properties and uranium uptake. The project will provide valuable field data that will show the potential of large scale applications of these technologies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| NEUP Project 20-19172: Irradiation of Sensors and Adhesive Couplants for Application in LWR Primary Loop Piping and Components | $497,881 | Researchers paln to attach ultrasonic transducers to substrates using various adhesive couplants that will be irradiated at elevated temperature to simulate LWR primary loop conditions at the PULSTAR reactor at North Carolina State University. Ultrasonic data will be taken in-situ. Subsequently, the sensors and couplant interfaces will be characterized using the LAMDA facility at ORNL. The results will be used to benefit a parallel EPRI project on online monitoring of cracks in LWR primary loop piping. | Document | Joint R&D with NSUF Access | FY2013 | |
| Lower Length Scale Characterization and Validation of Formation and Stability of Helium Bubbles in Nano-structured Ferritic Alloys under Irradiation | Clemson University | $399,870 | Researchers will provide a fundamental knowledge about the formation and stability of ultra-fine helium bubbles within 14YWT after neutron/ion irradiation for further design of new advanced structural materials with a characteristic high density nanoparticles feature which can increase the mechanical strength, hardness, irradiation resistance and the operational temperature range of materials. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Three-Dimensional Fuel Pin Model Validation by Prediction of Hydrogen Distribution in Cladding and Comparison with Experiment | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers will validate important three-dimensional aspects of the fuel pin modeling by using specialized numerical modeling techniques coupled with laboratory experiments to validate existing models for predicting fuel performance in light water reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Collocation-Based Surrogate Models for Uncertainty Quantification and Validation of Coupled, Multiphysics Fuel Performance Simulation Tools | University of Michigan | $596,835 | Researchers will provide the necessary high fidelity, coupled, multiphysics fuel performance simulator for computational modeling and develop surrogates which will accelerate and focus the validation of the coupled codes. This will be achieved by utilizing the high fidelity coupled fuel performance, thermal-hydraulics and neutronics codes BISON/STAR-CCM+/MPACT and an innovative collocation-based surrogate methodology. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Multi-Resolution In-Situ Testing and Mutliscale Simulation for Creep Damage Fatigue Damage Analysis of Alloy 617 | Arizona State University | $800,000 | This project will develop novel testing and experimentally validated prediction methodologies for micro-structural damage mechanisms of structural materials for advanced reactor systems. The investigations will focus on the characterization and testing of specific metal alloys, but the proposed testing and life-prediction methodologies are applicable to other structural materials as well. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Novel High Temperature and Radiation Resistant Infrared Glasses and Optical Fibers for Sensing in Advanced Small Modular Reactors | Clemson University | $800,000 | Clemson University, in partnership with the Iowa State University and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, will develop novel optical materials with improved heat and radiation exposure resistance in order to enable in-vessel fiber optic sensing for advanced Small Modular Reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Validation Data Acquisition in HTTF during PCC Events | George Washington University | $800,000 | Researchers at the George Washington University and Oregon State University will collaborate with NASA Langley Research Center to measure flow velocities in a high temperature test facility. This work supports the development of very-high temperature reactors with passive safety systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced High Temperature Inspection Capabilities for Small Modular Reactors | Iowa State University | $790,822 | The objective of this project is to develop non-destructive evaluation techniques for advanced small modular reactors. The research will provide key enabling inspection technologies needed to support the design and the reactor component performance validation process for advanced small modular reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Experimental and Computational Investigations of Plenum-to-Plenum Heat Transfer under Natural Circulation in a Prismatic Very High Temperature Reactor | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,999 | Researchers will perform experimental and computational investigations to study heat transfer and natural circulation phenomena in very-high temperature reactors. The study will assist in the ability to predict and analyze passive safety systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| New Mechanistic Models of Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth Interactions for Advanced High Temperature Reactor Components | Oregon State University | $790,790 | Researchers will create and validate a robust, multi-scale, numerical model to predict material degradation in nickel-based reactor alloys. If successful, this project will provide better numerical tools for reactor designers and greatly improve their capability to design against material failures for reactor alloys in the long term. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Self-Powered Wireless Dual-mode Langasite Sensor for Pressure/Temperature Monitoring of Nuclear Reactors | State University of New York, Stony Brook | $800,000 | This research will develop a novel self-powered wireless hybrid sensor that can accurately monitor both pressure and temperature using a single device without requiring external electricity, even in extreme harsh environments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Compact Heat Exchanger Design and Testing for Advanced Nuclear Reactors and Advanced Power Cycles | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to investigate optimal heat exchanger designs for advanced reactors. The research will study the optimization of printed circuit heat exchangers for specific fluids under a variety of conditions as well as perform numerical modeling. Experiments will focus on thermal performance and heat stress during extreme conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Fundamental Understanding of Creep-Fatigue Interactions in 9Cr-1MoV Steel Welds | The Ohio State University | $798,000 | This project will advance the state of knowledge and fundamental understanding of deforming materials and welds under loading conditions. Specifically, new integrated testing procedures will be evaluated and applied for conditions that are most detrimental to material stability leading to improved predictions of life expectancy for reactor steels and welds. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced Mechanistic 3D Spatial Modeling and Analysis Methods to Accurately Represent Nuclear Facility External Event Scenarios | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop three-dimensional characterization uncertainty analysis for commercial power plants. The project will involve combining experts from the fields of seismic structural modeling and advanced methods of risk assessment. This effort is expected to result in next generation tools that can be used for assessment of seismic risks. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Tritium Mitigation/Control for Advanced Reactor Systems | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a fluoride salt cooled high-temperature reactor featuring a specialized system to control tritium production. If successful, this will result in a significant reduction in size and cost in comparison to other reactor designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| A Pebble-Bed Breed and Burn Reactor | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will assess the feasibility of designing a type of metal cooled reactor able to establish and maintain operation when fueled with depleted uranium. If successful, this reactor will offer at least a 30-fold increase in the uranium ore utilization versus that achieved in contemporary light water reactors without the need for fuel reprocessing and recycling. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Investigation of Thermal Aging Effects on the Evolution of Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Cast Duplex Stainless Steels | University of Maryland, College Park | $799,966 | This research will provide a better understanding of the microstructural evolution and simultaneous change in mechanical response during aging. The results of the research will provide data that can be used to estimate degraded mechanical properties for an 80-year service life of light water reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Model validation using CFD-grade experimental database for NGNP Reactor Cavity Cooling Systems with water and air | University of Michigan | $799,348 | Researchers will use advanced innovative instrumentation to build a high-resolution experimental database and to use the novel experimental data to assess and further develop the predictive capabilities of computer codes for thermal hydraulics and computational fluid dynamics. The improved models developed by this project will also have the direct benefit of improving the predictive capability of the passive systems of third generation light water reactors and small modular reactor systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Long-Term Prediction of Emissivity of Structural Material for High Temperature Reactor Systems | University of Missouri | $799,117 | Researchers will study specific types of emissivity driven cooling from a variety of materials that are relevant to nuclear reactors. The research will provide a basis for numerical modeling to support reactor development. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced I&C for Fault-Tolerant Supervisory Control of Small Modular Reactors | University of Pittsburgh | $800,000 | The purpose of this research is to develop advanced instrumentation and control techniques for supervisory control of advanced small modular reactors. This research supports the operational goals of small modular reactor concepts through the development of improved oversight and surveillance techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Corrosion of Structural Materials for Advanced Supercritical Carbon-Dioxide Brayton Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $798,672 | Researchers will study a variety of materials for corrosion resistance under conditions that improve power conversion. In addition to studying the corrosion resistance of the materials, researchers will study the effect of additives to mitigate corrosion. Development of corrosion theories and modeling aimed at prediction of long-term corrosion will be the underlying theme throughout the project. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Component and Technology Development for Advanced Liquid Metal Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $798,920 | In support of liquid metal cooled reactors, the University of Wisconsin, Madison will evaluate advanced alloys and ceramics that come in contact with liquid metals. Additionally, a robust oxygen sensor and for use in liquid metals will be developed in order to better evaluate corrosion profiles in support of diagnostic testing. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| A New Paradigm for Understanding Multi-phase Ceramic Waste Form Performance | Clemson University | $800,000 | Researchers will use advanced characterization tools to develop 3-D microstructural data that can be incorporated into computer-based simulations in order to predict the performance of waste forms. Materials system modeling will incorporate elemental release and the interconnected microstructural network of phases to better understand performance and degradation, which will accelerate waste form acceptance in repository settings. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Controlling Hexavalent Americium: A Centerpiece to a Compact Nuclear Fuel Cycle | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and exploit the fundamental chemistry of Americium to enable an industrially viable means to co-recover the major and minor actinide elements from used nuclear fuel. The results would be a significant step forward in the development of aqueous separations approaches designed to recover the U-Am actinides based on the availability of the hexavalent oxidation state. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Zeolite Membranes for Krypton/Xenon Separation from Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Off-Gas | Georgia Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a high-performance, lower-cost zeolitic membrane process for Kr/Xe separations during spent nuclear fuel processing. Current separation methods are not considered economical and a membrane process would have relatively lower cost, equipment size, and ambient operating temperature. The process would form a sound basis for further development of this transformative separation technology for the nuclear fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Optimizing Polymer-Grafted Amidoxime-based Adsorbents for Uranium Uptake from Seawater | Georgia Institute of Technology | $399,999 | Researchers will work to increase the adsorbent capacity and selectivity toward uranium by optimizing the adsorbent morphology, synthesis variables, and conditioning parameters and by investigating the rate-limiting variables through transport and reaction modeling. A novel adsorption/partition concept that has the potential to substantially increase the adsorbent capacity will be tested, making uranium from seawater extraction more economically viable. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Extraction of Uranium from Seawater: Design and Testing of a Symbiotic System | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a seawater uranium extraction system that will work symbiotically with an offshore windmill by utilizing the structure, mooring and power of the windmill, while increasing the energy harvested by the installation. Uranium will be extracted by an adsorbent polymer belt, which will be cycled through the seawater and an elution plant located at the base of the windmill tower. Increasing the frequency of harvesting could overcome current economic barriers to seawater uranium extraction. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Imaging a Dry Storage Cask with Cosmic Ray Muons | Oregon State University | $799,871 | Researchers will develop an imaging system to monitor the content of a dry storage cask with cosmic ray muons. A very large amount of plutonium under nuclear safeguards is contained in used fuel assemblies stored in dry storage casks. Muon imaging will allow a cost effective and reliable way to evaluate dry storage cask content and integrity before transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Apatite and sodalite based glass-bonded waste forms for immobilization of 129I and mixed halide radioactive wastes | Rutgers University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop advanced and chemically durable waste forms for immobilizing 129I (aqueous based reprocessing of fuel) and mixed-halide wastes (molten-salt processing of fuel) by low temperature synthesis. Halide-containing sodalite and calcium phosphate-based apatite minerals will be synthesized, consolidated and tested for chemical durability. The project will provide needed baseline data for the development of advanced waste forms for immobilization of iodine and mixed-halide wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Sorption Modeling and Verification for Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $350,000 | Researchers will develop modeling tools supported by experiments for off-gas capture from future nuclear-fuel recycling facilities. Target species include tritium, iodine, krypton, and xenon. The models are intended to provide path forward recommendations to develop off-gas treatment adsorption processes. The project will contribute to the evaluation of options for environmentally acceptable recycle systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development of high performance ODS alloys | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will study swelling, radiation hardening and changes in mechanical properties of ODS alloys to develop two sets of advanced ODS alloys. Two sets of first-round candidate alloys that have already undergone extensive development and testing will evaluate irradiation performance. The study will meet the need for high strength, radiation-tolerant cladding and core components that have enhanced resistance to void swelling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Rare Earth Electrochemical Property Measurements and Phase Diagram Development in a Complex Molten Salt Mixture for Molten Salt Recycle | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate rare earth (RE) properties in complex molten salt mixtures. In a molten salt recycle approach, the RE drawdown by electrolysis is a key step in which REs are separated from salt containing other fission products. Investigation of RE electrolysis must consider the electrochemical properties of the REs. We propose to conduct studies of detailed experiments and corresponding models to provide the physical properties and phase diagrams required to predict the performance of RE drawdown for processing complex molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Computational and Experimental Studies of Microstructure-Scale Porosity in Metallic Fuels for Improved Gas Swelling Behavior | University of Arkansas | $796,823 | Researchers will study the microstructure of metallic uranium alloy fuels, and their resistance to densification, to minimize in-pile irradiation swelling through bimodal pore size distribution. The project will develop a predictive approach to design metallic fuel microstructures for optimal swelling resistance and fission gas retention. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Improved Hybrid Modeling of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of California, Berkeley | $645,393 | Researchers will develop a variance reduction method for computational transport that will improve the ability to design and operate monitoring systems for interim used fuel installations through enhanced modeling and simulation. This new tool will demonstrate that modeling calculations can be done more accurately in less time than with current tools and will perform studies characterizing how changes in material, cask configurations, and number of casks could impact monitoring systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Selective ligands for uranyl via combinatorial peptoid libraries: A synthetic, structural, thermodynamic and computational study | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will study how donor ligands bind to the uranyl ion, UO22+, with the longer-term goal of using this information to tackle selective recognition of uranyl in aqueous solution. The study will impact underlying approaches to controlling the behavior of uranium in these systems. The actinide separation technology could be used in several areas including uranium extraction from seawater, nuclear waste remediation and nuclear materials. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Combining Experiments and Simulations of Extraction Kinetics and Thermodynamics in Advanced Separation Processes for Used Nuclear Fuel | University of California, Irvine | $799,938 | Researchers will study how the kinetics and thermodynamics of metal ion extraction in advanced separation processes for used nuclear fuel can be described by molecular dynamic (MD) simulations and how the simulations can be validated by experimental data. The project would have broad impacts on several separations processes including advanced TALSPEAK, ALSEP and GANEX by increasing the confidence and accuracy of computer modeling of metal ion extraction. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Effect of Metallic Li on the Behavior of Metals in Molten Salts | University of Nevada, Reno | $458,250 | Researchers will identify the effect of metallic lithium on materials that are used in molten salt recycling. The study will try to understand how the presence of Li(0) in molten salts affects the degradation of alloys. Studying these changes will help accurately predict container material behavior and longevity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Assessment of Corrosion Resistance of Promising Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding under Reactor Conditions | University of Notre Dame | $800,000 | Researchers will assess the corrosion behavior of accident tolerant fuel candidate iron-based alloys under normal LWR operating conditions consisting of high temperature, relevant water chemistry and irradiation. The assessment will produce data about possible irradiation-accelerated corrosion rates of iron-based alloys, and the mechanisms by which such corrosion rates are accelerated. The project will advance the selection of appropriate replacements for Zircaloy cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Enhanced Accident-Tolerant Fuel Performance and Reliability for Aggressive iPWR/SMR Operation | University of Tennessee | $799,967 | To develop a process that evaluates operational and safety performance of reactor-and-fuel combinations by integrating whole-core 3D neutronics with MOOSE/BISON fuel performance assessments via explicit time and space dependent fuel rod operational power histories. The project will be valuable in analyzing and evaluating accident tolerant fuel concepts and furthering the understanding of reactor physics and fuel performance aspects of key accident tolerant fuel concepts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Nuclear Technology R&D Strategies in an Era of Energy Price Uncertainty | University of Texas, Austin | $799,112 | Researchers will identify nuclear technology options that are competitive over a wide range of plausible future business environments. No single nuclear technology or business practice will be the best choice across all or even most future conditions. The study will focus on hybrid nuclear-fossil technologies, energy storage and conversion, which will result in an identification of nuclear strategies that can succeed under future market conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development and Optimization of Voltammetric Methods for Real Time Analysis of Electrorefiner Salt with High Concentrations of Actinides and Fission Products | University of Utah | $621,612 | Researchers will develop an advanced voltammetry method to pursue the objective of real time monitoring of actinide concentrations in electrorefiner salt. This will include experimental measurement of key parameters such as activity coefficients and exchange current density. It will also involve simulation of voltammetry processes based on first principles. The project will allow for real time measurements that could support the commercialization of pyroprocessing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development of Self-Healing Zirconium-Silicide Coatings for Improved Performance of Zirconium-Alloy Fuel Cladding | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $798,621 | Researchers will study the deposition of self-healing zirconium-silicide coatings on zirconium-alloy fuel cladding material to improve corrosion resistance under normal and accident conditions. Under these conditions, Zr-Si coating evolves into a highly protective functionally-graded multilayered system. The study will lead to improved performance of zirconium-alloy fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Thermal Conductivity in Metallic Fuels | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,837 | Researchers will calculate the thermal conductivity of metallic uranium and neptunium alloys, including the effects of noble gasses, using density functional theory. The experiments will validate the calculated effective thermal conductivity using the MARMOT code and by helping determine DFT simulation parameters. The study works to improve fuel lifetime by understanding its thermal behavior. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| SiC-ODS Alloy Gradient Nanocomposites as Novel Cladding Materials | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,998 | Researchers will combine nuclear nanomaterial design, processing, testing, and characterization efforts to develop revolutionary materials that can withstand neutron irradiation for long period of time using nanostructured SiC and oxide dispersion strengthened steel. The ultimate objective is to offer new cladding materials with increased corrosion resistance, strength, and creep resistance in both steady state and accident conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Experimental Breeder Reactor II Benchmark Evaluation | Idaho State University | $400,000 | _Researchers will develop a benchmark evaluation of the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II). During nearly 30 years of operation numerous experiments were conducted at EBR-II. The most significant of these experiments were conducted in 1986 demonstrating inherent safety features in loss of flow without reactor scram and loss of heat sink without reactor scram. Benchmark evaluation will be valuable for the reactor design efforts in the United States and South Korea. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| Integral full core multi-physics PWR benchmark with measured data | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | _Researchers will introduce BEAVRS, a new multi-cycle full-core Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) depletion benchmark based on two operational cycles of a commercial nuclear power plant. This project aims at addressing the uncertainty quantification of the measured data and on making this benchmark a true non-proprietary international benchmark for the validation of high-fidelity multi-physics computational tools. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| Benchmark Evaluation of PROTEUS Gas-Cooled Reactor Experiments | University of Florida | $400,000 | _Researchers will create International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) benchmarks using data from 1970s experiments of the neutronics of gas-cooled fast reactor (GCFR) designs investigated in the PROTEUS reactor. The GCFR-PROTEUS experiments fill a gap in current integral benchmark data. These experiments can provide validation of computational models and nuclear data for next generation reactors. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| An Investigation To Establish Multiphysical Property Dataset Of Nuclear Materials Based On In-Situ Observations And Measurements | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will create an in-situ measurement based experimental approach to develop experimental validation dataset for NEAMS based code validation. Particular emphasis is on supplying data set for multiphysics simulations in extreme conditions as a function of material microstructure. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| Experimental Validation of UO2 Microstructural Evolutions for NEAMS tool MARMOT | University of Florida | $798,000 | _Researchers will experimentally validate MARMOT for predicting the microstructural evolutions of UO2 oxide fuel under the driving forces of high temperatures and large temperature gradient in reactors. By performing the experiments and simulations simultaneously using precisely defined initial conditions, the experiment data will provide direct benchmarking of the MARMOT code. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| High-resolution time-resolved experiments on mixing and entrainment of buoyant jets in stratified environments | University of Michigan | $799,983 | _Researchers will study high spatial and time-resolution experimental data of the fluid dynamics phenomena of flow jets interacting with a stratified layer. The issue plays an important role in the safety of several reactor designs, including sodium-cooled reactors. The data addresses the NEAMS needs for the validation of high fidelity computational fluid dynamics methodologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| Fundamental study of key issues related to advanced S-CO2 Brayton Cycle: prototypic HX development and Cavitation | Georgia Institute of Technology | $799,000 | _Researchers will study scientific and operational issues pertinent to compact heat exchanger systems and turbo-machinery. The project will work to resolve issues with the fabrication of diffusion bonded compact heat exchangers, alternate heat exchange technology for recuperators, and resolution of issues with cavitation and fluid instabilities. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Advanced Models for Nondestructive Evaluation of Aging Nuclear Power Plant Cables | Iowa State University | $787,291 | _Researchers will develop advanced models that relate environmentally induced microstructural and chemical changes in cable insulation polymers to their macroscopic electrical parameters. These parameters will be measured and modeled over a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum, covering several potential nondestructive evaluation techniques, enabling identification of the most sensitive techniques for future development. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Development of Novel Functionally Graded Transition Joints for Improving the Creep Strength of Dissimilar Metal Welds in Nuclear Applications | Lehigh University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop graded transition joints and improved creep life models for increasing the life of dissimilar metal welds (DMWs) in nuclear reactors. The research represents the first application of functionally graded material concepts for solving the problem of DMW failures through an integrated approach of additive manufacturing, modeling, microstructural characterization, and advanced strain-sensing techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Feasibility Assessment of a Micro Modular Reactor (MMR) | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | _Researchers will develop an innovative compact reactor concept that integrates power production, power conversion and electricity generation in a single unit: the Micro Modular Reactor (MMR). It is designed to be absolutely melt-down proof (MDP) under all circumstances including complete loss of coolant scenarios with no possible release of radioactive material, to have a cycle length of greater than 10 years, and to be highly proliferation resistant. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Scaling Studies for Advanced Gas Reactor Concepts | Oregon State University | $681,834 | _Researchers will expand the utilization of the Oregon State University High Temperature Test Facility (HTTF) to validate a broader range of advanced high temperature reactors and events. The facility will be revised to add a detailed scaling analysis of additional gas reactor concepts including advanced gas-cooled, molten salt, and sodium cooled reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Fluid Stratification Separate Effects Analysis, Testing and Benchmarking | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will study fluid stratification in high temperature gas reactors. Coolant stratification is the result of incomplete mixing of one or more fluids, leading to a density gradient, which may or may not dissipate under diffusive or convective effects. This combined analytical and experimental project seeks to investigate stratification driven by diffusive and convective mechanisms and is expected to yield insight into this phenomenon. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Probabilistic Economic Valuation of Safety Margin Management Analysis | Oregon State University | $795,364 | _Researchers will use RAVEN and develop a companion software package to facilitate economic analysis of safety margins. The project is a proof of concept that will use techniques to examine the cost of improving safety margins vs. the risk of accidents from not improving safety margins. This analysis can be used to evaluate the economic viability of various plant upgrades. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Novel Dissimilar Joints Between Alloy 800H and 2.25%Cr and 1%Mo Steel | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will fabricate and test dissimilar metal joints between a nickel base alloy and a steel with gradual variations of chemical composition, microstructure and properties in a manner that reduces abrupt thermal expansion mismatch and the resulting residual stresses. Data on structure and properties will serve as valuable inputs for the initiation of an ASME code case. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Multi-Phase Model Development to Assess RCIC System Capabilities under Severe Accident Conditions | Texas A&M University | $564,246 | _Researchers will develop physics-based models of the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) System and incorporating them into a multi-phase code for validation. The project will tackle the current major challenges in RCIC System analysis and enable evaluation of two-phase thermodynamic aspects. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Experimental Investigation and CFD Analysis of Steam Ingress Accidents in HTGRs | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will study the steam ingress scenario for HTGRs. The study will investigate thermal-hydraulic behavior and graphite oxidation of stream ingress phenomena to validate predictive CFD models. This work will resolve concerns about possible steam generator tube ruptures in a HTGR He-Steam Rankine cycle. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Coiled Tube Gas Heaters For Nuclear Gas-Brayton Power Conversion | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop heat exchangers for Brayton-cycle power conversion in reactors using sodium, NaK, or salt as intermediate coolants. The proposed coiled tube gas heaters (CTGHs) are expected to have excellent power density, thermal shock/creep, in-service inspection, and reparability characteristics. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Fundamental Studies of Irradiation-Induced Modifications in Microstructural Evolution and Mechanical Properties of Advanced Alloys | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop and test a mechanism for predicting neutron irradiation performance for optimized Grade 92 and Alloy 709 for applications in advanced reactor systems. The work will employ ion irradiations and available information from neutron irradiations of related alloys to develop a basis for predicting the neutron irradiation performance of the optimized alloys. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Integrated Computational and Experimental Study of Radiation Damage Effects in Grade 92 Steel and Alloy 709 | University of Tennessee | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop a mechanistic understanding and predictive models of irradiation-induced microstructural evolution and resulting mechanical properties in optimized ferritic-martensitic Grade 92 steel and austenitic alloy 709 using multiscale simulations coupled with rigorous experimental validation. The project will provide insights into the correlation between ion irradiation and fast neutron damage. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Meta-Level Design Guidance and Operator Performance Measures for Hybrid Control Rooms | Vanderbilt University | $799,869 | _Researchers will apply human factors engineering methods and relevant expertise from non-nuclear high-risk high-consequence domains toward the measurement of operator performance in analog, digital, and hybrid main control rooms. Performance measures will be developed for evaluating the situation awareness and decision-making proficiencies to support the transition to digital or hybrid control room displays. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| NEUP Project 15-8514: Elucidation of the kinetics of Advanced Separation systems | California State University, Long Beach | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a fundamental understanding of the chemical kinetics relevant to separation processes by measuring ligand complexation rate constants for both lanthanides and actinides in the aqueous and organic phases. These experiments will provide essential kinetic and mechanistic information required for developing a simplified, single-step recovery of transuranic elements. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8119: Kr/Xe separation over Metal Organic Framework Membranes | Colorado School of Mines | $375,000 | Researchers will develop metal organic framework (MOF) membranes that will be capable of effectively separating Kr from Xe with high flux and selectivity. This project may result in the development of membranes that will constitute a viable energy saving approach for the effective removal of Kr during the processing of used nuclear fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8347: Multilayer Composite Fuel Cladding for LWR Performance Enhancement and Severe Accident Tolerance | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop, manufacture, and weld a new multimetallic layered composite (MMLC) for enhanced severe accident tolerance and manufacturability in LWRs. Layers of stainless steel (facing the coolant) and Zircaloy (facing the fuel) will be separated by barrier layers of Cr and Nb. Severe accident testing in 1200C steam, LWR autoclave testing, and ion irradiation studies will demonstrate the MMLC's microstructural stability. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8112: Phase Separation and Crystallization of Complex Borosilicate Melts for Glass-Ceramic Waste Forms | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,806 | Researchers will study the mechanisms for microstructural development and properties of multi-phase, glass-ceramic materials that form when waste-loaded borosilicate glasses are cooled from above their liquidus or consolute temperatures through the glass transition temperature. The project will apply these tools to modified compositions to maximize the formation of the desirable crystalline phases. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8265: Electrically-Assisted Tubing Processes for Enhancing Manufacturability of Oxide Dispersion Strengthened Structural Materials for Nuclear Reactor Applications | Northwestern University | $800,000 | Researchers will enhance the formability of nanostructured ferritic alloys (NFAs) such that high-strength thin-walled claddings can be manufactured successfully and economically to be used in future reactors. The project will study the effects of continuous and pulsed electric currents on the deformation behavior of Fe-14Cr based NFA steel. The findings will be used to establish innovative fabrication processes including electrically-assisted extrusion and rolling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8126: Fundamental Electrochemical Properties of Liquid Metals in LiCl-KCl for Separation of Alkali/Alkaline-Earths (Cs, Sr and Ba) | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate the fundamental properties of novel liquid metal electrodes for separation of alkali/alkaline-earth fission products in LiCl-KCl electrolyte. The project will further the development of pyroprocessing by maximizing salt recycle and providing a method for recovery of alkali/alkaline-earth fission products as oxides (as opposed to chlorides) which will allow them to be encapsulated in a more conventional glass wasteform. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8074: Monitoring of Actinide Concentrations in Molten LiCl-KCl Salt using Alpha Spectroscopy | The Ohio State University | $799,969 | Researchers will develop a novel in-salt sensor that uses electrochemistry to pre-concentrate the actinides onto the sensor to measure the actinides concentration in a high temperature and high radiation field represented by a molten salt environment. The ability to monitor actinides to prevent misuse is critical to enhancing the control of nuclear materials. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8717: Understanding the Interactions of Seawater Ions with Amidoxime through X-Ray Crystallography | University of Alabama | $553,971 | _Researchers will investigate the fundamental interactions of the amidoxime (R-C(NH2)=NOH) functional group with metal ions found in seawater using a combined approach of single crystal X-ray diffraction and spectroscopy to understand the origin of the selectivity of amidoxime resins for uranyl ([UO2]2+] ions and establish structural benchmarks for interpretation of spectroscopic studies on actual sorbents to aid in identifying specific sorbent-metal interactions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8439: Developing a macro-scale SiC-cladding behavior model based on localized mechanical and thermal property evaluation on pre- and post-irradiation SiC-SiC composites | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a fundamental understanding of the macroscopic behavior of SiC-SiC composite structures before and after irradiation based on the microscopic property changes of each individual component (SiC matrix, fiber and interface). SiC-SiC composites will be tested in the as-fabricated condition, after being subjected to neutron and ion irradiation, micro-cracking, and oxidation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8536: Quantitative Prediction of Uranium Speciation and Amidoxime Binding in Seawater from Advanced Simulation Techniques | University of California, Riverside | $450,000 | Researchers will quantitatively predict stability of uranium species and thermochemistry (free energy, entropy, and enthalpy) of uranium binding with amidoxime ligands in seawater conditions. To achieve the goal, advanced simulation techniques including all-atom molecular dynamics, free-energy calculations, and the hybrid quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical approach will be employed to explicitly include water molecules and common seawater ions in the simulation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8286: Used Fuel Storage Monitoring Using Helium-4 Scintillation Fast Neutron Detectors and Neutron Spectral Analysis | University of Florida | $799,765 | Researchers will build and demonstrate a prototype detector device capable of unambiguously verifying the declared content of dry casks in a non-intrusive manner for the safeguarding and monitoring of used fuel storage installations. This will be achieved through a neutron spectroscopy and imaging system using high-efficiency Helium-4 (4He) gas scintillation fast neutron detectors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8663: Enhancement of the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland, College Park | $600,000 | Researchers will produce efficient adsorbents of uranium from seawater in seeking to optimize the functional ligands, the polymeric substrates, the grafting conditions and the adsorption/desorption durations based on sound chemical understanding. The result will be adsorbents that can be used through multiple cycles of uranium adsorption without significant degradation of the adsorbents capacity and selectivity for uranium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8111: Purification of Zirconium cladding using a chloride volatility process | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $798,877 | _Researchers will investigate the thermochemistry of used fuel Zr cladding components chlorides as well as their activation products and residual radionuclide metal chlorides to provide fundamental data that will support the development of a chlorination process for the purification of ZrCl4. Understanding the chemistry of these chloride species will provide process development guidance for the purification of Zr cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8323: Purification of Zirconium Tetrachloride from UNF Cladding | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $793,121 | _Researchers will develop and demonstrate a process to purify zirconium tetrachloride obtained from the direct chlorination of used Zircaloy cladding materials from used nuclear fuel rod assemblies. This study will increase understanding of purification protocols that will allow zirconium chloride to be recycled further. Increased recycling capability would significantly reduce the amount of high level waste associated with light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8752: Radiation Effects on High Thermal Conductivity Fuels | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $400,000 | _Researchers will use scoping ion and neutron irradiations to explore the structural stability and thermal conductivity of model high thermal conductivity fuels consisting of CeO2 and either Al2O3 (BeO surrogate) or SiC. Issues associated with thermal conductivity degradation (including micro cracking effects) and general phase stability of fuel systems will be examined. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8243: Radiation-induced swelling and microcracking in SiC cladding for LWRs | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $797,889 | _Researchers will use state of the art experimental characterization techniques and multi-scale methodology (developed within the MOOSE-MARMOT-BISON framework) to provide scientific basis for predictions of swelling and microcracking in SiC cladding as a function of temperature and irradiation histories. Predicting swelling and microcracking will further the potential for accident tolerant SiC cladding to be used in light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8081: Understanding influence of thermal history and glass chemistry on kinetics of phase separation and crystallization in borosilicate glass-ceramic waste forms for aqueous reprocessed high level waste | Washington State University | $799,911 | _Researchers will develop a fundamental and transformative understanding of the crystallization mechanisms in complex glass-ceramic high level waste (HLW) wasteforms,. This understanding will underpin the maturation of glass ceramic manufacture, by linking process variables to molecular scale mechanisms, enabling reliable production of wasteforms to the desired specification. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8210: A Transient Reactor Physics Experiment with High-Fidelity, 3-D Flux Measurements for Validation and Verification | Kansas State University | $799,198 | _Researchers will instrument the University of Wisconsin Nuclear Reactor with micro-pocket fission detectors (MPFDs) to measure 3-D flux distributions. The measurements will be compared to simulation using PROTEUS from the NEAMS toolkit. MPFDs are small, which leads to low gamma-ray sensitivity and small flux perturbations. A 3-D array of MPFDs and standard reactor instrumentation will be used to capture highly-resolved flux and temperature distributions for several steady-state and transient conditions. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8101: Development of Critical Experiments to Provide Validation Data for Multiphysics Coupling Methods | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $799,993 | Researchers will develop a set of benchmark validation experiments for multiphysics coupling by exploiting the inherent flexibility of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Reactor Critical Facility (RCF). This project will use targeted experiments to validate the coupling between neutronics, thermal hydraulics, and structural mechanics routines present in the NEAMS Reactor Product Line toolkit._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8229: Thermal Transport and Fracture Behavior of Sintered Fuel Pellets: Experimental Validation of NEAMS Tool MARMOT | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | _Researchers will perform experimental validation of the NEAMS tool MARMOT for predicting thermal transport and fuel fracture. By performing extensive thermal transport and fracture experiments on well-controlled microstructures of sintered UO2, the impact of microstructure on thermo-mechanical properties of sintered UO2 and mechanistic understanding will be achieved. The high quality experimental data will directly benchmark the MARMOT code by evaluating the thermal transport and fracture models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8208: Development of a Novel Accelerator for Neutron Transport Solution Using the Galerkin Spectral Element Methods | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $626,176 | _Researchers will develop a novel accelerator for neutron transport calculations based on the spectral element methods, continuous Galerkin (CG) and discontinuous Galerkin (DG) approximations. The CG and DG methods will be used to solve the multi-group neutron diffusion equation on the coarse-mesh structure (e.g., pin-size up to assembly-size), which is then coupled with the high-order neutron transport solution to speed up the neutron transport computation. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8338: Methodology Development for Cybersecurity Robustness and Vulnerability Assessment of University Research Reactors: A Case Study Using the PULSTAR Reactor | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop a methodology for assessing the cybersecurity robustness and vulnerability of university research reactors using an actual university reactor as a test case. While the developed methodology will be specifically tested and applied using this reactor, it will be formulated as a general blueprint and used as the starting point for the assessment of university research reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cyber Security R&D | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8121: Automatic Imagery Data Analysis for Proactive Computer-Based Workflow Management during Nuclear Power Plant Outages | Arizona State University | $799,738 | _Researchers will test the hypothesis that real-time imagery-based object tracking and spatial analysis, as well as human behavior modeling will significantly improve efficiency of outage control while lowering the rates of accidents and incidents. The project will examine computer vision methods and human behavior models for developing a proactive workflow management tool and integrate it into Computer-Based Procedures for supporting an Advanced Outage Control Center. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8308: Creep and creep-fatigue crack growth mechanisms in Alloy 709 | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _A joint US/UK team will study the crack growth mechanism and failure analysis of alloy 709 under creep and creep-fatigue conditions. The study will be done through in situ heating and loading during SEM observation to evaluate the crack growth under plane stress condition and traditional methods to study the crack growth under plane strain condition. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8582: Mechanistic and Validated Creep/Fatigue Predictions for Alloy 709 from Accelerated Experiments and Simulations | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will use mechanistic methods for predicting creep and creep-fatigue deformation rates/strains based on accelerated in-situ and ex-situ tests, and mesoscale dislocation dynamics simulations for Alloy 709. This research will support its qualification in the ASME code for use in advanced nuclear reactor applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8495: Advancement of Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Technology through Round Robin Testing and Fundamental Modeling | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will conduct a round robin test plan for S-CO2 corrosion testing across multiple institutions and the organization of a S-CO2 Materials Group to guide future materials testing directions. Furthermore, this proposal outlines identical tests in supercritical water, testing model alloys with various composition and environmental conditions, accompanied by modeling efforts to study rate controlling mechanisms of corrosion. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8489: Modeling and Validation of Irradiation Damage in Ni-based Alloys for Long-Term LWR Applications | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _A joint US/UK team will study thermal and irradiation-induced transformations mechanisms of Alloys 690 and 625 in order to extend Grizzly to include capabilities for modeling Ni-based alloys. The project will develop modeling tools for materials degradation in light water reactors, allowing for component replacement data and continued safe operation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-7983: Development of Steady-State Thermal-Hydraulic Analysis and Bowing Reactivity Evaluation Methods Based on Neutron and Gamma Transport Calculations | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop steady-state thermal-hydraulic analysis and assembly bowing reactivity evaluation methods based on the latest transport calculation capabilities in order to overcome the limitations and improve the accuracy of current design analysis methods. The outcome of the effort will be computer programs to calculate the steady-state heat source distributions in fuel pins and assembly duct walls and to calculate the reactivity worth of assembly displacements. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8627: Experimental Validation Data and Computational Models for Turbulent Mixing of Bypass and Coolant Jet Flows in Gas-Cooled Reactors | Texas A&M University | $799,613 | _Researchers will establish reliable models of the thermal-hydraulics in Gas-Cooled Reactors with experimental and computational efforts. Specifically, this work will focus on providing the relationship between fluctuating velocities and temperatures in the lower plenum and their dependency on the turbulent upstream mixing in the core and collection chambers leading up to the lower plenum. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8251: Enhanced Performance Fast Reactors with Engineered Passive Safety System | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | _Researchers will study the feasibility of improving the passive safety and economics of sodium cooled fast reactors (SFR) by incorporating within their fuel assemblies a novel Autonomous Reactivity Control (ARC) system. It is expected that the ARC systems will enable to design even low leakage SFR cores, such as breed-and-burn cores, to be passively safe and to improve the neutron economy and economic viability of more conventional SFR. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8258: Physics-Based Probabilistic Model of the Effects of Ionizing Radiation on Polymeric Insulators of Electric Cables used in Nuclear Power Plants | University of California, Los Angeles | $798,846 | _Researchers will develop and experimentally validate a probabilistic physics-based degradation models for polymeric insulators of electric cables to be used in integrated performance and safety codes, which will help reduce the uncertainty associated with the long-term aging of cable insulation. The project will deliver a C++ based simulation code that will be readily compatible with the MOOSE/Grizzly framework developed at the Idaho National Laboratory. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8000: The Influences of Neutron Irradiation on Aggregate Induced Degradation of Concrete | University of California, Los Angeles | $800,000 | _Researchers will quantify the impacts of irradiation on concrete degradation. The research will develop new understanding of the evolutions and manifestations of irradiation assisted aggregate concrete degradation caused by neutron exposure. This assessment will help to mitigate the risk of such degradation within the Grizzly framework, by careful integrations of nanoscale analytics and simulation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8458: Multiple Degradation Mechanisms in Reinforced Concrete Structures, Modeling and Risk Analysis | University of Houston | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a multi-physics framework to characterize the deterioration development in concrete due to environmental and mechanical loading, and the coupling effect among transport processes and the damage of concrete. This project will develop new computational tools that will be implemented in Grizzly, an application built on the MOOSE platform, to address a variety of aging mechanisms in nuclear power plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8623: Characterization of Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth in Alloy 709 and Prediction of Service Lives in Nuclear Reactor Components | University of Idaho | $799,927 | _Researchers will study creep-fatigue crack growth behavior in steel Alloy 709 in accelerated test conditions to predict extended service life of structural components. Extensive testing of Alloy 709 creep-fatigue specimens will be performed at elevated temperatures and applied stresses. Microstructure analysis will be performed to describe the crack propagation mechanisms. Computational models will be used to predict service of steel components. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8432: Multi-scale experimental study of creep-fatigue failure initiation in a 709 Stainless Steel alloy using high resolution digital image correlation | University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign | $800,00 | _Researchers will conduct a detailed experimental investigation of creep-fatigue crack initiation in a 709 alloy, and will also obtain a predictive failure initiation model that includes both thermo-mechanical and aging effects. The experiments will use ultra-high resolution digital image correlation to measure accumulation of plastic with cycling. The model will extend existing slip band-based energy minimization criterion to include thermal effects applicable to 709. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8599: Am-241 Nuclear Safety and Environmental Interactions | University of Missouri | $399,187 | _Researchers will investigate the release and transport mechanisms of Am-241 to understand the interactions it may have with the environment. The project will examine Am-241 through a series of accident scenarios using Am-241 aerosols that will allow researchers to understand the pathways for dose assessment. Methodologies and approaches for nuclear risk assessment for new space radioisotope power system applications will be developed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8667: Experimental Validation of a Compact Double-walled Twisted-Tube Heat Exchanger Concept | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | _Researchers will investigate a novel compact double-walled twisted-tube heat exchanger (DT-HXR) design that utilizes an outer twisted tube configuration in order to enhance shell-side heat transfer and make the overall bundle more compact. Utilizing outer twisted tube geometry improves heat transfer and allows for a tube bundle that does not require support plates or anti-vibration bars. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project: 15-8352: Development and Demonstration of an In-Situ Tritium Scavenger | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,988 | _Researchers will use a graphite moderator to capture and remove tritium from the primary coolant systems of salt- and gas-cooled reactors. The team will develop electrochemical techniques to characterize tritium transport in graphite and liquid fluoride salts (including flibe), demonstrate the in-situ effectiveness of tritium absorption by the fuel elements, and develop a design for a graphite bed tritium filter that can integrate with salt-to-air heat exchangers. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 16-10730: Visualization Tool for Comparing Low-Carbon Energy Options | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a web based visualization tool for comparing current and future nuclear fuel cycle options to other low-carbon and conventional energy technologies in the United States.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10679: Overcoming Kinetic Barriers to Actinide Recovery in ALSEP | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | The ALSEP process for group separations of trivalent actinide/lanthanide ions suffers from slow stripping kinetics. Researchers will perform detailed kinetic studies at different temperatures, supported by spectroscopic and computational studies to establish where the kinetic bottlenecks occur in the ALSEP process. They will then systematically alter the chemistry of the extractants and aqueous ligands to understand how to overcome the kinetic hindrances.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10058: An Integrated Multiscale Experimental-Numerical Analysis on Reconsolidation of Salt-Clay Mixture for Disposal of Heat-Generating Waste | Columbia University in the City of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will improve understanding of the thermal-mechanical-hydrologic-chemical (TMHC) coupling effect on reconsolidated granular (or crushed) salt-clay mixture used for seal systems of shafts and drifts in salt repositories. The project will integrate laboratory experiments and multiscale pore-to-continuum coupling simulations to explore the feasibility of using clay additive and moisture content to enhance performance of crushed salt as a seal material.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10088: Americium Separation By Electrochemical Oxidation | Florida International University | $800,000 | Researchers will separate Am from high-level waste by exploiting the high oxidation states of Am through design, and testing of new materials. This will be accomplished by designing and testing new electrodes, derivatized with surface-stabilized ligands and redox mediators to facilitate oxidation of trivalent Am, and by designing porous sorbent materials functionalized with molecules which selectively coordinate Am(VI) to enable its subsequent separation.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10668: Microstructure Experiments-Enabled MARMOT Simulations of SiC/SiC-Based Accident Tolerant Nuclear Fuel System | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will characterize steam attack, hydrothermal corrosion and radiation swelling of SiC/SiC composites-based accident tolerant fuel (ATF) using a combination of experiments, microstructure evaluation and phase-field simulations using MARMOT. Central to the project is the mapping of the microstructure after steam/hydrothermal/irradiation tests through a unique non-destructive x-ray microscopy technique followed by phase-field simulations of chemical transport in MARMOT.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10221: Alloying Agents to Stabilize Lanthanides Against Fuel Cladding Chemical Interaction: Tellurium and Antimony Studies | Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop alloying agents to stabilize lanthanides against fuel cladding chemical interactions (FCCIs). Based on the available binary phase diagrams for the periodic table, Te and Sb are selected as fuel dopants. The research will focus on Te. The mechanisms of using minor additives to stabilize and immobilize the lanthanide fission products will be investigated. Resulting thermodynamic data obtained by the proposed research will be integrated into MARMOT to enhance its ability to model metallic fuel performance.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10648: Oxidation and Corrosion-Resistant Uranium Silicide Fuels | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | Researchers will develop oxidation/corrosion resistant uranium silicide U3Si2 fuel by chemical doping/fillers to form a continuous borosilicate glass as a protective oxide layer with transformational fuel performance and accident tolerance. The team will use chemical doping/fillers include B or C showing effectiveness in improving high temperature oxidation resistance in transition metal silicides, and boron/silicon-containing compounds that can form a protective borosilicate glass layer.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10229: Mechanistic Understanding of Silver Sorbent Aging Processes in Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $800,000 | This project is focused on understanding the mechanisms of aging processes on silver exchanged mordenite and silver functionalized silica aerogel adsorbents under conditions of long term exposure to off gas streams containing air, I2, H2O, and NOx. The chemical and physical structural changes of the adsorbents under these conditions will be accounted for in equilibrium and kinetic models. Transport models will be developed to predict the performance of engineered off-gas treatment systems.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10394: Integration of Microwave Readout into Nuclear Process Monitoring | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,695 | Researchers will show that gamma-ray spectroscopy based on emerging microcalorimeter sensors can determine elemental and isotopic fractions with accuracy comparable to much slower mass spectrometry and with far better accuracy than germanium sensors. This advance will prevent the diversion of nuclear material by enabling nearly real time process monitoring in large nuclear facilities without loss of measurement accuracy.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10523: A Science Based Approach for Selecting Dopants in FCCI-Resistant Metallic Fuel Systems | University of Idaho | $800,000 | The project aims to use a science-based approach to set guidelines of selecting dopants for developing fuel cladding chemical interaction (FCCI)-resistant metallic fuel systems for fast reactors. Lanthanide fission products migrate to the fuel-cladding gap leading to cladding breaches. The team will perform both theoretical modeling and experiments to arrive at the guidelines that are based on sound science. If successful, this can lead to breakthroughs in minimizing the FCCI effect.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10813: Advanced Electrochemical Separations of Actinide/Fission Products via the Control of Nucleation and Growth of Electrodeposits | University of Idaho | $350,000 | Researchers will use unique capabilities to modulate the electrodeposition of actinides (depleted Uranium) and fission products (Ln) during nucleation and growth stages. The team aims to preclude formation of electrodeposits with dendritic morphology. Morphology of electrodeposits will be controlled by electrolyte composition.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10707: In Situ Spectroscopic Determination of Actinide Speciation and Concentration | University of Nevada, Reno | $369,221 | The research team will address two major issues in the pyroprocess based fuel cycle: low process efficiency and materials accounting for non-proliferation. There are currently no analytical techniques to ascertain the speciation and concentration of the actinides in the electrolyte. This project aims to develop an in-situ analytical method consisting of Raman spectroscopic analysis during electrochemical polarization.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10204: Phase Equilibria and Thermochemistry of Advanced Fuels: Modeling Burnup Behavior | University of South Carolina | $799,946 | Researchers will develop phase equilibria and thermochemical information to model and simulate advanced fuel behavior, including critical phenomena such as the contribution to fuel swelling of dissolved non-noble fission products and secondary phase formation, composite fuel stability, and fuel-clad chemical interactions.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10512: Demand-Driven Cycamore Archetypes | University of South Carolina | $799,956 | Modeling of the nuclear fuel cycle (NFC) is often posed as a set of demands coupled with available technologies. Demands may be singular or multivariate. Additionally, available technologies may have constraints on when they are deployable. This proposal aims to bring demand and deployment decisions into the NFC simulator itself, thereby simulating a more realistic process by which utilities, governments, and other stakeholders actually make facility deployment decisions.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10856: Integrating Data Sources for Improved Safeguards and Accountancy of Electrochemical Fuel Reprocessing Streams | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The SSPM Echem tracks elemental and bulk material flows through batch operations in electrochemical facilities. This project will augment the existing SSPM Echem model with models of DA, NDA, and process monitoring measurements, including appropriate accuracy, noise, and uncertainty characteristics. Diverse measurement and assay results will be fused to improve material accountancy and anomaly detection across the electrochemical process.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10190: Immobilization of High-Level Waste Salt in Dechlorinated Zeolite Waste Forms | University of Utah | $799,315 | The primary objective of the project is the development of a new glass-bonded waste form for the suitable disposal of electrorefiner waste salt. To achieve this goal, the proposed tasks will focus on the 1) dechlorination of the electrorefiner salt and 2) subsequent encapsulation into a sintered waste form. Achieving these goals will result in a compact waste form with higher fission product loading, which is instrumental in economically closing the nuclear fuel cycle.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10240: Molten Salt Reactor Experiment Benchmark Evaluation | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | _The objective of this project is to employ the data archive on the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) and develop a set of high-quality Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) reactor physics benchmarks for inclusion in the IRPhE Handbook that currently does not contain any benchmark set related to MSR technology._ | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10458: Multi-Group Transport Cross Section and Diffusion Coefficient Generation for Deterministic Reactor Models Using Monte Carlo Calculations | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and implement rigorous methods for generating multi-group transport cross section and diffusion coefficients for deterministic reactor models using Monte Carlo calculations. The project will eliminate the numerous approximations that currently contribute to significant mis-prediction of core power distributions when using deterministic core models.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10241: Development of Transient Capabilities for the NEAMS Neutronics Code PROTEUS | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop efficient transient transport methods for the PROTEUS-SN, PROTEUS-MOC and the first-order SN solvers of the NEAMS neutronics code PROTEUS. The team will also perform transient benchmark analyses._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10603: Experimental and Computational Analysis of NEAMS Pebble Bed Reactors | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct a coordinated experimental and computational effort to quantitatively map the full-field 3-D velocity and temperature fields in the interstitial spaces within pebble bed reactor systems. Key outcomes will include advanced correlations to predict flow and thermal transport within the pebble bed over a much wider range operating conditions and reactor types than is currently possible.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10421: Simulation of Fuel Rod Fragmentation, Relocation and Ballooning through Peridynamics in MOOSE Framework | University of Arizona | $675,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology that includes the appropriate governing physical fields within the realm of peridynamics to investigate fuel cracking, fragmentation, relocation, ballooning, pellet-cladding interaction, and cladding rapture and dispersion within the MOOSE framework.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10313: Development of a Comprehensive Two-phase Flow Database for the Validation of NEK-2P | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,817 | _Researchers will develop a comprehensive, high-resolution two-phase flow database by performing experiments in two air-water two-phase flow test facilities and a new heated rod-bundle test facility that will be built under this project. These data will be used to validate the two-phase flow models implemented in the NEK-2P code._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10744: Support for Reactor Operators in Case of Cyber-Security Threats | Ohio State University | $800,000 | This project addresses the need for research informing plant engineers and control room operators faced with cyber-security threats on appropriate responses. The approach taken uses distinguishing features of safety related events versus cyber-security threats; attack modeling, prediction, game theory and PRA knowledge to update operators procedures; and simulation for validation.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cyber Security R&D | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10578: Thermal Hydraulic & Structural Testing and Modeling of Compact Diffusion-Bonded Heat Exchangers for Supercritical CO2 Brayton Cycles | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will utilize both experimental and computational methods to test and model transient behavior of a mock up PCHE, which is a scaled down representation of the sCO2, cycle high temperature recuperator (HTR). In addition, the team will develop a methodology for quantification of the PCHEs production cost. The proposed project will provide valuable experiment data required to develop the Section III, Division 5 and Section VIII evaluation approach for compact heat exchangers.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10579: A Computational-Experimental Study to Simulate Mixing and Thermal Stratification in SFRs | Kansas State University | $799,320 | Researchers will use Thermographic Imaging and Ultrasonic Doppler Velocimetry (UDV) techniques to generate high fidelity thermal stratification and flow field data under various geometric and physical conditions for scaled models of outlet plena in sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs). Data from these experimental studies will be compared with those obtained using 1D codes such as SAS4A/SASSYS-1.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10714: ASME Code Application of the Compact Heat Exchanger for High Temperature Nuclear Service | North Carolina State University | $799,998 | Researchers will develop structural design methodologies for Type 316H stainless steel and Alloy 617 compact heat exchangers (CHX) using elastic-perfectly plastic (EPP) analysis methodology for the assessment of elevated temperature failure modes under sustained and cyclic thermal and pressure loading. The project will develop a technical basis for Section III, Division 5 ASME Code Case for CHX in high temperature nuclear service.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10885: Turbulent MHD Flow Modeling in Annular Linear Induction Pumps with Validation Experiments | North Carolina State University | $564,520 | Researchers seek to advance EMP design efforts for liquid metal reactors by 1.) Improving MHD modeling capability, particularly near the MHD stability criteria, 2.) Advancing simulation accuracy and fidelity in the typical operating range of large electromagnetic pumps for liquid metal cooled reactors, and 3.) Constructing a low barrier EMP test loop for model validation and instruction that can be easily replicated at low cost at other facilities.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10244: Integral System Testing for Prismatic Block Core Design HTGR | Oregon State University | $799,536 | _Researchers will conduct eight new tests be completed at the HTTF investigating a range of gas reactor events including DCC, PCC, and inlet plenum buoyant plume mixing. The data from these tests will be ideal for use in the validation of safety analysis codes used in gas reactor analysis. The data may also provide valuable insight into the validation of CFD codes for gas-reactor applications._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10324: Model Calibration-Based Design Methodologies for Structural Design of Supercritical CO2 Compact Heat Exchangers under Sustained Cyclic Temperature and Pressure Gradients | Oregon State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a design method for rapid structural assessment of diffusion-bonded Hybrid Compact Heat Exchangers, used as secondary heat exchangers in coupling Sodium Fast Reactors (SFRs) with supercritical CO2 (sCO2) Brayton power cycles. The team envisions that the developed method will (1) be usable in creation of an ASME code case for structural assessment of hybrid CHX; and (2) create design tools that ensure CHX code compliance under desired load conditions.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10285: Tribological Damage Mechanisms from Experiments and Validated Simulations of Alloy 800H and Inconel 617 in a Simulated HTGR/VHTR Helium Environment | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a mechanistic understanding of accelerated fretting, wear, and bonding between Alloy 800H and Inconel 617 surfaces. In order to achieve the objectives, a series of tribological experiments will be conducted in helium environments at elevated temperature with controlled concentrations of gaseous specious, attendant microstructure characterization (using electron microscopy, spectroscopy and atom-probe tomography), and validated continuum models.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10245: An Experimental Study of Design and Performance for the Water-Based Reactor Cavity Cooling System | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will extend and enhance the experimental tests using existing water-cooled RCCS facilities. The activity will be conducted in close collaboration with the water-cooled NSTF research team and will produce a unique set of high quality experimental data for support of existing system codes, system codes under development, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10457: Experimentally Validated Computational Modeling of Creep and Creep-Cracking for Nuclear Concrete Structures | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct novel 3D concrete creep tests under controlled environmental conditions to build a 3D constitutive model for concrete typical of existing containment structures. Decades long creep will be extracted via shorter tests (years long). The material model will be used in the Grizzly structural FEM code for simulating the response of real, 3D containment structures to changes in loading. Full-scale, long-term structural tests will enable validation.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10687: Development and Integration of Light Water Reactor (LWR) Materials Corrosion Degradation Codes into Grizzly | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop powerful codes for predicting environmentally-assisted localized corrosion in the primary coolant circuits (PCCs) of Generation II BWRs and PWRs. These codes and resulting models will be embedded into GRIZZLY. This will greatly extend the applicability of GRIZZLY to components in PCCs that are susceptible to pitting corrosion, stress corrosion cracking, and corrosion fatigue and will provide the stress intensity factor solutions for the crack growth rate models._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10083: Earth Abundant High Temperature Materials for Radioisotope Power Conversion System | University of California, Davis | $400,000 | Researchers will develop breakthrough efficiencies in segmented radioisotope thermal generators (RTG) power conversion systems through high temperature materials development. The approach will also reduce reliance on single-purpose supply chains.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10630: Validation of RELAP-7 for Forced Convection and Natural Circulation Reactor Flows | University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign | $799,368 | _Researcher will aid in the development of RELAP-7 through required experimental and computational efforts. The validation of the two-phase modeling capability of RELAP-7 will be accomplished through a series of tasks which include synthesis of existing forced convective data, acquisition of natural circulation data from an existing well-scaled facility, and uncertainty quantification in constitutive modeling._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10402: RELAP-7 Application and Enhancement for FLEX Strategies and ATF Behavior under Extended Loss of AC Power Conditions | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop new thermal hydraulic models that will be implemented into RELAP-7. Simulation studies will be performed for postulated ELAP scenarios in the PB Unit 2 reactor. The overarching goal of the proposed work is to perform a simulation study using RELAP-7, to model BWR ELAP scenarios with various mitigation measures and determine the range of time available for transition to portable FLEX equipment._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10080: Quantifying Properties for a Mechanistic, Predictive Understanding of Aqueous Impact on Ageing of Medium and Low Voltage AC and DC Cabling in Nuclear Power Plants | University of Minnesota, Duluth | $800,000 | _The degradation of medium and low voltage cabling is often associated with aqueous immersion. Electrical and mechanical data will be collected to develop a mechanistic model of the degradation of cabling to dielectric breakdown based on the temperature, oxidation, water conditions, and irradiation dose. The hypothesized model begins with solvent escape paths that expand and advance from the exterior surface toward the current carrying core at a rate dependent on the environment._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10214: Online Monitoring System for Concrete Structures Affected by Alkali-Silica Reaction (ASR) | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an online health monitoring system that integrates active and passive sensor networks and advanced signal processing algorithms to monitor ASR induced degradation in concrete structures. The obtained information will support an ongoing prognostic modeling research for health diagnosis and prognosis of aging concrete structures, in order to support long-term operational and maintenance decision making.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10210: Tribological Behavior of Structural Materials in High Temperature Helium Gas-Cooled Reactor Environments | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will work to understand, quantify, and model the elevated-temperature tribological behavior of alloys 617 and 800H in helium gas in HTGR conditions. Impurities in helium can induce a variety of corrosion mechanisms in structural materials that can profoundly affect tribological behavior. This study will investigate tribological behavior in various impurity concentration regimes and surface treatments to mitigate tribological damage in these environments.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10226: Enhancement of EM Pump Performance Through Modeling and Testing | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,856 | This project is aimed at the improvement of EM pumps for advanced liquid metal cooled reactors specifically the SFR. Initial tests will be conducted in the University of Wisconsin sodium loop on an existing moving magnet pump to help in the development of the models and to look at end effects associated with this pump. Additionally, tests will be conducted at ANL on the CMI ALIP. Ultimately, a small ALIP will be developed to test the principles and models developed to improve commercial scale.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10268: Sodium Cooled Fast Reactor Key Modeling and Analysis for Commercial Deployment | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,076 | This project will look at very low Prandtl number heat transfer from both an experimental and computational approach. Researchers will then establish key models to implement in plant dynamics codes. The team will also evaluate thermal stratification in large volumes making use of novel fiber optic distributed fiber measurements to get CFD quality data. Lastly, the team will evaluate some of the key remaining safety issues associated with the eventual commercialization of the sodium fast reactor.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10647: Experimental and Modeling Investigation of Overcooling Transients that Include Freezing, in Fluoride-Salt Cooled High-Temperature Reactors (FHRs) | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will make recommendations for design features of salt-reactor components that would take advantage of the phenomena characteristic to fluoride salts in order to be resilient to overcooling, and to recover gracefully from over-cooling transients. In support of this task a MOOSE-based computational tool will be developed, capable of modeling liquid-solid phase change, backed by experimental studies with the prototypical (flibe) coolant, and with simulant fluids.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10509: CFD and System Code Benchmark Data for Plenum-to-Plenum Flow Under Natural, Mixed and Forced Circulation Conditions | Utah State University | $800,000 | Researchers will generate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) validation data for forced, mixed, and natural convection through a parallel-path geometry relevant to gas reactor bypass flow. In addition, the team will independently build and validate CFD models based on the experimental results. The team has the experience and existing infrastructure for sharing complete validation datasets.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 17-12628: Effects of Mineral Impurities and Heat on Uranium(VI) Sorption onto Bentonite | California State University, East Bay | $785,714 | Mineral impurities are common in bentonite and clay buffer materials, proposed for many nuclear waste disposal options. Researchers will investigate the effects of calcite impurities on uranium(VI) sorption onto montmorillonite before and after mineral exposure to heat. Based on experimental sorption data and EXAFS analysis we will develop a new surface complexation model to determine under which conditions impurity effects are relevant, and how they can be incorporated in performance assessment models. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12798: Nanostructured Ceramic Membranes for Enhanced Tritium Management | Clemson University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a ceramic membrane technology for tritium separation and recovery to support the nuclear fuel cycle. Low-temperature water adsorption properties of nanoscale structured ceramics, combined with demonstrated hydrogen isotope exchange in their hydrated layers provide a low cost and unique avenue to address tritium management challenges. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12647: Determination of Critical Heat Flux and Leidenfrost Temperature on Candidate Accident Tolerant Fuel Materials | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $799,906 | Researchers will characterize the thermal-hydraulics behavior of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) materials by measuring critical heat flux (CHF) under normal and off-normal light water reactor conditions, and Leidenfrost temperature in post-loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) conditions. This work will yield material-specific models and/or correlations that can be readily implemented in state-of-the-art simulation tools. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13011: Gamma-ray Computed and Emission Tomography for Pool-Side Fuel Characterization | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,317 | Researchers will design, build, test and install a submersible tomography platform for performing pool-side physical, structural, and chemical characterization of irradiated fuel elements for test reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12496: Group Actinide Separation by Crystallization: A Single-Technology Approach to Used Nuclear Fuel Recycle | Texas A&M University | $399,857 | Researchers will explore bulk removal of U, Np, Pu and Am, from used nuclear fuel by studying the mechanisms of removal. A co-crystallization of the hexavalent actinides with U(VI) has already been demonstrated and researchers plan to develop a process based around this approach. Removal of these elements would be advantageous for future nuclear fuel recycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12824: Methods for Process Monitoring to Accurately Detect and Quantify Material Holdup in Advanced Recycle Facilities | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop better modeling methods, detectors, and facility design approaches to enable detection of inadvertent and deliberate hold up of fissile material in reprocessing and other nuclear material bulk handling facilities. The team will integrate results from this research project into a design methodology for future facilities to ensure accurate and reliable process monitoring for sustainable operation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12782: Effects of alpha and gamma radiation on complex and metal loaded solvents for advanced solvent extraction processes | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | This project will investigate the alpha and gamma radiolysis-induced chemical degradation of ligands used for the removal of minor actinides from used nuclear fuel in advanced extraction systems such as ALSEP. Researchers will emphasize organic phase degradation, particularly complex solvents with multiple ligands as well as metal loaded solvents. The project will improve predictive capabilities of extraction processes by elucidating degradation pathways. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12757: Elucidation of Electrochemical Behavior of Technetium, Tellurium, and Iodine in Molten Salt Solutions. | University of Idaho | $796,741 | This project will evaluate the electrochemical speciation behavior of iodide, and telluride in LiCl-KCl eutectic, LiCl, and LiCl + Li2O electrolytes at temperatures relevant to reprocessing conditions. By using rhenium as surrogate for technetium, the electrochemical, and chemical speciation properties of rhenium ions will be investigated in chloride molten salts with the addition of molybdenum and ruthenium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12701: Development and Experimental Benchmark of Computational Models to Predict Cladding Temperature and Vapor Removal from UNF Canisters during Drying Operations | University of Nevada, Reno | $400,000 | Researchers will develop physics-based computational tools to predict used nuclear fuel cladding temperatures within, and water vapor removal rates from, canisters during existing and proposed drying processes. The project will explore a range of gas pressures (including rarefication), and steady and unsteady external gas flows rates. The tools will be used to develop drying processes that minimize drying time while maintaining cladding temperatures. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12688: An Experimental and Analytical Investigation into Critical Heat Flux (CHF) Implications for Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF) Concepts | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a holistic best estimate assessment of the potential impact of different ATF cladding materials with regards to heat transfer characteristics, the boiling curve, critical heat flux, fuel mass/volume/specific power density, and neutronics effects due to changes in the lattice design or parasitic neutron absorption during design basis accident conditions in light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12996: Multipurpose, Radiation- and Temperature-Resistant Semiconductor Radiation Detectors for Advanced Process Monitoring and Nuclear Safeguards | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop detection systems capable of neutron, gamma-ray, x-ray, and alpha monitoring in high-temperature and high radiation environments for extended periods of time. The detectors will be used to strengthen nuclear safeguards by enhancing nuclear material control and accounting in nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13125: The Thermodynamics of Crystallization and Phase-Separation in Melt-Derived Nuclear Waste Forms | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This projects will study the thermodynamics of melt and quench phases of nuclear waste glasses and glass ceramics and link this information to the underlying short-range and medium-range structure. Advanced calorimetric techniques and neutron total scattering with pair distribution function analysis will be applied to obtain these data. Computer simulations will complement the experimental effort. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12886: Identifying, Predicting and Preventing Localized Corrosion in Kr-85 Storage Canisters | University of Virginia | $799,000 | Researchers will determine the root cause of corrosion within Kr-85 storage canisters in order to better understand current corrosion rates. The project will focus on expanding available research on Rb corrosion interactions and other contributing factors to better understand the corrosion phenomenon in current steel canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12463: Extreme Performance High Entropy Alloys (HEAs) Cladding for Fast Reactor Applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will develop extreme performance high entropy alloys (HEAs) as for new metal alloy cladding for fast reactor applications. Two very promising, single solution BCC HEAs will be investigated. The project will deliver an extensive irradiation resistance study of a new promising yet unexplored cladding concept. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12549: Critical Heat Flux Studies for Innovative Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding Surfaces | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will study critical heat flux (CHF) behavior focused on innovative accident tolerant fuel (ATF) cladding. The project includes separate effects screening tests to measure CHF for various ATF clad materials and surface characteristics with measurements of surface wettability. Pressurized flow boiling experiments will simulate prototypical reactor conditions for evaluating the best ATF clad materials coupled with CHF modeling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13019: Evaluation of Accident Tolerant Fuels Surface Characteristics in Critical Heat Flux Performance | Virginia Commonwealth University | $800,000 | Researchers will perform separate-effects and system-wide tests of the AREVA and GE accident tolerant fuel concepts currently under consideration. The project will investigate the impact of cladding surface characteristics in critical heat flux (CHF) under normal and anticipated off-normal conditions. The experimental results will be used to develop and validate enhanced models for the prediction of CHF and will be implemented in various subchannel and system analysis codes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13054: Simulated Used Nuclear Fuel Dissolution as a Function of Fuel Chemistry and Near Field Conditions | Washington State University | $800,000 | Researchers will study the effects of simulated used nuclear fuel (UNF) chemistry and microstructure on its dissolution in geologic repository conditions. The results will advance models for UNF evolution in repository conditions, enabling reliable prediction of degradation and long-term performance of used nuclear fuel for up to one million years. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12506: Development of Reactor Physics Benchmark Evaluations for Power Burst Facility Experiments | University of Florida | $398,265 | Researchers will perform reactor physics benchmark evaluations of Power Burst Facility experiments regarding differential reactivity worth of the control and transient rods, shim rod worth, in-pile-tube reactivity worth, shutdown reactivity, fuel assembly reactivity worth, core void coefficients of reactivity, in-pile-tube void coefficient, and coolant temperature coefficient of reactivity. The results will be incorporated in the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP). | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12748: Combined modeling and experiments to predict corrosion and embrittlement in dual-phase stainless steels within the MARMOT framework | Oregon State University | $800,000 | Researchers will enhance MARMOT to predict mechanical and corrosion properties of dual-phase stainless steels as a function of composition, aging time and temperature by using combined experimental data and lower length scale models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12797: In-Situ Ion Irradiation to Add Irradiation Assisted Grain Growth to the MARMOT Tool | Pennsylvania State University | $500,000 | Researchers will add the capability to model irradiation assisted grain growth to the MARMOT tool by using in-situ ion irradiation of UO2 to quantify the effect of irradiation on grain growth. The team will investigate the hypothesis that irradiation assisted grain growth is caused by thermal spikes resulting from atom collisions. The model added to MARMOT will couple the existing grain growth model to a heat conduction simulation using a stochastic heat source describing the thermal spike. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12555: Integration of high-fidelity Monte Carlo and deterministic transport codes into Workbench | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | Researchers will provide end users an ability to run both MCNP6 and PROTEUS codes from a common user input in Workbench by (1) templating user-provided engineering scale specifications to code-specific input requirements, (2) enabling multi-fidelity analysis of a system from a common input using MCNP6 and PROTEUS and (3) allowing the easy use of high-fidelity simulations to inform lower-order models for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems and experiments. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12939: Expansion of BISON Capabilities to Predict the Dynamic Response of Irradiated Fuel Rods | University of New Hampshire | $800,000 | Researchers will expand the capabilities of BISON and MOOSE to simulate the structural dynamic response of fuel rods and fuel assemblies during handling (wet and dry storage) and transportation. Expanding the capabilities of BISON and MOOSE to facilitate the evaluation of the dynamic response of fuel rods and assemblies is important to conduct a more reliable risk assessment of fuel assemblies, as well as storage and transportation casks. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13179: Implementation and Validation of Advanced Turbulence Modeling Methods for Liquid Metal Flow in Nek5000 | University of Oklahoma | $786,648 | Researchers will implement and validate state-of-the-art turbulence modeling techniques in Nek5000 to improve predition of liquid metal flows. Specific methods to be investigated include: variable PrT and algebraic heat flux models (AHFM) for URANS simulation; partially-averaged Navier-Stokes (PANS) and dynamic hybrid RANS-LES (DHRL) for hybrid RANS-LES simulation; and variable PrT subgrid heat flux modeling for LES. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12848: Development of Information Trustworthiness and Integrity Algorithms for Cybersecurity Defenses of Nuclear Power Reactors | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a first-of-a-kind physics-based defense-in-depth strategy to defend against false data injection attacks which attempt to change the information used by the I/C network to set reactor state. The approach employs a new design philosophy to check for information trustworthiness/integrity in order to determine whether the information is genuinely generated during the actual operation of the nuclear unit under either normal or off-normal conditions. | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cybersecurity | |
| NEUP Project 17-12538: Influence of dissolved salts and impurities in seawater on heat transfer degradation and fluid flow through fuel channels debris bed | Kansas State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate the role of raw water on degraded heat transfer and fluid flow in the reactor core and debris bed. X-ray imaging techniques, optical-fiber high speed temperature sensing systems and radioactive tracer salts will be used to simultaneously measure experimental data on void fraction, temperature and salt deposition rate. This data will be used to obtain correlations for heat transfer and fluid flow in case of raw water injection. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12502: High Resolution Temperature and Flow Measurements in Wire-Wrapped Fuel Assemblies | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will produce high-quality, high spatial and temporal resolution temperature and flow datasets for wire-wrapped rod bundle geometries. Different bundle sizes, configurations (including duct's and pin's deformation) and Low-Prandlt fluids will be investigated. A unique set of data will be produced to support advanced CFD tools validation, including Nek5000. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12723: Integrating Static PRA Information with RISMC Simulation Methods | The Ohio State University | $799,985 | Researchers will develop a computationally feasible and user friendly process to augment the traditional probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) results with improved representation of epistemic uncertainties and process/hardware/software/human interactions at plant level applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12664: Methods to Predict Thermal Radiation and to Design Scaled Separate and Integral Effects Testing For Molten Salt Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology for the design of molten salt reactor (MSR) Separate Effect Test and Integral Effect Test experiments. This methodology will identify and quantify sources of scaling distortion including radiative heat transport. The project would improve code performance and assist FHR/MSR vendors who are making licensing applications based on code results. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12523: Experimental and Computational Studies of Stress Corrosion Cracking of Alloys 308/309 and 82/182 Weldments in Corrosive and Radiation Environment | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will use advanced microanalytical analysis techniques to study SCC and IASCC of stainless steel and Ni-Cr alloy weldments. CERT, autoclave immersion, and ion irradiation will be used to determine synergistic effect of LWR environmental factors. Results from the experimental component of the proposed work scope will be used for enhanced predictive capability of the INL Grizzly code via XFEM. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12614: Systematic Enterprise Risk Management by Integrating the RISMC Toolkit and Cost-Benefit Analysis | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $799,998 | Researchers will develop a systematic Enterprise Risk Management framework, which utilizes Decision Tree (DT) logic to consider high-level production-loss scenarios, and their underlying physical and social causes throughout the lifecycle. In the proposed DT, uncertainty nodes will be quantified by plant-specific risk analysis using the Risk-Informed Safety Margin Characterization (RISMC) Toolkit, and cost-benefit analysis will be conducted for end states reflecting consequences of managerial decision-making. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12972: Design of a Commercial-Scale, Fluoride-Salt-Cooled, High-Temperature Reactor With Novel Refueling and Decay Heat Removal Capabilities | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $400,000 | Researchers will combine fluoride-salt-cooled, high temperature reactors (FHR) with advanced gas reactor (AGR) refueling technology to address several significant challenges that remain in the development of FHR technology. The project will adapt AGR refueling technology by using the new fuel-inside-radial-moderator fuel form, which will also introduce new ways of dealing with decay heat. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13115: Experimental Determination of Helium/air Mixing in Helium Cooled Reactor | University of Michigan | $800,000 | Researchers will examine the effects of coolant leakage and air ingress through three different investigations. The overall objective of this work is to characterize near and far field behavior of Helium/Air mixing in containment, and to determine rates and amounts of air leaked back into the reactor after a depressurization event. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12830: Radioisotope Retention in Graphite and Graphitic Materials | University of Missouri, Columbia | $800,000 | Researchers will use a variety of experimental techniques to acquire data for fission product diffusion, transport and adsorption of fission products in various graphites, relating to nuclear reactors at high temperatures. Measurements will be taken using non-irradiated graphite using fission product surrogates. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13020: Bimetallic Composite (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) Development and Compatibility in Flowing FLiBe as a Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) Structural Material | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a new bimetallic alloy (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) structural material for the MSR, and compare its post-exposure mechanical performance in flowing FLiBe with single alloys SS 316, Hastelloy N, and Incoloy 800H, in the context of ASME codification. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12678: Novel NDE Sensors, Waveforms, Models, and Algorithms for Cable Health Monitoring | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop NDE sensors and probabilistic cable insulation diagnosis and prognosis algorithms (particle filtering), and modeling and experiments to monitor cable insulation health. Two different types of sensor will be deployed to detect insulation damage. The team will also develop cable insulation degradation modeling to further understand defects in cable insulation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13080: Multiscale Investigation of SiC/SiC Composite Degradation in Helium Coolant Operating Environment | University of Virginia | $800,000 | Researchers will study the long-term degradation mechanisms of SiC/SiC composites in helium coolant environments by slow crack growth (SCG). This will be achieved through multiscale testing in hot, O2-contaminated He and evaluation of the effect of SCG on hermeticity during in situ testing. Results will be extended to predictive low-level and component-scale SCG models and integrated into the development of ASME standards for use of SiC/SiC in nuclear reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12481: Supercritical CO2 power cycle for space applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will develop an advanced supercritical Brayton power cycle directly coupled to a fission reactor. The project will carry out a comprehensive optimization of the cycle operating conditions, working fluid, and configuration; develop detailed designs of each subcomponent; and demonstrate/develop critical technologies such as turbomachinery seals and bearings, reactor material corrosion and strength demonstrations, and supercritical heat transfer. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13232: Radiative Heat Transport and Optical Characterization of High Temperature Molten Salts | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | The goal of the proposed research is to experimentally investigate radiation heat transport in molten salts, and to add functionality for radiative heat transport in a thermal-hydraulics system code. This includes obtaining highly resolved measurements of the optical absorption and emissivity of liquid salts. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 18-15345: Multiphysics Degradation Processes, and Their Mitigation, in Engineered and Geological Bariers: Experiments and Simulation | Duke University | $800,000.00 | This project will focus on filling the gaps in understanding of mechanisms of a series of degradation processes (thermal, hydric, geo-chemical, and transport processes phenomena) potentially affecting geo-materials used in repositories. The objectives of the work are to better recognize the conditions leading to preferential paths of radionuclide transport and rock weakening, and to build mathematical models and implement them into existing codes to predict material degradation and develop strategies to reduce the adverse consequences. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15043: Integration of Nuclear Material Accounting Data and Process Monitoring Data for Improvement on Detection Probability in Safeguarding Electrochemical Processing Facilities | Oregon State University | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to further studies on fusion of process monitoring (PM) data and nuclear material accounting (NMA) data. PM data, which includes monitoring by various types of equipment (radiation detectors, cameras, voltage, current sensors), can supplement NMA data to help improve safeguards. For aqueous-based reprocessing facilities, it is reported that PM, integrated with traditional NMA, has a high-detection probability for specific diversions. For electrochemical reprocessing, preliminary studies have shown that PM data can support traditional NMA by providing a basis to estimate some of the in-processing nuclear material inventories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15148: Recovery of Rare-Earth Elements (Nd, Gd, Sm) in Oxide Wasteform Using Liquid Metals (Bi, Sn) | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000.00 | This project investigates a new approach for recovering rare-earth (RE) fission products (Nd, Gd, and Sm) from molten chlorine salts using liquid metal (Bi and Sn) electrodes. The research aids molten salt recycling by converting the RE products into chloride-free RE oxides, which could be incorporated into conventional glass/ceramic waste forms. Successful outcomes of the project include advanced separation of fission products from molten salts with better control of chemical selectivity and high-recovery yield. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15103: Microstructure-Based Benchmarking for Nano/Microscale Tension and Ductility Testing of Irradiated Steels | Purdue University | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to standardize methods for nano/micro-scale tensile and ductility testing of irradiated Fe-Cr steels, through microstructure-based benchmarking. The study will investigate key process parameters for TEM in situ tension and ductility testing. Coupling experimental studies with multiscale models, the research will identify the approaches that provide consistent deformation mechanisms between the nano/micro-scale and macro-scale tests, from which standard practices will be obtained. The primary project outcome will be a set of recommended guidelines for nano/microscale mechanical testing, which will lead to unprecedented reductions in the time and cost for qualifying materials for in-reactor service and to ensure consistency of methods and validity of results. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15559: Cold Spray Repair & Mitigation of Stress Corrosion Cracks in Spent Nuclear Fuel Dry Storage Canisters | Purdue University | $799,982.00 | This goal of this project is to demonstrate cold spray repair and mitigation of chloride-induced stress corrosion cracks (SCC) and pits in stainless steel dry storage canisters. The research will optimize the repair process and gain a scientifically informed understanding of SCC mechanisms. The outcome is to further develop cold spray as an attractive solution for the repair of existing SCC and mitigation of potential SCC necessary to ensure long-term integrity, security, and regulatory compliance of spent nuclear fuel storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15596: Capture of Organic Iodides from Vessel Off-Gas Streams | Syracuse University | $799,548.00 | This project will study the capture of radioactive organoiodides from off-gas streams produced during nuclear fuel reprocessing by conducting adsorption experiments using a selected silver adsorbents. Multifaceted simulation adsorption models will be developed to assist in the design of necessary capture systems for off-gas streams. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15585: Impact of Coupled Gas Migration and Thermo-hydro-mechanical Processes on the Performance of Repositories for High Level Nuclear Waste | Texas A&M University | $608,375.00 | The main goal of this project is to better understand the possible effect of gas migration (particularly through discontinuities) on the performance and long-term behavior of engineered barrier systems (EBS) envisaged for the isolation of high-level radioactive waste (HLW). Specific outcomes of this study will be an improved understanding of the role of gas migration and discontinuities in the performance of HLW disposals, with the underlying aim to improve design of EBS used for HLW. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15531: Repair and Mitigation of Chloride-Induced Pitting and Chloride-Induced Stress Corrosion Cracking in Used Nuclear Fuel Dry Cask Canister Materials | The Ohio State University | $800,000.00 | This project will evaluate and develop a set of tools to repair and mitigate chloride-induced pitting and stress corrosion cracking in stainless steel nuclear fuel canisters. Advanced processes, including low temperature friction stir welding and cold spray deposition, will be evaluated according to various criteria, such as corrosion performance. In addition, technologies that have not yet been evaluated for UNF applications, including vaporizing foil actuator welding and soldering will be assessed. The two most promising technologies will selected for further development and comprehensive study. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14912: Bridging the Length Scales on Mechanical Property Evaluation | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000.00 | This project combines experimental and modeling methods to gain a comprehensive approach for addressing scaling effects on small-scale mechanical testing. Multiscale experiments, together with modeling on reactor-relevant and model alloys, will provide better understanding of appropriate scaling relationships. The study aims to gain fundamental understanding of plasticity interactions with specific strength-determining features, such as precipitates and grain boundaries. The goal of this work is to provide the basis to add small-scale mechanical testing in the toolbox for nuclear materials research. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14911: Understanding of degradation of SiC/SiC materials in nuclear systems and development of mitigation strategies | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000.00 | This project investigates the best possible coatings to prevent SiCf/SiCm corrosion in LWR environments. The research features a computational and experimental rapid screening approach for numerous coating compositions. The work includes autoclave exposure of rapid screening coupons in prototypical environments in combination with thermodynamic modeling (CALPHAD) and Finite Element Methods (FEM). Small-scale mechanical testing, together with thermal cycling and FEM modeling, will provide guidance on the ideal coating system design. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15701: Time-dependent THMC Properties and Microstructural Evolution of Damage Rocks in Excavation Damage Zone | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,978.00 | The proposed project focuses on the geomechanical aspects of modeling by addressing the time-dependent evolution of rock microstructure and its coupling with the THC processes that are of first-order importance to the stability and the isolation performance of repositories. The research will delineate an integrated experimental, theoretical and numerical strategy in assessing the evolution EDZ over time and its implication on the long-term migration of hazardous species. These results will enhance the confidence of the predicted long-term performance of repositories, which helps to move forward the goal of one-million-year isolation of high-level nuclear wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15381: Multiaxial Failure Envelopes and Uncertainty Quantification of Nuclear-Grade SiCf/SiC Woven Ceramic Matrix Tubular Composites | University of Florida | $800,000.00 | This project proposes to develop a comprehensive experimental and computational approach for determining constitutive relations and multiaxial failure envelopes of nuclear-grade continuous silicon fiber (SiCf) and SiC matrix woven tubular composites. The result of this work can be adopted in industry for design refinement, optimization of performance under the desired operating conditions, and reliable prediction of failure under unforeseen accidental scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15496: Formation of Zeolites Responsible for Waste Glass Rate Acceleration: An Experimental and Computational Study for Understanding Thermodynamic and Kinetic Processes | University of Houston | $800,000.00 | Through experimental and computational studies, this project will expose the factors governing zeolite crystallization and their role in Stage III dissolution of radionuclide-containing glass waste forms generated in advanced nuclear fuel cycles. The overall goal of this project is to understand the formation of zeolite phases in order to develop process control methods to suppress Stage III dissolution. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14998: Novel Processes for Capture of Radioactive Iodine Species from Vessel Off-Gas Streams | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the sorption system performance and effectiveness for capture of radioiodine species present in the off-gas streams from the used nuclear fuel (UNF) recycling operations, focusing particularly on the organic iodine species. The dynamic sorption experimentation and theoretical modeling will offer fundamental insights on the mechanism enabling the design and prediction the control system performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15261: Friction Stir Based Repair Welding of Dry Storage Canisters and Mitigation Strategies: Effect of Engineered Barrier Layer on Environmental Degradation | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The project goal is to apply friction stir based repair and mitigation technique for eliminating failure associated with pitting and stress corrosion cracking in dry storage canisters for spent fuels. The goal of these activities is to obtain a fundamental understanding of the processing-structure-properties correlations. This work will contribute to the development of a crack repair/mitigation strategy based on friction stir technology that can be efficiently implemented for spent fuel dry storage casks, which will enhance safety and reliability of these systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15263: X-ray Studies of Interfacial Molecular Complexes in ALSEP Back-Extraction | University of Illinois at Chicago | $800,000.00 | This project will use synchrotron X-rays to characterize the interfacial molecular complexes (of extractants and radiologically derived impurities, complexants, buffers, and metal ions) formed during the Actinide-Lanthanide Separation Process (ALSEP) back-extraction. This work addresses the critical knowledge gap of slow stripping kinetics in ALSEP, as well as the influence of radiolytic degradation products. The outcome of the project will be a molecular-level understanding of the role of different components in the interfacial mechanism of back-extraction in the ALSEP process, therefore leading to development of more efficient and faster metal stripping relevant to the separation of actinides from lanthanides in the nuclear fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15030: Mechanistic Understanding of Radiolytically Assisted Hydrothermal Corrosion of SiC in LWR Coolant Environments | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to develop a mechanistic understanding of the hydrothermal corrosion behavior of monolithic SiC and SiC/SiC composites in LWR environment under the influence of water radiolysis products and radiation damage. Complementary atomistic simulations will be carried out to determine the rate controlling mechanisms for dissolution under different water chemistries and in the presence of radiation. Activation energies and kinetic rates will be calculated directly from these simulations and compared to experimentally fitted values. The dissolution rate constants determined and validated in this integrated experimental and modeling approach will allow predictions of long-term SiC corrosion behavior. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14999: Probabilistic Failure Criterion of SiC/SiC Composites Under Multi-Axial Loading | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $800,000.00 | This project aims to develop a probabilistic failure criterion of SiC/SiC composites under multi-axial loading and to incorporate the criterion into a reliability analysis of the structural integrity of LWR SiC/SiC fuel cladding. This research will be anchored by a seamless integration of novel experimental and analytical tools, which will lead to a robust methodology for dependable analysis of SiC/SiC composite structures for LWR fuel cladding, as well as other nuclear applications. The resulting model will be experimentally validated and applied to analyze the reliability of LWR SiC/SiC fuel cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15502: Reducing Uncertainty in Radionuclide Transport Prediction Using Multiple Environmental Tracers | University of Montana | $724,906.00 | In this project, direct modeling of multiple environmental tracers will be used to improve predictions of radionuclide transport in a shallow alluvial aquifer discharge. The research will take advantage of recent theoretical developments considering the use of environmental tracers, and advances in high-performance reactive flow and transport models, to obtain the maximum information on the transport system. The goal is to develop a new methodology to characterize natural reactive flow and transport systems, reduce predictive uncertainty in radionuclide transport simulations, determine the maximum information content of the tracer suite, and optimize future groundwater characterization efforts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15578: Computational and Experimental Investigation of Thermal-Mechanical- Chemical Mechanisms of High-burnup Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) Processes at Elevated Temperatures and Degradation Behavior in Geologic Repositories | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $800,000.00 | The overarching goal of this project is to use combined computational and experimental research and development activities to enhance understanding of the mechanisms and thermal-mechanical-chemical (TMC) parameters controlling the instant release fraction (IRF) and matrix dissolution of high-burnup (HB; burnup > 45 GWd/MTU) spent nuclear fuels (SNFs) and the subsequent formation, stability, and phase transformations of HB SNF alteration products under long-term storage and geological disposal conditions (e.g., high-temperature storage, _-radiolysis). The results of this research will be used to enhance the mechanistic detail of process models to reduce uncertainty in, and improve the technical bases of, safety cases and performance assessment analyses. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15439: Radiolytic Dissolution Rate of Silicon Carbide | University of Notre Dame | $400,000.00 | This project seeks to develop a matrix of dissolution rates for high-purity SiC material, using intense electron beam irradiation, and to measure the products of dissolution (silicic acid and CO2 (or CO)) in the water downstream of the irradiation zone. The objective is to determine the rate of SiC dissolution and gather sufficient insight about its mechanism in LWRs, so that the use of SiC/SiC composite materials for accident tolerant fuel cladding can proceed with confidence. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15061: Development of an MC&A Toolbox for Liquid-fueled Molten Salt Reactors with Online Reprocessing | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,207.00 | The purpose of this project is to develop a toolbox of swappable mass flow modules for liquid-fueled molten salt reactor (MSR) systems for the purposes of evaluating material control & accountancy measurement techniques. When combined together, these modules enable modeling of the time-dependent mass flows for a variety of MSR variants. The test platform will consist of a toolbox of independent process modules representing discrete physical units, each with its own self-contained physics responsive to the input mass flow, along with appropriate measurement models that can be coupled to key flow points. These dynamic physical signatures would allow testing of the viability and efficacy of potential accountancy techniques under the full range of reactor operating conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15307: A Novel and Flexible Approach for Converting LWR UNF Fuel Into Forms That Can Be Used to Fuel a Variety of Gen-IV Reactors | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $400,000.00 | This project will investigate the chemical decladding and the digestion of whole MOX-based fuel rods, using thionyl chloride and surrogate materials. Digesting entire LWR fuel assemblies results in product streams that include pure decontaminated ZrCl4; pure UCl4; and a stream containing TRU/FPs, as well as alloying metals (as chloride salts). The objectives of this project are to provide a new, highly efficient protocol for the transformation of used nuclear fuel into useful components and to effectively contain a concentrated stream of highly radioactive materials for appropriate handling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15459: Reduced Diffusion and Enhanced Retention of Multiple Radionuclides from Pore Structure Studies of Barrier Materials for Enhanced Repository Performance | University of Texas at Arlington | $567,831.00 | The project seeks to better understand and quantify the pore structure (geometry and topology) and pore connectivity of porous media and its emergent effect on diffusion and retention of various radionuclides in barrier materials. The anticipated outcome of the project will be to more accurately evaluate the performance of geological repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15649: Benchmarking Microscale Ductility Measurements | University of Utah | $776,669.00 | The objectives of this project are to establish best practices for obtaining tensile microscale ductility measurements and to validate methodologies for comparing them to macroscale ductility measurements. Anticipated outcomes of the project are: 1) measurement of grain and sub-grain localization processes micro and macroscales; 2) establishment of best practices for microtensile experimentation; 3) identification of statistically significant relationships between specimen geometry, microstructure variables and mechanical behavior; 4) modified phenomenological elongation-based ductility models to enable direct upscaling of ductility measurements from microscale to macroscopic. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15003: Advanced Coating and Surface Modification Technologies for SiC-SiC Composite for Hydrothermal Corrosion Protection in LWR | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,990.00 | This project focuses on the development of coatings and surface modification approaches for hydrothermal corrosion protection of SiC-SiC composite in normal LWR operation environments. Innovative surface treatment recipes will be explored using processes including, interfacial stitching to improve adhesion, multi-layered structures to improve ductility, and compositions and structures resulting from thermal treatments. The surface treatment concepts involve corrosion resistant metallic and ceramic materials, and are amenable to industrial scalability for the cladding application. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15332: Low-Force Solid-State Technologies for Mitigation of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dry Storage Canisters | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000.00 | This project will focus on evaluating and developing two technologies used for field mitigation and repair of stress corrosion cracking (SCC): 1) additive friction stir welding; and 2) cold spray deposition. The work involves developing low-force, low-heat input solid state technologies to lessen and repair SCC in stainless steel canisters for used nuclear fuel (UNF). This outcome of the study will inform feasibility of using the two technologies to conduct on-site field repairs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14913: The Role of Temperature on Non-Darcian Flows in Engineered Clay Barriers | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000.00 | This project intends to accomplish three tasks: 1) to develop a predictive model to facilitate experimental data interpretation and provide mechanistic insights into the role of temperature on non-Darcian flows in low-permeability engineered clay barriers; 2) conduct experiments to unravel the role of temperature on the threshold gradient of non-Darcian flow in both saturated and unsaturated bentonite; and 3) use molecular dynamics (MD) simulation to improve fundamental understanding. The experimental data, associated with the MD simulation, will provide valuable information to improve fundamental understanding and scientific knowledge with respect to the temperature dependence of threshold gradient in non-Darcian flows, because very limited experimental data for saturated flow and no experimental data for unsaturated flow are available. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14815: C-SiOC-SiC Coated Particle Fuels for Advanced Nuclear Reactors | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $400,000.00 | This project will study a new concept for nuclear fuel encapsulation using an amorphous SiOC plus carbon system as the inner coating and nanocrystalline SiC plus minor carbon as the outer coating for nuclear fuel kernel particles. The outcomes of this work are: 1) new directions and possible replacement guidance for current nuclear fuel materials in operation; 2) new fuel materials for future nuclear reactor material design and development; 3) nuclear composite microstructure evolution and performance degradation understanding; 4) screening tools to guide future nuclear fuel material activities; and 5) mechanisms of nuclear fuel material evolution and degradation and effective strategies to mitigate/reduce undesirable fuel behaviors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15226: An Evaluated, Transient Experiment based on Simultaneous, 3-D Neutron-Flux and Temperature Measurements | Kansas State University | $399,972.00 | This project will evaluate existing and near-term experimental data for inclusion in the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) handbook. The data to be evaluated include compositions from a recent fuel replacement as part of an LEU conversion, a number of critical, fresh-fuel configurations, fuel temperature measurements at fresh-fuel configurations, and records from nearly a decade of operation. The proposed work would lead to a first-of-a-kind evaluation of transient, spatially-dependent reaction rates. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project CFA-18-15773: Evaluation of the Thermal Scattering Law for Advanced Reactor Neutron Moderators and Reflectors | North Carolina State University | $398,821.00 | The objective of this project is to narrow the nuclear data gap for advanced nuclear reactors that are driven by thermal neutrons. This includes concepts such as gas-cooled high-temperature reactors and molten salt or salt-cooled high temperature reactors. The generated data TSL libraries will be provided in EDNF File 7 format to the National Nuclear Data Center (NDDC) to immediately include in beta releases of the ENDF/B libraries and to consider for the future release of ENDF/B-VIII.1. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15602: Modeling and Experimental Verification of Thermal Energy Storage Systems to Enable Load Following Capability for Nuclear Reactors | University of Idaho | $761,640.00 | This project purposes to integrate new thermal energy storage (TES) models, developed in Modelica, with ongoing nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (NRHES) modeling efforts, in order to evaluate economic potential and advantages of new process designs over baseload electricity production. The computational phase of this project includes developing mathematical and physics-based TES models, which could later be translated to Modelica and integrated with existing NRHES components. The testing and optimization would be conducted using RAVEN. A techno-economic analysis will be performed to evaluate the compatibility of the newly formed integration, as well as to quantify its feasibility and economic benefits. The experimental aspect is focused on the development of scaled TES systems, which serve as verification for the Modelica models and allow system testing upon being integrated with DETAIL. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14963: Development of Nuclear Hybrid Energy Systems: Temperature Amplification through Chemical Heat Pumps for Industrial Applications | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The overall goal of this project is to develop and demonstrate, through modeling and experimental investigations, temperature amplification capabilities of a chemical heat pump (CHP) system that can be coupled to a conventional light water reactor or a near-term small modular reactor. The outcomes would include nuclear hybrid energy system architecture containing a CHP, experimental data on the CHP performance, and dynamic model of the system, validated through experimentation, which could be used for scale-up and design. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15008: Development of Thermal Inelastic Scattering Covariance Data Capabilities with Demonstration of Light Water Evaluation | University of Michigan | $400,000.00 | The goal of this project is to produce a format for covariance data for inelastic thermal neutron scattering data for moderators in the ENDF format. To demonstrate the viability of this new format, an evaluation of the covariance data for thermal scattering in light water in this format will be produced, along with the capabilities to generate the files and test their efficacy. A capability for calculating sensitivity coefficients using multigroup methods to the fundamental physics parameters governing light-water scattering will be developed to facilitate identifying nuclear data needs related to thermal scattering. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15056: Model-Based Diagnostics and Mitigation of Cyber Threats | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | This project intends to develop a toolkit for modeling digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems for nuclear power plants so that the consequences of cyber-attacks on I&C systems may conveniently be modeled using nuclear plant simulation software. The results of the toolkit-based models, the corresponding responses, and the performance of the diagnostic schemes will be tested on a virtual control room driven by a plant simulator. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15055: NICSim: Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Simulation for Evaluating Response to Cyber-attacks | University of New Mexico | $799,945.00 | The objective of the project is to develop a Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Simulation (NICSim) platform with a novel emulytics capability to simulate control systems and components in nuclear power plants. The outcome of this work would be a first-in-class emulytics platform with an associated documentation and library of physical models of components that could be used by analysts and designers to assess the resilience and cybersecurity risks of different control system designs for a wide range of power plants. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15324: Validation of Pressure Relaxation Coefficient in RELAP-7 Seven-Equation Model | George Washington University | $800,000.00 | This project aims to validate the Seven-Equation model in RELAP-7 by: 1) measuring velocity and pressure in each phase and the interface as well as return to equilibrium in fast transients with high-speed non-intrusive laser diagnostics in canonical experiments; 2) complementing experimental data with a multiscale computational approach, including a 3D proprietary direct numerical solver; and 3) validating RELAP-7 with a combination of experimental data and first-principle simulations. This combination would provide unique and complete datasets to validate RELAP-7 with high confidence and offer a new class of experimental and numerical tools. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project CFA-18-15104: Demonstration of Utilization of High-fidelity NEAMS Tools to Inform the Improved Use of Conventional Tools within the NEAMS Workbench on the NEA/OECD C5G7-TD Benchmark | North Carolina State University | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to demonstrate the utilization of high-fidelity Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) tools (PROTEUS, Nek5000, and BISON) to inform the improved use of conventional tools (DIF-3D, CTF, and CTFFuel) within the NEAMS Workbench on the NEA/OECD C5G7-TD benchmark. This would result in more accurate predictions of safety parameters and margins, which is important for both safety and performance improvements of the nuclear power plants being currently operated and built. The developed Workbench-based framework will also assist end users to apply high-fidelity simulations to inform lower-order models for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14741: Demonstration of a Methodology for Direct Validation of MARMOT Irradiation-Induced Microstructural Evolution and Physical Property Models Using U-10Zr | Texas A&M University | $500,000.00 | The objective of this project is to demonstrate, for the first time, a methodology that enables the direct validation of microstructural evolution models for fuel in MARMOT, and the direct correlation of changes in physical properties with specific irradiation-induced microstructural features. Properly implementing this methodology will result in rapid development of MARMOT mesoscale models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15520: Accurate and Efficient Parametric Model-Order Reduction for Turbulent Thermal Transport | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000.00 | The project objective is to develop reduced-order models (ROMs) that will improve accuracy of LMR system-level analysis with low overhead. These new models will systematically mine high-fidelity DNS, LES, or uRANS simulations to construct low-order dynamical systems that can couple with a systems analysis code, such as the SAM code being developed under NEAMS. These simulations provide useful data and will be made available to the scientific community, and the overall effort will contribute to more efficient LMR conceptual design studies and licensing. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15484: A Novel High Fidelity Continuous-energy tTansport Tool for Efficient FHR Transient Calculations | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000.00 | The objective of the project is to develop a high-fidelity continuous energy (CE) transport tool for efficient transient calculations in fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactors with prismatic core/fuel assembly design. This will be accomplished by extending the high-fidelity 3-D continuous energy coarse mesh radiation transport (COMET) code with formidable computational speed to solve transient problems in FHRs with accurate thermal hydraulic feedback. The new capability would enable plant system codes to perform analyses necessary to address complex technical design, regulatory, reactor safety, and economic hurdles prior to construction. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15093: Determination of Molecular Structure and Dynamics of Molten Salts by Advanced Neutron and X-ray Scattering Measurements and Computer Modeling | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000.00 | This project will seek detailed knowledge about molecular structure and dynamics of molten salts to inform the design of new molten-salt reactors. A combination of advanced neutron and x-ray scattering and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations will be used to model the ionic-cluster structure of the fluid and solubility of impurities. Machine learning will be applied to regress from simulations and experiments in order to develop the model and predict chemical potentials as a function of composition and temperature. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15171: Oxidation Behavior of Silicon Carbide and Graphitic Materials | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000.00 | The objectives of this project are to determine the oxidation behavior of silicon carbide and graphitic materials in oxygen and/or moisture, to accurately measure the kinetic parameters of oxidation, to ascertain the oxidation mechanisms in relation to the microstructures, to determine the effect of irradiation on oxidation behavior, and to provide data and input to the safety analysis of high-temperature gas reactors under air and moisture ingress accident conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15276: Coping Time and Cost Analysis of Accident Tolerant Plant Design based on Dynamic PRA Methodology | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000.00 | This project will evaluate the failure modes of accident tolerant fuel ATF candidates to understand the different failure characteristics. The research aims to obtain a response surface of coping time by investigating the various uncertainties of accident mitigation in PWR and BWR reactors. These outputs will aid the decision making process on the implementation of ATF and FLEX to existing LWR plants from the perspective of risk reduction and economic feasibility. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15270: Innovative Use of Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) with the RCIC System to Enhance Passive Safety of Commercial LWRs | Texas A&M University | $748,000.00 | The overarching objectives of this project are to: 1) demonstrate new operational strategies with the combined use of Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) and the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) System to increase the passive safety capabilities of current Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs) in delaying or preventing core damage; and 2) pursue the delay of containment venting until after a 72-hour coping period through new BWR Suppression Pool mixing procedures. The research will use both simulation and experimental data to validate the objectives. The work has the potential to increase the ability of existing nuclear power plants to passively respond to beyond design basis events using existing equipment and without changes to the plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15346: Big Data For Operation and Maintenance Cost Reduction | The Ohio State University | $800,000.00 | This project will develop a first-of-a-kind framework for integrating Big Data capability into the daily activities of our current fleet of nuclear power plants. This research will mainly focus on incorporating the wide range of data heterogeneities in nuclear power plants into an integrated Big Data Analytics capability. The primary end product of this work will be a Big Data framework that is capable of dealing with the large volume and heterogeneity of the data found in nuclear power plants to extract timely and valuable information on equipment performance and to enable optimization of plant operation and maintenance based on the extracted information. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15065: in situ Measurement and Validation of Uranium Molten Salt Properties at Operationally Relevant Temperatures | University of Connecticut | $799,979.00 | This project proposes to use advanced spectroscopic and scattering methods to provide information at the atomic and molecular scale. The research will use synchrotron-based x-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy, at operationally relevant temperatures, to measure the local and intermediate structure as well as speciation of chloride fuel salts (NaCl, ZrCl, UCl3) for fast-spectrum applications and fluoride fuel salts ( 7 LiF, UF4) primarily for thermal spectrum applications This approach is expected to generate theories and concepts that would allow models to predict behavior, and develop the means for in situ monitoring. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15058: High-resolution Experiments for Extended LOFC and Steam Ingress Accidents in HTGRs | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to better understand key phenomena in high-temperature gas-cooled reactors relevant to steam ingress and loss of forced circulation (LOFC) accidents. Specifically, the research will: 1) experimentally investigate, using an existing integral-effect test facility with some improvements, the steam-ingress accident caused by a postulated steam generator tube rupture initiating event; 2) carry out integral-effect tests for the extended LOFC accident to study the establishment of global natural circulation flow in the primary loop; 3) design, based on a scaling analysis, and construct a separate-effect test facility to study the complex helium flows in the core and hot plenum during the extended LOFC accident; and 4) perform detailed, high-resolution, separate-effects experiments using the results obtained as boundary/initial conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15471: Integral Experimental Investigation of Radioisotope Retention in Flowing Lead for the Mechanistic Source Term Evaluation of Lead Cooled Fast Reactor | University of New Mexico | $800,000.00 | The purpose of this project is to experimentally investigate the integral effects of radioisotope interactions with liquid lead to support the following technical goals: 1) evaluating the mechanistic source term of the Lead-cooled Fast Reactor (LFR); 2) developing a universal integral effect test methodology for liquid metal source term evaluations; and 3) establishing a basis for the comparison of radioisotope retention between lead and sodium. This aim of the research is to advance the LFR licensing pathway by establishing the phenomenological foundation of the interaction between fission products and liquid lead. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15153: Understanding Molten Salt Chemistry Relevant to Advanced Molten Salt Reactors through Complementary Synthesis, Spectroscopy, and Modeling | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to understand molten salt chemistry relevant to advanced molten salt reactors through complementary synthesis, spectroscopy, and modeling. Through complementary synthetic, spectroscopic, and computational efforts, the aim is to achieve atomistic and molecular-level understanding of liquid structure, coordination geometry, chemical bonding, and reactivity of novel molten salt melts relevant to advanced molten reactor designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15111: Improving Nuclear Power Plant Efficiency Through Data Analytics | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,727.00 | This project aims to develop and provide data analytics solutions to improve nuclear power plan economic efficiency by utilizing empirical models to integrate disparate data sources while providing uncertainty estimates to quantify risk and support decisions. The outcomes will enhance the technical and economic competitiveness by enabling advanced monitoring of critical assets, improving the operating capability of the existing fleet, and helping achieve enhancements in organizational effectiveness. Additionally, the research would provide an agile and modular data analytic framework that would have high commercialization value and supports the industry-wide drive towards digital innovation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14846: Development of Corrosion Resistant Coatings and Liners for Structural Materials for Liquid Fueled Molten Salts Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to develop corrosion-resistant coatings and liners for structural materials for use in fuel dissolved molten salt environment for future Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). Innovative, but industrially scalable, surface cladding approaches are proposed to lead to promising surface and interfacial compositions. The processes themselves are commercial, and have high technology readiness levels, and consequently would facilitate the accelerated developments of MSRs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15280: Advanced Alloy Innovations for Structural Components of Molten Salt Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $796,792.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to develop and evaluate specific advanced metallic alloys for structural components in fluoride salt-cooled molten salt reactors (MSRs). The research will investigate four categories of metallic alloys: advanced Ni-based; radiation damage tolerant high entropy; refractory Mo-based, and compositionally-graded, designed for high-surface corrosion resistance and good bulk strength. Additionally, the propensity for radiation embrittlement, as well as weldability, of the alloys will be evaluated. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14957: Big Data Analytics Solutions to Improve Nuclear Power Plant Efficiency: Online Monitoring, Visualization, Prognosis, and Maintenance Decision Making | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $797,820.00 | The overarching goal of this project is to significantly advance the ability to assess equipment condition and predict the remaining useful life to support optimal maintenance decision making in nuclear power plants. This research will work toward accomplishing and establishing a modern set of data-driven modeling, online monitoring, visualization, prognosis, and operation decision-making methodologies to address the significant opportunities and challenges arising from the emerging data-rich environment in nuclear plants. The potential impact of the work is significant and transformative and could deliver important advances in productivity with reduced unscheduled downtime and improved equipment performance. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15097: Oxidation Study of High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor TRISO Fuels at Accidental Conditions | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000.00 | This project is to study the oxidation behaviors of TRISO fuels during accidental air and water vapor ingress conditions. The work focuses on the oxidation and burn-off of the graphite fuel matrix and oxidation of the TRISO fuel SiC layer at high-temperature accidental states in the presence of air and/or water vapor. It will include both unirradiated and irradiated graphite fuel matrix and simulated fuel particles with the SiC layer. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 19-16987: Novel miniature creep tester for virgin and neutron irradiated clad alloys with benchmarked multiscale modeling and simulations | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | This project will develop a miniature creep machine to collect rapid thermal creep and load relaxation data for two selected ferritic alloys under "as-received" and irradiated conditions. Fast and accurate measurements of creep deformation are essential for qualifying new alloys for long term use in current and next generation reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17150: Speciation and Behavior of Neptunium and Zirconium in Advanced Separation Process | Oregon State University | $800,000 | This project will further develop the understanding of nuclear fuel reprocessing using Co-Decontamination (CoDCon). Radiolytic degradation products of tributylphosphate, nitric acid, redox buffer, masking agent, and water greatly affect the redox speciation, complexation and partitioning of the recycled metals. Fundamental understanding of chemical speciation and partitioning of Neptunium and Zerconium under such conditions is required. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17395: Modeling and Uncertainty Analysis of MSR Nuclear Material Accounting Methods for Nuclear Safeguards | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | This project will model and analyze the limits of detection for the diversion of nuclear materials from a molten salt reactor (MSR) fuel cycle. MSR depletion under a range of uranium and/or plutonium diversion to quantify the resulting differences in salt composition will be evaluated. Sensors will also be investigated to quantify fuel salt contents and correlate the outputs with the reactor models to predict diversion detection. Results will be coupled with robust uncertainty analysis to determine limits of detection. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16583: Neutron Radiation Effect on Diffusion between Zr (and Zircaloy) and Cr for Accurate Lifetime Prediction of ATF | The Ohio State University | $499,997 | This project will perform systematic diffusion studies on both neutron-irradiated and unirradiated accident tolerant fuel samples to obtain precise diffusion coefficients. This will result in a precise evaluation of the pure neutron irradiation effect on diffusion in these systems and enable accurate life prediction of the accident tolerant fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17381: High Throughput Assessment of Creep Behavior of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Structural Alloys by Nano/microindentation | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $800,000 | This project will develop a high throughput assessment of creep behavior of advanced nuclear reactor structural alloys by nano/microindentation. Experimental datasets will inform polycrystalline deformation models to predict material response over a variety of creep conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16549: Thermal Conductivity Measurement of Irradiated Metallic Fuel Using TREAT | University of Pittsburgh | $500,000 | This project intends to provide accurate thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity data with microstructure characterization of metallic (U-Pu-Zr) fuel as a function of burnup and attain fundamental understanding of the thermal conductivity of the irradiated fuel to inform and validate computational models. This will be accomplished using an innovative thermal wave technique in the Transient Reactor Test Facility at the Idaho National Laboratory, with the Minimal Activation Reusable Capsule Holder. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17002: Remote Laser-based Nondestructive Evaluation for Post-Irradiation Examination of ATF Cladding | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | To enable advanced nondestructive characterization techniques for light water reactor fuels that can be applied to the cladding coating, a remote nondestructive evaluation post irradiation inspection approach will be developed. This technique will measure the cladding coating layer thickness and detect defects within the cladding such as corrosion, micro-cracking and delamination. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17276: Radiation-Induced Swelling in Advanced Nuclear Fuel | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,989 | The microstructural evolution of advanced fuel (uranium carbide and uranium nitride) under fission-fragment type radiation has not been studied and remains unclear. This project will utilize advanced synchrotron X-ray characterization using microgram samples to obtain detailed nanoscale information on radiation-induced volumetric swelling and microstrain. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16848: Metal-Functionalized Membranes for Radioiodine Capture | University of Utah | $799,031 | This proposed research will investigate high-surface area (>300 m2/g) metal-functionalized membranes. These novel chemically durable and mechanically robust membranes are formed using an aqueous fabrication process, which results in an interconnected porosity that is highly controllable, providing hierarchical structures ranging from the nano- to micrometer-scales. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17350: Development and Experimental Validation of Pitting and SCC Models for Welded Stainless Steel Dry Storage Containers Exposed to Atmospheric Environments | University of Virginia | $799,027 | The specific goals of this project are to: (a) validate the maximum pit size model for dry storage canister relevant corrosion conditions as well as quantifying the effects of limited cathodic current on stress corrosion cracking (SCC) kinetics, (b) demonstrate a means to quantitatively rank the risk of SCC based on measurable parameters, (c) perform probabilistic predictions of SCC growth, and (d) validate the model predictions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16879: Proactive Hybrid Nuclear with Load Forecasting | Brigham Young University | $799,933 | This project develops new capabilities of design and dispatch optimization of nuclear hybrid energy systems (NHES) in the "Risk Analysis Virtual Environment (RAVEN)" modelling software. Blended (physics-based and data-driven) machine learning will be applied to forecast demand and production of thermal and electrical loads. Two experimental case studies are proposed to test the software developments with a lab-scale thermal energy storage and with a large district energy system. As a final step, the software developments will be generalized to other NHES. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17461: Development and Evaluation of Neutron Thermalization Integral Benchmarks for Advanced Reactor Applications | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | This project will develop integral benchmarks that aim to examine thermal neutron scattering data for graphite (ideal and nuclear), light water, and molten salt. The benchmark evaluations will be contributed to the International Handbook of Evaluated Reactor Physics Benchmark Experiments (IRPhEP) database. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17219: Using Integral Benchmark Experiments to Improve Differential Nuclear Data Evaluations | University of New Mexico | $400,000 | This project will use the results of integral benchmark experiment to inform differential nuclear data evaluations and improve the predictive capability of modeling and simulation (M&S) tools. This goal will be accomplished by developing capabilities to assess the sensitivity of integral benchmark results to evaluated nuclear data parameters, and by using data assimilation tools to directly adjust the evaluated data parameters and improve the accuracy of M&S tools. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16743: Paths Forward for Nuclear Energy: Using a Nationwide Post-Stratified Hierarchical Model to Facilitate Matching of New Nuclear Technologies to Receptive Host Communities | University of Oklahoma | $390,393 | This project will enable deployment of advanced nuclear technologies by developing a model, and an accompanying web-based tool that can be utilized by technology entrepreneurs, that identifies public support for siting new nuclear technologies at very local spatial scales across the US. The model will employ hierarchically structured, post stratified analysis of the largest US pooled-time series dataset on geocoded public support for nuclear technologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16995: A Cyber-Attack Detection Platform for Cyber Security of Digital Instrumentation and Control Systems | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,995 | The proposed research will develop a robust cyber-attack detection system (CADS) for monitoring digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems. The project will develop a robust research tool for evaluating cyber defense of digital I&C systems and provide a framework for a cyber-attack detection system that provides continuous assurance of the security of digital I&C systems in nuclear power plants (NPPs). | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17327: Multi-Timescale Nuclear-Renewable Hybrid Energy Systems Operations to Improve Electricity System Resilience, Reliability, and Economic Efficiency | University of Texas at Dallas | $800,000 | The overarching objective of this project is to develop a multi-timescale nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (N-R HESs) operations framework to provide different types of grid products. The project will model and analyze the capabilities of N-R HESs to provide power grid services at different timescales ranging from seconds to days, such as day-ahead unit commitment, flexible ramping (5-45 minutes), regulation reserves (1-5 minutes), and frequency response (less than seconds). | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17192: The Design and Investigation of Novel Mechanical Filters for Molten Salt Reactors | Abilene Christian University | $762,246 | Researchers will develop a novel mechanical filtration system. The project will include the collection of filter media performance data and filter regeneration performance data for a novel sintered nickel-based filter prototype. The project will also provide a filter design that facilitates remote filter removal, cooling, replacement, and assay of fissile material hold-up in the filter media. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16980: Determining the Effects of Neutron Irradiation on the Structural Integrity of Additively Manufactured Heat Exchangers for Very Small Modular Reactor Applications | Auburn University | $400,000 | Researchers will determine how to best use laser-powder bed fusion additive manufacturing methods for generating radiation-resistant channel/pore-embedded structures from Inconel (alloy 625 or 718) nickel-based superalloys for special purpose reactor (i.e. very small modular reactor) heat exchangers. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17413: Validated, Multi-Scale Molecular Dynamics Simulations to Predict the Thermophysical Properties of Molten Salts Containing Fuel, Fission, and Corrosion Products | Brigham Young University | $798,291 | Researchers will use first principles molecular dynamics (FPMD) simulations on molten salts containing impurities including fuel, fission products, and corrosion products. These will be used to develop a classical molecular dynamics (CMD) potential. CMD will then be used to predict properties for a wide variety of salt compositions and temperatures, and physical property measurements will be performed to validate those predictions. Property correlations will be developed from this data. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17183: Mixing of helium with air in reactor cavities following a pipe break in HTGRs | City College of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct separate effects tests to obtain experimental validation data on mixing of helium and air in reactor building cavities during and after blowdown in HTGRs. Air and helium concentrations, and gas mixture velocity and temperature fields will be measured in simulated reactor cavities. An existing helium flow loop will be used as the source of high pressure/high temperature helium for injection into the cavities and different break configurations will be experimentally investigated. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16391: GuArDIAN: General Active Sensing for conDItion AssessmeNt | Duke University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a dependable, autonomous or semi-autonomous (i.e. low human involvement), and minimally disruptive framework for monitoring equipment and components in nuclear reactors. The project will develop GUARDIAN; a robust active sensing framework through the integration of model-based inference and mobile actuating/sensing robots. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17251: Measuring Mechanical Properties of Select Layers and Layer Interfaces of TRISO Particles via Micromachining and In-Microscope Tensile Testing | Idaho State University | $799,815 | Researchers will characterize the strength of TRISO-coated particle layers and interfaces using FIB micro-machining and in-TEM tensile testing. Tensile test samples from coating layers of (1) unirradiated surrogate (fuel) TRISO particles, (2) unirradiated fueled TRISO particles and (3) irradiated fueled TRISO particles will be studied. Results of this project will both benefit and leverage the AGR Program. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17185: Demonstrating Reactor Autonomous Control Framework using Graphite Exponential Pile | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will demonstrate a detection-prediction-feedback framework for nuclear system autonomous control. It will adopt multiple detector channels to enable control feedback to spatially dependent perturbations. It will also utilize high-fidelity solutions trained surrogate models for real-time prediction and decision-making. In addition to the method development, the proposal will entail a first-of-a-kind engineering demonstration using the MIT Graphite Exponential Pile (MGEP). | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16754: Simultaneous Corrosion/Irradiation Testing in Lead and Lead-Bismuth Eutectic: The Radiation Decelerated Corrosion Hypothesis | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $762,823 | Researchers will test candidate FeCrSi and F/M alloys in a new, simultaneous corrosion/radiation facility to try to identify an alloy that will satisfy all requirements for Lead Fast Reactor structural materials. Microstructural characterization, mechanical property testing, and corrosion tests, both during irradiation and following ion/He pre-conditioning, will assess how irradiation affects corrosion, potentially slowing it. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17173: Ni-based ODS alloys for Molten Salt Reactors | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | The objective of this work is to (i) propose and develop a new Nickel (Ni) based Oxide Dispersion-Strengthened (ODS) alloy that can be used for structural applications in Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) and other nuclear reactor harsh environments, (ii) to demonstrate that its high temperature mechanical properties are adequate for MSR operating temperatures, (iii) to demonstrate its radiation damage resistance through ion irradiation testing and (iv) to demonstrate its improved corrosion resistance in MSR environment. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17037: Investigation of HTGR Reactor Building Response to a Break in Primary Coolant Boundary | Purdue University | $799,832 | Researchers will perform a series of experiments to simulate HTGR reactor building response due to a break in the primary coolant boundary in a well-scaled test facility to obtain spatial distribution of oxygen concentration, perform analysis of the whole system response with 1-D thermal hydraulics codes and use CFD to make detailed localized predictions. The tests will be carried out with different locations and sizes of the breaks to create various vent and flow paths in the reactor cavity. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17093: Integrating Multi-modal Microscopy Techniques and the MOSAIC Simulation Environment to Assess Changes in the Physical Properties and Chemical Durability of Concrete Following Radiation Exposure | University of California, Los Angeles | $800,000 | Researchers will develop unprecedented multi-modal imaging methodologies that integrate multiple microscopy techniques. The team will develop a generalizable protocol for quantifying the changes in physical properties and chemical durability of concrete and concrete constituents (minerals and aggregates) following radiation exposure. The imaging analyses will be input into the MOSAIC framework to reveal the nature and extent of degradation that is expected to result. The outcomes offer insights that are needed to enable and inform second license renewals. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17167: Atomistically Informed and Experimentally Validated Model for Helium Bubble Growth in Welded Irradiated Metals | University of Florida | $797,861 | Researchers will construct a validated computational model for He bubble growth on grain boundaries in irradiated Fe-Ni-Cr microstructures, including intergranular fracture, as a function of material conditions and welding heat input. This model will be based on the phase-field methodology, leveraging numerical solvers in the MOOSE simulation platform, with critical inputs and validation provided by both atomic-level simulations and experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16909: Learning-based Computational Study of the Thermodynamic, Structural, and Dynamic Properties of Molten Salts at the Atomic and Electronic Scale and Experimental Validations | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will obtain the thermophysical, thermochemical, and transport properties, construct the phase diagrams, and build empirical physical models of molten salts that are relevant to Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) with first-principles accuracy using molecular dynamics simulations driven by machine-learned high-dimensional neural network potentials combined with neutron/X-ray scattering and thermodynamic experimental validations. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16298: I-PRA Decision-Making Algorithm and Computational Platform to Develop Safe and Cost-Effective Strategies for the Deployment of New Technologies | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an integrated probabilistic risk assessment decision-making algorithm to support risk-and-cost-informed decision-making related to the deployment of new technologies. The project will enhance the financial analysis module and the challenging interface of social and technical systems to advance the algorithm. The project will conduct a case study for evaluating the safety impact and cost-effectiveness of FLEX strategies to support operational flexibility. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16802: Evaluation of Semi-Autonomous Passive Control Systems for HTGR Type Special Purpose Reactors | University of Michigan | $400,000 | Researchers will investigate the use of variable flow controllers and a variable reflector as passive or semi-autonomous reactivity control mechanisms for multi-module HTGR type special purpose reactors. This applies to the commercially developed special purpose reactor concepts from HolosGen. The incorporation of these systems will reduce the movable parts count and enable more robust load follow capabilities over broader power ranges and local and global reactivity control. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17467: Understanding the Speciation and Molecular Structure of Molten Salts Using Laboratory and Synchrotron based In Situ Experimental Techniques and Predictive Modeling | University of Nevada, Reno | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology to accurately determine the structure and speciation of the molten salt electrolyte using laboratory-based spectroscopic techniques (Raman and UV-Vis-NIR) and synchrotron-based (scattering and absorption) techniques, in combination with computational modeling. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17231: Prevention of Common Fault-Trigger Combinations for Qualification of Digital Instrumentation and Control Technology | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will provide an effective design evaluation approach based on prevention of concurrent triggering conditions to eliminate common-cause failures (CCF) and enable qualification of digital I&C technology for application in nuclear plant modernization. The research involves classifying commonality among digital devices, categorizing faults and triggering conditions, determining fault-trigger relationships, and defining preventive design measures to resolve the potential for CCF. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17087: Economic Risk-Informed Maintenance Planning and Asset Management | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will provide a holistic framework for cost-minimizing risk-informed maintenance planning, including inspection. They will develop a two-tier framework that coarsely minimizes the total maintenance cost during the remaining normal operating cycle and uses the outputs of the first model to maximize the financial impact of these activities in the short term. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16811: Liquid Metal-cooled Fast Reactor Instrumentation Technology Development | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will explore three different areas that will help to improve commercialization of SFRs and to aid in testing for the VTR. These include: 1. Advancement in understanding of low prandtl number heat transfer 2. Testing of compact heat exchangers for use with sodium 3. Development of in pool submersible flow meters. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16954: Innovative In-Situ Analysis and Quantification of Corrosion and Erosion of 316 Stainless Steel in Molten Chloride Salt Flow Loops | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will use a thin-layer activation technique for the first time in molten salts, on 316H samples placed in natural convection and forced flow loops. The individual and synergistic effects of corrosion, irradiation and thermo-mechanical treatments will be evaluated in-situ to predict component service lifetimes and design limits. The effects of molten chloride flow velocity will also be assessed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17168: Fuel Salt Sampling and Enriching System Technology Development | Vanderbilt University | $799,989 | Researchers will combine insights from the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment with decades of advancements in applicable technologies into an enhanced Sampler Enricher (SE) concept to develop and test a flexible, reliable, and workable design. The prototype will then be tested in an existing salt loop. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16739: Improvements of Nuclear Data Evaluations for Lead Isotopes in Support of Next Generation Lead-Cooled Fast Systems | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | The objective of this project is to improve the accuracy of neutronics simulation of lead-based systems by improving the nuclear data of lead isotopes. The nuclear data for lead will be reevaluated with emphasis of the intermediate and fast energy regions that are required by reactor applications currently sought by several industrial entities. The deliverables of this project are new lead isotopes evaluations that will be candidates for inclusion in a future Evaluated Nuclear Data Library (ENDF) release. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 20-19373: Connecting Advanced High-Temperature X-ray and Raman Spectroscopy Structure/Dynamics Insights to High-Throughput Property Measurements | Boston University | $500,000 | Researchers will acquire molten salt structure and dynamics data at high-temperatures using high-energy x-ray techniques and Raman spectroscopy and relate them to their physical and chemical properties. High-throughput techniques will be developed to rapidly measure multiple high-temperature properties at one time. An understanding of the relationship of salt structure and dynamics to its properties will help to select and optimize melt chemistry in molten salt reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19371: Adsorption and Reduction of Uranium in Engineered Barrier Systems: Effects of Iron and Heat | California State University, East Bay | $800,000 | Reseachers will investigate uranium sorption and abiotic reduction processes in iron-rich montmorillonite systems as a function of solution chemistry and temperature. The team will develop a surface complexation model that can account for both uranium adsorption and reduction, and hence reduce the uncertainties associated with uranium mobility in iron-rich environments with engineering barrier systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19831: Optimizing Melt Processed Phosphate Glass Waste Forms via Composition-Property-Structure Correlations | Clemson University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and optimize highly durable and easily processable phosphate-based glass waste forms to immobilize the dehalogenated salt streams by tailoring the composition of the glasses. To complement the work conducted on glass waste forms at the national laboratories sponsored by the DOE-NE program, modified iron phosphate glass waste forms will be prepared and evaluated by the introduction of various glass modifiers (SnF2 and BaO) to the prototype glass compositions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19695: Quantifying radionuclide sorption to engineered barrier materials under elevated temperature and ionic strength conditions | Clemson University | $799,380 | Researchers will characterize actinide sorption to mineral surfaces and examine possible mechanisms of sorption at high temperature/ionic strength through examination of the effects of hydration and hydrolysis on actinide sorption. These data will provide an understanding of radionuclide behavior with engineered barrier materials. A greater understanding of these processes will reduce the uncertainty in strategies for sequestration of radionuclide bearing wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19789: Controlling Neptunium and Zirconium in Advanced Extraction Processes | Colorado School of Mines | $599,763 | Researchers will address continuing issues with separating neptunium and zironium in current separation techniques. They will use coupled optical and x-ray specroscopy, small angle scattering, equilibrium thermodynamics and chemical analysis to understand fundamental molecular-level behaviors of extracted Np and Zr. These techniques, using world-class irradiation facilities, will elucidate the specific chemistries underlying the problematic behavior in Np and Zr in radiation fields. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19660: Linear and nonlinear guided ultrasonic waves to characterize cladding of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researcherses will perform a combination of linear and nonlinear guided ultrasonic waves, integrated with new material behavior models to develop a non-destructive evaluation (NDE) approach for both quality control/quality assurance and in-service NDE characterization of the cladding integrity and bond strength. Current NDE techniques are effective for uncoated designs, but these coated fuels add new challenges, which will be addressed by this new approach. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19678: Flexible Hard Ceramic Coatings by Ultrasonic Spray Mist-CVD for Dry Storage Canisters of Spent Nuclear Fuel and Waste | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop advanced flexible hard ceramic coatings using ultrasonic spray mist-chemical vapor deposition technique manufacturing process to deposit on dry storage canisters. The team will test resistance to corrosion, heat, wear and hydrogen permeation thgourh microstructural characterization and material property evaluation. The ultimate goal is to enhance the long term reliability of spent nuclear fuel dry storage canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19797: High Throughput Computational Platform for Predictive Modeling of Thermochemical and Thermophysical Properties of Fluoride Molten Salts | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | Researchers will (1) develop an open-source high throughput (H-T) computational platform to understand, predict, and evaluate thermochemical and thermophysical properties of molten salts as demonstrated in the F-(K-Li-Na)-(Cr-Fe)-U system and (2) provide H-T approaches (CALPHAD modeling and AIMD simulations) and open-source codes together with thermodynamic models of molten salts and public-accessible databases verified by targeted experiments for the molten salt research community. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19627: Chemical Interaction and Compatibility of Uranium Nitride with Liquid Pb and Alumina-forming Austenitic Alloys | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | Researcherswill address critical issues with the compatibility and chemcial interations of uranium nitride fuel, alumina-forming austenitic alloys and lead coolants/sublayers. They will obtain critical data of fuel-coolant-cladding interactions and compatibility to evaluate key parameters of operation temperature, fuel impurities and coolant chemistry. This data will provide key operation windows and parameters for deployment of lead-cooled fast reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19924: First-principles free energies by hybrid thermodynamic integration for phase equilibria and fission product solubility in molten salts | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | Researchers will predict phase equilibria and solubility of fission products in molten salts using a novel hybrid framework for thermodynamic integration combining first-principles, molecular dynamics and continuum methods to calculate free energies. They will be benchmarked using Bayesian-targeted calorimetric, in-situ diffraction and spectroscopic experiments. The project will provide microscopic insights and quantitative parameters necessary for reliable thermophysical modeling of molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19939: Gallium Oxide Schottky Diode Detectors for Measurement of Actinide Concentrations from Measured Alpha Activities in Molten Salts | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and test, to high temperatures, a Schottky diode alpha particle detector that is based on the rapidly emerging ultrawide band gap semiconductor material gallium oxide. Ga2O3 Schottky diode detectors offer the potential of detecting alpha particles at high temperatures, with better resolution than SiC Schottky diode detectors, which the team has previously developed for similar purposes. These detectors could be used in pyrochemical processing streams and molten salt reactors with potential application in other reactor concepts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19966: Evaluating hydroxypyridinone-based ligands for actinide and fission products recovery in used fuels | University of California, Berkeley | $600,000 | Researchers will pursue novel chemical separation approaches for advanced reactor used fuels treatments and recycling, by leveraging the unique actinide and lanthanide coordination properties of hydroxypyridinone-based aqueous chelators. These chelators have not been tested in extreme conditions and this work would test potential process performance with a focus on radiation-induced changes and oxidation state distribution. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19545: Femtosecond Laser Ablation Machining & Examination - Center for Active Materials Processing (FLAME-CAMP) | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop, build, and test a femtosecond laser ablation machining & examination tool that can be deployed in a hot cell environment enabling microscopy sample fabrication, isotope and elemental analysis, and thermal analysis. The technology allows for non-contact materials processing, even through glass windows, potentially preventing contamination of surrounding areas and tools. Such a multi-function tool with high throughput material processing will accelerate the research on fuel and cladding tremendously. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19198: Functionalized clay buffer materials for the long-term sequestration of technetium and iodine | University of Florida | $800,000 | Researcherswill develop synthesize, test, and model novel functionalized clay buffer materials for the long-term sequestration of iodine and technetium. The project will also focus on key experimantal parameters and modeling of how the novel clay buffer material will sequester iodine and technetium species. Novel materials will support DOE's efforts to design improved geologic repository barrier systems and optimize repository performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19209: Investigation on multicomponent solubility in LiCl-KCl eutectic chloride salts using combinatorial approach | University of Idaho | $400,000 | Researchers will perform irradiation experiments to understand how gamma radiation changes trivalent metal ion complex coordination structure and extraction characteristics during the ALSEP process. This work will focus on understanding the types of degradation products that are formed during the extraction process and what effects these degradation products have on process performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19713: Multifunctional Laser Processing for Repair and Mitigation of Pitting and Cracks in Welded Stainless Steel Dry Storage Canisters | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a strategic solution that combines laser cleaning and laser peening for removal of surface contamination and mitigation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in welded stainless steels. Laser cleanning will remove surface contamination and reduce pitting caused by corrosion. Laser peening will then be used to mitigate stress corrosion cracking and provide enhanced corrosion resistance. The portability of the laser system means the system will be able to be deployed in the field. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19188: Single- and Polycrystalline Diamond Electrodes for Spectroelectrochemical Characterization of Various Molten Salts | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $600,000 | Researchers will develop optically transparent electrodes for spectroelectrochemical measurements in chloride- and fluoride-based radioactive molten salts. The primary electrode material will be boron-doped diamond. Measurements will elucidate important electrochemical properties of nuclear fuel and fission products such as redox potential, diffusion coefficient, and electron transfer stoichiometry. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19641: Mitigating stress corrosion cracking in austenitic stainless-steel canister welds using peening techniques | University of Nevada, Reno | $799,950 | Researchers seek to understand the mechanisms of pitting/SCC resistance of welds as affected by a) compressive stress b) surface texture modification and c) microstructural change in the substrate surface resulting from laser shock peening, shot peening, ultrasonic impact peening and laser surface texturing. The study will recommend the best peening and surface texturing process conditions for mitigation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in 304L welds. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19704: Multicomponent Thermochemistry of Complex Chloride Salts for Sustain-able Fuel Cycle Technologies | University of Pittsburgh | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive thermodynamic database of multicomponent chloride salts through a collaboration between experts in Gibbs energy modeling and thermochemical experiments. A thermochemical database of the multicomponent chloride system KCl-LiCl-NaCl-UCl3-LnCl3 (Ln: La, Pr, Nd) will be developed using the CALPHAD (Calculation of Phase Diagrams) method with supported ab initio calculations and thermal analysis experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19506: Engineered composite patch with NDE inspection for repair and mitigation of SCC in nuclear spent fuel dry storage canister | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an innovative 'engineered composite patch' that can absorb moisture, neutralize chloride, and prevent stress corrosion cracking from further growth. This 'patch' with have in integrated non-destructive evaluation capability using laser utrasonic characterization methods to montior quality and performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19374: Maintaining and building upon the Halden legacy of In-situ diagnostics | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will develop innovative instrumentation focusing on temperature and strain measurements to fill the void left by the Halden reactor and to enhance the experimental capabilities in the Transient Reactor Test Facility (TREAT) located at Idaho National Laboratory. The team will develop a fiber optic sensor system that offers an inherent resistance to electromagnetic interference unlike currently used sensors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19076: Investigation of Degradation Mechanisms of Cr-coated Zirconium Alloy Cladding in Reactivity Initiated Accidents (RIA) | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $500,000 | Researchers will investigate the thermal, mechanical, and irradiation response of chromium-coated zirconium alloy claddings under RIA conditions, in comparison to uncoated Zr-alloy cladding. The outcome of the project will be used for anticipated licensing applications to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), thereby accelerating use of coated accident tolerant fuel concepts in U.S. commercial power reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19318: Surface Peening and Hybrid Surface Engineering Approaches to Mitigate Initiation and Resurgence of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dry Cask Storage Stainless Steel Canisters | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,838 | Researchers will develop and evaluate a wide range of surface peening treatments, as well as hybrid surface treatments to mitigate initiation and growth of chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) in stainless-steel canisters for used nuclear fuel (UNF) dry cask storage. Canister mock-ups with prototypical fusion welds will be used for this study. Characterization and testing of microstructure, compressive stresses, corrosion and CISCC will be performed. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19614: New Coatings for Nuclear Fuel Waste Canister Storage and Transport | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop novel SiOCN(H) coatings for spent nuclear fuel canisters in order to support sustained nuclear reactor operation and safeguard nuclear waste storage, transport, and disposal, in both terrestrial and marine environments. The novel coating will specifically address pitting corrosion and stress corrosion cracking in spent nuclear fuel canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19382: Separated waste stream immobilization of iodine and offgas caustic scrubber solution | Washington State University | $400,000 | Researchers will produce a set of waste forms from separation of iodine from the caustic offgas scrubber solution. The primary caustic scrub containing iodine, halides, and carbonate will be immobilized in a glass-bonded composite of cancrinite/sodalite. The iodine-loaded silver sorbent will be stripped of iodine, converted to NaI, and immobilized into a separate durable glass-bonded iodosodalite waste form. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19912: Validation of Robustness in TCR Design Strategies | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will perform sensitivity analysis (SA) and uncertainty quantification (UQ) of TCR design parameters and relevant physical phenomena, using open-source time dependent Monte-Carlo code (OpenMC), NQA1 qualified commercial codes (STARCCM+), and ABAQUS for thermal-hydraulics and structural mechanics. The SA/UQ analysis will provide key insights to allow for development of performance metrics of robustness for autonomous operation sensors, by processing signals such as neutron flux, temperature and strains, as wll as inform the needed robustness for AI by enveloping the attainable level of decision making by the software. | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 | |
| NEUP Project 20-19216: Creation of Multiple Effect Evaporator and Combined Cycle Modelica Modules, and Optimization of Potable Water Generation from Saltwater Sources | North Carolina State University | $498,532 | Researchers will develop models of Multiple Effect Evaporators and Combined Cycle Gas Turbine systems to be used within the Modelica framework, with an end goal of creating an energy park that can supply its own energy and water through Small Modular Reactor nuclear systems and/or Combined Cycle Gas Turbine Systems with brackish to brine water sources. These same models will be capable of being implemented into larger models of grid independent and near independent energy parks located about military bases, large manufacturing facilities, and in small communities where freshwater is limited. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19590: Benchmark Evaluation of Transient Multi-Physics Experimental Data for Pellet Cladding Mechanical Interactions | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop an integral benchmark evaluation based on available experimental data from cold ramp tests performed at the Studsvik testing R2 reactor. Transient multiphysics benchmark evaluations are needed to support validation of the NEAMS ToolKit and the VERA suite. This research will focus on pellet cladding interaction and pellet cladding mechanical interaction and their associated events. The benchmark will be prepared for inclusion in the IRPhEP handbook. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19837: Reinforcement Learning Validation Framework for Quality Assurance of AI-guided Additive Manufacturing Digital Platforms | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will address the need to qualify the risk associated with AM fabricated nuclear reactor parts by incorporating a novel rendition of a well-established artificial intelligence learning strategy, the multi-armed bandit reinforcement learning (RL). The RL framework will be developed and demonstrated using TCR data and its associated digital platform. This research will assimilate in-process sensor data and physics-based simulation data to calculate risk measures in the form of failure probabilities for the AM parts. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19363: Integrated Solar & Nuclear Cogeneration of Electricity & Water using the sCO2 Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,427 | Researchers will design and model a renewable, nuclear Integrated Energy System (IES), compatible with the RAVEN/Modelica framework, for co-generation of cost competitive electricity and clean water. The components of the IES to be included are concentrated solar power, the supercritical CO2/sCO2 cyle, multi-effect distillation, and the lead-cooled fast reactor. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19066: Engineering-Informed, Data-Driven Degradation Modeling, Prognostics and Control for Radiation-induced Void Swelling in Reactor Steels | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will advance the capability to model, predict and control void swelling in irradiated structural components through developing engineering-informed, advanced data-driven statistical and machine learning techniques. Excess swelling not only leads to dimensional instability, but also can cause severe embrittlement of internal materials. The proposed efforts will ensure more effective regulation, aging management and license renewal. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19795: A High-Fidelity Novel and Fast Multigroup Cross Section Generation Method for Arbitrary Geometry and Spectrum | Georgia Institute of Technology | $600,000 | Researchers will develop a fast high-fidelity multigroup cross section generation method for arbitrary geometry configurations and energy spectra by developing a response-based high order perturbation method to perform hybrid stochastic-deterministic local transport calculations. The proposed method will be implemented as independent modules that can be easily embedded into any neutron transport or diffusion code and also be used as a standalone cross section generator. The modules will provide data that can interface with the associated NEAMS toolkit and workbench user interfaces to enable advanced neutronics tools that will perform high-fidelity multigroup multiphysics steady-state and transient calculations that capture and represent the complex resonance interactions and core environmental effects which exist in heterogeneous reactors, including advanced reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19968: Experimental Investigations and Numerical Modeling of Near-wall and Core Bypass Flows in Pebble Bed Reactors | Texas A&M University | $600,000 | Researchers will establish a highly coordinated, concurrent experimental and computational effort combining high-resolution turbulence simulations (including Nek5000, Star-CCM+) and experiments to deepen physical understanding and address long standing modeling inaccuracies related to near wall and bypass flow effects in pebble bed reactors. The project's acquired extensive database will be used to derive closure models and correlations needed for porous media code, such as Pronghorn. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19864: Development of innovative overlapping-domain coupling between SAM and NEK5000 | University of Michigan | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a robust, multi-scale coupling scheme between the SAM code and the CFD code, NEK5000, based on a novel overlapping domain approach. The developed coupling will be validated by using experiments specifically designed for the validation of multi-scale coupled codes. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-20074: Characterization of Plenum to Plenum Natural Circulation flows in a High Temperature Gas Reactor (HTGR) | CUNY, City College of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will obtain and provide experimental data on the plenum-to-plenum natural circulation flows in a typical high temperature gas reactor using helium and nitrogen over a wide range of temperatures and pressures to simulate natural circulation under both pressurized and depressurized conduction cooldown scenarios. The results of the project will yield new data and complement other very high temperature related studies. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19042: Flexible Siting Criteria and Staff Minimization for Micro-Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $440,517 | Researchers will develop siting criteria that are tailored to micro-reactors deployable in densely-populated areas by comparing the characteristics of the MIT research reactor with those of leading micro-reactor concepts, and evaluate whether and how the MIT research reactor design basis and associated regulations are applicable to micro-reactors. A model of operations for micro-reactors that would minimize the staffing requirements will also be conceptualized. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-20045: Highly Compact Steam Generators for Improved Economics of Small Modular Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will design and build a compact steam generator (CSG) test section that can be easily modified for different flow paths and geometries, as well as modify an existing loop to accept the test section. The conceptual optimized CSG system design, which could be deployed in small modular reactors, will be informed by CFD simulations to determine critical characteristics of the test section. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19205: Robust bullet-time tagging and tracking system based on computer vision for individual ex-core TRISO-fueled pebble identification | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a novel, validated, robust bullet-time tagging and tracking system, based on computer vision techniques, to tag and track each individual pebble in pebble bed reactors. The effort will utilize Residence Time Distribution and Radioactive Particle Tracking techniques to validate and refine the developed method, using a continuous cold flow pebble bed experimental setup. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19625: Corrosion Sensitivity of Stainless Steels in Pressurized Water Reactor Water Chemistry: Can KOH replace LiOH in PWRs? | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will perform a series of corrosion and stress corrosion tests on unirradiated alloys to determine the possibility of switching from LiOH to KOH to control the pH in nuclear reactors without worsening the corrosion behavior of the structural alloys used in pressurized water reactor core internal components. The impacts of such a change and the consequent water chemistry alterations on the corrosion processes and nucleaer power plant core-internal component service-life will be assessed and better understood. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19735: Experiments for Modeling and Validation of Liquid-Metal Heat Pipe Simulation Tools for Micro-Reactor | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will produce validation data for the heat pipe code, Sockeye, by measuring the internal thermal-hydraulic parameters of a single-heat pipe and the performance of an integrated multi-heat-pipe system in various operation scenarios. The results of this project will generate more liquid metal heat pipe validation data, which is currently lacking and needed to support micro-reactor design and licensing activities. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19367: Investigation of Novel Nickel-Based Alloys for Molten Chloride Fast Reactor Structural Applications | University of Cincinnati | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate and establish the scientific foundations for the development of promising Ni-Mo-W-Cr-Al-X alloys with a superior balance of properties compared to current materials for high temperature structural applications in molten chloride salt fast reactors. The project couples critical experiments with a high-value integrated computational materials engineering approach. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19693: Evaluation of micro-reactor requirements and performance in an existing well-characterized micro-grid | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will evaluate the opportunities and challenges of operating micro-reactors in decentralized power generation applications and the potential for deployment in established micro-grids with diverse power generation sources. By using a well-characterized prototypic environment platform, the Modelica-based Hybrid Energy System, the market potential for deployment of micro-reactors on campuses and other similar existing micro-grids will be quantified. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19195: The effect of LWR primary coolant water chemistry (LiOH vs. KOH) on stainless steel: An integrated experimental and computational study of the corrosion response of stainless steel for different surface microstructures and mechanica | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will study the effect of surface microstructure, mechanical stress factors, and radiation damage on the corrosion response of stainless steel under two different alkaline pressurized water reactor primary water chemistry conditions. The project will involve investigation of mechanical stress factors such as strain rate, residual stress, deformation induced persistent slip bands, dpa damage, and fatigue cracks and modeling to understand the physical phenomena associated with the measured corrosion response and inform the U.S. nuclear industry regarding KOH. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19491: Identifying and prioritizing sources of uncertainty in external hazard probabilistic risk assessments | University of Maryland, College Park | $799,979 | Researchers will develop a method for identifying and prioritizing sources of uncertainty in external hazard probabilistic risk assessment for nuclear power plants, with particular emphasis on uncertainties associated with hazard characterization. External flooding wil be utilized as the demonstration hazard during this project, while a common taxonomy for communicating uncertainties across a broad range of external hazards will be created. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19737: Innovative Enhanced Automation Control Strategies for Multi-unit SMRs | University of Michigan | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an innovative, enhanced automation control framework for small modular reactors (SMRs) that supports control of multiple units operating in a variety of reactor core conditions. Through these enhancements, SMR technology gains improved marketability through potential deployment to a broader range of markets and can also lead to reduced operating and maintenance costs for a SMR site, increasing the overall profitability. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19954: Deployment Pathways of Small Modular Reactors in Electric Power, Industrial, and Other Niche Markets to Achieve Cost Reductions and Widespread Use | University of Michigan | $691,658 | Researchers will explore how to leverage two key value propositions for small modular reactors (SMR) in shifting market conditions, in order to achieve widespread market deployment: (1) participation in small and large power and industrial markets and (2) cost reductions via mass fabrication. The result of this work will be advanced power system modeling, optimized SMR design with thermal storage for power and industry markets, and new SMR deployment pathways. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19752: Development and Demonstration of Scalable Fluoride Salt Pump Seals and Bearings for FHRs | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and demonstrate scalable advanced bearings and seals of fluoride salt pumps for fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactors. The systematic approach to be used will employ both experimental and numerical methods to investigate the static and dynamic performance of fluoride-salt-lubricated bearings and high-temperature seals. The outcomes of this research will directly contribute to the reliability, safety, design, and operation of the fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactor power plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19544: A Holistic Artificial Intelligence Tool to Mitigate Human Factor Uncertainty in Operation and Maintenance | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a holistic artificial intelligence tool to help the detection and mitigation of human factors errors in nuclear power plants. The tool will increase the efficiency of various activities such as testing, inspection, data collection, and interpretation, improve operation and maintenance decision-making, and reduce costs in nuclear power plants by minimizing the impact of human factors errors and providing warnings to mitigate them, when possible. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19524: Non-Intrusive Flow Monitoring for Liquid Metal and Molten Salt Cooled Reactors | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a first-of-its kind flow monitoring system with significantly enhanced capabilities for liquid metal fast reactors and other advanced reactors, such as molten salt reactors. The flow monitoring system will involve a proven and breakthrough fiber optic sensing technology that enables the harmonic-free interrogation of thousands of grating-based distributed interferometers along an optical fiber that is integrated into a sensing pad that can readily be installed at desired locations in the flow loop. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19671: Identifying Needed Fire Input Data to Reduce Modeling Uncertainty | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,393 | Researchers will identify fire parameters that have the largest impact on fire conditions, quantify those parameters contributing to uncertainties in the fire data through Monte Carlo simulation results, and use statistical analysis and machine learning models from the simulation results to assess existing data and recommend appropriate new fire tests to reduce uncertainties that are important to risk. With this information, researchers will develop a framework capable of determining the significant contributors to uncertainty in physical events that are relevant to the risk assessment and, then, determine the need for new experiments that would be of most value to reduce risk. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 21-24394: Computer vision and machine learning for microstructural qualification | Carnegie Mellon University | $497,518 | Quantifying and understanding microstructure is a key driver for performance-based materials qualification. In this proposal, well-curated data sets of microstructural images will be gathered and computer vision and machine learning will be applied to build quantitative deep learning frameworks to accelerate and enable qualification of nuclear materials based on microstructural features. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24156: Experimental thermofluidic validation of TCR fuel elements using distributed temperature and flow sensing | Kansas State University | $798,250 | The overall goal of this project will be to test the performance of 3D printed Transformational Challenge Reactor core geometry parts using existing Helium flow loops and distributed temperature, and velocity sensing systems. Thermal transport capabilities of scaled 3D printed ceramic core will be evaluated experimentally and measurements will be used to qualify computational models. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24636: Risk-informed Consequence-driven Physical Protection System Optimization for Microreactor Sites | Texas A&M University | $400,000 | This proposed project will utilize a risk-informed, consequence-driven analysis to develop an approach for "right-sizing" physical protection systems (PPS) for microreactors. The hypothesis presented for this proposal is that the explicit coupling of consequence modeling to PPS design will provide a similar benefit that can be applied prior to reactor construction. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24131: Total Mass Accounting in Advanced Liquid Fueled Reactors | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | A total mass determination method for nuclear materials accounting (NMA) in liquid-fueled molten salt reactors will be validated with fuel-bearing salt, mixed with a _+ radioisotope of known activity, that will be irradiated to reproduce the practical NMA scenario in a molten salt loop. Irradiated fuel salt will be sampled and measured for its mass and activity. The mass-to-activity ratio will be used to calculate the unknown salt mass in the original container. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24037: Design and intelligent optimization of the thermal storage and energy distribution for the TerraPower Molten Chloride Fast Reactor in an Integrated Energy System (IES) | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to explore the application of advanced reactors within Integrated Energy Systems, use extensive existing data from UIUC for model development and validation, and extend the predictions to larger grids and commercial applications. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24522: Targeted Materials Characterization and Testing of Additively Manufactured Metals and Ceramics to Inform Print/Build Data Analytics | University of Texas at San Antonio | $800,000 | A collaborative program between the University of Texas at San Antonio and Boise State University is proposed to supply materials testing and characterization data sets to be leveraged by the TCR program to inform build/print data analytics. With the data provided by the proposing team, correlations among steam oxidation performance, micromechanical properties, chemical composition, local microstructure, and location specific print/build data will be achieved. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24431: Location-specific material characterization of LPBF SS316L & IN718 TCR core structural materials | Utah State University | $800,000 | In this proposed work, we will experimentally characterize the spatial variability of the quasi-static (tensile), creep (strength and impression), and creep-fatigue properties as well as the underlying structures (microstructure and defect structures) for LPBF SS316L and IN718 components to be used as training data to the TCR program data-driven model. The resulting correlation will be used to drive the design process for an application as TCR core structural materials. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23978: Rapid, Non-Radioactive Methods for Prediction and Quantification of Radiolytic Radical Decomposition Products in Nuclear Separations | Clemson University | $399,999 | High-throughput, non-radioactive, radical assays will be used to determine decomposition of monoamide separations complexants. Radical assay results will be correlated with classic radiolytic damage results to develop predictive models for screening complexant stability. These models will aid in single-stage separations complexant optimization, in the transition from lab- to industrial-scale nuclear waste separations and, ultimately, could yield field tests for radiolytic damage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24350: Phosphate Mineral and Glass Waste Forms for Advanced Immobilization of Chloride and Fluoride-based Waste Streams | Clemson University | $600,000 | This proposal is intended to develop three waste form options for immobilizing the fluoride- and chloride-salt waste stream in highly durable and easily processable phosphate minerals and glasses, including phosphate apatite ceramic waste forms, phosphate glass waste forms, and phosphate glass-ceramic waste forms with apatite phase. Multiple monolithic waste form samples will be provided to DOE national laboratories for further testing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24292: Passive multimodal tomography for dry storage casks imaging using passive neutron and gamma dosimetry and cosmic ray muons | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | A method for multimodal tomography of dry storage casks will be developed to determine fuel relocation and cladding failures using passive neutrons and gamma emissions in combination with cosmic ray muons. The use of multimodal imaging will allow 3-D reconstructions of the dry storage cask that would be unachievable with any single radiation source. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24374: Effects of Radiolysis on Pertechnetate under Solvent Extraction Conditions, including Tri-Butyl Phosphate | CUNY, Hunter College | $399,624 | The overarching objective of the proposed work is to assess the impact of radiolysis on pertechnetate speciation during tri-butylphosphate (TBP) solvent extractions from the molecular level to macroscale. The research in this project is designed to understand the interplay of radiolysis, degradation product formation, other important redox active metals, and oxidation states of technetium on its speciation and distribution coefficients in solvent extraction processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24183: Experimental investigation and development of models and correlations for cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena in transient conditions in support of TREAT and the LWR fleet. | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Thermal-hydraulics transient heat transfer phenomena of relevance for the safety and the operation of the TREAT and light water reactors will be investigated. The performance of accident tolerant fuel materials during a reactivity initiated accident scenario and post-critical heat flux and reflood scenarios will be elucidated, as well as the development of models and correlations to be integrated into computational tools for the design and safety analysis of nuclear systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24666: Wireless Multifunctional Ultrasonic Arrays with Interdigital and Airborne Transducers for Monitoring Leakage and Corrosion Conditions of Welded Dry Storage Canisters | Mississippi State University | $800,000 | This project aims to develop and validate wireless, multifunctional, ultrasonic sensor arrays that enable on-demand, quantitative interrogation and real-time monitoring of both the canister leakage indicators (helium, helium/air mixture, internal pressure, and temperature) and corrosion conditions (free and/or vapor water). The developed arrays will be fully functional, wirelessly powered and communicated, and compact. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24188: Uranium recovery from used nuclear fuel using metal sulfides | Northwestern University | $400,000 | An alternative and original method to recover uranium from spent fuel is proposed. This method will utilize a new type of regenerable sorbent materials with high selectivity in capturing uranium from complex mixtures in acidic solutions, such as those found in used nuclear fuel of high-assay low-enriched uranium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24225: Characterizing Fuel Response and Quantifying Coolable Geometry of High-Burnup Fuel | Oregon State University | $800,000 | This study seeks to objectively determine, through empirical and numerical means, the actual impact of fuel dispersion in-core after fuel failure and whether high burnup dispersed fuel compromises coolable geometry and long-term cooling. The outcome of this study will yield an objective means of assessing two criteria (coolable geometry and long-term cooling) within the existing regulatory process to comprehensively understand whether it is feasible to increase burnup, while satisfying 10 CFR 50.46. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24288: Innovative Methods for Interrogation of DSC Internal Conditions | Oregon State University | $800,000 | The proposed work takes a two-pronged approach. The team will study techniques involving only external sensors and equipment, which could be deployed on existing dry storage canisters. In addition, small sensors located inside the canister that can be externally powered and read through the canister wall will also be investigated. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24439: Development of Novel Corrosion-Responsive Buffer Materials for Long-Term Immobilization of High-Level Nuclear Waste | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to develop a novel cementitious buffer material (CBM) for the safe disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF). The primary aim is to identify and characterize novel Mg-Al-P CBMs, complete with assessments of their repository stability as well as their transport and immobilization of radionuclides. The secondary aim is to use in-situ UT-EIS monitoring to understand the corrosive failure at the canister-CBM interface and provide long-term performance modeling of SNF packages. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24461: Estimation of low temperature cladding failures during an RIA transient | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers aim to create a multiphysics description of cladding response during a RIA, especially at high burnup, coupling reactor physics, thermal hydraulics and mechanics. The creation of a thermomechanical model in Bison will be the result of this project which can be used to evaluate the likelihood of low temperature cladding failures during a postulated RIA on a typical fuel rod (as these can lead to channel blockage), and thus identify the most important conditions to be studied at TREAT. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24460: Multiscale Modeling and Experiments for Investigating High Burnup LWR Fuel Rod Behavior Under Normal and Transient Conditions | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | The main objective of this work is to achieve a mechanistic understanding of and to develop a predictive model for the fuel rod behavior at high burn-up under both normal and transient conditions. Therefore, this study will provide the nuclear industry with validated, physics-based criteria to fuel fragmentation thresholds and rod mechanical integrity limits. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24388: Redox Chemistry of UO2 under Repository Relevant Conditions in the Presence of Zircaloy and Waste Canister Material | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | This project will seek to improve understanding of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) corrosion. Hydrothermal experiments of SNF with cladding and waste canister material will give insights into the redox potential formed due to secondary phase formation as consequence of corrosion in a failed canister. The experimentally derived data about secondary phase formation will be utilized for phase relationship analysis to decipher the redox conditions and thus provide source term for performance assessment models of deep geologic repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24006: High-fidelity modeling of fuel-to-coolant thermomechanical transport behaviors under transient conditions | University of Florida | $800,000 | The objective of the proposal is to develop a high-fidelity modeling tool that can capture some of the important phenomena in high burnup UO2 and ATF fuels during transient conditions. The BlueCRAB tool set will be improved and used to analyze TREAT loss of coolant accident experimental results. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24312: Accelerating the development of reliable and robust machine learning-based interatomic potentials for the prediction of molten salt structure and properties | University of Massachusetts Lowell | $400,000 | Machine learning-based interatomic potentials (MLIPs) used in molecular dynamics (MD) can accurately and efficiently predict molten salt properties. However many machine learning-based methods require large training sets, and can fail unpredictably. This project will overcome these challenges by developing a method for efficiently sampling diverse configurations from MD to train reliable and robust neural network potentials, and develop new models for predicting errors in MLIPs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24697: Dual External Leak Sensing and Monitoring for Dry Storage Canister | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers aim to develop two complementary external sensing methods to evaluate the integrity of DSC through internal pressure monitoring and helium leakage detection. The proposed diffuse ultrasonic wave method will be able to measure biaxial strains in the canister wall with high sensitivity and minimum temperature effects. An innovative capacitance MEMS sensor will be developed for helium concentration measurement in air based on the extremely low permittivity of helium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24449: Multi-modal Surface Acoustic Wave Sensing System for Pressure and Temperature monitoring of Spent Fuel Canisters | University of North Texas | $800,000 | University of North Texas (UNT) will collaborate with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to develop a multi-modal wireless passive SAW (Surface Acoustic Wave) sensor array, which are deployed on the outside surface of the canister, to monitor the strain of the canister and thus determine the inside pressure. In addition, the SAW strain sensor could also measure the surface temperature and potentially monitor helium gas leak. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24265: Fragmentation and Thermal Energy Transport of Cr-doped Fuels under Transient Conditions | University of Pittsburgh | $799,999 | This project will focus on multiple aspects of experimental testing and engineering-scale modeling in understanding thermal energy transport from high burnup, fractured/fragmented accident tolerant fuels, establishing a strong scientific basis to fill a critical knowledge data gap for modeling and simulation of transient fuel performance and safety, such as loss of coolant accident, for future integral testing and fuel licensing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24310: Fusion of Distributed Fiber Optics, Acoustic NDE, and Physics-Based AI for Spent Fuel Monitoring | University of Pittsburgh | $800,000 | The proposal will leverage new concepts in the fusion between fiber optic distributed acoustic sensing and advanced acoustic nondestructive evaluation techniques with artificial intelligence enhanced classification frameworks to quantitatively characterize the state of dry cask storage containers for spent fuel monitoring, externally and non-invasively, without introducing additional risks of failure. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24261: Internal Wireless Sensors for Dry Cask Storage | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | The effort will test the reliability of wireless, internal sensors after exposure to drying and storage conditions. These sensors are used to internally monitor temperature, pressure, and dose. Radiation shielding will also be designed to protect sensors during long-term storage. The effort will develop piezoelectric techniques for miniaturization of optical emission spectroscopy for internal monitoring of gas composition during drying and long-term storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24533: Non-destructive Evaluation of Dry Storage Canisters Using Acoustic Sensing | University of Southern California | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to develop a robust non-destructive evaluation (NDE) technique based on acoustic sensing to detect impurity gases in a sealed (welded) dry storage canister (DSC) using only measurements collected on the external surface of the DSC. The method is based on the time-of-flight analysis of acoustic signals propagating through the fill gas of a DSC, which is influenced by the composition, density and temperature of the propagation medium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23984: Safety Implications of High Burnup Fuel for a 2-Year PWR Fuel Cycle | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to perform safety analysis of high burnup fuel for a Westinghouse 4-Loop Pressurized Water Reactor. The work aims to identify potential opportunities and gaps for high burnup fuel by utilizing both well-established and modern methodologies to model reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, and plant system-level response that ultimately provide feedback to fuel performance analysis. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23985: Fuel-to-Coolant Thermomechanical Behaviors Under Transient Conditions | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This project will enhance the prediction of thermo-mechanical fuel-to-coolant heat transfer under transient conditions by using a coupled analysis and experiment approach. The effort is relevant to both high-burnup (> 62GWd/t) fuel applications and Accident Tolerant Fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24070: Modeling high-burnup LWR fuel behavior under normal operating and transient conditions | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This project aims to develop a high-burnup light water reactor fuel modeling capability to implement in the BISON code that would enable the accurate fuel rod behavior simulation during normal operation and design basis accidents, as wells as the identification of the rod life-limiting factors. Mechanistic engineering models will be developed for key phenomena, in particular, high burnup structure evolution, fuel fragmentation, and fission gas release. Traditional and accident tolerant fuels will be considered. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24033: Redox Chemistry in Nuclear Materials Storage Matrices under Ambient and Accelerated Aging Conditions | University of Washington | $800,000 | Deep geologic repositories must safely contain hazardous, high-activity nuclear wastes at geologic time-scales. However, such capability is centrally dependent on the element-specific redox chemistry within and at the interface of storage vessels. A comprehensive study of redox chemistry in cements used in long-term storage is proposed and emphasizes: 1) the actual consequences of accelerated aging modalities and 2) the novel use of newly available capabilities in advanced x-ray spectroscopies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24063: Post-DNB Thermo-mechanical Behavior of Near-term ATF Designs in Simulated Transient Conditions | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | The goals of the proposed research are to conduct coupled experimental and modeling investigations of thermo-mechanical performance of coated accident tolerant zirconium alloy claddings with simulated burnup doped fuels under thermal transients to predict complex thermal and mass transport phenomena of near-term Accident Tolerant Fuel designs in accident conditions. Experiments and modeling for understanding both cladding-coolant and fuel-coolant interactions will be performed. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24582: Machine-Learning-Accelerated Molecular Dynamics Approaches for Molten Salts | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $399,477 | New machine learning potential (MLP) approaches and new MLPs to enable rapid prediction of molten salt (FLiBe and Nal-MgCl2 with impurities) properties with near ab initio quantum mechanical accuracy will be developed. Uncertainty quantification with active learning and on-the-fly fitting will greatly accelerate MLP training. This work will support dramatically increased simulation speeds and associated data generation and understanding for molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24067: Development of Full Understanding of Mechanical-Chemical Coupling in Bentonite THMC processes | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | The central hypothesis is that mechanical stress in an engineered barrier can lead to pressure solution of solid minerals, leading to significant changes in pore water chemistry, which affects bentonite stability, longevity of the waste pack, and dissolution and migration of nuclides. The overall objective of this project is to develop full understanding of the role of pressure solution on pore water chemistry, the implications to large-scale heterogeneity, and THMC processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23987: Separate and Multi-Physics Effects IRPhEP Benchmark Evaluation using SNAP Experiments | Georgia Institute of Technology | $400,000 | The proposed project will develop an International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) mulitphysics microreactor benchmark evaluation based on data from the Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power (SNAP) program. This work will include systematic assessments of the experimental data with meticulous compilation and documentation, and validation of specific NEAMS tools to model effects that are unique to microreactors technologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24630: Integral Benchmark Evaluation of Zero-Power Tests and Multi-Cycle Depletion Experimental Data of TVA WB1 Cycles 1-3 | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | This project proposes to develop an integral benchmark evaluation of available experimental data for zero-power tests and multi-cycle depletion for consistent and comprehensive validation of both novel high-fidelity and traditional multi-physics tools. The benchmark evaluation will be based on operational and measured data from the Pressurized Water Reactor Watts Bar Unit 1 released by Tennessee Valley Authority. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24186: Regenerating Missing Experimental Parameters with Data-Assimilation Methods for MSRE Transient Benchmark Development and Evaluation | Virginia Commonwealth University | $400,000 | The proposed project will regenerate the undocumented basic data from available experimental data of the MSRE using advanced data-assimilation methods to facilitate the whole-loop modeling of the representative MSRE transients, and perform a thorough MSRE transient benchmark evaluation for the IRPhEP handbook. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24194: Implementation of improved quasi-static, time-dependent, multi-physics methodology in Shift | Georgia Institute of Technology | $600,000 | A practical reference calculation route for time-dependent coupled Monte Carlo calculations, using Shift, will be developed. The proposed framework will be tailored to depletion and slowly varying transients, but with the flexibility to perform thermal-hydraulic time-dependent calculations with minimal computational overheads. This method relies on a hybrid-resolution stochastic approach in conjunction with a substep technique. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24078: Material transport model development and integration in the System Analysis Module (SAM) code | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | This project proposes to develop and implement models for System Analysis Module, which accurately characterize the sink, source, and interaction terms of key material species that are or may be present in various advanced reactor designs. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24195: Enhancing Yellowjacket for Modeling the Impact of Radiation and Stress on the Corrosion of Molten-Salt-Facing Structural Components | University of Florida | $692,088 | The objective of this project is to add the capability to model the impact of radiation and stress on corrosion to the Yellowjacket code, as well as to use Yellowjacket to create surrogate models that will be added to engineering-scale codes like Grizzly. We will also collect new experimental data for validation that quantifies the impact of stress and radiation on corrosion of 316 stainless steel in molten fluoride salts. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24405: Development of a High-fidelity Flow Boiling Database for Validation of High-void-fraction Flow Regime Models | University of Michigan | $800,000 | The primary objective of this proposed research is to develop a comprehensive, high-resolution, multiphase computational fluid dynamics validation-grade flow boiling data from rod bundle geometry simulating current light water reactor fuel designs by taking advantage of the instrumentation and facility developed by the research team. In addition, the applicability of the data through initial evaluations of selected test cases using Nek-2P boiling closure models will be studied and demonstrated for two-phase flow simulations. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24471: Technical Basis of Microstructure Criteria and Accelerated Testing for Qualifying Additively-manufactured 316H Stainless Steel for High-temperature Cyclic Service | Auburn University | $800,000 | This project seeks to reveal the fundamental relationship for AM 316H SS working at 500-750 _C between additively-manufactured microstructures and creep/creep-fatigue properties through a multiscale experimental and modeling approach. The project also seeks to establish the technical basis for the microstructure criteria and accelerated testing method to support near-term nuclear qualification. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24152: Direct heating of chemical catalysts for hydrogen and fertilizer production using Microreactors | Kansas State University | $799,202 | This proposal presents a novel integration approach to deliver process heat from microreactors by directly heating the catalyst particles from the primary heat transfer fluid in a moving packed bed heat exchanger (MPBHX). In this design, the tube side of the MPBHX can be a heat pipe or primary Helium coolant as in several microreactor designs. The shell side will be moving catalyst particles, which will enter the high temperature chemical reactor upon heating. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24287: Investigating heat transfer in horizontally oriented HTGR under normal and PCC conditions | Kansas State University | $799,762 | Experimental research will be conducted to understand heat transfer inside the graphite matrix of horizontal microscale High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors. Existing high temperature test facilities will be used to simulate normal operation and Pressurized Conduction Cooldown. The focus of these experiments is to generate benchmark data under forced and natural convection with coupled multi-mode heat transfer in scaled-down prismatic blocks. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24104: Thermal Hydraulics Investigation of Horizontally Orientated Layout Micro HTGRs Under Normal Operation and PCC Conditions Using Integrated Advanced Measurement Techniques | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000 | The proposed novel work will make a significant pioneering contribution to advance the knowledge and understanding of horizontal micro-high temperature gas cooled reactors. Quantification of metrics will pertain to convective heat transfer coefficients along the channel and gaps, comparative rates of convective and radiative heat transfer, location of peak temperature and its temporal variation, timescales for onset of natural convection, local gas velocity profiles, gas dispersion, crossflows, and temperature profiles over channel diameter and gap thickness. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24004: An Open Source, Parallel, and Distributed Web-Based Probabilistic Risk Assessment Platform to Support Real Time Nuclear Power Plant Risk-Informed Operational Decisions | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | The main objective of the proposed work is to develop, demonstrate, and evaluate a probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) software platform needed to address the major challenges of the current legacy PRA tools. This includes better quantification speed, integration of multi-hazard models into traditional PRAs, and model modification/simplification and documentation automation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24228: Quantifying the Dynamic and Static Porosity/Microstructure Characteristics of Irradiated Graphite through Multi-technique Experiments and Mesoscale Modeling | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | This project proposes a joint experimental-computational approach to probe and quantify the porosity and microstructure characteristics of irradiated nuclear graphite grades and their influence on dimensional changes and turnaround behavior, as well as mechanical properties. The chief focus will be on quantifying both the static and dynamic porosity and crack characteristics in various graphitic phases through several experimental techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24247: Multi-scale Effects of Irradiation Damage on Nuclear Graphite Properties | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Irradiation induces microstructural damage in graphite, causing both dimensional and property (stiffness, strength and creep) changes as a function of the displacement damage and temperature. The biggest gap remains is the fundamental deformation mechanisms behind the property changes. Researchers propose to eliminate this gap in knowledge with a comprehensive, multi-scale experimental framework exploiting in-situ transmission electron and X-ray computed tomography. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23975: Development of Thermal Power Dispatch Simulation Tools for BWR Flexible Plant Operation and Generation | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | In the U.S. domestic light water reactor fleet, about one-third of operational nuclear power reactors are boiling water reactors (BWRs). Thermal power extraction technologies to be designed for BWRs will be different from those for pressurized water reactors due to differences in steam generation. This study proposes to investigate the thermal and electric power dispatch and required control algorithms for dynamic heat dispatch of up to 50% of the thermal energy from a BWR plant to a hydrogen plant. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24111: Experimental Investigations of HTGR Fission Product Transport in Separate-effect Test Facilities Under Prototypical Conditions for Depressurization and Water-ingress Accidents | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Experimental investigations will be performed for fission product (FP) lift-off, washoff, vaporization from plateout surfaces, and transport of FP at prototypical conditions representing depressurization and water-ingress accidents. Measurements will be performed on existing separate-effect facilities using intrusive and non-intrusive techniques to obtain shear stress, deposition velocity, thermal gradient, and gas impurity for advanced correlations. Modeling will be performed using system and computational fluid dynamics codes. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24644: High-Resolution Measurements and Advanced Modeling for Design Optimization of Advanced Small Modular Reactor Steam Generators | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Experiments and simulations will be performed to acquire multi-parameters of pressure drop, heat and mass transfer, and flow-induced vibration (FIV) effect for the design optimization of advanced small modular reactor steam generators (SMR SG). Measurements are performed on existing SMR SG facilities using intrusive/non-intrusive techniques to obtain velocity, temperature, pressure, heat flux, and FIV effects for various geo-dimensions, spacing, pitch angles. Simulations will be performed in StarCCM, Nek5000 and coupling with Diablo_ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24332: A Virtual Reality Environment for Human Reliability Assessment in the Context of Physical Security Attacks | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Recent studies have shown that the physical security workforce accounts for 20% of the entire workforce and, therefore, is responsible for significant operational and maintence costs. To reduce the security staffing, improve performance and reduce threats, modeling and simulation and models of attacker, defender and operator behavior could be employed. This proposal aims to model human behavior using a combination of known human reliability analyses models and experimental evidence from virtual reality experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24389: High Temperature Electromagnetic Acoustic (EMAT) Transducers for Structural Health Monitoring | University of Cincinnati | $800,000 | The aim of this project is to produce an electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT) technology to enable ultrasonic structural health monitoring at the METL facility and similar high temperature assets. Ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation methods can be used for monitoring a range of damage mechanisms including thermal fatigue and corrosion. The project will seek to establish core design solutions that can be used as the basis of a range of EMAT designs for different applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24380: Probabilistic Validation and Risk Importance Ranking Methodology for Automation Trustworthiness and Transparency in Nuclear Power Plants | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | This project develops a methodology to improve trustworthiness and transparency of automation technologies in nuclear power plants. The proposed methodology will monitor risk emerging from automation processes and rank the criticality of automation factors influencing automation output, plant equipment, and system performance. The feasibility and practicality of the proposed methodology will be demonstrated with two case studies focusing on implementation of nuclear power plant automation technologies. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24162: Self-powered wireless sensor system for health monitoring of liquid-sodium cooled fast reactors | University of Notre Dame | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to develop self-powered wireless multimodal sensors and instrumentation for health monitoring and diagnosing early-stage materials degradation for high-risk components in liquid-sodium cooled fast reactors. The synergistic and innovative integrations of the multimodal sensor array, wireless communication, and thermoelectric energy harvester have crosscutting benefit for a wide range of advanced reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24102: High temperature Molten salt reactor pump component development and testing | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | This project will provide relevant key information on the tribology of bearing material and components (such as magnets, couplers, ceramic coated wire, and coatings) in high temperature molten salts that will be required in the design of reactor pumps. Investigation of in-service inspection and monitoring of the pump internals will also be addressed in an effort to reduce down time and operation and maintenance costs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24226: Cost Reduction of Advanced Integration Heat Exchanger Technology for Micro-Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,713 | Heat exchanger technology is a high-cost component of a micro-reactor system that is also critical to the overall reliability and performance. This project will develop the underlying advanced heat exchanger technology necessary to integrate a micro-reactor with any end-user application, as well as providing internal heat exchange. Economic optimization of the heat exchanger and experimental demonstration of the technology will be accomplished. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24382: Advanced High-Fluence Low-Flux RPV Mechanical Property Models for Extended Life | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,717 | This project will further develop accurate models of the mechanical property changes under life-extension conditions in reactor pressure vessel (RPV) steels using reduced order Avrami models, cluster dynamics, and atomistic methods combined with massive comprehensive databases on irradiated steels. The work will provide models critical to extending the life of U.S. pressurized water reactors, as well as new fundamental insights into flux and fluence effects and sink and precipitate evolution in reactor pressure vessels and related steels. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| Integrated Marine Platform for Hydrogen and Ammonia Production | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | This study investigates the economic and environmental value of a floating integrated GW-scale green hydrogen/ammonia production facility powered by an advanced nuclear reactor. Floating Production Storage and Offloading units (FPSOs) are deployed worldwide in the oil and gas industry, and can be used for hydrogen and ammonia processing. Deployment of an advanced reactor on a floating platform offers several advantages, including the efficiencies of shipyard fabrication. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Functionally-graded Cermet Coatings for Molten Salt Technologies by High Throughput Finite Element Modeling and Additive Manufacturing | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $500,000 | This project proposes an integrated approach/methodology to design, manufacture and verify functionally-graded metal-ceramic composite coatings on structural alloys with desired interfacial properties, capabilities of mitigating residual stress and improved corrosion resistance for molten salt reactor applications. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| An Innovative Monitoring Technology for the Reactor Vessel of Micro-HTGR | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | This project seeks to develop an innovative sensor technology for real-time monitoring of the thermo-mechanical stresses in the reactor vessel of micro-HTGR. The technology will be based on a sparse network of outer wall temperature measurements and plant operating conditions. An integrated software-hardware sensing system aimed at monitoring the health of the pressure vessel of gas micro-reactors will be implemented and tested. The proposed work will have a broad impact on sensing in other reactor designs. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| High throughput mechanical testing of additively-manufactured materials | University of California, Berkeley | $500,000 | This project proposes fast and high throughput mechanical testing of AM produced materials. It will include the generation of automated tensile testing, hardness testing and microstructure assessment and data comparison to build data via machine learning. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Accelerated irradiation creep testing coupled with self-adaptive accelerated molecular dynamics simulations for scalability analysis | University of Michigan | $500,000 | The goal of the proposed work is to accelerate traditional irradiation creep using instrumented in-situ ion irradiation creep and long-time molecular dynamics simulations to accelerate traditional neutron irradiation creep testing. This goal will be accomplished by coupling a novel ion beam flux jump test using tapered creep specimens and self-adaptive accelerated molecular dynamics. The outcome is a rapid, low-cost accelerated method to determine the fundamental irradiation creep mechanisms. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Creation of a Pebble Database for Material Control and Accountancy in Pebble Bed Reactors | Virginia Commonwealth University | $399,969 | The primary goal of this proposed project is to develop a database of NDA signatures from a wide variety of used PBR pebbles. This database can be used for facility operations, safety, security, and safeguards (3S) to directly measure fission product content and indirectly 235U and plutonium content of each PBR pebble. This project has significant synergy with current 3S PBR research at ANL, BNL, and ORNL, all of whom are collaborators to this proposed project. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Quantifying Aerosol Deposition Mechanisms in Model Dry Cask Storage Systems | Clemson University | $800,000 | The objective of this work is to measure aerosol deposition and resuspension rates in laboratory models of dry cask storage systems to compare with and validate the DOE deposition model. The project team will conduct experiments to directly measure the deposition/resuspension rates of bulk aerosol in the system and to isolate and quantify individual aerosol deposition mechanisms, with a focus on those sensitive to variable humidity and surface temperature. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Using Amide-Functionalized Electrodes to Elucidate Interfacial Actinide Redox Chemistry for Improved HALEU Supply | Florida International University | $400,000 | The goal is to decrease HALEU fuel cycle costs by examination of the redox behavior of U, Np, and Pu at the water-organic interface using amide functionalized electrodes, and in organic media after extraction with amides. Experiments with redox active interferences including additional actinides in different oxidation states will also be conducted. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advancing the technical readiness of FeCrAl alloys and ODS steels under extreme conditions for fast reactor fuel cladding | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | A key technology gap for advanced high-performance fuel applications is the current unavailability of materials that can withstand extremely high doses without significant degradation of cladding performance. The project team will perform in-situ thermo-mechanical experiments (tension, torsion, creep, and creep-fatigue and nanoindentation) on ion-irradiated (to 400 dpa) cladding materials (up to 700 C) along with microstructures using TEM and mesoscale phase field simulations. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| A molten salt community framework for predictive modeling of critical characteristics | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | This research aims to develop a molten salt community framework to address the needs in advanced fuel cycles, including understanding salts via new theory of liquids, predicting salt characteristics via simulations (DFT, MD, and CALPHAD by implementing advanced models), optimizing inversely molten salts, and verifying simulations by experiments. This project has outstanding value for US taxpayers, educates students, and delivers outreach opportunities for academia, industry, and the public. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Understanding the Interfacial Structure of the Molten Chloride Salts by in-situ Electrocapillarity and Resonant Soft X-ray Scattering (RSoXS) | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | The objective of the proposed research is to investigate the interplay between the interfacial structure of the molten salts and their electrochemical corrosion properties in Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Clay Hydration, Drying, and Cracking in Nuclear Waste Repositories | Princeton University | $800,000 | This project will develop a new multiscale model of the thermal-hydrologic-mechanical-chemical (THMC) evolution of an engineered clay barrier in the near field of a nuclear waste repository, including initial hydration and eventual post-closure criticality. This new model will directly link micro-scale material properties to large-scale barrier performance, thus facilitating future design advances or modifications, and enable robust validation of large-scale simulation predictions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Physics-guided Smart Scaling Methodology for Accelerated Fuel Testing | Purdue University | $800,000 | This project proposes to employ novel informatics algorithms for mapping/scaling uncertainties from experimentally accessible scaled state to application/prototypical state, informed by an equivalent mapping obtained from high-fidelity multi-physics simulations for the fuel thermo-mechanical behavior, specifically, a rate theory-based model for thermal conductivity and fission gas behavior in the BISON code, and employing relevant HALDEN reactor and FAST experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Materials Accountancy During Disposal and Waste Processing of Molten Salt Reactor Fuel Salts | Texas A&M University | $399,997 | The objective of this work is to develop and validate a method for measuring and predicting hold-up to eliminate operational risks and expenses during disposal of salt-wetted MSR components. These objectives will be met by applying robust measurement/detection methods to realistic salt loop environments to validate their use in decommissioning MSRs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advanced Screening Approaches for Accelerating Development of Separations Technologies | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | The goal of this project is to establish a unified selection criterion for chelating molecular structures to more efficiently address ligand applicability to metal ion separation problems, for current and future nuclear fuel cycles. By establishing this criterion, the team will seek to enable the accelerated, cost-effective discovery of new separation workflows, as well as their implementation beyond early radiotracer experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advancing NMA of TRISO-fueled pebbles using fast and accurate gamma-ray spectroscopy | University of Colorado, Boulder | $385,307 | This proposal will provide new Nuclear Materials Analysis (NMA) capabilities for TRISO-fueled pebbles using gamma-ray spectroscopy, through a program of simulations of expected signatures from irradiated pebbles, resulting in a detailed measurement plan to monitor burnup and actinide content throughout the fuel cycle. These simulations will be used to develop requirements for NMA sensor technology and identify opportunities for focused technology development to meet these requirements. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Development of Irradiation and Creep Resistant High-Cr Ferritic/Martensitic Steels via Magnetic Field Heat Treatment | University of Kentucky | $800,000 | The objective of this proposed study is to develop and test new generation of Ferritic/Martensitic (F/M) steels specifically designed for advanced reactors that will exceed the current limitations due to temperature and irradiation dose. To achieve this objective, a systematic study is proposed to employ an innovative tempering heat treatment under high external magnetic field (up to 9T) on F/M steel HT9 to engineer an optimized microstructure composed of refined carbides and martensite laths. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Investigation into the processing parameters of phosphate-based dehalogenation for chloride-based waste salt | University of Nevada, Reno | $399,999 | This proposal will focus on several topics needed to advance the iron phosphate process: 1) Dehalogenation/vitrification processes using salt simulants to generate process flow sheets, 2) Reactions of crucible materials with phosphate products and byproducts, 3) Collection of glass property-composition data to develop models based on the glass-forming regions, 4) Development of a process for reacting recovered NH4Cl with metals that need to be fed into the system (U, Li, etc.). | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| A Validated Framework for Seismic Risk Assessment of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of Nevada, Reno | $799,883 | This is a collaborative research program with a primary objective of developing a validated numerical framework for seismic risk analysis of spent fuel storage facilities from the global cask behavior to the localized behavior of internal spent fuel assemblies. In building and validating this framework, advanced data analysis, data assimilation, and forward and inverse modeling techniques will be utilized. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| International Collaboration to Advance the Technical Readiness of High Uranium Density Fuels and Composites for Small Modular Reactors | University of Texas at San Antonio | $800,000 | An international team of high uranium density fuels (HDFs) experts advised by industry leaders in nuclear reactor innovation propose a US-UK collaboration to advance the technical readiness of UN, UB2, and their composites for fuel forms specific to small modular reactors (SMRs). The project will bridge the critical data gaps in HDF performance specific to the impact of common impurities and microstructural variations that originate at fabrication. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Development of Advanced Control Rod Assembly for Improved Accident Tolerance and High Burnup Fuel Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Research will focus on the development of new materials' designs for control rod sheaths and neutron absorbers, coupled with neutronics analysis and thermo-mechanical modeling to improve accident tolerance and to achieve higher fuel burnup in PWRs. Functionality of the proposed designs consisting of Cr coated control rod sheaths of current and advanced alloys as well as novel neutron absorbers will be evaluated in prototypical reactor conditions and accident scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Optical Basicity Determination of Molten Fluoride Salts and its Influence on Structural Material Corrosion | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | The proposed research is aimed at developing ion probes to determine the optical basicity of molten fluoride salts and studying its influence on structural material corrosion. Combining with the molten salt structure study using X-ray absorption spectroscopy, the salt chemical constitution, the resulting optical basicity, and molten salt structure will be inextricably linked and their connections will be unveiled. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Extending the HMF71 Benchmark Series for Graphite Reflector Thickness up to 18 Inches | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $399,522 | The objective of this proposal is to extend the HEU-MET-FAST-071 (HMF-71) experiment benchmark series in ICSBEP by evaluating the historical (existing) experimental data for critical experiments with graphite reflector thickness from 3 inches up to 18 inches. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2022 |
| Fast and Rigorous Methods for Multiphysics SPn Transport in Advanced Reactors | University of Michigan | $600,000 | This project proposes to perform rigorous theoretical and numerical analysis of the Generalized SPn method and underlying cross section models to enable a fast and robust multiphysics low-order transport capability for advanced reactors. This includes 5 major tasks focused on the efficient discretization and solution of the GSPn equations, numerical analysis of XS models having multiphysics and depletion, analysis of equivalence factors, improved MC estimators, and several V&V applications of the methods. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2022 |
| Development of Hydrogen Transport Models for High Temperature Metal Hydride Moderators | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Understanding the transient behavior of metal hydride moderator materials at high temperatures is a key challenge to the design and deployment of future microreactors. This project will use neutron radiography techniques provide the necessary data for this understanding and demonstrate the development of time and temperature dependent hydrogen transport models using both commercial FEA software coupled to MCNP and coupled models developed in the MOOSE framework. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Characterizing fast reactor fuel failure mode through separate effect and prototypic tests | Oregon State University | $800,000 | The project consists of conducting separate effect fuel pin failure tests with surrogate fluid and prototypic test with sodium. The outcome of this study will generate an experimental database that will be used to develop mechanistic model and validate the CDAP module of the SAS4A/SASSYS-1 code. Ultimately the quality data can be used to benchmark other fuel codes developed for LMFR application, which are seeking validation for licensing purpose. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Science-based development of ASTM standard tests for graphite-based fuel pebbles | University of California, Berkeley | $700,000 | This project proposes the development of mechanical test procedures as well as wear and friction tests on Graphite fuel pebbles | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Role of Heterogeneity in Manganese and Nickel Rich Precipitate Distribution on Hardening of Reactor Pressure Vessel Steels: Integrated Modeling and Experimental Characterization | University of Florida | $799,803 | The hypothesis of this work is that the different nucleation and coarsening kinetics of manganese and nickel rich precipitates (MNPs) compared to copper rich precipitates, and the heterogeneous distribution of manganese and nickel rich precipitates on or near dislocations, both lead to unique hardening behavior at high neutron fluence. The objective of this work is to understand hardening in reactor pressure vessel steels caused by MNPs via integrated multiscale modeling and experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Integrated Thermal-Electric Energy Management of All-Electric Ship with Advanced Nuclear Reactors | University of Texas at Dallas | $400,000 | The overall objective of this research is to comprehensively model, design, and evaluate the use of advanced nuclear reactors in future nuclear-powered ships, to enhance the efficiency, reliability, and resilience of shipboard energy distribution systems. The novelty of the proposed approach lies in (i) integrated thermal-electric modeling of advanced nuclear-powered shipboard energy system, and (ii) novel solutions for total-ship energy management to improve energy efficiency and resiliency. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Open Architecture for Nuclear Cost Reduction | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Open architecture has potential to reduce advanced reactor (AR) costs, through exploiting modular design and construction, with common, openly available interfaces between modules. A comprehensive assessment of the challenges and opportunities of open architecture for ARs will be performed. Supported by a pilot study, actionable recommendations for the implementation or otherwise of open architecture for ARs will be developed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Telescopic Control Rod for Significant Reduction in HTR Height and therefore Cost | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | This project proposes a design for a small modular High Temperature Reactor (HTR) control rod that extends telescopically, consisting of ~5 concentric annuli that nest together above the core when withdrawn. This compact component substantially reduces the length of the depth of the silo. Modelling and experimental testing will be performed to develop the control rod to evaluate feasibility, plus perform a cost-benefit analysis, with a view to its inclusion in both pebble bed and prismatic HTR designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Mechanism Driven Evaluations of Sequential and Simultaneous Irradiation-Creep-Fatigue Testing | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | This project addresses a critical need for irradiation and creep-fatigue testing by carrying out a systematic, mechanistic-driven benchmarking for irradiation creep, irradiation fatigue and creep-fatigue tests under various environments. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Mechanisms-based Acceleration of Materials Qualifications for Creep-Fatigue Performance in Advanced Nuclear Systems | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | The goal of this research is to fully understand, quantify and model creep-fatigue 'damage' as a function of loading patterns, temperature and microstructural evolution. Using this experimental information over a large range of relevant stress levels and temperatures, a mechanisms-based creep-fatigue analysis approach will be demonstrated which will properly qualify high temperature alloys for extended service in advanced nuclear systems where creep-fatigue is currently a major design limitation. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Subwavelength Ultrasonic Imaging for Rapid Qualification of Additively Manufactured Nuclear Structures and Components | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to develop a transformational capability for rapid nondestructive quality assessment of actual nuclear additively manufactured structures and components through advanced ultrasonic imaging with subwavelength resolution. The resolution of conventional ultrasonic systems is limited by diffraction on the order of the wavelength. In this project, the goal is to break the diffraction limits of ultrasonic imaging by implementing a negative-index lens. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| MXene as Sorbent Materials for Off-gas Radioiodine Capture and Immobilization | Clemson University | $1,000,000 | The overarching goal of this project is to develop efficient and stable new sorbent materials, for off-gas radioiodine capture and immobilization, that are based on MXenes with two-dimensional transition metal carbides/nitrides. The exploratory research will focus on three main objectives: 1) Design and synthesis of MXenes as radioiodine sorbent and support materials, 2) Quantification of iodine sorption capacity of MXenes in different forms, 3) Synthesis and characterization of consolidated waste forms. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Fundamental understanding of grain boundary cracking in LWR environments | University of California, Los Angeles | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to understand the details of stress corrosion cracking (SCC) and irradiation assisted stress corrosion cracking (IASCC) by targeted experiments and modeling efforts. A comprehensive model will be produced, which will predict the conditions under which these failure modes occur and when the materials may see onsets of the failure mode. This work will directly impact the nuclear industry by refining predictive models of component lifetime. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Facile manufacturing of fiber-reinforced-SiC/SiC composite using aerodynamic fiber deposition (AFD) and metal assisted polymer impregnation and pyrolysis processes (MAPIP) | University of Pittsburgh | $999,886 | SiC/SiC ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) are promising candidate materials for the cladding of accident tolerant fuels. Superior material properties of SiC/SiC CMC, however, come at a high manufacturing cost. The objective of the proposed research is to apply aerodynamic fiber deposition (AFD) and metal assisted polymer impregnation and pyrolysis (MAPIP) to develop a new facile manufacturing approach of SiC/SiC CMC. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| High Concentration Monoamide Separations: Phase Modifiers and Transuranic Chemistry | Colorado School of Mines | $999,900 | Extraction of actinides from used nuclear fuel with high concentrations of monoamide extractants is a promising strategy to intensify separation processes; however key issues remain to be understood and resolved. This project will examine three questions: 1) Can phase modifiers mitigate issues with organic phase viscosity? 2) Can the chemistry of neptunium be controlled to ensure complete separation? 3) Do high concentrations of monoamides affect the oxidation states of important metals and can that be exploited? | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Multiple Uranium Complexes in Chloride Fast Reactor Molten Salt Properties | University of Connecticut | $1,000,000 | Multivalent transition metal ions in a melt can exhibit multiple coordination states that affect molten salt properties. This project will use a new high-energy resolution fluorescence detection (HERFD) spectroscopy to overcome issues associated with measuring coordination numbers of multiple complexes, along with Raman spectroscopy and advanced simulations to accurately predict properties of molten salts with multiple uranium complexes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Validation of Geochemical Reactive Transport Long-Term predictions Using Natural Cements and Ancient Cements Analogues | Vanderbilt University | $950,000 | This project will validate long-term performance predictions of rock/cement interfaces based on characterization of natural analogues, ancient cements and interfaces with rock formations, and demonstrate applicability of the established testing and simulation workflow with argillite rock (representative of potential U.S. repository systems). This project addresses the research gap of long-term validation and uncertainty assessment associated with cement barrier performance and multi-physics models. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Predicting Pitting and Stress Corrosion Cracking of Dry Cask Storage Canisters via High Throughput Testing, Multiscale Characterization, and 3D Computer Vision based Machine Learning | The Ohio State University | $1,000,000 | This project consists of a US-UK collaborative research program focusing on the nucleation and growth of pits and stress corrosion cracking of stainless steel 304 (a canister material used for dry cask storage of spent nuclear fuels) by leveraging multi-scale characterization techniques, 2D/3D computer vision, and machine learning approaches. The study will enable the understanding and prediction of how and when pitting corrosion can nucleate, grow, and transition into stress corrosion cracking. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Multiscale Residual Stress Tailoring of Spent Fuel Canister CISCC Resistance | Purdue University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to understand the role of residual stress in chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) of austenitic steel, then tailor CISCC initiation and propagation through engineered multiscale residual stress distributions. Microscopic and macroscopic residual stresses will be systematically varied, then a novel sequence of advanced, site-specific, correlative characterization techniques will be applied to directly link residual stress, pitting, and crack propagation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Illuminating Emerging Supply Chain and Waste Management Challenges | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | Regional constraints on domestic fuel supply and greater variation in demand from advanced reactors has led to a shift in the U.S. fuel cycle, and modeling tools must reflect this. In this work, Cyclus will be updated to better reflect new and emergent regional supply constraints, spatial and temporal fluctuations in material needs, and those impacts on the back-end of the fuel cycle will be quantified. This work will allow for flexible, reproducible analysis to inform stakeholder decision-making. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Determination of Local Structure and Phase Stability of Uranium Species in Molten Halide Salts: Linking Microscopic Structure with Macroscopic Thermodynamics | Arizona State University | $1,000,000 | The goal of this project is to determine the local structures (valence state, coordination configuration and medium-range structure) and thermodynamic stability of uranium species in molten chloride and fluoride salts at high temperatures using a combination of experimental and modeling methods. The obtained results will allow for revelation of the structure-stability relations of the studied systems and development of acid-base scales to determine the solubility of uranium in molten halide salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Thermal-Hydraulics Assessment of SiC Compared to Other ATF Cladding Materials and its Performance to Mitigate CRUD | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | This project aims to experimentally investigate the thermal-hydraulics performance of SiC compared to the Cr-coated zircaloys and APMT ATF cladding materials under accident scenarios, including both DNB and dryout conditions. The project is divided into five tasks that will advance the understanding of the operation and optimization of heat pipes for advanced nuclear reactors. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Physics-Informed Artificial Intelligence for Non-Destructive Evaluation of Ceramic Composite Cladding by Creating Digital Fingerprints | University of Florida | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to spatially map the material composition, structure, and defect distribution of SiCf-SiCm composite tubes from ultrasonic wavefields measured from the materials and the defects within them. Specifically, this project will delve into the unique ultrasonic fingerprints (i.e., dispersion relations and mode shapes) of the SiCf-SiCm composites using physics-informed machine learning to assess the quality of the manufactured tubes based on their spatial-spectral ultrasonic characteristics. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Understanding Constituent Redistribution, Thermal Transport, and Fission Gas Behavior in U-Zr Annular Fuel Without a Sodium Bond | University of Florida | $999,462 | This project will investigate the reason for changed constituent redistribution in annular U-Zr fuel without a sodium bond and how it changes the fission gas behavior and thermal conductivity. This will be achieved using a combination of microstructure characterization and thermal conductivity measurements of irradiated U-Zr annular fuel and multiscale modeling and simulation using the MARMOT and BISON fuel performance codes. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Getting AnCers: Metallothermic Molten Salt Synthesis and Reaction Thermodynamics of Actinide Ceramic Fuels | Oregon State University | $1,000,000 | Synthesis of high quality actinide ceramics (AnCers) remains a costly challenge. A low-temperature, high-yield, short-duration reaction that directly synthesizes UN and UC could reduce the cost of these advanced fuels greatly. This proposal aims to demonstrate a method by which the costs of AnCers can be greatly reduced - metallothermic molten salt synthesis. Optimization and thermodynamics data will be obtained. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Integrated Stand-off Optical Sensors for Molten Salt Reactor Monitoring | University of Pittsburgh | $1,000,000 | This project intends to develop robust and stand-off optical sensors to perform real-time molten salt levels, flow, and impurity measurements of molten salts. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Cybersecurity in advanced reactor fleet by cyber-informed design, real-time anomaly detection, dynamic monitoring, and cost-effective mitigation strategies | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The goal of this research is to provide technical solutions to unique cybersecurity challenges in future microreactor fleet through cyber-informed design (C-ID), real-time anomaly detection, dynamic monitoring, and cost-effective mitigation strategies. The efforts will significantly improve the economics and effectiveness of cybersecurity risk management in future microreactor fleets. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Building Cyber-Resilient Architecture for Advanced Reactors via Integrated Operations and Network Digital Twin | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | The research will develop a secure-by-design architecture via integrating plant operation and network digital twins for advanced reactors. Automatic attack path and vulnerability analysis will be developed and used to assess and harden critical digital assets (CDA) against cyber risks prior to and during operation to identify vulnerabilities, attack pathways, and threat vectors. A CDA selection method will also be developed by combining vulnerability scores and assets importance. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Extending PRA and HRA legacy methods and tools with a cause-based model for comprehensive treatment of human error dependency | University of California, Los Angeles | $1,000,000 | This project aims at developing a solution to HRA dependency assessment in PRA from methodological and practical/computational perspectives within legacy PRA tools and methods. The solutions will include procedures for quantifying dependency when using PRA legacy tools, a method for modeling and quantifying dependency in HRA comprising a BN-causal model suitable for use with legacy PRA methods and tools, and the computational tools for its integration. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| An Integrated Elemental and Isotopic Detector for Real-Time Molten Salt Monitoring | North Carolina State University | $1,000,000 | The overarching theme of the proposed research is to develop and demonstrate a real-time elemental and isotopic detector of molten salts for advanced reactors and fuel fabrication and recycling processes. The detector's longevity, limits, and latency will be tested in static uranium chloride salts, in pyroprocessing chloride salt, and on flowing fluoride salt with evolving actinide composition, respectively. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Development of a Thin-Layer Electrochemical Sensor for Molten Salt Reactors and Fuel Cycle Processes | Brigham Young University | $811,755 | A thin-layer electrochemical sensor capable of detecting uranium, plutonium and other species of interest in molten salts, at both high and low concentrations, will be developed for application in molten salt reactors and fuel cycle process units. This will provide a valuable tool for performing material control and accountancy measurements. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Risk-Informed Consequence-Driven Hybrid Cyber-Physical Protection System Security Optimization for Advanced Reactor Sites | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | This project aims to develop an expanded methodology for designing a novel cybersecurity-integrated physical protection system (PPS) framework for advanced reactor concepts that serves to reduce the operational costs for the life of a reactor against that of a traditional light water reactor PPS design, promoting efforts to credit safety features of advanced reactors through proposed amendments to current security regulations, while integrating health and economic consequence analyses. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| A risk analysis framework for evaluating the safety, reliability, and economic implications of electrolysis for hydrogen production at NPPs | University of Maryland, College Park | $1,000,000 | The RAFELHyP project will develop a modular risk analysis framework that enables evaluating the safety, reliability, and economic implications of upcoming deployments of electrolyzers to produce hydrogen at nuclear power plants. The framework will be implemented to conduct an integrated safety, reliability, and economic analysis of multiple plant configurations to provide detailed recommendations for plant protective features and layouts. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Reduced Order Modeling of Heat and Fluid Flow: Multi-Scale Modeling of Advanced Reactors to Enable Faster Deployment | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | Novel multi-scale algorithms for thermal-hydraulics (TH) simulations of advanced reactors will be developed. The methods will leverage recent advances in hardware and reduced order modeling approaches to enable TH simulations of vastly accelerated speed, while maintaining accuracy comparable to high-fidelity methods, such as large-eddy simulation. The methods will allow designers to perform parameter sweeps, develop closures, and enable high fidelity simulation of transients. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Embedded Monte Carlo | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Monte Carlo methods have long been considered the standard in terms of accuracy and have seen increased use in design of small nuclear systems; however, the uncertainty quantification (UQ) of the desired output is often relegated to later stages of the design process. This project seeks to embed nuclear data UQ in a single Monte Carlo simulation, such that each desired quantity will not only provide the mean value and statistical uncertainty, but also the related nuclear data uncertainty. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| A Low Order Transport Method Based on the Dynamic Truncation of the Integral Transport Matrix Method (ITMM) that Converges to the SN Solution with Increasing Cell Optical Thickness | North Carolina State University | $1,000,000 | A novel low-order transport operator capable of approximating Monte Carlo (MC) results within a variance range will be developed. This does not require MC reference solutions to calibrate the low-order model, so repeated solutions of the latter in-transient scenarios does not require repeated MC simulations. Truncation of the low-order operator is done dynamically for evolving configurations to ensure accuracy of the low-order solution. This will involve proof of principle on Cartesian meshes, then implementation in Griffin. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| CFD based Critical Heat Flux predictions for enhanced DNBR margin | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | This project seeks to demonstrate a robust high-fidelity CFD-based methodology to predict CHF behavior at varying quality conditions, enabling the development of advanced DNBR correlations with reduced uncertainty, and in support of upgraded plant economics. The availability of a virtual CHF methodology will allow greatly extending the database for DNBR correlations development and further support advancement in the design of high-performing nuclear fuel. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Immersed Boundary Methods for Modeling of Complex Geometry: A Leap Forward in Multiscale Modeling using NekRS | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | A major challenge to Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling of complex geometries is the need to generate body-fitted meshes, which can occupy 80% of the CFD practitioner's time. Immersed boundary methods will be added in the NekRS CFD code, dramatically simplifying modeling of complex 3-D structures and facilitating a new paradigm for CFD-informed multiscale analysis. This will be demonstrated by informing SAM transient systems-level models with NekRS heat exchanger correlations for advanced reactors. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Uncertainty Quantification of Model Extrapolation in Neural Network-informed Turbulent Closures for Plenum Mixing in HTGRs | Utah State University | $1,000,000 | This project will quantify the uncertainty in prediction of Neural Network-informed Turbulent Closures when they are operating in a model extrapolation state. Once the method is developed for canonical buoyant jets, the protocols will be applied to plenum mixing in HTGRs. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Impact of moisture on corrosion of NiCr alloys in MgCl2-NaCl Salt Systems | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $999,983 | This project aims to gain a fundamental understanding of the impact of moisture and salt chemistry on corrosion of NiCr alloys in molten chloride salts. A novel approach coupling multiscale simulations and experiments will be designed to determine salt acidity, its dependence on salt composition (i.e., the NaCl to MgCl2 ratio), and its effects on the transport of H2O and Cr ions and the corrosion kinetics of NiCr alloys in chloride salt. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Transforming Microreactor Economics Through Hydride Moderator Enabled Neutron Economy | State University of New York, Stony Brook | $1,000,000 | Microreactors will potentially require the cost of electricity to be 10 MWD/kg at >3 kW/kg core specific power. These goals are best achieved through a well-thermalized spectrum. Neutron economy as a core material selection criterion to advance entrained hydride composite moderators will be used with the primary goal of significantly reducing fuel costs through novel microreactor designs. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Integrating Nuclear with ZLD Seawater Desalination and Mining | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | An integrated nuclear system will be developed that would utilize electricity and waste heat to operate a desalination and mining process from adjacent seawater. The desalination approach targets zero-liquid discharge with multiple marketable minerals extracted. The ability of nuclear facilities to load follow is increasingly important, so a cold thermal storage system will be incorporated. The desalination and mineral extraction process will be experimentally validated at lab scale. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Reference Designs of Green Ammonia Plants Powered by Small Modular Reactors | Utah State University | $1,000,000 | The overarching goal of this project is to develop two reference designs for green ammonia plants. One design uses freshwater as the source for hydrogen, while the other design uses seawater (or brackish water) as the source. In both designs, a small modular reactor (SMR) is used as the primary energy source providing both electricity and steam for the plants. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Development of the Technical Bases to Support Flexible Siting of Microreactors based on Right-Sized Emergency Planning Zones | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to provide the technical basis to support the application of a right-sized Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ) size to support the deployment of a microreactor at the Penn State University Park campus. This research study will serve as a template to provide flexible siting in support of future microreactor deployments that may be placed closer to demand centers, thereby making them more economically competitive. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Bayesian Optimization for Automatic Reactor Design Optimization | Arizona State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to develop analytical tools based on Gaussian process modeling and Bayesian Optimization that facilitate reactor design optimization by modeling the responses from the physics simulator. Existing capabilities will be applied in an AI field and they will be adapted to address the key characteristics of nuclear reactor design problem. This project will automate the simulation-based design procedure, reduce the number of iterations, and minimize the design cycle time. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Engaging New Mexican communities in developing an equitable and just approach to siting advanced reactor facilities | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | This project will engage diverse New Mexican communities to develop an equitable approach for advanced reactor siting. The findings of this project will shed light on how technology developers and the DOE can explore and potentially site advanced reactors with the informed consent and engagement of host communities, regions, and states. The findings of this study will also more generally apply to the potential for equitably exploring both brownfield and greenfield sites for nuclear facilities. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Deciphering Irradiation Effects of YHx through In-situ Evaluation and Micromechanics for Microreactor Applications | University of New Mexico | $998,000 | This project addresses a critical gap in accelerated testing of YH evolution coupling multi-length scale mechanical testing with ion irradiation and advanced characterization to establish a baseline understanding of YH evolution under ion irradiation. Our approach will couple ion irradiation and gamma irradiation with small scale mechanical testing to decipher multi-scale impacts on phase stability to advance understanding of YH in a microreactor moderator application. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Active Learning Estimation and Optimization (ALEO) of Irradiation Experimental Design for Efficient Accelerated Fuel Qualification | University of Texas at San Antonio | $997,247 | This collaborative project creates novel AI/ML models and algorithms integrated with physical knowledge and expertise to explore more efficient ways to calculate irradiation temperatures and fuel specimen burnups for new fuel sample configurations of MiniFuel experiments proposed for irradiation in the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Unraveling how mixing vane spacers affect cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena in light water reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $500,000 | Experiments will be conducted to quantify the effect of mixing vane spacers on cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena, namely single-phase forced convection, nucleate boiling, and CHF. The results of the experimental research will allow elucidating the physical phenomena triggered by the presence of mixing vane spacers. They will also allow assessing the performance of M-CFD tools developed within CASL and in use by the nuclear community. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Quantum Computing Algorithms for Deterministic Neutron Transport | University of Michigan | $500,000 | This project will develop algorithms for solving the k-eigenvalue form of the neutron transport equation in a nuclear reactor physics context on a quantum computer. The asymptotic scaling of the algorithms will be analyzed. Investigation into implementation will be made by making resource estimates by synthesizing explicit circuits for the algorithms and be studied by emulation on a classical computer. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Optimizing Application-Dependent Energy Group Structures for Multigroup Neutron Transport Models using Machine Learning | Colorado School of Mines | $500,000 | Machine Learning methods will be developed that will dramatically reduce both the computational run-time and manual effort needed to find multigroup energy structures that accurately capture the underlying physics of neutron reactions, while allowing multigroup simulations to run quickly without overwhelming available memory. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Understanding PM-HIP Interparticle Evolution and its Influence on Fracture Toughness in Alumina-Forming Steels | Purdue University | $1,100,000 | This project aims to understand how interparticle evolution during hot isostatic pressing (HIP) influences fracture toughness of Al-bearing steels. The team will use a series of interrupted HIP experiments with phase field models to understand the formation mechanisms of interparticle defects during HIP of alumina-forming austenitic (AFA) stainless steels and FeCrAl steels, and the influence of these defects on fracture behavior. | Document | Advanced Manufacturing Technologies | FY2024 |
| Multiscale high-throughput experiment/modeling approach to understanding creep behavior in Additively Manufactured reactor steels | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $1,043,271 | This project proposes to develop a predictive capability for processing-microstructure-property correlations in additive manufactured microstructures utilizing a multiscale approach encompassing bulk creep tests, miniaturized tensile testing, and a high-throughput, indentation based, cost-effective method for elevated temperature mechanical mapping of additively manufactured 316H Stainless Steel, Grade 91, and Titanium-Zirconium-Molybdenum (TZM) alloys. | Document | Advanced Manufacturing Technologies | FY2024 |
| Assessing molten salt corrosion resistance of stainless steel 316H in nuclear reactor environments | North Carolina State University | $1,100,000 | The proposed goal is to leverage a blend of innovative molten salt corrosion experiments and cutting-edge characterization techniques to advance our understanding of molten salt corrosion in both commercial and additively manufactured (AM) stainless steel (SS) 316H, particularly under radiation or stress environments. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Polymer-Derived C-SiC Coatings on Kernel Particles for Advanced Nuclear Reactors | University of Alabama at Birmingham | $1,100,000 | This program is to use a polymer-derived ceramic approach to develop C-SiC/ZrC coatings on ZrO2 kernel substitute particles. We aim to create new fuel encapsulation materials in replacement of the coatings on fuel kernel particles, including the TRISO layers, for advanced reactors, conduct ion irradiation testing of the new materials for nuclear performance evaluation, and carry out detailed microstructure and composition characterization to assess the C-SiC/ZrC coated fuel particle behaviors. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Sorbent regeneration, recycling, and transformation: A transformative approach to iodine capture and immobilization | University of Nevada, Reno | $1,000,000 | The project will focus on the development of materials and processes for regeneration and recycling of sorbents, and the transformation of iodine-loaded sorbents into waste forms. A combination of computational and experimental studies will be conducted to understand (a) how the components in a primary off-gas stream interact with the sorbent, (b) how this off-gas stream affects the regeneration lifetime, and (c) low-temperature binders and processing paths that leads to durable waste forms. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Accident Tolerant Fuels to Support Power Uprates in LWRs | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,100,000 | This project will demonstrate that power uprates higher than the current state of operation can be reached using accident tolerant fuels in light water reactors while not exceeding reactor safety margins during normal operation and accidents. We will analyze it considering fuel enriched up to 10% and peak rod average burnup up to 75GWd/tU concerning reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, reactor safety, and economics. Considerations will be made in consultation with the named industry advisory board. | Document | Existing Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Comparative study of three-dimensional microstructural imaging and thermal conductivity evolution of irradiated solid and annular U-Zr fuels | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Uranium-zirconium (U-Zr) annular metallic fuel holds the promise to simultaneously increase sodium fast reactor (SFR) core uranium loading and reduce peak cladding temperatures, thus greatly improving fuel performance. However, key convolved fuel degradation mechanisms during irradiation at temperature threaten to hold back its real-world applicability, requiring more detailed understanding to both predict U-Zr fuel performance and suggest improvements. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Mechanistic study and modeling of fission gas release in UO2 and doped UO2 | Oregon State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to enhance the safety and performance of light water reactors and other advanced reactor designs by gaining a fundamental understanding of fast gas reactor mechanisms and developing mechanistic models for UO2 and doped UO2 fuels under HBU and transient conditions. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Anisotropic Thermal Properties of SiC-SiC Cladding: Method Development & Characterization | University of Pittsburgh | $1,000,000 | We propose to develop a high-temperature nondestructive thermal conductivity (k) measurement system coupled with validated multiscale models to accurately determine the anisotropic thermal conductivity of SiC-SiC composite cladding tubes. The multiscale measurement and modeling results benefit both DOE ATF programs as well as providing a fundamental understanding of how the microstructure of the composite leads to its anisotropic properties. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Understanding the Performance of SiC-SiCf Composite Cladding Architectures with Cr Coating in Normal Operating and Accident Conditions in LWRs and Advanced Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The project will focus on investigating the impact of Cr-coating on the SiC-SiCf composite cladding of various architectures under normal operating and accident conditions in light water reactors and advanced reactors for the safe and economic deployment of SiC cladding. Cr-coating will provide protection from high-temperature corrosion and better hermeticity under accident conditions. The performance of the claddings will be evaluated through the corrosion test, reflood test, burst test, and non-destructive evaluation(NDE). | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Developing critical insights on the effects of Mo on _' precipitation and dislocation loop formation in FeCrAl alloys | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | This project aims at developing a mechanistic understanding on the effects of Mo on _' precipitation and dislocation loop formation in FeCrAl alloys in thermal and irradiation conditions and turns it into a set of design principles guiding further optimization, by integrating atomistic simulations, CALPHAD modeling, thermal aging, proton irradiation, and advanced characterization. The material discoveries will be generalized to other solutes other than Mo. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Inference of flow conditions from in-core detector measurements for accelerating SMR licensing | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Reactor modelling relies on the detailed description of reactor systems but often lacks the true as-built characteristics of a system. This proposal seeks to fill these geometrical data gaps using available detector data, predictive models and machine learning in order to provide better information to analysis tools and thus better prediction of future performance. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Non-Destructive Plutonium Assay in Pyroprocessing Bulk Materials with a 3D Boron-Coated-Straw Detector Array | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,100,000 | The objective of the proposed project is to develop and demonstrate a 3D boron-coated-straw detector array (3D-BCSDA) with high efficiency and spatial resolution. This detection system will be specifically designed to accurately assess the fissile mass in bulk nuclear material during pyroprocessing operations, thereby improving the precision and reliability of accountability measurements during separation. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Improving the computational efficiency and usability of dynamic PRA with reinforcement learning | University of Maryland, College Park | $1,064,400 | The overall objective of the proposed research is to improve the efficiency and usability of dynamic probabilistic risk assessment (PRA). Specifically, the first objective is to develop a new algorithm for dynamic PRA analysis that can significantly increase the computational efficiency. The second objective is to develop a question-answering system to streamline the process of risk-informed decision-making based on results obtained from the dynamic PRA analysis using the new algorithm. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Development of a Benchmark Model for the Near Real-Time Radionuclide Composition Measurement System using Microcalorimetry for Advanced Reactors | Virginia Commonwealth University | $1,100,000 | The primary goal of this proposed project is to develop high fidelity Monte Carlo radiation transport models of a microcalorimetry detector informed by fuel depletion models of a molten salt reactor and a pebble bed reactor to quantify the current and future capabilities of this detector technology to characterize and assay used fuel from these reactors in near real-time. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Development and Validation of a Dual-Purpose Instrument for On-line Monitoring of Molten Salt Composition and Thermal Behavior | Brigham Young University | $1,099,924 | We propose the development of an online monitoring instrument capable of quantifying heat transfer and salt composition for molten salt reactors (MSR). A dual electrochemistry/thermal conductivity probe (DETP) will be developed to measure the thermal properties and impurities within the salt simultaneously. The DETP will make use of a previously developed needle probe and electrodes for square-wave cyclic voltammetry measures of salt composition. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| In Situ Assessment of Molten Salt Transport into Nuclear Graphite Microstructures using Ultrasonic Sensors | Johns Hopkins University | $909,827 | This project focuses on the transport of molten salt into nuclear graphite along with the investigation of ultrasonic methods for sensing graphite material property changes, especially elastic modulus, associated with intrusion of molten salt into the graphite microstructure. Experimental studies coupled with physics-based simulations will be used to assess strategies for in situ sensing of salt intrusion in the reactor environment to enhance long-term viability of molten salt reactors. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| MONITORING CERAMIC FUEL FRACTURE VIA FIBER OPTIC ACOUSTIC EMISSION SENSORS | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $1,000,000 | In the proposed three-year program, the Center for Photonics Technology (CPT) at Virginia Tech will collaborate with Sentek Instrument (Sentek), Prysmian, and Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to develop and demonstrate a distributed acoustic emission (AE) sensing system for in-situ monitoring of ceramic fuel fracture. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| Concurrent Surrogate Model Development with Uncertainty Quantification in the MOOSE Framework Using Physics-Informed Gaussian-Process Machine Learning | University of Florida | $999,999 | The objective of this project is to develop a general capability for concurrent generation and use of physics-informed Gaussian process (GP)-based surrogate models to facilitate multiscale and multiphysics modeling. We will implement this new capability as part of the Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) so that every application based on the MOOSE framework will have access to it. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2024 |
| Unstructured Adaptive Mesh Algorithms for Monte Carlo Transport | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,098,000 | We propose to develop the fundamental methods and techniques for unstructured adaptive mesh refinement with Monte Carlo tallies. This work enables a transformative leap forward in speed, accuracy, and robustness to enhance the contribution of high-fidelity radiation transport to advanced simulation. Adaptive refinement is deployed on a challenging multiphysics simulation, cascading heat pipe failure, to study acceleration and stabilization properties. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2024 |
| Feasibility Study of Micro-Nuclear Reactor Thermal Output for Air Rotary Kilns in the High-Temperature Manufacturing of Portland Cement Clinker | Pennsylvania State University | $998,793 | This project aims to design and test a micro-nuclear reactor for high-temperature portland cement clinker production, a process responsible for 6%-8% of global CO2 emissions. Leveraging advanced reactors' heat output, the project explores TRISO-based nuclear microreactor core modifications and new working fluids for heat pipes. The research addresses uncertainties in micro-nuclear reactor deployment for clinker production and investigates high-efficiency heat exchanger designs. | Document | Non-Traditional and Non-electric Applications | FY2024 |
| Redox potential, ionic speciation, and separation and recovery challenges from molten salts containing actinides and fission products | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $999,999 | Establishing an efficient, safe, secure, and economical Molten-Salt Reactor (MSR) fuel cycle is imperative for MSR implementation. Molten salt fuel recycling technology requires predictive knowledge of the chemical and physical behavior of lanthanide and actinide ions with different oxidation states dissolved in solvent salts. A combination of off-gas and X-ray measurements with machine-learning simulations will be used to produce predictive modeling of separation and recovery conditions. | Document | Nuclear Fuel Recycle Technologies | FY2024 |
| Pre-Treatment and Bulk Separation of Used Fuels with Carbonate-Peroxide Solutions | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | To use carbonate-peroxide chemistries to develop a pre-processing method for used uranium-based fuels that enables the subsequent use and optimization of current solvent extraction reprocessing schemes. Using simple precipitation, this innovative method provides an initial, bulk separation of uranium from fission products and actinides. | Document | Nuclear Fuel Recycle Technologies | FY2024 |
| Optimization of Fueling Strategies and Material Surveillance through Real-time Pebble Tracking in Pebble Bed Reactors | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,100,000 | Flexible operation of the energy grid of the future introduces uncertainty in determining the optimal operating conditions of Pebble Bed Reactors. The proposed work will help to address these challenges and enable more economical operation by providing the tools to determine of optimal fuel reloading strategy through pebble identification and tracking. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Experimental Study and Computational Modeling of P-LOFC and D-LOFC Accidents in the Fast Modular Reactor Consisting of Silicon Carbide Composite Rods | University of Michigan | $1,100,000 | The primary objectives of this proposed research are to better understand NC flow phenomena and heat transfer under both D-LOFC and P-LOFC accidents in the FMR, produce experimental data in a well-scaled integral-effects test facility for the two accidents, and develop and validate predictive CFD models for NC flow phenomena in both accidents. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Sodium heat pipes; design and failure mode assessment for micro-reactor applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The present proposal aims to experimentally investigate the thermal-hydraulics performance of liquid sodium heat pipes applied to microreactors, with a focus on exploring different design parameters, effects of different parameters on operating performance and understanding the evolution and impact of different failure modes. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Interfacial Interactions between Graphite and Molten Fluoride Fuel Salt | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $1,000,000 | NaF-KF-UF4 fuel salt will be selected to study graphite-salt interactions and impact of the existence of fission products (FPs) and corrosion products on the interactions at different temperatures and pressures. Fundamental mechanisms of graphite-salt interaction and degradation will be understood. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Local resonance-based linear and nonlinear NDE techniques for repaired DSC wall structures | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | The proposed work plan will develop nondestructive examination (NDE) methods that develop and evaluate linear and nonlinear resonant ultrasound spectroscopy methods (such as NRUS, NIRAS, etc.) to cold spray (CS) repaired dry shielded canister (DSC) wall structures. With the support of our partners from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), we will perform technology development and validation on plain and cold spray-repaired DSC wall specimens. | Document | Spent Fuel, Waste Science & Technology and Integrated Waste Management System | FY2024 |
| Thermodynamic Models for Multivalent Actinide Solubility and Speciation as a Function of Temperature and Ionic Strength | University of Notre Dame | $1,000,000 | This proposed project will quantify the solubility and speciation of Np and Pu under temperatures, ionic strengths, and pH values that are relevant to the generic repository concept. The major deliverable will be full thermodynamic descriptions of the studied systems, which will lead to improved radionuclide transport models and support the development of a sound technical basis for the geologic disposal of spent nuclear fuel and other actinide-bearing wastes. | Document | Spent Fuel, Waste Science & Technology and Integrated Waste Management System | FY2024 |
| Advancing Fundamental Molten Salt Modeling using Ultrafast Spectroscopy | North Carolina State University | $600,000 | The overarching goal of the proposed research is to advance our fundamental understanding of molten salts by combining ultrafast spectroscopic experiments with high fidelity atomistic simulations. The proposed research will introduce a new experimental technique to the study of molten salts that will directly measure ion kinetics, specifically, terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS), which will further validate AIMD as a predictive modeling tool. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
| Hydrodynamics of Two-Phase Flow Under the Geometric Effects of Pipe Orientation and U-bends | Purdue University | $600,000 | Most two-phase flow analyses have been performed in straight vertical-upward pipes. However, nuclear reactor systems include piping with different geometric components, such as elbows or U-bends, as well as changes in flow orientations. The proposed work performs experiments in a scaled test facility existing at the institution's lab to investigate the effects of flow orientations and geometries relevant to nuclear reactor systems on the hydrodynamics of two-phase flow. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
| Interface-Resolved Experimental and Numerical Studies of Two-Phase Flow for Nuclear Engineering Applications | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $500,000 | The project aims at advancing the interface-resolved simulation capabilities for the two-phase flows found in various nuclear engineering applications. We will develop a comprehensive, high-resolution, interface-resolved database emphasizing bubble dynamics and bubble interaction mechanisms. The data will be used to validate the sub-grid models implemented in an interface-resolved simulation tool to improve simulation accuracy by developing physics-based coalescence models. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
FY 2023 Research and Development Awards
DOE is awarding more than $41.2 million through NEUP to support 43 university-led nuclear energy research and development projects in 22 states. NEUP seeks to maintain U.S. leadership in nuclear research across the country by providing top science and engineering faculty and their students with opportunities to develop innovative technologies and solutions for civil nuclear capabilities.
A complete list of R&D projects with their associated abstracts is available below.
| Title | Institution | Estimated Funding* | Project Description | Abstract | Project Type | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fundamental Understanding of Ambient and High-Temperature Plasticity Phenomena in Structural Materials in Advanced Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Elastic/Inelastic Nuclear Data Development Project | Idaho State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Heterogeneous Recycling in Fast Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Thermodynamic Development of Corrosion Rate Modeling in Iron Phosphate Glasses | Missouri University of Science and Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Subspace-Based Hybrid Monte Carlo-Deterministic Algorithms for Reactor Physics Calculations | North Carolina State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Improvements to Nuclear Data and Its Uncertainties by Theoretical Modeling | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Sharp Interface Tracking in Rotating Microflows of Solvent Extraction | State University of New York at Stony Brook | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Bulk Nanostructured FCC Steels with Enhanced Radiation Tolerance | Texas A&M University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Fuel Performance Experiments and Modeling: Fission Gas Bubble Nucleation and Growth in Alloy Nuclear Fuels | Texas A&M University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| SiC Schottky Diode Detectors for Measurement of Actinide Concentrations from Alpha Activities in Molten Salt Electrolyte | The Ohio State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Computational Design of Advanced Nuclear Fuels | University of California, Davis | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Data Collection Methods For Validation of Advanced Multi-Resolution Fast Reactor Simulations | University of Idaho | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Simulations of the Thermodynamic and Diffusion Properties of Actinide Oxide Fuel Materials | University of Michigan | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Adsorptive Separation and Sequestration of Krypton, I and C14 on Diamond Nanoparticles | University of Missouri, Columbia | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Alternative Technetium Waste Forms | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Quantification of UV-Visible and Laser Spectroscopic Techniques for Materials Accountability and Process Control | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| High-Fidelity Space-Time Adaptive Multiphysics Simulations in Nuclear Engineering | University of Nevada, Reno | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Simulations of Failure via Three-Dimensional Cracking in Fuel Cladding for Advanced Nuclear Fuels | University of Texas, Dallas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Mesh-Enabled Monte Carlo Capability for Multi-Physics Reactor Analysis | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Ab Initio Enhanced Calphad Modeling of Actinide Rich Nuclear Fuels | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Diffusion Barrier Coatings and Deposition Technologies for Mitigating Fuel Cladding Chemical Interactions (FCCI) | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Thermal Properties of LiCl-KCl Molten Salt for Nuclear Waste Separation | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Neutron Damage and MAX Phase Ternary Compounds | Drexel University | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Atomistic Calculations of the Effect of Minor Actinides on Thermodynamic and Kinetic Properties of UO2+x | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Maximum Fuel Utilization in Fast Reactors without Chemical Reprocessing | University of California, Berkeley | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Developing a High Thermal Conductivity Fuel with Silicon Carbide Additives | University of Florida | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Fabrication of Tungsten-Rhenium Cladding Materials via Spark Plasma Sintering for Ultra High Temperature Reactor Applications | University of Idaho | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Ionic Liquid and Supercritical Fluid Hyphenated Techniques for Dissolution and Separation of Lanthanides, Actinides, and Fission Products | University of Idaho | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Improved Fission Neutron Data Base for Active Interrogation of Actinides | University of Michigan | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Utilization of Methacrylates and Polymer Matrices for the Synthesis of Ion Specific Resins | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Improved LWR Cladding Performance by EPD Surface Modification Technique | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Models of LWR Pressure Vessel Embrittlement for Low Flux-High Fluence Conditions | University of California, Santa Barbara | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) | FY2009 | ||
| Irradiation Creep in Graphite | Boise State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Modeling the Stress Strain Relationships and Predicting Failure Probabilities For Graphite Core Components | Cleveland State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| TRISO-Coated Fuel Durability Under Extreme Conditions | Colorado School of Mines | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| An Innovative and Advanced Coupled Neutron Transport and Thermal Hydraulic Method (Tool) for the Design, Analysis and Optimization of VHTR/NGNP Prismatic Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Removal of 14C from Irradiated Graphite for Graphite Recycle and Waste Volume Reduction | Idaho State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Millimeter-Wave Thermal Analysis Development and Application to Gen IV Reactor Materials | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Accurate Development of Thermal Neutron Scattering Cross Section Libraries | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Understanding Creep Mechanisms in Graphite with Experiments, Multiscale Simulations, and Modeling | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Verification & Validation of High-Order Short-Characteristics-Based Deterministic Transport Methodology on Unstructured Grids | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Microscale Heat Conduction Models and Doppler Feedback | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Optimizing Neutron Thermal Scattering Effects in Very High Temperature Reactors | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Multiaxial Creep-Fatigue and CreepRatcheting Failures of Grade 91 and Haynes 230 Alloys Toward Addressing Design Issues of Gen IV Nuclear Power Plants | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Investigation of Countercurrent Helium-air Flows in Air-ingress Accidents for VHTRs | Ohio State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Testing of Performance of Optical Fibers Under Irradiation in Intense Radiation Fields, When Subjected to Very High Temperatures | Ohio State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| A Distributed Fiber Optic Sensor Network for Online 3-D Temperature and Neutron Fluence Mapping in a VHTR Environment | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Investigation on the Core Bypass Flow in a Very High Temperature Reactor | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| CFD Model Development and Validation for High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor Cavity Cooling System (RCCS) Applications | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Study of Air ingress across the duct during the accident conditions | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Verification of the CENTRM Module for Adaptation of the SCALE Code to NGNP Prismatic and PBR Core Designs | University of Arizona | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Integral and Separate Effects Tests for Thermal Hydraulics Code Validation for Liquid-Salt Cooled Nuclear Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Mechanisms Governing the Creep Behavior of High Temperature Alloys for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems | University of Cincinnati | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| ALD Produced B2O3, Al2O3 and TiO2 Coatings on Gd2O3 Burnable Poison Nanoparticles | University of Colorado, Boulder | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Experimental Study and Computational Simulations of Key Pebble Bed Thermomechanics Issues for Design and Safety | University of Idaho | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Prediction and Monitoring Systems of Creep-Fracture Behavior of 9Cr-1Mo Steels for Reactor Pressure Vessels | University of Idaho | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Understanding Fundamental Material Degradation Processes in High Temperature Aggressive Chemomechanical Environments | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Multi-Scale Multi-physics Methods Development for the Calculation of Hot-Spots in the NGNP | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Corrosion and Creep of Candidate Alloys in High Temperature Helium and Steam Environments for the NGNP | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Creation of a Full-Core HTR Benchmark with the Fort St. Vrain Initial Core and Validation of the DHF Method with Helios for NGNP Configurations | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Fission Product Sorptivity in Graphite | University of Missouri, Columbia | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Identifying and Understanding Environment-Induced Crack Propagation Behavior in Ni-Based Superalloy INCONEL 617 | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Graphite Oxidation Simulation in HTR Accident Conditions | University of New Mexico | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Non Destructive Thermal Analysis and In Situ Investigation of Creep Mechanism of Graphite and Ceramic Composites using Phase-sensitive THz Imaging & Nonlinear Resonant Ultrasonic Spectroscopy | University of Rochester | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Tritium Sequestration in Gen IV NGNP Gas Stream via Proton Conducting Ceramic Pumps | University of South Carolina | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Materials, Turbomachinery and Heat Exchangers for Supercritical CO2 Systems | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Experimental Studies of NGNP Reactor Cavity Cooling System with Water | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Assessment of Embrittlement of VHTR Structural Alloys in Impure Helium Environments | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Modeling Fission Product Sorption in Graphite Structures | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Liquid Salt Heat Exchanger Technology for VHTR Based Applications | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Effect of Post-Weld Heat Treatment on Creep Rupture Properties of Grade 91 Steel Heavy Section Welds | Utah State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Alpha Radiolysis of Nuclear Solvent Extraction Ligands used for An(III) and Ln(III) Separations | California State University, Long Beach | $1,390,252 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Predictive Maturity of Multi-Scale Simulation Models for Fuel Performance | Clemson University | $614,690 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Freeze-casting as a Novel Manufacturing Process for Fast Reactor Fuels | Drexel University | $1,149,327 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Fuel Performance Experiments on the Atomistic Level, Studying Fuel Through Engineered Single Crystal UO2 | Idaho State University | $650,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Development of A Self Biased High Efficiency Solid-State Neutron Detector for MPACT Applications | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $810,141 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Development of a Innovative High Thermal Conductivity UO 2 Ceramic Composites Fuel Pellets with Carbon Nano-Tubes Using Spark Plasma Sintering | University of Florida | $894,042 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Exploration and Modeling of Structural Changes in Waste Glass under Corrosion | Pennsylvania State University | $1,377,444 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Evaluation of materials for interim storage of spent fuel for more than 100 years | University of Michigan | $931,603 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Implementation of On-the-Fly Doppler Broadening in MCNP5 for Multiphysics Simulation of Nuclear Reactors | University of Michigan | $406,712 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Methods and tools to allow molecular flow simulations to be coupled to higher level continuum descriptions of flows in porous/fractured media and aerosol/dust dynamics | University of Missouri-Columbi | $541,286 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Characterization and Modeling of Materials for Kr-Xe Separations | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $989,800 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Modeling Solute Thermokinetics in LiCl-KCl Molten Salt for Nuclear Waste Separation | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $616,073 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Advanced Aqueous Separation Systems for Actinide Partitioning: Develop Fundamental Understanding of An(III)/Ln(III) Separation | Washington State University | $1,451,784 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Consistent Multigroup Theory Enabling Accurate Coarse-Group Simulation of GenIV Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,046,277 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Studies of Deteriorated Heat Transfer in Prismatic Cores Stemming from Irradiation-Induced Geometry Distortion | Idaho State University | $1,287,921 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Carbide Coatings for Nickel Alloys, Graphite, and Carbon/Carbon Composites to be Used in Fluoride Salt Valves | Johns Hopkins University | $1,183,239 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Design, Testing, and Modeling of the Direct Reactor Auxiliary Cooling System for AHTRs | Ohio State University | $1,366,627 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Monitoring microstructural evolution of Alloy 617 with nonlinear acoustics for remaining useful life prediction; multiaxial creep-fatigue and creep-ratcheting | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development and Validation of Multidimensional Models of Supercritical CO 2 Energy Conversion Systems for Nuclear Power Reactors | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $475,005 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Microstructure and Property Evolution in Advanced Cladding and Duct Materials Under Long-Term and Elevated Temperature Irradiation: Modeling and Experimental Investigation | University of California-Berkeley | $1,320,667 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of Barrier Layers for the Protection of Candidate Alloys in the VHTR | University of California-Santa Barbara | $995,232 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Investigation of a Novel NDE Method for Monitoring Thermo-Mechanical Damage and Microstructure Evolution in Ferritic-Martensitic Steels for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems | University of Cincinnati | $833,109 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Fission Product Transport in TRISO Particle Layers under Operating and Off-Normal Conditions | University of Michigan | $966,581 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Microstructure and Property Evolution in Advanced Cladding and Duct Materials Under Long-Term Irradiation at Elevated Temperature: Critical Experiments | University of Michigan | $1,181,379 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Three-dimensional NDE of VHTR Core Components via Simulation-based Testing | University of Minnesota | $1,366,163 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Failure Predictions for VHTR Core Components using a Probabilistic Continuum Damage Mechanics Model | University of Minnesota | $854,542 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of a Scanning Microscale Fast Neutron Irradiation Platform for Examining the Correlation Between Local Neutron Damage and Graphite Microstructure | University of Missouri-Columbia | $703,064 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of Thermal Transient Flow Rate Sensors for High Temperature, Irradiation, Corrosive Environment | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $451,269 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Novel Methods of Tritium Sequestration: High Temperature Gettering and Separation Membrane Materials Discovery for Nuclear Energy Systems | University of South Carolina | $1,366,626 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Heat Transfer Salts for Nuclear Reactor Systems - Chemistry Control, Corrosion Mitigation, and Modeling | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,352,040 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Pulsed Magnetic Welding for Advanced Core and Cladding Steels | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $525,206 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Corrosion in Supercritical Carbon Dioxide: Materials, Environmental Purity, Surface Treatments, and Flow Issues | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $651,447 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Multiscale Concrete Modeling for Aging Degradation | Mississippi State University | $345,941 | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability | FY2010 | |
| Development of an advanced computational fluid dynamics technology for the next-generation nuclear reactor system analysis and safety margin characterization code | North Carolina State University | $418,199 | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability | FY2010 | |
| Precursor Derived Nanostructured Si-C-X Materials for Nuclear Applications | University of Washington | $899,518 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Development and Testing of an Open-Loop Oscillator for Small Reactivity Worth Samples | Idaho State University | $597,252 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Understanding the Irradiation Behavior of Zirconium Carbide | Pennsylvania State University | $870,613 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Modeling investigation of the stability and irradiation-induced evolution of nanoscale precipitates in advanced structural materials | University of Tennessee-Knoxville | $380,653 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Investigation of Laser Shock Peening for Enhancing Fatigue and Stress Corrosion Cracking Resistance of Nuclear Energy Materials | University of Cincinnati | $1,242,019 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Irradiation Accelerated Corrosion of Reactor Core Materials | University of Michigan | $798,943 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Study of Interfacial Interactions using Thin Film Surface Modification: Radiation and Oxidation Effects in Materials | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $538,032 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Novel Engineered Refractory Materials for Advanced Reactor Applications | North Carolina State University | $1,129,304 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Quantification of Cation Sorption to Engineered Barrier Materials Under Extreme Conditions | Clemson University | $1,171,380 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| In-Pile Instrumentation Multi-Parameter System Utilizing Photonic Fibers and Nanovision | Idaho State University | $1,199,990 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Development of Plasmonically Cloaked Nanoparticles | Idaho State University | $800,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Fission Product Transmutation in Mixed Radiation Fields | Idaho State University | $800,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Life Prediction of Spent Fuel Storage Canister Material | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $899,826 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Active Interrogation using Photofission Technique for Nuclear Materials Control and Accountability | Oregon State University | $900,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Anisotropic Azimuthal Power and Temperature Distribution on Fuel Rod: Impact of Hydride Distribution | Pennsylvania State University | $631,956 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Sorption Modeling and Verification for Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Microemulsions and Aggregation Formation in Extraction Processes for Used Nuclear Fuel: Thermodynamics and Structural Studies | University of California, Irvine | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Optimized Processing Fabrication Paths for Larger Heats of Nanostructured Ferritic Alloys | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Basic Physics Data: Measurement of Neutron Multiplicity from Induced Fission | University of Michigan | $973,364 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Radionuclide Incorporation and Long Term Performance of Apatite Waste Forms | University of Michigan | $862,500 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Actinide Foil Production for MPACT Research | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $156,897 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Enriched Boron-Doped Amorphous Selenium Based Position-Sensitive Solid-State Thermal Neutron Detector for MPACT Applications | University of South Carolina | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Development of Advanced High Uranium Density Fuels for Light Water Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Developing the User Experience for a Next Generation Nuclear Fuel Cycle Simulator | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,200,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Preparation and Development of Polymer-Supported Extractants | City College of New York, Hunter | $363,716 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| One-Dimensional Nanostructures for Neutron Detection | North Carolina State University | $455,629 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Feasibility and Safety Assessment for Advanced Reactor Concepts Using Vented Fuel | Oregon State University | $600,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| High Temperature Transducers for Online Monitoring of Microstructure Evolution | Pennsylvania State University | $455,628 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Laser-Arc Hybrid Welding of Thick Section Ni-base Alloys- Advanced Modeling and Experiments | Pennsylvania State University | $536,117 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Correlates of Sensitive Technologies | Texas A&M University | $509,467 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Improved Safety Margin Characterization of Risk from Loss of Offsite Power | Texas A&M University | $600,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| A High Temperature-Tolerant and Radiation-Resistant In-Core Neutron Sensor for Advanced Reactors | The Ohio State University | $455,629 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Pathway Aggregation in the Risk Assessment of Proliferation Resistance and Physical Protection (PR&PP) of Nuclear Energy Systems | The Ohio State University | $534,471 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Preparation of High Purity, High Molecular-Weight Chitin from Ionic Liquids for Use as an Adsorbate for the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Alabama | $338,260 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Selectivity in Ligand Binding to Uranyl Compounds: A Synthetic, Structural, Thermodynamic and Computational Study | University of California-Berkeley | $500,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Seismic Isolation Systems Using Periodic Materials | University of Houston | $538,154 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium from Seawater | University of Idaho | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Austenitic ODS Strengthened Alloys for Very High Temperature Applications | University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign | $538,154 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Enhancement of the Extraction of the Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Transient Safety Analysis of Fast Spectrum TRU Burning LWR with Internal Blankets | University of Michigan | $599,475 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Novel Sorbents for Uranium Extraction from Seawater | University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Radiation Behavior of High-Entropy Alloys for Advanced Reactors | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $538,159 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Rapid Computer Aided Ligand Design and Screening of Precious Metal Extractants from TRUEX Raffinate with Experimental Validation | Washington State University | $500,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of an Efficient Meso-Scale Multi-Phase Flow Solver in Nuclear Applications | City College of New York | $505,858 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Multiscale Modeling and Uncertainty Quantification for Nuclear Fuel Performance | Colorado State University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Fundamental Studies of the Role of Grain Boundaries on Uniform Corrosion of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Materials | Drexel University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Phenomena-based Uncertainty Quantification in Predictive Coupled-Physics Reactor Simulations | Texas A&M University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Characterization of Modeling of Grain Boundary Chemistry Evolution in Ferritic Steels Under Irradiation | University of Michigan | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Development of Multiscale Materials Modeling Techniques and Coarse-Graining Strategies for Predicting Materials Degradation in Extreme Irradiation Environments | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $750,000 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Diffusion, Thermal Properties and chemical Compatibilities of Select MAX Phases with Materials for Advanced Nuclear Systems | Drexel University | $535,927 | Document | Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) | FY2011 | |
| A New Light Weight Structural Material for Nuclear Structures | North Carolina State University | $399,490 | Document | Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) | FY2011 | |
| Experimental Investigation of Convection and Heat Transfer in the Reactor Core for a VHTR | City College of New York | $1,118,856 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Graphite Microstructural Characterization Using Time-Domain and Correlation-Based Ultrasonics | Johns Hopkins University | $1,199,997 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Methodology Development for Passive Component Reliability Modeling in a Multi-Physics Simulation Environment | The Ohio State University | $533,457 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Pebble Fuel Handling and Reactivity Control for Salt-Cooled High Temperature Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $612,721 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Self-Sustaining Thorium Boiling Water Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $1,145,932 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| High Fluency Low Flux Embrittlement Models of LWR Reactor Pressure Vessel Embrittlement and a Supporting Database from the UCSB ATR-2 Irradiation Experiment | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,199,607 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| A Research Program for Fission Product/Dust Transport in HTGR's | University of Missouri-Columbia | $1,157,367 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Development and Validation of a Lifecycle-based Prognostics Architecture with Test Bed Validation | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $846,315 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| In-situ Condition Monitoring of Components in Small Modular Reactors Using Process and Electrical Signature Analysis | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $650,000 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Technical Development for S-CO2 Advanced Energy Conversion | University of Wisconsin | $815,000 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Ag Transport Through Non-Irradiated and Irradiated SiC | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,055,456 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Critical Heat Flux Phenomena at High Pressure and Low Mass Fluxes: Tests and Models | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,199,781 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Modeling and Test Validation of a Reactor Cavity Cooling System with Air | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,199,988 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Transient Mixed Convection Validation for NGNP | Utah State University | $635,860 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Alternative High-Performance Ceramic Waste Forms | Alfred University | $840,000 | This project aims to advance fundamental understanding of the kinetics of structural evolution of crystalline ceramic waste forms. The structure/property relationships will be identified and will reveal new formulations, improved processing routes, and strategies for improved performance or ceramic waste forms. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Surface Layer Bulk Glass Interface Evolution with Aqueous Corrosion | Alfred University | $880,000 | This project will investigate the links between the morphology, structure and chemistry of surface layer-bulk glass interface and the long-term corrosion-reaction kinetics using in-situ and ex-situ experiments. The understanding will result in improved models for long-term predictive behavior of high-level-waste (HLW) glasses under repository conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Optimization of Deep Borehole Systems for HLW Disposal | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $850,000 | Researchers aim to carry out a comprehensive evaluation of the deep borehole option for disposal of used nuclear fuel and high livel waste. The models developed will predict potential movement of water through natural and engineered barriers and release of radionuclides to the biosphere which will aide in site selection. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Scholarship for Nuclear Communications and Methods for Evaluation of Nuclear Project Acceptability | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will work to develop a model to characterize the factors affecting social acceptance of nuclear projects with potential stakeholders. The resultant model will strengthen the ability to design and implement large projects more efficiently, leading to higher rates of success of future nuclear projects. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Accurate Holdup Calculations with Predictive Modeling and Data Integration | North Carolina State University | $875,000 | Researchers will develop and use state-of-the-art radiation transport codes to account accurately for the fissile material in a nuclear materials processing facility. An accurate estimation of the materials will allow for ensured radiological safety, security, waste management and efficient plant operation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Testing of Sapphire Optical Fiber and Sensors in Intense Radiation Fields, when Subjected to Very High Temperatures | The Ohio State University | $885,000 | The researchers on this project will investigate the performance of sapphire optical fibers and sensors in reactor environments. The project, if successful, will result in improved instrumentation to understand the behavior and predict performance of nuclear fuel systems at the microstructural level. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Concrete Materials with Ultra-High Damage Resistance and Self-Sensing Capacity for Extended Nuclear Fuel Storage Systems | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | Researchers aim to design a new class of multifunctional concrete materials. This project, if successful, will result in a novel multifunctional concrete material that possesses inherent degradation monitoring capability and is suitable for an extended storage system for the used nuclear fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Probabilistic Multi-Hazard Assessment of Dry Cask Structures | University of Houston | $865,000 | This project aims to investigate the performance of dry cask storage systems under multiple hazard systems (earthquake, tornados, combined with aging effects) using a probabilistic multi-hazard framework. This framework will be validated based on experimental research and will provide improved models for safety and reliability of spent nuclear fuels during storage and transportation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Electrochemical Corrosion Studies for Modeling Metallic Waste Form Release Rates | University of Nevada- Las Vegas | $790,000 | This project aims to use advanced electrochemical methods to investigate the corrosion related degradation of metal alloys used for housing fission products. The data obtained from this study will allow for the prediction of the long-term behavior of the metallic host phase materials over geological time-scales. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Development and Experimental Benchmark of Simulations to Predict Used Nuclear Fuel Cladding Temperatures during Drying and Transfer Operations | University of Nevada- Reno | $745,000 | Researchers will conduct experiments to investigate and develop advanced computational models of heat transfer in post-pool-storage drying operations. This project, if successful, will result in tools that can be used to design efficient drying processes to as to ensure suitability for dry-cask systems for long-term storage and transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Seismic Performance of Dry Casks Storage for Long-Term Exposure | University of Utah | $873,319 | Researchers will evaluate the mechanical performance of dry-cask storage under seismic loading for mid-term operational periods. Simulations will include scenarios for freestanding, anchored, and vaulted casks. The experimental tests will also evaluate the dynamic seismic response of freestanding and anchored dry-cask storage prototypes, providing recommendations for optimal Interim Spent Fuel Storage Installations (ISFSIs) design. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Coupling of Nuclear Waste Form Corrosion and Radionuclide Transport in Presence of Relevant Repository Sediments | Washington State University | $885,000 | Researchers will conduct experiments to understand the mechanisms responsible for the corrosion of nuclear waste forms in realistic chemical environments. The data generated from these experiments will enable increased reliability of the models used to predict the waste form performance in repository environments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| ABR for TRU Transmutation with Breed & Burn Thorium Blanket for Improved Economics and Resource Utilization | University of California- Berkeley | $450,000 | The research team will use detailed neutronic analysis for a new Advanced Burner Reactor concept with low conversion ratio. The concept will use a new core shape to improve the utilization of neutrons to perform breed and burn. | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2012 |
| Atomic-Scale to Meso-Scale Simulation Studies of Thermal Ageing and Irradiation Effects in Fe-Cr Alloys | Boston University | $874,997 | Researchers will develop predictive, multi-scale simulation tools for iron-chromium alloys, which are expected to be key components of advanced steels envisioned as fuel cladding and structural components for Generation IV reactors. Such modeling is necessary to avoid resource intensive and costly thermal and neutron irradiation experiments to obtain required performance data. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Validation Data and Model Development for Fuel Assembly Response to Seismic Loads | George Washington University | $862,435 | Researchers will conduct experiments that will provide comprehensive data characterizing the dynamics of the fluid and the structure in Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR) fuel assemblies under seismic loads (earthquakes and loss of coolant accidents). Completion of their project will greatly benefit the safety of existing and future nuclear reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Uncertainty Quantification and Management for Multiscale Nuclear Materials Modeling | Georgia Institute of Technology | $743,444 | Researchers will address the question of uncertainty propogation and error estimates associated with model prediction of material behavior under irradiation. Their work will facilitate a better understanding of the connection of various unit processes to collective responses in a multiscale model chain enabling the development of high strength and high ductility materials. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Nonlinear Ultrasonic Techniques to Monitor Radiation Damage in RPV and Internal Components | Georgia Institute of Technology | $877,000 | Researchers will explore new nondestructive materials evaluation and monitoring techniques utilizing nonlinear ultrasonic measurements . This technique will allow researchers to assess remaining useful life of select reactor components. Breakthroughs in this area will lead to the ability to characterize radiation damage in reactor pressure vessels and other components-leading to a clearer definition of reactor safety margins. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Intergral Reactor Containment Condensation Model and Experimental Validation | Oregon State University | $871,119 | Researchers will conduct experiments to enhance the safety and efficiency of small modular reactors (SMRs). This project will assess the impact of high-pressure steam condensation on steel containment vessels to be used for SMR deigns. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Irradiation Performance of Fe-Cr Base Alloys | University of Illinois- Urbana Champaign | $876,332 | _Researchers will perform post-radiation analysis and develop tools for future development and application of the Fe-Cr class of alloys. The results of this research will lead to better modeling of performance and development of an alloy designated as the primary choice for reactor fuel cladding and structural applications in advanced systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Experimentally Validated Numerical Models for Effects of Non-Isothermal Turbulent Mixing on Wall Stresses in High Temperature Reactors | University of Pittsburgh | $876,422 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive experimentally validated computational framework for the turbulent mixing in the lower plenum of a very high temperature reactor (VHTR). Through CFD modeling and experimental validation, the results from this project will lay the groundwork for future stress analysis, failure and fatigue studies, and uncertainty quantification for the VHTR system. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Mechanical Behavior of UO2 at Sub-grain Length Scales: Quantification of Elastic, Plastic and Creep Properties via Microscale Testing | Arizona State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop techniques to measure properties at sub-grain scales using depleted Uranium Oxide samples. The project will provide a framework to measure sub-grain scale mechanical properties, as well as provide experimental data to improve the understanding of advanced oxide fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| The Impacts of Pore-Scale Physical and Chemical Heterogeneities on the Transport of Radionuclide-Carrying Colloids | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will identify the dominant transport mechanisms to develop models that predict radionuclide distribution in porous materials. Experimental and computational models will be created that couple pore-scale geometric and interfacial structures. Simulators such as these are a necessary step towards fully predictive models for field-scale applications in the future. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Polymer-Supported Aminophosphinates as Selective Extractants | Hunter College, CUNY | $399,999 | Researchers will prepare a polymer-supported extractant for the recovery of uranium from seawater. The project will focus on primary amines that could provide a 3-fold increase in uranium capture capacity than current methods. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| In-pile Thermal Conductivity Characterization with Single-laser Heating/Time Resolved Raman | Iowa State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a time-resolved Raman-based thermal conductivity measurement system to improve remote in-pile thermal conductivity measurement. These measurements will provide new insights into the behavior of materials exposed to extreme radiation and temperature environments. Understanding the behavior of materials at the microstructural level will support optimized fuel designs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Organic Speciation and Interactions in ALSEP - One Step Partitioning Process of Minor Actinides, Lanthanides, and Fission Products | Oregon State University | $600,000 | Researchers will investigate the Actinide-Lanthanide Separation (ALSEP) process organic phase prior to aqueous phase separation and after aqueous separation phases of bare and metal-loaded acids. Quantifying these effects can be used to determine how an engineering scale process will perform and generate an accurate chemical model for the system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Glass Composition and Solution Speciation Effects on Stage III Dissolution | Pennsylvania State University | $700,000 | Researchers will study the chemical and structural triggers of long-term vitrified nuclear waste form behavior. They will study a range of waste glass compositions in corrosive environments. The study will improve understanding of the long-term residual rate and may provide new options for environmental control of glass dissolution rates. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Correlating Thermal, Mechanical, and Electrical Coupling Based Multiphysics Behavior of Nuclear Materials Through In-Situ Measurements | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will use in-situ experimental techniques to monitor the influence of extreme conditions on fuel cladding. The project will establish an in-situ experimental setup that can predict change in thermal properties and their correlation with mechanical properties and correlate such changes to changes in microstructural and chemical features. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Creation of a Geant4 Muon Tomography Package for Imaging of Nuclear Fuel in Dry Cask Storage | Purdue University | $440,000 | Researchers will develop a simulation and analysis package to aid in the non-destructive assessment of sealed used nuclear fuel dry casks using cosmic ray muons. Cosmic ray muon tomography allows for non-destructive assessment that can independently verify and identify weapons grade material sealed within dense dry casks. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Fuel Cycle Data Packages for Two-stage Fast Reactor Fuel Cycle Options for Optimum Resource Utilization and Waste Management | Purdue University | $400,000 | Researchers will evaluate the two different two-stage fast reactor fuel cycle options that will offer efficient use of uranium resources and the ability to burn actinides and long-live fission products. Evaluation of these fast fuel cycle options will serve as a useful complement to the options currently being considered in the Fuel Cycle Options Campaign. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Mixed Metal Phosphonate-Phosphate Resins for Separation of Lanthanides from Actinides | Texas A&M University | $650,000 | Researchers will use ion exchangers to cleanly separate lanthanides and curium from reusable actinides. The study will assist in the development of an inexpensive, simple way in which to separate lanthanides from actinides found in used nuclear fuel rods and to recover a large portion of the usable fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Safeguards in Pyroprocessing: an Integrated Model Development and Measurement Data Analysis | The Ohio State University | $626,151 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive and effective safeguards approach for a pyroprocessing facility to support safeguards for future fuel cycles in the United States. The new approach and design will focus directly on the special nuclear materials in the electrorefiner where actinides are separated from fission products through electrochemical process. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Using Ionic Liquids for the Development of Renewable Biopolymer-Based Adsorbents for the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater and Testing Under Marine Conditions | University of Alabama | $400,000 | Researchers will explore the fundamental engineering parameters for a renewable high-performance adsorbent for the extraction of uranium from sweater based on a recently proven ionic liquid (IL)-chitin platform. The project will use the platform to develop a versatile, modifiable adsorbent and characterize its performance and degradation in marine conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Developing Ultra-Small Scale Mechanical Testing Methods and Microstructural Investigation Procedures for Irradiated Materials. | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop new small-scale mechanical testing techniques to allow for the estimation or direct measurement of bulk properties. The combined experiments and modeling will significantly enhance the statistics and information that can be obtained on small radioactive archived samples, as well as new ion beam irradiated specimens. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Improved Delayed-Neutron Spectroscopy Using Trapped Ions | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will develop innovative spectroscopy techniques to measure the decay of fission fragments. The resulting data from these new techniques will be used to better understand reactor kinetics under accident conditions and failure scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Thermally and Chemically Responsive Nanoporous Materials for Efficient Capture of Fission Product Gases | University of California, Davis | $750,000 | Researchers will create new nanoporous materials that will be highly effective at capturing fission product gases. These materials would be relevant to both reactor fuels applications and reprocessing operations. Tests will be performed in carbon based and nitride based nanostructures, with the most promising materials from the modeling perspective undergoing further testing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Multiphase Nanocrystalline Ceramic Concept for Nuclear Fuel | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | Researchers will study the use of nanoparticles and nanostructured ceramics to create new materials that can extend the service life and increase efficiency for nuclear fuel. Multiphase nanocrystalline ceramics will be used to design simulated nuclear fuel that can provide added plasticity, better radiation tolerance and improved thermal conductivity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Novel Porous Sorbents for Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Chicago | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a highly porous sorbent for the extraction of uranium from seawater. Previous research has established sorbent performance. This project will use past foundational studies to design and investigate a new nanocomposites that will be processed into tacks or braids for field tests in seawater tests. The technology may also be used for other metals. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Microwave Readout Techniques for Very Large Arrays of Nuclear Sensors | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,937 | Researchers will develop a powerful readout technique based on microwave transmission and reflection. The technique will enable very large arrays of diverse sensor types for nuclear materials quantification and tracking. It will provide more accurate data on material composition and quantity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| BiI3 Gamma-Ray Spectrometers for Reliable Room-Temperature Nuclear Materials Safeguarding | University of Florida | $799,999 | Researchers will develop gamma-ray spectrometers based on BiI3 single crystals for MPACT applications such as burnup validation quantification, improved assay of plutonium, determination of uranium enrichment and overall monitoring spent fuel within the fuel cycle. The project will improve energy resolution, efficiency and environmental performance with this new gamma-ray detector. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Innovative Coating of Nanostructured Vanadium Carbide on the F/M Cladding Tube Inner Surface for Mitigating the Fuel Cladding Chemical Interactions | University of Florida | $760,276 | Researchers will develop barrier coatings on the inner surface of fuel cladding tubes to improve performance of materials at elevated temperatures and high neutron exposures in fast reactors. The project will develop and test a low temperature coating process of nanostructured vanadium carbide that will provide a benchmark for use in future studies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Doubling the Life of Concrete Structures | University of Idaho | $800,000 | Researchers will use nanoscale techniques to develop methods for doubling the service life of concrete structures. They will study the effect of temperature load and temperature cycling (freezing and thawing) on the durability of concrete with nanoscale viscosity modifiers. The project will benefit from non-destructive evaluation of concrete performance through electrochemical techniques. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Off-Gas Treatment: Evaluation of Nano-structured Sorbents for Selective Removal of Contaminants | University of Idaho | $785,910 | Researchers will evaluate nanostructured sorbent materials for their effectiveness in removing and immobilizing radionuclides for the off-gas treatment from used nuclear fuel recycling operations. The project aims at achieving near-zero emissions of radionuclides by capturing them from the off-gas of recycling operations, allowing for the development of advanced fuel cycles. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium and Transition Metals from Amidoxime-Based Sorbents | University of Idaho | $399,864 | Researchers will develop a new two-step elution process to achieve total recovery of uranium and effective recycling of the sorbent. The extraction process would selectively remove uranium from the sorbent with little or no damage. The process would then remove transition metals and regenerate the sorbent for repeated use, making uranium extraction from seawater economically viable. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Performance of a Steel/Oxide Composite Waste Form for Combined Waste Streams from Advanced Electrochemical Processes over Geologic Time Scales | University of Illinois at Chicago | $700,000 | Researchers will develop and validate a mechanistically-based corrosion model for cermet-type waste forms, creating a testing protocol and modeling approach for predicting long-term performance. The study will apply novel electrochemical testing and modeling methods to the behavior of metal/oxide phase boundaries to evaluate waste form performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Enhancement of the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland, College Park | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and optimize novel adsorbents for uranium recovery from seawater. The team will use radiation-induced grafting of organic phosphates onto polymers. The experiments will use ocean water, with mechanistic analysis, to provide a solid basis for large-scale demonstration of the performance of the new adsorbents in ocean environments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Improving the Understanding of the Coupled Thermal-Mechanical-Hydrologic Behavior of Consolidating Granular Salt | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will increase the understanding of granular salt seal materials for shafts, drifts and boreholes. By coupling thermal, mechanical and hydrological responses, the study will result in greater confidence in granular salt consolidation as a principal strategy for closure and isolation of long-term waste repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Fission Fragment Yield Data in Support of Advanced Reactor Technology | University of New Mexico | $399,816 | Researchers will produce a highly accurate data set for thermal fission. These precision data are necessary for high-accuracy simulations of nuclear criticality, transmutation rates, radiation effects and heating as well as for nuclear fuel, material accounting and identification needs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Molecular dynamics-based simulations of bulk/interfacial structures and diffusion behaviors in nuclear waste glasses | University of North Texas | $700,000 | Researchers will generate accurate atomic structural models for use in Monte Carlo simulations of the dissolution of nuclear waste glasses. Large-scale molecular dynamics-based computer simulations will be used to investigate self-diffusion behaviors, interfacial structure, and other structures formed during dissolution of these glasses. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| U3Si2 Fabrication and Testing for Implementation into the BISON Fuel Performance Code | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will fabricate, test and model a high uranium density, advanced nuclear fuel that operates at a much lower temperature and stores less energy. The work will deliver key research data on creep and grain growth, improving economics, through possible power uprates, and advancing accident tolerant fuels research. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Structural Health Monitoring of Nuclear Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of South Carolina | $738,618 | Researchers will develop a nuclear structural health monitoring system based on a sensing technology that monitors material degradation and aging for dry cask storage systems. The low-cost, low-profile sensors will perform on-demand monitoring of the structural integrity of individual components as well as the entire system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| ORIGEN-based Nuclear Fuel Depletion Module for Fuel Cycle Assessment | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $755,181 | Researchers will develop a flexible reactor analysis module for the CYCLUS fuel cycle simulator based on established tools for reactor fuel depletion and decay. They will use ORIGEN, a mature and experimentally validated code, affording greater flexibility and allowing for accurate evaluations of impacts of both present and future fuel cycle options. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Cost and System Analysis of Innovative Fuel Resources Concepts | University of Texas at Austin | $295,960 | This project will develop and test braided polymer fiber adsorbents that surpass the sorption capacity, selectivity and durability of the best existing technology to recover uranium from seawater. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Risk Assessment of Structural Integrity of Transportation Casks | University of Utah | $789,296 | Researchers will assess the loss of structural integrity of transportation casks and fuel cladding after extended storage. This risk assessment will conduct experimental tests and simulations to evaluate the structural performance of fuel, fuel assemblies and cask components when subjected to vibration and impact loads during transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Market-Based and System-Wide Fuel Cycle Optimization | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $612,731 | Researchers will create market and economic optimizers to improve calculations for the CYCLUS fuel cycle simulator. The team will leverage existing optimization software frameworks within the simulator to resolve top level policy questions. The optimizations will allow CYCLUS to move beyond static material compositions, providing a holistic view of the fuel cycle system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Optical Fiber Based System for Multiple Thermophysical Properties for Glove Box, Hot Cell and In-Pile Applications | Utah State University | $799,975 | Researchers will use a small pressure vessel to develop a robust technique for the measurement of multiple thermophysical properties at very high temperatures. The technique will lead to a system design moving toward the eventual measurement of irradiated fuels in a glovebox and/or hot cell with all sensors and electronics outside of the glovebox and/or hot cell. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of a Nano-Modified Concrete for Next Generation of Storage Systems | Vanderbilt University | $796,268 | Researchers will use nano-sized and nano-structured particles based on enhanced reactivity to develop a superior concrete for the long-term storage of used nuclear fuel. The project will use state-of-the-art experimental chemical and mechanical characterizations and computation analysis to assess the performance of nano-modified concretes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Fuel Cycle Data Packages for Thorium Fuel Cycle Options | Vanderbilt University | $797,995 | Researchers will develop six fuel cycle data packages for multi-stage, thermal fuel cycles which incorporate thorium. These new fuel cycle data packages will provide the opportunity to examine fuel cycle options beyond those which have traditionally been considered. A thorium fuel cycle database will also be assembled as a basis for thorium literature for future evaluations of the thorium fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Enhanced Shielding Performance of HLW Storage Packages via Multi-Component Coatings | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $796,947 | Researchers will develop a multi-layer composite that will enhance long-term storage and facilitate safe transport of storage packages. This novel multi-layer, multi-component coating would create an outer shield material that is resistant to the corrosion, radiation, diffusion and thermal cycling processes that affect fuel packages during long term storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Managing Zirconium Chemistry and Phase Compatibility in Combined Process Separations for Minor Actinide Partitioning | Washington State University | $700,000 | Researchers will address unique challenges for combining TRUEX and TALSPEAK processes for partitioning of lanthanides and minor actinides. The project will develop improved information on the thermodynamics of fission product zirconium and develop a framework for an organic phase solvation model. Combined process development could streamline separations processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Advances in the Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Studies Under Real Ocean Conditions | Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution | $398,882 | Researchers will provide infrastructure and expertise for marine testing of currently available adsorbents in real ocean conditions. The team will move adsorbent research from the lab to field testing in order to quantify sorptive properties and uranium uptake. The project will provide valuable field data that will show the potential of large scale applications of these technologies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| NEUP Project 20-19172: Irradiation of Sensors and Adhesive Couplants for Application in LWR Primary Loop Piping and Components | $497,881 | Researchers paln to attach ultrasonic transducers to substrates using various adhesive couplants that will be irradiated at elevated temperature to simulate LWR primary loop conditions at the PULSTAR reactor at North Carolina State University. Ultrasonic data will be taken in-situ. Subsequently, the sensors and couplant interfaces will be characterized using the LAMDA facility at ORNL. The results will be used to benefit a parallel EPRI project on online monitoring of cracks in LWR primary loop piping. | Document | Joint R&D with NSUF Access | FY2013 | |
| Lower Length Scale Characterization and Validation of Formation and Stability of Helium Bubbles in Nano-structured Ferritic Alloys under Irradiation | Clemson University | $399,870 | Researchers will provide a fundamental knowledge about the formation and stability of ultra-fine helium bubbles within 14YWT after neutron/ion irradiation for further design of new advanced structural materials with a characteristic high density nanoparticles feature which can increase the mechanical strength, hardness, irradiation resistance and the operational temperature range of materials. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Three-Dimensional Fuel Pin Model Validation by Prediction of Hydrogen Distribution in Cladding and Comparison with Experiment | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers will validate important three-dimensional aspects of the fuel pin modeling by using specialized numerical modeling techniques coupled with laboratory experiments to validate existing models for predicting fuel performance in light water reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Collocation-Based Surrogate Models for Uncertainty Quantification and Validation of Coupled, Multiphysics Fuel Performance Simulation Tools | University of Michigan | $596,835 | Researchers will provide the necessary high fidelity, coupled, multiphysics fuel performance simulator for computational modeling and develop surrogates which will accelerate and focus the validation of the coupled codes. This will be achieved by utilizing the high fidelity coupled fuel performance, thermal-hydraulics and neutronics codes BISON/STAR-CCM+/MPACT and an innovative collocation-based surrogate methodology. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Multi-Resolution In-Situ Testing and Mutliscale Simulation for Creep Damage Fatigue Damage Analysis of Alloy 617 | Arizona State University | $800,000 | This project will develop novel testing and experimentally validated prediction methodologies for micro-structural damage mechanisms of structural materials for advanced reactor systems. The investigations will focus on the characterization and testing of specific metal alloys, but the proposed testing and life-prediction methodologies are applicable to other structural materials as well. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Novel High Temperature and Radiation Resistant Infrared Glasses and Optical Fibers for Sensing in Advanced Small Modular Reactors | Clemson University | $800,000 | Clemson University, in partnership with the Iowa State University and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, will develop novel optical materials with improved heat and radiation exposure resistance in order to enable in-vessel fiber optic sensing for advanced Small Modular Reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Validation Data Acquisition in HTTF during PCC Events | George Washington University | $800,000 | Researchers at the George Washington University and Oregon State University will collaborate with NASA Langley Research Center to measure flow velocities in a high temperature test facility. This work supports the development of very-high temperature reactors with passive safety systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced High Temperature Inspection Capabilities for Small Modular Reactors | Iowa State University | $790,822 | The objective of this project is to develop non-destructive evaluation techniques for advanced small modular reactors. The research will provide key enabling inspection technologies needed to support the design and the reactor component performance validation process for advanced small modular reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Experimental and Computational Investigations of Plenum-to-Plenum Heat Transfer under Natural Circulation in a Prismatic Very High Temperature Reactor | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,999 | Researchers will perform experimental and computational investigations to study heat transfer and natural circulation phenomena in very-high temperature reactors. The study will assist in the ability to predict and analyze passive safety systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| New Mechanistic Models of Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth Interactions for Advanced High Temperature Reactor Components | Oregon State University | $790,790 | Researchers will create and validate a robust, multi-scale, numerical model to predict material degradation in nickel-based reactor alloys. If successful, this project will provide better numerical tools for reactor designers and greatly improve their capability to design against material failures for reactor alloys in the long term. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Self-Powered Wireless Dual-mode Langasite Sensor for Pressure/Temperature Monitoring of Nuclear Reactors | State University of New York, Stony Brook | $800,000 | This research will develop a novel self-powered wireless hybrid sensor that can accurately monitor both pressure and temperature using a single device without requiring external electricity, even in extreme harsh environments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Compact Heat Exchanger Design and Testing for Advanced Nuclear Reactors and Advanced Power Cycles | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to investigate optimal heat exchanger designs for advanced reactors. The research will study the optimization of printed circuit heat exchangers for specific fluids under a variety of conditions as well as perform numerical modeling. Experiments will focus on thermal performance and heat stress during extreme conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Fundamental Understanding of Creep-Fatigue Interactions in 9Cr-1MoV Steel Welds | The Ohio State University | $798,000 | This project will advance the state of knowledge and fundamental understanding of deforming materials and welds under loading conditions. Specifically, new integrated testing procedures will be evaluated and applied for conditions that are most detrimental to material stability leading to improved predictions of life expectancy for reactor steels and welds. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced Mechanistic 3D Spatial Modeling and Analysis Methods to Accurately Represent Nuclear Facility External Event Scenarios | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop three-dimensional characterization uncertainty analysis for commercial power plants. The project will involve combining experts from the fields of seismic structural modeling and advanced methods of risk assessment. This effort is expected to result in next generation tools that can be used for assessment of seismic risks. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Tritium Mitigation/Control for Advanced Reactor Systems | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a fluoride salt cooled high-temperature reactor featuring a specialized system to control tritium production. If successful, this will result in a significant reduction in size and cost in comparison to other reactor designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| A Pebble-Bed Breed and Burn Reactor | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will assess the feasibility of designing a type of metal cooled reactor able to establish and maintain operation when fueled with depleted uranium. If successful, this reactor will offer at least a 30-fold increase in the uranium ore utilization versus that achieved in contemporary light water reactors without the need for fuel reprocessing and recycling. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Investigation of Thermal Aging Effects on the Evolution of Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Cast Duplex Stainless Steels | University of Maryland, College Park | $799,966 | This research will provide a better understanding of the microstructural evolution and simultaneous change in mechanical response during aging. The results of the research will provide data that can be used to estimate degraded mechanical properties for an 80-year service life of light water reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Model validation using CFD-grade experimental database for NGNP Reactor Cavity Cooling Systems with water and air | University of Michigan | $799,348 | Researchers will use advanced innovative instrumentation to build a high-resolution experimental database and to use the novel experimental data to assess and further develop the predictive capabilities of computer codes for thermal hydraulics and computational fluid dynamics. The improved models developed by this project will also have the direct benefit of improving the predictive capability of the passive systems of third generation light water reactors and small modular reactor systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Long-Term Prediction of Emissivity of Structural Material for High Temperature Reactor Systems | University of Missouri | $799,117 | Researchers will study specific types of emissivity driven cooling from a variety of materials that are relevant to nuclear reactors. The research will provide a basis for numerical modeling to support reactor development. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced I&C for Fault-Tolerant Supervisory Control of Small Modular Reactors | University of Pittsburgh | $800,000 | The purpose of this research is to develop advanced instrumentation and control techniques for supervisory control of advanced small modular reactors. This research supports the operational goals of small modular reactor concepts through the development of improved oversight and surveillance techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Corrosion of Structural Materials for Advanced Supercritical Carbon-Dioxide Brayton Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $798,672 | Researchers will study a variety of materials for corrosion resistance under conditions that improve power conversion. In addition to studying the corrosion resistance of the materials, researchers will study the effect of additives to mitigate corrosion. Development of corrosion theories and modeling aimed at prediction of long-term corrosion will be the underlying theme throughout the project. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Component and Technology Development for Advanced Liquid Metal Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $798,920 | In support of liquid metal cooled reactors, the University of Wisconsin, Madison will evaluate advanced alloys and ceramics that come in contact with liquid metals. Additionally, a robust oxygen sensor and for use in liquid metals will be developed in order to better evaluate corrosion profiles in support of diagnostic testing. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| A New Paradigm for Understanding Multi-phase Ceramic Waste Form Performance | Clemson University | $800,000 | Researchers will use advanced characterization tools to develop 3-D microstructural data that can be incorporated into computer-based simulations in order to predict the performance of waste forms. Materials system modeling will incorporate elemental release and the interconnected microstructural network of phases to better understand performance and degradation, which will accelerate waste form acceptance in repository settings. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Controlling Hexavalent Americium: A Centerpiece to a Compact Nuclear Fuel Cycle | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and exploit the fundamental chemistry of Americium to enable an industrially viable means to co-recover the major and minor actinide elements from used nuclear fuel. The results would be a significant step forward in the development of aqueous separations approaches designed to recover the U-Am actinides based on the availability of the hexavalent oxidation state. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Zeolite Membranes for Krypton/Xenon Separation from Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Off-Gas | Georgia Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a high-performance, lower-cost zeolitic membrane process for Kr/Xe separations during spent nuclear fuel processing. Current separation methods are not considered economical and a membrane process would have relatively lower cost, equipment size, and ambient operating temperature. The process would form a sound basis for further development of this transformative separation technology for the nuclear fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Optimizing Polymer-Grafted Amidoxime-based Adsorbents for Uranium Uptake from Seawater | Georgia Institute of Technology | $399,999 | Researchers will work to increase the adsorbent capacity and selectivity toward uranium by optimizing the adsorbent morphology, synthesis variables, and conditioning parameters and by investigating the rate-limiting variables through transport and reaction modeling. A novel adsorption/partition concept that has the potential to substantially increase the adsorbent capacity will be tested, making uranium from seawater extraction more economically viable. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Extraction of Uranium from Seawater: Design and Testing of a Symbiotic System | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a seawater uranium extraction system that will work symbiotically with an offshore windmill by utilizing the structure, mooring and power of the windmill, while increasing the energy harvested by the installation. Uranium will be extracted by an adsorbent polymer belt, which will be cycled through the seawater and an elution plant located at the base of the windmill tower. Increasing the frequency of harvesting could overcome current economic barriers to seawater uranium extraction. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Imaging a Dry Storage Cask with Cosmic Ray Muons | Oregon State University | $799,871 | Researchers will develop an imaging system to monitor the content of a dry storage cask with cosmic ray muons. A very large amount of plutonium under nuclear safeguards is contained in used fuel assemblies stored in dry storage casks. Muon imaging will allow a cost effective and reliable way to evaluate dry storage cask content and integrity before transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Apatite and sodalite based glass-bonded waste forms for immobilization of 129I and mixed halide radioactive wastes | Rutgers University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop advanced and chemically durable waste forms for immobilizing 129I (aqueous based reprocessing of fuel) and mixed-halide wastes (molten-salt processing of fuel) by low temperature synthesis. Halide-containing sodalite and calcium phosphate-based apatite minerals will be synthesized, consolidated and tested for chemical durability. The project will provide needed baseline data for the development of advanced waste forms for immobilization of iodine and mixed-halide wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Sorption Modeling and Verification for Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $350,000 | Researchers will develop modeling tools supported by experiments for off-gas capture from future nuclear-fuel recycling facilities. Target species include tritium, iodine, krypton, and xenon. The models are intended to provide path forward recommendations to develop off-gas treatment adsorption processes. The project will contribute to the evaluation of options for environmentally acceptable recycle systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development of high performance ODS alloys | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will study swelling, radiation hardening and changes in mechanical properties of ODS alloys to develop two sets of advanced ODS alloys. Two sets of first-round candidate alloys that have already undergone extensive development and testing will evaluate irradiation performance. The study will meet the need for high strength, radiation-tolerant cladding and core components that have enhanced resistance to void swelling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Rare Earth Electrochemical Property Measurements and Phase Diagram Development in a Complex Molten Salt Mixture for Molten Salt Recycle | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate rare earth (RE) properties in complex molten salt mixtures. In a molten salt recycle approach, the RE drawdown by electrolysis is a key step in which REs are separated from salt containing other fission products. Investigation of RE electrolysis must consider the electrochemical properties of the REs. We propose to conduct studies of detailed experiments and corresponding models to provide the physical properties and phase diagrams required to predict the performance of RE drawdown for processing complex molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Computational and Experimental Studies of Microstructure-Scale Porosity in Metallic Fuels for Improved Gas Swelling Behavior | University of Arkansas | $796,823 | Researchers will study the microstructure of metallic uranium alloy fuels, and their resistance to densification, to minimize in-pile irradiation swelling through bimodal pore size distribution. The project will develop a predictive approach to design metallic fuel microstructures for optimal swelling resistance and fission gas retention. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Improved Hybrid Modeling of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of California, Berkeley | $645,393 | Researchers will develop a variance reduction method for computational transport that will improve the ability to design and operate monitoring systems for interim used fuel installations through enhanced modeling and simulation. This new tool will demonstrate that modeling calculations can be done more accurately in less time than with current tools and will perform studies characterizing how changes in material, cask configurations, and number of casks could impact monitoring systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Selective ligands for uranyl via combinatorial peptoid libraries: A synthetic, structural, thermodynamic and computational study | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will study how donor ligands bind to the uranyl ion, UO22+, with the longer-term goal of using this information to tackle selective recognition of uranyl in aqueous solution. The study will impact underlying approaches to controlling the behavior of uranium in these systems. The actinide separation technology could be used in several areas including uranium extraction from seawater, nuclear waste remediation and nuclear materials. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Combining Experiments and Simulations of Extraction Kinetics and Thermodynamics in Advanced Separation Processes for Used Nuclear Fuel | University of California, Irvine | $799,938 | Researchers will study how the kinetics and thermodynamics of metal ion extraction in advanced separation processes for used nuclear fuel can be described by molecular dynamic (MD) simulations and how the simulations can be validated by experimental data. The project would have broad impacts on several separations processes including advanced TALSPEAK, ALSEP and GANEX by increasing the confidence and accuracy of computer modeling of metal ion extraction. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Effect of Metallic Li on the Behavior of Metals in Molten Salts | University of Nevada, Reno | $458,250 | Researchers will identify the effect of metallic lithium on materials that are used in molten salt recycling. The study will try to understand how the presence of Li(0) in molten salts affects the degradation of alloys. Studying these changes will help accurately predict container material behavior and longevity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Assessment of Corrosion Resistance of Promising Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding under Reactor Conditions | University of Notre Dame | $800,000 | Researchers will assess the corrosion behavior of accident tolerant fuel candidate iron-based alloys under normal LWR operating conditions consisting of high temperature, relevant water chemistry and irradiation. The assessment will produce data about possible irradiation-accelerated corrosion rates of iron-based alloys, and the mechanisms by which such corrosion rates are accelerated. The project will advance the selection of appropriate replacements for Zircaloy cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Enhanced Accident-Tolerant Fuel Performance and Reliability for Aggressive iPWR/SMR Operation | University of Tennessee | $799,967 | To develop a process that evaluates operational and safety performance of reactor-and-fuel combinations by integrating whole-core 3D neutronics with MOOSE/BISON fuel performance assessments via explicit time and space dependent fuel rod operational power histories. The project will be valuable in analyzing and evaluating accident tolerant fuel concepts and furthering the understanding of reactor physics and fuel performance aspects of key accident tolerant fuel concepts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Nuclear Technology R&D Strategies in an Era of Energy Price Uncertainty | University of Texas, Austin | $799,112 | Researchers will identify nuclear technology options that are competitive over a wide range of plausible future business environments. No single nuclear technology or business practice will be the best choice across all or even most future conditions. The study will focus on hybrid nuclear-fossil technologies, energy storage and conversion, which will result in an identification of nuclear strategies that can succeed under future market conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development and Optimization of Voltammetric Methods for Real Time Analysis of Electrorefiner Salt with High Concentrations of Actinides and Fission Products | University of Utah | $621,612 | Researchers will develop an advanced voltammetry method to pursue the objective of real time monitoring of actinide concentrations in electrorefiner salt. This will include experimental measurement of key parameters such as activity coefficients and exchange current density. It will also involve simulation of voltammetry processes based on first principles. The project will allow for real time measurements that could support the commercialization of pyroprocessing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development of Self-Healing Zirconium-Silicide Coatings for Improved Performance of Zirconium-Alloy Fuel Cladding | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $798,621 | Researchers will study the deposition of self-healing zirconium-silicide coatings on zirconium-alloy fuel cladding material to improve corrosion resistance under normal and accident conditions. Under these conditions, Zr-Si coating evolves into a highly protective functionally-graded multilayered system. The study will lead to improved performance of zirconium-alloy fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Thermal Conductivity in Metallic Fuels | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,837 | Researchers will calculate the thermal conductivity of metallic uranium and neptunium alloys, including the effects of noble gasses, using density functional theory. The experiments will validate the calculated effective thermal conductivity using the MARMOT code and by helping determine DFT simulation parameters. The study works to improve fuel lifetime by understanding its thermal behavior. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| SiC-ODS Alloy Gradient Nanocomposites as Novel Cladding Materials | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,998 | Researchers will combine nuclear nanomaterial design, processing, testing, and characterization efforts to develop revolutionary materials that can withstand neutron irradiation for long period of time using nanostructured SiC and oxide dispersion strengthened steel. The ultimate objective is to offer new cladding materials with increased corrosion resistance, strength, and creep resistance in both steady state and accident conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Experimental Breeder Reactor II Benchmark Evaluation | Idaho State University | $400,000 | _Researchers will develop a benchmark evaluation of the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II). During nearly 30 years of operation numerous experiments were conducted at EBR-II. The most significant of these experiments were conducted in 1986 demonstrating inherent safety features in loss of flow without reactor scram and loss of heat sink without reactor scram. Benchmark evaluation will be valuable for the reactor design efforts in the United States and South Korea. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| Integral full core multi-physics PWR benchmark with measured data | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | _Researchers will introduce BEAVRS, a new multi-cycle full-core Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) depletion benchmark based on two operational cycles of a commercial nuclear power plant. This project aims at addressing the uncertainty quantification of the measured data and on making this benchmark a true non-proprietary international benchmark for the validation of high-fidelity multi-physics computational tools. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| Benchmark Evaluation of PROTEUS Gas-Cooled Reactor Experiments | University of Florida | $400,000 | _Researchers will create International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) benchmarks using data from 1970s experiments of the neutronics of gas-cooled fast reactor (GCFR) designs investigated in the PROTEUS reactor. The GCFR-PROTEUS experiments fill a gap in current integral benchmark data. These experiments can provide validation of computational models and nuclear data for next generation reactors. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| An Investigation To Establish Multiphysical Property Dataset Of Nuclear Materials Based On In-Situ Observations And Measurements | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will create an in-situ measurement based experimental approach to develop experimental validation dataset for NEAMS based code validation. Particular emphasis is on supplying data set for multiphysics simulations in extreme conditions as a function of material microstructure. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| Experimental Validation of UO2 Microstructural Evolutions for NEAMS tool MARMOT | University of Florida | $798,000 | _Researchers will experimentally validate MARMOT for predicting the microstructural evolutions of UO2 oxide fuel under the driving forces of high temperatures and large temperature gradient in reactors. By performing the experiments and simulations simultaneously using precisely defined initial conditions, the experiment data will provide direct benchmarking of the MARMOT code. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| High-resolution time-resolved experiments on mixing and entrainment of buoyant jets in stratified environments | University of Michigan | $799,983 | _Researchers will study high spatial and time-resolution experimental data of the fluid dynamics phenomena of flow jets interacting with a stratified layer. The issue plays an important role in the safety of several reactor designs, including sodium-cooled reactors. The data addresses the NEAMS needs for the validation of high fidelity computational fluid dynamics methodologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| Fundamental study of key issues related to advanced S-CO2 Brayton Cycle: prototypic HX development and Cavitation | Georgia Institute of Technology | $799,000 | _Researchers will study scientific and operational issues pertinent to compact heat exchanger systems and turbo-machinery. The project will work to resolve issues with the fabrication of diffusion bonded compact heat exchangers, alternate heat exchange technology for recuperators, and resolution of issues with cavitation and fluid instabilities. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Advanced Models for Nondestructive Evaluation of Aging Nuclear Power Plant Cables | Iowa State University | $787,291 | _Researchers will develop advanced models that relate environmentally induced microstructural and chemical changes in cable insulation polymers to their macroscopic electrical parameters. These parameters will be measured and modeled over a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum, covering several potential nondestructive evaluation techniques, enabling identification of the most sensitive techniques for future development. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Development of Novel Functionally Graded Transition Joints for Improving the Creep Strength of Dissimilar Metal Welds in Nuclear Applications | Lehigh University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop graded transition joints and improved creep life models for increasing the life of dissimilar metal welds (DMWs) in nuclear reactors. The research represents the first application of functionally graded material concepts for solving the problem of DMW failures through an integrated approach of additive manufacturing, modeling, microstructural characterization, and advanced strain-sensing techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Feasibility Assessment of a Micro Modular Reactor (MMR) | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | _Researchers will develop an innovative compact reactor concept that integrates power production, power conversion and electricity generation in a single unit: the Micro Modular Reactor (MMR). It is designed to be absolutely melt-down proof (MDP) under all circumstances including complete loss of coolant scenarios with no possible release of radioactive material, to have a cycle length of greater than 10 years, and to be highly proliferation resistant. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Scaling Studies for Advanced Gas Reactor Concepts | Oregon State University | $681,834 | _Researchers will expand the utilization of the Oregon State University High Temperature Test Facility (HTTF) to validate a broader range of advanced high temperature reactors and events. The facility will be revised to add a detailed scaling analysis of additional gas reactor concepts including advanced gas-cooled, molten salt, and sodium cooled reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Fluid Stratification Separate Effects Analysis, Testing and Benchmarking | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will study fluid stratification in high temperature gas reactors. Coolant stratification is the result of incomplete mixing of one or more fluids, leading to a density gradient, which may or may not dissipate under diffusive or convective effects. This combined analytical and experimental project seeks to investigate stratification driven by diffusive and convective mechanisms and is expected to yield insight into this phenomenon. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Probabilistic Economic Valuation of Safety Margin Management Analysis | Oregon State University | $795,364 | _Researchers will use RAVEN and develop a companion software package to facilitate economic analysis of safety margins. The project is a proof of concept that will use techniques to examine the cost of improving safety margins vs. the risk of accidents from not improving safety margins. This analysis can be used to evaluate the economic viability of various plant upgrades. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Novel Dissimilar Joints Between Alloy 800H and 2.25%Cr and 1%Mo Steel | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will fabricate and test dissimilar metal joints between a nickel base alloy and a steel with gradual variations of chemical composition, microstructure and properties in a manner that reduces abrupt thermal expansion mismatch and the resulting residual stresses. Data on structure and properties will serve as valuable inputs for the initiation of an ASME code case. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Multi-Phase Model Development to Assess RCIC System Capabilities under Severe Accident Conditions | Texas A&M University | $564,246 | _Researchers will develop physics-based models of the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) System and incorporating them into a multi-phase code for validation. The project will tackle the current major challenges in RCIC System analysis and enable evaluation of two-phase thermodynamic aspects. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Experimental Investigation and CFD Analysis of Steam Ingress Accidents in HTGRs | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will study the steam ingress scenario for HTGRs. The study will investigate thermal-hydraulic behavior and graphite oxidation of stream ingress phenomena to validate predictive CFD models. This work will resolve concerns about possible steam generator tube ruptures in a HTGR He-Steam Rankine cycle. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Coiled Tube Gas Heaters For Nuclear Gas-Brayton Power Conversion | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop heat exchangers for Brayton-cycle power conversion in reactors using sodium, NaK, or salt as intermediate coolants. The proposed coiled tube gas heaters (CTGHs) are expected to have excellent power density, thermal shock/creep, in-service inspection, and reparability characteristics. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Fundamental Studies of Irradiation-Induced Modifications in Microstructural Evolution and Mechanical Properties of Advanced Alloys | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop and test a mechanism for predicting neutron irradiation performance for optimized Grade 92 and Alloy 709 for applications in advanced reactor systems. The work will employ ion irradiations and available information from neutron irradiations of related alloys to develop a basis for predicting the neutron irradiation performance of the optimized alloys. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Integrated Computational and Experimental Study of Radiation Damage Effects in Grade 92 Steel and Alloy 709 | University of Tennessee | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop a mechanistic understanding and predictive models of irradiation-induced microstructural evolution and resulting mechanical properties in optimized ferritic-martensitic Grade 92 steel and austenitic alloy 709 using multiscale simulations coupled with rigorous experimental validation. The project will provide insights into the correlation between ion irradiation and fast neutron damage. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Meta-Level Design Guidance and Operator Performance Measures for Hybrid Control Rooms | Vanderbilt University | $799,869 | _Researchers will apply human factors engineering methods and relevant expertise from non-nuclear high-risk high-consequence domains toward the measurement of operator performance in analog, digital, and hybrid main control rooms. Performance measures will be developed for evaluating the situation awareness and decision-making proficiencies to support the transition to digital or hybrid control room displays. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| NEUP Project 15-8514: Elucidation of the kinetics of Advanced Separation systems | California State University, Long Beach | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a fundamental understanding of the chemical kinetics relevant to separation processes by measuring ligand complexation rate constants for both lanthanides and actinides in the aqueous and organic phases. These experiments will provide essential kinetic and mechanistic information required for developing a simplified, single-step recovery of transuranic elements. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8119: Kr/Xe separation over Metal Organic Framework Membranes | Colorado School of Mines | $375,000 | Researchers will develop metal organic framework (MOF) membranes that will be capable of effectively separating Kr from Xe with high flux and selectivity. This project may result in the development of membranes that will constitute a viable energy saving approach for the effective removal of Kr during the processing of used nuclear fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8347: Multilayer Composite Fuel Cladding for LWR Performance Enhancement and Severe Accident Tolerance | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop, manufacture, and weld a new multimetallic layered composite (MMLC) for enhanced severe accident tolerance and manufacturability in LWRs. Layers of stainless steel (facing the coolant) and Zircaloy (facing the fuel) will be separated by barrier layers of Cr and Nb. Severe accident testing in 1200C steam, LWR autoclave testing, and ion irradiation studies will demonstrate the MMLC's microstructural stability. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8112: Phase Separation and Crystallization of Complex Borosilicate Melts for Glass-Ceramic Waste Forms | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,806 | Researchers will study the mechanisms for microstructural development and properties of multi-phase, glass-ceramic materials that form when waste-loaded borosilicate glasses are cooled from above their liquidus or consolute temperatures through the glass transition temperature. The project will apply these tools to modified compositions to maximize the formation of the desirable crystalline phases. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8265: Electrically-Assisted Tubing Processes for Enhancing Manufacturability of Oxide Dispersion Strengthened Structural Materials for Nuclear Reactor Applications | Northwestern University | $800,000 | Researchers will enhance the formability of nanostructured ferritic alloys (NFAs) such that high-strength thin-walled claddings can be manufactured successfully and economically to be used in future reactors. The project will study the effects of continuous and pulsed electric currents on the deformation behavior of Fe-14Cr based NFA steel. The findings will be used to establish innovative fabrication processes including electrically-assisted extrusion and rolling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8126: Fundamental Electrochemical Properties of Liquid Metals in LiCl-KCl for Separation of Alkali/Alkaline-Earths (Cs, Sr and Ba) | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate the fundamental properties of novel liquid metal electrodes for separation of alkali/alkaline-earth fission products in LiCl-KCl electrolyte. The project will further the development of pyroprocessing by maximizing salt recycle and providing a method for recovery of alkali/alkaline-earth fission products as oxides (as opposed to chlorides) which will allow them to be encapsulated in a more conventional glass wasteform. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8074: Monitoring of Actinide Concentrations in Molten LiCl-KCl Salt using Alpha Spectroscopy | The Ohio State University | $799,969 | Researchers will develop a novel in-salt sensor that uses electrochemistry to pre-concentrate the actinides onto the sensor to measure the actinides concentration in a high temperature and high radiation field represented by a molten salt environment. The ability to monitor actinides to prevent misuse is critical to enhancing the control of nuclear materials. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8717: Understanding the Interactions of Seawater Ions with Amidoxime through X-Ray Crystallography | University of Alabama | $553,971 | _Researchers will investigate the fundamental interactions of the amidoxime (R-C(NH2)=NOH) functional group with metal ions found in seawater using a combined approach of single crystal X-ray diffraction and spectroscopy to understand the origin of the selectivity of amidoxime resins for uranyl ([UO2]2+] ions and establish structural benchmarks for interpretation of spectroscopic studies on actual sorbents to aid in identifying specific sorbent-metal interactions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8439: Developing a macro-scale SiC-cladding behavior model based on localized mechanical and thermal property evaluation on pre- and post-irradiation SiC-SiC composites | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a fundamental understanding of the macroscopic behavior of SiC-SiC composite structures before and after irradiation based on the microscopic property changes of each individual component (SiC matrix, fiber and interface). SiC-SiC composites will be tested in the as-fabricated condition, after being subjected to neutron and ion irradiation, micro-cracking, and oxidation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8536: Quantitative Prediction of Uranium Speciation and Amidoxime Binding in Seawater from Advanced Simulation Techniques | University of California, Riverside | $450,000 | Researchers will quantitatively predict stability of uranium species and thermochemistry (free energy, entropy, and enthalpy) of uranium binding with amidoxime ligands in seawater conditions. To achieve the goal, advanced simulation techniques including all-atom molecular dynamics, free-energy calculations, and the hybrid quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical approach will be employed to explicitly include water molecules and common seawater ions in the simulation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8286: Used Fuel Storage Monitoring Using Helium-4 Scintillation Fast Neutron Detectors and Neutron Spectral Analysis | University of Florida | $799,765 | Researchers will build and demonstrate a prototype detector device capable of unambiguously verifying the declared content of dry casks in a non-intrusive manner for the safeguarding and monitoring of used fuel storage installations. This will be achieved through a neutron spectroscopy and imaging system using high-efficiency Helium-4 (4He) gas scintillation fast neutron detectors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8663: Enhancement of the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland, College Park | $600,000 | Researchers will produce efficient adsorbents of uranium from seawater in seeking to optimize the functional ligands, the polymeric substrates, the grafting conditions and the adsorption/desorption durations based on sound chemical understanding. The result will be adsorbents that can be used through multiple cycles of uranium adsorption without significant degradation of the adsorbents capacity and selectivity for uranium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8111: Purification of Zirconium cladding using a chloride volatility process | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $798,877 | _Researchers will investigate the thermochemistry of used fuel Zr cladding components chlorides as well as their activation products and residual radionuclide metal chlorides to provide fundamental data that will support the development of a chlorination process for the purification of ZrCl4. Understanding the chemistry of these chloride species will provide process development guidance for the purification of Zr cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8323: Purification of Zirconium Tetrachloride from UNF Cladding | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $793,121 | _Researchers will develop and demonstrate a process to purify zirconium tetrachloride obtained from the direct chlorination of used Zircaloy cladding materials from used nuclear fuel rod assemblies. This study will increase understanding of purification protocols that will allow zirconium chloride to be recycled further. Increased recycling capability would significantly reduce the amount of high level waste associated with light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8752: Radiation Effects on High Thermal Conductivity Fuels | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $400,000 | _Researchers will use scoping ion and neutron irradiations to explore the structural stability and thermal conductivity of model high thermal conductivity fuels consisting of CeO2 and either Al2O3 (BeO surrogate) or SiC. Issues associated with thermal conductivity degradation (including micro cracking effects) and general phase stability of fuel systems will be examined. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8243: Radiation-induced swelling and microcracking in SiC cladding for LWRs | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $797,889 | _Researchers will use state of the art experimental characterization techniques and multi-scale methodology (developed within the MOOSE-MARMOT-BISON framework) to provide scientific basis for predictions of swelling and microcracking in SiC cladding as a function of temperature and irradiation histories. Predicting swelling and microcracking will further the potential for accident tolerant SiC cladding to be used in light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8081: Understanding influence of thermal history and glass chemistry on kinetics of phase separation and crystallization in borosilicate glass-ceramic waste forms for aqueous reprocessed high level waste | Washington State University | $799,911 | _Researchers will develop a fundamental and transformative understanding of the crystallization mechanisms in complex glass-ceramic high level waste (HLW) wasteforms,. This understanding will underpin the maturation of glass ceramic manufacture, by linking process variables to molecular scale mechanisms, enabling reliable production of wasteforms to the desired specification. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8210: A Transient Reactor Physics Experiment with High-Fidelity, 3-D Flux Measurements for Validation and Verification | Kansas State University | $799,198 | _Researchers will instrument the University of Wisconsin Nuclear Reactor with micro-pocket fission detectors (MPFDs) to measure 3-D flux distributions. The measurements will be compared to simulation using PROTEUS from the NEAMS toolkit. MPFDs are small, which leads to low gamma-ray sensitivity and small flux perturbations. A 3-D array of MPFDs and standard reactor instrumentation will be used to capture highly-resolved flux and temperature distributions for several steady-state and transient conditions. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8101: Development of Critical Experiments to Provide Validation Data for Multiphysics Coupling Methods | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $799,993 | Researchers will develop a set of benchmark validation experiments for multiphysics coupling by exploiting the inherent flexibility of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Reactor Critical Facility (RCF). This project will use targeted experiments to validate the coupling between neutronics, thermal hydraulics, and structural mechanics routines present in the NEAMS Reactor Product Line toolkit._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8229: Thermal Transport and Fracture Behavior of Sintered Fuel Pellets: Experimental Validation of NEAMS Tool MARMOT | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | _Researchers will perform experimental validation of the NEAMS tool MARMOT for predicting thermal transport and fuel fracture. By performing extensive thermal transport and fracture experiments on well-controlled microstructures of sintered UO2, the impact of microstructure on thermo-mechanical properties of sintered UO2 and mechanistic understanding will be achieved. The high quality experimental data will directly benchmark the MARMOT code by evaluating the thermal transport and fracture models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8208: Development of a Novel Accelerator for Neutron Transport Solution Using the Galerkin Spectral Element Methods | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $626,176 | _Researchers will develop a novel accelerator for neutron transport calculations based on the spectral element methods, continuous Galerkin (CG) and discontinuous Galerkin (DG) approximations. The CG and DG methods will be used to solve the multi-group neutron diffusion equation on the coarse-mesh structure (e.g., pin-size up to assembly-size), which is then coupled with the high-order neutron transport solution to speed up the neutron transport computation. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8338: Methodology Development for Cybersecurity Robustness and Vulnerability Assessment of University Research Reactors: A Case Study Using the PULSTAR Reactor | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop a methodology for assessing the cybersecurity robustness and vulnerability of university research reactors using an actual university reactor as a test case. While the developed methodology will be specifically tested and applied using this reactor, it will be formulated as a general blueprint and used as the starting point for the assessment of university research reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cyber Security R&D | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8121: Automatic Imagery Data Analysis for Proactive Computer-Based Workflow Management during Nuclear Power Plant Outages | Arizona State University | $799,738 | _Researchers will test the hypothesis that real-time imagery-based object tracking and spatial analysis, as well as human behavior modeling will significantly improve efficiency of outage control while lowering the rates of accidents and incidents. The project will examine computer vision methods and human behavior models for developing a proactive workflow management tool and integrate it into Computer-Based Procedures for supporting an Advanced Outage Control Center. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8308: Creep and creep-fatigue crack growth mechanisms in Alloy 709 | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _A joint US/UK team will study the crack growth mechanism and failure analysis of alloy 709 under creep and creep-fatigue conditions. The study will be done through in situ heating and loading during SEM observation to evaluate the crack growth under plane stress condition and traditional methods to study the crack growth under plane strain condition. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8582: Mechanistic and Validated Creep/Fatigue Predictions for Alloy 709 from Accelerated Experiments and Simulations | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will use mechanistic methods for predicting creep and creep-fatigue deformation rates/strains based on accelerated in-situ and ex-situ tests, and mesoscale dislocation dynamics simulations for Alloy 709. This research will support its qualification in the ASME code for use in advanced nuclear reactor applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8495: Advancement of Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Technology through Round Robin Testing and Fundamental Modeling | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will conduct a round robin test plan for S-CO2 corrosion testing across multiple institutions and the organization of a S-CO2 Materials Group to guide future materials testing directions. Furthermore, this proposal outlines identical tests in supercritical water, testing model alloys with various composition and environmental conditions, accompanied by modeling efforts to study rate controlling mechanisms of corrosion. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8489: Modeling and Validation of Irradiation Damage in Ni-based Alloys for Long-Term LWR Applications | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _A joint US/UK team will study thermal and irradiation-induced transformations mechanisms of Alloys 690 and 625 in order to extend Grizzly to include capabilities for modeling Ni-based alloys. The project will develop modeling tools for materials degradation in light water reactors, allowing for component replacement data and continued safe operation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-7983: Development of Steady-State Thermal-Hydraulic Analysis and Bowing Reactivity Evaluation Methods Based on Neutron and Gamma Transport Calculations | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop steady-state thermal-hydraulic analysis and assembly bowing reactivity evaluation methods based on the latest transport calculation capabilities in order to overcome the limitations and improve the accuracy of current design analysis methods. The outcome of the effort will be computer programs to calculate the steady-state heat source distributions in fuel pins and assembly duct walls and to calculate the reactivity worth of assembly displacements. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8627: Experimental Validation Data and Computational Models for Turbulent Mixing of Bypass and Coolant Jet Flows in Gas-Cooled Reactors | Texas A&M University | $799,613 | _Researchers will establish reliable models of the thermal-hydraulics in Gas-Cooled Reactors with experimental and computational efforts. Specifically, this work will focus on providing the relationship between fluctuating velocities and temperatures in the lower plenum and their dependency on the turbulent upstream mixing in the core and collection chambers leading up to the lower plenum. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8251: Enhanced Performance Fast Reactors with Engineered Passive Safety System | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | _Researchers will study the feasibility of improving the passive safety and economics of sodium cooled fast reactors (SFR) by incorporating within their fuel assemblies a novel Autonomous Reactivity Control (ARC) system. It is expected that the ARC systems will enable to design even low leakage SFR cores, such as breed-and-burn cores, to be passively safe and to improve the neutron economy and economic viability of more conventional SFR. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8258: Physics-Based Probabilistic Model of the Effects of Ionizing Radiation on Polymeric Insulators of Electric Cables used in Nuclear Power Plants | University of California, Los Angeles | $798,846 | _Researchers will develop and experimentally validate a probabilistic physics-based degradation models for polymeric insulators of electric cables to be used in integrated performance and safety codes, which will help reduce the uncertainty associated with the long-term aging of cable insulation. The project will deliver a C++ based simulation code that will be readily compatible with the MOOSE/Grizzly framework developed at the Idaho National Laboratory. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8000: The Influences of Neutron Irradiation on Aggregate Induced Degradation of Concrete | University of California, Los Angeles | $800,000 | _Researchers will quantify the impacts of irradiation on concrete degradation. The research will develop new understanding of the evolutions and manifestations of irradiation assisted aggregate concrete degradation caused by neutron exposure. This assessment will help to mitigate the risk of such degradation within the Grizzly framework, by careful integrations of nanoscale analytics and simulation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8458: Multiple Degradation Mechanisms in Reinforced Concrete Structures, Modeling and Risk Analysis | University of Houston | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a multi-physics framework to characterize the deterioration development in concrete due to environmental and mechanical loading, and the coupling effect among transport processes and the damage of concrete. This project will develop new computational tools that will be implemented in Grizzly, an application built on the MOOSE platform, to address a variety of aging mechanisms in nuclear power plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8623: Characterization of Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth in Alloy 709 and Prediction of Service Lives in Nuclear Reactor Components | University of Idaho | $799,927 | _Researchers will study creep-fatigue crack growth behavior in steel Alloy 709 in accelerated test conditions to predict extended service life of structural components. Extensive testing of Alloy 709 creep-fatigue specimens will be performed at elevated temperatures and applied stresses. Microstructure analysis will be performed to describe the crack propagation mechanisms. Computational models will be used to predict service of steel components. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8432: Multi-scale experimental study of creep-fatigue failure initiation in a 709 Stainless Steel alloy using high resolution digital image correlation | University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign | $800,00 | _Researchers will conduct a detailed experimental investigation of creep-fatigue crack initiation in a 709 alloy, and will also obtain a predictive failure initiation model that includes both thermo-mechanical and aging effects. The experiments will use ultra-high resolution digital image correlation to measure accumulation of plastic with cycling. The model will extend existing slip band-based energy minimization criterion to include thermal effects applicable to 709. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8599: Am-241 Nuclear Safety and Environmental Interactions | University of Missouri | $399,187 | _Researchers will investigate the release and transport mechanisms of Am-241 to understand the interactions it may have with the environment. The project will examine Am-241 through a series of accident scenarios using Am-241 aerosols that will allow researchers to understand the pathways for dose assessment. Methodologies and approaches for nuclear risk assessment for new space radioisotope power system applications will be developed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8667: Experimental Validation of a Compact Double-walled Twisted-Tube Heat Exchanger Concept | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | _Researchers will investigate a novel compact double-walled twisted-tube heat exchanger (DT-HXR) design that utilizes an outer twisted tube configuration in order to enhance shell-side heat transfer and make the overall bundle more compact. Utilizing outer twisted tube geometry improves heat transfer and allows for a tube bundle that does not require support plates or anti-vibration bars. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project: 15-8352: Development and Demonstration of an In-Situ Tritium Scavenger | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,988 | _Researchers will use a graphite moderator to capture and remove tritium from the primary coolant systems of salt- and gas-cooled reactors. The team will develop electrochemical techniques to characterize tritium transport in graphite and liquid fluoride salts (including flibe), demonstrate the in-situ effectiveness of tritium absorption by the fuel elements, and develop a design for a graphite bed tritium filter that can integrate with salt-to-air heat exchangers. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 16-10730: Visualization Tool for Comparing Low-Carbon Energy Options | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a web based visualization tool for comparing current and future nuclear fuel cycle options to other low-carbon and conventional energy technologies in the United States.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10679: Overcoming Kinetic Barriers to Actinide Recovery in ALSEP | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | The ALSEP process for group separations of trivalent actinide/lanthanide ions suffers from slow stripping kinetics. Researchers will perform detailed kinetic studies at different temperatures, supported by spectroscopic and computational studies to establish where the kinetic bottlenecks occur in the ALSEP process. They will then systematically alter the chemistry of the extractants and aqueous ligands to understand how to overcome the kinetic hindrances.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10058: An Integrated Multiscale Experimental-Numerical Analysis on Reconsolidation of Salt-Clay Mixture for Disposal of Heat-Generating Waste | Columbia University in the City of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will improve understanding of the thermal-mechanical-hydrologic-chemical (TMHC) coupling effect on reconsolidated granular (or crushed) salt-clay mixture used for seal systems of shafts and drifts in salt repositories. The project will integrate laboratory experiments and multiscale pore-to-continuum coupling simulations to explore the feasibility of using clay additive and moisture content to enhance performance of crushed salt as a seal material.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10088: Americium Separation By Electrochemical Oxidation | Florida International University | $800,000 | Researchers will separate Am from high-level waste by exploiting the high oxidation states of Am through design, and testing of new materials. This will be accomplished by designing and testing new electrodes, derivatized with surface-stabilized ligands and redox mediators to facilitate oxidation of trivalent Am, and by designing porous sorbent materials functionalized with molecules which selectively coordinate Am(VI) to enable its subsequent separation.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10668: Microstructure Experiments-Enabled MARMOT Simulations of SiC/SiC-Based Accident Tolerant Nuclear Fuel System | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will characterize steam attack, hydrothermal corrosion and radiation swelling of SiC/SiC composites-based accident tolerant fuel (ATF) using a combination of experiments, microstructure evaluation and phase-field simulations using MARMOT. Central to the project is the mapping of the microstructure after steam/hydrothermal/irradiation tests through a unique non-destructive x-ray microscopy technique followed by phase-field simulations of chemical transport in MARMOT.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10221: Alloying Agents to Stabilize Lanthanides Against Fuel Cladding Chemical Interaction: Tellurium and Antimony Studies | Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop alloying agents to stabilize lanthanides against fuel cladding chemical interactions (FCCIs). Based on the available binary phase diagrams for the periodic table, Te and Sb are selected as fuel dopants. The research will focus on Te. The mechanisms of using minor additives to stabilize and immobilize the lanthanide fission products will be investigated. Resulting thermodynamic data obtained by the proposed research will be integrated into MARMOT to enhance its ability to model metallic fuel performance.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10648: Oxidation and Corrosion-Resistant Uranium Silicide Fuels | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | Researchers will develop oxidation/corrosion resistant uranium silicide U3Si2 fuel by chemical doping/fillers to form a continuous borosilicate glass as a protective oxide layer with transformational fuel performance and accident tolerance. The team will use chemical doping/fillers include B or C showing effectiveness in improving high temperature oxidation resistance in transition metal silicides, and boron/silicon-containing compounds that can form a protective borosilicate glass layer.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10229: Mechanistic Understanding of Silver Sorbent Aging Processes in Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $800,000 | This project is focused on understanding the mechanisms of aging processes on silver exchanged mordenite and silver functionalized silica aerogel adsorbents under conditions of long term exposure to off gas streams containing air, I2, H2O, and NOx. The chemical and physical structural changes of the adsorbents under these conditions will be accounted for in equilibrium and kinetic models. Transport models will be developed to predict the performance of engineered off-gas treatment systems.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10394: Integration of Microwave Readout into Nuclear Process Monitoring | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,695 | Researchers will show that gamma-ray spectroscopy based on emerging microcalorimeter sensors can determine elemental and isotopic fractions with accuracy comparable to much slower mass spectrometry and with far better accuracy than germanium sensors. This advance will prevent the diversion of nuclear material by enabling nearly real time process monitoring in large nuclear facilities without loss of measurement accuracy.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10523: A Science Based Approach for Selecting Dopants in FCCI-Resistant Metallic Fuel Systems | University of Idaho | $800,000 | The project aims to use a science-based approach to set guidelines of selecting dopants for developing fuel cladding chemical interaction (FCCI)-resistant metallic fuel systems for fast reactors. Lanthanide fission products migrate to the fuel-cladding gap leading to cladding breaches. The team will perform both theoretical modeling and experiments to arrive at the guidelines that are based on sound science. If successful, this can lead to breakthroughs in minimizing the FCCI effect.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10813: Advanced Electrochemical Separations of Actinide/Fission Products via the Control of Nucleation and Growth of Electrodeposits | University of Idaho | $350,000 | Researchers will use unique capabilities to modulate the electrodeposition of actinides (depleted Uranium) and fission products (Ln) during nucleation and growth stages. The team aims to preclude formation of electrodeposits with dendritic morphology. Morphology of electrodeposits will be controlled by electrolyte composition.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10707: In Situ Spectroscopic Determination of Actinide Speciation and Concentration | University of Nevada, Reno | $369,221 | The research team will address two major issues in the pyroprocess based fuel cycle: low process efficiency and materials accounting for non-proliferation. There are currently no analytical techniques to ascertain the speciation and concentration of the actinides in the electrolyte. This project aims to develop an in-situ analytical method consisting of Raman spectroscopic analysis during electrochemical polarization.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10204: Phase Equilibria and Thermochemistry of Advanced Fuels: Modeling Burnup Behavior | University of South Carolina | $799,946 | Researchers will develop phase equilibria and thermochemical information to model and simulate advanced fuel behavior, including critical phenomena such as the contribution to fuel swelling of dissolved non-noble fission products and secondary phase formation, composite fuel stability, and fuel-clad chemical interactions.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10512: Demand-Driven Cycamore Archetypes | University of South Carolina | $799,956 | Modeling of the nuclear fuel cycle (NFC) is often posed as a set of demands coupled with available technologies. Demands may be singular or multivariate. Additionally, available technologies may have constraints on when they are deployable. This proposal aims to bring demand and deployment decisions into the NFC simulator itself, thereby simulating a more realistic process by which utilities, governments, and other stakeholders actually make facility deployment decisions.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10856: Integrating Data Sources for Improved Safeguards and Accountancy of Electrochemical Fuel Reprocessing Streams | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The SSPM Echem tracks elemental and bulk material flows through batch operations in electrochemical facilities. This project will augment the existing SSPM Echem model with models of DA, NDA, and process monitoring measurements, including appropriate accuracy, noise, and uncertainty characteristics. Diverse measurement and assay results will be fused to improve material accountancy and anomaly detection across the electrochemical process.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10190: Immobilization of High-Level Waste Salt in Dechlorinated Zeolite Waste Forms | University of Utah | $799,315 | The primary objective of the project is the development of a new glass-bonded waste form for the suitable disposal of electrorefiner waste salt. To achieve this goal, the proposed tasks will focus on the 1) dechlorination of the electrorefiner salt and 2) subsequent encapsulation into a sintered waste form. Achieving these goals will result in a compact waste form with higher fission product loading, which is instrumental in economically closing the nuclear fuel cycle.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10240: Molten Salt Reactor Experiment Benchmark Evaluation | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | _The objective of this project is to employ the data archive on the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) and develop a set of high-quality Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) reactor physics benchmarks for inclusion in the IRPhE Handbook that currently does not contain any benchmark set related to MSR technology._ | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10458: Multi-Group Transport Cross Section and Diffusion Coefficient Generation for Deterministic Reactor Models Using Monte Carlo Calculations | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and implement rigorous methods for generating multi-group transport cross section and diffusion coefficients for deterministic reactor models using Monte Carlo calculations. The project will eliminate the numerous approximations that currently contribute to significant mis-prediction of core power distributions when using deterministic core models.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10241: Development of Transient Capabilities for the NEAMS Neutronics Code PROTEUS | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop efficient transient transport methods for the PROTEUS-SN, PROTEUS-MOC and the first-order SN solvers of the NEAMS neutronics code PROTEUS. The team will also perform transient benchmark analyses._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10603: Experimental and Computational Analysis of NEAMS Pebble Bed Reactors | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct a coordinated experimental and computational effort to quantitatively map the full-field 3-D velocity and temperature fields in the interstitial spaces within pebble bed reactor systems. Key outcomes will include advanced correlations to predict flow and thermal transport within the pebble bed over a much wider range operating conditions and reactor types than is currently possible.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10421: Simulation of Fuel Rod Fragmentation, Relocation and Ballooning through Peridynamics in MOOSE Framework | University of Arizona | $675,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology that includes the appropriate governing physical fields within the realm of peridynamics to investigate fuel cracking, fragmentation, relocation, ballooning, pellet-cladding interaction, and cladding rapture and dispersion within the MOOSE framework.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10313: Development of a Comprehensive Two-phase Flow Database for the Validation of NEK-2P | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,817 | _Researchers will develop a comprehensive, high-resolution two-phase flow database by performing experiments in two air-water two-phase flow test facilities and a new heated rod-bundle test facility that will be built under this project. These data will be used to validate the two-phase flow models implemented in the NEK-2P code._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10744: Support for Reactor Operators in Case of Cyber-Security Threats | Ohio State University | $800,000 | This project addresses the need for research informing plant engineers and control room operators faced with cyber-security threats on appropriate responses. The approach taken uses distinguishing features of safety related events versus cyber-security threats; attack modeling, prediction, game theory and PRA knowledge to update operators procedures; and simulation for validation.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cyber Security R&D | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10578: Thermal Hydraulic & Structural Testing and Modeling of Compact Diffusion-Bonded Heat Exchangers for Supercritical CO2 Brayton Cycles | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will utilize both experimental and computational methods to test and model transient behavior of a mock up PCHE, which is a scaled down representation of the sCO2, cycle high temperature recuperator (HTR). In addition, the team will develop a methodology for quantification of the PCHEs production cost. The proposed project will provide valuable experiment data required to develop the Section III, Division 5 and Section VIII evaluation approach for compact heat exchangers.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10579: A Computational-Experimental Study to Simulate Mixing and Thermal Stratification in SFRs | Kansas State University | $799,320 | Researchers will use Thermographic Imaging and Ultrasonic Doppler Velocimetry (UDV) techniques to generate high fidelity thermal stratification and flow field data under various geometric and physical conditions for scaled models of outlet plena in sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs). Data from these experimental studies will be compared with those obtained using 1D codes such as SAS4A/SASSYS-1.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10714: ASME Code Application of the Compact Heat Exchanger for High Temperature Nuclear Service | North Carolina State University | $799,998 | Researchers will develop structural design methodologies for Type 316H stainless steel and Alloy 617 compact heat exchangers (CHX) using elastic-perfectly plastic (EPP) analysis methodology for the assessment of elevated temperature failure modes under sustained and cyclic thermal and pressure loading. The project will develop a technical basis for Section III, Division 5 ASME Code Case for CHX in high temperature nuclear service.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10885: Turbulent MHD Flow Modeling in Annular Linear Induction Pumps with Validation Experiments | North Carolina State University | $564,520 | Researchers seek to advance EMP design efforts for liquid metal reactors by 1.) Improving MHD modeling capability, particularly near the MHD stability criteria, 2.) Advancing simulation accuracy and fidelity in the typical operating range of large electromagnetic pumps for liquid metal cooled reactors, and 3.) Constructing a low barrier EMP test loop for model validation and instruction that can be easily replicated at low cost at other facilities.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10244: Integral System Testing for Prismatic Block Core Design HTGR | Oregon State University | $799,536 | _Researchers will conduct eight new tests be completed at the HTTF investigating a range of gas reactor events including DCC, PCC, and inlet plenum buoyant plume mixing. The data from these tests will be ideal for use in the validation of safety analysis codes used in gas reactor analysis. The data may also provide valuable insight into the validation of CFD codes for gas-reactor applications._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10324: Model Calibration-Based Design Methodologies for Structural Design of Supercritical CO2 Compact Heat Exchangers under Sustained Cyclic Temperature and Pressure Gradients | Oregon State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a design method for rapid structural assessment of diffusion-bonded Hybrid Compact Heat Exchangers, used as secondary heat exchangers in coupling Sodium Fast Reactors (SFRs) with supercritical CO2 (sCO2) Brayton power cycles. The team envisions that the developed method will (1) be usable in creation of an ASME code case for structural assessment of hybrid CHX; and (2) create design tools that ensure CHX code compliance under desired load conditions.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10285: Tribological Damage Mechanisms from Experiments and Validated Simulations of Alloy 800H and Inconel 617 in a Simulated HTGR/VHTR Helium Environment | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a mechanistic understanding of accelerated fretting, wear, and bonding between Alloy 800H and Inconel 617 surfaces. In order to achieve the objectives, a series of tribological experiments will be conducted in helium environments at elevated temperature with controlled concentrations of gaseous specious, attendant microstructure characterization (using electron microscopy, spectroscopy and atom-probe tomography), and validated continuum models.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10245: An Experimental Study of Design and Performance for the Water-Based Reactor Cavity Cooling System | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will extend and enhance the experimental tests using existing water-cooled RCCS facilities. The activity will be conducted in close collaboration with the water-cooled NSTF research team and will produce a unique set of high quality experimental data for support of existing system codes, system codes under development, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10457: Experimentally Validated Computational Modeling of Creep and Creep-Cracking for Nuclear Concrete Structures | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct novel 3D concrete creep tests under controlled environmental conditions to build a 3D constitutive model for concrete typical of existing containment structures. Decades long creep will be extracted via shorter tests (years long). The material model will be used in the Grizzly structural FEM code for simulating the response of real, 3D containment structures to changes in loading. Full-scale, long-term structural tests will enable validation.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10687: Development and Integration of Light Water Reactor (LWR) Materials Corrosion Degradation Codes into Grizzly | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop powerful codes for predicting environmentally-assisted localized corrosion in the primary coolant circuits (PCCs) of Generation II BWRs and PWRs. These codes and resulting models will be embedded into GRIZZLY. This will greatly extend the applicability of GRIZZLY to components in PCCs that are susceptible to pitting corrosion, stress corrosion cracking, and corrosion fatigue and will provide the stress intensity factor solutions for the crack growth rate models._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10083: Earth Abundant High Temperature Materials for Radioisotope Power Conversion System | University of California, Davis | $400,000 | Researchers will develop breakthrough efficiencies in segmented radioisotope thermal generators (RTG) power conversion systems through high temperature materials development. The approach will also reduce reliance on single-purpose supply chains.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10630: Validation of RELAP-7 for Forced Convection and Natural Circulation Reactor Flows | University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign | $799,368 | _Researcher will aid in the development of RELAP-7 through required experimental and computational efforts. The validation of the two-phase modeling capability of RELAP-7 will be accomplished through a series of tasks which include synthesis of existing forced convective data, acquisition of natural circulation data from an existing well-scaled facility, and uncertainty quantification in constitutive modeling._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10402: RELAP-7 Application and Enhancement for FLEX Strategies and ATF Behavior under Extended Loss of AC Power Conditions | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop new thermal hydraulic models that will be implemented into RELAP-7. Simulation studies will be performed for postulated ELAP scenarios in the PB Unit 2 reactor. The overarching goal of the proposed work is to perform a simulation study using RELAP-7, to model BWR ELAP scenarios with various mitigation measures and determine the range of time available for transition to portable FLEX equipment._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10080: Quantifying Properties for a Mechanistic, Predictive Understanding of Aqueous Impact on Ageing of Medium and Low Voltage AC and DC Cabling in Nuclear Power Plants | University of Minnesota, Duluth | $800,000 | _The degradation of medium and low voltage cabling is often associated with aqueous immersion. Electrical and mechanical data will be collected to develop a mechanistic model of the degradation of cabling to dielectric breakdown based on the temperature, oxidation, water conditions, and irradiation dose. The hypothesized model begins with solvent escape paths that expand and advance from the exterior surface toward the current carrying core at a rate dependent on the environment._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10214: Online Monitoring System for Concrete Structures Affected by Alkali-Silica Reaction (ASR) | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an online health monitoring system that integrates active and passive sensor networks and advanced signal processing algorithms to monitor ASR induced degradation in concrete structures. The obtained information will support an ongoing prognostic modeling research for health diagnosis and prognosis of aging concrete structures, in order to support long-term operational and maintenance decision making.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10210: Tribological Behavior of Structural Materials in High Temperature Helium Gas-Cooled Reactor Environments | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will work to understand, quantify, and model the elevated-temperature tribological behavior of alloys 617 and 800H in helium gas in HTGR conditions. Impurities in helium can induce a variety of corrosion mechanisms in structural materials that can profoundly affect tribological behavior. This study will investigate tribological behavior in various impurity concentration regimes and surface treatments to mitigate tribological damage in these environments.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10226: Enhancement of EM Pump Performance Through Modeling and Testing | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,856 | This project is aimed at the improvement of EM pumps for advanced liquid metal cooled reactors specifically the SFR. Initial tests will be conducted in the University of Wisconsin sodium loop on an existing moving magnet pump to help in the development of the models and to look at end effects associated with this pump. Additionally, tests will be conducted at ANL on the CMI ALIP. Ultimately, a small ALIP will be developed to test the principles and models developed to improve commercial scale.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10268: Sodium Cooled Fast Reactor Key Modeling and Analysis for Commercial Deployment | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,076 | This project will look at very low Prandtl number heat transfer from both an experimental and computational approach. Researchers will then establish key models to implement in plant dynamics codes. The team will also evaluate thermal stratification in large volumes making use of novel fiber optic distributed fiber measurements to get CFD quality data. Lastly, the team will evaluate some of the key remaining safety issues associated with the eventual commercialization of the sodium fast reactor.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10647: Experimental and Modeling Investigation of Overcooling Transients that Include Freezing, in Fluoride-Salt Cooled High-Temperature Reactors (FHRs) | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will make recommendations for design features of salt-reactor components that would take advantage of the phenomena characteristic to fluoride salts in order to be resilient to overcooling, and to recover gracefully from over-cooling transients. In support of this task a MOOSE-based computational tool will be developed, capable of modeling liquid-solid phase change, backed by experimental studies with the prototypical (flibe) coolant, and with simulant fluids.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10509: CFD and System Code Benchmark Data for Plenum-to-Plenum Flow Under Natural, Mixed and Forced Circulation Conditions | Utah State University | $800,000 | Researchers will generate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) validation data for forced, mixed, and natural convection through a parallel-path geometry relevant to gas reactor bypass flow. In addition, the team will independently build and validate CFD models based on the experimental results. The team has the experience and existing infrastructure for sharing complete validation datasets.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 17-12628: Effects of Mineral Impurities and Heat on Uranium(VI) Sorption onto Bentonite | California State University, East Bay | $785,714 | Mineral impurities are common in bentonite and clay buffer materials, proposed for many nuclear waste disposal options. Researchers will investigate the effects of calcite impurities on uranium(VI) sorption onto montmorillonite before and after mineral exposure to heat. Based on experimental sorption data and EXAFS analysis we will develop a new surface complexation model to determine under which conditions impurity effects are relevant, and how they can be incorporated in performance assessment models. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12798: Nanostructured Ceramic Membranes for Enhanced Tritium Management | Clemson University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a ceramic membrane technology for tritium separation and recovery to support the nuclear fuel cycle. Low-temperature water adsorption properties of nanoscale structured ceramics, combined with demonstrated hydrogen isotope exchange in their hydrated layers provide a low cost and unique avenue to address tritium management challenges. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12647: Determination of Critical Heat Flux and Leidenfrost Temperature on Candidate Accident Tolerant Fuel Materials | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $799,906 | Researchers will characterize the thermal-hydraulics behavior of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) materials by measuring critical heat flux (CHF) under normal and off-normal light water reactor conditions, and Leidenfrost temperature in post-loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) conditions. This work will yield material-specific models and/or correlations that can be readily implemented in state-of-the-art simulation tools. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13011: Gamma-ray Computed and Emission Tomography for Pool-Side Fuel Characterization | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,317 | Researchers will design, build, test and install a submersible tomography platform for performing pool-side physical, structural, and chemical characterization of irradiated fuel elements for test reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12496: Group Actinide Separation by Crystallization: A Single-Technology Approach to Used Nuclear Fuel Recycle | Texas A&M University | $399,857 | Researchers will explore bulk removal of U, Np, Pu and Am, from used nuclear fuel by studying the mechanisms of removal. A co-crystallization of the hexavalent actinides with U(VI) has already been demonstrated and researchers plan to develop a process based around this approach. Removal of these elements would be advantageous for future nuclear fuel recycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12824: Methods for Process Monitoring to Accurately Detect and Quantify Material Holdup in Advanced Recycle Facilities | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop better modeling methods, detectors, and facility design approaches to enable detection of inadvertent and deliberate hold up of fissile material in reprocessing and other nuclear material bulk handling facilities. The team will integrate results from this research project into a design methodology for future facilities to ensure accurate and reliable process monitoring for sustainable operation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12782: Effects of alpha and gamma radiation on complex and metal loaded solvents for advanced solvent extraction processes | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | This project will investigate the alpha and gamma radiolysis-induced chemical degradation of ligands used for the removal of minor actinides from used nuclear fuel in advanced extraction systems such as ALSEP. Researchers will emphasize organic phase degradation, particularly complex solvents with multiple ligands as well as metal loaded solvents. The project will improve predictive capabilities of extraction processes by elucidating degradation pathways. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12757: Elucidation of Electrochemical Behavior of Technetium, Tellurium, and Iodine in Molten Salt Solutions. | University of Idaho | $796,741 | This project will evaluate the electrochemical speciation behavior of iodide, and telluride in LiCl-KCl eutectic, LiCl, and LiCl + Li2O electrolytes at temperatures relevant to reprocessing conditions. By using rhenium as surrogate for technetium, the electrochemical, and chemical speciation properties of rhenium ions will be investigated in chloride molten salts with the addition of molybdenum and ruthenium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12701: Development and Experimental Benchmark of Computational Models to Predict Cladding Temperature and Vapor Removal from UNF Canisters during Drying Operations | University of Nevada, Reno | $400,000 | Researchers will develop physics-based computational tools to predict used nuclear fuel cladding temperatures within, and water vapor removal rates from, canisters during existing and proposed drying processes. The project will explore a range of gas pressures (including rarefication), and steady and unsteady external gas flows rates. The tools will be used to develop drying processes that minimize drying time while maintaining cladding temperatures. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12688: An Experimental and Analytical Investigation into Critical Heat Flux (CHF) Implications for Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF) Concepts | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a holistic best estimate assessment of the potential impact of different ATF cladding materials with regards to heat transfer characteristics, the boiling curve, critical heat flux, fuel mass/volume/specific power density, and neutronics effects due to changes in the lattice design or parasitic neutron absorption during design basis accident conditions in light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12996: Multipurpose, Radiation- and Temperature-Resistant Semiconductor Radiation Detectors for Advanced Process Monitoring and Nuclear Safeguards | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop detection systems capable of neutron, gamma-ray, x-ray, and alpha monitoring in high-temperature and high radiation environments for extended periods of time. The detectors will be used to strengthen nuclear safeguards by enhancing nuclear material control and accounting in nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13125: The Thermodynamics of Crystallization and Phase-Separation in Melt-Derived Nuclear Waste Forms | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This projects will study the thermodynamics of melt and quench phases of nuclear waste glasses and glass ceramics and link this information to the underlying short-range and medium-range structure. Advanced calorimetric techniques and neutron total scattering with pair distribution function analysis will be applied to obtain these data. Computer simulations will complement the experimental effort. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12886: Identifying, Predicting and Preventing Localized Corrosion in Kr-85 Storage Canisters | University of Virginia | $799,000 | Researchers will determine the root cause of corrosion within Kr-85 storage canisters in order to better understand current corrosion rates. The project will focus on expanding available research on Rb corrosion interactions and other contributing factors to better understand the corrosion phenomenon in current steel canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12463: Extreme Performance High Entropy Alloys (HEAs) Cladding for Fast Reactor Applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will develop extreme performance high entropy alloys (HEAs) as for new metal alloy cladding for fast reactor applications. Two very promising, single solution BCC HEAs will be investigated. The project will deliver an extensive irradiation resistance study of a new promising yet unexplored cladding concept. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12549: Critical Heat Flux Studies for Innovative Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding Surfaces | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will study critical heat flux (CHF) behavior focused on innovative accident tolerant fuel (ATF) cladding. The project includes separate effects screening tests to measure CHF for various ATF clad materials and surface characteristics with measurements of surface wettability. Pressurized flow boiling experiments will simulate prototypical reactor conditions for evaluating the best ATF clad materials coupled with CHF modeling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13019: Evaluation of Accident Tolerant Fuels Surface Characteristics in Critical Heat Flux Performance | Virginia Commonwealth University | $800,000 | Researchers will perform separate-effects and system-wide tests of the AREVA and GE accident tolerant fuel concepts currently under consideration. The project will investigate the impact of cladding surface characteristics in critical heat flux (CHF) under normal and anticipated off-normal conditions. The experimental results will be used to develop and validate enhanced models for the prediction of CHF and will be implemented in various subchannel and system analysis codes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13054: Simulated Used Nuclear Fuel Dissolution as a Function of Fuel Chemistry and Near Field Conditions | Washington State University | $800,000 | Researchers will study the effects of simulated used nuclear fuel (UNF) chemistry and microstructure on its dissolution in geologic repository conditions. The results will advance models for UNF evolution in repository conditions, enabling reliable prediction of degradation and long-term performance of used nuclear fuel for up to one million years. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12506: Development of Reactor Physics Benchmark Evaluations for Power Burst Facility Experiments | University of Florida | $398,265 | Researchers will perform reactor physics benchmark evaluations of Power Burst Facility experiments regarding differential reactivity worth of the control and transient rods, shim rod worth, in-pile-tube reactivity worth, shutdown reactivity, fuel assembly reactivity worth, core void coefficients of reactivity, in-pile-tube void coefficient, and coolant temperature coefficient of reactivity. The results will be incorporated in the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP). | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12748: Combined modeling and experiments to predict corrosion and embrittlement in dual-phase stainless steels within the MARMOT framework | Oregon State University | $800,000 | Researchers will enhance MARMOT to predict mechanical and corrosion properties of dual-phase stainless steels as a function of composition, aging time and temperature by using combined experimental data and lower length scale models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12797: In-Situ Ion Irradiation to Add Irradiation Assisted Grain Growth to the MARMOT Tool | Pennsylvania State University | $500,000 | Researchers will add the capability to model irradiation assisted grain growth to the MARMOT tool by using in-situ ion irradiation of UO2 to quantify the effect of irradiation on grain growth. The team will investigate the hypothesis that irradiation assisted grain growth is caused by thermal spikes resulting from atom collisions. The model added to MARMOT will couple the existing grain growth model to a heat conduction simulation using a stochastic heat source describing the thermal spike. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12555: Integration of high-fidelity Monte Carlo and deterministic transport codes into Workbench | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | Researchers will provide end users an ability to run both MCNP6 and PROTEUS codes from a common user input in Workbench by (1) templating user-provided engineering scale specifications to code-specific input requirements, (2) enabling multi-fidelity analysis of a system from a common input using MCNP6 and PROTEUS and (3) allowing the easy use of high-fidelity simulations to inform lower-order models for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems and experiments. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12939: Expansion of BISON Capabilities to Predict the Dynamic Response of Irradiated Fuel Rods | University of New Hampshire | $800,000 | Researchers will expand the capabilities of BISON and MOOSE to simulate the structural dynamic response of fuel rods and fuel assemblies during handling (wet and dry storage) and transportation. Expanding the capabilities of BISON and MOOSE to facilitate the evaluation of the dynamic response of fuel rods and assemblies is important to conduct a more reliable risk assessment of fuel assemblies, as well as storage and transportation casks. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13179: Implementation and Validation of Advanced Turbulence Modeling Methods for Liquid Metal Flow in Nek5000 | University of Oklahoma | $786,648 | Researchers will implement and validate state-of-the-art turbulence modeling techniques in Nek5000 to improve predition of liquid metal flows. Specific methods to be investigated include: variable PrT and algebraic heat flux models (AHFM) for URANS simulation; partially-averaged Navier-Stokes (PANS) and dynamic hybrid RANS-LES (DHRL) for hybrid RANS-LES simulation; and variable PrT subgrid heat flux modeling for LES. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12848: Development of Information Trustworthiness and Integrity Algorithms for Cybersecurity Defenses of Nuclear Power Reactors | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a first-of-a-kind physics-based defense-in-depth strategy to defend against false data injection attacks which attempt to change the information used by the I/C network to set reactor state. The approach employs a new design philosophy to check for information trustworthiness/integrity in order to determine whether the information is genuinely generated during the actual operation of the nuclear unit under either normal or off-normal conditions. | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cybersecurity | |
| NEUP Project 17-12538: Influence of dissolved salts and impurities in seawater on heat transfer degradation and fluid flow through fuel channels debris bed | Kansas State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate the role of raw water on degraded heat transfer and fluid flow in the reactor core and debris bed. X-ray imaging techniques, optical-fiber high speed temperature sensing systems and radioactive tracer salts will be used to simultaneously measure experimental data on void fraction, temperature and salt deposition rate. This data will be used to obtain correlations for heat transfer and fluid flow in case of raw water injection. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12502: High Resolution Temperature and Flow Measurements in Wire-Wrapped Fuel Assemblies | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will produce high-quality, high spatial and temporal resolution temperature and flow datasets for wire-wrapped rod bundle geometries. Different bundle sizes, configurations (including duct's and pin's deformation) and Low-Prandlt fluids will be investigated. A unique set of data will be produced to support advanced CFD tools validation, including Nek5000. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12723: Integrating Static PRA Information with RISMC Simulation Methods | The Ohio State University | $799,985 | Researchers will develop a computationally feasible and user friendly process to augment the traditional probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) results with improved representation of epistemic uncertainties and process/hardware/software/human interactions at plant level applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12664: Methods to Predict Thermal Radiation and to Design Scaled Separate and Integral Effects Testing For Molten Salt Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology for the design of molten salt reactor (MSR) Separate Effect Test and Integral Effect Test experiments. This methodology will identify and quantify sources of scaling distortion including radiative heat transport. The project would improve code performance and assist FHR/MSR vendors who are making licensing applications based on code results. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12523: Experimental and Computational Studies of Stress Corrosion Cracking of Alloys 308/309 and 82/182 Weldments in Corrosive and Radiation Environment | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will use advanced microanalytical analysis techniques to study SCC and IASCC of stainless steel and Ni-Cr alloy weldments. CERT, autoclave immersion, and ion irradiation will be used to determine synergistic effect of LWR environmental factors. Results from the experimental component of the proposed work scope will be used for enhanced predictive capability of the INL Grizzly code via XFEM. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12614: Systematic Enterprise Risk Management by Integrating the RISMC Toolkit and Cost-Benefit Analysis | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $799,998 | Researchers will develop a systematic Enterprise Risk Management framework, which utilizes Decision Tree (DT) logic to consider high-level production-loss scenarios, and their underlying physical and social causes throughout the lifecycle. In the proposed DT, uncertainty nodes will be quantified by plant-specific risk analysis using the Risk-Informed Safety Margin Characterization (RISMC) Toolkit, and cost-benefit analysis will be conducted for end states reflecting consequences of managerial decision-making. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12972: Design of a Commercial-Scale, Fluoride-Salt-Cooled, High-Temperature Reactor With Novel Refueling and Decay Heat Removal Capabilities | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $400,000 | Researchers will combine fluoride-salt-cooled, high temperature reactors (FHR) with advanced gas reactor (AGR) refueling technology to address several significant challenges that remain in the development of FHR technology. The project will adapt AGR refueling technology by using the new fuel-inside-radial-moderator fuel form, which will also introduce new ways of dealing with decay heat. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13115: Experimental Determination of Helium/air Mixing in Helium Cooled Reactor | University of Michigan | $800,000 | Researchers will examine the effects of coolant leakage and air ingress through three different investigations. The overall objective of this work is to characterize near and far field behavior of Helium/Air mixing in containment, and to determine rates and amounts of air leaked back into the reactor after a depressurization event. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12830: Radioisotope Retention in Graphite and Graphitic Materials | University of Missouri, Columbia | $800,000 | Researchers will use a variety of experimental techniques to acquire data for fission product diffusion, transport and adsorption of fission products in various graphites, relating to nuclear reactors at high temperatures. Measurements will be taken using non-irradiated graphite using fission product surrogates. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13020: Bimetallic Composite (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) Development and Compatibility in Flowing FLiBe as a Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) Structural Material | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a new bimetallic alloy (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) structural material for the MSR, and compare its post-exposure mechanical performance in flowing FLiBe with single alloys SS 316, Hastelloy N, and Incoloy 800H, in the context of ASME codification. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12678: Novel NDE Sensors, Waveforms, Models, and Algorithms for Cable Health Monitoring | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop NDE sensors and probabilistic cable insulation diagnosis and prognosis algorithms (particle filtering), and modeling and experiments to monitor cable insulation health. Two different types of sensor will be deployed to detect insulation damage. The team will also develop cable insulation degradation modeling to further understand defects in cable insulation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13080: Multiscale Investigation of SiC/SiC Composite Degradation in Helium Coolant Operating Environment | University of Virginia | $800,000 | Researchers will study the long-term degradation mechanisms of SiC/SiC composites in helium coolant environments by slow crack growth (SCG). This will be achieved through multiscale testing in hot, O2-contaminated He and evaluation of the effect of SCG on hermeticity during in situ testing. Results will be extended to predictive low-level and component-scale SCG models and integrated into the development of ASME standards for use of SiC/SiC in nuclear reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12481: Supercritical CO2 power cycle for space applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will develop an advanced supercritical Brayton power cycle directly coupled to a fission reactor. The project will carry out a comprehensive optimization of the cycle operating conditions, working fluid, and configuration; develop detailed designs of each subcomponent; and demonstrate/develop critical technologies such as turbomachinery seals and bearings, reactor material corrosion and strength demonstrations, and supercritical heat transfer. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13232: Radiative Heat Transport and Optical Characterization of High Temperature Molten Salts | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | The goal of the proposed research is to experimentally investigate radiation heat transport in molten salts, and to add functionality for radiative heat transport in a thermal-hydraulics system code. This includes obtaining highly resolved measurements of the optical absorption and emissivity of liquid salts. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 18-15345: Multiphysics Degradation Processes, and Their Mitigation, in Engineered and Geological Bariers: Experiments and Simulation | Duke University | $800,000.00 | This project will focus on filling the gaps in understanding of mechanisms of a series of degradation processes (thermal, hydric, geo-chemical, and transport processes phenomena) potentially affecting geo-materials used in repositories. The objectives of the work are to better recognize the conditions leading to preferential paths of radionuclide transport and rock weakening, and to build mathematical models and implement them into existing codes to predict material degradation and develop strategies to reduce the adverse consequences. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15043: Integration of Nuclear Material Accounting Data and Process Monitoring Data for Improvement on Detection Probability in Safeguarding Electrochemical Processing Facilities | Oregon State University | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to further studies on fusion of process monitoring (PM) data and nuclear material accounting (NMA) data. PM data, which includes monitoring by various types of equipment (radiation detectors, cameras, voltage, current sensors), can supplement NMA data to help improve safeguards. For aqueous-based reprocessing facilities, it is reported that PM, integrated with traditional NMA, has a high-detection probability for specific diversions. For electrochemical reprocessing, preliminary studies have shown that PM data can support traditional NMA by providing a basis to estimate some of the in-processing nuclear material inventories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15148: Recovery of Rare-Earth Elements (Nd, Gd, Sm) in Oxide Wasteform Using Liquid Metals (Bi, Sn) | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000.00 | This project investigates a new approach for recovering rare-earth (RE) fission products (Nd, Gd, and Sm) from molten chlorine salts using liquid metal (Bi and Sn) electrodes. The research aids molten salt recycling by converting the RE products into chloride-free RE oxides, which could be incorporated into conventional glass/ceramic waste forms. Successful outcomes of the project include advanced separation of fission products from molten salts with better control of chemical selectivity and high-recovery yield. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15103: Microstructure-Based Benchmarking for Nano/Microscale Tension and Ductility Testing of Irradiated Steels | Purdue University | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to standardize methods for nano/micro-scale tensile and ductility testing of irradiated Fe-Cr steels, through microstructure-based benchmarking. The study will investigate key process parameters for TEM in situ tension and ductility testing. Coupling experimental studies with multiscale models, the research will identify the approaches that provide consistent deformation mechanisms between the nano/micro-scale and macro-scale tests, from which standard practices will be obtained. The primary project outcome will be a set of recommended guidelines for nano/microscale mechanical testing, which will lead to unprecedented reductions in the time and cost for qualifying materials for in-reactor service and to ensure consistency of methods and validity of results. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15559: Cold Spray Repair & Mitigation of Stress Corrosion Cracks in Spent Nuclear Fuel Dry Storage Canisters | Purdue University | $799,982.00 | This goal of this project is to demonstrate cold spray repair and mitigation of chloride-induced stress corrosion cracks (SCC) and pits in stainless steel dry storage canisters. The research will optimize the repair process and gain a scientifically informed understanding of SCC mechanisms. The outcome is to further develop cold spray as an attractive solution for the repair of existing SCC and mitigation of potential SCC necessary to ensure long-term integrity, security, and regulatory compliance of spent nuclear fuel storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15596: Capture of Organic Iodides from Vessel Off-Gas Streams | Syracuse University | $799,548.00 | This project will study the capture of radioactive organoiodides from off-gas streams produced during nuclear fuel reprocessing by conducting adsorption experiments using a selected silver adsorbents. Multifaceted simulation adsorption models will be developed to assist in the design of necessary capture systems for off-gas streams. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15585: Impact of Coupled Gas Migration and Thermo-hydro-mechanical Processes on the Performance of Repositories for High Level Nuclear Waste | Texas A&M University | $608,375.00 | The main goal of this project is to better understand the possible effect of gas migration (particularly through discontinuities) on the performance and long-term behavior of engineered barrier systems (EBS) envisaged for the isolation of high-level radioactive waste (HLW). Specific outcomes of this study will be an improved understanding of the role of gas migration and discontinuities in the performance of HLW disposals, with the underlying aim to improve design of EBS used for HLW. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15531: Repair and Mitigation of Chloride-Induced Pitting and Chloride-Induced Stress Corrosion Cracking in Used Nuclear Fuel Dry Cask Canister Materials | The Ohio State University | $800,000.00 | This project will evaluate and develop a set of tools to repair and mitigate chloride-induced pitting and stress corrosion cracking in stainless steel nuclear fuel canisters. Advanced processes, including low temperature friction stir welding and cold spray deposition, will be evaluated according to various criteria, such as corrosion performance. In addition, technologies that have not yet been evaluated for UNF applications, including vaporizing foil actuator welding and soldering will be assessed. The two most promising technologies will selected for further development and comprehensive study. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14912: Bridging the Length Scales on Mechanical Property Evaluation | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000.00 | This project combines experimental and modeling methods to gain a comprehensive approach for addressing scaling effects on small-scale mechanical testing. Multiscale experiments, together with modeling on reactor-relevant and model alloys, will provide better understanding of appropriate scaling relationships. The study aims to gain fundamental understanding of plasticity interactions with specific strength-determining features, such as precipitates and grain boundaries. The goal of this work is to provide the basis to add small-scale mechanical testing in the toolbox for nuclear materials research. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14911: Understanding of degradation of SiC/SiC materials in nuclear systems and development of mitigation strategies | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000.00 | This project investigates the best possible coatings to prevent SiCf/SiCm corrosion in LWR environments. The research features a computational and experimental rapid screening approach for numerous coating compositions. The work includes autoclave exposure of rapid screening coupons in prototypical environments in combination with thermodynamic modeling (CALPHAD) and Finite Element Methods (FEM). Small-scale mechanical testing, together with thermal cycling and FEM modeling, will provide guidance on the ideal coating system design. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15701: Time-dependent THMC Properties and Microstructural Evolution of Damage Rocks in Excavation Damage Zone | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,978.00 | The proposed project focuses on the geomechanical aspects of modeling by addressing the time-dependent evolution of rock microstructure and its coupling with the THC processes that are of first-order importance to the stability and the isolation performance of repositories. The research will delineate an integrated experimental, theoretical and numerical strategy in assessing the evolution EDZ over time and its implication on the long-term migration of hazardous species. These results will enhance the confidence of the predicted long-term performance of repositories, which helps to move forward the goal of one-million-year isolation of high-level nuclear wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15381: Multiaxial Failure Envelopes and Uncertainty Quantification of Nuclear-Grade SiCf/SiC Woven Ceramic Matrix Tubular Composites | University of Florida | $800,000.00 | This project proposes to develop a comprehensive experimental and computational approach for determining constitutive relations and multiaxial failure envelopes of nuclear-grade continuous silicon fiber (SiCf) and SiC matrix woven tubular composites. The result of this work can be adopted in industry for design refinement, optimization of performance under the desired operating conditions, and reliable prediction of failure under unforeseen accidental scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15496: Formation of Zeolites Responsible for Waste Glass Rate Acceleration: An Experimental and Computational Study for Understanding Thermodynamic and Kinetic Processes | University of Houston | $800,000.00 | Through experimental and computational studies, this project will expose the factors governing zeolite crystallization and their role in Stage III dissolution of radionuclide-containing glass waste forms generated in advanced nuclear fuel cycles. The overall goal of this project is to understand the formation of zeolite phases in order to develop process control methods to suppress Stage III dissolution. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14998: Novel Processes for Capture of Radioactive Iodine Species from Vessel Off-Gas Streams | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the sorption system performance and effectiveness for capture of radioiodine species present in the off-gas streams from the used nuclear fuel (UNF) recycling operations, focusing particularly on the organic iodine species. The dynamic sorption experimentation and theoretical modeling will offer fundamental insights on the mechanism enabling the design and prediction the control system performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15261: Friction Stir Based Repair Welding of Dry Storage Canisters and Mitigation Strategies: Effect of Engineered Barrier Layer on Environmental Degradation | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The project goal is to apply friction stir based repair and mitigation technique for eliminating failure associated with pitting and stress corrosion cracking in dry storage canisters for spent fuels. The goal of these activities is to obtain a fundamental understanding of the processing-structure-properties correlations. This work will contribute to the development of a crack repair/mitigation strategy based on friction stir technology that can be efficiently implemented for spent fuel dry storage casks, which will enhance safety and reliability of these systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15263: X-ray Studies of Interfacial Molecular Complexes in ALSEP Back-Extraction | University of Illinois at Chicago | $800,000.00 | This project will use synchrotron X-rays to characterize the interfacial molecular complexes (of extractants and radiologically derived impurities, complexants, buffers, and metal ions) formed during the Actinide-Lanthanide Separation Process (ALSEP) back-extraction. This work addresses the critical knowledge gap of slow stripping kinetics in ALSEP, as well as the influence of radiolytic degradation products. The outcome of the project will be a molecular-level understanding of the role of different components in the interfacial mechanism of back-extraction in the ALSEP process, therefore leading to development of more efficient and faster metal stripping relevant to the separation of actinides from lanthanides in the nuclear fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15030: Mechanistic Understanding of Radiolytically Assisted Hydrothermal Corrosion of SiC in LWR Coolant Environments | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to develop a mechanistic understanding of the hydrothermal corrosion behavior of monolithic SiC and SiC/SiC composites in LWR environment under the influence of water radiolysis products and radiation damage. Complementary atomistic simulations will be carried out to determine the rate controlling mechanisms for dissolution under different water chemistries and in the presence of radiation. Activation energies and kinetic rates will be calculated directly from these simulations and compared to experimentally fitted values. The dissolution rate constants determined and validated in this integrated experimental and modeling approach will allow predictions of long-term SiC corrosion behavior. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14999: Probabilistic Failure Criterion of SiC/SiC Composites Under Multi-Axial Loading | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $800,000.00 | This project aims to develop a probabilistic failure criterion of SiC/SiC composites under multi-axial loading and to incorporate the criterion into a reliability analysis of the structural integrity of LWR SiC/SiC fuel cladding. This research will be anchored by a seamless integration of novel experimental and analytical tools, which will lead to a robust methodology for dependable analysis of SiC/SiC composite structures for LWR fuel cladding, as well as other nuclear applications. The resulting model will be experimentally validated and applied to analyze the reliability of LWR SiC/SiC fuel cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15502: Reducing Uncertainty in Radionuclide Transport Prediction Using Multiple Environmental Tracers | University of Montana | $724,906.00 | In this project, direct modeling of multiple environmental tracers will be used to improve predictions of radionuclide transport in a shallow alluvial aquifer discharge. The research will take advantage of recent theoretical developments considering the use of environmental tracers, and advances in high-performance reactive flow and transport models, to obtain the maximum information on the transport system. The goal is to develop a new methodology to characterize natural reactive flow and transport systems, reduce predictive uncertainty in radionuclide transport simulations, determine the maximum information content of the tracer suite, and optimize future groundwater characterization efforts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15578: Computational and Experimental Investigation of Thermal-Mechanical- Chemical Mechanisms of High-burnup Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) Processes at Elevated Temperatures and Degradation Behavior in Geologic Repositories | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $800,000.00 | The overarching goal of this project is to use combined computational and experimental research and development activities to enhance understanding of the mechanisms and thermal-mechanical-chemical (TMC) parameters controlling the instant release fraction (IRF) and matrix dissolution of high-burnup (HB; burnup > 45 GWd/MTU) spent nuclear fuels (SNFs) and the subsequent formation, stability, and phase transformations of HB SNF alteration products under long-term storage and geological disposal conditions (e.g., high-temperature storage, _-radiolysis). The results of this research will be used to enhance the mechanistic detail of process models to reduce uncertainty in, and improve the technical bases of, safety cases and performance assessment analyses. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15439: Radiolytic Dissolution Rate of Silicon Carbide | University of Notre Dame | $400,000.00 | This project seeks to develop a matrix of dissolution rates for high-purity SiC material, using intense electron beam irradiation, and to measure the products of dissolution (silicic acid and CO2 (or CO)) in the water downstream of the irradiation zone. The objective is to determine the rate of SiC dissolution and gather sufficient insight about its mechanism in LWRs, so that the use of SiC/SiC composite materials for accident tolerant fuel cladding can proceed with confidence. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15061: Development of an MC&A Toolbox for Liquid-fueled Molten Salt Reactors with Online Reprocessing | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,207.00 | The purpose of this project is to develop a toolbox of swappable mass flow modules for liquid-fueled molten salt reactor (MSR) systems for the purposes of evaluating material control & accountancy measurement techniques. When combined together, these modules enable modeling of the time-dependent mass flows for a variety of MSR variants. The test platform will consist of a toolbox of independent process modules representing discrete physical units, each with its own self-contained physics responsive to the input mass flow, along with appropriate measurement models that can be coupled to key flow points. These dynamic physical signatures would allow testing of the viability and efficacy of potential accountancy techniques under the full range of reactor operating conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15307: A Novel and Flexible Approach for Converting LWR UNF Fuel Into Forms That Can Be Used to Fuel a Variety of Gen-IV Reactors | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $400,000.00 | This project will investigate the chemical decladding and the digestion of whole MOX-based fuel rods, using thionyl chloride and surrogate materials. Digesting entire LWR fuel assemblies results in product streams that include pure decontaminated ZrCl4; pure UCl4; and a stream containing TRU/FPs, as well as alloying metals (as chloride salts). The objectives of this project are to provide a new, highly efficient protocol for the transformation of used nuclear fuel into useful components and to effectively contain a concentrated stream of highly radioactive materials for appropriate handling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15459: Reduced Diffusion and Enhanced Retention of Multiple Radionuclides from Pore Structure Studies of Barrier Materials for Enhanced Repository Performance | University of Texas at Arlington | $567,831.00 | The project seeks to better understand and quantify the pore structure (geometry and topology) and pore connectivity of porous media and its emergent effect on diffusion and retention of various radionuclides in barrier materials. The anticipated outcome of the project will be to more accurately evaluate the performance of geological repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15649: Benchmarking Microscale Ductility Measurements | University of Utah | $776,669.00 | The objectives of this project are to establish best practices for obtaining tensile microscale ductility measurements and to validate methodologies for comparing them to macroscale ductility measurements. Anticipated outcomes of the project are: 1) measurement of grain and sub-grain localization processes micro and macroscales; 2) establishment of best practices for microtensile experimentation; 3) identification of statistically significant relationships between specimen geometry, microstructure variables and mechanical behavior; 4) modified phenomenological elongation-based ductility models to enable direct upscaling of ductility measurements from microscale to macroscopic. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15003: Advanced Coating and Surface Modification Technologies for SiC-SiC Composite for Hydrothermal Corrosion Protection in LWR | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,990.00 | This project focuses on the development of coatings and surface modification approaches for hydrothermal corrosion protection of SiC-SiC composite in normal LWR operation environments. Innovative surface treatment recipes will be explored using processes including, interfacial stitching to improve adhesion, multi-layered structures to improve ductility, and compositions and structures resulting from thermal treatments. The surface treatment concepts involve corrosion resistant metallic and ceramic materials, and are amenable to industrial scalability for the cladding application. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15332: Low-Force Solid-State Technologies for Mitigation of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dry Storage Canisters | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000.00 | This project will focus on evaluating and developing two technologies used for field mitigation and repair of stress corrosion cracking (SCC): 1) additive friction stir welding; and 2) cold spray deposition. The work involves developing low-force, low-heat input solid state technologies to lessen and repair SCC in stainless steel canisters for used nuclear fuel (UNF). This outcome of the study will inform feasibility of using the two technologies to conduct on-site field repairs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14913: The Role of Temperature on Non-Darcian Flows in Engineered Clay Barriers | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000.00 | This project intends to accomplish three tasks: 1) to develop a predictive model to facilitate experimental data interpretation and provide mechanistic insights into the role of temperature on non-Darcian flows in low-permeability engineered clay barriers; 2) conduct experiments to unravel the role of temperature on the threshold gradient of non-Darcian flow in both saturated and unsaturated bentonite; and 3) use molecular dynamics (MD) simulation to improve fundamental understanding. The experimental data, associated with the MD simulation, will provide valuable information to improve fundamental understanding and scientific knowledge with respect to the temperature dependence of threshold gradient in non-Darcian flows, because very limited experimental data for saturated flow and no experimental data for unsaturated flow are available. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14815: C-SiOC-SiC Coated Particle Fuels for Advanced Nuclear Reactors | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $400,000.00 | This project will study a new concept for nuclear fuel encapsulation using an amorphous SiOC plus carbon system as the inner coating and nanocrystalline SiC plus minor carbon as the outer coating for nuclear fuel kernel particles. The outcomes of this work are: 1) new directions and possible replacement guidance for current nuclear fuel materials in operation; 2) new fuel materials for future nuclear reactor material design and development; 3) nuclear composite microstructure evolution and performance degradation understanding; 4) screening tools to guide future nuclear fuel material activities; and 5) mechanisms of nuclear fuel material evolution and degradation and effective strategies to mitigate/reduce undesirable fuel behaviors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15226: An Evaluated, Transient Experiment based on Simultaneous, 3-D Neutron-Flux and Temperature Measurements | Kansas State University | $399,972.00 | This project will evaluate existing and near-term experimental data for inclusion in the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) handbook. The data to be evaluated include compositions from a recent fuel replacement as part of an LEU conversion, a number of critical, fresh-fuel configurations, fuel temperature measurements at fresh-fuel configurations, and records from nearly a decade of operation. The proposed work would lead to a first-of-a-kind evaluation of transient, spatially-dependent reaction rates. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project CFA-18-15773: Evaluation of the Thermal Scattering Law for Advanced Reactor Neutron Moderators and Reflectors | North Carolina State University | $398,821.00 | The objective of this project is to narrow the nuclear data gap for advanced nuclear reactors that are driven by thermal neutrons. This includes concepts such as gas-cooled high-temperature reactors and molten salt or salt-cooled high temperature reactors. The generated data TSL libraries will be provided in EDNF File 7 format to the National Nuclear Data Center (NDDC) to immediately include in beta releases of the ENDF/B libraries and to consider for the future release of ENDF/B-VIII.1. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15602: Modeling and Experimental Verification of Thermal Energy Storage Systems to Enable Load Following Capability for Nuclear Reactors | University of Idaho | $761,640.00 | This project purposes to integrate new thermal energy storage (TES) models, developed in Modelica, with ongoing nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (NRHES) modeling efforts, in order to evaluate economic potential and advantages of new process designs over baseload electricity production. The computational phase of this project includes developing mathematical and physics-based TES models, which could later be translated to Modelica and integrated with existing NRHES components. The testing and optimization would be conducted using RAVEN. A techno-economic analysis will be performed to evaluate the compatibility of the newly formed integration, as well as to quantify its feasibility and economic benefits. The experimental aspect is focused on the development of scaled TES systems, which serve as verification for the Modelica models and allow system testing upon being integrated with DETAIL. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14963: Development of Nuclear Hybrid Energy Systems: Temperature Amplification through Chemical Heat Pumps for Industrial Applications | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The overall goal of this project is to develop and demonstrate, through modeling and experimental investigations, temperature amplification capabilities of a chemical heat pump (CHP) system that can be coupled to a conventional light water reactor or a near-term small modular reactor. The outcomes would include nuclear hybrid energy system architecture containing a CHP, experimental data on the CHP performance, and dynamic model of the system, validated through experimentation, which could be used for scale-up and design. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15008: Development of Thermal Inelastic Scattering Covariance Data Capabilities with Demonstration of Light Water Evaluation | University of Michigan | $400,000.00 | The goal of this project is to produce a format for covariance data for inelastic thermal neutron scattering data for moderators in the ENDF format. To demonstrate the viability of this new format, an evaluation of the covariance data for thermal scattering in light water in this format will be produced, along with the capabilities to generate the files and test their efficacy. A capability for calculating sensitivity coefficients using multigroup methods to the fundamental physics parameters governing light-water scattering will be developed to facilitate identifying nuclear data needs related to thermal scattering. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15056: Model-Based Diagnostics and Mitigation of Cyber Threats | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | This project intends to develop a toolkit for modeling digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems for nuclear power plants so that the consequences of cyber-attacks on I&C systems may conveniently be modeled using nuclear plant simulation software. The results of the toolkit-based models, the corresponding responses, and the performance of the diagnostic schemes will be tested on a virtual control room driven by a plant simulator. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15055: NICSim: Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Simulation for Evaluating Response to Cyber-attacks | University of New Mexico | $799,945.00 | The objective of the project is to develop a Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Simulation (NICSim) platform with a novel emulytics capability to simulate control systems and components in nuclear power plants. The outcome of this work would be a first-in-class emulytics platform with an associated documentation and library of physical models of components that could be used by analysts and designers to assess the resilience and cybersecurity risks of different control system designs for a wide range of power plants. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15324: Validation of Pressure Relaxation Coefficient in RELAP-7 Seven-Equation Model | George Washington University | $800,000.00 | This project aims to validate the Seven-Equation model in RELAP-7 by: 1) measuring velocity and pressure in each phase and the interface as well as return to equilibrium in fast transients with high-speed non-intrusive laser diagnostics in canonical experiments; 2) complementing experimental data with a multiscale computational approach, including a 3D proprietary direct numerical solver; and 3) validating RELAP-7 with a combination of experimental data and first-principle simulations. This combination would provide unique and complete datasets to validate RELAP-7 with high confidence and offer a new class of experimental and numerical tools. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project CFA-18-15104: Demonstration of Utilization of High-fidelity NEAMS Tools to Inform the Improved Use of Conventional Tools within the NEAMS Workbench on the NEA/OECD C5G7-TD Benchmark | North Carolina State University | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to demonstrate the utilization of high-fidelity Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) tools (PROTEUS, Nek5000, and BISON) to inform the improved use of conventional tools (DIF-3D, CTF, and CTFFuel) within the NEAMS Workbench on the NEA/OECD C5G7-TD benchmark. This would result in more accurate predictions of safety parameters and margins, which is important for both safety and performance improvements of the nuclear power plants being currently operated and built. The developed Workbench-based framework will also assist end users to apply high-fidelity simulations to inform lower-order models for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14741: Demonstration of a Methodology for Direct Validation of MARMOT Irradiation-Induced Microstructural Evolution and Physical Property Models Using U-10Zr | Texas A&M University | $500,000.00 | The objective of this project is to demonstrate, for the first time, a methodology that enables the direct validation of microstructural evolution models for fuel in MARMOT, and the direct correlation of changes in physical properties with specific irradiation-induced microstructural features. Properly implementing this methodology will result in rapid development of MARMOT mesoscale models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15520: Accurate and Efficient Parametric Model-Order Reduction for Turbulent Thermal Transport | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000.00 | The project objective is to develop reduced-order models (ROMs) that will improve accuracy of LMR system-level analysis with low overhead. These new models will systematically mine high-fidelity DNS, LES, or uRANS simulations to construct low-order dynamical systems that can couple with a systems analysis code, such as the SAM code being developed under NEAMS. These simulations provide useful data and will be made available to the scientific community, and the overall effort will contribute to more efficient LMR conceptual design studies and licensing. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15484: A Novel High Fidelity Continuous-energy tTansport Tool for Efficient FHR Transient Calculations | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000.00 | The objective of the project is to develop a high-fidelity continuous energy (CE) transport tool for efficient transient calculations in fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactors with prismatic core/fuel assembly design. This will be accomplished by extending the high-fidelity 3-D continuous energy coarse mesh radiation transport (COMET) code with formidable computational speed to solve transient problems in FHRs with accurate thermal hydraulic feedback. The new capability would enable plant system codes to perform analyses necessary to address complex technical design, regulatory, reactor safety, and economic hurdles prior to construction. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15093: Determination of Molecular Structure and Dynamics of Molten Salts by Advanced Neutron and X-ray Scattering Measurements and Computer Modeling | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000.00 | This project will seek detailed knowledge about molecular structure and dynamics of molten salts to inform the design of new molten-salt reactors. A combination of advanced neutron and x-ray scattering and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations will be used to model the ionic-cluster structure of the fluid and solubility of impurities. Machine learning will be applied to regress from simulations and experiments in order to develop the model and predict chemical potentials as a function of composition and temperature. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15171: Oxidation Behavior of Silicon Carbide and Graphitic Materials | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000.00 | The objectives of this project are to determine the oxidation behavior of silicon carbide and graphitic materials in oxygen and/or moisture, to accurately measure the kinetic parameters of oxidation, to ascertain the oxidation mechanisms in relation to the microstructures, to determine the effect of irradiation on oxidation behavior, and to provide data and input to the safety analysis of high-temperature gas reactors under air and moisture ingress accident conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15276: Coping Time and Cost Analysis of Accident Tolerant Plant Design based on Dynamic PRA Methodology | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000.00 | This project will evaluate the failure modes of accident tolerant fuel ATF candidates to understand the different failure characteristics. The research aims to obtain a response surface of coping time by investigating the various uncertainties of accident mitigation in PWR and BWR reactors. These outputs will aid the decision making process on the implementation of ATF and FLEX to existing LWR plants from the perspective of risk reduction and economic feasibility. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15270: Innovative Use of Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) with the RCIC System to Enhance Passive Safety of Commercial LWRs | Texas A&M University | $748,000.00 | The overarching objectives of this project are to: 1) demonstrate new operational strategies with the combined use of Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) and the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) System to increase the passive safety capabilities of current Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs) in delaying or preventing core damage; and 2) pursue the delay of containment venting until after a 72-hour coping period through new BWR Suppression Pool mixing procedures. The research will use both simulation and experimental data to validate the objectives. The work has the potential to increase the ability of existing nuclear power plants to passively respond to beyond design basis events using existing equipment and without changes to the plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15346: Big Data For Operation and Maintenance Cost Reduction | The Ohio State University | $800,000.00 | This project will develop a first-of-a-kind framework for integrating Big Data capability into the daily activities of our current fleet of nuclear power plants. This research will mainly focus on incorporating the wide range of data heterogeneities in nuclear power plants into an integrated Big Data Analytics capability. The primary end product of this work will be a Big Data framework that is capable of dealing with the large volume and heterogeneity of the data found in nuclear power plants to extract timely and valuable information on equipment performance and to enable optimization of plant operation and maintenance based on the extracted information. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15065: in situ Measurement and Validation of Uranium Molten Salt Properties at Operationally Relevant Temperatures | University of Connecticut | $799,979.00 | This project proposes to use advanced spectroscopic and scattering methods to provide information at the atomic and molecular scale. The research will use synchrotron-based x-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy, at operationally relevant temperatures, to measure the local and intermediate structure as well as speciation of chloride fuel salts (NaCl, ZrCl, UCl3) for fast-spectrum applications and fluoride fuel salts ( 7 LiF, UF4) primarily for thermal spectrum applications This approach is expected to generate theories and concepts that would allow models to predict behavior, and develop the means for in situ monitoring. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15058: High-resolution Experiments for Extended LOFC and Steam Ingress Accidents in HTGRs | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to better understand key phenomena in high-temperature gas-cooled reactors relevant to steam ingress and loss of forced circulation (LOFC) accidents. Specifically, the research will: 1) experimentally investigate, using an existing integral-effect test facility with some improvements, the steam-ingress accident caused by a postulated steam generator tube rupture initiating event; 2) carry out integral-effect tests for the extended LOFC accident to study the establishment of global natural circulation flow in the primary loop; 3) design, based on a scaling analysis, and construct a separate-effect test facility to study the complex helium flows in the core and hot plenum during the extended LOFC accident; and 4) perform detailed, high-resolution, separate-effects experiments using the results obtained as boundary/initial conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15471: Integral Experimental Investigation of Radioisotope Retention in Flowing Lead for the Mechanistic Source Term Evaluation of Lead Cooled Fast Reactor | University of New Mexico | $800,000.00 | The purpose of this project is to experimentally investigate the integral effects of radioisotope interactions with liquid lead to support the following technical goals: 1) evaluating the mechanistic source term of the Lead-cooled Fast Reactor (LFR); 2) developing a universal integral effect test methodology for liquid metal source term evaluations; and 3) establishing a basis for the comparison of radioisotope retention between lead and sodium. This aim of the research is to advance the LFR licensing pathway by establishing the phenomenological foundation of the interaction between fission products and liquid lead. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15153: Understanding Molten Salt Chemistry Relevant to Advanced Molten Salt Reactors through Complementary Synthesis, Spectroscopy, and Modeling | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to understand molten salt chemistry relevant to advanced molten salt reactors through complementary synthesis, spectroscopy, and modeling. Through complementary synthetic, spectroscopic, and computational efforts, the aim is to achieve atomistic and molecular-level understanding of liquid structure, coordination geometry, chemical bonding, and reactivity of novel molten salt melts relevant to advanced molten reactor designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15111: Improving Nuclear Power Plant Efficiency Through Data Analytics | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,727.00 | This project aims to develop and provide data analytics solutions to improve nuclear power plan economic efficiency by utilizing empirical models to integrate disparate data sources while providing uncertainty estimates to quantify risk and support decisions. The outcomes will enhance the technical and economic competitiveness by enabling advanced monitoring of critical assets, improving the operating capability of the existing fleet, and helping achieve enhancements in organizational effectiveness. Additionally, the research would provide an agile and modular data analytic framework that would have high commercialization value and supports the industry-wide drive towards digital innovation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14846: Development of Corrosion Resistant Coatings and Liners for Structural Materials for Liquid Fueled Molten Salts Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to develop corrosion-resistant coatings and liners for structural materials for use in fuel dissolved molten salt environment for future Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). Innovative, but industrially scalable, surface cladding approaches are proposed to lead to promising surface and interfacial compositions. The processes themselves are commercial, and have high technology readiness levels, and consequently would facilitate the accelerated developments of MSRs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15280: Advanced Alloy Innovations for Structural Components of Molten Salt Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $796,792.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to develop and evaluate specific advanced metallic alloys for structural components in fluoride salt-cooled molten salt reactors (MSRs). The research will investigate four categories of metallic alloys: advanced Ni-based; radiation damage tolerant high entropy; refractory Mo-based, and compositionally-graded, designed for high-surface corrosion resistance and good bulk strength. Additionally, the propensity for radiation embrittlement, as well as weldability, of the alloys will be evaluated. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14957: Big Data Analytics Solutions to Improve Nuclear Power Plant Efficiency: Online Monitoring, Visualization, Prognosis, and Maintenance Decision Making | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $797,820.00 | The overarching goal of this project is to significantly advance the ability to assess equipment condition and predict the remaining useful life to support optimal maintenance decision making in nuclear power plants. This research will work toward accomplishing and establishing a modern set of data-driven modeling, online monitoring, visualization, prognosis, and operation decision-making methodologies to address the significant opportunities and challenges arising from the emerging data-rich environment in nuclear plants. The potential impact of the work is significant and transformative and could deliver important advances in productivity with reduced unscheduled downtime and improved equipment performance. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15097: Oxidation Study of High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor TRISO Fuels at Accidental Conditions | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000.00 | This project is to study the oxidation behaviors of TRISO fuels during accidental air and water vapor ingress conditions. The work focuses on the oxidation and burn-off of the graphite fuel matrix and oxidation of the TRISO fuel SiC layer at high-temperature accidental states in the presence of air and/or water vapor. It will include both unirradiated and irradiated graphite fuel matrix and simulated fuel particles with the SiC layer. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 19-16987: Novel miniature creep tester for virgin and neutron irradiated clad alloys with benchmarked multiscale modeling and simulations | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | This project will develop a miniature creep machine to collect rapid thermal creep and load relaxation data for two selected ferritic alloys under "as-received" and irradiated conditions. Fast and accurate measurements of creep deformation are essential for qualifying new alloys for long term use in current and next generation reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17150: Speciation and Behavior of Neptunium and Zirconium in Advanced Separation Process | Oregon State University | $800,000 | This project will further develop the understanding of nuclear fuel reprocessing using Co-Decontamination (CoDCon). Radiolytic degradation products of tributylphosphate, nitric acid, redox buffer, masking agent, and water greatly affect the redox speciation, complexation and partitioning of the recycled metals. Fundamental understanding of chemical speciation and partitioning of Neptunium and Zerconium under such conditions is required. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17395: Modeling and Uncertainty Analysis of MSR Nuclear Material Accounting Methods for Nuclear Safeguards | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | This project will model and analyze the limits of detection for the diversion of nuclear materials from a molten salt reactor (MSR) fuel cycle. MSR depletion under a range of uranium and/or plutonium diversion to quantify the resulting differences in salt composition will be evaluated. Sensors will also be investigated to quantify fuel salt contents and correlate the outputs with the reactor models to predict diversion detection. Results will be coupled with robust uncertainty analysis to determine limits of detection. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16583: Neutron Radiation Effect on Diffusion between Zr (and Zircaloy) and Cr for Accurate Lifetime Prediction of ATF | The Ohio State University | $499,997 | This project will perform systematic diffusion studies on both neutron-irradiated and unirradiated accident tolerant fuel samples to obtain precise diffusion coefficients. This will result in a precise evaluation of the pure neutron irradiation effect on diffusion in these systems and enable accurate life prediction of the accident tolerant fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17381: High Throughput Assessment of Creep Behavior of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Structural Alloys by Nano/microindentation | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $800,000 | This project will develop a high throughput assessment of creep behavior of advanced nuclear reactor structural alloys by nano/microindentation. Experimental datasets will inform polycrystalline deformation models to predict material response over a variety of creep conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16549: Thermal Conductivity Measurement of Irradiated Metallic Fuel Using TREAT | University of Pittsburgh | $500,000 | This project intends to provide accurate thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity data with microstructure characterization of metallic (U-Pu-Zr) fuel as a function of burnup and attain fundamental understanding of the thermal conductivity of the irradiated fuel to inform and validate computational models. This will be accomplished using an innovative thermal wave technique in the Transient Reactor Test Facility at the Idaho National Laboratory, with the Minimal Activation Reusable Capsule Holder. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17002: Remote Laser-based Nondestructive Evaluation for Post-Irradiation Examination of ATF Cladding | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | To enable advanced nondestructive characterization techniques for light water reactor fuels that can be applied to the cladding coating, a remote nondestructive evaluation post irradiation inspection approach will be developed. This technique will measure the cladding coating layer thickness and detect defects within the cladding such as corrosion, micro-cracking and delamination. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17276: Radiation-Induced Swelling in Advanced Nuclear Fuel | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,989 | The microstructural evolution of advanced fuel (uranium carbide and uranium nitride) under fission-fragment type radiation has not been studied and remains unclear. This project will utilize advanced synchrotron X-ray characterization using microgram samples to obtain detailed nanoscale information on radiation-induced volumetric swelling and microstrain. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16848: Metal-Functionalized Membranes for Radioiodine Capture | University of Utah | $799,031 | This proposed research will investigate high-surface area (>300 m2/g) metal-functionalized membranes. These novel chemically durable and mechanically robust membranes are formed using an aqueous fabrication process, which results in an interconnected porosity that is highly controllable, providing hierarchical structures ranging from the nano- to micrometer-scales. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17350: Development and Experimental Validation of Pitting and SCC Models for Welded Stainless Steel Dry Storage Containers Exposed to Atmospheric Environments | University of Virginia | $799,027 | The specific goals of this project are to: (a) validate the maximum pit size model for dry storage canister relevant corrosion conditions as well as quantifying the effects of limited cathodic current on stress corrosion cracking (SCC) kinetics, (b) demonstrate a means to quantitatively rank the risk of SCC based on measurable parameters, (c) perform probabilistic predictions of SCC growth, and (d) validate the model predictions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16879: Proactive Hybrid Nuclear with Load Forecasting | Brigham Young University | $799,933 | This project develops new capabilities of design and dispatch optimization of nuclear hybrid energy systems (NHES) in the "Risk Analysis Virtual Environment (RAVEN)" modelling software. Blended (physics-based and data-driven) machine learning will be applied to forecast demand and production of thermal and electrical loads. Two experimental case studies are proposed to test the software developments with a lab-scale thermal energy storage and with a large district energy system. As a final step, the software developments will be generalized to other NHES. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17461: Development and Evaluation of Neutron Thermalization Integral Benchmarks for Advanced Reactor Applications | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | This project will develop integral benchmarks that aim to examine thermal neutron scattering data for graphite (ideal and nuclear), light water, and molten salt. The benchmark evaluations will be contributed to the International Handbook of Evaluated Reactor Physics Benchmark Experiments (IRPhEP) database. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17219: Using Integral Benchmark Experiments to Improve Differential Nuclear Data Evaluations | University of New Mexico | $400,000 | This project will use the results of integral benchmark experiment to inform differential nuclear data evaluations and improve the predictive capability of modeling and simulation (M&S) tools. This goal will be accomplished by developing capabilities to assess the sensitivity of integral benchmark results to evaluated nuclear data parameters, and by using data assimilation tools to directly adjust the evaluated data parameters and improve the accuracy of M&S tools. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16743: Paths Forward for Nuclear Energy: Using a Nationwide Post-Stratified Hierarchical Model to Facilitate Matching of New Nuclear Technologies to Receptive Host Communities | University of Oklahoma | $390,393 | This project will enable deployment of advanced nuclear technologies by developing a model, and an accompanying web-based tool that can be utilized by technology entrepreneurs, that identifies public support for siting new nuclear technologies at very local spatial scales across the US. The model will employ hierarchically structured, post stratified analysis of the largest US pooled-time series dataset on geocoded public support for nuclear technologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16995: A Cyber-Attack Detection Platform for Cyber Security of Digital Instrumentation and Control Systems | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,995 | The proposed research will develop a robust cyber-attack detection system (CADS) for monitoring digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems. The project will develop a robust research tool for evaluating cyber defense of digital I&C systems and provide a framework for a cyber-attack detection system that provides continuous assurance of the security of digital I&C systems in nuclear power plants (NPPs). | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17327: Multi-Timescale Nuclear-Renewable Hybrid Energy Systems Operations to Improve Electricity System Resilience, Reliability, and Economic Efficiency | University of Texas at Dallas | $800,000 | The overarching objective of this project is to develop a multi-timescale nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (N-R HESs) operations framework to provide different types of grid products. The project will model and analyze the capabilities of N-R HESs to provide power grid services at different timescales ranging from seconds to days, such as day-ahead unit commitment, flexible ramping (5-45 minutes), regulation reserves (1-5 minutes), and frequency response (less than seconds). | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17192: The Design and Investigation of Novel Mechanical Filters for Molten Salt Reactors | Abilene Christian University | $762,246 | Researchers will develop a novel mechanical filtration system. The project will include the collection of filter media performance data and filter regeneration performance data for a novel sintered nickel-based filter prototype. The project will also provide a filter design that facilitates remote filter removal, cooling, replacement, and assay of fissile material hold-up in the filter media. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16980: Determining the Effects of Neutron Irradiation on the Structural Integrity of Additively Manufactured Heat Exchangers for Very Small Modular Reactor Applications | Auburn University | $400,000 | Researchers will determine how to best use laser-powder bed fusion additive manufacturing methods for generating radiation-resistant channel/pore-embedded structures from Inconel (alloy 625 or 718) nickel-based superalloys for special purpose reactor (i.e. very small modular reactor) heat exchangers. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17413: Validated, Multi-Scale Molecular Dynamics Simulations to Predict the Thermophysical Properties of Molten Salts Containing Fuel, Fission, and Corrosion Products | Brigham Young University | $798,291 | Researchers will use first principles molecular dynamics (FPMD) simulations on molten salts containing impurities including fuel, fission products, and corrosion products. These will be used to develop a classical molecular dynamics (CMD) potential. CMD will then be used to predict properties for a wide variety of salt compositions and temperatures, and physical property measurements will be performed to validate those predictions. Property correlations will be developed from this data. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17183: Mixing of helium with air in reactor cavities following a pipe break in HTGRs | City College of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct separate effects tests to obtain experimental validation data on mixing of helium and air in reactor building cavities during and after blowdown in HTGRs. Air and helium concentrations, and gas mixture velocity and temperature fields will be measured in simulated reactor cavities. An existing helium flow loop will be used as the source of high pressure/high temperature helium for injection into the cavities and different break configurations will be experimentally investigated. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16391: GuArDIAN: General Active Sensing for conDItion AssessmeNt | Duke University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a dependable, autonomous or semi-autonomous (i.e. low human involvement), and minimally disruptive framework for monitoring equipment and components in nuclear reactors. The project will develop GUARDIAN; a robust active sensing framework through the integration of model-based inference and mobile actuating/sensing robots. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17251: Measuring Mechanical Properties of Select Layers and Layer Interfaces of TRISO Particles via Micromachining and In-Microscope Tensile Testing | Idaho State University | $799,815 | Researchers will characterize the strength of TRISO-coated particle layers and interfaces using FIB micro-machining and in-TEM tensile testing. Tensile test samples from coating layers of (1) unirradiated surrogate (fuel) TRISO particles, (2) unirradiated fueled TRISO particles and (3) irradiated fueled TRISO particles will be studied. Results of this project will both benefit and leverage the AGR Program. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17185: Demonstrating Reactor Autonomous Control Framework using Graphite Exponential Pile | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will demonstrate a detection-prediction-feedback framework for nuclear system autonomous control. It will adopt multiple detector channels to enable control feedback to spatially dependent perturbations. It will also utilize high-fidelity solutions trained surrogate models for real-time prediction and decision-making. In addition to the method development, the proposal will entail a first-of-a-kind engineering demonstration using the MIT Graphite Exponential Pile (MGEP). | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16754: Simultaneous Corrosion/Irradiation Testing in Lead and Lead-Bismuth Eutectic: The Radiation Decelerated Corrosion Hypothesis | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $762,823 | Researchers will test candidate FeCrSi and F/M alloys in a new, simultaneous corrosion/radiation facility to try to identify an alloy that will satisfy all requirements for Lead Fast Reactor structural materials. Microstructural characterization, mechanical property testing, and corrosion tests, both during irradiation and following ion/He pre-conditioning, will assess how irradiation affects corrosion, potentially slowing it. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17173: Ni-based ODS alloys for Molten Salt Reactors | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | The objective of this work is to (i) propose and develop a new Nickel (Ni) based Oxide Dispersion-Strengthened (ODS) alloy that can be used for structural applications in Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) and other nuclear reactor harsh environments, (ii) to demonstrate that its high temperature mechanical properties are adequate for MSR operating temperatures, (iii) to demonstrate its radiation damage resistance through ion irradiation testing and (iv) to demonstrate its improved corrosion resistance in MSR environment. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17037: Investigation of HTGR Reactor Building Response to a Break in Primary Coolant Boundary | Purdue University | $799,832 | Researchers will perform a series of experiments to simulate HTGR reactor building response due to a break in the primary coolant boundary in a well-scaled test facility to obtain spatial distribution of oxygen concentration, perform analysis of the whole system response with 1-D thermal hydraulics codes and use CFD to make detailed localized predictions. The tests will be carried out with different locations and sizes of the breaks to create various vent and flow paths in the reactor cavity. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17093: Integrating Multi-modal Microscopy Techniques and the MOSAIC Simulation Environment to Assess Changes in the Physical Properties and Chemical Durability of Concrete Following Radiation Exposure | University of California, Los Angeles | $800,000 | Researchers will develop unprecedented multi-modal imaging methodologies that integrate multiple microscopy techniques. The team will develop a generalizable protocol for quantifying the changes in physical properties and chemical durability of concrete and concrete constituents (minerals and aggregates) following radiation exposure. The imaging analyses will be input into the MOSAIC framework to reveal the nature and extent of degradation that is expected to result. The outcomes offer insights that are needed to enable and inform second license renewals. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17167: Atomistically Informed and Experimentally Validated Model for Helium Bubble Growth in Welded Irradiated Metals | University of Florida | $797,861 | Researchers will construct a validated computational model for He bubble growth on grain boundaries in irradiated Fe-Ni-Cr microstructures, including intergranular fracture, as a function of material conditions and welding heat input. This model will be based on the phase-field methodology, leveraging numerical solvers in the MOOSE simulation platform, with critical inputs and validation provided by both atomic-level simulations and experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16909: Learning-based Computational Study of the Thermodynamic, Structural, and Dynamic Properties of Molten Salts at the Atomic and Electronic Scale and Experimental Validations | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will obtain the thermophysical, thermochemical, and transport properties, construct the phase diagrams, and build empirical physical models of molten salts that are relevant to Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) with first-principles accuracy using molecular dynamics simulations driven by machine-learned high-dimensional neural network potentials combined with neutron/X-ray scattering and thermodynamic experimental validations. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16298: I-PRA Decision-Making Algorithm and Computational Platform to Develop Safe and Cost-Effective Strategies for the Deployment of New Technologies | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an integrated probabilistic risk assessment decision-making algorithm to support risk-and-cost-informed decision-making related to the deployment of new technologies. The project will enhance the financial analysis module and the challenging interface of social and technical systems to advance the algorithm. The project will conduct a case study for evaluating the safety impact and cost-effectiveness of FLEX strategies to support operational flexibility. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16802: Evaluation of Semi-Autonomous Passive Control Systems for HTGR Type Special Purpose Reactors | University of Michigan | $400,000 | Researchers will investigate the use of variable flow controllers and a variable reflector as passive or semi-autonomous reactivity control mechanisms for multi-module HTGR type special purpose reactors. This applies to the commercially developed special purpose reactor concepts from HolosGen. The incorporation of these systems will reduce the movable parts count and enable more robust load follow capabilities over broader power ranges and local and global reactivity control. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17467: Understanding the Speciation and Molecular Structure of Molten Salts Using Laboratory and Synchrotron based In Situ Experimental Techniques and Predictive Modeling | University of Nevada, Reno | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology to accurately determine the structure and speciation of the molten salt electrolyte using laboratory-based spectroscopic techniques (Raman and UV-Vis-NIR) and synchrotron-based (scattering and absorption) techniques, in combination with computational modeling. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17231: Prevention of Common Fault-Trigger Combinations for Qualification of Digital Instrumentation and Control Technology | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will provide an effective design evaluation approach based on prevention of concurrent triggering conditions to eliminate common-cause failures (CCF) and enable qualification of digital I&C technology for application in nuclear plant modernization. The research involves classifying commonality among digital devices, categorizing faults and triggering conditions, determining fault-trigger relationships, and defining preventive design measures to resolve the potential for CCF. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17087: Economic Risk-Informed Maintenance Planning and Asset Management | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will provide a holistic framework for cost-minimizing risk-informed maintenance planning, including inspection. They will develop a two-tier framework that coarsely minimizes the total maintenance cost during the remaining normal operating cycle and uses the outputs of the first model to maximize the financial impact of these activities in the short term. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16811: Liquid Metal-cooled Fast Reactor Instrumentation Technology Development | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will explore three different areas that will help to improve commercialization of SFRs and to aid in testing for the VTR. These include: 1. Advancement in understanding of low prandtl number heat transfer 2. Testing of compact heat exchangers for use with sodium 3. Development of in pool submersible flow meters. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16954: Innovative In-Situ Analysis and Quantification of Corrosion and Erosion of 316 Stainless Steel in Molten Chloride Salt Flow Loops | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will use a thin-layer activation technique for the first time in molten salts, on 316H samples placed in natural convection and forced flow loops. The individual and synergistic effects of corrosion, irradiation and thermo-mechanical treatments will be evaluated in-situ to predict component service lifetimes and design limits. The effects of molten chloride flow velocity will also be assessed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17168: Fuel Salt Sampling and Enriching System Technology Development | Vanderbilt University | $799,989 | Researchers will combine insights from the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment with decades of advancements in applicable technologies into an enhanced Sampler Enricher (SE) concept to develop and test a flexible, reliable, and workable design. The prototype will then be tested in an existing salt loop. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16739: Improvements of Nuclear Data Evaluations for Lead Isotopes in Support of Next Generation Lead-Cooled Fast Systems | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | The objective of this project is to improve the accuracy of neutronics simulation of lead-based systems by improving the nuclear data of lead isotopes. The nuclear data for lead will be reevaluated with emphasis of the intermediate and fast energy regions that are required by reactor applications currently sought by several industrial entities. The deliverables of this project are new lead isotopes evaluations that will be candidates for inclusion in a future Evaluated Nuclear Data Library (ENDF) release. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 20-19373: Connecting Advanced High-Temperature X-ray and Raman Spectroscopy Structure/Dynamics Insights to High-Throughput Property Measurements | Boston University | $500,000 | Researchers will acquire molten salt structure and dynamics data at high-temperatures using high-energy x-ray techniques and Raman spectroscopy and relate them to their physical and chemical properties. High-throughput techniques will be developed to rapidly measure multiple high-temperature properties at one time. An understanding of the relationship of salt structure and dynamics to its properties will help to select and optimize melt chemistry in molten salt reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19371: Adsorption and Reduction of Uranium in Engineered Barrier Systems: Effects of Iron and Heat | California State University, East Bay | $800,000 | Reseachers will investigate uranium sorption and abiotic reduction processes in iron-rich montmorillonite systems as a function of solution chemistry and temperature. The team will develop a surface complexation model that can account for both uranium adsorption and reduction, and hence reduce the uncertainties associated with uranium mobility in iron-rich environments with engineering barrier systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19831: Optimizing Melt Processed Phosphate Glass Waste Forms via Composition-Property-Structure Correlations | Clemson University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and optimize highly durable and easily processable phosphate-based glass waste forms to immobilize the dehalogenated salt streams by tailoring the composition of the glasses. To complement the work conducted on glass waste forms at the national laboratories sponsored by the DOE-NE program, modified iron phosphate glass waste forms will be prepared and evaluated by the introduction of various glass modifiers (SnF2 and BaO) to the prototype glass compositions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19695: Quantifying radionuclide sorption to engineered barrier materials under elevated temperature and ionic strength conditions | Clemson University | $799,380 | Researchers will characterize actinide sorption to mineral surfaces and examine possible mechanisms of sorption at high temperature/ionic strength through examination of the effects of hydration and hydrolysis on actinide sorption. These data will provide an understanding of radionuclide behavior with engineered barrier materials. A greater understanding of these processes will reduce the uncertainty in strategies for sequestration of radionuclide bearing wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19789: Controlling Neptunium and Zirconium in Advanced Extraction Processes | Colorado School of Mines | $599,763 | Researchers will address continuing issues with separating neptunium and zironium in current separation techniques. They will use coupled optical and x-ray specroscopy, small angle scattering, equilibrium thermodynamics and chemical analysis to understand fundamental molecular-level behaviors of extracted Np and Zr. These techniques, using world-class irradiation facilities, will elucidate the specific chemistries underlying the problematic behavior in Np and Zr in radiation fields. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19660: Linear and nonlinear guided ultrasonic waves to characterize cladding of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researcherses will perform a combination of linear and nonlinear guided ultrasonic waves, integrated with new material behavior models to develop a non-destructive evaluation (NDE) approach for both quality control/quality assurance and in-service NDE characterization of the cladding integrity and bond strength. Current NDE techniques are effective for uncoated designs, but these coated fuels add new challenges, which will be addressed by this new approach. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19678: Flexible Hard Ceramic Coatings by Ultrasonic Spray Mist-CVD for Dry Storage Canisters of Spent Nuclear Fuel and Waste | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop advanced flexible hard ceramic coatings using ultrasonic spray mist-chemical vapor deposition technique manufacturing process to deposit on dry storage canisters. The team will test resistance to corrosion, heat, wear and hydrogen permeation thgourh microstructural characterization and material property evaluation. The ultimate goal is to enhance the long term reliability of spent nuclear fuel dry storage canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19797: High Throughput Computational Platform for Predictive Modeling of Thermochemical and Thermophysical Properties of Fluoride Molten Salts | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | Researchers will (1) develop an open-source high throughput (H-T) computational platform to understand, predict, and evaluate thermochemical and thermophysical properties of molten salts as demonstrated in the F-(K-Li-Na)-(Cr-Fe)-U system and (2) provide H-T approaches (CALPHAD modeling and AIMD simulations) and open-source codes together with thermodynamic models of molten salts and public-accessible databases verified by targeted experiments for the molten salt research community. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19627: Chemical Interaction and Compatibility of Uranium Nitride with Liquid Pb and Alumina-forming Austenitic Alloys | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | Researcherswill address critical issues with the compatibility and chemcial interations of uranium nitride fuel, alumina-forming austenitic alloys and lead coolants/sublayers. They will obtain critical data of fuel-coolant-cladding interactions and compatibility to evaluate key parameters of operation temperature, fuel impurities and coolant chemistry. This data will provide key operation windows and parameters for deployment of lead-cooled fast reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19924: First-principles free energies by hybrid thermodynamic integration for phase equilibria and fission product solubility in molten salts | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | Researchers will predict phase equilibria and solubility of fission products in molten salts using a novel hybrid framework for thermodynamic integration combining first-principles, molecular dynamics and continuum methods to calculate free energies. They will be benchmarked using Bayesian-targeted calorimetric, in-situ diffraction and spectroscopic experiments. The project will provide microscopic insights and quantitative parameters necessary for reliable thermophysical modeling of molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19939: Gallium Oxide Schottky Diode Detectors for Measurement of Actinide Concentrations from Measured Alpha Activities in Molten Salts | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and test, to high temperatures, a Schottky diode alpha particle detector that is based on the rapidly emerging ultrawide band gap semiconductor material gallium oxide. Ga2O3 Schottky diode detectors offer the potential of detecting alpha particles at high temperatures, with better resolution than SiC Schottky diode detectors, which the team has previously developed for similar purposes. These detectors could be used in pyrochemical processing streams and molten salt reactors with potential application in other reactor concepts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19966: Evaluating hydroxypyridinone-based ligands for actinide and fission products recovery in used fuels | University of California, Berkeley | $600,000 | Researchers will pursue novel chemical separation approaches for advanced reactor used fuels treatments and recycling, by leveraging the unique actinide and lanthanide coordination properties of hydroxypyridinone-based aqueous chelators. These chelators have not been tested in extreme conditions and this work would test potential process performance with a focus on radiation-induced changes and oxidation state distribution. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19545: Femtosecond Laser Ablation Machining & Examination - Center for Active Materials Processing (FLAME-CAMP) | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop, build, and test a femtosecond laser ablation machining & examination tool that can be deployed in a hot cell environment enabling microscopy sample fabrication, isotope and elemental analysis, and thermal analysis. The technology allows for non-contact materials processing, even through glass windows, potentially preventing contamination of surrounding areas and tools. Such a multi-function tool with high throughput material processing will accelerate the research on fuel and cladding tremendously. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19198: Functionalized clay buffer materials for the long-term sequestration of technetium and iodine | University of Florida | $800,000 | Researcherswill develop synthesize, test, and model novel functionalized clay buffer materials for the long-term sequestration of iodine and technetium. The project will also focus on key experimantal parameters and modeling of how the novel clay buffer material will sequester iodine and technetium species. Novel materials will support DOE's efforts to design improved geologic repository barrier systems and optimize repository performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19209: Investigation on multicomponent solubility in LiCl-KCl eutectic chloride salts using combinatorial approach | University of Idaho | $400,000 | Researchers will perform irradiation experiments to understand how gamma radiation changes trivalent metal ion complex coordination structure and extraction characteristics during the ALSEP process. This work will focus on understanding the types of degradation products that are formed during the extraction process and what effects these degradation products have on process performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19713: Multifunctional Laser Processing for Repair and Mitigation of Pitting and Cracks in Welded Stainless Steel Dry Storage Canisters | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a strategic solution that combines laser cleaning and laser peening for removal of surface contamination and mitigation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in welded stainless steels. Laser cleanning will remove surface contamination and reduce pitting caused by corrosion. Laser peening will then be used to mitigate stress corrosion cracking and provide enhanced corrosion resistance. The portability of the laser system means the system will be able to be deployed in the field. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19188: Single- and Polycrystalline Diamond Electrodes for Spectroelectrochemical Characterization of Various Molten Salts | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $600,000 | Researchers will develop optically transparent electrodes for spectroelectrochemical measurements in chloride- and fluoride-based radioactive molten salts. The primary electrode material will be boron-doped diamond. Measurements will elucidate important electrochemical properties of nuclear fuel and fission products such as redox potential, diffusion coefficient, and electron transfer stoichiometry. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19641: Mitigating stress corrosion cracking in austenitic stainless-steel canister welds using peening techniques | University of Nevada, Reno | $799,950 | Researchers seek to understand the mechanisms of pitting/SCC resistance of welds as affected by a) compressive stress b) surface texture modification and c) microstructural change in the substrate surface resulting from laser shock peening, shot peening, ultrasonic impact peening and laser surface texturing. The study will recommend the best peening and surface texturing process conditions for mitigation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in 304L welds. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19704: Multicomponent Thermochemistry of Complex Chloride Salts for Sustain-able Fuel Cycle Technologies | University of Pittsburgh | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive thermodynamic database of multicomponent chloride salts through a collaboration between experts in Gibbs energy modeling and thermochemical experiments. A thermochemical database of the multicomponent chloride system KCl-LiCl-NaCl-UCl3-LnCl3 (Ln: La, Pr, Nd) will be developed using the CALPHAD (Calculation of Phase Diagrams) method with supported ab initio calculations and thermal analysis experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19506: Engineered composite patch with NDE inspection for repair and mitigation of SCC in nuclear spent fuel dry storage canister | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an innovative 'engineered composite patch' that can absorb moisture, neutralize chloride, and prevent stress corrosion cracking from further growth. This 'patch' with have in integrated non-destructive evaluation capability using laser utrasonic characterization methods to montior quality and performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19374: Maintaining and building upon the Halden legacy of In-situ diagnostics | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will develop innovative instrumentation focusing on temperature and strain measurements to fill the void left by the Halden reactor and to enhance the experimental capabilities in the Transient Reactor Test Facility (TREAT) located at Idaho National Laboratory. The team will develop a fiber optic sensor system that offers an inherent resistance to electromagnetic interference unlike currently used sensors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19076: Investigation of Degradation Mechanisms of Cr-coated Zirconium Alloy Cladding in Reactivity Initiated Accidents (RIA) | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $500,000 | Researchers will investigate the thermal, mechanical, and irradiation response of chromium-coated zirconium alloy claddings under RIA conditions, in comparison to uncoated Zr-alloy cladding. The outcome of the project will be used for anticipated licensing applications to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), thereby accelerating use of coated accident tolerant fuel concepts in U.S. commercial power reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19318: Surface Peening and Hybrid Surface Engineering Approaches to Mitigate Initiation and Resurgence of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dry Cask Storage Stainless Steel Canisters | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,838 | Researchers will develop and evaluate a wide range of surface peening treatments, as well as hybrid surface treatments to mitigate initiation and growth of chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) in stainless-steel canisters for used nuclear fuel (UNF) dry cask storage. Canister mock-ups with prototypical fusion welds will be used for this study. Characterization and testing of microstructure, compressive stresses, corrosion and CISCC will be performed. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19614: New Coatings for Nuclear Fuel Waste Canister Storage and Transport | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop novel SiOCN(H) coatings for spent nuclear fuel canisters in order to support sustained nuclear reactor operation and safeguard nuclear waste storage, transport, and disposal, in both terrestrial and marine environments. The novel coating will specifically address pitting corrosion and stress corrosion cracking in spent nuclear fuel canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19382: Separated waste stream immobilization of iodine and offgas caustic scrubber solution | Washington State University | $400,000 | Researchers will produce a set of waste forms from separation of iodine from the caustic offgas scrubber solution. The primary caustic scrub containing iodine, halides, and carbonate will be immobilized in a glass-bonded composite of cancrinite/sodalite. The iodine-loaded silver sorbent will be stripped of iodine, converted to NaI, and immobilized into a separate durable glass-bonded iodosodalite waste form. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19912: Validation of Robustness in TCR Design Strategies | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will perform sensitivity analysis (SA) and uncertainty quantification (UQ) of TCR design parameters and relevant physical phenomena, using open-source time dependent Monte-Carlo code (OpenMC), NQA1 qualified commercial codes (STARCCM+), and ABAQUS for thermal-hydraulics and structural mechanics. The SA/UQ analysis will provide key insights to allow for development of performance metrics of robustness for autonomous operation sensors, by processing signals such as neutron flux, temperature and strains, as wll as inform the needed robustness for AI by enveloping the attainable level of decision making by the software. | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 | |
| NEUP Project 20-19216: Creation of Multiple Effect Evaporator and Combined Cycle Modelica Modules, and Optimization of Potable Water Generation from Saltwater Sources | North Carolina State University | $498,532 | Researchers will develop models of Multiple Effect Evaporators and Combined Cycle Gas Turbine systems to be used within the Modelica framework, with an end goal of creating an energy park that can supply its own energy and water through Small Modular Reactor nuclear systems and/or Combined Cycle Gas Turbine Systems with brackish to brine water sources. These same models will be capable of being implemented into larger models of grid independent and near independent energy parks located about military bases, large manufacturing facilities, and in small communities where freshwater is limited. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19590: Benchmark Evaluation of Transient Multi-Physics Experimental Data for Pellet Cladding Mechanical Interactions | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop an integral benchmark evaluation based on available experimental data from cold ramp tests performed at the Studsvik testing R2 reactor. Transient multiphysics benchmark evaluations are needed to support validation of the NEAMS ToolKit and the VERA suite. This research will focus on pellet cladding interaction and pellet cladding mechanical interaction and their associated events. The benchmark will be prepared for inclusion in the IRPhEP handbook. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19837: Reinforcement Learning Validation Framework for Quality Assurance of AI-guided Additive Manufacturing Digital Platforms | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will address the need to qualify the risk associated with AM fabricated nuclear reactor parts by incorporating a novel rendition of a well-established artificial intelligence learning strategy, the multi-armed bandit reinforcement learning (RL). The RL framework will be developed and demonstrated using TCR data and its associated digital platform. This research will assimilate in-process sensor data and physics-based simulation data to calculate risk measures in the form of failure probabilities for the AM parts. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19363: Integrated Solar & Nuclear Cogeneration of Electricity & Water using the sCO2 Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,427 | Researchers will design and model a renewable, nuclear Integrated Energy System (IES), compatible with the RAVEN/Modelica framework, for co-generation of cost competitive electricity and clean water. The components of the IES to be included are concentrated solar power, the supercritical CO2/sCO2 cyle, multi-effect distillation, and the lead-cooled fast reactor. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19066: Engineering-Informed, Data-Driven Degradation Modeling, Prognostics and Control for Radiation-induced Void Swelling in Reactor Steels | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will advance the capability to model, predict and control void swelling in irradiated structural components through developing engineering-informed, advanced data-driven statistical and machine learning techniques. Excess swelling not only leads to dimensional instability, but also can cause severe embrittlement of internal materials. The proposed efforts will ensure more effective regulation, aging management and license renewal. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19795: A High-Fidelity Novel and Fast Multigroup Cross Section Generation Method for Arbitrary Geometry and Spectrum | Georgia Institute of Technology | $600,000 | Researchers will develop a fast high-fidelity multigroup cross section generation method for arbitrary geometry configurations and energy spectra by developing a response-based high order perturbation method to perform hybrid stochastic-deterministic local transport calculations. The proposed method will be implemented as independent modules that can be easily embedded into any neutron transport or diffusion code and also be used as a standalone cross section generator. The modules will provide data that can interface with the associated NEAMS toolkit and workbench user interfaces to enable advanced neutronics tools that will perform high-fidelity multigroup multiphysics steady-state and transient calculations that capture and represent the complex resonance interactions and core environmental effects which exist in heterogeneous reactors, including advanced reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19968: Experimental Investigations and Numerical Modeling of Near-wall and Core Bypass Flows in Pebble Bed Reactors | Texas A&M University | $600,000 | Researchers will establish a highly coordinated, concurrent experimental and computational effort combining high-resolution turbulence simulations (including Nek5000, Star-CCM+) and experiments to deepen physical understanding and address long standing modeling inaccuracies related to near wall and bypass flow effects in pebble bed reactors. The project's acquired extensive database will be used to derive closure models and correlations needed for porous media code, such as Pronghorn. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19864: Development of innovative overlapping-domain coupling between SAM and NEK5000 | University of Michigan | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a robust, multi-scale coupling scheme between the SAM code and the CFD code, NEK5000, based on a novel overlapping domain approach. The developed coupling will be validated by using experiments specifically designed for the validation of multi-scale coupled codes. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-20074: Characterization of Plenum to Plenum Natural Circulation flows in a High Temperature Gas Reactor (HTGR) | CUNY, City College of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will obtain and provide experimental data on the plenum-to-plenum natural circulation flows in a typical high temperature gas reactor using helium and nitrogen over a wide range of temperatures and pressures to simulate natural circulation under both pressurized and depressurized conduction cooldown scenarios. The results of the project will yield new data and complement other very high temperature related studies. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19042: Flexible Siting Criteria and Staff Minimization for Micro-Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $440,517 | Researchers will develop siting criteria that are tailored to micro-reactors deployable in densely-populated areas by comparing the characteristics of the MIT research reactor with those of leading micro-reactor concepts, and evaluate whether and how the MIT research reactor design basis and associated regulations are applicable to micro-reactors. A model of operations for micro-reactors that would minimize the staffing requirements will also be conceptualized. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-20045: Highly Compact Steam Generators for Improved Economics of Small Modular Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will design and build a compact steam generator (CSG) test section that can be easily modified for different flow paths and geometries, as well as modify an existing loop to accept the test section. The conceptual optimized CSG system design, which could be deployed in small modular reactors, will be informed by CFD simulations to determine critical characteristics of the test section. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19205: Robust bullet-time tagging and tracking system based on computer vision for individual ex-core TRISO-fueled pebble identification | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a novel, validated, robust bullet-time tagging and tracking system, based on computer vision techniques, to tag and track each individual pebble in pebble bed reactors. The effort will utilize Residence Time Distribution and Radioactive Particle Tracking techniques to validate and refine the developed method, using a continuous cold flow pebble bed experimental setup. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19625: Corrosion Sensitivity of Stainless Steels in Pressurized Water Reactor Water Chemistry: Can KOH replace LiOH in PWRs? | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will perform a series of corrosion and stress corrosion tests on unirradiated alloys to determine the possibility of switching from LiOH to KOH to control the pH in nuclear reactors without worsening the corrosion behavior of the structural alloys used in pressurized water reactor core internal components. The impacts of such a change and the consequent water chemistry alterations on the corrosion processes and nucleaer power plant core-internal component service-life will be assessed and better understood. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19735: Experiments for Modeling and Validation of Liquid-Metal Heat Pipe Simulation Tools for Micro-Reactor | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will produce validation data for the heat pipe code, Sockeye, by measuring the internal thermal-hydraulic parameters of a single-heat pipe and the performance of an integrated multi-heat-pipe system in various operation scenarios. The results of this project will generate more liquid metal heat pipe validation data, which is currently lacking and needed to support micro-reactor design and licensing activities. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19367: Investigation of Novel Nickel-Based Alloys for Molten Chloride Fast Reactor Structural Applications | University of Cincinnati | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate and establish the scientific foundations for the development of promising Ni-Mo-W-Cr-Al-X alloys with a superior balance of properties compared to current materials for high temperature structural applications in molten chloride salt fast reactors. The project couples critical experiments with a high-value integrated computational materials engineering approach. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19693: Evaluation of micro-reactor requirements and performance in an existing well-characterized micro-grid | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will evaluate the opportunities and challenges of operating micro-reactors in decentralized power generation applications and the potential for deployment in established micro-grids with diverse power generation sources. By using a well-characterized prototypic environment platform, the Modelica-based Hybrid Energy System, the market potential for deployment of micro-reactors on campuses and other similar existing micro-grids will be quantified. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19195: The effect of LWR primary coolant water chemistry (LiOH vs. KOH) on stainless steel: An integrated experimental and computational study of the corrosion response of stainless steel for different surface microstructures and mechanica | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will study the effect of surface microstructure, mechanical stress factors, and radiation damage on the corrosion response of stainless steel under two different alkaline pressurized water reactor primary water chemistry conditions. The project will involve investigation of mechanical stress factors such as strain rate, residual stress, deformation induced persistent slip bands, dpa damage, and fatigue cracks and modeling to understand the physical phenomena associated with the measured corrosion response and inform the U.S. nuclear industry regarding KOH. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19491: Identifying and prioritizing sources of uncertainty in external hazard probabilistic risk assessments | University of Maryland, College Park | $799,979 | Researchers will develop a method for identifying and prioritizing sources of uncertainty in external hazard probabilistic risk assessment for nuclear power plants, with particular emphasis on uncertainties associated with hazard characterization. External flooding wil be utilized as the demonstration hazard during this project, while a common taxonomy for communicating uncertainties across a broad range of external hazards will be created. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19737: Innovative Enhanced Automation Control Strategies for Multi-unit SMRs | University of Michigan | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an innovative, enhanced automation control framework for small modular reactors (SMRs) that supports control of multiple units operating in a variety of reactor core conditions. Through these enhancements, SMR technology gains improved marketability through potential deployment to a broader range of markets and can also lead to reduced operating and maintenance costs for a SMR site, increasing the overall profitability. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19954: Deployment Pathways of Small Modular Reactors in Electric Power, Industrial, and Other Niche Markets to Achieve Cost Reductions and Widespread Use | University of Michigan | $691,658 | Researchers will explore how to leverage two key value propositions for small modular reactors (SMR) in shifting market conditions, in order to achieve widespread market deployment: (1) participation in small and large power and industrial markets and (2) cost reductions via mass fabrication. The result of this work will be advanced power system modeling, optimized SMR design with thermal storage for power and industry markets, and new SMR deployment pathways. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19752: Development and Demonstration of Scalable Fluoride Salt Pump Seals and Bearings for FHRs | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and demonstrate scalable advanced bearings and seals of fluoride salt pumps for fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactors. The systematic approach to be used will employ both experimental and numerical methods to investigate the static and dynamic performance of fluoride-salt-lubricated bearings and high-temperature seals. The outcomes of this research will directly contribute to the reliability, safety, design, and operation of the fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactor power plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19544: A Holistic Artificial Intelligence Tool to Mitigate Human Factor Uncertainty in Operation and Maintenance | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a holistic artificial intelligence tool to help the detection and mitigation of human factors errors in nuclear power plants. The tool will increase the efficiency of various activities such as testing, inspection, data collection, and interpretation, improve operation and maintenance decision-making, and reduce costs in nuclear power plants by minimizing the impact of human factors errors and providing warnings to mitigate them, when possible. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19524: Non-Intrusive Flow Monitoring for Liquid Metal and Molten Salt Cooled Reactors | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a first-of-its kind flow monitoring system with significantly enhanced capabilities for liquid metal fast reactors and other advanced reactors, such as molten salt reactors. The flow monitoring system will involve a proven and breakthrough fiber optic sensing technology that enables the harmonic-free interrogation of thousands of grating-based distributed interferometers along an optical fiber that is integrated into a sensing pad that can readily be installed at desired locations in the flow loop. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19671: Identifying Needed Fire Input Data to Reduce Modeling Uncertainty | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,393 | Researchers will identify fire parameters that have the largest impact on fire conditions, quantify those parameters contributing to uncertainties in the fire data through Monte Carlo simulation results, and use statistical analysis and machine learning models from the simulation results to assess existing data and recommend appropriate new fire tests to reduce uncertainties that are important to risk. With this information, researchers will develop a framework capable of determining the significant contributors to uncertainty in physical events that are relevant to the risk assessment and, then, determine the need for new experiments that would be of most value to reduce risk. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 21-24394: Computer vision and machine learning for microstructural qualification | Carnegie Mellon University | $497,518 | Quantifying and understanding microstructure is a key driver for performance-based materials qualification. In this proposal, well-curated data sets of microstructural images will be gathered and computer vision and machine learning will be applied to build quantitative deep learning frameworks to accelerate and enable qualification of nuclear materials based on microstructural features. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24156: Experimental thermofluidic validation of TCR fuel elements using distributed temperature and flow sensing | Kansas State University | $798,250 | The overall goal of this project will be to test the performance of 3D printed Transformational Challenge Reactor core geometry parts using existing Helium flow loops and distributed temperature, and velocity sensing systems. Thermal transport capabilities of scaled 3D printed ceramic core will be evaluated experimentally and measurements will be used to qualify computational models. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24636: Risk-informed Consequence-driven Physical Protection System Optimization for Microreactor Sites | Texas A&M University | $400,000 | This proposed project will utilize a risk-informed, consequence-driven analysis to develop an approach for "right-sizing" physical protection systems (PPS) for microreactors. The hypothesis presented for this proposal is that the explicit coupling of consequence modeling to PPS design will provide a similar benefit that can be applied prior to reactor construction. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24131: Total Mass Accounting in Advanced Liquid Fueled Reactors | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | A total mass determination method for nuclear materials accounting (NMA) in liquid-fueled molten salt reactors will be validated with fuel-bearing salt, mixed with a _+ radioisotope of known activity, that will be irradiated to reproduce the practical NMA scenario in a molten salt loop. Irradiated fuel salt will be sampled and measured for its mass and activity. The mass-to-activity ratio will be used to calculate the unknown salt mass in the original container. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24037: Design and intelligent optimization of the thermal storage and energy distribution for the TerraPower Molten Chloride Fast Reactor in an Integrated Energy System (IES) | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to explore the application of advanced reactors within Integrated Energy Systems, use extensive existing data from UIUC for model development and validation, and extend the predictions to larger grids and commercial applications. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24522: Targeted Materials Characterization and Testing of Additively Manufactured Metals and Ceramics to Inform Print/Build Data Analytics | University of Texas at San Antonio | $800,000 | A collaborative program between the University of Texas at San Antonio and Boise State University is proposed to supply materials testing and characterization data sets to be leveraged by the TCR program to inform build/print data analytics. With the data provided by the proposing team, correlations among steam oxidation performance, micromechanical properties, chemical composition, local microstructure, and location specific print/build data will be achieved. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24431: Location-specific material characterization of LPBF SS316L & IN718 TCR core structural materials | Utah State University | $800,000 | In this proposed work, we will experimentally characterize the spatial variability of the quasi-static (tensile), creep (strength and impression), and creep-fatigue properties as well as the underlying structures (microstructure and defect structures) for LPBF SS316L and IN718 components to be used as training data to the TCR program data-driven model. The resulting correlation will be used to drive the design process for an application as TCR core structural materials. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23978: Rapid, Non-Radioactive Methods for Prediction and Quantification of Radiolytic Radical Decomposition Products in Nuclear Separations | Clemson University | $399,999 | High-throughput, non-radioactive, radical assays will be used to determine decomposition of monoamide separations complexants. Radical assay results will be correlated with classic radiolytic damage results to develop predictive models for screening complexant stability. These models will aid in single-stage separations complexant optimization, in the transition from lab- to industrial-scale nuclear waste separations and, ultimately, could yield field tests for radiolytic damage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24350: Phosphate Mineral and Glass Waste Forms for Advanced Immobilization of Chloride and Fluoride-based Waste Streams | Clemson University | $600,000 | This proposal is intended to develop three waste form options for immobilizing the fluoride- and chloride-salt waste stream in highly durable and easily processable phosphate minerals and glasses, including phosphate apatite ceramic waste forms, phosphate glass waste forms, and phosphate glass-ceramic waste forms with apatite phase. Multiple monolithic waste form samples will be provided to DOE national laboratories for further testing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24292: Passive multimodal tomography for dry storage casks imaging using passive neutron and gamma dosimetry and cosmic ray muons | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | A method for multimodal tomography of dry storage casks will be developed to determine fuel relocation and cladding failures using passive neutrons and gamma emissions in combination with cosmic ray muons. The use of multimodal imaging will allow 3-D reconstructions of the dry storage cask that would be unachievable with any single radiation source. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24374: Effects of Radiolysis on Pertechnetate under Solvent Extraction Conditions, including Tri-Butyl Phosphate | CUNY, Hunter College | $399,624 | The overarching objective of the proposed work is to assess the impact of radiolysis on pertechnetate speciation during tri-butylphosphate (TBP) solvent extractions from the molecular level to macroscale. The research in this project is designed to understand the interplay of radiolysis, degradation product formation, other important redox active metals, and oxidation states of technetium on its speciation and distribution coefficients in solvent extraction processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24183: Experimental investigation and development of models and correlations for cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena in transient conditions in support of TREAT and the LWR fleet. | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Thermal-hydraulics transient heat transfer phenomena of relevance for the safety and the operation of the TREAT and light water reactors will be investigated. The performance of accident tolerant fuel materials during a reactivity initiated accident scenario and post-critical heat flux and reflood scenarios will be elucidated, as well as the development of models and correlations to be integrated into computational tools for the design and safety analysis of nuclear systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24666: Wireless Multifunctional Ultrasonic Arrays with Interdigital and Airborne Transducers for Monitoring Leakage and Corrosion Conditions of Welded Dry Storage Canisters | Mississippi State University | $800,000 | This project aims to develop and validate wireless, multifunctional, ultrasonic sensor arrays that enable on-demand, quantitative interrogation and real-time monitoring of both the canister leakage indicators (helium, helium/air mixture, internal pressure, and temperature) and corrosion conditions (free and/or vapor water). The developed arrays will be fully functional, wirelessly powered and communicated, and compact. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24188: Uranium recovery from used nuclear fuel using metal sulfides | Northwestern University | $400,000 | An alternative and original method to recover uranium from spent fuel is proposed. This method will utilize a new type of regenerable sorbent materials with high selectivity in capturing uranium from complex mixtures in acidic solutions, such as those found in used nuclear fuel of high-assay low-enriched uranium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24225: Characterizing Fuel Response and Quantifying Coolable Geometry of High-Burnup Fuel | Oregon State University | $800,000 | This study seeks to objectively determine, through empirical and numerical means, the actual impact of fuel dispersion in-core after fuel failure and whether high burnup dispersed fuel compromises coolable geometry and long-term cooling. The outcome of this study will yield an objective means of assessing two criteria (coolable geometry and long-term cooling) within the existing regulatory process to comprehensively understand whether it is feasible to increase burnup, while satisfying 10 CFR 50.46. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24288: Innovative Methods for Interrogation of DSC Internal Conditions | Oregon State University | $800,000 | The proposed work takes a two-pronged approach. The team will study techniques involving only external sensors and equipment, which could be deployed on existing dry storage canisters. In addition, small sensors located inside the canister that can be externally powered and read through the canister wall will also be investigated. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24439: Development of Novel Corrosion-Responsive Buffer Materials for Long-Term Immobilization of High-Level Nuclear Waste | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to develop a novel cementitious buffer material (CBM) for the safe disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF). The primary aim is to identify and characterize novel Mg-Al-P CBMs, complete with assessments of their repository stability as well as their transport and immobilization of radionuclides. The secondary aim is to use in-situ UT-EIS monitoring to understand the corrosive failure at the canister-CBM interface and provide long-term performance modeling of SNF packages. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24461: Estimation of low temperature cladding failures during an RIA transient | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers aim to create a multiphysics description of cladding response during a RIA, especially at high burnup, coupling reactor physics, thermal hydraulics and mechanics. The creation of a thermomechanical model in Bison will be the result of this project which can be used to evaluate the likelihood of low temperature cladding failures during a postulated RIA on a typical fuel rod (as these can lead to channel blockage), and thus identify the most important conditions to be studied at TREAT. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24460: Multiscale Modeling and Experiments for Investigating High Burnup LWR Fuel Rod Behavior Under Normal and Transient Conditions | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | The main objective of this work is to achieve a mechanistic understanding of and to develop a predictive model for the fuel rod behavior at high burn-up under both normal and transient conditions. Therefore, this study will provide the nuclear industry with validated, physics-based criteria to fuel fragmentation thresholds and rod mechanical integrity limits. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24388: Redox Chemistry of UO2 under Repository Relevant Conditions in the Presence of Zircaloy and Waste Canister Material | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | This project will seek to improve understanding of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) corrosion. Hydrothermal experiments of SNF with cladding and waste canister material will give insights into the redox potential formed due to secondary phase formation as consequence of corrosion in a failed canister. The experimentally derived data about secondary phase formation will be utilized for phase relationship analysis to decipher the redox conditions and thus provide source term for performance assessment models of deep geologic repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24006: High-fidelity modeling of fuel-to-coolant thermomechanical transport behaviors under transient conditions | University of Florida | $800,000 | The objective of the proposal is to develop a high-fidelity modeling tool that can capture some of the important phenomena in high burnup UO2 and ATF fuels during transient conditions. The BlueCRAB tool set will be improved and used to analyze TREAT loss of coolant accident experimental results. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24312: Accelerating the development of reliable and robust machine learning-based interatomic potentials for the prediction of molten salt structure and properties | University of Massachusetts Lowell | $400,000 | Machine learning-based interatomic potentials (MLIPs) used in molecular dynamics (MD) can accurately and efficiently predict molten salt properties. However many machine learning-based methods require large training sets, and can fail unpredictably. This project will overcome these challenges by developing a method for efficiently sampling diverse configurations from MD to train reliable and robust neural network potentials, and develop new models for predicting errors in MLIPs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24697: Dual External Leak Sensing and Monitoring for Dry Storage Canister | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers aim to develop two complementary external sensing methods to evaluate the integrity of DSC through internal pressure monitoring and helium leakage detection. The proposed diffuse ultrasonic wave method will be able to measure biaxial strains in the canister wall with high sensitivity and minimum temperature effects. An innovative capacitance MEMS sensor will be developed for helium concentration measurement in air based on the extremely low permittivity of helium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24449: Multi-modal Surface Acoustic Wave Sensing System for Pressure and Temperature monitoring of Spent Fuel Canisters | University of North Texas | $800,000 | University of North Texas (UNT) will collaborate with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to develop a multi-modal wireless passive SAW (Surface Acoustic Wave) sensor array, which are deployed on the outside surface of the canister, to monitor the strain of the canister and thus determine the inside pressure. In addition, the SAW strain sensor could also measure the surface temperature and potentially monitor helium gas leak. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24265: Fragmentation and Thermal Energy Transport of Cr-doped Fuels under Transient Conditions | University of Pittsburgh | $799,999 | This project will focus on multiple aspects of experimental testing and engineering-scale modeling in understanding thermal energy transport from high burnup, fractured/fragmented accident tolerant fuels, establishing a strong scientific basis to fill a critical knowledge data gap for modeling and simulation of transient fuel performance and safety, such as loss of coolant accident, for future integral testing and fuel licensing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24310: Fusion of Distributed Fiber Optics, Acoustic NDE, and Physics-Based AI for Spent Fuel Monitoring | University of Pittsburgh | $800,000 | The proposal will leverage new concepts in the fusion between fiber optic distributed acoustic sensing and advanced acoustic nondestructive evaluation techniques with artificial intelligence enhanced classification frameworks to quantitatively characterize the state of dry cask storage containers for spent fuel monitoring, externally and non-invasively, without introducing additional risks of failure. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24261: Internal Wireless Sensors for Dry Cask Storage | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | The effort will test the reliability of wireless, internal sensors after exposure to drying and storage conditions. These sensors are used to internally monitor temperature, pressure, and dose. Radiation shielding will also be designed to protect sensors during long-term storage. The effort will develop piezoelectric techniques for miniaturization of optical emission spectroscopy for internal monitoring of gas composition during drying and long-term storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24533: Non-destructive Evaluation of Dry Storage Canisters Using Acoustic Sensing | University of Southern California | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to develop a robust non-destructive evaluation (NDE) technique based on acoustic sensing to detect impurity gases in a sealed (welded) dry storage canister (DSC) using only measurements collected on the external surface of the DSC. The method is based on the time-of-flight analysis of acoustic signals propagating through the fill gas of a DSC, which is influenced by the composition, density and temperature of the propagation medium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23984: Safety Implications of High Burnup Fuel for a 2-Year PWR Fuel Cycle | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to perform safety analysis of high burnup fuel for a Westinghouse 4-Loop Pressurized Water Reactor. The work aims to identify potential opportunities and gaps for high burnup fuel by utilizing both well-established and modern methodologies to model reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, and plant system-level response that ultimately provide feedback to fuel performance analysis. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23985: Fuel-to-Coolant Thermomechanical Behaviors Under Transient Conditions | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This project will enhance the prediction of thermo-mechanical fuel-to-coolant heat transfer under transient conditions by using a coupled analysis and experiment approach. The effort is relevant to both high-burnup (> 62GWd/t) fuel applications and Accident Tolerant Fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24070: Modeling high-burnup LWR fuel behavior under normal operating and transient conditions | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This project aims to develop a high-burnup light water reactor fuel modeling capability to implement in the BISON code that would enable the accurate fuel rod behavior simulation during normal operation and design basis accidents, as wells as the identification of the rod life-limiting factors. Mechanistic engineering models will be developed for key phenomena, in particular, high burnup structure evolution, fuel fragmentation, and fission gas release. Traditional and accident tolerant fuels will be considered. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24033: Redox Chemistry in Nuclear Materials Storage Matrices under Ambient and Accelerated Aging Conditions | University of Washington | $800,000 | Deep geologic repositories must safely contain hazardous, high-activity nuclear wastes at geologic time-scales. However, such capability is centrally dependent on the element-specific redox chemistry within and at the interface of storage vessels. A comprehensive study of redox chemistry in cements used in long-term storage is proposed and emphasizes: 1) the actual consequences of accelerated aging modalities and 2) the novel use of newly available capabilities in advanced x-ray spectroscopies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24063: Post-DNB Thermo-mechanical Behavior of Near-term ATF Designs in Simulated Transient Conditions | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | The goals of the proposed research are to conduct coupled experimental and modeling investigations of thermo-mechanical performance of coated accident tolerant zirconium alloy claddings with simulated burnup doped fuels under thermal transients to predict complex thermal and mass transport phenomena of near-term Accident Tolerant Fuel designs in accident conditions. Experiments and modeling for understanding both cladding-coolant and fuel-coolant interactions will be performed. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24582: Machine-Learning-Accelerated Molecular Dynamics Approaches for Molten Salts | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $399,477 | New machine learning potential (MLP) approaches and new MLPs to enable rapid prediction of molten salt (FLiBe and Nal-MgCl2 with impurities) properties with near ab initio quantum mechanical accuracy will be developed. Uncertainty quantification with active learning and on-the-fly fitting will greatly accelerate MLP training. This work will support dramatically increased simulation speeds and associated data generation and understanding for molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24067: Development of Full Understanding of Mechanical-Chemical Coupling in Bentonite THMC processes | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | The central hypothesis is that mechanical stress in an engineered barrier can lead to pressure solution of solid minerals, leading to significant changes in pore water chemistry, which affects bentonite stability, longevity of the waste pack, and dissolution and migration of nuclides. The overall objective of this project is to develop full understanding of the role of pressure solution on pore water chemistry, the implications to large-scale heterogeneity, and THMC processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23987: Separate and Multi-Physics Effects IRPhEP Benchmark Evaluation using SNAP Experiments | Georgia Institute of Technology | $400,000 | The proposed project will develop an International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) mulitphysics microreactor benchmark evaluation based on data from the Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power (SNAP) program. This work will include systematic assessments of the experimental data with meticulous compilation and documentation, and validation of specific NEAMS tools to model effects that are unique to microreactors technologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24630: Integral Benchmark Evaluation of Zero-Power Tests and Multi-Cycle Depletion Experimental Data of TVA WB1 Cycles 1-3 | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | This project proposes to develop an integral benchmark evaluation of available experimental data for zero-power tests and multi-cycle depletion for consistent and comprehensive validation of both novel high-fidelity and traditional multi-physics tools. The benchmark evaluation will be based on operational and measured data from the Pressurized Water Reactor Watts Bar Unit 1 released by Tennessee Valley Authority. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24186: Regenerating Missing Experimental Parameters with Data-Assimilation Methods for MSRE Transient Benchmark Development and Evaluation | Virginia Commonwealth University | $400,000 | The proposed project will regenerate the undocumented basic data from available experimental data of the MSRE using advanced data-assimilation methods to facilitate the whole-loop modeling of the representative MSRE transients, and perform a thorough MSRE transient benchmark evaluation for the IRPhEP handbook. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24194: Implementation of improved quasi-static, time-dependent, multi-physics methodology in Shift | Georgia Institute of Technology | $600,000 | A practical reference calculation route for time-dependent coupled Monte Carlo calculations, using Shift, will be developed. The proposed framework will be tailored to depletion and slowly varying transients, but with the flexibility to perform thermal-hydraulic time-dependent calculations with minimal computational overheads. This method relies on a hybrid-resolution stochastic approach in conjunction with a substep technique. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24078: Material transport model development and integration in the System Analysis Module (SAM) code | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | This project proposes to develop and implement models for System Analysis Module, which accurately characterize the sink, source, and interaction terms of key material species that are or may be present in various advanced reactor designs. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24195: Enhancing Yellowjacket for Modeling the Impact of Radiation and Stress on the Corrosion of Molten-Salt-Facing Structural Components | University of Florida | $692,088 | The objective of this project is to add the capability to model the impact of radiation and stress on corrosion to the Yellowjacket code, as well as to use Yellowjacket to create surrogate models that will be added to engineering-scale codes like Grizzly. We will also collect new experimental data for validation that quantifies the impact of stress and radiation on corrosion of 316 stainless steel in molten fluoride salts. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24405: Development of a High-fidelity Flow Boiling Database for Validation of High-void-fraction Flow Regime Models | University of Michigan | $800,000 | The primary objective of this proposed research is to develop a comprehensive, high-resolution, multiphase computational fluid dynamics validation-grade flow boiling data from rod bundle geometry simulating current light water reactor fuel designs by taking advantage of the instrumentation and facility developed by the research team. In addition, the applicability of the data through initial evaluations of selected test cases using Nek-2P boiling closure models will be studied and demonstrated for two-phase flow simulations. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24471: Technical Basis of Microstructure Criteria and Accelerated Testing for Qualifying Additively-manufactured 316H Stainless Steel for High-temperature Cyclic Service | Auburn University | $800,000 | This project seeks to reveal the fundamental relationship for AM 316H SS working at 500-750 _C between additively-manufactured microstructures and creep/creep-fatigue properties through a multiscale experimental and modeling approach. The project also seeks to establish the technical basis for the microstructure criteria and accelerated testing method to support near-term nuclear qualification. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24152: Direct heating of chemical catalysts for hydrogen and fertilizer production using Microreactors | Kansas State University | $799,202 | This proposal presents a novel integration approach to deliver process heat from microreactors by directly heating the catalyst particles from the primary heat transfer fluid in a moving packed bed heat exchanger (MPBHX). In this design, the tube side of the MPBHX can be a heat pipe or primary Helium coolant as in several microreactor designs. The shell side will be moving catalyst particles, which will enter the high temperature chemical reactor upon heating. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24287: Investigating heat transfer in horizontally oriented HTGR under normal and PCC conditions | Kansas State University | $799,762 | Experimental research will be conducted to understand heat transfer inside the graphite matrix of horizontal microscale High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors. Existing high temperature test facilities will be used to simulate normal operation and Pressurized Conduction Cooldown. The focus of these experiments is to generate benchmark data under forced and natural convection with coupled multi-mode heat transfer in scaled-down prismatic blocks. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24104: Thermal Hydraulics Investigation of Horizontally Orientated Layout Micro HTGRs Under Normal Operation and PCC Conditions Using Integrated Advanced Measurement Techniques | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000 | The proposed novel work will make a significant pioneering contribution to advance the knowledge and understanding of horizontal micro-high temperature gas cooled reactors. Quantification of metrics will pertain to convective heat transfer coefficients along the channel and gaps, comparative rates of convective and radiative heat transfer, location of peak temperature and its temporal variation, timescales for onset of natural convection, local gas velocity profiles, gas dispersion, crossflows, and temperature profiles over channel diameter and gap thickness. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24004: An Open Source, Parallel, and Distributed Web-Based Probabilistic Risk Assessment Platform to Support Real Time Nuclear Power Plant Risk-Informed Operational Decisions | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | The main objective of the proposed work is to develop, demonstrate, and evaluate a probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) software platform needed to address the major challenges of the current legacy PRA tools. This includes better quantification speed, integration of multi-hazard models into traditional PRAs, and model modification/simplification and documentation automation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24228: Quantifying the Dynamic and Static Porosity/Microstructure Characteristics of Irradiated Graphite through Multi-technique Experiments and Mesoscale Modeling | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | This project proposes a joint experimental-computational approach to probe and quantify the porosity and microstructure characteristics of irradiated nuclear graphite grades and their influence on dimensional changes and turnaround behavior, as well as mechanical properties. The chief focus will be on quantifying both the static and dynamic porosity and crack characteristics in various graphitic phases through several experimental techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24247: Multi-scale Effects of Irradiation Damage on Nuclear Graphite Properties | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Irradiation induces microstructural damage in graphite, causing both dimensional and property (stiffness, strength and creep) changes as a function of the displacement damage and temperature. The biggest gap remains is the fundamental deformation mechanisms behind the property changes. Researchers propose to eliminate this gap in knowledge with a comprehensive, multi-scale experimental framework exploiting in-situ transmission electron and X-ray computed tomography. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23975: Development of Thermal Power Dispatch Simulation Tools for BWR Flexible Plant Operation and Generation | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | In the U.S. domestic light water reactor fleet, about one-third of operational nuclear power reactors are boiling water reactors (BWRs). Thermal power extraction technologies to be designed for BWRs will be different from those for pressurized water reactors due to differences in steam generation. This study proposes to investigate the thermal and electric power dispatch and required control algorithms for dynamic heat dispatch of up to 50% of the thermal energy from a BWR plant to a hydrogen plant. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24111: Experimental Investigations of HTGR Fission Product Transport in Separate-effect Test Facilities Under Prototypical Conditions for Depressurization and Water-ingress Accidents | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Experimental investigations will be performed for fission product (FP) lift-off, washoff, vaporization from plateout surfaces, and transport of FP at prototypical conditions representing depressurization and water-ingress accidents. Measurements will be performed on existing separate-effect facilities using intrusive and non-intrusive techniques to obtain shear stress, deposition velocity, thermal gradient, and gas impurity for advanced correlations. Modeling will be performed using system and computational fluid dynamics codes. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24644: High-Resolution Measurements and Advanced Modeling for Design Optimization of Advanced Small Modular Reactor Steam Generators | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Experiments and simulations will be performed to acquire multi-parameters of pressure drop, heat and mass transfer, and flow-induced vibration (FIV) effect for the design optimization of advanced small modular reactor steam generators (SMR SG). Measurements are performed on existing SMR SG facilities using intrusive/non-intrusive techniques to obtain velocity, temperature, pressure, heat flux, and FIV effects for various geo-dimensions, spacing, pitch angles. Simulations will be performed in StarCCM, Nek5000 and coupling with Diablo_ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24332: A Virtual Reality Environment for Human Reliability Assessment in the Context of Physical Security Attacks | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Recent studies have shown that the physical security workforce accounts for 20% of the entire workforce and, therefore, is responsible for significant operational and maintence costs. To reduce the security staffing, improve performance and reduce threats, modeling and simulation and models of attacker, defender and operator behavior could be employed. This proposal aims to model human behavior using a combination of known human reliability analyses models and experimental evidence from virtual reality experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24389: High Temperature Electromagnetic Acoustic (EMAT) Transducers for Structural Health Monitoring | University of Cincinnati | $800,000 | The aim of this project is to produce an electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT) technology to enable ultrasonic structural health monitoring at the METL facility and similar high temperature assets. Ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation methods can be used for monitoring a range of damage mechanisms including thermal fatigue and corrosion. The project will seek to establish core design solutions that can be used as the basis of a range of EMAT designs for different applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24380: Probabilistic Validation and Risk Importance Ranking Methodology for Automation Trustworthiness and Transparency in Nuclear Power Plants | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | This project develops a methodology to improve trustworthiness and transparency of automation technologies in nuclear power plants. The proposed methodology will monitor risk emerging from automation processes and rank the criticality of automation factors influencing automation output, plant equipment, and system performance. The feasibility and practicality of the proposed methodology will be demonstrated with two case studies focusing on implementation of nuclear power plant automation technologies. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24162: Self-powered wireless sensor system for health monitoring of liquid-sodium cooled fast reactors | University of Notre Dame | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to develop self-powered wireless multimodal sensors and instrumentation for health monitoring and diagnosing early-stage materials degradation for high-risk components in liquid-sodium cooled fast reactors. The synergistic and innovative integrations of the multimodal sensor array, wireless communication, and thermoelectric energy harvester have crosscutting benefit for a wide range of advanced reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24102: High temperature Molten salt reactor pump component development and testing | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | This project will provide relevant key information on the tribology of bearing material and components (such as magnets, couplers, ceramic coated wire, and coatings) in high temperature molten salts that will be required in the design of reactor pumps. Investigation of in-service inspection and monitoring of the pump internals will also be addressed in an effort to reduce down time and operation and maintenance costs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24226: Cost Reduction of Advanced Integration Heat Exchanger Technology for Micro-Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,713 | Heat exchanger technology is a high-cost component of a micro-reactor system that is also critical to the overall reliability and performance. This project will develop the underlying advanced heat exchanger technology necessary to integrate a micro-reactor with any end-user application, as well as providing internal heat exchange. Economic optimization of the heat exchanger and experimental demonstration of the technology will be accomplished. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24382: Advanced High-Fluence Low-Flux RPV Mechanical Property Models for Extended Life | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,717 | This project will further develop accurate models of the mechanical property changes under life-extension conditions in reactor pressure vessel (RPV) steels using reduced order Avrami models, cluster dynamics, and atomistic methods combined with massive comprehensive databases on irradiated steels. The work will provide models critical to extending the life of U.S. pressurized water reactors, as well as new fundamental insights into flux and fluence effects and sink and precipitate evolution in reactor pressure vessels and related steels. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| Integrated Marine Platform for Hydrogen and Ammonia Production | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | This study investigates the economic and environmental value of a floating integrated GW-scale green hydrogen/ammonia production facility powered by an advanced nuclear reactor. Floating Production Storage and Offloading units (FPSOs) are deployed worldwide in the oil and gas industry, and can be used for hydrogen and ammonia processing. Deployment of an advanced reactor on a floating platform offers several advantages, including the efficiencies of shipyard fabrication. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Functionally-graded Cermet Coatings for Molten Salt Technologies by High Throughput Finite Element Modeling and Additive Manufacturing | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $500,000 | This project proposes an integrated approach/methodology to design, manufacture and verify functionally-graded metal-ceramic composite coatings on structural alloys with desired interfacial properties, capabilities of mitigating residual stress and improved corrosion resistance for molten salt reactor applications. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| An Innovative Monitoring Technology for the Reactor Vessel of Micro-HTGR | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | This project seeks to develop an innovative sensor technology for real-time monitoring of the thermo-mechanical stresses in the reactor vessel of micro-HTGR. The technology will be based on a sparse network of outer wall temperature measurements and plant operating conditions. An integrated software-hardware sensing system aimed at monitoring the health of the pressure vessel of gas micro-reactors will be implemented and tested. The proposed work will have a broad impact on sensing in other reactor designs. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| High throughput mechanical testing of additively-manufactured materials | University of California, Berkeley | $500,000 | This project proposes fast and high throughput mechanical testing of AM produced materials. It will include the generation of automated tensile testing, hardness testing and microstructure assessment and data comparison to build data via machine learning. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Accelerated irradiation creep testing coupled with self-adaptive accelerated molecular dynamics simulations for scalability analysis | University of Michigan | $500,000 | The goal of the proposed work is to accelerate traditional irradiation creep using instrumented in-situ ion irradiation creep and long-time molecular dynamics simulations to accelerate traditional neutron irradiation creep testing. This goal will be accomplished by coupling a novel ion beam flux jump test using tapered creep specimens and self-adaptive accelerated molecular dynamics. The outcome is a rapid, low-cost accelerated method to determine the fundamental irradiation creep mechanisms. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Creation of a Pebble Database for Material Control and Accountancy in Pebble Bed Reactors | Virginia Commonwealth University | $399,969 | The primary goal of this proposed project is to develop a database of NDA signatures from a wide variety of used PBR pebbles. This database can be used for facility operations, safety, security, and safeguards (3S) to directly measure fission product content and indirectly 235U and plutonium content of each PBR pebble. This project has significant synergy with current 3S PBR research at ANL, BNL, and ORNL, all of whom are collaborators to this proposed project. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Quantifying Aerosol Deposition Mechanisms in Model Dry Cask Storage Systems | Clemson University | $800,000 | The objective of this work is to measure aerosol deposition and resuspension rates in laboratory models of dry cask storage systems to compare with and validate the DOE deposition model. The project team will conduct experiments to directly measure the deposition/resuspension rates of bulk aerosol in the system and to isolate and quantify individual aerosol deposition mechanisms, with a focus on those sensitive to variable humidity and surface temperature. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Using Amide-Functionalized Electrodes to Elucidate Interfacial Actinide Redox Chemistry for Improved HALEU Supply | Florida International University | $400,000 | The goal is to decrease HALEU fuel cycle costs by examination of the redox behavior of U, Np, and Pu at the water-organic interface using amide functionalized electrodes, and in organic media after extraction with amides. Experiments with redox active interferences including additional actinides in different oxidation states will also be conducted. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advancing the technical readiness of FeCrAl alloys and ODS steels under extreme conditions for fast reactor fuel cladding | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | A key technology gap for advanced high-performance fuel applications is the current unavailability of materials that can withstand extremely high doses without significant degradation of cladding performance. The project team will perform in-situ thermo-mechanical experiments (tension, torsion, creep, and creep-fatigue and nanoindentation) on ion-irradiated (to 400 dpa) cladding materials (up to 700 C) along with microstructures using TEM and mesoscale phase field simulations. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| A molten salt community framework for predictive modeling of critical characteristics | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | This research aims to develop a molten salt community framework to address the needs in advanced fuel cycles, including understanding salts via new theory of liquids, predicting salt characteristics via simulations (DFT, MD, and CALPHAD by implementing advanced models), optimizing inversely molten salts, and verifying simulations by experiments. This project has outstanding value for US taxpayers, educates students, and delivers outreach opportunities for academia, industry, and the public. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Understanding the Interfacial Structure of the Molten Chloride Salts by in-situ Electrocapillarity and Resonant Soft X-ray Scattering (RSoXS) | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | The objective of the proposed research is to investigate the interplay between the interfacial structure of the molten salts and their electrochemical corrosion properties in Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Clay Hydration, Drying, and Cracking in Nuclear Waste Repositories | Princeton University | $800,000 | This project will develop a new multiscale model of the thermal-hydrologic-mechanical-chemical (THMC) evolution of an engineered clay barrier in the near field of a nuclear waste repository, including initial hydration and eventual post-closure criticality. This new model will directly link micro-scale material properties to large-scale barrier performance, thus facilitating future design advances or modifications, and enable robust validation of large-scale simulation predictions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Physics-guided Smart Scaling Methodology for Accelerated Fuel Testing | Purdue University | $800,000 | This project proposes to employ novel informatics algorithms for mapping/scaling uncertainties from experimentally accessible scaled state to application/prototypical state, informed by an equivalent mapping obtained from high-fidelity multi-physics simulations for the fuel thermo-mechanical behavior, specifically, a rate theory-based model for thermal conductivity and fission gas behavior in the BISON code, and employing relevant HALDEN reactor and FAST experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Materials Accountancy During Disposal and Waste Processing of Molten Salt Reactor Fuel Salts | Texas A&M University | $399,997 | The objective of this work is to develop and validate a method for measuring and predicting hold-up to eliminate operational risks and expenses during disposal of salt-wetted MSR components. These objectives will be met by applying robust measurement/detection methods to realistic salt loop environments to validate their use in decommissioning MSRs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advanced Screening Approaches for Accelerating Development of Separations Technologies | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | The goal of this project is to establish a unified selection criterion for chelating molecular structures to more efficiently address ligand applicability to metal ion separation problems, for current and future nuclear fuel cycles. By establishing this criterion, the team will seek to enable the accelerated, cost-effective discovery of new separation workflows, as well as their implementation beyond early radiotracer experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advancing NMA of TRISO-fueled pebbles using fast and accurate gamma-ray spectroscopy | University of Colorado, Boulder | $385,307 | This proposal will provide new Nuclear Materials Analysis (NMA) capabilities for TRISO-fueled pebbles using gamma-ray spectroscopy, through a program of simulations of expected signatures from irradiated pebbles, resulting in a detailed measurement plan to monitor burnup and actinide content throughout the fuel cycle. These simulations will be used to develop requirements for NMA sensor technology and identify opportunities for focused technology development to meet these requirements. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Development of Irradiation and Creep Resistant High-Cr Ferritic/Martensitic Steels via Magnetic Field Heat Treatment | University of Kentucky | $800,000 | The objective of this proposed study is to develop and test new generation of Ferritic/Martensitic (F/M) steels specifically designed for advanced reactors that will exceed the current limitations due to temperature and irradiation dose. To achieve this objective, a systematic study is proposed to employ an innovative tempering heat treatment under high external magnetic field (up to 9T) on F/M steel HT9 to engineer an optimized microstructure composed of refined carbides and martensite laths. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Investigation into the processing parameters of phosphate-based dehalogenation for chloride-based waste salt | University of Nevada, Reno | $399,999 | This proposal will focus on several topics needed to advance the iron phosphate process: 1) Dehalogenation/vitrification processes using salt simulants to generate process flow sheets, 2) Reactions of crucible materials with phosphate products and byproducts, 3) Collection of glass property-composition data to develop models based on the glass-forming regions, 4) Development of a process for reacting recovered NH4Cl with metals that need to be fed into the system (U, Li, etc.). | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| A Validated Framework for Seismic Risk Assessment of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of Nevada, Reno | $799,883 | This is a collaborative research program with a primary objective of developing a validated numerical framework for seismic risk analysis of spent fuel storage facilities from the global cask behavior to the localized behavior of internal spent fuel assemblies. In building and validating this framework, advanced data analysis, data assimilation, and forward and inverse modeling techniques will be utilized. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| International Collaboration to Advance the Technical Readiness of High Uranium Density Fuels and Composites for Small Modular Reactors | University of Texas at San Antonio | $800,000 | An international team of high uranium density fuels (HDFs) experts advised by industry leaders in nuclear reactor innovation propose a US-UK collaboration to advance the technical readiness of UN, UB2, and their composites for fuel forms specific to small modular reactors (SMRs). The project will bridge the critical data gaps in HDF performance specific to the impact of common impurities and microstructural variations that originate at fabrication. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Development of Advanced Control Rod Assembly for Improved Accident Tolerance and High Burnup Fuel Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Research will focus on the development of new materials' designs for control rod sheaths and neutron absorbers, coupled with neutronics analysis and thermo-mechanical modeling to improve accident tolerance and to achieve higher fuel burnup in PWRs. Functionality of the proposed designs consisting of Cr coated control rod sheaths of current and advanced alloys as well as novel neutron absorbers will be evaluated in prototypical reactor conditions and accident scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Optical Basicity Determination of Molten Fluoride Salts and its Influence on Structural Material Corrosion | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | The proposed research is aimed at developing ion probes to determine the optical basicity of molten fluoride salts and studying its influence on structural material corrosion. Combining with the molten salt structure study using X-ray absorption spectroscopy, the salt chemical constitution, the resulting optical basicity, and molten salt structure will be inextricably linked and their connections will be unveiled. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Extending the HMF71 Benchmark Series for Graphite Reflector Thickness up to 18 Inches | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $399,522 | The objective of this proposal is to extend the HEU-MET-FAST-071 (HMF-71) experiment benchmark series in ICSBEP by evaluating the historical (existing) experimental data for critical experiments with graphite reflector thickness from 3 inches up to 18 inches. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2022 |
| Fast and Rigorous Methods for Multiphysics SPn Transport in Advanced Reactors | University of Michigan | $600,000 | This project proposes to perform rigorous theoretical and numerical analysis of the Generalized SPn method and underlying cross section models to enable a fast and robust multiphysics low-order transport capability for advanced reactors. This includes 5 major tasks focused on the efficient discretization and solution of the GSPn equations, numerical analysis of XS models having multiphysics and depletion, analysis of equivalence factors, improved MC estimators, and several V&V applications of the methods. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2022 |
| Development of Hydrogen Transport Models for High Temperature Metal Hydride Moderators | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Understanding the transient behavior of metal hydride moderator materials at high temperatures is a key challenge to the design and deployment of future microreactors. This project will use neutron radiography techniques provide the necessary data for this understanding and demonstrate the development of time and temperature dependent hydrogen transport models using both commercial FEA software coupled to MCNP and coupled models developed in the MOOSE framework. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Characterizing fast reactor fuel failure mode through separate effect and prototypic tests | Oregon State University | $800,000 | The project consists of conducting separate effect fuel pin failure tests with surrogate fluid and prototypic test with sodium. The outcome of this study will generate an experimental database that will be used to develop mechanistic model and validate the CDAP module of the SAS4A/SASSYS-1 code. Ultimately the quality data can be used to benchmark other fuel codes developed for LMFR application, which are seeking validation for licensing purpose. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Science-based development of ASTM standard tests for graphite-based fuel pebbles | University of California, Berkeley | $700,000 | This project proposes the development of mechanical test procedures as well as wear and friction tests on Graphite fuel pebbles | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Role of Heterogeneity in Manganese and Nickel Rich Precipitate Distribution on Hardening of Reactor Pressure Vessel Steels: Integrated Modeling and Experimental Characterization | University of Florida | $799,803 | The hypothesis of this work is that the different nucleation and coarsening kinetics of manganese and nickel rich precipitates (MNPs) compared to copper rich precipitates, and the heterogeneous distribution of manganese and nickel rich precipitates on or near dislocations, both lead to unique hardening behavior at high neutron fluence. The objective of this work is to understand hardening in reactor pressure vessel steels caused by MNPs via integrated multiscale modeling and experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Integrated Thermal-Electric Energy Management of All-Electric Ship with Advanced Nuclear Reactors | University of Texas at Dallas | $400,000 | The overall objective of this research is to comprehensively model, design, and evaluate the use of advanced nuclear reactors in future nuclear-powered ships, to enhance the efficiency, reliability, and resilience of shipboard energy distribution systems. The novelty of the proposed approach lies in (i) integrated thermal-electric modeling of advanced nuclear-powered shipboard energy system, and (ii) novel solutions for total-ship energy management to improve energy efficiency and resiliency. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Open Architecture for Nuclear Cost Reduction | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Open architecture has potential to reduce advanced reactor (AR) costs, through exploiting modular design and construction, with common, openly available interfaces between modules. A comprehensive assessment of the challenges and opportunities of open architecture for ARs will be performed. Supported by a pilot study, actionable recommendations for the implementation or otherwise of open architecture for ARs will be developed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Telescopic Control Rod for Significant Reduction in HTR Height and therefore Cost | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | This project proposes a design for a small modular High Temperature Reactor (HTR) control rod that extends telescopically, consisting of ~5 concentric annuli that nest together above the core when withdrawn. This compact component substantially reduces the length of the depth of the silo. Modelling and experimental testing will be performed to develop the control rod to evaluate feasibility, plus perform a cost-benefit analysis, with a view to its inclusion in both pebble bed and prismatic HTR designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Mechanism Driven Evaluations of Sequential and Simultaneous Irradiation-Creep-Fatigue Testing | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | This project addresses a critical need for irradiation and creep-fatigue testing by carrying out a systematic, mechanistic-driven benchmarking for irradiation creep, irradiation fatigue and creep-fatigue tests under various environments. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Mechanisms-based Acceleration of Materials Qualifications for Creep-Fatigue Performance in Advanced Nuclear Systems | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | The goal of this research is to fully understand, quantify and model creep-fatigue 'damage' as a function of loading patterns, temperature and microstructural evolution. Using this experimental information over a large range of relevant stress levels and temperatures, a mechanisms-based creep-fatigue analysis approach will be demonstrated which will properly qualify high temperature alloys for extended service in advanced nuclear systems where creep-fatigue is currently a major design limitation. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Subwavelength Ultrasonic Imaging for Rapid Qualification of Additively Manufactured Nuclear Structures and Components | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to develop a transformational capability for rapid nondestructive quality assessment of actual nuclear additively manufactured structures and components through advanced ultrasonic imaging with subwavelength resolution. The resolution of conventional ultrasonic systems is limited by diffraction on the order of the wavelength. In this project, the goal is to break the diffraction limits of ultrasonic imaging by implementing a negative-index lens. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| MXene as Sorbent Materials for Off-gas Radioiodine Capture and Immobilization | Clemson University | $1,000,000 | The overarching goal of this project is to develop efficient and stable new sorbent materials, for off-gas radioiodine capture and immobilization, that are based on MXenes with two-dimensional transition metal carbides/nitrides. The exploratory research will focus on three main objectives: 1) Design and synthesis of MXenes as radioiodine sorbent and support materials, 2) Quantification of iodine sorption capacity of MXenes in different forms, 3) Synthesis and characterization of consolidated waste forms. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Fundamental understanding of grain boundary cracking in LWR environments | University of California, Los Angeles | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to understand the details of stress corrosion cracking (SCC) and irradiation assisted stress corrosion cracking (IASCC) by targeted experiments and modeling efforts. A comprehensive model will be produced, which will predict the conditions under which these failure modes occur and when the materials may see onsets of the failure mode. This work will directly impact the nuclear industry by refining predictive models of component lifetime. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Facile manufacturing of fiber-reinforced-SiC/SiC composite using aerodynamic fiber deposition (AFD) and metal assisted polymer impregnation and pyrolysis processes (MAPIP) | University of Pittsburgh | $999,886 | SiC/SiC ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) are promising candidate materials for the cladding of accident tolerant fuels. Superior material properties of SiC/SiC CMC, however, come at a high manufacturing cost. The objective of the proposed research is to apply aerodynamic fiber deposition (AFD) and metal assisted polymer impregnation and pyrolysis (MAPIP) to develop a new facile manufacturing approach of SiC/SiC CMC. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| High Concentration Monoamide Separations: Phase Modifiers and Transuranic Chemistry | Colorado School of Mines | $999,900 | Extraction of actinides from used nuclear fuel with high concentrations of monoamide extractants is a promising strategy to intensify separation processes; however key issues remain to be understood and resolved. This project will examine three questions: 1) Can phase modifiers mitigate issues with organic phase viscosity? 2) Can the chemistry of neptunium be controlled to ensure complete separation? 3) Do high concentrations of monoamides affect the oxidation states of important metals and can that be exploited? | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Multiple Uranium Complexes in Chloride Fast Reactor Molten Salt Properties | University of Connecticut | $1,000,000 | Multivalent transition metal ions in a melt can exhibit multiple coordination states that affect molten salt properties. This project will use a new high-energy resolution fluorescence detection (HERFD) spectroscopy to overcome issues associated with measuring coordination numbers of multiple complexes, along with Raman spectroscopy and advanced simulations to accurately predict properties of molten salts with multiple uranium complexes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Validation of Geochemical Reactive Transport Long-Term predictions Using Natural Cements and Ancient Cements Analogues | Vanderbilt University | $950,000 | This project will validate long-term performance predictions of rock/cement interfaces based on characterization of natural analogues, ancient cements and interfaces with rock formations, and demonstrate applicability of the established testing and simulation workflow with argillite rock (representative of potential U.S. repository systems). This project addresses the research gap of long-term validation and uncertainty assessment associated with cement barrier performance and multi-physics models. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Predicting Pitting and Stress Corrosion Cracking of Dry Cask Storage Canisters via High Throughput Testing, Multiscale Characterization, and 3D Computer Vision based Machine Learning | The Ohio State University | $1,000,000 | This project consists of a US-UK collaborative research program focusing on the nucleation and growth of pits and stress corrosion cracking of stainless steel 304 (a canister material used for dry cask storage of spent nuclear fuels) by leveraging multi-scale characterization techniques, 2D/3D computer vision, and machine learning approaches. The study will enable the understanding and prediction of how and when pitting corrosion can nucleate, grow, and transition into stress corrosion cracking. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Multiscale Residual Stress Tailoring of Spent Fuel Canister CISCC Resistance | Purdue University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to understand the role of residual stress in chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) of austenitic steel, then tailor CISCC initiation and propagation through engineered multiscale residual stress distributions. Microscopic and macroscopic residual stresses will be systematically varied, then a novel sequence of advanced, site-specific, correlative characterization techniques will be applied to directly link residual stress, pitting, and crack propagation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Illuminating Emerging Supply Chain and Waste Management Challenges | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | Regional constraints on domestic fuel supply and greater variation in demand from advanced reactors has led to a shift in the U.S. fuel cycle, and modeling tools must reflect this. In this work, Cyclus will be updated to better reflect new and emergent regional supply constraints, spatial and temporal fluctuations in material needs, and those impacts on the back-end of the fuel cycle will be quantified. This work will allow for flexible, reproducible analysis to inform stakeholder decision-making. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Determination of Local Structure and Phase Stability of Uranium Species in Molten Halide Salts: Linking Microscopic Structure with Macroscopic Thermodynamics | Arizona State University | $1,000,000 | The goal of this project is to determine the local structures (valence state, coordination configuration and medium-range structure) and thermodynamic stability of uranium species in molten chloride and fluoride salts at high temperatures using a combination of experimental and modeling methods. The obtained results will allow for revelation of the structure-stability relations of the studied systems and development of acid-base scales to determine the solubility of uranium in molten halide salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Thermal-Hydraulics Assessment of SiC Compared to Other ATF Cladding Materials and its Performance to Mitigate CRUD | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | This project aims to experimentally investigate the thermal-hydraulics performance of SiC compared to the Cr-coated zircaloys and APMT ATF cladding materials under accident scenarios, including both DNB and dryout conditions. The project is divided into five tasks that will advance the understanding of the operation and optimization of heat pipes for advanced nuclear reactors. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Physics-Informed Artificial Intelligence for Non-Destructive Evaluation of Ceramic Composite Cladding by Creating Digital Fingerprints | University of Florida | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to spatially map the material composition, structure, and defect distribution of SiCf-SiCm composite tubes from ultrasonic wavefields measured from the materials and the defects within them. Specifically, this project will delve into the unique ultrasonic fingerprints (i.e., dispersion relations and mode shapes) of the SiCf-SiCm composites using physics-informed machine learning to assess the quality of the manufactured tubes based on their spatial-spectral ultrasonic characteristics. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Understanding Constituent Redistribution, Thermal Transport, and Fission Gas Behavior in U-Zr Annular Fuel Without a Sodium Bond | University of Florida | $999,462 | This project will investigate the reason for changed constituent redistribution in annular U-Zr fuel without a sodium bond and how it changes the fission gas behavior and thermal conductivity. This will be achieved using a combination of microstructure characterization and thermal conductivity measurements of irradiated U-Zr annular fuel and multiscale modeling and simulation using the MARMOT and BISON fuel performance codes. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Getting AnCers: Metallothermic Molten Salt Synthesis and Reaction Thermodynamics of Actinide Ceramic Fuels | Oregon State University | $1,000,000 | Synthesis of high quality actinide ceramics (AnCers) remains a costly challenge. A low-temperature, high-yield, short-duration reaction that directly synthesizes UN and UC could reduce the cost of these advanced fuels greatly. This proposal aims to demonstrate a method by which the costs of AnCers can be greatly reduced - metallothermic molten salt synthesis. Optimization and thermodynamics data will be obtained. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Integrated Stand-off Optical Sensors for Molten Salt Reactor Monitoring | University of Pittsburgh | $1,000,000 | This project intends to develop robust and stand-off optical sensors to perform real-time molten salt levels, flow, and impurity measurements of molten salts. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Cybersecurity in advanced reactor fleet by cyber-informed design, real-time anomaly detection, dynamic monitoring, and cost-effective mitigation strategies | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The goal of this research is to provide technical solutions to unique cybersecurity challenges in future microreactor fleet through cyber-informed design (C-ID), real-time anomaly detection, dynamic monitoring, and cost-effective mitigation strategies. The efforts will significantly improve the economics and effectiveness of cybersecurity risk management in future microreactor fleets. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Building Cyber-Resilient Architecture for Advanced Reactors via Integrated Operations and Network Digital Twin | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | The research will develop a secure-by-design architecture via integrating plant operation and network digital twins for advanced reactors. Automatic attack path and vulnerability analysis will be developed and used to assess and harden critical digital assets (CDA) against cyber risks prior to and during operation to identify vulnerabilities, attack pathways, and threat vectors. A CDA selection method will also be developed by combining vulnerability scores and assets importance. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Extending PRA and HRA legacy methods and tools with a cause-based model for comprehensive treatment of human error dependency | University of California, Los Angeles | $1,000,000 | This project aims at developing a solution to HRA dependency assessment in PRA from methodological and practical/computational perspectives within legacy PRA tools and methods. The solutions will include procedures for quantifying dependency when using PRA legacy tools, a method for modeling and quantifying dependency in HRA comprising a BN-causal model suitable for use with legacy PRA methods and tools, and the computational tools for its integration. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| An Integrated Elemental and Isotopic Detector for Real-Time Molten Salt Monitoring | North Carolina State University | $1,000,000 | The overarching theme of the proposed research is to develop and demonstrate a real-time elemental and isotopic detector of molten salts for advanced reactors and fuel fabrication and recycling processes. The detector's longevity, limits, and latency will be tested in static uranium chloride salts, in pyroprocessing chloride salt, and on flowing fluoride salt with evolving actinide composition, respectively. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Development of a Thin-Layer Electrochemical Sensor for Molten Salt Reactors and Fuel Cycle Processes | Brigham Young University | $811,755 | A thin-layer electrochemical sensor capable of detecting uranium, plutonium and other species of interest in molten salts, at both high and low concentrations, will be developed for application in molten salt reactors and fuel cycle process units. This will provide a valuable tool for performing material control and accountancy measurements. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Risk-Informed Consequence-Driven Hybrid Cyber-Physical Protection System Security Optimization for Advanced Reactor Sites | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | This project aims to develop an expanded methodology for designing a novel cybersecurity-integrated physical protection system (PPS) framework for advanced reactor concepts that serves to reduce the operational costs for the life of a reactor against that of a traditional light water reactor PPS design, promoting efforts to credit safety features of advanced reactors through proposed amendments to current security regulations, while integrating health and economic consequence analyses. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| A risk analysis framework for evaluating the safety, reliability, and economic implications of electrolysis for hydrogen production at NPPs | University of Maryland, College Park | $1,000,000 | The RAFELHyP project will develop a modular risk analysis framework that enables evaluating the safety, reliability, and economic implications of upcoming deployments of electrolyzers to produce hydrogen at nuclear power plants. The framework will be implemented to conduct an integrated safety, reliability, and economic analysis of multiple plant configurations to provide detailed recommendations for plant protective features and layouts. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Reduced Order Modeling of Heat and Fluid Flow: Multi-Scale Modeling of Advanced Reactors to Enable Faster Deployment | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | Novel multi-scale algorithms for thermal-hydraulics (TH) simulations of advanced reactors will be developed. The methods will leverage recent advances in hardware and reduced order modeling approaches to enable TH simulations of vastly accelerated speed, while maintaining accuracy comparable to high-fidelity methods, such as large-eddy simulation. The methods will allow designers to perform parameter sweeps, develop closures, and enable high fidelity simulation of transients. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Embedded Monte Carlo | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Monte Carlo methods have long been considered the standard in terms of accuracy and have seen increased use in design of small nuclear systems; however, the uncertainty quantification (UQ) of the desired output is often relegated to later stages of the design process. This project seeks to embed nuclear data UQ in a single Monte Carlo simulation, such that each desired quantity will not only provide the mean value and statistical uncertainty, but also the related nuclear data uncertainty. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| A Low Order Transport Method Based on the Dynamic Truncation of the Integral Transport Matrix Method (ITMM) that Converges to the SN Solution with Increasing Cell Optical Thickness | North Carolina State University | $1,000,000 | A novel low-order transport operator capable of approximating Monte Carlo (MC) results within a variance range will be developed. This does not require MC reference solutions to calibrate the low-order model, so repeated solutions of the latter in-transient scenarios does not require repeated MC simulations. Truncation of the low-order operator is done dynamically for evolving configurations to ensure accuracy of the low-order solution. This will involve proof of principle on Cartesian meshes, then implementation in Griffin. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| CFD based Critical Heat Flux predictions for enhanced DNBR margin | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | This project seeks to demonstrate a robust high-fidelity CFD-based methodology to predict CHF behavior at varying quality conditions, enabling the development of advanced DNBR correlations with reduced uncertainty, and in support of upgraded plant economics. The availability of a virtual CHF methodology will allow greatly extending the database for DNBR correlations development and further support advancement in the design of high-performing nuclear fuel. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Immersed Boundary Methods for Modeling of Complex Geometry: A Leap Forward in Multiscale Modeling using NekRS | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | A major challenge to Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling of complex geometries is the need to generate body-fitted meshes, which can occupy 80% of the CFD practitioner's time. Immersed boundary methods will be added in the NekRS CFD code, dramatically simplifying modeling of complex 3-D structures and facilitating a new paradigm for CFD-informed multiscale analysis. This will be demonstrated by informing SAM transient systems-level models with NekRS heat exchanger correlations for advanced reactors. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Uncertainty Quantification of Model Extrapolation in Neural Network-informed Turbulent Closures for Plenum Mixing in HTGRs | Utah State University | $1,000,000 | This project will quantify the uncertainty in prediction of Neural Network-informed Turbulent Closures when they are operating in a model extrapolation state. Once the method is developed for canonical buoyant jets, the protocols will be applied to plenum mixing in HTGRs. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Impact of moisture on corrosion of NiCr alloys in MgCl2-NaCl Salt Systems | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $999,983 | This project aims to gain a fundamental understanding of the impact of moisture and salt chemistry on corrosion of NiCr alloys in molten chloride salts. A novel approach coupling multiscale simulations and experiments will be designed to determine salt acidity, its dependence on salt composition (i.e., the NaCl to MgCl2 ratio), and its effects on the transport of H2O and Cr ions and the corrosion kinetics of NiCr alloys in chloride salt. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Transforming Microreactor Economics Through Hydride Moderator Enabled Neutron Economy | State University of New York, Stony Brook | $1,000,000 | Microreactors will potentially require the cost of electricity to be 10 MWD/kg at >3 kW/kg core specific power. These goals are best achieved through a well-thermalized spectrum. Neutron economy as a core material selection criterion to advance entrained hydride composite moderators will be used with the primary goal of significantly reducing fuel costs through novel microreactor designs. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Integrating Nuclear with ZLD Seawater Desalination and Mining | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | An integrated nuclear system will be developed that would utilize electricity and waste heat to operate a desalination and mining process from adjacent seawater. The desalination approach targets zero-liquid discharge with multiple marketable minerals extracted. The ability of nuclear facilities to load follow is increasingly important, so a cold thermal storage system will be incorporated. The desalination and mineral extraction process will be experimentally validated at lab scale. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Reference Designs of Green Ammonia Plants Powered by Small Modular Reactors | Utah State University | $1,000,000 | The overarching goal of this project is to develop two reference designs for green ammonia plants. One design uses freshwater as the source for hydrogen, while the other design uses seawater (or brackish water) as the source. In both designs, a small modular reactor (SMR) is used as the primary energy source providing both electricity and steam for the plants. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Development of the Technical Bases to Support Flexible Siting of Microreactors based on Right-Sized Emergency Planning Zones | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to provide the technical basis to support the application of a right-sized Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ) size to support the deployment of a microreactor at the Penn State University Park campus. This research study will serve as a template to provide flexible siting in support of future microreactor deployments that may be placed closer to demand centers, thereby making them more economically competitive. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Bayesian Optimization for Automatic Reactor Design Optimization | Arizona State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to develop analytical tools based on Gaussian process modeling and Bayesian Optimization that facilitate reactor design optimization by modeling the responses from the physics simulator. Existing capabilities will be applied in an AI field and they will be adapted to address the key characteristics of nuclear reactor design problem. This project will automate the simulation-based design procedure, reduce the number of iterations, and minimize the design cycle time. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Engaging New Mexican communities in developing an equitable and just approach to siting advanced reactor facilities | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | This project will engage diverse New Mexican communities to develop an equitable approach for advanced reactor siting. The findings of this project will shed light on how technology developers and the DOE can explore and potentially site advanced reactors with the informed consent and engagement of host communities, regions, and states. The findings of this study will also more generally apply to the potential for equitably exploring both brownfield and greenfield sites for nuclear facilities. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Deciphering Irradiation Effects of YHx through In-situ Evaluation and Micromechanics for Microreactor Applications | University of New Mexico | $998,000 | This project addresses a critical gap in accelerated testing of YH evolution coupling multi-length scale mechanical testing with ion irradiation and advanced characterization to establish a baseline understanding of YH evolution under ion irradiation. Our approach will couple ion irradiation and gamma irradiation with small scale mechanical testing to decipher multi-scale impacts on phase stability to advance understanding of YH in a microreactor moderator application. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Active Learning Estimation and Optimization (ALEO) of Irradiation Experimental Design for Efficient Accelerated Fuel Qualification | University of Texas at San Antonio | $997,247 | This collaborative project creates novel AI/ML models and algorithms integrated with physical knowledge and expertise to explore more efficient ways to calculate irradiation temperatures and fuel specimen burnups for new fuel sample configurations of MiniFuel experiments proposed for irradiation in the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Unraveling how mixing vane spacers affect cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena in light water reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $500,000 | Experiments will be conducted to quantify the effect of mixing vane spacers on cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena, namely single-phase forced convection, nucleate boiling, and CHF. The results of the experimental research will allow elucidating the physical phenomena triggered by the presence of mixing vane spacers. They will also allow assessing the performance of M-CFD tools developed within CASL and in use by the nuclear community. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Quantum Computing Algorithms for Deterministic Neutron Transport | University of Michigan | $500,000 | This project will develop algorithms for solving the k-eigenvalue form of the neutron transport equation in a nuclear reactor physics context on a quantum computer. The asymptotic scaling of the algorithms will be analyzed. Investigation into implementation will be made by making resource estimates by synthesizing explicit circuits for the algorithms and be studied by emulation on a classical computer. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Optimizing Application-Dependent Energy Group Structures for Multigroup Neutron Transport Models using Machine Learning | Colorado School of Mines | $500,000 | Machine Learning methods will be developed that will dramatically reduce both the computational run-time and manual effort needed to find multigroup energy structures that accurately capture the underlying physics of neutron reactions, while allowing multigroup simulations to run quickly without overwhelming available memory. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Understanding PM-HIP Interparticle Evolution and its Influence on Fracture Toughness in Alumina-Forming Steels | Purdue University | $1,100,000 | This project aims to understand how interparticle evolution during hot isostatic pressing (HIP) influences fracture toughness of Al-bearing steels. The team will use a series of interrupted HIP experiments with phase field models to understand the formation mechanisms of interparticle defects during HIP of alumina-forming austenitic (AFA) stainless steels and FeCrAl steels, and the influence of these defects on fracture behavior. | Document | Advanced Manufacturing Technologies | FY2024 |
| Multiscale high-throughput experiment/modeling approach to understanding creep behavior in Additively Manufactured reactor steels | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $1,043,271 | This project proposes to develop a predictive capability for processing-microstructure-property correlations in additive manufactured microstructures utilizing a multiscale approach encompassing bulk creep tests, miniaturized tensile testing, and a high-throughput, indentation based, cost-effective method for elevated temperature mechanical mapping of additively manufactured 316H Stainless Steel, Grade 91, and Titanium-Zirconium-Molybdenum (TZM) alloys. | Document | Advanced Manufacturing Technologies | FY2024 |
| Assessing molten salt corrosion resistance of stainless steel 316H in nuclear reactor environments | North Carolina State University | $1,100,000 | The proposed goal is to leverage a blend of innovative molten salt corrosion experiments and cutting-edge characterization techniques to advance our understanding of molten salt corrosion in both commercial and additively manufactured (AM) stainless steel (SS) 316H, particularly under radiation or stress environments. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Polymer-Derived C-SiC Coatings on Kernel Particles for Advanced Nuclear Reactors | University of Alabama at Birmingham | $1,100,000 | This program is to use a polymer-derived ceramic approach to develop C-SiC/ZrC coatings on ZrO2 kernel substitute particles. We aim to create new fuel encapsulation materials in replacement of the coatings on fuel kernel particles, including the TRISO layers, for advanced reactors, conduct ion irradiation testing of the new materials for nuclear performance evaluation, and carry out detailed microstructure and composition characterization to assess the C-SiC/ZrC coated fuel particle behaviors. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Sorbent regeneration, recycling, and transformation: A transformative approach to iodine capture and immobilization | University of Nevada, Reno | $1,000,000 | The project will focus on the development of materials and processes for regeneration and recycling of sorbents, and the transformation of iodine-loaded sorbents into waste forms. A combination of computational and experimental studies will be conducted to understand (a) how the components in a primary off-gas stream interact with the sorbent, (b) how this off-gas stream affects the regeneration lifetime, and (c) low-temperature binders and processing paths that leads to durable waste forms. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Accident Tolerant Fuels to Support Power Uprates in LWRs | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,100,000 | This project will demonstrate that power uprates higher than the current state of operation can be reached using accident tolerant fuels in light water reactors while not exceeding reactor safety margins during normal operation and accidents. We will analyze it considering fuel enriched up to 10% and peak rod average burnup up to 75GWd/tU concerning reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, reactor safety, and economics. Considerations will be made in consultation with the named industry advisory board. | Document | Existing Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Comparative study of three-dimensional microstructural imaging and thermal conductivity evolution of irradiated solid and annular U-Zr fuels | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Uranium-zirconium (U-Zr) annular metallic fuel holds the promise to simultaneously increase sodium fast reactor (SFR) core uranium loading and reduce peak cladding temperatures, thus greatly improving fuel performance. However, key convolved fuel degradation mechanisms during irradiation at temperature threaten to hold back its real-world applicability, requiring more detailed understanding to both predict U-Zr fuel performance and suggest improvements. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Mechanistic study and modeling of fission gas release in UO2 and doped UO2 | Oregon State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to enhance the safety and performance of light water reactors and other advanced reactor designs by gaining a fundamental understanding of fast gas reactor mechanisms and developing mechanistic models for UO2 and doped UO2 fuels under HBU and transient conditions. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Anisotropic Thermal Properties of SiC-SiC Cladding: Method Development & Characterization | University of Pittsburgh | $1,000,000 | We propose to develop a high-temperature nondestructive thermal conductivity (k) measurement system coupled with validated multiscale models to accurately determine the anisotropic thermal conductivity of SiC-SiC composite cladding tubes. The multiscale measurement and modeling results benefit both DOE ATF programs as well as providing a fundamental understanding of how the microstructure of the composite leads to its anisotropic properties. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Understanding the Performance of SiC-SiCf Composite Cladding Architectures with Cr Coating in Normal Operating and Accident Conditions in LWRs and Advanced Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The project will focus on investigating the impact of Cr-coating on the SiC-SiCf composite cladding of various architectures under normal operating and accident conditions in light water reactors and advanced reactors for the safe and economic deployment of SiC cladding. Cr-coating will provide protection from high-temperature corrosion and better hermeticity under accident conditions. The performance of the claddings will be evaluated through the corrosion test, reflood test, burst test, and non-destructive evaluation(NDE). | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Developing critical insights on the effects of Mo on _' precipitation and dislocation loop formation in FeCrAl alloys | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | This project aims at developing a mechanistic understanding on the effects of Mo on _' precipitation and dislocation loop formation in FeCrAl alloys in thermal and irradiation conditions and turns it into a set of design principles guiding further optimization, by integrating atomistic simulations, CALPHAD modeling, thermal aging, proton irradiation, and advanced characterization. The material discoveries will be generalized to other solutes other than Mo. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Inference of flow conditions from in-core detector measurements for accelerating SMR licensing | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Reactor modelling relies on the detailed description of reactor systems but often lacks the true as-built characteristics of a system. This proposal seeks to fill these geometrical data gaps using available detector data, predictive models and machine learning in order to provide better information to analysis tools and thus better prediction of future performance. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Non-Destructive Plutonium Assay in Pyroprocessing Bulk Materials with a 3D Boron-Coated-Straw Detector Array | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,100,000 | The objective of the proposed project is to develop and demonstrate a 3D boron-coated-straw detector array (3D-BCSDA) with high efficiency and spatial resolution. This detection system will be specifically designed to accurately assess the fissile mass in bulk nuclear material during pyroprocessing operations, thereby improving the precision and reliability of accountability measurements during separation. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Improving the computational efficiency and usability of dynamic PRA with reinforcement learning | University of Maryland, College Park | $1,064,400 | The overall objective of the proposed research is to improve the efficiency and usability of dynamic probabilistic risk assessment (PRA). Specifically, the first objective is to develop a new algorithm for dynamic PRA analysis that can significantly increase the computational efficiency. The second objective is to develop a question-answering system to streamline the process of risk-informed decision-making based on results obtained from the dynamic PRA analysis using the new algorithm. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Development of a Benchmark Model for the Near Real-Time Radionuclide Composition Measurement System using Microcalorimetry for Advanced Reactors | Virginia Commonwealth University | $1,100,000 | The primary goal of this proposed project is to develop high fidelity Monte Carlo radiation transport models of a microcalorimetry detector informed by fuel depletion models of a molten salt reactor and a pebble bed reactor to quantify the current and future capabilities of this detector technology to characterize and assay used fuel from these reactors in near real-time. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Development and Validation of a Dual-Purpose Instrument for On-line Monitoring of Molten Salt Composition and Thermal Behavior | Brigham Young University | $1,099,924 | We propose the development of an online monitoring instrument capable of quantifying heat transfer and salt composition for molten salt reactors (MSR). A dual electrochemistry/thermal conductivity probe (DETP) will be developed to measure the thermal properties and impurities within the salt simultaneously. The DETP will make use of a previously developed needle probe and electrodes for square-wave cyclic voltammetry measures of salt composition. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| In Situ Assessment of Molten Salt Transport into Nuclear Graphite Microstructures using Ultrasonic Sensors | Johns Hopkins University | $909,827 | This project focuses on the transport of molten salt into nuclear graphite along with the investigation of ultrasonic methods for sensing graphite material property changes, especially elastic modulus, associated with intrusion of molten salt into the graphite microstructure. Experimental studies coupled with physics-based simulations will be used to assess strategies for in situ sensing of salt intrusion in the reactor environment to enhance long-term viability of molten salt reactors. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| MONITORING CERAMIC FUEL FRACTURE VIA FIBER OPTIC ACOUSTIC EMISSION SENSORS | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $1,000,000 | In the proposed three-year program, the Center for Photonics Technology (CPT) at Virginia Tech will collaborate with Sentek Instrument (Sentek), Prysmian, and Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to develop and demonstrate a distributed acoustic emission (AE) sensing system for in-situ monitoring of ceramic fuel fracture. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| Concurrent Surrogate Model Development with Uncertainty Quantification in the MOOSE Framework Using Physics-Informed Gaussian-Process Machine Learning | University of Florida | $999,999 | The objective of this project is to develop a general capability for concurrent generation and use of physics-informed Gaussian process (GP)-based surrogate models to facilitate multiscale and multiphysics modeling. We will implement this new capability as part of the Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) so that every application based on the MOOSE framework will have access to it. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2024 |
| Unstructured Adaptive Mesh Algorithms for Monte Carlo Transport | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,098,000 | We propose to develop the fundamental methods and techniques for unstructured adaptive mesh refinement with Monte Carlo tallies. This work enables a transformative leap forward in speed, accuracy, and robustness to enhance the contribution of high-fidelity radiation transport to advanced simulation. Adaptive refinement is deployed on a challenging multiphysics simulation, cascading heat pipe failure, to study acceleration and stabilization properties. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2024 |
| Feasibility Study of Micro-Nuclear Reactor Thermal Output for Air Rotary Kilns in the High-Temperature Manufacturing of Portland Cement Clinker | Pennsylvania State University | $998,793 | This project aims to design and test a micro-nuclear reactor for high-temperature portland cement clinker production, a process responsible for 6%-8% of global CO2 emissions. Leveraging advanced reactors' heat output, the project explores TRISO-based nuclear microreactor core modifications and new working fluids for heat pipes. The research addresses uncertainties in micro-nuclear reactor deployment for clinker production and investigates high-efficiency heat exchanger designs. | Document | Non-Traditional and Non-electric Applications | FY2024 |
| Redox potential, ionic speciation, and separation and recovery challenges from molten salts containing actinides and fission products | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $999,999 | Establishing an efficient, safe, secure, and economical Molten-Salt Reactor (MSR) fuel cycle is imperative for MSR implementation. Molten salt fuel recycling technology requires predictive knowledge of the chemical and physical behavior of lanthanide and actinide ions with different oxidation states dissolved in solvent salts. A combination of off-gas and X-ray measurements with machine-learning simulations will be used to produce predictive modeling of separation and recovery conditions. | Document | Nuclear Fuel Recycle Technologies | FY2024 |
| Pre-Treatment and Bulk Separation of Used Fuels with Carbonate-Peroxide Solutions | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | To use carbonate-peroxide chemistries to develop a pre-processing method for used uranium-based fuels that enables the subsequent use and optimization of current solvent extraction reprocessing schemes. Using simple precipitation, this innovative method provides an initial, bulk separation of uranium from fission products and actinides. | Document | Nuclear Fuel Recycle Technologies | FY2024 |
| Optimization of Fueling Strategies and Material Surveillance through Real-time Pebble Tracking in Pebble Bed Reactors | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,100,000 | Flexible operation of the energy grid of the future introduces uncertainty in determining the optimal operating conditions of Pebble Bed Reactors. The proposed work will help to address these challenges and enable more economical operation by providing the tools to determine of optimal fuel reloading strategy through pebble identification and tracking. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Experimental Study and Computational Modeling of P-LOFC and D-LOFC Accidents in the Fast Modular Reactor Consisting of Silicon Carbide Composite Rods | University of Michigan | $1,100,000 | The primary objectives of this proposed research are to better understand NC flow phenomena and heat transfer under both D-LOFC and P-LOFC accidents in the FMR, produce experimental data in a well-scaled integral-effects test facility for the two accidents, and develop and validate predictive CFD models for NC flow phenomena in both accidents. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Sodium heat pipes; design and failure mode assessment for micro-reactor applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The present proposal aims to experimentally investigate the thermal-hydraulics performance of liquid sodium heat pipes applied to microreactors, with a focus on exploring different design parameters, effects of different parameters on operating performance and understanding the evolution and impact of different failure modes. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Interfacial Interactions between Graphite and Molten Fluoride Fuel Salt | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $1,000,000 | NaF-KF-UF4 fuel salt will be selected to study graphite-salt interactions and impact of the existence of fission products (FPs) and corrosion products on the interactions at different temperatures and pressures. Fundamental mechanisms of graphite-salt interaction and degradation will be understood. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Local resonance-based linear and nonlinear NDE techniques for repaired DSC wall structures | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | The proposed work plan will develop nondestructive examination (NDE) methods that develop and evaluate linear and nonlinear resonant ultrasound spectroscopy methods (such as NRUS, NIRAS, etc.) to cold spray (CS) repaired dry shielded canister (DSC) wall structures. With the support of our partners from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), we will perform technology development and validation on plain and cold spray-repaired DSC wall specimens. | Document | Spent Fuel, Waste Science & Technology and Integrated Waste Management System | FY2024 |
| Thermodynamic Models for Multivalent Actinide Solubility and Speciation as a Function of Temperature and Ionic Strength | University of Notre Dame | $1,000,000 | This proposed project will quantify the solubility and speciation of Np and Pu under temperatures, ionic strengths, and pH values that are relevant to the generic repository concept. The major deliverable will be full thermodynamic descriptions of the studied systems, which will lead to improved radionuclide transport models and support the development of a sound technical basis for the geologic disposal of spent nuclear fuel and other actinide-bearing wastes. | Document | Spent Fuel, Waste Science & Technology and Integrated Waste Management System | FY2024 |
| Advancing Fundamental Molten Salt Modeling using Ultrafast Spectroscopy | North Carolina State University | $600,000 | The overarching goal of the proposed research is to advance our fundamental understanding of molten salts by combining ultrafast spectroscopic experiments with high fidelity atomistic simulations. The proposed research will introduce a new experimental technique to the study of molten salts that will directly measure ion kinetics, specifically, terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS), which will further validate AIMD as a predictive modeling tool. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
| Hydrodynamics of Two-Phase Flow Under the Geometric Effects of Pipe Orientation and U-bends | Purdue University | $600,000 | Most two-phase flow analyses have been performed in straight vertical-upward pipes. However, nuclear reactor systems include piping with different geometric components, such as elbows or U-bends, as well as changes in flow orientations. The proposed work performs experiments in a scaled test facility existing at the institution's lab to investigate the effects of flow orientations and geometries relevant to nuclear reactor systems on the hydrodynamics of two-phase flow. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
| Interface-Resolved Experimental and Numerical Studies of Two-Phase Flow for Nuclear Engineering Applications | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $500,000 | The project aims at advancing the interface-resolved simulation capabilities for the two-phase flows found in various nuclear engineering applications. We will develop a comprehensive, high-resolution, interface-resolved database emphasizing bubble dynamics and bubble interaction mechanisms. The data will be used to validate the sub-grid models implemented in an interface-resolved simulation tool to improve simulation accuracy by developing physics-based coalescence models. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
FY 2022 Research and Development Awards
DOE is awarding more than $24.3 million through NEUP to support thirty-eight university-led nuclear energy research and development projects in twenty-one states. NEUP seeks to maintain U.S. leadership in nuclear research across the country by providing top science and engineering faculty and their students with opportunities to develop innovative technologies and solutions for civil nuclear capabilities.
A complete list of R&D projects with their associated abstracts is available below.
| Title | Institution | Estimated Funding* | Project Description | Abstract | Project Type | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fundamental Understanding of Ambient and High-Temperature Plasticity Phenomena in Structural Materials in Advanced Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Elastic/Inelastic Nuclear Data Development Project | Idaho State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Heterogeneous Recycling in Fast Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Thermodynamic Development of Corrosion Rate Modeling in Iron Phosphate Glasses | Missouri University of Science and Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Subspace-Based Hybrid Monte Carlo-Deterministic Algorithms for Reactor Physics Calculations | North Carolina State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Improvements to Nuclear Data and Its Uncertainties by Theoretical Modeling | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Sharp Interface Tracking in Rotating Microflows of Solvent Extraction | State University of New York at Stony Brook | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Bulk Nanostructured FCC Steels with Enhanced Radiation Tolerance | Texas A&M University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Fuel Performance Experiments and Modeling: Fission Gas Bubble Nucleation and Growth in Alloy Nuclear Fuels | Texas A&M University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| SiC Schottky Diode Detectors for Measurement of Actinide Concentrations from Alpha Activities in Molten Salt Electrolyte | The Ohio State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Computational Design of Advanced Nuclear Fuels | University of California, Davis | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Data Collection Methods For Validation of Advanced Multi-Resolution Fast Reactor Simulations | University of Idaho | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Simulations of the Thermodynamic and Diffusion Properties of Actinide Oxide Fuel Materials | University of Michigan | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Adsorptive Separation and Sequestration of Krypton, I and C14 on Diamond Nanoparticles | University of Missouri, Columbia | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Alternative Technetium Waste Forms | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Quantification of UV-Visible and Laser Spectroscopic Techniques for Materials Accountability and Process Control | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| High-Fidelity Space-Time Adaptive Multiphysics Simulations in Nuclear Engineering | University of Nevada, Reno | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Simulations of Failure via Three-Dimensional Cracking in Fuel Cladding for Advanced Nuclear Fuels | University of Texas, Dallas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Mesh-Enabled Monte Carlo Capability for Multi-Physics Reactor Analysis | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Ab Initio Enhanced Calphad Modeling of Actinide Rich Nuclear Fuels | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Diffusion Barrier Coatings and Deposition Technologies for Mitigating Fuel Cladding Chemical Interactions (FCCI) | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Thermal Properties of LiCl-KCl Molten Salt for Nuclear Waste Separation | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Neutron Damage and MAX Phase Ternary Compounds | Drexel University | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Atomistic Calculations of the Effect of Minor Actinides on Thermodynamic and Kinetic Properties of UO2+x | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Maximum Fuel Utilization in Fast Reactors without Chemical Reprocessing | University of California, Berkeley | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Developing a High Thermal Conductivity Fuel with Silicon Carbide Additives | University of Florida | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Fabrication of Tungsten-Rhenium Cladding Materials via Spark Plasma Sintering for Ultra High Temperature Reactor Applications | University of Idaho | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Ionic Liquid and Supercritical Fluid Hyphenated Techniques for Dissolution and Separation of Lanthanides, Actinides, and Fission Products | University of Idaho | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Improved Fission Neutron Data Base for Active Interrogation of Actinides | University of Michigan | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Utilization of Methacrylates and Polymer Matrices for the Synthesis of Ion Specific Resins | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Improved LWR Cladding Performance by EPD Surface Modification Technique | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Models of LWR Pressure Vessel Embrittlement for Low Flux-High Fluence Conditions | University of California, Santa Barbara | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) | FY2009 | ||
| Irradiation Creep in Graphite | Boise State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Modeling the Stress Strain Relationships and Predicting Failure Probabilities For Graphite Core Components | Cleveland State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| TRISO-Coated Fuel Durability Under Extreme Conditions | Colorado School of Mines | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| An Innovative and Advanced Coupled Neutron Transport and Thermal Hydraulic Method (Tool) for the Design, Analysis and Optimization of VHTR/NGNP Prismatic Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Removal of 14C from Irradiated Graphite for Graphite Recycle and Waste Volume Reduction | Idaho State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Millimeter-Wave Thermal Analysis Development and Application to Gen IV Reactor Materials | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Accurate Development of Thermal Neutron Scattering Cross Section Libraries | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Understanding Creep Mechanisms in Graphite with Experiments, Multiscale Simulations, and Modeling | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Verification & Validation of High-Order Short-Characteristics-Based Deterministic Transport Methodology on Unstructured Grids | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Microscale Heat Conduction Models and Doppler Feedback | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Optimizing Neutron Thermal Scattering Effects in Very High Temperature Reactors | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Multiaxial Creep-Fatigue and CreepRatcheting Failures of Grade 91 and Haynes 230 Alloys Toward Addressing Design Issues of Gen IV Nuclear Power Plants | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Investigation of Countercurrent Helium-air Flows in Air-ingress Accidents for VHTRs | Ohio State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Testing of Performance of Optical Fibers Under Irradiation in Intense Radiation Fields, When Subjected to Very High Temperatures | Ohio State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| A Distributed Fiber Optic Sensor Network for Online 3-D Temperature and Neutron Fluence Mapping in a VHTR Environment | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Investigation on the Core Bypass Flow in a Very High Temperature Reactor | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| CFD Model Development and Validation for High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor Cavity Cooling System (RCCS) Applications | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Study of Air ingress across the duct during the accident conditions | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Verification of the CENTRM Module for Adaptation of the SCALE Code to NGNP Prismatic and PBR Core Designs | University of Arizona | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Integral and Separate Effects Tests for Thermal Hydraulics Code Validation for Liquid-Salt Cooled Nuclear Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Mechanisms Governing the Creep Behavior of High Temperature Alloys for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems | University of Cincinnati | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| ALD Produced B2O3, Al2O3 and TiO2 Coatings on Gd2O3 Burnable Poison Nanoparticles | University of Colorado, Boulder | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Experimental Study and Computational Simulations of Key Pebble Bed Thermomechanics Issues for Design and Safety | University of Idaho | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Prediction and Monitoring Systems of Creep-Fracture Behavior of 9Cr-1Mo Steels for Reactor Pressure Vessels | University of Idaho | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Understanding Fundamental Material Degradation Processes in High Temperature Aggressive Chemomechanical Environments | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Multi-Scale Multi-physics Methods Development for the Calculation of Hot-Spots in the NGNP | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Corrosion and Creep of Candidate Alloys in High Temperature Helium and Steam Environments for the NGNP | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Creation of a Full-Core HTR Benchmark with the Fort St. Vrain Initial Core and Validation of the DHF Method with Helios for NGNP Configurations | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Fission Product Sorptivity in Graphite | University of Missouri, Columbia | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Identifying and Understanding Environment-Induced Crack Propagation Behavior in Ni-Based Superalloy INCONEL 617 | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Graphite Oxidation Simulation in HTR Accident Conditions | University of New Mexico | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Non Destructive Thermal Analysis and In Situ Investigation of Creep Mechanism of Graphite and Ceramic Composites using Phase-sensitive THz Imaging & Nonlinear Resonant Ultrasonic Spectroscopy | University of Rochester | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Tritium Sequestration in Gen IV NGNP Gas Stream via Proton Conducting Ceramic Pumps | University of South Carolina | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Materials, Turbomachinery and Heat Exchangers for Supercritical CO2 Systems | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Experimental Studies of NGNP Reactor Cavity Cooling System with Water | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Assessment of Embrittlement of VHTR Structural Alloys in Impure Helium Environments | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Modeling Fission Product Sorption in Graphite Structures | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Liquid Salt Heat Exchanger Technology for VHTR Based Applications | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Effect of Post-Weld Heat Treatment on Creep Rupture Properties of Grade 91 Steel Heavy Section Welds | Utah State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Alpha Radiolysis of Nuclear Solvent Extraction Ligands used for An(III) and Ln(III) Separations | California State University, Long Beach | $1,390,252 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Predictive Maturity of Multi-Scale Simulation Models for Fuel Performance | Clemson University | $614,690 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Freeze-casting as a Novel Manufacturing Process for Fast Reactor Fuels | Drexel University | $1,149,327 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Fuel Performance Experiments on the Atomistic Level, Studying Fuel Through Engineered Single Crystal UO2 | Idaho State University | $650,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Development of A Self Biased High Efficiency Solid-State Neutron Detector for MPACT Applications | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $810,141 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Development of a Innovative High Thermal Conductivity UO 2 Ceramic Composites Fuel Pellets with Carbon Nano-Tubes Using Spark Plasma Sintering | University of Florida | $894,042 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Exploration and Modeling of Structural Changes in Waste Glass under Corrosion | Pennsylvania State University | $1,377,444 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Evaluation of materials for interim storage of spent fuel for more than 100 years | University of Michigan | $931,603 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Implementation of On-the-Fly Doppler Broadening in MCNP5 for Multiphysics Simulation of Nuclear Reactors | University of Michigan | $406,712 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Methods and tools to allow molecular flow simulations to be coupled to higher level continuum descriptions of flows in porous/fractured media and aerosol/dust dynamics | University of Missouri-Columbi | $541,286 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Characterization and Modeling of Materials for Kr-Xe Separations | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $989,800 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Modeling Solute Thermokinetics in LiCl-KCl Molten Salt for Nuclear Waste Separation | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $616,073 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Advanced Aqueous Separation Systems for Actinide Partitioning: Develop Fundamental Understanding of An(III)/Ln(III) Separation | Washington State University | $1,451,784 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Consistent Multigroup Theory Enabling Accurate Coarse-Group Simulation of GenIV Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,046,277 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Studies of Deteriorated Heat Transfer in Prismatic Cores Stemming from Irradiation-Induced Geometry Distortion | Idaho State University | $1,287,921 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Carbide Coatings for Nickel Alloys, Graphite, and Carbon/Carbon Composites to be Used in Fluoride Salt Valves | Johns Hopkins University | $1,183,239 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Design, Testing, and Modeling of the Direct Reactor Auxiliary Cooling System for AHTRs | Ohio State University | $1,366,627 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Monitoring microstructural evolution of Alloy 617 with nonlinear acoustics for remaining useful life prediction; multiaxial creep-fatigue and creep-ratcheting | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development and Validation of Multidimensional Models of Supercritical CO 2 Energy Conversion Systems for Nuclear Power Reactors | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $475,005 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Microstructure and Property Evolution in Advanced Cladding and Duct Materials Under Long-Term and Elevated Temperature Irradiation: Modeling and Experimental Investigation | University of California-Berkeley | $1,320,667 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of Barrier Layers for the Protection of Candidate Alloys in the VHTR | University of California-Santa Barbara | $995,232 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Investigation of a Novel NDE Method for Monitoring Thermo-Mechanical Damage and Microstructure Evolution in Ferritic-Martensitic Steels for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems | University of Cincinnati | $833,109 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Fission Product Transport in TRISO Particle Layers under Operating and Off-Normal Conditions | University of Michigan | $966,581 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Microstructure and Property Evolution in Advanced Cladding and Duct Materials Under Long-Term Irradiation at Elevated Temperature: Critical Experiments | University of Michigan | $1,181,379 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Three-dimensional NDE of VHTR Core Components via Simulation-based Testing | University of Minnesota | $1,366,163 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Failure Predictions for VHTR Core Components using a Probabilistic Continuum Damage Mechanics Model | University of Minnesota | $854,542 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of a Scanning Microscale Fast Neutron Irradiation Platform for Examining the Correlation Between Local Neutron Damage and Graphite Microstructure | University of Missouri-Columbia | $703,064 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of Thermal Transient Flow Rate Sensors for High Temperature, Irradiation, Corrosive Environment | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $451,269 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Novel Methods of Tritium Sequestration: High Temperature Gettering and Separation Membrane Materials Discovery for Nuclear Energy Systems | University of South Carolina | $1,366,626 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Heat Transfer Salts for Nuclear Reactor Systems - Chemistry Control, Corrosion Mitigation, and Modeling | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,352,040 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Pulsed Magnetic Welding for Advanced Core and Cladding Steels | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $525,206 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Corrosion in Supercritical Carbon Dioxide: Materials, Environmental Purity, Surface Treatments, and Flow Issues | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $651,447 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Multiscale Concrete Modeling for Aging Degradation | Mississippi State University | $345,941 | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability | FY2010 | |
| Development of an advanced computational fluid dynamics technology for the next-generation nuclear reactor system analysis and safety margin characterization code | North Carolina State University | $418,199 | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability | FY2010 | |
| Precursor Derived Nanostructured Si-C-X Materials for Nuclear Applications | University of Washington | $899,518 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Development and Testing of an Open-Loop Oscillator for Small Reactivity Worth Samples | Idaho State University | $597,252 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Understanding the Irradiation Behavior of Zirconium Carbide | Pennsylvania State University | $870,613 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Modeling investigation of the stability and irradiation-induced evolution of nanoscale precipitates in advanced structural materials | University of Tennessee-Knoxville | $380,653 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Investigation of Laser Shock Peening for Enhancing Fatigue and Stress Corrosion Cracking Resistance of Nuclear Energy Materials | University of Cincinnati | $1,242,019 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Irradiation Accelerated Corrosion of Reactor Core Materials | University of Michigan | $798,943 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Study of Interfacial Interactions using Thin Film Surface Modification: Radiation and Oxidation Effects in Materials | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $538,032 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Novel Engineered Refractory Materials for Advanced Reactor Applications | North Carolina State University | $1,129,304 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Quantification of Cation Sorption to Engineered Barrier Materials Under Extreme Conditions | Clemson University | $1,171,380 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| In-Pile Instrumentation Multi-Parameter System Utilizing Photonic Fibers and Nanovision | Idaho State University | $1,199,990 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Development of Plasmonically Cloaked Nanoparticles | Idaho State University | $800,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Fission Product Transmutation in Mixed Radiation Fields | Idaho State University | $800,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Life Prediction of Spent Fuel Storage Canister Material | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $899,826 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Active Interrogation using Photofission Technique for Nuclear Materials Control and Accountability | Oregon State University | $900,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Anisotropic Azimuthal Power and Temperature Distribution on Fuel Rod: Impact of Hydride Distribution | Pennsylvania State University | $631,956 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Sorption Modeling and Verification for Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Microemulsions and Aggregation Formation in Extraction Processes for Used Nuclear Fuel: Thermodynamics and Structural Studies | University of California, Irvine | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Optimized Processing Fabrication Paths for Larger Heats of Nanostructured Ferritic Alloys | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Basic Physics Data: Measurement of Neutron Multiplicity from Induced Fission | University of Michigan | $973,364 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Radionuclide Incorporation and Long Term Performance of Apatite Waste Forms | University of Michigan | $862,500 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Actinide Foil Production for MPACT Research | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $156,897 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Enriched Boron-Doped Amorphous Selenium Based Position-Sensitive Solid-State Thermal Neutron Detector for MPACT Applications | University of South Carolina | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Development of Advanced High Uranium Density Fuels for Light Water Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Developing the User Experience for a Next Generation Nuclear Fuel Cycle Simulator | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,200,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Preparation and Development of Polymer-Supported Extractants | City College of New York, Hunter | $363,716 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| One-Dimensional Nanostructures for Neutron Detection | North Carolina State University | $455,629 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Feasibility and Safety Assessment for Advanced Reactor Concepts Using Vented Fuel | Oregon State University | $600,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| High Temperature Transducers for Online Monitoring of Microstructure Evolution | Pennsylvania State University | $455,628 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Laser-Arc Hybrid Welding of Thick Section Ni-base Alloys- Advanced Modeling and Experiments | Pennsylvania State University | $536,117 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Correlates of Sensitive Technologies | Texas A&M University | $509,467 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Improved Safety Margin Characterization of Risk from Loss of Offsite Power | Texas A&M University | $600,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| A High Temperature-Tolerant and Radiation-Resistant In-Core Neutron Sensor for Advanced Reactors | The Ohio State University | $455,629 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Pathway Aggregation in the Risk Assessment of Proliferation Resistance and Physical Protection (PR&PP) of Nuclear Energy Systems | The Ohio State University | $534,471 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Preparation of High Purity, High Molecular-Weight Chitin from Ionic Liquids for Use as an Adsorbate for the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Alabama | $338,260 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Selectivity in Ligand Binding to Uranyl Compounds: A Synthetic, Structural, Thermodynamic and Computational Study | University of California-Berkeley | $500,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Seismic Isolation Systems Using Periodic Materials | University of Houston | $538,154 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium from Seawater | University of Idaho | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Austenitic ODS Strengthened Alloys for Very High Temperature Applications | University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign | $538,154 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Enhancement of the Extraction of the Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Transient Safety Analysis of Fast Spectrum TRU Burning LWR with Internal Blankets | University of Michigan | $599,475 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Novel Sorbents for Uranium Extraction from Seawater | University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Radiation Behavior of High-Entropy Alloys for Advanced Reactors | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $538,159 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Rapid Computer Aided Ligand Design and Screening of Precious Metal Extractants from TRUEX Raffinate with Experimental Validation | Washington State University | $500,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of an Efficient Meso-Scale Multi-Phase Flow Solver in Nuclear Applications | City College of New York | $505,858 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Multiscale Modeling and Uncertainty Quantification for Nuclear Fuel Performance | Colorado State University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Fundamental Studies of the Role of Grain Boundaries on Uniform Corrosion of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Materials | Drexel University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Phenomena-based Uncertainty Quantification in Predictive Coupled-Physics Reactor Simulations | Texas A&M University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Characterization of Modeling of Grain Boundary Chemistry Evolution in Ferritic Steels Under Irradiation | University of Michigan | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Development of Multiscale Materials Modeling Techniques and Coarse-Graining Strategies for Predicting Materials Degradation in Extreme Irradiation Environments | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $750,000 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Diffusion, Thermal Properties and chemical Compatibilities of Select MAX Phases with Materials for Advanced Nuclear Systems | Drexel University | $535,927 | Document | Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) | FY2011 | |
| A New Light Weight Structural Material for Nuclear Structures | North Carolina State University | $399,490 | Document | Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) | FY2011 | |
| Experimental Investigation of Convection and Heat Transfer in the Reactor Core for a VHTR | City College of New York | $1,118,856 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Graphite Microstructural Characterization Using Time-Domain and Correlation-Based Ultrasonics | Johns Hopkins University | $1,199,997 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Methodology Development for Passive Component Reliability Modeling in a Multi-Physics Simulation Environment | The Ohio State University | $533,457 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Pebble Fuel Handling and Reactivity Control for Salt-Cooled High Temperature Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $612,721 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Self-Sustaining Thorium Boiling Water Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $1,145,932 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| High Fluency Low Flux Embrittlement Models of LWR Reactor Pressure Vessel Embrittlement and a Supporting Database from the UCSB ATR-2 Irradiation Experiment | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,199,607 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| A Research Program for Fission Product/Dust Transport in HTGR's | University of Missouri-Columbia | $1,157,367 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Development and Validation of a Lifecycle-based Prognostics Architecture with Test Bed Validation | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $846,315 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| In-situ Condition Monitoring of Components in Small Modular Reactors Using Process and Electrical Signature Analysis | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $650,000 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Technical Development for S-CO2 Advanced Energy Conversion | University of Wisconsin | $815,000 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Ag Transport Through Non-Irradiated and Irradiated SiC | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,055,456 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Critical Heat Flux Phenomena at High Pressure and Low Mass Fluxes: Tests and Models | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,199,781 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Modeling and Test Validation of a Reactor Cavity Cooling System with Air | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,199,988 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Transient Mixed Convection Validation for NGNP | Utah State University | $635,860 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Alternative High-Performance Ceramic Waste Forms | Alfred University | $840,000 | This project aims to advance fundamental understanding of the kinetics of structural evolution of crystalline ceramic waste forms. The structure/property relationships will be identified and will reveal new formulations, improved processing routes, and strategies for improved performance or ceramic waste forms. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Surface Layer Bulk Glass Interface Evolution with Aqueous Corrosion | Alfred University | $880,000 | This project will investigate the links between the morphology, structure and chemistry of surface layer-bulk glass interface and the long-term corrosion-reaction kinetics using in-situ and ex-situ experiments. The understanding will result in improved models for long-term predictive behavior of high-level-waste (HLW) glasses under repository conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Optimization of Deep Borehole Systems for HLW Disposal | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $850,000 | Researchers aim to carry out a comprehensive evaluation of the deep borehole option for disposal of used nuclear fuel and high livel waste. The models developed will predict potential movement of water through natural and engineered barriers and release of radionuclides to the biosphere which will aide in site selection. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Scholarship for Nuclear Communications and Methods for Evaluation of Nuclear Project Acceptability | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will work to develop a model to characterize the factors affecting social acceptance of nuclear projects with potential stakeholders. The resultant model will strengthen the ability to design and implement large projects more efficiently, leading to higher rates of success of future nuclear projects. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Accurate Holdup Calculations with Predictive Modeling and Data Integration | North Carolina State University | $875,000 | Researchers will develop and use state-of-the-art radiation transport codes to account accurately for the fissile material in a nuclear materials processing facility. An accurate estimation of the materials will allow for ensured radiological safety, security, waste management and efficient plant operation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Testing of Sapphire Optical Fiber and Sensors in Intense Radiation Fields, when Subjected to Very High Temperatures | The Ohio State University | $885,000 | The researchers on this project will investigate the performance of sapphire optical fibers and sensors in reactor environments. The project, if successful, will result in improved instrumentation to understand the behavior and predict performance of nuclear fuel systems at the microstructural level. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Concrete Materials with Ultra-High Damage Resistance and Self-Sensing Capacity for Extended Nuclear Fuel Storage Systems | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | Researchers aim to design a new class of multifunctional concrete materials. This project, if successful, will result in a novel multifunctional concrete material that possesses inherent degradation monitoring capability and is suitable for an extended storage system for the used nuclear fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Probabilistic Multi-Hazard Assessment of Dry Cask Structures | University of Houston | $865,000 | This project aims to investigate the performance of dry cask storage systems under multiple hazard systems (earthquake, tornados, combined with aging effects) using a probabilistic multi-hazard framework. This framework will be validated based on experimental research and will provide improved models for safety and reliability of spent nuclear fuels during storage and transportation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Electrochemical Corrosion Studies for Modeling Metallic Waste Form Release Rates | University of Nevada- Las Vegas | $790,000 | This project aims to use advanced electrochemical methods to investigate the corrosion related degradation of metal alloys used for housing fission products. The data obtained from this study will allow for the prediction of the long-term behavior of the metallic host phase materials over geological time-scales. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Development and Experimental Benchmark of Simulations to Predict Used Nuclear Fuel Cladding Temperatures during Drying and Transfer Operations | University of Nevada- Reno | $745,000 | Researchers will conduct experiments to investigate and develop advanced computational models of heat transfer in post-pool-storage drying operations. This project, if successful, will result in tools that can be used to design efficient drying processes to as to ensure suitability for dry-cask systems for long-term storage and transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Seismic Performance of Dry Casks Storage for Long-Term Exposure | University of Utah | $873,319 | Researchers will evaluate the mechanical performance of dry-cask storage under seismic loading for mid-term operational periods. Simulations will include scenarios for freestanding, anchored, and vaulted casks. The experimental tests will also evaluate the dynamic seismic response of freestanding and anchored dry-cask storage prototypes, providing recommendations for optimal Interim Spent Fuel Storage Installations (ISFSIs) design. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Coupling of Nuclear Waste Form Corrosion and Radionuclide Transport in Presence of Relevant Repository Sediments | Washington State University | $885,000 | Researchers will conduct experiments to understand the mechanisms responsible for the corrosion of nuclear waste forms in realistic chemical environments. The data generated from these experiments will enable increased reliability of the models used to predict the waste form performance in repository environments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| ABR for TRU Transmutation with Breed & Burn Thorium Blanket for Improved Economics and Resource Utilization | University of California- Berkeley | $450,000 | The research team will use detailed neutronic analysis for a new Advanced Burner Reactor concept with low conversion ratio. The concept will use a new core shape to improve the utilization of neutrons to perform breed and burn. | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2012 |
| Atomic-Scale to Meso-Scale Simulation Studies of Thermal Ageing and Irradiation Effects in Fe-Cr Alloys | Boston University | $874,997 | Researchers will develop predictive, multi-scale simulation tools for iron-chromium alloys, which are expected to be key components of advanced steels envisioned as fuel cladding and structural components for Generation IV reactors. Such modeling is necessary to avoid resource intensive and costly thermal and neutron irradiation experiments to obtain required performance data. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Validation Data and Model Development for Fuel Assembly Response to Seismic Loads | George Washington University | $862,435 | Researchers will conduct experiments that will provide comprehensive data characterizing the dynamics of the fluid and the structure in Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR) fuel assemblies under seismic loads (earthquakes and loss of coolant accidents). Completion of their project will greatly benefit the safety of existing and future nuclear reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Uncertainty Quantification and Management for Multiscale Nuclear Materials Modeling | Georgia Institute of Technology | $743,444 | Researchers will address the question of uncertainty propogation and error estimates associated with model prediction of material behavior under irradiation. Their work will facilitate a better understanding of the connection of various unit processes to collective responses in a multiscale model chain enabling the development of high strength and high ductility materials. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Nonlinear Ultrasonic Techniques to Monitor Radiation Damage in RPV and Internal Components | Georgia Institute of Technology | $877,000 | Researchers will explore new nondestructive materials evaluation and monitoring techniques utilizing nonlinear ultrasonic measurements . This technique will allow researchers to assess remaining useful life of select reactor components. Breakthroughs in this area will lead to the ability to characterize radiation damage in reactor pressure vessels and other components-leading to a clearer definition of reactor safety margins. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Intergral Reactor Containment Condensation Model and Experimental Validation | Oregon State University | $871,119 | Researchers will conduct experiments to enhance the safety and efficiency of small modular reactors (SMRs). This project will assess the impact of high-pressure steam condensation on steel containment vessels to be used for SMR deigns. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Irradiation Performance of Fe-Cr Base Alloys | University of Illinois- Urbana Champaign | $876,332 | _Researchers will perform post-radiation analysis and develop tools for future development and application of the Fe-Cr class of alloys. The results of this research will lead to better modeling of performance and development of an alloy designated as the primary choice for reactor fuel cladding and structural applications in advanced systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Experimentally Validated Numerical Models for Effects of Non-Isothermal Turbulent Mixing on Wall Stresses in High Temperature Reactors | University of Pittsburgh | $876,422 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive experimentally validated computational framework for the turbulent mixing in the lower plenum of a very high temperature reactor (VHTR). Through CFD modeling and experimental validation, the results from this project will lay the groundwork for future stress analysis, failure and fatigue studies, and uncertainty quantification for the VHTR system. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Mechanical Behavior of UO2 at Sub-grain Length Scales: Quantification of Elastic, Plastic and Creep Properties via Microscale Testing | Arizona State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop techniques to measure properties at sub-grain scales using depleted Uranium Oxide samples. The project will provide a framework to measure sub-grain scale mechanical properties, as well as provide experimental data to improve the understanding of advanced oxide fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| The Impacts of Pore-Scale Physical and Chemical Heterogeneities on the Transport of Radionuclide-Carrying Colloids | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will identify the dominant transport mechanisms to develop models that predict radionuclide distribution in porous materials. Experimental and computational models will be created that couple pore-scale geometric and interfacial structures. Simulators such as these are a necessary step towards fully predictive models for field-scale applications in the future. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Polymer-Supported Aminophosphinates as Selective Extractants | Hunter College, CUNY | $399,999 | Researchers will prepare a polymer-supported extractant for the recovery of uranium from seawater. The project will focus on primary amines that could provide a 3-fold increase in uranium capture capacity than current methods. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| In-pile Thermal Conductivity Characterization with Single-laser Heating/Time Resolved Raman | Iowa State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a time-resolved Raman-based thermal conductivity measurement system to improve remote in-pile thermal conductivity measurement. These measurements will provide new insights into the behavior of materials exposed to extreme radiation and temperature environments. Understanding the behavior of materials at the microstructural level will support optimized fuel designs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Organic Speciation and Interactions in ALSEP - One Step Partitioning Process of Minor Actinides, Lanthanides, and Fission Products | Oregon State University | $600,000 | Researchers will investigate the Actinide-Lanthanide Separation (ALSEP) process organic phase prior to aqueous phase separation and after aqueous separation phases of bare and metal-loaded acids. Quantifying these effects can be used to determine how an engineering scale process will perform and generate an accurate chemical model for the system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Glass Composition and Solution Speciation Effects on Stage III Dissolution | Pennsylvania State University | $700,000 | Researchers will study the chemical and structural triggers of long-term vitrified nuclear waste form behavior. They will study a range of waste glass compositions in corrosive environments. The study will improve understanding of the long-term residual rate and may provide new options for environmental control of glass dissolution rates. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Correlating Thermal, Mechanical, and Electrical Coupling Based Multiphysics Behavior of Nuclear Materials Through In-Situ Measurements | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will use in-situ experimental techniques to monitor the influence of extreme conditions on fuel cladding. The project will establish an in-situ experimental setup that can predict change in thermal properties and their correlation with mechanical properties and correlate such changes to changes in microstructural and chemical features. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Creation of a Geant4 Muon Tomography Package for Imaging of Nuclear Fuel in Dry Cask Storage | Purdue University | $440,000 | Researchers will develop a simulation and analysis package to aid in the non-destructive assessment of sealed used nuclear fuel dry casks using cosmic ray muons. Cosmic ray muon tomography allows for non-destructive assessment that can independently verify and identify weapons grade material sealed within dense dry casks. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Fuel Cycle Data Packages for Two-stage Fast Reactor Fuel Cycle Options for Optimum Resource Utilization and Waste Management | Purdue University | $400,000 | Researchers will evaluate the two different two-stage fast reactor fuel cycle options that will offer efficient use of uranium resources and the ability to burn actinides and long-live fission products. Evaluation of these fast fuel cycle options will serve as a useful complement to the options currently being considered in the Fuel Cycle Options Campaign. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Mixed Metal Phosphonate-Phosphate Resins for Separation of Lanthanides from Actinides | Texas A&M University | $650,000 | Researchers will use ion exchangers to cleanly separate lanthanides and curium from reusable actinides. The study will assist in the development of an inexpensive, simple way in which to separate lanthanides from actinides found in used nuclear fuel rods and to recover a large portion of the usable fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Safeguards in Pyroprocessing: an Integrated Model Development and Measurement Data Analysis | The Ohio State University | $626,151 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive and effective safeguards approach for a pyroprocessing facility to support safeguards for future fuel cycles in the United States. The new approach and design will focus directly on the special nuclear materials in the electrorefiner where actinides are separated from fission products through electrochemical process. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Using Ionic Liquids for the Development of Renewable Biopolymer-Based Adsorbents for the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater and Testing Under Marine Conditions | University of Alabama | $400,000 | Researchers will explore the fundamental engineering parameters for a renewable high-performance adsorbent for the extraction of uranium from sweater based on a recently proven ionic liquid (IL)-chitin platform. The project will use the platform to develop a versatile, modifiable adsorbent and characterize its performance and degradation in marine conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Developing Ultra-Small Scale Mechanical Testing Methods and Microstructural Investigation Procedures for Irradiated Materials. | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop new small-scale mechanical testing techniques to allow for the estimation or direct measurement of bulk properties. The combined experiments and modeling will significantly enhance the statistics and information that can be obtained on small radioactive archived samples, as well as new ion beam irradiated specimens. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Improved Delayed-Neutron Spectroscopy Using Trapped Ions | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will develop innovative spectroscopy techniques to measure the decay of fission fragments. The resulting data from these new techniques will be used to better understand reactor kinetics under accident conditions and failure scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Thermally and Chemically Responsive Nanoporous Materials for Efficient Capture of Fission Product Gases | University of California, Davis | $750,000 | Researchers will create new nanoporous materials that will be highly effective at capturing fission product gases. These materials would be relevant to both reactor fuels applications and reprocessing operations. Tests will be performed in carbon based and nitride based nanostructures, with the most promising materials from the modeling perspective undergoing further testing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Multiphase Nanocrystalline Ceramic Concept for Nuclear Fuel | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | Researchers will study the use of nanoparticles and nanostructured ceramics to create new materials that can extend the service life and increase efficiency for nuclear fuel. Multiphase nanocrystalline ceramics will be used to design simulated nuclear fuel that can provide added plasticity, better radiation tolerance and improved thermal conductivity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Novel Porous Sorbents for Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Chicago | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a highly porous sorbent for the extraction of uranium from seawater. Previous research has established sorbent performance. This project will use past foundational studies to design and investigate a new nanocomposites that will be processed into tacks or braids for field tests in seawater tests. The technology may also be used for other metals. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Microwave Readout Techniques for Very Large Arrays of Nuclear Sensors | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,937 | Researchers will develop a powerful readout technique based on microwave transmission and reflection. The technique will enable very large arrays of diverse sensor types for nuclear materials quantification and tracking. It will provide more accurate data on material composition and quantity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| BiI3 Gamma-Ray Spectrometers for Reliable Room-Temperature Nuclear Materials Safeguarding | University of Florida | $799,999 | Researchers will develop gamma-ray spectrometers based on BiI3 single crystals for MPACT applications such as burnup validation quantification, improved assay of plutonium, determination of uranium enrichment and overall monitoring spent fuel within the fuel cycle. The project will improve energy resolution, efficiency and environmental performance with this new gamma-ray detector. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Innovative Coating of Nanostructured Vanadium Carbide on the F/M Cladding Tube Inner Surface for Mitigating the Fuel Cladding Chemical Interactions | University of Florida | $760,276 | Researchers will develop barrier coatings on the inner surface of fuel cladding tubes to improve performance of materials at elevated temperatures and high neutron exposures in fast reactors. The project will develop and test a low temperature coating process of nanostructured vanadium carbide that will provide a benchmark for use in future studies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Doubling the Life of Concrete Structures | University of Idaho | $800,000 | Researchers will use nanoscale techniques to develop methods for doubling the service life of concrete structures. They will study the effect of temperature load and temperature cycling (freezing and thawing) on the durability of concrete with nanoscale viscosity modifiers. The project will benefit from non-destructive evaluation of concrete performance through electrochemical techniques. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Off-Gas Treatment: Evaluation of Nano-structured Sorbents for Selective Removal of Contaminants | University of Idaho | $785,910 | Researchers will evaluate nanostructured sorbent materials for their effectiveness in removing and immobilizing radionuclides for the off-gas treatment from used nuclear fuel recycling operations. The project aims at achieving near-zero emissions of radionuclides by capturing them from the off-gas of recycling operations, allowing for the development of advanced fuel cycles. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium and Transition Metals from Amidoxime-Based Sorbents | University of Idaho | $399,864 | Researchers will develop a new two-step elution process to achieve total recovery of uranium and effective recycling of the sorbent. The extraction process would selectively remove uranium from the sorbent with little or no damage. The process would then remove transition metals and regenerate the sorbent for repeated use, making uranium extraction from seawater economically viable. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Performance of a Steel/Oxide Composite Waste Form for Combined Waste Streams from Advanced Electrochemical Processes over Geologic Time Scales | University of Illinois at Chicago | $700,000 | Researchers will develop and validate a mechanistically-based corrosion model for cermet-type waste forms, creating a testing protocol and modeling approach for predicting long-term performance. The study will apply novel electrochemical testing and modeling methods to the behavior of metal/oxide phase boundaries to evaluate waste form performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Enhancement of the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland, College Park | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and optimize novel adsorbents for uranium recovery from seawater. The team will use radiation-induced grafting of organic phosphates onto polymers. The experiments will use ocean water, with mechanistic analysis, to provide a solid basis for large-scale demonstration of the performance of the new adsorbents in ocean environments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Improving the Understanding of the Coupled Thermal-Mechanical-Hydrologic Behavior of Consolidating Granular Salt | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will increase the understanding of granular salt seal materials for shafts, drifts and boreholes. By coupling thermal, mechanical and hydrological responses, the study will result in greater confidence in granular salt consolidation as a principal strategy for closure and isolation of long-term waste repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Fission Fragment Yield Data in Support of Advanced Reactor Technology | University of New Mexico | $399,816 | Researchers will produce a highly accurate data set for thermal fission. These precision data are necessary for high-accuracy simulations of nuclear criticality, transmutation rates, radiation effects and heating as well as for nuclear fuel, material accounting and identification needs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Molecular dynamics-based simulations of bulk/interfacial structures and diffusion behaviors in nuclear waste glasses | University of North Texas | $700,000 | Researchers will generate accurate atomic structural models for use in Monte Carlo simulations of the dissolution of nuclear waste glasses. Large-scale molecular dynamics-based computer simulations will be used to investigate self-diffusion behaviors, interfacial structure, and other structures formed during dissolution of these glasses. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| U3Si2 Fabrication and Testing for Implementation into the BISON Fuel Performance Code | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will fabricate, test and model a high uranium density, advanced nuclear fuel that operates at a much lower temperature and stores less energy. The work will deliver key research data on creep and grain growth, improving economics, through possible power uprates, and advancing accident tolerant fuels research. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Structural Health Monitoring of Nuclear Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of South Carolina | $738,618 | Researchers will develop a nuclear structural health monitoring system based on a sensing technology that monitors material degradation and aging for dry cask storage systems. The low-cost, low-profile sensors will perform on-demand monitoring of the structural integrity of individual components as well as the entire system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| ORIGEN-based Nuclear Fuel Depletion Module for Fuel Cycle Assessment | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $755,181 | Researchers will develop a flexible reactor analysis module for the CYCLUS fuel cycle simulator based on established tools for reactor fuel depletion and decay. They will use ORIGEN, a mature and experimentally validated code, affording greater flexibility and allowing for accurate evaluations of impacts of both present and future fuel cycle options. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Cost and System Analysis of Innovative Fuel Resources Concepts | University of Texas at Austin | $295,960 | This project will develop and test braided polymer fiber adsorbents that surpass the sorption capacity, selectivity and durability of the best existing technology to recover uranium from seawater. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Risk Assessment of Structural Integrity of Transportation Casks | University of Utah | $789,296 | Researchers will assess the loss of structural integrity of transportation casks and fuel cladding after extended storage. This risk assessment will conduct experimental tests and simulations to evaluate the structural performance of fuel, fuel assemblies and cask components when subjected to vibration and impact loads during transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Market-Based and System-Wide Fuel Cycle Optimization | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $612,731 | Researchers will create market and economic optimizers to improve calculations for the CYCLUS fuel cycle simulator. The team will leverage existing optimization software frameworks within the simulator to resolve top level policy questions. The optimizations will allow CYCLUS to move beyond static material compositions, providing a holistic view of the fuel cycle system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Optical Fiber Based System for Multiple Thermophysical Properties for Glove Box, Hot Cell and In-Pile Applications | Utah State University | $799,975 | Researchers will use a small pressure vessel to develop a robust technique for the measurement of multiple thermophysical properties at very high temperatures. The technique will lead to a system design moving toward the eventual measurement of irradiated fuels in a glovebox and/or hot cell with all sensors and electronics outside of the glovebox and/or hot cell. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of a Nano-Modified Concrete for Next Generation of Storage Systems | Vanderbilt University | $796,268 | Researchers will use nano-sized and nano-structured particles based on enhanced reactivity to develop a superior concrete for the long-term storage of used nuclear fuel. The project will use state-of-the-art experimental chemical and mechanical characterizations and computation analysis to assess the performance of nano-modified concretes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Fuel Cycle Data Packages for Thorium Fuel Cycle Options | Vanderbilt University | $797,995 | Researchers will develop six fuel cycle data packages for multi-stage, thermal fuel cycles which incorporate thorium. These new fuel cycle data packages will provide the opportunity to examine fuel cycle options beyond those which have traditionally been considered. A thorium fuel cycle database will also be assembled as a basis for thorium literature for future evaluations of the thorium fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Enhanced Shielding Performance of HLW Storage Packages via Multi-Component Coatings | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $796,947 | Researchers will develop a multi-layer composite that will enhance long-term storage and facilitate safe transport of storage packages. This novel multi-layer, multi-component coating would create an outer shield material that is resistant to the corrosion, radiation, diffusion and thermal cycling processes that affect fuel packages during long term storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Managing Zirconium Chemistry and Phase Compatibility in Combined Process Separations for Minor Actinide Partitioning | Washington State University | $700,000 | Researchers will address unique challenges for combining TRUEX and TALSPEAK processes for partitioning of lanthanides and minor actinides. The project will develop improved information on the thermodynamics of fission product zirconium and develop a framework for an organic phase solvation model. Combined process development could streamline separations processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Advances in the Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Studies Under Real Ocean Conditions | Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution | $398,882 | Researchers will provide infrastructure and expertise for marine testing of currently available adsorbents in real ocean conditions. The team will move adsorbent research from the lab to field testing in order to quantify sorptive properties and uranium uptake. The project will provide valuable field data that will show the potential of large scale applications of these technologies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| NEUP Project 20-19172: Irradiation of Sensors and Adhesive Couplants for Application in LWR Primary Loop Piping and Components | $497,881 | Researchers paln to attach ultrasonic transducers to substrates using various adhesive couplants that will be irradiated at elevated temperature to simulate LWR primary loop conditions at the PULSTAR reactor at North Carolina State University. Ultrasonic data will be taken in-situ. Subsequently, the sensors and couplant interfaces will be characterized using the LAMDA facility at ORNL. The results will be used to benefit a parallel EPRI project on online monitoring of cracks in LWR primary loop piping. | Document | Joint R&D with NSUF Access | FY2013 | |
| Lower Length Scale Characterization and Validation of Formation and Stability of Helium Bubbles in Nano-structured Ferritic Alloys under Irradiation | Clemson University | $399,870 | Researchers will provide a fundamental knowledge about the formation and stability of ultra-fine helium bubbles within 14YWT after neutron/ion irradiation for further design of new advanced structural materials with a characteristic high density nanoparticles feature which can increase the mechanical strength, hardness, irradiation resistance and the operational temperature range of materials. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Three-Dimensional Fuel Pin Model Validation by Prediction of Hydrogen Distribution in Cladding and Comparison with Experiment | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers will validate important three-dimensional aspects of the fuel pin modeling by using specialized numerical modeling techniques coupled with laboratory experiments to validate existing models for predicting fuel performance in light water reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Collocation-Based Surrogate Models for Uncertainty Quantification and Validation of Coupled, Multiphysics Fuel Performance Simulation Tools | University of Michigan | $596,835 | Researchers will provide the necessary high fidelity, coupled, multiphysics fuel performance simulator for computational modeling and develop surrogates which will accelerate and focus the validation of the coupled codes. This will be achieved by utilizing the high fidelity coupled fuel performance, thermal-hydraulics and neutronics codes BISON/STAR-CCM+/MPACT and an innovative collocation-based surrogate methodology. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Multi-Resolution In-Situ Testing and Mutliscale Simulation for Creep Damage Fatigue Damage Analysis of Alloy 617 | Arizona State University | $800,000 | This project will develop novel testing and experimentally validated prediction methodologies for micro-structural damage mechanisms of structural materials for advanced reactor systems. The investigations will focus on the characterization and testing of specific metal alloys, but the proposed testing and life-prediction methodologies are applicable to other structural materials as well. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Novel High Temperature and Radiation Resistant Infrared Glasses and Optical Fibers for Sensing in Advanced Small Modular Reactors | Clemson University | $800,000 | Clemson University, in partnership with the Iowa State University and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, will develop novel optical materials with improved heat and radiation exposure resistance in order to enable in-vessel fiber optic sensing for advanced Small Modular Reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Validation Data Acquisition in HTTF during PCC Events | George Washington University | $800,000 | Researchers at the George Washington University and Oregon State University will collaborate with NASA Langley Research Center to measure flow velocities in a high temperature test facility. This work supports the development of very-high temperature reactors with passive safety systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced High Temperature Inspection Capabilities for Small Modular Reactors | Iowa State University | $790,822 | The objective of this project is to develop non-destructive evaluation techniques for advanced small modular reactors. The research will provide key enabling inspection technologies needed to support the design and the reactor component performance validation process for advanced small modular reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Experimental and Computational Investigations of Plenum-to-Plenum Heat Transfer under Natural Circulation in a Prismatic Very High Temperature Reactor | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,999 | Researchers will perform experimental and computational investigations to study heat transfer and natural circulation phenomena in very-high temperature reactors. The study will assist in the ability to predict and analyze passive safety systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| New Mechanistic Models of Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth Interactions for Advanced High Temperature Reactor Components | Oregon State University | $790,790 | Researchers will create and validate a robust, multi-scale, numerical model to predict material degradation in nickel-based reactor alloys. If successful, this project will provide better numerical tools for reactor designers and greatly improve their capability to design against material failures for reactor alloys in the long term. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Self-Powered Wireless Dual-mode Langasite Sensor for Pressure/Temperature Monitoring of Nuclear Reactors | State University of New York, Stony Brook | $800,000 | This research will develop a novel self-powered wireless hybrid sensor that can accurately monitor both pressure and temperature using a single device without requiring external electricity, even in extreme harsh environments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Compact Heat Exchanger Design and Testing for Advanced Nuclear Reactors and Advanced Power Cycles | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to investigate optimal heat exchanger designs for advanced reactors. The research will study the optimization of printed circuit heat exchangers for specific fluids under a variety of conditions as well as perform numerical modeling. Experiments will focus on thermal performance and heat stress during extreme conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Fundamental Understanding of Creep-Fatigue Interactions in 9Cr-1MoV Steel Welds | The Ohio State University | $798,000 | This project will advance the state of knowledge and fundamental understanding of deforming materials and welds under loading conditions. Specifically, new integrated testing procedures will be evaluated and applied for conditions that are most detrimental to material stability leading to improved predictions of life expectancy for reactor steels and welds. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced Mechanistic 3D Spatial Modeling and Analysis Methods to Accurately Represent Nuclear Facility External Event Scenarios | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop three-dimensional characterization uncertainty analysis for commercial power plants. The project will involve combining experts from the fields of seismic structural modeling and advanced methods of risk assessment. This effort is expected to result in next generation tools that can be used for assessment of seismic risks. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Tritium Mitigation/Control for Advanced Reactor Systems | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a fluoride salt cooled high-temperature reactor featuring a specialized system to control tritium production. If successful, this will result in a significant reduction in size and cost in comparison to other reactor designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| A Pebble-Bed Breed and Burn Reactor | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will assess the feasibility of designing a type of metal cooled reactor able to establish and maintain operation when fueled with depleted uranium. If successful, this reactor will offer at least a 30-fold increase in the uranium ore utilization versus that achieved in contemporary light water reactors without the need for fuel reprocessing and recycling. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Investigation of Thermal Aging Effects on the Evolution of Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Cast Duplex Stainless Steels | University of Maryland, College Park | $799,966 | This research will provide a better understanding of the microstructural evolution and simultaneous change in mechanical response during aging. The results of the research will provide data that can be used to estimate degraded mechanical properties for an 80-year service life of light water reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Model validation using CFD-grade experimental database for NGNP Reactor Cavity Cooling Systems with water and air | University of Michigan | $799,348 | Researchers will use advanced innovative instrumentation to build a high-resolution experimental database and to use the novel experimental data to assess and further develop the predictive capabilities of computer codes for thermal hydraulics and computational fluid dynamics. The improved models developed by this project will also have the direct benefit of improving the predictive capability of the passive systems of third generation light water reactors and small modular reactor systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Long-Term Prediction of Emissivity of Structural Material for High Temperature Reactor Systems | University of Missouri | $799,117 | Researchers will study specific types of emissivity driven cooling from a variety of materials that are relevant to nuclear reactors. The research will provide a basis for numerical modeling to support reactor development. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced I&C for Fault-Tolerant Supervisory Control of Small Modular Reactors | University of Pittsburgh | $800,000 | The purpose of this research is to develop advanced instrumentation and control techniques for supervisory control of advanced small modular reactors. This research supports the operational goals of small modular reactor concepts through the development of improved oversight and surveillance techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Corrosion of Structural Materials for Advanced Supercritical Carbon-Dioxide Brayton Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $798,672 | Researchers will study a variety of materials for corrosion resistance under conditions that improve power conversion. In addition to studying the corrosion resistance of the materials, researchers will study the effect of additives to mitigate corrosion. Development of corrosion theories and modeling aimed at prediction of long-term corrosion will be the underlying theme throughout the project. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Component and Technology Development for Advanced Liquid Metal Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $798,920 | In support of liquid metal cooled reactors, the University of Wisconsin, Madison will evaluate advanced alloys and ceramics that come in contact with liquid metals. Additionally, a robust oxygen sensor and for use in liquid metals will be developed in order to better evaluate corrosion profiles in support of diagnostic testing. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| A New Paradigm for Understanding Multi-phase Ceramic Waste Form Performance | Clemson University | $800,000 | Researchers will use advanced characterization tools to develop 3-D microstructural data that can be incorporated into computer-based simulations in order to predict the performance of waste forms. Materials system modeling will incorporate elemental release and the interconnected microstructural network of phases to better understand performance and degradation, which will accelerate waste form acceptance in repository settings. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Controlling Hexavalent Americium: A Centerpiece to a Compact Nuclear Fuel Cycle | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and exploit the fundamental chemistry of Americium to enable an industrially viable means to co-recover the major and minor actinide elements from used nuclear fuel. The results would be a significant step forward in the development of aqueous separations approaches designed to recover the U-Am actinides based on the availability of the hexavalent oxidation state. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Zeolite Membranes for Krypton/Xenon Separation from Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Off-Gas | Georgia Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a high-performance, lower-cost zeolitic membrane process for Kr/Xe separations during spent nuclear fuel processing. Current separation methods are not considered economical and a membrane process would have relatively lower cost, equipment size, and ambient operating temperature. The process would form a sound basis for further development of this transformative separation technology for the nuclear fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Optimizing Polymer-Grafted Amidoxime-based Adsorbents for Uranium Uptake from Seawater | Georgia Institute of Technology | $399,999 | Researchers will work to increase the adsorbent capacity and selectivity toward uranium by optimizing the adsorbent morphology, synthesis variables, and conditioning parameters and by investigating the rate-limiting variables through transport and reaction modeling. A novel adsorption/partition concept that has the potential to substantially increase the adsorbent capacity will be tested, making uranium from seawater extraction more economically viable. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Extraction of Uranium from Seawater: Design and Testing of a Symbiotic System | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a seawater uranium extraction system that will work symbiotically with an offshore windmill by utilizing the structure, mooring and power of the windmill, while increasing the energy harvested by the installation. Uranium will be extracted by an adsorbent polymer belt, which will be cycled through the seawater and an elution plant located at the base of the windmill tower. Increasing the frequency of harvesting could overcome current economic barriers to seawater uranium extraction. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Imaging a Dry Storage Cask with Cosmic Ray Muons | Oregon State University | $799,871 | Researchers will develop an imaging system to monitor the content of a dry storage cask with cosmic ray muons. A very large amount of plutonium under nuclear safeguards is contained in used fuel assemblies stored in dry storage casks. Muon imaging will allow a cost effective and reliable way to evaluate dry storage cask content and integrity before transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Apatite and sodalite based glass-bonded waste forms for immobilization of 129I and mixed halide radioactive wastes | Rutgers University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop advanced and chemically durable waste forms for immobilizing 129I (aqueous based reprocessing of fuel) and mixed-halide wastes (molten-salt processing of fuel) by low temperature synthesis. Halide-containing sodalite and calcium phosphate-based apatite minerals will be synthesized, consolidated and tested for chemical durability. The project will provide needed baseline data for the development of advanced waste forms for immobilization of iodine and mixed-halide wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Sorption Modeling and Verification for Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $350,000 | Researchers will develop modeling tools supported by experiments for off-gas capture from future nuclear-fuel recycling facilities. Target species include tritium, iodine, krypton, and xenon. The models are intended to provide path forward recommendations to develop off-gas treatment adsorption processes. The project will contribute to the evaluation of options for environmentally acceptable recycle systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development of high performance ODS alloys | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will study swelling, radiation hardening and changes in mechanical properties of ODS alloys to develop two sets of advanced ODS alloys. Two sets of first-round candidate alloys that have already undergone extensive development and testing will evaluate irradiation performance. The study will meet the need for high strength, radiation-tolerant cladding and core components that have enhanced resistance to void swelling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Rare Earth Electrochemical Property Measurements and Phase Diagram Development in a Complex Molten Salt Mixture for Molten Salt Recycle | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate rare earth (RE) properties in complex molten salt mixtures. In a molten salt recycle approach, the RE drawdown by electrolysis is a key step in which REs are separated from salt containing other fission products. Investigation of RE electrolysis must consider the electrochemical properties of the REs. We propose to conduct studies of detailed experiments and corresponding models to provide the physical properties and phase diagrams required to predict the performance of RE drawdown for processing complex molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Computational and Experimental Studies of Microstructure-Scale Porosity in Metallic Fuels for Improved Gas Swelling Behavior | University of Arkansas | $796,823 | Researchers will study the microstructure of metallic uranium alloy fuels, and their resistance to densification, to minimize in-pile irradiation swelling through bimodal pore size distribution. The project will develop a predictive approach to design metallic fuel microstructures for optimal swelling resistance and fission gas retention. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Improved Hybrid Modeling of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of California, Berkeley | $645,393 | Researchers will develop a variance reduction method for computational transport that will improve the ability to design and operate monitoring systems for interim used fuel installations through enhanced modeling and simulation. This new tool will demonstrate that modeling calculations can be done more accurately in less time than with current tools and will perform studies characterizing how changes in material, cask configurations, and number of casks could impact monitoring systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Selective ligands for uranyl via combinatorial peptoid libraries: A synthetic, structural, thermodynamic and computational study | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will study how donor ligands bind to the uranyl ion, UO22+, with the longer-term goal of using this information to tackle selective recognition of uranyl in aqueous solution. The study will impact underlying approaches to controlling the behavior of uranium in these systems. The actinide separation technology could be used in several areas including uranium extraction from seawater, nuclear waste remediation and nuclear materials. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Combining Experiments and Simulations of Extraction Kinetics and Thermodynamics in Advanced Separation Processes for Used Nuclear Fuel | University of California, Irvine | $799,938 | Researchers will study how the kinetics and thermodynamics of metal ion extraction in advanced separation processes for used nuclear fuel can be described by molecular dynamic (MD) simulations and how the simulations can be validated by experimental data. The project would have broad impacts on several separations processes including advanced TALSPEAK, ALSEP and GANEX by increasing the confidence and accuracy of computer modeling of metal ion extraction. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Effect of Metallic Li on the Behavior of Metals in Molten Salts | University of Nevada, Reno | $458,250 | Researchers will identify the effect of metallic lithium on materials that are used in molten salt recycling. The study will try to understand how the presence of Li(0) in molten salts affects the degradation of alloys. Studying these changes will help accurately predict container material behavior and longevity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Assessment of Corrosion Resistance of Promising Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding under Reactor Conditions | University of Notre Dame | $800,000 | Researchers will assess the corrosion behavior of accident tolerant fuel candidate iron-based alloys under normal LWR operating conditions consisting of high temperature, relevant water chemistry and irradiation. The assessment will produce data about possible irradiation-accelerated corrosion rates of iron-based alloys, and the mechanisms by which such corrosion rates are accelerated. The project will advance the selection of appropriate replacements for Zircaloy cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Enhanced Accident-Tolerant Fuel Performance and Reliability for Aggressive iPWR/SMR Operation | University of Tennessee | $799,967 | To develop a process that evaluates operational and safety performance of reactor-and-fuel combinations by integrating whole-core 3D neutronics with MOOSE/BISON fuel performance assessments via explicit time and space dependent fuel rod operational power histories. The project will be valuable in analyzing and evaluating accident tolerant fuel concepts and furthering the understanding of reactor physics and fuel performance aspects of key accident tolerant fuel concepts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Nuclear Technology R&D Strategies in an Era of Energy Price Uncertainty | University of Texas, Austin | $799,112 | Researchers will identify nuclear technology options that are competitive over a wide range of plausible future business environments. No single nuclear technology or business practice will be the best choice across all or even most future conditions. The study will focus on hybrid nuclear-fossil technologies, energy storage and conversion, which will result in an identification of nuclear strategies that can succeed under future market conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development and Optimization of Voltammetric Methods for Real Time Analysis of Electrorefiner Salt with High Concentrations of Actinides and Fission Products | University of Utah | $621,612 | Researchers will develop an advanced voltammetry method to pursue the objective of real time monitoring of actinide concentrations in electrorefiner salt. This will include experimental measurement of key parameters such as activity coefficients and exchange current density. It will also involve simulation of voltammetry processes based on first principles. The project will allow for real time measurements that could support the commercialization of pyroprocessing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development of Self-Healing Zirconium-Silicide Coatings for Improved Performance of Zirconium-Alloy Fuel Cladding | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $798,621 | Researchers will study the deposition of self-healing zirconium-silicide coatings on zirconium-alloy fuel cladding material to improve corrosion resistance under normal and accident conditions. Under these conditions, Zr-Si coating evolves into a highly protective functionally-graded multilayered system. The study will lead to improved performance of zirconium-alloy fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Thermal Conductivity in Metallic Fuels | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,837 | Researchers will calculate the thermal conductivity of metallic uranium and neptunium alloys, including the effects of noble gasses, using density functional theory. The experiments will validate the calculated effective thermal conductivity using the MARMOT code and by helping determine DFT simulation parameters. The study works to improve fuel lifetime by understanding its thermal behavior. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| SiC-ODS Alloy Gradient Nanocomposites as Novel Cladding Materials | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,998 | Researchers will combine nuclear nanomaterial design, processing, testing, and characterization efforts to develop revolutionary materials that can withstand neutron irradiation for long period of time using nanostructured SiC and oxide dispersion strengthened steel. The ultimate objective is to offer new cladding materials with increased corrosion resistance, strength, and creep resistance in both steady state and accident conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Experimental Breeder Reactor II Benchmark Evaluation | Idaho State University | $400,000 | _Researchers will develop a benchmark evaluation of the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II). During nearly 30 years of operation numerous experiments were conducted at EBR-II. The most significant of these experiments were conducted in 1986 demonstrating inherent safety features in loss of flow without reactor scram and loss of heat sink without reactor scram. Benchmark evaluation will be valuable for the reactor design efforts in the United States and South Korea. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| Integral full core multi-physics PWR benchmark with measured data | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | _Researchers will introduce BEAVRS, a new multi-cycle full-core Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) depletion benchmark based on two operational cycles of a commercial nuclear power plant. This project aims at addressing the uncertainty quantification of the measured data and on making this benchmark a true non-proprietary international benchmark for the validation of high-fidelity multi-physics computational tools. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| Benchmark Evaluation of PROTEUS Gas-Cooled Reactor Experiments | University of Florida | $400,000 | _Researchers will create International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) benchmarks using data from 1970s experiments of the neutronics of gas-cooled fast reactor (GCFR) designs investigated in the PROTEUS reactor. The GCFR-PROTEUS experiments fill a gap in current integral benchmark data. These experiments can provide validation of computational models and nuclear data for next generation reactors. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| An Investigation To Establish Multiphysical Property Dataset Of Nuclear Materials Based On In-Situ Observations And Measurements | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will create an in-situ measurement based experimental approach to develop experimental validation dataset for NEAMS based code validation. Particular emphasis is on supplying data set for multiphysics simulations in extreme conditions as a function of material microstructure. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| Experimental Validation of UO2 Microstructural Evolutions for NEAMS tool MARMOT | University of Florida | $798,000 | _Researchers will experimentally validate MARMOT for predicting the microstructural evolutions of UO2 oxide fuel under the driving forces of high temperatures and large temperature gradient in reactors. By performing the experiments and simulations simultaneously using precisely defined initial conditions, the experiment data will provide direct benchmarking of the MARMOT code. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| High-resolution time-resolved experiments on mixing and entrainment of buoyant jets in stratified environments | University of Michigan | $799,983 | _Researchers will study high spatial and time-resolution experimental data of the fluid dynamics phenomena of flow jets interacting with a stratified layer. The issue plays an important role in the safety of several reactor designs, including sodium-cooled reactors. The data addresses the NEAMS needs for the validation of high fidelity computational fluid dynamics methodologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| Fundamental study of key issues related to advanced S-CO2 Brayton Cycle: prototypic HX development and Cavitation | Georgia Institute of Technology | $799,000 | _Researchers will study scientific and operational issues pertinent to compact heat exchanger systems and turbo-machinery. The project will work to resolve issues with the fabrication of diffusion bonded compact heat exchangers, alternate heat exchange technology for recuperators, and resolution of issues with cavitation and fluid instabilities. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Advanced Models for Nondestructive Evaluation of Aging Nuclear Power Plant Cables | Iowa State University | $787,291 | _Researchers will develop advanced models that relate environmentally induced microstructural and chemical changes in cable insulation polymers to their macroscopic electrical parameters. These parameters will be measured and modeled over a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum, covering several potential nondestructive evaluation techniques, enabling identification of the most sensitive techniques for future development. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Development of Novel Functionally Graded Transition Joints for Improving the Creep Strength of Dissimilar Metal Welds in Nuclear Applications | Lehigh University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop graded transition joints and improved creep life models for increasing the life of dissimilar metal welds (DMWs) in nuclear reactors. The research represents the first application of functionally graded material concepts for solving the problem of DMW failures through an integrated approach of additive manufacturing, modeling, microstructural characterization, and advanced strain-sensing techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Feasibility Assessment of a Micro Modular Reactor (MMR) | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | _Researchers will develop an innovative compact reactor concept that integrates power production, power conversion and electricity generation in a single unit: the Micro Modular Reactor (MMR). It is designed to be absolutely melt-down proof (MDP) under all circumstances including complete loss of coolant scenarios with no possible release of radioactive material, to have a cycle length of greater than 10 years, and to be highly proliferation resistant. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Scaling Studies for Advanced Gas Reactor Concepts | Oregon State University | $681,834 | _Researchers will expand the utilization of the Oregon State University High Temperature Test Facility (HTTF) to validate a broader range of advanced high temperature reactors and events. The facility will be revised to add a detailed scaling analysis of additional gas reactor concepts including advanced gas-cooled, molten salt, and sodium cooled reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Fluid Stratification Separate Effects Analysis, Testing and Benchmarking | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will study fluid stratification in high temperature gas reactors. Coolant stratification is the result of incomplete mixing of one or more fluids, leading to a density gradient, which may or may not dissipate under diffusive or convective effects. This combined analytical and experimental project seeks to investigate stratification driven by diffusive and convective mechanisms and is expected to yield insight into this phenomenon. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Probabilistic Economic Valuation of Safety Margin Management Analysis | Oregon State University | $795,364 | _Researchers will use RAVEN and develop a companion software package to facilitate economic analysis of safety margins. The project is a proof of concept that will use techniques to examine the cost of improving safety margins vs. the risk of accidents from not improving safety margins. This analysis can be used to evaluate the economic viability of various plant upgrades. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Novel Dissimilar Joints Between Alloy 800H and 2.25%Cr and 1%Mo Steel | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will fabricate and test dissimilar metal joints between a nickel base alloy and a steel with gradual variations of chemical composition, microstructure and properties in a manner that reduces abrupt thermal expansion mismatch and the resulting residual stresses. Data on structure and properties will serve as valuable inputs for the initiation of an ASME code case. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Multi-Phase Model Development to Assess RCIC System Capabilities under Severe Accident Conditions | Texas A&M University | $564,246 | _Researchers will develop physics-based models of the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) System and incorporating them into a multi-phase code for validation. The project will tackle the current major challenges in RCIC System analysis and enable evaluation of two-phase thermodynamic aspects. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Experimental Investigation and CFD Analysis of Steam Ingress Accidents in HTGRs | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will study the steam ingress scenario for HTGRs. The study will investigate thermal-hydraulic behavior and graphite oxidation of stream ingress phenomena to validate predictive CFD models. This work will resolve concerns about possible steam generator tube ruptures in a HTGR He-Steam Rankine cycle. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Coiled Tube Gas Heaters For Nuclear Gas-Brayton Power Conversion | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop heat exchangers for Brayton-cycle power conversion in reactors using sodium, NaK, or salt as intermediate coolants. The proposed coiled tube gas heaters (CTGHs) are expected to have excellent power density, thermal shock/creep, in-service inspection, and reparability characteristics. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Fundamental Studies of Irradiation-Induced Modifications in Microstructural Evolution and Mechanical Properties of Advanced Alloys | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop and test a mechanism for predicting neutron irradiation performance for optimized Grade 92 and Alloy 709 for applications in advanced reactor systems. The work will employ ion irradiations and available information from neutron irradiations of related alloys to develop a basis for predicting the neutron irradiation performance of the optimized alloys. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Integrated Computational and Experimental Study of Radiation Damage Effects in Grade 92 Steel and Alloy 709 | University of Tennessee | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop a mechanistic understanding and predictive models of irradiation-induced microstructural evolution and resulting mechanical properties in optimized ferritic-martensitic Grade 92 steel and austenitic alloy 709 using multiscale simulations coupled with rigorous experimental validation. The project will provide insights into the correlation between ion irradiation and fast neutron damage. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Meta-Level Design Guidance and Operator Performance Measures for Hybrid Control Rooms | Vanderbilt University | $799,869 | _Researchers will apply human factors engineering methods and relevant expertise from non-nuclear high-risk high-consequence domains toward the measurement of operator performance in analog, digital, and hybrid main control rooms. Performance measures will be developed for evaluating the situation awareness and decision-making proficiencies to support the transition to digital or hybrid control room displays. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| NEUP Project 15-8514: Elucidation of the kinetics of Advanced Separation systems | California State University, Long Beach | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a fundamental understanding of the chemical kinetics relevant to separation processes by measuring ligand complexation rate constants for both lanthanides and actinides in the aqueous and organic phases. These experiments will provide essential kinetic and mechanistic information required for developing a simplified, single-step recovery of transuranic elements. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8119: Kr/Xe separation over Metal Organic Framework Membranes | Colorado School of Mines | $375,000 | Researchers will develop metal organic framework (MOF) membranes that will be capable of effectively separating Kr from Xe with high flux and selectivity. This project may result in the development of membranes that will constitute a viable energy saving approach for the effective removal of Kr during the processing of used nuclear fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8347: Multilayer Composite Fuel Cladding for LWR Performance Enhancement and Severe Accident Tolerance | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop, manufacture, and weld a new multimetallic layered composite (MMLC) for enhanced severe accident tolerance and manufacturability in LWRs. Layers of stainless steel (facing the coolant) and Zircaloy (facing the fuel) will be separated by barrier layers of Cr and Nb. Severe accident testing in 1200C steam, LWR autoclave testing, and ion irradiation studies will demonstrate the MMLC's microstructural stability. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8112: Phase Separation and Crystallization of Complex Borosilicate Melts for Glass-Ceramic Waste Forms | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,806 | Researchers will study the mechanisms for microstructural development and properties of multi-phase, glass-ceramic materials that form when waste-loaded borosilicate glasses are cooled from above their liquidus or consolute temperatures through the glass transition temperature. The project will apply these tools to modified compositions to maximize the formation of the desirable crystalline phases. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8265: Electrically-Assisted Tubing Processes for Enhancing Manufacturability of Oxide Dispersion Strengthened Structural Materials for Nuclear Reactor Applications | Northwestern University | $800,000 | Researchers will enhance the formability of nanostructured ferritic alloys (NFAs) such that high-strength thin-walled claddings can be manufactured successfully and economically to be used in future reactors. The project will study the effects of continuous and pulsed electric currents on the deformation behavior of Fe-14Cr based NFA steel. The findings will be used to establish innovative fabrication processes including electrically-assisted extrusion and rolling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8126: Fundamental Electrochemical Properties of Liquid Metals in LiCl-KCl for Separation of Alkali/Alkaline-Earths (Cs, Sr and Ba) | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate the fundamental properties of novel liquid metal electrodes for separation of alkali/alkaline-earth fission products in LiCl-KCl electrolyte. The project will further the development of pyroprocessing by maximizing salt recycle and providing a method for recovery of alkali/alkaline-earth fission products as oxides (as opposed to chlorides) which will allow them to be encapsulated in a more conventional glass wasteform. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8074: Monitoring of Actinide Concentrations in Molten LiCl-KCl Salt using Alpha Spectroscopy | The Ohio State University | $799,969 | Researchers will develop a novel in-salt sensor that uses electrochemistry to pre-concentrate the actinides onto the sensor to measure the actinides concentration in a high temperature and high radiation field represented by a molten salt environment. The ability to monitor actinides to prevent misuse is critical to enhancing the control of nuclear materials. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8717: Understanding the Interactions of Seawater Ions with Amidoxime through X-Ray Crystallography | University of Alabama | $553,971 | _Researchers will investigate the fundamental interactions of the amidoxime (R-C(NH2)=NOH) functional group with metal ions found in seawater using a combined approach of single crystal X-ray diffraction and spectroscopy to understand the origin of the selectivity of amidoxime resins for uranyl ([UO2]2+] ions and establish structural benchmarks for interpretation of spectroscopic studies on actual sorbents to aid in identifying specific sorbent-metal interactions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8439: Developing a macro-scale SiC-cladding behavior model based on localized mechanical and thermal property evaluation on pre- and post-irradiation SiC-SiC composites | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a fundamental understanding of the macroscopic behavior of SiC-SiC composite structures before and after irradiation based on the microscopic property changes of each individual component (SiC matrix, fiber and interface). SiC-SiC composites will be tested in the as-fabricated condition, after being subjected to neutron and ion irradiation, micro-cracking, and oxidation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8536: Quantitative Prediction of Uranium Speciation and Amidoxime Binding in Seawater from Advanced Simulation Techniques | University of California, Riverside | $450,000 | Researchers will quantitatively predict stability of uranium species and thermochemistry (free energy, entropy, and enthalpy) of uranium binding with amidoxime ligands in seawater conditions. To achieve the goal, advanced simulation techniques including all-atom molecular dynamics, free-energy calculations, and the hybrid quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical approach will be employed to explicitly include water molecules and common seawater ions in the simulation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8286: Used Fuel Storage Monitoring Using Helium-4 Scintillation Fast Neutron Detectors and Neutron Spectral Analysis | University of Florida | $799,765 | Researchers will build and demonstrate a prototype detector device capable of unambiguously verifying the declared content of dry casks in a non-intrusive manner for the safeguarding and monitoring of used fuel storage installations. This will be achieved through a neutron spectroscopy and imaging system using high-efficiency Helium-4 (4He) gas scintillation fast neutron detectors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8663: Enhancement of the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland, College Park | $600,000 | Researchers will produce efficient adsorbents of uranium from seawater in seeking to optimize the functional ligands, the polymeric substrates, the grafting conditions and the adsorption/desorption durations based on sound chemical understanding. The result will be adsorbents that can be used through multiple cycles of uranium adsorption without significant degradation of the adsorbents capacity and selectivity for uranium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8111: Purification of Zirconium cladding using a chloride volatility process | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $798,877 | _Researchers will investigate the thermochemistry of used fuel Zr cladding components chlorides as well as their activation products and residual radionuclide metal chlorides to provide fundamental data that will support the development of a chlorination process for the purification of ZrCl4. Understanding the chemistry of these chloride species will provide process development guidance for the purification of Zr cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8323: Purification of Zirconium Tetrachloride from UNF Cladding | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $793,121 | _Researchers will develop and demonstrate a process to purify zirconium tetrachloride obtained from the direct chlorination of used Zircaloy cladding materials from used nuclear fuel rod assemblies. This study will increase understanding of purification protocols that will allow zirconium chloride to be recycled further. Increased recycling capability would significantly reduce the amount of high level waste associated with light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8752: Radiation Effects on High Thermal Conductivity Fuels | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $400,000 | _Researchers will use scoping ion and neutron irradiations to explore the structural stability and thermal conductivity of model high thermal conductivity fuels consisting of CeO2 and either Al2O3 (BeO surrogate) or SiC. Issues associated with thermal conductivity degradation (including micro cracking effects) and general phase stability of fuel systems will be examined. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8243: Radiation-induced swelling and microcracking in SiC cladding for LWRs | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $797,889 | _Researchers will use state of the art experimental characterization techniques and multi-scale methodology (developed within the MOOSE-MARMOT-BISON framework) to provide scientific basis for predictions of swelling and microcracking in SiC cladding as a function of temperature and irradiation histories. Predicting swelling and microcracking will further the potential for accident tolerant SiC cladding to be used in light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8081: Understanding influence of thermal history and glass chemistry on kinetics of phase separation and crystallization in borosilicate glass-ceramic waste forms for aqueous reprocessed high level waste | Washington State University | $799,911 | _Researchers will develop a fundamental and transformative understanding of the crystallization mechanisms in complex glass-ceramic high level waste (HLW) wasteforms,. This understanding will underpin the maturation of glass ceramic manufacture, by linking process variables to molecular scale mechanisms, enabling reliable production of wasteforms to the desired specification. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8210: A Transient Reactor Physics Experiment with High-Fidelity, 3-D Flux Measurements for Validation and Verification | Kansas State University | $799,198 | _Researchers will instrument the University of Wisconsin Nuclear Reactor with micro-pocket fission detectors (MPFDs) to measure 3-D flux distributions. The measurements will be compared to simulation using PROTEUS from the NEAMS toolkit. MPFDs are small, which leads to low gamma-ray sensitivity and small flux perturbations. A 3-D array of MPFDs and standard reactor instrumentation will be used to capture highly-resolved flux and temperature distributions for several steady-state and transient conditions. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8101: Development of Critical Experiments to Provide Validation Data for Multiphysics Coupling Methods | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $799,993 | Researchers will develop a set of benchmark validation experiments for multiphysics coupling by exploiting the inherent flexibility of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Reactor Critical Facility (RCF). This project will use targeted experiments to validate the coupling between neutronics, thermal hydraulics, and structural mechanics routines present in the NEAMS Reactor Product Line toolkit._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8229: Thermal Transport and Fracture Behavior of Sintered Fuel Pellets: Experimental Validation of NEAMS Tool MARMOT | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | _Researchers will perform experimental validation of the NEAMS tool MARMOT for predicting thermal transport and fuel fracture. By performing extensive thermal transport and fracture experiments on well-controlled microstructures of sintered UO2, the impact of microstructure on thermo-mechanical properties of sintered UO2 and mechanistic understanding will be achieved. The high quality experimental data will directly benchmark the MARMOT code by evaluating the thermal transport and fracture models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8208: Development of a Novel Accelerator for Neutron Transport Solution Using the Galerkin Spectral Element Methods | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $626,176 | _Researchers will develop a novel accelerator for neutron transport calculations based on the spectral element methods, continuous Galerkin (CG) and discontinuous Galerkin (DG) approximations. The CG and DG methods will be used to solve the multi-group neutron diffusion equation on the coarse-mesh structure (e.g., pin-size up to assembly-size), which is then coupled with the high-order neutron transport solution to speed up the neutron transport computation. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8338: Methodology Development for Cybersecurity Robustness and Vulnerability Assessment of University Research Reactors: A Case Study Using the PULSTAR Reactor | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop a methodology for assessing the cybersecurity robustness and vulnerability of university research reactors using an actual university reactor as a test case. While the developed methodology will be specifically tested and applied using this reactor, it will be formulated as a general blueprint and used as the starting point for the assessment of university research reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cyber Security R&D | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8121: Automatic Imagery Data Analysis for Proactive Computer-Based Workflow Management during Nuclear Power Plant Outages | Arizona State University | $799,738 | _Researchers will test the hypothesis that real-time imagery-based object tracking and spatial analysis, as well as human behavior modeling will significantly improve efficiency of outage control while lowering the rates of accidents and incidents. The project will examine computer vision methods and human behavior models for developing a proactive workflow management tool and integrate it into Computer-Based Procedures for supporting an Advanced Outage Control Center. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8308: Creep and creep-fatigue crack growth mechanisms in Alloy 709 | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _A joint US/UK team will study the crack growth mechanism and failure analysis of alloy 709 under creep and creep-fatigue conditions. The study will be done through in situ heating and loading during SEM observation to evaluate the crack growth under plane stress condition and traditional methods to study the crack growth under plane strain condition. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8582: Mechanistic and Validated Creep/Fatigue Predictions for Alloy 709 from Accelerated Experiments and Simulations | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will use mechanistic methods for predicting creep and creep-fatigue deformation rates/strains based on accelerated in-situ and ex-situ tests, and mesoscale dislocation dynamics simulations for Alloy 709. This research will support its qualification in the ASME code for use in advanced nuclear reactor applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8495: Advancement of Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Technology through Round Robin Testing and Fundamental Modeling | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will conduct a round robin test plan for S-CO2 corrosion testing across multiple institutions and the organization of a S-CO2 Materials Group to guide future materials testing directions. Furthermore, this proposal outlines identical tests in supercritical water, testing model alloys with various composition and environmental conditions, accompanied by modeling efforts to study rate controlling mechanisms of corrosion. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8489: Modeling and Validation of Irradiation Damage in Ni-based Alloys for Long-Term LWR Applications | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _A joint US/UK team will study thermal and irradiation-induced transformations mechanisms of Alloys 690 and 625 in order to extend Grizzly to include capabilities for modeling Ni-based alloys. The project will develop modeling tools for materials degradation in light water reactors, allowing for component replacement data and continued safe operation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-7983: Development of Steady-State Thermal-Hydraulic Analysis and Bowing Reactivity Evaluation Methods Based on Neutron and Gamma Transport Calculations | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop steady-state thermal-hydraulic analysis and assembly bowing reactivity evaluation methods based on the latest transport calculation capabilities in order to overcome the limitations and improve the accuracy of current design analysis methods. The outcome of the effort will be computer programs to calculate the steady-state heat source distributions in fuel pins and assembly duct walls and to calculate the reactivity worth of assembly displacements. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8627: Experimental Validation Data and Computational Models for Turbulent Mixing of Bypass and Coolant Jet Flows in Gas-Cooled Reactors | Texas A&M University | $799,613 | _Researchers will establish reliable models of the thermal-hydraulics in Gas-Cooled Reactors with experimental and computational efforts. Specifically, this work will focus on providing the relationship between fluctuating velocities and temperatures in the lower plenum and their dependency on the turbulent upstream mixing in the core and collection chambers leading up to the lower plenum. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8251: Enhanced Performance Fast Reactors with Engineered Passive Safety System | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | _Researchers will study the feasibility of improving the passive safety and economics of sodium cooled fast reactors (SFR) by incorporating within their fuel assemblies a novel Autonomous Reactivity Control (ARC) system. It is expected that the ARC systems will enable to design even low leakage SFR cores, such as breed-and-burn cores, to be passively safe and to improve the neutron economy and economic viability of more conventional SFR. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8258: Physics-Based Probabilistic Model of the Effects of Ionizing Radiation on Polymeric Insulators of Electric Cables used in Nuclear Power Plants | University of California, Los Angeles | $798,846 | _Researchers will develop and experimentally validate a probabilistic physics-based degradation models for polymeric insulators of electric cables to be used in integrated performance and safety codes, which will help reduce the uncertainty associated with the long-term aging of cable insulation. The project will deliver a C++ based simulation code that will be readily compatible with the MOOSE/Grizzly framework developed at the Idaho National Laboratory. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8000: The Influences of Neutron Irradiation on Aggregate Induced Degradation of Concrete | University of California, Los Angeles | $800,000 | _Researchers will quantify the impacts of irradiation on concrete degradation. The research will develop new understanding of the evolutions and manifestations of irradiation assisted aggregate concrete degradation caused by neutron exposure. This assessment will help to mitigate the risk of such degradation within the Grizzly framework, by careful integrations of nanoscale analytics and simulation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8458: Multiple Degradation Mechanisms in Reinforced Concrete Structures, Modeling and Risk Analysis | University of Houston | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a multi-physics framework to characterize the deterioration development in concrete due to environmental and mechanical loading, and the coupling effect among transport processes and the damage of concrete. This project will develop new computational tools that will be implemented in Grizzly, an application built on the MOOSE platform, to address a variety of aging mechanisms in nuclear power plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8623: Characterization of Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth in Alloy 709 and Prediction of Service Lives in Nuclear Reactor Components | University of Idaho | $799,927 | _Researchers will study creep-fatigue crack growth behavior in steel Alloy 709 in accelerated test conditions to predict extended service life of structural components. Extensive testing of Alloy 709 creep-fatigue specimens will be performed at elevated temperatures and applied stresses. Microstructure analysis will be performed to describe the crack propagation mechanisms. Computational models will be used to predict service of steel components. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8432: Multi-scale experimental study of creep-fatigue failure initiation in a 709 Stainless Steel alloy using high resolution digital image correlation | University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign | $800,00 | _Researchers will conduct a detailed experimental investigation of creep-fatigue crack initiation in a 709 alloy, and will also obtain a predictive failure initiation model that includes both thermo-mechanical and aging effects. The experiments will use ultra-high resolution digital image correlation to measure accumulation of plastic with cycling. The model will extend existing slip band-based energy minimization criterion to include thermal effects applicable to 709. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8599: Am-241 Nuclear Safety and Environmental Interactions | University of Missouri | $399,187 | _Researchers will investigate the release and transport mechanisms of Am-241 to understand the interactions it may have with the environment. The project will examine Am-241 through a series of accident scenarios using Am-241 aerosols that will allow researchers to understand the pathways for dose assessment. Methodologies and approaches for nuclear risk assessment for new space radioisotope power system applications will be developed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8667: Experimental Validation of a Compact Double-walled Twisted-Tube Heat Exchanger Concept | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | _Researchers will investigate a novel compact double-walled twisted-tube heat exchanger (DT-HXR) design that utilizes an outer twisted tube configuration in order to enhance shell-side heat transfer and make the overall bundle more compact. Utilizing outer twisted tube geometry improves heat transfer and allows for a tube bundle that does not require support plates or anti-vibration bars. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project: 15-8352: Development and Demonstration of an In-Situ Tritium Scavenger | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,988 | _Researchers will use a graphite moderator to capture and remove tritium from the primary coolant systems of salt- and gas-cooled reactors. The team will develop electrochemical techniques to characterize tritium transport in graphite and liquid fluoride salts (including flibe), demonstrate the in-situ effectiveness of tritium absorption by the fuel elements, and develop a design for a graphite bed tritium filter that can integrate with salt-to-air heat exchangers. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 16-10730: Visualization Tool for Comparing Low-Carbon Energy Options | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a web based visualization tool for comparing current and future nuclear fuel cycle options to other low-carbon and conventional energy technologies in the United States.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10679: Overcoming Kinetic Barriers to Actinide Recovery in ALSEP | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | The ALSEP process for group separations of trivalent actinide/lanthanide ions suffers from slow stripping kinetics. Researchers will perform detailed kinetic studies at different temperatures, supported by spectroscopic and computational studies to establish where the kinetic bottlenecks occur in the ALSEP process. They will then systematically alter the chemistry of the extractants and aqueous ligands to understand how to overcome the kinetic hindrances.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10058: An Integrated Multiscale Experimental-Numerical Analysis on Reconsolidation of Salt-Clay Mixture for Disposal of Heat-Generating Waste | Columbia University in the City of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will improve understanding of the thermal-mechanical-hydrologic-chemical (TMHC) coupling effect on reconsolidated granular (or crushed) salt-clay mixture used for seal systems of shafts and drifts in salt repositories. The project will integrate laboratory experiments and multiscale pore-to-continuum coupling simulations to explore the feasibility of using clay additive and moisture content to enhance performance of crushed salt as a seal material.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10088: Americium Separation By Electrochemical Oxidation | Florida International University | $800,000 | Researchers will separate Am from high-level waste by exploiting the high oxidation states of Am through design, and testing of new materials. This will be accomplished by designing and testing new electrodes, derivatized with surface-stabilized ligands and redox mediators to facilitate oxidation of trivalent Am, and by designing porous sorbent materials functionalized with molecules which selectively coordinate Am(VI) to enable its subsequent separation.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10668: Microstructure Experiments-Enabled MARMOT Simulations of SiC/SiC-Based Accident Tolerant Nuclear Fuel System | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will characterize steam attack, hydrothermal corrosion and radiation swelling of SiC/SiC composites-based accident tolerant fuel (ATF) using a combination of experiments, microstructure evaluation and phase-field simulations using MARMOT. Central to the project is the mapping of the microstructure after steam/hydrothermal/irradiation tests through a unique non-destructive x-ray microscopy technique followed by phase-field simulations of chemical transport in MARMOT.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10221: Alloying Agents to Stabilize Lanthanides Against Fuel Cladding Chemical Interaction: Tellurium and Antimony Studies | Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop alloying agents to stabilize lanthanides against fuel cladding chemical interactions (FCCIs). Based on the available binary phase diagrams for the periodic table, Te and Sb are selected as fuel dopants. The research will focus on Te. The mechanisms of using minor additives to stabilize and immobilize the lanthanide fission products will be investigated. Resulting thermodynamic data obtained by the proposed research will be integrated into MARMOT to enhance its ability to model metallic fuel performance.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10648: Oxidation and Corrosion-Resistant Uranium Silicide Fuels | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | Researchers will develop oxidation/corrosion resistant uranium silicide U3Si2 fuel by chemical doping/fillers to form a continuous borosilicate glass as a protective oxide layer with transformational fuel performance and accident tolerance. The team will use chemical doping/fillers include B or C showing effectiveness in improving high temperature oxidation resistance in transition metal silicides, and boron/silicon-containing compounds that can form a protective borosilicate glass layer.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10229: Mechanistic Understanding of Silver Sorbent Aging Processes in Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $800,000 | This project is focused on understanding the mechanisms of aging processes on silver exchanged mordenite and silver functionalized silica aerogel adsorbents under conditions of long term exposure to off gas streams containing air, I2, H2O, and NOx. The chemical and physical structural changes of the adsorbents under these conditions will be accounted for in equilibrium and kinetic models. Transport models will be developed to predict the performance of engineered off-gas treatment systems.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10394: Integration of Microwave Readout into Nuclear Process Monitoring | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,695 | Researchers will show that gamma-ray spectroscopy based on emerging microcalorimeter sensors can determine elemental and isotopic fractions with accuracy comparable to much slower mass spectrometry and with far better accuracy than germanium sensors. This advance will prevent the diversion of nuclear material by enabling nearly real time process monitoring in large nuclear facilities without loss of measurement accuracy.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10523: A Science Based Approach for Selecting Dopants in FCCI-Resistant Metallic Fuel Systems | University of Idaho | $800,000 | The project aims to use a science-based approach to set guidelines of selecting dopants for developing fuel cladding chemical interaction (FCCI)-resistant metallic fuel systems for fast reactors. Lanthanide fission products migrate to the fuel-cladding gap leading to cladding breaches. The team will perform both theoretical modeling and experiments to arrive at the guidelines that are based on sound science. If successful, this can lead to breakthroughs in minimizing the FCCI effect.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10813: Advanced Electrochemical Separations of Actinide/Fission Products via the Control of Nucleation and Growth of Electrodeposits | University of Idaho | $350,000 | Researchers will use unique capabilities to modulate the electrodeposition of actinides (depleted Uranium) and fission products (Ln) during nucleation and growth stages. The team aims to preclude formation of electrodeposits with dendritic morphology. Morphology of electrodeposits will be controlled by electrolyte composition.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10707: In Situ Spectroscopic Determination of Actinide Speciation and Concentration | University of Nevada, Reno | $369,221 | The research team will address two major issues in the pyroprocess based fuel cycle: low process efficiency and materials accounting for non-proliferation. There are currently no analytical techniques to ascertain the speciation and concentration of the actinides in the electrolyte. This project aims to develop an in-situ analytical method consisting of Raman spectroscopic analysis during electrochemical polarization.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10204: Phase Equilibria and Thermochemistry of Advanced Fuels: Modeling Burnup Behavior | University of South Carolina | $799,946 | Researchers will develop phase equilibria and thermochemical information to model and simulate advanced fuel behavior, including critical phenomena such as the contribution to fuel swelling of dissolved non-noble fission products and secondary phase formation, composite fuel stability, and fuel-clad chemical interactions.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10512: Demand-Driven Cycamore Archetypes | University of South Carolina | $799,956 | Modeling of the nuclear fuel cycle (NFC) is often posed as a set of demands coupled with available technologies. Demands may be singular or multivariate. Additionally, available technologies may have constraints on when they are deployable. This proposal aims to bring demand and deployment decisions into the NFC simulator itself, thereby simulating a more realistic process by which utilities, governments, and other stakeholders actually make facility deployment decisions.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10856: Integrating Data Sources for Improved Safeguards and Accountancy of Electrochemical Fuel Reprocessing Streams | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The SSPM Echem tracks elemental and bulk material flows through batch operations in electrochemical facilities. This project will augment the existing SSPM Echem model with models of DA, NDA, and process monitoring measurements, including appropriate accuracy, noise, and uncertainty characteristics. Diverse measurement and assay results will be fused to improve material accountancy and anomaly detection across the electrochemical process.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10190: Immobilization of High-Level Waste Salt in Dechlorinated Zeolite Waste Forms | University of Utah | $799,315 | The primary objective of the project is the development of a new glass-bonded waste form for the suitable disposal of electrorefiner waste salt. To achieve this goal, the proposed tasks will focus on the 1) dechlorination of the electrorefiner salt and 2) subsequent encapsulation into a sintered waste form. Achieving these goals will result in a compact waste form with higher fission product loading, which is instrumental in economically closing the nuclear fuel cycle.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10240: Molten Salt Reactor Experiment Benchmark Evaluation | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | _The objective of this project is to employ the data archive on the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) and develop a set of high-quality Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) reactor physics benchmarks for inclusion in the IRPhE Handbook that currently does not contain any benchmark set related to MSR technology._ | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10458: Multi-Group Transport Cross Section and Diffusion Coefficient Generation for Deterministic Reactor Models Using Monte Carlo Calculations | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and implement rigorous methods for generating multi-group transport cross section and diffusion coefficients for deterministic reactor models using Monte Carlo calculations. The project will eliminate the numerous approximations that currently contribute to significant mis-prediction of core power distributions when using deterministic core models.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10241: Development of Transient Capabilities for the NEAMS Neutronics Code PROTEUS | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop efficient transient transport methods for the PROTEUS-SN, PROTEUS-MOC and the first-order SN solvers of the NEAMS neutronics code PROTEUS. The team will also perform transient benchmark analyses._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10603: Experimental and Computational Analysis of NEAMS Pebble Bed Reactors | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct a coordinated experimental and computational effort to quantitatively map the full-field 3-D velocity and temperature fields in the interstitial spaces within pebble bed reactor systems. Key outcomes will include advanced correlations to predict flow and thermal transport within the pebble bed over a much wider range operating conditions and reactor types than is currently possible.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10421: Simulation of Fuel Rod Fragmentation, Relocation and Ballooning through Peridynamics in MOOSE Framework | University of Arizona | $675,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology that includes the appropriate governing physical fields within the realm of peridynamics to investigate fuel cracking, fragmentation, relocation, ballooning, pellet-cladding interaction, and cladding rapture and dispersion within the MOOSE framework.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10313: Development of a Comprehensive Two-phase Flow Database for the Validation of NEK-2P | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,817 | _Researchers will develop a comprehensive, high-resolution two-phase flow database by performing experiments in two air-water two-phase flow test facilities and a new heated rod-bundle test facility that will be built under this project. These data will be used to validate the two-phase flow models implemented in the NEK-2P code._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10744: Support for Reactor Operators in Case of Cyber-Security Threats | Ohio State University | $800,000 | This project addresses the need for research informing plant engineers and control room operators faced with cyber-security threats on appropriate responses. The approach taken uses distinguishing features of safety related events versus cyber-security threats; attack modeling, prediction, game theory and PRA knowledge to update operators procedures; and simulation for validation.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cyber Security R&D | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10578: Thermal Hydraulic & Structural Testing and Modeling of Compact Diffusion-Bonded Heat Exchangers for Supercritical CO2 Brayton Cycles | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will utilize both experimental and computational methods to test and model transient behavior of a mock up PCHE, which is a scaled down representation of the sCO2, cycle high temperature recuperator (HTR). In addition, the team will develop a methodology for quantification of the PCHEs production cost. The proposed project will provide valuable experiment data required to develop the Section III, Division 5 and Section VIII evaluation approach for compact heat exchangers.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10579: A Computational-Experimental Study to Simulate Mixing and Thermal Stratification in SFRs | Kansas State University | $799,320 | Researchers will use Thermographic Imaging and Ultrasonic Doppler Velocimetry (UDV) techniques to generate high fidelity thermal stratification and flow field data under various geometric and physical conditions for scaled models of outlet plena in sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs). Data from these experimental studies will be compared with those obtained using 1D codes such as SAS4A/SASSYS-1.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10714: ASME Code Application of the Compact Heat Exchanger for High Temperature Nuclear Service | North Carolina State University | $799,998 | Researchers will develop structural design methodologies for Type 316H stainless steel and Alloy 617 compact heat exchangers (CHX) using elastic-perfectly plastic (EPP) analysis methodology for the assessment of elevated temperature failure modes under sustained and cyclic thermal and pressure loading. The project will develop a technical basis for Section III, Division 5 ASME Code Case for CHX in high temperature nuclear service.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10885: Turbulent MHD Flow Modeling in Annular Linear Induction Pumps with Validation Experiments | North Carolina State University | $564,520 | Researchers seek to advance EMP design efforts for liquid metal reactors by 1.) Improving MHD modeling capability, particularly near the MHD stability criteria, 2.) Advancing simulation accuracy and fidelity in the typical operating range of large electromagnetic pumps for liquid metal cooled reactors, and 3.) Constructing a low barrier EMP test loop for model validation and instruction that can be easily replicated at low cost at other facilities.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10244: Integral System Testing for Prismatic Block Core Design HTGR | Oregon State University | $799,536 | _Researchers will conduct eight new tests be completed at the HTTF investigating a range of gas reactor events including DCC, PCC, and inlet plenum buoyant plume mixing. The data from these tests will be ideal for use in the validation of safety analysis codes used in gas reactor analysis. The data may also provide valuable insight into the validation of CFD codes for gas-reactor applications._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10324: Model Calibration-Based Design Methodologies for Structural Design of Supercritical CO2 Compact Heat Exchangers under Sustained Cyclic Temperature and Pressure Gradients | Oregon State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a design method for rapid structural assessment of diffusion-bonded Hybrid Compact Heat Exchangers, used as secondary heat exchangers in coupling Sodium Fast Reactors (SFRs) with supercritical CO2 (sCO2) Brayton power cycles. The team envisions that the developed method will (1) be usable in creation of an ASME code case for structural assessment of hybrid CHX; and (2) create design tools that ensure CHX code compliance under desired load conditions.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10285: Tribological Damage Mechanisms from Experiments and Validated Simulations of Alloy 800H and Inconel 617 in a Simulated HTGR/VHTR Helium Environment | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a mechanistic understanding of accelerated fretting, wear, and bonding between Alloy 800H and Inconel 617 surfaces. In order to achieve the objectives, a series of tribological experiments will be conducted in helium environments at elevated temperature with controlled concentrations of gaseous specious, attendant microstructure characterization (using electron microscopy, spectroscopy and atom-probe tomography), and validated continuum models.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10245: An Experimental Study of Design and Performance for the Water-Based Reactor Cavity Cooling System | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will extend and enhance the experimental tests using existing water-cooled RCCS facilities. The activity will be conducted in close collaboration with the water-cooled NSTF research team and will produce a unique set of high quality experimental data for support of existing system codes, system codes under development, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10457: Experimentally Validated Computational Modeling of Creep and Creep-Cracking for Nuclear Concrete Structures | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct novel 3D concrete creep tests under controlled environmental conditions to build a 3D constitutive model for concrete typical of existing containment structures. Decades long creep will be extracted via shorter tests (years long). The material model will be used in the Grizzly structural FEM code for simulating the response of real, 3D containment structures to changes in loading. Full-scale, long-term structural tests will enable validation.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10687: Development and Integration of Light Water Reactor (LWR) Materials Corrosion Degradation Codes into Grizzly | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop powerful codes for predicting environmentally-assisted localized corrosion in the primary coolant circuits (PCCs) of Generation II BWRs and PWRs. These codes and resulting models will be embedded into GRIZZLY. This will greatly extend the applicability of GRIZZLY to components in PCCs that are susceptible to pitting corrosion, stress corrosion cracking, and corrosion fatigue and will provide the stress intensity factor solutions for the crack growth rate models._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10083: Earth Abundant High Temperature Materials for Radioisotope Power Conversion System | University of California, Davis | $400,000 | Researchers will develop breakthrough efficiencies in segmented radioisotope thermal generators (RTG) power conversion systems through high temperature materials development. The approach will also reduce reliance on single-purpose supply chains.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10630: Validation of RELAP-7 for Forced Convection and Natural Circulation Reactor Flows | University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign | $799,368 | _Researcher will aid in the development of RELAP-7 through required experimental and computational efforts. The validation of the two-phase modeling capability of RELAP-7 will be accomplished through a series of tasks which include synthesis of existing forced convective data, acquisition of natural circulation data from an existing well-scaled facility, and uncertainty quantification in constitutive modeling._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10402: RELAP-7 Application and Enhancement for FLEX Strategies and ATF Behavior under Extended Loss of AC Power Conditions | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop new thermal hydraulic models that will be implemented into RELAP-7. Simulation studies will be performed for postulated ELAP scenarios in the PB Unit 2 reactor. The overarching goal of the proposed work is to perform a simulation study using RELAP-7, to model BWR ELAP scenarios with various mitigation measures and determine the range of time available for transition to portable FLEX equipment._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10080: Quantifying Properties for a Mechanistic, Predictive Understanding of Aqueous Impact on Ageing of Medium and Low Voltage AC and DC Cabling in Nuclear Power Plants | University of Minnesota, Duluth | $800,000 | _The degradation of medium and low voltage cabling is often associated with aqueous immersion. Electrical and mechanical data will be collected to develop a mechanistic model of the degradation of cabling to dielectric breakdown based on the temperature, oxidation, water conditions, and irradiation dose. The hypothesized model begins with solvent escape paths that expand and advance from the exterior surface toward the current carrying core at a rate dependent on the environment._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10214: Online Monitoring System for Concrete Structures Affected by Alkali-Silica Reaction (ASR) | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an online health monitoring system that integrates active and passive sensor networks and advanced signal processing algorithms to monitor ASR induced degradation in concrete structures. The obtained information will support an ongoing prognostic modeling research for health diagnosis and prognosis of aging concrete structures, in order to support long-term operational and maintenance decision making.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10210: Tribological Behavior of Structural Materials in High Temperature Helium Gas-Cooled Reactor Environments | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will work to understand, quantify, and model the elevated-temperature tribological behavior of alloys 617 and 800H in helium gas in HTGR conditions. Impurities in helium can induce a variety of corrosion mechanisms in structural materials that can profoundly affect tribological behavior. This study will investigate tribological behavior in various impurity concentration regimes and surface treatments to mitigate tribological damage in these environments.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10226: Enhancement of EM Pump Performance Through Modeling and Testing | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,856 | This project is aimed at the improvement of EM pumps for advanced liquid metal cooled reactors specifically the SFR. Initial tests will be conducted in the University of Wisconsin sodium loop on an existing moving magnet pump to help in the development of the models and to look at end effects associated with this pump. Additionally, tests will be conducted at ANL on the CMI ALIP. Ultimately, a small ALIP will be developed to test the principles and models developed to improve commercial scale.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10268: Sodium Cooled Fast Reactor Key Modeling and Analysis for Commercial Deployment | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,076 | This project will look at very low Prandtl number heat transfer from both an experimental and computational approach. Researchers will then establish key models to implement in plant dynamics codes. The team will also evaluate thermal stratification in large volumes making use of novel fiber optic distributed fiber measurements to get CFD quality data. Lastly, the team will evaluate some of the key remaining safety issues associated with the eventual commercialization of the sodium fast reactor.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10647: Experimental and Modeling Investigation of Overcooling Transients that Include Freezing, in Fluoride-Salt Cooled High-Temperature Reactors (FHRs) | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will make recommendations for design features of salt-reactor components that would take advantage of the phenomena characteristic to fluoride salts in order to be resilient to overcooling, and to recover gracefully from over-cooling transients. In support of this task a MOOSE-based computational tool will be developed, capable of modeling liquid-solid phase change, backed by experimental studies with the prototypical (flibe) coolant, and with simulant fluids.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10509: CFD and System Code Benchmark Data for Plenum-to-Plenum Flow Under Natural, Mixed and Forced Circulation Conditions | Utah State University | $800,000 | Researchers will generate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) validation data for forced, mixed, and natural convection through a parallel-path geometry relevant to gas reactor bypass flow. In addition, the team will independently build and validate CFD models based on the experimental results. The team has the experience and existing infrastructure for sharing complete validation datasets.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 17-12628: Effects of Mineral Impurities and Heat on Uranium(VI) Sorption onto Bentonite | California State University, East Bay | $785,714 | Mineral impurities are common in bentonite and clay buffer materials, proposed for many nuclear waste disposal options. Researchers will investigate the effects of calcite impurities on uranium(VI) sorption onto montmorillonite before and after mineral exposure to heat. Based on experimental sorption data and EXAFS analysis we will develop a new surface complexation model to determine under which conditions impurity effects are relevant, and how they can be incorporated in performance assessment models. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12798: Nanostructured Ceramic Membranes for Enhanced Tritium Management | Clemson University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a ceramic membrane technology for tritium separation and recovery to support the nuclear fuel cycle. Low-temperature water adsorption properties of nanoscale structured ceramics, combined with demonstrated hydrogen isotope exchange in their hydrated layers provide a low cost and unique avenue to address tritium management challenges. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12647: Determination of Critical Heat Flux and Leidenfrost Temperature on Candidate Accident Tolerant Fuel Materials | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $799,906 | Researchers will characterize the thermal-hydraulics behavior of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) materials by measuring critical heat flux (CHF) under normal and off-normal light water reactor conditions, and Leidenfrost temperature in post-loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) conditions. This work will yield material-specific models and/or correlations that can be readily implemented in state-of-the-art simulation tools. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13011: Gamma-ray Computed and Emission Tomography for Pool-Side Fuel Characterization | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,317 | Researchers will design, build, test and install a submersible tomography platform for performing pool-side physical, structural, and chemical characterization of irradiated fuel elements for test reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12496: Group Actinide Separation by Crystallization: A Single-Technology Approach to Used Nuclear Fuel Recycle | Texas A&M University | $399,857 | Researchers will explore bulk removal of U, Np, Pu and Am, from used nuclear fuel by studying the mechanisms of removal. A co-crystallization of the hexavalent actinides with U(VI) has already been demonstrated and researchers plan to develop a process based around this approach. Removal of these elements would be advantageous for future nuclear fuel recycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12824: Methods for Process Monitoring to Accurately Detect and Quantify Material Holdup in Advanced Recycle Facilities | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop better modeling methods, detectors, and facility design approaches to enable detection of inadvertent and deliberate hold up of fissile material in reprocessing and other nuclear material bulk handling facilities. The team will integrate results from this research project into a design methodology for future facilities to ensure accurate and reliable process monitoring for sustainable operation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12782: Effects of alpha and gamma radiation on complex and metal loaded solvents for advanced solvent extraction processes | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | This project will investigate the alpha and gamma radiolysis-induced chemical degradation of ligands used for the removal of minor actinides from used nuclear fuel in advanced extraction systems such as ALSEP. Researchers will emphasize organic phase degradation, particularly complex solvents with multiple ligands as well as metal loaded solvents. The project will improve predictive capabilities of extraction processes by elucidating degradation pathways. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12757: Elucidation of Electrochemical Behavior of Technetium, Tellurium, and Iodine in Molten Salt Solutions. | University of Idaho | $796,741 | This project will evaluate the electrochemical speciation behavior of iodide, and telluride in LiCl-KCl eutectic, LiCl, and LiCl + Li2O electrolytes at temperatures relevant to reprocessing conditions. By using rhenium as surrogate for technetium, the electrochemical, and chemical speciation properties of rhenium ions will be investigated in chloride molten salts with the addition of molybdenum and ruthenium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12701: Development and Experimental Benchmark of Computational Models to Predict Cladding Temperature and Vapor Removal from UNF Canisters during Drying Operations | University of Nevada, Reno | $400,000 | Researchers will develop physics-based computational tools to predict used nuclear fuel cladding temperatures within, and water vapor removal rates from, canisters during existing and proposed drying processes. The project will explore a range of gas pressures (including rarefication), and steady and unsteady external gas flows rates. The tools will be used to develop drying processes that minimize drying time while maintaining cladding temperatures. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12688: An Experimental and Analytical Investigation into Critical Heat Flux (CHF) Implications for Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF) Concepts | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a holistic best estimate assessment of the potential impact of different ATF cladding materials with regards to heat transfer characteristics, the boiling curve, critical heat flux, fuel mass/volume/specific power density, and neutronics effects due to changes in the lattice design or parasitic neutron absorption during design basis accident conditions in light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12996: Multipurpose, Radiation- and Temperature-Resistant Semiconductor Radiation Detectors for Advanced Process Monitoring and Nuclear Safeguards | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop detection systems capable of neutron, gamma-ray, x-ray, and alpha monitoring in high-temperature and high radiation environments for extended periods of time. The detectors will be used to strengthen nuclear safeguards by enhancing nuclear material control and accounting in nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13125: The Thermodynamics of Crystallization and Phase-Separation in Melt-Derived Nuclear Waste Forms | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This projects will study the thermodynamics of melt and quench phases of nuclear waste glasses and glass ceramics and link this information to the underlying short-range and medium-range structure. Advanced calorimetric techniques and neutron total scattering with pair distribution function analysis will be applied to obtain these data. Computer simulations will complement the experimental effort. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12886: Identifying, Predicting and Preventing Localized Corrosion in Kr-85 Storage Canisters | University of Virginia | $799,000 | Researchers will determine the root cause of corrosion within Kr-85 storage canisters in order to better understand current corrosion rates. The project will focus on expanding available research on Rb corrosion interactions and other contributing factors to better understand the corrosion phenomenon in current steel canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12463: Extreme Performance High Entropy Alloys (HEAs) Cladding for Fast Reactor Applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will develop extreme performance high entropy alloys (HEAs) as for new metal alloy cladding for fast reactor applications. Two very promising, single solution BCC HEAs will be investigated. The project will deliver an extensive irradiation resistance study of a new promising yet unexplored cladding concept. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12549: Critical Heat Flux Studies for Innovative Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding Surfaces | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will study critical heat flux (CHF) behavior focused on innovative accident tolerant fuel (ATF) cladding. The project includes separate effects screening tests to measure CHF for various ATF clad materials and surface characteristics with measurements of surface wettability. Pressurized flow boiling experiments will simulate prototypical reactor conditions for evaluating the best ATF clad materials coupled with CHF modeling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13019: Evaluation of Accident Tolerant Fuels Surface Characteristics in Critical Heat Flux Performance | Virginia Commonwealth University | $800,000 | Researchers will perform separate-effects and system-wide tests of the AREVA and GE accident tolerant fuel concepts currently under consideration. The project will investigate the impact of cladding surface characteristics in critical heat flux (CHF) under normal and anticipated off-normal conditions. The experimental results will be used to develop and validate enhanced models for the prediction of CHF and will be implemented in various subchannel and system analysis codes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13054: Simulated Used Nuclear Fuel Dissolution as a Function of Fuel Chemistry and Near Field Conditions | Washington State University | $800,000 | Researchers will study the effects of simulated used nuclear fuel (UNF) chemistry and microstructure on its dissolution in geologic repository conditions. The results will advance models for UNF evolution in repository conditions, enabling reliable prediction of degradation and long-term performance of used nuclear fuel for up to one million years. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12506: Development of Reactor Physics Benchmark Evaluations for Power Burst Facility Experiments | University of Florida | $398,265 | Researchers will perform reactor physics benchmark evaluations of Power Burst Facility experiments regarding differential reactivity worth of the control and transient rods, shim rod worth, in-pile-tube reactivity worth, shutdown reactivity, fuel assembly reactivity worth, core void coefficients of reactivity, in-pile-tube void coefficient, and coolant temperature coefficient of reactivity. The results will be incorporated in the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP). | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12748: Combined modeling and experiments to predict corrosion and embrittlement in dual-phase stainless steels within the MARMOT framework | Oregon State University | $800,000 | Researchers will enhance MARMOT to predict mechanical and corrosion properties of dual-phase stainless steels as a function of composition, aging time and temperature by using combined experimental data and lower length scale models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12797: In-Situ Ion Irradiation to Add Irradiation Assisted Grain Growth to the MARMOT Tool | Pennsylvania State University | $500,000 | Researchers will add the capability to model irradiation assisted grain growth to the MARMOT tool by using in-situ ion irradiation of UO2 to quantify the effect of irradiation on grain growth. The team will investigate the hypothesis that irradiation assisted grain growth is caused by thermal spikes resulting from atom collisions. The model added to MARMOT will couple the existing grain growth model to a heat conduction simulation using a stochastic heat source describing the thermal spike. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12555: Integration of high-fidelity Monte Carlo and deterministic transport codes into Workbench | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | Researchers will provide end users an ability to run both MCNP6 and PROTEUS codes from a common user input in Workbench by (1) templating user-provided engineering scale specifications to code-specific input requirements, (2) enabling multi-fidelity analysis of a system from a common input using MCNP6 and PROTEUS and (3) allowing the easy use of high-fidelity simulations to inform lower-order models for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems and experiments. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12939: Expansion of BISON Capabilities to Predict the Dynamic Response of Irradiated Fuel Rods | University of New Hampshire | $800,000 | Researchers will expand the capabilities of BISON and MOOSE to simulate the structural dynamic response of fuel rods and fuel assemblies during handling (wet and dry storage) and transportation. Expanding the capabilities of BISON and MOOSE to facilitate the evaluation of the dynamic response of fuel rods and assemblies is important to conduct a more reliable risk assessment of fuel assemblies, as well as storage and transportation casks. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13179: Implementation and Validation of Advanced Turbulence Modeling Methods for Liquid Metal Flow in Nek5000 | University of Oklahoma | $786,648 | Researchers will implement and validate state-of-the-art turbulence modeling techniques in Nek5000 to improve predition of liquid metal flows. Specific methods to be investigated include: variable PrT and algebraic heat flux models (AHFM) for URANS simulation; partially-averaged Navier-Stokes (PANS) and dynamic hybrid RANS-LES (DHRL) for hybrid RANS-LES simulation; and variable PrT subgrid heat flux modeling for LES. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12848: Development of Information Trustworthiness and Integrity Algorithms for Cybersecurity Defenses of Nuclear Power Reactors | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a first-of-a-kind physics-based defense-in-depth strategy to defend against false data injection attacks which attempt to change the information used by the I/C network to set reactor state. The approach employs a new design philosophy to check for information trustworthiness/integrity in order to determine whether the information is genuinely generated during the actual operation of the nuclear unit under either normal or off-normal conditions. | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cybersecurity | |
| NEUP Project 17-12538: Influence of dissolved salts and impurities in seawater on heat transfer degradation and fluid flow through fuel channels debris bed | Kansas State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate the role of raw water on degraded heat transfer and fluid flow in the reactor core and debris bed. X-ray imaging techniques, optical-fiber high speed temperature sensing systems and radioactive tracer salts will be used to simultaneously measure experimental data on void fraction, temperature and salt deposition rate. This data will be used to obtain correlations for heat transfer and fluid flow in case of raw water injection. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12502: High Resolution Temperature and Flow Measurements in Wire-Wrapped Fuel Assemblies | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will produce high-quality, high spatial and temporal resolution temperature and flow datasets for wire-wrapped rod bundle geometries. Different bundle sizes, configurations (including duct's and pin's deformation) and Low-Prandlt fluids will be investigated. A unique set of data will be produced to support advanced CFD tools validation, including Nek5000. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12723: Integrating Static PRA Information with RISMC Simulation Methods | The Ohio State University | $799,985 | Researchers will develop a computationally feasible and user friendly process to augment the traditional probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) results with improved representation of epistemic uncertainties and process/hardware/software/human interactions at plant level applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12664: Methods to Predict Thermal Radiation and to Design Scaled Separate and Integral Effects Testing For Molten Salt Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology for the design of molten salt reactor (MSR) Separate Effect Test and Integral Effect Test experiments. This methodology will identify and quantify sources of scaling distortion including radiative heat transport. The project would improve code performance and assist FHR/MSR vendors who are making licensing applications based on code results. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12523: Experimental and Computational Studies of Stress Corrosion Cracking of Alloys 308/309 and 82/182 Weldments in Corrosive and Radiation Environment | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will use advanced microanalytical analysis techniques to study SCC and IASCC of stainless steel and Ni-Cr alloy weldments. CERT, autoclave immersion, and ion irradiation will be used to determine synergistic effect of LWR environmental factors. Results from the experimental component of the proposed work scope will be used for enhanced predictive capability of the INL Grizzly code via XFEM. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12614: Systematic Enterprise Risk Management by Integrating the RISMC Toolkit and Cost-Benefit Analysis | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $799,998 | Researchers will develop a systematic Enterprise Risk Management framework, which utilizes Decision Tree (DT) logic to consider high-level production-loss scenarios, and their underlying physical and social causes throughout the lifecycle. In the proposed DT, uncertainty nodes will be quantified by plant-specific risk analysis using the Risk-Informed Safety Margin Characterization (RISMC) Toolkit, and cost-benefit analysis will be conducted for end states reflecting consequences of managerial decision-making. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12972: Design of a Commercial-Scale, Fluoride-Salt-Cooled, High-Temperature Reactor With Novel Refueling and Decay Heat Removal Capabilities | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $400,000 | Researchers will combine fluoride-salt-cooled, high temperature reactors (FHR) with advanced gas reactor (AGR) refueling technology to address several significant challenges that remain in the development of FHR technology. The project will adapt AGR refueling technology by using the new fuel-inside-radial-moderator fuel form, which will also introduce new ways of dealing with decay heat. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13115: Experimental Determination of Helium/air Mixing in Helium Cooled Reactor | University of Michigan | $800,000 | Researchers will examine the effects of coolant leakage and air ingress through three different investigations. The overall objective of this work is to characterize near and far field behavior of Helium/Air mixing in containment, and to determine rates and amounts of air leaked back into the reactor after a depressurization event. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12830: Radioisotope Retention in Graphite and Graphitic Materials | University of Missouri, Columbia | $800,000 | Researchers will use a variety of experimental techniques to acquire data for fission product diffusion, transport and adsorption of fission products in various graphites, relating to nuclear reactors at high temperatures. Measurements will be taken using non-irradiated graphite using fission product surrogates. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13020: Bimetallic Composite (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) Development and Compatibility in Flowing FLiBe as a Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) Structural Material | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a new bimetallic alloy (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) structural material for the MSR, and compare its post-exposure mechanical performance in flowing FLiBe with single alloys SS 316, Hastelloy N, and Incoloy 800H, in the context of ASME codification. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12678: Novel NDE Sensors, Waveforms, Models, and Algorithms for Cable Health Monitoring | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop NDE sensors and probabilistic cable insulation diagnosis and prognosis algorithms (particle filtering), and modeling and experiments to monitor cable insulation health. Two different types of sensor will be deployed to detect insulation damage. The team will also develop cable insulation degradation modeling to further understand defects in cable insulation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13080: Multiscale Investigation of SiC/SiC Composite Degradation in Helium Coolant Operating Environment | University of Virginia | $800,000 | Researchers will study the long-term degradation mechanisms of SiC/SiC composites in helium coolant environments by slow crack growth (SCG). This will be achieved through multiscale testing in hot, O2-contaminated He and evaluation of the effect of SCG on hermeticity during in situ testing. Results will be extended to predictive low-level and component-scale SCG models and integrated into the development of ASME standards for use of SiC/SiC in nuclear reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12481: Supercritical CO2 power cycle for space applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will develop an advanced supercritical Brayton power cycle directly coupled to a fission reactor. The project will carry out a comprehensive optimization of the cycle operating conditions, working fluid, and configuration; develop detailed designs of each subcomponent; and demonstrate/develop critical technologies such as turbomachinery seals and bearings, reactor material corrosion and strength demonstrations, and supercritical heat transfer. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13232: Radiative Heat Transport and Optical Characterization of High Temperature Molten Salts | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | The goal of the proposed research is to experimentally investigate radiation heat transport in molten salts, and to add functionality for radiative heat transport in a thermal-hydraulics system code. This includes obtaining highly resolved measurements of the optical absorption and emissivity of liquid salts. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 18-15345: Multiphysics Degradation Processes, and Their Mitigation, in Engineered and Geological Bariers: Experiments and Simulation | Duke University | $800,000.00 | This project will focus on filling the gaps in understanding of mechanisms of a series of degradation processes (thermal, hydric, geo-chemical, and transport processes phenomena) potentially affecting geo-materials used in repositories. The objectives of the work are to better recognize the conditions leading to preferential paths of radionuclide transport and rock weakening, and to build mathematical models and implement them into existing codes to predict material degradation and develop strategies to reduce the adverse consequences. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15043: Integration of Nuclear Material Accounting Data and Process Monitoring Data for Improvement on Detection Probability in Safeguarding Electrochemical Processing Facilities | Oregon State University | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to further studies on fusion of process monitoring (PM) data and nuclear material accounting (NMA) data. PM data, which includes monitoring by various types of equipment (radiation detectors, cameras, voltage, current sensors), can supplement NMA data to help improve safeguards. For aqueous-based reprocessing facilities, it is reported that PM, integrated with traditional NMA, has a high-detection probability for specific diversions. For electrochemical reprocessing, preliminary studies have shown that PM data can support traditional NMA by providing a basis to estimate some of the in-processing nuclear material inventories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15148: Recovery of Rare-Earth Elements (Nd, Gd, Sm) in Oxide Wasteform Using Liquid Metals (Bi, Sn) | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000.00 | This project investigates a new approach for recovering rare-earth (RE) fission products (Nd, Gd, and Sm) from molten chlorine salts using liquid metal (Bi and Sn) electrodes. The research aids molten salt recycling by converting the RE products into chloride-free RE oxides, which could be incorporated into conventional glass/ceramic waste forms. Successful outcomes of the project include advanced separation of fission products from molten salts with better control of chemical selectivity and high-recovery yield. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15103: Microstructure-Based Benchmarking for Nano/Microscale Tension and Ductility Testing of Irradiated Steels | Purdue University | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to standardize methods for nano/micro-scale tensile and ductility testing of irradiated Fe-Cr steels, through microstructure-based benchmarking. The study will investigate key process parameters for TEM in situ tension and ductility testing. Coupling experimental studies with multiscale models, the research will identify the approaches that provide consistent deformation mechanisms between the nano/micro-scale and macro-scale tests, from which standard practices will be obtained. The primary project outcome will be a set of recommended guidelines for nano/microscale mechanical testing, which will lead to unprecedented reductions in the time and cost for qualifying materials for in-reactor service and to ensure consistency of methods and validity of results. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15559: Cold Spray Repair & Mitigation of Stress Corrosion Cracks in Spent Nuclear Fuel Dry Storage Canisters | Purdue University | $799,982.00 | This goal of this project is to demonstrate cold spray repair and mitigation of chloride-induced stress corrosion cracks (SCC) and pits in stainless steel dry storage canisters. The research will optimize the repair process and gain a scientifically informed understanding of SCC mechanisms. The outcome is to further develop cold spray as an attractive solution for the repair of existing SCC and mitigation of potential SCC necessary to ensure long-term integrity, security, and regulatory compliance of spent nuclear fuel storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15596: Capture of Organic Iodides from Vessel Off-Gas Streams | Syracuse University | $799,548.00 | This project will study the capture of radioactive organoiodides from off-gas streams produced during nuclear fuel reprocessing by conducting adsorption experiments using a selected silver adsorbents. Multifaceted simulation adsorption models will be developed to assist in the design of necessary capture systems for off-gas streams. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15585: Impact of Coupled Gas Migration and Thermo-hydro-mechanical Processes on the Performance of Repositories for High Level Nuclear Waste | Texas A&M University | $608,375.00 | The main goal of this project is to better understand the possible effect of gas migration (particularly through discontinuities) on the performance and long-term behavior of engineered barrier systems (EBS) envisaged for the isolation of high-level radioactive waste (HLW). Specific outcomes of this study will be an improved understanding of the role of gas migration and discontinuities in the performance of HLW disposals, with the underlying aim to improve design of EBS used for HLW. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15531: Repair and Mitigation of Chloride-Induced Pitting and Chloride-Induced Stress Corrosion Cracking in Used Nuclear Fuel Dry Cask Canister Materials | The Ohio State University | $800,000.00 | This project will evaluate and develop a set of tools to repair and mitigate chloride-induced pitting and stress corrosion cracking in stainless steel nuclear fuel canisters. Advanced processes, including low temperature friction stir welding and cold spray deposition, will be evaluated according to various criteria, such as corrosion performance. In addition, technologies that have not yet been evaluated for UNF applications, including vaporizing foil actuator welding and soldering will be assessed. The two most promising technologies will selected for further development and comprehensive study. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14912: Bridging the Length Scales on Mechanical Property Evaluation | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000.00 | This project combines experimental and modeling methods to gain a comprehensive approach for addressing scaling effects on small-scale mechanical testing. Multiscale experiments, together with modeling on reactor-relevant and model alloys, will provide better understanding of appropriate scaling relationships. The study aims to gain fundamental understanding of plasticity interactions with specific strength-determining features, such as precipitates and grain boundaries. The goal of this work is to provide the basis to add small-scale mechanical testing in the toolbox for nuclear materials research. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14911: Understanding of degradation of SiC/SiC materials in nuclear systems and development of mitigation strategies | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000.00 | This project investigates the best possible coatings to prevent SiCf/SiCm corrosion in LWR environments. The research features a computational and experimental rapid screening approach for numerous coating compositions. The work includes autoclave exposure of rapid screening coupons in prototypical environments in combination with thermodynamic modeling (CALPHAD) and Finite Element Methods (FEM). Small-scale mechanical testing, together with thermal cycling and FEM modeling, will provide guidance on the ideal coating system design. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15701: Time-dependent THMC Properties and Microstructural Evolution of Damage Rocks in Excavation Damage Zone | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,978.00 | The proposed project focuses on the geomechanical aspects of modeling by addressing the time-dependent evolution of rock microstructure and its coupling with the THC processes that are of first-order importance to the stability and the isolation performance of repositories. The research will delineate an integrated experimental, theoretical and numerical strategy in assessing the evolution EDZ over time and its implication on the long-term migration of hazardous species. These results will enhance the confidence of the predicted long-term performance of repositories, which helps to move forward the goal of one-million-year isolation of high-level nuclear wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15381: Multiaxial Failure Envelopes and Uncertainty Quantification of Nuclear-Grade SiCf/SiC Woven Ceramic Matrix Tubular Composites | University of Florida | $800,000.00 | This project proposes to develop a comprehensive experimental and computational approach for determining constitutive relations and multiaxial failure envelopes of nuclear-grade continuous silicon fiber (SiCf) and SiC matrix woven tubular composites. The result of this work can be adopted in industry for design refinement, optimization of performance under the desired operating conditions, and reliable prediction of failure under unforeseen accidental scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15496: Formation of Zeolites Responsible for Waste Glass Rate Acceleration: An Experimental and Computational Study for Understanding Thermodynamic and Kinetic Processes | University of Houston | $800,000.00 | Through experimental and computational studies, this project will expose the factors governing zeolite crystallization and their role in Stage III dissolution of radionuclide-containing glass waste forms generated in advanced nuclear fuel cycles. The overall goal of this project is to understand the formation of zeolite phases in order to develop process control methods to suppress Stage III dissolution. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14998: Novel Processes for Capture of Radioactive Iodine Species from Vessel Off-Gas Streams | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the sorption system performance and effectiveness for capture of radioiodine species present in the off-gas streams from the used nuclear fuel (UNF) recycling operations, focusing particularly on the organic iodine species. The dynamic sorption experimentation and theoretical modeling will offer fundamental insights on the mechanism enabling the design and prediction the control system performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15261: Friction Stir Based Repair Welding of Dry Storage Canisters and Mitigation Strategies: Effect of Engineered Barrier Layer on Environmental Degradation | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The project goal is to apply friction stir based repair and mitigation technique for eliminating failure associated with pitting and stress corrosion cracking in dry storage canisters for spent fuels. The goal of these activities is to obtain a fundamental understanding of the processing-structure-properties correlations. This work will contribute to the development of a crack repair/mitigation strategy based on friction stir technology that can be efficiently implemented for spent fuel dry storage casks, which will enhance safety and reliability of these systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15263: X-ray Studies of Interfacial Molecular Complexes in ALSEP Back-Extraction | University of Illinois at Chicago | $800,000.00 | This project will use synchrotron X-rays to characterize the interfacial molecular complexes (of extractants and radiologically derived impurities, complexants, buffers, and metal ions) formed during the Actinide-Lanthanide Separation Process (ALSEP) back-extraction. This work addresses the critical knowledge gap of slow stripping kinetics in ALSEP, as well as the influence of radiolytic degradation products. The outcome of the project will be a molecular-level understanding of the role of different components in the interfacial mechanism of back-extraction in the ALSEP process, therefore leading to development of more efficient and faster metal stripping relevant to the separation of actinides from lanthanides in the nuclear fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15030: Mechanistic Understanding of Radiolytically Assisted Hydrothermal Corrosion of SiC in LWR Coolant Environments | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to develop a mechanistic understanding of the hydrothermal corrosion behavior of monolithic SiC and SiC/SiC composites in LWR environment under the influence of water radiolysis products and radiation damage. Complementary atomistic simulations will be carried out to determine the rate controlling mechanisms for dissolution under different water chemistries and in the presence of radiation. Activation energies and kinetic rates will be calculated directly from these simulations and compared to experimentally fitted values. The dissolution rate constants determined and validated in this integrated experimental and modeling approach will allow predictions of long-term SiC corrosion behavior. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14999: Probabilistic Failure Criterion of SiC/SiC Composites Under Multi-Axial Loading | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $800,000.00 | This project aims to develop a probabilistic failure criterion of SiC/SiC composites under multi-axial loading and to incorporate the criterion into a reliability analysis of the structural integrity of LWR SiC/SiC fuel cladding. This research will be anchored by a seamless integration of novel experimental and analytical tools, which will lead to a robust methodology for dependable analysis of SiC/SiC composite structures for LWR fuel cladding, as well as other nuclear applications. The resulting model will be experimentally validated and applied to analyze the reliability of LWR SiC/SiC fuel cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15502: Reducing Uncertainty in Radionuclide Transport Prediction Using Multiple Environmental Tracers | University of Montana | $724,906.00 | In this project, direct modeling of multiple environmental tracers will be used to improve predictions of radionuclide transport in a shallow alluvial aquifer discharge. The research will take advantage of recent theoretical developments considering the use of environmental tracers, and advances in high-performance reactive flow and transport models, to obtain the maximum information on the transport system. The goal is to develop a new methodology to characterize natural reactive flow and transport systems, reduce predictive uncertainty in radionuclide transport simulations, determine the maximum information content of the tracer suite, and optimize future groundwater characterization efforts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15578: Computational and Experimental Investigation of Thermal-Mechanical- Chemical Mechanisms of High-burnup Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) Processes at Elevated Temperatures and Degradation Behavior in Geologic Repositories | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $800,000.00 | The overarching goal of this project is to use combined computational and experimental research and development activities to enhance understanding of the mechanisms and thermal-mechanical-chemical (TMC) parameters controlling the instant release fraction (IRF) and matrix dissolution of high-burnup (HB; burnup > 45 GWd/MTU) spent nuclear fuels (SNFs) and the subsequent formation, stability, and phase transformations of HB SNF alteration products under long-term storage and geological disposal conditions (e.g., high-temperature storage, _-radiolysis). The results of this research will be used to enhance the mechanistic detail of process models to reduce uncertainty in, and improve the technical bases of, safety cases and performance assessment analyses. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15439: Radiolytic Dissolution Rate of Silicon Carbide | University of Notre Dame | $400,000.00 | This project seeks to develop a matrix of dissolution rates for high-purity SiC material, using intense electron beam irradiation, and to measure the products of dissolution (silicic acid and CO2 (or CO)) in the water downstream of the irradiation zone. The objective is to determine the rate of SiC dissolution and gather sufficient insight about its mechanism in LWRs, so that the use of SiC/SiC composite materials for accident tolerant fuel cladding can proceed with confidence. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15061: Development of an MC&A Toolbox for Liquid-fueled Molten Salt Reactors with Online Reprocessing | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,207.00 | The purpose of this project is to develop a toolbox of swappable mass flow modules for liquid-fueled molten salt reactor (MSR) systems for the purposes of evaluating material control & accountancy measurement techniques. When combined together, these modules enable modeling of the time-dependent mass flows for a variety of MSR variants. The test platform will consist of a toolbox of independent process modules representing discrete physical units, each with its own self-contained physics responsive to the input mass flow, along with appropriate measurement models that can be coupled to key flow points. These dynamic physical signatures would allow testing of the viability and efficacy of potential accountancy techniques under the full range of reactor operating conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15307: A Novel and Flexible Approach for Converting LWR UNF Fuel Into Forms That Can Be Used to Fuel a Variety of Gen-IV Reactors | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $400,000.00 | This project will investigate the chemical decladding and the digestion of whole MOX-based fuel rods, using thionyl chloride and surrogate materials. Digesting entire LWR fuel assemblies results in product streams that include pure decontaminated ZrCl4; pure UCl4; and a stream containing TRU/FPs, as well as alloying metals (as chloride salts). The objectives of this project are to provide a new, highly efficient protocol for the transformation of used nuclear fuel into useful components and to effectively contain a concentrated stream of highly radioactive materials for appropriate handling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15459: Reduced Diffusion and Enhanced Retention of Multiple Radionuclides from Pore Structure Studies of Barrier Materials for Enhanced Repository Performance | University of Texas at Arlington | $567,831.00 | The project seeks to better understand and quantify the pore structure (geometry and topology) and pore connectivity of porous media and its emergent effect on diffusion and retention of various radionuclides in barrier materials. The anticipated outcome of the project will be to more accurately evaluate the performance of geological repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15649: Benchmarking Microscale Ductility Measurements | University of Utah | $776,669.00 | The objectives of this project are to establish best practices for obtaining tensile microscale ductility measurements and to validate methodologies for comparing them to macroscale ductility measurements. Anticipated outcomes of the project are: 1) measurement of grain and sub-grain localization processes micro and macroscales; 2) establishment of best practices for microtensile experimentation; 3) identification of statistically significant relationships between specimen geometry, microstructure variables and mechanical behavior; 4) modified phenomenological elongation-based ductility models to enable direct upscaling of ductility measurements from microscale to macroscopic. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15003: Advanced Coating and Surface Modification Technologies for SiC-SiC Composite for Hydrothermal Corrosion Protection in LWR | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,990.00 | This project focuses on the development of coatings and surface modification approaches for hydrothermal corrosion protection of SiC-SiC composite in normal LWR operation environments. Innovative surface treatment recipes will be explored using processes including, interfacial stitching to improve adhesion, multi-layered structures to improve ductility, and compositions and structures resulting from thermal treatments. The surface treatment concepts involve corrosion resistant metallic and ceramic materials, and are amenable to industrial scalability for the cladding application. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15332: Low-Force Solid-State Technologies for Mitigation of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dry Storage Canisters | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000.00 | This project will focus on evaluating and developing two technologies used for field mitigation and repair of stress corrosion cracking (SCC): 1) additive friction stir welding; and 2) cold spray deposition. The work involves developing low-force, low-heat input solid state technologies to lessen and repair SCC in stainless steel canisters for used nuclear fuel (UNF). This outcome of the study will inform feasibility of using the two technologies to conduct on-site field repairs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14913: The Role of Temperature on Non-Darcian Flows in Engineered Clay Barriers | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000.00 | This project intends to accomplish three tasks: 1) to develop a predictive model to facilitate experimental data interpretation and provide mechanistic insights into the role of temperature on non-Darcian flows in low-permeability engineered clay barriers; 2) conduct experiments to unravel the role of temperature on the threshold gradient of non-Darcian flow in both saturated and unsaturated bentonite; and 3) use molecular dynamics (MD) simulation to improve fundamental understanding. The experimental data, associated with the MD simulation, will provide valuable information to improve fundamental understanding and scientific knowledge with respect to the temperature dependence of threshold gradient in non-Darcian flows, because very limited experimental data for saturated flow and no experimental data for unsaturated flow are available. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14815: C-SiOC-SiC Coated Particle Fuels for Advanced Nuclear Reactors | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $400,000.00 | This project will study a new concept for nuclear fuel encapsulation using an amorphous SiOC plus carbon system as the inner coating and nanocrystalline SiC plus minor carbon as the outer coating for nuclear fuel kernel particles. The outcomes of this work are: 1) new directions and possible replacement guidance for current nuclear fuel materials in operation; 2) new fuel materials for future nuclear reactor material design and development; 3) nuclear composite microstructure evolution and performance degradation understanding; 4) screening tools to guide future nuclear fuel material activities; and 5) mechanisms of nuclear fuel material evolution and degradation and effective strategies to mitigate/reduce undesirable fuel behaviors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15226: An Evaluated, Transient Experiment based on Simultaneous, 3-D Neutron-Flux and Temperature Measurements | Kansas State University | $399,972.00 | This project will evaluate existing and near-term experimental data for inclusion in the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) handbook. The data to be evaluated include compositions from a recent fuel replacement as part of an LEU conversion, a number of critical, fresh-fuel configurations, fuel temperature measurements at fresh-fuel configurations, and records from nearly a decade of operation. The proposed work would lead to a first-of-a-kind evaluation of transient, spatially-dependent reaction rates. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project CFA-18-15773: Evaluation of the Thermal Scattering Law for Advanced Reactor Neutron Moderators and Reflectors | North Carolina State University | $398,821.00 | The objective of this project is to narrow the nuclear data gap for advanced nuclear reactors that are driven by thermal neutrons. This includes concepts such as gas-cooled high-temperature reactors and molten salt or salt-cooled high temperature reactors. The generated data TSL libraries will be provided in EDNF File 7 format to the National Nuclear Data Center (NDDC) to immediately include in beta releases of the ENDF/B libraries and to consider for the future release of ENDF/B-VIII.1. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15602: Modeling and Experimental Verification of Thermal Energy Storage Systems to Enable Load Following Capability for Nuclear Reactors | University of Idaho | $761,640.00 | This project purposes to integrate new thermal energy storage (TES) models, developed in Modelica, with ongoing nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (NRHES) modeling efforts, in order to evaluate economic potential and advantages of new process designs over baseload electricity production. The computational phase of this project includes developing mathematical and physics-based TES models, which could later be translated to Modelica and integrated with existing NRHES components. The testing and optimization would be conducted using RAVEN. A techno-economic analysis will be performed to evaluate the compatibility of the newly formed integration, as well as to quantify its feasibility and economic benefits. The experimental aspect is focused on the development of scaled TES systems, which serve as verification for the Modelica models and allow system testing upon being integrated with DETAIL. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14963: Development of Nuclear Hybrid Energy Systems: Temperature Amplification through Chemical Heat Pumps for Industrial Applications | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The overall goal of this project is to develop and demonstrate, through modeling and experimental investigations, temperature amplification capabilities of a chemical heat pump (CHP) system that can be coupled to a conventional light water reactor or a near-term small modular reactor. The outcomes would include nuclear hybrid energy system architecture containing a CHP, experimental data on the CHP performance, and dynamic model of the system, validated through experimentation, which could be used for scale-up and design. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15008: Development of Thermal Inelastic Scattering Covariance Data Capabilities with Demonstration of Light Water Evaluation | University of Michigan | $400,000.00 | The goal of this project is to produce a format for covariance data for inelastic thermal neutron scattering data for moderators in the ENDF format. To demonstrate the viability of this new format, an evaluation of the covariance data for thermal scattering in light water in this format will be produced, along with the capabilities to generate the files and test their efficacy. A capability for calculating sensitivity coefficients using multigroup methods to the fundamental physics parameters governing light-water scattering will be developed to facilitate identifying nuclear data needs related to thermal scattering. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15056: Model-Based Diagnostics and Mitigation of Cyber Threats | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | This project intends to develop a toolkit for modeling digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems for nuclear power plants so that the consequences of cyber-attacks on I&C systems may conveniently be modeled using nuclear plant simulation software. The results of the toolkit-based models, the corresponding responses, and the performance of the diagnostic schemes will be tested on a virtual control room driven by a plant simulator. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15055: NICSim: Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Simulation for Evaluating Response to Cyber-attacks | University of New Mexico | $799,945.00 | The objective of the project is to develop a Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Simulation (NICSim) platform with a novel emulytics capability to simulate control systems and components in nuclear power plants. The outcome of this work would be a first-in-class emulytics platform with an associated documentation and library of physical models of components that could be used by analysts and designers to assess the resilience and cybersecurity risks of different control system designs for a wide range of power plants. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15324: Validation of Pressure Relaxation Coefficient in RELAP-7 Seven-Equation Model | George Washington University | $800,000.00 | This project aims to validate the Seven-Equation model in RELAP-7 by: 1) measuring velocity and pressure in each phase and the interface as well as return to equilibrium in fast transients with high-speed non-intrusive laser diagnostics in canonical experiments; 2) complementing experimental data with a multiscale computational approach, including a 3D proprietary direct numerical solver; and 3) validating RELAP-7 with a combination of experimental data and first-principle simulations. This combination would provide unique and complete datasets to validate RELAP-7 with high confidence and offer a new class of experimental and numerical tools. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project CFA-18-15104: Demonstration of Utilization of High-fidelity NEAMS Tools to Inform the Improved Use of Conventional Tools within the NEAMS Workbench on the NEA/OECD C5G7-TD Benchmark | North Carolina State University | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to demonstrate the utilization of high-fidelity Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) tools (PROTEUS, Nek5000, and BISON) to inform the improved use of conventional tools (DIF-3D, CTF, and CTFFuel) within the NEAMS Workbench on the NEA/OECD C5G7-TD benchmark. This would result in more accurate predictions of safety parameters and margins, which is important for both safety and performance improvements of the nuclear power plants being currently operated and built. The developed Workbench-based framework will also assist end users to apply high-fidelity simulations to inform lower-order models for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14741: Demonstration of a Methodology for Direct Validation of MARMOT Irradiation-Induced Microstructural Evolution and Physical Property Models Using U-10Zr | Texas A&M University | $500,000.00 | The objective of this project is to demonstrate, for the first time, a methodology that enables the direct validation of microstructural evolution models for fuel in MARMOT, and the direct correlation of changes in physical properties with specific irradiation-induced microstructural features. Properly implementing this methodology will result in rapid development of MARMOT mesoscale models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15520: Accurate and Efficient Parametric Model-Order Reduction for Turbulent Thermal Transport | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000.00 | The project objective is to develop reduced-order models (ROMs) that will improve accuracy of LMR system-level analysis with low overhead. These new models will systematically mine high-fidelity DNS, LES, or uRANS simulations to construct low-order dynamical systems that can couple with a systems analysis code, such as the SAM code being developed under NEAMS. These simulations provide useful data and will be made available to the scientific community, and the overall effort will contribute to more efficient LMR conceptual design studies and licensing. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15484: A Novel High Fidelity Continuous-energy tTansport Tool for Efficient FHR Transient Calculations | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000.00 | The objective of the project is to develop a high-fidelity continuous energy (CE) transport tool for efficient transient calculations in fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactors with prismatic core/fuel assembly design. This will be accomplished by extending the high-fidelity 3-D continuous energy coarse mesh radiation transport (COMET) code with formidable computational speed to solve transient problems in FHRs with accurate thermal hydraulic feedback. The new capability would enable plant system codes to perform analyses necessary to address complex technical design, regulatory, reactor safety, and economic hurdles prior to construction. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15093: Determination of Molecular Structure and Dynamics of Molten Salts by Advanced Neutron and X-ray Scattering Measurements and Computer Modeling | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000.00 | This project will seek detailed knowledge about molecular structure and dynamics of molten salts to inform the design of new molten-salt reactors. A combination of advanced neutron and x-ray scattering and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations will be used to model the ionic-cluster structure of the fluid and solubility of impurities. Machine learning will be applied to regress from simulations and experiments in order to develop the model and predict chemical potentials as a function of composition and temperature. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15171: Oxidation Behavior of Silicon Carbide and Graphitic Materials | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000.00 | The objectives of this project are to determine the oxidation behavior of silicon carbide and graphitic materials in oxygen and/or moisture, to accurately measure the kinetic parameters of oxidation, to ascertain the oxidation mechanisms in relation to the microstructures, to determine the effect of irradiation on oxidation behavior, and to provide data and input to the safety analysis of high-temperature gas reactors under air and moisture ingress accident conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15276: Coping Time and Cost Analysis of Accident Tolerant Plant Design based on Dynamic PRA Methodology | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000.00 | This project will evaluate the failure modes of accident tolerant fuel ATF candidates to understand the different failure characteristics. The research aims to obtain a response surface of coping time by investigating the various uncertainties of accident mitigation in PWR and BWR reactors. These outputs will aid the decision making process on the implementation of ATF and FLEX to existing LWR plants from the perspective of risk reduction and economic feasibility. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15270: Innovative Use of Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) with the RCIC System to Enhance Passive Safety of Commercial LWRs | Texas A&M University | $748,000.00 | The overarching objectives of this project are to: 1) demonstrate new operational strategies with the combined use of Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) and the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) System to increase the passive safety capabilities of current Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs) in delaying or preventing core damage; and 2) pursue the delay of containment venting until after a 72-hour coping period through new BWR Suppression Pool mixing procedures. The research will use both simulation and experimental data to validate the objectives. The work has the potential to increase the ability of existing nuclear power plants to passively respond to beyond design basis events using existing equipment and without changes to the plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15346: Big Data For Operation and Maintenance Cost Reduction | The Ohio State University | $800,000.00 | This project will develop a first-of-a-kind framework for integrating Big Data capability into the daily activities of our current fleet of nuclear power plants. This research will mainly focus on incorporating the wide range of data heterogeneities in nuclear power plants into an integrated Big Data Analytics capability. The primary end product of this work will be a Big Data framework that is capable of dealing with the large volume and heterogeneity of the data found in nuclear power plants to extract timely and valuable information on equipment performance and to enable optimization of plant operation and maintenance based on the extracted information. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15065: in situ Measurement and Validation of Uranium Molten Salt Properties at Operationally Relevant Temperatures | University of Connecticut | $799,979.00 | This project proposes to use advanced spectroscopic and scattering methods to provide information at the atomic and molecular scale. The research will use synchrotron-based x-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy, at operationally relevant temperatures, to measure the local and intermediate structure as well as speciation of chloride fuel salts (NaCl, ZrCl, UCl3) for fast-spectrum applications and fluoride fuel salts ( 7 LiF, UF4) primarily for thermal spectrum applications This approach is expected to generate theories and concepts that would allow models to predict behavior, and develop the means for in situ monitoring. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15058: High-resolution Experiments for Extended LOFC and Steam Ingress Accidents in HTGRs | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to better understand key phenomena in high-temperature gas-cooled reactors relevant to steam ingress and loss of forced circulation (LOFC) accidents. Specifically, the research will: 1) experimentally investigate, using an existing integral-effect test facility with some improvements, the steam-ingress accident caused by a postulated steam generator tube rupture initiating event; 2) carry out integral-effect tests for the extended LOFC accident to study the establishment of global natural circulation flow in the primary loop; 3) design, based on a scaling analysis, and construct a separate-effect test facility to study the complex helium flows in the core and hot plenum during the extended LOFC accident; and 4) perform detailed, high-resolution, separate-effects experiments using the results obtained as boundary/initial conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15471: Integral Experimental Investigation of Radioisotope Retention in Flowing Lead for the Mechanistic Source Term Evaluation of Lead Cooled Fast Reactor | University of New Mexico | $800,000.00 | The purpose of this project is to experimentally investigate the integral effects of radioisotope interactions with liquid lead to support the following technical goals: 1) evaluating the mechanistic source term of the Lead-cooled Fast Reactor (LFR); 2) developing a universal integral effect test methodology for liquid metal source term evaluations; and 3) establishing a basis for the comparison of radioisotope retention between lead and sodium. This aim of the research is to advance the LFR licensing pathway by establishing the phenomenological foundation of the interaction between fission products and liquid lead. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15153: Understanding Molten Salt Chemistry Relevant to Advanced Molten Salt Reactors through Complementary Synthesis, Spectroscopy, and Modeling | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to understand molten salt chemistry relevant to advanced molten salt reactors through complementary synthesis, spectroscopy, and modeling. Through complementary synthetic, spectroscopic, and computational efforts, the aim is to achieve atomistic and molecular-level understanding of liquid structure, coordination geometry, chemical bonding, and reactivity of novel molten salt melts relevant to advanced molten reactor designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15111: Improving Nuclear Power Plant Efficiency Through Data Analytics | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,727.00 | This project aims to develop and provide data analytics solutions to improve nuclear power plan economic efficiency by utilizing empirical models to integrate disparate data sources while providing uncertainty estimates to quantify risk and support decisions. The outcomes will enhance the technical and economic competitiveness by enabling advanced monitoring of critical assets, improving the operating capability of the existing fleet, and helping achieve enhancements in organizational effectiveness. Additionally, the research would provide an agile and modular data analytic framework that would have high commercialization value and supports the industry-wide drive towards digital innovation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14846: Development of Corrosion Resistant Coatings and Liners for Structural Materials for Liquid Fueled Molten Salts Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to develop corrosion-resistant coatings and liners for structural materials for use in fuel dissolved molten salt environment for future Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). Innovative, but industrially scalable, surface cladding approaches are proposed to lead to promising surface and interfacial compositions. The processes themselves are commercial, and have high technology readiness levels, and consequently would facilitate the accelerated developments of MSRs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15280: Advanced Alloy Innovations for Structural Components of Molten Salt Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $796,792.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to develop and evaluate specific advanced metallic alloys for structural components in fluoride salt-cooled molten salt reactors (MSRs). The research will investigate four categories of metallic alloys: advanced Ni-based; radiation damage tolerant high entropy; refractory Mo-based, and compositionally-graded, designed for high-surface corrosion resistance and good bulk strength. Additionally, the propensity for radiation embrittlement, as well as weldability, of the alloys will be evaluated. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14957: Big Data Analytics Solutions to Improve Nuclear Power Plant Efficiency: Online Monitoring, Visualization, Prognosis, and Maintenance Decision Making | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $797,820.00 | The overarching goal of this project is to significantly advance the ability to assess equipment condition and predict the remaining useful life to support optimal maintenance decision making in nuclear power plants. This research will work toward accomplishing and establishing a modern set of data-driven modeling, online monitoring, visualization, prognosis, and operation decision-making methodologies to address the significant opportunities and challenges arising from the emerging data-rich environment in nuclear plants. The potential impact of the work is significant and transformative and could deliver important advances in productivity with reduced unscheduled downtime and improved equipment performance. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15097: Oxidation Study of High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor TRISO Fuels at Accidental Conditions | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000.00 | This project is to study the oxidation behaviors of TRISO fuels during accidental air and water vapor ingress conditions. The work focuses on the oxidation and burn-off of the graphite fuel matrix and oxidation of the TRISO fuel SiC layer at high-temperature accidental states in the presence of air and/or water vapor. It will include both unirradiated and irradiated graphite fuel matrix and simulated fuel particles with the SiC layer. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 19-16987: Novel miniature creep tester for virgin and neutron irradiated clad alloys with benchmarked multiscale modeling and simulations | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | This project will develop a miniature creep machine to collect rapid thermal creep and load relaxation data for two selected ferritic alloys under "as-received" and irradiated conditions. Fast and accurate measurements of creep deformation are essential for qualifying new alloys for long term use in current and next generation reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17150: Speciation and Behavior of Neptunium and Zirconium in Advanced Separation Process | Oregon State University | $800,000 | This project will further develop the understanding of nuclear fuel reprocessing using Co-Decontamination (CoDCon). Radiolytic degradation products of tributylphosphate, nitric acid, redox buffer, masking agent, and water greatly affect the redox speciation, complexation and partitioning of the recycled metals. Fundamental understanding of chemical speciation and partitioning of Neptunium and Zerconium under such conditions is required. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17395: Modeling and Uncertainty Analysis of MSR Nuclear Material Accounting Methods for Nuclear Safeguards | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | This project will model and analyze the limits of detection for the diversion of nuclear materials from a molten salt reactor (MSR) fuel cycle. MSR depletion under a range of uranium and/or plutonium diversion to quantify the resulting differences in salt composition will be evaluated. Sensors will also be investigated to quantify fuel salt contents and correlate the outputs with the reactor models to predict diversion detection. Results will be coupled with robust uncertainty analysis to determine limits of detection. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16583: Neutron Radiation Effect on Diffusion between Zr (and Zircaloy) and Cr for Accurate Lifetime Prediction of ATF | The Ohio State University | $499,997 | This project will perform systematic diffusion studies on both neutron-irradiated and unirradiated accident tolerant fuel samples to obtain precise diffusion coefficients. This will result in a precise evaluation of the pure neutron irradiation effect on diffusion in these systems and enable accurate life prediction of the accident tolerant fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17381: High Throughput Assessment of Creep Behavior of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Structural Alloys by Nano/microindentation | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $800,000 | This project will develop a high throughput assessment of creep behavior of advanced nuclear reactor structural alloys by nano/microindentation. Experimental datasets will inform polycrystalline deformation models to predict material response over a variety of creep conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16549: Thermal Conductivity Measurement of Irradiated Metallic Fuel Using TREAT | University of Pittsburgh | $500,000 | This project intends to provide accurate thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity data with microstructure characterization of metallic (U-Pu-Zr) fuel as a function of burnup and attain fundamental understanding of the thermal conductivity of the irradiated fuel to inform and validate computational models. This will be accomplished using an innovative thermal wave technique in the Transient Reactor Test Facility at the Idaho National Laboratory, with the Minimal Activation Reusable Capsule Holder. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17002: Remote Laser-based Nondestructive Evaluation for Post-Irradiation Examination of ATF Cladding | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | To enable advanced nondestructive characterization techniques for light water reactor fuels that can be applied to the cladding coating, a remote nondestructive evaluation post irradiation inspection approach will be developed. This technique will measure the cladding coating layer thickness and detect defects within the cladding such as corrosion, micro-cracking and delamination. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17276: Radiation-Induced Swelling in Advanced Nuclear Fuel | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,989 | The microstructural evolution of advanced fuel (uranium carbide and uranium nitride) under fission-fragment type radiation has not been studied and remains unclear. This project will utilize advanced synchrotron X-ray characterization using microgram samples to obtain detailed nanoscale information on radiation-induced volumetric swelling and microstrain. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16848: Metal-Functionalized Membranes for Radioiodine Capture | University of Utah | $799,031 | This proposed research will investigate high-surface area (>300 m2/g) metal-functionalized membranes. These novel chemically durable and mechanically robust membranes are formed using an aqueous fabrication process, which results in an interconnected porosity that is highly controllable, providing hierarchical structures ranging from the nano- to micrometer-scales. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17350: Development and Experimental Validation of Pitting and SCC Models for Welded Stainless Steel Dry Storage Containers Exposed to Atmospheric Environments | University of Virginia | $799,027 | The specific goals of this project are to: (a) validate the maximum pit size model for dry storage canister relevant corrosion conditions as well as quantifying the effects of limited cathodic current on stress corrosion cracking (SCC) kinetics, (b) demonstrate a means to quantitatively rank the risk of SCC based on measurable parameters, (c) perform probabilistic predictions of SCC growth, and (d) validate the model predictions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16879: Proactive Hybrid Nuclear with Load Forecasting | Brigham Young University | $799,933 | This project develops new capabilities of design and dispatch optimization of nuclear hybrid energy systems (NHES) in the "Risk Analysis Virtual Environment (RAVEN)" modelling software. Blended (physics-based and data-driven) machine learning will be applied to forecast demand and production of thermal and electrical loads. Two experimental case studies are proposed to test the software developments with a lab-scale thermal energy storage and with a large district energy system. As a final step, the software developments will be generalized to other NHES. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17461: Development and Evaluation of Neutron Thermalization Integral Benchmarks for Advanced Reactor Applications | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | This project will develop integral benchmarks that aim to examine thermal neutron scattering data for graphite (ideal and nuclear), light water, and molten salt. The benchmark evaluations will be contributed to the International Handbook of Evaluated Reactor Physics Benchmark Experiments (IRPhEP) database. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17219: Using Integral Benchmark Experiments to Improve Differential Nuclear Data Evaluations | University of New Mexico | $400,000 | This project will use the results of integral benchmark experiment to inform differential nuclear data evaluations and improve the predictive capability of modeling and simulation (M&S) tools. This goal will be accomplished by developing capabilities to assess the sensitivity of integral benchmark results to evaluated nuclear data parameters, and by using data assimilation tools to directly adjust the evaluated data parameters and improve the accuracy of M&S tools. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16743: Paths Forward for Nuclear Energy: Using a Nationwide Post-Stratified Hierarchical Model to Facilitate Matching of New Nuclear Technologies to Receptive Host Communities | University of Oklahoma | $390,393 | This project will enable deployment of advanced nuclear technologies by developing a model, and an accompanying web-based tool that can be utilized by technology entrepreneurs, that identifies public support for siting new nuclear technologies at very local spatial scales across the US. The model will employ hierarchically structured, post stratified analysis of the largest US pooled-time series dataset on geocoded public support for nuclear technologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16995: A Cyber-Attack Detection Platform for Cyber Security of Digital Instrumentation and Control Systems | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,995 | The proposed research will develop a robust cyber-attack detection system (CADS) for monitoring digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems. The project will develop a robust research tool for evaluating cyber defense of digital I&C systems and provide a framework for a cyber-attack detection system that provides continuous assurance of the security of digital I&C systems in nuclear power plants (NPPs). | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17327: Multi-Timescale Nuclear-Renewable Hybrid Energy Systems Operations to Improve Electricity System Resilience, Reliability, and Economic Efficiency | University of Texas at Dallas | $800,000 | The overarching objective of this project is to develop a multi-timescale nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (N-R HESs) operations framework to provide different types of grid products. The project will model and analyze the capabilities of N-R HESs to provide power grid services at different timescales ranging from seconds to days, such as day-ahead unit commitment, flexible ramping (5-45 minutes), regulation reserves (1-5 minutes), and frequency response (less than seconds). | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17192: The Design and Investigation of Novel Mechanical Filters for Molten Salt Reactors | Abilene Christian University | $762,246 | Researchers will develop a novel mechanical filtration system. The project will include the collection of filter media performance data and filter regeneration performance data for a novel sintered nickel-based filter prototype. The project will also provide a filter design that facilitates remote filter removal, cooling, replacement, and assay of fissile material hold-up in the filter media. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16980: Determining the Effects of Neutron Irradiation on the Structural Integrity of Additively Manufactured Heat Exchangers for Very Small Modular Reactor Applications | Auburn University | $400,000 | Researchers will determine how to best use laser-powder bed fusion additive manufacturing methods for generating radiation-resistant channel/pore-embedded structures from Inconel (alloy 625 or 718) nickel-based superalloys for special purpose reactor (i.e. very small modular reactor) heat exchangers. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17413: Validated, Multi-Scale Molecular Dynamics Simulations to Predict the Thermophysical Properties of Molten Salts Containing Fuel, Fission, and Corrosion Products | Brigham Young University | $798,291 | Researchers will use first principles molecular dynamics (FPMD) simulations on molten salts containing impurities including fuel, fission products, and corrosion products. These will be used to develop a classical molecular dynamics (CMD) potential. CMD will then be used to predict properties for a wide variety of salt compositions and temperatures, and physical property measurements will be performed to validate those predictions. Property correlations will be developed from this data. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17183: Mixing of helium with air in reactor cavities following a pipe break in HTGRs | City College of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct separate effects tests to obtain experimental validation data on mixing of helium and air in reactor building cavities during and after blowdown in HTGRs. Air and helium concentrations, and gas mixture velocity and temperature fields will be measured in simulated reactor cavities. An existing helium flow loop will be used as the source of high pressure/high temperature helium for injection into the cavities and different break configurations will be experimentally investigated. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16391: GuArDIAN: General Active Sensing for conDItion AssessmeNt | Duke University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a dependable, autonomous or semi-autonomous (i.e. low human involvement), and minimally disruptive framework for monitoring equipment and components in nuclear reactors. The project will develop GUARDIAN; a robust active sensing framework through the integration of model-based inference and mobile actuating/sensing robots. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17251: Measuring Mechanical Properties of Select Layers and Layer Interfaces of TRISO Particles via Micromachining and In-Microscope Tensile Testing | Idaho State University | $799,815 | Researchers will characterize the strength of TRISO-coated particle layers and interfaces using FIB micro-machining and in-TEM tensile testing. Tensile test samples from coating layers of (1) unirradiated surrogate (fuel) TRISO particles, (2) unirradiated fueled TRISO particles and (3) irradiated fueled TRISO particles will be studied. Results of this project will both benefit and leverage the AGR Program. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17185: Demonstrating Reactor Autonomous Control Framework using Graphite Exponential Pile | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will demonstrate a detection-prediction-feedback framework for nuclear system autonomous control. It will adopt multiple detector channels to enable control feedback to spatially dependent perturbations. It will also utilize high-fidelity solutions trained surrogate models for real-time prediction and decision-making. In addition to the method development, the proposal will entail a first-of-a-kind engineering demonstration using the MIT Graphite Exponential Pile (MGEP). | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16754: Simultaneous Corrosion/Irradiation Testing in Lead and Lead-Bismuth Eutectic: The Radiation Decelerated Corrosion Hypothesis | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $762,823 | Researchers will test candidate FeCrSi and F/M alloys in a new, simultaneous corrosion/radiation facility to try to identify an alloy that will satisfy all requirements for Lead Fast Reactor structural materials. Microstructural characterization, mechanical property testing, and corrosion tests, both during irradiation and following ion/He pre-conditioning, will assess how irradiation affects corrosion, potentially slowing it. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17173: Ni-based ODS alloys for Molten Salt Reactors | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | The objective of this work is to (i) propose and develop a new Nickel (Ni) based Oxide Dispersion-Strengthened (ODS) alloy that can be used for structural applications in Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) and other nuclear reactor harsh environments, (ii) to demonstrate that its high temperature mechanical properties are adequate for MSR operating temperatures, (iii) to demonstrate its radiation damage resistance through ion irradiation testing and (iv) to demonstrate its improved corrosion resistance in MSR environment. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17037: Investigation of HTGR Reactor Building Response to a Break in Primary Coolant Boundary | Purdue University | $799,832 | Researchers will perform a series of experiments to simulate HTGR reactor building response due to a break in the primary coolant boundary in a well-scaled test facility to obtain spatial distribution of oxygen concentration, perform analysis of the whole system response with 1-D thermal hydraulics codes and use CFD to make detailed localized predictions. The tests will be carried out with different locations and sizes of the breaks to create various vent and flow paths in the reactor cavity. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17093: Integrating Multi-modal Microscopy Techniques and the MOSAIC Simulation Environment to Assess Changes in the Physical Properties and Chemical Durability of Concrete Following Radiation Exposure | University of California, Los Angeles | $800,000 | Researchers will develop unprecedented multi-modal imaging methodologies that integrate multiple microscopy techniques. The team will develop a generalizable protocol for quantifying the changes in physical properties and chemical durability of concrete and concrete constituents (minerals and aggregates) following radiation exposure. The imaging analyses will be input into the MOSAIC framework to reveal the nature and extent of degradation that is expected to result. The outcomes offer insights that are needed to enable and inform second license renewals. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17167: Atomistically Informed and Experimentally Validated Model for Helium Bubble Growth in Welded Irradiated Metals | University of Florida | $797,861 | Researchers will construct a validated computational model for He bubble growth on grain boundaries in irradiated Fe-Ni-Cr microstructures, including intergranular fracture, as a function of material conditions and welding heat input. This model will be based on the phase-field methodology, leveraging numerical solvers in the MOOSE simulation platform, with critical inputs and validation provided by both atomic-level simulations and experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16909: Learning-based Computational Study of the Thermodynamic, Structural, and Dynamic Properties of Molten Salts at the Atomic and Electronic Scale and Experimental Validations | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will obtain the thermophysical, thermochemical, and transport properties, construct the phase diagrams, and build empirical physical models of molten salts that are relevant to Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) with first-principles accuracy using molecular dynamics simulations driven by machine-learned high-dimensional neural network potentials combined with neutron/X-ray scattering and thermodynamic experimental validations. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16298: I-PRA Decision-Making Algorithm and Computational Platform to Develop Safe and Cost-Effective Strategies for the Deployment of New Technologies | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an integrated probabilistic risk assessment decision-making algorithm to support risk-and-cost-informed decision-making related to the deployment of new technologies. The project will enhance the financial analysis module and the challenging interface of social and technical systems to advance the algorithm. The project will conduct a case study for evaluating the safety impact and cost-effectiveness of FLEX strategies to support operational flexibility. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16802: Evaluation of Semi-Autonomous Passive Control Systems for HTGR Type Special Purpose Reactors | University of Michigan | $400,000 | Researchers will investigate the use of variable flow controllers and a variable reflector as passive or semi-autonomous reactivity control mechanisms for multi-module HTGR type special purpose reactors. This applies to the commercially developed special purpose reactor concepts from HolosGen. The incorporation of these systems will reduce the movable parts count and enable more robust load follow capabilities over broader power ranges and local and global reactivity control. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17467: Understanding the Speciation and Molecular Structure of Molten Salts Using Laboratory and Synchrotron based In Situ Experimental Techniques and Predictive Modeling | University of Nevada, Reno | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology to accurately determine the structure and speciation of the molten salt electrolyte using laboratory-based spectroscopic techniques (Raman and UV-Vis-NIR) and synchrotron-based (scattering and absorption) techniques, in combination with computational modeling. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17231: Prevention of Common Fault-Trigger Combinations for Qualification of Digital Instrumentation and Control Technology | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will provide an effective design evaluation approach based on prevention of concurrent triggering conditions to eliminate common-cause failures (CCF) and enable qualification of digital I&C technology for application in nuclear plant modernization. The research involves classifying commonality among digital devices, categorizing faults and triggering conditions, determining fault-trigger relationships, and defining preventive design measures to resolve the potential for CCF. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17087: Economic Risk-Informed Maintenance Planning and Asset Management | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will provide a holistic framework for cost-minimizing risk-informed maintenance planning, including inspection. They will develop a two-tier framework that coarsely minimizes the total maintenance cost during the remaining normal operating cycle and uses the outputs of the first model to maximize the financial impact of these activities in the short term. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16811: Liquid Metal-cooled Fast Reactor Instrumentation Technology Development | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will explore three different areas that will help to improve commercialization of SFRs and to aid in testing for the VTR. These include: 1. Advancement in understanding of low prandtl number heat transfer 2. Testing of compact heat exchangers for use with sodium 3. Development of in pool submersible flow meters. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16954: Innovative In-Situ Analysis and Quantification of Corrosion and Erosion of 316 Stainless Steel in Molten Chloride Salt Flow Loops | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will use a thin-layer activation technique for the first time in molten salts, on 316H samples placed in natural convection and forced flow loops. The individual and synergistic effects of corrosion, irradiation and thermo-mechanical treatments will be evaluated in-situ to predict component service lifetimes and design limits. The effects of molten chloride flow velocity will also be assessed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17168: Fuel Salt Sampling and Enriching System Technology Development | Vanderbilt University | $799,989 | Researchers will combine insights from the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment with decades of advancements in applicable technologies into an enhanced Sampler Enricher (SE) concept to develop and test a flexible, reliable, and workable design. The prototype will then be tested in an existing salt loop. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16739: Improvements of Nuclear Data Evaluations for Lead Isotopes in Support of Next Generation Lead-Cooled Fast Systems | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | The objective of this project is to improve the accuracy of neutronics simulation of lead-based systems by improving the nuclear data of lead isotopes. The nuclear data for lead will be reevaluated with emphasis of the intermediate and fast energy regions that are required by reactor applications currently sought by several industrial entities. The deliverables of this project are new lead isotopes evaluations that will be candidates for inclusion in a future Evaluated Nuclear Data Library (ENDF) release. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 20-19373: Connecting Advanced High-Temperature X-ray and Raman Spectroscopy Structure/Dynamics Insights to High-Throughput Property Measurements | Boston University | $500,000 | Researchers will acquire molten salt structure and dynamics data at high-temperatures using high-energy x-ray techniques and Raman spectroscopy and relate them to their physical and chemical properties. High-throughput techniques will be developed to rapidly measure multiple high-temperature properties at one time. An understanding of the relationship of salt structure and dynamics to its properties will help to select and optimize melt chemistry in molten salt reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19371: Adsorption and Reduction of Uranium in Engineered Barrier Systems: Effects of Iron and Heat | California State University, East Bay | $800,000 | Reseachers will investigate uranium sorption and abiotic reduction processes in iron-rich montmorillonite systems as a function of solution chemistry and temperature. The team will develop a surface complexation model that can account for both uranium adsorption and reduction, and hence reduce the uncertainties associated with uranium mobility in iron-rich environments with engineering barrier systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19831: Optimizing Melt Processed Phosphate Glass Waste Forms via Composition-Property-Structure Correlations | Clemson University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and optimize highly durable and easily processable phosphate-based glass waste forms to immobilize the dehalogenated salt streams by tailoring the composition of the glasses. To complement the work conducted on glass waste forms at the national laboratories sponsored by the DOE-NE program, modified iron phosphate glass waste forms will be prepared and evaluated by the introduction of various glass modifiers (SnF2 and BaO) to the prototype glass compositions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19695: Quantifying radionuclide sorption to engineered barrier materials under elevated temperature and ionic strength conditions | Clemson University | $799,380 | Researchers will characterize actinide sorption to mineral surfaces and examine possible mechanisms of sorption at high temperature/ionic strength through examination of the effects of hydration and hydrolysis on actinide sorption. These data will provide an understanding of radionuclide behavior with engineered barrier materials. A greater understanding of these processes will reduce the uncertainty in strategies for sequestration of radionuclide bearing wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19789: Controlling Neptunium and Zirconium in Advanced Extraction Processes | Colorado School of Mines | $599,763 | Researchers will address continuing issues with separating neptunium and zironium in current separation techniques. They will use coupled optical and x-ray specroscopy, small angle scattering, equilibrium thermodynamics and chemical analysis to understand fundamental molecular-level behaviors of extracted Np and Zr. These techniques, using world-class irradiation facilities, will elucidate the specific chemistries underlying the problematic behavior in Np and Zr in radiation fields. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19660: Linear and nonlinear guided ultrasonic waves to characterize cladding of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researcherses will perform a combination of linear and nonlinear guided ultrasonic waves, integrated with new material behavior models to develop a non-destructive evaluation (NDE) approach for both quality control/quality assurance and in-service NDE characterization of the cladding integrity and bond strength. Current NDE techniques are effective for uncoated designs, but these coated fuels add new challenges, which will be addressed by this new approach. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19678: Flexible Hard Ceramic Coatings by Ultrasonic Spray Mist-CVD for Dry Storage Canisters of Spent Nuclear Fuel and Waste | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop advanced flexible hard ceramic coatings using ultrasonic spray mist-chemical vapor deposition technique manufacturing process to deposit on dry storage canisters. The team will test resistance to corrosion, heat, wear and hydrogen permeation thgourh microstructural characterization and material property evaluation. The ultimate goal is to enhance the long term reliability of spent nuclear fuel dry storage canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19797: High Throughput Computational Platform for Predictive Modeling of Thermochemical and Thermophysical Properties of Fluoride Molten Salts | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | Researchers will (1) develop an open-source high throughput (H-T) computational platform to understand, predict, and evaluate thermochemical and thermophysical properties of molten salts as demonstrated in the F-(K-Li-Na)-(Cr-Fe)-U system and (2) provide H-T approaches (CALPHAD modeling and AIMD simulations) and open-source codes together with thermodynamic models of molten salts and public-accessible databases verified by targeted experiments for the molten salt research community. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19627: Chemical Interaction and Compatibility of Uranium Nitride with Liquid Pb and Alumina-forming Austenitic Alloys | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | Researcherswill address critical issues with the compatibility and chemcial interations of uranium nitride fuel, alumina-forming austenitic alloys and lead coolants/sublayers. They will obtain critical data of fuel-coolant-cladding interactions and compatibility to evaluate key parameters of operation temperature, fuel impurities and coolant chemistry. This data will provide key operation windows and parameters for deployment of lead-cooled fast reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19924: First-principles free energies by hybrid thermodynamic integration for phase equilibria and fission product solubility in molten salts | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | Researchers will predict phase equilibria and solubility of fission products in molten salts using a novel hybrid framework for thermodynamic integration combining first-principles, molecular dynamics and continuum methods to calculate free energies. They will be benchmarked using Bayesian-targeted calorimetric, in-situ diffraction and spectroscopic experiments. The project will provide microscopic insights and quantitative parameters necessary for reliable thermophysical modeling of molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19939: Gallium Oxide Schottky Diode Detectors for Measurement of Actinide Concentrations from Measured Alpha Activities in Molten Salts | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and test, to high temperatures, a Schottky diode alpha particle detector that is based on the rapidly emerging ultrawide band gap semiconductor material gallium oxide. Ga2O3 Schottky diode detectors offer the potential of detecting alpha particles at high temperatures, with better resolution than SiC Schottky diode detectors, which the team has previously developed for similar purposes. These detectors could be used in pyrochemical processing streams and molten salt reactors with potential application in other reactor concepts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19966: Evaluating hydroxypyridinone-based ligands for actinide and fission products recovery in used fuels | University of California, Berkeley | $600,000 | Researchers will pursue novel chemical separation approaches for advanced reactor used fuels treatments and recycling, by leveraging the unique actinide and lanthanide coordination properties of hydroxypyridinone-based aqueous chelators. These chelators have not been tested in extreme conditions and this work would test potential process performance with a focus on radiation-induced changes and oxidation state distribution. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19545: Femtosecond Laser Ablation Machining & Examination - Center for Active Materials Processing (FLAME-CAMP) | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop, build, and test a femtosecond laser ablation machining & examination tool that can be deployed in a hot cell environment enabling microscopy sample fabrication, isotope and elemental analysis, and thermal analysis. The technology allows for non-contact materials processing, even through glass windows, potentially preventing contamination of surrounding areas and tools. Such a multi-function tool with high throughput material processing will accelerate the research on fuel and cladding tremendously. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19198: Functionalized clay buffer materials for the long-term sequestration of technetium and iodine | University of Florida | $800,000 | Researcherswill develop synthesize, test, and model novel functionalized clay buffer materials for the long-term sequestration of iodine and technetium. The project will also focus on key experimantal parameters and modeling of how the novel clay buffer material will sequester iodine and technetium species. Novel materials will support DOE's efforts to design improved geologic repository barrier systems and optimize repository performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19209: Investigation on multicomponent solubility in LiCl-KCl eutectic chloride salts using combinatorial approach | University of Idaho | $400,000 | Researchers will perform irradiation experiments to understand how gamma radiation changes trivalent metal ion complex coordination structure and extraction characteristics during the ALSEP process. This work will focus on understanding the types of degradation products that are formed during the extraction process and what effects these degradation products have on process performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19713: Multifunctional Laser Processing for Repair and Mitigation of Pitting and Cracks in Welded Stainless Steel Dry Storage Canisters | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a strategic solution that combines laser cleaning and laser peening for removal of surface contamination and mitigation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in welded stainless steels. Laser cleanning will remove surface contamination and reduce pitting caused by corrosion. Laser peening will then be used to mitigate stress corrosion cracking and provide enhanced corrosion resistance. The portability of the laser system means the system will be able to be deployed in the field. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19188: Single- and Polycrystalline Diamond Electrodes for Spectroelectrochemical Characterization of Various Molten Salts | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $600,000 | Researchers will develop optically transparent electrodes for spectroelectrochemical measurements in chloride- and fluoride-based radioactive molten salts. The primary electrode material will be boron-doped diamond. Measurements will elucidate important electrochemical properties of nuclear fuel and fission products such as redox potential, diffusion coefficient, and electron transfer stoichiometry. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19641: Mitigating stress corrosion cracking in austenitic stainless-steel canister welds using peening techniques | University of Nevada, Reno | $799,950 | Researchers seek to understand the mechanisms of pitting/SCC resistance of welds as affected by a) compressive stress b) surface texture modification and c) microstructural change in the substrate surface resulting from laser shock peening, shot peening, ultrasonic impact peening and laser surface texturing. The study will recommend the best peening and surface texturing process conditions for mitigation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in 304L welds. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19704: Multicomponent Thermochemistry of Complex Chloride Salts for Sustain-able Fuel Cycle Technologies | University of Pittsburgh | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive thermodynamic database of multicomponent chloride salts through a collaboration between experts in Gibbs energy modeling and thermochemical experiments. A thermochemical database of the multicomponent chloride system KCl-LiCl-NaCl-UCl3-LnCl3 (Ln: La, Pr, Nd) will be developed using the CALPHAD (Calculation of Phase Diagrams) method with supported ab initio calculations and thermal analysis experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19506: Engineered composite patch with NDE inspection for repair and mitigation of SCC in nuclear spent fuel dry storage canister | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an innovative 'engineered composite patch' that can absorb moisture, neutralize chloride, and prevent stress corrosion cracking from further growth. This 'patch' with have in integrated non-destructive evaluation capability using laser utrasonic characterization methods to montior quality and performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19374: Maintaining and building upon the Halden legacy of In-situ diagnostics | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will develop innovative instrumentation focusing on temperature and strain measurements to fill the void left by the Halden reactor and to enhance the experimental capabilities in the Transient Reactor Test Facility (TREAT) located at Idaho National Laboratory. The team will develop a fiber optic sensor system that offers an inherent resistance to electromagnetic interference unlike currently used sensors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19076: Investigation of Degradation Mechanisms of Cr-coated Zirconium Alloy Cladding in Reactivity Initiated Accidents (RIA) | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $500,000 | Researchers will investigate the thermal, mechanical, and irradiation response of chromium-coated zirconium alloy claddings under RIA conditions, in comparison to uncoated Zr-alloy cladding. The outcome of the project will be used for anticipated licensing applications to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), thereby accelerating use of coated accident tolerant fuel concepts in U.S. commercial power reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19318: Surface Peening and Hybrid Surface Engineering Approaches to Mitigate Initiation and Resurgence of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dry Cask Storage Stainless Steel Canisters | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,838 | Researchers will develop and evaluate a wide range of surface peening treatments, as well as hybrid surface treatments to mitigate initiation and growth of chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) in stainless-steel canisters for used nuclear fuel (UNF) dry cask storage. Canister mock-ups with prototypical fusion welds will be used for this study. Characterization and testing of microstructure, compressive stresses, corrosion and CISCC will be performed. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19614: New Coatings for Nuclear Fuel Waste Canister Storage and Transport | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop novel SiOCN(H) coatings for spent nuclear fuel canisters in order to support sustained nuclear reactor operation and safeguard nuclear waste storage, transport, and disposal, in both terrestrial and marine environments. The novel coating will specifically address pitting corrosion and stress corrosion cracking in spent nuclear fuel canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19382: Separated waste stream immobilization of iodine and offgas caustic scrubber solution | Washington State University | $400,000 | Researchers will produce a set of waste forms from separation of iodine from the caustic offgas scrubber solution. The primary caustic scrub containing iodine, halides, and carbonate will be immobilized in a glass-bonded composite of cancrinite/sodalite. The iodine-loaded silver sorbent will be stripped of iodine, converted to NaI, and immobilized into a separate durable glass-bonded iodosodalite waste form. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19912: Validation of Robustness in TCR Design Strategies | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will perform sensitivity analysis (SA) and uncertainty quantification (UQ) of TCR design parameters and relevant physical phenomena, using open-source time dependent Monte-Carlo code (OpenMC), NQA1 qualified commercial codes (STARCCM+), and ABAQUS for thermal-hydraulics and structural mechanics. The SA/UQ analysis will provide key insights to allow for development of performance metrics of robustness for autonomous operation sensors, by processing signals such as neutron flux, temperature and strains, as wll as inform the needed robustness for AI by enveloping the attainable level of decision making by the software. | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 | |
| NEUP Project 20-19216: Creation of Multiple Effect Evaporator and Combined Cycle Modelica Modules, and Optimization of Potable Water Generation from Saltwater Sources | North Carolina State University | $498,532 | Researchers will develop models of Multiple Effect Evaporators and Combined Cycle Gas Turbine systems to be used within the Modelica framework, with an end goal of creating an energy park that can supply its own energy and water through Small Modular Reactor nuclear systems and/or Combined Cycle Gas Turbine Systems with brackish to brine water sources. These same models will be capable of being implemented into larger models of grid independent and near independent energy parks located about military bases, large manufacturing facilities, and in small communities where freshwater is limited. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19590: Benchmark Evaluation of Transient Multi-Physics Experimental Data for Pellet Cladding Mechanical Interactions | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop an integral benchmark evaluation based on available experimental data from cold ramp tests performed at the Studsvik testing R2 reactor. Transient multiphysics benchmark evaluations are needed to support validation of the NEAMS ToolKit and the VERA suite. This research will focus on pellet cladding interaction and pellet cladding mechanical interaction and their associated events. The benchmark will be prepared for inclusion in the IRPhEP handbook. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19837: Reinforcement Learning Validation Framework for Quality Assurance of AI-guided Additive Manufacturing Digital Platforms | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will address the need to qualify the risk associated with AM fabricated nuclear reactor parts by incorporating a novel rendition of a well-established artificial intelligence learning strategy, the multi-armed bandit reinforcement learning (RL). The RL framework will be developed and demonstrated using TCR data and its associated digital platform. This research will assimilate in-process sensor data and physics-based simulation data to calculate risk measures in the form of failure probabilities for the AM parts. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19363: Integrated Solar & Nuclear Cogeneration of Electricity & Water using the sCO2 Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,427 | Researchers will design and model a renewable, nuclear Integrated Energy System (IES), compatible with the RAVEN/Modelica framework, for co-generation of cost competitive electricity and clean water. The components of the IES to be included are concentrated solar power, the supercritical CO2/sCO2 cyle, multi-effect distillation, and the lead-cooled fast reactor. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19066: Engineering-Informed, Data-Driven Degradation Modeling, Prognostics and Control for Radiation-induced Void Swelling in Reactor Steels | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will advance the capability to model, predict and control void swelling in irradiated structural components through developing engineering-informed, advanced data-driven statistical and machine learning techniques. Excess swelling not only leads to dimensional instability, but also can cause severe embrittlement of internal materials. The proposed efforts will ensure more effective regulation, aging management and license renewal. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19795: A High-Fidelity Novel and Fast Multigroup Cross Section Generation Method for Arbitrary Geometry and Spectrum | Georgia Institute of Technology | $600,000 | Researchers will develop a fast high-fidelity multigroup cross section generation method for arbitrary geometry configurations and energy spectra by developing a response-based high order perturbation method to perform hybrid stochastic-deterministic local transport calculations. The proposed method will be implemented as independent modules that can be easily embedded into any neutron transport or diffusion code and also be used as a standalone cross section generator. The modules will provide data that can interface with the associated NEAMS toolkit and workbench user interfaces to enable advanced neutronics tools that will perform high-fidelity multigroup multiphysics steady-state and transient calculations that capture and represent the complex resonance interactions and core environmental effects which exist in heterogeneous reactors, including advanced reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19968: Experimental Investigations and Numerical Modeling of Near-wall and Core Bypass Flows in Pebble Bed Reactors | Texas A&M University | $600,000 | Researchers will establish a highly coordinated, concurrent experimental and computational effort combining high-resolution turbulence simulations (including Nek5000, Star-CCM+) and experiments to deepen physical understanding and address long standing modeling inaccuracies related to near wall and bypass flow effects in pebble bed reactors. The project's acquired extensive database will be used to derive closure models and correlations needed for porous media code, such as Pronghorn. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19864: Development of innovative overlapping-domain coupling between SAM and NEK5000 | University of Michigan | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a robust, multi-scale coupling scheme between the SAM code and the CFD code, NEK5000, based on a novel overlapping domain approach. The developed coupling will be validated by using experiments specifically designed for the validation of multi-scale coupled codes. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-20074: Characterization of Plenum to Plenum Natural Circulation flows in a High Temperature Gas Reactor (HTGR) | CUNY, City College of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will obtain and provide experimental data on the plenum-to-plenum natural circulation flows in a typical high temperature gas reactor using helium and nitrogen over a wide range of temperatures and pressures to simulate natural circulation under both pressurized and depressurized conduction cooldown scenarios. The results of the project will yield new data and complement other very high temperature related studies. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19042: Flexible Siting Criteria and Staff Minimization for Micro-Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $440,517 | Researchers will develop siting criteria that are tailored to micro-reactors deployable in densely-populated areas by comparing the characteristics of the MIT research reactor with those of leading micro-reactor concepts, and evaluate whether and how the MIT research reactor design basis and associated regulations are applicable to micro-reactors. A model of operations for micro-reactors that would minimize the staffing requirements will also be conceptualized. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-20045: Highly Compact Steam Generators for Improved Economics of Small Modular Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will design and build a compact steam generator (CSG) test section that can be easily modified for different flow paths and geometries, as well as modify an existing loop to accept the test section. The conceptual optimized CSG system design, which could be deployed in small modular reactors, will be informed by CFD simulations to determine critical characteristics of the test section. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19205: Robust bullet-time tagging and tracking system based on computer vision for individual ex-core TRISO-fueled pebble identification | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a novel, validated, robust bullet-time tagging and tracking system, based on computer vision techniques, to tag and track each individual pebble in pebble bed reactors. The effort will utilize Residence Time Distribution and Radioactive Particle Tracking techniques to validate and refine the developed method, using a continuous cold flow pebble bed experimental setup. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19625: Corrosion Sensitivity of Stainless Steels in Pressurized Water Reactor Water Chemistry: Can KOH replace LiOH in PWRs? | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will perform a series of corrosion and stress corrosion tests on unirradiated alloys to determine the possibility of switching from LiOH to KOH to control the pH in nuclear reactors without worsening the corrosion behavior of the structural alloys used in pressurized water reactor core internal components. The impacts of such a change and the consequent water chemistry alterations on the corrosion processes and nucleaer power plant core-internal component service-life will be assessed and better understood. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19735: Experiments for Modeling and Validation of Liquid-Metal Heat Pipe Simulation Tools for Micro-Reactor | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will produce validation data for the heat pipe code, Sockeye, by measuring the internal thermal-hydraulic parameters of a single-heat pipe and the performance of an integrated multi-heat-pipe system in various operation scenarios. The results of this project will generate more liquid metal heat pipe validation data, which is currently lacking and needed to support micro-reactor design and licensing activities. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19367: Investigation of Novel Nickel-Based Alloys for Molten Chloride Fast Reactor Structural Applications | University of Cincinnati | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate and establish the scientific foundations for the development of promising Ni-Mo-W-Cr-Al-X alloys with a superior balance of properties compared to current materials for high temperature structural applications in molten chloride salt fast reactors. The project couples critical experiments with a high-value integrated computational materials engineering approach. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19693: Evaluation of micro-reactor requirements and performance in an existing well-characterized micro-grid | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will evaluate the opportunities and challenges of operating micro-reactors in decentralized power generation applications and the potential for deployment in established micro-grids with diverse power generation sources. By using a well-characterized prototypic environment platform, the Modelica-based Hybrid Energy System, the market potential for deployment of micro-reactors on campuses and other similar existing micro-grids will be quantified. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19195: The effect of LWR primary coolant water chemistry (LiOH vs. KOH) on stainless steel: An integrated experimental and computational study of the corrosion response of stainless steel for different surface microstructures and mechanica | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will study the effect of surface microstructure, mechanical stress factors, and radiation damage on the corrosion response of stainless steel under two different alkaline pressurized water reactor primary water chemistry conditions. The project will involve investigation of mechanical stress factors such as strain rate, residual stress, deformation induced persistent slip bands, dpa damage, and fatigue cracks and modeling to understand the physical phenomena associated with the measured corrosion response and inform the U.S. nuclear industry regarding KOH. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19491: Identifying and prioritizing sources of uncertainty in external hazard probabilistic risk assessments | University of Maryland, College Park | $799,979 | Researchers will develop a method for identifying and prioritizing sources of uncertainty in external hazard probabilistic risk assessment for nuclear power plants, with particular emphasis on uncertainties associated with hazard characterization. External flooding wil be utilized as the demonstration hazard during this project, while a common taxonomy for communicating uncertainties across a broad range of external hazards will be created. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19737: Innovative Enhanced Automation Control Strategies for Multi-unit SMRs | University of Michigan | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an innovative, enhanced automation control framework for small modular reactors (SMRs) that supports control of multiple units operating in a variety of reactor core conditions. Through these enhancements, SMR technology gains improved marketability through potential deployment to a broader range of markets and can also lead to reduced operating and maintenance costs for a SMR site, increasing the overall profitability. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19954: Deployment Pathways of Small Modular Reactors in Electric Power, Industrial, and Other Niche Markets to Achieve Cost Reductions and Widespread Use | University of Michigan | $691,658 | Researchers will explore how to leverage two key value propositions for small modular reactors (SMR) in shifting market conditions, in order to achieve widespread market deployment: (1) participation in small and large power and industrial markets and (2) cost reductions via mass fabrication. The result of this work will be advanced power system modeling, optimized SMR design with thermal storage for power and industry markets, and new SMR deployment pathways. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19752: Development and Demonstration of Scalable Fluoride Salt Pump Seals and Bearings for FHRs | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and demonstrate scalable advanced bearings and seals of fluoride salt pumps for fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactors. The systematic approach to be used will employ both experimental and numerical methods to investigate the static and dynamic performance of fluoride-salt-lubricated bearings and high-temperature seals. The outcomes of this research will directly contribute to the reliability, safety, design, and operation of the fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactor power plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19544: A Holistic Artificial Intelligence Tool to Mitigate Human Factor Uncertainty in Operation and Maintenance | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a holistic artificial intelligence tool to help the detection and mitigation of human factors errors in nuclear power plants. The tool will increase the efficiency of various activities such as testing, inspection, data collection, and interpretation, improve operation and maintenance decision-making, and reduce costs in nuclear power plants by minimizing the impact of human factors errors and providing warnings to mitigate them, when possible. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19524: Non-Intrusive Flow Monitoring for Liquid Metal and Molten Salt Cooled Reactors | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a first-of-its kind flow monitoring system with significantly enhanced capabilities for liquid metal fast reactors and other advanced reactors, such as molten salt reactors. The flow monitoring system will involve a proven and breakthrough fiber optic sensing technology that enables the harmonic-free interrogation of thousands of grating-based distributed interferometers along an optical fiber that is integrated into a sensing pad that can readily be installed at desired locations in the flow loop. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19671: Identifying Needed Fire Input Data to Reduce Modeling Uncertainty | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,393 | Researchers will identify fire parameters that have the largest impact on fire conditions, quantify those parameters contributing to uncertainties in the fire data through Monte Carlo simulation results, and use statistical analysis and machine learning models from the simulation results to assess existing data and recommend appropriate new fire tests to reduce uncertainties that are important to risk. With this information, researchers will develop a framework capable of determining the significant contributors to uncertainty in physical events that are relevant to the risk assessment and, then, determine the need for new experiments that would be of most value to reduce risk. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 21-24394: Computer vision and machine learning for microstructural qualification | Carnegie Mellon University | $497,518 | Quantifying and understanding microstructure is a key driver for performance-based materials qualification. In this proposal, well-curated data sets of microstructural images will be gathered and computer vision and machine learning will be applied to build quantitative deep learning frameworks to accelerate and enable qualification of nuclear materials based on microstructural features. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24156: Experimental thermofluidic validation of TCR fuel elements using distributed temperature and flow sensing | Kansas State University | $798,250 | The overall goal of this project will be to test the performance of 3D printed Transformational Challenge Reactor core geometry parts using existing Helium flow loops and distributed temperature, and velocity sensing systems. Thermal transport capabilities of scaled 3D printed ceramic core will be evaluated experimentally and measurements will be used to qualify computational models. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24636: Risk-informed Consequence-driven Physical Protection System Optimization for Microreactor Sites | Texas A&M University | $400,000 | This proposed project will utilize a risk-informed, consequence-driven analysis to develop an approach for "right-sizing" physical protection systems (PPS) for microreactors. The hypothesis presented for this proposal is that the explicit coupling of consequence modeling to PPS design will provide a similar benefit that can be applied prior to reactor construction. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24131: Total Mass Accounting in Advanced Liquid Fueled Reactors | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | A total mass determination method for nuclear materials accounting (NMA) in liquid-fueled molten salt reactors will be validated with fuel-bearing salt, mixed with a _+ radioisotope of known activity, that will be irradiated to reproduce the practical NMA scenario in a molten salt loop. Irradiated fuel salt will be sampled and measured for its mass and activity. The mass-to-activity ratio will be used to calculate the unknown salt mass in the original container. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24037: Design and intelligent optimization of the thermal storage and energy distribution for the TerraPower Molten Chloride Fast Reactor in an Integrated Energy System (IES) | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to explore the application of advanced reactors within Integrated Energy Systems, use extensive existing data from UIUC for model development and validation, and extend the predictions to larger grids and commercial applications. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24522: Targeted Materials Characterization and Testing of Additively Manufactured Metals and Ceramics to Inform Print/Build Data Analytics | University of Texas at San Antonio | $800,000 | A collaborative program between the University of Texas at San Antonio and Boise State University is proposed to supply materials testing and characterization data sets to be leveraged by the TCR program to inform build/print data analytics. With the data provided by the proposing team, correlations among steam oxidation performance, micromechanical properties, chemical composition, local microstructure, and location specific print/build data will be achieved. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24431: Location-specific material characterization of LPBF SS316L & IN718 TCR core structural materials | Utah State University | $800,000 | In this proposed work, we will experimentally characterize the spatial variability of the quasi-static (tensile), creep (strength and impression), and creep-fatigue properties as well as the underlying structures (microstructure and defect structures) for LPBF SS316L and IN718 components to be used as training data to the TCR program data-driven model. The resulting correlation will be used to drive the design process for an application as TCR core structural materials. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23978: Rapid, Non-Radioactive Methods for Prediction and Quantification of Radiolytic Radical Decomposition Products in Nuclear Separations | Clemson University | $399,999 | High-throughput, non-radioactive, radical assays will be used to determine decomposition of monoamide separations complexants. Radical assay results will be correlated with classic radiolytic damage results to develop predictive models for screening complexant stability. These models will aid in single-stage separations complexant optimization, in the transition from lab- to industrial-scale nuclear waste separations and, ultimately, could yield field tests for radiolytic damage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24350: Phosphate Mineral and Glass Waste Forms for Advanced Immobilization of Chloride and Fluoride-based Waste Streams | Clemson University | $600,000 | This proposal is intended to develop three waste form options for immobilizing the fluoride- and chloride-salt waste stream in highly durable and easily processable phosphate minerals and glasses, including phosphate apatite ceramic waste forms, phosphate glass waste forms, and phosphate glass-ceramic waste forms with apatite phase. Multiple monolithic waste form samples will be provided to DOE national laboratories for further testing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24292: Passive multimodal tomography for dry storage casks imaging using passive neutron and gamma dosimetry and cosmic ray muons | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | A method for multimodal tomography of dry storage casks will be developed to determine fuel relocation and cladding failures using passive neutrons and gamma emissions in combination with cosmic ray muons. The use of multimodal imaging will allow 3-D reconstructions of the dry storage cask that would be unachievable with any single radiation source. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24374: Effects of Radiolysis on Pertechnetate under Solvent Extraction Conditions, including Tri-Butyl Phosphate | CUNY, Hunter College | $399,624 | The overarching objective of the proposed work is to assess the impact of radiolysis on pertechnetate speciation during tri-butylphosphate (TBP) solvent extractions from the molecular level to macroscale. The research in this project is designed to understand the interplay of radiolysis, degradation product formation, other important redox active metals, and oxidation states of technetium on its speciation and distribution coefficients in solvent extraction processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24183: Experimental investigation and development of models and correlations for cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena in transient conditions in support of TREAT and the LWR fleet. | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Thermal-hydraulics transient heat transfer phenomena of relevance for the safety and the operation of the TREAT and light water reactors will be investigated. The performance of accident tolerant fuel materials during a reactivity initiated accident scenario and post-critical heat flux and reflood scenarios will be elucidated, as well as the development of models and correlations to be integrated into computational tools for the design and safety analysis of nuclear systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24666: Wireless Multifunctional Ultrasonic Arrays with Interdigital and Airborne Transducers for Monitoring Leakage and Corrosion Conditions of Welded Dry Storage Canisters | Mississippi State University | $800,000 | This project aims to develop and validate wireless, multifunctional, ultrasonic sensor arrays that enable on-demand, quantitative interrogation and real-time monitoring of both the canister leakage indicators (helium, helium/air mixture, internal pressure, and temperature) and corrosion conditions (free and/or vapor water). The developed arrays will be fully functional, wirelessly powered and communicated, and compact. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24188: Uranium recovery from used nuclear fuel using metal sulfides | Northwestern University | $400,000 | An alternative and original method to recover uranium from spent fuel is proposed. This method will utilize a new type of regenerable sorbent materials with high selectivity in capturing uranium from complex mixtures in acidic solutions, such as those found in used nuclear fuel of high-assay low-enriched uranium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24225: Characterizing Fuel Response and Quantifying Coolable Geometry of High-Burnup Fuel | Oregon State University | $800,000 | This study seeks to objectively determine, through empirical and numerical means, the actual impact of fuel dispersion in-core after fuel failure and whether high burnup dispersed fuel compromises coolable geometry and long-term cooling. The outcome of this study will yield an objective means of assessing two criteria (coolable geometry and long-term cooling) within the existing regulatory process to comprehensively understand whether it is feasible to increase burnup, while satisfying 10 CFR 50.46. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24288: Innovative Methods for Interrogation of DSC Internal Conditions | Oregon State University | $800,000 | The proposed work takes a two-pronged approach. The team will study techniques involving only external sensors and equipment, which could be deployed on existing dry storage canisters. In addition, small sensors located inside the canister that can be externally powered and read through the canister wall will also be investigated. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24439: Development of Novel Corrosion-Responsive Buffer Materials for Long-Term Immobilization of High-Level Nuclear Waste | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to develop a novel cementitious buffer material (CBM) for the safe disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF). The primary aim is to identify and characterize novel Mg-Al-P CBMs, complete with assessments of their repository stability as well as their transport and immobilization of radionuclides. The secondary aim is to use in-situ UT-EIS monitoring to understand the corrosive failure at the canister-CBM interface and provide long-term performance modeling of SNF packages. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24461: Estimation of low temperature cladding failures during an RIA transient | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers aim to create a multiphysics description of cladding response during a RIA, especially at high burnup, coupling reactor physics, thermal hydraulics and mechanics. The creation of a thermomechanical model in Bison will be the result of this project which can be used to evaluate the likelihood of low temperature cladding failures during a postulated RIA on a typical fuel rod (as these can lead to channel blockage), and thus identify the most important conditions to be studied at TREAT. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24460: Multiscale Modeling and Experiments for Investigating High Burnup LWR Fuel Rod Behavior Under Normal and Transient Conditions | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | The main objective of this work is to achieve a mechanistic understanding of and to develop a predictive model for the fuel rod behavior at high burn-up under both normal and transient conditions. Therefore, this study will provide the nuclear industry with validated, physics-based criteria to fuel fragmentation thresholds and rod mechanical integrity limits. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24388: Redox Chemistry of UO2 under Repository Relevant Conditions in the Presence of Zircaloy and Waste Canister Material | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | This project will seek to improve understanding of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) corrosion. Hydrothermal experiments of SNF with cladding and waste canister material will give insights into the redox potential formed due to secondary phase formation as consequence of corrosion in a failed canister. The experimentally derived data about secondary phase formation will be utilized for phase relationship analysis to decipher the redox conditions and thus provide source term for performance assessment models of deep geologic repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24006: High-fidelity modeling of fuel-to-coolant thermomechanical transport behaviors under transient conditions | University of Florida | $800,000 | The objective of the proposal is to develop a high-fidelity modeling tool that can capture some of the important phenomena in high burnup UO2 and ATF fuels during transient conditions. The BlueCRAB tool set will be improved and used to analyze TREAT loss of coolant accident experimental results. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24312: Accelerating the development of reliable and robust machine learning-based interatomic potentials for the prediction of molten salt structure and properties | University of Massachusetts Lowell | $400,000 | Machine learning-based interatomic potentials (MLIPs) used in molecular dynamics (MD) can accurately and efficiently predict molten salt properties. However many machine learning-based methods require large training sets, and can fail unpredictably. This project will overcome these challenges by developing a method for efficiently sampling diverse configurations from MD to train reliable and robust neural network potentials, and develop new models for predicting errors in MLIPs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24697: Dual External Leak Sensing and Monitoring for Dry Storage Canister | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers aim to develop two complementary external sensing methods to evaluate the integrity of DSC through internal pressure monitoring and helium leakage detection. The proposed diffuse ultrasonic wave method will be able to measure biaxial strains in the canister wall with high sensitivity and minimum temperature effects. An innovative capacitance MEMS sensor will be developed for helium concentration measurement in air based on the extremely low permittivity of helium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24449: Multi-modal Surface Acoustic Wave Sensing System for Pressure and Temperature monitoring of Spent Fuel Canisters | University of North Texas | $800,000 | University of North Texas (UNT) will collaborate with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to develop a multi-modal wireless passive SAW (Surface Acoustic Wave) sensor array, which are deployed on the outside surface of the canister, to monitor the strain of the canister and thus determine the inside pressure. In addition, the SAW strain sensor could also measure the surface temperature and potentially monitor helium gas leak. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24265: Fragmentation and Thermal Energy Transport of Cr-doped Fuels under Transient Conditions | University of Pittsburgh | $799,999 | This project will focus on multiple aspects of experimental testing and engineering-scale modeling in understanding thermal energy transport from high burnup, fractured/fragmented accident tolerant fuels, establishing a strong scientific basis to fill a critical knowledge data gap for modeling and simulation of transient fuel performance and safety, such as loss of coolant accident, for future integral testing and fuel licensing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24310: Fusion of Distributed Fiber Optics, Acoustic NDE, and Physics-Based AI for Spent Fuel Monitoring | University of Pittsburgh | $800,000 | The proposal will leverage new concepts in the fusion between fiber optic distributed acoustic sensing and advanced acoustic nondestructive evaluation techniques with artificial intelligence enhanced classification frameworks to quantitatively characterize the state of dry cask storage containers for spent fuel monitoring, externally and non-invasively, without introducing additional risks of failure. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24261: Internal Wireless Sensors for Dry Cask Storage | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | The effort will test the reliability of wireless, internal sensors after exposure to drying and storage conditions. These sensors are used to internally monitor temperature, pressure, and dose. Radiation shielding will also be designed to protect sensors during long-term storage. The effort will develop piezoelectric techniques for miniaturization of optical emission spectroscopy for internal monitoring of gas composition during drying and long-term storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24533: Non-destructive Evaluation of Dry Storage Canisters Using Acoustic Sensing | University of Southern California | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to develop a robust non-destructive evaluation (NDE) technique based on acoustic sensing to detect impurity gases in a sealed (welded) dry storage canister (DSC) using only measurements collected on the external surface of the DSC. The method is based on the time-of-flight analysis of acoustic signals propagating through the fill gas of a DSC, which is influenced by the composition, density and temperature of the propagation medium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23984: Safety Implications of High Burnup Fuel for a 2-Year PWR Fuel Cycle | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to perform safety analysis of high burnup fuel for a Westinghouse 4-Loop Pressurized Water Reactor. The work aims to identify potential opportunities and gaps for high burnup fuel by utilizing both well-established and modern methodologies to model reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, and plant system-level response that ultimately provide feedback to fuel performance analysis. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23985: Fuel-to-Coolant Thermomechanical Behaviors Under Transient Conditions | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This project will enhance the prediction of thermo-mechanical fuel-to-coolant heat transfer under transient conditions by using a coupled analysis and experiment approach. The effort is relevant to both high-burnup (> 62GWd/t) fuel applications and Accident Tolerant Fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24070: Modeling high-burnup LWR fuel behavior under normal operating and transient conditions | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This project aims to develop a high-burnup light water reactor fuel modeling capability to implement in the BISON code that would enable the accurate fuel rod behavior simulation during normal operation and design basis accidents, as wells as the identification of the rod life-limiting factors. Mechanistic engineering models will be developed for key phenomena, in particular, high burnup structure evolution, fuel fragmentation, and fission gas release. Traditional and accident tolerant fuels will be considered. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24033: Redox Chemistry in Nuclear Materials Storage Matrices under Ambient and Accelerated Aging Conditions | University of Washington | $800,000 | Deep geologic repositories must safely contain hazardous, high-activity nuclear wastes at geologic time-scales. However, such capability is centrally dependent on the element-specific redox chemistry within and at the interface of storage vessels. A comprehensive study of redox chemistry in cements used in long-term storage is proposed and emphasizes: 1) the actual consequences of accelerated aging modalities and 2) the novel use of newly available capabilities in advanced x-ray spectroscopies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24063: Post-DNB Thermo-mechanical Behavior of Near-term ATF Designs in Simulated Transient Conditions | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | The goals of the proposed research are to conduct coupled experimental and modeling investigations of thermo-mechanical performance of coated accident tolerant zirconium alloy claddings with simulated burnup doped fuels under thermal transients to predict complex thermal and mass transport phenomena of near-term Accident Tolerant Fuel designs in accident conditions. Experiments and modeling for understanding both cladding-coolant and fuel-coolant interactions will be performed. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24582: Machine-Learning-Accelerated Molecular Dynamics Approaches for Molten Salts | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $399,477 | New machine learning potential (MLP) approaches and new MLPs to enable rapid prediction of molten salt (FLiBe and Nal-MgCl2 with impurities) properties with near ab initio quantum mechanical accuracy will be developed. Uncertainty quantification with active learning and on-the-fly fitting will greatly accelerate MLP training. This work will support dramatically increased simulation speeds and associated data generation and understanding for molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24067: Development of Full Understanding of Mechanical-Chemical Coupling in Bentonite THMC processes | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | The central hypothesis is that mechanical stress in an engineered barrier can lead to pressure solution of solid minerals, leading to significant changes in pore water chemistry, which affects bentonite stability, longevity of the waste pack, and dissolution and migration of nuclides. The overall objective of this project is to develop full understanding of the role of pressure solution on pore water chemistry, the implications to large-scale heterogeneity, and THMC processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23987: Separate and Multi-Physics Effects IRPhEP Benchmark Evaluation using SNAP Experiments | Georgia Institute of Technology | $400,000 | The proposed project will develop an International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) mulitphysics microreactor benchmark evaluation based on data from the Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power (SNAP) program. This work will include systematic assessments of the experimental data with meticulous compilation and documentation, and validation of specific NEAMS tools to model effects that are unique to microreactors technologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24630: Integral Benchmark Evaluation of Zero-Power Tests and Multi-Cycle Depletion Experimental Data of TVA WB1 Cycles 1-3 | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | This project proposes to develop an integral benchmark evaluation of available experimental data for zero-power tests and multi-cycle depletion for consistent and comprehensive validation of both novel high-fidelity and traditional multi-physics tools. The benchmark evaluation will be based on operational and measured data from the Pressurized Water Reactor Watts Bar Unit 1 released by Tennessee Valley Authority. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24186: Regenerating Missing Experimental Parameters with Data-Assimilation Methods for MSRE Transient Benchmark Development and Evaluation | Virginia Commonwealth University | $400,000 | The proposed project will regenerate the undocumented basic data from available experimental data of the MSRE using advanced data-assimilation methods to facilitate the whole-loop modeling of the representative MSRE transients, and perform a thorough MSRE transient benchmark evaluation for the IRPhEP handbook. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24194: Implementation of improved quasi-static, time-dependent, multi-physics methodology in Shift | Georgia Institute of Technology | $600,000 | A practical reference calculation route for time-dependent coupled Monte Carlo calculations, using Shift, will be developed. The proposed framework will be tailored to depletion and slowly varying transients, but with the flexibility to perform thermal-hydraulic time-dependent calculations with minimal computational overheads. This method relies on a hybrid-resolution stochastic approach in conjunction with a substep technique. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24078: Material transport model development and integration in the System Analysis Module (SAM) code | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | This project proposes to develop and implement models for System Analysis Module, which accurately characterize the sink, source, and interaction terms of key material species that are or may be present in various advanced reactor designs. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24195: Enhancing Yellowjacket for Modeling the Impact of Radiation and Stress on the Corrosion of Molten-Salt-Facing Structural Components | University of Florida | $692,088 | The objective of this project is to add the capability to model the impact of radiation and stress on corrosion to the Yellowjacket code, as well as to use Yellowjacket to create surrogate models that will be added to engineering-scale codes like Grizzly. We will also collect new experimental data for validation that quantifies the impact of stress and radiation on corrosion of 316 stainless steel in molten fluoride salts. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24405: Development of a High-fidelity Flow Boiling Database for Validation of High-void-fraction Flow Regime Models | University of Michigan | $800,000 | The primary objective of this proposed research is to develop a comprehensive, high-resolution, multiphase computational fluid dynamics validation-grade flow boiling data from rod bundle geometry simulating current light water reactor fuel designs by taking advantage of the instrumentation and facility developed by the research team. In addition, the applicability of the data through initial evaluations of selected test cases using Nek-2P boiling closure models will be studied and demonstrated for two-phase flow simulations. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24471: Technical Basis of Microstructure Criteria and Accelerated Testing for Qualifying Additively-manufactured 316H Stainless Steel for High-temperature Cyclic Service | Auburn University | $800,000 | This project seeks to reveal the fundamental relationship for AM 316H SS working at 500-750 _C between additively-manufactured microstructures and creep/creep-fatigue properties through a multiscale experimental and modeling approach. The project also seeks to establish the technical basis for the microstructure criteria and accelerated testing method to support near-term nuclear qualification. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24152: Direct heating of chemical catalysts for hydrogen and fertilizer production using Microreactors | Kansas State University | $799,202 | This proposal presents a novel integration approach to deliver process heat from microreactors by directly heating the catalyst particles from the primary heat transfer fluid in a moving packed bed heat exchanger (MPBHX). In this design, the tube side of the MPBHX can be a heat pipe or primary Helium coolant as in several microreactor designs. The shell side will be moving catalyst particles, which will enter the high temperature chemical reactor upon heating. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24287: Investigating heat transfer in horizontally oriented HTGR under normal and PCC conditions | Kansas State University | $799,762 | Experimental research will be conducted to understand heat transfer inside the graphite matrix of horizontal microscale High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors. Existing high temperature test facilities will be used to simulate normal operation and Pressurized Conduction Cooldown. The focus of these experiments is to generate benchmark data under forced and natural convection with coupled multi-mode heat transfer in scaled-down prismatic blocks. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24104: Thermal Hydraulics Investigation of Horizontally Orientated Layout Micro HTGRs Under Normal Operation and PCC Conditions Using Integrated Advanced Measurement Techniques | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000 | The proposed novel work will make a significant pioneering contribution to advance the knowledge and understanding of horizontal micro-high temperature gas cooled reactors. Quantification of metrics will pertain to convective heat transfer coefficients along the channel and gaps, comparative rates of convective and radiative heat transfer, location of peak temperature and its temporal variation, timescales for onset of natural convection, local gas velocity profiles, gas dispersion, crossflows, and temperature profiles over channel diameter and gap thickness. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24004: An Open Source, Parallel, and Distributed Web-Based Probabilistic Risk Assessment Platform to Support Real Time Nuclear Power Plant Risk-Informed Operational Decisions | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | The main objective of the proposed work is to develop, demonstrate, and evaluate a probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) software platform needed to address the major challenges of the current legacy PRA tools. This includes better quantification speed, integration of multi-hazard models into traditional PRAs, and model modification/simplification and documentation automation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24228: Quantifying the Dynamic and Static Porosity/Microstructure Characteristics of Irradiated Graphite through Multi-technique Experiments and Mesoscale Modeling | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | This project proposes a joint experimental-computational approach to probe and quantify the porosity and microstructure characteristics of irradiated nuclear graphite grades and their influence on dimensional changes and turnaround behavior, as well as mechanical properties. The chief focus will be on quantifying both the static and dynamic porosity and crack characteristics in various graphitic phases through several experimental techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24247: Multi-scale Effects of Irradiation Damage on Nuclear Graphite Properties | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Irradiation induces microstructural damage in graphite, causing both dimensional and property (stiffness, strength and creep) changes as a function of the displacement damage and temperature. The biggest gap remains is the fundamental deformation mechanisms behind the property changes. Researchers propose to eliminate this gap in knowledge with a comprehensive, multi-scale experimental framework exploiting in-situ transmission electron and X-ray computed tomography. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23975: Development of Thermal Power Dispatch Simulation Tools for BWR Flexible Plant Operation and Generation | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | In the U.S. domestic light water reactor fleet, about one-third of operational nuclear power reactors are boiling water reactors (BWRs). Thermal power extraction technologies to be designed for BWRs will be different from those for pressurized water reactors due to differences in steam generation. This study proposes to investigate the thermal and electric power dispatch and required control algorithms for dynamic heat dispatch of up to 50% of the thermal energy from a BWR plant to a hydrogen plant. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24111: Experimental Investigations of HTGR Fission Product Transport in Separate-effect Test Facilities Under Prototypical Conditions for Depressurization and Water-ingress Accidents | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Experimental investigations will be performed for fission product (FP) lift-off, washoff, vaporization from plateout surfaces, and transport of FP at prototypical conditions representing depressurization and water-ingress accidents. Measurements will be performed on existing separate-effect facilities using intrusive and non-intrusive techniques to obtain shear stress, deposition velocity, thermal gradient, and gas impurity for advanced correlations. Modeling will be performed using system and computational fluid dynamics codes. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24644: High-Resolution Measurements and Advanced Modeling for Design Optimization of Advanced Small Modular Reactor Steam Generators | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Experiments and simulations will be performed to acquire multi-parameters of pressure drop, heat and mass transfer, and flow-induced vibration (FIV) effect for the design optimization of advanced small modular reactor steam generators (SMR SG). Measurements are performed on existing SMR SG facilities using intrusive/non-intrusive techniques to obtain velocity, temperature, pressure, heat flux, and FIV effects for various geo-dimensions, spacing, pitch angles. Simulations will be performed in StarCCM, Nek5000 and coupling with Diablo_ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24332: A Virtual Reality Environment for Human Reliability Assessment in the Context of Physical Security Attacks | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Recent studies have shown that the physical security workforce accounts for 20% of the entire workforce and, therefore, is responsible for significant operational and maintence costs. To reduce the security staffing, improve performance and reduce threats, modeling and simulation and models of attacker, defender and operator behavior could be employed. This proposal aims to model human behavior using a combination of known human reliability analyses models and experimental evidence from virtual reality experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24389: High Temperature Electromagnetic Acoustic (EMAT) Transducers for Structural Health Monitoring | University of Cincinnati | $800,000 | The aim of this project is to produce an electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT) technology to enable ultrasonic structural health monitoring at the METL facility and similar high temperature assets. Ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation methods can be used for monitoring a range of damage mechanisms including thermal fatigue and corrosion. The project will seek to establish core design solutions that can be used as the basis of a range of EMAT designs for different applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24380: Probabilistic Validation and Risk Importance Ranking Methodology for Automation Trustworthiness and Transparency in Nuclear Power Plants | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | This project develops a methodology to improve trustworthiness and transparency of automation technologies in nuclear power plants. The proposed methodology will monitor risk emerging from automation processes and rank the criticality of automation factors influencing automation output, plant equipment, and system performance. The feasibility and practicality of the proposed methodology will be demonstrated with two case studies focusing on implementation of nuclear power plant automation technologies. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24162: Self-powered wireless sensor system for health monitoring of liquid-sodium cooled fast reactors | University of Notre Dame | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to develop self-powered wireless multimodal sensors and instrumentation for health monitoring and diagnosing early-stage materials degradation for high-risk components in liquid-sodium cooled fast reactors. The synergistic and innovative integrations of the multimodal sensor array, wireless communication, and thermoelectric energy harvester have crosscutting benefit for a wide range of advanced reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24102: High temperature Molten salt reactor pump component development and testing | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | This project will provide relevant key information on the tribology of bearing material and components (such as magnets, couplers, ceramic coated wire, and coatings) in high temperature molten salts that will be required in the design of reactor pumps. Investigation of in-service inspection and monitoring of the pump internals will also be addressed in an effort to reduce down time and operation and maintenance costs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24226: Cost Reduction of Advanced Integration Heat Exchanger Technology for Micro-Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,713 | Heat exchanger technology is a high-cost component of a micro-reactor system that is also critical to the overall reliability and performance. This project will develop the underlying advanced heat exchanger technology necessary to integrate a micro-reactor with any end-user application, as well as providing internal heat exchange. Economic optimization of the heat exchanger and experimental demonstration of the technology will be accomplished. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24382: Advanced High-Fluence Low-Flux RPV Mechanical Property Models for Extended Life | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,717 | This project will further develop accurate models of the mechanical property changes under life-extension conditions in reactor pressure vessel (RPV) steels using reduced order Avrami models, cluster dynamics, and atomistic methods combined with massive comprehensive databases on irradiated steels. The work will provide models critical to extending the life of U.S. pressurized water reactors, as well as new fundamental insights into flux and fluence effects and sink and precipitate evolution in reactor pressure vessels and related steels. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| Integrated Marine Platform for Hydrogen and Ammonia Production | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | This study investigates the economic and environmental value of a floating integrated GW-scale green hydrogen/ammonia production facility powered by an advanced nuclear reactor. Floating Production Storage and Offloading units (FPSOs) are deployed worldwide in the oil and gas industry, and can be used for hydrogen and ammonia processing. Deployment of an advanced reactor on a floating platform offers several advantages, including the efficiencies of shipyard fabrication. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Functionally-graded Cermet Coatings for Molten Salt Technologies by High Throughput Finite Element Modeling and Additive Manufacturing | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $500,000 | This project proposes an integrated approach/methodology to design, manufacture and verify functionally-graded metal-ceramic composite coatings on structural alloys with desired interfacial properties, capabilities of mitigating residual stress and improved corrosion resistance for molten salt reactor applications. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| An Innovative Monitoring Technology for the Reactor Vessel of Micro-HTGR | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | This project seeks to develop an innovative sensor technology for real-time monitoring of the thermo-mechanical stresses in the reactor vessel of micro-HTGR. The technology will be based on a sparse network of outer wall temperature measurements and plant operating conditions. An integrated software-hardware sensing system aimed at monitoring the health of the pressure vessel of gas micro-reactors will be implemented and tested. The proposed work will have a broad impact on sensing in other reactor designs. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| High throughput mechanical testing of additively-manufactured materials | University of California, Berkeley | $500,000 | This project proposes fast and high throughput mechanical testing of AM produced materials. It will include the generation of automated tensile testing, hardness testing and microstructure assessment and data comparison to build data via machine learning. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Accelerated irradiation creep testing coupled with self-adaptive accelerated molecular dynamics simulations for scalability analysis | University of Michigan | $500,000 | The goal of the proposed work is to accelerate traditional irradiation creep using instrumented in-situ ion irradiation creep and long-time molecular dynamics simulations to accelerate traditional neutron irradiation creep testing. This goal will be accomplished by coupling a novel ion beam flux jump test using tapered creep specimens and self-adaptive accelerated molecular dynamics. The outcome is a rapid, low-cost accelerated method to determine the fundamental irradiation creep mechanisms. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Creation of a Pebble Database for Material Control and Accountancy in Pebble Bed Reactors | Virginia Commonwealth University | $399,969 | The primary goal of this proposed project is to develop a database of NDA signatures from a wide variety of used PBR pebbles. This database can be used for facility operations, safety, security, and safeguards (3S) to directly measure fission product content and indirectly 235U and plutonium content of each PBR pebble. This project has significant synergy with current 3S PBR research at ANL, BNL, and ORNL, all of whom are collaborators to this proposed project. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Quantifying Aerosol Deposition Mechanisms in Model Dry Cask Storage Systems | Clemson University | $800,000 | The objective of this work is to measure aerosol deposition and resuspension rates in laboratory models of dry cask storage systems to compare with and validate the DOE deposition model. The project team will conduct experiments to directly measure the deposition/resuspension rates of bulk aerosol in the system and to isolate and quantify individual aerosol deposition mechanisms, with a focus on those sensitive to variable humidity and surface temperature. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Using Amide-Functionalized Electrodes to Elucidate Interfacial Actinide Redox Chemistry for Improved HALEU Supply | Florida International University | $400,000 | The goal is to decrease HALEU fuel cycle costs by examination of the redox behavior of U, Np, and Pu at the water-organic interface using amide functionalized electrodes, and in organic media after extraction with amides. Experiments with redox active interferences including additional actinides in different oxidation states will also be conducted. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advancing the technical readiness of FeCrAl alloys and ODS steels under extreme conditions for fast reactor fuel cladding | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | A key technology gap for advanced high-performance fuel applications is the current unavailability of materials that can withstand extremely high doses without significant degradation of cladding performance. The project team will perform in-situ thermo-mechanical experiments (tension, torsion, creep, and creep-fatigue and nanoindentation) on ion-irradiated (to 400 dpa) cladding materials (up to 700 C) along with microstructures using TEM and mesoscale phase field simulations. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| A molten salt community framework for predictive modeling of critical characteristics | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | This research aims to develop a molten salt community framework to address the needs in advanced fuel cycles, including understanding salts via new theory of liquids, predicting salt characteristics via simulations (DFT, MD, and CALPHAD by implementing advanced models), optimizing inversely molten salts, and verifying simulations by experiments. This project has outstanding value for US taxpayers, educates students, and delivers outreach opportunities for academia, industry, and the public. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Understanding the Interfacial Structure of the Molten Chloride Salts by in-situ Electrocapillarity and Resonant Soft X-ray Scattering (RSoXS) | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | The objective of the proposed research is to investigate the interplay between the interfacial structure of the molten salts and their electrochemical corrosion properties in Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Clay Hydration, Drying, and Cracking in Nuclear Waste Repositories | Princeton University | $800,000 | This project will develop a new multiscale model of the thermal-hydrologic-mechanical-chemical (THMC) evolution of an engineered clay barrier in the near field of a nuclear waste repository, including initial hydration and eventual post-closure criticality. This new model will directly link micro-scale material properties to large-scale barrier performance, thus facilitating future design advances or modifications, and enable robust validation of large-scale simulation predictions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Physics-guided Smart Scaling Methodology for Accelerated Fuel Testing | Purdue University | $800,000 | This project proposes to employ novel informatics algorithms for mapping/scaling uncertainties from experimentally accessible scaled state to application/prototypical state, informed by an equivalent mapping obtained from high-fidelity multi-physics simulations for the fuel thermo-mechanical behavior, specifically, a rate theory-based model for thermal conductivity and fission gas behavior in the BISON code, and employing relevant HALDEN reactor and FAST experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Materials Accountancy During Disposal and Waste Processing of Molten Salt Reactor Fuel Salts | Texas A&M University | $399,997 | The objective of this work is to develop and validate a method for measuring and predicting hold-up to eliminate operational risks and expenses during disposal of salt-wetted MSR components. These objectives will be met by applying robust measurement/detection methods to realistic salt loop environments to validate their use in decommissioning MSRs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advanced Screening Approaches for Accelerating Development of Separations Technologies | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | The goal of this project is to establish a unified selection criterion for chelating molecular structures to more efficiently address ligand applicability to metal ion separation problems, for current and future nuclear fuel cycles. By establishing this criterion, the team will seek to enable the accelerated, cost-effective discovery of new separation workflows, as well as their implementation beyond early radiotracer experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advancing NMA of TRISO-fueled pebbles using fast and accurate gamma-ray spectroscopy | University of Colorado, Boulder | $385,307 | This proposal will provide new Nuclear Materials Analysis (NMA) capabilities for TRISO-fueled pebbles using gamma-ray spectroscopy, through a program of simulations of expected signatures from irradiated pebbles, resulting in a detailed measurement plan to monitor burnup and actinide content throughout the fuel cycle. These simulations will be used to develop requirements for NMA sensor technology and identify opportunities for focused technology development to meet these requirements. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Development of Irradiation and Creep Resistant High-Cr Ferritic/Martensitic Steels via Magnetic Field Heat Treatment | University of Kentucky | $800,000 | The objective of this proposed study is to develop and test new generation of Ferritic/Martensitic (F/M) steels specifically designed for advanced reactors that will exceed the current limitations due to temperature and irradiation dose. To achieve this objective, a systematic study is proposed to employ an innovative tempering heat treatment under high external magnetic field (up to 9T) on F/M steel HT9 to engineer an optimized microstructure composed of refined carbides and martensite laths. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Investigation into the processing parameters of phosphate-based dehalogenation for chloride-based waste salt | University of Nevada, Reno | $399,999 | This proposal will focus on several topics needed to advance the iron phosphate process: 1) Dehalogenation/vitrification processes using salt simulants to generate process flow sheets, 2) Reactions of crucible materials with phosphate products and byproducts, 3) Collection of glass property-composition data to develop models based on the glass-forming regions, 4) Development of a process for reacting recovered NH4Cl with metals that need to be fed into the system (U, Li, etc.). | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| A Validated Framework for Seismic Risk Assessment of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of Nevada, Reno | $799,883 | This is a collaborative research program with a primary objective of developing a validated numerical framework for seismic risk analysis of spent fuel storage facilities from the global cask behavior to the localized behavior of internal spent fuel assemblies. In building and validating this framework, advanced data analysis, data assimilation, and forward and inverse modeling techniques will be utilized. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| International Collaboration to Advance the Technical Readiness of High Uranium Density Fuels and Composites for Small Modular Reactors | University of Texas at San Antonio | $800,000 | An international team of high uranium density fuels (HDFs) experts advised by industry leaders in nuclear reactor innovation propose a US-UK collaboration to advance the technical readiness of UN, UB2, and their composites for fuel forms specific to small modular reactors (SMRs). The project will bridge the critical data gaps in HDF performance specific to the impact of common impurities and microstructural variations that originate at fabrication. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Development of Advanced Control Rod Assembly for Improved Accident Tolerance and High Burnup Fuel Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Research will focus on the development of new materials' designs for control rod sheaths and neutron absorbers, coupled with neutronics analysis and thermo-mechanical modeling to improve accident tolerance and to achieve higher fuel burnup in PWRs. Functionality of the proposed designs consisting of Cr coated control rod sheaths of current and advanced alloys as well as novel neutron absorbers will be evaluated in prototypical reactor conditions and accident scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Optical Basicity Determination of Molten Fluoride Salts and its Influence on Structural Material Corrosion | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | The proposed research is aimed at developing ion probes to determine the optical basicity of molten fluoride salts and studying its influence on structural material corrosion. Combining with the molten salt structure study using X-ray absorption spectroscopy, the salt chemical constitution, the resulting optical basicity, and molten salt structure will be inextricably linked and their connections will be unveiled. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Extending the HMF71 Benchmark Series for Graphite Reflector Thickness up to 18 Inches | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $399,522 | The objective of this proposal is to extend the HEU-MET-FAST-071 (HMF-71) experiment benchmark series in ICSBEP by evaluating the historical (existing) experimental data for critical experiments with graphite reflector thickness from 3 inches up to 18 inches. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2022 |
| Fast and Rigorous Methods for Multiphysics SPn Transport in Advanced Reactors | University of Michigan | $600,000 | This project proposes to perform rigorous theoretical and numerical analysis of the Generalized SPn method and underlying cross section models to enable a fast and robust multiphysics low-order transport capability for advanced reactors. This includes 5 major tasks focused on the efficient discretization and solution of the GSPn equations, numerical analysis of XS models having multiphysics and depletion, analysis of equivalence factors, improved MC estimators, and several V&V applications of the methods. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2022 |
| Development of Hydrogen Transport Models for High Temperature Metal Hydride Moderators | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Understanding the transient behavior of metal hydride moderator materials at high temperatures is a key challenge to the design and deployment of future microreactors. This project will use neutron radiography techniques provide the necessary data for this understanding and demonstrate the development of time and temperature dependent hydrogen transport models using both commercial FEA software coupled to MCNP and coupled models developed in the MOOSE framework. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Characterizing fast reactor fuel failure mode through separate effect and prototypic tests | Oregon State University | $800,000 | The project consists of conducting separate effect fuel pin failure tests with surrogate fluid and prototypic test with sodium. The outcome of this study will generate an experimental database that will be used to develop mechanistic model and validate the CDAP module of the SAS4A/SASSYS-1 code. Ultimately the quality data can be used to benchmark other fuel codes developed for LMFR application, which are seeking validation for licensing purpose. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Science-based development of ASTM standard tests for graphite-based fuel pebbles | University of California, Berkeley | $700,000 | This project proposes the development of mechanical test procedures as well as wear and friction tests on Graphite fuel pebbles | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Role of Heterogeneity in Manganese and Nickel Rich Precipitate Distribution on Hardening of Reactor Pressure Vessel Steels: Integrated Modeling and Experimental Characterization | University of Florida | $799,803 | The hypothesis of this work is that the different nucleation and coarsening kinetics of manganese and nickel rich precipitates (MNPs) compared to copper rich precipitates, and the heterogeneous distribution of manganese and nickel rich precipitates on or near dislocations, both lead to unique hardening behavior at high neutron fluence. The objective of this work is to understand hardening in reactor pressure vessel steels caused by MNPs via integrated multiscale modeling and experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Integrated Thermal-Electric Energy Management of All-Electric Ship with Advanced Nuclear Reactors | University of Texas at Dallas | $400,000 | The overall objective of this research is to comprehensively model, design, and evaluate the use of advanced nuclear reactors in future nuclear-powered ships, to enhance the efficiency, reliability, and resilience of shipboard energy distribution systems. The novelty of the proposed approach lies in (i) integrated thermal-electric modeling of advanced nuclear-powered shipboard energy system, and (ii) novel solutions for total-ship energy management to improve energy efficiency and resiliency. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Open Architecture for Nuclear Cost Reduction | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Open architecture has potential to reduce advanced reactor (AR) costs, through exploiting modular design and construction, with common, openly available interfaces between modules. A comprehensive assessment of the challenges and opportunities of open architecture for ARs will be performed. Supported by a pilot study, actionable recommendations for the implementation or otherwise of open architecture for ARs will be developed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Telescopic Control Rod for Significant Reduction in HTR Height and therefore Cost | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | This project proposes a design for a small modular High Temperature Reactor (HTR) control rod that extends telescopically, consisting of ~5 concentric annuli that nest together above the core when withdrawn. This compact component substantially reduces the length of the depth of the silo. Modelling and experimental testing will be performed to develop the control rod to evaluate feasibility, plus perform a cost-benefit analysis, with a view to its inclusion in both pebble bed and prismatic HTR designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Mechanism Driven Evaluations of Sequential and Simultaneous Irradiation-Creep-Fatigue Testing | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | This project addresses a critical need for irradiation and creep-fatigue testing by carrying out a systematic, mechanistic-driven benchmarking for irradiation creep, irradiation fatigue and creep-fatigue tests under various environments. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Mechanisms-based Acceleration of Materials Qualifications for Creep-Fatigue Performance in Advanced Nuclear Systems | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | The goal of this research is to fully understand, quantify and model creep-fatigue 'damage' as a function of loading patterns, temperature and microstructural evolution. Using this experimental information over a large range of relevant stress levels and temperatures, a mechanisms-based creep-fatigue analysis approach will be demonstrated which will properly qualify high temperature alloys for extended service in advanced nuclear systems where creep-fatigue is currently a major design limitation. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Subwavelength Ultrasonic Imaging for Rapid Qualification of Additively Manufactured Nuclear Structures and Components | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to develop a transformational capability for rapid nondestructive quality assessment of actual nuclear additively manufactured structures and components through advanced ultrasonic imaging with subwavelength resolution. The resolution of conventional ultrasonic systems is limited by diffraction on the order of the wavelength. In this project, the goal is to break the diffraction limits of ultrasonic imaging by implementing a negative-index lens. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| MXene as Sorbent Materials for Off-gas Radioiodine Capture and Immobilization | Clemson University | $1,000,000 | The overarching goal of this project is to develop efficient and stable new sorbent materials, for off-gas radioiodine capture and immobilization, that are based on MXenes with two-dimensional transition metal carbides/nitrides. The exploratory research will focus on three main objectives: 1) Design and synthesis of MXenes as radioiodine sorbent and support materials, 2) Quantification of iodine sorption capacity of MXenes in different forms, 3) Synthesis and characterization of consolidated waste forms. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Fundamental understanding of grain boundary cracking in LWR environments | University of California, Los Angeles | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to understand the details of stress corrosion cracking (SCC) and irradiation assisted stress corrosion cracking (IASCC) by targeted experiments and modeling efforts. A comprehensive model will be produced, which will predict the conditions under which these failure modes occur and when the materials may see onsets of the failure mode. This work will directly impact the nuclear industry by refining predictive models of component lifetime. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Facile manufacturing of fiber-reinforced-SiC/SiC composite using aerodynamic fiber deposition (AFD) and metal assisted polymer impregnation and pyrolysis processes (MAPIP) | University of Pittsburgh | $999,886 | SiC/SiC ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) are promising candidate materials for the cladding of accident tolerant fuels. Superior material properties of SiC/SiC CMC, however, come at a high manufacturing cost. The objective of the proposed research is to apply aerodynamic fiber deposition (AFD) and metal assisted polymer impregnation and pyrolysis (MAPIP) to develop a new facile manufacturing approach of SiC/SiC CMC. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| High Concentration Monoamide Separations: Phase Modifiers and Transuranic Chemistry | Colorado School of Mines | $999,900 | Extraction of actinides from used nuclear fuel with high concentrations of monoamide extractants is a promising strategy to intensify separation processes; however key issues remain to be understood and resolved. This project will examine three questions: 1) Can phase modifiers mitigate issues with organic phase viscosity? 2) Can the chemistry of neptunium be controlled to ensure complete separation? 3) Do high concentrations of monoamides affect the oxidation states of important metals and can that be exploited? | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Multiple Uranium Complexes in Chloride Fast Reactor Molten Salt Properties | University of Connecticut | $1,000,000 | Multivalent transition metal ions in a melt can exhibit multiple coordination states that affect molten salt properties. This project will use a new high-energy resolution fluorescence detection (HERFD) spectroscopy to overcome issues associated with measuring coordination numbers of multiple complexes, along with Raman spectroscopy and advanced simulations to accurately predict properties of molten salts with multiple uranium complexes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Validation of Geochemical Reactive Transport Long-Term predictions Using Natural Cements and Ancient Cements Analogues | Vanderbilt University | $950,000 | This project will validate long-term performance predictions of rock/cement interfaces based on characterization of natural analogues, ancient cements and interfaces with rock formations, and demonstrate applicability of the established testing and simulation workflow with argillite rock (representative of potential U.S. repository systems). This project addresses the research gap of long-term validation and uncertainty assessment associated with cement barrier performance and multi-physics models. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Predicting Pitting and Stress Corrosion Cracking of Dry Cask Storage Canisters via High Throughput Testing, Multiscale Characterization, and 3D Computer Vision based Machine Learning | The Ohio State University | $1,000,000 | This project consists of a US-UK collaborative research program focusing on the nucleation and growth of pits and stress corrosion cracking of stainless steel 304 (a canister material used for dry cask storage of spent nuclear fuels) by leveraging multi-scale characterization techniques, 2D/3D computer vision, and machine learning approaches. The study will enable the understanding and prediction of how and when pitting corrosion can nucleate, grow, and transition into stress corrosion cracking. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Multiscale Residual Stress Tailoring of Spent Fuel Canister CISCC Resistance | Purdue University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to understand the role of residual stress in chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) of austenitic steel, then tailor CISCC initiation and propagation through engineered multiscale residual stress distributions. Microscopic and macroscopic residual stresses will be systematically varied, then a novel sequence of advanced, site-specific, correlative characterization techniques will be applied to directly link residual stress, pitting, and crack propagation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Illuminating Emerging Supply Chain and Waste Management Challenges | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | Regional constraints on domestic fuel supply and greater variation in demand from advanced reactors has led to a shift in the U.S. fuel cycle, and modeling tools must reflect this. In this work, Cyclus will be updated to better reflect new and emergent regional supply constraints, spatial and temporal fluctuations in material needs, and those impacts on the back-end of the fuel cycle will be quantified. This work will allow for flexible, reproducible analysis to inform stakeholder decision-making. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Determination of Local Structure and Phase Stability of Uranium Species in Molten Halide Salts: Linking Microscopic Structure with Macroscopic Thermodynamics | Arizona State University | $1,000,000 | The goal of this project is to determine the local structures (valence state, coordination configuration and medium-range structure) and thermodynamic stability of uranium species in molten chloride and fluoride salts at high temperatures using a combination of experimental and modeling methods. The obtained results will allow for revelation of the structure-stability relations of the studied systems and development of acid-base scales to determine the solubility of uranium in molten halide salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Thermal-Hydraulics Assessment of SiC Compared to Other ATF Cladding Materials and its Performance to Mitigate CRUD | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | This project aims to experimentally investigate the thermal-hydraulics performance of SiC compared to the Cr-coated zircaloys and APMT ATF cladding materials under accident scenarios, including both DNB and dryout conditions. The project is divided into five tasks that will advance the understanding of the operation and optimization of heat pipes for advanced nuclear reactors. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Physics-Informed Artificial Intelligence for Non-Destructive Evaluation of Ceramic Composite Cladding by Creating Digital Fingerprints | University of Florida | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to spatially map the material composition, structure, and defect distribution of SiCf-SiCm composite tubes from ultrasonic wavefields measured from the materials and the defects within them. Specifically, this project will delve into the unique ultrasonic fingerprints (i.e., dispersion relations and mode shapes) of the SiCf-SiCm composites using physics-informed machine learning to assess the quality of the manufactured tubes based on their spatial-spectral ultrasonic characteristics. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Understanding Constituent Redistribution, Thermal Transport, and Fission Gas Behavior in U-Zr Annular Fuel Without a Sodium Bond | University of Florida | $999,462 | This project will investigate the reason for changed constituent redistribution in annular U-Zr fuel without a sodium bond and how it changes the fission gas behavior and thermal conductivity. This will be achieved using a combination of microstructure characterization and thermal conductivity measurements of irradiated U-Zr annular fuel and multiscale modeling and simulation using the MARMOT and BISON fuel performance codes. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Getting AnCers: Metallothermic Molten Salt Synthesis and Reaction Thermodynamics of Actinide Ceramic Fuels | Oregon State University | $1,000,000 | Synthesis of high quality actinide ceramics (AnCers) remains a costly challenge. A low-temperature, high-yield, short-duration reaction that directly synthesizes UN and UC could reduce the cost of these advanced fuels greatly. This proposal aims to demonstrate a method by which the costs of AnCers can be greatly reduced - metallothermic molten salt synthesis. Optimization and thermodynamics data will be obtained. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Integrated Stand-off Optical Sensors for Molten Salt Reactor Monitoring | University of Pittsburgh | $1,000,000 | This project intends to develop robust and stand-off optical sensors to perform real-time molten salt levels, flow, and impurity measurements of molten salts. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Cybersecurity in advanced reactor fleet by cyber-informed design, real-time anomaly detection, dynamic monitoring, and cost-effective mitigation strategies | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The goal of this research is to provide technical solutions to unique cybersecurity challenges in future microreactor fleet through cyber-informed design (C-ID), real-time anomaly detection, dynamic monitoring, and cost-effective mitigation strategies. The efforts will significantly improve the economics and effectiveness of cybersecurity risk management in future microreactor fleets. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Building Cyber-Resilient Architecture for Advanced Reactors via Integrated Operations and Network Digital Twin | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | The research will develop a secure-by-design architecture via integrating plant operation and network digital twins for advanced reactors. Automatic attack path and vulnerability analysis will be developed and used to assess and harden critical digital assets (CDA) against cyber risks prior to and during operation to identify vulnerabilities, attack pathways, and threat vectors. A CDA selection method will also be developed by combining vulnerability scores and assets importance. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Extending PRA and HRA legacy methods and tools with a cause-based model for comprehensive treatment of human error dependency | University of California, Los Angeles | $1,000,000 | This project aims at developing a solution to HRA dependency assessment in PRA from methodological and practical/computational perspectives within legacy PRA tools and methods. The solutions will include procedures for quantifying dependency when using PRA legacy tools, a method for modeling and quantifying dependency in HRA comprising a BN-causal model suitable for use with legacy PRA methods and tools, and the computational tools for its integration. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| An Integrated Elemental and Isotopic Detector for Real-Time Molten Salt Monitoring | North Carolina State University | $1,000,000 | The overarching theme of the proposed research is to develop and demonstrate a real-time elemental and isotopic detector of molten salts for advanced reactors and fuel fabrication and recycling processes. The detector's longevity, limits, and latency will be tested in static uranium chloride salts, in pyroprocessing chloride salt, and on flowing fluoride salt with evolving actinide composition, respectively. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Development of a Thin-Layer Electrochemical Sensor for Molten Salt Reactors and Fuel Cycle Processes | Brigham Young University | $811,755 | A thin-layer electrochemical sensor capable of detecting uranium, plutonium and other species of interest in molten salts, at both high and low concentrations, will be developed for application in molten salt reactors and fuel cycle process units. This will provide a valuable tool for performing material control and accountancy measurements. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Risk-Informed Consequence-Driven Hybrid Cyber-Physical Protection System Security Optimization for Advanced Reactor Sites | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | This project aims to develop an expanded methodology for designing a novel cybersecurity-integrated physical protection system (PPS) framework for advanced reactor concepts that serves to reduce the operational costs for the life of a reactor against that of a traditional light water reactor PPS design, promoting efforts to credit safety features of advanced reactors through proposed amendments to current security regulations, while integrating health and economic consequence analyses. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| A risk analysis framework for evaluating the safety, reliability, and economic implications of electrolysis for hydrogen production at NPPs | University of Maryland, College Park | $1,000,000 | The RAFELHyP project will develop a modular risk analysis framework that enables evaluating the safety, reliability, and economic implications of upcoming deployments of electrolyzers to produce hydrogen at nuclear power plants. The framework will be implemented to conduct an integrated safety, reliability, and economic analysis of multiple plant configurations to provide detailed recommendations for plant protective features and layouts. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Reduced Order Modeling of Heat and Fluid Flow: Multi-Scale Modeling of Advanced Reactors to Enable Faster Deployment | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | Novel multi-scale algorithms for thermal-hydraulics (TH) simulations of advanced reactors will be developed. The methods will leverage recent advances in hardware and reduced order modeling approaches to enable TH simulations of vastly accelerated speed, while maintaining accuracy comparable to high-fidelity methods, such as large-eddy simulation. The methods will allow designers to perform parameter sweeps, develop closures, and enable high fidelity simulation of transients. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Embedded Monte Carlo | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Monte Carlo methods have long been considered the standard in terms of accuracy and have seen increased use in design of small nuclear systems; however, the uncertainty quantification (UQ) of the desired output is often relegated to later stages of the design process. This project seeks to embed nuclear data UQ in a single Monte Carlo simulation, such that each desired quantity will not only provide the mean value and statistical uncertainty, but also the related nuclear data uncertainty. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| A Low Order Transport Method Based on the Dynamic Truncation of the Integral Transport Matrix Method (ITMM) that Converges to the SN Solution with Increasing Cell Optical Thickness | North Carolina State University | $1,000,000 | A novel low-order transport operator capable of approximating Monte Carlo (MC) results within a variance range will be developed. This does not require MC reference solutions to calibrate the low-order model, so repeated solutions of the latter in-transient scenarios does not require repeated MC simulations. Truncation of the low-order operator is done dynamically for evolving configurations to ensure accuracy of the low-order solution. This will involve proof of principle on Cartesian meshes, then implementation in Griffin. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| CFD based Critical Heat Flux predictions for enhanced DNBR margin | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | This project seeks to demonstrate a robust high-fidelity CFD-based methodology to predict CHF behavior at varying quality conditions, enabling the development of advanced DNBR correlations with reduced uncertainty, and in support of upgraded plant economics. The availability of a virtual CHF methodology will allow greatly extending the database for DNBR correlations development and further support advancement in the design of high-performing nuclear fuel. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Immersed Boundary Methods for Modeling of Complex Geometry: A Leap Forward in Multiscale Modeling using NekRS | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | A major challenge to Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling of complex geometries is the need to generate body-fitted meshes, which can occupy 80% of the CFD practitioner's time. Immersed boundary methods will be added in the NekRS CFD code, dramatically simplifying modeling of complex 3-D structures and facilitating a new paradigm for CFD-informed multiscale analysis. This will be demonstrated by informing SAM transient systems-level models with NekRS heat exchanger correlations for advanced reactors. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Uncertainty Quantification of Model Extrapolation in Neural Network-informed Turbulent Closures for Plenum Mixing in HTGRs | Utah State University | $1,000,000 | This project will quantify the uncertainty in prediction of Neural Network-informed Turbulent Closures when they are operating in a model extrapolation state. Once the method is developed for canonical buoyant jets, the protocols will be applied to plenum mixing in HTGRs. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Impact of moisture on corrosion of NiCr alloys in MgCl2-NaCl Salt Systems | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $999,983 | This project aims to gain a fundamental understanding of the impact of moisture and salt chemistry on corrosion of NiCr alloys in molten chloride salts. A novel approach coupling multiscale simulations and experiments will be designed to determine salt acidity, its dependence on salt composition (i.e., the NaCl to MgCl2 ratio), and its effects on the transport of H2O and Cr ions and the corrosion kinetics of NiCr alloys in chloride salt. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Transforming Microreactor Economics Through Hydride Moderator Enabled Neutron Economy | State University of New York, Stony Brook | $1,000,000 | Microreactors will potentially require the cost of electricity to be 10 MWD/kg at >3 kW/kg core specific power. These goals are best achieved through a well-thermalized spectrum. Neutron economy as a core material selection criterion to advance entrained hydride composite moderators will be used with the primary goal of significantly reducing fuel costs through novel microreactor designs. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Integrating Nuclear with ZLD Seawater Desalination and Mining | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | An integrated nuclear system will be developed that would utilize electricity and waste heat to operate a desalination and mining process from adjacent seawater. The desalination approach targets zero-liquid discharge with multiple marketable minerals extracted. The ability of nuclear facilities to load follow is increasingly important, so a cold thermal storage system will be incorporated. The desalination and mineral extraction process will be experimentally validated at lab scale. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Reference Designs of Green Ammonia Plants Powered by Small Modular Reactors | Utah State University | $1,000,000 | The overarching goal of this project is to develop two reference designs for green ammonia plants. One design uses freshwater as the source for hydrogen, while the other design uses seawater (or brackish water) as the source. In both designs, a small modular reactor (SMR) is used as the primary energy source providing both electricity and steam for the plants. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Development of the Technical Bases to Support Flexible Siting of Microreactors based on Right-Sized Emergency Planning Zones | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to provide the technical basis to support the application of a right-sized Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ) size to support the deployment of a microreactor at the Penn State University Park campus. This research study will serve as a template to provide flexible siting in support of future microreactor deployments that may be placed closer to demand centers, thereby making them more economically competitive. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Bayesian Optimization for Automatic Reactor Design Optimization | Arizona State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to develop analytical tools based on Gaussian process modeling and Bayesian Optimization that facilitate reactor design optimization by modeling the responses from the physics simulator. Existing capabilities will be applied in an AI field and they will be adapted to address the key characteristics of nuclear reactor design problem. This project will automate the simulation-based design procedure, reduce the number of iterations, and minimize the design cycle time. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Engaging New Mexican communities in developing an equitable and just approach to siting advanced reactor facilities | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | This project will engage diverse New Mexican communities to develop an equitable approach for advanced reactor siting. The findings of this project will shed light on how technology developers and the DOE can explore and potentially site advanced reactors with the informed consent and engagement of host communities, regions, and states. The findings of this study will also more generally apply to the potential for equitably exploring both brownfield and greenfield sites for nuclear facilities. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Deciphering Irradiation Effects of YHx through In-situ Evaluation and Micromechanics for Microreactor Applications | University of New Mexico | $998,000 | This project addresses a critical gap in accelerated testing of YH evolution coupling multi-length scale mechanical testing with ion irradiation and advanced characterization to establish a baseline understanding of YH evolution under ion irradiation. Our approach will couple ion irradiation and gamma irradiation with small scale mechanical testing to decipher multi-scale impacts on phase stability to advance understanding of YH in a microreactor moderator application. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Active Learning Estimation and Optimization (ALEO) of Irradiation Experimental Design for Efficient Accelerated Fuel Qualification | University of Texas at San Antonio | $997,247 | This collaborative project creates novel AI/ML models and algorithms integrated with physical knowledge and expertise to explore more efficient ways to calculate irradiation temperatures and fuel specimen burnups for new fuel sample configurations of MiniFuel experiments proposed for irradiation in the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Unraveling how mixing vane spacers affect cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena in light water reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $500,000 | Experiments will be conducted to quantify the effect of mixing vane spacers on cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena, namely single-phase forced convection, nucleate boiling, and CHF. The results of the experimental research will allow elucidating the physical phenomena triggered by the presence of mixing vane spacers. They will also allow assessing the performance of M-CFD tools developed within CASL and in use by the nuclear community. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Quantum Computing Algorithms for Deterministic Neutron Transport | University of Michigan | $500,000 | This project will develop algorithms for solving the k-eigenvalue form of the neutron transport equation in a nuclear reactor physics context on a quantum computer. The asymptotic scaling of the algorithms will be analyzed. Investigation into implementation will be made by making resource estimates by synthesizing explicit circuits for the algorithms and be studied by emulation on a classical computer. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Optimizing Application-Dependent Energy Group Structures for Multigroup Neutron Transport Models using Machine Learning | Colorado School of Mines | $500,000 | Machine Learning methods will be developed that will dramatically reduce both the computational run-time and manual effort needed to find multigroup energy structures that accurately capture the underlying physics of neutron reactions, while allowing multigroup simulations to run quickly without overwhelming available memory. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Understanding PM-HIP Interparticle Evolution and its Influence on Fracture Toughness in Alumina-Forming Steels | Purdue University | $1,100,000 | This project aims to understand how interparticle evolution during hot isostatic pressing (HIP) influences fracture toughness of Al-bearing steels. The team will use a series of interrupted HIP experiments with phase field models to understand the formation mechanisms of interparticle defects during HIP of alumina-forming austenitic (AFA) stainless steels and FeCrAl steels, and the influence of these defects on fracture behavior. | Document | Advanced Manufacturing Technologies | FY2024 |
| Multiscale high-throughput experiment/modeling approach to understanding creep behavior in Additively Manufactured reactor steels | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $1,043,271 | This project proposes to develop a predictive capability for processing-microstructure-property correlations in additive manufactured microstructures utilizing a multiscale approach encompassing bulk creep tests, miniaturized tensile testing, and a high-throughput, indentation based, cost-effective method for elevated temperature mechanical mapping of additively manufactured 316H Stainless Steel, Grade 91, and Titanium-Zirconium-Molybdenum (TZM) alloys. | Document | Advanced Manufacturing Technologies | FY2024 |
| Assessing molten salt corrosion resistance of stainless steel 316H in nuclear reactor environments | North Carolina State University | $1,100,000 | The proposed goal is to leverage a blend of innovative molten salt corrosion experiments and cutting-edge characterization techniques to advance our understanding of molten salt corrosion in both commercial and additively manufactured (AM) stainless steel (SS) 316H, particularly under radiation or stress environments. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Polymer-Derived C-SiC Coatings on Kernel Particles for Advanced Nuclear Reactors | University of Alabama at Birmingham | $1,100,000 | This program is to use a polymer-derived ceramic approach to develop C-SiC/ZrC coatings on ZrO2 kernel substitute particles. We aim to create new fuel encapsulation materials in replacement of the coatings on fuel kernel particles, including the TRISO layers, for advanced reactors, conduct ion irradiation testing of the new materials for nuclear performance evaluation, and carry out detailed microstructure and composition characterization to assess the C-SiC/ZrC coated fuel particle behaviors. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Sorbent regeneration, recycling, and transformation: A transformative approach to iodine capture and immobilization | University of Nevada, Reno | $1,000,000 | The project will focus on the development of materials and processes for regeneration and recycling of sorbents, and the transformation of iodine-loaded sorbents into waste forms. A combination of computational and experimental studies will be conducted to understand (a) how the components in a primary off-gas stream interact with the sorbent, (b) how this off-gas stream affects the regeneration lifetime, and (c) low-temperature binders and processing paths that leads to durable waste forms. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Accident Tolerant Fuels to Support Power Uprates in LWRs | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,100,000 | This project will demonstrate that power uprates higher than the current state of operation can be reached using accident tolerant fuels in light water reactors while not exceeding reactor safety margins during normal operation and accidents. We will analyze it considering fuel enriched up to 10% and peak rod average burnup up to 75GWd/tU concerning reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, reactor safety, and economics. Considerations will be made in consultation with the named industry advisory board. | Document | Existing Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Comparative study of three-dimensional microstructural imaging and thermal conductivity evolution of irradiated solid and annular U-Zr fuels | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Uranium-zirconium (U-Zr) annular metallic fuel holds the promise to simultaneously increase sodium fast reactor (SFR) core uranium loading and reduce peak cladding temperatures, thus greatly improving fuel performance. However, key convolved fuel degradation mechanisms during irradiation at temperature threaten to hold back its real-world applicability, requiring more detailed understanding to both predict U-Zr fuel performance and suggest improvements. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Mechanistic study and modeling of fission gas release in UO2 and doped UO2 | Oregon State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to enhance the safety and performance of light water reactors and other advanced reactor designs by gaining a fundamental understanding of fast gas reactor mechanisms and developing mechanistic models for UO2 and doped UO2 fuels under HBU and transient conditions. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Anisotropic Thermal Properties of SiC-SiC Cladding: Method Development & Characterization | University of Pittsburgh | $1,000,000 | We propose to develop a high-temperature nondestructive thermal conductivity (k) measurement system coupled with validated multiscale models to accurately determine the anisotropic thermal conductivity of SiC-SiC composite cladding tubes. The multiscale measurement and modeling results benefit both DOE ATF programs as well as providing a fundamental understanding of how the microstructure of the composite leads to its anisotropic properties. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Understanding the Performance of SiC-SiCf Composite Cladding Architectures with Cr Coating in Normal Operating and Accident Conditions in LWRs and Advanced Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The project will focus on investigating the impact of Cr-coating on the SiC-SiCf composite cladding of various architectures under normal operating and accident conditions in light water reactors and advanced reactors for the safe and economic deployment of SiC cladding. Cr-coating will provide protection from high-temperature corrosion and better hermeticity under accident conditions. The performance of the claddings will be evaluated through the corrosion test, reflood test, burst test, and non-destructive evaluation(NDE). | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Developing critical insights on the effects of Mo on _' precipitation and dislocation loop formation in FeCrAl alloys | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | This project aims at developing a mechanistic understanding on the effects of Mo on _' precipitation and dislocation loop formation in FeCrAl alloys in thermal and irradiation conditions and turns it into a set of design principles guiding further optimization, by integrating atomistic simulations, CALPHAD modeling, thermal aging, proton irradiation, and advanced characterization. The material discoveries will be generalized to other solutes other than Mo. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Inference of flow conditions from in-core detector measurements for accelerating SMR licensing | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Reactor modelling relies on the detailed description of reactor systems but often lacks the true as-built characteristics of a system. This proposal seeks to fill these geometrical data gaps using available detector data, predictive models and machine learning in order to provide better information to analysis tools and thus better prediction of future performance. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Non-Destructive Plutonium Assay in Pyroprocessing Bulk Materials with a 3D Boron-Coated-Straw Detector Array | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,100,000 | The objective of the proposed project is to develop and demonstrate a 3D boron-coated-straw detector array (3D-BCSDA) with high efficiency and spatial resolution. This detection system will be specifically designed to accurately assess the fissile mass in bulk nuclear material during pyroprocessing operations, thereby improving the precision and reliability of accountability measurements during separation. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Improving the computational efficiency and usability of dynamic PRA with reinforcement learning | University of Maryland, College Park | $1,064,400 | The overall objective of the proposed research is to improve the efficiency and usability of dynamic probabilistic risk assessment (PRA). Specifically, the first objective is to develop a new algorithm for dynamic PRA analysis that can significantly increase the computational efficiency. The second objective is to develop a question-answering system to streamline the process of risk-informed decision-making based on results obtained from the dynamic PRA analysis using the new algorithm. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Development of a Benchmark Model for the Near Real-Time Radionuclide Composition Measurement System using Microcalorimetry for Advanced Reactors | Virginia Commonwealth University | $1,100,000 | The primary goal of this proposed project is to develop high fidelity Monte Carlo radiation transport models of a microcalorimetry detector informed by fuel depletion models of a molten salt reactor and a pebble bed reactor to quantify the current and future capabilities of this detector technology to characterize and assay used fuel from these reactors in near real-time. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Development and Validation of a Dual-Purpose Instrument for On-line Monitoring of Molten Salt Composition and Thermal Behavior | Brigham Young University | $1,099,924 | We propose the development of an online monitoring instrument capable of quantifying heat transfer and salt composition for molten salt reactors (MSR). A dual electrochemistry/thermal conductivity probe (DETP) will be developed to measure the thermal properties and impurities within the salt simultaneously. The DETP will make use of a previously developed needle probe and electrodes for square-wave cyclic voltammetry measures of salt composition. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| In Situ Assessment of Molten Salt Transport into Nuclear Graphite Microstructures using Ultrasonic Sensors | Johns Hopkins University | $909,827 | This project focuses on the transport of molten salt into nuclear graphite along with the investigation of ultrasonic methods for sensing graphite material property changes, especially elastic modulus, associated with intrusion of molten salt into the graphite microstructure. Experimental studies coupled with physics-based simulations will be used to assess strategies for in situ sensing of salt intrusion in the reactor environment to enhance long-term viability of molten salt reactors. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| MONITORING CERAMIC FUEL FRACTURE VIA FIBER OPTIC ACOUSTIC EMISSION SENSORS | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $1,000,000 | In the proposed three-year program, the Center for Photonics Technology (CPT) at Virginia Tech will collaborate with Sentek Instrument (Sentek), Prysmian, and Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to develop and demonstrate a distributed acoustic emission (AE) sensing system for in-situ monitoring of ceramic fuel fracture. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| Concurrent Surrogate Model Development with Uncertainty Quantification in the MOOSE Framework Using Physics-Informed Gaussian-Process Machine Learning | University of Florida | $999,999 | The objective of this project is to develop a general capability for concurrent generation and use of physics-informed Gaussian process (GP)-based surrogate models to facilitate multiscale and multiphysics modeling. We will implement this new capability as part of the Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) so that every application based on the MOOSE framework will have access to it. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2024 |
| Unstructured Adaptive Mesh Algorithms for Monte Carlo Transport | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,098,000 | We propose to develop the fundamental methods and techniques for unstructured adaptive mesh refinement with Monte Carlo tallies. This work enables a transformative leap forward in speed, accuracy, and robustness to enhance the contribution of high-fidelity radiation transport to advanced simulation. Adaptive refinement is deployed on a challenging multiphysics simulation, cascading heat pipe failure, to study acceleration and stabilization properties. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2024 |
| Feasibility Study of Micro-Nuclear Reactor Thermal Output for Air Rotary Kilns in the High-Temperature Manufacturing of Portland Cement Clinker | Pennsylvania State University | $998,793 | This project aims to design and test a micro-nuclear reactor for high-temperature portland cement clinker production, a process responsible for 6%-8% of global CO2 emissions. Leveraging advanced reactors' heat output, the project explores TRISO-based nuclear microreactor core modifications and new working fluids for heat pipes. The research addresses uncertainties in micro-nuclear reactor deployment for clinker production and investigates high-efficiency heat exchanger designs. | Document | Non-Traditional and Non-electric Applications | FY2024 |
| Redox potential, ionic speciation, and separation and recovery challenges from molten salts containing actinides and fission products | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $999,999 | Establishing an efficient, safe, secure, and economical Molten-Salt Reactor (MSR) fuel cycle is imperative for MSR implementation. Molten salt fuel recycling technology requires predictive knowledge of the chemical and physical behavior of lanthanide and actinide ions with different oxidation states dissolved in solvent salts. A combination of off-gas and X-ray measurements with machine-learning simulations will be used to produce predictive modeling of separation and recovery conditions. | Document | Nuclear Fuel Recycle Technologies | FY2024 |
| Pre-Treatment and Bulk Separation of Used Fuels with Carbonate-Peroxide Solutions | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | To use carbonate-peroxide chemistries to develop a pre-processing method for used uranium-based fuels that enables the subsequent use and optimization of current solvent extraction reprocessing schemes. Using simple precipitation, this innovative method provides an initial, bulk separation of uranium from fission products and actinides. | Document | Nuclear Fuel Recycle Technologies | FY2024 |
| Optimization of Fueling Strategies and Material Surveillance through Real-time Pebble Tracking in Pebble Bed Reactors | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,100,000 | Flexible operation of the energy grid of the future introduces uncertainty in determining the optimal operating conditions of Pebble Bed Reactors. The proposed work will help to address these challenges and enable more economical operation by providing the tools to determine of optimal fuel reloading strategy through pebble identification and tracking. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Experimental Study and Computational Modeling of P-LOFC and D-LOFC Accidents in the Fast Modular Reactor Consisting of Silicon Carbide Composite Rods | University of Michigan | $1,100,000 | The primary objectives of this proposed research are to better understand NC flow phenomena and heat transfer under both D-LOFC and P-LOFC accidents in the FMR, produce experimental data in a well-scaled integral-effects test facility for the two accidents, and develop and validate predictive CFD models for NC flow phenomena in both accidents. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Sodium heat pipes; design and failure mode assessment for micro-reactor applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The present proposal aims to experimentally investigate the thermal-hydraulics performance of liquid sodium heat pipes applied to microreactors, with a focus on exploring different design parameters, effects of different parameters on operating performance and understanding the evolution and impact of different failure modes. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Interfacial Interactions between Graphite and Molten Fluoride Fuel Salt | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $1,000,000 | NaF-KF-UF4 fuel salt will be selected to study graphite-salt interactions and impact of the existence of fission products (FPs) and corrosion products on the interactions at different temperatures and pressures. Fundamental mechanisms of graphite-salt interaction and degradation will be understood. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Local resonance-based linear and nonlinear NDE techniques for repaired DSC wall structures | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | The proposed work plan will develop nondestructive examination (NDE) methods that develop and evaluate linear and nonlinear resonant ultrasound spectroscopy methods (such as NRUS, NIRAS, etc.) to cold spray (CS) repaired dry shielded canister (DSC) wall structures. With the support of our partners from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), we will perform technology development and validation on plain and cold spray-repaired DSC wall specimens. | Document | Spent Fuel, Waste Science & Technology and Integrated Waste Management System | FY2024 |
| Thermodynamic Models for Multivalent Actinide Solubility and Speciation as a Function of Temperature and Ionic Strength | University of Notre Dame | $1,000,000 | This proposed project will quantify the solubility and speciation of Np and Pu under temperatures, ionic strengths, and pH values that are relevant to the generic repository concept. The major deliverable will be full thermodynamic descriptions of the studied systems, which will lead to improved radionuclide transport models and support the development of a sound technical basis for the geologic disposal of spent nuclear fuel and other actinide-bearing wastes. | Document | Spent Fuel, Waste Science & Technology and Integrated Waste Management System | FY2024 |
| Advancing Fundamental Molten Salt Modeling using Ultrafast Spectroscopy | North Carolina State University | $600,000 | The overarching goal of the proposed research is to advance our fundamental understanding of molten salts by combining ultrafast spectroscopic experiments with high fidelity atomistic simulations. The proposed research will introduce a new experimental technique to the study of molten salts that will directly measure ion kinetics, specifically, terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS), which will further validate AIMD as a predictive modeling tool. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
| Hydrodynamics of Two-Phase Flow Under the Geometric Effects of Pipe Orientation and U-bends | Purdue University | $600,000 | Most two-phase flow analyses have been performed in straight vertical-upward pipes. However, nuclear reactor systems include piping with different geometric components, such as elbows or U-bends, as well as changes in flow orientations. The proposed work performs experiments in a scaled test facility existing at the institution's lab to investigate the effects of flow orientations and geometries relevant to nuclear reactor systems on the hydrodynamics of two-phase flow. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
| Interface-Resolved Experimental and Numerical Studies of Two-Phase Flow for Nuclear Engineering Applications | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $500,000 | The project aims at advancing the interface-resolved simulation capabilities for the two-phase flows found in various nuclear engineering applications. We will develop a comprehensive, high-resolution, interface-resolved database emphasizing bubble dynamics and bubble interaction mechanisms. The data will be used to validate the sub-grid models implemented in an interface-resolved simulation tool to improve simulation accuracy by developing physics-based coalescence models. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
FY 2021 Research and Development Awards
DOE is awarding more than $48.8 million through NEUP to support 69 university-led nuclear energy research and development projects in 27 states. NEUP seeks to maintain U.S. leadership in nuclear research across the country by providing top science and engineering faculty and their students with opportunities to develop innovative technologies and solutions for civil nuclear capabilities.
A complete list of R&D projects with their associated abstracts is available below.
| Title | Institution | Estimated Funding* | Project Description | Abstract | Project Type | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fundamental Understanding of Ambient and High-Temperature Plasticity Phenomena in Structural Materials in Advanced Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Elastic/Inelastic Nuclear Data Development Project | Idaho State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Heterogeneous Recycling in Fast Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Thermodynamic Development of Corrosion Rate Modeling in Iron Phosphate Glasses | Missouri University of Science and Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Subspace-Based Hybrid Monte Carlo-Deterministic Algorithms for Reactor Physics Calculations | North Carolina State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Improvements to Nuclear Data and Its Uncertainties by Theoretical Modeling | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Sharp Interface Tracking in Rotating Microflows of Solvent Extraction | State University of New York at Stony Brook | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Bulk Nanostructured FCC Steels with Enhanced Radiation Tolerance | Texas A&M University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Fuel Performance Experiments and Modeling: Fission Gas Bubble Nucleation and Growth in Alloy Nuclear Fuels | Texas A&M University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| SiC Schottky Diode Detectors for Measurement of Actinide Concentrations from Alpha Activities in Molten Salt Electrolyte | The Ohio State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Computational Design of Advanced Nuclear Fuels | University of California, Davis | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Data Collection Methods For Validation of Advanced Multi-Resolution Fast Reactor Simulations | University of Idaho | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Simulations of the Thermodynamic and Diffusion Properties of Actinide Oxide Fuel Materials | University of Michigan | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Adsorptive Separation and Sequestration of Krypton, I and C14 on Diamond Nanoparticles | University of Missouri, Columbia | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Alternative Technetium Waste Forms | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Quantification of UV-Visible and Laser Spectroscopic Techniques for Materials Accountability and Process Control | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| High-Fidelity Space-Time Adaptive Multiphysics Simulations in Nuclear Engineering | University of Nevada, Reno | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Simulations of Failure via Three-Dimensional Cracking in Fuel Cladding for Advanced Nuclear Fuels | University of Texas, Dallas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Mesh-Enabled Monte Carlo Capability for Multi-Physics Reactor Analysis | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Ab Initio Enhanced Calphad Modeling of Actinide Rich Nuclear Fuels | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Diffusion Barrier Coatings and Deposition Technologies for Mitigating Fuel Cladding Chemical Interactions (FCCI) | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Thermal Properties of LiCl-KCl Molten Salt for Nuclear Waste Separation | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Neutron Damage and MAX Phase Ternary Compounds | Drexel University | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Atomistic Calculations of the Effect of Minor Actinides on Thermodynamic and Kinetic Properties of UO2+x | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Maximum Fuel Utilization in Fast Reactors without Chemical Reprocessing | University of California, Berkeley | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Developing a High Thermal Conductivity Fuel with Silicon Carbide Additives | University of Florida | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Fabrication of Tungsten-Rhenium Cladding Materials via Spark Plasma Sintering for Ultra High Temperature Reactor Applications | University of Idaho | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Ionic Liquid and Supercritical Fluid Hyphenated Techniques for Dissolution and Separation of Lanthanides, Actinides, and Fission Products | University of Idaho | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Improved Fission Neutron Data Base for Active Interrogation of Actinides | University of Michigan | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Utilization of Methacrylates and Polymer Matrices for the Synthesis of Ion Specific Resins | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Improved LWR Cladding Performance by EPD Surface Modification Technique | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Models of LWR Pressure Vessel Embrittlement for Low Flux-High Fluence Conditions | University of California, Santa Barbara | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) | FY2009 | ||
| Irradiation Creep in Graphite | Boise State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Modeling the Stress Strain Relationships and Predicting Failure Probabilities For Graphite Core Components | Cleveland State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| TRISO-Coated Fuel Durability Under Extreme Conditions | Colorado School of Mines | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| An Innovative and Advanced Coupled Neutron Transport and Thermal Hydraulic Method (Tool) for the Design, Analysis and Optimization of VHTR/NGNP Prismatic Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Removal of 14C from Irradiated Graphite for Graphite Recycle and Waste Volume Reduction | Idaho State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Millimeter-Wave Thermal Analysis Development and Application to Gen IV Reactor Materials | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Accurate Development of Thermal Neutron Scattering Cross Section Libraries | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Understanding Creep Mechanisms in Graphite with Experiments, Multiscale Simulations, and Modeling | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Verification & Validation of High-Order Short-Characteristics-Based Deterministic Transport Methodology on Unstructured Grids | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Microscale Heat Conduction Models and Doppler Feedback | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Optimizing Neutron Thermal Scattering Effects in Very High Temperature Reactors | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Multiaxial Creep-Fatigue and CreepRatcheting Failures of Grade 91 and Haynes 230 Alloys Toward Addressing Design Issues of Gen IV Nuclear Power Plants | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Investigation of Countercurrent Helium-air Flows in Air-ingress Accidents for VHTRs | Ohio State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Testing of Performance of Optical Fibers Under Irradiation in Intense Radiation Fields, When Subjected to Very High Temperatures | Ohio State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| A Distributed Fiber Optic Sensor Network for Online 3-D Temperature and Neutron Fluence Mapping in a VHTR Environment | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Investigation on the Core Bypass Flow in a Very High Temperature Reactor | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| CFD Model Development and Validation for High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor Cavity Cooling System (RCCS) Applications | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Study of Air ingress across the duct during the accident conditions | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Verification of the CENTRM Module for Adaptation of the SCALE Code to NGNP Prismatic and PBR Core Designs | University of Arizona | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Integral and Separate Effects Tests for Thermal Hydraulics Code Validation for Liquid-Salt Cooled Nuclear Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Mechanisms Governing the Creep Behavior of High Temperature Alloys for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems | University of Cincinnati | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| ALD Produced B2O3, Al2O3 and TiO2 Coatings on Gd2O3 Burnable Poison Nanoparticles | University of Colorado, Boulder | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Experimental Study and Computational Simulations of Key Pebble Bed Thermomechanics Issues for Design and Safety | University of Idaho | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Prediction and Monitoring Systems of Creep-Fracture Behavior of 9Cr-1Mo Steels for Reactor Pressure Vessels | University of Idaho | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Understanding Fundamental Material Degradation Processes in High Temperature Aggressive Chemomechanical Environments | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Multi-Scale Multi-physics Methods Development for the Calculation of Hot-Spots in the NGNP | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Corrosion and Creep of Candidate Alloys in High Temperature Helium and Steam Environments for the NGNP | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Creation of a Full-Core HTR Benchmark with the Fort St. Vrain Initial Core and Validation of the DHF Method with Helios for NGNP Configurations | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Fission Product Sorptivity in Graphite | University of Missouri, Columbia | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Identifying and Understanding Environment-Induced Crack Propagation Behavior in Ni-Based Superalloy INCONEL 617 | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Graphite Oxidation Simulation in HTR Accident Conditions | University of New Mexico | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Non Destructive Thermal Analysis and In Situ Investigation of Creep Mechanism of Graphite and Ceramic Composites using Phase-sensitive THz Imaging & Nonlinear Resonant Ultrasonic Spectroscopy | University of Rochester | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Tritium Sequestration in Gen IV NGNP Gas Stream via Proton Conducting Ceramic Pumps | University of South Carolina | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Materials, Turbomachinery and Heat Exchangers for Supercritical CO2 Systems | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Experimental Studies of NGNP Reactor Cavity Cooling System with Water | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Assessment of Embrittlement of VHTR Structural Alloys in Impure Helium Environments | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Modeling Fission Product Sorption in Graphite Structures | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Liquid Salt Heat Exchanger Technology for VHTR Based Applications | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Effect of Post-Weld Heat Treatment on Creep Rupture Properties of Grade 91 Steel Heavy Section Welds | Utah State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Alpha Radiolysis of Nuclear Solvent Extraction Ligands used for An(III) and Ln(III) Separations | California State University, Long Beach | $1,390,252 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Predictive Maturity of Multi-Scale Simulation Models for Fuel Performance | Clemson University | $614,690 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Freeze-casting as a Novel Manufacturing Process for Fast Reactor Fuels | Drexel University | $1,149,327 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Fuel Performance Experiments on the Atomistic Level, Studying Fuel Through Engineered Single Crystal UO2 | Idaho State University | $650,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Development of A Self Biased High Efficiency Solid-State Neutron Detector for MPACT Applications | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $810,141 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Development of a Innovative High Thermal Conductivity UO 2 Ceramic Composites Fuel Pellets with Carbon Nano-Tubes Using Spark Plasma Sintering | University of Florida | $894,042 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Exploration and Modeling of Structural Changes in Waste Glass under Corrosion | Pennsylvania State University | $1,377,444 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Evaluation of materials for interim storage of spent fuel for more than 100 years | University of Michigan | $931,603 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Implementation of On-the-Fly Doppler Broadening in MCNP5 for Multiphysics Simulation of Nuclear Reactors | University of Michigan | $406,712 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Methods and tools to allow molecular flow simulations to be coupled to higher level continuum descriptions of flows in porous/fractured media and aerosol/dust dynamics | University of Missouri-Columbi | $541,286 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Characterization and Modeling of Materials for Kr-Xe Separations | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $989,800 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Modeling Solute Thermokinetics in LiCl-KCl Molten Salt for Nuclear Waste Separation | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $616,073 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Advanced Aqueous Separation Systems for Actinide Partitioning: Develop Fundamental Understanding of An(III)/Ln(III) Separation | Washington State University | $1,451,784 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Consistent Multigroup Theory Enabling Accurate Coarse-Group Simulation of GenIV Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,046,277 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Studies of Deteriorated Heat Transfer in Prismatic Cores Stemming from Irradiation-Induced Geometry Distortion | Idaho State University | $1,287,921 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Carbide Coatings for Nickel Alloys, Graphite, and Carbon/Carbon Composites to be Used in Fluoride Salt Valves | Johns Hopkins University | $1,183,239 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Design, Testing, and Modeling of the Direct Reactor Auxiliary Cooling System for AHTRs | Ohio State University | $1,366,627 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Monitoring microstructural evolution of Alloy 617 with nonlinear acoustics for remaining useful life prediction; multiaxial creep-fatigue and creep-ratcheting | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development and Validation of Multidimensional Models of Supercritical CO 2 Energy Conversion Systems for Nuclear Power Reactors | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $475,005 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Microstructure and Property Evolution in Advanced Cladding and Duct Materials Under Long-Term and Elevated Temperature Irradiation: Modeling and Experimental Investigation | University of California-Berkeley | $1,320,667 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of Barrier Layers for the Protection of Candidate Alloys in the VHTR | University of California-Santa Barbara | $995,232 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Investigation of a Novel NDE Method for Monitoring Thermo-Mechanical Damage and Microstructure Evolution in Ferritic-Martensitic Steels for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems | University of Cincinnati | $833,109 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Fission Product Transport in TRISO Particle Layers under Operating and Off-Normal Conditions | University of Michigan | $966,581 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Microstructure and Property Evolution in Advanced Cladding and Duct Materials Under Long-Term Irradiation at Elevated Temperature: Critical Experiments | University of Michigan | $1,181,379 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Three-dimensional NDE of VHTR Core Components via Simulation-based Testing | University of Minnesota | $1,366,163 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Failure Predictions for VHTR Core Components using a Probabilistic Continuum Damage Mechanics Model | University of Minnesota | $854,542 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of a Scanning Microscale Fast Neutron Irradiation Platform for Examining the Correlation Between Local Neutron Damage and Graphite Microstructure | University of Missouri-Columbia | $703,064 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of Thermal Transient Flow Rate Sensors for High Temperature, Irradiation, Corrosive Environment | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $451,269 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Novel Methods of Tritium Sequestration: High Temperature Gettering and Separation Membrane Materials Discovery for Nuclear Energy Systems | University of South Carolina | $1,366,626 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Heat Transfer Salts for Nuclear Reactor Systems - Chemistry Control, Corrosion Mitigation, and Modeling | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,352,040 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Pulsed Magnetic Welding for Advanced Core and Cladding Steels | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $525,206 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Corrosion in Supercritical Carbon Dioxide: Materials, Environmental Purity, Surface Treatments, and Flow Issues | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $651,447 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Multiscale Concrete Modeling for Aging Degradation | Mississippi State University | $345,941 | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability | FY2010 | |
| Development of an advanced computational fluid dynamics technology for the next-generation nuclear reactor system analysis and safety margin characterization code | North Carolina State University | $418,199 | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability | FY2010 | |
| Precursor Derived Nanostructured Si-C-X Materials for Nuclear Applications | University of Washington | $899,518 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Development and Testing of an Open-Loop Oscillator for Small Reactivity Worth Samples | Idaho State University | $597,252 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Understanding the Irradiation Behavior of Zirconium Carbide | Pennsylvania State University | $870,613 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Modeling investigation of the stability and irradiation-induced evolution of nanoscale precipitates in advanced structural materials | University of Tennessee-Knoxville | $380,653 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Investigation of Laser Shock Peening for Enhancing Fatigue and Stress Corrosion Cracking Resistance of Nuclear Energy Materials | University of Cincinnati | $1,242,019 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Irradiation Accelerated Corrosion of Reactor Core Materials | University of Michigan | $798,943 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Study of Interfacial Interactions using Thin Film Surface Modification: Radiation and Oxidation Effects in Materials | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $538,032 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Novel Engineered Refractory Materials for Advanced Reactor Applications | North Carolina State University | $1,129,304 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Quantification of Cation Sorption to Engineered Barrier Materials Under Extreme Conditions | Clemson University | $1,171,380 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| In-Pile Instrumentation Multi-Parameter System Utilizing Photonic Fibers and Nanovision | Idaho State University | $1,199,990 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Development of Plasmonically Cloaked Nanoparticles | Idaho State University | $800,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Fission Product Transmutation in Mixed Radiation Fields | Idaho State University | $800,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Life Prediction of Spent Fuel Storage Canister Material | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $899,826 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Active Interrogation using Photofission Technique for Nuclear Materials Control and Accountability | Oregon State University | $900,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Anisotropic Azimuthal Power and Temperature Distribution on Fuel Rod: Impact of Hydride Distribution | Pennsylvania State University | $631,956 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Sorption Modeling and Verification for Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Microemulsions and Aggregation Formation in Extraction Processes for Used Nuclear Fuel: Thermodynamics and Structural Studies | University of California, Irvine | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Optimized Processing Fabrication Paths for Larger Heats of Nanostructured Ferritic Alloys | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Basic Physics Data: Measurement of Neutron Multiplicity from Induced Fission | University of Michigan | $973,364 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Radionuclide Incorporation and Long Term Performance of Apatite Waste Forms | University of Michigan | $862,500 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Actinide Foil Production for MPACT Research | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $156,897 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Enriched Boron-Doped Amorphous Selenium Based Position-Sensitive Solid-State Thermal Neutron Detector for MPACT Applications | University of South Carolina | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Development of Advanced High Uranium Density Fuels for Light Water Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Developing the User Experience for a Next Generation Nuclear Fuel Cycle Simulator | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,200,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Preparation and Development of Polymer-Supported Extractants | City College of New York, Hunter | $363,716 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| One-Dimensional Nanostructures for Neutron Detection | North Carolina State University | $455,629 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Feasibility and Safety Assessment for Advanced Reactor Concepts Using Vented Fuel | Oregon State University | $600,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| High Temperature Transducers for Online Monitoring of Microstructure Evolution | Pennsylvania State University | $455,628 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Laser-Arc Hybrid Welding of Thick Section Ni-base Alloys- Advanced Modeling and Experiments | Pennsylvania State University | $536,117 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Correlates of Sensitive Technologies | Texas A&M University | $509,467 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Improved Safety Margin Characterization of Risk from Loss of Offsite Power | Texas A&M University | $600,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| A High Temperature-Tolerant and Radiation-Resistant In-Core Neutron Sensor for Advanced Reactors | The Ohio State University | $455,629 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Pathway Aggregation in the Risk Assessment of Proliferation Resistance and Physical Protection (PR&PP) of Nuclear Energy Systems | The Ohio State University | $534,471 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Preparation of High Purity, High Molecular-Weight Chitin from Ionic Liquids for Use as an Adsorbate for the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Alabama | $338,260 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Selectivity in Ligand Binding to Uranyl Compounds: A Synthetic, Structural, Thermodynamic and Computational Study | University of California-Berkeley | $500,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Seismic Isolation Systems Using Periodic Materials | University of Houston | $538,154 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium from Seawater | University of Idaho | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Austenitic ODS Strengthened Alloys for Very High Temperature Applications | University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign | $538,154 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Enhancement of the Extraction of the Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Transient Safety Analysis of Fast Spectrum TRU Burning LWR with Internal Blankets | University of Michigan | $599,475 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Novel Sorbents for Uranium Extraction from Seawater | University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Radiation Behavior of High-Entropy Alloys for Advanced Reactors | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $538,159 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Rapid Computer Aided Ligand Design and Screening of Precious Metal Extractants from TRUEX Raffinate with Experimental Validation | Washington State University | $500,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of an Efficient Meso-Scale Multi-Phase Flow Solver in Nuclear Applications | City College of New York | $505,858 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Multiscale Modeling and Uncertainty Quantification for Nuclear Fuel Performance | Colorado State University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Fundamental Studies of the Role of Grain Boundaries on Uniform Corrosion of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Materials | Drexel University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Phenomena-based Uncertainty Quantification in Predictive Coupled-Physics Reactor Simulations | Texas A&M University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Characterization of Modeling of Grain Boundary Chemistry Evolution in Ferritic Steels Under Irradiation | University of Michigan | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Development of Multiscale Materials Modeling Techniques and Coarse-Graining Strategies for Predicting Materials Degradation in Extreme Irradiation Environments | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $750,000 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Diffusion, Thermal Properties and chemical Compatibilities of Select MAX Phases with Materials for Advanced Nuclear Systems | Drexel University | $535,927 | Document | Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) | FY2011 | |
| A New Light Weight Structural Material for Nuclear Structures | North Carolina State University | $399,490 | Document | Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) | FY2011 | |
| Experimental Investigation of Convection and Heat Transfer in the Reactor Core for a VHTR | City College of New York | $1,118,856 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Graphite Microstructural Characterization Using Time-Domain and Correlation-Based Ultrasonics | Johns Hopkins University | $1,199,997 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Methodology Development for Passive Component Reliability Modeling in a Multi-Physics Simulation Environment | The Ohio State University | $533,457 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Pebble Fuel Handling and Reactivity Control for Salt-Cooled High Temperature Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $612,721 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Self-Sustaining Thorium Boiling Water Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $1,145,932 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| High Fluency Low Flux Embrittlement Models of LWR Reactor Pressure Vessel Embrittlement and a Supporting Database from the UCSB ATR-2 Irradiation Experiment | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,199,607 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| A Research Program for Fission Product/Dust Transport in HTGR's | University of Missouri-Columbia | $1,157,367 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Development and Validation of a Lifecycle-based Prognostics Architecture with Test Bed Validation | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $846,315 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| In-situ Condition Monitoring of Components in Small Modular Reactors Using Process and Electrical Signature Analysis | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $650,000 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Technical Development for S-CO2 Advanced Energy Conversion | University of Wisconsin | $815,000 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Ag Transport Through Non-Irradiated and Irradiated SiC | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,055,456 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Critical Heat Flux Phenomena at High Pressure and Low Mass Fluxes: Tests and Models | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,199,781 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Modeling and Test Validation of a Reactor Cavity Cooling System with Air | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,199,988 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Transient Mixed Convection Validation for NGNP | Utah State University | $635,860 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Alternative High-Performance Ceramic Waste Forms | Alfred University | $840,000 | This project aims to advance fundamental understanding of the kinetics of structural evolution of crystalline ceramic waste forms. The structure/property relationships will be identified and will reveal new formulations, improved processing routes, and strategies for improved performance or ceramic waste forms. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Surface Layer Bulk Glass Interface Evolution with Aqueous Corrosion | Alfred University | $880,000 | This project will investigate the links between the morphology, structure and chemistry of surface layer-bulk glass interface and the long-term corrosion-reaction kinetics using in-situ and ex-situ experiments. The understanding will result in improved models for long-term predictive behavior of high-level-waste (HLW) glasses under repository conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Optimization of Deep Borehole Systems for HLW Disposal | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $850,000 | Researchers aim to carry out a comprehensive evaluation of the deep borehole option for disposal of used nuclear fuel and high livel waste. The models developed will predict potential movement of water through natural and engineered barriers and release of radionuclides to the biosphere which will aide in site selection. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Scholarship for Nuclear Communications and Methods for Evaluation of Nuclear Project Acceptability | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will work to develop a model to characterize the factors affecting social acceptance of nuclear projects with potential stakeholders. The resultant model will strengthen the ability to design and implement large projects more efficiently, leading to higher rates of success of future nuclear projects. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Accurate Holdup Calculations with Predictive Modeling and Data Integration | North Carolina State University | $875,000 | Researchers will develop and use state-of-the-art radiation transport codes to account accurately for the fissile material in a nuclear materials processing facility. An accurate estimation of the materials will allow for ensured radiological safety, security, waste management and efficient plant operation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Testing of Sapphire Optical Fiber and Sensors in Intense Radiation Fields, when Subjected to Very High Temperatures | The Ohio State University | $885,000 | The researchers on this project will investigate the performance of sapphire optical fibers and sensors in reactor environments. The project, if successful, will result in improved instrumentation to understand the behavior and predict performance of nuclear fuel systems at the microstructural level. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Concrete Materials with Ultra-High Damage Resistance and Self-Sensing Capacity for Extended Nuclear Fuel Storage Systems | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | Researchers aim to design a new class of multifunctional concrete materials. This project, if successful, will result in a novel multifunctional concrete material that possesses inherent degradation monitoring capability and is suitable for an extended storage system for the used nuclear fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Probabilistic Multi-Hazard Assessment of Dry Cask Structures | University of Houston | $865,000 | This project aims to investigate the performance of dry cask storage systems under multiple hazard systems (earthquake, tornados, combined with aging effects) using a probabilistic multi-hazard framework. This framework will be validated based on experimental research and will provide improved models for safety and reliability of spent nuclear fuels during storage and transportation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Electrochemical Corrosion Studies for Modeling Metallic Waste Form Release Rates | University of Nevada- Las Vegas | $790,000 | This project aims to use advanced electrochemical methods to investigate the corrosion related degradation of metal alloys used for housing fission products. The data obtained from this study will allow for the prediction of the long-term behavior of the metallic host phase materials over geological time-scales. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Development and Experimental Benchmark of Simulations to Predict Used Nuclear Fuel Cladding Temperatures during Drying and Transfer Operations | University of Nevada- Reno | $745,000 | Researchers will conduct experiments to investigate and develop advanced computational models of heat transfer in post-pool-storage drying operations. This project, if successful, will result in tools that can be used to design efficient drying processes to as to ensure suitability for dry-cask systems for long-term storage and transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Seismic Performance of Dry Casks Storage for Long-Term Exposure | University of Utah | $873,319 | Researchers will evaluate the mechanical performance of dry-cask storage under seismic loading for mid-term operational periods. Simulations will include scenarios for freestanding, anchored, and vaulted casks. The experimental tests will also evaluate the dynamic seismic response of freestanding and anchored dry-cask storage prototypes, providing recommendations for optimal Interim Spent Fuel Storage Installations (ISFSIs) design. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Coupling of Nuclear Waste Form Corrosion and Radionuclide Transport in Presence of Relevant Repository Sediments | Washington State University | $885,000 | Researchers will conduct experiments to understand the mechanisms responsible for the corrosion of nuclear waste forms in realistic chemical environments. The data generated from these experiments will enable increased reliability of the models used to predict the waste form performance in repository environments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| ABR for TRU Transmutation with Breed & Burn Thorium Blanket for Improved Economics and Resource Utilization | University of California- Berkeley | $450,000 | The research team will use detailed neutronic analysis for a new Advanced Burner Reactor concept with low conversion ratio. The concept will use a new core shape to improve the utilization of neutrons to perform breed and burn. | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2012 |
| Atomic-Scale to Meso-Scale Simulation Studies of Thermal Ageing and Irradiation Effects in Fe-Cr Alloys | Boston University | $874,997 | Researchers will develop predictive, multi-scale simulation tools for iron-chromium alloys, which are expected to be key components of advanced steels envisioned as fuel cladding and structural components for Generation IV reactors. Such modeling is necessary to avoid resource intensive and costly thermal and neutron irradiation experiments to obtain required performance data. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Validation Data and Model Development for Fuel Assembly Response to Seismic Loads | George Washington University | $862,435 | Researchers will conduct experiments that will provide comprehensive data characterizing the dynamics of the fluid and the structure in Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR) fuel assemblies under seismic loads (earthquakes and loss of coolant accidents). Completion of their project will greatly benefit the safety of existing and future nuclear reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Uncertainty Quantification and Management for Multiscale Nuclear Materials Modeling | Georgia Institute of Technology | $743,444 | Researchers will address the question of uncertainty propogation and error estimates associated with model prediction of material behavior under irradiation. Their work will facilitate a better understanding of the connection of various unit processes to collective responses in a multiscale model chain enabling the development of high strength and high ductility materials. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Nonlinear Ultrasonic Techniques to Monitor Radiation Damage in RPV and Internal Components | Georgia Institute of Technology | $877,000 | Researchers will explore new nondestructive materials evaluation and monitoring techniques utilizing nonlinear ultrasonic measurements . This technique will allow researchers to assess remaining useful life of select reactor components. Breakthroughs in this area will lead to the ability to characterize radiation damage in reactor pressure vessels and other components-leading to a clearer definition of reactor safety margins. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Intergral Reactor Containment Condensation Model and Experimental Validation | Oregon State University | $871,119 | Researchers will conduct experiments to enhance the safety and efficiency of small modular reactors (SMRs). This project will assess the impact of high-pressure steam condensation on steel containment vessels to be used for SMR deigns. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Irradiation Performance of Fe-Cr Base Alloys | University of Illinois- Urbana Champaign | $876,332 | _Researchers will perform post-radiation analysis and develop tools for future development and application of the Fe-Cr class of alloys. The results of this research will lead to better modeling of performance and development of an alloy designated as the primary choice for reactor fuel cladding and structural applications in advanced systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Experimentally Validated Numerical Models for Effects of Non-Isothermal Turbulent Mixing on Wall Stresses in High Temperature Reactors | University of Pittsburgh | $876,422 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive experimentally validated computational framework for the turbulent mixing in the lower plenum of a very high temperature reactor (VHTR). Through CFD modeling and experimental validation, the results from this project will lay the groundwork for future stress analysis, failure and fatigue studies, and uncertainty quantification for the VHTR system. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Mechanical Behavior of UO2 at Sub-grain Length Scales: Quantification of Elastic, Plastic and Creep Properties via Microscale Testing | Arizona State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop techniques to measure properties at sub-grain scales using depleted Uranium Oxide samples. The project will provide a framework to measure sub-grain scale mechanical properties, as well as provide experimental data to improve the understanding of advanced oxide fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| The Impacts of Pore-Scale Physical and Chemical Heterogeneities on the Transport of Radionuclide-Carrying Colloids | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will identify the dominant transport mechanisms to develop models that predict radionuclide distribution in porous materials. Experimental and computational models will be created that couple pore-scale geometric and interfacial structures. Simulators such as these are a necessary step towards fully predictive models for field-scale applications in the future. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Polymer-Supported Aminophosphinates as Selective Extractants | Hunter College, CUNY | $399,999 | Researchers will prepare a polymer-supported extractant for the recovery of uranium from seawater. The project will focus on primary amines that could provide a 3-fold increase in uranium capture capacity than current methods. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| In-pile Thermal Conductivity Characterization with Single-laser Heating/Time Resolved Raman | Iowa State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a time-resolved Raman-based thermal conductivity measurement system to improve remote in-pile thermal conductivity measurement. These measurements will provide new insights into the behavior of materials exposed to extreme radiation and temperature environments. Understanding the behavior of materials at the microstructural level will support optimized fuel designs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Organic Speciation and Interactions in ALSEP - One Step Partitioning Process of Minor Actinides, Lanthanides, and Fission Products | Oregon State University | $600,000 | Researchers will investigate the Actinide-Lanthanide Separation (ALSEP) process organic phase prior to aqueous phase separation and after aqueous separation phases of bare and metal-loaded acids. Quantifying these effects can be used to determine how an engineering scale process will perform and generate an accurate chemical model for the system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Glass Composition and Solution Speciation Effects on Stage III Dissolution | Pennsylvania State University | $700,000 | Researchers will study the chemical and structural triggers of long-term vitrified nuclear waste form behavior. They will study a range of waste glass compositions in corrosive environments. The study will improve understanding of the long-term residual rate and may provide new options for environmental control of glass dissolution rates. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Correlating Thermal, Mechanical, and Electrical Coupling Based Multiphysics Behavior of Nuclear Materials Through In-Situ Measurements | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will use in-situ experimental techniques to monitor the influence of extreme conditions on fuel cladding. The project will establish an in-situ experimental setup that can predict change in thermal properties and their correlation with mechanical properties and correlate such changes to changes in microstructural and chemical features. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Creation of a Geant4 Muon Tomography Package for Imaging of Nuclear Fuel in Dry Cask Storage | Purdue University | $440,000 | Researchers will develop a simulation and analysis package to aid in the non-destructive assessment of sealed used nuclear fuel dry casks using cosmic ray muons. Cosmic ray muon tomography allows for non-destructive assessment that can independently verify and identify weapons grade material sealed within dense dry casks. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Fuel Cycle Data Packages for Two-stage Fast Reactor Fuel Cycle Options for Optimum Resource Utilization and Waste Management | Purdue University | $400,000 | Researchers will evaluate the two different two-stage fast reactor fuel cycle options that will offer efficient use of uranium resources and the ability to burn actinides and long-live fission products. Evaluation of these fast fuel cycle options will serve as a useful complement to the options currently being considered in the Fuel Cycle Options Campaign. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Mixed Metal Phosphonate-Phosphate Resins for Separation of Lanthanides from Actinides | Texas A&M University | $650,000 | Researchers will use ion exchangers to cleanly separate lanthanides and curium from reusable actinides. The study will assist in the development of an inexpensive, simple way in which to separate lanthanides from actinides found in used nuclear fuel rods and to recover a large portion of the usable fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Safeguards in Pyroprocessing: an Integrated Model Development and Measurement Data Analysis | The Ohio State University | $626,151 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive and effective safeguards approach for a pyroprocessing facility to support safeguards for future fuel cycles in the United States. The new approach and design will focus directly on the special nuclear materials in the electrorefiner where actinides are separated from fission products through electrochemical process. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Using Ionic Liquids for the Development of Renewable Biopolymer-Based Adsorbents for the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater and Testing Under Marine Conditions | University of Alabama | $400,000 | Researchers will explore the fundamental engineering parameters for a renewable high-performance adsorbent for the extraction of uranium from sweater based on a recently proven ionic liquid (IL)-chitin platform. The project will use the platform to develop a versatile, modifiable adsorbent and characterize its performance and degradation in marine conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Developing Ultra-Small Scale Mechanical Testing Methods and Microstructural Investigation Procedures for Irradiated Materials. | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop new small-scale mechanical testing techniques to allow for the estimation or direct measurement of bulk properties. The combined experiments and modeling will significantly enhance the statistics and information that can be obtained on small radioactive archived samples, as well as new ion beam irradiated specimens. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Improved Delayed-Neutron Spectroscopy Using Trapped Ions | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will develop innovative spectroscopy techniques to measure the decay of fission fragments. The resulting data from these new techniques will be used to better understand reactor kinetics under accident conditions and failure scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Thermally and Chemically Responsive Nanoporous Materials for Efficient Capture of Fission Product Gases | University of California, Davis | $750,000 | Researchers will create new nanoporous materials that will be highly effective at capturing fission product gases. These materials would be relevant to both reactor fuels applications and reprocessing operations. Tests will be performed in carbon based and nitride based nanostructures, with the most promising materials from the modeling perspective undergoing further testing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Multiphase Nanocrystalline Ceramic Concept for Nuclear Fuel | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | Researchers will study the use of nanoparticles and nanostructured ceramics to create new materials that can extend the service life and increase efficiency for nuclear fuel. Multiphase nanocrystalline ceramics will be used to design simulated nuclear fuel that can provide added plasticity, better radiation tolerance and improved thermal conductivity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Novel Porous Sorbents for Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Chicago | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a highly porous sorbent for the extraction of uranium from seawater. Previous research has established sorbent performance. This project will use past foundational studies to design and investigate a new nanocomposites that will be processed into tacks or braids for field tests in seawater tests. The technology may also be used for other metals. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Microwave Readout Techniques for Very Large Arrays of Nuclear Sensors | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,937 | Researchers will develop a powerful readout technique based on microwave transmission and reflection. The technique will enable very large arrays of diverse sensor types for nuclear materials quantification and tracking. It will provide more accurate data on material composition and quantity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| BiI3 Gamma-Ray Spectrometers for Reliable Room-Temperature Nuclear Materials Safeguarding | University of Florida | $799,999 | Researchers will develop gamma-ray spectrometers based on BiI3 single crystals for MPACT applications such as burnup validation quantification, improved assay of plutonium, determination of uranium enrichment and overall monitoring spent fuel within the fuel cycle. The project will improve energy resolution, efficiency and environmental performance with this new gamma-ray detector. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Innovative Coating of Nanostructured Vanadium Carbide on the F/M Cladding Tube Inner Surface for Mitigating the Fuel Cladding Chemical Interactions | University of Florida | $760,276 | Researchers will develop barrier coatings on the inner surface of fuel cladding tubes to improve performance of materials at elevated temperatures and high neutron exposures in fast reactors. The project will develop and test a low temperature coating process of nanostructured vanadium carbide that will provide a benchmark for use in future studies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Doubling the Life of Concrete Structures | University of Idaho | $800,000 | Researchers will use nanoscale techniques to develop methods for doubling the service life of concrete structures. They will study the effect of temperature load and temperature cycling (freezing and thawing) on the durability of concrete with nanoscale viscosity modifiers. The project will benefit from non-destructive evaluation of concrete performance through electrochemical techniques. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Off-Gas Treatment: Evaluation of Nano-structured Sorbents for Selective Removal of Contaminants | University of Idaho | $785,910 | Researchers will evaluate nanostructured sorbent materials for their effectiveness in removing and immobilizing radionuclides for the off-gas treatment from used nuclear fuel recycling operations. The project aims at achieving near-zero emissions of radionuclides by capturing them from the off-gas of recycling operations, allowing for the development of advanced fuel cycles. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium and Transition Metals from Amidoxime-Based Sorbents | University of Idaho | $399,864 | Researchers will develop a new two-step elution process to achieve total recovery of uranium and effective recycling of the sorbent. The extraction process would selectively remove uranium from the sorbent with little or no damage. The process would then remove transition metals and regenerate the sorbent for repeated use, making uranium extraction from seawater economically viable. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Performance of a Steel/Oxide Composite Waste Form for Combined Waste Streams from Advanced Electrochemical Processes over Geologic Time Scales | University of Illinois at Chicago | $700,000 | Researchers will develop and validate a mechanistically-based corrosion model for cermet-type waste forms, creating a testing protocol and modeling approach for predicting long-term performance. The study will apply novel electrochemical testing and modeling methods to the behavior of metal/oxide phase boundaries to evaluate waste form performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Enhancement of the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland, College Park | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and optimize novel adsorbents for uranium recovery from seawater. The team will use radiation-induced grafting of organic phosphates onto polymers. The experiments will use ocean water, with mechanistic analysis, to provide a solid basis for large-scale demonstration of the performance of the new adsorbents in ocean environments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Improving the Understanding of the Coupled Thermal-Mechanical-Hydrologic Behavior of Consolidating Granular Salt | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will increase the understanding of granular salt seal materials for shafts, drifts and boreholes. By coupling thermal, mechanical and hydrological responses, the study will result in greater confidence in granular salt consolidation as a principal strategy for closure and isolation of long-term waste repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Fission Fragment Yield Data in Support of Advanced Reactor Technology | University of New Mexico | $399,816 | Researchers will produce a highly accurate data set for thermal fission. These precision data are necessary for high-accuracy simulations of nuclear criticality, transmutation rates, radiation effects and heating as well as for nuclear fuel, material accounting and identification needs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Molecular dynamics-based simulations of bulk/interfacial structures and diffusion behaviors in nuclear waste glasses | University of North Texas | $700,000 | Researchers will generate accurate atomic structural models for use in Monte Carlo simulations of the dissolution of nuclear waste glasses. Large-scale molecular dynamics-based computer simulations will be used to investigate self-diffusion behaviors, interfacial structure, and other structures formed during dissolution of these glasses. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| U3Si2 Fabrication and Testing for Implementation into the BISON Fuel Performance Code | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will fabricate, test and model a high uranium density, advanced nuclear fuel that operates at a much lower temperature and stores less energy. The work will deliver key research data on creep and grain growth, improving economics, through possible power uprates, and advancing accident tolerant fuels research. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Structural Health Monitoring of Nuclear Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of South Carolina | $738,618 | Researchers will develop a nuclear structural health monitoring system based on a sensing technology that monitors material degradation and aging for dry cask storage systems. The low-cost, low-profile sensors will perform on-demand monitoring of the structural integrity of individual components as well as the entire system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| ORIGEN-based Nuclear Fuel Depletion Module for Fuel Cycle Assessment | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $755,181 | Researchers will develop a flexible reactor analysis module for the CYCLUS fuel cycle simulator based on established tools for reactor fuel depletion and decay. They will use ORIGEN, a mature and experimentally validated code, affording greater flexibility and allowing for accurate evaluations of impacts of both present and future fuel cycle options. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Cost and System Analysis of Innovative Fuel Resources Concepts | University of Texas at Austin | $295,960 | This project will develop and test braided polymer fiber adsorbents that surpass the sorption capacity, selectivity and durability of the best existing technology to recover uranium from seawater. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Risk Assessment of Structural Integrity of Transportation Casks | University of Utah | $789,296 | Researchers will assess the loss of structural integrity of transportation casks and fuel cladding after extended storage. This risk assessment will conduct experimental tests and simulations to evaluate the structural performance of fuel, fuel assemblies and cask components when subjected to vibration and impact loads during transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Market-Based and System-Wide Fuel Cycle Optimization | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $612,731 | Researchers will create market and economic optimizers to improve calculations for the CYCLUS fuel cycle simulator. The team will leverage existing optimization software frameworks within the simulator to resolve top level policy questions. The optimizations will allow CYCLUS to move beyond static material compositions, providing a holistic view of the fuel cycle system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Optical Fiber Based System for Multiple Thermophysical Properties for Glove Box, Hot Cell and In-Pile Applications | Utah State University | $799,975 | Researchers will use a small pressure vessel to develop a robust technique for the measurement of multiple thermophysical properties at very high temperatures. The technique will lead to a system design moving toward the eventual measurement of irradiated fuels in a glovebox and/or hot cell with all sensors and electronics outside of the glovebox and/or hot cell. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of a Nano-Modified Concrete for Next Generation of Storage Systems | Vanderbilt University | $796,268 | Researchers will use nano-sized and nano-structured particles based on enhanced reactivity to develop a superior concrete for the long-term storage of used nuclear fuel. The project will use state-of-the-art experimental chemical and mechanical characterizations and computation analysis to assess the performance of nano-modified concretes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Fuel Cycle Data Packages for Thorium Fuel Cycle Options | Vanderbilt University | $797,995 | Researchers will develop six fuel cycle data packages for multi-stage, thermal fuel cycles which incorporate thorium. These new fuel cycle data packages will provide the opportunity to examine fuel cycle options beyond those which have traditionally been considered. A thorium fuel cycle database will also be assembled as a basis for thorium literature for future evaluations of the thorium fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Enhanced Shielding Performance of HLW Storage Packages via Multi-Component Coatings | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $796,947 | Researchers will develop a multi-layer composite that will enhance long-term storage and facilitate safe transport of storage packages. This novel multi-layer, multi-component coating would create an outer shield material that is resistant to the corrosion, radiation, diffusion and thermal cycling processes that affect fuel packages during long term storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Managing Zirconium Chemistry and Phase Compatibility in Combined Process Separations for Minor Actinide Partitioning | Washington State University | $700,000 | Researchers will address unique challenges for combining TRUEX and TALSPEAK processes for partitioning of lanthanides and minor actinides. The project will develop improved information on the thermodynamics of fission product zirconium and develop a framework for an organic phase solvation model. Combined process development could streamline separations processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Advances in the Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Studies Under Real Ocean Conditions | Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution | $398,882 | Researchers will provide infrastructure and expertise for marine testing of currently available adsorbents in real ocean conditions. The team will move adsorbent research from the lab to field testing in order to quantify sorptive properties and uranium uptake. The project will provide valuable field data that will show the potential of large scale applications of these technologies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| NEUP Project 20-19172: Irradiation of Sensors and Adhesive Couplants for Application in LWR Primary Loop Piping and Components | $497,881 | Researchers paln to attach ultrasonic transducers to substrates using various adhesive couplants that will be irradiated at elevated temperature to simulate LWR primary loop conditions at the PULSTAR reactor at North Carolina State University. Ultrasonic data will be taken in-situ. Subsequently, the sensors and couplant interfaces will be characterized using the LAMDA facility at ORNL. The results will be used to benefit a parallel EPRI project on online monitoring of cracks in LWR primary loop piping. | Document | Joint R&D with NSUF Access | FY2013 | |
| Lower Length Scale Characterization and Validation of Formation and Stability of Helium Bubbles in Nano-structured Ferritic Alloys under Irradiation | Clemson University | $399,870 | Researchers will provide a fundamental knowledge about the formation and stability of ultra-fine helium bubbles within 14YWT after neutron/ion irradiation for further design of new advanced structural materials with a characteristic high density nanoparticles feature which can increase the mechanical strength, hardness, irradiation resistance and the operational temperature range of materials. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Three-Dimensional Fuel Pin Model Validation by Prediction of Hydrogen Distribution in Cladding and Comparison with Experiment | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers will validate important three-dimensional aspects of the fuel pin modeling by using specialized numerical modeling techniques coupled with laboratory experiments to validate existing models for predicting fuel performance in light water reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Collocation-Based Surrogate Models for Uncertainty Quantification and Validation of Coupled, Multiphysics Fuel Performance Simulation Tools | University of Michigan | $596,835 | Researchers will provide the necessary high fidelity, coupled, multiphysics fuel performance simulator for computational modeling and develop surrogates which will accelerate and focus the validation of the coupled codes. This will be achieved by utilizing the high fidelity coupled fuel performance, thermal-hydraulics and neutronics codes BISON/STAR-CCM+/MPACT and an innovative collocation-based surrogate methodology. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Multi-Resolution In-Situ Testing and Mutliscale Simulation for Creep Damage Fatigue Damage Analysis of Alloy 617 | Arizona State University | $800,000 | This project will develop novel testing and experimentally validated prediction methodologies for micro-structural damage mechanisms of structural materials for advanced reactor systems. The investigations will focus on the characterization and testing of specific metal alloys, but the proposed testing and life-prediction methodologies are applicable to other structural materials as well. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Novel High Temperature and Radiation Resistant Infrared Glasses and Optical Fibers for Sensing in Advanced Small Modular Reactors | Clemson University | $800,000 | Clemson University, in partnership with the Iowa State University and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, will develop novel optical materials with improved heat and radiation exposure resistance in order to enable in-vessel fiber optic sensing for advanced Small Modular Reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Validation Data Acquisition in HTTF during PCC Events | George Washington University | $800,000 | Researchers at the George Washington University and Oregon State University will collaborate with NASA Langley Research Center to measure flow velocities in a high temperature test facility. This work supports the development of very-high temperature reactors with passive safety systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced High Temperature Inspection Capabilities for Small Modular Reactors | Iowa State University | $790,822 | The objective of this project is to develop non-destructive evaluation techniques for advanced small modular reactors. The research will provide key enabling inspection technologies needed to support the design and the reactor component performance validation process for advanced small modular reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Experimental and Computational Investigations of Plenum-to-Plenum Heat Transfer under Natural Circulation in a Prismatic Very High Temperature Reactor | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,999 | Researchers will perform experimental and computational investigations to study heat transfer and natural circulation phenomena in very-high temperature reactors. The study will assist in the ability to predict and analyze passive safety systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| New Mechanistic Models of Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth Interactions for Advanced High Temperature Reactor Components | Oregon State University | $790,790 | Researchers will create and validate a robust, multi-scale, numerical model to predict material degradation in nickel-based reactor alloys. If successful, this project will provide better numerical tools for reactor designers and greatly improve their capability to design against material failures for reactor alloys in the long term. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Self-Powered Wireless Dual-mode Langasite Sensor for Pressure/Temperature Monitoring of Nuclear Reactors | State University of New York, Stony Brook | $800,000 | This research will develop a novel self-powered wireless hybrid sensor that can accurately monitor both pressure and temperature using a single device without requiring external electricity, even in extreme harsh environments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Compact Heat Exchanger Design and Testing for Advanced Nuclear Reactors and Advanced Power Cycles | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to investigate optimal heat exchanger designs for advanced reactors. The research will study the optimization of printed circuit heat exchangers for specific fluids under a variety of conditions as well as perform numerical modeling. Experiments will focus on thermal performance and heat stress during extreme conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Fundamental Understanding of Creep-Fatigue Interactions in 9Cr-1MoV Steel Welds | The Ohio State University | $798,000 | This project will advance the state of knowledge and fundamental understanding of deforming materials and welds under loading conditions. Specifically, new integrated testing procedures will be evaluated and applied for conditions that are most detrimental to material stability leading to improved predictions of life expectancy for reactor steels and welds. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced Mechanistic 3D Spatial Modeling and Analysis Methods to Accurately Represent Nuclear Facility External Event Scenarios | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop three-dimensional characterization uncertainty analysis for commercial power plants. The project will involve combining experts from the fields of seismic structural modeling and advanced methods of risk assessment. This effort is expected to result in next generation tools that can be used for assessment of seismic risks. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Tritium Mitigation/Control for Advanced Reactor Systems | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a fluoride salt cooled high-temperature reactor featuring a specialized system to control tritium production. If successful, this will result in a significant reduction in size and cost in comparison to other reactor designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| A Pebble-Bed Breed and Burn Reactor | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will assess the feasibility of designing a type of metal cooled reactor able to establish and maintain operation when fueled with depleted uranium. If successful, this reactor will offer at least a 30-fold increase in the uranium ore utilization versus that achieved in contemporary light water reactors without the need for fuel reprocessing and recycling. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Investigation of Thermal Aging Effects on the Evolution of Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Cast Duplex Stainless Steels | University of Maryland, College Park | $799,966 | This research will provide a better understanding of the microstructural evolution and simultaneous change in mechanical response during aging. The results of the research will provide data that can be used to estimate degraded mechanical properties for an 80-year service life of light water reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Model validation using CFD-grade experimental database for NGNP Reactor Cavity Cooling Systems with water and air | University of Michigan | $799,348 | Researchers will use advanced innovative instrumentation to build a high-resolution experimental database and to use the novel experimental data to assess and further develop the predictive capabilities of computer codes for thermal hydraulics and computational fluid dynamics. The improved models developed by this project will also have the direct benefit of improving the predictive capability of the passive systems of third generation light water reactors and small modular reactor systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Long-Term Prediction of Emissivity of Structural Material for High Temperature Reactor Systems | University of Missouri | $799,117 | Researchers will study specific types of emissivity driven cooling from a variety of materials that are relevant to nuclear reactors. The research will provide a basis for numerical modeling to support reactor development. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced I&C for Fault-Tolerant Supervisory Control of Small Modular Reactors | University of Pittsburgh | $800,000 | The purpose of this research is to develop advanced instrumentation and control techniques for supervisory control of advanced small modular reactors. This research supports the operational goals of small modular reactor concepts through the development of improved oversight and surveillance techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Corrosion of Structural Materials for Advanced Supercritical Carbon-Dioxide Brayton Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $798,672 | Researchers will study a variety of materials for corrosion resistance under conditions that improve power conversion. In addition to studying the corrosion resistance of the materials, researchers will study the effect of additives to mitigate corrosion. Development of corrosion theories and modeling aimed at prediction of long-term corrosion will be the underlying theme throughout the project. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Component and Technology Development for Advanced Liquid Metal Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $798,920 | In support of liquid metal cooled reactors, the University of Wisconsin, Madison will evaluate advanced alloys and ceramics that come in contact with liquid metals. Additionally, a robust oxygen sensor and for use in liquid metals will be developed in order to better evaluate corrosion profiles in support of diagnostic testing. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| A New Paradigm for Understanding Multi-phase Ceramic Waste Form Performance | Clemson University | $800,000 | Researchers will use advanced characterization tools to develop 3-D microstructural data that can be incorporated into computer-based simulations in order to predict the performance of waste forms. Materials system modeling will incorporate elemental release and the interconnected microstructural network of phases to better understand performance and degradation, which will accelerate waste form acceptance in repository settings. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Controlling Hexavalent Americium: A Centerpiece to a Compact Nuclear Fuel Cycle | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and exploit the fundamental chemistry of Americium to enable an industrially viable means to co-recover the major and minor actinide elements from used nuclear fuel. The results would be a significant step forward in the development of aqueous separations approaches designed to recover the U-Am actinides based on the availability of the hexavalent oxidation state. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Zeolite Membranes for Krypton/Xenon Separation from Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Off-Gas | Georgia Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a high-performance, lower-cost zeolitic membrane process for Kr/Xe separations during spent nuclear fuel processing. Current separation methods are not considered economical and a membrane process would have relatively lower cost, equipment size, and ambient operating temperature. The process would form a sound basis for further development of this transformative separation technology for the nuclear fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Optimizing Polymer-Grafted Amidoxime-based Adsorbents for Uranium Uptake from Seawater | Georgia Institute of Technology | $399,999 | Researchers will work to increase the adsorbent capacity and selectivity toward uranium by optimizing the adsorbent morphology, synthesis variables, and conditioning parameters and by investigating the rate-limiting variables through transport and reaction modeling. A novel adsorption/partition concept that has the potential to substantially increase the adsorbent capacity will be tested, making uranium from seawater extraction more economically viable. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Extraction of Uranium from Seawater: Design and Testing of a Symbiotic System | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a seawater uranium extraction system that will work symbiotically with an offshore windmill by utilizing the structure, mooring and power of the windmill, while increasing the energy harvested by the installation. Uranium will be extracted by an adsorbent polymer belt, which will be cycled through the seawater and an elution plant located at the base of the windmill tower. Increasing the frequency of harvesting could overcome current economic barriers to seawater uranium extraction. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Imaging a Dry Storage Cask with Cosmic Ray Muons | Oregon State University | $799,871 | Researchers will develop an imaging system to monitor the content of a dry storage cask with cosmic ray muons. A very large amount of plutonium under nuclear safeguards is contained in used fuel assemblies stored in dry storage casks. Muon imaging will allow a cost effective and reliable way to evaluate dry storage cask content and integrity before transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Apatite and sodalite based glass-bonded waste forms for immobilization of 129I and mixed halide radioactive wastes | Rutgers University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop advanced and chemically durable waste forms for immobilizing 129I (aqueous based reprocessing of fuel) and mixed-halide wastes (molten-salt processing of fuel) by low temperature synthesis. Halide-containing sodalite and calcium phosphate-based apatite minerals will be synthesized, consolidated and tested for chemical durability. The project will provide needed baseline data for the development of advanced waste forms for immobilization of iodine and mixed-halide wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Sorption Modeling and Verification for Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $350,000 | Researchers will develop modeling tools supported by experiments for off-gas capture from future nuclear-fuel recycling facilities. Target species include tritium, iodine, krypton, and xenon. The models are intended to provide path forward recommendations to develop off-gas treatment adsorption processes. The project will contribute to the evaluation of options for environmentally acceptable recycle systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development of high performance ODS alloys | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will study swelling, radiation hardening and changes in mechanical properties of ODS alloys to develop two sets of advanced ODS alloys. Two sets of first-round candidate alloys that have already undergone extensive development and testing will evaluate irradiation performance. The study will meet the need for high strength, radiation-tolerant cladding and core components that have enhanced resistance to void swelling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Rare Earth Electrochemical Property Measurements and Phase Diagram Development in a Complex Molten Salt Mixture for Molten Salt Recycle | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate rare earth (RE) properties in complex molten salt mixtures. In a molten salt recycle approach, the RE drawdown by electrolysis is a key step in which REs are separated from salt containing other fission products. Investigation of RE electrolysis must consider the electrochemical properties of the REs. We propose to conduct studies of detailed experiments and corresponding models to provide the physical properties and phase diagrams required to predict the performance of RE drawdown for processing complex molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Computational and Experimental Studies of Microstructure-Scale Porosity in Metallic Fuels for Improved Gas Swelling Behavior | University of Arkansas | $796,823 | Researchers will study the microstructure of metallic uranium alloy fuels, and their resistance to densification, to minimize in-pile irradiation swelling through bimodal pore size distribution. The project will develop a predictive approach to design metallic fuel microstructures for optimal swelling resistance and fission gas retention. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Improved Hybrid Modeling of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of California, Berkeley | $645,393 | Researchers will develop a variance reduction method for computational transport that will improve the ability to design and operate monitoring systems for interim used fuel installations through enhanced modeling and simulation. This new tool will demonstrate that modeling calculations can be done more accurately in less time than with current tools and will perform studies characterizing how changes in material, cask configurations, and number of casks could impact monitoring systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Selective ligands for uranyl via combinatorial peptoid libraries: A synthetic, structural, thermodynamic and computational study | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will study how donor ligands bind to the uranyl ion, UO22+, with the longer-term goal of using this information to tackle selective recognition of uranyl in aqueous solution. The study will impact underlying approaches to controlling the behavior of uranium in these systems. The actinide separation technology could be used in several areas including uranium extraction from seawater, nuclear waste remediation and nuclear materials. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Combining Experiments and Simulations of Extraction Kinetics and Thermodynamics in Advanced Separation Processes for Used Nuclear Fuel | University of California, Irvine | $799,938 | Researchers will study how the kinetics and thermodynamics of metal ion extraction in advanced separation processes for used nuclear fuel can be described by molecular dynamic (MD) simulations and how the simulations can be validated by experimental data. The project would have broad impacts on several separations processes including advanced TALSPEAK, ALSEP and GANEX by increasing the confidence and accuracy of computer modeling of metal ion extraction. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Effect of Metallic Li on the Behavior of Metals in Molten Salts | University of Nevada, Reno | $458,250 | Researchers will identify the effect of metallic lithium on materials that are used in molten salt recycling. The study will try to understand how the presence of Li(0) in molten salts affects the degradation of alloys. Studying these changes will help accurately predict container material behavior and longevity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Assessment of Corrosion Resistance of Promising Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding under Reactor Conditions | University of Notre Dame | $800,000 | Researchers will assess the corrosion behavior of accident tolerant fuel candidate iron-based alloys under normal LWR operating conditions consisting of high temperature, relevant water chemistry and irradiation. The assessment will produce data about possible irradiation-accelerated corrosion rates of iron-based alloys, and the mechanisms by which such corrosion rates are accelerated. The project will advance the selection of appropriate replacements for Zircaloy cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Enhanced Accident-Tolerant Fuel Performance and Reliability for Aggressive iPWR/SMR Operation | University of Tennessee | $799,967 | To develop a process that evaluates operational and safety performance of reactor-and-fuel combinations by integrating whole-core 3D neutronics with MOOSE/BISON fuel performance assessments via explicit time and space dependent fuel rod operational power histories. The project will be valuable in analyzing and evaluating accident tolerant fuel concepts and furthering the understanding of reactor physics and fuel performance aspects of key accident tolerant fuel concepts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Nuclear Technology R&D Strategies in an Era of Energy Price Uncertainty | University of Texas, Austin | $799,112 | Researchers will identify nuclear technology options that are competitive over a wide range of plausible future business environments. No single nuclear technology or business practice will be the best choice across all or even most future conditions. The study will focus on hybrid nuclear-fossil technologies, energy storage and conversion, which will result in an identification of nuclear strategies that can succeed under future market conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development and Optimization of Voltammetric Methods for Real Time Analysis of Electrorefiner Salt with High Concentrations of Actinides and Fission Products | University of Utah | $621,612 | Researchers will develop an advanced voltammetry method to pursue the objective of real time monitoring of actinide concentrations in electrorefiner salt. This will include experimental measurement of key parameters such as activity coefficients and exchange current density. It will also involve simulation of voltammetry processes based on first principles. The project will allow for real time measurements that could support the commercialization of pyroprocessing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development of Self-Healing Zirconium-Silicide Coatings for Improved Performance of Zirconium-Alloy Fuel Cladding | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $798,621 | Researchers will study the deposition of self-healing zirconium-silicide coatings on zirconium-alloy fuel cladding material to improve corrosion resistance under normal and accident conditions. Under these conditions, Zr-Si coating evolves into a highly protective functionally-graded multilayered system. The study will lead to improved performance of zirconium-alloy fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Thermal Conductivity in Metallic Fuels | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,837 | Researchers will calculate the thermal conductivity of metallic uranium and neptunium alloys, including the effects of noble gasses, using density functional theory. The experiments will validate the calculated effective thermal conductivity using the MARMOT code and by helping determine DFT simulation parameters. The study works to improve fuel lifetime by understanding its thermal behavior. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| SiC-ODS Alloy Gradient Nanocomposites as Novel Cladding Materials | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,998 | Researchers will combine nuclear nanomaterial design, processing, testing, and characterization efforts to develop revolutionary materials that can withstand neutron irradiation for long period of time using nanostructured SiC and oxide dispersion strengthened steel. The ultimate objective is to offer new cladding materials with increased corrosion resistance, strength, and creep resistance in both steady state and accident conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Experimental Breeder Reactor II Benchmark Evaluation | Idaho State University | $400,000 | _Researchers will develop a benchmark evaluation of the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II). During nearly 30 years of operation numerous experiments were conducted at EBR-II. The most significant of these experiments were conducted in 1986 demonstrating inherent safety features in loss of flow without reactor scram and loss of heat sink without reactor scram. Benchmark evaluation will be valuable for the reactor design efforts in the United States and South Korea. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| Integral full core multi-physics PWR benchmark with measured data | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | _Researchers will introduce BEAVRS, a new multi-cycle full-core Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) depletion benchmark based on two operational cycles of a commercial nuclear power plant. This project aims at addressing the uncertainty quantification of the measured data and on making this benchmark a true non-proprietary international benchmark for the validation of high-fidelity multi-physics computational tools. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| Benchmark Evaluation of PROTEUS Gas-Cooled Reactor Experiments | University of Florida | $400,000 | _Researchers will create International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) benchmarks using data from 1970s experiments of the neutronics of gas-cooled fast reactor (GCFR) designs investigated in the PROTEUS reactor. The GCFR-PROTEUS experiments fill a gap in current integral benchmark data. These experiments can provide validation of computational models and nuclear data for next generation reactors. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| An Investigation To Establish Multiphysical Property Dataset Of Nuclear Materials Based On In-Situ Observations And Measurements | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will create an in-situ measurement based experimental approach to develop experimental validation dataset for NEAMS based code validation. Particular emphasis is on supplying data set for multiphysics simulations in extreme conditions as a function of material microstructure. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| Experimental Validation of UO2 Microstructural Evolutions for NEAMS tool MARMOT | University of Florida | $798,000 | _Researchers will experimentally validate MARMOT for predicting the microstructural evolutions of UO2 oxide fuel under the driving forces of high temperatures and large temperature gradient in reactors. By performing the experiments and simulations simultaneously using precisely defined initial conditions, the experiment data will provide direct benchmarking of the MARMOT code. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| High-resolution time-resolved experiments on mixing and entrainment of buoyant jets in stratified environments | University of Michigan | $799,983 | _Researchers will study high spatial and time-resolution experimental data of the fluid dynamics phenomena of flow jets interacting with a stratified layer. The issue plays an important role in the safety of several reactor designs, including sodium-cooled reactors. The data addresses the NEAMS needs for the validation of high fidelity computational fluid dynamics methodologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| Fundamental study of key issues related to advanced S-CO2 Brayton Cycle: prototypic HX development and Cavitation | Georgia Institute of Technology | $799,000 | _Researchers will study scientific and operational issues pertinent to compact heat exchanger systems and turbo-machinery. The project will work to resolve issues with the fabrication of diffusion bonded compact heat exchangers, alternate heat exchange technology for recuperators, and resolution of issues with cavitation and fluid instabilities. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Advanced Models for Nondestructive Evaluation of Aging Nuclear Power Plant Cables | Iowa State University | $787,291 | _Researchers will develop advanced models that relate environmentally induced microstructural and chemical changes in cable insulation polymers to their macroscopic electrical parameters. These parameters will be measured and modeled over a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum, covering several potential nondestructive evaluation techniques, enabling identification of the most sensitive techniques for future development. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Development of Novel Functionally Graded Transition Joints for Improving the Creep Strength of Dissimilar Metal Welds in Nuclear Applications | Lehigh University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop graded transition joints and improved creep life models for increasing the life of dissimilar metal welds (DMWs) in nuclear reactors. The research represents the first application of functionally graded material concepts for solving the problem of DMW failures through an integrated approach of additive manufacturing, modeling, microstructural characterization, and advanced strain-sensing techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Feasibility Assessment of a Micro Modular Reactor (MMR) | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | _Researchers will develop an innovative compact reactor concept that integrates power production, power conversion and electricity generation in a single unit: the Micro Modular Reactor (MMR). It is designed to be absolutely melt-down proof (MDP) under all circumstances including complete loss of coolant scenarios with no possible release of radioactive material, to have a cycle length of greater than 10 years, and to be highly proliferation resistant. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Scaling Studies for Advanced Gas Reactor Concepts | Oregon State University | $681,834 | _Researchers will expand the utilization of the Oregon State University High Temperature Test Facility (HTTF) to validate a broader range of advanced high temperature reactors and events. The facility will be revised to add a detailed scaling analysis of additional gas reactor concepts including advanced gas-cooled, molten salt, and sodium cooled reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Fluid Stratification Separate Effects Analysis, Testing and Benchmarking | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will study fluid stratification in high temperature gas reactors. Coolant stratification is the result of incomplete mixing of one or more fluids, leading to a density gradient, which may or may not dissipate under diffusive or convective effects. This combined analytical and experimental project seeks to investigate stratification driven by diffusive and convective mechanisms and is expected to yield insight into this phenomenon. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Probabilistic Economic Valuation of Safety Margin Management Analysis | Oregon State University | $795,364 | _Researchers will use RAVEN and develop a companion software package to facilitate economic analysis of safety margins. The project is a proof of concept that will use techniques to examine the cost of improving safety margins vs. the risk of accidents from not improving safety margins. This analysis can be used to evaluate the economic viability of various plant upgrades. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Novel Dissimilar Joints Between Alloy 800H and 2.25%Cr and 1%Mo Steel | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will fabricate and test dissimilar metal joints between a nickel base alloy and a steel with gradual variations of chemical composition, microstructure and properties in a manner that reduces abrupt thermal expansion mismatch and the resulting residual stresses. Data on structure and properties will serve as valuable inputs for the initiation of an ASME code case. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Multi-Phase Model Development to Assess RCIC System Capabilities under Severe Accident Conditions | Texas A&M University | $564,246 | _Researchers will develop physics-based models of the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) System and incorporating them into a multi-phase code for validation. The project will tackle the current major challenges in RCIC System analysis and enable evaluation of two-phase thermodynamic aspects. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Experimental Investigation and CFD Analysis of Steam Ingress Accidents in HTGRs | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will study the steam ingress scenario for HTGRs. The study will investigate thermal-hydraulic behavior and graphite oxidation of stream ingress phenomena to validate predictive CFD models. This work will resolve concerns about possible steam generator tube ruptures in a HTGR He-Steam Rankine cycle. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Coiled Tube Gas Heaters For Nuclear Gas-Brayton Power Conversion | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop heat exchangers for Brayton-cycle power conversion in reactors using sodium, NaK, or salt as intermediate coolants. The proposed coiled tube gas heaters (CTGHs) are expected to have excellent power density, thermal shock/creep, in-service inspection, and reparability characteristics. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Fundamental Studies of Irradiation-Induced Modifications in Microstructural Evolution and Mechanical Properties of Advanced Alloys | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop and test a mechanism for predicting neutron irradiation performance for optimized Grade 92 and Alloy 709 for applications in advanced reactor systems. The work will employ ion irradiations and available information from neutron irradiations of related alloys to develop a basis for predicting the neutron irradiation performance of the optimized alloys. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Integrated Computational and Experimental Study of Radiation Damage Effects in Grade 92 Steel and Alloy 709 | University of Tennessee | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop a mechanistic understanding and predictive models of irradiation-induced microstructural evolution and resulting mechanical properties in optimized ferritic-martensitic Grade 92 steel and austenitic alloy 709 using multiscale simulations coupled with rigorous experimental validation. The project will provide insights into the correlation between ion irradiation and fast neutron damage. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Meta-Level Design Guidance and Operator Performance Measures for Hybrid Control Rooms | Vanderbilt University | $799,869 | _Researchers will apply human factors engineering methods and relevant expertise from non-nuclear high-risk high-consequence domains toward the measurement of operator performance in analog, digital, and hybrid main control rooms. Performance measures will be developed for evaluating the situation awareness and decision-making proficiencies to support the transition to digital or hybrid control room displays. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| NEUP Project 15-8514: Elucidation of the kinetics of Advanced Separation systems | California State University, Long Beach | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a fundamental understanding of the chemical kinetics relevant to separation processes by measuring ligand complexation rate constants for both lanthanides and actinides in the aqueous and organic phases. These experiments will provide essential kinetic and mechanistic information required for developing a simplified, single-step recovery of transuranic elements. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8119: Kr/Xe separation over Metal Organic Framework Membranes | Colorado School of Mines | $375,000 | Researchers will develop metal organic framework (MOF) membranes that will be capable of effectively separating Kr from Xe with high flux and selectivity. This project may result in the development of membranes that will constitute a viable energy saving approach for the effective removal of Kr during the processing of used nuclear fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8347: Multilayer Composite Fuel Cladding for LWR Performance Enhancement and Severe Accident Tolerance | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop, manufacture, and weld a new multimetallic layered composite (MMLC) for enhanced severe accident tolerance and manufacturability in LWRs. Layers of stainless steel (facing the coolant) and Zircaloy (facing the fuel) will be separated by barrier layers of Cr and Nb. Severe accident testing in 1200C steam, LWR autoclave testing, and ion irradiation studies will demonstrate the MMLC's microstructural stability. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8112: Phase Separation and Crystallization of Complex Borosilicate Melts for Glass-Ceramic Waste Forms | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,806 | Researchers will study the mechanisms for microstructural development and properties of multi-phase, glass-ceramic materials that form when waste-loaded borosilicate glasses are cooled from above their liquidus or consolute temperatures through the glass transition temperature. The project will apply these tools to modified compositions to maximize the formation of the desirable crystalline phases. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8265: Electrically-Assisted Tubing Processes for Enhancing Manufacturability of Oxide Dispersion Strengthened Structural Materials for Nuclear Reactor Applications | Northwestern University | $800,000 | Researchers will enhance the formability of nanostructured ferritic alloys (NFAs) such that high-strength thin-walled claddings can be manufactured successfully and economically to be used in future reactors. The project will study the effects of continuous and pulsed electric currents on the deformation behavior of Fe-14Cr based NFA steel. The findings will be used to establish innovative fabrication processes including electrically-assisted extrusion and rolling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8126: Fundamental Electrochemical Properties of Liquid Metals in LiCl-KCl for Separation of Alkali/Alkaline-Earths (Cs, Sr and Ba) | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate the fundamental properties of novel liquid metal electrodes for separation of alkali/alkaline-earth fission products in LiCl-KCl electrolyte. The project will further the development of pyroprocessing by maximizing salt recycle and providing a method for recovery of alkali/alkaline-earth fission products as oxides (as opposed to chlorides) which will allow them to be encapsulated in a more conventional glass wasteform. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8074: Monitoring of Actinide Concentrations in Molten LiCl-KCl Salt using Alpha Spectroscopy | The Ohio State University | $799,969 | Researchers will develop a novel in-salt sensor that uses electrochemistry to pre-concentrate the actinides onto the sensor to measure the actinides concentration in a high temperature and high radiation field represented by a molten salt environment. The ability to monitor actinides to prevent misuse is critical to enhancing the control of nuclear materials. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8717: Understanding the Interactions of Seawater Ions with Amidoxime through X-Ray Crystallography | University of Alabama | $553,971 | _Researchers will investigate the fundamental interactions of the amidoxime (R-C(NH2)=NOH) functional group with metal ions found in seawater using a combined approach of single crystal X-ray diffraction and spectroscopy to understand the origin of the selectivity of amidoxime resins for uranyl ([UO2]2+] ions and establish structural benchmarks for interpretation of spectroscopic studies on actual sorbents to aid in identifying specific sorbent-metal interactions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8439: Developing a macro-scale SiC-cladding behavior model based on localized mechanical and thermal property evaluation on pre- and post-irradiation SiC-SiC composites | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a fundamental understanding of the macroscopic behavior of SiC-SiC composite structures before and after irradiation based on the microscopic property changes of each individual component (SiC matrix, fiber and interface). SiC-SiC composites will be tested in the as-fabricated condition, after being subjected to neutron and ion irradiation, micro-cracking, and oxidation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8536: Quantitative Prediction of Uranium Speciation and Amidoxime Binding in Seawater from Advanced Simulation Techniques | University of California, Riverside | $450,000 | Researchers will quantitatively predict stability of uranium species and thermochemistry (free energy, entropy, and enthalpy) of uranium binding with amidoxime ligands in seawater conditions. To achieve the goal, advanced simulation techniques including all-atom molecular dynamics, free-energy calculations, and the hybrid quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical approach will be employed to explicitly include water molecules and common seawater ions in the simulation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8286: Used Fuel Storage Monitoring Using Helium-4 Scintillation Fast Neutron Detectors and Neutron Spectral Analysis | University of Florida | $799,765 | Researchers will build and demonstrate a prototype detector device capable of unambiguously verifying the declared content of dry casks in a non-intrusive manner for the safeguarding and monitoring of used fuel storage installations. This will be achieved through a neutron spectroscopy and imaging system using high-efficiency Helium-4 (4He) gas scintillation fast neutron detectors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8663: Enhancement of the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland, College Park | $600,000 | Researchers will produce efficient adsorbents of uranium from seawater in seeking to optimize the functional ligands, the polymeric substrates, the grafting conditions and the adsorption/desorption durations based on sound chemical understanding. The result will be adsorbents that can be used through multiple cycles of uranium adsorption without significant degradation of the adsorbents capacity and selectivity for uranium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8111: Purification of Zirconium cladding using a chloride volatility process | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $798,877 | _Researchers will investigate the thermochemistry of used fuel Zr cladding components chlorides as well as their activation products and residual radionuclide metal chlorides to provide fundamental data that will support the development of a chlorination process for the purification of ZrCl4. Understanding the chemistry of these chloride species will provide process development guidance for the purification of Zr cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8323: Purification of Zirconium Tetrachloride from UNF Cladding | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $793,121 | _Researchers will develop and demonstrate a process to purify zirconium tetrachloride obtained from the direct chlorination of used Zircaloy cladding materials from used nuclear fuel rod assemblies. This study will increase understanding of purification protocols that will allow zirconium chloride to be recycled further. Increased recycling capability would significantly reduce the amount of high level waste associated with light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8752: Radiation Effects on High Thermal Conductivity Fuels | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $400,000 | _Researchers will use scoping ion and neutron irradiations to explore the structural stability and thermal conductivity of model high thermal conductivity fuels consisting of CeO2 and either Al2O3 (BeO surrogate) or SiC. Issues associated with thermal conductivity degradation (including micro cracking effects) and general phase stability of fuel systems will be examined. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8243: Radiation-induced swelling and microcracking in SiC cladding for LWRs | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $797,889 | _Researchers will use state of the art experimental characterization techniques and multi-scale methodology (developed within the MOOSE-MARMOT-BISON framework) to provide scientific basis for predictions of swelling and microcracking in SiC cladding as a function of temperature and irradiation histories. Predicting swelling and microcracking will further the potential for accident tolerant SiC cladding to be used in light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8081: Understanding influence of thermal history and glass chemistry on kinetics of phase separation and crystallization in borosilicate glass-ceramic waste forms for aqueous reprocessed high level waste | Washington State University | $799,911 | _Researchers will develop a fundamental and transformative understanding of the crystallization mechanisms in complex glass-ceramic high level waste (HLW) wasteforms,. This understanding will underpin the maturation of glass ceramic manufacture, by linking process variables to molecular scale mechanisms, enabling reliable production of wasteforms to the desired specification. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8210: A Transient Reactor Physics Experiment with High-Fidelity, 3-D Flux Measurements for Validation and Verification | Kansas State University | $799,198 | _Researchers will instrument the University of Wisconsin Nuclear Reactor with micro-pocket fission detectors (MPFDs) to measure 3-D flux distributions. The measurements will be compared to simulation using PROTEUS from the NEAMS toolkit. MPFDs are small, which leads to low gamma-ray sensitivity and small flux perturbations. A 3-D array of MPFDs and standard reactor instrumentation will be used to capture highly-resolved flux and temperature distributions for several steady-state and transient conditions. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8101: Development of Critical Experiments to Provide Validation Data for Multiphysics Coupling Methods | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $799,993 | Researchers will develop a set of benchmark validation experiments for multiphysics coupling by exploiting the inherent flexibility of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Reactor Critical Facility (RCF). This project will use targeted experiments to validate the coupling between neutronics, thermal hydraulics, and structural mechanics routines present in the NEAMS Reactor Product Line toolkit._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8229: Thermal Transport and Fracture Behavior of Sintered Fuel Pellets: Experimental Validation of NEAMS Tool MARMOT | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | _Researchers will perform experimental validation of the NEAMS tool MARMOT for predicting thermal transport and fuel fracture. By performing extensive thermal transport and fracture experiments on well-controlled microstructures of sintered UO2, the impact of microstructure on thermo-mechanical properties of sintered UO2 and mechanistic understanding will be achieved. The high quality experimental data will directly benchmark the MARMOT code by evaluating the thermal transport and fracture models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8208: Development of a Novel Accelerator for Neutron Transport Solution Using the Galerkin Spectral Element Methods | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $626,176 | _Researchers will develop a novel accelerator for neutron transport calculations based on the spectral element methods, continuous Galerkin (CG) and discontinuous Galerkin (DG) approximations. The CG and DG methods will be used to solve the multi-group neutron diffusion equation on the coarse-mesh structure (e.g., pin-size up to assembly-size), which is then coupled with the high-order neutron transport solution to speed up the neutron transport computation. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8338: Methodology Development for Cybersecurity Robustness and Vulnerability Assessment of University Research Reactors: A Case Study Using the PULSTAR Reactor | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop a methodology for assessing the cybersecurity robustness and vulnerability of university research reactors using an actual university reactor as a test case. While the developed methodology will be specifically tested and applied using this reactor, it will be formulated as a general blueprint and used as the starting point for the assessment of university research reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cyber Security R&D | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8121: Automatic Imagery Data Analysis for Proactive Computer-Based Workflow Management during Nuclear Power Plant Outages | Arizona State University | $799,738 | _Researchers will test the hypothesis that real-time imagery-based object tracking and spatial analysis, as well as human behavior modeling will significantly improve efficiency of outage control while lowering the rates of accidents and incidents. The project will examine computer vision methods and human behavior models for developing a proactive workflow management tool and integrate it into Computer-Based Procedures for supporting an Advanced Outage Control Center. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8308: Creep and creep-fatigue crack growth mechanisms in Alloy 709 | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _A joint US/UK team will study the crack growth mechanism and failure analysis of alloy 709 under creep and creep-fatigue conditions. The study will be done through in situ heating and loading during SEM observation to evaluate the crack growth under plane stress condition and traditional methods to study the crack growth under plane strain condition. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8582: Mechanistic and Validated Creep/Fatigue Predictions for Alloy 709 from Accelerated Experiments and Simulations | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will use mechanistic methods for predicting creep and creep-fatigue deformation rates/strains based on accelerated in-situ and ex-situ tests, and mesoscale dislocation dynamics simulations for Alloy 709. This research will support its qualification in the ASME code for use in advanced nuclear reactor applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8495: Advancement of Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Technology through Round Robin Testing and Fundamental Modeling | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will conduct a round robin test plan for S-CO2 corrosion testing across multiple institutions and the organization of a S-CO2 Materials Group to guide future materials testing directions. Furthermore, this proposal outlines identical tests in supercritical water, testing model alloys with various composition and environmental conditions, accompanied by modeling efforts to study rate controlling mechanisms of corrosion. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8489: Modeling and Validation of Irradiation Damage in Ni-based Alloys for Long-Term LWR Applications | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _A joint US/UK team will study thermal and irradiation-induced transformations mechanisms of Alloys 690 and 625 in order to extend Grizzly to include capabilities for modeling Ni-based alloys. The project will develop modeling tools for materials degradation in light water reactors, allowing for component replacement data and continued safe operation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-7983: Development of Steady-State Thermal-Hydraulic Analysis and Bowing Reactivity Evaluation Methods Based on Neutron and Gamma Transport Calculations | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop steady-state thermal-hydraulic analysis and assembly bowing reactivity evaluation methods based on the latest transport calculation capabilities in order to overcome the limitations and improve the accuracy of current design analysis methods. The outcome of the effort will be computer programs to calculate the steady-state heat source distributions in fuel pins and assembly duct walls and to calculate the reactivity worth of assembly displacements. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8627: Experimental Validation Data and Computational Models for Turbulent Mixing of Bypass and Coolant Jet Flows in Gas-Cooled Reactors | Texas A&M University | $799,613 | _Researchers will establish reliable models of the thermal-hydraulics in Gas-Cooled Reactors with experimental and computational efforts. Specifically, this work will focus on providing the relationship between fluctuating velocities and temperatures in the lower plenum and their dependency on the turbulent upstream mixing in the core and collection chambers leading up to the lower plenum. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8251: Enhanced Performance Fast Reactors with Engineered Passive Safety System | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | _Researchers will study the feasibility of improving the passive safety and economics of sodium cooled fast reactors (SFR) by incorporating within their fuel assemblies a novel Autonomous Reactivity Control (ARC) system. It is expected that the ARC systems will enable to design even low leakage SFR cores, such as breed-and-burn cores, to be passively safe and to improve the neutron economy and economic viability of more conventional SFR. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8258: Physics-Based Probabilistic Model of the Effects of Ionizing Radiation on Polymeric Insulators of Electric Cables used in Nuclear Power Plants | University of California, Los Angeles | $798,846 | _Researchers will develop and experimentally validate a probabilistic physics-based degradation models for polymeric insulators of electric cables to be used in integrated performance and safety codes, which will help reduce the uncertainty associated with the long-term aging of cable insulation. The project will deliver a C++ based simulation code that will be readily compatible with the MOOSE/Grizzly framework developed at the Idaho National Laboratory. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8000: The Influences of Neutron Irradiation on Aggregate Induced Degradation of Concrete | University of California, Los Angeles | $800,000 | _Researchers will quantify the impacts of irradiation on concrete degradation. The research will develop new understanding of the evolutions and manifestations of irradiation assisted aggregate concrete degradation caused by neutron exposure. This assessment will help to mitigate the risk of such degradation within the Grizzly framework, by careful integrations of nanoscale analytics and simulation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8458: Multiple Degradation Mechanisms in Reinforced Concrete Structures, Modeling and Risk Analysis | University of Houston | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a multi-physics framework to characterize the deterioration development in concrete due to environmental and mechanical loading, and the coupling effect among transport processes and the damage of concrete. This project will develop new computational tools that will be implemented in Grizzly, an application built on the MOOSE platform, to address a variety of aging mechanisms in nuclear power plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8623: Characterization of Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth in Alloy 709 and Prediction of Service Lives in Nuclear Reactor Components | University of Idaho | $799,927 | _Researchers will study creep-fatigue crack growth behavior in steel Alloy 709 in accelerated test conditions to predict extended service life of structural components. Extensive testing of Alloy 709 creep-fatigue specimens will be performed at elevated temperatures and applied stresses. Microstructure analysis will be performed to describe the crack propagation mechanisms. Computational models will be used to predict service of steel components. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8432: Multi-scale experimental study of creep-fatigue failure initiation in a 709 Stainless Steel alloy using high resolution digital image correlation | University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign | $800,00 | _Researchers will conduct a detailed experimental investigation of creep-fatigue crack initiation in a 709 alloy, and will also obtain a predictive failure initiation model that includes both thermo-mechanical and aging effects. The experiments will use ultra-high resolution digital image correlation to measure accumulation of plastic with cycling. The model will extend existing slip band-based energy minimization criterion to include thermal effects applicable to 709. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8599: Am-241 Nuclear Safety and Environmental Interactions | University of Missouri | $399,187 | _Researchers will investigate the release and transport mechanisms of Am-241 to understand the interactions it may have with the environment. The project will examine Am-241 through a series of accident scenarios using Am-241 aerosols that will allow researchers to understand the pathways for dose assessment. Methodologies and approaches for nuclear risk assessment for new space radioisotope power system applications will be developed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8667: Experimental Validation of a Compact Double-walled Twisted-Tube Heat Exchanger Concept | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | _Researchers will investigate a novel compact double-walled twisted-tube heat exchanger (DT-HXR) design that utilizes an outer twisted tube configuration in order to enhance shell-side heat transfer and make the overall bundle more compact. Utilizing outer twisted tube geometry improves heat transfer and allows for a tube bundle that does not require support plates or anti-vibration bars. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project: 15-8352: Development and Demonstration of an In-Situ Tritium Scavenger | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,988 | _Researchers will use a graphite moderator to capture and remove tritium from the primary coolant systems of salt- and gas-cooled reactors. The team will develop electrochemical techniques to characterize tritium transport in graphite and liquid fluoride salts (including flibe), demonstrate the in-situ effectiveness of tritium absorption by the fuel elements, and develop a design for a graphite bed tritium filter that can integrate with salt-to-air heat exchangers. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 16-10730: Visualization Tool for Comparing Low-Carbon Energy Options | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a web based visualization tool for comparing current and future nuclear fuel cycle options to other low-carbon and conventional energy technologies in the United States.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10679: Overcoming Kinetic Barriers to Actinide Recovery in ALSEP | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | The ALSEP process for group separations of trivalent actinide/lanthanide ions suffers from slow stripping kinetics. Researchers will perform detailed kinetic studies at different temperatures, supported by spectroscopic and computational studies to establish where the kinetic bottlenecks occur in the ALSEP process. They will then systematically alter the chemistry of the extractants and aqueous ligands to understand how to overcome the kinetic hindrances.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10058: An Integrated Multiscale Experimental-Numerical Analysis on Reconsolidation of Salt-Clay Mixture for Disposal of Heat-Generating Waste | Columbia University in the City of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will improve understanding of the thermal-mechanical-hydrologic-chemical (TMHC) coupling effect on reconsolidated granular (or crushed) salt-clay mixture used for seal systems of shafts and drifts in salt repositories. The project will integrate laboratory experiments and multiscale pore-to-continuum coupling simulations to explore the feasibility of using clay additive and moisture content to enhance performance of crushed salt as a seal material.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10088: Americium Separation By Electrochemical Oxidation | Florida International University | $800,000 | Researchers will separate Am from high-level waste by exploiting the high oxidation states of Am through design, and testing of new materials. This will be accomplished by designing and testing new electrodes, derivatized with surface-stabilized ligands and redox mediators to facilitate oxidation of trivalent Am, and by designing porous sorbent materials functionalized with molecules which selectively coordinate Am(VI) to enable its subsequent separation.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10668: Microstructure Experiments-Enabled MARMOT Simulations of SiC/SiC-Based Accident Tolerant Nuclear Fuel System | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will characterize steam attack, hydrothermal corrosion and radiation swelling of SiC/SiC composites-based accident tolerant fuel (ATF) using a combination of experiments, microstructure evaluation and phase-field simulations using MARMOT. Central to the project is the mapping of the microstructure after steam/hydrothermal/irradiation tests through a unique non-destructive x-ray microscopy technique followed by phase-field simulations of chemical transport in MARMOT.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10221: Alloying Agents to Stabilize Lanthanides Against Fuel Cladding Chemical Interaction: Tellurium and Antimony Studies | Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop alloying agents to stabilize lanthanides against fuel cladding chemical interactions (FCCIs). Based on the available binary phase diagrams for the periodic table, Te and Sb are selected as fuel dopants. The research will focus on Te. The mechanisms of using minor additives to stabilize and immobilize the lanthanide fission products will be investigated. Resulting thermodynamic data obtained by the proposed research will be integrated into MARMOT to enhance its ability to model metallic fuel performance.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10648: Oxidation and Corrosion-Resistant Uranium Silicide Fuels | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | Researchers will develop oxidation/corrosion resistant uranium silicide U3Si2 fuel by chemical doping/fillers to form a continuous borosilicate glass as a protective oxide layer with transformational fuel performance and accident tolerance. The team will use chemical doping/fillers include B or C showing effectiveness in improving high temperature oxidation resistance in transition metal silicides, and boron/silicon-containing compounds that can form a protective borosilicate glass layer.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10229: Mechanistic Understanding of Silver Sorbent Aging Processes in Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $800,000 | This project is focused on understanding the mechanisms of aging processes on silver exchanged mordenite and silver functionalized silica aerogel adsorbents under conditions of long term exposure to off gas streams containing air, I2, H2O, and NOx. The chemical and physical structural changes of the adsorbents under these conditions will be accounted for in equilibrium and kinetic models. Transport models will be developed to predict the performance of engineered off-gas treatment systems.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10394: Integration of Microwave Readout into Nuclear Process Monitoring | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,695 | Researchers will show that gamma-ray spectroscopy based on emerging microcalorimeter sensors can determine elemental and isotopic fractions with accuracy comparable to much slower mass spectrometry and with far better accuracy than germanium sensors. This advance will prevent the diversion of nuclear material by enabling nearly real time process monitoring in large nuclear facilities without loss of measurement accuracy.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10523: A Science Based Approach for Selecting Dopants in FCCI-Resistant Metallic Fuel Systems | University of Idaho | $800,000 | The project aims to use a science-based approach to set guidelines of selecting dopants for developing fuel cladding chemical interaction (FCCI)-resistant metallic fuel systems for fast reactors. Lanthanide fission products migrate to the fuel-cladding gap leading to cladding breaches. The team will perform both theoretical modeling and experiments to arrive at the guidelines that are based on sound science. If successful, this can lead to breakthroughs in minimizing the FCCI effect.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10813: Advanced Electrochemical Separations of Actinide/Fission Products via the Control of Nucleation and Growth of Electrodeposits | University of Idaho | $350,000 | Researchers will use unique capabilities to modulate the electrodeposition of actinides (depleted Uranium) and fission products (Ln) during nucleation and growth stages. The team aims to preclude formation of electrodeposits with dendritic morphology. Morphology of electrodeposits will be controlled by electrolyte composition.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10707: In Situ Spectroscopic Determination of Actinide Speciation and Concentration | University of Nevada, Reno | $369,221 | The research team will address two major issues in the pyroprocess based fuel cycle: low process efficiency and materials accounting for non-proliferation. There are currently no analytical techniques to ascertain the speciation and concentration of the actinides in the electrolyte. This project aims to develop an in-situ analytical method consisting of Raman spectroscopic analysis during electrochemical polarization.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10204: Phase Equilibria and Thermochemistry of Advanced Fuels: Modeling Burnup Behavior | University of South Carolina | $799,946 | Researchers will develop phase equilibria and thermochemical information to model and simulate advanced fuel behavior, including critical phenomena such as the contribution to fuel swelling of dissolved non-noble fission products and secondary phase formation, composite fuel stability, and fuel-clad chemical interactions.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10512: Demand-Driven Cycamore Archetypes | University of South Carolina | $799,956 | Modeling of the nuclear fuel cycle (NFC) is often posed as a set of demands coupled with available technologies. Demands may be singular or multivariate. Additionally, available technologies may have constraints on when they are deployable. This proposal aims to bring demand and deployment decisions into the NFC simulator itself, thereby simulating a more realistic process by which utilities, governments, and other stakeholders actually make facility deployment decisions.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10856: Integrating Data Sources for Improved Safeguards and Accountancy of Electrochemical Fuel Reprocessing Streams | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The SSPM Echem tracks elemental and bulk material flows through batch operations in electrochemical facilities. This project will augment the existing SSPM Echem model with models of DA, NDA, and process monitoring measurements, including appropriate accuracy, noise, and uncertainty characteristics. Diverse measurement and assay results will be fused to improve material accountancy and anomaly detection across the electrochemical process.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10190: Immobilization of High-Level Waste Salt in Dechlorinated Zeolite Waste Forms | University of Utah | $799,315 | The primary objective of the project is the development of a new glass-bonded waste form for the suitable disposal of electrorefiner waste salt. To achieve this goal, the proposed tasks will focus on the 1) dechlorination of the electrorefiner salt and 2) subsequent encapsulation into a sintered waste form. Achieving these goals will result in a compact waste form with higher fission product loading, which is instrumental in economically closing the nuclear fuel cycle.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10240: Molten Salt Reactor Experiment Benchmark Evaluation | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | _The objective of this project is to employ the data archive on the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) and develop a set of high-quality Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) reactor physics benchmarks for inclusion in the IRPhE Handbook that currently does not contain any benchmark set related to MSR technology._ | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10458: Multi-Group Transport Cross Section and Diffusion Coefficient Generation for Deterministic Reactor Models Using Monte Carlo Calculations | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and implement rigorous methods for generating multi-group transport cross section and diffusion coefficients for deterministic reactor models using Monte Carlo calculations. The project will eliminate the numerous approximations that currently contribute to significant mis-prediction of core power distributions when using deterministic core models.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10241: Development of Transient Capabilities for the NEAMS Neutronics Code PROTEUS | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop efficient transient transport methods for the PROTEUS-SN, PROTEUS-MOC and the first-order SN solvers of the NEAMS neutronics code PROTEUS. The team will also perform transient benchmark analyses._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10603: Experimental and Computational Analysis of NEAMS Pebble Bed Reactors | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct a coordinated experimental and computational effort to quantitatively map the full-field 3-D velocity and temperature fields in the interstitial spaces within pebble bed reactor systems. Key outcomes will include advanced correlations to predict flow and thermal transport within the pebble bed over a much wider range operating conditions and reactor types than is currently possible.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10421: Simulation of Fuel Rod Fragmentation, Relocation and Ballooning through Peridynamics in MOOSE Framework | University of Arizona | $675,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology that includes the appropriate governing physical fields within the realm of peridynamics to investigate fuel cracking, fragmentation, relocation, ballooning, pellet-cladding interaction, and cladding rapture and dispersion within the MOOSE framework.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10313: Development of a Comprehensive Two-phase Flow Database for the Validation of NEK-2P | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,817 | _Researchers will develop a comprehensive, high-resolution two-phase flow database by performing experiments in two air-water two-phase flow test facilities and a new heated rod-bundle test facility that will be built under this project. These data will be used to validate the two-phase flow models implemented in the NEK-2P code._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10744: Support for Reactor Operators in Case of Cyber-Security Threats | Ohio State University | $800,000 | This project addresses the need for research informing plant engineers and control room operators faced with cyber-security threats on appropriate responses. The approach taken uses distinguishing features of safety related events versus cyber-security threats; attack modeling, prediction, game theory and PRA knowledge to update operators procedures; and simulation for validation.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cyber Security R&D | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10578: Thermal Hydraulic & Structural Testing and Modeling of Compact Diffusion-Bonded Heat Exchangers for Supercritical CO2 Brayton Cycles | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will utilize both experimental and computational methods to test and model transient behavior of a mock up PCHE, which is a scaled down representation of the sCO2, cycle high temperature recuperator (HTR). In addition, the team will develop a methodology for quantification of the PCHEs production cost. The proposed project will provide valuable experiment data required to develop the Section III, Division 5 and Section VIII evaluation approach for compact heat exchangers.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10579: A Computational-Experimental Study to Simulate Mixing and Thermal Stratification in SFRs | Kansas State University | $799,320 | Researchers will use Thermographic Imaging and Ultrasonic Doppler Velocimetry (UDV) techniques to generate high fidelity thermal stratification and flow field data under various geometric and physical conditions for scaled models of outlet plena in sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs). Data from these experimental studies will be compared with those obtained using 1D codes such as SAS4A/SASSYS-1.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10714: ASME Code Application of the Compact Heat Exchanger for High Temperature Nuclear Service | North Carolina State University | $799,998 | Researchers will develop structural design methodologies for Type 316H stainless steel and Alloy 617 compact heat exchangers (CHX) using elastic-perfectly plastic (EPP) analysis methodology for the assessment of elevated temperature failure modes under sustained and cyclic thermal and pressure loading. The project will develop a technical basis for Section III, Division 5 ASME Code Case for CHX in high temperature nuclear service.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10885: Turbulent MHD Flow Modeling in Annular Linear Induction Pumps with Validation Experiments | North Carolina State University | $564,520 | Researchers seek to advance EMP design efforts for liquid metal reactors by 1.) Improving MHD modeling capability, particularly near the MHD stability criteria, 2.) Advancing simulation accuracy and fidelity in the typical operating range of large electromagnetic pumps for liquid metal cooled reactors, and 3.) Constructing a low barrier EMP test loop for model validation and instruction that can be easily replicated at low cost at other facilities.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10244: Integral System Testing for Prismatic Block Core Design HTGR | Oregon State University | $799,536 | _Researchers will conduct eight new tests be completed at the HTTF investigating a range of gas reactor events including DCC, PCC, and inlet plenum buoyant plume mixing. The data from these tests will be ideal for use in the validation of safety analysis codes used in gas reactor analysis. The data may also provide valuable insight into the validation of CFD codes for gas-reactor applications._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10324: Model Calibration-Based Design Methodologies for Structural Design of Supercritical CO2 Compact Heat Exchangers under Sustained Cyclic Temperature and Pressure Gradients | Oregon State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a design method for rapid structural assessment of diffusion-bonded Hybrid Compact Heat Exchangers, used as secondary heat exchangers in coupling Sodium Fast Reactors (SFRs) with supercritical CO2 (sCO2) Brayton power cycles. The team envisions that the developed method will (1) be usable in creation of an ASME code case for structural assessment of hybrid CHX; and (2) create design tools that ensure CHX code compliance under desired load conditions.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10285: Tribological Damage Mechanisms from Experiments and Validated Simulations of Alloy 800H and Inconel 617 in a Simulated HTGR/VHTR Helium Environment | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a mechanistic understanding of accelerated fretting, wear, and bonding between Alloy 800H and Inconel 617 surfaces. In order to achieve the objectives, a series of tribological experiments will be conducted in helium environments at elevated temperature with controlled concentrations of gaseous specious, attendant microstructure characterization (using electron microscopy, spectroscopy and atom-probe tomography), and validated continuum models.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10245: An Experimental Study of Design and Performance for the Water-Based Reactor Cavity Cooling System | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will extend and enhance the experimental tests using existing water-cooled RCCS facilities. The activity will be conducted in close collaboration with the water-cooled NSTF research team and will produce a unique set of high quality experimental data for support of existing system codes, system codes under development, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10457: Experimentally Validated Computational Modeling of Creep and Creep-Cracking for Nuclear Concrete Structures | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct novel 3D concrete creep tests under controlled environmental conditions to build a 3D constitutive model for concrete typical of existing containment structures. Decades long creep will be extracted via shorter tests (years long). The material model will be used in the Grizzly structural FEM code for simulating the response of real, 3D containment structures to changes in loading. Full-scale, long-term structural tests will enable validation.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10687: Development and Integration of Light Water Reactor (LWR) Materials Corrosion Degradation Codes into Grizzly | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop powerful codes for predicting environmentally-assisted localized corrosion in the primary coolant circuits (PCCs) of Generation II BWRs and PWRs. These codes and resulting models will be embedded into GRIZZLY. This will greatly extend the applicability of GRIZZLY to components in PCCs that are susceptible to pitting corrosion, stress corrosion cracking, and corrosion fatigue and will provide the stress intensity factor solutions for the crack growth rate models._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10083: Earth Abundant High Temperature Materials for Radioisotope Power Conversion System | University of California, Davis | $400,000 | Researchers will develop breakthrough efficiencies in segmented radioisotope thermal generators (RTG) power conversion systems through high temperature materials development. The approach will also reduce reliance on single-purpose supply chains.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10630: Validation of RELAP-7 for Forced Convection and Natural Circulation Reactor Flows | University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign | $799,368 | _Researcher will aid in the development of RELAP-7 through required experimental and computational efforts. The validation of the two-phase modeling capability of RELAP-7 will be accomplished through a series of tasks which include synthesis of existing forced convective data, acquisition of natural circulation data from an existing well-scaled facility, and uncertainty quantification in constitutive modeling._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10402: RELAP-7 Application and Enhancement for FLEX Strategies and ATF Behavior under Extended Loss of AC Power Conditions | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop new thermal hydraulic models that will be implemented into RELAP-7. Simulation studies will be performed for postulated ELAP scenarios in the PB Unit 2 reactor. The overarching goal of the proposed work is to perform a simulation study using RELAP-7, to model BWR ELAP scenarios with various mitigation measures and determine the range of time available for transition to portable FLEX equipment._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10080: Quantifying Properties for a Mechanistic, Predictive Understanding of Aqueous Impact on Ageing of Medium and Low Voltage AC and DC Cabling in Nuclear Power Plants | University of Minnesota, Duluth | $800,000 | _The degradation of medium and low voltage cabling is often associated with aqueous immersion. Electrical and mechanical data will be collected to develop a mechanistic model of the degradation of cabling to dielectric breakdown based on the temperature, oxidation, water conditions, and irradiation dose. The hypothesized model begins with solvent escape paths that expand and advance from the exterior surface toward the current carrying core at a rate dependent on the environment._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10214: Online Monitoring System for Concrete Structures Affected by Alkali-Silica Reaction (ASR) | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an online health monitoring system that integrates active and passive sensor networks and advanced signal processing algorithms to monitor ASR induced degradation in concrete structures. The obtained information will support an ongoing prognostic modeling research for health diagnosis and prognosis of aging concrete structures, in order to support long-term operational and maintenance decision making.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10210: Tribological Behavior of Structural Materials in High Temperature Helium Gas-Cooled Reactor Environments | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will work to understand, quantify, and model the elevated-temperature tribological behavior of alloys 617 and 800H in helium gas in HTGR conditions. Impurities in helium can induce a variety of corrosion mechanisms in structural materials that can profoundly affect tribological behavior. This study will investigate tribological behavior in various impurity concentration regimes and surface treatments to mitigate tribological damage in these environments.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10226: Enhancement of EM Pump Performance Through Modeling and Testing | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,856 | This project is aimed at the improvement of EM pumps for advanced liquid metal cooled reactors specifically the SFR. Initial tests will be conducted in the University of Wisconsin sodium loop on an existing moving magnet pump to help in the development of the models and to look at end effects associated with this pump. Additionally, tests will be conducted at ANL on the CMI ALIP. Ultimately, a small ALIP will be developed to test the principles and models developed to improve commercial scale.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10268: Sodium Cooled Fast Reactor Key Modeling and Analysis for Commercial Deployment | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,076 | This project will look at very low Prandtl number heat transfer from both an experimental and computational approach. Researchers will then establish key models to implement in plant dynamics codes. The team will also evaluate thermal stratification in large volumes making use of novel fiber optic distributed fiber measurements to get CFD quality data. Lastly, the team will evaluate some of the key remaining safety issues associated with the eventual commercialization of the sodium fast reactor.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10647: Experimental and Modeling Investigation of Overcooling Transients that Include Freezing, in Fluoride-Salt Cooled High-Temperature Reactors (FHRs) | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will make recommendations for design features of salt-reactor components that would take advantage of the phenomena characteristic to fluoride salts in order to be resilient to overcooling, and to recover gracefully from over-cooling transients. In support of this task a MOOSE-based computational tool will be developed, capable of modeling liquid-solid phase change, backed by experimental studies with the prototypical (flibe) coolant, and with simulant fluids.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10509: CFD and System Code Benchmark Data for Plenum-to-Plenum Flow Under Natural, Mixed and Forced Circulation Conditions | Utah State University | $800,000 | Researchers will generate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) validation data for forced, mixed, and natural convection through a parallel-path geometry relevant to gas reactor bypass flow. In addition, the team will independently build and validate CFD models based on the experimental results. The team has the experience and existing infrastructure for sharing complete validation datasets.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 17-12628: Effects of Mineral Impurities and Heat on Uranium(VI) Sorption onto Bentonite | California State University, East Bay | $785,714 | Mineral impurities are common in bentonite and clay buffer materials, proposed for many nuclear waste disposal options. Researchers will investigate the effects of calcite impurities on uranium(VI) sorption onto montmorillonite before and after mineral exposure to heat. Based on experimental sorption data and EXAFS analysis we will develop a new surface complexation model to determine under which conditions impurity effects are relevant, and how they can be incorporated in performance assessment models. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12798: Nanostructured Ceramic Membranes for Enhanced Tritium Management | Clemson University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a ceramic membrane technology for tritium separation and recovery to support the nuclear fuel cycle. Low-temperature water adsorption properties of nanoscale structured ceramics, combined with demonstrated hydrogen isotope exchange in their hydrated layers provide a low cost and unique avenue to address tritium management challenges. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12647: Determination of Critical Heat Flux and Leidenfrost Temperature on Candidate Accident Tolerant Fuel Materials | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $799,906 | Researchers will characterize the thermal-hydraulics behavior of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) materials by measuring critical heat flux (CHF) under normal and off-normal light water reactor conditions, and Leidenfrost temperature in post-loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) conditions. This work will yield material-specific models and/or correlations that can be readily implemented in state-of-the-art simulation tools. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13011: Gamma-ray Computed and Emission Tomography for Pool-Side Fuel Characterization | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,317 | Researchers will design, build, test and install a submersible tomography platform for performing pool-side physical, structural, and chemical characterization of irradiated fuel elements for test reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12496: Group Actinide Separation by Crystallization: A Single-Technology Approach to Used Nuclear Fuel Recycle | Texas A&M University | $399,857 | Researchers will explore bulk removal of U, Np, Pu and Am, from used nuclear fuel by studying the mechanisms of removal. A co-crystallization of the hexavalent actinides with U(VI) has already been demonstrated and researchers plan to develop a process based around this approach. Removal of these elements would be advantageous for future nuclear fuel recycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12824: Methods for Process Monitoring to Accurately Detect and Quantify Material Holdup in Advanced Recycle Facilities | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop better modeling methods, detectors, and facility design approaches to enable detection of inadvertent and deliberate hold up of fissile material in reprocessing and other nuclear material bulk handling facilities. The team will integrate results from this research project into a design methodology for future facilities to ensure accurate and reliable process monitoring for sustainable operation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12782: Effects of alpha and gamma radiation on complex and metal loaded solvents for advanced solvent extraction processes | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | This project will investigate the alpha and gamma radiolysis-induced chemical degradation of ligands used for the removal of minor actinides from used nuclear fuel in advanced extraction systems such as ALSEP. Researchers will emphasize organic phase degradation, particularly complex solvents with multiple ligands as well as metal loaded solvents. The project will improve predictive capabilities of extraction processes by elucidating degradation pathways. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12757: Elucidation of Electrochemical Behavior of Technetium, Tellurium, and Iodine in Molten Salt Solutions. | University of Idaho | $796,741 | This project will evaluate the electrochemical speciation behavior of iodide, and telluride in LiCl-KCl eutectic, LiCl, and LiCl + Li2O electrolytes at temperatures relevant to reprocessing conditions. By using rhenium as surrogate for technetium, the electrochemical, and chemical speciation properties of rhenium ions will be investigated in chloride molten salts with the addition of molybdenum and ruthenium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12701: Development and Experimental Benchmark of Computational Models to Predict Cladding Temperature and Vapor Removal from UNF Canisters during Drying Operations | University of Nevada, Reno | $400,000 | Researchers will develop physics-based computational tools to predict used nuclear fuel cladding temperatures within, and water vapor removal rates from, canisters during existing and proposed drying processes. The project will explore a range of gas pressures (including rarefication), and steady and unsteady external gas flows rates. The tools will be used to develop drying processes that minimize drying time while maintaining cladding temperatures. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12688: An Experimental and Analytical Investigation into Critical Heat Flux (CHF) Implications for Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF) Concepts | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a holistic best estimate assessment of the potential impact of different ATF cladding materials with regards to heat transfer characteristics, the boiling curve, critical heat flux, fuel mass/volume/specific power density, and neutronics effects due to changes in the lattice design or parasitic neutron absorption during design basis accident conditions in light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12996: Multipurpose, Radiation- and Temperature-Resistant Semiconductor Radiation Detectors for Advanced Process Monitoring and Nuclear Safeguards | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop detection systems capable of neutron, gamma-ray, x-ray, and alpha monitoring in high-temperature and high radiation environments for extended periods of time. The detectors will be used to strengthen nuclear safeguards by enhancing nuclear material control and accounting in nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13125: The Thermodynamics of Crystallization and Phase-Separation in Melt-Derived Nuclear Waste Forms | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This projects will study the thermodynamics of melt and quench phases of nuclear waste glasses and glass ceramics and link this information to the underlying short-range and medium-range structure. Advanced calorimetric techniques and neutron total scattering with pair distribution function analysis will be applied to obtain these data. Computer simulations will complement the experimental effort. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12886: Identifying, Predicting and Preventing Localized Corrosion in Kr-85 Storage Canisters | University of Virginia | $799,000 | Researchers will determine the root cause of corrosion within Kr-85 storage canisters in order to better understand current corrosion rates. The project will focus on expanding available research on Rb corrosion interactions and other contributing factors to better understand the corrosion phenomenon in current steel canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12463: Extreme Performance High Entropy Alloys (HEAs) Cladding for Fast Reactor Applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will develop extreme performance high entropy alloys (HEAs) as for new metal alloy cladding for fast reactor applications. Two very promising, single solution BCC HEAs will be investigated. The project will deliver an extensive irradiation resistance study of a new promising yet unexplored cladding concept. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12549: Critical Heat Flux Studies for Innovative Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding Surfaces | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will study critical heat flux (CHF) behavior focused on innovative accident tolerant fuel (ATF) cladding. The project includes separate effects screening tests to measure CHF for various ATF clad materials and surface characteristics with measurements of surface wettability. Pressurized flow boiling experiments will simulate prototypical reactor conditions for evaluating the best ATF clad materials coupled with CHF modeling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13019: Evaluation of Accident Tolerant Fuels Surface Characteristics in Critical Heat Flux Performance | Virginia Commonwealth University | $800,000 | Researchers will perform separate-effects and system-wide tests of the AREVA and GE accident tolerant fuel concepts currently under consideration. The project will investigate the impact of cladding surface characteristics in critical heat flux (CHF) under normal and anticipated off-normal conditions. The experimental results will be used to develop and validate enhanced models for the prediction of CHF and will be implemented in various subchannel and system analysis codes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13054: Simulated Used Nuclear Fuel Dissolution as a Function of Fuel Chemistry and Near Field Conditions | Washington State University | $800,000 | Researchers will study the effects of simulated used nuclear fuel (UNF) chemistry and microstructure on its dissolution in geologic repository conditions. The results will advance models for UNF evolution in repository conditions, enabling reliable prediction of degradation and long-term performance of used nuclear fuel for up to one million years. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12506: Development of Reactor Physics Benchmark Evaluations for Power Burst Facility Experiments | University of Florida | $398,265 | Researchers will perform reactor physics benchmark evaluations of Power Burst Facility experiments regarding differential reactivity worth of the control and transient rods, shim rod worth, in-pile-tube reactivity worth, shutdown reactivity, fuel assembly reactivity worth, core void coefficients of reactivity, in-pile-tube void coefficient, and coolant temperature coefficient of reactivity. The results will be incorporated in the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP). | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12748: Combined modeling and experiments to predict corrosion and embrittlement in dual-phase stainless steels within the MARMOT framework | Oregon State University | $800,000 | Researchers will enhance MARMOT to predict mechanical and corrosion properties of dual-phase stainless steels as a function of composition, aging time and temperature by using combined experimental data and lower length scale models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12797: In-Situ Ion Irradiation to Add Irradiation Assisted Grain Growth to the MARMOT Tool | Pennsylvania State University | $500,000 | Researchers will add the capability to model irradiation assisted grain growth to the MARMOT tool by using in-situ ion irradiation of UO2 to quantify the effect of irradiation on grain growth. The team will investigate the hypothesis that irradiation assisted grain growth is caused by thermal spikes resulting from atom collisions. The model added to MARMOT will couple the existing grain growth model to a heat conduction simulation using a stochastic heat source describing the thermal spike. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12555: Integration of high-fidelity Monte Carlo and deterministic transport codes into Workbench | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | Researchers will provide end users an ability to run both MCNP6 and PROTEUS codes from a common user input in Workbench by (1) templating user-provided engineering scale specifications to code-specific input requirements, (2) enabling multi-fidelity analysis of a system from a common input using MCNP6 and PROTEUS and (3) allowing the easy use of high-fidelity simulations to inform lower-order models for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems and experiments. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12939: Expansion of BISON Capabilities to Predict the Dynamic Response of Irradiated Fuel Rods | University of New Hampshire | $800,000 | Researchers will expand the capabilities of BISON and MOOSE to simulate the structural dynamic response of fuel rods and fuel assemblies during handling (wet and dry storage) and transportation. Expanding the capabilities of BISON and MOOSE to facilitate the evaluation of the dynamic response of fuel rods and assemblies is important to conduct a more reliable risk assessment of fuel assemblies, as well as storage and transportation casks. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13179: Implementation and Validation of Advanced Turbulence Modeling Methods for Liquid Metal Flow in Nek5000 | University of Oklahoma | $786,648 | Researchers will implement and validate state-of-the-art turbulence modeling techniques in Nek5000 to improve predition of liquid metal flows. Specific methods to be investigated include: variable PrT and algebraic heat flux models (AHFM) for URANS simulation; partially-averaged Navier-Stokes (PANS) and dynamic hybrid RANS-LES (DHRL) for hybrid RANS-LES simulation; and variable PrT subgrid heat flux modeling for LES. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12848: Development of Information Trustworthiness and Integrity Algorithms for Cybersecurity Defenses of Nuclear Power Reactors | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a first-of-a-kind physics-based defense-in-depth strategy to defend against false data injection attacks which attempt to change the information used by the I/C network to set reactor state. The approach employs a new design philosophy to check for information trustworthiness/integrity in order to determine whether the information is genuinely generated during the actual operation of the nuclear unit under either normal or off-normal conditions. | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cybersecurity | |
| NEUP Project 17-12538: Influence of dissolved salts and impurities in seawater on heat transfer degradation and fluid flow through fuel channels debris bed | Kansas State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate the role of raw water on degraded heat transfer and fluid flow in the reactor core and debris bed. X-ray imaging techniques, optical-fiber high speed temperature sensing systems and radioactive tracer salts will be used to simultaneously measure experimental data on void fraction, temperature and salt deposition rate. This data will be used to obtain correlations for heat transfer and fluid flow in case of raw water injection. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12502: High Resolution Temperature and Flow Measurements in Wire-Wrapped Fuel Assemblies | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will produce high-quality, high spatial and temporal resolution temperature and flow datasets for wire-wrapped rod bundle geometries. Different bundle sizes, configurations (including duct's and pin's deformation) and Low-Prandlt fluids will be investigated. A unique set of data will be produced to support advanced CFD tools validation, including Nek5000. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12723: Integrating Static PRA Information with RISMC Simulation Methods | The Ohio State University | $799,985 | Researchers will develop a computationally feasible and user friendly process to augment the traditional probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) results with improved representation of epistemic uncertainties and process/hardware/software/human interactions at plant level applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12664: Methods to Predict Thermal Radiation and to Design Scaled Separate and Integral Effects Testing For Molten Salt Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology for the design of molten salt reactor (MSR) Separate Effect Test and Integral Effect Test experiments. This methodology will identify and quantify sources of scaling distortion including radiative heat transport. The project would improve code performance and assist FHR/MSR vendors who are making licensing applications based on code results. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12523: Experimental and Computational Studies of Stress Corrosion Cracking of Alloys 308/309 and 82/182 Weldments in Corrosive and Radiation Environment | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will use advanced microanalytical analysis techniques to study SCC and IASCC of stainless steel and Ni-Cr alloy weldments. CERT, autoclave immersion, and ion irradiation will be used to determine synergistic effect of LWR environmental factors. Results from the experimental component of the proposed work scope will be used for enhanced predictive capability of the INL Grizzly code via XFEM. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12614: Systematic Enterprise Risk Management by Integrating the RISMC Toolkit and Cost-Benefit Analysis | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $799,998 | Researchers will develop a systematic Enterprise Risk Management framework, which utilizes Decision Tree (DT) logic to consider high-level production-loss scenarios, and their underlying physical and social causes throughout the lifecycle. In the proposed DT, uncertainty nodes will be quantified by plant-specific risk analysis using the Risk-Informed Safety Margin Characterization (RISMC) Toolkit, and cost-benefit analysis will be conducted for end states reflecting consequences of managerial decision-making. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12972: Design of a Commercial-Scale, Fluoride-Salt-Cooled, High-Temperature Reactor With Novel Refueling and Decay Heat Removal Capabilities | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $400,000 | Researchers will combine fluoride-salt-cooled, high temperature reactors (FHR) with advanced gas reactor (AGR) refueling technology to address several significant challenges that remain in the development of FHR technology. The project will adapt AGR refueling technology by using the new fuel-inside-radial-moderator fuel form, which will also introduce new ways of dealing with decay heat. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13115: Experimental Determination of Helium/air Mixing in Helium Cooled Reactor | University of Michigan | $800,000 | Researchers will examine the effects of coolant leakage and air ingress through three different investigations. The overall objective of this work is to characterize near and far field behavior of Helium/Air mixing in containment, and to determine rates and amounts of air leaked back into the reactor after a depressurization event. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12830: Radioisotope Retention in Graphite and Graphitic Materials | University of Missouri, Columbia | $800,000 | Researchers will use a variety of experimental techniques to acquire data for fission product diffusion, transport and adsorption of fission products in various graphites, relating to nuclear reactors at high temperatures. Measurements will be taken using non-irradiated graphite using fission product surrogates. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13020: Bimetallic Composite (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) Development and Compatibility in Flowing FLiBe as a Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) Structural Material | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a new bimetallic alloy (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) structural material for the MSR, and compare its post-exposure mechanical performance in flowing FLiBe with single alloys SS 316, Hastelloy N, and Incoloy 800H, in the context of ASME codification. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12678: Novel NDE Sensors, Waveforms, Models, and Algorithms for Cable Health Monitoring | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop NDE sensors and probabilistic cable insulation diagnosis and prognosis algorithms (particle filtering), and modeling and experiments to monitor cable insulation health. Two different types of sensor will be deployed to detect insulation damage. The team will also develop cable insulation degradation modeling to further understand defects in cable insulation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13080: Multiscale Investigation of SiC/SiC Composite Degradation in Helium Coolant Operating Environment | University of Virginia | $800,000 | Researchers will study the long-term degradation mechanisms of SiC/SiC composites in helium coolant environments by slow crack growth (SCG). This will be achieved through multiscale testing in hot, O2-contaminated He and evaluation of the effect of SCG on hermeticity during in situ testing. Results will be extended to predictive low-level and component-scale SCG models and integrated into the development of ASME standards for use of SiC/SiC in nuclear reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12481: Supercritical CO2 power cycle for space applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will develop an advanced supercritical Brayton power cycle directly coupled to a fission reactor. The project will carry out a comprehensive optimization of the cycle operating conditions, working fluid, and configuration; develop detailed designs of each subcomponent; and demonstrate/develop critical technologies such as turbomachinery seals and bearings, reactor material corrosion and strength demonstrations, and supercritical heat transfer. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13232: Radiative Heat Transport and Optical Characterization of High Temperature Molten Salts | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | The goal of the proposed research is to experimentally investigate radiation heat transport in molten salts, and to add functionality for radiative heat transport in a thermal-hydraulics system code. This includes obtaining highly resolved measurements of the optical absorption and emissivity of liquid salts. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 18-15345: Multiphysics Degradation Processes, and Their Mitigation, in Engineered and Geological Bariers: Experiments and Simulation | Duke University | $800,000.00 | This project will focus on filling the gaps in understanding of mechanisms of a series of degradation processes (thermal, hydric, geo-chemical, and transport processes phenomena) potentially affecting geo-materials used in repositories. The objectives of the work are to better recognize the conditions leading to preferential paths of radionuclide transport and rock weakening, and to build mathematical models and implement them into existing codes to predict material degradation and develop strategies to reduce the adverse consequences. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15043: Integration of Nuclear Material Accounting Data and Process Monitoring Data for Improvement on Detection Probability in Safeguarding Electrochemical Processing Facilities | Oregon State University | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to further studies on fusion of process monitoring (PM) data and nuclear material accounting (NMA) data. PM data, which includes monitoring by various types of equipment (radiation detectors, cameras, voltage, current sensors), can supplement NMA data to help improve safeguards. For aqueous-based reprocessing facilities, it is reported that PM, integrated with traditional NMA, has a high-detection probability for specific diversions. For electrochemical reprocessing, preliminary studies have shown that PM data can support traditional NMA by providing a basis to estimate some of the in-processing nuclear material inventories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15148: Recovery of Rare-Earth Elements (Nd, Gd, Sm) in Oxide Wasteform Using Liquid Metals (Bi, Sn) | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000.00 | This project investigates a new approach for recovering rare-earth (RE) fission products (Nd, Gd, and Sm) from molten chlorine salts using liquid metal (Bi and Sn) electrodes. The research aids molten salt recycling by converting the RE products into chloride-free RE oxides, which could be incorporated into conventional glass/ceramic waste forms. Successful outcomes of the project include advanced separation of fission products from molten salts with better control of chemical selectivity and high-recovery yield. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15103: Microstructure-Based Benchmarking for Nano/Microscale Tension and Ductility Testing of Irradiated Steels | Purdue University | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to standardize methods for nano/micro-scale tensile and ductility testing of irradiated Fe-Cr steels, through microstructure-based benchmarking. The study will investigate key process parameters for TEM in situ tension and ductility testing. Coupling experimental studies with multiscale models, the research will identify the approaches that provide consistent deformation mechanisms between the nano/micro-scale and macro-scale tests, from which standard practices will be obtained. The primary project outcome will be a set of recommended guidelines for nano/microscale mechanical testing, which will lead to unprecedented reductions in the time and cost for qualifying materials for in-reactor service and to ensure consistency of methods and validity of results. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15559: Cold Spray Repair & Mitigation of Stress Corrosion Cracks in Spent Nuclear Fuel Dry Storage Canisters | Purdue University | $799,982.00 | This goal of this project is to demonstrate cold spray repair and mitigation of chloride-induced stress corrosion cracks (SCC) and pits in stainless steel dry storage canisters. The research will optimize the repair process and gain a scientifically informed understanding of SCC mechanisms. The outcome is to further develop cold spray as an attractive solution for the repair of existing SCC and mitigation of potential SCC necessary to ensure long-term integrity, security, and regulatory compliance of spent nuclear fuel storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15596: Capture of Organic Iodides from Vessel Off-Gas Streams | Syracuse University | $799,548.00 | This project will study the capture of radioactive organoiodides from off-gas streams produced during nuclear fuel reprocessing by conducting adsorption experiments using a selected silver adsorbents. Multifaceted simulation adsorption models will be developed to assist in the design of necessary capture systems for off-gas streams. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15585: Impact of Coupled Gas Migration and Thermo-hydro-mechanical Processes on the Performance of Repositories for High Level Nuclear Waste | Texas A&M University | $608,375.00 | The main goal of this project is to better understand the possible effect of gas migration (particularly through discontinuities) on the performance and long-term behavior of engineered barrier systems (EBS) envisaged for the isolation of high-level radioactive waste (HLW). Specific outcomes of this study will be an improved understanding of the role of gas migration and discontinuities in the performance of HLW disposals, with the underlying aim to improve design of EBS used for HLW. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15531: Repair and Mitigation of Chloride-Induced Pitting and Chloride-Induced Stress Corrosion Cracking in Used Nuclear Fuel Dry Cask Canister Materials | The Ohio State University | $800,000.00 | This project will evaluate and develop a set of tools to repair and mitigate chloride-induced pitting and stress corrosion cracking in stainless steel nuclear fuel canisters. Advanced processes, including low temperature friction stir welding and cold spray deposition, will be evaluated according to various criteria, such as corrosion performance. In addition, technologies that have not yet been evaluated for UNF applications, including vaporizing foil actuator welding and soldering will be assessed. The two most promising technologies will selected for further development and comprehensive study. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14912: Bridging the Length Scales on Mechanical Property Evaluation | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000.00 | This project combines experimental and modeling methods to gain a comprehensive approach for addressing scaling effects on small-scale mechanical testing. Multiscale experiments, together with modeling on reactor-relevant and model alloys, will provide better understanding of appropriate scaling relationships. The study aims to gain fundamental understanding of plasticity interactions with specific strength-determining features, such as precipitates and grain boundaries. The goal of this work is to provide the basis to add small-scale mechanical testing in the toolbox for nuclear materials research. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14911: Understanding of degradation of SiC/SiC materials in nuclear systems and development of mitigation strategies | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000.00 | This project investigates the best possible coatings to prevent SiCf/SiCm corrosion in LWR environments. The research features a computational and experimental rapid screening approach for numerous coating compositions. The work includes autoclave exposure of rapid screening coupons in prototypical environments in combination with thermodynamic modeling (CALPHAD) and Finite Element Methods (FEM). Small-scale mechanical testing, together with thermal cycling and FEM modeling, will provide guidance on the ideal coating system design. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15701: Time-dependent THMC Properties and Microstructural Evolution of Damage Rocks in Excavation Damage Zone | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,978.00 | The proposed project focuses on the geomechanical aspects of modeling by addressing the time-dependent evolution of rock microstructure and its coupling with the THC processes that are of first-order importance to the stability and the isolation performance of repositories. The research will delineate an integrated experimental, theoretical and numerical strategy in assessing the evolution EDZ over time and its implication on the long-term migration of hazardous species. These results will enhance the confidence of the predicted long-term performance of repositories, which helps to move forward the goal of one-million-year isolation of high-level nuclear wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15381: Multiaxial Failure Envelopes and Uncertainty Quantification of Nuclear-Grade SiCf/SiC Woven Ceramic Matrix Tubular Composites | University of Florida | $800,000.00 | This project proposes to develop a comprehensive experimental and computational approach for determining constitutive relations and multiaxial failure envelopes of nuclear-grade continuous silicon fiber (SiCf) and SiC matrix woven tubular composites. The result of this work can be adopted in industry for design refinement, optimization of performance under the desired operating conditions, and reliable prediction of failure under unforeseen accidental scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15496: Formation of Zeolites Responsible for Waste Glass Rate Acceleration: An Experimental and Computational Study for Understanding Thermodynamic and Kinetic Processes | University of Houston | $800,000.00 | Through experimental and computational studies, this project will expose the factors governing zeolite crystallization and their role in Stage III dissolution of radionuclide-containing glass waste forms generated in advanced nuclear fuel cycles. The overall goal of this project is to understand the formation of zeolite phases in order to develop process control methods to suppress Stage III dissolution. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14998: Novel Processes for Capture of Radioactive Iodine Species from Vessel Off-Gas Streams | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the sorption system performance and effectiveness for capture of radioiodine species present in the off-gas streams from the used nuclear fuel (UNF) recycling operations, focusing particularly on the organic iodine species. The dynamic sorption experimentation and theoretical modeling will offer fundamental insights on the mechanism enabling the design and prediction the control system performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15261: Friction Stir Based Repair Welding of Dry Storage Canisters and Mitigation Strategies: Effect of Engineered Barrier Layer on Environmental Degradation | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The project goal is to apply friction stir based repair and mitigation technique for eliminating failure associated with pitting and stress corrosion cracking in dry storage canisters for spent fuels. The goal of these activities is to obtain a fundamental understanding of the processing-structure-properties correlations. This work will contribute to the development of a crack repair/mitigation strategy based on friction stir technology that can be efficiently implemented for spent fuel dry storage casks, which will enhance safety and reliability of these systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15263: X-ray Studies of Interfacial Molecular Complexes in ALSEP Back-Extraction | University of Illinois at Chicago | $800,000.00 | This project will use synchrotron X-rays to characterize the interfacial molecular complexes (of extractants and radiologically derived impurities, complexants, buffers, and metal ions) formed during the Actinide-Lanthanide Separation Process (ALSEP) back-extraction. This work addresses the critical knowledge gap of slow stripping kinetics in ALSEP, as well as the influence of radiolytic degradation products. The outcome of the project will be a molecular-level understanding of the role of different components in the interfacial mechanism of back-extraction in the ALSEP process, therefore leading to development of more efficient and faster metal stripping relevant to the separation of actinides from lanthanides in the nuclear fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15030: Mechanistic Understanding of Radiolytically Assisted Hydrothermal Corrosion of SiC in LWR Coolant Environments | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to develop a mechanistic understanding of the hydrothermal corrosion behavior of monolithic SiC and SiC/SiC composites in LWR environment under the influence of water radiolysis products and radiation damage. Complementary atomistic simulations will be carried out to determine the rate controlling mechanisms for dissolution under different water chemistries and in the presence of radiation. Activation energies and kinetic rates will be calculated directly from these simulations and compared to experimentally fitted values. The dissolution rate constants determined and validated in this integrated experimental and modeling approach will allow predictions of long-term SiC corrosion behavior. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14999: Probabilistic Failure Criterion of SiC/SiC Composites Under Multi-Axial Loading | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $800,000.00 | This project aims to develop a probabilistic failure criterion of SiC/SiC composites under multi-axial loading and to incorporate the criterion into a reliability analysis of the structural integrity of LWR SiC/SiC fuel cladding. This research will be anchored by a seamless integration of novel experimental and analytical tools, which will lead to a robust methodology for dependable analysis of SiC/SiC composite structures for LWR fuel cladding, as well as other nuclear applications. The resulting model will be experimentally validated and applied to analyze the reliability of LWR SiC/SiC fuel cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15502: Reducing Uncertainty in Radionuclide Transport Prediction Using Multiple Environmental Tracers | University of Montana | $724,906.00 | In this project, direct modeling of multiple environmental tracers will be used to improve predictions of radionuclide transport in a shallow alluvial aquifer discharge. The research will take advantage of recent theoretical developments considering the use of environmental tracers, and advances in high-performance reactive flow and transport models, to obtain the maximum information on the transport system. The goal is to develop a new methodology to characterize natural reactive flow and transport systems, reduce predictive uncertainty in radionuclide transport simulations, determine the maximum information content of the tracer suite, and optimize future groundwater characterization efforts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15578: Computational and Experimental Investigation of Thermal-Mechanical- Chemical Mechanisms of High-burnup Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) Processes at Elevated Temperatures and Degradation Behavior in Geologic Repositories | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $800,000.00 | The overarching goal of this project is to use combined computational and experimental research and development activities to enhance understanding of the mechanisms and thermal-mechanical-chemical (TMC) parameters controlling the instant release fraction (IRF) and matrix dissolution of high-burnup (HB; burnup > 45 GWd/MTU) spent nuclear fuels (SNFs) and the subsequent formation, stability, and phase transformations of HB SNF alteration products under long-term storage and geological disposal conditions (e.g., high-temperature storage, _-radiolysis). The results of this research will be used to enhance the mechanistic detail of process models to reduce uncertainty in, and improve the technical bases of, safety cases and performance assessment analyses. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15439: Radiolytic Dissolution Rate of Silicon Carbide | University of Notre Dame | $400,000.00 | This project seeks to develop a matrix of dissolution rates for high-purity SiC material, using intense electron beam irradiation, and to measure the products of dissolution (silicic acid and CO2 (or CO)) in the water downstream of the irradiation zone. The objective is to determine the rate of SiC dissolution and gather sufficient insight about its mechanism in LWRs, so that the use of SiC/SiC composite materials for accident tolerant fuel cladding can proceed with confidence. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15061: Development of an MC&A Toolbox for Liquid-fueled Molten Salt Reactors with Online Reprocessing | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,207.00 | The purpose of this project is to develop a toolbox of swappable mass flow modules for liquid-fueled molten salt reactor (MSR) systems for the purposes of evaluating material control & accountancy measurement techniques. When combined together, these modules enable modeling of the time-dependent mass flows for a variety of MSR variants. The test platform will consist of a toolbox of independent process modules representing discrete physical units, each with its own self-contained physics responsive to the input mass flow, along with appropriate measurement models that can be coupled to key flow points. These dynamic physical signatures would allow testing of the viability and efficacy of potential accountancy techniques under the full range of reactor operating conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15307: A Novel and Flexible Approach for Converting LWR UNF Fuel Into Forms That Can Be Used to Fuel a Variety of Gen-IV Reactors | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $400,000.00 | This project will investigate the chemical decladding and the digestion of whole MOX-based fuel rods, using thionyl chloride and surrogate materials. Digesting entire LWR fuel assemblies results in product streams that include pure decontaminated ZrCl4; pure UCl4; and a stream containing TRU/FPs, as well as alloying metals (as chloride salts). The objectives of this project are to provide a new, highly efficient protocol for the transformation of used nuclear fuel into useful components and to effectively contain a concentrated stream of highly radioactive materials for appropriate handling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15459: Reduced Diffusion and Enhanced Retention of Multiple Radionuclides from Pore Structure Studies of Barrier Materials for Enhanced Repository Performance | University of Texas at Arlington | $567,831.00 | The project seeks to better understand and quantify the pore structure (geometry and topology) and pore connectivity of porous media and its emergent effect on diffusion and retention of various radionuclides in barrier materials. The anticipated outcome of the project will be to more accurately evaluate the performance of geological repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15649: Benchmarking Microscale Ductility Measurements | University of Utah | $776,669.00 | The objectives of this project are to establish best practices for obtaining tensile microscale ductility measurements and to validate methodologies for comparing them to macroscale ductility measurements. Anticipated outcomes of the project are: 1) measurement of grain and sub-grain localization processes micro and macroscales; 2) establishment of best practices for microtensile experimentation; 3) identification of statistically significant relationships between specimen geometry, microstructure variables and mechanical behavior; 4) modified phenomenological elongation-based ductility models to enable direct upscaling of ductility measurements from microscale to macroscopic. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15003: Advanced Coating and Surface Modification Technologies for SiC-SiC Composite for Hydrothermal Corrosion Protection in LWR | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,990.00 | This project focuses on the development of coatings and surface modification approaches for hydrothermal corrosion protection of SiC-SiC composite in normal LWR operation environments. Innovative surface treatment recipes will be explored using processes including, interfacial stitching to improve adhesion, multi-layered structures to improve ductility, and compositions and structures resulting from thermal treatments. The surface treatment concepts involve corrosion resistant metallic and ceramic materials, and are amenable to industrial scalability for the cladding application. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15332: Low-Force Solid-State Technologies for Mitigation of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dry Storage Canisters | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000.00 | This project will focus on evaluating and developing two technologies used for field mitigation and repair of stress corrosion cracking (SCC): 1) additive friction stir welding; and 2) cold spray deposition. The work involves developing low-force, low-heat input solid state technologies to lessen and repair SCC in stainless steel canisters for used nuclear fuel (UNF). This outcome of the study will inform feasibility of using the two technologies to conduct on-site field repairs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14913: The Role of Temperature on Non-Darcian Flows in Engineered Clay Barriers | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000.00 | This project intends to accomplish three tasks: 1) to develop a predictive model to facilitate experimental data interpretation and provide mechanistic insights into the role of temperature on non-Darcian flows in low-permeability engineered clay barriers; 2) conduct experiments to unravel the role of temperature on the threshold gradient of non-Darcian flow in both saturated and unsaturated bentonite; and 3) use molecular dynamics (MD) simulation to improve fundamental understanding. The experimental data, associated with the MD simulation, will provide valuable information to improve fundamental understanding and scientific knowledge with respect to the temperature dependence of threshold gradient in non-Darcian flows, because very limited experimental data for saturated flow and no experimental data for unsaturated flow are available. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14815: C-SiOC-SiC Coated Particle Fuels for Advanced Nuclear Reactors | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $400,000.00 | This project will study a new concept for nuclear fuel encapsulation using an amorphous SiOC plus carbon system as the inner coating and nanocrystalline SiC plus minor carbon as the outer coating for nuclear fuel kernel particles. The outcomes of this work are: 1) new directions and possible replacement guidance for current nuclear fuel materials in operation; 2) new fuel materials for future nuclear reactor material design and development; 3) nuclear composite microstructure evolution and performance degradation understanding; 4) screening tools to guide future nuclear fuel material activities; and 5) mechanisms of nuclear fuel material evolution and degradation and effective strategies to mitigate/reduce undesirable fuel behaviors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15226: An Evaluated, Transient Experiment based on Simultaneous, 3-D Neutron-Flux and Temperature Measurements | Kansas State University | $399,972.00 | This project will evaluate existing and near-term experimental data for inclusion in the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) handbook. The data to be evaluated include compositions from a recent fuel replacement as part of an LEU conversion, a number of critical, fresh-fuel configurations, fuel temperature measurements at fresh-fuel configurations, and records from nearly a decade of operation. The proposed work would lead to a first-of-a-kind evaluation of transient, spatially-dependent reaction rates. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project CFA-18-15773: Evaluation of the Thermal Scattering Law for Advanced Reactor Neutron Moderators and Reflectors | North Carolina State University | $398,821.00 | The objective of this project is to narrow the nuclear data gap for advanced nuclear reactors that are driven by thermal neutrons. This includes concepts such as gas-cooled high-temperature reactors and molten salt or salt-cooled high temperature reactors. The generated data TSL libraries will be provided in EDNF File 7 format to the National Nuclear Data Center (NDDC) to immediately include in beta releases of the ENDF/B libraries and to consider for the future release of ENDF/B-VIII.1. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15602: Modeling and Experimental Verification of Thermal Energy Storage Systems to Enable Load Following Capability for Nuclear Reactors | University of Idaho | $761,640.00 | This project purposes to integrate new thermal energy storage (TES) models, developed in Modelica, with ongoing nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (NRHES) modeling efforts, in order to evaluate economic potential and advantages of new process designs over baseload electricity production. The computational phase of this project includes developing mathematical and physics-based TES models, which could later be translated to Modelica and integrated with existing NRHES components. The testing and optimization would be conducted using RAVEN. A techno-economic analysis will be performed to evaluate the compatibility of the newly formed integration, as well as to quantify its feasibility and economic benefits. The experimental aspect is focused on the development of scaled TES systems, which serve as verification for the Modelica models and allow system testing upon being integrated with DETAIL. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14963: Development of Nuclear Hybrid Energy Systems: Temperature Amplification through Chemical Heat Pumps for Industrial Applications | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The overall goal of this project is to develop and demonstrate, through modeling and experimental investigations, temperature amplification capabilities of a chemical heat pump (CHP) system that can be coupled to a conventional light water reactor or a near-term small modular reactor. The outcomes would include nuclear hybrid energy system architecture containing a CHP, experimental data on the CHP performance, and dynamic model of the system, validated through experimentation, which could be used for scale-up and design. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15008: Development of Thermal Inelastic Scattering Covariance Data Capabilities with Demonstration of Light Water Evaluation | University of Michigan | $400,000.00 | The goal of this project is to produce a format for covariance data for inelastic thermal neutron scattering data for moderators in the ENDF format. To demonstrate the viability of this new format, an evaluation of the covariance data for thermal scattering in light water in this format will be produced, along with the capabilities to generate the files and test their efficacy. A capability for calculating sensitivity coefficients using multigroup methods to the fundamental physics parameters governing light-water scattering will be developed to facilitate identifying nuclear data needs related to thermal scattering. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15056: Model-Based Diagnostics and Mitigation of Cyber Threats | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | This project intends to develop a toolkit for modeling digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems for nuclear power plants so that the consequences of cyber-attacks on I&C systems may conveniently be modeled using nuclear plant simulation software. The results of the toolkit-based models, the corresponding responses, and the performance of the diagnostic schemes will be tested on a virtual control room driven by a plant simulator. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15055: NICSim: Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Simulation for Evaluating Response to Cyber-attacks | University of New Mexico | $799,945.00 | The objective of the project is to develop a Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Simulation (NICSim) platform with a novel emulytics capability to simulate control systems and components in nuclear power plants. The outcome of this work would be a first-in-class emulytics platform with an associated documentation and library of physical models of components that could be used by analysts and designers to assess the resilience and cybersecurity risks of different control system designs for a wide range of power plants. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15324: Validation of Pressure Relaxation Coefficient in RELAP-7 Seven-Equation Model | George Washington University | $800,000.00 | This project aims to validate the Seven-Equation model in RELAP-7 by: 1) measuring velocity and pressure in each phase and the interface as well as return to equilibrium in fast transients with high-speed non-intrusive laser diagnostics in canonical experiments; 2) complementing experimental data with a multiscale computational approach, including a 3D proprietary direct numerical solver; and 3) validating RELAP-7 with a combination of experimental data and first-principle simulations. This combination would provide unique and complete datasets to validate RELAP-7 with high confidence and offer a new class of experimental and numerical tools. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project CFA-18-15104: Demonstration of Utilization of High-fidelity NEAMS Tools to Inform the Improved Use of Conventional Tools within the NEAMS Workbench on the NEA/OECD C5G7-TD Benchmark | North Carolina State University | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to demonstrate the utilization of high-fidelity Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) tools (PROTEUS, Nek5000, and BISON) to inform the improved use of conventional tools (DIF-3D, CTF, and CTFFuel) within the NEAMS Workbench on the NEA/OECD C5G7-TD benchmark. This would result in more accurate predictions of safety parameters and margins, which is important for both safety and performance improvements of the nuclear power plants being currently operated and built. The developed Workbench-based framework will also assist end users to apply high-fidelity simulations to inform lower-order models for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14741: Demonstration of a Methodology for Direct Validation of MARMOT Irradiation-Induced Microstructural Evolution and Physical Property Models Using U-10Zr | Texas A&M University | $500,000.00 | The objective of this project is to demonstrate, for the first time, a methodology that enables the direct validation of microstructural evolution models for fuel in MARMOT, and the direct correlation of changes in physical properties with specific irradiation-induced microstructural features. Properly implementing this methodology will result in rapid development of MARMOT mesoscale models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15520: Accurate and Efficient Parametric Model-Order Reduction for Turbulent Thermal Transport | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000.00 | The project objective is to develop reduced-order models (ROMs) that will improve accuracy of LMR system-level analysis with low overhead. These new models will systematically mine high-fidelity DNS, LES, or uRANS simulations to construct low-order dynamical systems that can couple with a systems analysis code, such as the SAM code being developed under NEAMS. These simulations provide useful data and will be made available to the scientific community, and the overall effort will contribute to more efficient LMR conceptual design studies and licensing. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15484: A Novel High Fidelity Continuous-energy tTansport Tool for Efficient FHR Transient Calculations | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000.00 | The objective of the project is to develop a high-fidelity continuous energy (CE) transport tool for efficient transient calculations in fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactors with prismatic core/fuel assembly design. This will be accomplished by extending the high-fidelity 3-D continuous energy coarse mesh radiation transport (COMET) code with formidable computational speed to solve transient problems in FHRs with accurate thermal hydraulic feedback. The new capability would enable plant system codes to perform analyses necessary to address complex technical design, regulatory, reactor safety, and economic hurdles prior to construction. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15093: Determination of Molecular Structure and Dynamics of Molten Salts by Advanced Neutron and X-ray Scattering Measurements and Computer Modeling | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000.00 | This project will seek detailed knowledge about molecular structure and dynamics of molten salts to inform the design of new molten-salt reactors. A combination of advanced neutron and x-ray scattering and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations will be used to model the ionic-cluster structure of the fluid and solubility of impurities. Machine learning will be applied to regress from simulations and experiments in order to develop the model and predict chemical potentials as a function of composition and temperature. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15171: Oxidation Behavior of Silicon Carbide and Graphitic Materials | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000.00 | The objectives of this project are to determine the oxidation behavior of silicon carbide and graphitic materials in oxygen and/or moisture, to accurately measure the kinetic parameters of oxidation, to ascertain the oxidation mechanisms in relation to the microstructures, to determine the effect of irradiation on oxidation behavior, and to provide data and input to the safety analysis of high-temperature gas reactors under air and moisture ingress accident conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15276: Coping Time and Cost Analysis of Accident Tolerant Plant Design based on Dynamic PRA Methodology | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000.00 | This project will evaluate the failure modes of accident tolerant fuel ATF candidates to understand the different failure characteristics. The research aims to obtain a response surface of coping time by investigating the various uncertainties of accident mitigation in PWR and BWR reactors. These outputs will aid the decision making process on the implementation of ATF and FLEX to existing LWR plants from the perspective of risk reduction and economic feasibility. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15270: Innovative Use of Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) with the RCIC System to Enhance Passive Safety of Commercial LWRs | Texas A&M University | $748,000.00 | The overarching objectives of this project are to: 1) demonstrate new operational strategies with the combined use of Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) and the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) System to increase the passive safety capabilities of current Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs) in delaying or preventing core damage; and 2) pursue the delay of containment venting until after a 72-hour coping period through new BWR Suppression Pool mixing procedures. The research will use both simulation and experimental data to validate the objectives. The work has the potential to increase the ability of existing nuclear power plants to passively respond to beyond design basis events using existing equipment and without changes to the plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15346: Big Data For Operation and Maintenance Cost Reduction | The Ohio State University | $800,000.00 | This project will develop a first-of-a-kind framework for integrating Big Data capability into the daily activities of our current fleet of nuclear power plants. This research will mainly focus on incorporating the wide range of data heterogeneities in nuclear power plants into an integrated Big Data Analytics capability. The primary end product of this work will be a Big Data framework that is capable of dealing with the large volume and heterogeneity of the data found in nuclear power plants to extract timely and valuable information on equipment performance and to enable optimization of plant operation and maintenance based on the extracted information. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15065: in situ Measurement and Validation of Uranium Molten Salt Properties at Operationally Relevant Temperatures | University of Connecticut | $799,979.00 | This project proposes to use advanced spectroscopic and scattering methods to provide information at the atomic and molecular scale. The research will use synchrotron-based x-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy, at operationally relevant temperatures, to measure the local and intermediate structure as well as speciation of chloride fuel salts (NaCl, ZrCl, UCl3) for fast-spectrum applications and fluoride fuel salts ( 7 LiF, UF4) primarily for thermal spectrum applications This approach is expected to generate theories and concepts that would allow models to predict behavior, and develop the means for in situ monitoring. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15058: High-resolution Experiments for Extended LOFC and Steam Ingress Accidents in HTGRs | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to better understand key phenomena in high-temperature gas-cooled reactors relevant to steam ingress and loss of forced circulation (LOFC) accidents. Specifically, the research will: 1) experimentally investigate, using an existing integral-effect test facility with some improvements, the steam-ingress accident caused by a postulated steam generator tube rupture initiating event; 2) carry out integral-effect tests for the extended LOFC accident to study the establishment of global natural circulation flow in the primary loop; 3) design, based on a scaling analysis, and construct a separate-effect test facility to study the complex helium flows in the core and hot plenum during the extended LOFC accident; and 4) perform detailed, high-resolution, separate-effects experiments using the results obtained as boundary/initial conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15471: Integral Experimental Investigation of Radioisotope Retention in Flowing Lead for the Mechanistic Source Term Evaluation of Lead Cooled Fast Reactor | University of New Mexico | $800,000.00 | The purpose of this project is to experimentally investigate the integral effects of radioisotope interactions with liquid lead to support the following technical goals: 1) evaluating the mechanistic source term of the Lead-cooled Fast Reactor (LFR); 2) developing a universal integral effect test methodology for liquid metal source term evaluations; and 3) establishing a basis for the comparison of radioisotope retention between lead and sodium. This aim of the research is to advance the LFR licensing pathway by establishing the phenomenological foundation of the interaction between fission products and liquid lead. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15153: Understanding Molten Salt Chemistry Relevant to Advanced Molten Salt Reactors through Complementary Synthesis, Spectroscopy, and Modeling | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to understand molten salt chemistry relevant to advanced molten salt reactors through complementary synthesis, spectroscopy, and modeling. Through complementary synthetic, spectroscopic, and computational efforts, the aim is to achieve atomistic and molecular-level understanding of liquid structure, coordination geometry, chemical bonding, and reactivity of novel molten salt melts relevant to advanced molten reactor designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15111: Improving Nuclear Power Plant Efficiency Through Data Analytics | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,727.00 | This project aims to develop and provide data analytics solutions to improve nuclear power plan economic efficiency by utilizing empirical models to integrate disparate data sources while providing uncertainty estimates to quantify risk and support decisions. The outcomes will enhance the technical and economic competitiveness by enabling advanced monitoring of critical assets, improving the operating capability of the existing fleet, and helping achieve enhancements in organizational effectiveness. Additionally, the research would provide an agile and modular data analytic framework that would have high commercialization value and supports the industry-wide drive towards digital innovation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14846: Development of Corrosion Resistant Coatings and Liners for Structural Materials for Liquid Fueled Molten Salts Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to develop corrosion-resistant coatings and liners for structural materials for use in fuel dissolved molten salt environment for future Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). Innovative, but industrially scalable, surface cladding approaches are proposed to lead to promising surface and interfacial compositions. The processes themselves are commercial, and have high technology readiness levels, and consequently would facilitate the accelerated developments of MSRs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15280: Advanced Alloy Innovations for Structural Components of Molten Salt Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $796,792.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to develop and evaluate specific advanced metallic alloys for structural components in fluoride salt-cooled molten salt reactors (MSRs). The research will investigate four categories of metallic alloys: advanced Ni-based; radiation damage tolerant high entropy; refractory Mo-based, and compositionally-graded, designed for high-surface corrosion resistance and good bulk strength. Additionally, the propensity for radiation embrittlement, as well as weldability, of the alloys will be evaluated. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14957: Big Data Analytics Solutions to Improve Nuclear Power Plant Efficiency: Online Monitoring, Visualization, Prognosis, and Maintenance Decision Making | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $797,820.00 | The overarching goal of this project is to significantly advance the ability to assess equipment condition and predict the remaining useful life to support optimal maintenance decision making in nuclear power plants. This research will work toward accomplishing and establishing a modern set of data-driven modeling, online monitoring, visualization, prognosis, and operation decision-making methodologies to address the significant opportunities and challenges arising from the emerging data-rich environment in nuclear plants. The potential impact of the work is significant and transformative and could deliver important advances in productivity with reduced unscheduled downtime and improved equipment performance. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15097: Oxidation Study of High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor TRISO Fuels at Accidental Conditions | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000.00 | This project is to study the oxidation behaviors of TRISO fuels during accidental air and water vapor ingress conditions. The work focuses on the oxidation and burn-off of the graphite fuel matrix and oxidation of the TRISO fuel SiC layer at high-temperature accidental states in the presence of air and/or water vapor. It will include both unirradiated and irradiated graphite fuel matrix and simulated fuel particles with the SiC layer. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 19-16987: Novel miniature creep tester for virgin and neutron irradiated clad alloys with benchmarked multiscale modeling and simulations | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | This project will develop a miniature creep machine to collect rapid thermal creep and load relaxation data for two selected ferritic alloys under "as-received" and irradiated conditions. Fast and accurate measurements of creep deformation are essential for qualifying new alloys for long term use in current and next generation reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17150: Speciation and Behavior of Neptunium and Zirconium in Advanced Separation Process | Oregon State University | $800,000 | This project will further develop the understanding of nuclear fuel reprocessing using Co-Decontamination (CoDCon). Radiolytic degradation products of tributylphosphate, nitric acid, redox buffer, masking agent, and water greatly affect the redox speciation, complexation and partitioning of the recycled metals. Fundamental understanding of chemical speciation and partitioning of Neptunium and Zerconium under such conditions is required. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17395: Modeling and Uncertainty Analysis of MSR Nuclear Material Accounting Methods for Nuclear Safeguards | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | This project will model and analyze the limits of detection for the diversion of nuclear materials from a molten salt reactor (MSR) fuel cycle. MSR depletion under a range of uranium and/or plutonium diversion to quantify the resulting differences in salt composition will be evaluated. Sensors will also be investigated to quantify fuel salt contents and correlate the outputs with the reactor models to predict diversion detection. Results will be coupled with robust uncertainty analysis to determine limits of detection. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16583: Neutron Radiation Effect on Diffusion between Zr (and Zircaloy) and Cr for Accurate Lifetime Prediction of ATF | The Ohio State University | $499,997 | This project will perform systematic diffusion studies on both neutron-irradiated and unirradiated accident tolerant fuel samples to obtain precise diffusion coefficients. This will result in a precise evaluation of the pure neutron irradiation effect on diffusion in these systems and enable accurate life prediction of the accident tolerant fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17381: High Throughput Assessment of Creep Behavior of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Structural Alloys by Nano/microindentation | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $800,000 | This project will develop a high throughput assessment of creep behavior of advanced nuclear reactor structural alloys by nano/microindentation. Experimental datasets will inform polycrystalline deformation models to predict material response over a variety of creep conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16549: Thermal Conductivity Measurement of Irradiated Metallic Fuel Using TREAT | University of Pittsburgh | $500,000 | This project intends to provide accurate thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity data with microstructure characterization of metallic (U-Pu-Zr) fuel as a function of burnup and attain fundamental understanding of the thermal conductivity of the irradiated fuel to inform and validate computational models. This will be accomplished using an innovative thermal wave technique in the Transient Reactor Test Facility at the Idaho National Laboratory, with the Minimal Activation Reusable Capsule Holder. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17002: Remote Laser-based Nondestructive Evaluation for Post-Irradiation Examination of ATF Cladding | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | To enable advanced nondestructive characterization techniques for light water reactor fuels that can be applied to the cladding coating, a remote nondestructive evaluation post irradiation inspection approach will be developed. This technique will measure the cladding coating layer thickness and detect defects within the cladding such as corrosion, micro-cracking and delamination. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17276: Radiation-Induced Swelling in Advanced Nuclear Fuel | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,989 | The microstructural evolution of advanced fuel (uranium carbide and uranium nitride) under fission-fragment type radiation has not been studied and remains unclear. This project will utilize advanced synchrotron X-ray characterization using microgram samples to obtain detailed nanoscale information on radiation-induced volumetric swelling and microstrain. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16848: Metal-Functionalized Membranes for Radioiodine Capture | University of Utah | $799,031 | This proposed research will investigate high-surface area (>300 m2/g) metal-functionalized membranes. These novel chemically durable and mechanically robust membranes are formed using an aqueous fabrication process, which results in an interconnected porosity that is highly controllable, providing hierarchical structures ranging from the nano- to micrometer-scales. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17350: Development and Experimental Validation of Pitting and SCC Models for Welded Stainless Steel Dry Storage Containers Exposed to Atmospheric Environments | University of Virginia | $799,027 | The specific goals of this project are to: (a) validate the maximum pit size model for dry storage canister relevant corrosion conditions as well as quantifying the effects of limited cathodic current on stress corrosion cracking (SCC) kinetics, (b) demonstrate a means to quantitatively rank the risk of SCC based on measurable parameters, (c) perform probabilistic predictions of SCC growth, and (d) validate the model predictions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16879: Proactive Hybrid Nuclear with Load Forecasting | Brigham Young University | $799,933 | This project develops new capabilities of design and dispatch optimization of nuclear hybrid energy systems (NHES) in the "Risk Analysis Virtual Environment (RAVEN)" modelling software. Blended (physics-based and data-driven) machine learning will be applied to forecast demand and production of thermal and electrical loads. Two experimental case studies are proposed to test the software developments with a lab-scale thermal energy storage and with a large district energy system. As a final step, the software developments will be generalized to other NHES. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17461: Development and Evaluation of Neutron Thermalization Integral Benchmarks for Advanced Reactor Applications | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | This project will develop integral benchmarks that aim to examine thermal neutron scattering data for graphite (ideal and nuclear), light water, and molten salt. The benchmark evaluations will be contributed to the International Handbook of Evaluated Reactor Physics Benchmark Experiments (IRPhEP) database. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17219: Using Integral Benchmark Experiments to Improve Differential Nuclear Data Evaluations | University of New Mexico | $400,000 | This project will use the results of integral benchmark experiment to inform differential nuclear data evaluations and improve the predictive capability of modeling and simulation (M&S) tools. This goal will be accomplished by developing capabilities to assess the sensitivity of integral benchmark results to evaluated nuclear data parameters, and by using data assimilation tools to directly adjust the evaluated data parameters and improve the accuracy of M&S tools. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16743: Paths Forward for Nuclear Energy: Using a Nationwide Post-Stratified Hierarchical Model to Facilitate Matching of New Nuclear Technologies to Receptive Host Communities | University of Oklahoma | $390,393 | This project will enable deployment of advanced nuclear technologies by developing a model, and an accompanying web-based tool that can be utilized by technology entrepreneurs, that identifies public support for siting new nuclear technologies at very local spatial scales across the US. The model will employ hierarchically structured, post stratified analysis of the largest US pooled-time series dataset on geocoded public support for nuclear technologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16995: A Cyber-Attack Detection Platform for Cyber Security of Digital Instrumentation and Control Systems | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,995 | The proposed research will develop a robust cyber-attack detection system (CADS) for monitoring digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems. The project will develop a robust research tool for evaluating cyber defense of digital I&C systems and provide a framework for a cyber-attack detection system that provides continuous assurance of the security of digital I&C systems in nuclear power plants (NPPs). | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17327: Multi-Timescale Nuclear-Renewable Hybrid Energy Systems Operations to Improve Electricity System Resilience, Reliability, and Economic Efficiency | University of Texas at Dallas | $800,000 | The overarching objective of this project is to develop a multi-timescale nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (N-R HESs) operations framework to provide different types of grid products. The project will model and analyze the capabilities of N-R HESs to provide power grid services at different timescales ranging from seconds to days, such as day-ahead unit commitment, flexible ramping (5-45 minutes), regulation reserves (1-5 minutes), and frequency response (less than seconds). | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17192: The Design and Investigation of Novel Mechanical Filters for Molten Salt Reactors | Abilene Christian University | $762,246 | Researchers will develop a novel mechanical filtration system. The project will include the collection of filter media performance data and filter regeneration performance data for a novel sintered nickel-based filter prototype. The project will also provide a filter design that facilitates remote filter removal, cooling, replacement, and assay of fissile material hold-up in the filter media. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16980: Determining the Effects of Neutron Irradiation on the Structural Integrity of Additively Manufactured Heat Exchangers for Very Small Modular Reactor Applications | Auburn University | $400,000 | Researchers will determine how to best use laser-powder bed fusion additive manufacturing methods for generating radiation-resistant channel/pore-embedded structures from Inconel (alloy 625 or 718) nickel-based superalloys for special purpose reactor (i.e. very small modular reactor) heat exchangers. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17413: Validated, Multi-Scale Molecular Dynamics Simulations to Predict the Thermophysical Properties of Molten Salts Containing Fuel, Fission, and Corrosion Products | Brigham Young University | $798,291 | Researchers will use first principles molecular dynamics (FPMD) simulations on molten salts containing impurities including fuel, fission products, and corrosion products. These will be used to develop a classical molecular dynamics (CMD) potential. CMD will then be used to predict properties for a wide variety of salt compositions and temperatures, and physical property measurements will be performed to validate those predictions. Property correlations will be developed from this data. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17183: Mixing of helium with air in reactor cavities following a pipe break in HTGRs | City College of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct separate effects tests to obtain experimental validation data on mixing of helium and air in reactor building cavities during and after blowdown in HTGRs. Air and helium concentrations, and gas mixture velocity and temperature fields will be measured in simulated reactor cavities. An existing helium flow loop will be used as the source of high pressure/high temperature helium for injection into the cavities and different break configurations will be experimentally investigated. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16391: GuArDIAN: General Active Sensing for conDItion AssessmeNt | Duke University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a dependable, autonomous or semi-autonomous (i.e. low human involvement), and minimally disruptive framework for monitoring equipment and components in nuclear reactors. The project will develop GUARDIAN; a robust active sensing framework through the integration of model-based inference and mobile actuating/sensing robots. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17251: Measuring Mechanical Properties of Select Layers and Layer Interfaces of TRISO Particles via Micromachining and In-Microscope Tensile Testing | Idaho State University | $799,815 | Researchers will characterize the strength of TRISO-coated particle layers and interfaces using FIB micro-machining and in-TEM tensile testing. Tensile test samples from coating layers of (1) unirradiated surrogate (fuel) TRISO particles, (2) unirradiated fueled TRISO particles and (3) irradiated fueled TRISO particles will be studied. Results of this project will both benefit and leverage the AGR Program. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17185: Demonstrating Reactor Autonomous Control Framework using Graphite Exponential Pile | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will demonstrate a detection-prediction-feedback framework for nuclear system autonomous control. It will adopt multiple detector channels to enable control feedback to spatially dependent perturbations. It will also utilize high-fidelity solutions trained surrogate models for real-time prediction and decision-making. In addition to the method development, the proposal will entail a first-of-a-kind engineering demonstration using the MIT Graphite Exponential Pile (MGEP). | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16754: Simultaneous Corrosion/Irradiation Testing in Lead and Lead-Bismuth Eutectic: The Radiation Decelerated Corrosion Hypothesis | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $762,823 | Researchers will test candidate FeCrSi and F/M alloys in a new, simultaneous corrosion/radiation facility to try to identify an alloy that will satisfy all requirements for Lead Fast Reactor structural materials. Microstructural characterization, mechanical property testing, and corrosion tests, both during irradiation and following ion/He pre-conditioning, will assess how irradiation affects corrosion, potentially slowing it. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17173: Ni-based ODS alloys for Molten Salt Reactors | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | The objective of this work is to (i) propose and develop a new Nickel (Ni) based Oxide Dispersion-Strengthened (ODS) alloy that can be used for structural applications in Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) and other nuclear reactor harsh environments, (ii) to demonstrate that its high temperature mechanical properties are adequate for MSR operating temperatures, (iii) to demonstrate its radiation damage resistance through ion irradiation testing and (iv) to demonstrate its improved corrosion resistance in MSR environment. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17037: Investigation of HTGR Reactor Building Response to a Break in Primary Coolant Boundary | Purdue University | $799,832 | Researchers will perform a series of experiments to simulate HTGR reactor building response due to a break in the primary coolant boundary in a well-scaled test facility to obtain spatial distribution of oxygen concentration, perform analysis of the whole system response with 1-D thermal hydraulics codes and use CFD to make detailed localized predictions. The tests will be carried out with different locations and sizes of the breaks to create various vent and flow paths in the reactor cavity. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17093: Integrating Multi-modal Microscopy Techniques and the MOSAIC Simulation Environment to Assess Changes in the Physical Properties and Chemical Durability of Concrete Following Radiation Exposure | University of California, Los Angeles | $800,000 | Researchers will develop unprecedented multi-modal imaging methodologies that integrate multiple microscopy techniques. The team will develop a generalizable protocol for quantifying the changes in physical properties and chemical durability of concrete and concrete constituents (minerals and aggregates) following radiation exposure. The imaging analyses will be input into the MOSAIC framework to reveal the nature and extent of degradation that is expected to result. The outcomes offer insights that are needed to enable and inform second license renewals. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17167: Atomistically Informed and Experimentally Validated Model for Helium Bubble Growth in Welded Irradiated Metals | University of Florida | $797,861 | Researchers will construct a validated computational model for He bubble growth on grain boundaries in irradiated Fe-Ni-Cr microstructures, including intergranular fracture, as a function of material conditions and welding heat input. This model will be based on the phase-field methodology, leveraging numerical solvers in the MOOSE simulation platform, with critical inputs and validation provided by both atomic-level simulations and experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16909: Learning-based Computational Study of the Thermodynamic, Structural, and Dynamic Properties of Molten Salts at the Atomic and Electronic Scale and Experimental Validations | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will obtain the thermophysical, thermochemical, and transport properties, construct the phase diagrams, and build empirical physical models of molten salts that are relevant to Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) with first-principles accuracy using molecular dynamics simulations driven by machine-learned high-dimensional neural network potentials combined with neutron/X-ray scattering and thermodynamic experimental validations. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16298: I-PRA Decision-Making Algorithm and Computational Platform to Develop Safe and Cost-Effective Strategies for the Deployment of New Technologies | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an integrated probabilistic risk assessment decision-making algorithm to support risk-and-cost-informed decision-making related to the deployment of new technologies. The project will enhance the financial analysis module and the challenging interface of social and technical systems to advance the algorithm. The project will conduct a case study for evaluating the safety impact and cost-effectiveness of FLEX strategies to support operational flexibility. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16802: Evaluation of Semi-Autonomous Passive Control Systems for HTGR Type Special Purpose Reactors | University of Michigan | $400,000 | Researchers will investigate the use of variable flow controllers and a variable reflector as passive or semi-autonomous reactivity control mechanisms for multi-module HTGR type special purpose reactors. This applies to the commercially developed special purpose reactor concepts from HolosGen. The incorporation of these systems will reduce the movable parts count and enable more robust load follow capabilities over broader power ranges and local and global reactivity control. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17467: Understanding the Speciation and Molecular Structure of Molten Salts Using Laboratory and Synchrotron based In Situ Experimental Techniques and Predictive Modeling | University of Nevada, Reno | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology to accurately determine the structure and speciation of the molten salt electrolyte using laboratory-based spectroscopic techniques (Raman and UV-Vis-NIR) and synchrotron-based (scattering and absorption) techniques, in combination with computational modeling. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17231: Prevention of Common Fault-Trigger Combinations for Qualification of Digital Instrumentation and Control Technology | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will provide an effective design evaluation approach based on prevention of concurrent triggering conditions to eliminate common-cause failures (CCF) and enable qualification of digital I&C technology for application in nuclear plant modernization. The research involves classifying commonality among digital devices, categorizing faults and triggering conditions, determining fault-trigger relationships, and defining preventive design measures to resolve the potential for CCF. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17087: Economic Risk-Informed Maintenance Planning and Asset Management | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will provide a holistic framework for cost-minimizing risk-informed maintenance planning, including inspection. They will develop a two-tier framework that coarsely minimizes the total maintenance cost during the remaining normal operating cycle and uses the outputs of the first model to maximize the financial impact of these activities in the short term. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16811: Liquid Metal-cooled Fast Reactor Instrumentation Technology Development | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will explore three different areas that will help to improve commercialization of SFRs and to aid in testing for the VTR. These include: 1. Advancement in understanding of low prandtl number heat transfer 2. Testing of compact heat exchangers for use with sodium 3. Development of in pool submersible flow meters. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16954: Innovative In-Situ Analysis and Quantification of Corrosion and Erosion of 316 Stainless Steel in Molten Chloride Salt Flow Loops | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will use a thin-layer activation technique for the first time in molten salts, on 316H samples placed in natural convection and forced flow loops. The individual and synergistic effects of corrosion, irradiation and thermo-mechanical treatments will be evaluated in-situ to predict component service lifetimes and design limits. The effects of molten chloride flow velocity will also be assessed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17168: Fuel Salt Sampling and Enriching System Technology Development | Vanderbilt University | $799,989 | Researchers will combine insights from the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment with decades of advancements in applicable technologies into an enhanced Sampler Enricher (SE) concept to develop and test a flexible, reliable, and workable design. The prototype will then be tested in an existing salt loop. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16739: Improvements of Nuclear Data Evaluations for Lead Isotopes in Support of Next Generation Lead-Cooled Fast Systems | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | The objective of this project is to improve the accuracy of neutronics simulation of lead-based systems by improving the nuclear data of lead isotopes. The nuclear data for lead will be reevaluated with emphasis of the intermediate and fast energy regions that are required by reactor applications currently sought by several industrial entities. The deliverables of this project are new lead isotopes evaluations that will be candidates for inclusion in a future Evaluated Nuclear Data Library (ENDF) release. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 20-19373: Connecting Advanced High-Temperature X-ray and Raman Spectroscopy Structure/Dynamics Insights to High-Throughput Property Measurements | Boston University | $500,000 | Researchers will acquire molten salt structure and dynamics data at high-temperatures using high-energy x-ray techniques and Raman spectroscopy and relate them to their physical and chemical properties. High-throughput techniques will be developed to rapidly measure multiple high-temperature properties at one time. An understanding of the relationship of salt structure and dynamics to its properties will help to select and optimize melt chemistry in molten salt reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19371: Adsorption and Reduction of Uranium in Engineered Barrier Systems: Effects of Iron and Heat | California State University, East Bay | $800,000 | Reseachers will investigate uranium sorption and abiotic reduction processes in iron-rich montmorillonite systems as a function of solution chemistry and temperature. The team will develop a surface complexation model that can account for both uranium adsorption and reduction, and hence reduce the uncertainties associated with uranium mobility in iron-rich environments with engineering barrier systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19831: Optimizing Melt Processed Phosphate Glass Waste Forms via Composition-Property-Structure Correlations | Clemson University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and optimize highly durable and easily processable phosphate-based glass waste forms to immobilize the dehalogenated salt streams by tailoring the composition of the glasses. To complement the work conducted on glass waste forms at the national laboratories sponsored by the DOE-NE program, modified iron phosphate glass waste forms will be prepared and evaluated by the introduction of various glass modifiers (SnF2 and BaO) to the prototype glass compositions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19695: Quantifying radionuclide sorption to engineered barrier materials under elevated temperature and ionic strength conditions | Clemson University | $799,380 | Researchers will characterize actinide sorption to mineral surfaces and examine possible mechanisms of sorption at high temperature/ionic strength through examination of the effects of hydration and hydrolysis on actinide sorption. These data will provide an understanding of radionuclide behavior with engineered barrier materials. A greater understanding of these processes will reduce the uncertainty in strategies for sequestration of radionuclide bearing wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19789: Controlling Neptunium and Zirconium in Advanced Extraction Processes | Colorado School of Mines | $599,763 | Researchers will address continuing issues with separating neptunium and zironium in current separation techniques. They will use coupled optical and x-ray specroscopy, small angle scattering, equilibrium thermodynamics and chemical analysis to understand fundamental molecular-level behaviors of extracted Np and Zr. These techniques, using world-class irradiation facilities, will elucidate the specific chemistries underlying the problematic behavior in Np and Zr in radiation fields. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19660: Linear and nonlinear guided ultrasonic waves to characterize cladding of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researcherses will perform a combination of linear and nonlinear guided ultrasonic waves, integrated with new material behavior models to develop a non-destructive evaluation (NDE) approach for both quality control/quality assurance and in-service NDE characterization of the cladding integrity and bond strength. Current NDE techniques are effective for uncoated designs, but these coated fuels add new challenges, which will be addressed by this new approach. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19678: Flexible Hard Ceramic Coatings by Ultrasonic Spray Mist-CVD for Dry Storage Canisters of Spent Nuclear Fuel and Waste | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop advanced flexible hard ceramic coatings using ultrasonic spray mist-chemical vapor deposition technique manufacturing process to deposit on dry storage canisters. The team will test resistance to corrosion, heat, wear and hydrogen permeation thgourh microstructural characterization and material property evaluation. The ultimate goal is to enhance the long term reliability of spent nuclear fuel dry storage canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19797: High Throughput Computational Platform for Predictive Modeling of Thermochemical and Thermophysical Properties of Fluoride Molten Salts | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | Researchers will (1) develop an open-source high throughput (H-T) computational platform to understand, predict, and evaluate thermochemical and thermophysical properties of molten salts as demonstrated in the F-(K-Li-Na)-(Cr-Fe)-U system and (2) provide H-T approaches (CALPHAD modeling and AIMD simulations) and open-source codes together with thermodynamic models of molten salts and public-accessible databases verified by targeted experiments for the molten salt research community. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19627: Chemical Interaction and Compatibility of Uranium Nitride with Liquid Pb and Alumina-forming Austenitic Alloys | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | Researcherswill address critical issues with the compatibility and chemcial interations of uranium nitride fuel, alumina-forming austenitic alloys and lead coolants/sublayers. They will obtain critical data of fuel-coolant-cladding interactions and compatibility to evaluate key parameters of operation temperature, fuel impurities and coolant chemistry. This data will provide key operation windows and parameters for deployment of lead-cooled fast reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19924: First-principles free energies by hybrid thermodynamic integration for phase equilibria and fission product solubility in molten salts | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | Researchers will predict phase equilibria and solubility of fission products in molten salts using a novel hybrid framework for thermodynamic integration combining first-principles, molecular dynamics and continuum methods to calculate free energies. They will be benchmarked using Bayesian-targeted calorimetric, in-situ diffraction and spectroscopic experiments. The project will provide microscopic insights and quantitative parameters necessary for reliable thermophysical modeling of molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19939: Gallium Oxide Schottky Diode Detectors for Measurement of Actinide Concentrations from Measured Alpha Activities in Molten Salts | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and test, to high temperatures, a Schottky diode alpha particle detector that is based on the rapidly emerging ultrawide band gap semiconductor material gallium oxide. Ga2O3 Schottky diode detectors offer the potential of detecting alpha particles at high temperatures, with better resolution than SiC Schottky diode detectors, which the team has previously developed for similar purposes. These detectors could be used in pyrochemical processing streams and molten salt reactors with potential application in other reactor concepts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19966: Evaluating hydroxypyridinone-based ligands for actinide and fission products recovery in used fuels | University of California, Berkeley | $600,000 | Researchers will pursue novel chemical separation approaches for advanced reactor used fuels treatments and recycling, by leveraging the unique actinide and lanthanide coordination properties of hydroxypyridinone-based aqueous chelators. These chelators have not been tested in extreme conditions and this work would test potential process performance with a focus on radiation-induced changes and oxidation state distribution. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19545: Femtosecond Laser Ablation Machining & Examination - Center for Active Materials Processing (FLAME-CAMP) | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop, build, and test a femtosecond laser ablation machining & examination tool that can be deployed in a hot cell environment enabling microscopy sample fabrication, isotope and elemental analysis, and thermal analysis. The technology allows for non-contact materials processing, even through glass windows, potentially preventing contamination of surrounding areas and tools. Such a multi-function tool with high throughput material processing will accelerate the research on fuel and cladding tremendously. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19198: Functionalized clay buffer materials for the long-term sequestration of technetium and iodine | University of Florida | $800,000 | Researcherswill develop synthesize, test, and model novel functionalized clay buffer materials for the long-term sequestration of iodine and technetium. The project will also focus on key experimantal parameters and modeling of how the novel clay buffer material will sequester iodine and technetium species. Novel materials will support DOE's efforts to design improved geologic repository barrier systems and optimize repository performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19209: Investigation on multicomponent solubility in LiCl-KCl eutectic chloride salts using combinatorial approach | University of Idaho | $400,000 | Researchers will perform irradiation experiments to understand how gamma radiation changes trivalent metal ion complex coordination structure and extraction characteristics during the ALSEP process. This work will focus on understanding the types of degradation products that are formed during the extraction process and what effects these degradation products have on process performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19713: Multifunctional Laser Processing for Repair and Mitigation of Pitting and Cracks in Welded Stainless Steel Dry Storage Canisters | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a strategic solution that combines laser cleaning and laser peening for removal of surface contamination and mitigation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in welded stainless steels. Laser cleanning will remove surface contamination and reduce pitting caused by corrosion. Laser peening will then be used to mitigate stress corrosion cracking and provide enhanced corrosion resistance. The portability of the laser system means the system will be able to be deployed in the field. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19188: Single- and Polycrystalline Diamond Electrodes for Spectroelectrochemical Characterization of Various Molten Salts | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $600,000 | Researchers will develop optically transparent electrodes for spectroelectrochemical measurements in chloride- and fluoride-based radioactive molten salts. The primary electrode material will be boron-doped diamond. Measurements will elucidate important electrochemical properties of nuclear fuel and fission products such as redox potential, diffusion coefficient, and electron transfer stoichiometry. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19641: Mitigating stress corrosion cracking in austenitic stainless-steel canister welds using peening techniques | University of Nevada, Reno | $799,950 | Researchers seek to understand the mechanisms of pitting/SCC resistance of welds as affected by a) compressive stress b) surface texture modification and c) microstructural change in the substrate surface resulting from laser shock peening, shot peening, ultrasonic impact peening and laser surface texturing. The study will recommend the best peening and surface texturing process conditions for mitigation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in 304L welds. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19704: Multicomponent Thermochemistry of Complex Chloride Salts for Sustain-able Fuel Cycle Technologies | University of Pittsburgh | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive thermodynamic database of multicomponent chloride salts through a collaboration between experts in Gibbs energy modeling and thermochemical experiments. A thermochemical database of the multicomponent chloride system KCl-LiCl-NaCl-UCl3-LnCl3 (Ln: La, Pr, Nd) will be developed using the CALPHAD (Calculation of Phase Diagrams) method with supported ab initio calculations and thermal analysis experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19506: Engineered composite patch with NDE inspection for repair and mitigation of SCC in nuclear spent fuel dry storage canister | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an innovative 'engineered composite patch' that can absorb moisture, neutralize chloride, and prevent stress corrosion cracking from further growth. This 'patch' with have in integrated non-destructive evaluation capability using laser utrasonic characterization methods to montior quality and performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19374: Maintaining and building upon the Halden legacy of In-situ diagnostics | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will develop innovative instrumentation focusing on temperature and strain measurements to fill the void left by the Halden reactor and to enhance the experimental capabilities in the Transient Reactor Test Facility (TREAT) located at Idaho National Laboratory. The team will develop a fiber optic sensor system that offers an inherent resistance to electromagnetic interference unlike currently used sensors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19076: Investigation of Degradation Mechanisms of Cr-coated Zirconium Alloy Cladding in Reactivity Initiated Accidents (RIA) | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $500,000 | Researchers will investigate the thermal, mechanical, and irradiation response of chromium-coated zirconium alloy claddings under RIA conditions, in comparison to uncoated Zr-alloy cladding. The outcome of the project will be used for anticipated licensing applications to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), thereby accelerating use of coated accident tolerant fuel concepts in U.S. commercial power reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19318: Surface Peening and Hybrid Surface Engineering Approaches to Mitigate Initiation and Resurgence of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dry Cask Storage Stainless Steel Canisters | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,838 | Researchers will develop and evaluate a wide range of surface peening treatments, as well as hybrid surface treatments to mitigate initiation and growth of chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) in stainless-steel canisters for used nuclear fuel (UNF) dry cask storage. Canister mock-ups with prototypical fusion welds will be used for this study. Characterization and testing of microstructure, compressive stresses, corrosion and CISCC will be performed. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19614: New Coatings for Nuclear Fuel Waste Canister Storage and Transport | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop novel SiOCN(H) coatings for spent nuclear fuel canisters in order to support sustained nuclear reactor operation and safeguard nuclear waste storage, transport, and disposal, in both terrestrial and marine environments. The novel coating will specifically address pitting corrosion and stress corrosion cracking in spent nuclear fuel canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19382: Separated waste stream immobilization of iodine and offgas caustic scrubber solution | Washington State University | $400,000 | Researchers will produce a set of waste forms from separation of iodine from the caustic offgas scrubber solution. The primary caustic scrub containing iodine, halides, and carbonate will be immobilized in a glass-bonded composite of cancrinite/sodalite. The iodine-loaded silver sorbent will be stripped of iodine, converted to NaI, and immobilized into a separate durable glass-bonded iodosodalite waste form. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19912: Validation of Robustness in TCR Design Strategies | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will perform sensitivity analysis (SA) and uncertainty quantification (UQ) of TCR design parameters and relevant physical phenomena, using open-source time dependent Monte-Carlo code (OpenMC), NQA1 qualified commercial codes (STARCCM+), and ABAQUS for thermal-hydraulics and structural mechanics. The SA/UQ analysis will provide key insights to allow for development of performance metrics of robustness for autonomous operation sensors, by processing signals such as neutron flux, temperature and strains, as wll as inform the needed robustness for AI by enveloping the attainable level of decision making by the software. | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 | |
| NEUP Project 20-19216: Creation of Multiple Effect Evaporator and Combined Cycle Modelica Modules, and Optimization of Potable Water Generation from Saltwater Sources | North Carolina State University | $498,532 | Researchers will develop models of Multiple Effect Evaporators and Combined Cycle Gas Turbine systems to be used within the Modelica framework, with an end goal of creating an energy park that can supply its own energy and water through Small Modular Reactor nuclear systems and/or Combined Cycle Gas Turbine Systems with brackish to brine water sources. These same models will be capable of being implemented into larger models of grid independent and near independent energy parks located about military bases, large manufacturing facilities, and in small communities where freshwater is limited. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19590: Benchmark Evaluation of Transient Multi-Physics Experimental Data for Pellet Cladding Mechanical Interactions | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop an integral benchmark evaluation based on available experimental data from cold ramp tests performed at the Studsvik testing R2 reactor. Transient multiphysics benchmark evaluations are needed to support validation of the NEAMS ToolKit and the VERA suite. This research will focus on pellet cladding interaction and pellet cladding mechanical interaction and their associated events. The benchmark will be prepared for inclusion in the IRPhEP handbook. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19837: Reinforcement Learning Validation Framework for Quality Assurance of AI-guided Additive Manufacturing Digital Platforms | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will address the need to qualify the risk associated with AM fabricated nuclear reactor parts by incorporating a novel rendition of a well-established artificial intelligence learning strategy, the multi-armed bandit reinforcement learning (RL). The RL framework will be developed and demonstrated using TCR data and its associated digital platform. This research will assimilate in-process sensor data and physics-based simulation data to calculate risk measures in the form of failure probabilities for the AM parts. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19363: Integrated Solar & Nuclear Cogeneration of Electricity & Water using the sCO2 Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,427 | Researchers will design and model a renewable, nuclear Integrated Energy System (IES), compatible with the RAVEN/Modelica framework, for co-generation of cost competitive electricity and clean water. The components of the IES to be included are concentrated solar power, the supercritical CO2/sCO2 cyle, multi-effect distillation, and the lead-cooled fast reactor. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19066: Engineering-Informed, Data-Driven Degradation Modeling, Prognostics and Control for Radiation-induced Void Swelling in Reactor Steels | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will advance the capability to model, predict and control void swelling in irradiated structural components through developing engineering-informed, advanced data-driven statistical and machine learning techniques. Excess swelling not only leads to dimensional instability, but also can cause severe embrittlement of internal materials. The proposed efforts will ensure more effective regulation, aging management and license renewal. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19795: A High-Fidelity Novel and Fast Multigroup Cross Section Generation Method for Arbitrary Geometry and Spectrum | Georgia Institute of Technology | $600,000 | Researchers will develop a fast high-fidelity multigroup cross section generation method for arbitrary geometry configurations and energy spectra by developing a response-based high order perturbation method to perform hybrid stochastic-deterministic local transport calculations. The proposed method will be implemented as independent modules that can be easily embedded into any neutron transport or diffusion code and also be used as a standalone cross section generator. The modules will provide data that can interface with the associated NEAMS toolkit and workbench user interfaces to enable advanced neutronics tools that will perform high-fidelity multigroup multiphysics steady-state and transient calculations that capture and represent the complex resonance interactions and core environmental effects which exist in heterogeneous reactors, including advanced reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19968: Experimental Investigations and Numerical Modeling of Near-wall and Core Bypass Flows in Pebble Bed Reactors | Texas A&M University | $600,000 | Researchers will establish a highly coordinated, concurrent experimental and computational effort combining high-resolution turbulence simulations (including Nek5000, Star-CCM+) and experiments to deepen physical understanding and address long standing modeling inaccuracies related to near wall and bypass flow effects in pebble bed reactors. The project's acquired extensive database will be used to derive closure models and correlations needed for porous media code, such as Pronghorn. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19864: Development of innovative overlapping-domain coupling between SAM and NEK5000 | University of Michigan | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a robust, multi-scale coupling scheme between the SAM code and the CFD code, NEK5000, based on a novel overlapping domain approach. The developed coupling will be validated by using experiments specifically designed for the validation of multi-scale coupled codes. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-20074: Characterization of Plenum to Plenum Natural Circulation flows in a High Temperature Gas Reactor (HTGR) | CUNY, City College of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will obtain and provide experimental data on the plenum-to-plenum natural circulation flows in a typical high temperature gas reactor using helium and nitrogen over a wide range of temperatures and pressures to simulate natural circulation under both pressurized and depressurized conduction cooldown scenarios. The results of the project will yield new data and complement other very high temperature related studies. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19042: Flexible Siting Criteria and Staff Minimization for Micro-Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $440,517 | Researchers will develop siting criteria that are tailored to micro-reactors deployable in densely-populated areas by comparing the characteristics of the MIT research reactor with those of leading micro-reactor concepts, and evaluate whether and how the MIT research reactor design basis and associated regulations are applicable to micro-reactors. A model of operations for micro-reactors that would minimize the staffing requirements will also be conceptualized. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-20045: Highly Compact Steam Generators for Improved Economics of Small Modular Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will design and build a compact steam generator (CSG) test section that can be easily modified for different flow paths and geometries, as well as modify an existing loop to accept the test section. The conceptual optimized CSG system design, which could be deployed in small modular reactors, will be informed by CFD simulations to determine critical characteristics of the test section. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19205: Robust bullet-time tagging and tracking system based on computer vision for individual ex-core TRISO-fueled pebble identification | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a novel, validated, robust bullet-time tagging and tracking system, based on computer vision techniques, to tag and track each individual pebble in pebble bed reactors. The effort will utilize Residence Time Distribution and Radioactive Particle Tracking techniques to validate and refine the developed method, using a continuous cold flow pebble bed experimental setup. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19625: Corrosion Sensitivity of Stainless Steels in Pressurized Water Reactor Water Chemistry: Can KOH replace LiOH in PWRs? | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will perform a series of corrosion and stress corrosion tests on unirradiated alloys to determine the possibility of switching from LiOH to KOH to control the pH in nuclear reactors without worsening the corrosion behavior of the structural alloys used in pressurized water reactor core internal components. The impacts of such a change and the consequent water chemistry alterations on the corrosion processes and nucleaer power plant core-internal component service-life will be assessed and better understood. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19735: Experiments for Modeling and Validation of Liquid-Metal Heat Pipe Simulation Tools for Micro-Reactor | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will produce validation data for the heat pipe code, Sockeye, by measuring the internal thermal-hydraulic parameters of a single-heat pipe and the performance of an integrated multi-heat-pipe system in various operation scenarios. The results of this project will generate more liquid metal heat pipe validation data, which is currently lacking and needed to support micro-reactor design and licensing activities. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19367: Investigation of Novel Nickel-Based Alloys for Molten Chloride Fast Reactor Structural Applications | University of Cincinnati | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate and establish the scientific foundations for the development of promising Ni-Mo-W-Cr-Al-X alloys with a superior balance of properties compared to current materials for high temperature structural applications in molten chloride salt fast reactors. The project couples critical experiments with a high-value integrated computational materials engineering approach. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19693: Evaluation of micro-reactor requirements and performance in an existing well-characterized micro-grid | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will evaluate the opportunities and challenges of operating micro-reactors in decentralized power generation applications and the potential for deployment in established micro-grids with diverse power generation sources. By using a well-characterized prototypic environment platform, the Modelica-based Hybrid Energy System, the market potential for deployment of micro-reactors on campuses and other similar existing micro-grids will be quantified. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19195: The effect of LWR primary coolant water chemistry (LiOH vs. KOH) on stainless steel: An integrated experimental and computational study of the corrosion response of stainless steel for different surface microstructures and mechanica | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will study the effect of surface microstructure, mechanical stress factors, and radiation damage on the corrosion response of stainless steel under two different alkaline pressurized water reactor primary water chemistry conditions. The project will involve investigation of mechanical stress factors such as strain rate, residual stress, deformation induced persistent slip bands, dpa damage, and fatigue cracks and modeling to understand the physical phenomena associated with the measured corrosion response and inform the U.S. nuclear industry regarding KOH. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19491: Identifying and prioritizing sources of uncertainty in external hazard probabilistic risk assessments | University of Maryland, College Park | $799,979 | Researchers will develop a method for identifying and prioritizing sources of uncertainty in external hazard probabilistic risk assessment for nuclear power plants, with particular emphasis on uncertainties associated with hazard characterization. External flooding wil be utilized as the demonstration hazard during this project, while a common taxonomy for communicating uncertainties across a broad range of external hazards will be created. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19737: Innovative Enhanced Automation Control Strategies for Multi-unit SMRs | University of Michigan | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an innovative, enhanced automation control framework for small modular reactors (SMRs) that supports control of multiple units operating in a variety of reactor core conditions. Through these enhancements, SMR technology gains improved marketability through potential deployment to a broader range of markets and can also lead to reduced operating and maintenance costs for a SMR site, increasing the overall profitability. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19954: Deployment Pathways of Small Modular Reactors in Electric Power, Industrial, and Other Niche Markets to Achieve Cost Reductions and Widespread Use | University of Michigan | $691,658 | Researchers will explore how to leverage two key value propositions for small modular reactors (SMR) in shifting market conditions, in order to achieve widespread market deployment: (1) participation in small and large power and industrial markets and (2) cost reductions via mass fabrication. The result of this work will be advanced power system modeling, optimized SMR design with thermal storage for power and industry markets, and new SMR deployment pathways. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19752: Development and Demonstration of Scalable Fluoride Salt Pump Seals and Bearings for FHRs | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and demonstrate scalable advanced bearings and seals of fluoride salt pumps for fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactors. The systematic approach to be used will employ both experimental and numerical methods to investigate the static and dynamic performance of fluoride-salt-lubricated bearings and high-temperature seals. The outcomes of this research will directly contribute to the reliability, safety, design, and operation of the fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactor power plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19544: A Holistic Artificial Intelligence Tool to Mitigate Human Factor Uncertainty in Operation and Maintenance | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a holistic artificial intelligence tool to help the detection and mitigation of human factors errors in nuclear power plants. The tool will increase the efficiency of various activities such as testing, inspection, data collection, and interpretation, improve operation and maintenance decision-making, and reduce costs in nuclear power plants by minimizing the impact of human factors errors and providing warnings to mitigate them, when possible. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19524: Non-Intrusive Flow Monitoring for Liquid Metal and Molten Salt Cooled Reactors | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a first-of-its kind flow monitoring system with significantly enhanced capabilities for liquid metal fast reactors and other advanced reactors, such as molten salt reactors. The flow monitoring system will involve a proven and breakthrough fiber optic sensing technology that enables the harmonic-free interrogation of thousands of grating-based distributed interferometers along an optical fiber that is integrated into a sensing pad that can readily be installed at desired locations in the flow loop. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19671: Identifying Needed Fire Input Data to Reduce Modeling Uncertainty | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,393 | Researchers will identify fire parameters that have the largest impact on fire conditions, quantify those parameters contributing to uncertainties in the fire data through Monte Carlo simulation results, and use statistical analysis and machine learning models from the simulation results to assess existing data and recommend appropriate new fire tests to reduce uncertainties that are important to risk. With this information, researchers will develop a framework capable of determining the significant contributors to uncertainty in physical events that are relevant to the risk assessment and, then, determine the need for new experiments that would be of most value to reduce risk. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 21-24394: Computer vision and machine learning for microstructural qualification | Carnegie Mellon University | $497,518 | Quantifying and understanding microstructure is a key driver for performance-based materials qualification. In this proposal, well-curated data sets of microstructural images will be gathered and computer vision and machine learning will be applied to build quantitative deep learning frameworks to accelerate and enable qualification of nuclear materials based on microstructural features. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24156: Experimental thermofluidic validation of TCR fuel elements using distributed temperature and flow sensing | Kansas State University | $798,250 | The overall goal of this project will be to test the performance of 3D printed Transformational Challenge Reactor core geometry parts using existing Helium flow loops and distributed temperature, and velocity sensing systems. Thermal transport capabilities of scaled 3D printed ceramic core will be evaluated experimentally and measurements will be used to qualify computational models. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24636: Risk-informed Consequence-driven Physical Protection System Optimization for Microreactor Sites | Texas A&M University | $400,000 | This proposed project will utilize a risk-informed, consequence-driven analysis to develop an approach for "right-sizing" physical protection systems (PPS) for microreactors. The hypothesis presented for this proposal is that the explicit coupling of consequence modeling to PPS design will provide a similar benefit that can be applied prior to reactor construction. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24131: Total Mass Accounting in Advanced Liquid Fueled Reactors | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | A total mass determination method for nuclear materials accounting (NMA) in liquid-fueled molten salt reactors will be validated with fuel-bearing salt, mixed with a _+ radioisotope of known activity, that will be irradiated to reproduce the practical NMA scenario in a molten salt loop. Irradiated fuel salt will be sampled and measured for its mass and activity. The mass-to-activity ratio will be used to calculate the unknown salt mass in the original container. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24037: Design and intelligent optimization of the thermal storage and energy distribution for the TerraPower Molten Chloride Fast Reactor in an Integrated Energy System (IES) | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to explore the application of advanced reactors within Integrated Energy Systems, use extensive existing data from UIUC for model development and validation, and extend the predictions to larger grids and commercial applications. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24522: Targeted Materials Characterization and Testing of Additively Manufactured Metals and Ceramics to Inform Print/Build Data Analytics | University of Texas at San Antonio | $800,000 | A collaborative program between the University of Texas at San Antonio and Boise State University is proposed to supply materials testing and characterization data sets to be leveraged by the TCR program to inform build/print data analytics. With the data provided by the proposing team, correlations among steam oxidation performance, micromechanical properties, chemical composition, local microstructure, and location specific print/build data will be achieved. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24431: Location-specific material characterization of LPBF SS316L & IN718 TCR core structural materials | Utah State University | $800,000 | In this proposed work, we will experimentally characterize the spatial variability of the quasi-static (tensile), creep (strength and impression), and creep-fatigue properties as well as the underlying structures (microstructure and defect structures) for LPBF SS316L and IN718 components to be used as training data to the TCR program data-driven model. The resulting correlation will be used to drive the design process for an application as TCR core structural materials. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23978: Rapid, Non-Radioactive Methods for Prediction and Quantification of Radiolytic Radical Decomposition Products in Nuclear Separations | Clemson University | $399,999 | High-throughput, non-radioactive, radical assays will be used to determine decomposition of monoamide separations complexants. Radical assay results will be correlated with classic radiolytic damage results to develop predictive models for screening complexant stability. These models will aid in single-stage separations complexant optimization, in the transition from lab- to industrial-scale nuclear waste separations and, ultimately, could yield field tests for radiolytic damage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24350: Phosphate Mineral and Glass Waste Forms for Advanced Immobilization of Chloride and Fluoride-based Waste Streams | Clemson University | $600,000 | This proposal is intended to develop three waste form options for immobilizing the fluoride- and chloride-salt waste stream in highly durable and easily processable phosphate minerals and glasses, including phosphate apatite ceramic waste forms, phosphate glass waste forms, and phosphate glass-ceramic waste forms with apatite phase. Multiple monolithic waste form samples will be provided to DOE national laboratories for further testing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24292: Passive multimodal tomography for dry storage casks imaging using passive neutron and gamma dosimetry and cosmic ray muons | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | A method for multimodal tomography of dry storage casks will be developed to determine fuel relocation and cladding failures using passive neutrons and gamma emissions in combination with cosmic ray muons. The use of multimodal imaging will allow 3-D reconstructions of the dry storage cask that would be unachievable with any single radiation source. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24374: Effects of Radiolysis on Pertechnetate under Solvent Extraction Conditions, including Tri-Butyl Phosphate | CUNY, Hunter College | $399,624 | The overarching objective of the proposed work is to assess the impact of radiolysis on pertechnetate speciation during tri-butylphosphate (TBP) solvent extractions from the molecular level to macroscale. The research in this project is designed to understand the interplay of radiolysis, degradation product formation, other important redox active metals, and oxidation states of technetium on its speciation and distribution coefficients in solvent extraction processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24183: Experimental investigation and development of models and correlations for cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena in transient conditions in support of TREAT and the LWR fleet. | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Thermal-hydraulics transient heat transfer phenomena of relevance for the safety and the operation of the TREAT and light water reactors will be investigated. The performance of accident tolerant fuel materials during a reactivity initiated accident scenario and post-critical heat flux and reflood scenarios will be elucidated, as well as the development of models and correlations to be integrated into computational tools for the design and safety analysis of nuclear systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24666: Wireless Multifunctional Ultrasonic Arrays with Interdigital and Airborne Transducers for Monitoring Leakage and Corrosion Conditions of Welded Dry Storage Canisters | Mississippi State University | $800,000 | This project aims to develop and validate wireless, multifunctional, ultrasonic sensor arrays that enable on-demand, quantitative interrogation and real-time monitoring of both the canister leakage indicators (helium, helium/air mixture, internal pressure, and temperature) and corrosion conditions (free and/or vapor water). The developed arrays will be fully functional, wirelessly powered and communicated, and compact. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24188: Uranium recovery from used nuclear fuel using metal sulfides | Northwestern University | $400,000 | An alternative and original method to recover uranium from spent fuel is proposed. This method will utilize a new type of regenerable sorbent materials with high selectivity in capturing uranium from complex mixtures in acidic solutions, such as those found in used nuclear fuel of high-assay low-enriched uranium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24225: Characterizing Fuel Response and Quantifying Coolable Geometry of High-Burnup Fuel | Oregon State University | $800,000 | This study seeks to objectively determine, through empirical and numerical means, the actual impact of fuel dispersion in-core after fuel failure and whether high burnup dispersed fuel compromises coolable geometry and long-term cooling. The outcome of this study will yield an objective means of assessing two criteria (coolable geometry and long-term cooling) within the existing regulatory process to comprehensively understand whether it is feasible to increase burnup, while satisfying 10 CFR 50.46. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24288: Innovative Methods for Interrogation of DSC Internal Conditions | Oregon State University | $800,000 | The proposed work takes a two-pronged approach. The team will study techniques involving only external sensors and equipment, which could be deployed on existing dry storage canisters. In addition, small sensors located inside the canister that can be externally powered and read through the canister wall will also be investigated. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24439: Development of Novel Corrosion-Responsive Buffer Materials for Long-Term Immobilization of High-Level Nuclear Waste | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to develop a novel cementitious buffer material (CBM) for the safe disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF). The primary aim is to identify and characterize novel Mg-Al-P CBMs, complete with assessments of their repository stability as well as their transport and immobilization of radionuclides. The secondary aim is to use in-situ UT-EIS monitoring to understand the corrosive failure at the canister-CBM interface and provide long-term performance modeling of SNF packages. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24461: Estimation of low temperature cladding failures during an RIA transient | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers aim to create a multiphysics description of cladding response during a RIA, especially at high burnup, coupling reactor physics, thermal hydraulics and mechanics. The creation of a thermomechanical model in Bison will be the result of this project which can be used to evaluate the likelihood of low temperature cladding failures during a postulated RIA on a typical fuel rod (as these can lead to channel blockage), and thus identify the most important conditions to be studied at TREAT. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24460: Multiscale Modeling and Experiments for Investigating High Burnup LWR Fuel Rod Behavior Under Normal and Transient Conditions | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | The main objective of this work is to achieve a mechanistic understanding of and to develop a predictive model for the fuel rod behavior at high burn-up under both normal and transient conditions. Therefore, this study will provide the nuclear industry with validated, physics-based criteria to fuel fragmentation thresholds and rod mechanical integrity limits. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24388: Redox Chemistry of UO2 under Repository Relevant Conditions in the Presence of Zircaloy and Waste Canister Material | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | This project will seek to improve understanding of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) corrosion. Hydrothermal experiments of SNF with cladding and waste canister material will give insights into the redox potential formed due to secondary phase formation as consequence of corrosion in a failed canister. The experimentally derived data about secondary phase formation will be utilized for phase relationship analysis to decipher the redox conditions and thus provide source term for performance assessment models of deep geologic repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24006: High-fidelity modeling of fuel-to-coolant thermomechanical transport behaviors under transient conditions | University of Florida | $800,000 | The objective of the proposal is to develop a high-fidelity modeling tool that can capture some of the important phenomena in high burnup UO2 and ATF fuels during transient conditions. The BlueCRAB tool set will be improved and used to analyze TREAT loss of coolant accident experimental results. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24312: Accelerating the development of reliable and robust machine learning-based interatomic potentials for the prediction of molten salt structure and properties | University of Massachusetts Lowell | $400,000 | Machine learning-based interatomic potentials (MLIPs) used in molecular dynamics (MD) can accurately and efficiently predict molten salt properties. However many machine learning-based methods require large training sets, and can fail unpredictably. This project will overcome these challenges by developing a method for efficiently sampling diverse configurations from MD to train reliable and robust neural network potentials, and develop new models for predicting errors in MLIPs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24697: Dual External Leak Sensing and Monitoring for Dry Storage Canister | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers aim to develop two complementary external sensing methods to evaluate the integrity of DSC through internal pressure monitoring and helium leakage detection. The proposed diffuse ultrasonic wave method will be able to measure biaxial strains in the canister wall with high sensitivity and minimum temperature effects. An innovative capacitance MEMS sensor will be developed for helium concentration measurement in air based on the extremely low permittivity of helium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24449: Multi-modal Surface Acoustic Wave Sensing System for Pressure and Temperature monitoring of Spent Fuel Canisters | University of North Texas | $800,000 | University of North Texas (UNT) will collaborate with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to develop a multi-modal wireless passive SAW (Surface Acoustic Wave) sensor array, which are deployed on the outside surface of the canister, to monitor the strain of the canister and thus determine the inside pressure. In addition, the SAW strain sensor could also measure the surface temperature and potentially monitor helium gas leak. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24265: Fragmentation and Thermal Energy Transport of Cr-doped Fuels under Transient Conditions | University of Pittsburgh | $799,999 | This project will focus on multiple aspects of experimental testing and engineering-scale modeling in understanding thermal energy transport from high burnup, fractured/fragmented accident tolerant fuels, establishing a strong scientific basis to fill a critical knowledge data gap for modeling and simulation of transient fuel performance and safety, such as loss of coolant accident, for future integral testing and fuel licensing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24310: Fusion of Distributed Fiber Optics, Acoustic NDE, and Physics-Based AI for Spent Fuel Monitoring | University of Pittsburgh | $800,000 | The proposal will leverage new concepts in the fusion between fiber optic distributed acoustic sensing and advanced acoustic nondestructive evaluation techniques with artificial intelligence enhanced classification frameworks to quantitatively characterize the state of dry cask storage containers for spent fuel monitoring, externally and non-invasively, without introducing additional risks of failure. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24261: Internal Wireless Sensors for Dry Cask Storage | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | The effort will test the reliability of wireless, internal sensors after exposure to drying and storage conditions. These sensors are used to internally monitor temperature, pressure, and dose. Radiation shielding will also be designed to protect sensors during long-term storage. The effort will develop piezoelectric techniques for miniaturization of optical emission spectroscopy for internal monitoring of gas composition during drying and long-term storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24533: Non-destructive Evaluation of Dry Storage Canisters Using Acoustic Sensing | University of Southern California | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to develop a robust non-destructive evaluation (NDE) technique based on acoustic sensing to detect impurity gases in a sealed (welded) dry storage canister (DSC) using only measurements collected on the external surface of the DSC. The method is based on the time-of-flight analysis of acoustic signals propagating through the fill gas of a DSC, which is influenced by the composition, density and temperature of the propagation medium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23984: Safety Implications of High Burnup Fuel for a 2-Year PWR Fuel Cycle | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to perform safety analysis of high burnup fuel for a Westinghouse 4-Loop Pressurized Water Reactor. The work aims to identify potential opportunities and gaps for high burnup fuel by utilizing both well-established and modern methodologies to model reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, and plant system-level response that ultimately provide feedback to fuel performance analysis. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23985: Fuel-to-Coolant Thermomechanical Behaviors Under Transient Conditions | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This project will enhance the prediction of thermo-mechanical fuel-to-coolant heat transfer under transient conditions by using a coupled analysis and experiment approach. The effort is relevant to both high-burnup (> 62GWd/t) fuel applications and Accident Tolerant Fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24070: Modeling high-burnup LWR fuel behavior under normal operating and transient conditions | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This project aims to develop a high-burnup light water reactor fuel modeling capability to implement in the BISON code that would enable the accurate fuel rod behavior simulation during normal operation and design basis accidents, as wells as the identification of the rod life-limiting factors. Mechanistic engineering models will be developed for key phenomena, in particular, high burnup structure evolution, fuel fragmentation, and fission gas release. Traditional and accident tolerant fuels will be considered. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24033: Redox Chemistry in Nuclear Materials Storage Matrices under Ambient and Accelerated Aging Conditions | University of Washington | $800,000 | Deep geologic repositories must safely contain hazardous, high-activity nuclear wastes at geologic time-scales. However, such capability is centrally dependent on the element-specific redox chemistry within and at the interface of storage vessels. A comprehensive study of redox chemistry in cements used in long-term storage is proposed and emphasizes: 1) the actual consequences of accelerated aging modalities and 2) the novel use of newly available capabilities in advanced x-ray spectroscopies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24063: Post-DNB Thermo-mechanical Behavior of Near-term ATF Designs in Simulated Transient Conditions | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | The goals of the proposed research are to conduct coupled experimental and modeling investigations of thermo-mechanical performance of coated accident tolerant zirconium alloy claddings with simulated burnup doped fuels under thermal transients to predict complex thermal and mass transport phenomena of near-term Accident Tolerant Fuel designs in accident conditions. Experiments and modeling for understanding both cladding-coolant and fuel-coolant interactions will be performed. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24582: Machine-Learning-Accelerated Molecular Dynamics Approaches for Molten Salts | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $399,477 | New machine learning potential (MLP) approaches and new MLPs to enable rapid prediction of molten salt (FLiBe and Nal-MgCl2 with impurities) properties with near ab initio quantum mechanical accuracy will be developed. Uncertainty quantification with active learning and on-the-fly fitting will greatly accelerate MLP training. This work will support dramatically increased simulation speeds and associated data generation and understanding for molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24067: Development of Full Understanding of Mechanical-Chemical Coupling in Bentonite THMC processes | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | The central hypothesis is that mechanical stress in an engineered barrier can lead to pressure solution of solid minerals, leading to significant changes in pore water chemistry, which affects bentonite stability, longevity of the waste pack, and dissolution and migration of nuclides. The overall objective of this project is to develop full understanding of the role of pressure solution on pore water chemistry, the implications to large-scale heterogeneity, and THMC processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23987: Separate and Multi-Physics Effects IRPhEP Benchmark Evaluation using SNAP Experiments | Georgia Institute of Technology | $400,000 | The proposed project will develop an International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) mulitphysics microreactor benchmark evaluation based on data from the Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power (SNAP) program. This work will include systematic assessments of the experimental data with meticulous compilation and documentation, and validation of specific NEAMS tools to model effects that are unique to microreactors technologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24630: Integral Benchmark Evaluation of Zero-Power Tests and Multi-Cycle Depletion Experimental Data of TVA WB1 Cycles 1-3 | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | This project proposes to develop an integral benchmark evaluation of available experimental data for zero-power tests and multi-cycle depletion for consistent and comprehensive validation of both novel high-fidelity and traditional multi-physics tools. The benchmark evaluation will be based on operational and measured data from the Pressurized Water Reactor Watts Bar Unit 1 released by Tennessee Valley Authority. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24186: Regenerating Missing Experimental Parameters with Data-Assimilation Methods for MSRE Transient Benchmark Development and Evaluation | Virginia Commonwealth University | $400,000 | The proposed project will regenerate the undocumented basic data from available experimental data of the MSRE using advanced data-assimilation methods to facilitate the whole-loop modeling of the representative MSRE transients, and perform a thorough MSRE transient benchmark evaluation for the IRPhEP handbook. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24194: Implementation of improved quasi-static, time-dependent, multi-physics methodology in Shift | Georgia Institute of Technology | $600,000 | A practical reference calculation route for time-dependent coupled Monte Carlo calculations, using Shift, will be developed. The proposed framework will be tailored to depletion and slowly varying transients, but with the flexibility to perform thermal-hydraulic time-dependent calculations with minimal computational overheads. This method relies on a hybrid-resolution stochastic approach in conjunction with a substep technique. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24078: Material transport model development and integration in the System Analysis Module (SAM) code | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | This project proposes to develop and implement models for System Analysis Module, which accurately characterize the sink, source, and interaction terms of key material species that are or may be present in various advanced reactor designs. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24195: Enhancing Yellowjacket for Modeling the Impact of Radiation and Stress on the Corrosion of Molten-Salt-Facing Structural Components | University of Florida | $692,088 | The objective of this project is to add the capability to model the impact of radiation and stress on corrosion to the Yellowjacket code, as well as to use Yellowjacket to create surrogate models that will be added to engineering-scale codes like Grizzly. We will also collect new experimental data for validation that quantifies the impact of stress and radiation on corrosion of 316 stainless steel in molten fluoride salts. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24405: Development of a High-fidelity Flow Boiling Database for Validation of High-void-fraction Flow Regime Models | University of Michigan | $800,000 | The primary objective of this proposed research is to develop a comprehensive, high-resolution, multiphase computational fluid dynamics validation-grade flow boiling data from rod bundle geometry simulating current light water reactor fuel designs by taking advantage of the instrumentation and facility developed by the research team. In addition, the applicability of the data through initial evaluations of selected test cases using Nek-2P boiling closure models will be studied and demonstrated for two-phase flow simulations. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24471: Technical Basis of Microstructure Criteria and Accelerated Testing for Qualifying Additively-manufactured 316H Stainless Steel for High-temperature Cyclic Service | Auburn University | $800,000 | This project seeks to reveal the fundamental relationship for AM 316H SS working at 500-750 _C between additively-manufactured microstructures and creep/creep-fatigue properties through a multiscale experimental and modeling approach. The project also seeks to establish the technical basis for the microstructure criteria and accelerated testing method to support near-term nuclear qualification. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24152: Direct heating of chemical catalysts for hydrogen and fertilizer production using Microreactors | Kansas State University | $799,202 | This proposal presents a novel integration approach to deliver process heat from microreactors by directly heating the catalyst particles from the primary heat transfer fluid in a moving packed bed heat exchanger (MPBHX). In this design, the tube side of the MPBHX can be a heat pipe or primary Helium coolant as in several microreactor designs. The shell side will be moving catalyst particles, which will enter the high temperature chemical reactor upon heating. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24287: Investigating heat transfer in horizontally oriented HTGR under normal and PCC conditions | Kansas State University | $799,762 | Experimental research will be conducted to understand heat transfer inside the graphite matrix of horizontal microscale High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors. Existing high temperature test facilities will be used to simulate normal operation and Pressurized Conduction Cooldown. The focus of these experiments is to generate benchmark data under forced and natural convection with coupled multi-mode heat transfer in scaled-down prismatic blocks. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24104: Thermal Hydraulics Investigation of Horizontally Orientated Layout Micro HTGRs Under Normal Operation and PCC Conditions Using Integrated Advanced Measurement Techniques | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000 | The proposed novel work will make a significant pioneering contribution to advance the knowledge and understanding of horizontal micro-high temperature gas cooled reactors. Quantification of metrics will pertain to convective heat transfer coefficients along the channel and gaps, comparative rates of convective and radiative heat transfer, location of peak temperature and its temporal variation, timescales for onset of natural convection, local gas velocity profiles, gas dispersion, crossflows, and temperature profiles over channel diameter and gap thickness. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24004: An Open Source, Parallel, and Distributed Web-Based Probabilistic Risk Assessment Platform to Support Real Time Nuclear Power Plant Risk-Informed Operational Decisions | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | The main objective of the proposed work is to develop, demonstrate, and evaluate a probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) software platform needed to address the major challenges of the current legacy PRA tools. This includes better quantification speed, integration of multi-hazard models into traditional PRAs, and model modification/simplification and documentation automation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24228: Quantifying the Dynamic and Static Porosity/Microstructure Characteristics of Irradiated Graphite through Multi-technique Experiments and Mesoscale Modeling | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | This project proposes a joint experimental-computational approach to probe and quantify the porosity and microstructure characteristics of irradiated nuclear graphite grades and their influence on dimensional changes and turnaround behavior, as well as mechanical properties. The chief focus will be on quantifying both the static and dynamic porosity and crack characteristics in various graphitic phases through several experimental techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24247: Multi-scale Effects of Irradiation Damage on Nuclear Graphite Properties | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Irradiation induces microstructural damage in graphite, causing both dimensional and property (stiffness, strength and creep) changes as a function of the displacement damage and temperature. The biggest gap remains is the fundamental deformation mechanisms behind the property changes. Researchers propose to eliminate this gap in knowledge with a comprehensive, multi-scale experimental framework exploiting in-situ transmission electron and X-ray computed tomography. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23975: Development of Thermal Power Dispatch Simulation Tools for BWR Flexible Plant Operation and Generation | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | In the U.S. domestic light water reactor fleet, about one-third of operational nuclear power reactors are boiling water reactors (BWRs). Thermal power extraction technologies to be designed for BWRs will be different from those for pressurized water reactors due to differences in steam generation. This study proposes to investigate the thermal and electric power dispatch and required control algorithms for dynamic heat dispatch of up to 50% of the thermal energy from a BWR plant to a hydrogen plant. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24111: Experimental Investigations of HTGR Fission Product Transport in Separate-effect Test Facilities Under Prototypical Conditions for Depressurization and Water-ingress Accidents | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Experimental investigations will be performed for fission product (FP) lift-off, washoff, vaporization from plateout surfaces, and transport of FP at prototypical conditions representing depressurization and water-ingress accidents. Measurements will be performed on existing separate-effect facilities using intrusive and non-intrusive techniques to obtain shear stress, deposition velocity, thermal gradient, and gas impurity for advanced correlations. Modeling will be performed using system and computational fluid dynamics codes. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24644: High-Resolution Measurements and Advanced Modeling for Design Optimization of Advanced Small Modular Reactor Steam Generators | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Experiments and simulations will be performed to acquire multi-parameters of pressure drop, heat and mass transfer, and flow-induced vibration (FIV) effect for the design optimization of advanced small modular reactor steam generators (SMR SG). Measurements are performed on existing SMR SG facilities using intrusive/non-intrusive techniques to obtain velocity, temperature, pressure, heat flux, and FIV effects for various geo-dimensions, spacing, pitch angles. Simulations will be performed in StarCCM, Nek5000 and coupling with Diablo_ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24332: A Virtual Reality Environment for Human Reliability Assessment in the Context of Physical Security Attacks | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Recent studies have shown that the physical security workforce accounts for 20% of the entire workforce and, therefore, is responsible for significant operational and maintence costs. To reduce the security staffing, improve performance and reduce threats, modeling and simulation and models of attacker, defender and operator behavior could be employed. This proposal aims to model human behavior using a combination of known human reliability analyses models and experimental evidence from virtual reality experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24389: High Temperature Electromagnetic Acoustic (EMAT) Transducers for Structural Health Monitoring | University of Cincinnati | $800,000 | The aim of this project is to produce an electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT) technology to enable ultrasonic structural health monitoring at the METL facility and similar high temperature assets. Ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation methods can be used for monitoring a range of damage mechanisms including thermal fatigue and corrosion. The project will seek to establish core design solutions that can be used as the basis of a range of EMAT designs for different applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24380: Probabilistic Validation and Risk Importance Ranking Methodology for Automation Trustworthiness and Transparency in Nuclear Power Plants | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | This project develops a methodology to improve trustworthiness and transparency of automation technologies in nuclear power plants. The proposed methodology will monitor risk emerging from automation processes and rank the criticality of automation factors influencing automation output, plant equipment, and system performance. The feasibility and practicality of the proposed methodology will be demonstrated with two case studies focusing on implementation of nuclear power plant automation technologies. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24162: Self-powered wireless sensor system for health monitoring of liquid-sodium cooled fast reactors | University of Notre Dame | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to develop self-powered wireless multimodal sensors and instrumentation for health monitoring and diagnosing early-stage materials degradation for high-risk components in liquid-sodium cooled fast reactors. The synergistic and innovative integrations of the multimodal sensor array, wireless communication, and thermoelectric energy harvester have crosscutting benefit for a wide range of advanced reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24102: High temperature Molten salt reactor pump component development and testing | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | This project will provide relevant key information on the tribology of bearing material and components (such as magnets, couplers, ceramic coated wire, and coatings) in high temperature molten salts that will be required in the design of reactor pumps. Investigation of in-service inspection and monitoring of the pump internals will also be addressed in an effort to reduce down time and operation and maintenance costs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24226: Cost Reduction of Advanced Integration Heat Exchanger Technology for Micro-Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,713 | Heat exchanger technology is a high-cost component of a micro-reactor system that is also critical to the overall reliability and performance. This project will develop the underlying advanced heat exchanger technology necessary to integrate a micro-reactor with any end-user application, as well as providing internal heat exchange. Economic optimization of the heat exchanger and experimental demonstration of the technology will be accomplished. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24382: Advanced High-Fluence Low-Flux RPV Mechanical Property Models for Extended Life | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,717 | This project will further develop accurate models of the mechanical property changes under life-extension conditions in reactor pressure vessel (RPV) steels using reduced order Avrami models, cluster dynamics, and atomistic methods combined with massive comprehensive databases on irradiated steels. The work will provide models critical to extending the life of U.S. pressurized water reactors, as well as new fundamental insights into flux and fluence effects and sink and precipitate evolution in reactor pressure vessels and related steels. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| Integrated Marine Platform for Hydrogen and Ammonia Production | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | This study investigates the economic and environmental value of a floating integrated GW-scale green hydrogen/ammonia production facility powered by an advanced nuclear reactor. Floating Production Storage and Offloading units (FPSOs) are deployed worldwide in the oil and gas industry, and can be used for hydrogen and ammonia processing. Deployment of an advanced reactor on a floating platform offers several advantages, including the efficiencies of shipyard fabrication. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Functionally-graded Cermet Coatings for Molten Salt Technologies by High Throughput Finite Element Modeling and Additive Manufacturing | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $500,000 | This project proposes an integrated approach/methodology to design, manufacture and verify functionally-graded metal-ceramic composite coatings on structural alloys with desired interfacial properties, capabilities of mitigating residual stress and improved corrosion resistance for molten salt reactor applications. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| An Innovative Monitoring Technology for the Reactor Vessel of Micro-HTGR | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | This project seeks to develop an innovative sensor technology for real-time monitoring of the thermo-mechanical stresses in the reactor vessel of micro-HTGR. The technology will be based on a sparse network of outer wall temperature measurements and plant operating conditions. An integrated software-hardware sensing system aimed at monitoring the health of the pressure vessel of gas micro-reactors will be implemented and tested. The proposed work will have a broad impact on sensing in other reactor designs. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| High throughput mechanical testing of additively-manufactured materials | University of California, Berkeley | $500,000 | This project proposes fast and high throughput mechanical testing of AM produced materials. It will include the generation of automated tensile testing, hardness testing and microstructure assessment and data comparison to build data via machine learning. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Accelerated irradiation creep testing coupled with self-adaptive accelerated molecular dynamics simulations for scalability analysis | University of Michigan | $500,000 | The goal of the proposed work is to accelerate traditional irradiation creep using instrumented in-situ ion irradiation creep and long-time molecular dynamics simulations to accelerate traditional neutron irradiation creep testing. This goal will be accomplished by coupling a novel ion beam flux jump test using tapered creep specimens and self-adaptive accelerated molecular dynamics. The outcome is a rapid, low-cost accelerated method to determine the fundamental irradiation creep mechanisms. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Creation of a Pebble Database for Material Control and Accountancy in Pebble Bed Reactors | Virginia Commonwealth University | $399,969 | The primary goal of this proposed project is to develop a database of NDA signatures from a wide variety of used PBR pebbles. This database can be used for facility operations, safety, security, and safeguards (3S) to directly measure fission product content and indirectly 235U and plutonium content of each PBR pebble. This project has significant synergy with current 3S PBR research at ANL, BNL, and ORNL, all of whom are collaborators to this proposed project. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Quantifying Aerosol Deposition Mechanisms in Model Dry Cask Storage Systems | Clemson University | $800,000 | The objective of this work is to measure aerosol deposition and resuspension rates in laboratory models of dry cask storage systems to compare with and validate the DOE deposition model. The project team will conduct experiments to directly measure the deposition/resuspension rates of bulk aerosol in the system and to isolate and quantify individual aerosol deposition mechanisms, with a focus on those sensitive to variable humidity and surface temperature. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Using Amide-Functionalized Electrodes to Elucidate Interfacial Actinide Redox Chemistry for Improved HALEU Supply | Florida International University | $400,000 | The goal is to decrease HALEU fuel cycle costs by examination of the redox behavior of U, Np, and Pu at the water-organic interface using amide functionalized electrodes, and in organic media after extraction with amides. Experiments with redox active interferences including additional actinides in different oxidation states will also be conducted. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advancing the technical readiness of FeCrAl alloys and ODS steels under extreme conditions for fast reactor fuel cladding | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | A key technology gap for advanced high-performance fuel applications is the current unavailability of materials that can withstand extremely high doses without significant degradation of cladding performance. The project team will perform in-situ thermo-mechanical experiments (tension, torsion, creep, and creep-fatigue and nanoindentation) on ion-irradiated (to 400 dpa) cladding materials (up to 700 C) along with microstructures using TEM and mesoscale phase field simulations. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| A molten salt community framework for predictive modeling of critical characteristics | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | This research aims to develop a molten salt community framework to address the needs in advanced fuel cycles, including understanding salts via new theory of liquids, predicting salt characteristics via simulations (DFT, MD, and CALPHAD by implementing advanced models), optimizing inversely molten salts, and verifying simulations by experiments. This project has outstanding value for US taxpayers, educates students, and delivers outreach opportunities for academia, industry, and the public. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Understanding the Interfacial Structure of the Molten Chloride Salts by in-situ Electrocapillarity and Resonant Soft X-ray Scattering (RSoXS) | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | The objective of the proposed research is to investigate the interplay between the interfacial structure of the molten salts and their electrochemical corrosion properties in Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Clay Hydration, Drying, and Cracking in Nuclear Waste Repositories | Princeton University | $800,000 | This project will develop a new multiscale model of the thermal-hydrologic-mechanical-chemical (THMC) evolution of an engineered clay barrier in the near field of a nuclear waste repository, including initial hydration and eventual post-closure criticality. This new model will directly link micro-scale material properties to large-scale barrier performance, thus facilitating future design advances or modifications, and enable robust validation of large-scale simulation predictions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Physics-guided Smart Scaling Methodology for Accelerated Fuel Testing | Purdue University | $800,000 | This project proposes to employ novel informatics algorithms for mapping/scaling uncertainties from experimentally accessible scaled state to application/prototypical state, informed by an equivalent mapping obtained from high-fidelity multi-physics simulations for the fuel thermo-mechanical behavior, specifically, a rate theory-based model for thermal conductivity and fission gas behavior in the BISON code, and employing relevant HALDEN reactor and FAST experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Materials Accountancy During Disposal and Waste Processing of Molten Salt Reactor Fuel Salts | Texas A&M University | $399,997 | The objective of this work is to develop and validate a method for measuring and predicting hold-up to eliminate operational risks and expenses during disposal of salt-wetted MSR components. These objectives will be met by applying robust measurement/detection methods to realistic salt loop environments to validate their use in decommissioning MSRs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advanced Screening Approaches for Accelerating Development of Separations Technologies | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | The goal of this project is to establish a unified selection criterion for chelating molecular structures to more efficiently address ligand applicability to metal ion separation problems, for current and future nuclear fuel cycles. By establishing this criterion, the team will seek to enable the accelerated, cost-effective discovery of new separation workflows, as well as their implementation beyond early radiotracer experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advancing NMA of TRISO-fueled pebbles using fast and accurate gamma-ray spectroscopy | University of Colorado, Boulder | $385,307 | This proposal will provide new Nuclear Materials Analysis (NMA) capabilities for TRISO-fueled pebbles using gamma-ray spectroscopy, through a program of simulations of expected signatures from irradiated pebbles, resulting in a detailed measurement plan to monitor burnup and actinide content throughout the fuel cycle. These simulations will be used to develop requirements for NMA sensor technology and identify opportunities for focused technology development to meet these requirements. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Development of Irradiation and Creep Resistant High-Cr Ferritic/Martensitic Steels via Magnetic Field Heat Treatment | University of Kentucky | $800,000 | The objective of this proposed study is to develop and test new generation of Ferritic/Martensitic (F/M) steels specifically designed for advanced reactors that will exceed the current limitations due to temperature and irradiation dose. To achieve this objective, a systematic study is proposed to employ an innovative tempering heat treatment under high external magnetic field (up to 9T) on F/M steel HT9 to engineer an optimized microstructure composed of refined carbides and martensite laths. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Investigation into the processing parameters of phosphate-based dehalogenation for chloride-based waste salt | University of Nevada, Reno | $399,999 | This proposal will focus on several topics needed to advance the iron phosphate process: 1) Dehalogenation/vitrification processes using salt simulants to generate process flow sheets, 2) Reactions of crucible materials with phosphate products and byproducts, 3) Collection of glass property-composition data to develop models based on the glass-forming regions, 4) Development of a process for reacting recovered NH4Cl with metals that need to be fed into the system (U, Li, etc.). | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| A Validated Framework for Seismic Risk Assessment of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of Nevada, Reno | $799,883 | This is a collaborative research program with a primary objective of developing a validated numerical framework for seismic risk analysis of spent fuel storage facilities from the global cask behavior to the localized behavior of internal spent fuel assemblies. In building and validating this framework, advanced data analysis, data assimilation, and forward and inverse modeling techniques will be utilized. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| International Collaboration to Advance the Technical Readiness of High Uranium Density Fuels and Composites for Small Modular Reactors | University of Texas at San Antonio | $800,000 | An international team of high uranium density fuels (HDFs) experts advised by industry leaders in nuclear reactor innovation propose a US-UK collaboration to advance the technical readiness of UN, UB2, and their composites for fuel forms specific to small modular reactors (SMRs). The project will bridge the critical data gaps in HDF performance specific to the impact of common impurities and microstructural variations that originate at fabrication. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Development of Advanced Control Rod Assembly for Improved Accident Tolerance and High Burnup Fuel Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Research will focus on the development of new materials' designs for control rod sheaths and neutron absorbers, coupled with neutronics analysis and thermo-mechanical modeling to improve accident tolerance and to achieve higher fuel burnup in PWRs. Functionality of the proposed designs consisting of Cr coated control rod sheaths of current and advanced alloys as well as novel neutron absorbers will be evaluated in prototypical reactor conditions and accident scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Optical Basicity Determination of Molten Fluoride Salts and its Influence on Structural Material Corrosion | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | The proposed research is aimed at developing ion probes to determine the optical basicity of molten fluoride salts and studying its influence on structural material corrosion. Combining with the molten salt structure study using X-ray absorption spectroscopy, the salt chemical constitution, the resulting optical basicity, and molten salt structure will be inextricably linked and their connections will be unveiled. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Extending the HMF71 Benchmark Series for Graphite Reflector Thickness up to 18 Inches | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $399,522 | The objective of this proposal is to extend the HEU-MET-FAST-071 (HMF-71) experiment benchmark series in ICSBEP by evaluating the historical (existing) experimental data for critical experiments with graphite reflector thickness from 3 inches up to 18 inches. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2022 |
| Fast and Rigorous Methods for Multiphysics SPn Transport in Advanced Reactors | University of Michigan | $600,000 | This project proposes to perform rigorous theoretical and numerical analysis of the Generalized SPn method and underlying cross section models to enable a fast and robust multiphysics low-order transport capability for advanced reactors. This includes 5 major tasks focused on the efficient discretization and solution of the GSPn equations, numerical analysis of XS models having multiphysics and depletion, analysis of equivalence factors, improved MC estimators, and several V&V applications of the methods. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2022 |
| Development of Hydrogen Transport Models for High Temperature Metal Hydride Moderators | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Understanding the transient behavior of metal hydride moderator materials at high temperatures is a key challenge to the design and deployment of future microreactors. This project will use neutron radiography techniques provide the necessary data for this understanding and demonstrate the development of time and temperature dependent hydrogen transport models using both commercial FEA software coupled to MCNP and coupled models developed in the MOOSE framework. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Characterizing fast reactor fuel failure mode through separate effect and prototypic tests | Oregon State University | $800,000 | The project consists of conducting separate effect fuel pin failure tests with surrogate fluid and prototypic test with sodium. The outcome of this study will generate an experimental database that will be used to develop mechanistic model and validate the CDAP module of the SAS4A/SASSYS-1 code. Ultimately the quality data can be used to benchmark other fuel codes developed for LMFR application, which are seeking validation for licensing purpose. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Science-based development of ASTM standard tests for graphite-based fuel pebbles | University of California, Berkeley | $700,000 | This project proposes the development of mechanical test procedures as well as wear and friction tests on Graphite fuel pebbles | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Role of Heterogeneity in Manganese and Nickel Rich Precipitate Distribution on Hardening of Reactor Pressure Vessel Steels: Integrated Modeling and Experimental Characterization | University of Florida | $799,803 | The hypothesis of this work is that the different nucleation and coarsening kinetics of manganese and nickel rich precipitates (MNPs) compared to copper rich precipitates, and the heterogeneous distribution of manganese and nickel rich precipitates on or near dislocations, both lead to unique hardening behavior at high neutron fluence. The objective of this work is to understand hardening in reactor pressure vessel steels caused by MNPs via integrated multiscale modeling and experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Integrated Thermal-Electric Energy Management of All-Electric Ship with Advanced Nuclear Reactors | University of Texas at Dallas | $400,000 | The overall objective of this research is to comprehensively model, design, and evaluate the use of advanced nuclear reactors in future nuclear-powered ships, to enhance the efficiency, reliability, and resilience of shipboard energy distribution systems. The novelty of the proposed approach lies in (i) integrated thermal-electric modeling of advanced nuclear-powered shipboard energy system, and (ii) novel solutions for total-ship energy management to improve energy efficiency and resiliency. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Open Architecture for Nuclear Cost Reduction | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Open architecture has potential to reduce advanced reactor (AR) costs, through exploiting modular design and construction, with common, openly available interfaces between modules. A comprehensive assessment of the challenges and opportunities of open architecture for ARs will be performed. Supported by a pilot study, actionable recommendations for the implementation or otherwise of open architecture for ARs will be developed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Telescopic Control Rod for Significant Reduction in HTR Height and therefore Cost | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | This project proposes a design for a small modular High Temperature Reactor (HTR) control rod that extends telescopically, consisting of ~5 concentric annuli that nest together above the core when withdrawn. This compact component substantially reduces the length of the depth of the silo. Modelling and experimental testing will be performed to develop the control rod to evaluate feasibility, plus perform a cost-benefit analysis, with a view to its inclusion in both pebble bed and prismatic HTR designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Mechanism Driven Evaluations of Sequential and Simultaneous Irradiation-Creep-Fatigue Testing | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | This project addresses a critical need for irradiation and creep-fatigue testing by carrying out a systematic, mechanistic-driven benchmarking for irradiation creep, irradiation fatigue and creep-fatigue tests under various environments. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Mechanisms-based Acceleration of Materials Qualifications for Creep-Fatigue Performance in Advanced Nuclear Systems | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | The goal of this research is to fully understand, quantify and model creep-fatigue 'damage' as a function of loading patterns, temperature and microstructural evolution. Using this experimental information over a large range of relevant stress levels and temperatures, a mechanisms-based creep-fatigue analysis approach will be demonstrated which will properly qualify high temperature alloys for extended service in advanced nuclear systems where creep-fatigue is currently a major design limitation. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Subwavelength Ultrasonic Imaging for Rapid Qualification of Additively Manufactured Nuclear Structures and Components | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to develop a transformational capability for rapid nondestructive quality assessment of actual nuclear additively manufactured structures and components through advanced ultrasonic imaging with subwavelength resolution. The resolution of conventional ultrasonic systems is limited by diffraction on the order of the wavelength. In this project, the goal is to break the diffraction limits of ultrasonic imaging by implementing a negative-index lens. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| MXene as Sorbent Materials for Off-gas Radioiodine Capture and Immobilization | Clemson University | $1,000,000 | The overarching goal of this project is to develop efficient and stable new sorbent materials, for off-gas radioiodine capture and immobilization, that are based on MXenes with two-dimensional transition metal carbides/nitrides. The exploratory research will focus on three main objectives: 1) Design and synthesis of MXenes as radioiodine sorbent and support materials, 2) Quantification of iodine sorption capacity of MXenes in different forms, 3) Synthesis and characterization of consolidated waste forms. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Fundamental understanding of grain boundary cracking in LWR environments | University of California, Los Angeles | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to understand the details of stress corrosion cracking (SCC) and irradiation assisted stress corrosion cracking (IASCC) by targeted experiments and modeling efforts. A comprehensive model will be produced, which will predict the conditions under which these failure modes occur and when the materials may see onsets of the failure mode. This work will directly impact the nuclear industry by refining predictive models of component lifetime. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Facile manufacturing of fiber-reinforced-SiC/SiC composite using aerodynamic fiber deposition (AFD) and metal assisted polymer impregnation and pyrolysis processes (MAPIP) | University of Pittsburgh | $999,886 | SiC/SiC ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) are promising candidate materials for the cladding of accident tolerant fuels. Superior material properties of SiC/SiC CMC, however, come at a high manufacturing cost. The objective of the proposed research is to apply aerodynamic fiber deposition (AFD) and metal assisted polymer impregnation and pyrolysis (MAPIP) to develop a new facile manufacturing approach of SiC/SiC CMC. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| High Concentration Monoamide Separations: Phase Modifiers and Transuranic Chemistry | Colorado School of Mines | $999,900 | Extraction of actinides from used nuclear fuel with high concentrations of monoamide extractants is a promising strategy to intensify separation processes; however key issues remain to be understood and resolved. This project will examine three questions: 1) Can phase modifiers mitigate issues with organic phase viscosity? 2) Can the chemistry of neptunium be controlled to ensure complete separation? 3) Do high concentrations of monoamides affect the oxidation states of important metals and can that be exploited? | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Multiple Uranium Complexes in Chloride Fast Reactor Molten Salt Properties | University of Connecticut | $1,000,000 | Multivalent transition metal ions in a melt can exhibit multiple coordination states that affect molten salt properties. This project will use a new high-energy resolution fluorescence detection (HERFD) spectroscopy to overcome issues associated with measuring coordination numbers of multiple complexes, along with Raman spectroscopy and advanced simulations to accurately predict properties of molten salts with multiple uranium complexes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Validation of Geochemical Reactive Transport Long-Term predictions Using Natural Cements and Ancient Cements Analogues | Vanderbilt University | $950,000 | This project will validate long-term performance predictions of rock/cement interfaces based on characterization of natural analogues, ancient cements and interfaces with rock formations, and demonstrate applicability of the established testing and simulation workflow with argillite rock (representative of potential U.S. repository systems). This project addresses the research gap of long-term validation and uncertainty assessment associated with cement barrier performance and multi-physics models. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Predicting Pitting and Stress Corrosion Cracking of Dry Cask Storage Canisters via High Throughput Testing, Multiscale Characterization, and 3D Computer Vision based Machine Learning | The Ohio State University | $1,000,000 | This project consists of a US-UK collaborative research program focusing on the nucleation and growth of pits and stress corrosion cracking of stainless steel 304 (a canister material used for dry cask storage of spent nuclear fuels) by leveraging multi-scale characterization techniques, 2D/3D computer vision, and machine learning approaches. The study will enable the understanding and prediction of how and when pitting corrosion can nucleate, grow, and transition into stress corrosion cracking. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Multiscale Residual Stress Tailoring of Spent Fuel Canister CISCC Resistance | Purdue University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to understand the role of residual stress in chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) of austenitic steel, then tailor CISCC initiation and propagation through engineered multiscale residual stress distributions. Microscopic and macroscopic residual stresses will be systematically varied, then a novel sequence of advanced, site-specific, correlative characterization techniques will be applied to directly link residual stress, pitting, and crack propagation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Illuminating Emerging Supply Chain and Waste Management Challenges | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | Regional constraints on domestic fuel supply and greater variation in demand from advanced reactors has led to a shift in the U.S. fuel cycle, and modeling tools must reflect this. In this work, Cyclus will be updated to better reflect new and emergent regional supply constraints, spatial and temporal fluctuations in material needs, and those impacts on the back-end of the fuel cycle will be quantified. This work will allow for flexible, reproducible analysis to inform stakeholder decision-making. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Determination of Local Structure and Phase Stability of Uranium Species in Molten Halide Salts: Linking Microscopic Structure with Macroscopic Thermodynamics | Arizona State University | $1,000,000 | The goal of this project is to determine the local structures (valence state, coordination configuration and medium-range structure) and thermodynamic stability of uranium species in molten chloride and fluoride salts at high temperatures using a combination of experimental and modeling methods. The obtained results will allow for revelation of the structure-stability relations of the studied systems and development of acid-base scales to determine the solubility of uranium in molten halide salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Thermal-Hydraulics Assessment of SiC Compared to Other ATF Cladding Materials and its Performance to Mitigate CRUD | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | This project aims to experimentally investigate the thermal-hydraulics performance of SiC compared to the Cr-coated zircaloys and APMT ATF cladding materials under accident scenarios, including both DNB and dryout conditions. The project is divided into five tasks that will advance the understanding of the operation and optimization of heat pipes for advanced nuclear reactors. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Physics-Informed Artificial Intelligence for Non-Destructive Evaluation of Ceramic Composite Cladding by Creating Digital Fingerprints | University of Florida | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to spatially map the material composition, structure, and defect distribution of SiCf-SiCm composite tubes from ultrasonic wavefields measured from the materials and the defects within them. Specifically, this project will delve into the unique ultrasonic fingerprints (i.e., dispersion relations and mode shapes) of the SiCf-SiCm composites using physics-informed machine learning to assess the quality of the manufactured tubes based on their spatial-spectral ultrasonic characteristics. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Understanding Constituent Redistribution, Thermal Transport, and Fission Gas Behavior in U-Zr Annular Fuel Without a Sodium Bond | University of Florida | $999,462 | This project will investigate the reason for changed constituent redistribution in annular U-Zr fuel without a sodium bond and how it changes the fission gas behavior and thermal conductivity. This will be achieved using a combination of microstructure characterization and thermal conductivity measurements of irradiated U-Zr annular fuel and multiscale modeling and simulation using the MARMOT and BISON fuel performance codes. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Getting AnCers: Metallothermic Molten Salt Synthesis and Reaction Thermodynamics of Actinide Ceramic Fuels | Oregon State University | $1,000,000 | Synthesis of high quality actinide ceramics (AnCers) remains a costly challenge. A low-temperature, high-yield, short-duration reaction that directly synthesizes UN and UC could reduce the cost of these advanced fuels greatly. This proposal aims to demonstrate a method by which the costs of AnCers can be greatly reduced - metallothermic molten salt synthesis. Optimization and thermodynamics data will be obtained. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Integrated Stand-off Optical Sensors for Molten Salt Reactor Monitoring | University of Pittsburgh | $1,000,000 | This project intends to develop robust and stand-off optical sensors to perform real-time molten salt levels, flow, and impurity measurements of molten salts. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Cybersecurity in advanced reactor fleet by cyber-informed design, real-time anomaly detection, dynamic monitoring, and cost-effective mitigation strategies | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The goal of this research is to provide technical solutions to unique cybersecurity challenges in future microreactor fleet through cyber-informed design (C-ID), real-time anomaly detection, dynamic monitoring, and cost-effective mitigation strategies. The efforts will significantly improve the economics and effectiveness of cybersecurity risk management in future microreactor fleets. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Building Cyber-Resilient Architecture for Advanced Reactors via Integrated Operations and Network Digital Twin | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | The research will develop a secure-by-design architecture via integrating plant operation and network digital twins for advanced reactors. Automatic attack path and vulnerability analysis will be developed and used to assess and harden critical digital assets (CDA) against cyber risks prior to and during operation to identify vulnerabilities, attack pathways, and threat vectors. A CDA selection method will also be developed by combining vulnerability scores and assets importance. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Extending PRA and HRA legacy methods and tools with a cause-based model for comprehensive treatment of human error dependency | University of California, Los Angeles | $1,000,000 | This project aims at developing a solution to HRA dependency assessment in PRA from methodological and practical/computational perspectives within legacy PRA tools and methods. The solutions will include procedures for quantifying dependency when using PRA legacy tools, a method for modeling and quantifying dependency in HRA comprising a BN-causal model suitable for use with legacy PRA methods and tools, and the computational tools for its integration. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| An Integrated Elemental and Isotopic Detector for Real-Time Molten Salt Monitoring | North Carolina State University | $1,000,000 | The overarching theme of the proposed research is to develop and demonstrate a real-time elemental and isotopic detector of molten salts for advanced reactors and fuel fabrication and recycling processes. The detector's longevity, limits, and latency will be tested in static uranium chloride salts, in pyroprocessing chloride salt, and on flowing fluoride salt with evolving actinide composition, respectively. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Development of a Thin-Layer Electrochemical Sensor for Molten Salt Reactors and Fuel Cycle Processes | Brigham Young University | $811,755 | A thin-layer electrochemical sensor capable of detecting uranium, plutonium and other species of interest in molten salts, at both high and low concentrations, will be developed for application in molten salt reactors and fuel cycle process units. This will provide a valuable tool for performing material control and accountancy measurements. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Risk-Informed Consequence-Driven Hybrid Cyber-Physical Protection System Security Optimization for Advanced Reactor Sites | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | This project aims to develop an expanded methodology for designing a novel cybersecurity-integrated physical protection system (PPS) framework for advanced reactor concepts that serves to reduce the operational costs for the life of a reactor against that of a traditional light water reactor PPS design, promoting efforts to credit safety features of advanced reactors through proposed amendments to current security regulations, while integrating health and economic consequence analyses. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| A risk analysis framework for evaluating the safety, reliability, and economic implications of electrolysis for hydrogen production at NPPs | University of Maryland, College Park | $1,000,000 | The RAFELHyP project will develop a modular risk analysis framework that enables evaluating the safety, reliability, and economic implications of upcoming deployments of electrolyzers to produce hydrogen at nuclear power plants. The framework will be implemented to conduct an integrated safety, reliability, and economic analysis of multiple plant configurations to provide detailed recommendations for plant protective features and layouts. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Reduced Order Modeling of Heat and Fluid Flow: Multi-Scale Modeling of Advanced Reactors to Enable Faster Deployment | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | Novel multi-scale algorithms for thermal-hydraulics (TH) simulations of advanced reactors will be developed. The methods will leverage recent advances in hardware and reduced order modeling approaches to enable TH simulations of vastly accelerated speed, while maintaining accuracy comparable to high-fidelity methods, such as large-eddy simulation. The methods will allow designers to perform parameter sweeps, develop closures, and enable high fidelity simulation of transients. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Embedded Monte Carlo | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Monte Carlo methods have long been considered the standard in terms of accuracy and have seen increased use in design of small nuclear systems; however, the uncertainty quantification (UQ) of the desired output is often relegated to later stages of the design process. This project seeks to embed nuclear data UQ in a single Monte Carlo simulation, such that each desired quantity will not only provide the mean value and statistical uncertainty, but also the related nuclear data uncertainty. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| A Low Order Transport Method Based on the Dynamic Truncation of the Integral Transport Matrix Method (ITMM) that Converges to the SN Solution with Increasing Cell Optical Thickness | North Carolina State University | $1,000,000 | A novel low-order transport operator capable of approximating Monte Carlo (MC) results within a variance range will be developed. This does not require MC reference solutions to calibrate the low-order model, so repeated solutions of the latter in-transient scenarios does not require repeated MC simulations. Truncation of the low-order operator is done dynamically for evolving configurations to ensure accuracy of the low-order solution. This will involve proof of principle on Cartesian meshes, then implementation in Griffin. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| CFD based Critical Heat Flux predictions for enhanced DNBR margin | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | This project seeks to demonstrate a robust high-fidelity CFD-based methodology to predict CHF behavior at varying quality conditions, enabling the development of advanced DNBR correlations with reduced uncertainty, and in support of upgraded plant economics. The availability of a virtual CHF methodology will allow greatly extending the database for DNBR correlations development and further support advancement in the design of high-performing nuclear fuel. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Immersed Boundary Methods for Modeling of Complex Geometry: A Leap Forward in Multiscale Modeling using NekRS | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | A major challenge to Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling of complex geometries is the need to generate body-fitted meshes, which can occupy 80% of the CFD practitioner's time. Immersed boundary methods will be added in the NekRS CFD code, dramatically simplifying modeling of complex 3-D structures and facilitating a new paradigm for CFD-informed multiscale analysis. This will be demonstrated by informing SAM transient systems-level models with NekRS heat exchanger correlations for advanced reactors. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Uncertainty Quantification of Model Extrapolation in Neural Network-informed Turbulent Closures for Plenum Mixing in HTGRs | Utah State University | $1,000,000 | This project will quantify the uncertainty in prediction of Neural Network-informed Turbulent Closures when they are operating in a model extrapolation state. Once the method is developed for canonical buoyant jets, the protocols will be applied to plenum mixing in HTGRs. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Impact of moisture on corrosion of NiCr alloys in MgCl2-NaCl Salt Systems | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $999,983 | This project aims to gain a fundamental understanding of the impact of moisture and salt chemistry on corrosion of NiCr alloys in molten chloride salts. A novel approach coupling multiscale simulations and experiments will be designed to determine salt acidity, its dependence on salt composition (i.e., the NaCl to MgCl2 ratio), and its effects on the transport of H2O and Cr ions and the corrosion kinetics of NiCr alloys in chloride salt. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Transforming Microreactor Economics Through Hydride Moderator Enabled Neutron Economy | State University of New York, Stony Brook | $1,000,000 | Microreactors will potentially require the cost of electricity to be 10 MWD/kg at >3 kW/kg core specific power. These goals are best achieved through a well-thermalized spectrum. Neutron economy as a core material selection criterion to advance entrained hydride composite moderators will be used with the primary goal of significantly reducing fuel costs through novel microreactor designs. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Integrating Nuclear with ZLD Seawater Desalination and Mining | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | An integrated nuclear system will be developed that would utilize electricity and waste heat to operate a desalination and mining process from adjacent seawater. The desalination approach targets zero-liquid discharge with multiple marketable minerals extracted. The ability of nuclear facilities to load follow is increasingly important, so a cold thermal storage system will be incorporated. The desalination and mineral extraction process will be experimentally validated at lab scale. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Reference Designs of Green Ammonia Plants Powered by Small Modular Reactors | Utah State University | $1,000,000 | The overarching goal of this project is to develop two reference designs for green ammonia plants. One design uses freshwater as the source for hydrogen, while the other design uses seawater (or brackish water) as the source. In both designs, a small modular reactor (SMR) is used as the primary energy source providing both electricity and steam for the plants. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Development of the Technical Bases to Support Flexible Siting of Microreactors based on Right-Sized Emergency Planning Zones | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to provide the technical basis to support the application of a right-sized Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ) size to support the deployment of a microreactor at the Penn State University Park campus. This research study will serve as a template to provide flexible siting in support of future microreactor deployments that may be placed closer to demand centers, thereby making them more economically competitive. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Bayesian Optimization for Automatic Reactor Design Optimization | Arizona State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to develop analytical tools based on Gaussian process modeling and Bayesian Optimization that facilitate reactor design optimization by modeling the responses from the physics simulator. Existing capabilities will be applied in an AI field and they will be adapted to address the key characteristics of nuclear reactor design problem. This project will automate the simulation-based design procedure, reduce the number of iterations, and minimize the design cycle time. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Engaging New Mexican communities in developing an equitable and just approach to siting advanced reactor facilities | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | This project will engage diverse New Mexican communities to develop an equitable approach for advanced reactor siting. The findings of this project will shed light on how technology developers and the DOE can explore and potentially site advanced reactors with the informed consent and engagement of host communities, regions, and states. The findings of this study will also more generally apply to the potential for equitably exploring both brownfield and greenfield sites for nuclear facilities. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Deciphering Irradiation Effects of YHx through In-situ Evaluation and Micromechanics for Microreactor Applications | University of New Mexico | $998,000 | This project addresses a critical gap in accelerated testing of YH evolution coupling multi-length scale mechanical testing with ion irradiation and advanced characterization to establish a baseline understanding of YH evolution under ion irradiation. Our approach will couple ion irradiation and gamma irradiation with small scale mechanical testing to decipher multi-scale impacts on phase stability to advance understanding of YH in a microreactor moderator application. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Active Learning Estimation and Optimization (ALEO) of Irradiation Experimental Design for Efficient Accelerated Fuel Qualification | University of Texas at San Antonio | $997,247 | This collaborative project creates novel AI/ML models and algorithms integrated with physical knowledge and expertise to explore more efficient ways to calculate irradiation temperatures and fuel specimen burnups for new fuel sample configurations of MiniFuel experiments proposed for irradiation in the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Unraveling how mixing vane spacers affect cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena in light water reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $500,000 | Experiments will be conducted to quantify the effect of mixing vane spacers on cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena, namely single-phase forced convection, nucleate boiling, and CHF. The results of the experimental research will allow elucidating the physical phenomena triggered by the presence of mixing vane spacers. They will also allow assessing the performance of M-CFD tools developed within CASL and in use by the nuclear community. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Quantum Computing Algorithms for Deterministic Neutron Transport | University of Michigan | $500,000 | This project will develop algorithms for solving the k-eigenvalue form of the neutron transport equation in a nuclear reactor physics context on a quantum computer. The asymptotic scaling of the algorithms will be analyzed. Investigation into implementation will be made by making resource estimates by synthesizing explicit circuits for the algorithms and be studied by emulation on a classical computer. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Optimizing Application-Dependent Energy Group Structures for Multigroup Neutron Transport Models using Machine Learning | Colorado School of Mines | $500,000 | Machine Learning methods will be developed that will dramatically reduce both the computational run-time and manual effort needed to find multigroup energy structures that accurately capture the underlying physics of neutron reactions, while allowing multigroup simulations to run quickly without overwhelming available memory. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Understanding PM-HIP Interparticle Evolution and its Influence on Fracture Toughness in Alumina-Forming Steels | Purdue University | $1,100,000 | This project aims to understand how interparticle evolution during hot isostatic pressing (HIP) influences fracture toughness of Al-bearing steels. The team will use a series of interrupted HIP experiments with phase field models to understand the formation mechanisms of interparticle defects during HIP of alumina-forming austenitic (AFA) stainless steels and FeCrAl steels, and the influence of these defects on fracture behavior. | Document | Advanced Manufacturing Technologies | FY2024 |
| Multiscale high-throughput experiment/modeling approach to understanding creep behavior in Additively Manufactured reactor steels | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $1,043,271 | This project proposes to develop a predictive capability for processing-microstructure-property correlations in additive manufactured microstructures utilizing a multiscale approach encompassing bulk creep tests, miniaturized tensile testing, and a high-throughput, indentation based, cost-effective method for elevated temperature mechanical mapping of additively manufactured 316H Stainless Steel, Grade 91, and Titanium-Zirconium-Molybdenum (TZM) alloys. | Document | Advanced Manufacturing Technologies | FY2024 |
| Assessing molten salt corrosion resistance of stainless steel 316H in nuclear reactor environments | North Carolina State University | $1,100,000 | The proposed goal is to leverage a blend of innovative molten salt corrosion experiments and cutting-edge characterization techniques to advance our understanding of molten salt corrosion in both commercial and additively manufactured (AM) stainless steel (SS) 316H, particularly under radiation or stress environments. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Polymer-Derived C-SiC Coatings on Kernel Particles for Advanced Nuclear Reactors | University of Alabama at Birmingham | $1,100,000 | This program is to use a polymer-derived ceramic approach to develop C-SiC/ZrC coatings on ZrO2 kernel substitute particles. We aim to create new fuel encapsulation materials in replacement of the coatings on fuel kernel particles, including the TRISO layers, for advanced reactors, conduct ion irradiation testing of the new materials for nuclear performance evaluation, and carry out detailed microstructure and composition characterization to assess the C-SiC/ZrC coated fuel particle behaviors. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Sorbent regeneration, recycling, and transformation: A transformative approach to iodine capture and immobilization | University of Nevada, Reno | $1,000,000 | The project will focus on the development of materials and processes for regeneration and recycling of sorbents, and the transformation of iodine-loaded sorbents into waste forms. A combination of computational and experimental studies will be conducted to understand (a) how the components in a primary off-gas stream interact with the sorbent, (b) how this off-gas stream affects the regeneration lifetime, and (c) low-temperature binders and processing paths that leads to durable waste forms. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Accident Tolerant Fuels to Support Power Uprates in LWRs | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,100,000 | This project will demonstrate that power uprates higher than the current state of operation can be reached using accident tolerant fuels in light water reactors while not exceeding reactor safety margins during normal operation and accidents. We will analyze it considering fuel enriched up to 10% and peak rod average burnup up to 75GWd/tU concerning reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, reactor safety, and economics. Considerations will be made in consultation with the named industry advisory board. | Document | Existing Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Comparative study of three-dimensional microstructural imaging and thermal conductivity evolution of irradiated solid and annular U-Zr fuels | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Uranium-zirconium (U-Zr) annular metallic fuel holds the promise to simultaneously increase sodium fast reactor (SFR) core uranium loading and reduce peak cladding temperatures, thus greatly improving fuel performance. However, key convolved fuel degradation mechanisms during irradiation at temperature threaten to hold back its real-world applicability, requiring more detailed understanding to both predict U-Zr fuel performance and suggest improvements. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Mechanistic study and modeling of fission gas release in UO2 and doped UO2 | Oregon State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to enhance the safety and performance of light water reactors and other advanced reactor designs by gaining a fundamental understanding of fast gas reactor mechanisms and developing mechanistic models for UO2 and doped UO2 fuels under HBU and transient conditions. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Anisotropic Thermal Properties of SiC-SiC Cladding: Method Development & Characterization | University of Pittsburgh | $1,000,000 | We propose to develop a high-temperature nondestructive thermal conductivity (k) measurement system coupled with validated multiscale models to accurately determine the anisotropic thermal conductivity of SiC-SiC composite cladding tubes. The multiscale measurement and modeling results benefit both DOE ATF programs as well as providing a fundamental understanding of how the microstructure of the composite leads to its anisotropic properties. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Understanding the Performance of SiC-SiCf Composite Cladding Architectures with Cr Coating in Normal Operating and Accident Conditions in LWRs and Advanced Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The project will focus on investigating the impact of Cr-coating on the SiC-SiCf composite cladding of various architectures under normal operating and accident conditions in light water reactors and advanced reactors for the safe and economic deployment of SiC cladding. Cr-coating will provide protection from high-temperature corrosion and better hermeticity under accident conditions. The performance of the claddings will be evaluated through the corrosion test, reflood test, burst test, and non-destructive evaluation(NDE). | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Developing critical insights on the effects of Mo on _' precipitation and dislocation loop formation in FeCrAl alloys | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | This project aims at developing a mechanistic understanding on the effects of Mo on _' precipitation and dislocation loop formation in FeCrAl alloys in thermal and irradiation conditions and turns it into a set of design principles guiding further optimization, by integrating atomistic simulations, CALPHAD modeling, thermal aging, proton irradiation, and advanced characterization. The material discoveries will be generalized to other solutes other than Mo. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Inference of flow conditions from in-core detector measurements for accelerating SMR licensing | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Reactor modelling relies on the detailed description of reactor systems but often lacks the true as-built characteristics of a system. This proposal seeks to fill these geometrical data gaps using available detector data, predictive models and machine learning in order to provide better information to analysis tools and thus better prediction of future performance. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Non-Destructive Plutonium Assay in Pyroprocessing Bulk Materials with a 3D Boron-Coated-Straw Detector Array | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,100,000 | The objective of the proposed project is to develop and demonstrate a 3D boron-coated-straw detector array (3D-BCSDA) with high efficiency and spatial resolution. This detection system will be specifically designed to accurately assess the fissile mass in bulk nuclear material during pyroprocessing operations, thereby improving the precision and reliability of accountability measurements during separation. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Improving the computational efficiency and usability of dynamic PRA with reinforcement learning | University of Maryland, College Park | $1,064,400 | The overall objective of the proposed research is to improve the efficiency and usability of dynamic probabilistic risk assessment (PRA). Specifically, the first objective is to develop a new algorithm for dynamic PRA analysis that can significantly increase the computational efficiency. The second objective is to develop a question-answering system to streamline the process of risk-informed decision-making based on results obtained from the dynamic PRA analysis using the new algorithm. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Development of a Benchmark Model for the Near Real-Time Radionuclide Composition Measurement System using Microcalorimetry for Advanced Reactors | Virginia Commonwealth University | $1,100,000 | The primary goal of this proposed project is to develop high fidelity Monte Carlo radiation transport models of a microcalorimetry detector informed by fuel depletion models of a molten salt reactor and a pebble bed reactor to quantify the current and future capabilities of this detector technology to characterize and assay used fuel from these reactors in near real-time. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Development and Validation of a Dual-Purpose Instrument for On-line Monitoring of Molten Salt Composition and Thermal Behavior | Brigham Young University | $1,099,924 | We propose the development of an online monitoring instrument capable of quantifying heat transfer and salt composition for molten salt reactors (MSR). A dual electrochemistry/thermal conductivity probe (DETP) will be developed to measure the thermal properties and impurities within the salt simultaneously. The DETP will make use of a previously developed needle probe and electrodes for square-wave cyclic voltammetry measures of salt composition. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| In Situ Assessment of Molten Salt Transport into Nuclear Graphite Microstructures using Ultrasonic Sensors | Johns Hopkins University | $909,827 | This project focuses on the transport of molten salt into nuclear graphite along with the investigation of ultrasonic methods for sensing graphite material property changes, especially elastic modulus, associated with intrusion of molten salt into the graphite microstructure. Experimental studies coupled with physics-based simulations will be used to assess strategies for in situ sensing of salt intrusion in the reactor environment to enhance long-term viability of molten salt reactors. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| MONITORING CERAMIC FUEL FRACTURE VIA FIBER OPTIC ACOUSTIC EMISSION SENSORS | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $1,000,000 | In the proposed three-year program, the Center for Photonics Technology (CPT) at Virginia Tech will collaborate with Sentek Instrument (Sentek), Prysmian, and Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to develop and demonstrate a distributed acoustic emission (AE) sensing system for in-situ monitoring of ceramic fuel fracture. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| Concurrent Surrogate Model Development with Uncertainty Quantification in the MOOSE Framework Using Physics-Informed Gaussian-Process Machine Learning | University of Florida | $999,999 | The objective of this project is to develop a general capability for concurrent generation and use of physics-informed Gaussian process (GP)-based surrogate models to facilitate multiscale and multiphysics modeling. We will implement this new capability as part of the Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) so that every application based on the MOOSE framework will have access to it. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2024 |
| Unstructured Adaptive Mesh Algorithms for Monte Carlo Transport | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,098,000 | We propose to develop the fundamental methods and techniques for unstructured adaptive mesh refinement with Monte Carlo tallies. This work enables a transformative leap forward in speed, accuracy, and robustness to enhance the contribution of high-fidelity radiation transport to advanced simulation. Adaptive refinement is deployed on a challenging multiphysics simulation, cascading heat pipe failure, to study acceleration and stabilization properties. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2024 |
| Feasibility Study of Micro-Nuclear Reactor Thermal Output for Air Rotary Kilns in the High-Temperature Manufacturing of Portland Cement Clinker | Pennsylvania State University | $998,793 | This project aims to design and test a micro-nuclear reactor for high-temperature portland cement clinker production, a process responsible for 6%-8% of global CO2 emissions. Leveraging advanced reactors' heat output, the project explores TRISO-based nuclear microreactor core modifications and new working fluids for heat pipes. The research addresses uncertainties in micro-nuclear reactor deployment for clinker production and investigates high-efficiency heat exchanger designs. | Document | Non-Traditional and Non-electric Applications | FY2024 |
| Redox potential, ionic speciation, and separation and recovery challenges from molten salts containing actinides and fission products | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $999,999 | Establishing an efficient, safe, secure, and economical Molten-Salt Reactor (MSR) fuel cycle is imperative for MSR implementation. Molten salt fuel recycling technology requires predictive knowledge of the chemical and physical behavior of lanthanide and actinide ions with different oxidation states dissolved in solvent salts. A combination of off-gas and X-ray measurements with machine-learning simulations will be used to produce predictive modeling of separation and recovery conditions. | Document | Nuclear Fuel Recycle Technologies | FY2024 |
| Pre-Treatment and Bulk Separation of Used Fuels with Carbonate-Peroxide Solutions | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | To use carbonate-peroxide chemistries to develop a pre-processing method for used uranium-based fuels that enables the subsequent use and optimization of current solvent extraction reprocessing schemes. Using simple precipitation, this innovative method provides an initial, bulk separation of uranium from fission products and actinides. | Document | Nuclear Fuel Recycle Technologies | FY2024 |
| Optimization of Fueling Strategies and Material Surveillance through Real-time Pebble Tracking in Pebble Bed Reactors | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,100,000 | Flexible operation of the energy grid of the future introduces uncertainty in determining the optimal operating conditions of Pebble Bed Reactors. The proposed work will help to address these challenges and enable more economical operation by providing the tools to determine of optimal fuel reloading strategy through pebble identification and tracking. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Experimental Study and Computational Modeling of P-LOFC and D-LOFC Accidents in the Fast Modular Reactor Consisting of Silicon Carbide Composite Rods | University of Michigan | $1,100,000 | The primary objectives of this proposed research are to better understand NC flow phenomena and heat transfer under both D-LOFC and P-LOFC accidents in the FMR, produce experimental data in a well-scaled integral-effects test facility for the two accidents, and develop and validate predictive CFD models for NC flow phenomena in both accidents. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Sodium heat pipes; design and failure mode assessment for micro-reactor applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The present proposal aims to experimentally investigate the thermal-hydraulics performance of liquid sodium heat pipes applied to microreactors, with a focus on exploring different design parameters, effects of different parameters on operating performance and understanding the evolution and impact of different failure modes. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Interfacial Interactions between Graphite and Molten Fluoride Fuel Salt | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $1,000,000 | NaF-KF-UF4 fuel salt will be selected to study graphite-salt interactions and impact of the existence of fission products (FPs) and corrosion products on the interactions at different temperatures and pressures. Fundamental mechanisms of graphite-salt interaction and degradation will be understood. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Local resonance-based linear and nonlinear NDE techniques for repaired DSC wall structures | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | The proposed work plan will develop nondestructive examination (NDE) methods that develop and evaluate linear and nonlinear resonant ultrasound spectroscopy methods (such as NRUS, NIRAS, etc.) to cold spray (CS) repaired dry shielded canister (DSC) wall structures. With the support of our partners from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), we will perform technology development and validation on plain and cold spray-repaired DSC wall specimens. | Document | Spent Fuel, Waste Science & Technology and Integrated Waste Management System | FY2024 |
| Thermodynamic Models for Multivalent Actinide Solubility and Speciation as a Function of Temperature and Ionic Strength | University of Notre Dame | $1,000,000 | This proposed project will quantify the solubility and speciation of Np and Pu under temperatures, ionic strengths, and pH values that are relevant to the generic repository concept. The major deliverable will be full thermodynamic descriptions of the studied systems, which will lead to improved radionuclide transport models and support the development of a sound technical basis for the geologic disposal of spent nuclear fuel and other actinide-bearing wastes. | Document | Spent Fuel, Waste Science & Technology and Integrated Waste Management System | FY2024 |
| Advancing Fundamental Molten Salt Modeling using Ultrafast Spectroscopy | North Carolina State University | $600,000 | The overarching goal of the proposed research is to advance our fundamental understanding of molten salts by combining ultrafast spectroscopic experiments with high fidelity atomistic simulations. The proposed research will introduce a new experimental technique to the study of molten salts that will directly measure ion kinetics, specifically, terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS), which will further validate AIMD as a predictive modeling tool. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
| Hydrodynamics of Two-Phase Flow Under the Geometric Effects of Pipe Orientation and U-bends | Purdue University | $600,000 | Most two-phase flow analyses have been performed in straight vertical-upward pipes. However, nuclear reactor systems include piping with different geometric components, such as elbows or U-bends, as well as changes in flow orientations. The proposed work performs experiments in a scaled test facility existing at the institution's lab to investigate the effects of flow orientations and geometries relevant to nuclear reactor systems on the hydrodynamics of two-phase flow. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
| Interface-Resolved Experimental and Numerical Studies of Two-Phase Flow for Nuclear Engineering Applications | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $500,000 | The project aims at advancing the interface-resolved simulation capabilities for the two-phase flows found in various nuclear engineering applications. We will develop a comprehensive, high-resolution, interface-resolved database emphasizing bubble dynamics and bubble interaction mechanisms. The data will be used to validate the sub-grid models implemented in an interface-resolved simulation tool to improve simulation accuracy by developing physics-based coalescence models. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
FY 2020 Research and Development Awards
DOE is awarding more than $38.6 million through NEUP to support 57 university-led nuclear energy research and development projects in 24 states. NEUP seeks to maintain U.S. leadership in nuclear research across the country by providing top science and engineering faculty and their students with opportunities to develop innovative technologies and solutions for civil nuclear capabilities.
A complete list of R&D projects with their associated abstracts is available below.
| Title | Institution | Estimated Funding* | Project Description | Abstract | Project Type | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fundamental Understanding of Ambient and High-Temperature Plasticity Phenomena in Structural Materials in Advanced Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Elastic/Inelastic Nuclear Data Development Project | Idaho State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Heterogeneous Recycling in Fast Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Thermodynamic Development of Corrosion Rate Modeling in Iron Phosphate Glasses | Missouri University of Science and Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Subspace-Based Hybrid Monte Carlo-Deterministic Algorithms for Reactor Physics Calculations | North Carolina State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Improvements to Nuclear Data and Its Uncertainties by Theoretical Modeling | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Sharp Interface Tracking in Rotating Microflows of Solvent Extraction | State University of New York at Stony Brook | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Bulk Nanostructured FCC Steels with Enhanced Radiation Tolerance | Texas A&M University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Fuel Performance Experiments and Modeling: Fission Gas Bubble Nucleation and Growth in Alloy Nuclear Fuels | Texas A&M University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| SiC Schottky Diode Detectors for Measurement of Actinide Concentrations from Alpha Activities in Molten Salt Electrolyte | The Ohio State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Computational Design of Advanced Nuclear Fuels | University of California, Davis | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Data Collection Methods For Validation of Advanced Multi-Resolution Fast Reactor Simulations | University of Idaho | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Simulations of the Thermodynamic and Diffusion Properties of Actinide Oxide Fuel Materials | University of Michigan | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Adsorptive Separation and Sequestration of Krypton, I and C14 on Diamond Nanoparticles | University of Missouri, Columbia | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Alternative Technetium Waste Forms | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Quantification of UV-Visible and Laser Spectroscopic Techniques for Materials Accountability and Process Control | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| High-Fidelity Space-Time Adaptive Multiphysics Simulations in Nuclear Engineering | University of Nevada, Reno | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Simulations of Failure via Three-Dimensional Cracking in Fuel Cladding for Advanced Nuclear Fuels | University of Texas, Dallas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Mesh-Enabled Monte Carlo Capability for Multi-Physics Reactor Analysis | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Ab Initio Enhanced Calphad Modeling of Actinide Rich Nuclear Fuels | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Diffusion Barrier Coatings and Deposition Technologies for Mitigating Fuel Cladding Chemical Interactions (FCCI) | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Thermal Properties of LiCl-KCl Molten Salt for Nuclear Waste Separation | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Neutron Damage and MAX Phase Ternary Compounds | Drexel University | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Atomistic Calculations of the Effect of Minor Actinides on Thermodynamic and Kinetic Properties of UO2+x | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Maximum Fuel Utilization in Fast Reactors without Chemical Reprocessing | University of California, Berkeley | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Developing a High Thermal Conductivity Fuel with Silicon Carbide Additives | University of Florida | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Fabrication of Tungsten-Rhenium Cladding Materials via Spark Plasma Sintering for Ultra High Temperature Reactor Applications | University of Idaho | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Ionic Liquid and Supercritical Fluid Hyphenated Techniques for Dissolution and Separation of Lanthanides, Actinides, and Fission Products | University of Idaho | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Improved Fission Neutron Data Base for Active Interrogation of Actinides | University of Michigan | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Utilization of Methacrylates and Polymer Matrices for the Synthesis of Ion Specific Resins | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Improved LWR Cladding Performance by EPD Surface Modification Technique | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Models of LWR Pressure Vessel Embrittlement for Low Flux-High Fluence Conditions | University of California, Santa Barbara | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) | FY2009 | ||
| Irradiation Creep in Graphite | Boise State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Modeling the Stress Strain Relationships and Predicting Failure Probabilities For Graphite Core Components | Cleveland State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| TRISO-Coated Fuel Durability Under Extreme Conditions | Colorado School of Mines | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| An Innovative and Advanced Coupled Neutron Transport and Thermal Hydraulic Method (Tool) for the Design, Analysis and Optimization of VHTR/NGNP Prismatic Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Removal of 14C from Irradiated Graphite for Graphite Recycle and Waste Volume Reduction | Idaho State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Millimeter-Wave Thermal Analysis Development and Application to Gen IV Reactor Materials | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Accurate Development of Thermal Neutron Scattering Cross Section Libraries | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Understanding Creep Mechanisms in Graphite with Experiments, Multiscale Simulations, and Modeling | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Verification & Validation of High-Order Short-Characteristics-Based Deterministic Transport Methodology on Unstructured Grids | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Microscale Heat Conduction Models and Doppler Feedback | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Optimizing Neutron Thermal Scattering Effects in Very High Temperature Reactors | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Multiaxial Creep-Fatigue and CreepRatcheting Failures of Grade 91 and Haynes 230 Alloys Toward Addressing Design Issues of Gen IV Nuclear Power Plants | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Investigation of Countercurrent Helium-air Flows in Air-ingress Accidents for VHTRs | Ohio State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Testing of Performance of Optical Fibers Under Irradiation in Intense Radiation Fields, When Subjected to Very High Temperatures | Ohio State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| A Distributed Fiber Optic Sensor Network for Online 3-D Temperature and Neutron Fluence Mapping in a VHTR Environment | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Investigation on the Core Bypass Flow in a Very High Temperature Reactor | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| CFD Model Development and Validation for High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor Cavity Cooling System (RCCS) Applications | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Study of Air ingress across the duct during the accident conditions | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Verification of the CENTRM Module for Adaptation of the SCALE Code to NGNP Prismatic and PBR Core Designs | University of Arizona | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Integral and Separate Effects Tests for Thermal Hydraulics Code Validation for Liquid-Salt Cooled Nuclear Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Mechanisms Governing the Creep Behavior of High Temperature Alloys for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems | University of Cincinnati | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| ALD Produced B2O3, Al2O3 and TiO2 Coatings on Gd2O3 Burnable Poison Nanoparticles | University of Colorado, Boulder | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Experimental Study and Computational Simulations of Key Pebble Bed Thermomechanics Issues for Design and Safety | University of Idaho | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Prediction and Monitoring Systems of Creep-Fracture Behavior of 9Cr-1Mo Steels for Reactor Pressure Vessels | University of Idaho | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Understanding Fundamental Material Degradation Processes in High Temperature Aggressive Chemomechanical Environments | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Multi-Scale Multi-physics Methods Development for the Calculation of Hot-Spots in the NGNP | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Corrosion and Creep of Candidate Alloys in High Temperature Helium and Steam Environments for the NGNP | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Creation of a Full-Core HTR Benchmark with the Fort St. Vrain Initial Core and Validation of the DHF Method with Helios for NGNP Configurations | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Fission Product Sorptivity in Graphite | University of Missouri, Columbia | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Identifying and Understanding Environment-Induced Crack Propagation Behavior in Ni-Based Superalloy INCONEL 617 | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Graphite Oxidation Simulation in HTR Accident Conditions | University of New Mexico | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Non Destructive Thermal Analysis and In Situ Investigation of Creep Mechanism of Graphite and Ceramic Composites using Phase-sensitive THz Imaging & Nonlinear Resonant Ultrasonic Spectroscopy | University of Rochester | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Tritium Sequestration in Gen IV NGNP Gas Stream via Proton Conducting Ceramic Pumps | University of South Carolina | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Materials, Turbomachinery and Heat Exchangers for Supercritical CO2 Systems | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Experimental Studies of NGNP Reactor Cavity Cooling System with Water | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Assessment of Embrittlement of VHTR Structural Alloys in Impure Helium Environments | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Modeling Fission Product Sorption in Graphite Structures | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Liquid Salt Heat Exchanger Technology for VHTR Based Applications | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Effect of Post-Weld Heat Treatment on Creep Rupture Properties of Grade 91 Steel Heavy Section Welds | Utah State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Alpha Radiolysis of Nuclear Solvent Extraction Ligands used for An(III) and Ln(III) Separations | California State University, Long Beach | $1,390,252 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Predictive Maturity of Multi-Scale Simulation Models for Fuel Performance | Clemson University | $614,690 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Freeze-casting as a Novel Manufacturing Process for Fast Reactor Fuels | Drexel University | $1,149,327 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Fuel Performance Experiments on the Atomistic Level, Studying Fuel Through Engineered Single Crystal UO2 | Idaho State University | $650,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Development of A Self Biased High Efficiency Solid-State Neutron Detector for MPACT Applications | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $810,141 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Development of a Innovative High Thermal Conductivity UO 2 Ceramic Composites Fuel Pellets with Carbon Nano-Tubes Using Spark Plasma Sintering | University of Florida | $894,042 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Exploration and Modeling of Structural Changes in Waste Glass under Corrosion | Pennsylvania State University | $1,377,444 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Evaluation of materials for interim storage of spent fuel for more than 100 years | University of Michigan | $931,603 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Implementation of On-the-Fly Doppler Broadening in MCNP5 for Multiphysics Simulation of Nuclear Reactors | University of Michigan | $406,712 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Methods and tools to allow molecular flow simulations to be coupled to higher level continuum descriptions of flows in porous/fractured media and aerosol/dust dynamics | University of Missouri-Columbi | $541,286 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Characterization and Modeling of Materials for Kr-Xe Separations | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $989,800 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Modeling Solute Thermokinetics in LiCl-KCl Molten Salt for Nuclear Waste Separation | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $616,073 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Advanced Aqueous Separation Systems for Actinide Partitioning: Develop Fundamental Understanding of An(III)/Ln(III) Separation | Washington State University | $1,451,784 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Consistent Multigroup Theory Enabling Accurate Coarse-Group Simulation of GenIV Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,046,277 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Studies of Deteriorated Heat Transfer in Prismatic Cores Stemming from Irradiation-Induced Geometry Distortion | Idaho State University | $1,287,921 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Carbide Coatings for Nickel Alloys, Graphite, and Carbon/Carbon Composites to be Used in Fluoride Salt Valves | Johns Hopkins University | $1,183,239 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Design, Testing, and Modeling of the Direct Reactor Auxiliary Cooling System for AHTRs | Ohio State University | $1,366,627 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Monitoring microstructural evolution of Alloy 617 with nonlinear acoustics for remaining useful life prediction; multiaxial creep-fatigue and creep-ratcheting | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development and Validation of Multidimensional Models of Supercritical CO 2 Energy Conversion Systems for Nuclear Power Reactors | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $475,005 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Microstructure and Property Evolution in Advanced Cladding and Duct Materials Under Long-Term and Elevated Temperature Irradiation: Modeling and Experimental Investigation | University of California-Berkeley | $1,320,667 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of Barrier Layers for the Protection of Candidate Alloys in the VHTR | University of California-Santa Barbara | $995,232 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Investigation of a Novel NDE Method for Monitoring Thermo-Mechanical Damage and Microstructure Evolution in Ferritic-Martensitic Steels for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems | University of Cincinnati | $833,109 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Fission Product Transport in TRISO Particle Layers under Operating and Off-Normal Conditions | University of Michigan | $966,581 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Microstructure and Property Evolution in Advanced Cladding and Duct Materials Under Long-Term Irradiation at Elevated Temperature: Critical Experiments | University of Michigan | $1,181,379 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Three-dimensional NDE of VHTR Core Components via Simulation-based Testing | University of Minnesota | $1,366,163 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Failure Predictions for VHTR Core Components using a Probabilistic Continuum Damage Mechanics Model | University of Minnesota | $854,542 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of a Scanning Microscale Fast Neutron Irradiation Platform for Examining the Correlation Between Local Neutron Damage and Graphite Microstructure | University of Missouri-Columbia | $703,064 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of Thermal Transient Flow Rate Sensors for High Temperature, Irradiation, Corrosive Environment | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $451,269 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Novel Methods of Tritium Sequestration: High Temperature Gettering and Separation Membrane Materials Discovery for Nuclear Energy Systems | University of South Carolina | $1,366,626 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Heat Transfer Salts for Nuclear Reactor Systems - Chemistry Control, Corrosion Mitigation, and Modeling | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,352,040 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Pulsed Magnetic Welding for Advanced Core and Cladding Steels | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $525,206 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Corrosion in Supercritical Carbon Dioxide: Materials, Environmental Purity, Surface Treatments, and Flow Issues | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $651,447 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Multiscale Concrete Modeling for Aging Degradation | Mississippi State University | $345,941 | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability | FY2010 | |
| Development of an advanced computational fluid dynamics technology for the next-generation nuclear reactor system analysis and safety margin characterization code | North Carolina State University | $418,199 | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability | FY2010 | |
| Precursor Derived Nanostructured Si-C-X Materials for Nuclear Applications | University of Washington | $899,518 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Development and Testing of an Open-Loop Oscillator for Small Reactivity Worth Samples | Idaho State University | $597,252 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Understanding the Irradiation Behavior of Zirconium Carbide | Pennsylvania State University | $870,613 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Modeling investigation of the stability and irradiation-induced evolution of nanoscale precipitates in advanced structural materials | University of Tennessee-Knoxville | $380,653 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Investigation of Laser Shock Peening for Enhancing Fatigue and Stress Corrosion Cracking Resistance of Nuclear Energy Materials | University of Cincinnati | $1,242,019 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Irradiation Accelerated Corrosion of Reactor Core Materials | University of Michigan | $798,943 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Study of Interfacial Interactions using Thin Film Surface Modification: Radiation and Oxidation Effects in Materials | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $538,032 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Novel Engineered Refractory Materials for Advanced Reactor Applications | North Carolina State University | $1,129,304 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Quantification of Cation Sorption to Engineered Barrier Materials Under Extreme Conditions | Clemson University | $1,171,380 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| In-Pile Instrumentation Multi-Parameter System Utilizing Photonic Fibers and Nanovision | Idaho State University | $1,199,990 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Development of Plasmonically Cloaked Nanoparticles | Idaho State University | $800,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Fission Product Transmutation in Mixed Radiation Fields | Idaho State University | $800,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Life Prediction of Spent Fuel Storage Canister Material | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $899,826 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Active Interrogation using Photofission Technique for Nuclear Materials Control and Accountability | Oregon State University | $900,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Anisotropic Azimuthal Power and Temperature Distribution on Fuel Rod: Impact of Hydride Distribution | Pennsylvania State University | $631,956 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Sorption Modeling and Verification for Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Microemulsions and Aggregation Formation in Extraction Processes for Used Nuclear Fuel: Thermodynamics and Structural Studies | University of California, Irvine | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Optimized Processing Fabrication Paths for Larger Heats of Nanostructured Ferritic Alloys | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Basic Physics Data: Measurement of Neutron Multiplicity from Induced Fission | University of Michigan | $973,364 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Radionuclide Incorporation and Long Term Performance of Apatite Waste Forms | University of Michigan | $862,500 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Actinide Foil Production for MPACT Research | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $156,897 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Enriched Boron-Doped Amorphous Selenium Based Position-Sensitive Solid-State Thermal Neutron Detector for MPACT Applications | University of South Carolina | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Development of Advanced High Uranium Density Fuels for Light Water Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Developing the User Experience for a Next Generation Nuclear Fuel Cycle Simulator | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,200,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Preparation and Development of Polymer-Supported Extractants | City College of New York, Hunter | $363,716 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| One-Dimensional Nanostructures for Neutron Detection | North Carolina State University | $455,629 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Feasibility and Safety Assessment for Advanced Reactor Concepts Using Vented Fuel | Oregon State University | $600,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| High Temperature Transducers for Online Monitoring of Microstructure Evolution | Pennsylvania State University | $455,628 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Laser-Arc Hybrid Welding of Thick Section Ni-base Alloys- Advanced Modeling and Experiments | Pennsylvania State University | $536,117 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Correlates of Sensitive Technologies | Texas A&M University | $509,467 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Improved Safety Margin Characterization of Risk from Loss of Offsite Power | Texas A&M University | $600,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| A High Temperature-Tolerant and Radiation-Resistant In-Core Neutron Sensor for Advanced Reactors | The Ohio State University | $455,629 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Pathway Aggregation in the Risk Assessment of Proliferation Resistance and Physical Protection (PR&PP) of Nuclear Energy Systems | The Ohio State University | $534,471 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Preparation of High Purity, High Molecular-Weight Chitin from Ionic Liquids for Use as an Adsorbate for the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Alabama | $338,260 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Selectivity in Ligand Binding to Uranyl Compounds: A Synthetic, Structural, Thermodynamic and Computational Study | University of California-Berkeley | $500,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Seismic Isolation Systems Using Periodic Materials | University of Houston | $538,154 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium from Seawater | University of Idaho | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Austenitic ODS Strengthened Alloys for Very High Temperature Applications | University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign | $538,154 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Enhancement of the Extraction of the Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Transient Safety Analysis of Fast Spectrum TRU Burning LWR with Internal Blankets | University of Michigan | $599,475 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Novel Sorbents for Uranium Extraction from Seawater | University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Radiation Behavior of High-Entropy Alloys for Advanced Reactors | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $538,159 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Rapid Computer Aided Ligand Design and Screening of Precious Metal Extractants from TRUEX Raffinate with Experimental Validation | Washington State University | $500,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of an Efficient Meso-Scale Multi-Phase Flow Solver in Nuclear Applications | City College of New York | $505,858 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Multiscale Modeling and Uncertainty Quantification for Nuclear Fuel Performance | Colorado State University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Fundamental Studies of the Role of Grain Boundaries on Uniform Corrosion of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Materials | Drexel University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Phenomena-based Uncertainty Quantification in Predictive Coupled-Physics Reactor Simulations | Texas A&M University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Characterization of Modeling of Grain Boundary Chemistry Evolution in Ferritic Steels Under Irradiation | University of Michigan | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Development of Multiscale Materials Modeling Techniques and Coarse-Graining Strategies for Predicting Materials Degradation in Extreme Irradiation Environments | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $750,000 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Diffusion, Thermal Properties and chemical Compatibilities of Select MAX Phases with Materials for Advanced Nuclear Systems | Drexel University | $535,927 | Document | Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) | FY2011 | |
| A New Light Weight Structural Material for Nuclear Structures | North Carolina State University | $399,490 | Document | Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) | FY2011 | |
| Experimental Investigation of Convection and Heat Transfer in the Reactor Core for a VHTR | City College of New York | $1,118,856 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Graphite Microstructural Characterization Using Time-Domain and Correlation-Based Ultrasonics | Johns Hopkins University | $1,199,997 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Methodology Development for Passive Component Reliability Modeling in a Multi-Physics Simulation Environment | The Ohio State University | $533,457 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Pebble Fuel Handling and Reactivity Control for Salt-Cooled High Temperature Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $612,721 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Self-Sustaining Thorium Boiling Water Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $1,145,932 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| High Fluency Low Flux Embrittlement Models of LWR Reactor Pressure Vessel Embrittlement and a Supporting Database from the UCSB ATR-2 Irradiation Experiment | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,199,607 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| A Research Program for Fission Product/Dust Transport in HTGR's | University of Missouri-Columbia | $1,157,367 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Development and Validation of a Lifecycle-based Prognostics Architecture with Test Bed Validation | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $846,315 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| In-situ Condition Monitoring of Components in Small Modular Reactors Using Process and Electrical Signature Analysis | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $650,000 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Technical Development for S-CO2 Advanced Energy Conversion | University of Wisconsin | $815,000 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Ag Transport Through Non-Irradiated and Irradiated SiC | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,055,456 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Critical Heat Flux Phenomena at High Pressure and Low Mass Fluxes: Tests and Models | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,199,781 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Modeling and Test Validation of a Reactor Cavity Cooling System with Air | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,199,988 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Transient Mixed Convection Validation for NGNP | Utah State University | $635,860 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Alternative High-Performance Ceramic Waste Forms | Alfred University | $840,000 | This project aims to advance fundamental understanding of the kinetics of structural evolution of crystalline ceramic waste forms. The structure/property relationships will be identified and will reveal new formulations, improved processing routes, and strategies for improved performance or ceramic waste forms. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Surface Layer Bulk Glass Interface Evolution with Aqueous Corrosion | Alfred University | $880,000 | This project will investigate the links between the morphology, structure and chemistry of surface layer-bulk glass interface and the long-term corrosion-reaction kinetics using in-situ and ex-situ experiments. The understanding will result in improved models for long-term predictive behavior of high-level-waste (HLW) glasses under repository conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Optimization of Deep Borehole Systems for HLW Disposal | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $850,000 | Researchers aim to carry out a comprehensive evaluation of the deep borehole option for disposal of used nuclear fuel and high livel waste. The models developed will predict potential movement of water through natural and engineered barriers and release of radionuclides to the biosphere which will aide in site selection. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Scholarship for Nuclear Communications and Methods for Evaluation of Nuclear Project Acceptability | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will work to develop a model to characterize the factors affecting social acceptance of nuclear projects with potential stakeholders. The resultant model will strengthen the ability to design and implement large projects more efficiently, leading to higher rates of success of future nuclear projects. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Accurate Holdup Calculations with Predictive Modeling and Data Integration | North Carolina State University | $875,000 | Researchers will develop and use state-of-the-art radiation transport codes to account accurately for the fissile material in a nuclear materials processing facility. An accurate estimation of the materials will allow for ensured radiological safety, security, waste management and efficient plant operation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Testing of Sapphire Optical Fiber and Sensors in Intense Radiation Fields, when Subjected to Very High Temperatures | The Ohio State University | $885,000 | The researchers on this project will investigate the performance of sapphire optical fibers and sensors in reactor environments. The project, if successful, will result in improved instrumentation to understand the behavior and predict performance of nuclear fuel systems at the microstructural level. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Concrete Materials with Ultra-High Damage Resistance and Self-Sensing Capacity for Extended Nuclear Fuel Storage Systems | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | Researchers aim to design a new class of multifunctional concrete materials. This project, if successful, will result in a novel multifunctional concrete material that possesses inherent degradation monitoring capability and is suitable for an extended storage system for the used nuclear fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Probabilistic Multi-Hazard Assessment of Dry Cask Structures | University of Houston | $865,000 | This project aims to investigate the performance of dry cask storage systems under multiple hazard systems (earthquake, tornados, combined with aging effects) using a probabilistic multi-hazard framework. This framework will be validated based on experimental research and will provide improved models for safety and reliability of spent nuclear fuels during storage and transportation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Electrochemical Corrosion Studies for Modeling Metallic Waste Form Release Rates | University of Nevada- Las Vegas | $790,000 | This project aims to use advanced electrochemical methods to investigate the corrosion related degradation of metal alloys used for housing fission products. The data obtained from this study will allow for the prediction of the long-term behavior of the metallic host phase materials over geological time-scales. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Development and Experimental Benchmark of Simulations to Predict Used Nuclear Fuel Cladding Temperatures during Drying and Transfer Operations | University of Nevada- Reno | $745,000 | Researchers will conduct experiments to investigate and develop advanced computational models of heat transfer in post-pool-storage drying operations. This project, if successful, will result in tools that can be used to design efficient drying processes to as to ensure suitability for dry-cask systems for long-term storage and transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Seismic Performance of Dry Casks Storage for Long-Term Exposure | University of Utah | $873,319 | Researchers will evaluate the mechanical performance of dry-cask storage under seismic loading for mid-term operational periods. Simulations will include scenarios for freestanding, anchored, and vaulted casks. The experimental tests will also evaluate the dynamic seismic response of freestanding and anchored dry-cask storage prototypes, providing recommendations for optimal Interim Spent Fuel Storage Installations (ISFSIs) design. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Coupling of Nuclear Waste Form Corrosion and Radionuclide Transport in Presence of Relevant Repository Sediments | Washington State University | $885,000 | Researchers will conduct experiments to understand the mechanisms responsible for the corrosion of nuclear waste forms in realistic chemical environments. The data generated from these experiments will enable increased reliability of the models used to predict the waste form performance in repository environments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| ABR for TRU Transmutation with Breed & Burn Thorium Blanket for Improved Economics and Resource Utilization | University of California- Berkeley | $450,000 | The research team will use detailed neutronic analysis for a new Advanced Burner Reactor concept with low conversion ratio. The concept will use a new core shape to improve the utilization of neutrons to perform breed and burn. | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2012 |
| Atomic-Scale to Meso-Scale Simulation Studies of Thermal Ageing and Irradiation Effects in Fe-Cr Alloys | Boston University | $874,997 | Researchers will develop predictive, multi-scale simulation tools for iron-chromium alloys, which are expected to be key components of advanced steels envisioned as fuel cladding and structural components for Generation IV reactors. Such modeling is necessary to avoid resource intensive and costly thermal and neutron irradiation experiments to obtain required performance data. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Validation Data and Model Development for Fuel Assembly Response to Seismic Loads | George Washington University | $862,435 | Researchers will conduct experiments that will provide comprehensive data characterizing the dynamics of the fluid and the structure in Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR) fuel assemblies under seismic loads (earthquakes and loss of coolant accidents). Completion of their project will greatly benefit the safety of existing and future nuclear reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Uncertainty Quantification and Management for Multiscale Nuclear Materials Modeling | Georgia Institute of Technology | $743,444 | Researchers will address the question of uncertainty propogation and error estimates associated with model prediction of material behavior under irradiation. Their work will facilitate a better understanding of the connection of various unit processes to collective responses in a multiscale model chain enabling the development of high strength and high ductility materials. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Nonlinear Ultrasonic Techniques to Monitor Radiation Damage in RPV and Internal Components | Georgia Institute of Technology | $877,000 | Researchers will explore new nondestructive materials evaluation and monitoring techniques utilizing nonlinear ultrasonic measurements . This technique will allow researchers to assess remaining useful life of select reactor components. Breakthroughs in this area will lead to the ability to characterize radiation damage in reactor pressure vessels and other components-leading to a clearer definition of reactor safety margins. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Intergral Reactor Containment Condensation Model and Experimental Validation | Oregon State University | $871,119 | Researchers will conduct experiments to enhance the safety and efficiency of small modular reactors (SMRs). This project will assess the impact of high-pressure steam condensation on steel containment vessels to be used for SMR deigns. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Irradiation Performance of Fe-Cr Base Alloys | University of Illinois- Urbana Champaign | $876,332 | _Researchers will perform post-radiation analysis and develop tools for future development and application of the Fe-Cr class of alloys. The results of this research will lead to better modeling of performance and development of an alloy designated as the primary choice for reactor fuel cladding and structural applications in advanced systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Experimentally Validated Numerical Models for Effects of Non-Isothermal Turbulent Mixing on Wall Stresses in High Temperature Reactors | University of Pittsburgh | $876,422 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive experimentally validated computational framework for the turbulent mixing in the lower plenum of a very high temperature reactor (VHTR). Through CFD modeling and experimental validation, the results from this project will lay the groundwork for future stress analysis, failure and fatigue studies, and uncertainty quantification for the VHTR system. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Mechanical Behavior of UO2 at Sub-grain Length Scales: Quantification of Elastic, Plastic and Creep Properties via Microscale Testing | Arizona State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop techniques to measure properties at sub-grain scales using depleted Uranium Oxide samples. The project will provide a framework to measure sub-grain scale mechanical properties, as well as provide experimental data to improve the understanding of advanced oxide fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| The Impacts of Pore-Scale Physical and Chemical Heterogeneities on the Transport of Radionuclide-Carrying Colloids | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will identify the dominant transport mechanisms to develop models that predict radionuclide distribution in porous materials. Experimental and computational models will be created that couple pore-scale geometric and interfacial structures. Simulators such as these are a necessary step towards fully predictive models for field-scale applications in the future. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Polymer-Supported Aminophosphinates as Selective Extractants | Hunter College, CUNY | $399,999 | Researchers will prepare a polymer-supported extractant for the recovery of uranium from seawater. The project will focus on primary amines that could provide a 3-fold increase in uranium capture capacity than current methods. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| In-pile Thermal Conductivity Characterization with Single-laser Heating/Time Resolved Raman | Iowa State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a time-resolved Raman-based thermal conductivity measurement system to improve remote in-pile thermal conductivity measurement. These measurements will provide new insights into the behavior of materials exposed to extreme radiation and temperature environments. Understanding the behavior of materials at the microstructural level will support optimized fuel designs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Organic Speciation and Interactions in ALSEP - One Step Partitioning Process of Minor Actinides, Lanthanides, and Fission Products | Oregon State University | $600,000 | Researchers will investigate the Actinide-Lanthanide Separation (ALSEP) process organic phase prior to aqueous phase separation and after aqueous separation phases of bare and metal-loaded acids. Quantifying these effects can be used to determine how an engineering scale process will perform and generate an accurate chemical model for the system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Glass Composition and Solution Speciation Effects on Stage III Dissolution | Pennsylvania State University | $700,000 | Researchers will study the chemical and structural triggers of long-term vitrified nuclear waste form behavior. They will study a range of waste glass compositions in corrosive environments. The study will improve understanding of the long-term residual rate and may provide new options for environmental control of glass dissolution rates. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Correlating Thermal, Mechanical, and Electrical Coupling Based Multiphysics Behavior of Nuclear Materials Through In-Situ Measurements | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will use in-situ experimental techniques to monitor the influence of extreme conditions on fuel cladding. The project will establish an in-situ experimental setup that can predict change in thermal properties and their correlation with mechanical properties and correlate such changes to changes in microstructural and chemical features. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Creation of a Geant4 Muon Tomography Package for Imaging of Nuclear Fuel in Dry Cask Storage | Purdue University | $440,000 | Researchers will develop a simulation and analysis package to aid in the non-destructive assessment of sealed used nuclear fuel dry casks using cosmic ray muons. Cosmic ray muon tomography allows for non-destructive assessment that can independently verify and identify weapons grade material sealed within dense dry casks. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Fuel Cycle Data Packages for Two-stage Fast Reactor Fuel Cycle Options for Optimum Resource Utilization and Waste Management | Purdue University | $400,000 | Researchers will evaluate the two different two-stage fast reactor fuel cycle options that will offer efficient use of uranium resources and the ability to burn actinides and long-live fission products. Evaluation of these fast fuel cycle options will serve as a useful complement to the options currently being considered in the Fuel Cycle Options Campaign. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Mixed Metal Phosphonate-Phosphate Resins for Separation of Lanthanides from Actinides | Texas A&M University | $650,000 | Researchers will use ion exchangers to cleanly separate lanthanides and curium from reusable actinides. The study will assist in the development of an inexpensive, simple way in which to separate lanthanides from actinides found in used nuclear fuel rods and to recover a large portion of the usable fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Safeguards in Pyroprocessing: an Integrated Model Development and Measurement Data Analysis | The Ohio State University | $626,151 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive and effective safeguards approach for a pyroprocessing facility to support safeguards for future fuel cycles in the United States. The new approach and design will focus directly on the special nuclear materials in the electrorefiner where actinides are separated from fission products through electrochemical process. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Using Ionic Liquids for the Development of Renewable Biopolymer-Based Adsorbents for the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater and Testing Under Marine Conditions | University of Alabama | $400,000 | Researchers will explore the fundamental engineering parameters for a renewable high-performance adsorbent for the extraction of uranium from sweater based on a recently proven ionic liquid (IL)-chitin platform. The project will use the platform to develop a versatile, modifiable adsorbent and characterize its performance and degradation in marine conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Developing Ultra-Small Scale Mechanical Testing Methods and Microstructural Investigation Procedures for Irradiated Materials. | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop new small-scale mechanical testing techniques to allow for the estimation or direct measurement of bulk properties. The combined experiments and modeling will significantly enhance the statistics and information that can be obtained on small radioactive archived samples, as well as new ion beam irradiated specimens. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Improved Delayed-Neutron Spectroscopy Using Trapped Ions | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will develop innovative spectroscopy techniques to measure the decay of fission fragments. The resulting data from these new techniques will be used to better understand reactor kinetics under accident conditions and failure scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Thermally and Chemically Responsive Nanoporous Materials for Efficient Capture of Fission Product Gases | University of California, Davis | $750,000 | Researchers will create new nanoporous materials that will be highly effective at capturing fission product gases. These materials would be relevant to both reactor fuels applications and reprocessing operations. Tests will be performed in carbon based and nitride based nanostructures, with the most promising materials from the modeling perspective undergoing further testing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Multiphase Nanocrystalline Ceramic Concept for Nuclear Fuel | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | Researchers will study the use of nanoparticles and nanostructured ceramics to create new materials that can extend the service life and increase efficiency for nuclear fuel. Multiphase nanocrystalline ceramics will be used to design simulated nuclear fuel that can provide added plasticity, better radiation tolerance and improved thermal conductivity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Novel Porous Sorbents for Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Chicago | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a highly porous sorbent for the extraction of uranium from seawater. Previous research has established sorbent performance. This project will use past foundational studies to design and investigate a new nanocomposites that will be processed into tacks or braids for field tests in seawater tests. The technology may also be used for other metals. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Microwave Readout Techniques for Very Large Arrays of Nuclear Sensors | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,937 | Researchers will develop a powerful readout technique based on microwave transmission and reflection. The technique will enable very large arrays of diverse sensor types for nuclear materials quantification and tracking. It will provide more accurate data on material composition and quantity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| BiI3 Gamma-Ray Spectrometers for Reliable Room-Temperature Nuclear Materials Safeguarding | University of Florida | $799,999 | Researchers will develop gamma-ray spectrometers based on BiI3 single crystals for MPACT applications such as burnup validation quantification, improved assay of plutonium, determination of uranium enrichment and overall monitoring spent fuel within the fuel cycle. The project will improve energy resolution, efficiency and environmental performance with this new gamma-ray detector. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Innovative Coating of Nanostructured Vanadium Carbide on the F/M Cladding Tube Inner Surface for Mitigating the Fuel Cladding Chemical Interactions | University of Florida | $760,276 | Researchers will develop barrier coatings on the inner surface of fuel cladding tubes to improve performance of materials at elevated temperatures and high neutron exposures in fast reactors. The project will develop and test a low temperature coating process of nanostructured vanadium carbide that will provide a benchmark for use in future studies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Doubling the Life of Concrete Structures | University of Idaho | $800,000 | Researchers will use nanoscale techniques to develop methods for doubling the service life of concrete structures. They will study the effect of temperature load and temperature cycling (freezing and thawing) on the durability of concrete with nanoscale viscosity modifiers. The project will benefit from non-destructive evaluation of concrete performance through electrochemical techniques. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Off-Gas Treatment: Evaluation of Nano-structured Sorbents for Selective Removal of Contaminants | University of Idaho | $785,910 | Researchers will evaluate nanostructured sorbent materials for their effectiveness in removing and immobilizing radionuclides for the off-gas treatment from used nuclear fuel recycling operations. The project aims at achieving near-zero emissions of radionuclides by capturing them from the off-gas of recycling operations, allowing for the development of advanced fuel cycles. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium and Transition Metals from Amidoxime-Based Sorbents | University of Idaho | $399,864 | Researchers will develop a new two-step elution process to achieve total recovery of uranium and effective recycling of the sorbent. The extraction process would selectively remove uranium from the sorbent with little or no damage. The process would then remove transition metals and regenerate the sorbent for repeated use, making uranium extraction from seawater economically viable. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Performance of a Steel/Oxide Composite Waste Form for Combined Waste Streams from Advanced Electrochemical Processes over Geologic Time Scales | University of Illinois at Chicago | $700,000 | Researchers will develop and validate a mechanistically-based corrosion model for cermet-type waste forms, creating a testing protocol and modeling approach for predicting long-term performance. The study will apply novel electrochemical testing and modeling methods to the behavior of metal/oxide phase boundaries to evaluate waste form performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Enhancement of the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland, College Park | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and optimize novel adsorbents for uranium recovery from seawater. The team will use radiation-induced grafting of organic phosphates onto polymers. The experiments will use ocean water, with mechanistic analysis, to provide a solid basis for large-scale demonstration of the performance of the new adsorbents in ocean environments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Improving the Understanding of the Coupled Thermal-Mechanical-Hydrologic Behavior of Consolidating Granular Salt | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will increase the understanding of granular salt seal materials for shafts, drifts and boreholes. By coupling thermal, mechanical and hydrological responses, the study will result in greater confidence in granular salt consolidation as a principal strategy for closure and isolation of long-term waste repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Fission Fragment Yield Data in Support of Advanced Reactor Technology | University of New Mexico | $399,816 | Researchers will produce a highly accurate data set for thermal fission. These precision data are necessary for high-accuracy simulations of nuclear criticality, transmutation rates, radiation effects and heating as well as for nuclear fuel, material accounting and identification needs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Molecular dynamics-based simulations of bulk/interfacial structures and diffusion behaviors in nuclear waste glasses | University of North Texas | $700,000 | Researchers will generate accurate atomic structural models for use in Monte Carlo simulations of the dissolution of nuclear waste glasses. Large-scale molecular dynamics-based computer simulations will be used to investigate self-diffusion behaviors, interfacial structure, and other structures formed during dissolution of these glasses. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| U3Si2 Fabrication and Testing for Implementation into the BISON Fuel Performance Code | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will fabricate, test and model a high uranium density, advanced nuclear fuel that operates at a much lower temperature and stores less energy. The work will deliver key research data on creep and grain growth, improving economics, through possible power uprates, and advancing accident tolerant fuels research. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Structural Health Monitoring of Nuclear Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of South Carolina | $738,618 | Researchers will develop a nuclear structural health monitoring system based on a sensing technology that monitors material degradation and aging for dry cask storage systems. The low-cost, low-profile sensors will perform on-demand monitoring of the structural integrity of individual components as well as the entire system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| ORIGEN-based Nuclear Fuel Depletion Module for Fuel Cycle Assessment | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $755,181 | Researchers will develop a flexible reactor analysis module for the CYCLUS fuel cycle simulator based on established tools for reactor fuel depletion and decay. They will use ORIGEN, a mature and experimentally validated code, affording greater flexibility and allowing for accurate evaluations of impacts of both present and future fuel cycle options. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Cost and System Analysis of Innovative Fuel Resources Concepts | University of Texas at Austin | $295,960 | This project will develop and test braided polymer fiber adsorbents that surpass the sorption capacity, selectivity and durability of the best existing technology to recover uranium from seawater. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Risk Assessment of Structural Integrity of Transportation Casks | University of Utah | $789,296 | Researchers will assess the loss of structural integrity of transportation casks and fuel cladding after extended storage. This risk assessment will conduct experimental tests and simulations to evaluate the structural performance of fuel, fuel assemblies and cask components when subjected to vibration and impact loads during transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Market-Based and System-Wide Fuel Cycle Optimization | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $612,731 | Researchers will create market and economic optimizers to improve calculations for the CYCLUS fuel cycle simulator. The team will leverage existing optimization software frameworks within the simulator to resolve top level policy questions. The optimizations will allow CYCLUS to move beyond static material compositions, providing a holistic view of the fuel cycle system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Optical Fiber Based System for Multiple Thermophysical Properties for Glove Box, Hot Cell and In-Pile Applications | Utah State University | $799,975 | Researchers will use a small pressure vessel to develop a robust technique for the measurement of multiple thermophysical properties at very high temperatures. The technique will lead to a system design moving toward the eventual measurement of irradiated fuels in a glovebox and/or hot cell with all sensors and electronics outside of the glovebox and/or hot cell. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of a Nano-Modified Concrete for Next Generation of Storage Systems | Vanderbilt University | $796,268 | Researchers will use nano-sized and nano-structured particles based on enhanced reactivity to develop a superior concrete for the long-term storage of used nuclear fuel. The project will use state-of-the-art experimental chemical and mechanical characterizations and computation analysis to assess the performance of nano-modified concretes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Fuel Cycle Data Packages for Thorium Fuel Cycle Options | Vanderbilt University | $797,995 | Researchers will develop six fuel cycle data packages for multi-stage, thermal fuel cycles which incorporate thorium. These new fuel cycle data packages will provide the opportunity to examine fuel cycle options beyond those which have traditionally been considered. A thorium fuel cycle database will also be assembled as a basis for thorium literature for future evaluations of the thorium fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Enhanced Shielding Performance of HLW Storage Packages via Multi-Component Coatings | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $796,947 | Researchers will develop a multi-layer composite that will enhance long-term storage and facilitate safe transport of storage packages. This novel multi-layer, multi-component coating would create an outer shield material that is resistant to the corrosion, radiation, diffusion and thermal cycling processes that affect fuel packages during long term storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Managing Zirconium Chemistry and Phase Compatibility in Combined Process Separations for Minor Actinide Partitioning | Washington State University | $700,000 | Researchers will address unique challenges for combining TRUEX and TALSPEAK processes for partitioning of lanthanides and minor actinides. The project will develop improved information on the thermodynamics of fission product zirconium and develop a framework for an organic phase solvation model. Combined process development could streamline separations processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Advances in the Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Studies Under Real Ocean Conditions | Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution | $398,882 | Researchers will provide infrastructure and expertise for marine testing of currently available adsorbents in real ocean conditions. The team will move adsorbent research from the lab to field testing in order to quantify sorptive properties and uranium uptake. The project will provide valuable field data that will show the potential of large scale applications of these technologies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| NEUP Project 20-19172: Irradiation of Sensors and Adhesive Couplants for Application in LWR Primary Loop Piping and Components | $497,881 | Researchers paln to attach ultrasonic transducers to substrates using various adhesive couplants that will be irradiated at elevated temperature to simulate LWR primary loop conditions at the PULSTAR reactor at North Carolina State University. Ultrasonic data will be taken in-situ. Subsequently, the sensors and couplant interfaces will be characterized using the LAMDA facility at ORNL. The results will be used to benefit a parallel EPRI project on online monitoring of cracks in LWR primary loop piping. | Document | Joint R&D with NSUF Access | FY2013 | |
| Lower Length Scale Characterization and Validation of Formation and Stability of Helium Bubbles in Nano-structured Ferritic Alloys under Irradiation | Clemson University | $399,870 | Researchers will provide a fundamental knowledge about the formation and stability of ultra-fine helium bubbles within 14YWT after neutron/ion irradiation for further design of new advanced structural materials with a characteristic high density nanoparticles feature which can increase the mechanical strength, hardness, irradiation resistance and the operational temperature range of materials. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Three-Dimensional Fuel Pin Model Validation by Prediction of Hydrogen Distribution in Cladding and Comparison with Experiment | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers will validate important three-dimensional aspects of the fuel pin modeling by using specialized numerical modeling techniques coupled with laboratory experiments to validate existing models for predicting fuel performance in light water reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Collocation-Based Surrogate Models for Uncertainty Quantification and Validation of Coupled, Multiphysics Fuel Performance Simulation Tools | University of Michigan | $596,835 | Researchers will provide the necessary high fidelity, coupled, multiphysics fuel performance simulator for computational modeling and develop surrogates which will accelerate and focus the validation of the coupled codes. This will be achieved by utilizing the high fidelity coupled fuel performance, thermal-hydraulics and neutronics codes BISON/STAR-CCM+/MPACT and an innovative collocation-based surrogate methodology. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Multi-Resolution In-Situ Testing and Mutliscale Simulation for Creep Damage Fatigue Damage Analysis of Alloy 617 | Arizona State University | $800,000 | This project will develop novel testing and experimentally validated prediction methodologies for micro-structural damage mechanisms of structural materials for advanced reactor systems. The investigations will focus on the characterization and testing of specific metal alloys, but the proposed testing and life-prediction methodologies are applicable to other structural materials as well. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Novel High Temperature and Radiation Resistant Infrared Glasses and Optical Fibers for Sensing in Advanced Small Modular Reactors | Clemson University | $800,000 | Clemson University, in partnership with the Iowa State University and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, will develop novel optical materials with improved heat and radiation exposure resistance in order to enable in-vessel fiber optic sensing for advanced Small Modular Reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Validation Data Acquisition in HTTF during PCC Events | George Washington University | $800,000 | Researchers at the George Washington University and Oregon State University will collaborate with NASA Langley Research Center to measure flow velocities in a high temperature test facility. This work supports the development of very-high temperature reactors with passive safety systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced High Temperature Inspection Capabilities for Small Modular Reactors | Iowa State University | $790,822 | The objective of this project is to develop non-destructive evaluation techniques for advanced small modular reactors. The research will provide key enabling inspection technologies needed to support the design and the reactor component performance validation process for advanced small modular reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Experimental and Computational Investigations of Plenum-to-Plenum Heat Transfer under Natural Circulation in a Prismatic Very High Temperature Reactor | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,999 | Researchers will perform experimental and computational investigations to study heat transfer and natural circulation phenomena in very-high temperature reactors. The study will assist in the ability to predict and analyze passive safety systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| New Mechanistic Models of Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth Interactions for Advanced High Temperature Reactor Components | Oregon State University | $790,790 | Researchers will create and validate a robust, multi-scale, numerical model to predict material degradation in nickel-based reactor alloys. If successful, this project will provide better numerical tools for reactor designers and greatly improve their capability to design against material failures for reactor alloys in the long term. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Self-Powered Wireless Dual-mode Langasite Sensor for Pressure/Temperature Monitoring of Nuclear Reactors | State University of New York, Stony Brook | $800,000 | This research will develop a novel self-powered wireless hybrid sensor that can accurately monitor both pressure and temperature using a single device without requiring external electricity, even in extreme harsh environments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Compact Heat Exchanger Design and Testing for Advanced Nuclear Reactors and Advanced Power Cycles | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to investigate optimal heat exchanger designs for advanced reactors. The research will study the optimization of printed circuit heat exchangers for specific fluids under a variety of conditions as well as perform numerical modeling. Experiments will focus on thermal performance and heat stress during extreme conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Fundamental Understanding of Creep-Fatigue Interactions in 9Cr-1MoV Steel Welds | The Ohio State University | $798,000 | This project will advance the state of knowledge and fundamental understanding of deforming materials and welds under loading conditions. Specifically, new integrated testing procedures will be evaluated and applied for conditions that are most detrimental to material stability leading to improved predictions of life expectancy for reactor steels and welds. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced Mechanistic 3D Spatial Modeling and Analysis Methods to Accurately Represent Nuclear Facility External Event Scenarios | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop three-dimensional characterization uncertainty analysis for commercial power plants. The project will involve combining experts from the fields of seismic structural modeling and advanced methods of risk assessment. This effort is expected to result in next generation tools that can be used for assessment of seismic risks. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Tritium Mitigation/Control for Advanced Reactor Systems | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a fluoride salt cooled high-temperature reactor featuring a specialized system to control tritium production. If successful, this will result in a significant reduction in size and cost in comparison to other reactor designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| A Pebble-Bed Breed and Burn Reactor | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will assess the feasibility of designing a type of metal cooled reactor able to establish and maintain operation when fueled with depleted uranium. If successful, this reactor will offer at least a 30-fold increase in the uranium ore utilization versus that achieved in contemporary light water reactors without the need for fuel reprocessing and recycling. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Investigation of Thermal Aging Effects on the Evolution of Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Cast Duplex Stainless Steels | University of Maryland, College Park | $799,966 | This research will provide a better understanding of the microstructural evolution and simultaneous change in mechanical response during aging. The results of the research will provide data that can be used to estimate degraded mechanical properties for an 80-year service life of light water reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Model validation using CFD-grade experimental database for NGNP Reactor Cavity Cooling Systems with water and air | University of Michigan | $799,348 | Researchers will use advanced innovative instrumentation to build a high-resolution experimental database and to use the novel experimental data to assess and further develop the predictive capabilities of computer codes for thermal hydraulics and computational fluid dynamics. The improved models developed by this project will also have the direct benefit of improving the predictive capability of the passive systems of third generation light water reactors and small modular reactor systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Long-Term Prediction of Emissivity of Structural Material for High Temperature Reactor Systems | University of Missouri | $799,117 | Researchers will study specific types of emissivity driven cooling from a variety of materials that are relevant to nuclear reactors. The research will provide a basis for numerical modeling to support reactor development. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced I&C for Fault-Tolerant Supervisory Control of Small Modular Reactors | University of Pittsburgh | $800,000 | The purpose of this research is to develop advanced instrumentation and control techniques for supervisory control of advanced small modular reactors. This research supports the operational goals of small modular reactor concepts through the development of improved oversight and surveillance techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Corrosion of Structural Materials for Advanced Supercritical Carbon-Dioxide Brayton Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $798,672 | Researchers will study a variety of materials for corrosion resistance under conditions that improve power conversion. In addition to studying the corrosion resistance of the materials, researchers will study the effect of additives to mitigate corrosion. Development of corrosion theories and modeling aimed at prediction of long-term corrosion will be the underlying theme throughout the project. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Component and Technology Development for Advanced Liquid Metal Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $798,920 | In support of liquid metal cooled reactors, the University of Wisconsin, Madison will evaluate advanced alloys and ceramics that come in contact with liquid metals. Additionally, a robust oxygen sensor and for use in liquid metals will be developed in order to better evaluate corrosion profiles in support of diagnostic testing. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| A New Paradigm for Understanding Multi-phase Ceramic Waste Form Performance | Clemson University | $800,000 | Researchers will use advanced characterization tools to develop 3-D microstructural data that can be incorporated into computer-based simulations in order to predict the performance of waste forms. Materials system modeling will incorporate elemental release and the interconnected microstructural network of phases to better understand performance and degradation, which will accelerate waste form acceptance in repository settings. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Controlling Hexavalent Americium: A Centerpiece to a Compact Nuclear Fuel Cycle | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and exploit the fundamental chemistry of Americium to enable an industrially viable means to co-recover the major and minor actinide elements from used nuclear fuel. The results would be a significant step forward in the development of aqueous separations approaches designed to recover the U-Am actinides based on the availability of the hexavalent oxidation state. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Zeolite Membranes for Krypton/Xenon Separation from Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Off-Gas | Georgia Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a high-performance, lower-cost zeolitic membrane process for Kr/Xe separations during spent nuclear fuel processing. Current separation methods are not considered economical and a membrane process would have relatively lower cost, equipment size, and ambient operating temperature. The process would form a sound basis for further development of this transformative separation technology for the nuclear fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Optimizing Polymer-Grafted Amidoxime-based Adsorbents for Uranium Uptake from Seawater | Georgia Institute of Technology | $399,999 | Researchers will work to increase the adsorbent capacity and selectivity toward uranium by optimizing the adsorbent morphology, synthesis variables, and conditioning parameters and by investigating the rate-limiting variables through transport and reaction modeling. A novel adsorption/partition concept that has the potential to substantially increase the adsorbent capacity will be tested, making uranium from seawater extraction more economically viable. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Extraction of Uranium from Seawater: Design and Testing of a Symbiotic System | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a seawater uranium extraction system that will work symbiotically with an offshore windmill by utilizing the structure, mooring and power of the windmill, while increasing the energy harvested by the installation. Uranium will be extracted by an adsorbent polymer belt, which will be cycled through the seawater and an elution plant located at the base of the windmill tower. Increasing the frequency of harvesting could overcome current economic barriers to seawater uranium extraction. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Imaging a Dry Storage Cask with Cosmic Ray Muons | Oregon State University | $799,871 | Researchers will develop an imaging system to monitor the content of a dry storage cask with cosmic ray muons. A very large amount of plutonium under nuclear safeguards is contained in used fuel assemblies stored in dry storage casks. Muon imaging will allow a cost effective and reliable way to evaluate dry storage cask content and integrity before transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Apatite and sodalite based glass-bonded waste forms for immobilization of 129I and mixed halide radioactive wastes | Rutgers University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop advanced and chemically durable waste forms for immobilizing 129I (aqueous based reprocessing of fuel) and mixed-halide wastes (molten-salt processing of fuel) by low temperature synthesis. Halide-containing sodalite and calcium phosphate-based apatite minerals will be synthesized, consolidated and tested for chemical durability. The project will provide needed baseline data for the development of advanced waste forms for immobilization of iodine and mixed-halide wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Sorption Modeling and Verification for Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $350,000 | Researchers will develop modeling tools supported by experiments for off-gas capture from future nuclear-fuel recycling facilities. Target species include tritium, iodine, krypton, and xenon. The models are intended to provide path forward recommendations to develop off-gas treatment adsorption processes. The project will contribute to the evaluation of options for environmentally acceptable recycle systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development of high performance ODS alloys | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will study swelling, radiation hardening and changes in mechanical properties of ODS alloys to develop two sets of advanced ODS alloys. Two sets of first-round candidate alloys that have already undergone extensive development and testing will evaluate irradiation performance. The study will meet the need for high strength, radiation-tolerant cladding and core components that have enhanced resistance to void swelling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Rare Earth Electrochemical Property Measurements and Phase Diagram Development in a Complex Molten Salt Mixture for Molten Salt Recycle | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate rare earth (RE) properties in complex molten salt mixtures. In a molten salt recycle approach, the RE drawdown by electrolysis is a key step in which REs are separated from salt containing other fission products. Investigation of RE electrolysis must consider the electrochemical properties of the REs. We propose to conduct studies of detailed experiments and corresponding models to provide the physical properties and phase diagrams required to predict the performance of RE drawdown for processing complex molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Computational and Experimental Studies of Microstructure-Scale Porosity in Metallic Fuels for Improved Gas Swelling Behavior | University of Arkansas | $796,823 | Researchers will study the microstructure of metallic uranium alloy fuels, and their resistance to densification, to minimize in-pile irradiation swelling through bimodal pore size distribution. The project will develop a predictive approach to design metallic fuel microstructures for optimal swelling resistance and fission gas retention. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Improved Hybrid Modeling of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of California, Berkeley | $645,393 | Researchers will develop a variance reduction method for computational transport that will improve the ability to design and operate monitoring systems for interim used fuel installations through enhanced modeling and simulation. This new tool will demonstrate that modeling calculations can be done more accurately in less time than with current tools and will perform studies characterizing how changes in material, cask configurations, and number of casks could impact monitoring systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Selective ligands for uranyl via combinatorial peptoid libraries: A synthetic, structural, thermodynamic and computational study | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will study how donor ligands bind to the uranyl ion, UO22+, with the longer-term goal of using this information to tackle selective recognition of uranyl in aqueous solution. The study will impact underlying approaches to controlling the behavior of uranium in these systems. The actinide separation technology could be used in several areas including uranium extraction from seawater, nuclear waste remediation and nuclear materials. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Combining Experiments and Simulations of Extraction Kinetics and Thermodynamics in Advanced Separation Processes for Used Nuclear Fuel | University of California, Irvine | $799,938 | Researchers will study how the kinetics and thermodynamics of metal ion extraction in advanced separation processes for used nuclear fuel can be described by molecular dynamic (MD) simulations and how the simulations can be validated by experimental data. The project would have broad impacts on several separations processes including advanced TALSPEAK, ALSEP and GANEX by increasing the confidence and accuracy of computer modeling of metal ion extraction. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Effect of Metallic Li on the Behavior of Metals in Molten Salts | University of Nevada, Reno | $458,250 | Researchers will identify the effect of metallic lithium on materials that are used in molten salt recycling. The study will try to understand how the presence of Li(0) in molten salts affects the degradation of alloys. Studying these changes will help accurately predict container material behavior and longevity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Assessment of Corrosion Resistance of Promising Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding under Reactor Conditions | University of Notre Dame | $800,000 | Researchers will assess the corrosion behavior of accident tolerant fuel candidate iron-based alloys under normal LWR operating conditions consisting of high temperature, relevant water chemistry and irradiation. The assessment will produce data about possible irradiation-accelerated corrosion rates of iron-based alloys, and the mechanisms by which such corrosion rates are accelerated. The project will advance the selection of appropriate replacements for Zircaloy cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Enhanced Accident-Tolerant Fuel Performance and Reliability for Aggressive iPWR/SMR Operation | University of Tennessee | $799,967 | To develop a process that evaluates operational and safety performance of reactor-and-fuel combinations by integrating whole-core 3D neutronics with MOOSE/BISON fuel performance assessments via explicit time and space dependent fuel rod operational power histories. The project will be valuable in analyzing and evaluating accident tolerant fuel concepts and furthering the understanding of reactor physics and fuel performance aspects of key accident tolerant fuel concepts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Nuclear Technology R&D Strategies in an Era of Energy Price Uncertainty | University of Texas, Austin | $799,112 | Researchers will identify nuclear technology options that are competitive over a wide range of plausible future business environments. No single nuclear technology or business practice will be the best choice across all or even most future conditions. The study will focus on hybrid nuclear-fossil technologies, energy storage and conversion, which will result in an identification of nuclear strategies that can succeed under future market conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development and Optimization of Voltammetric Methods for Real Time Analysis of Electrorefiner Salt with High Concentrations of Actinides and Fission Products | University of Utah | $621,612 | Researchers will develop an advanced voltammetry method to pursue the objective of real time monitoring of actinide concentrations in electrorefiner salt. This will include experimental measurement of key parameters such as activity coefficients and exchange current density. It will also involve simulation of voltammetry processes based on first principles. The project will allow for real time measurements that could support the commercialization of pyroprocessing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development of Self-Healing Zirconium-Silicide Coatings for Improved Performance of Zirconium-Alloy Fuel Cladding | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $798,621 | Researchers will study the deposition of self-healing zirconium-silicide coatings on zirconium-alloy fuel cladding material to improve corrosion resistance under normal and accident conditions. Under these conditions, Zr-Si coating evolves into a highly protective functionally-graded multilayered system. The study will lead to improved performance of zirconium-alloy fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Thermal Conductivity in Metallic Fuels | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,837 | Researchers will calculate the thermal conductivity of metallic uranium and neptunium alloys, including the effects of noble gasses, using density functional theory. The experiments will validate the calculated effective thermal conductivity using the MARMOT code and by helping determine DFT simulation parameters. The study works to improve fuel lifetime by understanding its thermal behavior. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| SiC-ODS Alloy Gradient Nanocomposites as Novel Cladding Materials | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,998 | Researchers will combine nuclear nanomaterial design, processing, testing, and characterization efforts to develop revolutionary materials that can withstand neutron irradiation for long period of time using nanostructured SiC and oxide dispersion strengthened steel. The ultimate objective is to offer new cladding materials with increased corrosion resistance, strength, and creep resistance in both steady state and accident conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Experimental Breeder Reactor II Benchmark Evaluation | Idaho State University | $400,000 | _Researchers will develop a benchmark evaluation of the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II). During nearly 30 years of operation numerous experiments were conducted at EBR-II. The most significant of these experiments were conducted in 1986 demonstrating inherent safety features in loss of flow without reactor scram and loss of heat sink without reactor scram. Benchmark evaluation will be valuable for the reactor design efforts in the United States and South Korea. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| Integral full core multi-physics PWR benchmark with measured data | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | _Researchers will introduce BEAVRS, a new multi-cycle full-core Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) depletion benchmark based on two operational cycles of a commercial nuclear power plant. This project aims at addressing the uncertainty quantification of the measured data and on making this benchmark a true non-proprietary international benchmark for the validation of high-fidelity multi-physics computational tools. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| Benchmark Evaluation of PROTEUS Gas-Cooled Reactor Experiments | University of Florida | $400,000 | _Researchers will create International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) benchmarks using data from 1970s experiments of the neutronics of gas-cooled fast reactor (GCFR) designs investigated in the PROTEUS reactor. The GCFR-PROTEUS experiments fill a gap in current integral benchmark data. These experiments can provide validation of computational models and nuclear data for next generation reactors. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| An Investigation To Establish Multiphysical Property Dataset Of Nuclear Materials Based On In-Situ Observations And Measurements | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will create an in-situ measurement based experimental approach to develop experimental validation dataset for NEAMS based code validation. Particular emphasis is on supplying data set for multiphysics simulations in extreme conditions as a function of material microstructure. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| Experimental Validation of UO2 Microstructural Evolutions for NEAMS tool MARMOT | University of Florida | $798,000 | _Researchers will experimentally validate MARMOT for predicting the microstructural evolutions of UO2 oxide fuel under the driving forces of high temperatures and large temperature gradient in reactors. By performing the experiments and simulations simultaneously using precisely defined initial conditions, the experiment data will provide direct benchmarking of the MARMOT code. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| High-resolution time-resolved experiments on mixing and entrainment of buoyant jets in stratified environments | University of Michigan | $799,983 | _Researchers will study high spatial and time-resolution experimental data of the fluid dynamics phenomena of flow jets interacting with a stratified layer. The issue plays an important role in the safety of several reactor designs, including sodium-cooled reactors. The data addresses the NEAMS needs for the validation of high fidelity computational fluid dynamics methodologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| Fundamental study of key issues related to advanced S-CO2 Brayton Cycle: prototypic HX development and Cavitation | Georgia Institute of Technology | $799,000 | _Researchers will study scientific and operational issues pertinent to compact heat exchanger systems and turbo-machinery. The project will work to resolve issues with the fabrication of diffusion bonded compact heat exchangers, alternate heat exchange technology for recuperators, and resolution of issues with cavitation and fluid instabilities. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Advanced Models for Nondestructive Evaluation of Aging Nuclear Power Plant Cables | Iowa State University | $787,291 | _Researchers will develop advanced models that relate environmentally induced microstructural and chemical changes in cable insulation polymers to their macroscopic electrical parameters. These parameters will be measured and modeled over a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum, covering several potential nondestructive evaluation techniques, enabling identification of the most sensitive techniques for future development. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Development of Novel Functionally Graded Transition Joints for Improving the Creep Strength of Dissimilar Metal Welds in Nuclear Applications | Lehigh University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop graded transition joints and improved creep life models for increasing the life of dissimilar metal welds (DMWs) in nuclear reactors. The research represents the first application of functionally graded material concepts for solving the problem of DMW failures through an integrated approach of additive manufacturing, modeling, microstructural characterization, and advanced strain-sensing techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Feasibility Assessment of a Micro Modular Reactor (MMR) | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | _Researchers will develop an innovative compact reactor concept that integrates power production, power conversion and electricity generation in a single unit: the Micro Modular Reactor (MMR). It is designed to be absolutely melt-down proof (MDP) under all circumstances including complete loss of coolant scenarios with no possible release of radioactive material, to have a cycle length of greater than 10 years, and to be highly proliferation resistant. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Scaling Studies for Advanced Gas Reactor Concepts | Oregon State University | $681,834 | _Researchers will expand the utilization of the Oregon State University High Temperature Test Facility (HTTF) to validate a broader range of advanced high temperature reactors and events. The facility will be revised to add a detailed scaling analysis of additional gas reactor concepts including advanced gas-cooled, molten salt, and sodium cooled reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Fluid Stratification Separate Effects Analysis, Testing and Benchmarking | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will study fluid stratification in high temperature gas reactors. Coolant stratification is the result of incomplete mixing of one or more fluids, leading to a density gradient, which may or may not dissipate under diffusive or convective effects. This combined analytical and experimental project seeks to investigate stratification driven by diffusive and convective mechanisms and is expected to yield insight into this phenomenon. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Probabilistic Economic Valuation of Safety Margin Management Analysis | Oregon State University | $795,364 | _Researchers will use RAVEN and develop a companion software package to facilitate economic analysis of safety margins. The project is a proof of concept that will use techniques to examine the cost of improving safety margins vs. the risk of accidents from not improving safety margins. This analysis can be used to evaluate the economic viability of various plant upgrades. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Novel Dissimilar Joints Between Alloy 800H and 2.25%Cr and 1%Mo Steel | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will fabricate and test dissimilar metal joints between a nickel base alloy and a steel with gradual variations of chemical composition, microstructure and properties in a manner that reduces abrupt thermal expansion mismatch and the resulting residual stresses. Data on structure and properties will serve as valuable inputs for the initiation of an ASME code case. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Multi-Phase Model Development to Assess RCIC System Capabilities under Severe Accident Conditions | Texas A&M University | $564,246 | _Researchers will develop physics-based models of the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) System and incorporating them into a multi-phase code for validation. The project will tackle the current major challenges in RCIC System analysis and enable evaluation of two-phase thermodynamic aspects. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Experimental Investigation and CFD Analysis of Steam Ingress Accidents in HTGRs | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will study the steam ingress scenario for HTGRs. The study will investigate thermal-hydraulic behavior and graphite oxidation of stream ingress phenomena to validate predictive CFD models. This work will resolve concerns about possible steam generator tube ruptures in a HTGR He-Steam Rankine cycle. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Coiled Tube Gas Heaters For Nuclear Gas-Brayton Power Conversion | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop heat exchangers for Brayton-cycle power conversion in reactors using sodium, NaK, or salt as intermediate coolants. The proposed coiled tube gas heaters (CTGHs) are expected to have excellent power density, thermal shock/creep, in-service inspection, and reparability characteristics. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Fundamental Studies of Irradiation-Induced Modifications in Microstructural Evolution and Mechanical Properties of Advanced Alloys | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop and test a mechanism for predicting neutron irradiation performance for optimized Grade 92 and Alloy 709 for applications in advanced reactor systems. The work will employ ion irradiations and available information from neutron irradiations of related alloys to develop a basis for predicting the neutron irradiation performance of the optimized alloys. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Integrated Computational and Experimental Study of Radiation Damage Effects in Grade 92 Steel and Alloy 709 | University of Tennessee | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop a mechanistic understanding and predictive models of irradiation-induced microstructural evolution and resulting mechanical properties in optimized ferritic-martensitic Grade 92 steel and austenitic alloy 709 using multiscale simulations coupled with rigorous experimental validation. The project will provide insights into the correlation between ion irradiation and fast neutron damage. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Meta-Level Design Guidance and Operator Performance Measures for Hybrid Control Rooms | Vanderbilt University | $799,869 | _Researchers will apply human factors engineering methods and relevant expertise from non-nuclear high-risk high-consequence domains toward the measurement of operator performance in analog, digital, and hybrid main control rooms. Performance measures will be developed for evaluating the situation awareness and decision-making proficiencies to support the transition to digital or hybrid control room displays. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| NEUP Project 15-8514: Elucidation of the kinetics of Advanced Separation systems | California State University, Long Beach | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a fundamental understanding of the chemical kinetics relevant to separation processes by measuring ligand complexation rate constants for both lanthanides and actinides in the aqueous and organic phases. These experiments will provide essential kinetic and mechanistic information required for developing a simplified, single-step recovery of transuranic elements. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8119: Kr/Xe separation over Metal Organic Framework Membranes | Colorado School of Mines | $375,000 | Researchers will develop metal organic framework (MOF) membranes that will be capable of effectively separating Kr from Xe with high flux and selectivity. This project may result in the development of membranes that will constitute a viable energy saving approach for the effective removal of Kr during the processing of used nuclear fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8347: Multilayer Composite Fuel Cladding for LWR Performance Enhancement and Severe Accident Tolerance | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop, manufacture, and weld a new multimetallic layered composite (MMLC) for enhanced severe accident tolerance and manufacturability in LWRs. Layers of stainless steel (facing the coolant) and Zircaloy (facing the fuel) will be separated by barrier layers of Cr and Nb. Severe accident testing in 1200C steam, LWR autoclave testing, and ion irradiation studies will demonstrate the MMLC's microstructural stability. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8112: Phase Separation and Crystallization of Complex Borosilicate Melts for Glass-Ceramic Waste Forms | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,806 | Researchers will study the mechanisms for microstructural development and properties of multi-phase, glass-ceramic materials that form when waste-loaded borosilicate glasses are cooled from above their liquidus or consolute temperatures through the glass transition temperature. The project will apply these tools to modified compositions to maximize the formation of the desirable crystalline phases. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8265: Electrically-Assisted Tubing Processes for Enhancing Manufacturability of Oxide Dispersion Strengthened Structural Materials for Nuclear Reactor Applications | Northwestern University | $800,000 | Researchers will enhance the formability of nanostructured ferritic alloys (NFAs) such that high-strength thin-walled claddings can be manufactured successfully and economically to be used in future reactors. The project will study the effects of continuous and pulsed electric currents on the deformation behavior of Fe-14Cr based NFA steel. The findings will be used to establish innovative fabrication processes including electrically-assisted extrusion and rolling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8126: Fundamental Electrochemical Properties of Liquid Metals in LiCl-KCl for Separation of Alkali/Alkaline-Earths (Cs, Sr and Ba) | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate the fundamental properties of novel liquid metal electrodes for separation of alkali/alkaline-earth fission products in LiCl-KCl electrolyte. The project will further the development of pyroprocessing by maximizing salt recycle and providing a method for recovery of alkali/alkaline-earth fission products as oxides (as opposed to chlorides) which will allow them to be encapsulated in a more conventional glass wasteform. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8074: Monitoring of Actinide Concentrations in Molten LiCl-KCl Salt using Alpha Spectroscopy | The Ohio State University | $799,969 | Researchers will develop a novel in-salt sensor that uses electrochemistry to pre-concentrate the actinides onto the sensor to measure the actinides concentration in a high temperature and high radiation field represented by a molten salt environment. The ability to monitor actinides to prevent misuse is critical to enhancing the control of nuclear materials. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8717: Understanding the Interactions of Seawater Ions with Amidoxime through X-Ray Crystallography | University of Alabama | $553,971 | _Researchers will investigate the fundamental interactions of the amidoxime (R-C(NH2)=NOH) functional group with metal ions found in seawater using a combined approach of single crystal X-ray diffraction and spectroscopy to understand the origin of the selectivity of amidoxime resins for uranyl ([UO2]2+] ions and establish structural benchmarks for interpretation of spectroscopic studies on actual sorbents to aid in identifying specific sorbent-metal interactions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8439: Developing a macro-scale SiC-cladding behavior model based on localized mechanical and thermal property evaluation on pre- and post-irradiation SiC-SiC composites | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a fundamental understanding of the macroscopic behavior of SiC-SiC composite structures before and after irradiation based on the microscopic property changes of each individual component (SiC matrix, fiber and interface). SiC-SiC composites will be tested in the as-fabricated condition, after being subjected to neutron and ion irradiation, micro-cracking, and oxidation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8536: Quantitative Prediction of Uranium Speciation and Amidoxime Binding in Seawater from Advanced Simulation Techniques | University of California, Riverside | $450,000 | Researchers will quantitatively predict stability of uranium species and thermochemistry (free energy, entropy, and enthalpy) of uranium binding with amidoxime ligands in seawater conditions. To achieve the goal, advanced simulation techniques including all-atom molecular dynamics, free-energy calculations, and the hybrid quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical approach will be employed to explicitly include water molecules and common seawater ions in the simulation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8286: Used Fuel Storage Monitoring Using Helium-4 Scintillation Fast Neutron Detectors and Neutron Spectral Analysis | University of Florida | $799,765 | Researchers will build and demonstrate a prototype detector device capable of unambiguously verifying the declared content of dry casks in a non-intrusive manner for the safeguarding and monitoring of used fuel storage installations. This will be achieved through a neutron spectroscopy and imaging system using high-efficiency Helium-4 (4He) gas scintillation fast neutron detectors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8663: Enhancement of the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland, College Park | $600,000 | Researchers will produce efficient adsorbents of uranium from seawater in seeking to optimize the functional ligands, the polymeric substrates, the grafting conditions and the adsorption/desorption durations based on sound chemical understanding. The result will be adsorbents that can be used through multiple cycles of uranium adsorption without significant degradation of the adsorbents capacity and selectivity for uranium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8111: Purification of Zirconium cladding using a chloride volatility process | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $798,877 | _Researchers will investigate the thermochemistry of used fuel Zr cladding components chlorides as well as their activation products and residual radionuclide metal chlorides to provide fundamental data that will support the development of a chlorination process for the purification of ZrCl4. Understanding the chemistry of these chloride species will provide process development guidance for the purification of Zr cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8323: Purification of Zirconium Tetrachloride from UNF Cladding | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $793,121 | _Researchers will develop and demonstrate a process to purify zirconium tetrachloride obtained from the direct chlorination of used Zircaloy cladding materials from used nuclear fuel rod assemblies. This study will increase understanding of purification protocols that will allow zirconium chloride to be recycled further. Increased recycling capability would significantly reduce the amount of high level waste associated with light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8752: Radiation Effects on High Thermal Conductivity Fuels | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $400,000 | _Researchers will use scoping ion and neutron irradiations to explore the structural stability and thermal conductivity of model high thermal conductivity fuels consisting of CeO2 and either Al2O3 (BeO surrogate) or SiC. Issues associated with thermal conductivity degradation (including micro cracking effects) and general phase stability of fuel systems will be examined. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8243: Radiation-induced swelling and microcracking in SiC cladding for LWRs | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $797,889 | _Researchers will use state of the art experimental characterization techniques and multi-scale methodology (developed within the MOOSE-MARMOT-BISON framework) to provide scientific basis for predictions of swelling and microcracking in SiC cladding as a function of temperature and irradiation histories. Predicting swelling and microcracking will further the potential for accident tolerant SiC cladding to be used in light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8081: Understanding influence of thermal history and glass chemistry on kinetics of phase separation and crystallization in borosilicate glass-ceramic waste forms for aqueous reprocessed high level waste | Washington State University | $799,911 | _Researchers will develop a fundamental and transformative understanding of the crystallization mechanisms in complex glass-ceramic high level waste (HLW) wasteforms,. This understanding will underpin the maturation of glass ceramic manufacture, by linking process variables to molecular scale mechanisms, enabling reliable production of wasteforms to the desired specification. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8210: A Transient Reactor Physics Experiment with High-Fidelity, 3-D Flux Measurements for Validation and Verification | Kansas State University | $799,198 | _Researchers will instrument the University of Wisconsin Nuclear Reactor with micro-pocket fission detectors (MPFDs) to measure 3-D flux distributions. The measurements will be compared to simulation using PROTEUS from the NEAMS toolkit. MPFDs are small, which leads to low gamma-ray sensitivity and small flux perturbations. A 3-D array of MPFDs and standard reactor instrumentation will be used to capture highly-resolved flux and temperature distributions for several steady-state and transient conditions. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8101: Development of Critical Experiments to Provide Validation Data for Multiphysics Coupling Methods | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $799,993 | Researchers will develop a set of benchmark validation experiments for multiphysics coupling by exploiting the inherent flexibility of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Reactor Critical Facility (RCF). This project will use targeted experiments to validate the coupling between neutronics, thermal hydraulics, and structural mechanics routines present in the NEAMS Reactor Product Line toolkit._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8229: Thermal Transport and Fracture Behavior of Sintered Fuel Pellets: Experimental Validation of NEAMS Tool MARMOT | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | _Researchers will perform experimental validation of the NEAMS tool MARMOT for predicting thermal transport and fuel fracture. By performing extensive thermal transport and fracture experiments on well-controlled microstructures of sintered UO2, the impact of microstructure on thermo-mechanical properties of sintered UO2 and mechanistic understanding will be achieved. The high quality experimental data will directly benchmark the MARMOT code by evaluating the thermal transport and fracture models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8208: Development of a Novel Accelerator for Neutron Transport Solution Using the Galerkin Spectral Element Methods | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $626,176 | _Researchers will develop a novel accelerator for neutron transport calculations based on the spectral element methods, continuous Galerkin (CG) and discontinuous Galerkin (DG) approximations. The CG and DG methods will be used to solve the multi-group neutron diffusion equation on the coarse-mesh structure (e.g., pin-size up to assembly-size), which is then coupled with the high-order neutron transport solution to speed up the neutron transport computation. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8338: Methodology Development for Cybersecurity Robustness and Vulnerability Assessment of University Research Reactors: A Case Study Using the PULSTAR Reactor | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop a methodology for assessing the cybersecurity robustness and vulnerability of university research reactors using an actual university reactor as a test case. While the developed methodology will be specifically tested and applied using this reactor, it will be formulated as a general blueprint and used as the starting point for the assessment of university research reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cyber Security R&D | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8121: Automatic Imagery Data Analysis for Proactive Computer-Based Workflow Management during Nuclear Power Plant Outages | Arizona State University | $799,738 | _Researchers will test the hypothesis that real-time imagery-based object tracking and spatial analysis, as well as human behavior modeling will significantly improve efficiency of outage control while lowering the rates of accidents and incidents. The project will examine computer vision methods and human behavior models for developing a proactive workflow management tool and integrate it into Computer-Based Procedures for supporting an Advanced Outage Control Center. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8308: Creep and creep-fatigue crack growth mechanisms in Alloy 709 | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _A joint US/UK team will study the crack growth mechanism and failure analysis of alloy 709 under creep and creep-fatigue conditions. The study will be done through in situ heating and loading during SEM observation to evaluate the crack growth under plane stress condition and traditional methods to study the crack growth under plane strain condition. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8582: Mechanistic and Validated Creep/Fatigue Predictions for Alloy 709 from Accelerated Experiments and Simulations | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will use mechanistic methods for predicting creep and creep-fatigue deformation rates/strains based on accelerated in-situ and ex-situ tests, and mesoscale dislocation dynamics simulations for Alloy 709. This research will support its qualification in the ASME code for use in advanced nuclear reactor applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8495: Advancement of Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Technology through Round Robin Testing and Fundamental Modeling | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will conduct a round robin test plan for S-CO2 corrosion testing across multiple institutions and the organization of a S-CO2 Materials Group to guide future materials testing directions. Furthermore, this proposal outlines identical tests in supercritical water, testing model alloys with various composition and environmental conditions, accompanied by modeling efforts to study rate controlling mechanisms of corrosion. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8489: Modeling and Validation of Irradiation Damage in Ni-based Alloys for Long-Term LWR Applications | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _A joint US/UK team will study thermal and irradiation-induced transformations mechanisms of Alloys 690 and 625 in order to extend Grizzly to include capabilities for modeling Ni-based alloys. The project will develop modeling tools for materials degradation in light water reactors, allowing for component replacement data and continued safe operation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-7983: Development of Steady-State Thermal-Hydraulic Analysis and Bowing Reactivity Evaluation Methods Based on Neutron and Gamma Transport Calculations | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop steady-state thermal-hydraulic analysis and assembly bowing reactivity evaluation methods based on the latest transport calculation capabilities in order to overcome the limitations and improve the accuracy of current design analysis methods. The outcome of the effort will be computer programs to calculate the steady-state heat source distributions in fuel pins and assembly duct walls and to calculate the reactivity worth of assembly displacements. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8627: Experimental Validation Data and Computational Models for Turbulent Mixing of Bypass and Coolant Jet Flows in Gas-Cooled Reactors | Texas A&M University | $799,613 | _Researchers will establish reliable models of the thermal-hydraulics in Gas-Cooled Reactors with experimental and computational efforts. Specifically, this work will focus on providing the relationship between fluctuating velocities and temperatures in the lower plenum and their dependency on the turbulent upstream mixing in the core and collection chambers leading up to the lower plenum. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8251: Enhanced Performance Fast Reactors with Engineered Passive Safety System | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | _Researchers will study the feasibility of improving the passive safety and economics of sodium cooled fast reactors (SFR) by incorporating within their fuel assemblies a novel Autonomous Reactivity Control (ARC) system. It is expected that the ARC systems will enable to design even low leakage SFR cores, such as breed-and-burn cores, to be passively safe and to improve the neutron economy and economic viability of more conventional SFR. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8258: Physics-Based Probabilistic Model of the Effects of Ionizing Radiation on Polymeric Insulators of Electric Cables used in Nuclear Power Plants | University of California, Los Angeles | $798,846 | _Researchers will develop and experimentally validate a probabilistic physics-based degradation models for polymeric insulators of electric cables to be used in integrated performance and safety codes, which will help reduce the uncertainty associated with the long-term aging of cable insulation. The project will deliver a C++ based simulation code that will be readily compatible with the MOOSE/Grizzly framework developed at the Idaho National Laboratory. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8000: The Influences of Neutron Irradiation on Aggregate Induced Degradation of Concrete | University of California, Los Angeles | $800,000 | _Researchers will quantify the impacts of irradiation on concrete degradation. The research will develop new understanding of the evolutions and manifestations of irradiation assisted aggregate concrete degradation caused by neutron exposure. This assessment will help to mitigate the risk of such degradation within the Grizzly framework, by careful integrations of nanoscale analytics and simulation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8458: Multiple Degradation Mechanisms in Reinforced Concrete Structures, Modeling and Risk Analysis | University of Houston | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a multi-physics framework to characterize the deterioration development in concrete due to environmental and mechanical loading, and the coupling effect among transport processes and the damage of concrete. This project will develop new computational tools that will be implemented in Grizzly, an application built on the MOOSE platform, to address a variety of aging mechanisms in nuclear power plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8623: Characterization of Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth in Alloy 709 and Prediction of Service Lives in Nuclear Reactor Components | University of Idaho | $799,927 | _Researchers will study creep-fatigue crack growth behavior in steel Alloy 709 in accelerated test conditions to predict extended service life of structural components. Extensive testing of Alloy 709 creep-fatigue specimens will be performed at elevated temperatures and applied stresses. Microstructure analysis will be performed to describe the crack propagation mechanisms. Computational models will be used to predict service of steel components. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8432: Multi-scale experimental study of creep-fatigue failure initiation in a 709 Stainless Steel alloy using high resolution digital image correlation | University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign | $800,00 | _Researchers will conduct a detailed experimental investigation of creep-fatigue crack initiation in a 709 alloy, and will also obtain a predictive failure initiation model that includes both thermo-mechanical and aging effects. The experiments will use ultra-high resolution digital image correlation to measure accumulation of plastic with cycling. The model will extend existing slip band-based energy minimization criterion to include thermal effects applicable to 709. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8599: Am-241 Nuclear Safety and Environmental Interactions | University of Missouri | $399,187 | _Researchers will investigate the release and transport mechanisms of Am-241 to understand the interactions it may have with the environment. The project will examine Am-241 through a series of accident scenarios using Am-241 aerosols that will allow researchers to understand the pathways for dose assessment. Methodologies and approaches for nuclear risk assessment for new space radioisotope power system applications will be developed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8667: Experimental Validation of a Compact Double-walled Twisted-Tube Heat Exchanger Concept | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | _Researchers will investigate a novel compact double-walled twisted-tube heat exchanger (DT-HXR) design that utilizes an outer twisted tube configuration in order to enhance shell-side heat transfer and make the overall bundle more compact. Utilizing outer twisted tube geometry improves heat transfer and allows for a tube bundle that does not require support plates or anti-vibration bars. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project: 15-8352: Development and Demonstration of an In-Situ Tritium Scavenger | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,988 | _Researchers will use a graphite moderator to capture and remove tritium from the primary coolant systems of salt- and gas-cooled reactors. The team will develop electrochemical techniques to characterize tritium transport in graphite and liquid fluoride salts (including flibe), demonstrate the in-situ effectiveness of tritium absorption by the fuel elements, and develop a design for a graphite bed tritium filter that can integrate with salt-to-air heat exchangers. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 16-10730: Visualization Tool for Comparing Low-Carbon Energy Options | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a web based visualization tool for comparing current and future nuclear fuel cycle options to other low-carbon and conventional energy technologies in the United States.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10679: Overcoming Kinetic Barriers to Actinide Recovery in ALSEP | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | The ALSEP process for group separations of trivalent actinide/lanthanide ions suffers from slow stripping kinetics. Researchers will perform detailed kinetic studies at different temperatures, supported by spectroscopic and computational studies to establish where the kinetic bottlenecks occur in the ALSEP process. They will then systematically alter the chemistry of the extractants and aqueous ligands to understand how to overcome the kinetic hindrances.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10058: An Integrated Multiscale Experimental-Numerical Analysis on Reconsolidation of Salt-Clay Mixture for Disposal of Heat-Generating Waste | Columbia University in the City of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will improve understanding of the thermal-mechanical-hydrologic-chemical (TMHC) coupling effect on reconsolidated granular (or crushed) salt-clay mixture used for seal systems of shafts and drifts in salt repositories. The project will integrate laboratory experiments and multiscale pore-to-continuum coupling simulations to explore the feasibility of using clay additive and moisture content to enhance performance of crushed salt as a seal material.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10088: Americium Separation By Electrochemical Oxidation | Florida International University | $800,000 | Researchers will separate Am from high-level waste by exploiting the high oxidation states of Am through design, and testing of new materials. This will be accomplished by designing and testing new electrodes, derivatized with surface-stabilized ligands and redox mediators to facilitate oxidation of trivalent Am, and by designing porous sorbent materials functionalized with molecules which selectively coordinate Am(VI) to enable its subsequent separation.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10668: Microstructure Experiments-Enabled MARMOT Simulations of SiC/SiC-Based Accident Tolerant Nuclear Fuel System | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will characterize steam attack, hydrothermal corrosion and radiation swelling of SiC/SiC composites-based accident tolerant fuel (ATF) using a combination of experiments, microstructure evaluation and phase-field simulations using MARMOT. Central to the project is the mapping of the microstructure after steam/hydrothermal/irradiation tests through a unique non-destructive x-ray microscopy technique followed by phase-field simulations of chemical transport in MARMOT.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10221: Alloying Agents to Stabilize Lanthanides Against Fuel Cladding Chemical Interaction: Tellurium and Antimony Studies | Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop alloying agents to stabilize lanthanides against fuel cladding chemical interactions (FCCIs). Based on the available binary phase diagrams for the periodic table, Te and Sb are selected as fuel dopants. The research will focus on Te. The mechanisms of using minor additives to stabilize and immobilize the lanthanide fission products will be investigated. Resulting thermodynamic data obtained by the proposed research will be integrated into MARMOT to enhance its ability to model metallic fuel performance.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10648: Oxidation and Corrosion-Resistant Uranium Silicide Fuels | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | Researchers will develop oxidation/corrosion resistant uranium silicide U3Si2 fuel by chemical doping/fillers to form a continuous borosilicate glass as a protective oxide layer with transformational fuel performance and accident tolerance. The team will use chemical doping/fillers include B or C showing effectiveness in improving high temperature oxidation resistance in transition metal silicides, and boron/silicon-containing compounds that can form a protective borosilicate glass layer.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10229: Mechanistic Understanding of Silver Sorbent Aging Processes in Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $800,000 | This project is focused on understanding the mechanisms of aging processes on silver exchanged mordenite and silver functionalized silica aerogel adsorbents under conditions of long term exposure to off gas streams containing air, I2, H2O, and NOx. The chemical and physical structural changes of the adsorbents under these conditions will be accounted for in equilibrium and kinetic models. Transport models will be developed to predict the performance of engineered off-gas treatment systems.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10394: Integration of Microwave Readout into Nuclear Process Monitoring | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,695 | Researchers will show that gamma-ray spectroscopy based on emerging microcalorimeter sensors can determine elemental and isotopic fractions with accuracy comparable to much slower mass spectrometry and with far better accuracy than germanium sensors. This advance will prevent the diversion of nuclear material by enabling nearly real time process monitoring in large nuclear facilities without loss of measurement accuracy.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10523: A Science Based Approach for Selecting Dopants in FCCI-Resistant Metallic Fuel Systems | University of Idaho | $800,000 | The project aims to use a science-based approach to set guidelines of selecting dopants for developing fuel cladding chemical interaction (FCCI)-resistant metallic fuel systems for fast reactors. Lanthanide fission products migrate to the fuel-cladding gap leading to cladding breaches. The team will perform both theoretical modeling and experiments to arrive at the guidelines that are based on sound science. If successful, this can lead to breakthroughs in minimizing the FCCI effect.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10813: Advanced Electrochemical Separations of Actinide/Fission Products via the Control of Nucleation and Growth of Electrodeposits | University of Idaho | $350,000 | Researchers will use unique capabilities to modulate the electrodeposition of actinides (depleted Uranium) and fission products (Ln) during nucleation and growth stages. The team aims to preclude formation of electrodeposits with dendritic morphology. Morphology of electrodeposits will be controlled by electrolyte composition.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10707: In Situ Spectroscopic Determination of Actinide Speciation and Concentration | University of Nevada, Reno | $369,221 | The research team will address two major issues in the pyroprocess based fuel cycle: low process efficiency and materials accounting for non-proliferation. There are currently no analytical techniques to ascertain the speciation and concentration of the actinides in the electrolyte. This project aims to develop an in-situ analytical method consisting of Raman spectroscopic analysis during electrochemical polarization.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10204: Phase Equilibria and Thermochemistry of Advanced Fuels: Modeling Burnup Behavior | University of South Carolina | $799,946 | Researchers will develop phase equilibria and thermochemical information to model and simulate advanced fuel behavior, including critical phenomena such as the contribution to fuel swelling of dissolved non-noble fission products and secondary phase formation, composite fuel stability, and fuel-clad chemical interactions.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10512: Demand-Driven Cycamore Archetypes | University of South Carolina | $799,956 | Modeling of the nuclear fuel cycle (NFC) is often posed as a set of demands coupled with available technologies. Demands may be singular or multivariate. Additionally, available technologies may have constraints on when they are deployable. This proposal aims to bring demand and deployment decisions into the NFC simulator itself, thereby simulating a more realistic process by which utilities, governments, and other stakeholders actually make facility deployment decisions.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10856: Integrating Data Sources for Improved Safeguards and Accountancy of Electrochemical Fuel Reprocessing Streams | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The SSPM Echem tracks elemental and bulk material flows through batch operations in electrochemical facilities. This project will augment the existing SSPM Echem model with models of DA, NDA, and process monitoring measurements, including appropriate accuracy, noise, and uncertainty characteristics. Diverse measurement and assay results will be fused to improve material accountancy and anomaly detection across the electrochemical process.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10190: Immobilization of High-Level Waste Salt in Dechlorinated Zeolite Waste Forms | University of Utah | $799,315 | The primary objective of the project is the development of a new glass-bonded waste form for the suitable disposal of electrorefiner waste salt. To achieve this goal, the proposed tasks will focus on the 1) dechlorination of the electrorefiner salt and 2) subsequent encapsulation into a sintered waste form. Achieving these goals will result in a compact waste form with higher fission product loading, which is instrumental in economically closing the nuclear fuel cycle.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10240: Molten Salt Reactor Experiment Benchmark Evaluation | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | _The objective of this project is to employ the data archive on the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) and develop a set of high-quality Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) reactor physics benchmarks for inclusion in the IRPhE Handbook that currently does not contain any benchmark set related to MSR technology._ | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10458: Multi-Group Transport Cross Section and Diffusion Coefficient Generation for Deterministic Reactor Models Using Monte Carlo Calculations | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and implement rigorous methods for generating multi-group transport cross section and diffusion coefficients for deterministic reactor models using Monte Carlo calculations. The project will eliminate the numerous approximations that currently contribute to significant mis-prediction of core power distributions when using deterministic core models.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10241: Development of Transient Capabilities for the NEAMS Neutronics Code PROTEUS | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop efficient transient transport methods for the PROTEUS-SN, PROTEUS-MOC and the first-order SN solvers of the NEAMS neutronics code PROTEUS. The team will also perform transient benchmark analyses._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10603: Experimental and Computational Analysis of NEAMS Pebble Bed Reactors | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct a coordinated experimental and computational effort to quantitatively map the full-field 3-D velocity and temperature fields in the interstitial spaces within pebble bed reactor systems. Key outcomes will include advanced correlations to predict flow and thermal transport within the pebble bed over a much wider range operating conditions and reactor types than is currently possible.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10421: Simulation of Fuel Rod Fragmentation, Relocation and Ballooning through Peridynamics in MOOSE Framework | University of Arizona | $675,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology that includes the appropriate governing physical fields within the realm of peridynamics to investigate fuel cracking, fragmentation, relocation, ballooning, pellet-cladding interaction, and cladding rapture and dispersion within the MOOSE framework.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10313: Development of a Comprehensive Two-phase Flow Database for the Validation of NEK-2P | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,817 | _Researchers will develop a comprehensive, high-resolution two-phase flow database by performing experiments in two air-water two-phase flow test facilities and a new heated rod-bundle test facility that will be built under this project. These data will be used to validate the two-phase flow models implemented in the NEK-2P code._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10744: Support for Reactor Operators in Case of Cyber-Security Threats | Ohio State University | $800,000 | This project addresses the need for research informing plant engineers and control room operators faced with cyber-security threats on appropriate responses. The approach taken uses distinguishing features of safety related events versus cyber-security threats; attack modeling, prediction, game theory and PRA knowledge to update operators procedures; and simulation for validation.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cyber Security R&D | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10578: Thermal Hydraulic & Structural Testing and Modeling of Compact Diffusion-Bonded Heat Exchangers for Supercritical CO2 Brayton Cycles | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will utilize both experimental and computational methods to test and model transient behavior of a mock up PCHE, which is a scaled down representation of the sCO2, cycle high temperature recuperator (HTR). In addition, the team will develop a methodology for quantification of the PCHEs production cost. The proposed project will provide valuable experiment data required to develop the Section III, Division 5 and Section VIII evaluation approach for compact heat exchangers.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10579: A Computational-Experimental Study to Simulate Mixing and Thermal Stratification in SFRs | Kansas State University | $799,320 | Researchers will use Thermographic Imaging and Ultrasonic Doppler Velocimetry (UDV) techniques to generate high fidelity thermal stratification and flow field data under various geometric and physical conditions for scaled models of outlet plena in sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs). Data from these experimental studies will be compared with those obtained using 1D codes such as SAS4A/SASSYS-1.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10714: ASME Code Application of the Compact Heat Exchanger for High Temperature Nuclear Service | North Carolina State University | $799,998 | Researchers will develop structural design methodologies for Type 316H stainless steel and Alloy 617 compact heat exchangers (CHX) using elastic-perfectly plastic (EPP) analysis methodology for the assessment of elevated temperature failure modes under sustained and cyclic thermal and pressure loading. The project will develop a technical basis for Section III, Division 5 ASME Code Case for CHX in high temperature nuclear service.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10885: Turbulent MHD Flow Modeling in Annular Linear Induction Pumps with Validation Experiments | North Carolina State University | $564,520 | Researchers seek to advance EMP design efforts for liquid metal reactors by 1.) Improving MHD modeling capability, particularly near the MHD stability criteria, 2.) Advancing simulation accuracy and fidelity in the typical operating range of large electromagnetic pumps for liquid metal cooled reactors, and 3.) Constructing a low barrier EMP test loop for model validation and instruction that can be easily replicated at low cost at other facilities.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10244: Integral System Testing for Prismatic Block Core Design HTGR | Oregon State University | $799,536 | _Researchers will conduct eight new tests be completed at the HTTF investigating a range of gas reactor events including DCC, PCC, and inlet plenum buoyant plume mixing. The data from these tests will be ideal for use in the validation of safety analysis codes used in gas reactor analysis. The data may also provide valuable insight into the validation of CFD codes for gas-reactor applications._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10324: Model Calibration-Based Design Methodologies for Structural Design of Supercritical CO2 Compact Heat Exchangers under Sustained Cyclic Temperature and Pressure Gradients | Oregon State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a design method for rapid structural assessment of diffusion-bonded Hybrid Compact Heat Exchangers, used as secondary heat exchangers in coupling Sodium Fast Reactors (SFRs) with supercritical CO2 (sCO2) Brayton power cycles. The team envisions that the developed method will (1) be usable in creation of an ASME code case for structural assessment of hybrid CHX; and (2) create design tools that ensure CHX code compliance under desired load conditions.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10285: Tribological Damage Mechanisms from Experiments and Validated Simulations of Alloy 800H and Inconel 617 in a Simulated HTGR/VHTR Helium Environment | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a mechanistic understanding of accelerated fretting, wear, and bonding between Alloy 800H and Inconel 617 surfaces. In order to achieve the objectives, a series of tribological experiments will be conducted in helium environments at elevated temperature with controlled concentrations of gaseous specious, attendant microstructure characterization (using electron microscopy, spectroscopy and atom-probe tomography), and validated continuum models.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10245: An Experimental Study of Design and Performance for the Water-Based Reactor Cavity Cooling System | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will extend and enhance the experimental tests using existing water-cooled RCCS facilities. The activity will be conducted in close collaboration with the water-cooled NSTF research team and will produce a unique set of high quality experimental data for support of existing system codes, system codes under development, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10457: Experimentally Validated Computational Modeling of Creep and Creep-Cracking for Nuclear Concrete Structures | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct novel 3D concrete creep tests under controlled environmental conditions to build a 3D constitutive model for concrete typical of existing containment structures. Decades long creep will be extracted via shorter tests (years long). The material model will be used in the Grizzly structural FEM code for simulating the response of real, 3D containment structures to changes in loading. Full-scale, long-term structural tests will enable validation.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10687: Development and Integration of Light Water Reactor (LWR) Materials Corrosion Degradation Codes into Grizzly | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop powerful codes for predicting environmentally-assisted localized corrosion in the primary coolant circuits (PCCs) of Generation II BWRs and PWRs. These codes and resulting models will be embedded into GRIZZLY. This will greatly extend the applicability of GRIZZLY to components in PCCs that are susceptible to pitting corrosion, stress corrosion cracking, and corrosion fatigue and will provide the stress intensity factor solutions for the crack growth rate models._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10083: Earth Abundant High Temperature Materials for Radioisotope Power Conversion System | University of California, Davis | $400,000 | Researchers will develop breakthrough efficiencies in segmented radioisotope thermal generators (RTG) power conversion systems through high temperature materials development. The approach will also reduce reliance on single-purpose supply chains.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10630: Validation of RELAP-7 for Forced Convection and Natural Circulation Reactor Flows | University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign | $799,368 | _Researcher will aid in the development of RELAP-7 through required experimental and computational efforts. The validation of the two-phase modeling capability of RELAP-7 will be accomplished through a series of tasks which include synthesis of existing forced convective data, acquisition of natural circulation data from an existing well-scaled facility, and uncertainty quantification in constitutive modeling._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10402: RELAP-7 Application and Enhancement for FLEX Strategies and ATF Behavior under Extended Loss of AC Power Conditions | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop new thermal hydraulic models that will be implemented into RELAP-7. Simulation studies will be performed for postulated ELAP scenarios in the PB Unit 2 reactor. The overarching goal of the proposed work is to perform a simulation study using RELAP-7, to model BWR ELAP scenarios with various mitigation measures and determine the range of time available for transition to portable FLEX equipment._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10080: Quantifying Properties for a Mechanistic, Predictive Understanding of Aqueous Impact on Ageing of Medium and Low Voltage AC and DC Cabling in Nuclear Power Plants | University of Minnesota, Duluth | $800,000 | _The degradation of medium and low voltage cabling is often associated with aqueous immersion. Electrical and mechanical data will be collected to develop a mechanistic model of the degradation of cabling to dielectric breakdown based on the temperature, oxidation, water conditions, and irradiation dose. The hypothesized model begins with solvent escape paths that expand and advance from the exterior surface toward the current carrying core at a rate dependent on the environment._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10214: Online Monitoring System for Concrete Structures Affected by Alkali-Silica Reaction (ASR) | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an online health monitoring system that integrates active and passive sensor networks and advanced signal processing algorithms to monitor ASR induced degradation in concrete structures. The obtained information will support an ongoing prognostic modeling research for health diagnosis and prognosis of aging concrete structures, in order to support long-term operational and maintenance decision making.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10210: Tribological Behavior of Structural Materials in High Temperature Helium Gas-Cooled Reactor Environments | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will work to understand, quantify, and model the elevated-temperature tribological behavior of alloys 617 and 800H in helium gas in HTGR conditions. Impurities in helium can induce a variety of corrosion mechanisms in structural materials that can profoundly affect tribological behavior. This study will investigate tribological behavior in various impurity concentration regimes and surface treatments to mitigate tribological damage in these environments.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10226: Enhancement of EM Pump Performance Through Modeling and Testing | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,856 | This project is aimed at the improvement of EM pumps for advanced liquid metal cooled reactors specifically the SFR. Initial tests will be conducted in the University of Wisconsin sodium loop on an existing moving magnet pump to help in the development of the models and to look at end effects associated with this pump. Additionally, tests will be conducted at ANL on the CMI ALIP. Ultimately, a small ALIP will be developed to test the principles and models developed to improve commercial scale.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10268: Sodium Cooled Fast Reactor Key Modeling and Analysis for Commercial Deployment | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,076 | This project will look at very low Prandtl number heat transfer from both an experimental and computational approach. Researchers will then establish key models to implement in plant dynamics codes. The team will also evaluate thermal stratification in large volumes making use of novel fiber optic distributed fiber measurements to get CFD quality data. Lastly, the team will evaluate some of the key remaining safety issues associated with the eventual commercialization of the sodium fast reactor.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10647: Experimental and Modeling Investigation of Overcooling Transients that Include Freezing, in Fluoride-Salt Cooled High-Temperature Reactors (FHRs) | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will make recommendations for design features of salt-reactor components that would take advantage of the phenomena characteristic to fluoride salts in order to be resilient to overcooling, and to recover gracefully from over-cooling transients. In support of this task a MOOSE-based computational tool will be developed, capable of modeling liquid-solid phase change, backed by experimental studies with the prototypical (flibe) coolant, and with simulant fluids.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10509: CFD and System Code Benchmark Data for Plenum-to-Plenum Flow Under Natural, Mixed and Forced Circulation Conditions | Utah State University | $800,000 | Researchers will generate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) validation data for forced, mixed, and natural convection through a parallel-path geometry relevant to gas reactor bypass flow. In addition, the team will independently build and validate CFD models based on the experimental results. The team has the experience and existing infrastructure for sharing complete validation datasets.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 17-12628: Effects of Mineral Impurities and Heat on Uranium(VI) Sorption onto Bentonite | California State University, East Bay | $785,714 | Mineral impurities are common in bentonite and clay buffer materials, proposed for many nuclear waste disposal options. Researchers will investigate the effects of calcite impurities on uranium(VI) sorption onto montmorillonite before and after mineral exposure to heat. Based on experimental sorption data and EXAFS analysis we will develop a new surface complexation model to determine under which conditions impurity effects are relevant, and how they can be incorporated in performance assessment models. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12798: Nanostructured Ceramic Membranes for Enhanced Tritium Management | Clemson University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a ceramic membrane technology for tritium separation and recovery to support the nuclear fuel cycle. Low-temperature water adsorption properties of nanoscale structured ceramics, combined with demonstrated hydrogen isotope exchange in their hydrated layers provide a low cost and unique avenue to address tritium management challenges. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12647: Determination of Critical Heat Flux and Leidenfrost Temperature on Candidate Accident Tolerant Fuel Materials | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $799,906 | Researchers will characterize the thermal-hydraulics behavior of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) materials by measuring critical heat flux (CHF) under normal and off-normal light water reactor conditions, and Leidenfrost temperature in post-loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) conditions. This work will yield material-specific models and/or correlations that can be readily implemented in state-of-the-art simulation tools. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13011: Gamma-ray Computed and Emission Tomography for Pool-Side Fuel Characterization | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,317 | Researchers will design, build, test and install a submersible tomography platform for performing pool-side physical, structural, and chemical characterization of irradiated fuel elements for test reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12496: Group Actinide Separation by Crystallization: A Single-Technology Approach to Used Nuclear Fuel Recycle | Texas A&M University | $399,857 | Researchers will explore bulk removal of U, Np, Pu and Am, from used nuclear fuel by studying the mechanisms of removal. A co-crystallization of the hexavalent actinides with U(VI) has already been demonstrated and researchers plan to develop a process based around this approach. Removal of these elements would be advantageous for future nuclear fuel recycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12824: Methods for Process Monitoring to Accurately Detect and Quantify Material Holdup in Advanced Recycle Facilities | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop better modeling methods, detectors, and facility design approaches to enable detection of inadvertent and deliberate hold up of fissile material in reprocessing and other nuclear material bulk handling facilities. The team will integrate results from this research project into a design methodology for future facilities to ensure accurate and reliable process monitoring for sustainable operation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12782: Effects of alpha and gamma radiation on complex and metal loaded solvents for advanced solvent extraction processes | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | This project will investigate the alpha and gamma radiolysis-induced chemical degradation of ligands used for the removal of minor actinides from used nuclear fuel in advanced extraction systems such as ALSEP. Researchers will emphasize organic phase degradation, particularly complex solvents with multiple ligands as well as metal loaded solvents. The project will improve predictive capabilities of extraction processes by elucidating degradation pathways. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12757: Elucidation of Electrochemical Behavior of Technetium, Tellurium, and Iodine in Molten Salt Solutions. | University of Idaho | $796,741 | This project will evaluate the electrochemical speciation behavior of iodide, and telluride in LiCl-KCl eutectic, LiCl, and LiCl + Li2O electrolytes at temperatures relevant to reprocessing conditions. By using rhenium as surrogate for technetium, the electrochemical, and chemical speciation properties of rhenium ions will be investigated in chloride molten salts with the addition of molybdenum and ruthenium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12701: Development and Experimental Benchmark of Computational Models to Predict Cladding Temperature and Vapor Removal from UNF Canisters during Drying Operations | University of Nevada, Reno | $400,000 | Researchers will develop physics-based computational tools to predict used nuclear fuel cladding temperatures within, and water vapor removal rates from, canisters during existing and proposed drying processes. The project will explore a range of gas pressures (including rarefication), and steady and unsteady external gas flows rates. The tools will be used to develop drying processes that minimize drying time while maintaining cladding temperatures. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12688: An Experimental and Analytical Investigation into Critical Heat Flux (CHF) Implications for Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF) Concepts | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a holistic best estimate assessment of the potential impact of different ATF cladding materials with regards to heat transfer characteristics, the boiling curve, critical heat flux, fuel mass/volume/specific power density, and neutronics effects due to changes in the lattice design or parasitic neutron absorption during design basis accident conditions in light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12996: Multipurpose, Radiation- and Temperature-Resistant Semiconductor Radiation Detectors for Advanced Process Monitoring and Nuclear Safeguards | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop detection systems capable of neutron, gamma-ray, x-ray, and alpha monitoring in high-temperature and high radiation environments for extended periods of time. The detectors will be used to strengthen nuclear safeguards by enhancing nuclear material control and accounting in nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13125: The Thermodynamics of Crystallization and Phase-Separation in Melt-Derived Nuclear Waste Forms | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This projects will study the thermodynamics of melt and quench phases of nuclear waste glasses and glass ceramics and link this information to the underlying short-range and medium-range structure. Advanced calorimetric techniques and neutron total scattering with pair distribution function analysis will be applied to obtain these data. Computer simulations will complement the experimental effort. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12886: Identifying, Predicting and Preventing Localized Corrosion in Kr-85 Storage Canisters | University of Virginia | $799,000 | Researchers will determine the root cause of corrosion within Kr-85 storage canisters in order to better understand current corrosion rates. The project will focus on expanding available research on Rb corrosion interactions and other contributing factors to better understand the corrosion phenomenon in current steel canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12463: Extreme Performance High Entropy Alloys (HEAs) Cladding for Fast Reactor Applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will develop extreme performance high entropy alloys (HEAs) as for new metal alloy cladding for fast reactor applications. Two very promising, single solution BCC HEAs will be investigated. The project will deliver an extensive irradiation resistance study of a new promising yet unexplored cladding concept. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12549: Critical Heat Flux Studies for Innovative Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding Surfaces | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will study critical heat flux (CHF) behavior focused on innovative accident tolerant fuel (ATF) cladding. The project includes separate effects screening tests to measure CHF for various ATF clad materials and surface characteristics with measurements of surface wettability. Pressurized flow boiling experiments will simulate prototypical reactor conditions for evaluating the best ATF clad materials coupled with CHF modeling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13019: Evaluation of Accident Tolerant Fuels Surface Characteristics in Critical Heat Flux Performance | Virginia Commonwealth University | $800,000 | Researchers will perform separate-effects and system-wide tests of the AREVA and GE accident tolerant fuel concepts currently under consideration. The project will investigate the impact of cladding surface characteristics in critical heat flux (CHF) under normal and anticipated off-normal conditions. The experimental results will be used to develop and validate enhanced models for the prediction of CHF and will be implemented in various subchannel and system analysis codes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13054: Simulated Used Nuclear Fuel Dissolution as a Function of Fuel Chemistry and Near Field Conditions | Washington State University | $800,000 | Researchers will study the effects of simulated used nuclear fuel (UNF) chemistry and microstructure on its dissolution in geologic repository conditions. The results will advance models for UNF evolution in repository conditions, enabling reliable prediction of degradation and long-term performance of used nuclear fuel for up to one million years. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12506: Development of Reactor Physics Benchmark Evaluations for Power Burst Facility Experiments | University of Florida | $398,265 | Researchers will perform reactor physics benchmark evaluations of Power Burst Facility experiments regarding differential reactivity worth of the control and transient rods, shim rod worth, in-pile-tube reactivity worth, shutdown reactivity, fuel assembly reactivity worth, core void coefficients of reactivity, in-pile-tube void coefficient, and coolant temperature coefficient of reactivity. The results will be incorporated in the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP). | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12748: Combined modeling and experiments to predict corrosion and embrittlement in dual-phase stainless steels within the MARMOT framework | Oregon State University | $800,000 | Researchers will enhance MARMOT to predict mechanical and corrosion properties of dual-phase stainless steels as a function of composition, aging time and temperature by using combined experimental data and lower length scale models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12797: In-Situ Ion Irradiation to Add Irradiation Assisted Grain Growth to the MARMOT Tool | Pennsylvania State University | $500,000 | Researchers will add the capability to model irradiation assisted grain growth to the MARMOT tool by using in-situ ion irradiation of UO2 to quantify the effect of irradiation on grain growth. The team will investigate the hypothesis that irradiation assisted grain growth is caused by thermal spikes resulting from atom collisions. The model added to MARMOT will couple the existing grain growth model to a heat conduction simulation using a stochastic heat source describing the thermal spike. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12555: Integration of high-fidelity Monte Carlo and deterministic transport codes into Workbench | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | Researchers will provide end users an ability to run both MCNP6 and PROTEUS codes from a common user input in Workbench by (1) templating user-provided engineering scale specifications to code-specific input requirements, (2) enabling multi-fidelity analysis of a system from a common input using MCNP6 and PROTEUS and (3) allowing the easy use of high-fidelity simulations to inform lower-order models for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems and experiments. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12939: Expansion of BISON Capabilities to Predict the Dynamic Response of Irradiated Fuel Rods | University of New Hampshire | $800,000 | Researchers will expand the capabilities of BISON and MOOSE to simulate the structural dynamic response of fuel rods and fuel assemblies during handling (wet and dry storage) and transportation. Expanding the capabilities of BISON and MOOSE to facilitate the evaluation of the dynamic response of fuel rods and assemblies is important to conduct a more reliable risk assessment of fuel assemblies, as well as storage and transportation casks. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13179: Implementation and Validation of Advanced Turbulence Modeling Methods for Liquid Metal Flow in Nek5000 | University of Oklahoma | $786,648 | Researchers will implement and validate state-of-the-art turbulence modeling techniques in Nek5000 to improve predition of liquid metal flows. Specific methods to be investigated include: variable PrT and algebraic heat flux models (AHFM) for URANS simulation; partially-averaged Navier-Stokes (PANS) and dynamic hybrid RANS-LES (DHRL) for hybrid RANS-LES simulation; and variable PrT subgrid heat flux modeling for LES. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12848: Development of Information Trustworthiness and Integrity Algorithms for Cybersecurity Defenses of Nuclear Power Reactors | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a first-of-a-kind physics-based defense-in-depth strategy to defend against false data injection attacks which attempt to change the information used by the I/C network to set reactor state. The approach employs a new design philosophy to check for information trustworthiness/integrity in order to determine whether the information is genuinely generated during the actual operation of the nuclear unit under either normal or off-normal conditions. | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cybersecurity | |
| NEUP Project 17-12538: Influence of dissolved salts and impurities in seawater on heat transfer degradation and fluid flow through fuel channels debris bed | Kansas State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate the role of raw water on degraded heat transfer and fluid flow in the reactor core and debris bed. X-ray imaging techniques, optical-fiber high speed temperature sensing systems and radioactive tracer salts will be used to simultaneously measure experimental data on void fraction, temperature and salt deposition rate. This data will be used to obtain correlations for heat transfer and fluid flow in case of raw water injection. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12502: High Resolution Temperature and Flow Measurements in Wire-Wrapped Fuel Assemblies | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will produce high-quality, high spatial and temporal resolution temperature and flow datasets for wire-wrapped rod bundle geometries. Different bundle sizes, configurations (including duct's and pin's deformation) and Low-Prandlt fluids will be investigated. A unique set of data will be produced to support advanced CFD tools validation, including Nek5000. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12723: Integrating Static PRA Information with RISMC Simulation Methods | The Ohio State University | $799,985 | Researchers will develop a computationally feasible and user friendly process to augment the traditional probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) results with improved representation of epistemic uncertainties and process/hardware/software/human interactions at plant level applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12664: Methods to Predict Thermal Radiation and to Design Scaled Separate and Integral Effects Testing For Molten Salt Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology for the design of molten salt reactor (MSR) Separate Effect Test and Integral Effect Test experiments. This methodology will identify and quantify sources of scaling distortion including radiative heat transport. The project would improve code performance and assist FHR/MSR vendors who are making licensing applications based on code results. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12523: Experimental and Computational Studies of Stress Corrosion Cracking of Alloys 308/309 and 82/182 Weldments in Corrosive and Radiation Environment | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will use advanced microanalytical analysis techniques to study SCC and IASCC of stainless steel and Ni-Cr alloy weldments. CERT, autoclave immersion, and ion irradiation will be used to determine synergistic effect of LWR environmental factors. Results from the experimental component of the proposed work scope will be used for enhanced predictive capability of the INL Grizzly code via XFEM. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12614: Systematic Enterprise Risk Management by Integrating the RISMC Toolkit and Cost-Benefit Analysis | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $799,998 | Researchers will develop a systematic Enterprise Risk Management framework, which utilizes Decision Tree (DT) logic to consider high-level production-loss scenarios, and their underlying physical and social causes throughout the lifecycle. In the proposed DT, uncertainty nodes will be quantified by plant-specific risk analysis using the Risk-Informed Safety Margin Characterization (RISMC) Toolkit, and cost-benefit analysis will be conducted for end states reflecting consequences of managerial decision-making. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12972: Design of a Commercial-Scale, Fluoride-Salt-Cooled, High-Temperature Reactor With Novel Refueling and Decay Heat Removal Capabilities | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $400,000 | Researchers will combine fluoride-salt-cooled, high temperature reactors (FHR) with advanced gas reactor (AGR) refueling technology to address several significant challenges that remain in the development of FHR technology. The project will adapt AGR refueling technology by using the new fuel-inside-radial-moderator fuel form, which will also introduce new ways of dealing with decay heat. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13115: Experimental Determination of Helium/air Mixing in Helium Cooled Reactor | University of Michigan | $800,000 | Researchers will examine the effects of coolant leakage and air ingress through three different investigations. The overall objective of this work is to characterize near and far field behavior of Helium/Air mixing in containment, and to determine rates and amounts of air leaked back into the reactor after a depressurization event. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12830: Radioisotope Retention in Graphite and Graphitic Materials | University of Missouri, Columbia | $800,000 | Researchers will use a variety of experimental techniques to acquire data for fission product diffusion, transport and adsorption of fission products in various graphites, relating to nuclear reactors at high temperatures. Measurements will be taken using non-irradiated graphite using fission product surrogates. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13020: Bimetallic Composite (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) Development and Compatibility in Flowing FLiBe as a Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) Structural Material | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a new bimetallic alloy (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) structural material for the MSR, and compare its post-exposure mechanical performance in flowing FLiBe with single alloys SS 316, Hastelloy N, and Incoloy 800H, in the context of ASME codification. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12678: Novel NDE Sensors, Waveforms, Models, and Algorithms for Cable Health Monitoring | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop NDE sensors and probabilistic cable insulation diagnosis and prognosis algorithms (particle filtering), and modeling and experiments to monitor cable insulation health. Two different types of sensor will be deployed to detect insulation damage. The team will also develop cable insulation degradation modeling to further understand defects in cable insulation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13080: Multiscale Investigation of SiC/SiC Composite Degradation in Helium Coolant Operating Environment | University of Virginia | $800,000 | Researchers will study the long-term degradation mechanisms of SiC/SiC composites in helium coolant environments by slow crack growth (SCG). This will be achieved through multiscale testing in hot, O2-contaminated He and evaluation of the effect of SCG on hermeticity during in situ testing. Results will be extended to predictive low-level and component-scale SCG models and integrated into the development of ASME standards for use of SiC/SiC in nuclear reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12481: Supercritical CO2 power cycle for space applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will develop an advanced supercritical Brayton power cycle directly coupled to a fission reactor. The project will carry out a comprehensive optimization of the cycle operating conditions, working fluid, and configuration; develop detailed designs of each subcomponent; and demonstrate/develop critical technologies such as turbomachinery seals and bearings, reactor material corrosion and strength demonstrations, and supercritical heat transfer. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13232: Radiative Heat Transport and Optical Characterization of High Temperature Molten Salts | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | The goal of the proposed research is to experimentally investigate radiation heat transport in molten salts, and to add functionality for radiative heat transport in a thermal-hydraulics system code. This includes obtaining highly resolved measurements of the optical absorption and emissivity of liquid salts. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 18-15345: Multiphysics Degradation Processes, and Their Mitigation, in Engineered and Geological Bariers: Experiments and Simulation | Duke University | $800,000.00 | This project will focus on filling the gaps in understanding of mechanisms of a series of degradation processes (thermal, hydric, geo-chemical, and transport processes phenomena) potentially affecting geo-materials used in repositories. The objectives of the work are to better recognize the conditions leading to preferential paths of radionuclide transport and rock weakening, and to build mathematical models and implement them into existing codes to predict material degradation and develop strategies to reduce the adverse consequences. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15043: Integration of Nuclear Material Accounting Data and Process Monitoring Data for Improvement on Detection Probability in Safeguarding Electrochemical Processing Facilities | Oregon State University | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to further studies on fusion of process monitoring (PM) data and nuclear material accounting (NMA) data. PM data, which includes monitoring by various types of equipment (radiation detectors, cameras, voltage, current sensors), can supplement NMA data to help improve safeguards. For aqueous-based reprocessing facilities, it is reported that PM, integrated with traditional NMA, has a high-detection probability for specific diversions. For electrochemical reprocessing, preliminary studies have shown that PM data can support traditional NMA by providing a basis to estimate some of the in-processing nuclear material inventories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15148: Recovery of Rare-Earth Elements (Nd, Gd, Sm) in Oxide Wasteform Using Liquid Metals (Bi, Sn) | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000.00 | This project investigates a new approach for recovering rare-earth (RE) fission products (Nd, Gd, and Sm) from molten chlorine salts using liquid metal (Bi and Sn) electrodes. The research aids molten salt recycling by converting the RE products into chloride-free RE oxides, which could be incorporated into conventional glass/ceramic waste forms. Successful outcomes of the project include advanced separation of fission products from molten salts with better control of chemical selectivity and high-recovery yield. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15103: Microstructure-Based Benchmarking for Nano/Microscale Tension and Ductility Testing of Irradiated Steels | Purdue University | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to standardize methods for nano/micro-scale tensile and ductility testing of irradiated Fe-Cr steels, through microstructure-based benchmarking. The study will investigate key process parameters for TEM in situ tension and ductility testing. Coupling experimental studies with multiscale models, the research will identify the approaches that provide consistent deformation mechanisms between the nano/micro-scale and macro-scale tests, from which standard practices will be obtained. The primary project outcome will be a set of recommended guidelines for nano/microscale mechanical testing, which will lead to unprecedented reductions in the time and cost for qualifying materials for in-reactor service and to ensure consistency of methods and validity of results. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15559: Cold Spray Repair & Mitigation of Stress Corrosion Cracks in Spent Nuclear Fuel Dry Storage Canisters | Purdue University | $799,982.00 | This goal of this project is to demonstrate cold spray repair and mitigation of chloride-induced stress corrosion cracks (SCC) and pits in stainless steel dry storage canisters. The research will optimize the repair process and gain a scientifically informed understanding of SCC mechanisms. The outcome is to further develop cold spray as an attractive solution for the repair of existing SCC and mitigation of potential SCC necessary to ensure long-term integrity, security, and regulatory compliance of spent nuclear fuel storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15596: Capture of Organic Iodides from Vessel Off-Gas Streams | Syracuse University | $799,548.00 | This project will study the capture of radioactive organoiodides from off-gas streams produced during nuclear fuel reprocessing by conducting adsorption experiments using a selected silver adsorbents. Multifaceted simulation adsorption models will be developed to assist in the design of necessary capture systems for off-gas streams. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15585: Impact of Coupled Gas Migration and Thermo-hydro-mechanical Processes on the Performance of Repositories for High Level Nuclear Waste | Texas A&M University | $608,375.00 | The main goal of this project is to better understand the possible effect of gas migration (particularly through discontinuities) on the performance and long-term behavior of engineered barrier systems (EBS) envisaged for the isolation of high-level radioactive waste (HLW). Specific outcomes of this study will be an improved understanding of the role of gas migration and discontinuities in the performance of HLW disposals, with the underlying aim to improve design of EBS used for HLW. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15531: Repair and Mitigation of Chloride-Induced Pitting and Chloride-Induced Stress Corrosion Cracking in Used Nuclear Fuel Dry Cask Canister Materials | The Ohio State University | $800,000.00 | This project will evaluate and develop a set of tools to repair and mitigate chloride-induced pitting and stress corrosion cracking in stainless steel nuclear fuel canisters. Advanced processes, including low temperature friction stir welding and cold spray deposition, will be evaluated according to various criteria, such as corrosion performance. In addition, technologies that have not yet been evaluated for UNF applications, including vaporizing foil actuator welding and soldering will be assessed. The two most promising technologies will selected for further development and comprehensive study. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14912: Bridging the Length Scales on Mechanical Property Evaluation | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000.00 | This project combines experimental and modeling methods to gain a comprehensive approach for addressing scaling effects on small-scale mechanical testing. Multiscale experiments, together with modeling on reactor-relevant and model alloys, will provide better understanding of appropriate scaling relationships. The study aims to gain fundamental understanding of plasticity interactions with specific strength-determining features, such as precipitates and grain boundaries. The goal of this work is to provide the basis to add small-scale mechanical testing in the toolbox for nuclear materials research. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14911: Understanding of degradation of SiC/SiC materials in nuclear systems and development of mitigation strategies | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000.00 | This project investigates the best possible coatings to prevent SiCf/SiCm corrosion in LWR environments. The research features a computational and experimental rapid screening approach for numerous coating compositions. The work includes autoclave exposure of rapid screening coupons in prototypical environments in combination with thermodynamic modeling (CALPHAD) and Finite Element Methods (FEM). Small-scale mechanical testing, together with thermal cycling and FEM modeling, will provide guidance on the ideal coating system design. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15701: Time-dependent THMC Properties and Microstructural Evolution of Damage Rocks in Excavation Damage Zone | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,978.00 | The proposed project focuses on the geomechanical aspects of modeling by addressing the time-dependent evolution of rock microstructure and its coupling with the THC processes that are of first-order importance to the stability and the isolation performance of repositories. The research will delineate an integrated experimental, theoretical and numerical strategy in assessing the evolution EDZ over time and its implication on the long-term migration of hazardous species. These results will enhance the confidence of the predicted long-term performance of repositories, which helps to move forward the goal of one-million-year isolation of high-level nuclear wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15381: Multiaxial Failure Envelopes and Uncertainty Quantification of Nuclear-Grade SiCf/SiC Woven Ceramic Matrix Tubular Composites | University of Florida | $800,000.00 | This project proposes to develop a comprehensive experimental and computational approach for determining constitutive relations and multiaxial failure envelopes of nuclear-grade continuous silicon fiber (SiCf) and SiC matrix woven tubular composites. The result of this work can be adopted in industry for design refinement, optimization of performance under the desired operating conditions, and reliable prediction of failure under unforeseen accidental scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15496: Formation of Zeolites Responsible for Waste Glass Rate Acceleration: An Experimental and Computational Study for Understanding Thermodynamic and Kinetic Processes | University of Houston | $800,000.00 | Through experimental and computational studies, this project will expose the factors governing zeolite crystallization and their role in Stage III dissolution of radionuclide-containing glass waste forms generated in advanced nuclear fuel cycles. The overall goal of this project is to understand the formation of zeolite phases in order to develop process control methods to suppress Stage III dissolution. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14998: Novel Processes for Capture of Radioactive Iodine Species from Vessel Off-Gas Streams | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the sorption system performance and effectiveness for capture of radioiodine species present in the off-gas streams from the used nuclear fuel (UNF) recycling operations, focusing particularly on the organic iodine species. The dynamic sorption experimentation and theoretical modeling will offer fundamental insights on the mechanism enabling the design and prediction the control system performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15261: Friction Stir Based Repair Welding of Dry Storage Canisters and Mitigation Strategies: Effect of Engineered Barrier Layer on Environmental Degradation | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The project goal is to apply friction stir based repair and mitigation technique for eliminating failure associated with pitting and stress corrosion cracking in dry storage canisters for spent fuels. The goal of these activities is to obtain a fundamental understanding of the processing-structure-properties correlations. This work will contribute to the development of a crack repair/mitigation strategy based on friction stir technology that can be efficiently implemented for spent fuel dry storage casks, which will enhance safety and reliability of these systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15263: X-ray Studies of Interfacial Molecular Complexes in ALSEP Back-Extraction | University of Illinois at Chicago | $800,000.00 | This project will use synchrotron X-rays to characterize the interfacial molecular complexes (of extractants and radiologically derived impurities, complexants, buffers, and metal ions) formed during the Actinide-Lanthanide Separation Process (ALSEP) back-extraction. This work addresses the critical knowledge gap of slow stripping kinetics in ALSEP, as well as the influence of radiolytic degradation products. The outcome of the project will be a molecular-level understanding of the role of different components in the interfacial mechanism of back-extraction in the ALSEP process, therefore leading to development of more efficient and faster metal stripping relevant to the separation of actinides from lanthanides in the nuclear fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15030: Mechanistic Understanding of Radiolytically Assisted Hydrothermal Corrosion of SiC in LWR Coolant Environments | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to develop a mechanistic understanding of the hydrothermal corrosion behavior of monolithic SiC and SiC/SiC composites in LWR environment under the influence of water radiolysis products and radiation damage. Complementary atomistic simulations will be carried out to determine the rate controlling mechanisms for dissolution under different water chemistries and in the presence of radiation. Activation energies and kinetic rates will be calculated directly from these simulations and compared to experimentally fitted values. The dissolution rate constants determined and validated in this integrated experimental and modeling approach will allow predictions of long-term SiC corrosion behavior. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14999: Probabilistic Failure Criterion of SiC/SiC Composites Under Multi-Axial Loading | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $800,000.00 | This project aims to develop a probabilistic failure criterion of SiC/SiC composites under multi-axial loading and to incorporate the criterion into a reliability analysis of the structural integrity of LWR SiC/SiC fuel cladding. This research will be anchored by a seamless integration of novel experimental and analytical tools, which will lead to a robust methodology for dependable analysis of SiC/SiC composite structures for LWR fuel cladding, as well as other nuclear applications. The resulting model will be experimentally validated and applied to analyze the reliability of LWR SiC/SiC fuel cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15502: Reducing Uncertainty in Radionuclide Transport Prediction Using Multiple Environmental Tracers | University of Montana | $724,906.00 | In this project, direct modeling of multiple environmental tracers will be used to improve predictions of radionuclide transport in a shallow alluvial aquifer discharge. The research will take advantage of recent theoretical developments considering the use of environmental tracers, and advances in high-performance reactive flow and transport models, to obtain the maximum information on the transport system. The goal is to develop a new methodology to characterize natural reactive flow and transport systems, reduce predictive uncertainty in radionuclide transport simulations, determine the maximum information content of the tracer suite, and optimize future groundwater characterization efforts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15578: Computational and Experimental Investigation of Thermal-Mechanical- Chemical Mechanisms of High-burnup Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) Processes at Elevated Temperatures and Degradation Behavior in Geologic Repositories | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $800,000.00 | The overarching goal of this project is to use combined computational and experimental research and development activities to enhance understanding of the mechanisms and thermal-mechanical-chemical (TMC) parameters controlling the instant release fraction (IRF) and matrix dissolution of high-burnup (HB; burnup > 45 GWd/MTU) spent nuclear fuels (SNFs) and the subsequent formation, stability, and phase transformations of HB SNF alteration products under long-term storage and geological disposal conditions (e.g., high-temperature storage, _-radiolysis). The results of this research will be used to enhance the mechanistic detail of process models to reduce uncertainty in, and improve the technical bases of, safety cases and performance assessment analyses. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15439: Radiolytic Dissolution Rate of Silicon Carbide | University of Notre Dame | $400,000.00 | This project seeks to develop a matrix of dissolution rates for high-purity SiC material, using intense electron beam irradiation, and to measure the products of dissolution (silicic acid and CO2 (or CO)) in the water downstream of the irradiation zone. The objective is to determine the rate of SiC dissolution and gather sufficient insight about its mechanism in LWRs, so that the use of SiC/SiC composite materials for accident tolerant fuel cladding can proceed with confidence. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15061: Development of an MC&A Toolbox for Liquid-fueled Molten Salt Reactors with Online Reprocessing | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,207.00 | The purpose of this project is to develop a toolbox of swappable mass flow modules for liquid-fueled molten salt reactor (MSR) systems for the purposes of evaluating material control & accountancy measurement techniques. When combined together, these modules enable modeling of the time-dependent mass flows for a variety of MSR variants. The test platform will consist of a toolbox of independent process modules representing discrete physical units, each with its own self-contained physics responsive to the input mass flow, along with appropriate measurement models that can be coupled to key flow points. These dynamic physical signatures would allow testing of the viability and efficacy of potential accountancy techniques under the full range of reactor operating conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15307: A Novel and Flexible Approach for Converting LWR UNF Fuel Into Forms That Can Be Used to Fuel a Variety of Gen-IV Reactors | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $400,000.00 | This project will investigate the chemical decladding and the digestion of whole MOX-based fuel rods, using thionyl chloride and surrogate materials. Digesting entire LWR fuel assemblies results in product streams that include pure decontaminated ZrCl4; pure UCl4; and a stream containing TRU/FPs, as well as alloying metals (as chloride salts). The objectives of this project are to provide a new, highly efficient protocol for the transformation of used nuclear fuel into useful components and to effectively contain a concentrated stream of highly radioactive materials for appropriate handling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15459: Reduced Diffusion and Enhanced Retention of Multiple Radionuclides from Pore Structure Studies of Barrier Materials for Enhanced Repository Performance | University of Texas at Arlington | $567,831.00 | The project seeks to better understand and quantify the pore structure (geometry and topology) and pore connectivity of porous media and its emergent effect on diffusion and retention of various radionuclides in barrier materials. The anticipated outcome of the project will be to more accurately evaluate the performance of geological repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15649: Benchmarking Microscale Ductility Measurements | University of Utah | $776,669.00 | The objectives of this project are to establish best practices for obtaining tensile microscale ductility measurements and to validate methodologies for comparing them to macroscale ductility measurements. Anticipated outcomes of the project are: 1) measurement of grain and sub-grain localization processes micro and macroscales; 2) establishment of best practices for microtensile experimentation; 3) identification of statistically significant relationships between specimen geometry, microstructure variables and mechanical behavior; 4) modified phenomenological elongation-based ductility models to enable direct upscaling of ductility measurements from microscale to macroscopic. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15003: Advanced Coating and Surface Modification Technologies for SiC-SiC Composite for Hydrothermal Corrosion Protection in LWR | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,990.00 | This project focuses on the development of coatings and surface modification approaches for hydrothermal corrosion protection of SiC-SiC composite in normal LWR operation environments. Innovative surface treatment recipes will be explored using processes including, interfacial stitching to improve adhesion, multi-layered structures to improve ductility, and compositions and structures resulting from thermal treatments. The surface treatment concepts involve corrosion resistant metallic and ceramic materials, and are amenable to industrial scalability for the cladding application. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15332: Low-Force Solid-State Technologies for Mitigation of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dry Storage Canisters | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000.00 | This project will focus on evaluating and developing two technologies used for field mitigation and repair of stress corrosion cracking (SCC): 1) additive friction stir welding; and 2) cold spray deposition. The work involves developing low-force, low-heat input solid state technologies to lessen and repair SCC in stainless steel canisters for used nuclear fuel (UNF). This outcome of the study will inform feasibility of using the two technologies to conduct on-site field repairs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14913: The Role of Temperature on Non-Darcian Flows in Engineered Clay Barriers | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000.00 | This project intends to accomplish three tasks: 1) to develop a predictive model to facilitate experimental data interpretation and provide mechanistic insights into the role of temperature on non-Darcian flows in low-permeability engineered clay barriers; 2) conduct experiments to unravel the role of temperature on the threshold gradient of non-Darcian flow in both saturated and unsaturated bentonite; and 3) use molecular dynamics (MD) simulation to improve fundamental understanding. The experimental data, associated with the MD simulation, will provide valuable information to improve fundamental understanding and scientific knowledge with respect to the temperature dependence of threshold gradient in non-Darcian flows, because very limited experimental data for saturated flow and no experimental data for unsaturated flow are available. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14815: C-SiOC-SiC Coated Particle Fuels for Advanced Nuclear Reactors | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $400,000.00 | This project will study a new concept for nuclear fuel encapsulation using an amorphous SiOC plus carbon system as the inner coating and nanocrystalline SiC plus minor carbon as the outer coating for nuclear fuel kernel particles. The outcomes of this work are: 1) new directions and possible replacement guidance for current nuclear fuel materials in operation; 2) new fuel materials for future nuclear reactor material design and development; 3) nuclear composite microstructure evolution and performance degradation understanding; 4) screening tools to guide future nuclear fuel material activities; and 5) mechanisms of nuclear fuel material evolution and degradation and effective strategies to mitigate/reduce undesirable fuel behaviors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15226: An Evaluated, Transient Experiment based on Simultaneous, 3-D Neutron-Flux and Temperature Measurements | Kansas State University | $399,972.00 | This project will evaluate existing and near-term experimental data for inclusion in the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) handbook. The data to be evaluated include compositions from a recent fuel replacement as part of an LEU conversion, a number of critical, fresh-fuel configurations, fuel temperature measurements at fresh-fuel configurations, and records from nearly a decade of operation. The proposed work would lead to a first-of-a-kind evaluation of transient, spatially-dependent reaction rates. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project CFA-18-15773: Evaluation of the Thermal Scattering Law for Advanced Reactor Neutron Moderators and Reflectors | North Carolina State University | $398,821.00 | The objective of this project is to narrow the nuclear data gap for advanced nuclear reactors that are driven by thermal neutrons. This includes concepts such as gas-cooled high-temperature reactors and molten salt or salt-cooled high temperature reactors. The generated data TSL libraries will be provided in EDNF File 7 format to the National Nuclear Data Center (NDDC) to immediately include in beta releases of the ENDF/B libraries and to consider for the future release of ENDF/B-VIII.1. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15602: Modeling and Experimental Verification of Thermal Energy Storage Systems to Enable Load Following Capability for Nuclear Reactors | University of Idaho | $761,640.00 | This project purposes to integrate new thermal energy storage (TES) models, developed in Modelica, with ongoing nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (NRHES) modeling efforts, in order to evaluate economic potential and advantages of new process designs over baseload electricity production. The computational phase of this project includes developing mathematical and physics-based TES models, which could later be translated to Modelica and integrated with existing NRHES components. The testing and optimization would be conducted using RAVEN. A techno-economic analysis will be performed to evaluate the compatibility of the newly formed integration, as well as to quantify its feasibility and economic benefits. The experimental aspect is focused on the development of scaled TES systems, which serve as verification for the Modelica models and allow system testing upon being integrated with DETAIL. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14963: Development of Nuclear Hybrid Energy Systems: Temperature Amplification through Chemical Heat Pumps for Industrial Applications | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The overall goal of this project is to develop and demonstrate, through modeling and experimental investigations, temperature amplification capabilities of a chemical heat pump (CHP) system that can be coupled to a conventional light water reactor or a near-term small modular reactor. The outcomes would include nuclear hybrid energy system architecture containing a CHP, experimental data on the CHP performance, and dynamic model of the system, validated through experimentation, which could be used for scale-up and design. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15008: Development of Thermal Inelastic Scattering Covariance Data Capabilities with Demonstration of Light Water Evaluation | University of Michigan | $400,000.00 | The goal of this project is to produce a format for covariance data for inelastic thermal neutron scattering data for moderators in the ENDF format. To demonstrate the viability of this new format, an evaluation of the covariance data for thermal scattering in light water in this format will be produced, along with the capabilities to generate the files and test their efficacy. A capability for calculating sensitivity coefficients using multigroup methods to the fundamental physics parameters governing light-water scattering will be developed to facilitate identifying nuclear data needs related to thermal scattering. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15056: Model-Based Diagnostics and Mitigation of Cyber Threats | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | This project intends to develop a toolkit for modeling digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems for nuclear power plants so that the consequences of cyber-attacks on I&C systems may conveniently be modeled using nuclear plant simulation software. The results of the toolkit-based models, the corresponding responses, and the performance of the diagnostic schemes will be tested on a virtual control room driven by a plant simulator. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15055: NICSim: Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Simulation for Evaluating Response to Cyber-attacks | University of New Mexico | $799,945.00 | The objective of the project is to develop a Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Simulation (NICSim) platform with a novel emulytics capability to simulate control systems and components in nuclear power plants. The outcome of this work would be a first-in-class emulytics platform with an associated documentation and library of physical models of components that could be used by analysts and designers to assess the resilience and cybersecurity risks of different control system designs for a wide range of power plants. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15324: Validation of Pressure Relaxation Coefficient in RELAP-7 Seven-Equation Model | George Washington University | $800,000.00 | This project aims to validate the Seven-Equation model in RELAP-7 by: 1) measuring velocity and pressure in each phase and the interface as well as return to equilibrium in fast transients with high-speed non-intrusive laser diagnostics in canonical experiments; 2) complementing experimental data with a multiscale computational approach, including a 3D proprietary direct numerical solver; and 3) validating RELAP-7 with a combination of experimental data and first-principle simulations. This combination would provide unique and complete datasets to validate RELAP-7 with high confidence and offer a new class of experimental and numerical tools. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project CFA-18-15104: Demonstration of Utilization of High-fidelity NEAMS Tools to Inform the Improved Use of Conventional Tools within the NEAMS Workbench on the NEA/OECD C5G7-TD Benchmark | North Carolina State University | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to demonstrate the utilization of high-fidelity Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) tools (PROTEUS, Nek5000, and BISON) to inform the improved use of conventional tools (DIF-3D, CTF, and CTFFuel) within the NEAMS Workbench on the NEA/OECD C5G7-TD benchmark. This would result in more accurate predictions of safety parameters and margins, which is important for both safety and performance improvements of the nuclear power plants being currently operated and built. The developed Workbench-based framework will also assist end users to apply high-fidelity simulations to inform lower-order models for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14741: Demonstration of a Methodology for Direct Validation of MARMOT Irradiation-Induced Microstructural Evolution and Physical Property Models Using U-10Zr | Texas A&M University | $500,000.00 | The objective of this project is to demonstrate, for the first time, a methodology that enables the direct validation of microstructural evolution models for fuel in MARMOT, and the direct correlation of changes in physical properties with specific irradiation-induced microstructural features. Properly implementing this methodology will result in rapid development of MARMOT mesoscale models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15520: Accurate and Efficient Parametric Model-Order Reduction for Turbulent Thermal Transport | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000.00 | The project objective is to develop reduced-order models (ROMs) that will improve accuracy of LMR system-level analysis with low overhead. These new models will systematically mine high-fidelity DNS, LES, or uRANS simulations to construct low-order dynamical systems that can couple with a systems analysis code, such as the SAM code being developed under NEAMS. These simulations provide useful data and will be made available to the scientific community, and the overall effort will contribute to more efficient LMR conceptual design studies and licensing. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15484: A Novel High Fidelity Continuous-energy tTansport Tool for Efficient FHR Transient Calculations | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000.00 | The objective of the project is to develop a high-fidelity continuous energy (CE) transport tool for efficient transient calculations in fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactors with prismatic core/fuel assembly design. This will be accomplished by extending the high-fidelity 3-D continuous energy coarse mesh radiation transport (COMET) code with formidable computational speed to solve transient problems in FHRs with accurate thermal hydraulic feedback. The new capability would enable plant system codes to perform analyses necessary to address complex technical design, regulatory, reactor safety, and economic hurdles prior to construction. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15093: Determination of Molecular Structure and Dynamics of Molten Salts by Advanced Neutron and X-ray Scattering Measurements and Computer Modeling | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000.00 | This project will seek detailed knowledge about molecular structure and dynamics of molten salts to inform the design of new molten-salt reactors. A combination of advanced neutron and x-ray scattering and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations will be used to model the ionic-cluster structure of the fluid and solubility of impurities. Machine learning will be applied to regress from simulations and experiments in order to develop the model and predict chemical potentials as a function of composition and temperature. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15171: Oxidation Behavior of Silicon Carbide and Graphitic Materials | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000.00 | The objectives of this project are to determine the oxidation behavior of silicon carbide and graphitic materials in oxygen and/or moisture, to accurately measure the kinetic parameters of oxidation, to ascertain the oxidation mechanisms in relation to the microstructures, to determine the effect of irradiation on oxidation behavior, and to provide data and input to the safety analysis of high-temperature gas reactors under air and moisture ingress accident conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15276: Coping Time and Cost Analysis of Accident Tolerant Plant Design based on Dynamic PRA Methodology | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000.00 | This project will evaluate the failure modes of accident tolerant fuel ATF candidates to understand the different failure characteristics. The research aims to obtain a response surface of coping time by investigating the various uncertainties of accident mitigation in PWR and BWR reactors. These outputs will aid the decision making process on the implementation of ATF and FLEX to existing LWR plants from the perspective of risk reduction and economic feasibility. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15270: Innovative Use of Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) with the RCIC System to Enhance Passive Safety of Commercial LWRs | Texas A&M University | $748,000.00 | The overarching objectives of this project are to: 1) demonstrate new operational strategies with the combined use of Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) and the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) System to increase the passive safety capabilities of current Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs) in delaying or preventing core damage; and 2) pursue the delay of containment venting until after a 72-hour coping period through new BWR Suppression Pool mixing procedures. The research will use both simulation and experimental data to validate the objectives. The work has the potential to increase the ability of existing nuclear power plants to passively respond to beyond design basis events using existing equipment and without changes to the plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15346: Big Data For Operation and Maintenance Cost Reduction | The Ohio State University | $800,000.00 | This project will develop a first-of-a-kind framework for integrating Big Data capability into the daily activities of our current fleet of nuclear power plants. This research will mainly focus on incorporating the wide range of data heterogeneities in nuclear power plants into an integrated Big Data Analytics capability. The primary end product of this work will be a Big Data framework that is capable of dealing with the large volume and heterogeneity of the data found in nuclear power plants to extract timely and valuable information on equipment performance and to enable optimization of plant operation and maintenance based on the extracted information. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15065: in situ Measurement and Validation of Uranium Molten Salt Properties at Operationally Relevant Temperatures | University of Connecticut | $799,979.00 | This project proposes to use advanced spectroscopic and scattering methods to provide information at the atomic and molecular scale. The research will use synchrotron-based x-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy, at operationally relevant temperatures, to measure the local and intermediate structure as well as speciation of chloride fuel salts (NaCl, ZrCl, UCl3) for fast-spectrum applications and fluoride fuel salts ( 7 LiF, UF4) primarily for thermal spectrum applications This approach is expected to generate theories and concepts that would allow models to predict behavior, and develop the means for in situ monitoring. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15058: High-resolution Experiments for Extended LOFC and Steam Ingress Accidents in HTGRs | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to better understand key phenomena in high-temperature gas-cooled reactors relevant to steam ingress and loss of forced circulation (LOFC) accidents. Specifically, the research will: 1) experimentally investigate, using an existing integral-effect test facility with some improvements, the steam-ingress accident caused by a postulated steam generator tube rupture initiating event; 2) carry out integral-effect tests for the extended LOFC accident to study the establishment of global natural circulation flow in the primary loop; 3) design, based on a scaling analysis, and construct a separate-effect test facility to study the complex helium flows in the core and hot plenum during the extended LOFC accident; and 4) perform detailed, high-resolution, separate-effects experiments using the results obtained as boundary/initial conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15471: Integral Experimental Investigation of Radioisotope Retention in Flowing Lead for the Mechanistic Source Term Evaluation of Lead Cooled Fast Reactor | University of New Mexico | $800,000.00 | The purpose of this project is to experimentally investigate the integral effects of radioisotope interactions with liquid lead to support the following technical goals: 1) evaluating the mechanistic source term of the Lead-cooled Fast Reactor (LFR); 2) developing a universal integral effect test methodology for liquid metal source term evaluations; and 3) establishing a basis for the comparison of radioisotope retention between lead and sodium. This aim of the research is to advance the LFR licensing pathway by establishing the phenomenological foundation of the interaction between fission products and liquid lead. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15153: Understanding Molten Salt Chemistry Relevant to Advanced Molten Salt Reactors through Complementary Synthesis, Spectroscopy, and Modeling | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to understand molten salt chemistry relevant to advanced molten salt reactors through complementary synthesis, spectroscopy, and modeling. Through complementary synthetic, spectroscopic, and computational efforts, the aim is to achieve atomistic and molecular-level understanding of liquid structure, coordination geometry, chemical bonding, and reactivity of novel molten salt melts relevant to advanced molten reactor designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15111: Improving Nuclear Power Plant Efficiency Through Data Analytics | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,727.00 | This project aims to develop and provide data analytics solutions to improve nuclear power plan economic efficiency by utilizing empirical models to integrate disparate data sources while providing uncertainty estimates to quantify risk and support decisions. The outcomes will enhance the technical and economic competitiveness by enabling advanced monitoring of critical assets, improving the operating capability of the existing fleet, and helping achieve enhancements in organizational effectiveness. Additionally, the research would provide an agile and modular data analytic framework that would have high commercialization value and supports the industry-wide drive towards digital innovation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14846: Development of Corrosion Resistant Coatings and Liners for Structural Materials for Liquid Fueled Molten Salts Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to develop corrosion-resistant coatings and liners for structural materials for use in fuel dissolved molten salt environment for future Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). Innovative, but industrially scalable, surface cladding approaches are proposed to lead to promising surface and interfacial compositions. The processes themselves are commercial, and have high technology readiness levels, and consequently would facilitate the accelerated developments of MSRs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15280: Advanced Alloy Innovations for Structural Components of Molten Salt Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $796,792.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to develop and evaluate specific advanced metallic alloys for structural components in fluoride salt-cooled molten salt reactors (MSRs). The research will investigate four categories of metallic alloys: advanced Ni-based; radiation damage tolerant high entropy; refractory Mo-based, and compositionally-graded, designed for high-surface corrosion resistance and good bulk strength. Additionally, the propensity for radiation embrittlement, as well as weldability, of the alloys will be evaluated. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14957: Big Data Analytics Solutions to Improve Nuclear Power Plant Efficiency: Online Monitoring, Visualization, Prognosis, and Maintenance Decision Making | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $797,820.00 | The overarching goal of this project is to significantly advance the ability to assess equipment condition and predict the remaining useful life to support optimal maintenance decision making in nuclear power plants. This research will work toward accomplishing and establishing a modern set of data-driven modeling, online monitoring, visualization, prognosis, and operation decision-making methodologies to address the significant opportunities and challenges arising from the emerging data-rich environment in nuclear plants. The potential impact of the work is significant and transformative and could deliver important advances in productivity with reduced unscheduled downtime and improved equipment performance. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15097: Oxidation Study of High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor TRISO Fuels at Accidental Conditions | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000.00 | This project is to study the oxidation behaviors of TRISO fuels during accidental air and water vapor ingress conditions. The work focuses on the oxidation and burn-off of the graphite fuel matrix and oxidation of the TRISO fuel SiC layer at high-temperature accidental states in the presence of air and/or water vapor. It will include both unirradiated and irradiated graphite fuel matrix and simulated fuel particles with the SiC layer. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 19-16987: Novel miniature creep tester for virgin and neutron irradiated clad alloys with benchmarked multiscale modeling and simulations | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | This project will develop a miniature creep machine to collect rapid thermal creep and load relaxation data for two selected ferritic alloys under "as-received" and irradiated conditions. Fast and accurate measurements of creep deformation are essential for qualifying new alloys for long term use in current and next generation reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17150: Speciation and Behavior of Neptunium and Zirconium in Advanced Separation Process | Oregon State University | $800,000 | This project will further develop the understanding of nuclear fuel reprocessing using Co-Decontamination (CoDCon). Radiolytic degradation products of tributylphosphate, nitric acid, redox buffer, masking agent, and water greatly affect the redox speciation, complexation and partitioning of the recycled metals. Fundamental understanding of chemical speciation and partitioning of Neptunium and Zerconium under such conditions is required. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17395: Modeling and Uncertainty Analysis of MSR Nuclear Material Accounting Methods for Nuclear Safeguards | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | This project will model and analyze the limits of detection for the diversion of nuclear materials from a molten salt reactor (MSR) fuel cycle. MSR depletion under a range of uranium and/or plutonium diversion to quantify the resulting differences in salt composition will be evaluated. Sensors will also be investigated to quantify fuel salt contents and correlate the outputs with the reactor models to predict diversion detection. Results will be coupled with robust uncertainty analysis to determine limits of detection. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16583: Neutron Radiation Effect on Diffusion between Zr (and Zircaloy) and Cr for Accurate Lifetime Prediction of ATF | The Ohio State University | $499,997 | This project will perform systematic diffusion studies on both neutron-irradiated and unirradiated accident tolerant fuel samples to obtain precise diffusion coefficients. This will result in a precise evaluation of the pure neutron irradiation effect on diffusion in these systems and enable accurate life prediction of the accident tolerant fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17381: High Throughput Assessment of Creep Behavior of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Structural Alloys by Nano/microindentation | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $800,000 | This project will develop a high throughput assessment of creep behavior of advanced nuclear reactor structural alloys by nano/microindentation. Experimental datasets will inform polycrystalline deformation models to predict material response over a variety of creep conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16549: Thermal Conductivity Measurement of Irradiated Metallic Fuel Using TREAT | University of Pittsburgh | $500,000 | This project intends to provide accurate thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity data with microstructure characterization of metallic (U-Pu-Zr) fuel as a function of burnup and attain fundamental understanding of the thermal conductivity of the irradiated fuel to inform and validate computational models. This will be accomplished using an innovative thermal wave technique in the Transient Reactor Test Facility at the Idaho National Laboratory, with the Minimal Activation Reusable Capsule Holder. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17002: Remote Laser-based Nondestructive Evaluation for Post-Irradiation Examination of ATF Cladding | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | To enable advanced nondestructive characterization techniques for light water reactor fuels that can be applied to the cladding coating, a remote nondestructive evaluation post irradiation inspection approach will be developed. This technique will measure the cladding coating layer thickness and detect defects within the cladding such as corrosion, micro-cracking and delamination. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17276: Radiation-Induced Swelling in Advanced Nuclear Fuel | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,989 | The microstructural evolution of advanced fuel (uranium carbide and uranium nitride) under fission-fragment type radiation has not been studied and remains unclear. This project will utilize advanced synchrotron X-ray characterization using microgram samples to obtain detailed nanoscale information on radiation-induced volumetric swelling and microstrain. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16848: Metal-Functionalized Membranes for Radioiodine Capture | University of Utah | $799,031 | This proposed research will investigate high-surface area (>300 m2/g) metal-functionalized membranes. These novel chemically durable and mechanically robust membranes are formed using an aqueous fabrication process, which results in an interconnected porosity that is highly controllable, providing hierarchical structures ranging from the nano- to micrometer-scales. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17350: Development and Experimental Validation of Pitting and SCC Models for Welded Stainless Steel Dry Storage Containers Exposed to Atmospheric Environments | University of Virginia | $799,027 | The specific goals of this project are to: (a) validate the maximum pit size model for dry storage canister relevant corrosion conditions as well as quantifying the effects of limited cathodic current on stress corrosion cracking (SCC) kinetics, (b) demonstrate a means to quantitatively rank the risk of SCC based on measurable parameters, (c) perform probabilistic predictions of SCC growth, and (d) validate the model predictions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16879: Proactive Hybrid Nuclear with Load Forecasting | Brigham Young University | $799,933 | This project develops new capabilities of design and dispatch optimization of nuclear hybrid energy systems (NHES) in the "Risk Analysis Virtual Environment (RAVEN)" modelling software. Blended (physics-based and data-driven) machine learning will be applied to forecast demand and production of thermal and electrical loads. Two experimental case studies are proposed to test the software developments with a lab-scale thermal energy storage and with a large district energy system. As a final step, the software developments will be generalized to other NHES. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17461: Development and Evaluation of Neutron Thermalization Integral Benchmarks for Advanced Reactor Applications | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | This project will develop integral benchmarks that aim to examine thermal neutron scattering data for graphite (ideal and nuclear), light water, and molten salt. The benchmark evaluations will be contributed to the International Handbook of Evaluated Reactor Physics Benchmark Experiments (IRPhEP) database. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17219: Using Integral Benchmark Experiments to Improve Differential Nuclear Data Evaluations | University of New Mexico | $400,000 | This project will use the results of integral benchmark experiment to inform differential nuclear data evaluations and improve the predictive capability of modeling and simulation (M&S) tools. This goal will be accomplished by developing capabilities to assess the sensitivity of integral benchmark results to evaluated nuclear data parameters, and by using data assimilation tools to directly adjust the evaluated data parameters and improve the accuracy of M&S tools. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16743: Paths Forward for Nuclear Energy: Using a Nationwide Post-Stratified Hierarchical Model to Facilitate Matching of New Nuclear Technologies to Receptive Host Communities | University of Oklahoma | $390,393 | This project will enable deployment of advanced nuclear technologies by developing a model, and an accompanying web-based tool that can be utilized by technology entrepreneurs, that identifies public support for siting new nuclear technologies at very local spatial scales across the US. The model will employ hierarchically structured, post stratified analysis of the largest US pooled-time series dataset on geocoded public support for nuclear technologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16995: A Cyber-Attack Detection Platform for Cyber Security of Digital Instrumentation and Control Systems | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,995 | The proposed research will develop a robust cyber-attack detection system (CADS) for monitoring digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems. The project will develop a robust research tool for evaluating cyber defense of digital I&C systems and provide a framework for a cyber-attack detection system that provides continuous assurance of the security of digital I&C systems in nuclear power plants (NPPs). | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17327: Multi-Timescale Nuclear-Renewable Hybrid Energy Systems Operations to Improve Electricity System Resilience, Reliability, and Economic Efficiency | University of Texas at Dallas | $800,000 | The overarching objective of this project is to develop a multi-timescale nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (N-R HESs) operations framework to provide different types of grid products. The project will model and analyze the capabilities of N-R HESs to provide power grid services at different timescales ranging from seconds to days, such as day-ahead unit commitment, flexible ramping (5-45 minutes), regulation reserves (1-5 minutes), and frequency response (less than seconds). | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17192: The Design and Investigation of Novel Mechanical Filters for Molten Salt Reactors | Abilene Christian University | $762,246 | Researchers will develop a novel mechanical filtration system. The project will include the collection of filter media performance data and filter regeneration performance data for a novel sintered nickel-based filter prototype. The project will also provide a filter design that facilitates remote filter removal, cooling, replacement, and assay of fissile material hold-up in the filter media. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16980: Determining the Effects of Neutron Irradiation on the Structural Integrity of Additively Manufactured Heat Exchangers for Very Small Modular Reactor Applications | Auburn University | $400,000 | Researchers will determine how to best use laser-powder bed fusion additive manufacturing methods for generating radiation-resistant channel/pore-embedded structures from Inconel (alloy 625 or 718) nickel-based superalloys for special purpose reactor (i.e. very small modular reactor) heat exchangers. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17413: Validated, Multi-Scale Molecular Dynamics Simulations to Predict the Thermophysical Properties of Molten Salts Containing Fuel, Fission, and Corrosion Products | Brigham Young University | $798,291 | Researchers will use first principles molecular dynamics (FPMD) simulations on molten salts containing impurities including fuel, fission products, and corrosion products. These will be used to develop a classical molecular dynamics (CMD) potential. CMD will then be used to predict properties for a wide variety of salt compositions and temperatures, and physical property measurements will be performed to validate those predictions. Property correlations will be developed from this data. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17183: Mixing of helium with air in reactor cavities following a pipe break in HTGRs | City College of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct separate effects tests to obtain experimental validation data on mixing of helium and air in reactor building cavities during and after blowdown in HTGRs. Air and helium concentrations, and gas mixture velocity and temperature fields will be measured in simulated reactor cavities. An existing helium flow loop will be used as the source of high pressure/high temperature helium for injection into the cavities and different break configurations will be experimentally investigated. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16391: GuArDIAN: General Active Sensing for conDItion AssessmeNt | Duke University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a dependable, autonomous or semi-autonomous (i.e. low human involvement), and minimally disruptive framework for monitoring equipment and components in nuclear reactors. The project will develop GUARDIAN; a robust active sensing framework through the integration of model-based inference and mobile actuating/sensing robots. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17251: Measuring Mechanical Properties of Select Layers and Layer Interfaces of TRISO Particles via Micromachining and In-Microscope Tensile Testing | Idaho State University | $799,815 | Researchers will characterize the strength of TRISO-coated particle layers and interfaces using FIB micro-machining and in-TEM tensile testing. Tensile test samples from coating layers of (1) unirradiated surrogate (fuel) TRISO particles, (2) unirradiated fueled TRISO particles and (3) irradiated fueled TRISO particles will be studied. Results of this project will both benefit and leverage the AGR Program. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17185: Demonstrating Reactor Autonomous Control Framework using Graphite Exponential Pile | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will demonstrate a detection-prediction-feedback framework for nuclear system autonomous control. It will adopt multiple detector channels to enable control feedback to spatially dependent perturbations. It will also utilize high-fidelity solutions trained surrogate models for real-time prediction and decision-making. In addition to the method development, the proposal will entail a first-of-a-kind engineering demonstration using the MIT Graphite Exponential Pile (MGEP). | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16754: Simultaneous Corrosion/Irradiation Testing in Lead and Lead-Bismuth Eutectic: The Radiation Decelerated Corrosion Hypothesis | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $762,823 | Researchers will test candidate FeCrSi and F/M alloys in a new, simultaneous corrosion/radiation facility to try to identify an alloy that will satisfy all requirements for Lead Fast Reactor structural materials. Microstructural characterization, mechanical property testing, and corrosion tests, both during irradiation and following ion/He pre-conditioning, will assess how irradiation affects corrosion, potentially slowing it. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17173: Ni-based ODS alloys for Molten Salt Reactors | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | The objective of this work is to (i) propose and develop a new Nickel (Ni) based Oxide Dispersion-Strengthened (ODS) alloy that can be used for structural applications in Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) and other nuclear reactor harsh environments, (ii) to demonstrate that its high temperature mechanical properties are adequate for MSR operating temperatures, (iii) to demonstrate its radiation damage resistance through ion irradiation testing and (iv) to demonstrate its improved corrosion resistance in MSR environment. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17037: Investigation of HTGR Reactor Building Response to a Break in Primary Coolant Boundary | Purdue University | $799,832 | Researchers will perform a series of experiments to simulate HTGR reactor building response due to a break in the primary coolant boundary in a well-scaled test facility to obtain spatial distribution of oxygen concentration, perform analysis of the whole system response with 1-D thermal hydraulics codes and use CFD to make detailed localized predictions. The tests will be carried out with different locations and sizes of the breaks to create various vent and flow paths in the reactor cavity. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17093: Integrating Multi-modal Microscopy Techniques and the MOSAIC Simulation Environment to Assess Changes in the Physical Properties and Chemical Durability of Concrete Following Radiation Exposure | University of California, Los Angeles | $800,000 | Researchers will develop unprecedented multi-modal imaging methodologies that integrate multiple microscopy techniques. The team will develop a generalizable protocol for quantifying the changes in physical properties and chemical durability of concrete and concrete constituents (minerals and aggregates) following radiation exposure. The imaging analyses will be input into the MOSAIC framework to reveal the nature and extent of degradation that is expected to result. The outcomes offer insights that are needed to enable and inform second license renewals. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17167: Atomistically Informed and Experimentally Validated Model for Helium Bubble Growth in Welded Irradiated Metals | University of Florida | $797,861 | Researchers will construct a validated computational model for He bubble growth on grain boundaries in irradiated Fe-Ni-Cr microstructures, including intergranular fracture, as a function of material conditions and welding heat input. This model will be based on the phase-field methodology, leveraging numerical solvers in the MOOSE simulation platform, with critical inputs and validation provided by both atomic-level simulations and experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16909: Learning-based Computational Study of the Thermodynamic, Structural, and Dynamic Properties of Molten Salts at the Atomic and Electronic Scale and Experimental Validations | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will obtain the thermophysical, thermochemical, and transport properties, construct the phase diagrams, and build empirical physical models of molten salts that are relevant to Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) with first-principles accuracy using molecular dynamics simulations driven by machine-learned high-dimensional neural network potentials combined with neutron/X-ray scattering and thermodynamic experimental validations. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16298: I-PRA Decision-Making Algorithm and Computational Platform to Develop Safe and Cost-Effective Strategies for the Deployment of New Technologies | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an integrated probabilistic risk assessment decision-making algorithm to support risk-and-cost-informed decision-making related to the deployment of new technologies. The project will enhance the financial analysis module and the challenging interface of social and technical systems to advance the algorithm. The project will conduct a case study for evaluating the safety impact and cost-effectiveness of FLEX strategies to support operational flexibility. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16802: Evaluation of Semi-Autonomous Passive Control Systems for HTGR Type Special Purpose Reactors | University of Michigan | $400,000 | Researchers will investigate the use of variable flow controllers and a variable reflector as passive or semi-autonomous reactivity control mechanisms for multi-module HTGR type special purpose reactors. This applies to the commercially developed special purpose reactor concepts from HolosGen. The incorporation of these systems will reduce the movable parts count and enable more robust load follow capabilities over broader power ranges and local and global reactivity control. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17467: Understanding the Speciation and Molecular Structure of Molten Salts Using Laboratory and Synchrotron based In Situ Experimental Techniques and Predictive Modeling | University of Nevada, Reno | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology to accurately determine the structure and speciation of the molten salt electrolyte using laboratory-based spectroscopic techniques (Raman and UV-Vis-NIR) and synchrotron-based (scattering and absorption) techniques, in combination with computational modeling. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17231: Prevention of Common Fault-Trigger Combinations for Qualification of Digital Instrumentation and Control Technology | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will provide an effective design evaluation approach based on prevention of concurrent triggering conditions to eliminate common-cause failures (CCF) and enable qualification of digital I&C technology for application in nuclear plant modernization. The research involves classifying commonality among digital devices, categorizing faults and triggering conditions, determining fault-trigger relationships, and defining preventive design measures to resolve the potential for CCF. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17087: Economic Risk-Informed Maintenance Planning and Asset Management | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will provide a holistic framework for cost-minimizing risk-informed maintenance planning, including inspection. They will develop a two-tier framework that coarsely minimizes the total maintenance cost during the remaining normal operating cycle and uses the outputs of the first model to maximize the financial impact of these activities in the short term. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16811: Liquid Metal-cooled Fast Reactor Instrumentation Technology Development | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will explore three different areas that will help to improve commercialization of SFRs and to aid in testing for the VTR. These include: 1. Advancement in understanding of low prandtl number heat transfer 2. Testing of compact heat exchangers for use with sodium 3. Development of in pool submersible flow meters. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16954: Innovative In-Situ Analysis and Quantification of Corrosion and Erosion of 316 Stainless Steel in Molten Chloride Salt Flow Loops | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will use a thin-layer activation technique for the first time in molten salts, on 316H samples placed in natural convection and forced flow loops. The individual and synergistic effects of corrosion, irradiation and thermo-mechanical treatments will be evaluated in-situ to predict component service lifetimes and design limits. The effects of molten chloride flow velocity will also be assessed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17168: Fuel Salt Sampling and Enriching System Technology Development | Vanderbilt University | $799,989 | Researchers will combine insights from the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment with decades of advancements in applicable technologies into an enhanced Sampler Enricher (SE) concept to develop and test a flexible, reliable, and workable design. The prototype will then be tested in an existing salt loop. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16739: Improvements of Nuclear Data Evaluations for Lead Isotopes in Support of Next Generation Lead-Cooled Fast Systems | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | The objective of this project is to improve the accuracy of neutronics simulation of lead-based systems by improving the nuclear data of lead isotopes. The nuclear data for lead will be reevaluated with emphasis of the intermediate and fast energy regions that are required by reactor applications currently sought by several industrial entities. The deliverables of this project are new lead isotopes evaluations that will be candidates for inclusion in a future Evaluated Nuclear Data Library (ENDF) release. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 20-19373: Connecting Advanced High-Temperature X-ray and Raman Spectroscopy Structure/Dynamics Insights to High-Throughput Property Measurements | Boston University | $500,000 | Researchers will acquire molten salt structure and dynamics data at high-temperatures using high-energy x-ray techniques and Raman spectroscopy and relate them to their physical and chemical properties. High-throughput techniques will be developed to rapidly measure multiple high-temperature properties at one time. An understanding of the relationship of salt structure and dynamics to its properties will help to select and optimize melt chemistry in molten salt reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19371: Adsorption and Reduction of Uranium in Engineered Barrier Systems: Effects of Iron and Heat | California State University, East Bay | $800,000 | Reseachers will investigate uranium sorption and abiotic reduction processes in iron-rich montmorillonite systems as a function of solution chemistry and temperature. The team will develop a surface complexation model that can account for both uranium adsorption and reduction, and hence reduce the uncertainties associated with uranium mobility in iron-rich environments with engineering barrier systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19831: Optimizing Melt Processed Phosphate Glass Waste Forms via Composition-Property-Structure Correlations | Clemson University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and optimize highly durable and easily processable phosphate-based glass waste forms to immobilize the dehalogenated salt streams by tailoring the composition of the glasses. To complement the work conducted on glass waste forms at the national laboratories sponsored by the DOE-NE program, modified iron phosphate glass waste forms will be prepared and evaluated by the introduction of various glass modifiers (SnF2 and BaO) to the prototype glass compositions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19695: Quantifying radionuclide sorption to engineered barrier materials under elevated temperature and ionic strength conditions | Clemson University | $799,380 | Researchers will characterize actinide sorption to mineral surfaces and examine possible mechanisms of sorption at high temperature/ionic strength through examination of the effects of hydration and hydrolysis on actinide sorption. These data will provide an understanding of radionuclide behavior with engineered barrier materials. A greater understanding of these processes will reduce the uncertainty in strategies for sequestration of radionuclide bearing wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19789: Controlling Neptunium and Zirconium in Advanced Extraction Processes | Colorado School of Mines | $599,763 | Researchers will address continuing issues with separating neptunium and zironium in current separation techniques. They will use coupled optical and x-ray specroscopy, small angle scattering, equilibrium thermodynamics and chemical analysis to understand fundamental molecular-level behaviors of extracted Np and Zr. These techniques, using world-class irradiation facilities, will elucidate the specific chemistries underlying the problematic behavior in Np and Zr in radiation fields. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19660: Linear and nonlinear guided ultrasonic waves to characterize cladding of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researcherses will perform a combination of linear and nonlinear guided ultrasonic waves, integrated with new material behavior models to develop a non-destructive evaluation (NDE) approach for both quality control/quality assurance and in-service NDE characterization of the cladding integrity and bond strength. Current NDE techniques are effective for uncoated designs, but these coated fuels add new challenges, which will be addressed by this new approach. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19678: Flexible Hard Ceramic Coatings by Ultrasonic Spray Mist-CVD for Dry Storage Canisters of Spent Nuclear Fuel and Waste | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop advanced flexible hard ceramic coatings using ultrasonic spray mist-chemical vapor deposition technique manufacturing process to deposit on dry storage canisters. The team will test resistance to corrosion, heat, wear and hydrogen permeation thgourh microstructural characterization and material property evaluation. The ultimate goal is to enhance the long term reliability of spent nuclear fuel dry storage canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19797: High Throughput Computational Platform for Predictive Modeling of Thermochemical and Thermophysical Properties of Fluoride Molten Salts | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | Researchers will (1) develop an open-source high throughput (H-T) computational platform to understand, predict, and evaluate thermochemical and thermophysical properties of molten salts as demonstrated in the F-(K-Li-Na)-(Cr-Fe)-U system and (2) provide H-T approaches (CALPHAD modeling and AIMD simulations) and open-source codes together with thermodynamic models of molten salts and public-accessible databases verified by targeted experiments for the molten salt research community. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19627: Chemical Interaction and Compatibility of Uranium Nitride with Liquid Pb and Alumina-forming Austenitic Alloys | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | Researcherswill address critical issues with the compatibility and chemcial interations of uranium nitride fuel, alumina-forming austenitic alloys and lead coolants/sublayers. They will obtain critical data of fuel-coolant-cladding interactions and compatibility to evaluate key parameters of operation temperature, fuel impurities and coolant chemistry. This data will provide key operation windows and parameters for deployment of lead-cooled fast reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19924: First-principles free energies by hybrid thermodynamic integration for phase equilibria and fission product solubility in molten salts | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | Researchers will predict phase equilibria and solubility of fission products in molten salts using a novel hybrid framework for thermodynamic integration combining first-principles, molecular dynamics and continuum methods to calculate free energies. They will be benchmarked using Bayesian-targeted calorimetric, in-situ diffraction and spectroscopic experiments. The project will provide microscopic insights and quantitative parameters necessary for reliable thermophysical modeling of molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19939: Gallium Oxide Schottky Diode Detectors for Measurement of Actinide Concentrations from Measured Alpha Activities in Molten Salts | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and test, to high temperatures, a Schottky diode alpha particle detector that is based on the rapidly emerging ultrawide band gap semiconductor material gallium oxide. Ga2O3 Schottky diode detectors offer the potential of detecting alpha particles at high temperatures, with better resolution than SiC Schottky diode detectors, which the team has previously developed for similar purposes. These detectors could be used in pyrochemical processing streams and molten salt reactors with potential application in other reactor concepts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19966: Evaluating hydroxypyridinone-based ligands for actinide and fission products recovery in used fuels | University of California, Berkeley | $600,000 | Researchers will pursue novel chemical separation approaches for advanced reactor used fuels treatments and recycling, by leveraging the unique actinide and lanthanide coordination properties of hydroxypyridinone-based aqueous chelators. These chelators have not been tested in extreme conditions and this work would test potential process performance with a focus on radiation-induced changes and oxidation state distribution. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19545: Femtosecond Laser Ablation Machining & Examination - Center for Active Materials Processing (FLAME-CAMP) | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop, build, and test a femtosecond laser ablation machining & examination tool that can be deployed in a hot cell environment enabling microscopy sample fabrication, isotope and elemental analysis, and thermal analysis. The technology allows for non-contact materials processing, even through glass windows, potentially preventing contamination of surrounding areas and tools. Such a multi-function tool with high throughput material processing will accelerate the research on fuel and cladding tremendously. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19198: Functionalized clay buffer materials for the long-term sequestration of technetium and iodine | University of Florida | $800,000 | Researcherswill develop synthesize, test, and model novel functionalized clay buffer materials for the long-term sequestration of iodine and technetium. The project will also focus on key experimantal parameters and modeling of how the novel clay buffer material will sequester iodine and technetium species. Novel materials will support DOE's efforts to design improved geologic repository barrier systems and optimize repository performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19209: Investigation on multicomponent solubility in LiCl-KCl eutectic chloride salts using combinatorial approach | University of Idaho | $400,000 | Researchers will perform irradiation experiments to understand how gamma radiation changes trivalent metal ion complex coordination structure and extraction characteristics during the ALSEP process. This work will focus on understanding the types of degradation products that are formed during the extraction process and what effects these degradation products have on process performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19713: Multifunctional Laser Processing for Repair and Mitigation of Pitting and Cracks in Welded Stainless Steel Dry Storage Canisters | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a strategic solution that combines laser cleaning and laser peening for removal of surface contamination and mitigation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in welded stainless steels. Laser cleanning will remove surface contamination and reduce pitting caused by corrosion. Laser peening will then be used to mitigate stress corrosion cracking and provide enhanced corrosion resistance. The portability of the laser system means the system will be able to be deployed in the field. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19188: Single- and Polycrystalline Diamond Electrodes for Spectroelectrochemical Characterization of Various Molten Salts | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $600,000 | Researchers will develop optically transparent electrodes for spectroelectrochemical measurements in chloride- and fluoride-based radioactive molten salts. The primary electrode material will be boron-doped diamond. Measurements will elucidate important electrochemical properties of nuclear fuel and fission products such as redox potential, diffusion coefficient, and electron transfer stoichiometry. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19641: Mitigating stress corrosion cracking in austenitic stainless-steel canister welds using peening techniques | University of Nevada, Reno | $799,950 | Researchers seek to understand the mechanisms of pitting/SCC resistance of welds as affected by a) compressive stress b) surface texture modification and c) microstructural change in the substrate surface resulting from laser shock peening, shot peening, ultrasonic impact peening and laser surface texturing. The study will recommend the best peening and surface texturing process conditions for mitigation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in 304L welds. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19704: Multicomponent Thermochemistry of Complex Chloride Salts for Sustain-able Fuel Cycle Technologies | University of Pittsburgh | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive thermodynamic database of multicomponent chloride salts through a collaboration between experts in Gibbs energy modeling and thermochemical experiments. A thermochemical database of the multicomponent chloride system KCl-LiCl-NaCl-UCl3-LnCl3 (Ln: La, Pr, Nd) will be developed using the CALPHAD (Calculation of Phase Diagrams) method with supported ab initio calculations and thermal analysis experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19506: Engineered composite patch with NDE inspection for repair and mitigation of SCC in nuclear spent fuel dry storage canister | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an innovative 'engineered composite patch' that can absorb moisture, neutralize chloride, and prevent stress corrosion cracking from further growth. This 'patch' with have in integrated non-destructive evaluation capability using laser utrasonic characterization methods to montior quality and performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19374: Maintaining and building upon the Halden legacy of In-situ diagnostics | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will develop innovative instrumentation focusing on temperature and strain measurements to fill the void left by the Halden reactor and to enhance the experimental capabilities in the Transient Reactor Test Facility (TREAT) located at Idaho National Laboratory. The team will develop a fiber optic sensor system that offers an inherent resistance to electromagnetic interference unlike currently used sensors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19076: Investigation of Degradation Mechanisms of Cr-coated Zirconium Alloy Cladding in Reactivity Initiated Accidents (RIA) | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $500,000 | Researchers will investigate the thermal, mechanical, and irradiation response of chromium-coated zirconium alloy claddings under RIA conditions, in comparison to uncoated Zr-alloy cladding. The outcome of the project will be used for anticipated licensing applications to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), thereby accelerating use of coated accident tolerant fuel concepts in U.S. commercial power reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19318: Surface Peening and Hybrid Surface Engineering Approaches to Mitigate Initiation and Resurgence of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dry Cask Storage Stainless Steel Canisters | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,838 | Researchers will develop and evaluate a wide range of surface peening treatments, as well as hybrid surface treatments to mitigate initiation and growth of chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) in stainless-steel canisters for used nuclear fuel (UNF) dry cask storage. Canister mock-ups with prototypical fusion welds will be used for this study. Characterization and testing of microstructure, compressive stresses, corrosion and CISCC will be performed. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19614: New Coatings for Nuclear Fuel Waste Canister Storage and Transport | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop novel SiOCN(H) coatings for spent nuclear fuel canisters in order to support sustained nuclear reactor operation and safeguard nuclear waste storage, transport, and disposal, in both terrestrial and marine environments. The novel coating will specifically address pitting corrosion and stress corrosion cracking in spent nuclear fuel canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19382: Separated waste stream immobilization of iodine and offgas caustic scrubber solution | Washington State University | $400,000 | Researchers will produce a set of waste forms from separation of iodine from the caustic offgas scrubber solution. The primary caustic scrub containing iodine, halides, and carbonate will be immobilized in a glass-bonded composite of cancrinite/sodalite. The iodine-loaded silver sorbent will be stripped of iodine, converted to NaI, and immobilized into a separate durable glass-bonded iodosodalite waste form. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19912: Validation of Robustness in TCR Design Strategies | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will perform sensitivity analysis (SA) and uncertainty quantification (UQ) of TCR design parameters and relevant physical phenomena, using open-source time dependent Monte-Carlo code (OpenMC), NQA1 qualified commercial codes (STARCCM+), and ABAQUS for thermal-hydraulics and structural mechanics. The SA/UQ analysis will provide key insights to allow for development of performance metrics of robustness for autonomous operation sensors, by processing signals such as neutron flux, temperature and strains, as wll as inform the needed robustness for AI by enveloping the attainable level of decision making by the software. | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 | |
| NEUP Project 20-19216: Creation of Multiple Effect Evaporator and Combined Cycle Modelica Modules, and Optimization of Potable Water Generation from Saltwater Sources | North Carolina State University | $498,532 | Researchers will develop models of Multiple Effect Evaporators and Combined Cycle Gas Turbine systems to be used within the Modelica framework, with an end goal of creating an energy park that can supply its own energy and water through Small Modular Reactor nuclear systems and/or Combined Cycle Gas Turbine Systems with brackish to brine water sources. These same models will be capable of being implemented into larger models of grid independent and near independent energy parks located about military bases, large manufacturing facilities, and in small communities where freshwater is limited. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19590: Benchmark Evaluation of Transient Multi-Physics Experimental Data for Pellet Cladding Mechanical Interactions | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop an integral benchmark evaluation based on available experimental data from cold ramp tests performed at the Studsvik testing R2 reactor. Transient multiphysics benchmark evaluations are needed to support validation of the NEAMS ToolKit and the VERA suite. This research will focus on pellet cladding interaction and pellet cladding mechanical interaction and their associated events. The benchmark will be prepared for inclusion in the IRPhEP handbook. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19837: Reinforcement Learning Validation Framework for Quality Assurance of AI-guided Additive Manufacturing Digital Platforms | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will address the need to qualify the risk associated with AM fabricated nuclear reactor parts by incorporating a novel rendition of a well-established artificial intelligence learning strategy, the multi-armed bandit reinforcement learning (RL). The RL framework will be developed and demonstrated using TCR data and its associated digital platform. This research will assimilate in-process sensor data and physics-based simulation data to calculate risk measures in the form of failure probabilities for the AM parts. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19363: Integrated Solar & Nuclear Cogeneration of Electricity & Water using the sCO2 Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,427 | Researchers will design and model a renewable, nuclear Integrated Energy System (IES), compatible with the RAVEN/Modelica framework, for co-generation of cost competitive electricity and clean water. The components of the IES to be included are concentrated solar power, the supercritical CO2/sCO2 cyle, multi-effect distillation, and the lead-cooled fast reactor. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19066: Engineering-Informed, Data-Driven Degradation Modeling, Prognostics and Control for Radiation-induced Void Swelling in Reactor Steels | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will advance the capability to model, predict and control void swelling in irradiated structural components through developing engineering-informed, advanced data-driven statistical and machine learning techniques. Excess swelling not only leads to dimensional instability, but also can cause severe embrittlement of internal materials. The proposed efforts will ensure more effective regulation, aging management and license renewal. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19795: A High-Fidelity Novel and Fast Multigroup Cross Section Generation Method for Arbitrary Geometry and Spectrum | Georgia Institute of Technology | $600,000 | Researchers will develop a fast high-fidelity multigroup cross section generation method for arbitrary geometry configurations and energy spectra by developing a response-based high order perturbation method to perform hybrid stochastic-deterministic local transport calculations. The proposed method will be implemented as independent modules that can be easily embedded into any neutron transport or diffusion code and also be used as a standalone cross section generator. The modules will provide data that can interface with the associated NEAMS toolkit and workbench user interfaces to enable advanced neutronics tools that will perform high-fidelity multigroup multiphysics steady-state and transient calculations that capture and represent the complex resonance interactions and core environmental effects which exist in heterogeneous reactors, including advanced reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19968: Experimental Investigations and Numerical Modeling of Near-wall and Core Bypass Flows in Pebble Bed Reactors | Texas A&M University | $600,000 | Researchers will establish a highly coordinated, concurrent experimental and computational effort combining high-resolution turbulence simulations (including Nek5000, Star-CCM+) and experiments to deepen physical understanding and address long standing modeling inaccuracies related to near wall and bypass flow effects in pebble bed reactors. The project's acquired extensive database will be used to derive closure models and correlations needed for porous media code, such as Pronghorn. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19864: Development of innovative overlapping-domain coupling between SAM and NEK5000 | University of Michigan | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a robust, multi-scale coupling scheme between the SAM code and the CFD code, NEK5000, based on a novel overlapping domain approach. The developed coupling will be validated by using experiments specifically designed for the validation of multi-scale coupled codes. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-20074: Characterization of Plenum to Plenum Natural Circulation flows in a High Temperature Gas Reactor (HTGR) | CUNY, City College of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will obtain and provide experimental data on the plenum-to-plenum natural circulation flows in a typical high temperature gas reactor using helium and nitrogen over a wide range of temperatures and pressures to simulate natural circulation under both pressurized and depressurized conduction cooldown scenarios. The results of the project will yield new data and complement other very high temperature related studies. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19042: Flexible Siting Criteria and Staff Minimization for Micro-Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $440,517 | Researchers will develop siting criteria that are tailored to micro-reactors deployable in densely-populated areas by comparing the characteristics of the MIT research reactor with those of leading micro-reactor concepts, and evaluate whether and how the MIT research reactor design basis and associated regulations are applicable to micro-reactors. A model of operations for micro-reactors that would minimize the staffing requirements will also be conceptualized. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-20045: Highly Compact Steam Generators for Improved Economics of Small Modular Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will design and build a compact steam generator (CSG) test section that can be easily modified for different flow paths and geometries, as well as modify an existing loop to accept the test section. The conceptual optimized CSG system design, which could be deployed in small modular reactors, will be informed by CFD simulations to determine critical characteristics of the test section. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19205: Robust bullet-time tagging and tracking system based on computer vision for individual ex-core TRISO-fueled pebble identification | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a novel, validated, robust bullet-time tagging and tracking system, based on computer vision techniques, to tag and track each individual pebble in pebble bed reactors. The effort will utilize Residence Time Distribution and Radioactive Particle Tracking techniques to validate and refine the developed method, using a continuous cold flow pebble bed experimental setup. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19625: Corrosion Sensitivity of Stainless Steels in Pressurized Water Reactor Water Chemistry: Can KOH replace LiOH in PWRs? | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will perform a series of corrosion and stress corrosion tests on unirradiated alloys to determine the possibility of switching from LiOH to KOH to control the pH in nuclear reactors without worsening the corrosion behavior of the structural alloys used in pressurized water reactor core internal components. The impacts of such a change and the consequent water chemistry alterations on the corrosion processes and nucleaer power plant core-internal component service-life will be assessed and better understood. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19735: Experiments for Modeling and Validation of Liquid-Metal Heat Pipe Simulation Tools for Micro-Reactor | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will produce validation data for the heat pipe code, Sockeye, by measuring the internal thermal-hydraulic parameters of a single-heat pipe and the performance of an integrated multi-heat-pipe system in various operation scenarios. The results of this project will generate more liquid metal heat pipe validation data, which is currently lacking and needed to support micro-reactor design and licensing activities. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19367: Investigation of Novel Nickel-Based Alloys for Molten Chloride Fast Reactor Structural Applications | University of Cincinnati | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate and establish the scientific foundations for the development of promising Ni-Mo-W-Cr-Al-X alloys with a superior balance of properties compared to current materials for high temperature structural applications in molten chloride salt fast reactors. The project couples critical experiments with a high-value integrated computational materials engineering approach. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19693: Evaluation of micro-reactor requirements and performance in an existing well-characterized micro-grid | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will evaluate the opportunities and challenges of operating micro-reactors in decentralized power generation applications and the potential for deployment in established micro-grids with diverse power generation sources. By using a well-characterized prototypic environment platform, the Modelica-based Hybrid Energy System, the market potential for deployment of micro-reactors on campuses and other similar existing micro-grids will be quantified. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19195: The effect of LWR primary coolant water chemistry (LiOH vs. KOH) on stainless steel: An integrated experimental and computational study of the corrosion response of stainless steel for different surface microstructures and mechanica | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will study the effect of surface microstructure, mechanical stress factors, and radiation damage on the corrosion response of stainless steel under two different alkaline pressurized water reactor primary water chemistry conditions. The project will involve investigation of mechanical stress factors such as strain rate, residual stress, deformation induced persistent slip bands, dpa damage, and fatigue cracks and modeling to understand the physical phenomena associated with the measured corrosion response and inform the U.S. nuclear industry regarding KOH. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19491: Identifying and prioritizing sources of uncertainty in external hazard probabilistic risk assessments | University of Maryland, College Park | $799,979 | Researchers will develop a method for identifying and prioritizing sources of uncertainty in external hazard probabilistic risk assessment for nuclear power plants, with particular emphasis on uncertainties associated with hazard characterization. External flooding wil be utilized as the demonstration hazard during this project, while a common taxonomy for communicating uncertainties across a broad range of external hazards will be created. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19737: Innovative Enhanced Automation Control Strategies for Multi-unit SMRs | University of Michigan | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an innovative, enhanced automation control framework for small modular reactors (SMRs) that supports control of multiple units operating in a variety of reactor core conditions. Through these enhancements, SMR technology gains improved marketability through potential deployment to a broader range of markets and can also lead to reduced operating and maintenance costs for a SMR site, increasing the overall profitability. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19954: Deployment Pathways of Small Modular Reactors in Electric Power, Industrial, and Other Niche Markets to Achieve Cost Reductions and Widespread Use | University of Michigan | $691,658 | Researchers will explore how to leverage two key value propositions for small modular reactors (SMR) in shifting market conditions, in order to achieve widespread market deployment: (1) participation in small and large power and industrial markets and (2) cost reductions via mass fabrication. The result of this work will be advanced power system modeling, optimized SMR design with thermal storage for power and industry markets, and new SMR deployment pathways. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19752: Development and Demonstration of Scalable Fluoride Salt Pump Seals and Bearings for FHRs | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and demonstrate scalable advanced bearings and seals of fluoride salt pumps for fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactors. The systematic approach to be used will employ both experimental and numerical methods to investigate the static and dynamic performance of fluoride-salt-lubricated bearings and high-temperature seals. The outcomes of this research will directly contribute to the reliability, safety, design, and operation of the fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactor power plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19544: A Holistic Artificial Intelligence Tool to Mitigate Human Factor Uncertainty in Operation and Maintenance | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a holistic artificial intelligence tool to help the detection and mitigation of human factors errors in nuclear power plants. The tool will increase the efficiency of various activities such as testing, inspection, data collection, and interpretation, improve operation and maintenance decision-making, and reduce costs in nuclear power plants by minimizing the impact of human factors errors and providing warnings to mitigate them, when possible. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19524: Non-Intrusive Flow Monitoring for Liquid Metal and Molten Salt Cooled Reactors | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a first-of-its kind flow monitoring system with significantly enhanced capabilities for liquid metal fast reactors and other advanced reactors, such as molten salt reactors. The flow monitoring system will involve a proven and breakthrough fiber optic sensing technology that enables the harmonic-free interrogation of thousands of grating-based distributed interferometers along an optical fiber that is integrated into a sensing pad that can readily be installed at desired locations in the flow loop. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19671: Identifying Needed Fire Input Data to Reduce Modeling Uncertainty | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,393 | Researchers will identify fire parameters that have the largest impact on fire conditions, quantify those parameters contributing to uncertainties in the fire data through Monte Carlo simulation results, and use statistical analysis and machine learning models from the simulation results to assess existing data and recommend appropriate new fire tests to reduce uncertainties that are important to risk. With this information, researchers will develop a framework capable of determining the significant contributors to uncertainty in physical events that are relevant to the risk assessment and, then, determine the need for new experiments that would be of most value to reduce risk. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 21-24394: Computer vision and machine learning for microstructural qualification | Carnegie Mellon University | $497,518 | Quantifying and understanding microstructure is a key driver for performance-based materials qualification. In this proposal, well-curated data sets of microstructural images will be gathered and computer vision and machine learning will be applied to build quantitative deep learning frameworks to accelerate and enable qualification of nuclear materials based on microstructural features. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24156: Experimental thermofluidic validation of TCR fuel elements using distributed temperature and flow sensing | Kansas State University | $798,250 | The overall goal of this project will be to test the performance of 3D printed Transformational Challenge Reactor core geometry parts using existing Helium flow loops and distributed temperature, and velocity sensing systems. Thermal transport capabilities of scaled 3D printed ceramic core will be evaluated experimentally and measurements will be used to qualify computational models. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24636: Risk-informed Consequence-driven Physical Protection System Optimization for Microreactor Sites | Texas A&M University | $400,000 | This proposed project will utilize a risk-informed, consequence-driven analysis to develop an approach for "right-sizing" physical protection systems (PPS) for microreactors. The hypothesis presented for this proposal is that the explicit coupling of consequence modeling to PPS design will provide a similar benefit that can be applied prior to reactor construction. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24131: Total Mass Accounting in Advanced Liquid Fueled Reactors | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | A total mass determination method for nuclear materials accounting (NMA) in liquid-fueled molten salt reactors will be validated with fuel-bearing salt, mixed with a _+ radioisotope of known activity, that will be irradiated to reproduce the practical NMA scenario in a molten salt loop. Irradiated fuel salt will be sampled and measured for its mass and activity. The mass-to-activity ratio will be used to calculate the unknown salt mass in the original container. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24037: Design and intelligent optimization of the thermal storage and energy distribution for the TerraPower Molten Chloride Fast Reactor in an Integrated Energy System (IES) | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to explore the application of advanced reactors within Integrated Energy Systems, use extensive existing data from UIUC for model development and validation, and extend the predictions to larger grids and commercial applications. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24522: Targeted Materials Characterization and Testing of Additively Manufactured Metals and Ceramics to Inform Print/Build Data Analytics | University of Texas at San Antonio | $800,000 | A collaborative program between the University of Texas at San Antonio and Boise State University is proposed to supply materials testing and characterization data sets to be leveraged by the TCR program to inform build/print data analytics. With the data provided by the proposing team, correlations among steam oxidation performance, micromechanical properties, chemical composition, local microstructure, and location specific print/build data will be achieved. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24431: Location-specific material characterization of LPBF SS316L & IN718 TCR core structural materials | Utah State University | $800,000 | In this proposed work, we will experimentally characterize the spatial variability of the quasi-static (tensile), creep (strength and impression), and creep-fatigue properties as well as the underlying structures (microstructure and defect structures) for LPBF SS316L and IN718 components to be used as training data to the TCR program data-driven model. The resulting correlation will be used to drive the design process for an application as TCR core structural materials. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23978: Rapid, Non-Radioactive Methods for Prediction and Quantification of Radiolytic Radical Decomposition Products in Nuclear Separations | Clemson University | $399,999 | High-throughput, non-radioactive, radical assays will be used to determine decomposition of monoamide separations complexants. Radical assay results will be correlated with classic radiolytic damage results to develop predictive models for screening complexant stability. These models will aid in single-stage separations complexant optimization, in the transition from lab- to industrial-scale nuclear waste separations and, ultimately, could yield field tests for radiolytic damage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24350: Phosphate Mineral and Glass Waste Forms for Advanced Immobilization of Chloride and Fluoride-based Waste Streams | Clemson University | $600,000 | This proposal is intended to develop three waste form options for immobilizing the fluoride- and chloride-salt waste stream in highly durable and easily processable phosphate minerals and glasses, including phosphate apatite ceramic waste forms, phosphate glass waste forms, and phosphate glass-ceramic waste forms with apatite phase. Multiple monolithic waste form samples will be provided to DOE national laboratories for further testing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24292: Passive multimodal tomography for dry storage casks imaging using passive neutron and gamma dosimetry and cosmic ray muons | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | A method for multimodal tomography of dry storage casks will be developed to determine fuel relocation and cladding failures using passive neutrons and gamma emissions in combination with cosmic ray muons. The use of multimodal imaging will allow 3-D reconstructions of the dry storage cask that would be unachievable with any single radiation source. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24374: Effects of Radiolysis on Pertechnetate under Solvent Extraction Conditions, including Tri-Butyl Phosphate | CUNY, Hunter College | $399,624 | The overarching objective of the proposed work is to assess the impact of radiolysis on pertechnetate speciation during tri-butylphosphate (TBP) solvent extractions from the molecular level to macroscale. The research in this project is designed to understand the interplay of radiolysis, degradation product formation, other important redox active metals, and oxidation states of technetium on its speciation and distribution coefficients in solvent extraction processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24183: Experimental investigation and development of models and correlations for cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena in transient conditions in support of TREAT and the LWR fleet. | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Thermal-hydraulics transient heat transfer phenomena of relevance for the safety and the operation of the TREAT and light water reactors will be investigated. The performance of accident tolerant fuel materials during a reactivity initiated accident scenario and post-critical heat flux and reflood scenarios will be elucidated, as well as the development of models and correlations to be integrated into computational tools for the design and safety analysis of nuclear systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24666: Wireless Multifunctional Ultrasonic Arrays with Interdigital and Airborne Transducers for Monitoring Leakage and Corrosion Conditions of Welded Dry Storage Canisters | Mississippi State University | $800,000 | This project aims to develop and validate wireless, multifunctional, ultrasonic sensor arrays that enable on-demand, quantitative interrogation and real-time monitoring of both the canister leakage indicators (helium, helium/air mixture, internal pressure, and temperature) and corrosion conditions (free and/or vapor water). The developed arrays will be fully functional, wirelessly powered and communicated, and compact. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24188: Uranium recovery from used nuclear fuel using metal sulfides | Northwestern University | $400,000 | An alternative and original method to recover uranium from spent fuel is proposed. This method will utilize a new type of regenerable sorbent materials with high selectivity in capturing uranium from complex mixtures in acidic solutions, such as those found in used nuclear fuel of high-assay low-enriched uranium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24225: Characterizing Fuel Response and Quantifying Coolable Geometry of High-Burnup Fuel | Oregon State University | $800,000 | This study seeks to objectively determine, through empirical and numerical means, the actual impact of fuel dispersion in-core after fuel failure and whether high burnup dispersed fuel compromises coolable geometry and long-term cooling. The outcome of this study will yield an objective means of assessing two criteria (coolable geometry and long-term cooling) within the existing regulatory process to comprehensively understand whether it is feasible to increase burnup, while satisfying 10 CFR 50.46. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24288: Innovative Methods for Interrogation of DSC Internal Conditions | Oregon State University | $800,000 | The proposed work takes a two-pronged approach. The team will study techniques involving only external sensors and equipment, which could be deployed on existing dry storage canisters. In addition, small sensors located inside the canister that can be externally powered and read through the canister wall will also be investigated. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24439: Development of Novel Corrosion-Responsive Buffer Materials for Long-Term Immobilization of High-Level Nuclear Waste | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to develop a novel cementitious buffer material (CBM) for the safe disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF). The primary aim is to identify and characterize novel Mg-Al-P CBMs, complete with assessments of their repository stability as well as their transport and immobilization of radionuclides. The secondary aim is to use in-situ UT-EIS monitoring to understand the corrosive failure at the canister-CBM interface and provide long-term performance modeling of SNF packages. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24461: Estimation of low temperature cladding failures during an RIA transient | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers aim to create a multiphysics description of cladding response during a RIA, especially at high burnup, coupling reactor physics, thermal hydraulics and mechanics. The creation of a thermomechanical model in Bison will be the result of this project which can be used to evaluate the likelihood of low temperature cladding failures during a postulated RIA on a typical fuel rod (as these can lead to channel blockage), and thus identify the most important conditions to be studied at TREAT. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24460: Multiscale Modeling and Experiments for Investigating High Burnup LWR Fuel Rod Behavior Under Normal and Transient Conditions | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | The main objective of this work is to achieve a mechanistic understanding of and to develop a predictive model for the fuel rod behavior at high burn-up under both normal and transient conditions. Therefore, this study will provide the nuclear industry with validated, physics-based criteria to fuel fragmentation thresholds and rod mechanical integrity limits. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24388: Redox Chemistry of UO2 under Repository Relevant Conditions in the Presence of Zircaloy and Waste Canister Material | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | This project will seek to improve understanding of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) corrosion. Hydrothermal experiments of SNF with cladding and waste canister material will give insights into the redox potential formed due to secondary phase formation as consequence of corrosion in a failed canister. The experimentally derived data about secondary phase formation will be utilized for phase relationship analysis to decipher the redox conditions and thus provide source term for performance assessment models of deep geologic repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24006: High-fidelity modeling of fuel-to-coolant thermomechanical transport behaviors under transient conditions | University of Florida | $800,000 | The objective of the proposal is to develop a high-fidelity modeling tool that can capture some of the important phenomena in high burnup UO2 and ATF fuels during transient conditions. The BlueCRAB tool set will be improved and used to analyze TREAT loss of coolant accident experimental results. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24312: Accelerating the development of reliable and robust machine learning-based interatomic potentials for the prediction of molten salt structure and properties | University of Massachusetts Lowell | $400,000 | Machine learning-based interatomic potentials (MLIPs) used in molecular dynamics (MD) can accurately and efficiently predict molten salt properties. However many machine learning-based methods require large training sets, and can fail unpredictably. This project will overcome these challenges by developing a method for efficiently sampling diverse configurations from MD to train reliable and robust neural network potentials, and develop new models for predicting errors in MLIPs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24697: Dual External Leak Sensing and Monitoring for Dry Storage Canister | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers aim to develop two complementary external sensing methods to evaluate the integrity of DSC through internal pressure monitoring and helium leakage detection. The proposed diffuse ultrasonic wave method will be able to measure biaxial strains in the canister wall with high sensitivity and minimum temperature effects. An innovative capacitance MEMS sensor will be developed for helium concentration measurement in air based on the extremely low permittivity of helium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24449: Multi-modal Surface Acoustic Wave Sensing System for Pressure and Temperature monitoring of Spent Fuel Canisters | University of North Texas | $800,000 | University of North Texas (UNT) will collaborate with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to develop a multi-modal wireless passive SAW (Surface Acoustic Wave) sensor array, which are deployed on the outside surface of the canister, to monitor the strain of the canister and thus determine the inside pressure. In addition, the SAW strain sensor could also measure the surface temperature and potentially monitor helium gas leak. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24265: Fragmentation and Thermal Energy Transport of Cr-doped Fuels under Transient Conditions | University of Pittsburgh | $799,999 | This project will focus on multiple aspects of experimental testing and engineering-scale modeling in understanding thermal energy transport from high burnup, fractured/fragmented accident tolerant fuels, establishing a strong scientific basis to fill a critical knowledge data gap for modeling and simulation of transient fuel performance and safety, such as loss of coolant accident, for future integral testing and fuel licensing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24310: Fusion of Distributed Fiber Optics, Acoustic NDE, and Physics-Based AI for Spent Fuel Monitoring | University of Pittsburgh | $800,000 | The proposal will leverage new concepts in the fusion between fiber optic distributed acoustic sensing and advanced acoustic nondestructive evaluation techniques with artificial intelligence enhanced classification frameworks to quantitatively characterize the state of dry cask storage containers for spent fuel monitoring, externally and non-invasively, without introducing additional risks of failure. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24261: Internal Wireless Sensors for Dry Cask Storage | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | The effort will test the reliability of wireless, internal sensors after exposure to drying and storage conditions. These sensors are used to internally monitor temperature, pressure, and dose. Radiation shielding will also be designed to protect sensors during long-term storage. The effort will develop piezoelectric techniques for miniaturization of optical emission spectroscopy for internal monitoring of gas composition during drying and long-term storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24533: Non-destructive Evaluation of Dry Storage Canisters Using Acoustic Sensing | University of Southern California | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to develop a robust non-destructive evaluation (NDE) technique based on acoustic sensing to detect impurity gases in a sealed (welded) dry storage canister (DSC) using only measurements collected on the external surface of the DSC. The method is based on the time-of-flight analysis of acoustic signals propagating through the fill gas of a DSC, which is influenced by the composition, density and temperature of the propagation medium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23984: Safety Implications of High Burnup Fuel for a 2-Year PWR Fuel Cycle | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to perform safety analysis of high burnup fuel for a Westinghouse 4-Loop Pressurized Water Reactor. The work aims to identify potential opportunities and gaps for high burnup fuel by utilizing both well-established and modern methodologies to model reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, and plant system-level response that ultimately provide feedback to fuel performance analysis. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23985: Fuel-to-Coolant Thermomechanical Behaviors Under Transient Conditions | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This project will enhance the prediction of thermo-mechanical fuel-to-coolant heat transfer under transient conditions by using a coupled analysis and experiment approach. The effort is relevant to both high-burnup (> 62GWd/t) fuel applications and Accident Tolerant Fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24070: Modeling high-burnup LWR fuel behavior under normal operating and transient conditions | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This project aims to develop a high-burnup light water reactor fuel modeling capability to implement in the BISON code that would enable the accurate fuel rod behavior simulation during normal operation and design basis accidents, as wells as the identification of the rod life-limiting factors. Mechanistic engineering models will be developed for key phenomena, in particular, high burnup structure evolution, fuel fragmentation, and fission gas release. Traditional and accident tolerant fuels will be considered. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24033: Redox Chemistry in Nuclear Materials Storage Matrices under Ambient and Accelerated Aging Conditions | University of Washington | $800,000 | Deep geologic repositories must safely contain hazardous, high-activity nuclear wastes at geologic time-scales. However, such capability is centrally dependent on the element-specific redox chemistry within and at the interface of storage vessels. A comprehensive study of redox chemistry in cements used in long-term storage is proposed and emphasizes: 1) the actual consequences of accelerated aging modalities and 2) the novel use of newly available capabilities in advanced x-ray spectroscopies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24063: Post-DNB Thermo-mechanical Behavior of Near-term ATF Designs in Simulated Transient Conditions | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | The goals of the proposed research are to conduct coupled experimental and modeling investigations of thermo-mechanical performance of coated accident tolerant zirconium alloy claddings with simulated burnup doped fuels under thermal transients to predict complex thermal and mass transport phenomena of near-term Accident Tolerant Fuel designs in accident conditions. Experiments and modeling for understanding both cladding-coolant and fuel-coolant interactions will be performed. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24582: Machine-Learning-Accelerated Molecular Dynamics Approaches for Molten Salts | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $399,477 | New machine learning potential (MLP) approaches and new MLPs to enable rapid prediction of molten salt (FLiBe and Nal-MgCl2 with impurities) properties with near ab initio quantum mechanical accuracy will be developed. Uncertainty quantification with active learning and on-the-fly fitting will greatly accelerate MLP training. This work will support dramatically increased simulation speeds and associated data generation and understanding for molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24067: Development of Full Understanding of Mechanical-Chemical Coupling in Bentonite THMC processes | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | The central hypothesis is that mechanical stress in an engineered barrier can lead to pressure solution of solid minerals, leading to significant changes in pore water chemistry, which affects bentonite stability, longevity of the waste pack, and dissolution and migration of nuclides. The overall objective of this project is to develop full understanding of the role of pressure solution on pore water chemistry, the implications to large-scale heterogeneity, and THMC processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23987: Separate and Multi-Physics Effects IRPhEP Benchmark Evaluation using SNAP Experiments | Georgia Institute of Technology | $400,000 | The proposed project will develop an International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) mulitphysics microreactor benchmark evaluation based on data from the Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power (SNAP) program. This work will include systematic assessments of the experimental data with meticulous compilation and documentation, and validation of specific NEAMS tools to model effects that are unique to microreactors technologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24630: Integral Benchmark Evaluation of Zero-Power Tests and Multi-Cycle Depletion Experimental Data of TVA WB1 Cycles 1-3 | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | This project proposes to develop an integral benchmark evaluation of available experimental data for zero-power tests and multi-cycle depletion for consistent and comprehensive validation of both novel high-fidelity and traditional multi-physics tools. The benchmark evaluation will be based on operational and measured data from the Pressurized Water Reactor Watts Bar Unit 1 released by Tennessee Valley Authority. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24186: Regenerating Missing Experimental Parameters with Data-Assimilation Methods for MSRE Transient Benchmark Development and Evaluation | Virginia Commonwealth University | $400,000 | The proposed project will regenerate the undocumented basic data from available experimental data of the MSRE using advanced data-assimilation methods to facilitate the whole-loop modeling of the representative MSRE transients, and perform a thorough MSRE transient benchmark evaluation for the IRPhEP handbook. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24194: Implementation of improved quasi-static, time-dependent, multi-physics methodology in Shift | Georgia Institute of Technology | $600,000 | A practical reference calculation route for time-dependent coupled Monte Carlo calculations, using Shift, will be developed. The proposed framework will be tailored to depletion and slowly varying transients, but with the flexibility to perform thermal-hydraulic time-dependent calculations with minimal computational overheads. This method relies on a hybrid-resolution stochastic approach in conjunction with a substep technique. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24078: Material transport model development and integration in the System Analysis Module (SAM) code | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | This project proposes to develop and implement models for System Analysis Module, which accurately characterize the sink, source, and interaction terms of key material species that are or may be present in various advanced reactor designs. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24195: Enhancing Yellowjacket for Modeling the Impact of Radiation and Stress on the Corrosion of Molten-Salt-Facing Structural Components | University of Florida | $692,088 | The objective of this project is to add the capability to model the impact of radiation and stress on corrosion to the Yellowjacket code, as well as to use Yellowjacket to create surrogate models that will be added to engineering-scale codes like Grizzly. We will also collect new experimental data for validation that quantifies the impact of stress and radiation on corrosion of 316 stainless steel in molten fluoride salts. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24405: Development of a High-fidelity Flow Boiling Database for Validation of High-void-fraction Flow Regime Models | University of Michigan | $800,000 | The primary objective of this proposed research is to develop a comprehensive, high-resolution, multiphase computational fluid dynamics validation-grade flow boiling data from rod bundle geometry simulating current light water reactor fuel designs by taking advantage of the instrumentation and facility developed by the research team. In addition, the applicability of the data through initial evaluations of selected test cases using Nek-2P boiling closure models will be studied and demonstrated for two-phase flow simulations. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24471: Technical Basis of Microstructure Criteria and Accelerated Testing for Qualifying Additively-manufactured 316H Stainless Steel for High-temperature Cyclic Service | Auburn University | $800,000 | This project seeks to reveal the fundamental relationship for AM 316H SS working at 500-750 _C between additively-manufactured microstructures and creep/creep-fatigue properties through a multiscale experimental and modeling approach. The project also seeks to establish the technical basis for the microstructure criteria and accelerated testing method to support near-term nuclear qualification. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24152: Direct heating of chemical catalysts for hydrogen and fertilizer production using Microreactors | Kansas State University | $799,202 | This proposal presents a novel integration approach to deliver process heat from microreactors by directly heating the catalyst particles from the primary heat transfer fluid in a moving packed bed heat exchanger (MPBHX). In this design, the tube side of the MPBHX can be a heat pipe or primary Helium coolant as in several microreactor designs. The shell side will be moving catalyst particles, which will enter the high temperature chemical reactor upon heating. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24287: Investigating heat transfer in horizontally oriented HTGR under normal and PCC conditions | Kansas State University | $799,762 | Experimental research will be conducted to understand heat transfer inside the graphite matrix of horizontal microscale High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors. Existing high temperature test facilities will be used to simulate normal operation and Pressurized Conduction Cooldown. The focus of these experiments is to generate benchmark data under forced and natural convection with coupled multi-mode heat transfer in scaled-down prismatic blocks. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24104: Thermal Hydraulics Investigation of Horizontally Orientated Layout Micro HTGRs Under Normal Operation and PCC Conditions Using Integrated Advanced Measurement Techniques | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000 | The proposed novel work will make a significant pioneering contribution to advance the knowledge and understanding of horizontal micro-high temperature gas cooled reactors. Quantification of metrics will pertain to convective heat transfer coefficients along the channel and gaps, comparative rates of convective and radiative heat transfer, location of peak temperature and its temporal variation, timescales for onset of natural convection, local gas velocity profiles, gas dispersion, crossflows, and temperature profiles over channel diameter and gap thickness. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24004: An Open Source, Parallel, and Distributed Web-Based Probabilistic Risk Assessment Platform to Support Real Time Nuclear Power Plant Risk-Informed Operational Decisions | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | The main objective of the proposed work is to develop, demonstrate, and evaluate a probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) software platform needed to address the major challenges of the current legacy PRA tools. This includes better quantification speed, integration of multi-hazard models into traditional PRAs, and model modification/simplification and documentation automation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24228: Quantifying the Dynamic and Static Porosity/Microstructure Characteristics of Irradiated Graphite through Multi-technique Experiments and Mesoscale Modeling | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | This project proposes a joint experimental-computational approach to probe and quantify the porosity and microstructure characteristics of irradiated nuclear graphite grades and their influence on dimensional changes and turnaround behavior, as well as mechanical properties. The chief focus will be on quantifying both the static and dynamic porosity and crack characteristics in various graphitic phases through several experimental techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24247: Multi-scale Effects of Irradiation Damage on Nuclear Graphite Properties | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Irradiation induces microstructural damage in graphite, causing both dimensional and property (stiffness, strength and creep) changes as a function of the displacement damage and temperature. The biggest gap remains is the fundamental deformation mechanisms behind the property changes. Researchers propose to eliminate this gap in knowledge with a comprehensive, multi-scale experimental framework exploiting in-situ transmission electron and X-ray computed tomography. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23975: Development of Thermal Power Dispatch Simulation Tools for BWR Flexible Plant Operation and Generation | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | In the U.S. domestic light water reactor fleet, about one-third of operational nuclear power reactors are boiling water reactors (BWRs). Thermal power extraction technologies to be designed for BWRs will be different from those for pressurized water reactors due to differences in steam generation. This study proposes to investigate the thermal and electric power dispatch and required control algorithms for dynamic heat dispatch of up to 50% of the thermal energy from a BWR plant to a hydrogen plant. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24111: Experimental Investigations of HTGR Fission Product Transport in Separate-effect Test Facilities Under Prototypical Conditions for Depressurization and Water-ingress Accidents | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Experimental investigations will be performed for fission product (FP) lift-off, washoff, vaporization from plateout surfaces, and transport of FP at prototypical conditions representing depressurization and water-ingress accidents. Measurements will be performed on existing separate-effect facilities using intrusive and non-intrusive techniques to obtain shear stress, deposition velocity, thermal gradient, and gas impurity for advanced correlations. Modeling will be performed using system and computational fluid dynamics codes. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24644: High-Resolution Measurements and Advanced Modeling for Design Optimization of Advanced Small Modular Reactor Steam Generators | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Experiments and simulations will be performed to acquire multi-parameters of pressure drop, heat and mass transfer, and flow-induced vibration (FIV) effect for the design optimization of advanced small modular reactor steam generators (SMR SG). Measurements are performed on existing SMR SG facilities using intrusive/non-intrusive techniques to obtain velocity, temperature, pressure, heat flux, and FIV effects for various geo-dimensions, spacing, pitch angles. Simulations will be performed in StarCCM, Nek5000 and coupling with Diablo_ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24332: A Virtual Reality Environment for Human Reliability Assessment in the Context of Physical Security Attacks | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Recent studies have shown that the physical security workforce accounts for 20% of the entire workforce and, therefore, is responsible for significant operational and maintence costs. To reduce the security staffing, improve performance and reduce threats, modeling and simulation and models of attacker, defender and operator behavior could be employed. This proposal aims to model human behavior using a combination of known human reliability analyses models and experimental evidence from virtual reality experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24389: High Temperature Electromagnetic Acoustic (EMAT) Transducers for Structural Health Monitoring | University of Cincinnati | $800,000 | The aim of this project is to produce an electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT) technology to enable ultrasonic structural health monitoring at the METL facility and similar high temperature assets. Ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation methods can be used for monitoring a range of damage mechanisms including thermal fatigue and corrosion. The project will seek to establish core design solutions that can be used as the basis of a range of EMAT designs for different applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24380: Probabilistic Validation and Risk Importance Ranking Methodology for Automation Trustworthiness and Transparency in Nuclear Power Plants | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | This project develops a methodology to improve trustworthiness and transparency of automation technologies in nuclear power plants. The proposed methodology will monitor risk emerging from automation processes and rank the criticality of automation factors influencing automation output, plant equipment, and system performance. The feasibility and practicality of the proposed methodology will be demonstrated with two case studies focusing on implementation of nuclear power plant automation technologies. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24162: Self-powered wireless sensor system for health monitoring of liquid-sodium cooled fast reactors | University of Notre Dame | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to develop self-powered wireless multimodal sensors and instrumentation for health monitoring and diagnosing early-stage materials degradation for high-risk components in liquid-sodium cooled fast reactors. The synergistic and innovative integrations of the multimodal sensor array, wireless communication, and thermoelectric energy harvester have crosscutting benefit for a wide range of advanced reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24102: High temperature Molten salt reactor pump component development and testing | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | This project will provide relevant key information on the tribology of bearing material and components (such as magnets, couplers, ceramic coated wire, and coatings) in high temperature molten salts that will be required in the design of reactor pumps. Investigation of in-service inspection and monitoring of the pump internals will also be addressed in an effort to reduce down time and operation and maintenance costs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24226: Cost Reduction of Advanced Integration Heat Exchanger Technology for Micro-Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,713 | Heat exchanger technology is a high-cost component of a micro-reactor system that is also critical to the overall reliability and performance. This project will develop the underlying advanced heat exchanger technology necessary to integrate a micro-reactor with any end-user application, as well as providing internal heat exchange. Economic optimization of the heat exchanger and experimental demonstration of the technology will be accomplished. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24382: Advanced High-Fluence Low-Flux RPV Mechanical Property Models for Extended Life | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,717 | This project will further develop accurate models of the mechanical property changes under life-extension conditions in reactor pressure vessel (RPV) steels using reduced order Avrami models, cluster dynamics, and atomistic methods combined with massive comprehensive databases on irradiated steels. The work will provide models critical to extending the life of U.S. pressurized water reactors, as well as new fundamental insights into flux and fluence effects and sink and precipitate evolution in reactor pressure vessels and related steels. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| Integrated Marine Platform for Hydrogen and Ammonia Production | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | This study investigates the economic and environmental value of a floating integrated GW-scale green hydrogen/ammonia production facility powered by an advanced nuclear reactor. Floating Production Storage and Offloading units (FPSOs) are deployed worldwide in the oil and gas industry, and can be used for hydrogen and ammonia processing. Deployment of an advanced reactor on a floating platform offers several advantages, including the efficiencies of shipyard fabrication. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Functionally-graded Cermet Coatings for Molten Salt Technologies by High Throughput Finite Element Modeling and Additive Manufacturing | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $500,000 | This project proposes an integrated approach/methodology to design, manufacture and verify functionally-graded metal-ceramic composite coatings on structural alloys with desired interfacial properties, capabilities of mitigating residual stress and improved corrosion resistance for molten salt reactor applications. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| An Innovative Monitoring Technology for the Reactor Vessel of Micro-HTGR | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | This project seeks to develop an innovative sensor technology for real-time monitoring of the thermo-mechanical stresses in the reactor vessel of micro-HTGR. The technology will be based on a sparse network of outer wall temperature measurements and plant operating conditions. An integrated software-hardware sensing system aimed at monitoring the health of the pressure vessel of gas micro-reactors will be implemented and tested. The proposed work will have a broad impact on sensing in other reactor designs. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| High throughput mechanical testing of additively-manufactured materials | University of California, Berkeley | $500,000 | This project proposes fast and high throughput mechanical testing of AM produced materials. It will include the generation of automated tensile testing, hardness testing and microstructure assessment and data comparison to build data via machine learning. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Accelerated irradiation creep testing coupled with self-adaptive accelerated molecular dynamics simulations for scalability analysis | University of Michigan | $500,000 | The goal of the proposed work is to accelerate traditional irradiation creep using instrumented in-situ ion irradiation creep and long-time molecular dynamics simulations to accelerate traditional neutron irradiation creep testing. This goal will be accomplished by coupling a novel ion beam flux jump test using tapered creep specimens and self-adaptive accelerated molecular dynamics. The outcome is a rapid, low-cost accelerated method to determine the fundamental irradiation creep mechanisms. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Creation of a Pebble Database for Material Control and Accountancy in Pebble Bed Reactors | Virginia Commonwealth University | $399,969 | The primary goal of this proposed project is to develop a database of NDA signatures from a wide variety of used PBR pebbles. This database can be used for facility operations, safety, security, and safeguards (3S) to directly measure fission product content and indirectly 235U and plutonium content of each PBR pebble. This project has significant synergy with current 3S PBR research at ANL, BNL, and ORNL, all of whom are collaborators to this proposed project. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Quantifying Aerosol Deposition Mechanisms in Model Dry Cask Storage Systems | Clemson University | $800,000 | The objective of this work is to measure aerosol deposition and resuspension rates in laboratory models of dry cask storage systems to compare with and validate the DOE deposition model. The project team will conduct experiments to directly measure the deposition/resuspension rates of bulk aerosol in the system and to isolate and quantify individual aerosol deposition mechanisms, with a focus on those sensitive to variable humidity and surface temperature. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Using Amide-Functionalized Electrodes to Elucidate Interfacial Actinide Redox Chemistry for Improved HALEU Supply | Florida International University | $400,000 | The goal is to decrease HALEU fuel cycle costs by examination of the redox behavior of U, Np, and Pu at the water-organic interface using amide functionalized electrodes, and in organic media after extraction with amides. Experiments with redox active interferences including additional actinides in different oxidation states will also be conducted. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advancing the technical readiness of FeCrAl alloys and ODS steels under extreme conditions for fast reactor fuel cladding | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | A key technology gap for advanced high-performance fuel applications is the current unavailability of materials that can withstand extremely high doses without significant degradation of cladding performance. The project team will perform in-situ thermo-mechanical experiments (tension, torsion, creep, and creep-fatigue and nanoindentation) on ion-irradiated (to 400 dpa) cladding materials (up to 700 C) along with microstructures using TEM and mesoscale phase field simulations. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| A molten salt community framework for predictive modeling of critical characteristics | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | This research aims to develop a molten salt community framework to address the needs in advanced fuel cycles, including understanding salts via new theory of liquids, predicting salt characteristics via simulations (DFT, MD, and CALPHAD by implementing advanced models), optimizing inversely molten salts, and verifying simulations by experiments. This project has outstanding value for US taxpayers, educates students, and delivers outreach opportunities for academia, industry, and the public. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Understanding the Interfacial Structure of the Molten Chloride Salts by in-situ Electrocapillarity and Resonant Soft X-ray Scattering (RSoXS) | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | The objective of the proposed research is to investigate the interplay between the interfacial structure of the molten salts and their electrochemical corrosion properties in Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Clay Hydration, Drying, and Cracking in Nuclear Waste Repositories | Princeton University | $800,000 | This project will develop a new multiscale model of the thermal-hydrologic-mechanical-chemical (THMC) evolution of an engineered clay barrier in the near field of a nuclear waste repository, including initial hydration and eventual post-closure criticality. This new model will directly link micro-scale material properties to large-scale barrier performance, thus facilitating future design advances or modifications, and enable robust validation of large-scale simulation predictions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Physics-guided Smart Scaling Methodology for Accelerated Fuel Testing | Purdue University | $800,000 | This project proposes to employ novel informatics algorithms for mapping/scaling uncertainties from experimentally accessible scaled state to application/prototypical state, informed by an equivalent mapping obtained from high-fidelity multi-physics simulations for the fuel thermo-mechanical behavior, specifically, a rate theory-based model for thermal conductivity and fission gas behavior in the BISON code, and employing relevant HALDEN reactor and FAST experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Materials Accountancy During Disposal and Waste Processing of Molten Salt Reactor Fuel Salts | Texas A&M University | $399,997 | The objective of this work is to develop and validate a method for measuring and predicting hold-up to eliminate operational risks and expenses during disposal of salt-wetted MSR components. These objectives will be met by applying robust measurement/detection methods to realistic salt loop environments to validate their use in decommissioning MSRs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advanced Screening Approaches for Accelerating Development of Separations Technologies | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | The goal of this project is to establish a unified selection criterion for chelating molecular structures to more efficiently address ligand applicability to metal ion separation problems, for current and future nuclear fuel cycles. By establishing this criterion, the team will seek to enable the accelerated, cost-effective discovery of new separation workflows, as well as their implementation beyond early radiotracer experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advancing NMA of TRISO-fueled pebbles using fast and accurate gamma-ray spectroscopy | University of Colorado, Boulder | $385,307 | This proposal will provide new Nuclear Materials Analysis (NMA) capabilities for TRISO-fueled pebbles using gamma-ray spectroscopy, through a program of simulations of expected signatures from irradiated pebbles, resulting in a detailed measurement plan to monitor burnup and actinide content throughout the fuel cycle. These simulations will be used to develop requirements for NMA sensor technology and identify opportunities for focused technology development to meet these requirements. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Development of Irradiation and Creep Resistant High-Cr Ferritic/Martensitic Steels via Magnetic Field Heat Treatment | University of Kentucky | $800,000 | The objective of this proposed study is to develop and test new generation of Ferritic/Martensitic (F/M) steels specifically designed for advanced reactors that will exceed the current limitations due to temperature and irradiation dose. To achieve this objective, a systematic study is proposed to employ an innovative tempering heat treatment under high external magnetic field (up to 9T) on F/M steel HT9 to engineer an optimized microstructure composed of refined carbides and martensite laths. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Investigation into the processing parameters of phosphate-based dehalogenation for chloride-based waste salt | University of Nevada, Reno | $399,999 | This proposal will focus on several topics needed to advance the iron phosphate process: 1) Dehalogenation/vitrification processes using salt simulants to generate process flow sheets, 2) Reactions of crucible materials with phosphate products and byproducts, 3) Collection of glass property-composition data to develop models based on the glass-forming regions, 4) Development of a process for reacting recovered NH4Cl with metals that need to be fed into the system (U, Li, etc.). | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| A Validated Framework for Seismic Risk Assessment of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of Nevada, Reno | $799,883 | This is a collaborative research program with a primary objective of developing a validated numerical framework for seismic risk analysis of spent fuel storage facilities from the global cask behavior to the localized behavior of internal spent fuel assemblies. In building and validating this framework, advanced data analysis, data assimilation, and forward and inverse modeling techniques will be utilized. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| International Collaboration to Advance the Technical Readiness of High Uranium Density Fuels and Composites for Small Modular Reactors | University of Texas at San Antonio | $800,000 | An international team of high uranium density fuels (HDFs) experts advised by industry leaders in nuclear reactor innovation propose a US-UK collaboration to advance the technical readiness of UN, UB2, and their composites for fuel forms specific to small modular reactors (SMRs). The project will bridge the critical data gaps in HDF performance specific to the impact of common impurities and microstructural variations that originate at fabrication. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Development of Advanced Control Rod Assembly for Improved Accident Tolerance and High Burnup Fuel Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Research will focus on the development of new materials' designs for control rod sheaths and neutron absorbers, coupled with neutronics analysis and thermo-mechanical modeling to improve accident tolerance and to achieve higher fuel burnup in PWRs. Functionality of the proposed designs consisting of Cr coated control rod sheaths of current and advanced alloys as well as novel neutron absorbers will be evaluated in prototypical reactor conditions and accident scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Optical Basicity Determination of Molten Fluoride Salts and its Influence on Structural Material Corrosion | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | The proposed research is aimed at developing ion probes to determine the optical basicity of molten fluoride salts and studying its influence on structural material corrosion. Combining with the molten salt structure study using X-ray absorption spectroscopy, the salt chemical constitution, the resulting optical basicity, and molten salt structure will be inextricably linked and their connections will be unveiled. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Extending the HMF71 Benchmark Series for Graphite Reflector Thickness up to 18 Inches | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $399,522 | The objective of this proposal is to extend the HEU-MET-FAST-071 (HMF-71) experiment benchmark series in ICSBEP by evaluating the historical (existing) experimental data for critical experiments with graphite reflector thickness from 3 inches up to 18 inches. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2022 |
| Fast and Rigorous Methods for Multiphysics SPn Transport in Advanced Reactors | University of Michigan | $600,000 | This project proposes to perform rigorous theoretical and numerical analysis of the Generalized SPn method and underlying cross section models to enable a fast and robust multiphysics low-order transport capability for advanced reactors. This includes 5 major tasks focused on the efficient discretization and solution of the GSPn equations, numerical analysis of XS models having multiphysics and depletion, analysis of equivalence factors, improved MC estimators, and several V&V applications of the methods. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2022 |
| Development of Hydrogen Transport Models for High Temperature Metal Hydride Moderators | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Understanding the transient behavior of metal hydride moderator materials at high temperatures is a key challenge to the design and deployment of future microreactors. This project will use neutron radiography techniques provide the necessary data for this understanding and demonstrate the development of time and temperature dependent hydrogen transport models using both commercial FEA software coupled to MCNP and coupled models developed in the MOOSE framework. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Characterizing fast reactor fuel failure mode through separate effect and prototypic tests | Oregon State University | $800,000 | The project consists of conducting separate effect fuel pin failure tests with surrogate fluid and prototypic test with sodium. The outcome of this study will generate an experimental database that will be used to develop mechanistic model and validate the CDAP module of the SAS4A/SASSYS-1 code. Ultimately the quality data can be used to benchmark other fuel codes developed for LMFR application, which are seeking validation for licensing purpose. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Science-based development of ASTM standard tests for graphite-based fuel pebbles | University of California, Berkeley | $700,000 | This project proposes the development of mechanical test procedures as well as wear and friction tests on Graphite fuel pebbles | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Role of Heterogeneity in Manganese and Nickel Rich Precipitate Distribution on Hardening of Reactor Pressure Vessel Steels: Integrated Modeling and Experimental Characterization | University of Florida | $799,803 | The hypothesis of this work is that the different nucleation and coarsening kinetics of manganese and nickel rich precipitates (MNPs) compared to copper rich precipitates, and the heterogeneous distribution of manganese and nickel rich precipitates on or near dislocations, both lead to unique hardening behavior at high neutron fluence. The objective of this work is to understand hardening in reactor pressure vessel steels caused by MNPs via integrated multiscale modeling and experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Integrated Thermal-Electric Energy Management of All-Electric Ship with Advanced Nuclear Reactors | University of Texas at Dallas | $400,000 | The overall objective of this research is to comprehensively model, design, and evaluate the use of advanced nuclear reactors in future nuclear-powered ships, to enhance the efficiency, reliability, and resilience of shipboard energy distribution systems. The novelty of the proposed approach lies in (i) integrated thermal-electric modeling of advanced nuclear-powered shipboard energy system, and (ii) novel solutions for total-ship energy management to improve energy efficiency and resiliency. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Open Architecture for Nuclear Cost Reduction | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Open architecture has potential to reduce advanced reactor (AR) costs, through exploiting modular design and construction, with common, openly available interfaces between modules. A comprehensive assessment of the challenges and opportunities of open architecture for ARs will be performed. Supported by a pilot study, actionable recommendations for the implementation or otherwise of open architecture for ARs will be developed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Telescopic Control Rod for Significant Reduction in HTR Height and therefore Cost | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | This project proposes a design for a small modular High Temperature Reactor (HTR) control rod that extends telescopically, consisting of ~5 concentric annuli that nest together above the core when withdrawn. This compact component substantially reduces the length of the depth of the silo. Modelling and experimental testing will be performed to develop the control rod to evaluate feasibility, plus perform a cost-benefit analysis, with a view to its inclusion in both pebble bed and prismatic HTR designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Mechanism Driven Evaluations of Sequential and Simultaneous Irradiation-Creep-Fatigue Testing | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | This project addresses a critical need for irradiation and creep-fatigue testing by carrying out a systematic, mechanistic-driven benchmarking for irradiation creep, irradiation fatigue and creep-fatigue tests under various environments. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Mechanisms-based Acceleration of Materials Qualifications for Creep-Fatigue Performance in Advanced Nuclear Systems | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | The goal of this research is to fully understand, quantify and model creep-fatigue 'damage' as a function of loading patterns, temperature and microstructural evolution. Using this experimental information over a large range of relevant stress levels and temperatures, a mechanisms-based creep-fatigue analysis approach will be demonstrated which will properly qualify high temperature alloys for extended service in advanced nuclear systems where creep-fatigue is currently a major design limitation. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Subwavelength Ultrasonic Imaging for Rapid Qualification of Additively Manufactured Nuclear Structures and Components | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to develop a transformational capability for rapid nondestructive quality assessment of actual nuclear additively manufactured structures and components through advanced ultrasonic imaging with subwavelength resolution. The resolution of conventional ultrasonic systems is limited by diffraction on the order of the wavelength. In this project, the goal is to break the diffraction limits of ultrasonic imaging by implementing a negative-index lens. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| MXene as Sorbent Materials for Off-gas Radioiodine Capture and Immobilization | Clemson University | $1,000,000 | The overarching goal of this project is to develop efficient and stable new sorbent materials, for off-gas radioiodine capture and immobilization, that are based on MXenes with two-dimensional transition metal carbides/nitrides. The exploratory research will focus on three main objectives: 1) Design and synthesis of MXenes as radioiodine sorbent and support materials, 2) Quantification of iodine sorption capacity of MXenes in different forms, 3) Synthesis and characterization of consolidated waste forms. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Fundamental understanding of grain boundary cracking in LWR environments | University of California, Los Angeles | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to understand the details of stress corrosion cracking (SCC) and irradiation assisted stress corrosion cracking (IASCC) by targeted experiments and modeling efforts. A comprehensive model will be produced, which will predict the conditions under which these failure modes occur and when the materials may see onsets of the failure mode. This work will directly impact the nuclear industry by refining predictive models of component lifetime. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Facile manufacturing of fiber-reinforced-SiC/SiC composite using aerodynamic fiber deposition (AFD) and metal assisted polymer impregnation and pyrolysis processes (MAPIP) | University of Pittsburgh | $999,886 | SiC/SiC ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) are promising candidate materials for the cladding of accident tolerant fuels. Superior material properties of SiC/SiC CMC, however, come at a high manufacturing cost. The objective of the proposed research is to apply aerodynamic fiber deposition (AFD) and metal assisted polymer impregnation and pyrolysis (MAPIP) to develop a new facile manufacturing approach of SiC/SiC CMC. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| High Concentration Monoamide Separations: Phase Modifiers and Transuranic Chemistry | Colorado School of Mines | $999,900 | Extraction of actinides from used nuclear fuel with high concentrations of monoamide extractants is a promising strategy to intensify separation processes; however key issues remain to be understood and resolved. This project will examine three questions: 1) Can phase modifiers mitigate issues with organic phase viscosity? 2) Can the chemistry of neptunium be controlled to ensure complete separation? 3) Do high concentrations of monoamides affect the oxidation states of important metals and can that be exploited? | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Multiple Uranium Complexes in Chloride Fast Reactor Molten Salt Properties | University of Connecticut | $1,000,000 | Multivalent transition metal ions in a melt can exhibit multiple coordination states that affect molten salt properties. This project will use a new high-energy resolution fluorescence detection (HERFD) spectroscopy to overcome issues associated with measuring coordination numbers of multiple complexes, along with Raman spectroscopy and advanced simulations to accurately predict properties of molten salts with multiple uranium complexes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Validation of Geochemical Reactive Transport Long-Term predictions Using Natural Cements and Ancient Cements Analogues | Vanderbilt University | $950,000 | This project will validate long-term performance predictions of rock/cement interfaces based on characterization of natural analogues, ancient cements and interfaces with rock formations, and demonstrate applicability of the established testing and simulation workflow with argillite rock (representative of potential U.S. repository systems). This project addresses the research gap of long-term validation and uncertainty assessment associated with cement barrier performance and multi-physics models. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Predicting Pitting and Stress Corrosion Cracking of Dry Cask Storage Canisters via High Throughput Testing, Multiscale Characterization, and 3D Computer Vision based Machine Learning | The Ohio State University | $1,000,000 | This project consists of a US-UK collaborative research program focusing on the nucleation and growth of pits and stress corrosion cracking of stainless steel 304 (a canister material used for dry cask storage of spent nuclear fuels) by leveraging multi-scale characterization techniques, 2D/3D computer vision, and machine learning approaches. The study will enable the understanding and prediction of how and when pitting corrosion can nucleate, grow, and transition into stress corrosion cracking. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Multiscale Residual Stress Tailoring of Spent Fuel Canister CISCC Resistance | Purdue University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to understand the role of residual stress in chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) of austenitic steel, then tailor CISCC initiation and propagation through engineered multiscale residual stress distributions. Microscopic and macroscopic residual stresses will be systematically varied, then a novel sequence of advanced, site-specific, correlative characterization techniques will be applied to directly link residual stress, pitting, and crack propagation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Illuminating Emerging Supply Chain and Waste Management Challenges | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | Regional constraints on domestic fuel supply and greater variation in demand from advanced reactors has led to a shift in the U.S. fuel cycle, and modeling tools must reflect this. In this work, Cyclus will be updated to better reflect new and emergent regional supply constraints, spatial and temporal fluctuations in material needs, and those impacts on the back-end of the fuel cycle will be quantified. This work will allow for flexible, reproducible analysis to inform stakeholder decision-making. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Determination of Local Structure and Phase Stability of Uranium Species in Molten Halide Salts: Linking Microscopic Structure with Macroscopic Thermodynamics | Arizona State University | $1,000,000 | The goal of this project is to determine the local structures (valence state, coordination configuration and medium-range structure) and thermodynamic stability of uranium species in molten chloride and fluoride salts at high temperatures using a combination of experimental and modeling methods. The obtained results will allow for revelation of the structure-stability relations of the studied systems and development of acid-base scales to determine the solubility of uranium in molten halide salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Thermal-Hydraulics Assessment of SiC Compared to Other ATF Cladding Materials and its Performance to Mitigate CRUD | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | This project aims to experimentally investigate the thermal-hydraulics performance of SiC compared to the Cr-coated zircaloys and APMT ATF cladding materials under accident scenarios, including both DNB and dryout conditions. The project is divided into five tasks that will advance the understanding of the operation and optimization of heat pipes for advanced nuclear reactors. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Physics-Informed Artificial Intelligence for Non-Destructive Evaluation of Ceramic Composite Cladding by Creating Digital Fingerprints | University of Florida | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to spatially map the material composition, structure, and defect distribution of SiCf-SiCm composite tubes from ultrasonic wavefields measured from the materials and the defects within them. Specifically, this project will delve into the unique ultrasonic fingerprints (i.e., dispersion relations and mode shapes) of the SiCf-SiCm composites using physics-informed machine learning to assess the quality of the manufactured tubes based on their spatial-spectral ultrasonic characteristics. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Understanding Constituent Redistribution, Thermal Transport, and Fission Gas Behavior in U-Zr Annular Fuel Without a Sodium Bond | University of Florida | $999,462 | This project will investigate the reason for changed constituent redistribution in annular U-Zr fuel without a sodium bond and how it changes the fission gas behavior and thermal conductivity. This will be achieved using a combination of microstructure characterization and thermal conductivity measurements of irradiated U-Zr annular fuel and multiscale modeling and simulation using the MARMOT and BISON fuel performance codes. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Getting AnCers: Metallothermic Molten Salt Synthesis and Reaction Thermodynamics of Actinide Ceramic Fuels | Oregon State University | $1,000,000 | Synthesis of high quality actinide ceramics (AnCers) remains a costly challenge. A low-temperature, high-yield, short-duration reaction that directly synthesizes UN and UC could reduce the cost of these advanced fuels greatly. This proposal aims to demonstrate a method by which the costs of AnCers can be greatly reduced - metallothermic molten salt synthesis. Optimization and thermodynamics data will be obtained. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Integrated Stand-off Optical Sensors for Molten Salt Reactor Monitoring | University of Pittsburgh | $1,000,000 | This project intends to develop robust and stand-off optical sensors to perform real-time molten salt levels, flow, and impurity measurements of molten salts. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Cybersecurity in advanced reactor fleet by cyber-informed design, real-time anomaly detection, dynamic monitoring, and cost-effective mitigation strategies | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The goal of this research is to provide technical solutions to unique cybersecurity challenges in future microreactor fleet through cyber-informed design (C-ID), real-time anomaly detection, dynamic monitoring, and cost-effective mitigation strategies. The efforts will significantly improve the economics and effectiveness of cybersecurity risk management in future microreactor fleets. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Building Cyber-Resilient Architecture for Advanced Reactors via Integrated Operations and Network Digital Twin | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | The research will develop a secure-by-design architecture via integrating plant operation and network digital twins for advanced reactors. Automatic attack path and vulnerability analysis will be developed and used to assess and harden critical digital assets (CDA) against cyber risks prior to and during operation to identify vulnerabilities, attack pathways, and threat vectors. A CDA selection method will also be developed by combining vulnerability scores and assets importance. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Extending PRA and HRA legacy methods and tools with a cause-based model for comprehensive treatment of human error dependency | University of California, Los Angeles | $1,000,000 | This project aims at developing a solution to HRA dependency assessment in PRA from methodological and practical/computational perspectives within legacy PRA tools and methods. The solutions will include procedures for quantifying dependency when using PRA legacy tools, a method for modeling and quantifying dependency in HRA comprising a BN-causal model suitable for use with legacy PRA methods and tools, and the computational tools for its integration. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| An Integrated Elemental and Isotopic Detector for Real-Time Molten Salt Monitoring | North Carolina State University | $1,000,000 | The overarching theme of the proposed research is to develop and demonstrate a real-time elemental and isotopic detector of molten salts for advanced reactors and fuel fabrication and recycling processes. The detector's longevity, limits, and latency will be tested in static uranium chloride salts, in pyroprocessing chloride salt, and on flowing fluoride salt with evolving actinide composition, respectively. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Development of a Thin-Layer Electrochemical Sensor for Molten Salt Reactors and Fuel Cycle Processes | Brigham Young University | $811,755 | A thin-layer electrochemical sensor capable of detecting uranium, plutonium and other species of interest in molten salts, at both high and low concentrations, will be developed for application in molten salt reactors and fuel cycle process units. This will provide a valuable tool for performing material control and accountancy measurements. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Risk-Informed Consequence-Driven Hybrid Cyber-Physical Protection System Security Optimization for Advanced Reactor Sites | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | This project aims to develop an expanded methodology for designing a novel cybersecurity-integrated physical protection system (PPS) framework for advanced reactor concepts that serves to reduce the operational costs for the life of a reactor against that of a traditional light water reactor PPS design, promoting efforts to credit safety features of advanced reactors through proposed amendments to current security regulations, while integrating health and economic consequence analyses. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| A risk analysis framework for evaluating the safety, reliability, and economic implications of electrolysis for hydrogen production at NPPs | University of Maryland, College Park | $1,000,000 | The RAFELHyP project will develop a modular risk analysis framework that enables evaluating the safety, reliability, and economic implications of upcoming deployments of electrolyzers to produce hydrogen at nuclear power plants. The framework will be implemented to conduct an integrated safety, reliability, and economic analysis of multiple plant configurations to provide detailed recommendations for plant protective features and layouts. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Reduced Order Modeling of Heat and Fluid Flow: Multi-Scale Modeling of Advanced Reactors to Enable Faster Deployment | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | Novel multi-scale algorithms for thermal-hydraulics (TH) simulations of advanced reactors will be developed. The methods will leverage recent advances in hardware and reduced order modeling approaches to enable TH simulations of vastly accelerated speed, while maintaining accuracy comparable to high-fidelity methods, such as large-eddy simulation. The methods will allow designers to perform parameter sweeps, develop closures, and enable high fidelity simulation of transients. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Embedded Monte Carlo | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Monte Carlo methods have long been considered the standard in terms of accuracy and have seen increased use in design of small nuclear systems; however, the uncertainty quantification (UQ) of the desired output is often relegated to later stages of the design process. This project seeks to embed nuclear data UQ in a single Monte Carlo simulation, such that each desired quantity will not only provide the mean value and statistical uncertainty, but also the related nuclear data uncertainty. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| A Low Order Transport Method Based on the Dynamic Truncation of the Integral Transport Matrix Method (ITMM) that Converges to the SN Solution with Increasing Cell Optical Thickness | North Carolina State University | $1,000,000 | A novel low-order transport operator capable of approximating Monte Carlo (MC) results within a variance range will be developed. This does not require MC reference solutions to calibrate the low-order model, so repeated solutions of the latter in-transient scenarios does not require repeated MC simulations. Truncation of the low-order operator is done dynamically for evolving configurations to ensure accuracy of the low-order solution. This will involve proof of principle on Cartesian meshes, then implementation in Griffin. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| CFD based Critical Heat Flux predictions for enhanced DNBR margin | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | This project seeks to demonstrate a robust high-fidelity CFD-based methodology to predict CHF behavior at varying quality conditions, enabling the development of advanced DNBR correlations with reduced uncertainty, and in support of upgraded plant economics. The availability of a virtual CHF methodology will allow greatly extending the database for DNBR correlations development and further support advancement in the design of high-performing nuclear fuel. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Immersed Boundary Methods for Modeling of Complex Geometry: A Leap Forward in Multiscale Modeling using NekRS | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | A major challenge to Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling of complex geometries is the need to generate body-fitted meshes, which can occupy 80% of the CFD practitioner's time. Immersed boundary methods will be added in the NekRS CFD code, dramatically simplifying modeling of complex 3-D structures and facilitating a new paradigm for CFD-informed multiscale analysis. This will be demonstrated by informing SAM transient systems-level models with NekRS heat exchanger correlations for advanced reactors. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Uncertainty Quantification of Model Extrapolation in Neural Network-informed Turbulent Closures for Plenum Mixing in HTGRs | Utah State University | $1,000,000 | This project will quantify the uncertainty in prediction of Neural Network-informed Turbulent Closures when they are operating in a model extrapolation state. Once the method is developed for canonical buoyant jets, the protocols will be applied to plenum mixing in HTGRs. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Impact of moisture on corrosion of NiCr alloys in MgCl2-NaCl Salt Systems | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $999,983 | This project aims to gain a fundamental understanding of the impact of moisture and salt chemistry on corrosion of NiCr alloys in molten chloride salts. A novel approach coupling multiscale simulations and experiments will be designed to determine salt acidity, its dependence on salt composition (i.e., the NaCl to MgCl2 ratio), and its effects on the transport of H2O and Cr ions and the corrosion kinetics of NiCr alloys in chloride salt. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Transforming Microreactor Economics Through Hydride Moderator Enabled Neutron Economy | State University of New York, Stony Brook | $1,000,000 | Microreactors will potentially require the cost of electricity to be 10 MWD/kg at >3 kW/kg core specific power. These goals are best achieved through a well-thermalized spectrum. Neutron economy as a core material selection criterion to advance entrained hydride composite moderators will be used with the primary goal of significantly reducing fuel costs through novel microreactor designs. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Integrating Nuclear with ZLD Seawater Desalination and Mining | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | An integrated nuclear system will be developed that would utilize electricity and waste heat to operate a desalination and mining process from adjacent seawater. The desalination approach targets zero-liquid discharge with multiple marketable minerals extracted. The ability of nuclear facilities to load follow is increasingly important, so a cold thermal storage system will be incorporated. The desalination and mineral extraction process will be experimentally validated at lab scale. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Reference Designs of Green Ammonia Plants Powered by Small Modular Reactors | Utah State University | $1,000,000 | The overarching goal of this project is to develop two reference designs for green ammonia plants. One design uses freshwater as the source for hydrogen, while the other design uses seawater (or brackish water) as the source. In both designs, a small modular reactor (SMR) is used as the primary energy source providing both electricity and steam for the plants. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Development of the Technical Bases to Support Flexible Siting of Microreactors based on Right-Sized Emergency Planning Zones | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to provide the technical basis to support the application of a right-sized Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ) size to support the deployment of a microreactor at the Penn State University Park campus. This research study will serve as a template to provide flexible siting in support of future microreactor deployments that may be placed closer to demand centers, thereby making them more economically competitive. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Bayesian Optimization for Automatic Reactor Design Optimization | Arizona State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to develop analytical tools based on Gaussian process modeling and Bayesian Optimization that facilitate reactor design optimization by modeling the responses from the physics simulator. Existing capabilities will be applied in an AI field and they will be adapted to address the key characteristics of nuclear reactor design problem. This project will automate the simulation-based design procedure, reduce the number of iterations, and minimize the design cycle time. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Engaging New Mexican communities in developing an equitable and just approach to siting advanced reactor facilities | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | This project will engage diverse New Mexican communities to develop an equitable approach for advanced reactor siting. The findings of this project will shed light on how technology developers and the DOE can explore and potentially site advanced reactors with the informed consent and engagement of host communities, regions, and states. The findings of this study will also more generally apply to the potential for equitably exploring both brownfield and greenfield sites for nuclear facilities. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Deciphering Irradiation Effects of YHx through In-situ Evaluation and Micromechanics for Microreactor Applications | University of New Mexico | $998,000 | This project addresses a critical gap in accelerated testing of YH evolution coupling multi-length scale mechanical testing with ion irradiation and advanced characterization to establish a baseline understanding of YH evolution under ion irradiation. Our approach will couple ion irradiation and gamma irradiation with small scale mechanical testing to decipher multi-scale impacts on phase stability to advance understanding of YH in a microreactor moderator application. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Active Learning Estimation and Optimization (ALEO) of Irradiation Experimental Design for Efficient Accelerated Fuel Qualification | University of Texas at San Antonio | $997,247 | This collaborative project creates novel AI/ML models and algorithms integrated with physical knowledge and expertise to explore more efficient ways to calculate irradiation temperatures and fuel specimen burnups for new fuel sample configurations of MiniFuel experiments proposed for irradiation in the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Unraveling how mixing vane spacers affect cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena in light water reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $500,000 | Experiments will be conducted to quantify the effect of mixing vane spacers on cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena, namely single-phase forced convection, nucleate boiling, and CHF. The results of the experimental research will allow elucidating the physical phenomena triggered by the presence of mixing vane spacers. They will also allow assessing the performance of M-CFD tools developed within CASL and in use by the nuclear community. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Quantum Computing Algorithms for Deterministic Neutron Transport | University of Michigan | $500,000 | This project will develop algorithms for solving the k-eigenvalue form of the neutron transport equation in a nuclear reactor physics context on a quantum computer. The asymptotic scaling of the algorithms will be analyzed. Investigation into implementation will be made by making resource estimates by synthesizing explicit circuits for the algorithms and be studied by emulation on a classical computer. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Optimizing Application-Dependent Energy Group Structures for Multigroup Neutron Transport Models using Machine Learning | Colorado School of Mines | $500,000 | Machine Learning methods will be developed that will dramatically reduce both the computational run-time and manual effort needed to find multigroup energy structures that accurately capture the underlying physics of neutron reactions, while allowing multigroup simulations to run quickly without overwhelming available memory. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Understanding PM-HIP Interparticle Evolution and its Influence on Fracture Toughness in Alumina-Forming Steels | Purdue University | $1,100,000 | This project aims to understand how interparticle evolution during hot isostatic pressing (HIP) influences fracture toughness of Al-bearing steels. The team will use a series of interrupted HIP experiments with phase field models to understand the formation mechanisms of interparticle defects during HIP of alumina-forming austenitic (AFA) stainless steels and FeCrAl steels, and the influence of these defects on fracture behavior. | Document | Advanced Manufacturing Technologies | FY2024 |
| Multiscale high-throughput experiment/modeling approach to understanding creep behavior in Additively Manufactured reactor steels | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $1,043,271 | This project proposes to develop a predictive capability for processing-microstructure-property correlations in additive manufactured microstructures utilizing a multiscale approach encompassing bulk creep tests, miniaturized tensile testing, and a high-throughput, indentation based, cost-effective method for elevated temperature mechanical mapping of additively manufactured 316H Stainless Steel, Grade 91, and Titanium-Zirconium-Molybdenum (TZM) alloys. | Document | Advanced Manufacturing Technologies | FY2024 |
| Assessing molten salt corrosion resistance of stainless steel 316H in nuclear reactor environments | North Carolina State University | $1,100,000 | The proposed goal is to leverage a blend of innovative molten salt corrosion experiments and cutting-edge characterization techniques to advance our understanding of molten salt corrosion in both commercial and additively manufactured (AM) stainless steel (SS) 316H, particularly under radiation or stress environments. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Polymer-Derived C-SiC Coatings on Kernel Particles for Advanced Nuclear Reactors | University of Alabama at Birmingham | $1,100,000 | This program is to use a polymer-derived ceramic approach to develop C-SiC/ZrC coatings on ZrO2 kernel substitute particles. We aim to create new fuel encapsulation materials in replacement of the coatings on fuel kernel particles, including the TRISO layers, for advanced reactors, conduct ion irradiation testing of the new materials for nuclear performance evaluation, and carry out detailed microstructure and composition characterization to assess the C-SiC/ZrC coated fuel particle behaviors. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Sorbent regeneration, recycling, and transformation: A transformative approach to iodine capture and immobilization | University of Nevada, Reno | $1,000,000 | The project will focus on the development of materials and processes for regeneration and recycling of sorbents, and the transformation of iodine-loaded sorbents into waste forms. A combination of computational and experimental studies will be conducted to understand (a) how the components in a primary off-gas stream interact with the sorbent, (b) how this off-gas stream affects the regeneration lifetime, and (c) low-temperature binders and processing paths that leads to durable waste forms. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Accident Tolerant Fuels to Support Power Uprates in LWRs | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,100,000 | This project will demonstrate that power uprates higher than the current state of operation can be reached using accident tolerant fuels in light water reactors while not exceeding reactor safety margins during normal operation and accidents. We will analyze it considering fuel enriched up to 10% and peak rod average burnup up to 75GWd/tU concerning reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, reactor safety, and economics. Considerations will be made in consultation with the named industry advisory board. | Document | Existing Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Comparative study of three-dimensional microstructural imaging and thermal conductivity evolution of irradiated solid and annular U-Zr fuels | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Uranium-zirconium (U-Zr) annular metallic fuel holds the promise to simultaneously increase sodium fast reactor (SFR) core uranium loading and reduce peak cladding temperatures, thus greatly improving fuel performance. However, key convolved fuel degradation mechanisms during irradiation at temperature threaten to hold back its real-world applicability, requiring more detailed understanding to both predict U-Zr fuel performance and suggest improvements. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Mechanistic study and modeling of fission gas release in UO2 and doped UO2 | Oregon State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to enhance the safety and performance of light water reactors and other advanced reactor designs by gaining a fundamental understanding of fast gas reactor mechanisms and developing mechanistic models for UO2 and doped UO2 fuels under HBU and transient conditions. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Anisotropic Thermal Properties of SiC-SiC Cladding: Method Development & Characterization | University of Pittsburgh | $1,000,000 | We propose to develop a high-temperature nondestructive thermal conductivity (k) measurement system coupled with validated multiscale models to accurately determine the anisotropic thermal conductivity of SiC-SiC composite cladding tubes. The multiscale measurement and modeling results benefit both DOE ATF programs as well as providing a fundamental understanding of how the microstructure of the composite leads to its anisotropic properties. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Understanding the Performance of SiC-SiCf Composite Cladding Architectures with Cr Coating in Normal Operating and Accident Conditions in LWRs and Advanced Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The project will focus on investigating the impact of Cr-coating on the SiC-SiCf composite cladding of various architectures under normal operating and accident conditions in light water reactors and advanced reactors for the safe and economic deployment of SiC cladding. Cr-coating will provide protection from high-temperature corrosion and better hermeticity under accident conditions. The performance of the claddings will be evaluated through the corrosion test, reflood test, burst test, and non-destructive evaluation(NDE). | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Developing critical insights on the effects of Mo on _' precipitation and dislocation loop formation in FeCrAl alloys | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | This project aims at developing a mechanistic understanding on the effects of Mo on _' precipitation and dislocation loop formation in FeCrAl alloys in thermal and irradiation conditions and turns it into a set of design principles guiding further optimization, by integrating atomistic simulations, CALPHAD modeling, thermal aging, proton irradiation, and advanced characterization. The material discoveries will be generalized to other solutes other than Mo. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Inference of flow conditions from in-core detector measurements for accelerating SMR licensing | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Reactor modelling relies on the detailed description of reactor systems but often lacks the true as-built characteristics of a system. This proposal seeks to fill these geometrical data gaps using available detector data, predictive models and machine learning in order to provide better information to analysis tools and thus better prediction of future performance. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Non-Destructive Plutonium Assay in Pyroprocessing Bulk Materials with a 3D Boron-Coated-Straw Detector Array | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,100,000 | The objective of the proposed project is to develop and demonstrate a 3D boron-coated-straw detector array (3D-BCSDA) with high efficiency and spatial resolution. This detection system will be specifically designed to accurately assess the fissile mass in bulk nuclear material during pyroprocessing operations, thereby improving the precision and reliability of accountability measurements during separation. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Improving the computational efficiency and usability of dynamic PRA with reinforcement learning | University of Maryland, College Park | $1,064,400 | The overall objective of the proposed research is to improve the efficiency and usability of dynamic probabilistic risk assessment (PRA). Specifically, the first objective is to develop a new algorithm for dynamic PRA analysis that can significantly increase the computational efficiency. The second objective is to develop a question-answering system to streamline the process of risk-informed decision-making based on results obtained from the dynamic PRA analysis using the new algorithm. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Development of a Benchmark Model for the Near Real-Time Radionuclide Composition Measurement System using Microcalorimetry for Advanced Reactors | Virginia Commonwealth University | $1,100,000 | The primary goal of this proposed project is to develop high fidelity Monte Carlo radiation transport models of a microcalorimetry detector informed by fuel depletion models of a molten salt reactor and a pebble bed reactor to quantify the current and future capabilities of this detector technology to characterize and assay used fuel from these reactors in near real-time. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Development and Validation of a Dual-Purpose Instrument for On-line Monitoring of Molten Salt Composition and Thermal Behavior | Brigham Young University | $1,099,924 | We propose the development of an online monitoring instrument capable of quantifying heat transfer and salt composition for molten salt reactors (MSR). A dual electrochemistry/thermal conductivity probe (DETP) will be developed to measure the thermal properties and impurities within the salt simultaneously. The DETP will make use of a previously developed needle probe and electrodes for square-wave cyclic voltammetry measures of salt composition. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| In Situ Assessment of Molten Salt Transport into Nuclear Graphite Microstructures using Ultrasonic Sensors | Johns Hopkins University | $909,827 | This project focuses on the transport of molten salt into nuclear graphite along with the investigation of ultrasonic methods for sensing graphite material property changes, especially elastic modulus, associated with intrusion of molten salt into the graphite microstructure. Experimental studies coupled with physics-based simulations will be used to assess strategies for in situ sensing of salt intrusion in the reactor environment to enhance long-term viability of molten salt reactors. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| MONITORING CERAMIC FUEL FRACTURE VIA FIBER OPTIC ACOUSTIC EMISSION SENSORS | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $1,000,000 | In the proposed three-year program, the Center for Photonics Technology (CPT) at Virginia Tech will collaborate with Sentek Instrument (Sentek), Prysmian, and Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to develop and demonstrate a distributed acoustic emission (AE) sensing system for in-situ monitoring of ceramic fuel fracture. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| Concurrent Surrogate Model Development with Uncertainty Quantification in the MOOSE Framework Using Physics-Informed Gaussian-Process Machine Learning | University of Florida | $999,999 | The objective of this project is to develop a general capability for concurrent generation and use of physics-informed Gaussian process (GP)-based surrogate models to facilitate multiscale and multiphysics modeling. We will implement this new capability as part of the Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) so that every application based on the MOOSE framework will have access to it. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2024 |
| Unstructured Adaptive Mesh Algorithms for Monte Carlo Transport | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,098,000 | We propose to develop the fundamental methods and techniques for unstructured adaptive mesh refinement with Monte Carlo tallies. This work enables a transformative leap forward in speed, accuracy, and robustness to enhance the contribution of high-fidelity radiation transport to advanced simulation. Adaptive refinement is deployed on a challenging multiphysics simulation, cascading heat pipe failure, to study acceleration and stabilization properties. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2024 |
| Feasibility Study of Micro-Nuclear Reactor Thermal Output for Air Rotary Kilns in the High-Temperature Manufacturing of Portland Cement Clinker | Pennsylvania State University | $998,793 | This project aims to design and test a micro-nuclear reactor for high-temperature portland cement clinker production, a process responsible for 6%-8% of global CO2 emissions. Leveraging advanced reactors' heat output, the project explores TRISO-based nuclear microreactor core modifications and new working fluids for heat pipes. The research addresses uncertainties in micro-nuclear reactor deployment for clinker production and investigates high-efficiency heat exchanger designs. | Document | Non-Traditional and Non-electric Applications | FY2024 |
| Redox potential, ionic speciation, and separation and recovery challenges from molten salts containing actinides and fission products | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $999,999 | Establishing an efficient, safe, secure, and economical Molten-Salt Reactor (MSR) fuel cycle is imperative for MSR implementation. Molten salt fuel recycling technology requires predictive knowledge of the chemical and physical behavior of lanthanide and actinide ions with different oxidation states dissolved in solvent salts. A combination of off-gas and X-ray measurements with machine-learning simulations will be used to produce predictive modeling of separation and recovery conditions. | Document | Nuclear Fuel Recycle Technologies | FY2024 |
| Pre-Treatment and Bulk Separation of Used Fuels with Carbonate-Peroxide Solutions | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | To use carbonate-peroxide chemistries to develop a pre-processing method for used uranium-based fuels that enables the subsequent use and optimization of current solvent extraction reprocessing schemes. Using simple precipitation, this innovative method provides an initial, bulk separation of uranium from fission products and actinides. | Document | Nuclear Fuel Recycle Technologies | FY2024 |
| Optimization of Fueling Strategies and Material Surveillance through Real-time Pebble Tracking in Pebble Bed Reactors | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,100,000 | Flexible operation of the energy grid of the future introduces uncertainty in determining the optimal operating conditions of Pebble Bed Reactors. The proposed work will help to address these challenges and enable more economical operation by providing the tools to determine of optimal fuel reloading strategy through pebble identification and tracking. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Experimental Study and Computational Modeling of P-LOFC and D-LOFC Accidents in the Fast Modular Reactor Consisting of Silicon Carbide Composite Rods | University of Michigan | $1,100,000 | The primary objectives of this proposed research are to better understand NC flow phenomena and heat transfer under both D-LOFC and P-LOFC accidents in the FMR, produce experimental data in a well-scaled integral-effects test facility for the two accidents, and develop and validate predictive CFD models for NC flow phenomena in both accidents. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Sodium heat pipes; design and failure mode assessment for micro-reactor applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The present proposal aims to experimentally investigate the thermal-hydraulics performance of liquid sodium heat pipes applied to microreactors, with a focus on exploring different design parameters, effects of different parameters on operating performance and understanding the evolution and impact of different failure modes. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Interfacial Interactions between Graphite and Molten Fluoride Fuel Salt | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $1,000,000 | NaF-KF-UF4 fuel salt will be selected to study graphite-salt interactions and impact of the existence of fission products (FPs) and corrosion products on the interactions at different temperatures and pressures. Fundamental mechanisms of graphite-salt interaction and degradation will be understood. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Local resonance-based linear and nonlinear NDE techniques for repaired DSC wall structures | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | The proposed work plan will develop nondestructive examination (NDE) methods that develop and evaluate linear and nonlinear resonant ultrasound spectroscopy methods (such as NRUS, NIRAS, etc.) to cold spray (CS) repaired dry shielded canister (DSC) wall structures. With the support of our partners from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), we will perform technology development and validation on plain and cold spray-repaired DSC wall specimens. | Document | Spent Fuel, Waste Science & Technology and Integrated Waste Management System | FY2024 |
| Thermodynamic Models for Multivalent Actinide Solubility and Speciation as a Function of Temperature and Ionic Strength | University of Notre Dame | $1,000,000 | This proposed project will quantify the solubility and speciation of Np and Pu under temperatures, ionic strengths, and pH values that are relevant to the generic repository concept. The major deliverable will be full thermodynamic descriptions of the studied systems, which will lead to improved radionuclide transport models and support the development of a sound technical basis for the geologic disposal of spent nuclear fuel and other actinide-bearing wastes. | Document | Spent Fuel, Waste Science & Technology and Integrated Waste Management System | FY2024 |
| Advancing Fundamental Molten Salt Modeling using Ultrafast Spectroscopy | North Carolina State University | $600,000 | The overarching goal of the proposed research is to advance our fundamental understanding of molten salts by combining ultrafast spectroscopic experiments with high fidelity atomistic simulations. The proposed research will introduce a new experimental technique to the study of molten salts that will directly measure ion kinetics, specifically, terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS), which will further validate AIMD as a predictive modeling tool. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
| Hydrodynamics of Two-Phase Flow Under the Geometric Effects of Pipe Orientation and U-bends | Purdue University | $600,000 | Most two-phase flow analyses have been performed in straight vertical-upward pipes. However, nuclear reactor systems include piping with different geometric components, such as elbows or U-bends, as well as changes in flow orientations. The proposed work performs experiments in a scaled test facility existing at the institution's lab to investigate the effects of flow orientations and geometries relevant to nuclear reactor systems on the hydrodynamics of two-phase flow. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
| Interface-Resolved Experimental and Numerical Studies of Two-Phase Flow for Nuclear Engineering Applications | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $500,000 | The project aims at advancing the interface-resolved simulation capabilities for the two-phase flows found in various nuclear engineering applications. We will develop a comprehensive, high-resolution, interface-resolved database emphasizing bubble dynamics and bubble interaction mechanisms. The data will be used to validate the sub-grid models implemented in an interface-resolved simulation tool to improve simulation accuracy by developing physics-based coalescence models. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
FY 2019 Research and Development Awards
DOE is awarding more than $28.5 million through its Nuclear Energy University Program (NEUP) to support 40 university-led nuclear energy research and development projects in 23 states. NEUP seeks to maintain U.S. leadership in nuclear research across the country by providing top science and engineering faculty and their students with opportunities to develop innovative technologies and solutions for civil nuclear capabilities.
A complete list of R&D projects with their associated abstracts is available below.
| Title | Institution | Estimated Funding* | Project Description | Abstract | Project Type | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fundamental Understanding of Ambient and High-Temperature Plasticity Phenomena in Structural Materials in Advanced Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Elastic/Inelastic Nuclear Data Development Project | Idaho State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Heterogeneous Recycling in Fast Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Thermodynamic Development of Corrosion Rate Modeling in Iron Phosphate Glasses | Missouri University of Science and Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Subspace-Based Hybrid Monte Carlo-Deterministic Algorithms for Reactor Physics Calculations | North Carolina State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Improvements to Nuclear Data and Its Uncertainties by Theoretical Modeling | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Sharp Interface Tracking in Rotating Microflows of Solvent Extraction | State University of New York at Stony Brook | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Bulk Nanostructured FCC Steels with Enhanced Radiation Tolerance | Texas A&M University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Fuel Performance Experiments and Modeling: Fission Gas Bubble Nucleation and Growth in Alloy Nuclear Fuels | Texas A&M University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| SiC Schottky Diode Detectors for Measurement of Actinide Concentrations from Alpha Activities in Molten Salt Electrolyte | The Ohio State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Computational Design of Advanced Nuclear Fuels | University of California, Davis | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Data Collection Methods For Validation of Advanced Multi-Resolution Fast Reactor Simulations | University of Idaho | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Simulations of the Thermodynamic and Diffusion Properties of Actinide Oxide Fuel Materials | University of Michigan | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Adsorptive Separation and Sequestration of Krypton, I and C14 on Diamond Nanoparticles | University of Missouri, Columbia | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Alternative Technetium Waste Forms | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Quantification of UV-Visible and Laser Spectroscopic Techniques for Materials Accountability and Process Control | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| High-Fidelity Space-Time Adaptive Multiphysics Simulations in Nuclear Engineering | University of Nevada, Reno | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Simulations of Failure via Three-Dimensional Cracking in Fuel Cladding for Advanced Nuclear Fuels | University of Texas, Dallas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Mesh-Enabled Monte Carlo Capability for Multi-Physics Reactor Analysis | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Ab Initio Enhanced Calphad Modeling of Actinide Rich Nuclear Fuels | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Diffusion Barrier Coatings and Deposition Technologies for Mitigating Fuel Cladding Chemical Interactions (FCCI) | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Thermal Properties of LiCl-KCl Molten Salt for Nuclear Waste Separation | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Neutron Damage and MAX Phase Ternary Compounds | Drexel University | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Atomistic Calculations of the Effect of Minor Actinides on Thermodynamic and Kinetic Properties of UO2+x | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Maximum Fuel Utilization in Fast Reactors without Chemical Reprocessing | University of California, Berkeley | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Developing a High Thermal Conductivity Fuel with Silicon Carbide Additives | University of Florida | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Fabrication of Tungsten-Rhenium Cladding Materials via Spark Plasma Sintering for Ultra High Temperature Reactor Applications | University of Idaho | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Ionic Liquid and Supercritical Fluid Hyphenated Techniques for Dissolution and Separation of Lanthanides, Actinides, and Fission Products | University of Idaho | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Improved Fission Neutron Data Base for Active Interrogation of Actinides | University of Michigan | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Utilization of Methacrylates and Polymer Matrices for the Synthesis of Ion Specific Resins | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Improved LWR Cladding Performance by EPD Surface Modification Technique | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Models of LWR Pressure Vessel Embrittlement for Low Flux-High Fluence Conditions | University of California, Santa Barbara | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) | FY2009 | ||
| Irradiation Creep in Graphite | Boise State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Modeling the Stress Strain Relationships and Predicting Failure Probabilities For Graphite Core Components | Cleveland State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| TRISO-Coated Fuel Durability Under Extreme Conditions | Colorado School of Mines | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| An Innovative and Advanced Coupled Neutron Transport and Thermal Hydraulic Method (Tool) for the Design, Analysis and Optimization of VHTR/NGNP Prismatic Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Removal of 14C from Irradiated Graphite for Graphite Recycle and Waste Volume Reduction | Idaho State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Millimeter-Wave Thermal Analysis Development and Application to Gen IV Reactor Materials | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Accurate Development of Thermal Neutron Scattering Cross Section Libraries | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Understanding Creep Mechanisms in Graphite with Experiments, Multiscale Simulations, and Modeling | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Verification & Validation of High-Order Short-Characteristics-Based Deterministic Transport Methodology on Unstructured Grids | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Microscale Heat Conduction Models and Doppler Feedback | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Optimizing Neutron Thermal Scattering Effects in Very High Temperature Reactors | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Multiaxial Creep-Fatigue and CreepRatcheting Failures of Grade 91 and Haynes 230 Alloys Toward Addressing Design Issues of Gen IV Nuclear Power Plants | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Investigation of Countercurrent Helium-air Flows in Air-ingress Accidents for VHTRs | Ohio State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Testing of Performance of Optical Fibers Under Irradiation in Intense Radiation Fields, When Subjected to Very High Temperatures | Ohio State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| A Distributed Fiber Optic Sensor Network for Online 3-D Temperature and Neutron Fluence Mapping in a VHTR Environment | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Investigation on the Core Bypass Flow in a Very High Temperature Reactor | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| CFD Model Development and Validation for High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor Cavity Cooling System (RCCS) Applications | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Study of Air ingress across the duct during the accident conditions | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Verification of the CENTRM Module for Adaptation of the SCALE Code to NGNP Prismatic and PBR Core Designs | University of Arizona | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Integral and Separate Effects Tests for Thermal Hydraulics Code Validation for Liquid-Salt Cooled Nuclear Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Mechanisms Governing the Creep Behavior of High Temperature Alloys for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems | University of Cincinnati | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| ALD Produced B2O3, Al2O3 and TiO2 Coatings on Gd2O3 Burnable Poison Nanoparticles | University of Colorado, Boulder | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Experimental Study and Computational Simulations of Key Pebble Bed Thermomechanics Issues for Design and Safety | University of Idaho | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Prediction and Monitoring Systems of Creep-Fracture Behavior of 9Cr-1Mo Steels for Reactor Pressure Vessels | University of Idaho | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Understanding Fundamental Material Degradation Processes in High Temperature Aggressive Chemomechanical Environments | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Multi-Scale Multi-physics Methods Development for the Calculation of Hot-Spots in the NGNP | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Corrosion and Creep of Candidate Alloys in High Temperature Helium and Steam Environments for the NGNP | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Creation of a Full-Core HTR Benchmark with the Fort St. Vrain Initial Core and Validation of the DHF Method with Helios for NGNP Configurations | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Fission Product Sorptivity in Graphite | University of Missouri, Columbia | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Identifying and Understanding Environment-Induced Crack Propagation Behavior in Ni-Based Superalloy INCONEL 617 | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Graphite Oxidation Simulation in HTR Accident Conditions | University of New Mexico | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Non Destructive Thermal Analysis and In Situ Investigation of Creep Mechanism of Graphite and Ceramic Composites using Phase-sensitive THz Imaging & Nonlinear Resonant Ultrasonic Spectroscopy | University of Rochester | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Tritium Sequestration in Gen IV NGNP Gas Stream via Proton Conducting Ceramic Pumps | University of South Carolina | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Materials, Turbomachinery and Heat Exchangers for Supercritical CO2 Systems | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Experimental Studies of NGNP Reactor Cavity Cooling System with Water | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Assessment of Embrittlement of VHTR Structural Alloys in Impure Helium Environments | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Modeling Fission Product Sorption in Graphite Structures | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Liquid Salt Heat Exchanger Technology for VHTR Based Applications | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Effect of Post-Weld Heat Treatment on Creep Rupture Properties of Grade 91 Steel Heavy Section Welds | Utah State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Alpha Radiolysis of Nuclear Solvent Extraction Ligands used for An(III) and Ln(III) Separations | California State University, Long Beach | $1,390,252 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Predictive Maturity of Multi-Scale Simulation Models for Fuel Performance | Clemson University | $614,690 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Freeze-casting as a Novel Manufacturing Process for Fast Reactor Fuels | Drexel University | $1,149,327 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Fuel Performance Experiments on the Atomistic Level, Studying Fuel Through Engineered Single Crystal UO2 | Idaho State University | $650,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Development of A Self Biased High Efficiency Solid-State Neutron Detector for MPACT Applications | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $810,141 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Development of a Innovative High Thermal Conductivity UO 2 Ceramic Composites Fuel Pellets with Carbon Nano-Tubes Using Spark Plasma Sintering | University of Florida | $894,042 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Exploration and Modeling of Structural Changes in Waste Glass under Corrosion | Pennsylvania State University | $1,377,444 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Evaluation of materials for interim storage of spent fuel for more than 100 years | University of Michigan | $931,603 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Implementation of On-the-Fly Doppler Broadening in MCNP5 for Multiphysics Simulation of Nuclear Reactors | University of Michigan | $406,712 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Methods and tools to allow molecular flow simulations to be coupled to higher level continuum descriptions of flows in porous/fractured media and aerosol/dust dynamics | University of Missouri-Columbi | $541,286 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Characterization and Modeling of Materials for Kr-Xe Separations | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $989,800 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Modeling Solute Thermokinetics in LiCl-KCl Molten Salt for Nuclear Waste Separation | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $616,073 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Advanced Aqueous Separation Systems for Actinide Partitioning: Develop Fundamental Understanding of An(III)/Ln(III) Separation | Washington State University | $1,451,784 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Consistent Multigroup Theory Enabling Accurate Coarse-Group Simulation of GenIV Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,046,277 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Studies of Deteriorated Heat Transfer in Prismatic Cores Stemming from Irradiation-Induced Geometry Distortion | Idaho State University | $1,287,921 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Carbide Coatings for Nickel Alloys, Graphite, and Carbon/Carbon Composites to be Used in Fluoride Salt Valves | Johns Hopkins University | $1,183,239 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Design, Testing, and Modeling of the Direct Reactor Auxiliary Cooling System for AHTRs | Ohio State University | $1,366,627 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Monitoring microstructural evolution of Alloy 617 with nonlinear acoustics for remaining useful life prediction; multiaxial creep-fatigue and creep-ratcheting | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development and Validation of Multidimensional Models of Supercritical CO 2 Energy Conversion Systems for Nuclear Power Reactors | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $475,005 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Microstructure and Property Evolution in Advanced Cladding and Duct Materials Under Long-Term and Elevated Temperature Irradiation: Modeling and Experimental Investigation | University of California-Berkeley | $1,320,667 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of Barrier Layers for the Protection of Candidate Alloys in the VHTR | University of California-Santa Barbara | $995,232 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Investigation of a Novel NDE Method for Monitoring Thermo-Mechanical Damage and Microstructure Evolution in Ferritic-Martensitic Steels for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems | University of Cincinnati | $833,109 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Fission Product Transport in TRISO Particle Layers under Operating and Off-Normal Conditions | University of Michigan | $966,581 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Microstructure and Property Evolution in Advanced Cladding and Duct Materials Under Long-Term Irradiation at Elevated Temperature: Critical Experiments | University of Michigan | $1,181,379 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Three-dimensional NDE of VHTR Core Components via Simulation-based Testing | University of Minnesota | $1,366,163 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Failure Predictions for VHTR Core Components using a Probabilistic Continuum Damage Mechanics Model | University of Minnesota | $854,542 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of a Scanning Microscale Fast Neutron Irradiation Platform for Examining the Correlation Between Local Neutron Damage and Graphite Microstructure | University of Missouri-Columbia | $703,064 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of Thermal Transient Flow Rate Sensors for High Temperature, Irradiation, Corrosive Environment | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $451,269 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Novel Methods of Tritium Sequestration: High Temperature Gettering and Separation Membrane Materials Discovery for Nuclear Energy Systems | University of South Carolina | $1,366,626 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Heat Transfer Salts for Nuclear Reactor Systems - Chemistry Control, Corrosion Mitigation, and Modeling | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,352,040 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Pulsed Magnetic Welding for Advanced Core and Cladding Steels | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $525,206 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Corrosion in Supercritical Carbon Dioxide: Materials, Environmental Purity, Surface Treatments, and Flow Issues | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $651,447 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Multiscale Concrete Modeling for Aging Degradation | Mississippi State University | $345,941 | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability | FY2010 | |
| Development of an advanced computational fluid dynamics technology for the next-generation nuclear reactor system analysis and safety margin characterization code | North Carolina State University | $418,199 | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability | FY2010 | |
| Precursor Derived Nanostructured Si-C-X Materials for Nuclear Applications | University of Washington | $899,518 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Development and Testing of an Open-Loop Oscillator for Small Reactivity Worth Samples | Idaho State University | $597,252 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Understanding the Irradiation Behavior of Zirconium Carbide | Pennsylvania State University | $870,613 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Modeling investigation of the stability and irradiation-induced evolution of nanoscale precipitates in advanced structural materials | University of Tennessee-Knoxville | $380,653 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Investigation of Laser Shock Peening for Enhancing Fatigue and Stress Corrosion Cracking Resistance of Nuclear Energy Materials | University of Cincinnati | $1,242,019 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Irradiation Accelerated Corrosion of Reactor Core Materials | University of Michigan | $798,943 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Study of Interfacial Interactions using Thin Film Surface Modification: Radiation and Oxidation Effects in Materials | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $538,032 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Novel Engineered Refractory Materials for Advanced Reactor Applications | North Carolina State University | $1,129,304 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Quantification of Cation Sorption to Engineered Barrier Materials Under Extreme Conditions | Clemson University | $1,171,380 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| In-Pile Instrumentation Multi-Parameter System Utilizing Photonic Fibers and Nanovision | Idaho State University | $1,199,990 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Development of Plasmonically Cloaked Nanoparticles | Idaho State University | $800,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Fission Product Transmutation in Mixed Radiation Fields | Idaho State University | $800,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Life Prediction of Spent Fuel Storage Canister Material | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $899,826 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Active Interrogation using Photofission Technique for Nuclear Materials Control and Accountability | Oregon State University | $900,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Anisotropic Azimuthal Power and Temperature Distribution on Fuel Rod: Impact of Hydride Distribution | Pennsylvania State University | $631,956 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Sorption Modeling and Verification for Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Microemulsions and Aggregation Formation in Extraction Processes for Used Nuclear Fuel: Thermodynamics and Structural Studies | University of California, Irvine | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Optimized Processing Fabrication Paths for Larger Heats of Nanostructured Ferritic Alloys | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Basic Physics Data: Measurement of Neutron Multiplicity from Induced Fission | University of Michigan | $973,364 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Radionuclide Incorporation and Long Term Performance of Apatite Waste Forms | University of Michigan | $862,500 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Actinide Foil Production for MPACT Research | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $156,897 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Enriched Boron-Doped Amorphous Selenium Based Position-Sensitive Solid-State Thermal Neutron Detector for MPACT Applications | University of South Carolina | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Development of Advanced High Uranium Density Fuels for Light Water Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Developing the User Experience for a Next Generation Nuclear Fuel Cycle Simulator | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,200,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Preparation and Development of Polymer-Supported Extractants | City College of New York, Hunter | $363,716 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| One-Dimensional Nanostructures for Neutron Detection | North Carolina State University | $455,629 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Feasibility and Safety Assessment for Advanced Reactor Concepts Using Vented Fuel | Oregon State University | $600,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| High Temperature Transducers for Online Monitoring of Microstructure Evolution | Pennsylvania State University | $455,628 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Laser-Arc Hybrid Welding of Thick Section Ni-base Alloys- Advanced Modeling and Experiments | Pennsylvania State University | $536,117 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Correlates of Sensitive Technologies | Texas A&M University | $509,467 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Improved Safety Margin Characterization of Risk from Loss of Offsite Power | Texas A&M University | $600,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| A High Temperature-Tolerant and Radiation-Resistant In-Core Neutron Sensor for Advanced Reactors | The Ohio State University | $455,629 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Pathway Aggregation in the Risk Assessment of Proliferation Resistance and Physical Protection (PR&PP) of Nuclear Energy Systems | The Ohio State University | $534,471 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Preparation of High Purity, High Molecular-Weight Chitin from Ionic Liquids for Use as an Adsorbate for the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Alabama | $338,260 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Selectivity in Ligand Binding to Uranyl Compounds: A Synthetic, Structural, Thermodynamic and Computational Study | University of California-Berkeley | $500,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Seismic Isolation Systems Using Periodic Materials | University of Houston | $538,154 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium from Seawater | University of Idaho | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Austenitic ODS Strengthened Alloys for Very High Temperature Applications | University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign | $538,154 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Enhancement of the Extraction of the Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Transient Safety Analysis of Fast Spectrum TRU Burning LWR with Internal Blankets | University of Michigan | $599,475 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Novel Sorbents for Uranium Extraction from Seawater | University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Radiation Behavior of High-Entropy Alloys for Advanced Reactors | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $538,159 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Rapid Computer Aided Ligand Design and Screening of Precious Metal Extractants from TRUEX Raffinate with Experimental Validation | Washington State University | $500,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of an Efficient Meso-Scale Multi-Phase Flow Solver in Nuclear Applications | City College of New York | $505,858 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Multiscale Modeling and Uncertainty Quantification for Nuclear Fuel Performance | Colorado State University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Fundamental Studies of the Role of Grain Boundaries on Uniform Corrosion of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Materials | Drexel University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Phenomena-based Uncertainty Quantification in Predictive Coupled-Physics Reactor Simulations | Texas A&M University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Characterization of Modeling of Grain Boundary Chemistry Evolution in Ferritic Steels Under Irradiation | University of Michigan | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Development of Multiscale Materials Modeling Techniques and Coarse-Graining Strategies for Predicting Materials Degradation in Extreme Irradiation Environments | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $750,000 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Diffusion, Thermal Properties and chemical Compatibilities of Select MAX Phases with Materials for Advanced Nuclear Systems | Drexel University | $535,927 | Document | Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) | FY2011 | |
| A New Light Weight Structural Material for Nuclear Structures | North Carolina State University | $399,490 | Document | Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) | FY2011 | |
| Experimental Investigation of Convection and Heat Transfer in the Reactor Core for a VHTR | City College of New York | $1,118,856 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Graphite Microstructural Characterization Using Time-Domain and Correlation-Based Ultrasonics | Johns Hopkins University | $1,199,997 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Methodology Development for Passive Component Reliability Modeling in a Multi-Physics Simulation Environment | The Ohio State University | $533,457 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Pebble Fuel Handling and Reactivity Control for Salt-Cooled High Temperature Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $612,721 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Self-Sustaining Thorium Boiling Water Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $1,145,932 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| High Fluency Low Flux Embrittlement Models of LWR Reactor Pressure Vessel Embrittlement and a Supporting Database from the UCSB ATR-2 Irradiation Experiment | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,199,607 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| A Research Program for Fission Product/Dust Transport in HTGR's | University of Missouri-Columbia | $1,157,367 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Development and Validation of a Lifecycle-based Prognostics Architecture with Test Bed Validation | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $846,315 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| In-situ Condition Monitoring of Components in Small Modular Reactors Using Process and Electrical Signature Analysis | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $650,000 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Technical Development for S-CO2 Advanced Energy Conversion | University of Wisconsin | $815,000 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Ag Transport Through Non-Irradiated and Irradiated SiC | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,055,456 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Critical Heat Flux Phenomena at High Pressure and Low Mass Fluxes: Tests and Models | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,199,781 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Modeling and Test Validation of a Reactor Cavity Cooling System with Air | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,199,988 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Transient Mixed Convection Validation for NGNP | Utah State University | $635,860 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Alternative High-Performance Ceramic Waste Forms | Alfred University | $840,000 | This project aims to advance fundamental understanding of the kinetics of structural evolution of crystalline ceramic waste forms. The structure/property relationships will be identified and will reveal new formulations, improved processing routes, and strategies for improved performance or ceramic waste forms. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Surface Layer Bulk Glass Interface Evolution with Aqueous Corrosion | Alfred University | $880,000 | This project will investigate the links between the morphology, structure and chemistry of surface layer-bulk glass interface and the long-term corrosion-reaction kinetics using in-situ and ex-situ experiments. The understanding will result in improved models for long-term predictive behavior of high-level-waste (HLW) glasses under repository conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Optimization of Deep Borehole Systems for HLW Disposal | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $850,000 | Researchers aim to carry out a comprehensive evaluation of the deep borehole option for disposal of used nuclear fuel and high livel waste. The models developed will predict potential movement of water through natural and engineered barriers and release of radionuclides to the biosphere which will aide in site selection. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Scholarship for Nuclear Communications and Methods for Evaluation of Nuclear Project Acceptability | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will work to develop a model to characterize the factors affecting social acceptance of nuclear projects with potential stakeholders. The resultant model will strengthen the ability to design and implement large projects more efficiently, leading to higher rates of success of future nuclear projects. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Accurate Holdup Calculations with Predictive Modeling and Data Integration | North Carolina State University | $875,000 | Researchers will develop and use state-of-the-art radiation transport codes to account accurately for the fissile material in a nuclear materials processing facility. An accurate estimation of the materials will allow for ensured radiological safety, security, waste management and efficient plant operation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Testing of Sapphire Optical Fiber and Sensors in Intense Radiation Fields, when Subjected to Very High Temperatures | The Ohio State University | $885,000 | The researchers on this project will investigate the performance of sapphire optical fibers and sensors in reactor environments. The project, if successful, will result in improved instrumentation to understand the behavior and predict performance of nuclear fuel systems at the microstructural level. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Concrete Materials with Ultra-High Damage Resistance and Self-Sensing Capacity for Extended Nuclear Fuel Storage Systems | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | Researchers aim to design a new class of multifunctional concrete materials. This project, if successful, will result in a novel multifunctional concrete material that possesses inherent degradation monitoring capability and is suitable for an extended storage system for the used nuclear fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Probabilistic Multi-Hazard Assessment of Dry Cask Structures | University of Houston | $865,000 | This project aims to investigate the performance of dry cask storage systems under multiple hazard systems (earthquake, tornados, combined with aging effects) using a probabilistic multi-hazard framework. This framework will be validated based on experimental research and will provide improved models for safety and reliability of spent nuclear fuels during storage and transportation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Electrochemical Corrosion Studies for Modeling Metallic Waste Form Release Rates | University of Nevada- Las Vegas | $790,000 | This project aims to use advanced electrochemical methods to investigate the corrosion related degradation of metal alloys used for housing fission products. The data obtained from this study will allow for the prediction of the long-term behavior of the metallic host phase materials over geological time-scales. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Development and Experimental Benchmark of Simulations to Predict Used Nuclear Fuel Cladding Temperatures during Drying and Transfer Operations | University of Nevada- Reno | $745,000 | Researchers will conduct experiments to investigate and develop advanced computational models of heat transfer in post-pool-storage drying operations. This project, if successful, will result in tools that can be used to design efficient drying processes to as to ensure suitability for dry-cask systems for long-term storage and transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Seismic Performance of Dry Casks Storage for Long-Term Exposure | University of Utah | $873,319 | Researchers will evaluate the mechanical performance of dry-cask storage under seismic loading for mid-term operational periods. Simulations will include scenarios for freestanding, anchored, and vaulted casks. The experimental tests will also evaluate the dynamic seismic response of freestanding and anchored dry-cask storage prototypes, providing recommendations for optimal Interim Spent Fuel Storage Installations (ISFSIs) design. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Coupling of Nuclear Waste Form Corrosion and Radionuclide Transport in Presence of Relevant Repository Sediments | Washington State University | $885,000 | Researchers will conduct experiments to understand the mechanisms responsible for the corrosion of nuclear waste forms in realistic chemical environments. The data generated from these experiments will enable increased reliability of the models used to predict the waste form performance in repository environments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| ABR for TRU Transmutation with Breed & Burn Thorium Blanket for Improved Economics and Resource Utilization | University of California- Berkeley | $450,000 | The research team will use detailed neutronic analysis for a new Advanced Burner Reactor concept with low conversion ratio. The concept will use a new core shape to improve the utilization of neutrons to perform breed and burn. | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2012 |
| Atomic-Scale to Meso-Scale Simulation Studies of Thermal Ageing and Irradiation Effects in Fe-Cr Alloys | Boston University | $874,997 | Researchers will develop predictive, multi-scale simulation tools for iron-chromium alloys, which are expected to be key components of advanced steels envisioned as fuel cladding and structural components for Generation IV reactors. Such modeling is necessary to avoid resource intensive and costly thermal and neutron irradiation experiments to obtain required performance data. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Validation Data and Model Development for Fuel Assembly Response to Seismic Loads | George Washington University | $862,435 | Researchers will conduct experiments that will provide comprehensive data characterizing the dynamics of the fluid and the structure in Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR) fuel assemblies under seismic loads (earthquakes and loss of coolant accidents). Completion of their project will greatly benefit the safety of existing and future nuclear reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Uncertainty Quantification and Management for Multiscale Nuclear Materials Modeling | Georgia Institute of Technology | $743,444 | Researchers will address the question of uncertainty propogation and error estimates associated with model prediction of material behavior under irradiation. Their work will facilitate a better understanding of the connection of various unit processes to collective responses in a multiscale model chain enabling the development of high strength and high ductility materials. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Nonlinear Ultrasonic Techniques to Monitor Radiation Damage in RPV and Internal Components | Georgia Institute of Technology | $877,000 | Researchers will explore new nondestructive materials evaluation and monitoring techniques utilizing nonlinear ultrasonic measurements . This technique will allow researchers to assess remaining useful life of select reactor components. Breakthroughs in this area will lead to the ability to characterize radiation damage in reactor pressure vessels and other components-leading to a clearer definition of reactor safety margins. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Intergral Reactor Containment Condensation Model and Experimental Validation | Oregon State University | $871,119 | Researchers will conduct experiments to enhance the safety and efficiency of small modular reactors (SMRs). This project will assess the impact of high-pressure steam condensation on steel containment vessels to be used for SMR deigns. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Irradiation Performance of Fe-Cr Base Alloys | University of Illinois- Urbana Champaign | $876,332 | _Researchers will perform post-radiation analysis and develop tools for future development and application of the Fe-Cr class of alloys. The results of this research will lead to better modeling of performance and development of an alloy designated as the primary choice for reactor fuel cladding and structural applications in advanced systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Experimentally Validated Numerical Models for Effects of Non-Isothermal Turbulent Mixing on Wall Stresses in High Temperature Reactors | University of Pittsburgh | $876,422 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive experimentally validated computational framework for the turbulent mixing in the lower plenum of a very high temperature reactor (VHTR). Through CFD modeling and experimental validation, the results from this project will lay the groundwork for future stress analysis, failure and fatigue studies, and uncertainty quantification for the VHTR system. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Mechanical Behavior of UO2 at Sub-grain Length Scales: Quantification of Elastic, Plastic and Creep Properties via Microscale Testing | Arizona State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop techniques to measure properties at sub-grain scales using depleted Uranium Oxide samples. The project will provide a framework to measure sub-grain scale mechanical properties, as well as provide experimental data to improve the understanding of advanced oxide fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| The Impacts of Pore-Scale Physical and Chemical Heterogeneities on the Transport of Radionuclide-Carrying Colloids | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will identify the dominant transport mechanisms to develop models that predict radionuclide distribution in porous materials. Experimental and computational models will be created that couple pore-scale geometric and interfacial structures. Simulators such as these are a necessary step towards fully predictive models for field-scale applications in the future. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Polymer-Supported Aminophosphinates as Selective Extractants | Hunter College, CUNY | $399,999 | Researchers will prepare a polymer-supported extractant for the recovery of uranium from seawater. The project will focus on primary amines that could provide a 3-fold increase in uranium capture capacity than current methods. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| In-pile Thermal Conductivity Characterization with Single-laser Heating/Time Resolved Raman | Iowa State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a time-resolved Raman-based thermal conductivity measurement system to improve remote in-pile thermal conductivity measurement. These measurements will provide new insights into the behavior of materials exposed to extreme radiation and temperature environments. Understanding the behavior of materials at the microstructural level will support optimized fuel designs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Organic Speciation and Interactions in ALSEP - One Step Partitioning Process of Minor Actinides, Lanthanides, and Fission Products | Oregon State University | $600,000 | Researchers will investigate the Actinide-Lanthanide Separation (ALSEP) process organic phase prior to aqueous phase separation and after aqueous separation phases of bare and metal-loaded acids. Quantifying these effects can be used to determine how an engineering scale process will perform and generate an accurate chemical model for the system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Glass Composition and Solution Speciation Effects on Stage III Dissolution | Pennsylvania State University | $700,000 | Researchers will study the chemical and structural triggers of long-term vitrified nuclear waste form behavior. They will study a range of waste glass compositions in corrosive environments. The study will improve understanding of the long-term residual rate and may provide new options for environmental control of glass dissolution rates. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Correlating Thermal, Mechanical, and Electrical Coupling Based Multiphysics Behavior of Nuclear Materials Through In-Situ Measurements | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will use in-situ experimental techniques to monitor the influence of extreme conditions on fuel cladding. The project will establish an in-situ experimental setup that can predict change in thermal properties and their correlation with mechanical properties and correlate such changes to changes in microstructural and chemical features. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Creation of a Geant4 Muon Tomography Package for Imaging of Nuclear Fuel in Dry Cask Storage | Purdue University | $440,000 | Researchers will develop a simulation and analysis package to aid in the non-destructive assessment of sealed used nuclear fuel dry casks using cosmic ray muons. Cosmic ray muon tomography allows for non-destructive assessment that can independently verify and identify weapons grade material sealed within dense dry casks. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Fuel Cycle Data Packages for Two-stage Fast Reactor Fuel Cycle Options for Optimum Resource Utilization and Waste Management | Purdue University | $400,000 | Researchers will evaluate the two different two-stage fast reactor fuel cycle options that will offer efficient use of uranium resources and the ability to burn actinides and long-live fission products. Evaluation of these fast fuel cycle options will serve as a useful complement to the options currently being considered in the Fuel Cycle Options Campaign. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Mixed Metal Phosphonate-Phosphate Resins for Separation of Lanthanides from Actinides | Texas A&M University | $650,000 | Researchers will use ion exchangers to cleanly separate lanthanides and curium from reusable actinides. The study will assist in the development of an inexpensive, simple way in which to separate lanthanides from actinides found in used nuclear fuel rods and to recover a large portion of the usable fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Safeguards in Pyroprocessing: an Integrated Model Development and Measurement Data Analysis | The Ohio State University | $626,151 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive and effective safeguards approach for a pyroprocessing facility to support safeguards for future fuel cycles in the United States. The new approach and design will focus directly on the special nuclear materials in the electrorefiner where actinides are separated from fission products through electrochemical process. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Using Ionic Liquids for the Development of Renewable Biopolymer-Based Adsorbents for the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater and Testing Under Marine Conditions | University of Alabama | $400,000 | Researchers will explore the fundamental engineering parameters for a renewable high-performance adsorbent for the extraction of uranium from sweater based on a recently proven ionic liquid (IL)-chitin platform. The project will use the platform to develop a versatile, modifiable adsorbent and characterize its performance and degradation in marine conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Developing Ultra-Small Scale Mechanical Testing Methods and Microstructural Investigation Procedures for Irradiated Materials. | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop new small-scale mechanical testing techniques to allow for the estimation or direct measurement of bulk properties. The combined experiments and modeling will significantly enhance the statistics and information that can be obtained on small radioactive archived samples, as well as new ion beam irradiated specimens. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Improved Delayed-Neutron Spectroscopy Using Trapped Ions | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will develop innovative spectroscopy techniques to measure the decay of fission fragments. The resulting data from these new techniques will be used to better understand reactor kinetics under accident conditions and failure scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Thermally and Chemically Responsive Nanoporous Materials for Efficient Capture of Fission Product Gases | University of California, Davis | $750,000 | Researchers will create new nanoporous materials that will be highly effective at capturing fission product gases. These materials would be relevant to both reactor fuels applications and reprocessing operations. Tests will be performed in carbon based and nitride based nanostructures, with the most promising materials from the modeling perspective undergoing further testing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Multiphase Nanocrystalline Ceramic Concept for Nuclear Fuel | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | Researchers will study the use of nanoparticles and nanostructured ceramics to create new materials that can extend the service life and increase efficiency for nuclear fuel. Multiphase nanocrystalline ceramics will be used to design simulated nuclear fuel that can provide added plasticity, better radiation tolerance and improved thermal conductivity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Novel Porous Sorbents for Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Chicago | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a highly porous sorbent for the extraction of uranium from seawater. Previous research has established sorbent performance. This project will use past foundational studies to design and investigate a new nanocomposites that will be processed into tacks or braids for field tests in seawater tests. The technology may also be used for other metals. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Microwave Readout Techniques for Very Large Arrays of Nuclear Sensors | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,937 | Researchers will develop a powerful readout technique based on microwave transmission and reflection. The technique will enable very large arrays of diverse sensor types for nuclear materials quantification and tracking. It will provide more accurate data on material composition and quantity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| BiI3 Gamma-Ray Spectrometers for Reliable Room-Temperature Nuclear Materials Safeguarding | University of Florida | $799,999 | Researchers will develop gamma-ray spectrometers based on BiI3 single crystals for MPACT applications such as burnup validation quantification, improved assay of plutonium, determination of uranium enrichment and overall monitoring spent fuel within the fuel cycle. The project will improve energy resolution, efficiency and environmental performance with this new gamma-ray detector. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Innovative Coating of Nanostructured Vanadium Carbide on the F/M Cladding Tube Inner Surface for Mitigating the Fuel Cladding Chemical Interactions | University of Florida | $760,276 | Researchers will develop barrier coatings on the inner surface of fuel cladding tubes to improve performance of materials at elevated temperatures and high neutron exposures in fast reactors. The project will develop and test a low temperature coating process of nanostructured vanadium carbide that will provide a benchmark for use in future studies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Doubling the Life of Concrete Structures | University of Idaho | $800,000 | Researchers will use nanoscale techniques to develop methods for doubling the service life of concrete structures. They will study the effect of temperature load and temperature cycling (freezing and thawing) on the durability of concrete with nanoscale viscosity modifiers. The project will benefit from non-destructive evaluation of concrete performance through electrochemical techniques. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Off-Gas Treatment: Evaluation of Nano-structured Sorbents for Selective Removal of Contaminants | University of Idaho | $785,910 | Researchers will evaluate nanostructured sorbent materials for their effectiveness in removing and immobilizing radionuclides for the off-gas treatment from used nuclear fuel recycling operations. The project aims at achieving near-zero emissions of radionuclides by capturing them from the off-gas of recycling operations, allowing for the development of advanced fuel cycles. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium and Transition Metals from Amidoxime-Based Sorbents | University of Idaho | $399,864 | Researchers will develop a new two-step elution process to achieve total recovery of uranium and effective recycling of the sorbent. The extraction process would selectively remove uranium from the sorbent with little or no damage. The process would then remove transition metals and regenerate the sorbent for repeated use, making uranium extraction from seawater economically viable. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Performance of a Steel/Oxide Composite Waste Form for Combined Waste Streams from Advanced Electrochemical Processes over Geologic Time Scales | University of Illinois at Chicago | $700,000 | Researchers will develop and validate a mechanistically-based corrosion model for cermet-type waste forms, creating a testing protocol and modeling approach for predicting long-term performance. The study will apply novel electrochemical testing and modeling methods to the behavior of metal/oxide phase boundaries to evaluate waste form performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Enhancement of the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland, College Park | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and optimize novel adsorbents for uranium recovery from seawater. The team will use radiation-induced grafting of organic phosphates onto polymers. The experiments will use ocean water, with mechanistic analysis, to provide a solid basis for large-scale demonstration of the performance of the new adsorbents in ocean environments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Improving the Understanding of the Coupled Thermal-Mechanical-Hydrologic Behavior of Consolidating Granular Salt | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will increase the understanding of granular salt seal materials for shafts, drifts and boreholes. By coupling thermal, mechanical and hydrological responses, the study will result in greater confidence in granular salt consolidation as a principal strategy for closure and isolation of long-term waste repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Fission Fragment Yield Data in Support of Advanced Reactor Technology | University of New Mexico | $399,816 | Researchers will produce a highly accurate data set for thermal fission. These precision data are necessary for high-accuracy simulations of nuclear criticality, transmutation rates, radiation effects and heating as well as for nuclear fuel, material accounting and identification needs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Molecular dynamics-based simulations of bulk/interfacial structures and diffusion behaviors in nuclear waste glasses | University of North Texas | $700,000 | Researchers will generate accurate atomic structural models for use in Monte Carlo simulations of the dissolution of nuclear waste glasses. Large-scale molecular dynamics-based computer simulations will be used to investigate self-diffusion behaviors, interfacial structure, and other structures formed during dissolution of these glasses. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| U3Si2 Fabrication and Testing for Implementation into the BISON Fuel Performance Code | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will fabricate, test and model a high uranium density, advanced nuclear fuel that operates at a much lower temperature and stores less energy. The work will deliver key research data on creep and grain growth, improving economics, through possible power uprates, and advancing accident tolerant fuels research. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Structural Health Monitoring of Nuclear Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of South Carolina | $738,618 | Researchers will develop a nuclear structural health monitoring system based on a sensing technology that monitors material degradation and aging for dry cask storage systems. The low-cost, low-profile sensors will perform on-demand monitoring of the structural integrity of individual components as well as the entire system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| ORIGEN-based Nuclear Fuel Depletion Module for Fuel Cycle Assessment | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $755,181 | Researchers will develop a flexible reactor analysis module for the CYCLUS fuel cycle simulator based on established tools for reactor fuel depletion and decay. They will use ORIGEN, a mature and experimentally validated code, affording greater flexibility and allowing for accurate evaluations of impacts of both present and future fuel cycle options. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Cost and System Analysis of Innovative Fuel Resources Concepts | University of Texas at Austin | $295,960 | This project will develop and test braided polymer fiber adsorbents that surpass the sorption capacity, selectivity and durability of the best existing technology to recover uranium from seawater. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Risk Assessment of Structural Integrity of Transportation Casks | University of Utah | $789,296 | Researchers will assess the loss of structural integrity of transportation casks and fuel cladding after extended storage. This risk assessment will conduct experimental tests and simulations to evaluate the structural performance of fuel, fuel assemblies and cask components when subjected to vibration and impact loads during transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Market-Based and System-Wide Fuel Cycle Optimization | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $612,731 | Researchers will create market and economic optimizers to improve calculations for the CYCLUS fuel cycle simulator. The team will leverage existing optimization software frameworks within the simulator to resolve top level policy questions. The optimizations will allow CYCLUS to move beyond static material compositions, providing a holistic view of the fuel cycle system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Optical Fiber Based System for Multiple Thermophysical Properties for Glove Box, Hot Cell and In-Pile Applications | Utah State University | $799,975 | Researchers will use a small pressure vessel to develop a robust technique for the measurement of multiple thermophysical properties at very high temperatures. The technique will lead to a system design moving toward the eventual measurement of irradiated fuels in a glovebox and/or hot cell with all sensors and electronics outside of the glovebox and/or hot cell. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of a Nano-Modified Concrete for Next Generation of Storage Systems | Vanderbilt University | $796,268 | Researchers will use nano-sized and nano-structured particles based on enhanced reactivity to develop a superior concrete for the long-term storage of used nuclear fuel. The project will use state-of-the-art experimental chemical and mechanical characterizations and computation analysis to assess the performance of nano-modified concretes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Fuel Cycle Data Packages for Thorium Fuel Cycle Options | Vanderbilt University | $797,995 | Researchers will develop six fuel cycle data packages for multi-stage, thermal fuel cycles which incorporate thorium. These new fuel cycle data packages will provide the opportunity to examine fuel cycle options beyond those which have traditionally been considered. A thorium fuel cycle database will also be assembled as a basis for thorium literature for future evaluations of the thorium fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Enhanced Shielding Performance of HLW Storage Packages via Multi-Component Coatings | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $796,947 | Researchers will develop a multi-layer composite that will enhance long-term storage and facilitate safe transport of storage packages. This novel multi-layer, multi-component coating would create an outer shield material that is resistant to the corrosion, radiation, diffusion and thermal cycling processes that affect fuel packages during long term storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Managing Zirconium Chemistry and Phase Compatibility in Combined Process Separations for Minor Actinide Partitioning | Washington State University | $700,000 | Researchers will address unique challenges for combining TRUEX and TALSPEAK processes for partitioning of lanthanides and minor actinides. The project will develop improved information on the thermodynamics of fission product zirconium and develop a framework for an organic phase solvation model. Combined process development could streamline separations processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Advances in the Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Studies Under Real Ocean Conditions | Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution | $398,882 | Researchers will provide infrastructure and expertise for marine testing of currently available adsorbents in real ocean conditions. The team will move adsorbent research from the lab to field testing in order to quantify sorptive properties and uranium uptake. The project will provide valuable field data that will show the potential of large scale applications of these technologies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| NEUP Project 20-19172: Irradiation of Sensors and Adhesive Couplants for Application in LWR Primary Loop Piping and Components | $497,881 | Researchers paln to attach ultrasonic transducers to substrates using various adhesive couplants that will be irradiated at elevated temperature to simulate LWR primary loop conditions at the PULSTAR reactor at North Carolina State University. Ultrasonic data will be taken in-situ. Subsequently, the sensors and couplant interfaces will be characterized using the LAMDA facility at ORNL. The results will be used to benefit a parallel EPRI project on online monitoring of cracks in LWR primary loop piping. | Document | Joint R&D with NSUF Access | FY2013 | |
| Lower Length Scale Characterization and Validation of Formation and Stability of Helium Bubbles in Nano-structured Ferritic Alloys under Irradiation | Clemson University | $399,870 | Researchers will provide a fundamental knowledge about the formation and stability of ultra-fine helium bubbles within 14YWT after neutron/ion irradiation for further design of new advanced structural materials with a characteristic high density nanoparticles feature which can increase the mechanical strength, hardness, irradiation resistance and the operational temperature range of materials. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Three-Dimensional Fuel Pin Model Validation by Prediction of Hydrogen Distribution in Cladding and Comparison with Experiment | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers will validate important three-dimensional aspects of the fuel pin modeling by using specialized numerical modeling techniques coupled with laboratory experiments to validate existing models for predicting fuel performance in light water reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Collocation-Based Surrogate Models for Uncertainty Quantification and Validation of Coupled, Multiphysics Fuel Performance Simulation Tools | University of Michigan | $596,835 | Researchers will provide the necessary high fidelity, coupled, multiphysics fuel performance simulator for computational modeling and develop surrogates which will accelerate and focus the validation of the coupled codes. This will be achieved by utilizing the high fidelity coupled fuel performance, thermal-hydraulics and neutronics codes BISON/STAR-CCM+/MPACT and an innovative collocation-based surrogate methodology. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Multi-Resolution In-Situ Testing and Mutliscale Simulation for Creep Damage Fatigue Damage Analysis of Alloy 617 | Arizona State University | $800,000 | This project will develop novel testing and experimentally validated prediction methodologies for micro-structural damage mechanisms of structural materials for advanced reactor systems. The investigations will focus on the characterization and testing of specific metal alloys, but the proposed testing and life-prediction methodologies are applicable to other structural materials as well. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Novel High Temperature and Radiation Resistant Infrared Glasses and Optical Fibers for Sensing in Advanced Small Modular Reactors | Clemson University | $800,000 | Clemson University, in partnership with the Iowa State University and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, will develop novel optical materials with improved heat and radiation exposure resistance in order to enable in-vessel fiber optic sensing for advanced Small Modular Reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Validation Data Acquisition in HTTF during PCC Events | George Washington University | $800,000 | Researchers at the George Washington University and Oregon State University will collaborate with NASA Langley Research Center to measure flow velocities in a high temperature test facility. This work supports the development of very-high temperature reactors with passive safety systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced High Temperature Inspection Capabilities for Small Modular Reactors | Iowa State University | $790,822 | The objective of this project is to develop non-destructive evaluation techniques for advanced small modular reactors. The research will provide key enabling inspection technologies needed to support the design and the reactor component performance validation process for advanced small modular reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Experimental and Computational Investigations of Plenum-to-Plenum Heat Transfer under Natural Circulation in a Prismatic Very High Temperature Reactor | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,999 | Researchers will perform experimental and computational investigations to study heat transfer and natural circulation phenomena in very-high temperature reactors. The study will assist in the ability to predict and analyze passive safety systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| New Mechanistic Models of Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth Interactions for Advanced High Temperature Reactor Components | Oregon State University | $790,790 | Researchers will create and validate a robust, multi-scale, numerical model to predict material degradation in nickel-based reactor alloys. If successful, this project will provide better numerical tools for reactor designers and greatly improve their capability to design against material failures for reactor alloys in the long term. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Self-Powered Wireless Dual-mode Langasite Sensor for Pressure/Temperature Monitoring of Nuclear Reactors | State University of New York, Stony Brook | $800,000 | This research will develop a novel self-powered wireless hybrid sensor that can accurately monitor both pressure and temperature using a single device without requiring external electricity, even in extreme harsh environments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Compact Heat Exchanger Design and Testing for Advanced Nuclear Reactors and Advanced Power Cycles | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to investigate optimal heat exchanger designs for advanced reactors. The research will study the optimization of printed circuit heat exchangers for specific fluids under a variety of conditions as well as perform numerical modeling. Experiments will focus on thermal performance and heat stress during extreme conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Fundamental Understanding of Creep-Fatigue Interactions in 9Cr-1MoV Steel Welds | The Ohio State University | $798,000 | This project will advance the state of knowledge and fundamental understanding of deforming materials and welds under loading conditions. Specifically, new integrated testing procedures will be evaluated and applied for conditions that are most detrimental to material stability leading to improved predictions of life expectancy for reactor steels and welds. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced Mechanistic 3D Spatial Modeling and Analysis Methods to Accurately Represent Nuclear Facility External Event Scenarios | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop three-dimensional characterization uncertainty analysis for commercial power plants. The project will involve combining experts from the fields of seismic structural modeling and advanced methods of risk assessment. This effort is expected to result in next generation tools that can be used for assessment of seismic risks. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Tritium Mitigation/Control for Advanced Reactor Systems | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a fluoride salt cooled high-temperature reactor featuring a specialized system to control tritium production. If successful, this will result in a significant reduction in size and cost in comparison to other reactor designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| A Pebble-Bed Breed and Burn Reactor | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will assess the feasibility of designing a type of metal cooled reactor able to establish and maintain operation when fueled with depleted uranium. If successful, this reactor will offer at least a 30-fold increase in the uranium ore utilization versus that achieved in contemporary light water reactors without the need for fuel reprocessing and recycling. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Investigation of Thermal Aging Effects on the Evolution of Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Cast Duplex Stainless Steels | University of Maryland, College Park | $799,966 | This research will provide a better understanding of the microstructural evolution and simultaneous change in mechanical response during aging. The results of the research will provide data that can be used to estimate degraded mechanical properties for an 80-year service life of light water reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Model validation using CFD-grade experimental database for NGNP Reactor Cavity Cooling Systems with water and air | University of Michigan | $799,348 | Researchers will use advanced innovative instrumentation to build a high-resolution experimental database and to use the novel experimental data to assess and further develop the predictive capabilities of computer codes for thermal hydraulics and computational fluid dynamics. The improved models developed by this project will also have the direct benefit of improving the predictive capability of the passive systems of third generation light water reactors and small modular reactor systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Long-Term Prediction of Emissivity of Structural Material for High Temperature Reactor Systems | University of Missouri | $799,117 | Researchers will study specific types of emissivity driven cooling from a variety of materials that are relevant to nuclear reactors. The research will provide a basis for numerical modeling to support reactor development. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced I&C for Fault-Tolerant Supervisory Control of Small Modular Reactors | University of Pittsburgh | $800,000 | The purpose of this research is to develop advanced instrumentation and control techniques for supervisory control of advanced small modular reactors. This research supports the operational goals of small modular reactor concepts through the development of improved oversight and surveillance techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Corrosion of Structural Materials for Advanced Supercritical Carbon-Dioxide Brayton Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $798,672 | Researchers will study a variety of materials for corrosion resistance under conditions that improve power conversion. In addition to studying the corrosion resistance of the materials, researchers will study the effect of additives to mitigate corrosion. Development of corrosion theories and modeling aimed at prediction of long-term corrosion will be the underlying theme throughout the project. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Component and Technology Development for Advanced Liquid Metal Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $798,920 | In support of liquid metal cooled reactors, the University of Wisconsin, Madison will evaluate advanced alloys and ceramics that come in contact with liquid metals. Additionally, a robust oxygen sensor and for use in liquid metals will be developed in order to better evaluate corrosion profiles in support of diagnostic testing. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| A New Paradigm for Understanding Multi-phase Ceramic Waste Form Performance | Clemson University | $800,000 | Researchers will use advanced characterization tools to develop 3-D microstructural data that can be incorporated into computer-based simulations in order to predict the performance of waste forms. Materials system modeling will incorporate elemental release and the interconnected microstructural network of phases to better understand performance and degradation, which will accelerate waste form acceptance in repository settings. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Controlling Hexavalent Americium: A Centerpiece to a Compact Nuclear Fuel Cycle | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and exploit the fundamental chemistry of Americium to enable an industrially viable means to co-recover the major and minor actinide elements from used nuclear fuel. The results would be a significant step forward in the development of aqueous separations approaches designed to recover the U-Am actinides based on the availability of the hexavalent oxidation state. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Zeolite Membranes for Krypton/Xenon Separation from Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Off-Gas | Georgia Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a high-performance, lower-cost zeolitic membrane process for Kr/Xe separations during spent nuclear fuel processing. Current separation methods are not considered economical and a membrane process would have relatively lower cost, equipment size, and ambient operating temperature. The process would form a sound basis for further development of this transformative separation technology for the nuclear fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Optimizing Polymer-Grafted Amidoxime-based Adsorbents for Uranium Uptake from Seawater | Georgia Institute of Technology | $399,999 | Researchers will work to increase the adsorbent capacity and selectivity toward uranium by optimizing the adsorbent morphology, synthesis variables, and conditioning parameters and by investigating the rate-limiting variables through transport and reaction modeling. A novel adsorption/partition concept that has the potential to substantially increase the adsorbent capacity will be tested, making uranium from seawater extraction more economically viable. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Extraction of Uranium from Seawater: Design and Testing of a Symbiotic System | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a seawater uranium extraction system that will work symbiotically with an offshore windmill by utilizing the structure, mooring and power of the windmill, while increasing the energy harvested by the installation. Uranium will be extracted by an adsorbent polymer belt, which will be cycled through the seawater and an elution plant located at the base of the windmill tower. Increasing the frequency of harvesting could overcome current economic barriers to seawater uranium extraction. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Imaging a Dry Storage Cask with Cosmic Ray Muons | Oregon State University | $799,871 | Researchers will develop an imaging system to monitor the content of a dry storage cask with cosmic ray muons. A very large amount of plutonium under nuclear safeguards is contained in used fuel assemblies stored in dry storage casks. Muon imaging will allow a cost effective and reliable way to evaluate dry storage cask content and integrity before transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Apatite and sodalite based glass-bonded waste forms for immobilization of 129I and mixed halide radioactive wastes | Rutgers University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop advanced and chemically durable waste forms for immobilizing 129I (aqueous based reprocessing of fuel) and mixed-halide wastes (molten-salt processing of fuel) by low temperature synthesis. Halide-containing sodalite and calcium phosphate-based apatite minerals will be synthesized, consolidated and tested for chemical durability. The project will provide needed baseline data for the development of advanced waste forms for immobilization of iodine and mixed-halide wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Sorption Modeling and Verification for Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $350,000 | Researchers will develop modeling tools supported by experiments for off-gas capture from future nuclear-fuel recycling facilities. Target species include tritium, iodine, krypton, and xenon. The models are intended to provide path forward recommendations to develop off-gas treatment adsorption processes. The project will contribute to the evaluation of options for environmentally acceptable recycle systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development of high performance ODS alloys | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will study swelling, radiation hardening and changes in mechanical properties of ODS alloys to develop two sets of advanced ODS alloys. Two sets of first-round candidate alloys that have already undergone extensive development and testing will evaluate irradiation performance. The study will meet the need for high strength, radiation-tolerant cladding and core components that have enhanced resistance to void swelling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Rare Earth Electrochemical Property Measurements and Phase Diagram Development in a Complex Molten Salt Mixture for Molten Salt Recycle | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate rare earth (RE) properties in complex molten salt mixtures. In a molten salt recycle approach, the RE drawdown by electrolysis is a key step in which REs are separated from salt containing other fission products. Investigation of RE electrolysis must consider the electrochemical properties of the REs. We propose to conduct studies of detailed experiments and corresponding models to provide the physical properties and phase diagrams required to predict the performance of RE drawdown for processing complex molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Computational and Experimental Studies of Microstructure-Scale Porosity in Metallic Fuels for Improved Gas Swelling Behavior | University of Arkansas | $796,823 | Researchers will study the microstructure of metallic uranium alloy fuels, and their resistance to densification, to minimize in-pile irradiation swelling through bimodal pore size distribution. The project will develop a predictive approach to design metallic fuel microstructures for optimal swelling resistance and fission gas retention. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Improved Hybrid Modeling of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of California, Berkeley | $645,393 | Researchers will develop a variance reduction method for computational transport that will improve the ability to design and operate monitoring systems for interim used fuel installations through enhanced modeling and simulation. This new tool will demonstrate that modeling calculations can be done more accurately in less time than with current tools and will perform studies characterizing how changes in material, cask configurations, and number of casks could impact monitoring systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Selective ligands for uranyl via combinatorial peptoid libraries: A synthetic, structural, thermodynamic and computational study | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will study how donor ligands bind to the uranyl ion, UO22+, with the longer-term goal of using this information to tackle selective recognition of uranyl in aqueous solution. The study will impact underlying approaches to controlling the behavior of uranium in these systems. The actinide separation technology could be used in several areas including uranium extraction from seawater, nuclear waste remediation and nuclear materials. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Combining Experiments and Simulations of Extraction Kinetics and Thermodynamics in Advanced Separation Processes for Used Nuclear Fuel | University of California, Irvine | $799,938 | Researchers will study how the kinetics and thermodynamics of metal ion extraction in advanced separation processes for used nuclear fuel can be described by molecular dynamic (MD) simulations and how the simulations can be validated by experimental data. The project would have broad impacts on several separations processes including advanced TALSPEAK, ALSEP and GANEX by increasing the confidence and accuracy of computer modeling of metal ion extraction. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Effect of Metallic Li on the Behavior of Metals in Molten Salts | University of Nevada, Reno | $458,250 | Researchers will identify the effect of metallic lithium on materials that are used in molten salt recycling. The study will try to understand how the presence of Li(0) in molten salts affects the degradation of alloys. Studying these changes will help accurately predict container material behavior and longevity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Assessment of Corrosion Resistance of Promising Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding under Reactor Conditions | University of Notre Dame | $800,000 | Researchers will assess the corrosion behavior of accident tolerant fuel candidate iron-based alloys under normal LWR operating conditions consisting of high temperature, relevant water chemistry and irradiation. The assessment will produce data about possible irradiation-accelerated corrosion rates of iron-based alloys, and the mechanisms by which such corrosion rates are accelerated. The project will advance the selection of appropriate replacements for Zircaloy cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Enhanced Accident-Tolerant Fuel Performance and Reliability for Aggressive iPWR/SMR Operation | University of Tennessee | $799,967 | To develop a process that evaluates operational and safety performance of reactor-and-fuel combinations by integrating whole-core 3D neutronics with MOOSE/BISON fuel performance assessments via explicit time and space dependent fuel rod operational power histories. The project will be valuable in analyzing and evaluating accident tolerant fuel concepts and furthering the understanding of reactor physics and fuel performance aspects of key accident tolerant fuel concepts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Nuclear Technology R&D Strategies in an Era of Energy Price Uncertainty | University of Texas, Austin | $799,112 | Researchers will identify nuclear technology options that are competitive over a wide range of plausible future business environments. No single nuclear technology or business practice will be the best choice across all or even most future conditions. The study will focus on hybrid nuclear-fossil technologies, energy storage and conversion, which will result in an identification of nuclear strategies that can succeed under future market conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development and Optimization of Voltammetric Methods for Real Time Analysis of Electrorefiner Salt with High Concentrations of Actinides and Fission Products | University of Utah | $621,612 | Researchers will develop an advanced voltammetry method to pursue the objective of real time monitoring of actinide concentrations in electrorefiner salt. This will include experimental measurement of key parameters such as activity coefficients and exchange current density. It will also involve simulation of voltammetry processes based on first principles. The project will allow for real time measurements that could support the commercialization of pyroprocessing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development of Self-Healing Zirconium-Silicide Coatings for Improved Performance of Zirconium-Alloy Fuel Cladding | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $798,621 | Researchers will study the deposition of self-healing zirconium-silicide coatings on zirconium-alloy fuel cladding material to improve corrosion resistance under normal and accident conditions. Under these conditions, Zr-Si coating evolves into a highly protective functionally-graded multilayered system. The study will lead to improved performance of zirconium-alloy fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Thermal Conductivity in Metallic Fuels | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,837 | Researchers will calculate the thermal conductivity of metallic uranium and neptunium alloys, including the effects of noble gasses, using density functional theory. The experiments will validate the calculated effective thermal conductivity using the MARMOT code and by helping determine DFT simulation parameters. The study works to improve fuel lifetime by understanding its thermal behavior. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| SiC-ODS Alloy Gradient Nanocomposites as Novel Cladding Materials | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,998 | Researchers will combine nuclear nanomaterial design, processing, testing, and characterization efforts to develop revolutionary materials that can withstand neutron irradiation for long period of time using nanostructured SiC and oxide dispersion strengthened steel. The ultimate objective is to offer new cladding materials with increased corrosion resistance, strength, and creep resistance in both steady state and accident conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Experimental Breeder Reactor II Benchmark Evaluation | Idaho State University | $400,000 | _Researchers will develop a benchmark evaluation of the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II). During nearly 30 years of operation numerous experiments were conducted at EBR-II. The most significant of these experiments were conducted in 1986 demonstrating inherent safety features in loss of flow without reactor scram and loss of heat sink without reactor scram. Benchmark evaluation will be valuable for the reactor design efforts in the United States and South Korea. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| Integral full core multi-physics PWR benchmark with measured data | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | _Researchers will introduce BEAVRS, a new multi-cycle full-core Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) depletion benchmark based on two operational cycles of a commercial nuclear power plant. This project aims at addressing the uncertainty quantification of the measured data and on making this benchmark a true non-proprietary international benchmark for the validation of high-fidelity multi-physics computational tools. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| Benchmark Evaluation of PROTEUS Gas-Cooled Reactor Experiments | University of Florida | $400,000 | _Researchers will create International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) benchmarks using data from 1970s experiments of the neutronics of gas-cooled fast reactor (GCFR) designs investigated in the PROTEUS reactor. The GCFR-PROTEUS experiments fill a gap in current integral benchmark data. These experiments can provide validation of computational models and nuclear data for next generation reactors. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| An Investigation To Establish Multiphysical Property Dataset Of Nuclear Materials Based On In-Situ Observations And Measurements | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will create an in-situ measurement based experimental approach to develop experimental validation dataset for NEAMS based code validation. Particular emphasis is on supplying data set for multiphysics simulations in extreme conditions as a function of material microstructure. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| Experimental Validation of UO2 Microstructural Evolutions for NEAMS tool MARMOT | University of Florida | $798,000 | _Researchers will experimentally validate MARMOT for predicting the microstructural evolutions of UO2 oxide fuel under the driving forces of high temperatures and large temperature gradient in reactors. By performing the experiments and simulations simultaneously using precisely defined initial conditions, the experiment data will provide direct benchmarking of the MARMOT code. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| High-resolution time-resolved experiments on mixing and entrainment of buoyant jets in stratified environments | University of Michigan | $799,983 | _Researchers will study high spatial and time-resolution experimental data of the fluid dynamics phenomena of flow jets interacting with a stratified layer. The issue plays an important role in the safety of several reactor designs, including sodium-cooled reactors. The data addresses the NEAMS needs for the validation of high fidelity computational fluid dynamics methodologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| Fundamental study of key issues related to advanced S-CO2 Brayton Cycle: prototypic HX development and Cavitation | Georgia Institute of Technology | $799,000 | _Researchers will study scientific and operational issues pertinent to compact heat exchanger systems and turbo-machinery. The project will work to resolve issues with the fabrication of diffusion bonded compact heat exchangers, alternate heat exchange technology for recuperators, and resolution of issues with cavitation and fluid instabilities. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Advanced Models for Nondestructive Evaluation of Aging Nuclear Power Plant Cables | Iowa State University | $787,291 | _Researchers will develop advanced models that relate environmentally induced microstructural and chemical changes in cable insulation polymers to their macroscopic electrical parameters. These parameters will be measured and modeled over a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum, covering several potential nondestructive evaluation techniques, enabling identification of the most sensitive techniques for future development. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Development of Novel Functionally Graded Transition Joints for Improving the Creep Strength of Dissimilar Metal Welds in Nuclear Applications | Lehigh University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop graded transition joints and improved creep life models for increasing the life of dissimilar metal welds (DMWs) in nuclear reactors. The research represents the first application of functionally graded material concepts for solving the problem of DMW failures through an integrated approach of additive manufacturing, modeling, microstructural characterization, and advanced strain-sensing techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Feasibility Assessment of a Micro Modular Reactor (MMR) | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | _Researchers will develop an innovative compact reactor concept that integrates power production, power conversion and electricity generation in a single unit: the Micro Modular Reactor (MMR). It is designed to be absolutely melt-down proof (MDP) under all circumstances including complete loss of coolant scenarios with no possible release of radioactive material, to have a cycle length of greater than 10 years, and to be highly proliferation resistant. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Scaling Studies for Advanced Gas Reactor Concepts | Oregon State University | $681,834 | _Researchers will expand the utilization of the Oregon State University High Temperature Test Facility (HTTF) to validate a broader range of advanced high temperature reactors and events. The facility will be revised to add a detailed scaling analysis of additional gas reactor concepts including advanced gas-cooled, molten salt, and sodium cooled reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Fluid Stratification Separate Effects Analysis, Testing and Benchmarking | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will study fluid stratification in high temperature gas reactors. Coolant stratification is the result of incomplete mixing of one or more fluids, leading to a density gradient, which may or may not dissipate under diffusive or convective effects. This combined analytical and experimental project seeks to investigate stratification driven by diffusive and convective mechanisms and is expected to yield insight into this phenomenon. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Probabilistic Economic Valuation of Safety Margin Management Analysis | Oregon State University | $795,364 | _Researchers will use RAVEN and develop a companion software package to facilitate economic analysis of safety margins. The project is a proof of concept that will use techniques to examine the cost of improving safety margins vs. the risk of accidents from not improving safety margins. This analysis can be used to evaluate the economic viability of various plant upgrades. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Novel Dissimilar Joints Between Alloy 800H and 2.25%Cr and 1%Mo Steel | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will fabricate and test dissimilar metal joints between a nickel base alloy and a steel with gradual variations of chemical composition, microstructure and properties in a manner that reduces abrupt thermal expansion mismatch and the resulting residual stresses. Data on structure and properties will serve as valuable inputs for the initiation of an ASME code case. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Multi-Phase Model Development to Assess RCIC System Capabilities under Severe Accident Conditions | Texas A&M University | $564,246 | _Researchers will develop physics-based models of the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) System and incorporating them into a multi-phase code for validation. The project will tackle the current major challenges in RCIC System analysis and enable evaluation of two-phase thermodynamic aspects. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Experimental Investigation and CFD Analysis of Steam Ingress Accidents in HTGRs | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will study the steam ingress scenario for HTGRs. The study will investigate thermal-hydraulic behavior and graphite oxidation of stream ingress phenomena to validate predictive CFD models. This work will resolve concerns about possible steam generator tube ruptures in a HTGR He-Steam Rankine cycle. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Coiled Tube Gas Heaters For Nuclear Gas-Brayton Power Conversion | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop heat exchangers for Brayton-cycle power conversion in reactors using sodium, NaK, or salt as intermediate coolants. The proposed coiled tube gas heaters (CTGHs) are expected to have excellent power density, thermal shock/creep, in-service inspection, and reparability characteristics. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Fundamental Studies of Irradiation-Induced Modifications in Microstructural Evolution and Mechanical Properties of Advanced Alloys | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop and test a mechanism for predicting neutron irradiation performance for optimized Grade 92 and Alloy 709 for applications in advanced reactor systems. The work will employ ion irradiations and available information from neutron irradiations of related alloys to develop a basis for predicting the neutron irradiation performance of the optimized alloys. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Integrated Computational and Experimental Study of Radiation Damage Effects in Grade 92 Steel and Alloy 709 | University of Tennessee | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop a mechanistic understanding and predictive models of irradiation-induced microstructural evolution and resulting mechanical properties in optimized ferritic-martensitic Grade 92 steel and austenitic alloy 709 using multiscale simulations coupled with rigorous experimental validation. The project will provide insights into the correlation between ion irradiation and fast neutron damage. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Meta-Level Design Guidance and Operator Performance Measures for Hybrid Control Rooms | Vanderbilt University | $799,869 | _Researchers will apply human factors engineering methods and relevant expertise from non-nuclear high-risk high-consequence domains toward the measurement of operator performance in analog, digital, and hybrid main control rooms. Performance measures will be developed for evaluating the situation awareness and decision-making proficiencies to support the transition to digital or hybrid control room displays. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| NEUP Project 15-8514: Elucidation of the kinetics of Advanced Separation systems | California State University, Long Beach | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a fundamental understanding of the chemical kinetics relevant to separation processes by measuring ligand complexation rate constants for both lanthanides and actinides in the aqueous and organic phases. These experiments will provide essential kinetic and mechanistic information required for developing a simplified, single-step recovery of transuranic elements. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8119: Kr/Xe separation over Metal Organic Framework Membranes | Colorado School of Mines | $375,000 | Researchers will develop metal organic framework (MOF) membranes that will be capable of effectively separating Kr from Xe with high flux and selectivity. This project may result in the development of membranes that will constitute a viable energy saving approach for the effective removal of Kr during the processing of used nuclear fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8347: Multilayer Composite Fuel Cladding for LWR Performance Enhancement and Severe Accident Tolerance | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop, manufacture, and weld a new multimetallic layered composite (MMLC) for enhanced severe accident tolerance and manufacturability in LWRs. Layers of stainless steel (facing the coolant) and Zircaloy (facing the fuel) will be separated by barrier layers of Cr and Nb. Severe accident testing in 1200C steam, LWR autoclave testing, and ion irradiation studies will demonstrate the MMLC's microstructural stability. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8112: Phase Separation and Crystallization of Complex Borosilicate Melts for Glass-Ceramic Waste Forms | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,806 | Researchers will study the mechanisms for microstructural development and properties of multi-phase, glass-ceramic materials that form when waste-loaded borosilicate glasses are cooled from above their liquidus or consolute temperatures through the glass transition temperature. The project will apply these tools to modified compositions to maximize the formation of the desirable crystalline phases. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8265: Electrically-Assisted Tubing Processes for Enhancing Manufacturability of Oxide Dispersion Strengthened Structural Materials for Nuclear Reactor Applications | Northwestern University | $800,000 | Researchers will enhance the formability of nanostructured ferritic alloys (NFAs) such that high-strength thin-walled claddings can be manufactured successfully and economically to be used in future reactors. The project will study the effects of continuous and pulsed electric currents on the deformation behavior of Fe-14Cr based NFA steel. The findings will be used to establish innovative fabrication processes including electrically-assisted extrusion and rolling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8126: Fundamental Electrochemical Properties of Liquid Metals in LiCl-KCl for Separation of Alkali/Alkaline-Earths (Cs, Sr and Ba) | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate the fundamental properties of novel liquid metal electrodes for separation of alkali/alkaline-earth fission products in LiCl-KCl electrolyte. The project will further the development of pyroprocessing by maximizing salt recycle and providing a method for recovery of alkali/alkaline-earth fission products as oxides (as opposed to chlorides) which will allow them to be encapsulated in a more conventional glass wasteform. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8074: Monitoring of Actinide Concentrations in Molten LiCl-KCl Salt using Alpha Spectroscopy | The Ohio State University | $799,969 | Researchers will develop a novel in-salt sensor that uses electrochemistry to pre-concentrate the actinides onto the sensor to measure the actinides concentration in a high temperature and high radiation field represented by a molten salt environment. The ability to monitor actinides to prevent misuse is critical to enhancing the control of nuclear materials. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8717: Understanding the Interactions of Seawater Ions with Amidoxime through X-Ray Crystallography | University of Alabama | $553,971 | _Researchers will investigate the fundamental interactions of the amidoxime (R-C(NH2)=NOH) functional group with metal ions found in seawater using a combined approach of single crystal X-ray diffraction and spectroscopy to understand the origin of the selectivity of amidoxime resins for uranyl ([UO2]2+] ions and establish structural benchmarks for interpretation of spectroscopic studies on actual sorbents to aid in identifying specific sorbent-metal interactions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8439: Developing a macro-scale SiC-cladding behavior model based on localized mechanical and thermal property evaluation on pre- and post-irradiation SiC-SiC composites | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a fundamental understanding of the macroscopic behavior of SiC-SiC composite structures before and after irradiation based on the microscopic property changes of each individual component (SiC matrix, fiber and interface). SiC-SiC composites will be tested in the as-fabricated condition, after being subjected to neutron and ion irradiation, micro-cracking, and oxidation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8536: Quantitative Prediction of Uranium Speciation and Amidoxime Binding in Seawater from Advanced Simulation Techniques | University of California, Riverside | $450,000 | Researchers will quantitatively predict stability of uranium species and thermochemistry (free energy, entropy, and enthalpy) of uranium binding with amidoxime ligands in seawater conditions. To achieve the goal, advanced simulation techniques including all-atom molecular dynamics, free-energy calculations, and the hybrid quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical approach will be employed to explicitly include water molecules and common seawater ions in the simulation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8286: Used Fuel Storage Monitoring Using Helium-4 Scintillation Fast Neutron Detectors and Neutron Spectral Analysis | University of Florida | $799,765 | Researchers will build and demonstrate a prototype detector device capable of unambiguously verifying the declared content of dry casks in a non-intrusive manner for the safeguarding and monitoring of used fuel storage installations. This will be achieved through a neutron spectroscopy and imaging system using high-efficiency Helium-4 (4He) gas scintillation fast neutron detectors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8663: Enhancement of the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland, College Park | $600,000 | Researchers will produce efficient adsorbents of uranium from seawater in seeking to optimize the functional ligands, the polymeric substrates, the grafting conditions and the adsorption/desorption durations based on sound chemical understanding. The result will be adsorbents that can be used through multiple cycles of uranium adsorption without significant degradation of the adsorbents capacity and selectivity for uranium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8111: Purification of Zirconium cladding using a chloride volatility process | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $798,877 | _Researchers will investigate the thermochemistry of used fuel Zr cladding components chlorides as well as their activation products and residual radionuclide metal chlorides to provide fundamental data that will support the development of a chlorination process for the purification of ZrCl4. Understanding the chemistry of these chloride species will provide process development guidance for the purification of Zr cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8323: Purification of Zirconium Tetrachloride from UNF Cladding | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $793,121 | _Researchers will develop and demonstrate a process to purify zirconium tetrachloride obtained from the direct chlorination of used Zircaloy cladding materials from used nuclear fuel rod assemblies. This study will increase understanding of purification protocols that will allow zirconium chloride to be recycled further. Increased recycling capability would significantly reduce the amount of high level waste associated with light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8752: Radiation Effects on High Thermal Conductivity Fuels | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $400,000 | _Researchers will use scoping ion and neutron irradiations to explore the structural stability and thermal conductivity of model high thermal conductivity fuels consisting of CeO2 and either Al2O3 (BeO surrogate) or SiC. Issues associated with thermal conductivity degradation (including micro cracking effects) and general phase stability of fuel systems will be examined. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8243: Radiation-induced swelling and microcracking in SiC cladding for LWRs | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $797,889 | _Researchers will use state of the art experimental characterization techniques and multi-scale methodology (developed within the MOOSE-MARMOT-BISON framework) to provide scientific basis for predictions of swelling and microcracking in SiC cladding as a function of temperature and irradiation histories. Predicting swelling and microcracking will further the potential for accident tolerant SiC cladding to be used in light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8081: Understanding influence of thermal history and glass chemistry on kinetics of phase separation and crystallization in borosilicate glass-ceramic waste forms for aqueous reprocessed high level waste | Washington State University | $799,911 | _Researchers will develop a fundamental and transformative understanding of the crystallization mechanisms in complex glass-ceramic high level waste (HLW) wasteforms,. This understanding will underpin the maturation of glass ceramic manufacture, by linking process variables to molecular scale mechanisms, enabling reliable production of wasteforms to the desired specification. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8210: A Transient Reactor Physics Experiment with High-Fidelity, 3-D Flux Measurements for Validation and Verification | Kansas State University | $799,198 | _Researchers will instrument the University of Wisconsin Nuclear Reactor with micro-pocket fission detectors (MPFDs) to measure 3-D flux distributions. The measurements will be compared to simulation using PROTEUS from the NEAMS toolkit. MPFDs are small, which leads to low gamma-ray sensitivity and small flux perturbations. A 3-D array of MPFDs and standard reactor instrumentation will be used to capture highly-resolved flux and temperature distributions for several steady-state and transient conditions. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8101: Development of Critical Experiments to Provide Validation Data for Multiphysics Coupling Methods | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $799,993 | Researchers will develop a set of benchmark validation experiments for multiphysics coupling by exploiting the inherent flexibility of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Reactor Critical Facility (RCF). This project will use targeted experiments to validate the coupling between neutronics, thermal hydraulics, and structural mechanics routines present in the NEAMS Reactor Product Line toolkit._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8229: Thermal Transport and Fracture Behavior of Sintered Fuel Pellets: Experimental Validation of NEAMS Tool MARMOT | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | _Researchers will perform experimental validation of the NEAMS tool MARMOT for predicting thermal transport and fuel fracture. By performing extensive thermal transport and fracture experiments on well-controlled microstructures of sintered UO2, the impact of microstructure on thermo-mechanical properties of sintered UO2 and mechanistic understanding will be achieved. The high quality experimental data will directly benchmark the MARMOT code by evaluating the thermal transport and fracture models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8208: Development of a Novel Accelerator for Neutron Transport Solution Using the Galerkin Spectral Element Methods | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $626,176 | _Researchers will develop a novel accelerator for neutron transport calculations based on the spectral element methods, continuous Galerkin (CG) and discontinuous Galerkin (DG) approximations. The CG and DG methods will be used to solve the multi-group neutron diffusion equation on the coarse-mesh structure (e.g., pin-size up to assembly-size), which is then coupled with the high-order neutron transport solution to speed up the neutron transport computation. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8338: Methodology Development for Cybersecurity Robustness and Vulnerability Assessment of University Research Reactors: A Case Study Using the PULSTAR Reactor | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop a methodology for assessing the cybersecurity robustness and vulnerability of university research reactors using an actual university reactor as a test case. While the developed methodology will be specifically tested and applied using this reactor, it will be formulated as a general blueprint and used as the starting point for the assessment of university research reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cyber Security R&D | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8121: Automatic Imagery Data Analysis for Proactive Computer-Based Workflow Management during Nuclear Power Plant Outages | Arizona State University | $799,738 | _Researchers will test the hypothesis that real-time imagery-based object tracking and spatial analysis, as well as human behavior modeling will significantly improve efficiency of outage control while lowering the rates of accidents and incidents. The project will examine computer vision methods and human behavior models for developing a proactive workflow management tool and integrate it into Computer-Based Procedures for supporting an Advanced Outage Control Center. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8308: Creep and creep-fatigue crack growth mechanisms in Alloy 709 | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _A joint US/UK team will study the crack growth mechanism and failure analysis of alloy 709 under creep and creep-fatigue conditions. The study will be done through in situ heating and loading during SEM observation to evaluate the crack growth under plane stress condition and traditional methods to study the crack growth under plane strain condition. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8582: Mechanistic and Validated Creep/Fatigue Predictions for Alloy 709 from Accelerated Experiments and Simulations | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will use mechanistic methods for predicting creep and creep-fatigue deformation rates/strains based on accelerated in-situ and ex-situ tests, and mesoscale dislocation dynamics simulations for Alloy 709. This research will support its qualification in the ASME code for use in advanced nuclear reactor applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8495: Advancement of Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Technology through Round Robin Testing and Fundamental Modeling | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will conduct a round robin test plan for S-CO2 corrosion testing across multiple institutions and the organization of a S-CO2 Materials Group to guide future materials testing directions. Furthermore, this proposal outlines identical tests in supercritical water, testing model alloys with various composition and environmental conditions, accompanied by modeling efforts to study rate controlling mechanisms of corrosion. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8489: Modeling and Validation of Irradiation Damage in Ni-based Alloys for Long-Term LWR Applications | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _A joint US/UK team will study thermal and irradiation-induced transformations mechanisms of Alloys 690 and 625 in order to extend Grizzly to include capabilities for modeling Ni-based alloys. The project will develop modeling tools for materials degradation in light water reactors, allowing for component replacement data and continued safe operation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-7983: Development of Steady-State Thermal-Hydraulic Analysis and Bowing Reactivity Evaluation Methods Based on Neutron and Gamma Transport Calculations | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop steady-state thermal-hydraulic analysis and assembly bowing reactivity evaluation methods based on the latest transport calculation capabilities in order to overcome the limitations and improve the accuracy of current design analysis methods. The outcome of the effort will be computer programs to calculate the steady-state heat source distributions in fuel pins and assembly duct walls and to calculate the reactivity worth of assembly displacements. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8627: Experimental Validation Data and Computational Models for Turbulent Mixing of Bypass and Coolant Jet Flows in Gas-Cooled Reactors | Texas A&M University | $799,613 | _Researchers will establish reliable models of the thermal-hydraulics in Gas-Cooled Reactors with experimental and computational efforts. Specifically, this work will focus on providing the relationship between fluctuating velocities and temperatures in the lower plenum and their dependency on the turbulent upstream mixing in the core and collection chambers leading up to the lower plenum. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8251: Enhanced Performance Fast Reactors with Engineered Passive Safety System | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | _Researchers will study the feasibility of improving the passive safety and economics of sodium cooled fast reactors (SFR) by incorporating within their fuel assemblies a novel Autonomous Reactivity Control (ARC) system. It is expected that the ARC systems will enable to design even low leakage SFR cores, such as breed-and-burn cores, to be passively safe and to improve the neutron economy and economic viability of more conventional SFR. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8258: Physics-Based Probabilistic Model of the Effects of Ionizing Radiation on Polymeric Insulators of Electric Cables used in Nuclear Power Plants | University of California, Los Angeles | $798,846 | _Researchers will develop and experimentally validate a probabilistic physics-based degradation models for polymeric insulators of electric cables to be used in integrated performance and safety codes, which will help reduce the uncertainty associated with the long-term aging of cable insulation. The project will deliver a C++ based simulation code that will be readily compatible with the MOOSE/Grizzly framework developed at the Idaho National Laboratory. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8000: The Influences of Neutron Irradiation on Aggregate Induced Degradation of Concrete | University of California, Los Angeles | $800,000 | _Researchers will quantify the impacts of irradiation on concrete degradation. The research will develop new understanding of the evolutions and manifestations of irradiation assisted aggregate concrete degradation caused by neutron exposure. This assessment will help to mitigate the risk of such degradation within the Grizzly framework, by careful integrations of nanoscale analytics and simulation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8458: Multiple Degradation Mechanisms in Reinforced Concrete Structures, Modeling and Risk Analysis | University of Houston | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a multi-physics framework to characterize the deterioration development in concrete due to environmental and mechanical loading, and the coupling effect among transport processes and the damage of concrete. This project will develop new computational tools that will be implemented in Grizzly, an application built on the MOOSE platform, to address a variety of aging mechanisms in nuclear power plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8623: Characterization of Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth in Alloy 709 and Prediction of Service Lives in Nuclear Reactor Components | University of Idaho | $799,927 | _Researchers will study creep-fatigue crack growth behavior in steel Alloy 709 in accelerated test conditions to predict extended service life of structural components. Extensive testing of Alloy 709 creep-fatigue specimens will be performed at elevated temperatures and applied stresses. Microstructure analysis will be performed to describe the crack propagation mechanisms. Computational models will be used to predict service of steel components. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8432: Multi-scale experimental study of creep-fatigue failure initiation in a 709 Stainless Steel alloy using high resolution digital image correlation | University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign | $800,00 | _Researchers will conduct a detailed experimental investigation of creep-fatigue crack initiation in a 709 alloy, and will also obtain a predictive failure initiation model that includes both thermo-mechanical and aging effects. The experiments will use ultra-high resolution digital image correlation to measure accumulation of plastic with cycling. The model will extend existing slip band-based energy minimization criterion to include thermal effects applicable to 709. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8599: Am-241 Nuclear Safety and Environmental Interactions | University of Missouri | $399,187 | _Researchers will investigate the release and transport mechanisms of Am-241 to understand the interactions it may have with the environment. The project will examine Am-241 through a series of accident scenarios using Am-241 aerosols that will allow researchers to understand the pathways for dose assessment. Methodologies and approaches for nuclear risk assessment for new space radioisotope power system applications will be developed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8667: Experimental Validation of a Compact Double-walled Twisted-Tube Heat Exchanger Concept | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | _Researchers will investigate a novel compact double-walled twisted-tube heat exchanger (DT-HXR) design that utilizes an outer twisted tube configuration in order to enhance shell-side heat transfer and make the overall bundle more compact. Utilizing outer twisted tube geometry improves heat transfer and allows for a tube bundle that does not require support plates or anti-vibration bars. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project: 15-8352: Development and Demonstration of an In-Situ Tritium Scavenger | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,988 | _Researchers will use a graphite moderator to capture and remove tritium from the primary coolant systems of salt- and gas-cooled reactors. The team will develop electrochemical techniques to characterize tritium transport in graphite and liquid fluoride salts (including flibe), demonstrate the in-situ effectiveness of tritium absorption by the fuel elements, and develop a design for a graphite bed tritium filter that can integrate with salt-to-air heat exchangers. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 16-10730: Visualization Tool for Comparing Low-Carbon Energy Options | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a web based visualization tool for comparing current and future nuclear fuel cycle options to other low-carbon and conventional energy technologies in the United States.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10679: Overcoming Kinetic Barriers to Actinide Recovery in ALSEP | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | The ALSEP process for group separations of trivalent actinide/lanthanide ions suffers from slow stripping kinetics. Researchers will perform detailed kinetic studies at different temperatures, supported by spectroscopic and computational studies to establish where the kinetic bottlenecks occur in the ALSEP process. They will then systematically alter the chemistry of the extractants and aqueous ligands to understand how to overcome the kinetic hindrances.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10058: An Integrated Multiscale Experimental-Numerical Analysis on Reconsolidation of Salt-Clay Mixture for Disposal of Heat-Generating Waste | Columbia University in the City of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will improve understanding of the thermal-mechanical-hydrologic-chemical (TMHC) coupling effect on reconsolidated granular (or crushed) salt-clay mixture used for seal systems of shafts and drifts in salt repositories. The project will integrate laboratory experiments and multiscale pore-to-continuum coupling simulations to explore the feasibility of using clay additive and moisture content to enhance performance of crushed salt as a seal material.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10088: Americium Separation By Electrochemical Oxidation | Florida International University | $800,000 | Researchers will separate Am from high-level waste by exploiting the high oxidation states of Am through design, and testing of new materials. This will be accomplished by designing and testing new electrodes, derivatized with surface-stabilized ligands and redox mediators to facilitate oxidation of trivalent Am, and by designing porous sorbent materials functionalized with molecules which selectively coordinate Am(VI) to enable its subsequent separation.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10668: Microstructure Experiments-Enabled MARMOT Simulations of SiC/SiC-Based Accident Tolerant Nuclear Fuel System | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will characterize steam attack, hydrothermal corrosion and radiation swelling of SiC/SiC composites-based accident tolerant fuel (ATF) using a combination of experiments, microstructure evaluation and phase-field simulations using MARMOT. Central to the project is the mapping of the microstructure after steam/hydrothermal/irradiation tests through a unique non-destructive x-ray microscopy technique followed by phase-field simulations of chemical transport in MARMOT.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10221: Alloying Agents to Stabilize Lanthanides Against Fuel Cladding Chemical Interaction: Tellurium and Antimony Studies | Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop alloying agents to stabilize lanthanides against fuel cladding chemical interactions (FCCIs). Based on the available binary phase diagrams for the periodic table, Te and Sb are selected as fuel dopants. The research will focus on Te. The mechanisms of using minor additives to stabilize and immobilize the lanthanide fission products will be investigated. Resulting thermodynamic data obtained by the proposed research will be integrated into MARMOT to enhance its ability to model metallic fuel performance.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10648: Oxidation and Corrosion-Resistant Uranium Silicide Fuels | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | Researchers will develop oxidation/corrosion resistant uranium silicide U3Si2 fuel by chemical doping/fillers to form a continuous borosilicate glass as a protective oxide layer with transformational fuel performance and accident tolerance. The team will use chemical doping/fillers include B or C showing effectiveness in improving high temperature oxidation resistance in transition metal silicides, and boron/silicon-containing compounds that can form a protective borosilicate glass layer.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10229: Mechanistic Understanding of Silver Sorbent Aging Processes in Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $800,000 | This project is focused on understanding the mechanisms of aging processes on silver exchanged mordenite and silver functionalized silica aerogel adsorbents under conditions of long term exposure to off gas streams containing air, I2, H2O, and NOx. The chemical and physical structural changes of the adsorbents under these conditions will be accounted for in equilibrium and kinetic models. Transport models will be developed to predict the performance of engineered off-gas treatment systems.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10394: Integration of Microwave Readout into Nuclear Process Monitoring | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,695 | Researchers will show that gamma-ray spectroscopy based on emerging microcalorimeter sensors can determine elemental and isotopic fractions with accuracy comparable to much slower mass spectrometry and with far better accuracy than germanium sensors. This advance will prevent the diversion of nuclear material by enabling nearly real time process monitoring in large nuclear facilities without loss of measurement accuracy.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10523: A Science Based Approach for Selecting Dopants in FCCI-Resistant Metallic Fuel Systems | University of Idaho | $800,000 | The project aims to use a science-based approach to set guidelines of selecting dopants for developing fuel cladding chemical interaction (FCCI)-resistant metallic fuel systems for fast reactors. Lanthanide fission products migrate to the fuel-cladding gap leading to cladding breaches. The team will perform both theoretical modeling and experiments to arrive at the guidelines that are based on sound science. If successful, this can lead to breakthroughs in minimizing the FCCI effect.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10813: Advanced Electrochemical Separations of Actinide/Fission Products via the Control of Nucleation and Growth of Electrodeposits | University of Idaho | $350,000 | Researchers will use unique capabilities to modulate the electrodeposition of actinides (depleted Uranium) and fission products (Ln) during nucleation and growth stages. The team aims to preclude formation of electrodeposits with dendritic morphology. Morphology of electrodeposits will be controlled by electrolyte composition.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10707: In Situ Spectroscopic Determination of Actinide Speciation and Concentration | University of Nevada, Reno | $369,221 | The research team will address two major issues in the pyroprocess based fuel cycle: low process efficiency and materials accounting for non-proliferation. There are currently no analytical techniques to ascertain the speciation and concentration of the actinides in the electrolyte. This project aims to develop an in-situ analytical method consisting of Raman spectroscopic analysis during electrochemical polarization.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10204: Phase Equilibria and Thermochemistry of Advanced Fuels: Modeling Burnup Behavior | University of South Carolina | $799,946 | Researchers will develop phase equilibria and thermochemical information to model and simulate advanced fuel behavior, including critical phenomena such as the contribution to fuel swelling of dissolved non-noble fission products and secondary phase formation, composite fuel stability, and fuel-clad chemical interactions.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10512: Demand-Driven Cycamore Archetypes | University of South Carolina | $799,956 | Modeling of the nuclear fuel cycle (NFC) is often posed as a set of demands coupled with available technologies. Demands may be singular or multivariate. Additionally, available technologies may have constraints on when they are deployable. This proposal aims to bring demand and deployment decisions into the NFC simulator itself, thereby simulating a more realistic process by which utilities, governments, and other stakeholders actually make facility deployment decisions.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10856: Integrating Data Sources for Improved Safeguards and Accountancy of Electrochemical Fuel Reprocessing Streams | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The SSPM Echem tracks elemental and bulk material flows through batch operations in electrochemical facilities. This project will augment the existing SSPM Echem model with models of DA, NDA, and process monitoring measurements, including appropriate accuracy, noise, and uncertainty characteristics. Diverse measurement and assay results will be fused to improve material accountancy and anomaly detection across the electrochemical process.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10190: Immobilization of High-Level Waste Salt in Dechlorinated Zeolite Waste Forms | University of Utah | $799,315 | The primary objective of the project is the development of a new glass-bonded waste form for the suitable disposal of electrorefiner waste salt. To achieve this goal, the proposed tasks will focus on the 1) dechlorination of the electrorefiner salt and 2) subsequent encapsulation into a sintered waste form. Achieving these goals will result in a compact waste form with higher fission product loading, which is instrumental in economically closing the nuclear fuel cycle.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10240: Molten Salt Reactor Experiment Benchmark Evaluation | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | _The objective of this project is to employ the data archive on the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) and develop a set of high-quality Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) reactor physics benchmarks for inclusion in the IRPhE Handbook that currently does not contain any benchmark set related to MSR technology._ | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10458: Multi-Group Transport Cross Section and Diffusion Coefficient Generation for Deterministic Reactor Models Using Monte Carlo Calculations | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and implement rigorous methods for generating multi-group transport cross section and diffusion coefficients for deterministic reactor models using Monte Carlo calculations. The project will eliminate the numerous approximations that currently contribute to significant mis-prediction of core power distributions when using deterministic core models.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10241: Development of Transient Capabilities for the NEAMS Neutronics Code PROTEUS | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop efficient transient transport methods for the PROTEUS-SN, PROTEUS-MOC and the first-order SN solvers of the NEAMS neutronics code PROTEUS. The team will also perform transient benchmark analyses._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10603: Experimental and Computational Analysis of NEAMS Pebble Bed Reactors | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct a coordinated experimental and computational effort to quantitatively map the full-field 3-D velocity and temperature fields in the interstitial spaces within pebble bed reactor systems. Key outcomes will include advanced correlations to predict flow and thermal transport within the pebble bed over a much wider range operating conditions and reactor types than is currently possible.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10421: Simulation of Fuel Rod Fragmentation, Relocation and Ballooning through Peridynamics in MOOSE Framework | University of Arizona | $675,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology that includes the appropriate governing physical fields within the realm of peridynamics to investigate fuel cracking, fragmentation, relocation, ballooning, pellet-cladding interaction, and cladding rapture and dispersion within the MOOSE framework.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10313: Development of a Comprehensive Two-phase Flow Database for the Validation of NEK-2P | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,817 | _Researchers will develop a comprehensive, high-resolution two-phase flow database by performing experiments in two air-water two-phase flow test facilities and a new heated rod-bundle test facility that will be built under this project. These data will be used to validate the two-phase flow models implemented in the NEK-2P code._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10744: Support for Reactor Operators in Case of Cyber-Security Threats | Ohio State University | $800,000 | This project addresses the need for research informing plant engineers and control room operators faced with cyber-security threats on appropriate responses. The approach taken uses distinguishing features of safety related events versus cyber-security threats; attack modeling, prediction, game theory and PRA knowledge to update operators procedures; and simulation for validation.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cyber Security R&D | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10578: Thermal Hydraulic & Structural Testing and Modeling of Compact Diffusion-Bonded Heat Exchangers for Supercritical CO2 Brayton Cycles | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will utilize both experimental and computational methods to test and model transient behavior of a mock up PCHE, which is a scaled down representation of the sCO2, cycle high temperature recuperator (HTR). In addition, the team will develop a methodology for quantification of the PCHEs production cost. The proposed project will provide valuable experiment data required to develop the Section III, Division 5 and Section VIII evaluation approach for compact heat exchangers.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10579: A Computational-Experimental Study to Simulate Mixing and Thermal Stratification in SFRs | Kansas State University | $799,320 | Researchers will use Thermographic Imaging and Ultrasonic Doppler Velocimetry (UDV) techniques to generate high fidelity thermal stratification and flow field data under various geometric and physical conditions for scaled models of outlet plena in sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs). Data from these experimental studies will be compared with those obtained using 1D codes such as SAS4A/SASSYS-1.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10714: ASME Code Application of the Compact Heat Exchanger for High Temperature Nuclear Service | North Carolina State University | $799,998 | Researchers will develop structural design methodologies for Type 316H stainless steel and Alloy 617 compact heat exchangers (CHX) using elastic-perfectly plastic (EPP) analysis methodology for the assessment of elevated temperature failure modes under sustained and cyclic thermal and pressure loading. The project will develop a technical basis for Section III, Division 5 ASME Code Case for CHX in high temperature nuclear service.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10885: Turbulent MHD Flow Modeling in Annular Linear Induction Pumps with Validation Experiments | North Carolina State University | $564,520 | Researchers seek to advance EMP design efforts for liquid metal reactors by 1.) Improving MHD modeling capability, particularly near the MHD stability criteria, 2.) Advancing simulation accuracy and fidelity in the typical operating range of large electromagnetic pumps for liquid metal cooled reactors, and 3.) Constructing a low barrier EMP test loop for model validation and instruction that can be easily replicated at low cost at other facilities.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10244: Integral System Testing for Prismatic Block Core Design HTGR | Oregon State University | $799,536 | _Researchers will conduct eight new tests be completed at the HTTF investigating a range of gas reactor events including DCC, PCC, and inlet plenum buoyant plume mixing. The data from these tests will be ideal for use in the validation of safety analysis codes used in gas reactor analysis. The data may also provide valuable insight into the validation of CFD codes for gas-reactor applications._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10324: Model Calibration-Based Design Methodologies for Structural Design of Supercritical CO2 Compact Heat Exchangers under Sustained Cyclic Temperature and Pressure Gradients | Oregon State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a design method for rapid structural assessment of diffusion-bonded Hybrid Compact Heat Exchangers, used as secondary heat exchangers in coupling Sodium Fast Reactors (SFRs) with supercritical CO2 (sCO2) Brayton power cycles. The team envisions that the developed method will (1) be usable in creation of an ASME code case for structural assessment of hybrid CHX; and (2) create design tools that ensure CHX code compliance under desired load conditions.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10285: Tribological Damage Mechanisms from Experiments and Validated Simulations of Alloy 800H and Inconel 617 in a Simulated HTGR/VHTR Helium Environment | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a mechanistic understanding of accelerated fretting, wear, and bonding between Alloy 800H and Inconel 617 surfaces. In order to achieve the objectives, a series of tribological experiments will be conducted in helium environments at elevated temperature with controlled concentrations of gaseous specious, attendant microstructure characterization (using electron microscopy, spectroscopy and atom-probe tomography), and validated continuum models.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10245: An Experimental Study of Design and Performance for the Water-Based Reactor Cavity Cooling System | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will extend and enhance the experimental tests using existing water-cooled RCCS facilities. The activity will be conducted in close collaboration with the water-cooled NSTF research team and will produce a unique set of high quality experimental data for support of existing system codes, system codes under development, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10457: Experimentally Validated Computational Modeling of Creep and Creep-Cracking for Nuclear Concrete Structures | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct novel 3D concrete creep tests under controlled environmental conditions to build a 3D constitutive model for concrete typical of existing containment structures. Decades long creep will be extracted via shorter tests (years long). The material model will be used in the Grizzly structural FEM code for simulating the response of real, 3D containment structures to changes in loading. Full-scale, long-term structural tests will enable validation.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10687: Development and Integration of Light Water Reactor (LWR) Materials Corrosion Degradation Codes into Grizzly | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop powerful codes for predicting environmentally-assisted localized corrosion in the primary coolant circuits (PCCs) of Generation II BWRs and PWRs. These codes and resulting models will be embedded into GRIZZLY. This will greatly extend the applicability of GRIZZLY to components in PCCs that are susceptible to pitting corrosion, stress corrosion cracking, and corrosion fatigue and will provide the stress intensity factor solutions for the crack growth rate models._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10083: Earth Abundant High Temperature Materials for Radioisotope Power Conversion System | University of California, Davis | $400,000 | Researchers will develop breakthrough efficiencies in segmented radioisotope thermal generators (RTG) power conversion systems through high temperature materials development. The approach will also reduce reliance on single-purpose supply chains.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10630: Validation of RELAP-7 for Forced Convection and Natural Circulation Reactor Flows | University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign | $799,368 | _Researcher will aid in the development of RELAP-7 through required experimental and computational efforts. The validation of the two-phase modeling capability of RELAP-7 will be accomplished through a series of tasks which include synthesis of existing forced convective data, acquisition of natural circulation data from an existing well-scaled facility, and uncertainty quantification in constitutive modeling._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10402: RELAP-7 Application and Enhancement for FLEX Strategies and ATF Behavior under Extended Loss of AC Power Conditions | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop new thermal hydraulic models that will be implemented into RELAP-7. Simulation studies will be performed for postulated ELAP scenarios in the PB Unit 2 reactor. The overarching goal of the proposed work is to perform a simulation study using RELAP-7, to model BWR ELAP scenarios with various mitigation measures and determine the range of time available for transition to portable FLEX equipment._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10080: Quantifying Properties for a Mechanistic, Predictive Understanding of Aqueous Impact on Ageing of Medium and Low Voltage AC and DC Cabling in Nuclear Power Plants | University of Minnesota, Duluth | $800,000 | _The degradation of medium and low voltage cabling is often associated with aqueous immersion. Electrical and mechanical data will be collected to develop a mechanistic model of the degradation of cabling to dielectric breakdown based on the temperature, oxidation, water conditions, and irradiation dose. The hypothesized model begins with solvent escape paths that expand and advance from the exterior surface toward the current carrying core at a rate dependent on the environment._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10214: Online Monitoring System for Concrete Structures Affected by Alkali-Silica Reaction (ASR) | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an online health monitoring system that integrates active and passive sensor networks and advanced signal processing algorithms to monitor ASR induced degradation in concrete structures. The obtained information will support an ongoing prognostic modeling research for health diagnosis and prognosis of aging concrete structures, in order to support long-term operational and maintenance decision making.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10210: Tribological Behavior of Structural Materials in High Temperature Helium Gas-Cooled Reactor Environments | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will work to understand, quantify, and model the elevated-temperature tribological behavior of alloys 617 and 800H in helium gas in HTGR conditions. Impurities in helium can induce a variety of corrosion mechanisms in structural materials that can profoundly affect tribological behavior. This study will investigate tribological behavior in various impurity concentration regimes and surface treatments to mitigate tribological damage in these environments.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10226: Enhancement of EM Pump Performance Through Modeling and Testing | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,856 | This project is aimed at the improvement of EM pumps for advanced liquid metal cooled reactors specifically the SFR. Initial tests will be conducted in the University of Wisconsin sodium loop on an existing moving magnet pump to help in the development of the models and to look at end effects associated with this pump. Additionally, tests will be conducted at ANL on the CMI ALIP. Ultimately, a small ALIP will be developed to test the principles and models developed to improve commercial scale.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10268: Sodium Cooled Fast Reactor Key Modeling and Analysis for Commercial Deployment | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,076 | This project will look at very low Prandtl number heat transfer from both an experimental and computational approach. Researchers will then establish key models to implement in plant dynamics codes. The team will also evaluate thermal stratification in large volumes making use of novel fiber optic distributed fiber measurements to get CFD quality data. Lastly, the team will evaluate some of the key remaining safety issues associated with the eventual commercialization of the sodium fast reactor.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10647: Experimental and Modeling Investigation of Overcooling Transients that Include Freezing, in Fluoride-Salt Cooled High-Temperature Reactors (FHRs) | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will make recommendations for design features of salt-reactor components that would take advantage of the phenomena characteristic to fluoride salts in order to be resilient to overcooling, and to recover gracefully from over-cooling transients. In support of this task a MOOSE-based computational tool will be developed, capable of modeling liquid-solid phase change, backed by experimental studies with the prototypical (flibe) coolant, and with simulant fluids.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10509: CFD and System Code Benchmark Data for Plenum-to-Plenum Flow Under Natural, Mixed and Forced Circulation Conditions | Utah State University | $800,000 | Researchers will generate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) validation data for forced, mixed, and natural convection through a parallel-path geometry relevant to gas reactor bypass flow. In addition, the team will independently build and validate CFD models based on the experimental results. The team has the experience and existing infrastructure for sharing complete validation datasets.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 17-12628: Effects of Mineral Impurities and Heat on Uranium(VI) Sorption onto Bentonite | California State University, East Bay | $785,714 | Mineral impurities are common in bentonite and clay buffer materials, proposed for many nuclear waste disposal options. Researchers will investigate the effects of calcite impurities on uranium(VI) sorption onto montmorillonite before and after mineral exposure to heat. Based on experimental sorption data and EXAFS analysis we will develop a new surface complexation model to determine under which conditions impurity effects are relevant, and how they can be incorporated in performance assessment models. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12798: Nanostructured Ceramic Membranes for Enhanced Tritium Management | Clemson University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a ceramic membrane technology for tritium separation and recovery to support the nuclear fuel cycle. Low-temperature water adsorption properties of nanoscale structured ceramics, combined with demonstrated hydrogen isotope exchange in their hydrated layers provide a low cost and unique avenue to address tritium management challenges. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12647: Determination of Critical Heat Flux and Leidenfrost Temperature on Candidate Accident Tolerant Fuel Materials | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $799,906 | Researchers will characterize the thermal-hydraulics behavior of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) materials by measuring critical heat flux (CHF) under normal and off-normal light water reactor conditions, and Leidenfrost temperature in post-loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) conditions. This work will yield material-specific models and/or correlations that can be readily implemented in state-of-the-art simulation tools. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13011: Gamma-ray Computed and Emission Tomography for Pool-Side Fuel Characterization | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,317 | Researchers will design, build, test and install a submersible tomography platform for performing pool-side physical, structural, and chemical characterization of irradiated fuel elements for test reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12496: Group Actinide Separation by Crystallization: A Single-Technology Approach to Used Nuclear Fuel Recycle | Texas A&M University | $399,857 | Researchers will explore bulk removal of U, Np, Pu and Am, from used nuclear fuel by studying the mechanisms of removal. A co-crystallization of the hexavalent actinides with U(VI) has already been demonstrated and researchers plan to develop a process based around this approach. Removal of these elements would be advantageous for future nuclear fuel recycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12824: Methods for Process Monitoring to Accurately Detect and Quantify Material Holdup in Advanced Recycle Facilities | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop better modeling methods, detectors, and facility design approaches to enable detection of inadvertent and deliberate hold up of fissile material in reprocessing and other nuclear material bulk handling facilities. The team will integrate results from this research project into a design methodology for future facilities to ensure accurate and reliable process monitoring for sustainable operation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12782: Effects of alpha and gamma radiation on complex and metal loaded solvents for advanced solvent extraction processes | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | This project will investigate the alpha and gamma radiolysis-induced chemical degradation of ligands used for the removal of minor actinides from used nuclear fuel in advanced extraction systems such as ALSEP. Researchers will emphasize organic phase degradation, particularly complex solvents with multiple ligands as well as metal loaded solvents. The project will improve predictive capabilities of extraction processes by elucidating degradation pathways. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12757: Elucidation of Electrochemical Behavior of Technetium, Tellurium, and Iodine in Molten Salt Solutions. | University of Idaho | $796,741 | This project will evaluate the electrochemical speciation behavior of iodide, and telluride in LiCl-KCl eutectic, LiCl, and LiCl + Li2O electrolytes at temperatures relevant to reprocessing conditions. By using rhenium as surrogate for technetium, the electrochemical, and chemical speciation properties of rhenium ions will be investigated in chloride molten salts with the addition of molybdenum and ruthenium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12701: Development and Experimental Benchmark of Computational Models to Predict Cladding Temperature and Vapor Removal from UNF Canisters during Drying Operations | University of Nevada, Reno | $400,000 | Researchers will develop physics-based computational tools to predict used nuclear fuel cladding temperatures within, and water vapor removal rates from, canisters during existing and proposed drying processes. The project will explore a range of gas pressures (including rarefication), and steady and unsteady external gas flows rates. The tools will be used to develop drying processes that minimize drying time while maintaining cladding temperatures. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12688: An Experimental and Analytical Investigation into Critical Heat Flux (CHF) Implications for Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF) Concepts | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a holistic best estimate assessment of the potential impact of different ATF cladding materials with regards to heat transfer characteristics, the boiling curve, critical heat flux, fuel mass/volume/specific power density, and neutronics effects due to changes in the lattice design or parasitic neutron absorption during design basis accident conditions in light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12996: Multipurpose, Radiation- and Temperature-Resistant Semiconductor Radiation Detectors for Advanced Process Monitoring and Nuclear Safeguards | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop detection systems capable of neutron, gamma-ray, x-ray, and alpha monitoring in high-temperature and high radiation environments for extended periods of time. The detectors will be used to strengthen nuclear safeguards by enhancing nuclear material control and accounting in nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13125: The Thermodynamics of Crystallization and Phase-Separation in Melt-Derived Nuclear Waste Forms | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This projects will study the thermodynamics of melt and quench phases of nuclear waste glasses and glass ceramics and link this information to the underlying short-range and medium-range structure. Advanced calorimetric techniques and neutron total scattering with pair distribution function analysis will be applied to obtain these data. Computer simulations will complement the experimental effort. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12886: Identifying, Predicting and Preventing Localized Corrosion in Kr-85 Storage Canisters | University of Virginia | $799,000 | Researchers will determine the root cause of corrosion within Kr-85 storage canisters in order to better understand current corrosion rates. The project will focus on expanding available research on Rb corrosion interactions and other contributing factors to better understand the corrosion phenomenon in current steel canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12463: Extreme Performance High Entropy Alloys (HEAs) Cladding for Fast Reactor Applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will develop extreme performance high entropy alloys (HEAs) as for new metal alloy cladding for fast reactor applications. Two very promising, single solution BCC HEAs will be investigated. The project will deliver an extensive irradiation resistance study of a new promising yet unexplored cladding concept. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12549: Critical Heat Flux Studies for Innovative Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding Surfaces | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will study critical heat flux (CHF) behavior focused on innovative accident tolerant fuel (ATF) cladding. The project includes separate effects screening tests to measure CHF for various ATF clad materials and surface characteristics with measurements of surface wettability. Pressurized flow boiling experiments will simulate prototypical reactor conditions for evaluating the best ATF clad materials coupled with CHF modeling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13019: Evaluation of Accident Tolerant Fuels Surface Characteristics in Critical Heat Flux Performance | Virginia Commonwealth University | $800,000 | Researchers will perform separate-effects and system-wide tests of the AREVA and GE accident tolerant fuel concepts currently under consideration. The project will investigate the impact of cladding surface characteristics in critical heat flux (CHF) under normal and anticipated off-normal conditions. The experimental results will be used to develop and validate enhanced models for the prediction of CHF and will be implemented in various subchannel and system analysis codes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13054: Simulated Used Nuclear Fuel Dissolution as a Function of Fuel Chemistry and Near Field Conditions | Washington State University | $800,000 | Researchers will study the effects of simulated used nuclear fuel (UNF) chemistry and microstructure on its dissolution in geologic repository conditions. The results will advance models for UNF evolution in repository conditions, enabling reliable prediction of degradation and long-term performance of used nuclear fuel for up to one million years. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12506: Development of Reactor Physics Benchmark Evaluations for Power Burst Facility Experiments | University of Florida | $398,265 | Researchers will perform reactor physics benchmark evaluations of Power Burst Facility experiments regarding differential reactivity worth of the control and transient rods, shim rod worth, in-pile-tube reactivity worth, shutdown reactivity, fuel assembly reactivity worth, core void coefficients of reactivity, in-pile-tube void coefficient, and coolant temperature coefficient of reactivity. The results will be incorporated in the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP). | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12748: Combined modeling and experiments to predict corrosion and embrittlement in dual-phase stainless steels within the MARMOT framework | Oregon State University | $800,000 | Researchers will enhance MARMOT to predict mechanical and corrosion properties of dual-phase stainless steels as a function of composition, aging time and temperature by using combined experimental data and lower length scale models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12797: In-Situ Ion Irradiation to Add Irradiation Assisted Grain Growth to the MARMOT Tool | Pennsylvania State University | $500,000 | Researchers will add the capability to model irradiation assisted grain growth to the MARMOT tool by using in-situ ion irradiation of UO2 to quantify the effect of irradiation on grain growth. The team will investigate the hypothesis that irradiation assisted grain growth is caused by thermal spikes resulting from atom collisions. The model added to MARMOT will couple the existing grain growth model to a heat conduction simulation using a stochastic heat source describing the thermal spike. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12555: Integration of high-fidelity Monte Carlo and deterministic transport codes into Workbench | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | Researchers will provide end users an ability to run both MCNP6 and PROTEUS codes from a common user input in Workbench by (1) templating user-provided engineering scale specifications to code-specific input requirements, (2) enabling multi-fidelity analysis of a system from a common input using MCNP6 and PROTEUS and (3) allowing the easy use of high-fidelity simulations to inform lower-order models for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems and experiments. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12939: Expansion of BISON Capabilities to Predict the Dynamic Response of Irradiated Fuel Rods | University of New Hampshire | $800,000 | Researchers will expand the capabilities of BISON and MOOSE to simulate the structural dynamic response of fuel rods and fuel assemblies during handling (wet and dry storage) and transportation. Expanding the capabilities of BISON and MOOSE to facilitate the evaluation of the dynamic response of fuel rods and assemblies is important to conduct a more reliable risk assessment of fuel assemblies, as well as storage and transportation casks. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13179: Implementation and Validation of Advanced Turbulence Modeling Methods for Liquid Metal Flow in Nek5000 | University of Oklahoma | $786,648 | Researchers will implement and validate state-of-the-art turbulence modeling techniques in Nek5000 to improve predition of liquid metal flows. Specific methods to be investigated include: variable PrT and algebraic heat flux models (AHFM) for URANS simulation; partially-averaged Navier-Stokes (PANS) and dynamic hybrid RANS-LES (DHRL) for hybrid RANS-LES simulation; and variable PrT subgrid heat flux modeling for LES. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12848: Development of Information Trustworthiness and Integrity Algorithms for Cybersecurity Defenses of Nuclear Power Reactors | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a first-of-a-kind physics-based defense-in-depth strategy to defend against false data injection attacks which attempt to change the information used by the I/C network to set reactor state. The approach employs a new design philosophy to check for information trustworthiness/integrity in order to determine whether the information is genuinely generated during the actual operation of the nuclear unit under either normal or off-normal conditions. | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cybersecurity | |
| NEUP Project 17-12538: Influence of dissolved salts and impurities in seawater on heat transfer degradation and fluid flow through fuel channels debris bed | Kansas State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate the role of raw water on degraded heat transfer and fluid flow in the reactor core and debris bed. X-ray imaging techniques, optical-fiber high speed temperature sensing systems and radioactive tracer salts will be used to simultaneously measure experimental data on void fraction, temperature and salt deposition rate. This data will be used to obtain correlations for heat transfer and fluid flow in case of raw water injection. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12502: High Resolution Temperature and Flow Measurements in Wire-Wrapped Fuel Assemblies | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will produce high-quality, high spatial and temporal resolution temperature and flow datasets for wire-wrapped rod bundle geometries. Different bundle sizes, configurations (including duct's and pin's deformation) and Low-Prandlt fluids will be investigated. A unique set of data will be produced to support advanced CFD tools validation, including Nek5000. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12723: Integrating Static PRA Information with RISMC Simulation Methods | The Ohio State University | $799,985 | Researchers will develop a computationally feasible and user friendly process to augment the traditional probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) results with improved representation of epistemic uncertainties and process/hardware/software/human interactions at plant level applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12664: Methods to Predict Thermal Radiation and to Design Scaled Separate and Integral Effects Testing For Molten Salt Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology for the design of molten salt reactor (MSR) Separate Effect Test and Integral Effect Test experiments. This methodology will identify and quantify sources of scaling distortion including radiative heat transport. The project would improve code performance and assist FHR/MSR vendors who are making licensing applications based on code results. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12523: Experimental and Computational Studies of Stress Corrosion Cracking of Alloys 308/309 and 82/182 Weldments in Corrosive and Radiation Environment | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will use advanced microanalytical analysis techniques to study SCC and IASCC of stainless steel and Ni-Cr alloy weldments. CERT, autoclave immersion, and ion irradiation will be used to determine synergistic effect of LWR environmental factors. Results from the experimental component of the proposed work scope will be used for enhanced predictive capability of the INL Grizzly code via XFEM. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12614: Systematic Enterprise Risk Management by Integrating the RISMC Toolkit and Cost-Benefit Analysis | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $799,998 | Researchers will develop a systematic Enterprise Risk Management framework, which utilizes Decision Tree (DT) logic to consider high-level production-loss scenarios, and their underlying physical and social causes throughout the lifecycle. In the proposed DT, uncertainty nodes will be quantified by plant-specific risk analysis using the Risk-Informed Safety Margin Characterization (RISMC) Toolkit, and cost-benefit analysis will be conducted for end states reflecting consequences of managerial decision-making. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12972: Design of a Commercial-Scale, Fluoride-Salt-Cooled, High-Temperature Reactor With Novel Refueling and Decay Heat Removal Capabilities | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $400,000 | Researchers will combine fluoride-salt-cooled, high temperature reactors (FHR) with advanced gas reactor (AGR) refueling technology to address several significant challenges that remain in the development of FHR technology. The project will adapt AGR refueling technology by using the new fuel-inside-radial-moderator fuel form, which will also introduce new ways of dealing with decay heat. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13115: Experimental Determination of Helium/air Mixing in Helium Cooled Reactor | University of Michigan | $800,000 | Researchers will examine the effects of coolant leakage and air ingress through three different investigations. The overall objective of this work is to characterize near and far field behavior of Helium/Air mixing in containment, and to determine rates and amounts of air leaked back into the reactor after a depressurization event. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12830: Radioisotope Retention in Graphite and Graphitic Materials | University of Missouri, Columbia | $800,000 | Researchers will use a variety of experimental techniques to acquire data for fission product diffusion, transport and adsorption of fission products in various graphites, relating to nuclear reactors at high temperatures. Measurements will be taken using non-irradiated graphite using fission product surrogates. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13020: Bimetallic Composite (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) Development and Compatibility in Flowing FLiBe as a Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) Structural Material | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a new bimetallic alloy (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) structural material for the MSR, and compare its post-exposure mechanical performance in flowing FLiBe with single alloys SS 316, Hastelloy N, and Incoloy 800H, in the context of ASME codification. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12678: Novel NDE Sensors, Waveforms, Models, and Algorithms for Cable Health Monitoring | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop NDE sensors and probabilistic cable insulation diagnosis and prognosis algorithms (particle filtering), and modeling and experiments to monitor cable insulation health. Two different types of sensor will be deployed to detect insulation damage. The team will also develop cable insulation degradation modeling to further understand defects in cable insulation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13080: Multiscale Investigation of SiC/SiC Composite Degradation in Helium Coolant Operating Environment | University of Virginia | $800,000 | Researchers will study the long-term degradation mechanisms of SiC/SiC composites in helium coolant environments by slow crack growth (SCG). This will be achieved through multiscale testing in hot, O2-contaminated He and evaluation of the effect of SCG on hermeticity during in situ testing. Results will be extended to predictive low-level and component-scale SCG models and integrated into the development of ASME standards for use of SiC/SiC in nuclear reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12481: Supercritical CO2 power cycle for space applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will develop an advanced supercritical Brayton power cycle directly coupled to a fission reactor. The project will carry out a comprehensive optimization of the cycle operating conditions, working fluid, and configuration; develop detailed designs of each subcomponent; and demonstrate/develop critical technologies such as turbomachinery seals and bearings, reactor material corrosion and strength demonstrations, and supercritical heat transfer. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13232: Radiative Heat Transport and Optical Characterization of High Temperature Molten Salts | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | The goal of the proposed research is to experimentally investigate radiation heat transport in molten salts, and to add functionality for radiative heat transport in a thermal-hydraulics system code. This includes obtaining highly resolved measurements of the optical absorption and emissivity of liquid salts. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 18-15345: Multiphysics Degradation Processes, and Their Mitigation, in Engineered and Geological Bariers: Experiments and Simulation | Duke University | $800,000.00 | This project will focus on filling the gaps in understanding of mechanisms of a series of degradation processes (thermal, hydric, geo-chemical, and transport processes phenomena) potentially affecting geo-materials used in repositories. The objectives of the work are to better recognize the conditions leading to preferential paths of radionuclide transport and rock weakening, and to build mathematical models and implement them into existing codes to predict material degradation and develop strategies to reduce the adverse consequences. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15043: Integration of Nuclear Material Accounting Data and Process Monitoring Data for Improvement on Detection Probability in Safeguarding Electrochemical Processing Facilities | Oregon State University | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to further studies on fusion of process monitoring (PM) data and nuclear material accounting (NMA) data. PM data, which includes monitoring by various types of equipment (radiation detectors, cameras, voltage, current sensors), can supplement NMA data to help improve safeguards. For aqueous-based reprocessing facilities, it is reported that PM, integrated with traditional NMA, has a high-detection probability for specific diversions. For electrochemical reprocessing, preliminary studies have shown that PM data can support traditional NMA by providing a basis to estimate some of the in-processing nuclear material inventories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15148: Recovery of Rare-Earth Elements (Nd, Gd, Sm) in Oxide Wasteform Using Liquid Metals (Bi, Sn) | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000.00 | This project investigates a new approach for recovering rare-earth (RE) fission products (Nd, Gd, and Sm) from molten chlorine salts using liquid metal (Bi and Sn) electrodes. The research aids molten salt recycling by converting the RE products into chloride-free RE oxides, which could be incorporated into conventional glass/ceramic waste forms. Successful outcomes of the project include advanced separation of fission products from molten salts with better control of chemical selectivity and high-recovery yield. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15103: Microstructure-Based Benchmarking for Nano/Microscale Tension and Ductility Testing of Irradiated Steels | Purdue University | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to standardize methods for nano/micro-scale tensile and ductility testing of irradiated Fe-Cr steels, through microstructure-based benchmarking. The study will investigate key process parameters for TEM in situ tension and ductility testing. Coupling experimental studies with multiscale models, the research will identify the approaches that provide consistent deformation mechanisms between the nano/micro-scale and macro-scale tests, from which standard practices will be obtained. The primary project outcome will be a set of recommended guidelines for nano/microscale mechanical testing, which will lead to unprecedented reductions in the time and cost for qualifying materials for in-reactor service and to ensure consistency of methods and validity of results. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15559: Cold Spray Repair & Mitigation of Stress Corrosion Cracks in Spent Nuclear Fuel Dry Storage Canisters | Purdue University | $799,982.00 | This goal of this project is to demonstrate cold spray repair and mitigation of chloride-induced stress corrosion cracks (SCC) and pits in stainless steel dry storage canisters. The research will optimize the repair process and gain a scientifically informed understanding of SCC mechanisms. The outcome is to further develop cold spray as an attractive solution for the repair of existing SCC and mitigation of potential SCC necessary to ensure long-term integrity, security, and regulatory compliance of spent nuclear fuel storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15596: Capture of Organic Iodides from Vessel Off-Gas Streams | Syracuse University | $799,548.00 | This project will study the capture of radioactive organoiodides from off-gas streams produced during nuclear fuel reprocessing by conducting adsorption experiments using a selected silver adsorbents. Multifaceted simulation adsorption models will be developed to assist in the design of necessary capture systems for off-gas streams. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15585: Impact of Coupled Gas Migration and Thermo-hydro-mechanical Processes on the Performance of Repositories for High Level Nuclear Waste | Texas A&M University | $608,375.00 | The main goal of this project is to better understand the possible effect of gas migration (particularly through discontinuities) on the performance and long-term behavior of engineered barrier systems (EBS) envisaged for the isolation of high-level radioactive waste (HLW). Specific outcomes of this study will be an improved understanding of the role of gas migration and discontinuities in the performance of HLW disposals, with the underlying aim to improve design of EBS used for HLW. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15531: Repair and Mitigation of Chloride-Induced Pitting and Chloride-Induced Stress Corrosion Cracking in Used Nuclear Fuel Dry Cask Canister Materials | The Ohio State University | $800,000.00 | This project will evaluate and develop a set of tools to repair and mitigate chloride-induced pitting and stress corrosion cracking in stainless steel nuclear fuel canisters. Advanced processes, including low temperature friction stir welding and cold spray deposition, will be evaluated according to various criteria, such as corrosion performance. In addition, technologies that have not yet been evaluated for UNF applications, including vaporizing foil actuator welding and soldering will be assessed. The two most promising technologies will selected for further development and comprehensive study. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14912: Bridging the Length Scales on Mechanical Property Evaluation | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000.00 | This project combines experimental and modeling methods to gain a comprehensive approach for addressing scaling effects on small-scale mechanical testing. Multiscale experiments, together with modeling on reactor-relevant and model alloys, will provide better understanding of appropriate scaling relationships. The study aims to gain fundamental understanding of plasticity interactions with specific strength-determining features, such as precipitates and grain boundaries. The goal of this work is to provide the basis to add small-scale mechanical testing in the toolbox for nuclear materials research. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14911: Understanding of degradation of SiC/SiC materials in nuclear systems and development of mitigation strategies | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000.00 | This project investigates the best possible coatings to prevent SiCf/SiCm corrosion in LWR environments. The research features a computational and experimental rapid screening approach for numerous coating compositions. The work includes autoclave exposure of rapid screening coupons in prototypical environments in combination with thermodynamic modeling (CALPHAD) and Finite Element Methods (FEM). Small-scale mechanical testing, together with thermal cycling and FEM modeling, will provide guidance on the ideal coating system design. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15701: Time-dependent THMC Properties and Microstructural Evolution of Damage Rocks in Excavation Damage Zone | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,978.00 | The proposed project focuses on the geomechanical aspects of modeling by addressing the time-dependent evolution of rock microstructure and its coupling with the THC processes that are of first-order importance to the stability and the isolation performance of repositories. The research will delineate an integrated experimental, theoretical and numerical strategy in assessing the evolution EDZ over time and its implication on the long-term migration of hazardous species. These results will enhance the confidence of the predicted long-term performance of repositories, which helps to move forward the goal of one-million-year isolation of high-level nuclear wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15381: Multiaxial Failure Envelopes and Uncertainty Quantification of Nuclear-Grade SiCf/SiC Woven Ceramic Matrix Tubular Composites | University of Florida | $800,000.00 | This project proposes to develop a comprehensive experimental and computational approach for determining constitutive relations and multiaxial failure envelopes of nuclear-grade continuous silicon fiber (SiCf) and SiC matrix woven tubular composites. The result of this work can be adopted in industry for design refinement, optimization of performance under the desired operating conditions, and reliable prediction of failure under unforeseen accidental scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15496: Formation of Zeolites Responsible for Waste Glass Rate Acceleration: An Experimental and Computational Study for Understanding Thermodynamic and Kinetic Processes | University of Houston | $800,000.00 | Through experimental and computational studies, this project will expose the factors governing zeolite crystallization and their role in Stage III dissolution of radionuclide-containing glass waste forms generated in advanced nuclear fuel cycles. The overall goal of this project is to understand the formation of zeolite phases in order to develop process control methods to suppress Stage III dissolution. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14998: Novel Processes for Capture of Radioactive Iodine Species from Vessel Off-Gas Streams | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the sorption system performance and effectiveness for capture of radioiodine species present in the off-gas streams from the used nuclear fuel (UNF) recycling operations, focusing particularly on the organic iodine species. The dynamic sorption experimentation and theoretical modeling will offer fundamental insights on the mechanism enabling the design and prediction the control system performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15261: Friction Stir Based Repair Welding of Dry Storage Canisters and Mitigation Strategies: Effect of Engineered Barrier Layer on Environmental Degradation | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The project goal is to apply friction stir based repair and mitigation technique for eliminating failure associated with pitting and stress corrosion cracking in dry storage canisters for spent fuels. The goal of these activities is to obtain a fundamental understanding of the processing-structure-properties correlations. This work will contribute to the development of a crack repair/mitigation strategy based on friction stir technology that can be efficiently implemented for spent fuel dry storage casks, which will enhance safety and reliability of these systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15263: X-ray Studies of Interfacial Molecular Complexes in ALSEP Back-Extraction | University of Illinois at Chicago | $800,000.00 | This project will use synchrotron X-rays to characterize the interfacial molecular complexes (of extractants and radiologically derived impurities, complexants, buffers, and metal ions) formed during the Actinide-Lanthanide Separation Process (ALSEP) back-extraction. This work addresses the critical knowledge gap of slow stripping kinetics in ALSEP, as well as the influence of radiolytic degradation products. The outcome of the project will be a molecular-level understanding of the role of different components in the interfacial mechanism of back-extraction in the ALSEP process, therefore leading to development of more efficient and faster metal stripping relevant to the separation of actinides from lanthanides in the nuclear fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15030: Mechanistic Understanding of Radiolytically Assisted Hydrothermal Corrosion of SiC in LWR Coolant Environments | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to develop a mechanistic understanding of the hydrothermal corrosion behavior of monolithic SiC and SiC/SiC composites in LWR environment under the influence of water radiolysis products and radiation damage. Complementary atomistic simulations will be carried out to determine the rate controlling mechanisms for dissolution under different water chemistries and in the presence of radiation. Activation energies and kinetic rates will be calculated directly from these simulations and compared to experimentally fitted values. The dissolution rate constants determined and validated in this integrated experimental and modeling approach will allow predictions of long-term SiC corrosion behavior. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14999: Probabilistic Failure Criterion of SiC/SiC Composites Under Multi-Axial Loading | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $800,000.00 | This project aims to develop a probabilistic failure criterion of SiC/SiC composites under multi-axial loading and to incorporate the criterion into a reliability analysis of the structural integrity of LWR SiC/SiC fuel cladding. This research will be anchored by a seamless integration of novel experimental and analytical tools, which will lead to a robust methodology for dependable analysis of SiC/SiC composite structures for LWR fuel cladding, as well as other nuclear applications. The resulting model will be experimentally validated and applied to analyze the reliability of LWR SiC/SiC fuel cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15502: Reducing Uncertainty in Radionuclide Transport Prediction Using Multiple Environmental Tracers | University of Montana | $724,906.00 | In this project, direct modeling of multiple environmental tracers will be used to improve predictions of radionuclide transport in a shallow alluvial aquifer discharge. The research will take advantage of recent theoretical developments considering the use of environmental tracers, and advances in high-performance reactive flow and transport models, to obtain the maximum information on the transport system. The goal is to develop a new methodology to characterize natural reactive flow and transport systems, reduce predictive uncertainty in radionuclide transport simulations, determine the maximum information content of the tracer suite, and optimize future groundwater characterization efforts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15578: Computational and Experimental Investigation of Thermal-Mechanical- Chemical Mechanisms of High-burnup Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) Processes at Elevated Temperatures and Degradation Behavior in Geologic Repositories | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $800,000.00 | The overarching goal of this project is to use combined computational and experimental research and development activities to enhance understanding of the mechanisms and thermal-mechanical-chemical (TMC) parameters controlling the instant release fraction (IRF) and matrix dissolution of high-burnup (HB; burnup > 45 GWd/MTU) spent nuclear fuels (SNFs) and the subsequent formation, stability, and phase transformations of HB SNF alteration products under long-term storage and geological disposal conditions (e.g., high-temperature storage, _-radiolysis). The results of this research will be used to enhance the mechanistic detail of process models to reduce uncertainty in, and improve the technical bases of, safety cases and performance assessment analyses. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15439: Radiolytic Dissolution Rate of Silicon Carbide | University of Notre Dame | $400,000.00 | This project seeks to develop a matrix of dissolution rates for high-purity SiC material, using intense electron beam irradiation, and to measure the products of dissolution (silicic acid and CO2 (or CO)) in the water downstream of the irradiation zone. The objective is to determine the rate of SiC dissolution and gather sufficient insight about its mechanism in LWRs, so that the use of SiC/SiC composite materials for accident tolerant fuel cladding can proceed with confidence. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15061: Development of an MC&A Toolbox for Liquid-fueled Molten Salt Reactors with Online Reprocessing | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,207.00 | The purpose of this project is to develop a toolbox of swappable mass flow modules for liquid-fueled molten salt reactor (MSR) systems for the purposes of evaluating material control & accountancy measurement techniques. When combined together, these modules enable modeling of the time-dependent mass flows for a variety of MSR variants. The test platform will consist of a toolbox of independent process modules representing discrete physical units, each with its own self-contained physics responsive to the input mass flow, along with appropriate measurement models that can be coupled to key flow points. These dynamic physical signatures would allow testing of the viability and efficacy of potential accountancy techniques under the full range of reactor operating conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15307: A Novel and Flexible Approach for Converting LWR UNF Fuel Into Forms That Can Be Used to Fuel a Variety of Gen-IV Reactors | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $400,000.00 | This project will investigate the chemical decladding and the digestion of whole MOX-based fuel rods, using thionyl chloride and surrogate materials. Digesting entire LWR fuel assemblies results in product streams that include pure decontaminated ZrCl4; pure UCl4; and a stream containing TRU/FPs, as well as alloying metals (as chloride salts). The objectives of this project are to provide a new, highly efficient protocol for the transformation of used nuclear fuel into useful components and to effectively contain a concentrated stream of highly radioactive materials for appropriate handling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15459: Reduced Diffusion and Enhanced Retention of Multiple Radionuclides from Pore Structure Studies of Barrier Materials for Enhanced Repository Performance | University of Texas at Arlington | $567,831.00 | The project seeks to better understand and quantify the pore structure (geometry and topology) and pore connectivity of porous media and its emergent effect on diffusion and retention of various radionuclides in barrier materials. The anticipated outcome of the project will be to more accurately evaluate the performance of geological repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15649: Benchmarking Microscale Ductility Measurements | University of Utah | $776,669.00 | The objectives of this project are to establish best practices for obtaining tensile microscale ductility measurements and to validate methodologies for comparing them to macroscale ductility measurements. Anticipated outcomes of the project are: 1) measurement of grain and sub-grain localization processes micro and macroscales; 2) establishment of best practices for microtensile experimentation; 3) identification of statistically significant relationships between specimen geometry, microstructure variables and mechanical behavior; 4) modified phenomenological elongation-based ductility models to enable direct upscaling of ductility measurements from microscale to macroscopic. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15003: Advanced Coating and Surface Modification Technologies for SiC-SiC Composite for Hydrothermal Corrosion Protection in LWR | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,990.00 | This project focuses on the development of coatings and surface modification approaches for hydrothermal corrosion protection of SiC-SiC composite in normal LWR operation environments. Innovative surface treatment recipes will be explored using processes including, interfacial stitching to improve adhesion, multi-layered structures to improve ductility, and compositions and structures resulting from thermal treatments. The surface treatment concepts involve corrosion resistant metallic and ceramic materials, and are amenable to industrial scalability for the cladding application. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15332: Low-Force Solid-State Technologies for Mitigation of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dry Storage Canisters | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000.00 | This project will focus on evaluating and developing two technologies used for field mitigation and repair of stress corrosion cracking (SCC): 1) additive friction stir welding; and 2) cold spray deposition. The work involves developing low-force, low-heat input solid state technologies to lessen and repair SCC in stainless steel canisters for used nuclear fuel (UNF). This outcome of the study will inform feasibility of using the two technologies to conduct on-site field repairs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14913: The Role of Temperature on Non-Darcian Flows in Engineered Clay Barriers | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000.00 | This project intends to accomplish three tasks: 1) to develop a predictive model to facilitate experimental data interpretation and provide mechanistic insights into the role of temperature on non-Darcian flows in low-permeability engineered clay barriers; 2) conduct experiments to unravel the role of temperature on the threshold gradient of non-Darcian flow in both saturated and unsaturated bentonite; and 3) use molecular dynamics (MD) simulation to improve fundamental understanding. The experimental data, associated with the MD simulation, will provide valuable information to improve fundamental understanding and scientific knowledge with respect to the temperature dependence of threshold gradient in non-Darcian flows, because very limited experimental data for saturated flow and no experimental data for unsaturated flow are available. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14815: C-SiOC-SiC Coated Particle Fuels for Advanced Nuclear Reactors | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $400,000.00 | This project will study a new concept for nuclear fuel encapsulation using an amorphous SiOC plus carbon system as the inner coating and nanocrystalline SiC plus minor carbon as the outer coating for nuclear fuel kernel particles. The outcomes of this work are: 1) new directions and possible replacement guidance for current nuclear fuel materials in operation; 2) new fuel materials for future nuclear reactor material design and development; 3) nuclear composite microstructure evolution and performance degradation understanding; 4) screening tools to guide future nuclear fuel material activities; and 5) mechanisms of nuclear fuel material evolution and degradation and effective strategies to mitigate/reduce undesirable fuel behaviors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15226: An Evaluated, Transient Experiment based on Simultaneous, 3-D Neutron-Flux and Temperature Measurements | Kansas State University | $399,972.00 | This project will evaluate existing and near-term experimental data for inclusion in the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) handbook. The data to be evaluated include compositions from a recent fuel replacement as part of an LEU conversion, a number of critical, fresh-fuel configurations, fuel temperature measurements at fresh-fuel configurations, and records from nearly a decade of operation. The proposed work would lead to a first-of-a-kind evaluation of transient, spatially-dependent reaction rates. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project CFA-18-15773: Evaluation of the Thermal Scattering Law for Advanced Reactor Neutron Moderators and Reflectors | North Carolina State University | $398,821.00 | The objective of this project is to narrow the nuclear data gap for advanced nuclear reactors that are driven by thermal neutrons. This includes concepts such as gas-cooled high-temperature reactors and molten salt or salt-cooled high temperature reactors. The generated data TSL libraries will be provided in EDNF File 7 format to the National Nuclear Data Center (NDDC) to immediately include in beta releases of the ENDF/B libraries and to consider for the future release of ENDF/B-VIII.1. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15602: Modeling and Experimental Verification of Thermal Energy Storage Systems to Enable Load Following Capability for Nuclear Reactors | University of Idaho | $761,640.00 | This project purposes to integrate new thermal energy storage (TES) models, developed in Modelica, with ongoing nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (NRHES) modeling efforts, in order to evaluate economic potential and advantages of new process designs over baseload electricity production. The computational phase of this project includes developing mathematical and physics-based TES models, which could later be translated to Modelica and integrated with existing NRHES components. The testing and optimization would be conducted using RAVEN. A techno-economic analysis will be performed to evaluate the compatibility of the newly formed integration, as well as to quantify its feasibility and economic benefits. The experimental aspect is focused on the development of scaled TES systems, which serve as verification for the Modelica models and allow system testing upon being integrated with DETAIL. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14963: Development of Nuclear Hybrid Energy Systems: Temperature Amplification through Chemical Heat Pumps for Industrial Applications | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The overall goal of this project is to develop and demonstrate, through modeling and experimental investigations, temperature amplification capabilities of a chemical heat pump (CHP) system that can be coupled to a conventional light water reactor or a near-term small modular reactor. The outcomes would include nuclear hybrid energy system architecture containing a CHP, experimental data on the CHP performance, and dynamic model of the system, validated through experimentation, which could be used for scale-up and design. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15008: Development of Thermal Inelastic Scattering Covariance Data Capabilities with Demonstration of Light Water Evaluation | University of Michigan | $400,000.00 | The goal of this project is to produce a format for covariance data for inelastic thermal neutron scattering data for moderators in the ENDF format. To demonstrate the viability of this new format, an evaluation of the covariance data for thermal scattering in light water in this format will be produced, along with the capabilities to generate the files and test their efficacy. A capability for calculating sensitivity coefficients using multigroup methods to the fundamental physics parameters governing light-water scattering will be developed to facilitate identifying nuclear data needs related to thermal scattering. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15056: Model-Based Diagnostics and Mitigation of Cyber Threats | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | This project intends to develop a toolkit for modeling digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems for nuclear power plants so that the consequences of cyber-attacks on I&C systems may conveniently be modeled using nuclear plant simulation software. The results of the toolkit-based models, the corresponding responses, and the performance of the diagnostic schemes will be tested on a virtual control room driven by a plant simulator. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15055: NICSim: Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Simulation for Evaluating Response to Cyber-attacks | University of New Mexico | $799,945.00 | The objective of the project is to develop a Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Simulation (NICSim) platform with a novel emulytics capability to simulate control systems and components in nuclear power plants. The outcome of this work would be a first-in-class emulytics platform with an associated documentation and library of physical models of components that could be used by analysts and designers to assess the resilience and cybersecurity risks of different control system designs for a wide range of power plants. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15324: Validation of Pressure Relaxation Coefficient in RELAP-7 Seven-Equation Model | George Washington University | $800,000.00 | This project aims to validate the Seven-Equation model in RELAP-7 by: 1) measuring velocity and pressure in each phase and the interface as well as return to equilibrium in fast transients with high-speed non-intrusive laser diagnostics in canonical experiments; 2) complementing experimental data with a multiscale computational approach, including a 3D proprietary direct numerical solver; and 3) validating RELAP-7 with a combination of experimental data and first-principle simulations. This combination would provide unique and complete datasets to validate RELAP-7 with high confidence and offer a new class of experimental and numerical tools. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project CFA-18-15104: Demonstration of Utilization of High-fidelity NEAMS Tools to Inform the Improved Use of Conventional Tools within the NEAMS Workbench on the NEA/OECD C5G7-TD Benchmark | North Carolina State University | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to demonstrate the utilization of high-fidelity Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) tools (PROTEUS, Nek5000, and BISON) to inform the improved use of conventional tools (DIF-3D, CTF, and CTFFuel) within the NEAMS Workbench on the NEA/OECD C5G7-TD benchmark. This would result in more accurate predictions of safety parameters and margins, which is important for both safety and performance improvements of the nuclear power plants being currently operated and built. The developed Workbench-based framework will also assist end users to apply high-fidelity simulations to inform lower-order models for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14741: Demonstration of a Methodology for Direct Validation of MARMOT Irradiation-Induced Microstructural Evolution and Physical Property Models Using U-10Zr | Texas A&M University | $500,000.00 | The objective of this project is to demonstrate, for the first time, a methodology that enables the direct validation of microstructural evolution models for fuel in MARMOT, and the direct correlation of changes in physical properties with specific irradiation-induced microstructural features. Properly implementing this methodology will result in rapid development of MARMOT mesoscale models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15520: Accurate and Efficient Parametric Model-Order Reduction for Turbulent Thermal Transport | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000.00 | The project objective is to develop reduced-order models (ROMs) that will improve accuracy of LMR system-level analysis with low overhead. These new models will systematically mine high-fidelity DNS, LES, or uRANS simulations to construct low-order dynamical systems that can couple with a systems analysis code, such as the SAM code being developed under NEAMS. These simulations provide useful data and will be made available to the scientific community, and the overall effort will contribute to more efficient LMR conceptual design studies and licensing. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15484: A Novel High Fidelity Continuous-energy tTansport Tool for Efficient FHR Transient Calculations | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000.00 | The objective of the project is to develop a high-fidelity continuous energy (CE) transport tool for efficient transient calculations in fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactors with prismatic core/fuel assembly design. This will be accomplished by extending the high-fidelity 3-D continuous energy coarse mesh radiation transport (COMET) code with formidable computational speed to solve transient problems in FHRs with accurate thermal hydraulic feedback. The new capability would enable plant system codes to perform analyses necessary to address complex technical design, regulatory, reactor safety, and economic hurdles prior to construction. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15093: Determination of Molecular Structure and Dynamics of Molten Salts by Advanced Neutron and X-ray Scattering Measurements and Computer Modeling | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000.00 | This project will seek detailed knowledge about molecular structure and dynamics of molten salts to inform the design of new molten-salt reactors. A combination of advanced neutron and x-ray scattering and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations will be used to model the ionic-cluster structure of the fluid and solubility of impurities. Machine learning will be applied to regress from simulations and experiments in order to develop the model and predict chemical potentials as a function of composition and temperature. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15171: Oxidation Behavior of Silicon Carbide and Graphitic Materials | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000.00 | The objectives of this project are to determine the oxidation behavior of silicon carbide and graphitic materials in oxygen and/or moisture, to accurately measure the kinetic parameters of oxidation, to ascertain the oxidation mechanisms in relation to the microstructures, to determine the effect of irradiation on oxidation behavior, and to provide data and input to the safety analysis of high-temperature gas reactors under air and moisture ingress accident conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15276: Coping Time and Cost Analysis of Accident Tolerant Plant Design based on Dynamic PRA Methodology | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000.00 | This project will evaluate the failure modes of accident tolerant fuel ATF candidates to understand the different failure characteristics. The research aims to obtain a response surface of coping time by investigating the various uncertainties of accident mitigation in PWR and BWR reactors. These outputs will aid the decision making process on the implementation of ATF and FLEX to existing LWR plants from the perspective of risk reduction and economic feasibility. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15270: Innovative Use of Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) with the RCIC System to Enhance Passive Safety of Commercial LWRs | Texas A&M University | $748,000.00 | The overarching objectives of this project are to: 1) demonstrate new operational strategies with the combined use of Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) and the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) System to increase the passive safety capabilities of current Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs) in delaying or preventing core damage; and 2) pursue the delay of containment venting until after a 72-hour coping period through new BWR Suppression Pool mixing procedures. The research will use both simulation and experimental data to validate the objectives. The work has the potential to increase the ability of existing nuclear power plants to passively respond to beyond design basis events using existing equipment and without changes to the plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15346: Big Data For Operation and Maintenance Cost Reduction | The Ohio State University | $800,000.00 | This project will develop a first-of-a-kind framework for integrating Big Data capability into the daily activities of our current fleet of nuclear power plants. This research will mainly focus on incorporating the wide range of data heterogeneities in nuclear power plants into an integrated Big Data Analytics capability. The primary end product of this work will be a Big Data framework that is capable of dealing with the large volume and heterogeneity of the data found in nuclear power plants to extract timely and valuable information on equipment performance and to enable optimization of plant operation and maintenance based on the extracted information. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15065: in situ Measurement and Validation of Uranium Molten Salt Properties at Operationally Relevant Temperatures | University of Connecticut | $799,979.00 | This project proposes to use advanced spectroscopic and scattering methods to provide information at the atomic and molecular scale. The research will use synchrotron-based x-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy, at operationally relevant temperatures, to measure the local and intermediate structure as well as speciation of chloride fuel salts (NaCl, ZrCl, UCl3) for fast-spectrum applications and fluoride fuel salts ( 7 LiF, UF4) primarily for thermal spectrum applications This approach is expected to generate theories and concepts that would allow models to predict behavior, and develop the means for in situ monitoring. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15058: High-resolution Experiments for Extended LOFC and Steam Ingress Accidents in HTGRs | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to better understand key phenomena in high-temperature gas-cooled reactors relevant to steam ingress and loss of forced circulation (LOFC) accidents. Specifically, the research will: 1) experimentally investigate, using an existing integral-effect test facility with some improvements, the steam-ingress accident caused by a postulated steam generator tube rupture initiating event; 2) carry out integral-effect tests for the extended LOFC accident to study the establishment of global natural circulation flow in the primary loop; 3) design, based on a scaling analysis, and construct a separate-effect test facility to study the complex helium flows in the core and hot plenum during the extended LOFC accident; and 4) perform detailed, high-resolution, separate-effects experiments using the results obtained as boundary/initial conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15471: Integral Experimental Investigation of Radioisotope Retention in Flowing Lead for the Mechanistic Source Term Evaluation of Lead Cooled Fast Reactor | University of New Mexico | $800,000.00 | The purpose of this project is to experimentally investigate the integral effects of radioisotope interactions with liquid lead to support the following technical goals: 1) evaluating the mechanistic source term of the Lead-cooled Fast Reactor (LFR); 2) developing a universal integral effect test methodology for liquid metal source term evaluations; and 3) establishing a basis for the comparison of radioisotope retention between lead and sodium. This aim of the research is to advance the LFR licensing pathway by establishing the phenomenological foundation of the interaction between fission products and liquid lead. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15153: Understanding Molten Salt Chemistry Relevant to Advanced Molten Salt Reactors through Complementary Synthesis, Spectroscopy, and Modeling | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to understand molten salt chemistry relevant to advanced molten salt reactors through complementary synthesis, spectroscopy, and modeling. Through complementary synthetic, spectroscopic, and computational efforts, the aim is to achieve atomistic and molecular-level understanding of liquid structure, coordination geometry, chemical bonding, and reactivity of novel molten salt melts relevant to advanced molten reactor designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15111: Improving Nuclear Power Plant Efficiency Through Data Analytics | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,727.00 | This project aims to develop and provide data analytics solutions to improve nuclear power plan economic efficiency by utilizing empirical models to integrate disparate data sources while providing uncertainty estimates to quantify risk and support decisions. The outcomes will enhance the technical and economic competitiveness by enabling advanced monitoring of critical assets, improving the operating capability of the existing fleet, and helping achieve enhancements in organizational effectiveness. Additionally, the research would provide an agile and modular data analytic framework that would have high commercialization value and supports the industry-wide drive towards digital innovation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14846: Development of Corrosion Resistant Coatings and Liners for Structural Materials for Liquid Fueled Molten Salts Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to develop corrosion-resistant coatings and liners for structural materials for use in fuel dissolved molten salt environment for future Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). Innovative, but industrially scalable, surface cladding approaches are proposed to lead to promising surface and interfacial compositions. The processes themselves are commercial, and have high technology readiness levels, and consequently would facilitate the accelerated developments of MSRs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15280: Advanced Alloy Innovations for Structural Components of Molten Salt Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $796,792.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to develop and evaluate specific advanced metallic alloys for structural components in fluoride salt-cooled molten salt reactors (MSRs). The research will investigate four categories of metallic alloys: advanced Ni-based; radiation damage tolerant high entropy; refractory Mo-based, and compositionally-graded, designed for high-surface corrosion resistance and good bulk strength. Additionally, the propensity for radiation embrittlement, as well as weldability, of the alloys will be evaluated. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14957: Big Data Analytics Solutions to Improve Nuclear Power Plant Efficiency: Online Monitoring, Visualization, Prognosis, and Maintenance Decision Making | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $797,820.00 | The overarching goal of this project is to significantly advance the ability to assess equipment condition and predict the remaining useful life to support optimal maintenance decision making in nuclear power plants. This research will work toward accomplishing and establishing a modern set of data-driven modeling, online monitoring, visualization, prognosis, and operation decision-making methodologies to address the significant opportunities and challenges arising from the emerging data-rich environment in nuclear plants. The potential impact of the work is significant and transformative and could deliver important advances in productivity with reduced unscheduled downtime and improved equipment performance. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15097: Oxidation Study of High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor TRISO Fuels at Accidental Conditions | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000.00 | This project is to study the oxidation behaviors of TRISO fuels during accidental air and water vapor ingress conditions. The work focuses on the oxidation and burn-off of the graphite fuel matrix and oxidation of the TRISO fuel SiC layer at high-temperature accidental states in the presence of air and/or water vapor. It will include both unirradiated and irradiated graphite fuel matrix and simulated fuel particles with the SiC layer. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 19-16987: Novel miniature creep tester for virgin and neutron irradiated clad alloys with benchmarked multiscale modeling and simulations | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | This project will develop a miniature creep machine to collect rapid thermal creep and load relaxation data for two selected ferritic alloys under "as-received" and irradiated conditions. Fast and accurate measurements of creep deformation are essential for qualifying new alloys for long term use in current and next generation reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17150: Speciation and Behavior of Neptunium and Zirconium in Advanced Separation Process | Oregon State University | $800,000 | This project will further develop the understanding of nuclear fuel reprocessing using Co-Decontamination (CoDCon). Radiolytic degradation products of tributylphosphate, nitric acid, redox buffer, masking agent, and water greatly affect the redox speciation, complexation and partitioning of the recycled metals. Fundamental understanding of chemical speciation and partitioning of Neptunium and Zerconium under such conditions is required. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17395: Modeling and Uncertainty Analysis of MSR Nuclear Material Accounting Methods for Nuclear Safeguards | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | This project will model and analyze the limits of detection for the diversion of nuclear materials from a molten salt reactor (MSR) fuel cycle. MSR depletion under a range of uranium and/or plutonium diversion to quantify the resulting differences in salt composition will be evaluated. Sensors will also be investigated to quantify fuel salt contents and correlate the outputs with the reactor models to predict diversion detection. Results will be coupled with robust uncertainty analysis to determine limits of detection. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16583: Neutron Radiation Effect on Diffusion between Zr (and Zircaloy) and Cr for Accurate Lifetime Prediction of ATF | The Ohio State University | $499,997 | This project will perform systematic diffusion studies on both neutron-irradiated and unirradiated accident tolerant fuel samples to obtain precise diffusion coefficients. This will result in a precise evaluation of the pure neutron irradiation effect on diffusion in these systems and enable accurate life prediction of the accident tolerant fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17381: High Throughput Assessment of Creep Behavior of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Structural Alloys by Nano/microindentation | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $800,000 | This project will develop a high throughput assessment of creep behavior of advanced nuclear reactor structural alloys by nano/microindentation. Experimental datasets will inform polycrystalline deformation models to predict material response over a variety of creep conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16549: Thermal Conductivity Measurement of Irradiated Metallic Fuel Using TREAT | University of Pittsburgh | $500,000 | This project intends to provide accurate thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity data with microstructure characterization of metallic (U-Pu-Zr) fuel as a function of burnup and attain fundamental understanding of the thermal conductivity of the irradiated fuel to inform and validate computational models. This will be accomplished using an innovative thermal wave technique in the Transient Reactor Test Facility at the Idaho National Laboratory, with the Minimal Activation Reusable Capsule Holder. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17002: Remote Laser-based Nondestructive Evaluation for Post-Irradiation Examination of ATF Cladding | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | To enable advanced nondestructive characterization techniques for light water reactor fuels that can be applied to the cladding coating, a remote nondestructive evaluation post irradiation inspection approach will be developed. This technique will measure the cladding coating layer thickness and detect defects within the cladding such as corrosion, micro-cracking and delamination. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17276: Radiation-Induced Swelling in Advanced Nuclear Fuel | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,989 | The microstructural evolution of advanced fuel (uranium carbide and uranium nitride) under fission-fragment type radiation has not been studied and remains unclear. This project will utilize advanced synchrotron X-ray characterization using microgram samples to obtain detailed nanoscale information on radiation-induced volumetric swelling and microstrain. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16848: Metal-Functionalized Membranes for Radioiodine Capture | University of Utah | $799,031 | This proposed research will investigate high-surface area (>300 m2/g) metal-functionalized membranes. These novel chemically durable and mechanically robust membranes are formed using an aqueous fabrication process, which results in an interconnected porosity that is highly controllable, providing hierarchical structures ranging from the nano- to micrometer-scales. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17350: Development and Experimental Validation of Pitting and SCC Models for Welded Stainless Steel Dry Storage Containers Exposed to Atmospheric Environments | University of Virginia | $799,027 | The specific goals of this project are to: (a) validate the maximum pit size model for dry storage canister relevant corrosion conditions as well as quantifying the effects of limited cathodic current on stress corrosion cracking (SCC) kinetics, (b) demonstrate a means to quantitatively rank the risk of SCC based on measurable parameters, (c) perform probabilistic predictions of SCC growth, and (d) validate the model predictions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16879: Proactive Hybrid Nuclear with Load Forecasting | Brigham Young University | $799,933 | This project develops new capabilities of design and dispatch optimization of nuclear hybrid energy systems (NHES) in the "Risk Analysis Virtual Environment (RAVEN)" modelling software. Blended (physics-based and data-driven) machine learning will be applied to forecast demand and production of thermal and electrical loads. Two experimental case studies are proposed to test the software developments with a lab-scale thermal energy storage and with a large district energy system. As a final step, the software developments will be generalized to other NHES. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17461: Development and Evaluation of Neutron Thermalization Integral Benchmarks for Advanced Reactor Applications | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | This project will develop integral benchmarks that aim to examine thermal neutron scattering data for graphite (ideal and nuclear), light water, and molten salt. The benchmark evaluations will be contributed to the International Handbook of Evaluated Reactor Physics Benchmark Experiments (IRPhEP) database. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17219: Using Integral Benchmark Experiments to Improve Differential Nuclear Data Evaluations | University of New Mexico | $400,000 | This project will use the results of integral benchmark experiment to inform differential nuclear data evaluations and improve the predictive capability of modeling and simulation (M&S) tools. This goal will be accomplished by developing capabilities to assess the sensitivity of integral benchmark results to evaluated nuclear data parameters, and by using data assimilation tools to directly adjust the evaluated data parameters and improve the accuracy of M&S tools. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16743: Paths Forward for Nuclear Energy: Using a Nationwide Post-Stratified Hierarchical Model to Facilitate Matching of New Nuclear Technologies to Receptive Host Communities | University of Oklahoma | $390,393 | This project will enable deployment of advanced nuclear technologies by developing a model, and an accompanying web-based tool that can be utilized by technology entrepreneurs, that identifies public support for siting new nuclear technologies at very local spatial scales across the US. The model will employ hierarchically structured, post stratified analysis of the largest US pooled-time series dataset on geocoded public support for nuclear technologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16995: A Cyber-Attack Detection Platform for Cyber Security of Digital Instrumentation and Control Systems | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,995 | The proposed research will develop a robust cyber-attack detection system (CADS) for monitoring digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems. The project will develop a robust research tool for evaluating cyber defense of digital I&C systems and provide a framework for a cyber-attack detection system that provides continuous assurance of the security of digital I&C systems in nuclear power plants (NPPs). | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17327: Multi-Timescale Nuclear-Renewable Hybrid Energy Systems Operations to Improve Electricity System Resilience, Reliability, and Economic Efficiency | University of Texas at Dallas | $800,000 | The overarching objective of this project is to develop a multi-timescale nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (N-R HESs) operations framework to provide different types of grid products. The project will model and analyze the capabilities of N-R HESs to provide power grid services at different timescales ranging from seconds to days, such as day-ahead unit commitment, flexible ramping (5-45 minutes), regulation reserves (1-5 minutes), and frequency response (less than seconds). | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17192: The Design and Investigation of Novel Mechanical Filters for Molten Salt Reactors | Abilene Christian University | $762,246 | Researchers will develop a novel mechanical filtration system. The project will include the collection of filter media performance data and filter regeneration performance data for a novel sintered nickel-based filter prototype. The project will also provide a filter design that facilitates remote filter removal, cooling, replacement, and assay of fissile material hold-up in the filter media. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16980: Determining the Effects of Neutron Irradiation on the Structural Integrity of Additively Manufactured Heat Exchangers for Very Small Modular Reactor Applications | Auburn University | $400,000 | Researchers will determine how to best use laser-powder bed fusion additive manufacturing methods for generating radiation-resistant channel/pore-embedded structures from Inconel (alloy 625 or 718) nickel-based superalloys for special purpose reactor (i.e. very small modular reactor) heat exchangers. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17413: Validated, Multi-Scale Molecular Dynamics Simulations to Predict the Thermophysical Properties of Molten Salts Containing Fuel, Fission, and Corrosion Products | Brigham Young University | $798,291 | Researchers will use first principles molecular dynamics (FPMD) simulations on molten salts containing impurities including fuel, fission products, and corrosion products. These will be used to develop a classical molecular dynamics (CMD) potential. CMD will then be used to predict properties for a wide variety of salt compositions and temperatures, and physical property measurements will be performed to validate those predictions. Property correlations will be developed from this data. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17183: Mixing of helium with air in reactor cavities following a pipe break in HTGRs | City College of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct separate effects tests to obtain experimental validation data on mixing of helium and air in reactor building cavities during and after blowdown in HTGRs. Air and helium concentrations, and gas mixture velocity and temperature fields will be measured in simulated reactor cavities. An existing helium flow loop will be used as the source of high pressure/high temperature helium for injection into the cavities and different break configurations will be experimentally investigated. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16391: GuArDIAN: General Active Sensing for conDItion AssessmeNt | Duke University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a dependable, autonomous or semi-autonomous (i.e. low human involvement), and minimally disruptive framework for monitoring equipment and components in nuclear reactors. The project will develop GUARDIAN; a robust active sensing framework through the integration of model-based inference and mobile actuating/sensing robots. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17251: Measuring Mechanical Properties of Select Layers and Layer Interfaces of TRISO Particles via Micromachining and In-Microscope Tensile Testing | Idaho State University | $799,815 | Researchers will characterize the strength of TRISO-coated particle layers and interfaces using FIB micro-machining and in-TEM tensile testing. Tensile test samples from coating layers of (1) unirradiated surrogate (fuel) TRISO particles, (2) unirradiated fueled TRISO particles and (3) irradiated fueled TRISO particles will be studied. Results of this project will both benefit and leverage the AGR Program. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17185: Demonstrating Reactor Autonomous Control Framework using Graphite Exponential Pile | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will demonstrate a detection-prediction-feedback framework for nuclear system autonomous control. It will adopt multiple detector channels to enable control feedback to spatially dependent perturbations. It will also utilize high-fidelity solutions trained surrogate models for real-time prediction and decision-making. In addition to the method development, the proposal will entail a first-of-a-kind engineering demonstration using the MIT Graphite Exponential Pile (MGEP). | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16754: Simultaneous Corrosion/Irradiation Testing in Lead and Lead-Bismuth Eutectic: The Radiation Decelerated Corrosion Hypothesis | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $762,823 | Researchers will test candidate FeCrSi and F/M alloys in a new, simultaneous corrosion/radiation facility to try to identify an alloy that will satisfy all requirements for Lead Fast Reactor structural materials. Microstructural characterization, mechanical property testing, and corrosion tests, both during irradiation and following ion/He pre-conditioning, will assess how irradiation affects corrosion, potentially slowing it. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17173: Ni-based ODS alloys for Molten Salt Reactors | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | The objective of this work is to (i) propose and develop a new Nickel (Ni) based Oxide Dispersion-Strengthened (ODS) alloy that can be used for structural applications in Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) and other nuclear reactor harsh environments, (ii) to demonstrate that its high temperature mechanical properties are adequate for MSR operating temperatures, (iii) to demonstrate its radiation damage resistance through ion irradiation testing and (iv) to demonstrate its improved corrosion resistance in MSR environment. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17037: Investigation of HTGR Reactor Building Response to a Break in Primary Coolant Boundary | Purdue University | $799,832 | Researchers will perform a series of experiments to simulate HTGR reactor building response due to a break in the primary coolant boundary in a well-scaled test facility to obtain spatial distribution of oxygen concentration, perform analysis of the whole system response with 1-D thermal hydraulics codes and use CFD to make detailed localized predictions. The tests will be carried out with different locations and sizes of the breaks to create various vent and flow paths in the reactor cavity. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17093: Integrating Multi-modal Microscopy Techniques and the MOSAIC Simulation Environment to Assess Changes in the Physical Properties and Chemical Durability of Concrete Following Radiation Exposure | University of California, Los Angeles | $800,000 | Researchers will develop unprecedented multi-modal imaging methodologies that integrate multiple microscopy techniques. The team will develop a generalizable protocol for quantifying the changes in physical properties and chemical durability of concrete and concrete constituents (minerals and aggregates) following radiation exposure. The imaging analyses will be input into the MOSAIC framework to reveal the nature and extent of degradation that is expected to result. The outcomes offer insights that are needed to enable and inform second license renewals. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17167: Atomistically Informed and Experimentally Validated Model for Helium Bubble Growth in Welded Irradiated Metals | University of Florida | $797,861 | Researchers will construct a validated computational model for He bubble growth on grain boundaries in irradiated Fe-Ni-Cr microstructures, including intergranular fracture, as a function of material conditions and welding heat input. This model will be based on the phase-field methodology, leveraging numerical solvers in the MOOSE simulation platform, with critical inputs and validation provided by both atomic-level simulations and experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16909: Learning-based Computational Study of the Thermodynamic, Structural, and Dynamic Properties of Molten Salts at the Atomic and Electronic Scale and Experimental Validations | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will obtain the thermophysical, thermochemical, and transport properties, construct the phase diagrams, and build empirical physical models of molten salts that are relevant to Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) with first-principles accuracy using molecular dynamics simulations driven by machine-learned high-dimensional neural network potentials combined with neutron/X-ray scattering and thermodynamic experimental validations. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16298: I-PRA Decision-Making Algorithm and Computational Platform to Develop Safe and Cost-Effective Strategies for the Deployment of New Technologies | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an integrated probabilistic risk assessment decision-making algorithm to support risk-and-cost-informed decision-making related to the deployment of new technologies. The project will enhance the financial analysis module and the challenging interface of social and technical systems to advance the algorithm. The project will conduct a case study for evaluating the safety impact and cost-effectiveness of FLEX strategies to support operational flexibility. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16802: Evaluation of Semi-Autonomous Passive Control Systems for HTGR Type Special Purpose Reactors | University of Michigan | $400,000 | Researchers will investigate the use of variable flow controllers and a variable reflector as passive or semi-autonomous reactivity control mechanisms for multi-module HTGR type special purpose reactors. This applies to the commercially developed special purpose reactor concepts from HolosGen. The incorporation of these systems will reduce the movable parts count and enable more robust load follow capabilities over broader power ranges and local and global reactivity control. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17467: Understanding the Speciation and Molecular Structure of Molten Salts Using Laboratory and Synchrotron based In Situ Experimental Techniques and Predictive Modeling | University of Nevada, Reno | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology to accurately determine the structure and speciation of the molten salt electrolyte using laboratory-based spectroscopic techniques (Raman and UV-Vis-NIR) and synchrotron-based (scattering and absorption) techniques, in combination with computational modeling. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17231: Prevention of Common Fault-Trigger Combinations for Qualification of Digital Instrumentation and Control Technology | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will provide an effective design evaluation approach based on prevention of concurrent triggering conditions to eliminate common-cause failures (CCF) and enable qualification of digital I&C technology for application in nuclear plant modernization. The research involves classifying commonality among digital devices, categorizing faults and triggering conditions, determining fault-trigger relationships, and defining preventive design measures to resolve the potential for CCF. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17087: Economic Risk-Informed Maintenance Planning and Asset Management | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will provide a holistic framework for cost-minimizing risk-informed maintenance planning, including inspection. They will develop a two-tier framework that coarsely minimizes the total maintenance cost during the remaining normal operating cycle and uses the outputs of the first model to maximize the financial impact of these activities in the short term. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16811: Liquid Metal-cooled Fast Reactor Instrumentation Technology Development | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will explore three different areas that will help to improve commercialization of SFRs and to aid in testing for the VTR. These include: 1. Advancement in understanding of low prandtl number heat transfer 2. Testing of compact heat exchangers for use with sodium 3. Development of in pool submersible flow meters. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16954: Innovative In-Situ Analysis and Quantification of Corrosion and Erosion of 316 Stainless Steel in Molten Chloride Salt Flow Loops | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will use a thin-layer activation technique for the first time in molten salts, on 316H samples placed in natural convection and forced flow loops. The individual and synergistic effects of corrosion, irradiation and thermo-mechanical treatments will be evaluated in-situ to predict component service lifetimes and design limits. The effects of molten chloride flow velocity will also be assessed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17168: Fuel Salt Sampling and Enriching System Technology Development | Vanderbilt University | $799,989 | Researchers will combine insights from the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment with decades of advancements in applicable technologies into an enhanced Sampler Enricher (SE) concept to develop and test a flexible, reliable, and workable design. The prototype will then be tested in an existing salt loop. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16739: Improvements of Nuclear Data Evaluations for Lead Isotopes in Support of Next Generation Lead-Cooled Fast Systems | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | The objective of this project is to improve the accuracy of neutronics simulation of lead-based systems by improving the nuclear data of lead isotopes. The nuclear data for lead will be reevaluated with emphasis of the intermediate and fast energy regions that are required by reactor applications currently sought by several industrial entities. The deliverables of this project are new lead isotopes evaluations that will be candidates for inclusion in a future Evaluated Nuclear Data Library (ENDF) release. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 20-19373: Connecting Advanced High-Temperature X-ray and Raman Spectroscopy Structure/Dynamics Insights to High-Throughput Property Measurements | Boston University | $500,000 | Researchers will acquire molten salt structure and dynamics data at high-temperatures using high-energy x-ray techniques and Raman spectroscopy and relate them to their physical and chemical properties. High-throughput techniques will be developed to rapidly measure multiple high-temperature properties at one time. An understanding of the relationship of salt structure and dynamics to its properties will help to select and optimize melt chemistry in molten salt reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19371: Adsorption and Reduction of Uranium in Engineered Barrier Systems: Effects of Iron and Heat | California State University, East Bay | $800,000 | Reseachers will investigate uranium sorption and abiotic reduction processes in iron-rich montmorillonite systems as a function of solution chemistry and temperature. The team will develop a surface complexation model that can account for both uranium adsorption and reduction, and hence reduce the uncertainties associated with uranium mobility in iron-rich environments with engineering barrier systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19831: Optimizing Melt Processed Phosphate Glass Waste Forms via Composition-Property-Structure Correlations | Clemson University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and optimize highly durable and easily processable phosphate-based glass waste forms to immobilize the dehalogenated salt streams by tailoring the composition of the glasses. To complement the work conducted on glass waste forms at the national laboratories sponsored by the DOE-NE program, modified iron phosphate glass waste forms will be prepared and evaluated by the introduction of various glass modifiers (SnF2 and BaO) to the prototype glass compositions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19695: Quantifying radionuclide sorption to engineered barrier materials under elevated temperature and ionic strength conditions | Clemson University | $799,380 | Researchers will characterize actinide sorption to mineral surfaces and examine possible mechanisms of sorption at high temperature/ionic strength through examination of the effects of hydration and hydrolysis on actinide sorption. These data will provide an understanding of radionuclide behavior with engineered barrier materials. A greater understanding of these processes will reduce the uncertainty in strategies for sequestration of radionuclide bearing wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19789: Controlling Neptunium and Zirconium in Advanced Extraction Processes | Colorado School of Mines | $599,763 | Researchers will address continuing issues with separating neptunium and zironium in current separation techniques. They will use coupled optical and x-ray specroscopy, small angle scattering, equilibrium thermodynamics and chemical analysis to understand fundamental molecular-level behaviors of extracted Np and Zr. These techniques, using world-class irradiation facilities, will elucidate the specific chemistries underlying the problematic behavior in Np and Zr in radiation fields. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19660: Linear and nonlinear guided ultrasonic waves to characterize cladding of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researcherses will perform a combination of linear and nonlinear guided ultrasonic waves, integrated with new material behavior models to develop a non-destructive evaluation (NDE) approach for both quality control/quality assurance and in-service NDE characterization of the cladding integrity and bond strength. Current NDE techniques are effective for uncoated designs, but these coated fuels add new challenges, which will be addressed by this new approach. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19678: Flexible Hard Ceramic Coatings by Ultrasonic Spray Mist-CVD for Dry Storage Canisters of Spent Nuclear Fuel and Waste | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop advanced flexible hard ceramic coatings using ultrasonic spray mist-chemical vapor deposition technique manufacturing process to deposit on dry storage canisters. The team will test resistance to corrosion, heat, wear and hydrogen permeation thgourh microstructural characterization and material property evaluation. The ultimate goal is to enhance the long term reliability of spent nuclear fuel dry storage canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19797: High Throughput Computational Platform for Predictive Modeling of Thermochemical and Thermophysical Properties of Fluoride Molten Salts | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | Researchers will (1) develop an open-source high throughput (H-T) computational platform to understand, predict, and evaluate thermochemical and thermophysical properties of molten salts as demonstrated in the F-(K-Li-Na)-(Cr-Fe)-U system and (2) provide H-T approaches (CALPHAD modeling and AIMD simulations) and open-source codes together with thermodynamic models of molten salts and public-accessible databases verified by targeted experiments for the molten salt research community. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19627: Chemical Interaction and Compatibility of Uranium Nitride with Liquid Pb and Alumina-forming Austenitic Alloys | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | Researcherswill address critical issues with the compatibility and chemcial interations of uranium nitride fuel, alumina-forming austenitic alloys and lead coolants/sublayers. They will obtain critical data of fuel-coolant-cladding interactions and compatibility to evaluate key parameters of operation temperature, fuel impurities and coolant chemistry. This data will provide key operation windows and parameters for deployment of lead-cooled fast reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19924: First-principles free energies by hybrid thermodynamic integration for phase equilibria and fission product solubility in molten salts | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | Researchers will predict phase equilibria and solubility of fission products in molten salts using a novel hybrid framework for thermodynamic integration combining first-principles, molecular dynamics and continuum methods to calculate free energies. They will be benchmarked using Bayesian-targeted calorimetric, in-situ diffraction and spectroscopic experiments. The project will provide microscopic insights and quantitative parameters necessary for reliable thermophysical modeling of molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19939: Gallium Oxide Schottky Diode Detectors for Measurement of Actinide Concentrations from Measured Alpha Activities in Molten Salts | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and test, to high temperatures, a Schottky diode alpha particle detector that is based on the rapidly emerging ultrawide band gap semiconductor material gallium oxide. Ga2O3 Schottky diode detectors offer the potential of detecting alpha particles at high temperatures, with better resolution than SiC Schottky diode detectors, which the team has previously developed for similar purposes. These detectors could be used in pyrochemical processing streams and molten salt reactors with potential application in other reactor concepts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19966: Evaluating hydroxypyridinone-based ligands for actinide and fission products recovery in used fuels | University of California, Berkeley | $600,000 | Researchers will pursue novel chemical separation approaches for advanced reactor used fuels treatments and recycling, by leveraging the unique actinide and lanthanide coordination properties of hydroxypyridinone-based aqueous chelators. These chelators have not been tested in extreme conditions and this work would test potential process performance with a focus on radiation-induced changes and oxidation state distribution. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19545: Femtosecond Laser Ablation Machining & Examination - Center for Active Materials Processing (FLAME-CAMP) | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop, build, and test a femtosecond laser ablation machining & examination tool that can be deployed in a hot cell environment enabling microscopy sample fabrication, isotope and elemental analysis, and thermal analysis. The technology allows for non-contact materials processing, even through glass windows, potentially preventing contamination of surrounding areas and tools. Such a multi-function tool with high throughput material processing will accelerate the research on fuel and cladding tremendously. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19198: Functionalized clay buffer materials for the long-term sequestration of technetium and iodine | University of Florida | $800,000 | Researcherswill develop synthesize, test, and model novel functionalized clay buffer materials for the long-term sequestration of iodine and technetium. The project will also focus on key experimantal parameters and modeling of how the novel clay buffer material will sequester iodine and technetium species. Novel materials will support DOE's efforts to design improved geologic repository barrier systems and optimize repository performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19209: Investigation on multicomponent solubility in LiCl-KCl eutectic chloride salts using combinatorial approach | University of Idaho | $400,000 | Researchers will perform irradiation experiments to understand how gamma radiation changes trivalent metal ion complex coordination structure and extraction characteristics during the ALSEP process. This work will focus on understanding the types of degradation products that are formed during the extraction process and what effects these degradation products have on process performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19713: Multifunctional Laser Processing for Repair and Mitigation of Pitting and Cracks in Welded Stainless Steel Dry Storage Canisters | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a strategic solution that combines laser cleaning and laser peening for removal of surface contamination and mitigation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in welded stainless steels. Laser cleanning will remove surface contamination and reduce pitting caused by corrosion. Laser peening will then be used to mitigate stress corrosion cracking and provide enhanced corrosion resistance. The portability of the laser system means the system will be able to be deployed in the field. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19188: Single- and Polycrystalline Diamond Electrodes for Spectroelectrochemical Characterization of Various Molten Salts | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $600,000 | Researchers will develop optically transparent electrodes for spectroelectrochemical measurements in chloride- and fluoride-based radioactive molten salts. The primary electrode material will be boron-doped diamond. Measurements will elucidate important electrochemical properties of nuclear fuel and fission products such as redox potential, diffusion coefficient, and electron transfer stoichiometry. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19641: Mitigating stress corrosion cracking in austenitic stainless-steel canister welds using peening techniques | University of Nevada, Reno | $799,950 | Researchers seek to understand the mechanisms of pitting/SCC resistance of welds as affected by a) compressive stress b) surface texture modification and c) microstructural change in the substrate surface resulting from laser shock peening, shot peening, ultrasonic impact peening and laser surface texturing. The study will recommend the best peening and surface texturing process conditions for mitigation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in 304L welds. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19704: Multicomponent Thermochemistry of Complex Chloride Salts for Sustain-able Fuel Cycle Technologies | University of Pittsburgh | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive thermodynamic database of multicomponent chloride salts through a collaboration between experts in Gibbs energy modeling and thermochemical experiments. A thermochemical database of the multicomponent chloride system KCl-LiCl-NaCl-UCl3-LnCl3 (Ln: La, Pr, Nd) will be developed using the CALPHAD (Calculation of Phase Diagrams) method with supported ab initio calculations and thermal analysis experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19506: Engineered composite patch with NDE inspection for repair and mitigation of SCC in nuclear spent fuel dry storage canister | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an innovative 'engineered composite patch' that can absorb moisture, neutralize chloride, and prevent stress corrosion cracking from further growth. This 'patch' with have in integrated non-destructive evaluation capability using laser utrasonic characterization methods to montior quality and performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19374: Maintaining and building upon the Halden legacy of In-situ diagnostics | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will develop innovative instrumentation focusing on temperature and strain measurements to fill the void left by the Halden reactor and to enhance the experimental capabilities in the Transient Reactor Test Facility (TREAT) located at Idaho National Laboratory. The team will develop a fiber optic sensor system that offers an inherent resistance to electromagnetic interference unlike currently used sensors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19076: Investigation of Degradation Mechanisms of Cr-coated Zirconium Alloy Cladding in Reactivity Initiated Accidents (RIA) | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $500,000 | Researchers will investigate the thermal, mechanical, and irradiation response of chromium-coated zirconium alloy claddings under RIA conditions, in comparison to uncoated Zr-alloy cladding. The outcome of the project will be used for anticipated licensing applications to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), thereby accelerating use of coated accident tolerant fuel concepts in U.S. commercial power reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19318: Surface Peening and Hybrid Surface Engineering Approaches to Mitigate Initiation and Resurgence of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dry Cask Storage Stainless Steel Canisters | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,838 | Researchers will develop and evaluate a wide range of surface peening treatments, as well as hybrid surface treatments to mitigate initiation and growth of chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) in stainless-steel canisters for used nuclear fuel (UNF) dry cask storage. Canister mock-ups with prototypical fusion welds will be used for this study. Characterization and testing of microstructure, compressive stresses, corrosion and CISCC will be performed. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19614: New Coatings for Nuclear Fuel Waste Canister Storage and Transport | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop novel SiOCN(H) coatings for spent nuclear fuel canisters in order to support sustained nuclear reactor operation and safeguard nuclear waste storage, transport, and disposal, in both terrestrial and marine environments. The novel coating will specifically address pitting corrosion and stress corrosion cracking in spent nuclear fuel canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19382: Separated waste stream immobilization of iodine and offgas caustic scrubber solution | Washington State University | $400,000 | Researchers will produce a set of waste forms from separation of iodine from the caustic offgas scrubber solution. The primary caustic scrub containing iodine, halides, and carbonate will be immobilized in a glass-bonded composite of cancrinite/sodalite. The iodine-loaded silver sorbent will be stripped of iodine, converted to NaI, and immobilized into a separate durable glass-bonded iodosodalite waste form. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19912: Validation of Robustness in TCR Design Strategies | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will perform sensitivity analysis (SA) and uncertainty quantification (UQ) of TCR design parameters and relevant physical phenomena, using open-source time dependent Monte-Carlo code (OpenMC), NQA1 qualified commercial codes (STARCCM+), and ABAQUS for thermal-hydraulics and structural mechanics. The SA/UQ analysis will provide key insights to allow for development of performance metrics of robustness for autonomous operation sensors, by processing signals such as neutron flux, temperature and strains, as wll as inform the needed robustness for AI by enveloping the attainable level of decision making by the software. | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 | |
| NEUP Project 20-19216: Creation of Multiple Effect Evaporator and Combined Cycle Modelica Modules, and Optimization of Potable Water Generation from Saltwater Sources | North Carolina State University | $498,532 | Researchers will develop models of Multiple Effect Evaporators and Combined Cycle Gas Turbine systems to be used within the Modelica framework, with an end goal of creating an energy park that can supply its own energy and water through Small Modular Reactor nuclear systems and/or Combined Cycle Gas Turbine Systems with brackish to brine water sources. These same models will be capable of being implemented into larger models of grid independent and near independent energy parks located about military bases, large manufacturing facilities, and in small communities where freshwater is limited. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19590: Benchmark Evaluation of Transient Multi-Physics Experimental Data for Pellet Cladding Mechanical Interactions | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop an integral benchmark evaluation based on available experimental data from cold ramp tests performed at the Studsvik testing R2 reactor. Transient multiphysics benchmark evaluations are needed to support validation of the NEAMS ToolKit and the VERA suite. This research will focus on pellet cladding interaction and pellet cladding mechanical interaction and their associated events. The benchmark will be prepared for inclusion in the IRPhEP handbook. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19837: Reinforcement Learning Validation Framework for Quality Assurance of AI-guided Additive Manufacturing Digital Platforms | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will address the need to qualify the risk associated with AM fabricated nuclear reactor parts by incorporating a novel rendition of a well-established artificial intelligence learning strategy, the multi-armed bandit reinforcement learning (RL). The RL framework will be developed and demonstrated using TCR data and its associated digital platform. This research will assimilate in-process sensor data and physics-based simulation data to calculate risk measures in the form of failure probabilities for the AM parts. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19363: Integrated Solar & Nuclear Cogeneration of Electricity & Water using the sCO2 Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,427 | Researchers will design and model a renewable, nuclear Integrated Energy System (IES), compatible with the RAVEN/Modelica framework, for co-generation of cost competitive electricity and clean water. The components of the IES to be included are concentrated solar power, the supercritical CO2/sCO2 cyle, multi-effect distillation, and the lead-cooled fast reactor. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19066: Engineering-Informed, Data-Driven Degradation Modeling, Prognostics and Control for Radiation-induced Void Swelling in Reactor Steels | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will advance the capability to model, predict and control void swelling in irradiated structural components through developing engineering-informed, advanced data-driven statistical and machine learning techniques. Excess swelling not only leads to dimensional instability, but also can cause severe embrittlement of internal materials. The proposed efforts will ensure more effective regulation, aging management and license renewal. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19795: A High-Fidelity Novel and Fast Multigroup Cross Section Generation Method for Arbitrary Geometry and Spectrum | Georgia Institute of Technology | $600,000 | Researchers will develop a fast high-fidelity multigroup cross section generation method for arbitrary geometry configurations and energy spectra by developing a response-based high order perturbation method to perform hybrid stochastic-deterministic local transport calculations. The proposed method will be implemented as independent modules that can be easily embedded into any neutron transport or diffusion code and also be used as a standalone cross section generator. The modules will provide data that can interface with the associated NEAMS toolkit and workbench user interfaces to enable advanced neutronics tools that will perform high-fidelity multigroup multiphysics steady-state and transient calculations that capture and represent the complex resonance interactions and core environmental effects which exist in heterogeneous reactors, including advanced reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19968: Experimental Investigations and Numerical Modeling of Near-wall and Core Bypass Flows in Pebble Bed Reactors | Texas A&M University | $600,000 | Researchers will establish a highly coordinated, concurrent experimental and computational effort combining high-resolution turbulence simulations (including Nek5000, Star-CCM+) and experiments to deepen physical understanding and address long standing modeling inaccuracies related to near wall and bypass flow effects in pebble bed reactors. The project's acquired extensive database will be used to derive closure models and correlations needed for porous media code, such as Pronghorn. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19864: Development of innovative overlapping-domain coupling between SAM and NEK5000 | University of Michigan | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a robust, multi-scale coupling scheme between the SAM code and the CFD code, NEK5000, based on a novel overlapping domain approach. The developed coupling will be validated by using experiments specifically designed for the validation of multi-scale coupled codes. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-20074: Characterization of Plenum to Plenum Natural Circulation flows in a High Temperature Gas Reactor (HTGR) | CUNY, City College of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will obtain and provide experimental data on the plenum-to-plenum natural circulation flows in a typical high temperature gas reactor using helium and nitrogen over a wide range of temperatures and pressures to simulate natural circulation under both pressurized and depressurized conduction cooldown scenarios. The results of the project will yield new data and complement other very high temperature related studies. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19042: Flexible Siting Criteria and Staff Minimization for Micro-Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $440,517 | Researchers will develop siting criteria that are tailored to micro-reactors deployable in densely-populated areas by comparing the characteristics of the MIT research reactor with those of leading micro-reactor concepts, and evaluate whether and how the MIT research reactor design basis and associated regulations are applicable to micro-reactors. A model of operations for micro-reactors that would minimize the staffing requirements will also be conceptualized. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-20045: Highly Compact Steam Generators for Improved Economics of Small Modular Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will design and build a compact steam generator (CSG) test section that can be easily modified for different flow paths and geometries, as well as modify an existing loop to accept the test section. The conceptual optimized CSG system design, which could be deployed in small modular reactors, will be informed by CFD simulations to determine critical characteristics of the test section. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19205: Robust bullet-time tagging and tracking system based on computer vision for individual ex-core TRISO-fueled pebble identification | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a novel, validated, robust bullet-time tagging and tracking system, based on computer vision techniques, to tag and track each individual pebble in pebble bed reactors. The effort will utilize Residence Time Distribution and Radioactive Particle Tracking techniques to validate and refine the developed method, using a continuous cold flow pebble bed experimental setup. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19625: Corrosion Sensitivity of Stainless Steels in Pressurized Water Reactor Water Chemistry: Can KOH replace LiOH in PWRs? | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will perform a series of corrosion and stress corrosion tests on unirradiated alloys to determine the possibility of switching from LiOH to KOH to control the pH in nuclear reactors without worsening the corrosion behavior of the structural alloys used in pressurized water reactor core internal components. The impacts of such a change and the consequent water chemistry alterations on the corrosion processes and nucleaer power plant core-internal component service-life will be assessed and better understood. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19735: Experiments for Modeling and Validation of Liquid-Metal Heat Pipe Simulation Tools for Micro-Reactor | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will produce validation data for the heat pipe code, Sockeye, by measuring the internal thermal-hydraulic parameters of a single-heat pipe and the performance of an integrated multi-heat-pipe system in various operation scenarios. The results of this project will generate more liquid metal heat pipe validation data, which is currently lacking and needed to support micro-reactor design and licensing activities. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19367: Investigation of Novel Nickel-Based Alloys for Molten Chloride Fast Reactor Structural Applications | University of Cincinnati | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate and establish the scientific foundations for the development of promising Ni-Mo-W-Cr-Al-X alloys with a superior balance of properties compared to current materials for high temperature structural applications in molten chloride salt fast reactors. The project couples critical experiments with a high-value integrated computational materials engineering approach. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19693: Evaluation of micro-reactor requirements and performance in an existing well-characterized micro-grid | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will evaluate the opportunities and challenges of operating micro-reactors in decentralized power generation applications and the potential for deployment in established micro-grids with diverse power generation sources. By using a well-characterized prototypic environment platform, the Modelica-based Hybrid Energy System, the market potential for deployment of micro-reactors on campuses and other similar existing micro-grids will be quantified. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19195: The effect of LWR primary coolant water chemistry (LiOH vs. KOH) on stainless steel: An integrated experimental and computational study of the corrosion response of stainless steel for different surface microstructures and mechanica | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will study the effect of surface microstructure, mechanical stress factors, and radiation damage on the corrosion response of stainless steel under two different alkaline pressurized water reactor primary water chemistry conditions. The project will involve investigation of mechanical stress factors such as strain rate, residual stress, deformation induced persistent slip bands, dpa damage, and fatigue cracks and modeling to understand the physical phenomena associated with the measured corrosion response and inform the U.S. nuclear industry regarding KOH. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19491: Identifying and prioritizing sources of uncertainty in external hazard probabilistic risk assessments | University of Maryland, College Park | $799,979 | Researchers will develop a method for identifying and prioritizing sources of uncertainty in external hazard probabilistic risk assessment for nuclear power plants, with particular emphasis on uncertainties associated with hazard characterization. External flooding wil be utilized as the demonstration hazard during this project, while a common taxonomy for communicating uncertainties across a broad range of external hazards will be created. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19737: Innovative Enhanced Automation Control Strategies for Multi-unit SMRs | University of Michigan | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an innovative, enhanced automation control framework for small modular reactors (SMRs) that supports control of multiple units operating in a variety of reactor core conditions. Through these enhancements, SMR technology gains improved marketability through potential deployment to a broader range of markets and can also lead to reduced operating and maintenance costs for a SMR site, increasing the overall profitability. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19954: Deployment Pathways of Small Modular Reactors in Electric Power, Industrial, and Other Niche Markets to Achieve Cost Reductions and Widespread Use | University of Michigan | $691,658 | Researchers will explore how to leverage two key value propositions for small modular reactors (SMR) in shifting market conditions, in order to achieve widespread market deployment: (1) participation in small and large power and industrial markets and (2) cost reductions via mass fabrication. The result of this work will be advanced power system modeling, optimized SMR design with thermal storage for power and industry markets, and new SMR deployment pathways. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19752: Development and Demonstration of Scalable Fluoride Salt Pump Seals and Bearings for FHRs | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and demonstrate scalable advanced bearings and seals of fluoride salt pumps for fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactors. The systematic approach to be used will employ both experimental and numerical methods to investigate the static and dynamic performance of fluoride-salt-lubricated bearings and high-temperature seals. The outcomes of this research will directly contribute to the reliability, safety, design, and operation of the fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactor power plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19544: A Holistic Artificial Intelligence Tool to Mitigate Human Factor Uncertainty in Operation and Maintenance | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a holistic artificial intelligence tool to help the detection and mitigation of human factors errors in nuclear power plants. The tool will increase the efficiency of various activities such as testing, inspection, data collection, and interpretation, improve operation and maintenance decision-making, and reduce costs in nuclear power plants by minimizing the impact of human factors errors and providing warnings to mitigate them, when possible. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19524: Non-Intrusive Flow Monitoring for Liquid Metal and Molten Salt Cooled Reactors | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a first-of-its kind flow monitoring system with significantly enhanced capabilities for liquid metal fast reactors and other advanced reactors, such as molten salt reactors. The flow monitoring system will involve a proven and breakthrough fiber optic sensing technology that enables the harmonic-free interrogation of thousands of grating-based distributed interferometers along an optical fiber that is integrated into a sensing pad that can readily be installed at desired locations in the flow loop. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19671: Identifying Needed Fire Input Data to Reduce Modeling Uncertainty | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,393 | Researchers will identify fire parameters that have the largest impact on fire conditions, quantify those parameters contributing to uncertainties in the fire data through Monte Carlo simulation results, and use statistical analysis and machine learning models from the simulation results to assess existing data and recommend appropriate new fire tests to reduce uncertainties that are important to risk. With this information, researchers will develop a framework capable of determining the significant contributors to uncertainty in physical events that are relevant to the risk assessment and, then, determine the need for new experiments that would be of most value to reduce risk. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 21-24394: Computer vision and machine learning for microstructural qualification | Carnegie Mellon University | $497,518 | Quantifying and understanding microstructure is a key driver for performance-based materials qualification. In this proposal, well-curated data sets of microstructural images will be gathered and computer vision and machine learning will be applied to build quantitative deep learning frameworks to accelerate and enable qualification of nuclear materials based on microstructural features. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24156: Experimental thermofluidic validation of TCR fuel elements using distributed temperature and flow sensing | Kansas State University | $798,250 | The overall goal of this project will be to test the performance of 3D printed Transformational Challenge Reactor core geometry parts using existing Helium flow loops and distributed temperature, and velocity sensing systems. Thermal transport capabilities of scaled 3D printed ceramic core will be evaluated experimentally and measurements will be used to qualify computational models. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24636: Risk-informed Consequence-driven Physical Protection System Optimization for Microreactor Sites | Texas A&M University | $400,000 | This proposed project will utilize a risk-informed, consequence-driven analysis to develop an approach for "right-sizing" physical protection systems (PPS) for microreactors. The hypothesis presented for this proposal is that the explicit coupling of consequence modeling to PPS design will provide a similar benefit that can be applied prior to reactor construction. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24131: Total Mass Accounting in Advanced Liquid Fueled Reactors | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | A total mass determination method for nuclear materials accounting (NMA) in liquid-fueled molten salt reactors will be validated with fuel-bearing salt, mixed with a _+ radioisotope of known activity, that will be irradiated to reproduce the practical NMA scenario in a molten salt loop. Irradiated fuel salt will be sampled and measured for its mass and activity. The mass-to-activity ratio will be used to calculate the unknown salt mass in the original container. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24037: Design and intelligent optimization of the thermal storage and energy distribution for the TerraPower Molten Chloride Fast Reactor in an Integrated Energy System (IES) | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to explore the application of advanced reactors within Integrated Energy Systems, use extensive existing data from UIUC for model development and validation, and extend the predictions to larger grids and commercial applications. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24522: Targeted Materials Characterization and Testing of Additively Manufactured Metals and Ceramics to Inform Print/Build Data Analytics | University of Texas at San Antonio | $800,000 | A collaborative program between the University of Texas at San Antonio and Boise State University is proposed to supply materials testing and characterization data sets to be leveraged by the TCR program to inform build/print data analytics. With the data provided by the proposing team, correlations among steam oxidation performance, micromechanical properties, chemical composition, local microstructure, and location specific print/build data will be achieved. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24431: Location-specific material characterization of LPBF SS316L & IN718 TCR core structural materials | Utah State University | $800,000 | In this proposed work, we will experimentally characterize the spatial variability of the quasi-static (tensile), creep (strength and impression), and creep-fatigue properties as well as the underlying structures (microstructure and defect structures) for LPBF SS316L and IN718 components to be used as training data to the TCR program data-driven model. The resulting correlation will be used to drive the design process for an application as TCR core structural materials. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23978: Rapid, Non-Radioactive Methods for Prediction and Quantification of Radiolytic Radical Decomposition Products in Nuclear Separations | Clemson University | $399,999 | High-throughput, non-radioactive, radical assays will be used to determine decomposition of monoamide separations complexants. Radical assay results will be correlated with classic radiolytic damage results to develop predictive models for screening complexant stability. These models will aid in single-stage separations complexant optimization, in the transition from lab- to industrial-scale nuclear waste separations and, ultimately, could yield field tests for radiolytic damage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24350: Phosphate Mineral and Glass Waste Forms for Advanced Immobilization of Chloride and Fluoride-based Waste Streams | Clemson University | $600,000 | This proposal is intended to develop three waste form options for immobilizing the fluoride- and chloride-salt waste stream in highly durable and easily processable phosphate minerals and glasses, including phosphate apatite ceramic waste forms, phosphate glass waste forms, and phosphate glass-ceramic waste forms with apatite phase. Multiple monolithic waste form samples will be provided to DOE national laboratories for further testing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24292: Passive multimodal tomography for dry storage casks imaging using passive neutron and gamma dosimetry and cosmic ray muons | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | A method for multimodal tomography of dry storage casks will be developed to determine fuel relocation and cladding failures using passive neutrons and gamma emissions in combination with cosmic ray muons. The use of multimodal imaging will allow 3-D reconstructions of the dry storage cask that would be unachievable with any single radiation source. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24374: Effects of Radiolysis on Pertechnetate under Solvent Extraction Conditions, including Tri-Butyl Phosphate | CUNY, Hunter College | $399,624 | The overarching objective of the proposed work is to assess the impact of radiolysis on pertechnetate speciation during tri-butylphosphate (TBP) solvent extractions from the molecular level to macroscale. The research in this project is designed to understand the interplay of radiolysis, degradation product formation, other important redox active metals, and oxidation states of technetium on its speciation and distribution coefficients in solvent extraction processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24183: Experimental investigation and development of models and correlations for cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena in transient conditions in support of TREAT and the LWR fleet. | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Thermal-hydraulics transient heat transfer phenomena of relevance for the safety and the operation of the TREAT and light water reactors will be investigated. The performance of accident tolerant fuel materials during a reactivity initiated accident scenario and post-critical heat flux and reflood scenarios will be elucidated, as well as the development of models and correlations to be integrated into computational tools for the design and safety analysis of nuclear systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24666: Wireless Multifunctional Ultrasonic Arrays with Interdigital and Airborne Transducers for Monitoring Leakage and Corrosion Conditions of Welded Dry Storage Canisters | Mississippi State University | $800,000 | This project aims to develop and validate wireless, multifunctional, ultrasonic sensor arrays that enable on-demand, quantitative interrogation and real-time monitoring of both the canister leakage indicators (helium, helium/air mixture, internal pressure, and temperature) and corrosion conditions (free and/or vapor water). The developed arrays will be fully functional, wirelessly powered and communicated, and compact. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24188: Uranium recovery from used nuclear fuel using metal sulfides | Northwestern University | $400,000 | An alternative and original method to recover uranium from spent fuel is proposed. This method will utilize a new type of regenerable sorbent materials with high selectivity in capturing uranium from complex mixtures in acidic solutions, such as those found in used nuclear fuel of high-assay low-enriched uranium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24225: Characterizing Fuel Response and Quantifying Coolable Geometry of High-Burnup Fuel | Oregon State University | $800,000 | This study seeks to objectively determine, through empirical and numerical means, the actual impact of fuel dispersion in-core after fuel failure and whether high burnup dispersed fuel compromises coolable geometry and long-term cooling. The outcome of this study will yield an objective means of assessing two criteria (coolable geometry and long-term cooling) within the existing regulatory process to comprehensively understand whether it is feasible to increase burnup, while satisfying 10 CFR 50.46. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24288: Innovative Methods for Interrogation of DSC Internal Conditions | Oregon State University | $800,000 | The proposed work takes a two-pronged approach. The team will study techniques involving only external sensors and equipment, which could be deployed on existing dry storage canisters. In addition, small sensors located inside the canister that can be externally powered and read through the canister wall will also be investigated. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24439: Development of Novel Corrosion-Responsive Buffer Materials for Long-Term Immobilization of High-Level Nuclear Waste | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to develop a novel cementitious buffer material (CBM) for the safe disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF). The primary aim is to identify and characterize novel Mg-Al-P CBMs, complete with assessments of their repository stability as well as their transport and immobilization of radionuclides. The secondary aim is to use in-situ UT-EIS monitoring to understand the corrosive failure at the canister-CBM interface and provide long-term performance modeling of SNF packages. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24461: Estimation of low temperature cladding failures during an RIA transient | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers aim to create a multiphysics description of cladding response during a RIA, especially at high burnup, coupling reactor physics, thermal hydraulics and mechanics. The creation of a thermomechanical model in Bison will be the result of this project which can be used to evaluate the likelihood of low temperature cladding failures during a postulated RIA on a typical fuel rod (as these can lead to channel blockage), and thus identify the most important conditions to be studied at TREAT. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24460: Multiscale Modeling and Experiments for Investigating High Burnup LWR Fuel Rod Behavior Under Normal and Transient Conditions | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | The main objective of this work is to achieve a mechanistic understanding of and to develop a predictive model for the fuel rod behavior at high burn-up under both normal and transient conditions. Therefore, this study will provide the nuclear industry with validated, physics-based criteria to fuel fragmentation thresholds and rod mechanical integrity limits. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24388: Redox Chemistry of UO2 under Repository Relevant Conditions in the Presence of Zircaloy and Waste Canister Material | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | This project will seek to improve understanding of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) corrosion. Hydrothermal experiments of SNF with cladding and waste canister material will give insights into the redox potential formed due to secondary phase formation as consequence of corrosion in a failed canister. The experimentally derived data about secondary phase formation will be utilized for phase relationship analysis to decipher the redox conditions and thus provide source term for performance assessment models of deep geologic repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24006: High-fidelity modeling of fuel-to-coolant thermomechanical transport behaviors under transient conditions | University of Florida | $800,000 | The objective of the proposal is to develop a high-fidelity modeling tool that can capture some of the important phenomena in high burnup UO2 and ATF fuels during transient conditions. The BlueCRAB tool set will be improved and used to analyze TREAT loss of coolant accident experimental results. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24312: Accelerating the development of reliable and robust machine learning-based interatomic potentials for the prediction of molten salt structure and properties | University of Massachusetts Lowell | $400,000 | Machine learning-based interatomic potentials (MLIPs) used in molecular dynamics (MD) can accurately and efficiently predict molten salt properties. However many machine learning-based methods require large training sets, and can fail unpredictably. This project will overcome these challenges by developing a method for efficiently sampling diverse configurations from MD to train reliable and robust neural network potentials, and develop new models for predicting errors in MLIPs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24697: Dual External Leak Sensing and Monitoring for Dry Storage Canister | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers aim to develop two complementary external sensing methods to evaluate the integrity of DSC through internal pressure monitoring and helium leakage detection. The proposed diffuse ultrasonic wave method will be able to measure biaxial strains in the canister wall with high sensitivity and minimum temperature effects. An innovative capacitance MEMS sensor will be developed for helium concentration measurement in air based on the extremely low permittivity of helium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24449: Multi-modal Surface Acoustic Wave Sensing System for Pressure and Temperature monitoring of Spent Fuel Canisters | University of North Texas | $800,000 | University of North Texas (UNT) will collaborate with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to develop a multi-modal wireless passive SAW (Surface Acoustic Wave) sensor array, which are deployed on the outside surface of the canister, to monitor the strain of the canister and thus determine the inside pressure. In addition, the SAW strain sensor could also measure the surface temperature and potentially monitor helium gas leak. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24265: Fragmentation and Thermal Energy Transport of Cr-doped Fuels under Transient Conditions | University of Pittsburgh | $799,999 | This project will focus on multiple aspects of experimental testing and engineering-scale modeling in understanding thermal energy transport from high burnup, fractured/fragmented accident tolerant fuels, establishing a strong scientific basis to fill a critical knowledge data gap for modeling and simulation of transient fuel performance and safety, such as loss of coolant accident, for future integral testing and fuel licensing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24310: Fusion of Distributed Fiber Optics, Acoustic NDE, and Physics-Based AI for Spent Fuel Monitoring | University of Pittsburgh | $800,000 | The proposal will leverage new concepts in the fusion between fiber optic distributed acoustic sensing and advanced acoustic nondestructive evaluation techniques with artificial intelligence enhanced classification frameworks to quantitatively characterize the state of dry cask storage containers for spent fuel monitoring, externally and non-invasively, without introducing additional risks of failure. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24261: Internal Wireless Sensors for Dry Cask Storage | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | The effort will test the reliability of wireless, internal sensors after exposure to drying and storage conditions. These sensors are used to internally monitor temperature, pressure, and dose. Radiation shielding will also be designed to protect sensors during long-term storage. The effort will develop piezoelectric techniques for miniaturization of optical emission spectroscopy for internal monitoring of gas composition during drying and long-term storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24533: Non-destructive Evaluation of Dry Storage Canisters Using Acoustic Sensing | University of Southern California | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to develop a robust non-destructive evaluation (NDE) technique based on acoustic sensing to detect impurity gases in a sealed (welded) dry storage canister (DSC) using only measurements collected on the external surface of the DSC. The method is based on the time-of-flight analysis of acoustic signals propagating through the fill gas of a DSC, which is influenced by the composition, density and temperature of the propagation medium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23984: Safety Implications of High Burnup Fuel for a 2-Year PWR Fuel Cycle | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to perform safety analysis of high burnup fuel for a Westinghouse 4-Loop Pressurized Water Reactor. The work aims to identify potential opportunities and gaps for high burnup fuel by utilizing both well-established and modern methodologies to model reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, and plant system-level response that ultimately provide feedback to fuel performance analysis. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23985: Fuel-to-Coolant Thermomechanical Behaviors Under Transient Conditions | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This project will enhance the prediction of thermo-mechanical fuel-to-coolant heat transfer under transient conditions by using a coupled analysis and experiment approach. The effort is relevant to both high-burnup (> 62GWd/t) fuel applications and Accident Tolerant Fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24070: Modeling high-burnup LWR fuel behavior under normal operating and transient conditions | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This project aims to develop a high-burnup light water reactor fuel modeling capability to implement in the BISON code that would enable the accurate fuel rod behavior simulation during normal operation and design basis accidents, as wells as the identification of the rod life-limiting factors. Mechanistic engineering models will be developed for key phenomena, in particular, high burnup structure evolution, fuel fragmentation, and fission gas release. Traditional and accident tolerant fuels will be considered. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24033: Redox Chemistry in Nuclear Materials Storage Matrices under Ambient and Accelerated Aging Conditions | University of Washington | $800,000 | Deep geologic repositories must safely contain hazardous, high-activity nuclear wastes at geologic time-scales. However, such capability is centrally dependent on the element-specific redox chemistry within and at the interface of storage vessels. A comprehensive study of redox chemistry in cements used in long-term storage is proposed and emphasizes: 1) the actual consequences of accelerated aging modalities and 2) the novel use of newly available capabilities in advanced x-ray spectroscopies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24063: Post-DNB Thermo-mechanical Behavior of Near-term ATF Designs in Simulated Transient Conditions | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | The goals of the proposed research are to conduct coupled experimental and modeling investigations of thermo-mechanical performance of coated accident tolerant zirconium alloy claddings with simulated burnup doped fuels under thermal transients to predict complex thermal and mass transport phenomena of near-term Accident Tolerant Fuel designs in accident conditions. Experiments and modeling for understanding both cladding-coolant and fuel-coolant interactions will be performed. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24582: Machine-Learning-Accelerated Molecular Dynamics Approaches for Molten Salts | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $399,477 | New machine learning potential (MLP) approaches and new MLPs to enable rapid prediction of molten salt (FLiBe and Nal-MgCl2 with impurities) properties with near ab initio quantum mechanical accuracy will be developed. Uncertainty quantification with active learning and on-the-fly fitting will greatly accelerate MLP training. This work will support dramatically increased simulation speeds and associated data generation and understanding for molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24067: Development of Full Understanding of Mechanical-Chemical Coupling in Bentonite THMC processes | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | The central hypothesis is that mechanical stress in an engineered barrier can lead to pressure solution of solid minerals, leading to significant changes in pore water chemistry, which affects bentonite stability, longevity of the waste pack, and dissolution and migration of nuclides. The overall objective of this project is to develop full understanding of the role of pressure solution on pore water chemistry, the implications to large-scale heterogeneity, and THMC processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23987: Separate and Multi-Physics Effects IRPhEP Benchmark Evaluation using SNAP Experiments | Georgia Institute of Technology | $400,000 | The proposed project will develop an International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) mulitphysics microreactor benchmark evaluation based on data from the Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power (SNAP) program. This work will include systematic assessments of the experimental data with meticulous compilation and documentation, and validation of specific NEAMS tools to model effects that are unique to microreactors technologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24630: Integral Benchmark Evaluation of Zero-Power Tests and Multi-Cycle Depletion Experimental Data of TVA WB1 Cycles 1-3 | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | This project proposes to develop an integral benchmark evaluation of available experimental data for zero-power tests and multi-cycle depletion for consistent and comprehensive validation of both novel high-fidelity and traditional multi-physics tools. The benchmark evaluation will be based on operational and measured data from the Pressurized Water Reactor Watts Bar Unit 1 released by Tennessee Valley Authority. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24186: Regenerating Missing Experimental Parameters with Data-Assimilation Methods for MSRE Transient Benchmark Development and Evaluation | Virginia Commonwealth University | $400,000 | The proposed project will regenerate the undocumented basic data from available experimental data of the MSRE using advanced data-assimilation methods to facilitate the whole-loop modeling of the representative MSRE transients, and perform a thorough MSRE transient benchmark evaluation for the IRPhEP handbook. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24194: Implementation of improved quasi-static, time-dependent, multi-physics methodology in Shift | Georgia Institute of Technology | $600,000 | A practical reference calculation route for time-dependent coupled Monte Carlo calculations, using Shift, will be developed. The proposed framework will be tailored to depletion and slowly varying transients, but with the flexibility to perform thermal-hydraulic time-dependent calculations with minimal computational overheads. This method relies on a hybrid-resolution stochastic approach in conjunction with a substep technique. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24078: Material transport model development and integration in the System Analysis Module (SAM) code | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | This project proposes to develop and implement models for System Analysis Module, which accurately characterize the sink, source, and interaction terms of key material species that are or may be present in various advanced reactor designs. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24195: Enhancing Yellowjacket for Modeling the Impact of Radiation and Stress on the Corrosion of Molten-Salt-Facing Structural Components | University of Florida | $692,088 | The objective of this project is to add the capability to model the impact of radiation and stress on corrosion to the Yellowjacket code, as well as to use Yellowjacket to create surrogate models that will be added to engineering-scale codes like Grizzly. We will also collect new experimental data for validation that quantifies the impact of stress and radiation on corrosion of 316 stainless steel in molten fluoride salts. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24405: Development of a High-fidelity Flow Boiling Database for Validation of High-void-fraction Flow Regime Models | University of Michigan | $800,000 | The primary objective of this proposed research is to develop a comprehensive, high-resolution, multiphase computational fluid dynamics validation-grade flow boiling data from rod bundle geometry simulating current light water reactor fuel designs by taking advantage of the instrumentation and facility developed by the research team. In addition, the applicability of the data through initial evaluations of selected test cases using Nek-2P boiling closure models will be studied and demonstrated for two-phase flow simulations. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24471: Technical Basis of Microstructure Criteria and Accelerated Testing for Qualifying Additively-manufactured 316H Stainless Steel for High-temperature Cyclic Service | Auburn University | $800,000 | This project seeks to reveal the fundamental relationship for AM 316H SS working at 500-750 _C between additively-manufactured microstructures and creep/creep-fatigue properties through a multiscale experimental and modeling approach. The project also seeks to establish the technical basis for the microstructure criteria and accelerated testing method to support near-term nuclear qualification. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24152: Direct heating of chemical catalysts for hydrogen and fertilizer production using Microreactors | Kansas State University | $799,202 | This proposal presents a novel integration approach to deliver process heat from microreactors by directly heating the catalyst particles from the primary heat transfer fluid in a moving packed bed heat exchanger (MPBHX). In this design, the tube side of the MPBHX can be a heat pipe or primary Helium coolant as in several microreactor designs. The shell side will be moving catalyst particles, which will enter the high temperature chemical reactor upon heating. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24287: Investigating heat transfer in horizontally oriented HTGR under normal and PCC conditions | Kansas State University | $799,762 | Experimental research will be conducted to understand heat transfer inside the graphite matrix of horizontal microscale High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors. Existing high temperature test facilities will be used to simulate normal operation and Pressurized Conduction Cooldown. The focus of these experiments is to generate benchmark data under forced and natural convection with coupled multi-mode heat transfer in scaled-down prismatic blocks. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24104: Thermal Hydraulics Investigation of Horizontally Orientated Layout Micro HTGRs Under Normal Operation and PCC Conditions Using Integrated Advanced Measurement Techniques | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000 | The proposed novel work will make a significant pioneering contribution to advance the knowledge and understanding of horizontal micro-high temperature gas cooled reactors. Quantification of metrics will pertain to convective heat transfer coefficients along the channel and gaps, comparative rates of convective and radiative heat transfer, location of peak temperature and its temporal variation, timescales for onset of natural convection, local gas velocity profiles, gas dispersion, crossflows, and temperature profiles over channel diameter and gap thickness. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24004: An Open Source, Parallel, and Distributed Web-Based Probabilistic Risk Assessment Platform to Support Real Time Nuclear Power Plant Risk-Informed Operational Decisions | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | The main objective of the proposed work is to develop, demonstrate, and evaluate a probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) software platform needed to address the major challenges of the current legacy PRA tools. This includes better quantification speed, integration of multi-hazard models into traditional PRAs, and model modification/simplification and documentation automation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24228: Quantifying the Dynamic and Static Porosity/Microstructure Characteristics of Irradiated Graphite through Multi-technique Experiments and Mesoscale Modeling | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | This project proposes a joint experimental-computational approach to probe and quantify the porosity and microstructure characteristics of irradiated nuclear graphite grades and their influence on dimensional changes and turnaround behavior, as well as mechanical properties. The chief focus will be on quantifying both the static and dynamic porosity and crack characteristics in various graphitic phases through several experimental techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24247: Multi-scale Effects of Irradiation Damage on Nuclear Graphite Properties | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Irradiation induces microstructural damage in graphite, causing both dimensional and property (stiffness, strength and creep) changes as a function of the displacement damage and temperature. The biggest gap remains is the fundamental deformation mechanisms behind the property changes. Researchers propose to eliminate this gap in knowledge with a comprehensive, multi-scale experimental framework exploiting in-situ transmission electron and X-ray computed tomography. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23975: Development of Thermal Power Dispatch Simulation Tools for BWR Flexible Plant Operation and Generation | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | In the U.S. domestic light water reactor fleet, about one-third of operational nuclear power reactors are boiling water reactors (BWRs). Thermal power extraction technologies to be designed for BWRs will be different from those for pressurized water reactors due to differences in steam generation. This study proposes to investigate the thermal and electric power dispatch and required control algorithms for dynamic heat dispatch of up to 50% of the thermal energy from a BWR plant to a hydrogen plant. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24111: Experimental Investigations of HTGR Fission Product Transport in Separate-effect Test Facilities Under Prototypical Conditions for Depressurization and Water-ingress Accidents | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Experimental investigations will be performed for fission product (FP) lift-off, washoff, vaporization from plateout surfaces, and transport of FP at prototypical conditions representing depressurization and water-ingress accidents. Measurements will be performed on existing separate-effect facilities using intrusive and non-intrusive techniques to obtain shear stress, deposition velocity, thermal gradient, and gas impurity for advanced correlations. Modeling will be performed using system and computational fluid dynamics codes. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24644: High-Resolution Measurements and Advanced Modeling for Design Optimization of Advanced Small Modular Reactor Steam Generators | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Experiments and simulations will be performed to acquire multi-parameters of pressure drop, heat and mass transfer, and flow-induced vibration (FIV) effect for the design optimization of advanced small modular reactor steam generators (SMR SG). Measurements are performed on existing SMR SG facilities using intrusive/non-intrusive techniques to obtain velocity, temperature, pressure, heat flux, and FIV effects for various geo-dimensions, spacing, pitch angles. Simulations will be performed in StarCCM, Nek5000 and coupling with Diablo_ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24332: A Virtual Reality Environment for Human Reliability Assessment in the Context of Physical Security Attacks | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Recent studies have shown that the physical security workforce accounts for 20% of the entire workforce and, therefore, is responsible for significant operational and maintence costs. To reduce the security staffing, improve performance and reduce threats, modeling and simulation and models of attacker, defender and operator behavior could be employed. This proposal aims to model human behavior using a combination of known human reliability analyses models and experimental evidence from virtual reality experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24389: High Temperature Electromagnetic Acoustic (EMAT) Transducers for Structural Health Monitoring | University of Cincinnati | $800,000 | The aim of this project is to produce an electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT) technology to enable ultrasonic structural health monitoring at the METL facility and similar high temperature assets. Ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation methods can be used for monitoring a range of damage mechanisms including thermal fatigue and corrosion. The project will seek to establish core design solutions that can be used as the basis of a range of EMAT designs for different applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24380: Probabilistic Validation and Risk Importance Ranking Methodology for Automation Trustworthiness and Transparency in Nuclear Power Plants | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | This project develops a methodology to improve trustworthiness and transparency of automation technologies in nuclear power plants. The proposed methodology will monitor risk emerging from automation processes and rank the criticality of automation factors influencing automation output, plant equipment, and system performance. The feasibility and practicality of the proposed methodology will be demonstrated with two case studies focusing on implementation of nuclear power plant automation technologies. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24162: Self-powered wireless sensor system for health monitoring of liquid-sodium cooled fast reactors | University of Notre Dame | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to develop self-powered wireless multimodal sensors and instrumentation for health monitoring and diagnosing early-stage materials degradation for high-risk components in liquid-sodium cooled fast reactors. The synergistic and innovative integrations of the multimodal sensor array, wireless communication, and thermoelectric energy harvester have crosscutting benefit for a wide range of advanced reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24102: High temperature Molten salt reactor pump component development and testing | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | This project will provide relevant key information on the tribology of bearing material and components (such as magnets, couplers, ceramic coated wire, and coatings) in high temperature molten salts that will be required in the design of reactor pumps. Investigation of in-service inspection and monitoring of the pump internals will also be addressed in an effort to reduce down time and operation and maintenance costs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24226: Cost Reduction of Advanced Integration Heat Exchanger Technology for Micro-Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,713 | Heat exchanger technology is a high-cost component of a micro-reactor system that is also critical to the overall reliability and performance. This project will develop the underlying advanced heat exchanger technology necessary to integrate a micro-reactor with any end-user application, as well as providing internal heat exchange. Economic optimization of the heat exchanger and experimental demonstration of the technology will be accomplished. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24382: Advanced High-Fluence Low-Flux RPV Mechanical Property Models for Extended Life | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,717 | This project will further develop accurate models of the mechanical property changes under life-extension conditions in reactor pressure vessel (RPV) steels using reduced order Avrami models, cluster dynamics, and atomistic methods combined with massive comprehensive databases on irradiated steels. The work will provide models critical to extending the life of U.S. pressurized water reactors, as well as new fundamental insights into flux and fluence effects and sink and precipitate evolution in reactor pressure vessels and related steels. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| Integrated Marine Platform for Hydrogen and Ammonia Production | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | This study investigates the economic and environmental value of a floating integrated GW-scale green hydrogen/ammonia production facility powered by an advanced nuclear reactor. Floating Production Storage and Offloading units (FPSOs) are deployed worldwide in the oil and gas industry, and can be used for hydrogen and ammonia processing. Deployment of an advanced reactor on a floating platform offers several advantages, including the efficiencies of shipyard fabrication. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Functionally-graded Cermet Coatings for Molten Salt Technologies by High Throughput Finite Element Modeling and Additive Manufacturing | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $500,000 | This project proposes an integrated approach/methodology to design, manufacture and verify functionally-graded metal-ceramic composite coatings on structural alloys with desired interfacial properties, capabilities of mitigating residual stress and improved corrosion resistance for molten salt reactor applications. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| An Innovative Monitoring Technology for the Reactor Vessel of Micro-HTGR | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | This project seeks to develop an innovative sensor technology for real-time monitoring of the thermo-mechanical stresses in the reactor vessel of micro-HTGR. The technology will be based on a sparse network of outer wall temperature measurements and plant operating conditions. An integrated software-hardware sensing system aimed at monitoring the health of the pressure vessel of gas micro-reactors will be implemented and tested. The proposed work will have a broad impact on sensing in other reactor designs. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| High throughput mechanical testing of additively-manufactured materials | University of California, Berkeley | $500,000 | This project proposes fast and high throughput mechanical testing of AM produced materials. It will include the generation of automated tensile testing, hardness testing and microstructure assessment and data comparison to build data via machine learning. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Accelerated irradiation creep testing coupled with self-adaptive accelerated molecular dynamics simulations for scalability analysis | University of Michigan | $500,000 | The goal of the proposed work is to accelerate traditional irradiation creep using instrumented in-situ ion irradiation creep and long-time molecular dynamics simulations to accelerate traditional neutron irradiation creep testing. This goal will be accomplished by coupling a novel ion beam flux jump test using tapered creep specimens and self-adaptive accelerated molecular dynamics. The outcome is a rapid, low-cost accelerated method to determine the fundamental irradiation creep mechanisms. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Creation of a Pebble Database for Material Control and Accountancy in Pebble Bed Reactors | Virginia Commonwealth University | $399,969 | The primary goal of this proposed project is to develop a database of NDA signatures from a wide variety of used PBR pebbles. This database can be used for facility operations, safety, security, and safeguards (3S) to directly measure fission product content and indirectly 235U and plutonium content of each PBR pebble. This project has significant synergy with current 3S PBR research at ANL, BNL, and ORNL, all of whom are collaborators to this proposed project. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Quantifying Aerosol Deposition Mechanisms in Model Dry Cask Storage Systems | Clemson University | $800,000 | The objective of this work is to measure aerosol deposition and resuspension rates in laboratory models of dry cask storage systems to compare with and validate the DOE deposition model. The project team will conduct experiments to directly measure the deposition/resuspension rates of bulk aerosol in the system and to isolate and quantify individual aerosol deposition mechanisms, with a focus on those sensitive to variable humidity and surface temperature. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Using Amide-Functionalized Electrodes to Elucidate Interfacial Actinide Redox Chemistry for Improved HALEU Supply | Florida International University | $400,000 | The goal is to decrease HALEU fuel cycle costs by examination of the redox behavior of U, Np, and Pu at the water-organic interface using amide functionalized electrodes, and in organic media after extraction with amides. Experiments with redox active interferences including additional actinides in different oxidation states will also be conducted. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advancing the technical readiness of FeCrAl alloys and ODS steels under extreme conditions for fast reactor fuel cladding | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | A key technology gap for advanced high-performance fuel applications is the current unavailability of materials that can withstand extremely high doses without significant degradation of cladding performance. The project team will perform in-situ thermo-mechanical experiments (tension, torsion, creep, and creep-fatigue and nanoindentation) on ion-irradiated (to 400 dpa) cladding materials (up to 700 C) along with microstructures using TEM and mesoscale phase field simulations. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| A molten salt community framework for predictive modeling of critical characteristics | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | This research aims to develop a molten salt community framework to address the needs in advanced fuel cycles, including understanding salts via new theory of liquids, predicting salt characteristics via simulations (DFT, MD, and CALPHAD by implementing advanced models), optimizing inversely molten salts, and verifying simulations by experiments. This project has outstanding value for US taxpayers, educates students, and delivers outreach opportunities for academia, industry, and the public. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Understanding the Interfacial Structure of the Molten Chloride Salts by in-situ Electrocapillarity and Resonant Soft X-ray Scattering (RSoXS) | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | The objective of the proposed research is to investigate the interplay between the interfacial structure of the molten salts and their electrochemical corrosion properties in Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Clay Hydration, Drying, and Cracking in Nuclear Waste Repositories | Princeton University | $800,000 | This project will develop a new multiscale model of the thermal-hydrologic-mechanical-chemical (THMC) evolution of an engineered clay barrier in the near field of a nuclear waste repository, including initial hydration and eventual post-closure criticality. This new model will directly link micro-scale material properties to large-scale barrier performance, thus facilitating future design advances or modifications, and enable robust validation of large-scale simulation predictions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Physics-guided Smart Scaling Methodology for Accelerated Fuel Testing | Purdue University | $800,000 | This project proposes to employ novel informatics algorithms for mapping/scaling uncertainties from experimentally accessible scaled state to application/prototypical state, informed by an equivalent mapping obtained from high-fidelity multi-physics simulations for the fuel thermo-mechanical behavior, specifically, a rate theory-based model for thermal conductivity and fission gas behavior in the BISON code, and employing relevant HALDEN reactor and FAST experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Materials Accountancy During Disposal and Waste Processing of Molten Salt Reactor Fuel Salts | Texas A&M University | $399,997 | The objective of this work is to develop and validate a method for measuring and predicting hold-up to eliminate operational risks and expenses during disposal of salt-wetted MSR components. These objectives will be met by applying robust measurement/detection methods to realistic salt loop environments to validate their use in decommissioning MSRs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advanced Screening Approaches for Accelerating Development of Separations Technologies | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | The goal of this project is to establish a unified selection criterion for chelating molecular structures to more efficiently address ligand applicability to metal ion separation problems, for current and future nuclear fuel cycles. By establishing this criterion, the team will seek to enable the accelerated, cost-effective discovery of new separation workflows, as well as their implementation beyond early radiotracer experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advancing NMA of TRISO-fueled pebbles using fast and accurate gamma-ray spectroscopy | University of Colorado, Boulder | $385,307 | This proposal will provide new Nuclear Materials Analysis (NMA) capabilities for TRISO-fueled pebbles using gamma-ray spectroscopy, through a program of simulations of expected signatures from irradiated pebbles, resulting in a detailed measurement plan to monitor burnup and actinide content throughout the fuel cycle. These simulations will be used to develop requirements for NMA sensor technology and identify opportunities for focused technology development to meet these requirements. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Development of Irradiation and Creep Resistant High-Cr Ferritic/Martensitic Steels via Magnetic Field Heat Treatment | University of Kentucky | $800,000 | The objective of this proposed study is to develop and test new generation of Ferritic/Martensitic (F/M) steels specifically designed for advanced reactors that will exceed the current limitations due to temperature and irradiation dose. To achieve this objective, a systematic study is proposed to employ an innovative tempering heat treatment under high external magnetic field (up to 9T) on F/M steel HT9 to engineer an optimized microstructure composed of refined carbides and martensite laths. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Investigation into the processing parameters of phosphate-based dehalogenation for chloride-based waste salt | University of Nevada, Reno | $399,999 | This proposal will focus on several topics needed to advance the iron phosphate process: 1) Dehalogenation/vitrification processes using salt simulants to generate process flow sheets, 2) Reactions of crucible materials with phosphate products and byproducts, 3) Collection of glass property-composition data to develop models based on the glass-forming regions, 4) Development of a process for reacting recovered NH4Cl with metals that need to be fed into the system (U, Li, etc.). | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| A Validated Framework for Seismic Risk Assessment of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of Nevada, Reno | $799,883 | This is a collaborative research program with a primary objective of developing a validated numerical framework for seismic risk analysis of spent fuel storage facilities from the global cask behavior to the localized behavior of internal spent fuel assemblies. In building and validating this framework, advanced data analysis, data assimilation, and forward and inverse modeling techniques will be utilized. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| International Collaboration to Advance the Technical Readiness of High Uranium Density Fuels and Composites for Small Modular Reactors | University of Texas at San Antonio | $800,000 | An international team of high uranium density fuels (HDFs) experts advised by industry leaders in nuclear reactor innovation propose a US-UK collaboration to advance the technical readiness of UN, UB2, and their composites for fuel forms specific to small modular reactors (SMRs). The project will bridge the critical data gaps in HDF performance specific to the impact of common impurities and microstructural variations that originate at fabrication. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Development of Advanced Control Rod Assembly for Improved Accident Tolerance and High Burnup Fuel Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Research will focus on the development of new materials' designs for control rod sheaths and neutron absorbers, coupled with neutronics analysis and thermo-mechanical modeling to improve accident tolerance and to achieve higher fuel burnup in PWRs. Functionality of the proposed designs consisting of Cr coated control rod sheaths of current and advanced alloys as well as novel neutron absorbers will be evaluated in prototypical reactor conditions and accident scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Optical Basicity Determination of Molten Fluoride Salts and its Influence on Structural Material Corrosion | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | The proposed research is aimed at developing ion probes to determine the optical basicity of molten fluoride salts and studying its influence on structural material corrosion. Combining with the molten salt structure study using X-ray absorption spectroscopy, the salt chemical constitution, the resulting optical basicity, and molten salt structure will be inextricably linked and their connections will be unveiled. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Extending the HMF71 Benchmark Series for Graphite Reflector Thickness up to 18 Inches | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $399,522 | The objective of this proposal is to extend the HEU-MET-FAST-071 (HMF-71) experiment benchmark series in ICSBEP by evaluating the historical (existing) experimental data for critical experiments with graphite reflector thickness from 3 inches up to 18 inches. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2022 |
| Fast and Rigorous Methods for Multiphysics SPn Transport in Advanced Reactors | University of Michigan | $600,000 | This project proposes to perform rigorous theoretical and numerical analysis of the Generalized SPn method and underlying cross section models to enable a fast and robust multiphysics low-order transport capability for advanced reactors. This includes 5 major tasks focused on the efficient discretization and solution of the GSPn equations, numerical analysis of XS models having multiphysics and depletion, analysis of equivalence factors, improved MC estimators, and several V&V applications of the methods. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2022 |
| Development of Hydrogen Transport Models for High Temperature Metal Hydride Moderators | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Understanding the transient behavior of metal hydride moderator materials at high temperatures is a key challenge to the design and deployment of future microreactors. This project will use neutron radiography techniques provide the necessary data for this understanding and demonstrate the development of time and temperature dependent hydrogen transport models using both commercial FEA software coupled to MCNP and coupled models developed in the MOOSE framework. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Characterizing fast reactor fuel failure mode through separate effect and prototypic tests | Oregon State University | $800,000 | The project consists of conducting separate effect fuel pin failure tests with surrogate fluid and prototypic test with sodium. The outcome of this study will generate an experimental database that will be used to develop mechanistic model and validate the CDAP module of the SAS4A/SASSYS-1 code. Ultimately the quality data can be used to benchmark other fuel codes developed for LMFR application, which are seeking validation for licensing purpose. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Science-based development of ASTM standard tests for graphite-based fuel pebbles | University of California, Berkeley | $700,000 | This project proposes the development of mechanical test procedures as well as wear and friction tests on Graphite fuel pebbles | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Role of Heterogeneity in Manganese and Nickel Rich Precipitate Distribution on Hardening of Reactor Pressure Vessel Steels: Integrated Modeling and Experimental Characterization | University of Florida | $799,803 | The hypothesis of this work is that the different nucleation and coarsening kinetics of manganese and nickel rich precipitates (MNPs) compared to copper rich precipitates, and the heterogeneous distribution of manganese and nickel rich precipitates on or near dislocations, both lead to unique hardening behavior at high neutron fluence. The objective of this work is to understand hardening in reactor pressure vessel steels caused by MNPs via integrated multiscale modeling and experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Integrated Thermal-Electric Energy Management of All-Electric Ship with Advanced Nuclear Reactors | University of Texas at Dallas | $400,000 | The overall objective of this research is to comprehensively model, design, and evaluate the use of advanced nuclear reactors in future nuclear-powered ships, to enhance the efficiency, reliability, and resilience of shipboard energy distribution systems. The novelty of the proposed approach lies in (i) integrated thermal-electric modeling of advanced nuclear-powered shipboard energy system, and (ii) novel solutions for total-ship energy management to improve energy efficiency and resiliency. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Open Architecture for Nuclear Cost Reduction | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Open architecture has potential to reduce advanced reactor (AR) costs, through exploiting modular design and construction, with common, openly available interfaces between modules. A comprehensive assessment of the challenges and opportunities of open architecture for ARs will be performed. Supported by a pilot study, actionable recommendations for the implementation or otherwise of open architecture for ARs will be developed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Telescopic Control Rod for Significant Reduction in HTR Height and therefore Cost | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | This project proposes a design for a small modular High Temperature Reactor (HTR) control rod that extends telescopically, consisting of ~5 concentric annuli that nest together above the core when withdrawn. This compact component substantially reduces the length of the depth of the silo. Modelling and experimental testing will be performed to develop the control rod to evaluate feasibility, plus perform a cost-benefit analysis, with a view to its inclusion in both pebble bed and prismatic HTR designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Mechanism Driven Evaluations of Sequential and Simultaneous Irradiation-Creep-Fatigue Testing | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | This project addresses a critical need for irradiation and creep-fatigue testing by carrying out a systematic, mechanistic-driven benchmarking for irradiation creep, irradiation fatigue and creep-fatigue tests under various environments. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Mechanisms-based Acceleration of Materials Qualifications for Creep-Fatigue Performance in Advanced Nuclear Systems | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | The goal of this research is to fully understand, quantify and model creep-fatigue 'damage' as a function of loading patterns, temperature and microstructural evolution. Using this experimental information over a large range of relevant stress levels and temperatures, a mechanisms-based creep-fatigue analysis approach will be demonstrated which will properly qualify high temperature alloys for extended service in advanced nuclear systems where creep-fatigue is currently a major design limitation. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Subwavelength Ultrasonic Imaging for Rapid Qualification of Additively Manufactured Nuclear Structures and Components | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to develop a transformational capability for rapid nondestructive quality assessment of actual nuclear additively manufactured structures and components through advanced ultrasonic imaging with subwavelength resolution. The resolution of conventional ultrasonic systems is limited by diffraction on the order of the wavelength. In this project, the goal is to break the diffraction limits of ultrasonic imaging by implementing a negative-index lens. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| MXene as Sorbent Materials for Off-gas Radioiodine Capture and Immobilization | Clemson University | $1,000,000 | The overarching goal of this project is to develop efficient and stable new sorbent materials, for off-gas radioiodine capture and immobilization, that are based on MXenes with two-dimensional transition metal carbides/nitrides. The exploratory research will focus on three main objectives: 1) Design and synthesis of MXenes as radioiodine sorbent and support materials, 2) Quantification of iodine sorption capacity of MXenes in different forms, 3) Synthesis and characterization of consolidated waste forms. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Fundamental understanding of grain boundary cracking in LWR environments | University of California, Los Angeles | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to understand the details of stress corrosion cracking (SCC) and irradiation assisted stress corrosion cracking (IASCC) by targeted experiments and modeling efforts. A comprehensive model will be produced, which will predict the conditions under which these failure modes occur and when the materials may see onsets of the failure mode. This work will directly impact the nuclear industry by refining predictive models of component lifetime. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Facile manufacturing of fiber-reinforced-SiC/SiC composite using aerodynamic fiber deposition (AFD) and metal assisted polymer impregnation and pyrolysis processes (MAPIP) | University of Pittsburgh | $999,886 | SiC/SiC ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) are promising candidate materials for the cladding of accident tolerant fuels. Superior material properties of SiC/SiC CMC, however, come at a high manufacturing cost. The objective of the proposed research is to apply aerodynamic fiber deposition (AFD) and metal assisted polymer impregnation and pyrolysis (MAPIP) to develop a new facile manufacturing approach of SiC/SiC CMC. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| High Concentration Monoamide Separations: Phase Modifiers and Transuranic Chemistry | Colorado School of Mines | $999,900 | Extraction of actinides from used nuclear fuel with high concentrations of monoamide extractants is a promising strategy to intensify separation processes; however key issues remain to be understood and resolved. This project will examine three questions: 1) Can phase modifiers mitigate issues with organic phase viscosity? 2) Can the chemistry of neptunium be controlled to ensure complete separation? 3) Do high concentrations of monoamides affect the oxidation states of important metals and can that be exploited? | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Multiple Uranium Complexes in Chloride Fast Reactor Molten Salt Properties | University of Connecticut | $1,000,000 | Multivalent transition metal ions in a melt can exhibit multiple coordination states that affect molten salt properties. This project will use a new high-energy resolution fluorescence detection (HERFD) spectroscopy to overcome issues associated with measuring coordination numbers of multiple complexes, along with Raman spectroscopy and advanced simulations to accurately predict properties of molten salts with multiple uranium complexes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Validation of Geochemical Reactive Transport Long-Term predictions Using Natural Cements and Ancient Cements Analogues | Vanderbilt University | $950,000 | This project will validate long-term performance predictions of rock/cement interfaces based on characterization of natural analogues, ancient cements and interfaces with rock formations, and demonstrate applicability of the established testing and simulation workflow with argillite rock (representative of potential U.S. repository systems). This project addresses the research gap of long-term validation and uncertainty assessment associated with cement barrier performance and multi-physics models. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Predicting Pitting and Stress Corrosion Cracking of Dry Cask Storage Canisters via High Throughput Testing, Multiscale Characterization, and 3D Computer Vision based Machine Learning | The Ohio State University | $1,000,000 | This project consists of a US-UK collaborative research program focusing on the nucleation and growth of pits and stress corrosion cracking of stainless steel 304 (a canister material used for dry cask storage of spent nuclear fuels) by leveraging multi-scale characterization techniques, 2D/3D computer vision, and machine learning approaches. The study will enable the understanding and prediction of how and when pitting corrosion can nucleate, grow, and transition into stress corrosion cracking. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Multiscale Residual Stress Tailoring of Spent Fuel Canister CISCC Resistance | Purdue University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to understand the role of residual stress in chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) of austenitic steel, then tailor CISCC initiation and propagation through engineered multiscale residual stress distributions. Microscopic and macroscopic residual stresses will be systematically varied, then a novel sequence of advanced, site-specific, correlative characterization techniques will be applied to directly link residual stress, pitting, and crack propagation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Illuminating Emerging Supply Chain and Waste Management Challenges | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | Regional constraints on domestic fuel supply and greater variation in demand from advanced reactors has led to a shift in the U.S. fuel cycle, and modeling tools must reflect this. In this work, Cyclus will be updated to better reflect new and emergent regional supply constraints, spatial and temporal fluctuations in material needs, and those impacts on the back-end of the fuel cycle will be quantified. This work will allow for flexible, reproducible analysis to inform stakeholder decision-making. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Determination of Local Structure and Phase Stability of Uranium Species in Molten Halide Salts: Linking Microscopic Structure with Macroscopic Thermodynamics | Arizona State University | $1,000,000 | The goal of this project is to determine the local structures (valence state, coordination configuration and medium-range structure) and thermodynamic stability of uranium species in molten chloride and fluoride salts at high temperatures using a combination of experimental and modeling methods. The obtained results will allow for revelation of the structure-stability relations of the studied systems and development of acid-base scales to determine the solubility of uranium in molten halide salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Thermal-Hydraulics Assessment of SiC Compared to Other ATF Cladding Materials and its Performance to Mitigate CRUD | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | This project aims to experimentally investigate the thermal-hydraulics performance of SiC compared to the Cr-coated zircaloys and APMT ATF cladding materials under accident scenarios, including both DNB and dryout conditions. The project is divided into five tasks that will advance the understanding of the operation and optimization of heat pipes for advanced nuclear reactors. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Physics-Informed Artificial Intelligence for Non-Destructive Evaluation of Ceramic Composite Cladding by Creating Digital Fingerprints | University of Florida | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to spatially map the material composition, structure, and defect distribution of SiCf-SiCm composite tubes from ultrasonic wavefields measured from the materials and the defects within them. Specifically, this project will delve into the unique ultrasonic fingerprints (i.e., dispersion relations and mode shapes) of the SiCf-SiCm composites using physics-informed machine learning to assess the quality of the manufactured tubes based on their spatial-spectral ultrasonic characteristics. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Understanding Constituent Redistribution, Thermal Transport, and Fission Gas Behavior in U-Zr Annular Fuel Without a Sodium Bond | University of Florida | $999,462 | This project will investigate the reason for changed constituent redistribution in annular U-Zr fuel without a sodium bond and how it changes the fission gas behavior and thermal conductivity. This will be achieved using a combination of microstructure characterization and thermal conductivity measurements of irradiated U-Zr annular fuel and multiscale modeling and simulation using the MARMOT and BISON fuel performance codes. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Getting AnCers: Metallothermic Molten Salt Synthesis and Reaction Thermodynamics of Actinide Ceramic Fuels | Oregon State University | $1,000,000 | Synthesis of high quality actinide ceramics (AnCers) remains a costly challenge. A low-temperature, high-yield, short-duration reaction that directly synthesizes UN and UC could reduce the cost of these advanced fuels greatly. This proposal aims to demonstrate a method by which the costs of AnCers can be greatly reduced - metallothermic molten salt synthesis. Optimization and thermodynamics data will be obtained. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Integrated Stand-off Optical Sensors for Molten Salt Reactor Monitoring | University of Pittsburgh | $1,000,000 | This project intends to develop robust and stand-off optical sensors to perform real-time molten salt levels, flow, and impurity measurements of molten salts. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Cybersecurity in advanced reactor fleet by cyber-informed design, real-time anomaly detection, dynamic monitoring, and cost-effective mitigation strategies | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The goal of this research is to provide technical solutions to unique cybersecurity challenges in future microreactor fleet through cyber-informed design (C-ID), real-time anomaly detection, dynamic monitoring, and cost-effective mitigation strategies. The efforts will significantly improve the economics and effectiveness of cybersecurity risk management in future microreactor fleets. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Building Cyber-Resilient Architecture for Advanced Reactors via Integrated Operations and Network Digital Twin | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | The research will develop a secure-by-design architecture via integrating plant operation and network digital twins for advanced reactors. Automatic attack path and vulnerability analysis will be developed and used to assess and harden critical digital assets (CDA) against cyber risks prior to and during operation to identify vulnerabilities, attack pathways, and threat vectors. A CDA selection method will also be developed by combining vulnerability scores and assets importance. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Extending PRA and HRA legacy methods and tools with a cause-based model for comprehensive treatment of human error dependency | University of California, Los Angeles | $1,000,000 | This project aims at developing a solution to HRA dependency assessment in PRA from methodological and practical/computational perspectives within legacy PRA tools and methods. The solutions will include procedures for quantifying dependency when using PRA legacy tools, a method for modeling and quantifying dependency in HRA comprising a BN-causal model suitable for use with legacy PRA methods and tools, and the computational tools for its integration. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| An Integrated Elemental and Isotopic Detector for Real-Time Molten Salt Monitoring | North Carolina State University | $1,000,000 | The overarching theme of the proposed research is to develop and demonstrate a real-time elemental and isotopic detector of molten salts for advanced reactors and fuel fabrication and recycling processes. The detector's longevity, limits, and latency will be tested in static uranium chloride salts, in pyroprocessing chloride salt, and on flowing fluoride salt with evolving actinide composition, respectively. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Development of a Thin-Layer Electrochemical Sensor for Molten Salt Reactors and Fuel Cycle Processes | Brigham Young University | $811,755 | A thin-layer electrochemical sensor capable of detecting uranium, plutonium and other species of interest in molten salts, at both high and low concentrations, will be developed for application in molten salt reactors and fuel cycle process units. This will provide a valuable tool for performing material control and accountancy measurements. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Risk-Informed Consequence-Driven Hybrid Cyber-Physical Protection System Security Optimization for Advanced Reactor Sites | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | This project aims to develop an expanded methodology for designing a novel cybersecurity-integrated physical protection system (PPS) framework for advanced reactor concepts that serves to reduce the operational costs for the life of a reactor against that of a traditional light water reactor PPS design, promoting efforts to credit safety features of advanced reactors through proposed amendments to current security regulations, while integrating health and economic consequence analyses. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| A risk analysis framework for evaluating the safety, reliability, and economic implications of electrolysis for hydrogen production at NPPs | University of Maryland, College Park | $1,000,000 | The RAFELHyP project will develop a modular risk analysis framework that enables evaluating the safety, reliability, and economic implications of upcoming deployments of electrolyzers to produce hydrogen at nuclear power plants. The framework will be implemented to conduct an integrated safety, reliability, and economic analysis of multiple plant configurations to provide detailed recommendations for plant protective features and layouts. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Reduced Order Modeling of Heat and Fluid Flow: Multi-Scale Modeling of Advanced Reactors to Enable Faster Deployment | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | Novel multi-scale algorithms for thermal-hydraulics (TH) simulations of advanced reactors will be developed. The methods will leverage recent advances in hardware and reduced order modeling approaches to enable TH simulations of vastly accelerated speed, while maintaining accuracy comparable to high-fidelity methods, such as large-eddy simulation. The methods will allow designers to perform parameter sweeps, develop closures, and enable high fidelity simulation of transients. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Embedded Monte Carlo | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Monte Carlo methods have long been considered the standard in terms of accuracy and have seen increased use in design of small nuclear systems; however, the uncertainty quantification (UQ) of the desired output is often relegated to later stages of the design process. This project seeks to embed nuclear data UQ in a single Monte Carlo simulation, such that each desired quantity will not only provide the mean value and statistical uncertainty, but also the related nuclear data uncertainty. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| A Low Order Transport Method Based on the Dynamic Truncation of the Integral Transport Matrix Method (ITMM) that Converges to the SN Solution with Increasing Cell Optical Thickness | North Carolina State University | $1,000,000 | A novel low-order transport operator capable of approximating Monte Carlo (MC) results within a variance range will be developed. This does not require MC reference solutions to calibrate the low-order model, so repeated solutions of the latter in-transient scenarios does not require repeated MC simulations. Truncation of the low-order operator is done dynamically for evolving configurations to ensure accuracy of the low-order solution. This will involve proof of principle on Cartesian meshes, then implementation in Griffin. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| CFD based Critical Heat Flux predictions for enhanced DNBR margin | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | This project seeks to demonstrate a robust high-fidelity CFD-based methodology to predict CHF behavior at varying quality conditions, enabling the development of advanced DNBR correlations with reduced uncertainty, and in support of upgraded plant economics. The availability of a virtual CHF methodology will allow greatly extending the database for DNBR correlations development and further support advancement in the design of high-performing nuclear fuel. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Immersed Boundary Methods for Modeling of Complex Geometry: A Leap Forward in Multiscale Modeling using NekRS | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | A major challenge to Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling of complex geometries is the need to generate body-fitted meshes, which can occupy 80% of the CFD practitioner's time. Immersed boundary methods will be added in the NekRS CFD code, dramatically simplifying modeling of complex 3-D structures and facilitating a new paradigm for CFD-informed multiscale analysis. This will be demonstrated by informing SAM transient systems-level models with NekRS heat exchanger correlations for advanced reactors. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Uncertainty Quantification of Model Extrapolation in Neural Network-informed Turbulent Closures for Plenum Mixing in HTGRs | Utah State University | $1,000,000 | This project will quantify the uncertainty in prediction of Neural Network-informed Turbulent Closures when they are operating in a model extrapolation state. Once the method is developed for canonical buoyant jets, the protocols will be applied to plenum mixing in HTGRs. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Impact of moisture on corrosion of NiCr alloys in MgCl2-NaCl Salt Systems | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $999,983 | This project aims to gain a fundamental understanding of the impact of moisture and salt chemistry on corrosion of NiCr alloys in molten chloride salts. A novel approach coupling multiscale simulations and experiments will be designed to determine salt acidity, its dependence on salt composition (i.e., the NaCl to MgCl2 ratio), and its effects on the transport of H2O and Cr ions and the corrosion kinetics of NiCr alloys in chloride salt. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Transforming Microreactor Economics Through Hydride Moderator Enabled Neutron Economy | State University of New York, Stony Brook | $1,000,000 | Microreactors will potentially require the cost of electricity to be 10 MWD/kg at >3 kW/kg core specific power. These goals are best achieved through a well-thermalized spectrum. Neutron economy as a core material selection criterion to advance entrained hydride composite moderators will be used with the primary goal of significantly reducing fuel costs through novel microreactor designs. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Integrating Nuclear with ZLD Seawater Desalination and Mining | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | An integrated nuclear system will be developed that would utilize electricity and waste heat to operate a desalination and mining process from adjacent seawater. The desalination approach targets zero-liquid discharge with multiple marketable minerals extracted. The ability of nuclear facilities to load follow is increasingly important, so a cold thermal storage system will be incorporated. The desalination and mineral extraction process will be experimentally validated at lab scale. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Reference Designs of Green Ammonia Plants Powered by Small Modular Reactors | Utah State University | $1,000,000 | The overarching goal of this project is to develop two reference designs for green ammonia plants. One design uses freshwater as the source for hydrogen, while the other design uses seawater (or brackish water) as the source. In both designs, a small modular reactor (SMR) is used as the primary energy source providing both electricity and steam for the plants. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Development of the Technical Bases to Support Flexible Siting of Microreactors based on Right-Sized Emergency Planning Zones | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to provide the technical basis to support the application of a right-sized Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ) size to support the deployment of a microreactor at the Penn State University Park campus. This research study will serve as a template to provide flexible siting in support of future microreactor deployments that may be placed closer to demand centers, thereby making them more economically competitive. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Bayesian Optimization for Automatic Reactor Design Optimization | Arizona State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to develop analytical tools based on Gaussian process modeling and Bayesian Optimization that facilitate reactor design optimization by modeling the responses from the physics simulator. Existing capabilities will be applied in an AI field and they will be adapted to address the key characteristics of nuclear reactor design problem. This project will automate the simulation-based design procedure, reduce the number of iterations, and minimize the design cycle time. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Engaging New Mexican communities in developing an equitable and just approach to siting advanced reactor facilities | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | This project will engage diverse New Mexican communities to develop an equitable approach for advanced reactor siting. The findings of this project will shed light on how technology developers and the DOE can explore and potentially site advanced reactors with the informed consent and engagement of host communities, regions, and states. The findings of this study will also more generally apply to the potential for equitably exploring both brownfield and greenfield sites for nuclear facilities. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Deciphering Irradiation Effects of YHx through In-situ Evaluation and Micromechanics for Microreactor Applications | University of New Mexico | $998,000 | This project addresses a critical gap in accelerated testing of YH evolution coupling multi-length scale mechanical testing with ion irradiation and advanced characterization to establish a baseline understanding of YH evolution under ion irradiation. Our approach will couple ion irradiation and gamma irradiation with small scale mechanical testing to decipher multi-scale impacts on phase stability to advance understanding of YH in a microreactor moderator application. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Active Learning Estimation and Optimization (ALEO) of Irradiation Experimental Design for Efficient Accelerated Fuel Qualification | University of Texas at San Antonio | $997,247 | This collaborative project creates novel AI/ML models and algorithms integrated with physical knowledge and expertise to explore more efficient ways to calculate irradiation temperatures and fuel specimen burnups for new fuel sample configurations of MiniFuel experiments proposed for irradiation in the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Unraveling how mixing vane spacers affect cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena in light water reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $500,000 | Experiments will be conducted to quantify the effect of mixing vane spacers on cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena, namely single-phase forced convection, nucleate boiling, and CHF. The results of the experimental research will allow elucidating the physical phenomena triggered by the presence of mixing vane spacers. They will also allow assessing the performance of M-CFD tools developed within CASL and in use by the nuclear community. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Quantum Computing Algorithms for Deterministic Neutron Transport | University of Michigan | $500,000 | This project will develop algorithms for solving the k-eigenvalue form of the neutron transport equation in a nuclear reactor physics context on a quantum computer. The asymptotic scaling of the algorithms will be analyzed. Investigation into implementation will be made by making resource estimates by synthesizing explicit circuits for the algorithms and be studied by emulation on a classical computer. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Optimizing Application-Dependent Energy Group Structures for Multigroup Neutron Transport Models using Machine Learning | Colorado School of Mines | $500,000 | Machine Learning methods will be developed that will dramatically reduce both the computational run-time and manual effort needed to find multigroup energy structures that accurately capture the underlying physics of neutron reactions, while allowing multigroup simulations to run quickly without overwhelming available memory. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Understanding PM-HIP Interparticle Evolution and its Influence on Fracture Toughness in Alumina-Forming Steels | Purdue University | $1,100,000 | This project aims to understand how interparticle evolution during hot isostatic pressing (HIP) influences fracture toughness of Al-bearing steels. The team will use a series of interrupted HIP experiments with phase field models to understand the formation mechanisms of interparticle defects during HIP of alumina-forming austenitic (AFA) stainless steels and FeCrAl steels, and the influence of these defects on fracture behavior. | Document | Advanced Manufacturing Technologies | FY2024 |
| Multiscale high-throughput experiment/modeling approach to understanding creep behavior in Additively Manufactured reactor steels | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $1,043,271 | This project proposes to develop a predictive capability for processing-microstructure-property correlations in additive manufactured microstructures utilizing a multiscale approach encompassing bulk creep tests, miniaturized tensile testing, and a high-throughput, indentation based, cost-effective method for elevated temperature mechanical mapping of additively manufactured 316H Stainless Steel, Grade 91, and Titanium-Zirconium-Molybdenum (TZM) alloys. | Document | Advanced Manufacturing Technologies | FY2024 |
| Assessing molten salt corrosion resistance of stainless steel 316H in nuclear reactor environments | North Carolina State University | $1,100,000 | The proposed goal is to leverage a blend of innovative molten salt corrosion experiments and cutting-edge characterization techniques to advance our understanding of molten salt corrosion in both commercial and additively manufactured (AM) stainless steel (SS) 316H, particularly under radiation or stress environments. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Polymer-Derived C-SiC Coatings on Kernel Particles for Advanced Nuclear Reactors | University of Alabama at Birmingham | $1,100,000 | This program is to use a polymer-derived ceramic approach to develop C-SiC/ZrC coatings on ZrO2 kernel substitute particles. We aim to create new fuel encapsulation materials in replacement of the coatings on fuel kernel particles, including the TRISO layers, for advanced reactors, conduct ion irradiation testing of the new materials for nuclear performance evaluation, and carry out detailed microstructure and composition characterization to assess the C-SiC/ZrC coated fuel particle behaviors. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Sorbent regeneration, recycling, and transformation: A transformative approach to iodine capture and immobilization | University of Nevada, Reno | $1,000,000 | The project will focus on the development of materials and processes for regeneration and recycling of sorbents, and the transformation of iodine-loaded sorbents into waste forms. A combination of computational and experimental studies will be conducted to understand (a) how the components in a primary off-gas stream interact with the sorbent, (b) how this off-gas stream affects the regeneration lifetime, and (c) low-temperature binders and processing paths that leads to durable waste forms. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Accident Tolerant Fuels to Support Power Uprates in LWRs | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,100,000 | This project will demonstrate that power uprates higher than the current state of operation can be reached using accident tolerant fuels in light water reactors while not exceeding reactor safety margins during normal operation and accidents. We will analyze it considering fuel enriched up to 10% and peak rod average burnup up to 75GWd/tU concerning reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, reactor safety, and economics. Considerations will be made in consultation with the named industry advisory board. | Document | Existing Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Comparative study of three-dimensional microstructural imaging and thermal conductivity evolution of irradiated solid and annular U-Zr fuels | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Uranium-zirconium (U-Zr) annular metallic fuel holds the promise to simultaneously increase sodium fast reactor (SFR) core uranium loading and reduce peak cladding temperatures, thus greatly improving fuel performance. However, key convolved fuel degradation mechanisms during irradiation at temperature threaten to hold back its real-world applicability, requiring more detailed understanding to both predict U-Zr fuel performance and suggest improvements. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Mechanistic study and modeling of fission gas release in UO2 and doped UO2 | Oregon State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to enhance the safety and performance of light water reactors and other advanced reactor designs by gaining a fundamental understanding of fast gas reactor mechanisms and developing mechanistic models for UO2 and doped UO2 fuels under HBU and transient conditions. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Anisotropic Thermal Properties of SiC-SiC Cladding: Method Development & Characterization | University of Pittsburgh | $1,000,000 | We propose to develop a high-temperature nondestructive thermal conductivity (k) measurement system coupled with validated multiscale models to accurately determine the anisotropic thermal conductivity of SiC-SiC composite cladding tubes. The multiscale measurement and modeling results benefit both DOE ATF programs as well as providing a fundamental understanding of how the microstructure of the composite leads to its anisotropic properties. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Understanding the Performance of SiC-SiCf Composite Cladding Architectures with Cr Coating in Normal Operating and Accident Conditions in LWRs and Advanced Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The project will focus on investigating the impact of Cr-coating on the SiC-SiCf composite cladding of various architectures under normal operating and accident conditions in light water reactors and advanced reactors for the safe and economic deployment of SiC cladding. Cr-coating will provide protection from high-temperature corrosion and better hermeticity under accident conditions. The performance of the claddings will be evaluated through the corrosion test, reflood test, burst test, and non-destructive evaluation(NDE). | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Developing critical insights on the effects of Mo on _' precipitation and dislocation loop formation in FeCrAl alloys | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | This project aims at developing a mechanistic understanding on the effects of Mo on _' precipitation and dislocation loop formation in FeCrAl alloys in thermal and irradiation conditions and turns it into a set of design principles guiding further optimization, by integrating atomistic simulations, CALPHAD modeling, thermal aging, proton irradiation, and advanced characterization. The material discoveries will be generalized to other solutes other than Mo. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Inference of flow conditions from in-core detector measurements for accelerating SMR licensing | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Reactor modelling relies on the detailed description of reactor systems but often lacks the true as-built characteristics of a system. This proposal seeks to fill these geometrical data gaps using available detector data, predictive models and machine learning in order to provide better information to analysis tools and thus better prediction of future performance. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Non-Destructive Plutonium Assay in Pyroprocessing Bulk Materials with a 3D Boron-Coated-Straw Detector Array | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,100,000 | The objective of the proposed project is to develop and demonstrate a 3D boron-coated-straw detector array (3D-BCSDA) with high efficiency and spatial resolution. This detection system will be specifically designed to accurately assess the fissile mass in bulk nuclear material during pyroprocessing operations, thereby improving the precision and reliability of accountability measurements during separation. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Improving the computational efficiency and usability of dynamic PRA with reinforcement learning | University of Maryland, College Park | $1,064,400 | The overall objective of the proposed research is to improve the efficiency and usability of dynamic probabilistic risk assessment (PRA). Specifically, the first objective is to develop a new algorithm for dynamic PRA analysis that can significantly increase the computational efficiency. The second objective is to develop a question-answering system to streamline the process of risk-informed decision-making based on results obtained from the dynamic PRA analysis using the new algorithm. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Development of a Benchmark Model for the Near Real-Time Radionuclide Composition Measurement System using Microcalorimetry for Advanced Reactors | Virginia Commonwealth University | $1,100,000 | The primary goal of this proposed project is to develop high fidelity Monte Carlo radiation transport models of a microcalorimetry detector informed by fuel depletion models of a molten salt reactor and a pebble bed reactor to quantify the current and future capabilities of this detector technology to characterize and assay used fuel from these reactors in near real-time. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Development and Validation of a Dual-Purpose Instrument for On-line Monitoring of Molten Salt Composition and Thermal Behavior | Brigham Young University | $1,099,924 | We propose the development of an online monitoring instrument capable of quantifying heat transfer and salt composition for molten salt reactors (MSR). A dual electrochemistry/thermal conductivity probe (DETP) will be developed to measure the thermal properties and impurities within the salt simultaneously. The DETP will make use of a previously developed needle probe and electrodes for square-wave cyclic voltammetry measures of salt composition. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| In Situ Assessment of Molten Salt Transport into Nuclear Graphite Microstructures using Ultrasonic Sensors | Johns Hopkins University | $909,827 | This project focuses on the transport of molten salt into nuclear graphite along with the investigation of ultrasonic methods for sensing graphite material property changes, especially elastic modulus, associated with intrusion of molten salt into the graphite microstructure. Experimental studies coupled with physics-based simulations will be used to assess strategies for in situ sensing of salt intrusion in the reactor environment to enhance long-term viability of molten salt reactors. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| MONITORING CERAMIC FUEL FRACTURE VIA FIBER OPTIC ACOUSTIC EMISSION SENSORS | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $1,000,000 | In the proposed three-year program, the Center for Photonics Technology (CPT) at Virginia Tech will collaborate with Sentek Instrument (Sentek), Prysmian, and Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to develop and demonstrate a distributed acoustic emission (AE) sensing system for in-situ monitoring of ceramic fuel fracture. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| Concurrent Surrogate Model Development with Uncertainty Quantification in the MOOSE Framework Using Physics-Informed Gaussian-Process Machine Learning | University of Florida | $999,999 | The objective of this project is to develop a general capability for concurrent generation and use of physics-informed Gaussian process (GP)-based surrogate models to facilitate multiscale and multiphysics modeling. We will implement this new capability as part of the Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) so that every application based on the MOOSE framework will have access to it. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2024 |
| Unstructured Adaptive Mesh Algorithms for Monte Carlo Transport | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,098,000 | We propose to develop the fundamental methods and techniques for unstructured adaptive mesh refinement with Monte Carlo tallies. This work enables a transformative leap forward in speed, accuracy, and robustness to enhance the contribution of high-fidelity radiation transport to advanced simulation. Adaptive refinement is deployed on a challenging multiphysics simulation, cascading heat pipe failure, to study acceleration and stabilization properties. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2024 |
| Feasibility Study of Micro-Nuclear Reactor Thermal Output for Air Rotary Kilns in the High-Temperature Manufacturing of Portland Cement Clinker | Pennsylvania State University | $998,793 | This project aims to design and test a micro-nuclear reactor for high-temperature portland cement clinker production, a process responsible for 6%-8% of global CO2 emissions. Leveraging advanced reactors' heat output, the project explores TRISO-based nuclear microreactor core modifications and new working fluids for heat pipes. The research addresses uncertainties in micro-nuclear reactor deployment for clinker production and investigates high-efficiency heat exchanger designs. | Document | Non-Traditional and Non-electric Applications | FY2024 |
| Redox potential, ionic speciation, and separation and recovery challenges from molten salts containing actinides and fission products | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $999,999 | Establishing an efficient, safe, secure, and economical Molten-Salt Reactor (MSR) fuel cycle is imperative for MSR implementation. Molten salt fuel recycling technology requires predictive knowledge of the chemical and physical behavior of lanthanide and actinide ions with different oxidation states dissolved in solvent salts. A combination of off-gas and X-ray measurements with machine-learning simulations will be used to produce predictive modeling of separation and recovery conditions. | Document | Nuclear Fuel Recycle Technologies | FY2024 |
| Pre-Treatment and Bulk Separation of Used Fuels with Carbonate-Peroxide Solutions | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | To use carbonate-peroxide chemistries to develop a pre-processing method for used uranium-based fuels that enables the subsequent use and optimization of current solvent extraction reprocessing schemes. Using simple precipitation, this innovative method provides an initial, bulk separation of uranium from fission products and actinides. | Document | Nuclear Fuel Recycle Technologies | FY2024 |
| Optimization of Fueling Strategies and Material Surveillance through Real-time Pebble Tracking in Pebble Bed Reactors | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,100,000 | Flexible operation of the energy grid of the future introduces uncertainty in determining the optimal operating conditions of Pebble Bed Reactors. The proposed work will help to address these challenges and enable more economical operation by providing the tools to determine of optimal fuel reloading strategy through pebble identification and tracking. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Experimental Study and Computational Modeling of P-LOFC and D-LOFC Accidents in the Fast Modular Reactor Consisting of Silicon Carbide Composite Rods | University of Michigan | $1,100,000 | The primary objectives of this proposed research are to better understand NC flow phenomena and heat transfer under both D-LOFC and P-LOFC accidents in the FMR, produce experimental data in a well-scaled integral-effects test facility for the two accidents, and develop and validate predictive CFD models for NC flow phenomena in both accidents. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Sodium heat pipes; design and failure mode assessment for micro-reactor applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The present proposal aims to experimentally investigate the thermal-hydraulics performance of liquid sodium heat pipes applied to microreactors, with a focus on exploring different design parameters, effects of different parameters on operating performance and understanding the evolution and impact of different failure modes. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Interfacial Interactions between Graphite and Molten Fluoride Fuel Salt | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $1,000,000 | NaF-KF-UF4 fuel salt will be selected to study graphite-salt interactions and impact of the existence of fission products (FPs) and corrosion products on the interactions at different temperatures and pressures. Fundamental mechanisms of graphite-salt interaction and degradation will be understood. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Local resonance-based linear and nonlinear NDE techniques for repaired DSC wall structures | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | The proposed work plan will develop nondestructive examination (NDE) methods that develop and evaluate linear and nonlinear resonant ultrasound spectroscopy methods (such as NRUS, NIRAS, etc.) to cold spray (CS) repaired dry shielded canister (DSC) wall structures. With the support of our partners from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), we will perform technology development and validation on plain and cold spray-repaired DSC wall specimens. | Document | Spent Fuel, Waste Science & Technology and Integrated Waste Management System | FY2024 |
| Thermodynamic Models for Multivalent Actinide Solubility and Speciation as a Function of Temperature and Ionic Strength | University of Notre Dame | $1,000,000 | This proposed project will quantify the solubility and speciation of Np and Pu under temperatures, ionic strengths, and pH values that are relevant to the generic repository concept. The major deliverable will be full thermodynamic descriptions of the studied systems, which will lead to improved radionuclide transport models and support the development of a sound technical basis for the geologic disposal of spent nuclear fuel and other actinide-bearing wastes. | Document | Spent Fuel, Waste Science & Technology and Integrated Waste Management System | FY2024 |
| Advancing Fundamental Molten Salt Modeling using Ultrafast Spectroscopy | North Carolina State University | $600,000 | The overarching goal of the proposed research is to advance our fundamental understanding of molten salts by combining ultrafast spectroscopic experiments with high fidelity atomistic simulations. The proposed research will introduce a new experimental technique to the study of molten salts that will directly measure ion kinetics, specifically, terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS), which will further validate AIMD as a predictive modeling tool. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
| Hydrodynamics of Two-Phase Flow Under the Geometric Effects of Pipe Orientation and U-bends | Purdue University | $600,000 | Most two-phase flow analyses have been performed in straight vertical-upward pipes. However, nuclear reactor systems include piping with different geometric components, such as elbows or U-bends, as well as changes in flow orientations. The proposed work performs experiments in a scaled test facility existing at the institution's lab to investigate the effects of flow orientations and geometries relevant to nuclear reactor systems on the hydrodynamics of two-phase flow. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
| Interface-Resolved Experimental and Numerical Studies of Two-Phase Flow for Nuclear Engineering Applications | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $500,000 | The project aims at advancing the interface-resolved simulation capabilities for the two-phase flows found in various nuclear engineering applications. We will develop a comprehensive, high-resolution, interface-resolved database emphasizing bubble dynamics and bubble interaction mechanisms. The data will be used to validate the sub-grid models implemented in an interface-resolved simulation tool to improve simulation accuracy by developing physics-based coalescence models. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
FY 2018 Research and Development Awards
DOE is awarding $47 million through its Nuclear Energy University Program (NEUP) to support 63 university-led nuclear energy research and development projects in 29 states. NEUP seeks to maintain U.S. leadership in nuclear research across the country by providing top science and engineering faculty and their students opportunities to develop innovative technologies and solutions for civil nuclear capabilities.
A complete list of R&D projects with their associated abstracts is available below.
| Title | Institution | Estimated Funding* | Project Description | Abstract | Project Type | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fundamental Understanding of Ambient and High-Temperature Plasticity Phenomena in Structural Materials in Advanced Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Elastic/Inelastic Nuclear Data Development Project | Idaho State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Heterogeneous Recycling in Fast Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Thermodynamic Development of Corrosion Rate Modeling in Iron Phosphate Glasses | Missouri University of Science and Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Subspace-Based Hybrid Monte Carlo-Deterministic Algorithms for Reactor Physics Calculations | North Carolina State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Improvements to Nuclear Data and Its Uncertainties by Theoretical Modeling | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Sharp Interface Tracking in Rotating Microflows of Solvent Extraction | State University of New York at Stony Brook | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Bulk Nanostructured FCC Steels with Enhanced Radiation Tolerance | Texas A&M University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Fuel Performance Experiments and Modeling: Fission Gas Bubble Nucleation and Growth in Alloy Nuclear Fuels | Texas A&M University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| SiC Schottky Diode Detectors for Measurement of Actinide Concentrations from Alpha Activities in Molten Salt Electrolyte | The Ohio State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Computational Design of Advanced Nuclear Fuels | University of California, Davis | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Data Collection Methods For Validation of Advanced Multi-Resolution Fast Reactor Simulations | University of Idaho | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Simulations of the Thermodynamic and Diffusion Properties of Actinide Oxide Fuel Materials | University of Michigan | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Adsorptive Separation and Sequestration of Krypton, I and C14 on Diamond Nanoparticles | University of Missouri, Columbia | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Alternative Technetium Waste Forms | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Quantification of UV-Visible and Laser Spectroscopic Techniques for Materials Accountability and Process Control | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| High-Fidelity Space-Time Adaptive Multiphysics Simulations in Nuclear Engineering | University of Nevada, Reno | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Simulations of Failure via Three-Dimensional Cracking in Fuel Cladding for Advanced Nuclear Fuels | University of Texas, Dallas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Mesh-Enabled Monte Carlo Capability for Multi-Physics Reactor Analysis | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Ab Initio Enhanced Calphad Modeling of Actinide Rich Nuclear Fuels | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Diffusion Barrier Coatings and Deposition Technologies for Mitigating Fuel Cladding Chemical Interactions (FCCI) | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Thermal Properties of LiCl-KCl Molten Salt for Nuclear Waste Separation | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Neutron Damage and MAX Phase Ternary Compounds | Drexel University | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Atomistic Calculations of the Effect of Minor Actinides on Thermodynamic and Kinetic Properties of UO2+x | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Maximum Fuel Utilization in Fast Reactors without Chemical Reprocessing | University of California, Berkeley | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Developing a High Thermal Conductivity Fuel with Silicon Carbide Additives | University of Florida | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Fabrication of Tungsten-Rhenium Cladding Materials via Spark Plasma Sintering for Ultra High Temperature Reactor Applications | University of Idaho | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Ionic Liquid and Supercritical Fluid Hyphenated Techniques for Dissolution and Separation of Lanthanides, Actinides, and Fission Products | University of Idaho | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Improved Fission Neutron Data Base for Active Interrogation of Actinides | University of Michigan | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Utilization of Methacrylates and Polymer Matrices for the Synthesis of Ion Specific Resins | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Improved LWR Cladding Performance by EPD Surface Modification Technique | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Models of LWR Pressure Vessel Embrittlement for Low Flux-High Fluence Conditions | University of California, Santa Barbara | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) | FY2009 | ||
| Irradiation Creep in Graphite | Boise State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Modeling the Stress Strain Relationships and Predicting Failure Probabilities For Graphite Core Components | Cleveland State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| TRISO-Coated Fuel Durability Under Extreme Conditions | Colorado School of Mines | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| An Innovative and Advanced Coupled Neutron Transport and Thermal Hydraulic Method (Tool) for the Design, Analysis and Optimization of VHTR/NGNP Prismatic Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Removal of 14C from Irradiated Graphite for Graphite Recycle and Waste Volume Reduction | Idaho State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Millimeter-Wave Thermal Analysis Development and Application to Gen IV Reactor Materials | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Accurate Development of Thermal Neutron Scattering Cross Section Libraries | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Understanding Creep Mechanisms in Graphite with Experiments, Multiscale Simulations, and Modeling | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Verification & Validation of High-Order Short-Characteristics-Based Deterministic Transport Methodology on Unstructured Grids | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Microscale Heat Conduction Models and Doppler Feedback | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Optimizing Neutron Thermal Scattering Effects in Very High Temperature Reactors | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Multiaxial Creep-Fatigue and CreepRatcheting Failures of Grade 91 and Haynes 230 Alloys Toward Addressing Design Issues of Gen IV Nuclear Power Plants | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Investigation of Countercurrent Helium-air Flows in Air-ingress Accidents for VHTRs | Ohio State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Testing of Performance of Optical Fibers Under Irradiation in Intense Radiation Fields, When Subjected to Very High Temperatures | Ohio State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| A Distributed Fiber Optic Sensor Network for Online 3-D Temperature and Neutron Fluence Mapping in a VHTR Environment | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Investigation on the Core Bypass Flow in a Very High Temperature Reactor | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| CFD Model Development and Validation for High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor Cavity Cooling System (RCCS) Applications | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Study of Air ingress across the duct during the accident conditions | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Verification of the CENTRM Module for Adaptation of the SCALE Code to NGNP Prismatic and PBR Core Designs | University of Arizona | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Integral and Separate Effects Tests for Thermal Hydraulics Code Validation for Liquid-Salt Cooled Nuclear Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Mechanisms Governing the Creep Behavior of High Temperature Alloys for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems | University of Cincinnati | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| ALD Produced B2O3, Al2O3 and TiO2 Coatings on Gd2O3 Burnable Poison Nanoparticles | University of Colorado, Boulder | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Experimental Study and Computational Simulations of Key Pebble Bed Thermomechanics Issues for Design and Safety | University of Idaho | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Prediction and Monitoring Systems of Creep-Fracture Behavior of 9Cr-1Mo Steels for Reactor Pressure Vessels | University of Idaho | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Understanding Fundamental Material Degradation Processes in High Temperature Aggressive Chemomechanical Environments | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Multi-Scale Multi-physics Methods Development for the Calculation of Hot-Spots in the NGNP | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Corrosion and Creep of Candidate Alloys in High Temperature Helium and Steam Environments for the NGNP | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Creation of a Full-Core HTR Benchmark with the Fort St. Vrain Initial Core and Validation of the DHF Method with Helios for NGNP Configurations | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Fission Product Sorptivity in Graphite | University of Missouri, Columbia | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Identifying and Understanding Environment-Induced Crack Propagation Behavior in Ni-Based Superalloy INCONEL 617 | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Graphite Oxidation Simulation in HTR Accident Conditions | University of New Mexico | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Non Destructive Thermal Analysis and In Situ Investigation of Creep Mechanism of Graphite and Ceramic Composites using Phase-sensitive THz Imaging & Nonlinear Resonant Ultrasonic Spectroscopy | University of Rochester | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Tritium Sequestration in Gen IV NGNP Gas Stream via Proton Conducting Ceramic Pumps | University of South Carolina | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Materials, Turbomachinery and Heat Exchangers for Supercritical CO2 Systems | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Experimental Studies of NGNP Reactor Cavity Cooling System with Water | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Assessment of Embrittlement of VHTR Structural Alloys in Impure Helium Environments | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Modeling Fission Product Sorption in Graphite Structures | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Liquid Salt Heat Exchanger Technology for VHTR Based Applications | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Effect of Post-Weld Heat Treatment on Creep Rupture Properties of Grade 91 Steel Heavy Section Welds | Utah State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Alpha Radiolysis of Nuclear Solvent Extraction Ligands used for An(III) and Ln(III) Separations | California State University, Long Beach | $1,390,252 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Predictive Maturity of Multi-Scale Simulation Models for Fuel Performance | Clemson University | $614,690 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Freeze-casting as a Novel Manufacturing Process for Fast Reactor Fuels | Drexel University | $1,149,327 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Fuel Performance Experiments on the Atomistic Level, Studying Fuel Through Engineered Single Crystal UO2 | Idaho State University | $650,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Development of A Self Biased High Efficiency Solid-State Neutron Detector for MPACT Applications | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $810,141 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Development of a Innovative High Thermal Conductivity UO 2 Ceramic Composites Fuel Pellets with Carbon Nano-Tubes Using Spark Plasma Sintering | University of Florida | $894,042 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Exploration and Modeling of Structural Changes in Waste Glass under Corrosion | Pennsylvania State University | $1,377,444 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Evaluation of materials for interim storage of spent fuel for more than 100 years | University of Michigan | $931,603 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Implementation of On-the-Fly Doppler Broadening in MCNP5 for Multiphysics Simulation of Nuclear Reactors | University of Michigan | $406,712 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Methods and tools to allow molecular flow simulations to be coupled to higher level continuum descriptions of flows in porous/fractured media and aerosol/dust dynamics | University of Missouri-Columbi | $541,286 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Characterization and Modeling of Materials for Kr-Xe Separations | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $989,800 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Modeling Solute Thermokinetics in LiCl-KCl Molten Salt for Nuclear Waste Separation | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $616,073 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Advanced Aqueous Separation Systems for Actinide Partitioning: Develop Fundamental Understanding of An(III)/Ln(III) Separation | Washington State University | $1,451,784 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Consistent Multigroup Theory Enabling Accurate Coarse-Group Simulation of GenIV Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,046,277 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Studies of Deteriorated Heat Transfer in Prismatic Cores Stemming from Irradiation-Induced Geometry Distortion | Idaho State University | $1,287,921 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Carbide Coatings for Nickel Alloys, Graphite, and Carbon/Carbon Composites to be Used in Fluoride Salt Valves | Johns Hopkins University | $1,183,239 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Design, Testing, and Modeling of the Direct Reactor Auxiliary Cooling System for AHTRs | Ohio State University | $1,366,627 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Monitoring microstructural evolution of Alloy 617 with nonlinear acoustics for remaining useful life prediction; multiaxial creep-fatigue and creep-ratcheting | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development and Validation of Multidimensional Models of Supercritical CO 2 Energy Conversion Systems for Nuclear Power Reactors | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $475,005 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Microstructure and Property Evolution in Advanced Cladding and Duct Materials Under Long-Term and Elevated Temperature Irradiation: Modeling and Experimental Investigation | University of California-Berkeley | $1,320,667 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of Barrier Layers for the Protection of Candidate Alloys in the VHTR | University of California-Santa Barbara | $995,232 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Investigation of a Novel NDE Method for Monitoring Thermo-Mechanical Damage and Microstructure Evolution in Ferritic-Martensitic Steels for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems | University of Cincinnati | $833,109 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Fission Product Transport in TRISO Particle Layers under Operating and Off-Normal Conditions | University of Michigan | $966,581 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Microstructure and Property Evolution in Advanced Cladding and Duct Materials Under Long-Term Irradiation at Elevated Temperature: Critical Experiments | University of Michigan | $1,181,379 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Three-dimensional NDE of VHTR Core Components via Simulation-based Testing | University of Minnesota | $1,366,163 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Failure Predictions for VHTR Core Components using a Probabilistic Continuum Damage Mechanics Model | University of Minnesota | $854,542 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of a Scanning Microscale Fast Neutron Irradiation Platform for Examining the Correlation Between Local Neutron Damage and Graphite Microstructure | University of Missouri-Columbia | $703,064 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of Thermal Transient Flow Rate Sensors for High Temperature, Irradiation, Corrosive Environment | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $451,269 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Novel Methods of Tritium Sequestration: High Temperature Gettering and Separation Membrane Materials Discovery for Nuclear Energy Systems | University of South Carolina | $1,366,626 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Heat Transfer Salts for Nuclear Reactor Systems - Chemistry Control, Corrosion Mitigation, and Modeling | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,352,040 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Pulsed Magnetic Welding for Advanced Core and Cladding Steels | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $525,206 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Corrosion in Supercritical Carbon Dioxide: Materials, Environmental Purity, Surface Treatments, and Flow Issues | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $651,447 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Multiscale Concrete Modeling for Aging Degradation | Mississippi State University | $345,941 | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability | FY2010 | |
| Development of an advanced computational fluid dynamics technology for the next-generation nuclear reactor system analysis and safety margin characterization code | North Carolina State University | $418,199 | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability | FY2010 | |
| Precursor Derived Nanostructured Si-C-X Materials for Nuclear Applications | University of Washington | $899,518 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Development and Testing of an Open-Loop Oscillator for Small Reactivity Worth Samples | Idaho State University | $597,252 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Understanding the Irradiation Behavior of Zirconium Carbide | Pennsylvania State University | $870,613 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Modeling investigation of the stability and irradiation-induced evolution of nanoscale precipitates in advanced structural materials | University of Tennessee-Knoxville | $380,653 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Investigation of Laser Shock Peening for Enhancing Fatigue and Stress Corrosion Cracking Resistance of Nuclear Energy Materials | University of Cincinnati | $1,242,019 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Irradiation Accelerated Corrosion of Reactor Core Materials | University of Michigan | $798,943 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Study of Interfacial Interactions using Thin Film Surface Modification: Radiation and Oxidation Effects in Materials | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $538,032 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Novel Engineered Refractory Materials for Advanced Reactor Applications | North Carolina State University | $1,129,304 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Quantification of Cation Sorption to Engineered Barrier Materials Under Extreme Conditions | Clemson University | $1,171,380 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| In-Pile Instrumentation Multi-Parameter System Utilizing Photonic Fibers and Nanovision | Idaho State University | $1,199,990 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Development of Plasmonically Cloaked Nanoparticles | Idaho State University | $800,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Fission Product Transmutation in Mixed Radiation Fields | Idaho State University | $800,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Life Prediction of Spent Fuel Storage Canister Material | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $899,826 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Active Interrogation using Photofission Technique for Nuclear Materials Control and Accountability | Oregon State University | $900,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Anisotropic Azimuthal Power and Temperature Distribution on Fuel Rod: Impact of Hydride Distribution | Pennsylvania State University | $631,956 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Sorption Modeling and Verification for Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Microemulsions and Aggregation Formation in Extraction Processes for Used Nuclear Fuel: Thermodynamics and Structural Studies | University of California, Irvine | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Optimized Processing Fabrication Paths for Larger Heats of Nanostructured Ferritic Alloys | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Basic Physics Data: Measurement of Neutron Multiplicity from Induced Fission | University of Michigan | $973,364 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Radionuclide Incorporation and Long Term Performance of Apatite Waste Forms | University of Michigan | $862,500 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Actinide Foil Production for MPACT Research | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $156,897 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Enriched Boron-Doped Amorphous Selenium Based Position-Sensitive Solid-State Thermal Neutron Detector for MPACT Applications | University of South Carolina | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Development of Advanced High Uranium Density Fuels for Light Water Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Developing the User Experience for a Next Generation Nuclear Fuel Cycle Simulator | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,200,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Preparation and Development of Polymer-Supported Extractants | City College of New York, Hunter | $363,716 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| One-Dimensional Nanostructures for Neutron Detection | North Carolina State University | $455,629 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Feasibility and Safety Assessment for Advanced Reactor Concepts Using Vented Fuel | Oregon State University | $600,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| High Temperature Transducers for Online Monitoring of Microstructure Evolution | Pennsylvania State University | $455,628 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Laser-Arc Hybrid Welding of Thick Section Ni-base Alloys- Advanced Modeling and Experiments | Pennsylvania State University | $536,117 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Correlates of Sensitive Technologies | Texas A&M University | $509,467 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Improved Safety Margin Characterization of Risk from Loss of Offsite Power | Texas A&M University | $600,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| A High Temperature-Tolerant and Radiation-Resistant In-Core Neutron Sensor for Advanced Reactors | The Ohio State University | $455,629 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Pathway Aggregation in the Risk Assessment of Proliferation Resistance and Physical Protection (PR&PP) of Nuclear Energy Systems | The Ohio State University | $534,471 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Preparation of High Purity, High Molecular-Weight Chitin from Ionic Liquids for Use as an Adsorbate for the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Alabama | $338,260 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Selectivity in Ligand Binding to Uranyl Compounds: A Synthetic, Structural, Thermodynamic and Computational Study | University of California-Berkeley | $500,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Seismic Isolation Systems Using Periodic Materials | University of Houston | $538,154 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium from Seawater | University of Idaho | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Austenitic ODS Strengthened Alloys for Very High Temperature Applications | University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign | $538,154 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Enhancement of the Extraction of the Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Transient Safety Analysis of Fast Spectrum TRU Burning LWR with Internal Blankets | University of Michigan | $599,475 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Novel Sorbents for Uranium Extraction from Seawater | University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Radiation Behavior of High-Entropy Alloys for Advanced Reactors | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $538,159 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Rapid Computer Aided Ligand Design and Screening of Precious Metal Extractants from TRUEX Raffinate with Experimental Validation | Washington State University | $500,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of an Efficient Meso-Scale Multi-Phase Flow Solver in Nuclear Applications | City College of New York | $505,858 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Multiscale Modeling and Uncertainty Quantification for Nuclear Fuel Performance | Colorado State University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Fundamental Studies of the Role of Grain Boundaries on Uniform Corrosion of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Materials | Drexel University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Phenomena-based Uncertainty Quantification in Predictive Coupled-Physics Reactor Simulations | Texas A&M University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Characterization of Modeling of Grain Boundary Chemistry Evolution in Ferritic Steels Under Irradiation | University of Michigan | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Development of Multiscale Materials Modeling Techniques and Coarse-Graining Strategies for Predicting Materials Degradation in Extreme Irradiation Environments | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $750,000 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Diffusion, Thermal Properties and chemical Compatibilities of Select MAX Phases with Materials for Advanced Nuclear Systems | Drexel University | $535,927 | Document | Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) | FY2011 | |
| A New Light Weight Structural Material for Nuclear Structures | North Carolina State University | $399,490 | Document | Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) | FY2011 | |
| Experimental Investigation of Convection and Heat Transfer in the Reactor Core for a VHTR | City College of New York | $1,118,856 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Graphite Microstructural Characterization Using Time-Domain and Correlation-Based Ultrasonics | Johns Hopkins University | $1,199,997 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Methodology Development for Passive Component Reliability Modeling in a Multi-Physics Simulation Environment | The Ohio State University | $533,457 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Pebble Fuel Handling and Reactivity Control for Salt-Cooled High Temperature Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $612,721 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Self-Sustaining Thorium Boiling Water Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $1,145,932 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| High Fluency Low Flux Embrittlement Models of LWR Reactor Pressure Vessel Embrittlement and a Supporting Database from the UCSB ATR-2 Irradiation Experiment | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,199,607 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| A Research Program for Fission Product/Dust Transport in HTGR's | University of Missouri-Columbia | $1,157,367 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Development and Validation of a Lifecycle-based Prognostics Architecture with Test Bed Validation | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $846,315 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| In-situ Condition Monitoring of Components in Small Modular Reactors Using Process and Electrical Signature Analysis | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $650,000 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Technical Development for S-CO2 Advanced Energy Conversion | University of Wisconsin | $815,000 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Ag Transport Through Non-Irradiated and Irradiated SiC | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,055,456 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Critical Heat Flux Phenomena at High Pressure and Low Mass Fluxes: Tests and Models | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,199,781 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Modeling and Test Validation of a Reactor Cavity Cooling System with Air | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,199,988 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Transient Mixed Convection Validation for NGNP | Utah State University | $635,860 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Alternative High-Performance Ceramic Waste Forms | Alfred University | $840,000 | This project aims to advance fundamental understanding of the kinetics of structural evolution of crystalline ceramic waste forms. The structure/property relationships will be identified and will reveal new formulations, improved processing routes, and strategies for improved performance or ceramic waste forms. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Surface Layer Bulk Glass Interface Evolution with Aqueous Corrosion | Alfred University | $880,000 | This project will investigate the links between the morphology, structure and chemistry of surface layer-bulk glass interface and the long-term corrosion-reaction kinetics using in-situ and ex-situ experiments. The understanding will result in improved models for long-term predictive behavior of high-level-waste (HLW) glasses under repository conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Optimization of Deep Borehole Systems for HLW Disposal | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $850,000 | Researchers aim to carry out a comprehensive evaluation of the deep borehole option for disposal of used nuclear fuel and high livel waste. The models developed will predict potential movement of water through natural and engineered barriers and release of radionuclides to the biosphere which will aide in site selection. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Scholarship for Nuclear Communications and Methods for Evaluation of Nuclear Project Acceptability | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will work to develop a model to characterize the factors affecting social acceptance of nuclear projects with potential stakeholders. The resultant model will strengthen the ability to design and implement large projects more efficiently, leading to higher rates of success of future nuclear projects. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Accurate Holdup Calculations with Predictive Modeling and Data Integration | North Carolina State University | $875,000 | Researchers will develop and use state-of-the-art radiation transport codes to account accurately for the fissile material in a nuclear materials processing facility. An accurate estimation of the materials will allow for ensured radiological safety, security, waste management and efficient plant operation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Testing of Sapphire Optical Fiber and Sensors in Intense Radiation Fields, when Subjected to Very High Temperatures | The Ohio State University | $885,000 | The researchers on this project will investigate the performance of sapphire optical fibers and sensors in reactor environments. The project, if successful, will result in improved instrumentation to understand the behavior and predict performance of nuclear fuel systems at the microstructural level. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Concrete Materials with Ultra-High Damage Resistance and Self-Sensing Capacity for Extended Nuclear Fuel Storage Systems | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | Researchers aim to design a new class of multifunctional concrete materials. This project, if successful, will result in a novel multifunctional concrete material that possesses inherent degradation monitoring capability and is suitable for an extended storage system for the used nuclear fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Probabilistic Multi-Hazard Assessment of Dry Cask Structures | University of Houston | $865,000 | This project aims to investigate the performance of dry cask storage systems under multiple hazard systems (earthquake, tornados, combined with aging effects) using a probabilistic multi-hazard framework. This framework will be validated based on experimental research and will provide improved models for safety and reliability of spent nuclear fuels during storage and transportation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Electrochemical Corrosion Studies for Modeling Metallic Waste Form Release Rates | University of Nevada- Las Vegas | $790,000 | This project aims to use advanced electrochemical methods to investigate the corrosion related degradation of metal alloys used for housing fission products. The data obtained from this study will allow for the prediction of the long-term behavior of the metallic host phase materials over geological time-scales. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Development and Experimental Benchmark of Simulations to Predict Used Nuclear Fuel Cladding Temperatures during Drying and Transfer Operations | University of Nevada- Reno | $745,000 | Researchers will conduct experiments to investigate and develop advanced computational models of heat transfer in post-pool-storage drying operations. This project, if successful, will result in tools that can be used to design efficient drying processes to as to ensure suitability for dry-cask systems for long-term storage and transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Seismic Performance of Dry Casks Storage for Long-Term Exposure | University of Utah | $873,319 | Researchers will evaluate the mechanical performance of dry-cask storage under seismic loading for mid-term operational periods. Simulations will include scenarios for freestanding, anchored, and vaulted casks. The experimental tests will also evaluate the dynamic seismic response of freestanding and anchored dry-cask storage prototypes, providing recommendations for optimal Interim Spent Fuel Storage Installations (ISFSIs) design. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Coupling of Nuclear Waste Form Corrosion and Radionuclide Transport in Presence of Relevant Repository Sediments | Washington State University | $885,000 | Researchers will conduct experiments to understand the mechanisms responsible for the corrosion of nuclear waste forms in realistic chemical environments. The data generated from these experiments will enable increased reliability of the models used to predict the waste form performance in repository environments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| ABR for TRU Transmutation with Breed & Burn Thorium Blanket for Improved Economics and Resource Utilization | University of California- Berkeley | $450,000 | The research team will use detailed neutronic analysis for a new Advanced Burner Reactor concept with low conversion ratio. The concept will use a new core shape to improve the utilization of neutrons to perform breed and burn. | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2012 |
| Atomic-Scale to Meso-Scale Simulation Studies of Thermal Ageing and Irradiation Effects in Fe-Cr Alloys | Boston University | $874,997 | Researchers will develop predictive, multi-scale simulation tools for iron-chromium alloys, which are expected to be key components of advanced steels envisioned as fuel cladding and structural components for Generation IV reactors. Such modeling is necessary to avoid resource intensive and costly thermal and neutron irradiation experiments to obtain required performance data. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Validation Data and Model Development for Fuel Assembly Response to Seismic Loads | George Washington University | $862,435 | Researchers will conduct experiments that will provide comprehensive data characterizing the dynamics of the fluid and the structure in Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR) fuel assemblies under seismic loads (earthquakes and loss of coolant accidents). Completion of their project will greatly benefit the safety of existing and future nuclear reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Uncertainty Quantification and Management for Multiscale Nuclear Materials Modeling | Georgia Institute of Technology | $743,444 | Researchers will address the question of uncertainty propogation and error estimates associated with model prediction of material behavior under irradiation. Their work will facilitate a better understanding of the connection of various unit processes to collective responses in a multiscale model chain enabling the development of high strength and high ductility materials. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Nonlinear Ultrasonic Techniques to Monitor Radiation Damage in RPV and Internal Components | Georgia Institute of Technology | $877,000 | Researchers will explore new nondestructive materials evaluation and monitoring techniques utilizing nonlinear ultrasonic measurements . This technique will allow researchers to assess remaining useful life of select reactor components. Breakthroughs in this area will lead to the ability to characterize radiation damage in reactor pressure vessels and other components-leading to a clearer definition of reactor safety margins. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Intergral Reactor Containment Condensation Model and Experimental Validation | Oregon State University | $871,119 | Researchers will conduct experiments to enhance the safety and efficiency of small modular reactors (SMRs). This project will assess the impact of high-pressure steam condensation on steel containment vessels to be used for SMR deigns. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Irradiation Performance of Fe-Cr Base Alloys | University of Illinois- Urbana Champaign | $876,332 | _Researchers will perform post-radiation analysis and develop tools for future development and application of the Fe-Cr class of alloys. The results of this research will lead to better modeling of performance and development of an alloy designated as the primary choice for reactor fuel cladding and structural applications in advanced systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Experimentally Validated Numerical Models for Effects of Non-Isothermal Turbulent Mixing on Wall Stresses in High Temperature Reactors | University of Pittsburgh | $876,422 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive experimentally validated computational framework for the turbulent mixing in the lower plenum of a very high temperature reactor (VHTR). Through CFD modeling and experimental validation, the results from this project will lay the groundwork for future stress analysis, failure and fatigue studies, and uncertainty quantification for the VHTR system. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Mechanical Behavior of UO2 at Sub-grain Length Scales: Quantification of Elastic, Plastic and Creep Properties via Microscale Testing | Arizona State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop techniques to measure properties at sub-grain scales using depleted Uranium Oxide samples. The project will provide a framework to measure sub-grain scale mechanical properties, as well as provide experimental data to improve the understanding of advanced oxide fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| The Impacts of Pore-Scale Physical and Chemical Heterogeneities on the Transport of Radionuclide-Carrying Colloids | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will identify the dominant transport mechanisms to develop models that predict radionuclide distribution in porous materials. Experimental and computational models will be created that couple pore-scale geometric and interfacial structures. Simulators such as these are a necessary step towards fully predictive models for field-scale applications in the future. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Polymer-Supported Aminophosphinates as Selective Extractants | Hunter College, CUNY | $399,999 | Researchers will prepare a polymer-supported extractant for the recovery of uranium from seawater. The project will focus on primary amines that could provide a 3-fold increase in uranium capture capacity than current methods. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| In-pile Thermal Conductivity Characterization with Single-laser Heating/Time Resolved Raman | Iowa State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a time-resolved Raman-based thermal conductivity measurement system to improve remote in-pile thermal conductivity measurement. These measurements will provide new insights into the behavior of materials exposed to extreme radiation and temperature environments. Understanding the behavior of materials at the microstructural level will support optimized fuel designs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Organic Speciation and Interactions in ALSEP - One Step Partitioning Process of Minor Actinides, Lanthanides, and Fission Products | Oregon State University | $600,000 | Researchers will investigate the Actinide-Lanthanide Separation (ALSEP) process organic phase prior to aqueous phase separation and after aqueous separation phases of bare and metal-loaded acids. Quantifying these effects can be used to determine how an engineering scale process will perform and generate an accurate chemical model for the system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Glass Composition and Solution Speciation Effects on Stage III Dissolution | Pennsylvania State University | $700,000 | Researchers will study the chemical and structural triggers of long-term vitrified nuclear waste form behavior. They will study a range of waste glass compositions in corrosive environments. The study will improve understanding of the long-term residual rate and may provide new options for environmental control of glass dissolution rates. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Correlating Thermal, Mechanical, and Electrical Coupling Based Multiphysics Behavior of Nuclear Materials Through In-Situ Measurements | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will use in-situ experimental techniques to monitor the influence of extreme conditions on fuel cladding. The project will establish an in-situ experimental setup that can predict change in thermal properties and their correlation with mechanical properties and correlate such changes to changes in microstructural and chemical features. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Creation of a Geant4 Muon Tomography Package for Imaging of Nuclear Fuel in Dry Cask Storage | Purdue University | $440,000 | Researchers will develop a simulation and analysis package to aid in the non-destructive assessment of sealed used nuclear fuel dry casks using cosmic ray muons. Cosmic ray muon tomography allows for non-destructive assessment that can independently verify and identify weapons grade material sealed within dense dry casks. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Fuel Cycle Data Packages for Two-stage Fast Reactor Fuel Cycle Options for Optimum Resource Utilization and Waste Management | Purdue University | $400,000 | Researchers will evaluate the two different two-stage fast reactor fuel cycle options that will offer efficient use of uranium resources and the ability to burn actinides and long-live fission products. Evaluation of these fast fuel cycle options will serve as a useful complement to the options currently being considered in the Fuel Cycle Options Campaign. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Mixed Metal Phosphonate-Phosphate Resins for Separation of Lanthanides from Actinides | Texas A&M University | $650,000 | Researchers will use ion exchangers to cleanly separate lanthanides and curium from reusable actinides. The study will assist in the development of an inexpensive, simple way in which to separate lanthanides from actinides found in used nuclear fuel rods and to recover a large portion of the usable fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Safeguards in Pyroprocessing: an Integrated Model Development and Measurement Data Analysis | The Ohio State University | $626,151 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive and effective safeguards approach for a pyroprocessing facility to support safeguards for future fuel cycles in the United States. The new approach and design will focus directly on the special nuclear materials in the electrorefiner where actinides are separated from fission products through electrochemical process. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Using Ionic Liquids for the Development of Renewable Biopolymer-Based Adsorbents for the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater and Testing Under Marine Conditions | University of Alabama | $400,000 | Researchers will explore the fundamental engineering parameters for a renewable high-performance adsorbent for the extraction of uranium from sweater based on a recently proven ionic liquid (IL)-chitin platform. The project will use the platform to develop a versatile, modifiable adsorbent and characterize its performance and degradation in marine conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Developing Ultra-Small Scale Mechanical Testing Methods and Microstructural Investigation Procedures for Irradiated Materials. | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop new small-scale mechanical testing techniques to allow for the estimation or direct measurement of bulk properties. The combined experiments and modeling will significantly enhance the statistics and information that can be obtained on small radioactive archived samples, as well as new ion beam irradiated specimens. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Improved Delayed-Neutron Spectroscopy Using Trapped Ions | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will develop innovative spectroscopy techniques to measure the decay of fission fragments. The resulting data from these new techniques will be used to better understand reactor kinetics under accident conditions and failure scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Thermally and Chemically Responsive Nanoporous Materials for Efficient Capture of Fission Product Gases | University of California, Davis | $750,000 | Researchers will create new nanoporous materials that will be highly effective at capturing fission product gases. These materials would be relevant to both reactor fuels applications and reprocessing operations. Tests will be performed in carbon based and nitride based nanostructures, with the most promising materials from the modeling perspective undergoing further testing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Multiphase Nanocrystalline Ceramic Concept for Nuclear Fuel | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | Researchers will study the use of nanoparticles and nanostructured ceramics to create new materials that can extend the service life and increase efficiency for nuclear fuel. Multiphase nanocrystalline ceramics will be used to design simulated nuclear fuel that can provide added plasticity, better radiation tolerance and improved thermal conductivity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Novel Porous Sorbents for Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Chicago | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a highly porous sorbent for the extraction of uranium from seawater. Previous research has established sorbent performance. This project will use past foundational studies to design and investigate a new nanocomposites that will be processed into tacks or braids for field tests in seawater tests. The technology may also be used for other metals. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Microwave Readout Techniques for Very Large Arrays of Nuclear Sensors | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,937 | Researchers will develop a powerful readout technique based on microwave transmission and reflection. The technique will enable very large arrays of diverse sensor types for nuclear materials quantification and tracking. It will provide more accurate data on material composition and quantity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| BiI3 Gamma-Ray Spectrometers for Reliable Room-Temperature Nuclear Materials Safeguarding | University of Florida | $799,999 | Researchers will develop gamma-ray spectrometers based on BiI3 single crystals for MPACT applications such as burnup validation quantification, improved assay of plutonium, determination of uranium enrichment and overall monitoring spent fuel within the fuel cycle. The project will improve energy resolution, efficiency and environmental performance with this new gamma-ray detector. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Innovative Coating of Nanostructured Vanadium Carbide on the F/M Cladding Tube Inner Surface for Mitigating the Fuel Cladding Chemical Interactions | University of Florida | $760,276 | Researchers will develop barrier coatings on the inner surface of fuel cladding tubes to improve performance of materials at elevated temperatures and high neutron exposures in fast reactors. The project will develop and test a low temperature coating process of nanostructured vanadium carbide that will provide a benchmark for use in future studies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Doubling the Life of Concrete Structures | University of Idaho | $800,000 | Researchers will use nanoscale techniques to develop methods for doubling the service life of concrete structures. They will study the effect of temperature load and temperature cycling (freezing and thawing) on the durability of concrete with nanoscale viscosity modifiers. The project will benefit from non-destructive evaluation of concrete performance through electrochemical techniques. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Off-Gas Treatment: Evaluation of Nano-structured Sorbents for Selective Removal of Contaminants | University of Idaho | $785,910 | Researchers will evaluate nanostructured sorbent materials for their effectiveness in removing and immobilizing radionuclides for the off-gas treatment from used nuclear fuel recycling operations. The project aims at achieving near-zero emissions of radionuclides by capturing them from the off-gas of recycling operations, allowing for the development of advanced fuel cycles. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium and Transition Metals from Amidoxime-Based Sorbents | University of Idaho | $399,864 | Researchers will develop a new two-step elution process to achieve total recovery of uranium and effective recycling of the sorbent. The extraction process would selectively remove uranium from the sorbent with little or no damage. The process would then remove transition metals and regenerate the sorbent for repeated use, making uranium extraction from seawater economically viable. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Performance of a Steel/Oxide Composite Waste Form for Combined Waste Streams from Advanced Electrochemical Processes over Geologic Time Scales | University of Illinois at Chicago | $700,000 | Researchers will develop and validate a mechanistically-based corrosion model for cermet-type waste forms, creating a testing protocol and modeling approach for predicting long-term performance. The study will apply novel electrochemical testing and modeling methods to the behavior of metal/oxide phase boundaries to evaluate waste form performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Enhancement of the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland, College Park | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and optimize novel adsorbents for uranium recovery from seawater. The team will use radiation-induced grafting of organic phosphates onto polymers. The experiments will use ocean water, with mechanistic analysis, to provide a solid basis for large-scale demonstration of the performance of the new adsorbents in ocean environments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Improving the Understanding of the Coupled Thermal-Mechanical-Hydrologic Behavior of Consolidating Granular Salt | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will increase the understanding of granular salt seal materials for shafts, drifts and boreholes. By coupling thermal, mechanical and hydrological responses, the study will result in greater confidence in granular salt consolidation as a principal strategy for closure and isolation of long-term waste repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Fission Fragment Yield Data in Support of Advanced Reactor Technology | University of New Mexico | $399,816 | Researchers will produce a highly accurate data set for thermal fission. These precision data are necessary for high-accuracy simulations of nuclear criticality, transmutation rates, radiation effects and heating as well as for nuclear fuel, material accounting and identification needs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Molecular dynamics-based simulations of bulk/interfacial structures and diffusion behaviors in nuclear waste glasses | University of North Texas | $700,000 | Researchers will generate accurate atomic structural models for use in Monte Carlo simulations of the dissolution of nuclear waste glasses. Large-scale molecular dynamics-based computer simulations will be used to investigate self-diffusion behaviors, interfacial structure, and other structures formed during dissolution of these glasses. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| U3Si2 Fabrication and Testing for Implementation into the BISON Fuel Performance Code | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will fabricate, test and model a high uranium density, advanced nuclear fuel that operates at a much lower temperature and stores less energy. The work will deliver key research data on creep and grain growth, improving economics, through possible power uprates, and advancing accident tolerant fuels research. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Structural Health Monitoring of Nuclear Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of South Carolina | $738,618 | Researchers will develop a nuclear structural health monitoring system based on a sensing technology that monitors material degradation and aging for dry cask storage systems. The low-cost, low-profile sensors will perform on-demand monitoring of the structural integrity of individual components as well as the entire system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| ORIGEN-based Nuclear Fuel Depletion Module for Fuel Cycle Assessment | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $755,181 | Researchers will develop a flexible reactor analysis module for the CYCLUS fuel cycle simulator based on established tools for reactor fuel depletion and decay. They will use ORIGEN, a mature and experimentally validated code, affording greater flexibility and allowing for accurate evaluations of impacts of both present and future fuel cycle options. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Cost and System Analysis of Innovative Fuel Resources Concepts | University of Texas at Austin | $295,960 | This project will develop and test braided polymer fiber adsorbents that surpass the sorption capacity, selectivity and durability of the best existing technology to recover uranium from seawater. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Risk Assessment of Structural Integrity of Transportation Casks | University of Utah | $789,296 | Researchers will assess the loss of structural integrity of transportation casks and fuel cladding after extended storage. This risk assessment will conduct experimental tests and simulations to evaluate the structural performance of fuel, fuel assemblies and cask components when subjected to vibration and impact loads during transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Market-Based and System-Wide Fuel Cycle Optimization | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $612,731 | Researchers will create market and economic optimizers to improve calculations for the CYCLUS fuel cycle simulator. The team will leverage existing optimization software frameworks within the simulator to resolve top level policy questions. The optimizations will allow CYCLUS to move beyond static material compositions, providing a holistic view of the fuel cycle system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Optical Fiber Based System for Multiple Thermophysical Properties for Glove Box, Hot Cell and In-Pile Applications | Utah State University | $799,975 | Researchers will use a small pressure vessel to develop a robust technique for the measurement of multiple thermophysical properties at very high temperatures. The technique will lead to a system design moving toward the eventual measurement of irradiated fuels in a glovebox and/or hot cell with all sensors and electronics outside of the glovebox and/or hot cell. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of a Nano-Modified Concrete for Next Generation of Storage Systems | Vanderbilt University | $796,268 | Researchers will use nano-sized and nano-structured particles based on enhanced reactivity to develop a superior concrete for the long-term storage of used nuclear fuel. The project will use state-of-the-art experimental chemical and mechanical characterizations and computation analysis to assess the performance of nano-modified concretes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Fuel Cycle Data Packages for Thorium Fuel Cycle Options | Vanderbilt University | $797,995 | Researchers will develop six fuel cycle data packages for multi-stage, thermal fuel cycles which incorporate thorium. These new fuel cycle data packages will provide the opportunity to examine fuel cycle options beyond those which have traditionally been considered. A thorium fuel cycle database will also be assembled as a basis for thorium literature for future evaluations of the thorium fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Enhanced Shielding Performance of HLW Storage Packages via Multi-Component Coatings | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $796,947 | Researchers will develop a multi-layer composite that will enhance long-term storage and facilitate safe transport of storage packages. This novel multi-layer, multi-component coating would create an outer shield material that is resistant to the corrosion, radiation, diffusion and thermal cycling processes that affect fuel packages during long term storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Managing Zirconium Chemistry and Phase Compatibility in Combined Process Separations for Minor Actinide Partitioning | Washington State University | $700,000 | Researchers will address unique challenges for combining TRUEX and TALSPEAK processes for partitioning of lanthanides and minor actinides. The project will develop improved information on the thermodynamics of fission product zirconium and develop a framework for an organic phase solvation model. Combined process development could streamline separations processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Advances in the Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Studies Under Real Ocean Conditions | Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution | $398,882 | Researchers will provide infrastructure and expertise for marine testing of currently available adsorbents in real ocean conditions. The team will move adsorbent research from the lab to field testing in order to quantify sorptive properties and uranium uptake. The project will provide valuable field data that will show the potential of large scale applications of these technologies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| NEUP Project 20-19172: Irradiation of Sensors and Adhesive Couplants for Application in LWR Primary Loop Piping and Components | $497,881 | Researchers paln to attach ultrasonic transducers to substrates using various adhesive couplants that will be irradiated at elevated temperature to simulate LWR primary loop conditions at the PULSTAR reactor at North Carolina State University. Ultrasonic data will be taken in-situ. Subsequently, the sensors and couplant interfaces will be characterized using the LAMDA facility at ORNL. The results will be used to benefit a parallel EPRI project on online monitoring of cracks in LWR primary loop piping. | Document | Joint R&D with NSUF Access | FY2013 | |
| Lower Length Scale Characterization and Validation of Formation and Stability of Helium Bubbles in Nano-structured Ferritic Alloys under Irradiation | Clemson University | $399,870 | Researchers will provide a fundamental knowledge about the formation and stability of ultra-fine helium bubbles within 14YWT after neutron/ion irradiation for further design of new advanced structural materials with a characteristic high density nanoparticles feature which can increase the mechanical strength, hardness, irradiation resistance and the operational temperature range of materials. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Three-Dimensional Fuel Pin Model Validation by Prediction of Hydrogen Distribution in Cladding and Comparison with Experiment | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers will validate important three-dimensional aspects of the fuel pin modeling by using specialized numerical modeling techniques coupled with laboratory experiments to validate existing models for predicting fuel performance in light water reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Collocation-Based Surrogate Models for Uncertainty Quantification and Validation of Coupled, Multiphysics Fuel Performance Simulation Tools | University of Michigan | $596,835 | Researchers will provide the necessary high fidelity, coupled, multiphysics fuel performance simulator for computational modeling and develop surrogates which will accelerate and focus the validation of the coupled codes. This will be achieved by utilizing the high fidelity coupled fuel performance, thermal-hydraulics and neutronics codes BISON/STAR-CCM+/MPACT and an innovative collocation-based surrogate methodology. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Multi-Resolution In-Situ Testing and Mutliscale Simulation for Creep Damage Fatigue Damage Analysis of Alloy 617 | Arizona State University | $800,000 | This project will develop novel testing and experimentally validated prediction methodologies for micro-structural damage mechanisms of structural materials for advanced reactor systems. The investigations will focus on the characterization and testing of specific metal alloys, but the proposed testing and life-prediction methodologies are applicable to other structural materials as well. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Novel High Temperature and Radiation Resistant Infrared Glasses and Optical Fibers for Sensing in Advanced Small Modular Reactors | Clemson University | $800,000 | Clemson University, in partnership with the Iowa State University and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, will develop novel optical materials with improved heat and radiation exposure resistance in order to enable in-vessel fiber optic sensing for advanced Small Modular Reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Validation Data Acquisition in HTTF during PCC Events | George Washington University | $800,000 | Researchers at the George Washington University and Oregon State University will collaborate with NASA Langley Research Center to measure flow velocities in a high temperature test facility. This work supports the development of very-high temperature reactors with passive safety systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced High Temperature Inspection Capabilities for Small Modular Reactors | Iowa State University | $790,822 | The objective of this project is to develop non-destructive evaluation techniques for advanced small modular reactors. The research will provide key enabling inspection technologies needed to support the design and the reactor component performance validation process for advanced small modular reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Experimental and Computational Investigations of Plenum-to-Plenum Heat Transfer under Natural Circulation in a Prismatic Very High Temperature Reactor | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,999 | Researchers will perform experimental and computational investigations to study heat transfer and natural circulation phenomena in very-high temperature reactors. The study will assist in the ability to predict and analyze passive safety systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| New Mechanistic Models of Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth Interactions for Advanced High Temperature Reactor Components | Oregon State University | $790,790 | Researchers will create and validate a robust, multi-scale, numerical model to predict material degradation in nickel-based reactor alloys. If successful, this project will provide better numerical tools for reactor designers and greatly improve their capability to design against material failures for reactor alloys in the long term. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Self-Powered Wireless Dual-mode Langasite Sensor for Pressure/Temperature Monitoring of Nuclear Reactors | State University of New York, Stony Brook | $800,000 | This research will develop a novel self-powered wireless hybrid sensor that can accurately monitor both pressure and temperature using a single device without requiring external electricity, even in extreme harsh environments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Compact Heat Exchanger Design and Testing for Advanced Nuclear Reactors and Advanced Power Cycles | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to investigate optimal heat exchanger designs for advanced reactors. The research will study the optimization of printed circuit heat exchangers for specific fluids under a variety of conditions as well as perform numerical modeling. Experiments will focus on thermal performance and heat stress during extreme conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Fundamental Understanding of Creep-Fatigue Interactions in 9Cr-1MoV Steel Welds | The Ohio State University | $798,000 | This project will advance the state of knowledge and fundamental understanding of deforming materials and welds under loading conditions. Specifically, new integrated testing procedures will be evaluated and applied for conditions that are most detrimental to material stability leading to improved predictions of life expectancy for reactor steels and welds. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced Mechanistic 3D Spatial Modeling and Analysis Methods to Accurately Represent Nuclear Facility External Event Scenarios | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop three-dimensional characterization uncertainty analysis for commercial power plants. The project will involve combining experts from the fields of seismic structural modeling and advanced methods of risk assessment. This effort is expected to result in next generation tools that can be used for assessment of seismic risks. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Tritium Mitigation/Control for Advanced Reactor Systems | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a fluoride salt cooled high-temperature reactor featuring a specialized system to control tritium production. If successful, this will result in a significant reduction in size and cost in comparison to other reactor designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| A Pebble-Bed Breed and Burn Reactor | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will assess the feasibility of designing a type of metal cooled reactor able to establish and maintain operation when fueled with depleted uranium. If successful, this reactor will offer at least a 30-fold increase in the uranium ore utilization versus that achieved in contemporary light water reactors without the need for fuel reprocessing and recycling. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Investigation of Thermal Aging Effects on the Evolution of Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Cast Duplex Stainless Steels | University of Maryland, College Park | $799,966 | This research will provide a better understanding of the microstructural evolution and simultaneous change in mechanical response during aging. The results of the research will provide data that can be used to estimate degraded mechanical properties for an 80-year service life of light water reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Model validation using CFD-grade experimental database for NGNP Reactor Cavity Cooling Systems with water and air | University of Michigan | $799,348 | Researchers will use advanced innovative instrumentation to build a high-resolution experimental database and to use the novel experimental data to assess and further develop the predictive capabilities of computer codes for thermal hydraulics and computational fluid dynamics. The improved models developed by this project will also have the direct benefit of improving the predictive capability of the passive systems of third generation light water reactors and small modular reactor systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Long-Term Prediction of Emissivity of Structural Material for High Temperature Reactor Systems | University of Missouri | $799,117 | Researchers will study specific types of emissivity driven cooling from a variety of materials that are relevant to nuclear reactors. The research will provide a basis for numerical modeling to support reactor development. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced I&C for Fault-Tolerant Supervisory Control of Small Modular Reactors | University of Pittsburgh | $800,000 | The purpose of this research is to develop advanced instrumentation and control techniques for supervisory control of advanced small modular reactors. This research supports the operational goals of small modular reactor concepts through the development of improved oversight and surveillance techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Corrosion of Structural Materials for Advanced Supercritical Carbon-Dioxide Brayton Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $798,672 | Researchers will study a variety of materials for corrosion resistance under conditions that improve power conversion. In addition to studying the corrosion resistance of the materials, researchers will study the effect of additives to mitigate corrosion. Development of corrosion theories and modeling aimed at prediction of long-term corrosion will be the underlying theme throughout the project. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Component and Technology Development for Advanced Liquid Metal Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $798,920 | In support of liquid metal cooled reactors, the University of Wisconsin, Madison will evaluate advanced alloys and ceramics that come in contact with liquid metals. Additionally, a robust oxygen sensor and for use in liquid metals will be developed in order to better evaluate corrosion profiles in support of diagnostic testing. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| A New Paradigm for Understanding Multi-phase Ceramic Waste Form Performance | Clemson University | $800,000 | Researchers will use advanced characterization tools to develop 3-D microstructural data that can be incorporated into computer-based simulations in order to predict the performance of waste forms. Materials system modeling will incorporate elemental release and the interconnected microstructural network of phases to better understand performance and degradation, which will accelerate waste form acceptance in repository settings. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Controlling Hexavalent Americium: A Centerpiece to a Compact Nuclear Fuel Cycle | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and exploit the fundamental chemistry of Americium to enable an industrially viable means to co-recover the major and minor actinide elements from used nuclear fuel. The results would be a significant step forward in the development of aqueous separations approaches designed to recover the U-Am actinides based on the availability of the hexavalent oxidation state. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Zeolite Membranes for Krypton/Xenon Separation from Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Off-Gas | Georgia Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a high-performance, lower-cost zeolitic membrane process for Kr/Xe separations during spent nuclear fuel processing. Current separation methods are not considered economical and a membrane process would have relatively lower cost, equipment size, and ambient operating temperature. The process would form a sound basis for further development of this transformative separation technology for the nuclear fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Optimizing Polymer-Grafted Amidoxime-based Adsorbents for Uranium Uptake from Seawater | Georgia Institute of Technology | $399,999 | Researchers will work to increase the adsorbent capacity and selectivity toward uranium by optimizing the adsorbent morphology, synthesis variables, and conditioning parameters and by investigating the rate-limiting variables through transport and reaction modeling. A novel adsorption/partition concept that has the potential to substantially increase the adsorbent capacity will be tested, making uranium from seawater extraction more economically viable. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Extraction of Uranium from Seawater: Design and Testing of a Symbiotic System | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a seawater uranium extraction system that will work symbiotically with an offshore windmill by utilizing the structure, mooring and power of the windmill, while increasing the energy harvested by the installation. Uranium will be extracted by an adsorbent polymer belt, which will be cycled through the seawater and an elution plant located at the base of the windmill tower. Increasing the frequency of harvesting could overcome current economic barriers to seawater uranium extraction. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Imaging a Dry Storage Cask with Cosmic Ray Muons | Oregon State University | $799,871 | Researchers will develop an imaging system to monitor the content of a dry storage cask with cosmic ray muons. A very large amount of plutonium under nuclear safeguards is contained in used fuel assemblies stored in dry storage casks. Muon imaging will allow a cost effective and reliable way to evaluate dry storage cask content and integrity before transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Apatite and sodalite based glass-bonded waste forms for immobilization of 129I and mixed halide radioactive wastes | Rutgers University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop advanced and chemically durable waste forms for immobilizing 129I (aqueous based reprocessing of fuel) and mixed-halide wastes (molten-salt processing of fuel) by low temperature synthesis. Halide-containing sodalite and calcium phosphate-based apatite minerals will be synthesized, consolidated and tested for chemical durability. The project will provide needed baseline data for the development of advanced waste forms for immobilization of iodine and mixed-halide wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Sorption Modeling and Verification for Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $350,000 | Researchers will develop modeling tools supported by experiments for off-gas capture from future nuclear-fuel recycling facilities. Target species include tritium, iodine, krypton, and xenon. The models are intended to provide path forward recommendations to develop off-gas treatment adsorption processes. The project will contribute to the evaluation of options for environmentally acceptable recycle systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development of high performance ODS alloys | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will study swelling, radiation hardening and changes in mechanical properties of ODS alloys to develop two sets of advanced ODS alloys. Two sets of first-round candidate alloys that have already undergone extensive development and testing will evaluate irradiation performance. The study will meet the need for high strength, radiation-tolerant cladding and core components that have enhanced resistance to void swelling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Rare Earth Electrochemical Property Measurements and Phase Diagram Development in a Complex Molten Salt Mixture for Molten Salt Recycle | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate rare earth (RE) properties in complex molten salt mixtures. In a molten salt recycle approach, the RE drawdown by electrolysis is a key step in which REs are separated from salt containing other fission products. Investigation of RE electrolysis must consider the electrochemical properties of the REs. We propose to conduct studies of detailed experiments and corresponding models to provide the physical properties and phase diagrams required to predict the performance of RE drawdown for processing complex molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Computational and Experimental Studies of Microstructure-Scale Porosity in Metallic Fuels for Improved Gas Swelling Behavior | University of Arkansas | $796,823 | Researchers will study the microstructure of metallic uranium alloy fuels, and their resistance to densification, to minimize in-pile irradiation swelling through bimodal pore size distribution. The project will develop a predictive approach to design metallic fuel microstructures for optimal swelling resistance and fission gas retention. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Improved Hybrid Modeling of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of California, Berkeley | $645,393 | Researchers will develop a variance reduction method for computational transport that will improve the ability to design and operate monitoring systems for interim used fuel installations through enhanced modeling and simulation. This new tool will demonstrate that modeling calculations can be done more accurately in less time than with current tools and will perform studies characterizing how changes in material, cask configurations, and number of casks could impact monitoring systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Selective ligands for uranyl via combinatorial peptoid libraries: A synthetic, structural, thermodynamic and computational study | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will study how donor ligands bind to the uranyl ion, UO22+, with the longer-term goal of using this information to tackle selective recognition of uranyl in aqueous solution. The study will impact underlying approaches to controlling the behavior of uranium in these systems. The actinide separation technology could be used in several areas including uranium extraction from seawater, nuclear waste remediation and nuclear materials. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Combining Experiments and Simulations of Extraction Kinetics and Thermodynamics in Advanced Separation Processes for Used Nuclear Fuel | University of California, Irvine | $799,938 | Researchers will study how the kinetics and thermodynamics of metal ion extraction in advanced separation processes for used nuclear fuel can be described by molecular dynamic (MD) simulations and how the simulations can be validated by experimental data. The project would have broad impacts on several separations processes including advanced TALSPEAK, ALSEP and GANEX by increasing the confidence and accuracy of computer modeling of metal ion extraction. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Effect of Metallic Li on the Behavior of Metals in Molten Salts | University of Nevada, Reno | $458,250 | Researchers will identify the effect of metallic lithium on materials that are used in molten salt recycling. The study will try to understand how the presence of Li(0) in molten salts affects the degradation of alloys. Studying these changes will help accurately predict container material behavior and longevity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Assessment of Corrosion Resistance of Promising Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding under Reactor Conditions | University of Notre Dame | $800,000 | Researchers will assess the corrosion behavior of accident tolerant fuel candidate iron-based alloys under normal LWR operating conditions consisting of high temperature, relevant water chemistry and irradiation. The assessment will produce data about possible irradiation-accelerated corrosion rates of iron-based alloys, and the mechanisms by which such corrosion rates are accelerated. The project will advance the selection of appropriate replacements for Zircaloy cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Enhanced Accident-Tolerant Fuel Performance and Reliability for Aggressive iPWR/SMR Operation | University of Tennessee | $799,967 | To develop a process that evaluates operational and safety performance of reactor-and-fuel combinations by integrating whole-core 3D neutronics with MOOSE/BISON fuel performance assessments via explicit time and space dependent fuel rod operational power histories. The project will be valuable in analyzing and evaluating accident tolerant fuel concepts and furthering the understanding of reactor physics and fuel performance aspects of key accident tolerant fuel concepts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Nuclear Technology R&D Strategies in an Era of Energy Price Uncertainty | University of Texas, Austin | $799,112 | Researchers will identify nuclear technology options that are competitive over a wide range of plausible future business environments. No single nuclear technology or business practice will be the best choice across all or even most future conditions. The study will focus on hybrid nuclear-fossil technologies, energy storage and conversion, which will result in an identification of nuclear strategies that can succeed under future market conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development and Optimization of Voltammetric Methods for Real Time Analysis of Electrorefiner Salt with High Concentrations of Actinides and Fission Products | University of Utah | $621,612 | Researchers will develop an advanced voltammetry method to pursue the objective of real time monitoring of actinide concentrations in electrorefiner salt. This will include experimental measurement of key parameters such as activity coefficients and exchange current density. It will also involve simulation of voltammetry processes based on first principles. The project will allow for real time measurements that could support the commercialization of pyroprocessing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development of Self-Healing Zirconium-Silicide Coatings for Improved Performance of Zirconium-Alloy Fuel Cladding | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $798,621 | Researchers will study the deposition of self-healing zirconium-silicide coatings on zirconium-alloy fuel cladding material to improve corrosion resistance under normal and accident conditions. Under these conditions, Zr-Si coating evolves into a highly protective functionally-graded multilayered system. The study will lead to improved performance of zirconium-alloy fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Thermal Conductivity in Metallic Fuels | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,837 | Researchers will calculate the thermal conductivity of metallic uranium and neptunium alloys, including the effects of noble gasses, using density functional theory. The experiments will validate the calculated effective thermal conductivity using the MARMOT code and by helping determine DFT simulation parameters. The study works to improve fuel lifetime by understanding its thermal behavior. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| SiC-ODS Alloy Gradient Nanocomposites as Novel Cladding Materials | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,998 | Researchers will combine nuclear nanomaterial design, processing, testing, and characterization efforts to develop revolutionary materials that can withstand neutron irradiation for long period of time using nanostructured SiC and oxide dispersion strengthened steel. The ultimate objective is to offer new cladding materials with increased corrosion resistance, strength, and creep resistance in both steady state and accident conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Experimental Breeder Reactor II Benchmark Evaluation | Idaho State University | $400,000 | _Researchers will develop a benchmark evaluation of the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II). During nearly 30 years of operation numerous experiments were conducted at EBR-II. The most significant of these experiments were conducted in 1986 demonstrating inherent safety features in loss of flow without reactor scram and loss of heat sink without reactor scram. Benchmark evaluation will be valuable for the reactor design efforts in the United States and South Korea. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| Integral full core multi-physics PWR benchmark with measured data | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | _Researchers will introduce BEAVRS, a new multi-cycle full-core Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) depletion benchmark based on two operational cycles of a commercial nuclear power plant. This project aims at addressing the uncertainty quantification of the measured data and on making this benchmark a true non-proprietary international benchmark for the validation of high-fidelity multi-physics computational tools. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| Benchmark Evaluation of PROTEUS Gas-Cooled Reactor Experiments | University of Florida | $400,000 | _Researchers will create International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) benchmarks using data from 1970s experiments of the neutronics of gas-cooled fast reactor (GCFR) designs investigated in the PROTEUS reactor. The GCFR-PROTEUS experiments fill a gap in current integral benchmark data. These experiments can provide validation of computational models and nuclear data for next generation reactors. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| An Investigation To Establish Multiphysical Property Dataset Of Nuclear Materials Based On In-Situ Observations And Measurements | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will create an in-situ measurement based experimental approach to develop experimental validation dataset for NEAMS based code validation. Particular emphasis is on supplying data set for multiphysics simulations in extreme conditions as a function of material microstructure. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| Experimental Validation of UO2 Microstructural Evolutions for NEAMS tool MARMOT | University of Florida | $798,000 | _Researchers will experimentally validate MARMOT for predicting the microstructural evolutions of UO2 oxide fuel under the driving forces of high temperatures and large temperature gradient in reactors. By performing the experiments and simulations simultaneously using precisely defined initial conditions, the experiment data will provide direct benchmarking of the MARMOT code. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| High-resolution time-resolved experiments on mixing and entrainment of buoyant jets in stratified environments | University of Michigan | $799,983 | _Researchers will study high spatial and time-resolution experimental data of the fluid dynamics phenomena of flow jets interacting with a stratified layer. The issue plays an important role in the safety of several reactor designs, including sodium-cooled reactors. The data addresses the NEAMS needs for the validation of high fidelity computational fluid dynamics methodologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| Fundamental study of key issues related to advanced S-CO2 Brayton Cycle: prototypic HX development and Cavitation | Georgia Institute of Technology | $799,000 | _Researchers will study scientific and operational issues pertinent to compact heat exchanger systems and turbo-machinery. The project will work to resolve issues with the fabrication of diffusion bonded compact heat exchangers, alternate heat exchange technology for recuperators, and resolution of issues with cavitation and fluid instabilities. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Advanced Models for Nondestructive Evaluation of Aging Nuclear Power Plant Cables | Iowa State University | $787,291 | _Researchers will develop advanced models that relate environmentally induced microstructural and chemical changes in cable insulation polymers to their macroscopic electrical parameters. These parameters will be measured and modeled over a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum, covering several potential nondestructive evaluation techniques, enabling identification of the most sensitive techniques for future development. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Development of Novel Functionally Graded Transition Joints for Improving the Creep Strength of Dissimilar Metal Welds in Nuclear Applications | Lehigh University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop graded transition joints and improved creep life models for increasing the life of dissimilar metal welds (DMWs) in nuclear reactors. The research represents the first application of functionally graded material concepts for solving the problem of DMW failures through an integrated approach of additive manufacturing, modeling, microstructural characterization, and advanced strain-sensing techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Feasibility Assessment of a Micro Modular Reactor (MMR) | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | _Researchers will develop an innovative compact reactor concept that integrates power production, power conversion and electricity generation in a single unit: the Micro Modular Reactor (MMR). It is designed to be absolutely melt-down proof (MDP) under all circumstances including complete loss of coolant scenarios with no possible release of radioactive material, to have a cycle length of greater than 10 years, and to be highly proliferation resistant. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Scaling Studies for Advanced Gas Reactor Concepts | Oregon State University | $681,834 | _Researchers will expand the utilization of the Oregon State University High Temperature Test Facility (HTTF) to validate a broader range of advanced high temperature reactors and events. The facility will be revised to add a detailed scaling analysis of additional gas reactor concepts including advanced gas-cooled, molten salt, and sodium cooled reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Fluid Stratification Separate Effects Analysis, Testing and Benchmarking | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will study fluid stratification in high temperature gas reactors. Coolant stratification is the result of incomplete mixing of one or more fluids, leading to a density gradient, which may or may not dissipate under diffusive or convective effects. This combined analytical and experimental project seeks to investigate stratification driven by diffusive and convective mechanisms and is expected to yield insight into this phenomenon. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Probabilistic Economic Valuation of Safety Margin Management Analysis | Oregon State University | $795,364 | _Researchers will use RAVEN and develop a companion software package to facilitate economic analysis of safety margins. The project is a proof of concept that will use techniques to examine the cost of improving safety margins vs. the risk of accidents from not improving safety margins. This analysis can be used to evaluate the economic viability of various plant upgrades. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Novel Dissimilar Joints Between Alloy 800H and 2.25%Cr and 1%Mo Steel | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will fabricate and test dissimilar metal joints between a nickel base alloy and a steel with gradual variations of chemical composition, microstructure and properties in a manner that reduces abrupt thermal expansion mismatch and the resulting residual stresses. Data on structure and properties will serve as valuable inputs for the initiation of an ASME code case. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Multi-Phase Model Development to Assess RCIC System Capabilities under Severe Accident Conditions | Texas A&M University | $564,246 | _Researchers will develop physics-based models of the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) System and incorporating them into a multi-phase code for validation. The project will tackle the current major challenges in RCIC System analysis and enable evaluation of two-phase thermodynamic aspects. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Experimental Investigation and CFD Analysis of Steam Ingress Accidents in HTGRs | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will study the steam ingress scenario for HTGRs. The study will investigate thermal-hydraulic behavior and graphite oxidation of stream ingress phenomena to validate predictive CFD models. This work will resolve concerns about possible steam generator tube ruptures in a HTGR He-Steam Rankine cycle. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Coiled Tube Gas Heaters For Nuclear Gas-Brayton Power Conversion | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop heat exchangers for Brayton-cycle power conversion in reactors using sodium, NaK, or salt as intermediate coolants. The proposed coiled tube gas heaters (CTGHs) are expected to have excellent power density, thermal shock/creep, in-service inspection, and reparability characteristics. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Fundamental Studies of Irradiation-Induced Modifications in Microstructural Evolution and Mechanical Properties of Advanced Alloys | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop and test a mechanism for predicting neutron irradiation performance for optimized Grade 92 and Alloy 709 for applications in advanced reactor systems. The work will employ ion irradiations and available information from neutron irradiations of related alloys to develop a basis for predicting the neutron irradiation performance of the optimized alloys. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Integrated Computational and Experimental Study of Radiation Damage Effects in Grade 92 Steel and Alloy 709 | University of Tennessee | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop a mechanistic understanding and predictive models of irradiation-induced microstructural evolution and resulting mechanical properties in optimized ferritic-martensitic Grade 92 steel and austenitic alloy 709 using multiscale simulations coupled with rigorous experimental validation. The project will provide insights into the correlation between ion irradiation and fast neutron damage. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Meta-Level Design Guidance and Operator Performance Measures for Hybrid Control Rooms | Vanderbilt University | $799,869 | _Researchers will apply human factors engineering methods and relevant expertise from non-nuclear high-risk high-consequence domains toward the measurement of operator performance in analog, digital, and hybrid main control rooms. Performance measures will be developed for evaluating the situation awareness and decision-making proficiencies to support the transition to digital or hybrid control room displays. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| NEUP Project 15-8514: Elucidation of the kinetics of Advanced Separation systems | California State University, Long Beach | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a fundamental understanding of the chemical kinetics relevant to separation processes by measuring ligand complexation rate constants for both lanthanides and actinides in the aqueous and organic phases. These experiments will provide essential kinetic and mechanistic information required for developing a simplified, single-step recovery of transuranic elements. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8119: Kr/Xe separation over Metal Organic Framework Membranes | Colorado School of Mines | $375,000 | Researchers will develop metal organic framework (MOF) membranes that will be capable of effectively separating Kr from Xe with high flux and selectivity. This project may result in the development of membranes that will constitute a viable energy saving approach for the effective removal of Kr during the processing of used nuclear fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8347: Multilayer Composite Fuel Cladding for LWR Performance Enhancement and Severe Accident Tolerance | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop, manufacture, and weld a new multimetallic layered composite (MMLC) for enhanced severe accident tolerance and manufacturability in LWRs. Layers of stainless steel (facing the coolant) and Zircaloy (facing the fuel) will be separated by barrier layers of Cr and Nb. Severe accident testing in 1200C steam, LWR autoclave testing, and ion irradiation studies will demonstrate the MMLC's microstructural stability. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8112: Phase Separation and Crystallization of Complex Borosilicate Melts for Glass-Ceramic Waste Forms | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,806 | Researchers will study the mechanisms for microstructural development and properties of multi-phase, glass-ceramic materials that form when waste-loaded borosilicate glasses are cooled from above their liquidus or consolute temperatures through the glass transition temperature. The project will apply these tools to modified compositions to maximize the formation of the desirable crystalline phases. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8265: Electrically-Assisted Tubing Processes for Enhancing Manufacturability of Oxide Dispersion Strengthened Structural Materials for Nuclear Reactor Applications | Northwestern University | $800,000 | Researchers will enhance the formability of nanostructured ferritic alloys (NFAs) such that high-strength thin-walled claddings can be manufactured successfully and economically to be used in future reactors. The project will study the effects of continuous and pulsed electric currents on the deformation behavior of Fe-14Cr based NFA steel. The findings will be used to establish innovative fabrication processes including electrically-assisted extrusion and rolling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8126: Fundamental Electrochemical Properties of Liquid Metals in LiCl-KCl for Separation of Alkali/Alkaline-Earths (Cs, Sr and Ba) | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate the fundamental properties of novel liquid metal electrodes for separation of alkali/alkaline-earth fission products in LiCl-KCl electrolyte. The project will further the development of pyroprocessing by maximizing salt recycle and providing a method for recovery of alkali/alkaline-earth fission products as oxides (as opposed to chlorides) which will allow them to be encapsulated in a more conventional glass wasteform. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8074: Monitoring of Actinide Concentrations in Molten LiCl-KCl Salt using Alpha Spectroscopy | The Ohio State University | $799,969 | Researchers will develop a novel in-salt sensor that uses electrochemistry to pre-concentrate the actinides onto the sensor to measure the actinides concentration in a high temperature and high radiation field represented by a molten salt environment. The ability to monitor actinides to prevent misuse is critical to enhancing the control of nuclear materials. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8717: Understanding the Interactions of Seawater Ions with Amidoxime through X-Ray Crystallography | University of Alabama | $553,971 | _Researchers will investigate the fundamental interactions of the amidoxime (R-C(NH2)=NOH) functional group with metal ions found in seawater using a combined approach of single crystal X-ray diffraction and spectroscopy to understand the origin of the selectivity of amidoxime resins for uranyl ([UO2]2+] ions and establish structural benchmarks for interpretation of spectroscopic studies on actual sorbents to aid in identifying specific sorbent-metal interactions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8439: Developing a macro-scale SiC-cladding behavior model based on localized mechanical and thermal property evaluation on pre- and post-irradiation SiC-SiC composites | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a fundamental understanding of the macroscopic behavior of SiC-SiC composite structures before and after irradiation based on the microscopic property changes of each individual component (SiC matrix, fiber and interface). SiC-SiC composites will be tested in the as-fabricated condition, after being subjected to neutron and ion irradiation, micro-cracking, and oxidation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8536: Quantitative Prediction of Uranium Speciation and Amidoxime Binding in Seawater from Advanced Simulation Techniques | University of California, Riverside | $450,000 | Researchers will quantitatively predict stability of uranium species and thermochemistry (free energy, entropy, and enthalpy) of uranium binding with amidoxime ligands in seawater conditions. To achieve the goal, advanced simulation techniques including all-atom molecular dynamics, free-energy calculations, and the hybrid quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical approach will be employed to explicitly include water molecules and common seawater ions in the simulation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8286: Used Fuel Storage Monitoring Using Helium-4 Scintillation Fast Neutron Detectors and Neutron Spectral Analysis | University of Florida | $799,765 | Researchers will build and demonstrate a prototype detector device capable of unambiguously verifying the declared content of dry casks in a non-intrusive manner for the safeguarding and monitoring of used fuel storage installations. This will be achieved through a neutron spectroscopy and imaging system using high-efficiency Helium-4 (4He) gas scintillation fast neutron detectors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8663: Enhancement of the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland, College Park | $600,000 | Researchers will produce efficient adsorbents of uranium from seawater in seeking to optimize the functional ligands, the polymeric substrates, the grafting conditions and the adsorption/desorption durations based on sound chemical understanding. The result will be adsorbents that can be used through multiple cycles of uranium adsorption without significant degradation of the adsorbents capacity and selectivity for uranium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8111: Purification of Zirconium cladding using a chloride volatility process | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $798,877 | _Researchers will investigate the thermochemistry of used fuel Zr cladding components chlorides as well as their activation products and residual radionuclide metal chlorides to provide fundamental data that will support the development of a chlorination process for the purification of ZrCl4. Understanding the chemistry of these chloride species will provide process development guidance for the purification of Zr cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8323: Purification of Zirconium Tetrachloride from UNF Cladding | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $793,121 | _Researchers will develop and demonstrate a process to purify zirconium tetrachloride obtained from the direct chlorination of used Zircaloy cladding materials from used nuclear fuel rod assemblies. This study will increase understanding of purification protocols that will allow zirconium chloride to be recycled further. Increased recycling capability would significantly reduce the amount of high level waste associated with light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8752: Radiation Effects on High Thermal Conductivity Fuels | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $400,000 | _Researchers will use scoping ion and neutron irradiations to explore the structural stability and thermal conductivity of model high thermal conductivity fuels consisting of CeO2 and either Al2O3 (BeO surrogate) or SiC. Issues associated with thermal conductivity degradation (including micro cracking effects) and general phase stability of fuel systems will be examined. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8243: Radiation-induced swelling and microcracking in SiC cladding for LWRs | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $797,889 | _Researchers will use state of the art experimental characterization techniques and multi-scale methodology (developed within the MOOSE-MARMOT-BISON framework) to provide scientific basis for predictions of swelling and microcracking in SiC cladding as a function of temperature and irradiation histories. Predicting swelling and microcracking will further the potential for accident tolerant SiC cladding to be used in light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8081: Understanding influence of thermal history and glass chemistry on kinetics of phase separation and crystallization in borosilicate glass-ceramic waste forms for aqueous reprocessed high level waste | Washington State University | $799,911 | _Researchers will develop a fundamental and transformative understanding of the crystallization mechanisms in complex glass-ceramic high level waste (HLW) wasteforms,. This understanding will underpin the maturation of glass ceramic manufacture, by linking process variables to molecular scale mechanisms, enabling reliable production of wasteforms to the desired specification. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8210: A Transient Reactor Physics Experiment with High-Fidelity, 3-D Flux Measurements for Validation and Verification | Kansas State University | $799,198 | _Researchers will instrument the University of Wisconsin Nuclear Reactor with micro-pocket fission detectors (MPFDs) to measure 3-D flux distributions. The measurements will be compared to simulation using PROTEUS from the NEAMS toolkit. MPFDs are small, which leads to low gamma-ray sensitivity and small flux perturbations. A 3-D array of MPFDs and standard reactor instrumentation will be used to capture highly-resolved flux and temperature distributions for several steady-state and transient conditions. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8101: Development of Critical Experiments to Provide Validation Data for Multiphysics Coupling Methods | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $799,993 | Researchers will develop a set of benchmark validation experiments for multiphysics coupling by exploiting the inherent flexibility of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Reactor Critical Facility (RCF). This project will use targeted experiments to validate the coupling between neutronics, thermal hydraulics, and structural mechanics routines present in the NEAMS Reactor Product Line toolkit._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8229: Thermal Transport and Fracture Behavior of Sintered Fuel Pellets: Experimental Validation of NEAMS Tool MARMOT | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | _Researchers will perform experimental validation of the NEAMS tool MARMOT for predicting thermal transport and fuel fracture. By performing extensive thermal transport and fracture experiments on well-controlled microstructures of sintered UO2, the impact of microstructure on thermo-mechanical properties of sintered UO2 and mechanistic understanding will be achieved. The high quality experimental data will directly benchmark the MARMOT code by evaluating the thermal transport and fracture models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8208: Development of a Novel Accelerator for Neutron Transport Solution Using the Galerkin Spectral Element Methods | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $626,176 | _Researchers will develop a novel accelerator for neutron transport calculations based on the spectral element methods, continuous Galerkin (CG) and discontinuous Galerkin (DG) approximations. The CG and DG methods will be used to solve the multi-group neutron diffusion equation on the coarse-mesh structure (e.g., pin-size up to assembly-size), which is then coupled with the high-order neutron transport solution to speed up the neutron transport computation. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8338: Methodology Development for Cybersecurity Robustness and Vulnerability Assessment of University Research Reactors: A Case Study Using the PULSTAR Reactor | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop a methodology for assessing the cybersecurity robustness and vulnerability of university research reactors using an actual university reactor as a test case. While the developed methodology will be specifically tested and applied using this reactor, it will be formulated as a general blueprint and used as the starting point for the assessment of university research reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cyber Security R&D | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8121: Automatic Imagery Data Analysis for Proactive Computer-Based Workflow Management during Nuclear Power Plant Outages | Arizona State University | $799,738 | _Researchers will test the hypothesis that real-time imagery-based object tracking and spatial analysis, as well as human behavior modeling will significantly improve efficiency of outage control while lowering the rates of accidents and incidents. The project will examine computer vision methods and human behavior models for developing a proactive workflow management tool and integrate it into Computer-Based Procedures for supporting an Advanced Outage Control Center. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8308: Creep and creep-fatigue crack growth mechanisms in Alloy 709 | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _A joint US/UK team will study the crack growth mechanism and failure analysis of alloy 709 under creep and creep-fatigue conditions. The study will be done through in situ heating and loading during SEM observation to evaluate the crack growth under plane stress condition and traditional methods to study the crack growth under plane strain condition. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8582: Mechanistic and Validated Creep/Fatigue Predictions for Alloy 709 from Accelerated Experiments and Simulations | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will use mechanistic methods for predicting creep and creep-fatigue deformation rates/strains based on accelerated in-situ and ex-situ tests, and mesoscale dislocation dynamics simulations for Alloy 709. This research will support its qualification in the ASME code for use in advanced nuclear reactor applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8495: Advancement of Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Technology through Round Robin Testing and Fundamental Modeling | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will conduct a round robin test plan for S-CO2 corrosion testing across multiple institutions and the organization of a S-CO2 Materials Group to guide future materials testing directions. Furthermore, this proposal outlines identical tests in supercritical water, testing model alloys with various composition and environmental conditions, accompanied by modeling efforts to study rate controlling mechanisms of corrosion. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8489: Modeling and Validation of Irradiation Damage in Ni-based Alloys for Long-Term LWR Applications | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _A joint US/UK team will study thermal and irradiation-induced transformations mechanisms of Alloys 690 and 625 in order to extend Grizzly to include capabilities for modeling Ni-based alloys. The project will develop modeling tools for materials degradation in light water reactors, allowing for component replacement data and continued safe operation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-7983: Development of Steady-State Thermal-Hydraulic Analysis and Bowing Reactivity Evaluation Methods Based on Neutron and Gamma Transport Calculations | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop steady-state thermal-hydraulic analysis and assembly bowing reactivity evaluation methods based on the latest transport calculation capabilities in order to overcome the limitations and improve the accuracy of current design analysis methods. The outcome of the effort will be computer programs to calculate the steady-state heat source distributions in fuel pins and assembly duct walls and to calculate the reactivity worth of assembly displacements. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8627: Experimental Validation Data and Computational Models for Turbulent Mixing of Bypass and Coolant Jet Flows in Gas-Cooled Reactors | Texas A&M University | $799,613 | _Researchers will establish reliable models of the thermal-hydraulics in Gas-Cooled Reactors with experimental and computational efforts. Specifically, this work will focus on providing the relationship between fluctuating velocities and temperatures in the lower plenum and their dependency on the turbulent upstream mixing in the core and collection chambers leading up to the lower plenum. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8251: Enhanced Performance Fast Reactors with Engineered Passive Safety System | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | _Researchers will study the feasibility of improving the passive safety and economics of sodium cooled fast reactors (SFR) by incorporating within their fuel assemblies a novel Autonomous Reactivity Control (ARC) system. It is expected that the ARC systems will enable to design even low leakage SFR cores, such as breed-and-burn cores, to be passively safe and to improve the neutron economy and economic viability of more conventional SFR. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8258: Physics-Based Probabilistic Model of the Effects of Ionizing Radiation on Polymeric Insulators of Electric Cables used in Nuclear Power Plants | University of California, Los Angeles | $798,846 | _Researchers will develop and experimentally validate a probabilistic physics-based degradation models for polymeric insulators of electric cables to be used in integrated performance and safety codes, which will help reduce the uncertainty associated with the long-term aging of cable insulation. The project will deliver a C++ based simulation code that will be readily compatible with the MOOSE/Grizzly framework developed at the Idaho National Laboratory. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8000: The Influences of Neutron Irradiation on Aggregate Induced Degradation of Concrete | University of California, Los Angeles | $800,000 | _Researchers will quantify the impacts of irradiation on concrete degradation. The research will develop new understanding of the evolutions and manifestations of irradiation assisted aggregate concrete degradation caused by neutron exposure. This assessment will help to mitigate the risk of such degradation within the Grizzly framework, by careful integrations of nanoscale analytics and simulation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8458: Multiple Degradation Mechanisms in Reinforced Concrete Structures, Modeling and Risk Analysis | University of Houston | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a multi-physics framework to characterize the deterioration development in concrete due to environmental and mechanical loading, and the coupling effect among transport processes and the damage of concrete. This project will develop new computational tools that will be implemented in Grizzly, an application built on the MOOSE platform, to address a variety of aging mechanisms in nuclear power plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8623: Characterization of Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth in Alloy 709 and Prediction of Service Lives in Nuclear Reactor Components | University of Idaho | $799,927 | _Researchers will study creep-fatigue crack growth behavior in steel Alloy 709 in accelerated test conditions to predict extended service life of structural components. Extensive testing of Alloy 709 creep-fatigue specimens will be performed at elevated temperatures and applied stresses. Microstructure analysis will be performed to describe the crack propagation mechanisms. Computational models will be used to predict service of steel components. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8432: Multi-scale experimental study of creep-fatigue failure initiation in a 709 Stainless Steel alloy using high resolution digital image correlation | University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign | $800,00 | _Researchers will conduct a detailed experimental investigation of creep-fatigue crack initiation in a 709 alloy, and will also obtain a predictive failure initiation model that includes both thermo-mechanical and aging effects. The experiments will use ultra-high resolution digital image correlation to measure accumulation of plastic with cycling. The model will extend existing slip band-based energy minimization criterion to include thermal effects applicable to 709. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8599: Am-241 Nuclear Safety and Environmental Interactions | University of Missouri | $399,187 | _Researchers will investigate the release and transport mechanisms of Am-241 to understand the interactions it may have with the environment. The project will examine Am-241 through a series of accident scenarios using Am-241 aerosols that will allow researchers to understand the pathways for dose assessment. Methodologies and approaches for nuclear risk assessment for new space radioisotope power system applications will be developed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8667: Experimental Validation of a Compact Double-walled Twisted-Tube Heat Exchanger Concept | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | _Researchers will investigate a novel compact double-walled twisted-tube heat exchanger (DT-HXR) design that utilizes an outer twisted tube configuration in order to enhance shell-side heat transfer and make the overall bundle more compact. Utilizing outer twisted tube geometry improves heat transfer and allows for a tube bundle that does not require support plates or anti-vibration bars. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project: 15-8352: Development and Demonstration of an In-Situ Tritium Scavenger | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,988 | _Researchers will use a graphite moderator to capture and remove tritium from the primary coolant systems of salt- and gas-cooled reactors. The team will develop electrochemical techniques to characterize tritium transport in graphite and liquid fluoride salts (including flibe), demonstrate the in-situ effectiveness of tritium absorption by the fuel elements, and develop a design for a graphite bed tritium filter that can integrate with salt-to-air heat exchangers. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 16-10730: Visualization Tool for Comparing Low-Carbon Energy Options | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a web based visualization tool for comparing current and future nuclear fuel cycle options to other low-carbon and conventional energy technologies in the United States.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10679: Overcoming Kinetic Barriers to Actinide Recovery in ALSEP | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | The ALSEP process for group separations of trivalent actinide/lanthanide ions suffers from slow stripping kinetics. Researchers will perform detailed kinetic studies at different temperatures, supported by spectroscopic and computational studies to establish where the kinetic bottlenecks occur in the ALSEP process. They will then systematically alter the chemistry of the extractants and aqueous ligands to understand how to overcome the kinetic hindrances.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10058: An Integrated Multiscale Experimental-Numerical Analysis on Reconsolidation of Salt-Clay Mixture for Disposal of Heat-Generating Waste | Columbia University in the City of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will improve understanding of the thermal-mechanical-hydrologic-chemical (TMHC) coupling effect on reconsolidated granular (or crushed) salt-clay mixture used for seal systems of shafts and drifts in salt repositories. The project will integrate laboratory experiments and multiscale pore-to-continuum coupling simulations to explore the feasibility of using clay additive and moisture content to enhance performance of crushed salt as a seal material.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10088: Americium Separation By Electrochemical Oxidation | Florida International University | $800,000 | Researchers will separate Am from high-level waste by exploiting the high oxidation states of Am through design, and testing of new materials. This will be accomplished by designing and testing new electrodes, derivatized with surface-stabilized ligands and redox mediators to facilitate oxidation of trivalent Am, and by designing porous sorbent materials functionalized with molecules which selectively coordinate Am(VI) to enable its subsequent separation.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10668: Microstructure Experiments-Enabled MARMOT Simulations of SiC/SiC-Based Accident Tolerant Nuclear Fuel System | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will characterize steam attack, hydrothermal corrosion and radiation swelling of SiC/SiC composites-based accident tolerant fuel (ATF) using a combination of experiments, microstructure evaluation and phase-field simulations using MARMOT. Central to the project is the mapping of the microstructure after steam/hydrothermal/irradiation tests through a unique non-destructive x-ray microscopy technique followed by phase-field simulations of chemical transport in MARMOT.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10221: Alloying Agents to Stabilize Lanthanides Against Fuel Cladding Chemical Interaction: Tellurium and Antimony Studies | Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop alloying agents to stabilize lanthanides against fuel cladding chemical interactions (FCCIs). Based on the available binary phase diagrams for the periodic table, Te and Sb are selected as fuel dopants. The research will focus on Te. The mechanisms of using minor additives to stabilize and immobilize the lanthanide fission products will be investigated. Resulting thermodynamic data obtained by the proposed research will be integrated into MARMOT to enhance its ability to model metallic fuel performance.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10648: Oxidation and Corrosion-Resistant Uranium Silicide Fuels | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | Researchers will develop oxidation/corrosion resistant uranium silicide U3Si2 fuel by chemical doping/fillers to form a continuous borosilicate glass as a protective oxide layer with transformational fuel performance and accident tolerance. The team will use chemical doping/fillers include B or C showing effectiveness in improving high temperature oxidation resistance in transition metal silicides, and boron/silicon-containing compounds that can form a protective borosilicate glass layer.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10229: Mechanistic Understanding of Silver Sorbent Aging Processes in Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $800,000 | This project is focused on understanding the mechanisms of aging processes on silver exchanged mordenite and silver functionalized silica aerogel adsorbents under conditions of long term exposure to off gas streams containing air, I2, H2O, and NOx. The chemical and physical structural changes of the adsorbents under these conditions will be accounted for in equilibrium and kinetic models. Transport models will be developed to predict the performance of engineered off-gas treatment systems.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10394: Integration of Microwave Readout into Nuclear Process Monitoring | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,695 | Researchers will show that gamma-ray spectroscopy based on emerging microcalorimeter sensors can determine elemental and isotopic fractions with accuracy comparable to much slower mass spectrometry and with far better accuracy than germanium sensors. This advance will prevent the diversion of nuclear material by enabling nearly real time process monitoring in large nuclear facilities without loss of measurement accuracy.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10523: A Science Based Approach for Selecting Dopants in FCCI-Resistant Metallic Fuel Systems | University of Idaho | $800,000 | The project aims to use a science-based approach to set guidelines of selecting dopants for developing fuel cladding chemical interaction (FCCI)-resistant metallic fuel systems for fast reactors. Lanthanide fission products migrate to the fuel-cladding gap leading to cladding breaches. The team will perform both theoretical modeling and experiments to arrive at the guidelines that are based on sound science. If successful, this can lead to breakthroughs in minimizing the FCCI effect.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10813: Advanced Electrochemical Separations of Actinide/Fission Products via the Control of Nucleation and Growth of Electrodeposits | University of Idaho | $350,000 | Researchers will use unique capabilities to modulate the electrodeposition of actinides (depleted Uranium) and fission products (Ln) during nucleation and growth stages. The team aims to preclude formation of electrodeposits with dendritic morphology. Morphology of electrodeposits will be controlled by electrolyte composition.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10707: In Situ Spectroscopic Determination of Actinide Speciation and Concentration | University of Nevada, Reno | $369,221 | The research team will address two major issues in the pyroprocess based fuel cycle: low process efficiency and materials accounting for non-proliferation. There are currently no analytical techniques to ascertain the speciation and concentration of the actinides in the electrolyte. This project aims to develop an in-situ analytical method consisting of Raman spectroscopic analysis during electrochemical polarization.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10204: Phase Equilibria and Thermochemistry of Advanced Fuels: Modeling Burnup Behavior | University of South Carolina | $799,946 | Researchers will develop phase equilibria and thermochemical information to model and simulate advanced fuel behavior, including critical phenomena such as the contribution to fuel swelling of dissolved non-noble fission products and secondary phase formation, composite fuel stability, and fuel-clad chemical interactions.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10512: Demand-Driven Cycamore Archetypes | University of South Carolina | $799,956 | Modeling of the nuclear fuel cycle (NFC) is often posed as a set of demands coupled with available technologies. Demands may be singular or multivariate. Additionally, available technologies may have constraints on when they are deployable. This proposal aims to bring demand and deployment decisions into the NFC simulator itself, thereby simulating a more realistic process by which utilities, governments, and other stakeholders actually make facility deployment decisions.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10856: Integrating Data Sources for Improved Safeguards and Accountancy of Electrochemical Fuel Reprocessing Streams | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The SSPM Echem tracks elemental and bulk material flows through batch operations in electrochemical facilities. This project will augment the existing SSPM Echem model with models of DA, NDA, and process monitoring measurements, including appropriate accuracy, noise, and uncertainty characteristics. Diverse measurement and assay results will be fused to improve material accountancy and anomaly detection across the electrochemical process.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10190: Immobilization of High-Level Waste Salt in Dechlorinated Zeolite Waste Forms | University of Utah | $799,315 | The primary objective of the project is the development of a new glass-bonded waste form for the suitable disposal of electrorefiner waste salt. To achieve this goal, the proposed tasks will focus on the 1) dechlorination of the electrorefiner salt and 2) subsequent encapsulation into a sintered waste form. Achieving these goals will result in a compact waste form with higher fission product loading, which is instrumental in economically closing the nuclear fuel cycle.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10240: Molten Salt Reactor Experiment Benchmark Evaluation | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | _The objective of this project is to employ the data archive on the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) and develop a set of high-quality Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) reactor physics benchmarks for inclusion in the IRPhE Handbook that currently does not contain any benchmark set related to MSR technology._ | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10458: Multi-Group Transport Cross Section and Diffusion Coefficient Generation for Deterministic Reactor Models Using Monte Carlo Calculations | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and implement rigorous methods for generating multi-group transport cross section and diffusion coefficients for deterministic reactor models using Monte Carlo calculations. The project will eliminate the numerous approximations that currently contribute to significant mis-prediction of core power distributions when using deterministic core models.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10241: Development of Transient Capabilities for the NEAMS Neutronics Code PROTEUS | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop efficient transient transport methods for the PROTEUS-SN, PROTEUS-MOC and the first-order SN solvers of the NEAMS neutronics code PROTEUS. The team will also perform transient benchmark analyses._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10603: Experimental and Computational Analysis of NEAMS Pebble Bed Reactors | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct a coordinated experimental and computational effort to quantitatively map the full-field 3-D velocity and temperature fields in the interstitial spaces within pebble bed reactor systems. Key outcomes will include advanced correlations to predict flow and thermal transport within the pebble bed over a much wider range operating conditions and reactor types than is currently possible.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10421: Simulation of Fuel Rod Fragmentation, Relocation and Ballooning through Peridynamics in MOOSE Framework | University of Arizona | $675,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology that includes the appropriate governing physical fields within the realm of peridynamics to investigate fuel cracking, fragmentation, relocation, ballooning, pellet-cladding interaction, and cladding rapture and dispersion within the MOOSE framework.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10313: Development of a Comprehensive Two-phase Flow Database for the Validation of NEK-2P | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,817 | _Researchers will develop a comprehensive, high-resolution two-phase flow database by performing experiments in two air-water two-phase flow test facilities and a new heated rod-bundle test facility that will be built under this project. These data will be used to validate the two-phase flow models implemented in the NEK-2P code._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10744: Support for Reactor Operators in Case of Cyber-Security Threats | Ohio State University | $800,000 | This project addresses the need for research informing plant engineers and control room operators faced with cyber-security threats on appropriate responses. The approach taken uses distinguishing features of safety related events versus cyber-security threats; attack modeling, prediction, game theory and PRA knowledge to update operators procedures; and simulation for validation.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cyber Security R&D | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10578: Thermal Hydraulic & Structural Testing and Modeling of Compact Diffusion-Bonded Heat Exchangers for Supercritical CO2 Brayton Cycles | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will utilize both experimental and computational methods to test and model transient behavior of a mock up PCHE, which is a scaled down representation of the sCO2, cycle high temperature recuperator (HTR). In addition, the team will develop a methodology for quantification of the PCHEs production cost. The proposed project will provide valuable experiment data required to develop the Section III, Division 5 and Section VIII evaluation approach for compact heat exchangers.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10579: A Computational-Experimental Study to Simulate Mixing and Thermal Stratification in SFRs | Kansas State University | $799,320 | Researchers will use Thermographic Imaging and Ultrasonic Doppler Velocimetry (UDV) techniques to generate high fidelity thermal stratification and flow field data under various geometric and physical conditions for scaled models of outlet plena in sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs). Data from these experimental studies will be compared with those obtained using 1D codes such as SAS4A/SASSYS-1.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10714: ASME Code Application of the Compact Heat Exchanger for High Temperature Nuclear Service | North Carolina State University | $799,998 | Researchers will develop structural design methodologies for Type 316H stainless steel and Alloy 617 compact heat exchangers (CHX) using elastic-perfectly plastic (EPP) analysis methodology for the assessment of elevated temperature failure modes under sustained and cyclic thermal and pressure loading. The project will develop a technical basis for Section III, Division 5 ASME Code Case for CHX in high temperature nuclear service.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10885: Turbulent MHD Flow Modeling in Annular Linear Induction Pumps with Validation Experiments | North Carolina State University | $564,520 | Researchers seek to advance EMP design efforts for liquid metal reactors by 1.) Improving MHD modeling capability, particularly near the MHD stability criteria, 2.) Advancing simulation accuracy and fidelity in the typical operating range of large electromagnetic pumps for liquid metal cooled reactors, and 3.) Constructing a low barrier EMP test loop for model validation and instruction that can be easily replicated at low cost at other facilities.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10244: Integral System Testing for Prismatic Block Core Design HTGR | Oregon State University | $799,536 | _Researchers will conduct eight new tests be completed at the HTTF investigating a range of gas reactor events including DCC, PCC, and inlet plenum buoyant plume mixing. The data from these tests will be ideal for use in the validation of safety analysis codes used in gas reactor analysis. The data may also provide valuable insight into the validation of CFD codes for gas-reactor applications._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10324: Model Calibration-Based Design Methodologies for Structural Design of Supercritical CO2 Compact Heat Exchangers under Sustained Cyclic Temperature and Pressure Gradients | Oregon State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a design method for rapid structural assessment of diffusion-bonded Hybrid Compact Heat Exchangers, used as secondary heat exchangers in coupling Sodium Fast Reactors (SFRs) with supercritical CO2 (sCO2) Brayton power cycles. The team envisions that the developed method will (1) be usable in creation of an ASME code case for structural assessment of hybrid CHX; and (2) create design tools that ensure CHX code compliance under desired load conditions.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10285: Tribological Damage Mechanisms from Experiments and Validated Simulations of Alloy 800H and Inconel 617 in a Simulated HTGR/VHTR Helium Environment | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a mechanistic understanding of accelerated fretting, wear, and bonding between Alloy 800H and Inconel 617 surfaces. In order to achieve the objectives, a series of tribological experiments will be conducted in helium environments at elevated temperature with controlled concentrations of gaseous specious, attendant microstructure characterization (using electron microscopy, spectroscopy and atom-probe tomography), and validated continuum models.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10245: An Experimental Study of Design and Performance for the Water-Based Reactor Cavity Cooling System | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will extend and enhance the experimental tests using existing water-cooled RCCS facilities. The activity will be conducted in close collaboration with the water-cooled NSTF research team and will produce a unique set of high quality experimental data for support of existing system codes, system codes under development, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10457: Experimentally Validated Computational Modeling of Creep and Creep-Cracking for Nuclear Concrete Structures | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct novel 3D concrete creep tests under controlled environmental conditions to build a 3D constitutive model for concrete typical of existing containment structures. Decades long creep will be extracted via shorter tests (years long). The material model will be used in the Grizzly structural FEM code for simulating the response of real, 3D containment structures to changes in loading. Full-scale, long-term structural tests will enable validation.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10687: Development and Integration of Light Water Reactor (LWR) Materials Corrosion Degradation Codes into Grizzly | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop powerful codes for predicting environmentally-assisted localized corrosion in the primary coolant circuits (PCCs) of Generation II BWRs and PWRs. These codes and resulting models will be embedded into GRIZZLY. This will greatly extend the applicability of GRIZZLY to components in PCCs that are susceptible to pitting corrosion, stress corrosion cracking, and corrosion fatigue and will provide the stress intensity factor solutions for the crack growth rate models._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10083: Earth Abundant High Temperature Materials for Radioisotope Power Conversion System | University of California, Davis | $400,000 | Researchers will develop breakthrough efficiencies in segmented radioisotope thermal generators (RTG) power conversion systems through high temperature materials development. The approach will also reduce reliance on single-purpose supply chains.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10630: Validation of RELAP-7 for Forced Convection and Natural Circulation Reactor Flows | University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign | $799,368 | _Researcher will aid in the development of RELAP-7 through required experimental and computational efforts. The validation of the two-phase modeling capability of RELAP-7 will be accomplished through a series of tasks which include synthesis of existing forced convective data, acquisition of natural circulation data from an existing well-scaled facility, and uncertainty quantification in constitutive modeling._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10402: RELAP-7 Application and Enhancement for FLEX Strategies and ATF Behavior under Extended Loss of AC Power Conditions | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop new thermal hydraulic models that will be implemented into RELAP-7. Simulation studies will be performed for postulated ELAP scenarios in the PB Unit 2 reactor. The overarching goal of the proposed work is to perform a simulation study using RELAP-7, to model BWR ELAP scenarios with various mitigation measures and determine the range of time available for transition to portable FLEX equipment._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10080: Quantifying Properties for a Mechanistic, Predictive Understanding of Aqueous Impact on Ageing of Medium and Low Voltage AC and DC Cabling in Nuclear Power Plants | University of Minnesota, Duluth | $800,000 | _The degradation of medium and low voltage cabling is often associated with aqueous immersion. Electrical and mechanical data will be collected to develop a mechanistic model of the degradation of cabling to dielectric breakdown based on the temperature, oxidation, water conditions, and irradiation dose. The hypothesized model begins with solvent escape paths that expand and advance from the exterior surface toward the current carrying core at a rate dependent on the environment._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10214: Online Monitoring System for Concrete Structures Affected by Alkali-Silica Reaction (ASR) | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an online health monitoring system that integrates active and passive sensor networks and advanced signal processing algorithms to monitor ASR induced degradation in concrete structures. The obtained information will support an ongoing prognostic modeling research for health diagnosis and prognosis of aging concrete structures, in order to support long-term operational and maintenance decision making.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10210: Tribological Behavior of Structural Materials in High Temperature Helium Gas-Cooled Reactor Environments | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will work to understand, quantify, and model the elevated-temperature tribological behavior of alloys 617 and 800H in helium gas in HTGR conditions. Impurities in helium can induce a variety of corrosion mechanisms in structural materials that can profoundly affect tribological behavior. This study will investigate tribological behavior in various impurity concentration regimes and surface treatments to mitigate tribological damage in these environments.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10226: Enhancement of EM Pump Performance Through Modeling and Testing | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,856 | This project is aimed at the improvement of EM pumps for advanced liquid metal cooled reactors specifically the SFR. Initial tests will be conducted in the University of Wisconsin sodium loop on an existing moving magnet pump to help in the development of the models and to look at end effects associated with this pump. Additionally, tests will be conducted at ANL on the CMI ALIP. Ultimately, a small ALIP will be developed to test the principles and models developed to improve commercial scale.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10268: Sodium Cooled Fast Reactor Key Modeling and Analysis for Commercial Deployment | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,076 | This project will look at very low Prandtl number heat transfer from both an experimental and computational approach. Researchers will then establish key models to implement in plant dynamics codes. The team will also evaluate thermal stratification in large volumes making use of novel fiber optic distributed fiber measurements to get CFD quality data. Lastly, the team will evaluate some of the key remaining safety issues associated with the eventual commercialization of the sodium fast reactor.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10647: Experimental and Modeling Investigation of Overcooling Transients that Include Freezing, in Fluoride-Salt Cooled High-Temperature Reactors (FHRs) | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will make recommendations for design features of salt-reactor components that would take advantage of the phenomena characteristic to fluoride salts in order to be resilient to overcooling, and to recover gracefully from over-cooling transients. In support of this task a MOOSE-based computational tool will be developed, capable of modeling liquid-solid phase change, backed by experimental studies with the prototypical (flibe) coolant, and with simulant fluids.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10509: CFD and System Code Benchmark Data for Plenum-to-Plenum Flow Under Natural, Mixed and Forced Circulation Conditions | Utah State University | $800,000 | Researchers will generate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) validation data for forced, mixed, and natural convection through a parallel-path geometry relevant to gas reactor bypass flow. In addition, the team will independently build and validate CFD models based on the experimental results. The team has the experience and existing infrastructure for sharing complete validation datasets.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 17-12628: Effects of Mineral Impurities and Heat on Uranium(VI) Sorption onto Bentonite | California State University, East Bay | $785,714 | Mineral impurities are common in bentonite and clay buffer materials, proposed for many nuclear waste disposal options. Researchers will investigate the effects of calcite impurities on uranium(VI) sorption onto montmorillonite before and after mineral exposure to heat. Based on experimental sorption data and EXAFS analysis we will develop a new surface complexation model to determine under which conditions impurity effects are relevant, and how they can be incorporated in performance assessment models. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12798: Nanostructured Ceramic Membranes for Enhanced Tritium Management | Clemson University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a ceramic membrane technology for tritium separation and recovery to support the nuclear fuel cycle. Low-temperature water adsorption properties of nanoscale structured ceramics, combined with demonstrated hydrogen isotope exchange in their hydrated layers provide a low cost and unique avenue to address tritium management challenges. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12647: Determination of Critical Heat Flux and Leidenfrost Temperature on Candidate Accident Tolerant Fuel Materials | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $799,906 | Researchers will characterize the thermal-hydraulics behavior of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) materials by measuring critical heat flux (CHF) under normal and off-normal light water reactor conditions, and Leidenfrost temperature in post-loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) conditions. This work will yield material-specific models and/or correlations that can be readily implemented in state-of-the-art simulation tools. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13011: Gamma-ray Computed and Emission Tomography for Pool-Side Fuel Characterization | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,317 | Researchers will design, build, test and install a submersible tomography platform for performing pool-side physical, structural, and chemical characterization of irradiated fuel elements for test reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12496: Group Actinide Separation by Crystallization: A Single-Technology Approach to Used Nuclear Fuel Recycle | Texas A&M University | $399,857 | Researchers will explore bulk removal of U, Np, Pu and Am, from used nuclear fuel by studying the mechanisms of removal. A co-crystallization of the hexavalent actinides with U(VI) has already been demonstrated and researchers plan to develop a process based around this approach. Removal of these elements would be advantageous for future nuclear fuel recycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12824: Methods for Process Monitoring to Accurately Detect and Quantify Material Holdup in Advanced Recycle Facilities | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop better modeling methods, detectors, and facility design approaches to enable detection of inadvertent and deliberate hold up of fissile material in reprocessing and other nuclear material bulk handling facilities. The team will integrate results from this research project into a design methodology for future facilities to ensure accurate and reliable process monitoring for sustainable operation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12782: Effects of alpha and gamma radiation on complex and metal loaded solvents for advanced solvent extraction processes | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | This project will investigate the alpha and gamma radiolysis-induced chemical degradation of ligands used for the removal of minor actinides from used nuclear fuel in advanced extraction systems such as ALSEP. Researchers will emphasize organic phase degradation, particularly complex solvents with multiple ligands as well as metal loaded solvents. The project will improve predictive capabilities of extraction processes by elucidating degradation pathways. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12757: Elucidation of Electrochemical Behavior of Technetium, Tellurium, and Iodine in Molten Salt Solutions. | University of Idaho | $796,741 | This project will evaluate the electrochemical speciation behavior of iodide, and telluride in LiCl-KCl eutectic, LiCl, and LiCl + Li2O electrolytes at temperatures relevant to reprocessing conditions. By using rhenium as surrogate for technetium, the electrochemical, and chemical speciation properties of rhenium ions will be investigated in chloride molten salts with the addition of molybdenum and ruthenium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12701: Development and Experimental Benchmark of Computational Models to Predict Cladding Temperature and Vapor Removal from UNF Canisters during Drying Operations | University of Nevada, Reno | $400,000 | Researchers will develop physics-based computational tools to predict used nuclear fuel cladding temperatures within, and water vapor removal rates from, canisters during existing and proposed drying processes. The project will explore a range of gas pressures (including rarefication), and steady and unsteady external gas flows rates. The tools will be used to develop drying processes that minimize drying time while maintaining cladding temperatures. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12688: An Experimental and Analytical Investigation into Critical Heat Flux (CHF) Implications for Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF) Concepts | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a holistic best estimate assessment of the potential impact of different ATF cladding materials with regards to heat transfer characteristics, the boiling curve, critical heat flux, fuel mass/volume/specific power density, and neutronics effects due to changes in the lattice design or parasitic neutron absorption during design basis accident conditions in light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12996: Multipurpose, Radiation- and Temperature-Resistant Semiconductor Radiation Detectors for Advanced Process Monitoring and Nuclear Safeguards | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop detection systems capable of neutron, gamma-ray, x-ray, and alpha monitoring in high-temperature and high radiation environments for extended periods of time. The detectors will be used to strengthen nuclear safeguards by enhancing nuclear material control and accounting in nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13125: The Thermodynamics of Crystallization and Phase-Separation in Melt-Derived Nuclear Waste Forms | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This projects will study the thermodynamics of melt and quench phases of nuclear waste glasses and glass ceramics and link this information to the underlying short-range and medium-range structure. Advanced calorimetric techniques and neutron total scattering with pair distribution function analysis will be applied to obtain these data. Computer simulations will complement the experimental effort. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12886: Identifying, Predicting and Preventing Localized Corrosion in Kr-85 Storage Canisters | University of Virginia | $799,000 | Researchers will determine the root cause of corrosion within Kr-85 storage canisters in order to better understand current corrosion rates. The project will focus on expanding available research on Rb corrosion interactions and other contributing factors to better understand the corrosion phenomenon in current steel canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12463: Extreme Performance High Entropy Alloys (HEAs) Cladding for Fast Reactor Applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will develop extreme performance high entropy alloys (HEAs) as for new metal alloy cladding for fast reactor applications. Two very promising, single solution BCC HEAs will be investigated. The project will deliver an extensive irradiation resistance study of a new promising yet unexplored cladding concept. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12549: Critical Heat Flux Studies for Innovative Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding Surfaces | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will study critical heat flux (CHF) behavior focused on innovative accident tolerant fuel (ATF) cladding. The project includes separate effects screening tests to measure CHF for various ATF clad materials and surface characteristics with measurements of surface wettability. Pressurized flow boiling experiments will simulate prototypical reactor conditions for evaluating the best ATF clad materials coupled with CHF modeling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13019: Evaluation of Accident Tolerant Fuels Surface Characteristics in Critical Heat Flux Performance | Virginia Commonwealth University | $800,000 | Researchers will perform separate-effects and system-wide tests of the AREVA and GE accident tolerant fuel concepts currently under consideration. The project will investigate the impact of cladding surface characteristics in critical heat flux (CHF) under normal and anticipated off-normal conditions. The experimental results will be used to develop and validate enhanced models for the prediction of CHF and will be implemented in various subchannel and system analysis codes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13054: Simulated Used Nuclear Fuel Dissolution as a Function of Fuel Chemistry and Near Field Conditions | Washington State University | $800,000 | Researchers will study the effects of simulated used nuclear fuel (UNF) chemistry and microstructure on its dissolution in geologic repository conditions. The results will advance models for UNF evolution in repository conditions, enabling reliable prediction of degradation and long-term performance of used nuclear fuel for up to one million years. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12506: Development of Reactor Physics Benchmark Evaluations for Power Burst Facility Experiments | University of Florida | $398,265 | Researchers will perform reactor physics benchmark evaluations of Power Burst Facility experiments regarding differential reactivity worth of the control and transient rods, shim rod worth, in-pile-tube reactivity worth, shutdown reactivity, fuel assembly reactivity worth, core void coefficients of reactivity, in-pile-tube void coefficient, and coolant temperature coefficient of reactivity. The results will be incorporated in the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP). | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12748: Combined modeling and experiments to predict corrosion and embrittlement in dual-phase stainless steels within the MARMOT framework | Oregon State University | $800,000 | Researchers will enhance MARMOT to predict mechanical and corrosion properties of dual-phase stainless steels as a function of composition, aging time and temperature by using combined experimental data and lower length scale models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12797: In-Situ Ion Irradiation to Add Irradiation Assisted Grain Growth to the MARMOT Tool | Pennsylvania State University | $500,000 | Researchers will add the capability to model irradiation assisted grain growth to the MARMOT tool by using in-situ ion irradiation of UO2 to quantify the effect of irradiation on grain growth. The team will investigate the hypothesis that irradiation assisted grain growth is caused by thermal spikes resulting from atom collisions. The model added to MARMOT will couple the existing grain growth model to a heat conduction simulation using a stochastic heat source describing the thermal spike. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12555: Integration of high-fidelity Monte Carlo and deterministic transport codes into Workbench | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | Researchers will provide end users an ability to run both MCNP6 and PROTEUS codes from a common user input in Workbench by (1) templating user-provided engineering scale specifications to code-specific input requirements, (2) enabling multi-fidelity analysis of a system from a common input using MCNP6 and PROTEUS and (3) allowing the easy use of high-fidelity simulations to inform lower-order models for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems and experiments. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12939: Expansion of BISON Capabilities to Predict the Dynamic Response of Irradiated Fuel Rods | University of New Hampshire | $800,000 | Researchers will expand the capabilities of BISON and MOOSE to simulate the structural dynamic response of fuel rods and fuel assemblies during handling (wet and dry storage) and transportation. Expanding the capabilities of BISON and MOOSE to facilitate the evaluation of the dynamic response of fuel rods and assemblies is important to conduct a more reliable risk assessment of fuel assemblies, as well as storage and transportation casks. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13179: Implementation and Validation of Advanced Turbulence Modeling Methods for Liquid Metal Flow in Nek5000 | University of Oklahoma | $786,648 | Researchers will implement and validate state-of-the-art turbulence modeling techniques in Nek5000 to improve predition of liquid metal flows. Specific methods to be investigated include: variable PrT and algebraic heat flux models (AHFM) for URANS simulation; partially-averaged Navier-Stokes (PANS) and dynamic hybrid RANS-LES (DHRL) for hybrid RANS-LES simulation; and variable PrT subgrid heat flux modeling for LES. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12848: Development of Information Trustworthiness and Integrity Algorithms for Cybersecurity Defenses of Nuclear Power Reactors | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a first-of-a-kind physics-based defense-in-depth strategy to defend against false data injection attacks which attempt to change the information used by the I/C network to set reactor state. The approach employs a new design philosophy to check for information trustworthiness/integrity in order to determine whether the information is genuinely generated during the actual operation of the nuclear unit under either normal or off-normal conditions. | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cybersecurity | |
| NEUP Project 17-12538: Influence of dissolved salts and impurities in seawater on heat transfer degradation and fluid flow through fuel channels debris bed | Kansas State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate the role of raw water on degraded heat transfer and fluid flow in the reactor core and debris bed. X-ray imaging techniques, optical-fiber high speed temperature sensing systems and radioactive tracer salts will be used to simultaneously measure experimental data on void fraction, temperature and salt deposition rate. This data will be used to obtain correlations for heat transfer and fluid flow in case of raw water injection. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12502: High Resolution Temperature and Flow Measurements in Wire-Wrapped Fuel Assemblies | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will produce high-quality, high spatial and temporal resolution temperature and flow datasets for wire-wrapped rod bundle geometries. Different bundle sizes, configurations (including duct's and pin's deformation) and Low-Prandlt fluids will be investigated. A unique set of data will be produced to support advanced CFD tools validation, including Nek5000. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12723: Integrating Static PRA Information with RISMC Simulation Methods | The Ohio State University | $799,985 | Researchers will develop a computationally feasible and user friendly process to augment the traditional probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) results with improved representation of epistemic uncertainties and process/hardware/software/human interactions at plant level applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12664: Methods to Predict Thermal Radiation and to Design Scaled Separate and Integral Effects Testing For Molten Salt Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology for the design of molten salt reactor (MSR) Separate Effect Test and Integral Effect Test experiments. This methodology will identify and quantify sources of scaling distortion including radiative heat transport. The project would improve code performance and assist FHR/MSR vendors who are making licensing applications based on code results. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12523: Experimental and Computational Studies of Stress Corrosion Cracking of Alloys 308/309 and 82/182 Weldments in Corrosive and Radiation Environment | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will use advanced microanalytical analysis techniques to study SCC and IASCC of stainless steel and Ni-Cr alloy weldments. CERT, autoclave immersion, and ion irradiation will be used to determine synergistic effect of LWR environmental factors. Results from the experimental component of the proposed work scope will be used for enhanced predictive capability of the INL Grizzly code via XFEM. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12614: Systematic Enterprise Risk Management by Integrating the RISMC Toolkit and Cost-Benefit Analysis | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $799,998 | Researchers will develop a systematic Enterprise Risk Management framework, which utilizes Decision Tree (DT) logic to consider high-level production-loss scenarios, and their underlying physical and social causes throughout the lifecycle. In the proposed DT, uncertainty nodes will be quantified by plant-specific risk analysis using the Risk-Informed Safety Margin Characterization (RISMC) Toolkit, and cost-benefit analysis will be conducted for end states reflecting consequences of managerial decision-making. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12972: Design of a Commercial-Scale, Fluoride-Salt-Cooled, High-Temperature Reactor With Novel Refueling and Decay Heat Removal Capabilities | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $400,000 | Researchers will combine fluoride-salt-cooled, high temperature reactors (FHR) with advanced gas reactor (AGR) refueling technology to address several significant challenges that remain in the development of FHR technology. The project will adapt AGR refueling technology by using the new fuel-inside-radial-moderator fuel form, which will also introduce new ways of dealing with decay heat. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13115: Experimental Determination of Helium/air Mixing in Helium Cooled Reactor | University of Michigan | $800,000 | Researchers will examine the effects of coolant leakage and air ingress through three different investigations. The overall objective of this work is to characterize near and far field behavior of Helium/Air mixing in containment, and to determine rates and amounts of air leaked back into the reactor after a depressurization event. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12830: Radioisotope Retention in Graphite and Graphitic Materials | University of Missouri, Columbia | $800,000 | Researchers will use a variety of experimental techniques to acquire data for fission product diffusion, transport and adsorption of fission products in various graphites, relating to nuclear reactors at high temperatures. Measurements will be taken using non-irradiated graphite using fission product surrogates. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13020: Bimetallic Composite (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) Development and Compatibility in Flowing FLiBe as a Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) Structural Material | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a new bimetallic alloy (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) structural material for the MSR, and compare its post-exposure mechanical performance in flowing FLiBe with single alloys SS 316, Hastelloy N, and Incoloy 800H, in the context of ASME codification. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12678: Novel NDE Sensors, Waveforms, Models, and Algorithms for Cable Health Monitoring | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop NDE sensors and probabilistic cable insulation diagnosis and prognosis algorithms (particle filtering), and modeling and experiments to monitor cable insulation health. Two different types of sensor will be deployed to detect insulation damage. The team will also develop cable insulation degradation modeling to further understand defects in cable insulation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13080: Multiscale Investigation of SiC/SiC Composite Degradation in Helium Coolant Operating Environment | University of Virginia | $800,000 | Researchers will study the long-term degradation mechanisms of SiC/SiC composites in helium coolant environments by slow crack growth (SCG). This will be achieved through multiscale testing in hot, O2-contaminated He and evaluation of the effect of SCG on hermeticity during in situ testing. Results will be extended to predictive low-level and component-scale SCG models and integrated into the development of ASME standards for use of SiC/SiC in nuclear reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12481: Supercritical CO2 power cycle for space applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will develop an advanced supercritical Brayton power cycle directly coupled to a fission reactor. The project will carry out a comprehensive optimization of the cycle operating conditions, working fluid, and configuration; develop detailed designs of each subcomponent; and demonstrate/develop critical technologies such as turbomachinery seals and bearings, reactor material corrosion and strength demonstrations, and supercritical heat transfer. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13232: Radiative Heat Transport and Optical Characterization of High Temperature Molten Salts | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | The goal of the proposed research is to experimentally investigate radiation heat transport in molten salts, and to add functionality for radiative heat transport in a thermal-hydraulics system code. This includes obtaining highly resolved measurements of the optical absorption and emissivity of liquid salts. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 18-15345: Multiphysics Degradation Processes, and Their Mitigation, in Engineered and Geological Bariers: Experiments and Simulation | Duke University | $800,000.00 | This project will focus on filling the gaps in understanding of mechanisms of a series of degradation processes (thermal, hydric, geo-chemical, and transport processes phenomena) potentially affecting geo-materials used in repositories. The objectives of the work are to better recognize the conditions leading to preferential paths of radionuclide transport and rock weakening, and to build mathematical models and implement them into existing codes to predict material degradation and develop strategies to reduce the adverse consequences. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15043: Integration of Nuclear Material Accounting Data and Process Monitoring Data for Improvement on Detection Probability in Safeguarding Electrochemical Processing Facilities | Oregon State University | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to further studies on fusion of process monitoring (PM) data and nuclear material accounting (NMA) data. PM data, which includes monitoring by various types of equipment (radiation detectors, cameras, voltage, current sensors), can supplement NMA data to help improve safeguards. For aqueous-based reprocessing facilities, it is reported that PM, integrated with traditional NMA, has a high-detection probability for specific diversions. For electrochemical reprocessing, preliminary studies have shown that PM data can support traditional NMA by providing a basis to estimate some of the in-processing nuclear material inventories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15148: Recovery of Rare-Earth Elements (Nd, Gd, Sm) in Oxide Wasteform Using Liquid Metals (Bi, Sn) | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000.00 | This project investigates a new approach for recovering rare-earth (RE) fission products (Nd, Gd, and Sm) from molten chlorine salts using liquid metal (Bi and Sn) electrodes. The research aids molten salt recycling by converting the RE products into chloride-free RE oxides, which could be incorporated into conventional glass/ceramic waste forms. Successful outcomes of the project include advanced separation of fission products from molten salts with better control of chemical selectivity and high-recovery yield. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15103: Microstructure-Based Benchmarking for Nano/Microscale Tension and Ductility Testing of Irradiated Steels | Purdue University | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to standardize methods for nano/micro-scale tensile and ductility testing of irradiated Fe-Cr steels, through microstructure-based benchmarking. The study will investigate key process parameters for TEM in situ tension and ductility testing. Coupling experimental studies with multiscale models, the research will identify the approaches that provide consistent deformation mechanisms between the nano/micro-scale and macro-scale tests, from which standard practices will be obtained. The primary project outcome will be a set of recommended guidelines for nano/microscale mechanical testing, which will lead to unprecedented reductions in the time and cost for qualifying materials for in-reactor service and to ensure consistency of methods and validity of results. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15559: Cold Spray Repair & Mitigation of Stress Corrosion Cracks in Spent Nuclear Fuel Dry Storage Canisters | Purdue University | $799,982.00 | This goal of this project is to demonstrate cold spray repair and mitigation of chloride-induced stress corrosion cracks (SCC) and pits in stainless steel dry storage canisters. The research will optimize the repair process and gain a scientifically informed understanding of SCC mechanisms. The outcome is to further develop cold spray as an attractive solution for the repair of existing SCC and mitigation of potential SCC necessary to ensure long-term integrity, security, and regulatory compliance of spent nuclear fuel storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15596: Capture of Organic Iodides from Vessel Off-Gas Streams | Syracuse University | $799,548.00 | This project will study the capture of radioactive organoiodides from off-gas streams produced during nuclear fuel reprocessing by conducting adsorption experiments using a selected silver adsorbents. Multifaceted simulation adsorption models will be developed to assist in the design of necessary capture systems for off-gas streams. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15585: Impact of Coupled Gas Migration and Thermo-hydro-mechanical Processes on the Performance of Repositories for High Level Nuclear Waste | Texas A&M University | $608,375.00 | The main goal of this project is to better understand the possible effect of gas migration (particularly through discontinuities) on the performance and long-term behavior of engineered barrier systems (EBS) envisaged for the isolation of high-level radioactive waste (HLW). Specific outcomes of this study will be an improved understanding of the role of gas migration and discontinuities in the performance of HLW disposals, with the underlying aim to improve design of EBS used for HLW. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15531: Repair and Mitigation of Chloride-Induced Pitting and Chloride-Induced Stress Corrosion Cracking in Used Nuclear Fuel Dry Cask Canister Materials | The Ohio State University | $800,000.00 | This project will evaluate and develop a set of tools to repair and mitigate chloride-induced pitting and stress corrosion cracking in stainless steel nuclear fuel canisters. Advanced processes, including low temperature friction stir welding and cold spray deposition, will be evaluated according to various criteria, such as corrosion performance. In addition, technologies that have not yet been evaluated for UNF applications, including vaporizing foil actuator welding and soldering will be assessed. The two most promising technologies will selected for further development and comprehensive study. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14912: Bridging the Length Scales on Mechanical Property Evaluation | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000.00 | This project combines experimental and modeling methods to gain a comprehensive approach for addressing scaling effects on small-scale mechanical testing. Multiscale experiments, together with modeling on reactor-relevant and model alloys, will provide better understanding of appropriate scaling relationships. The study aims to gain fundamental understanding of plasticity interactions with specific strength-determining features, such as precipitates and grain boundaries. The goal of this work is to provide the basis to add small-scale mechanical testing in the toolbox for nuclear materials research. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14911: Understanding of degradation of SiC/SiC materials in nuclear systems and development of mitigation strategies | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000.00 | This project investigates the best possible coatings to prevent SiCf/SiCm corrosion in LWR environments. The research features a computational and experimental rapid screening approach for numerous coating compositions. The work includes autoclave exposure of rapid screening coupons in prototypical environments in combination with thermodynamic modeling (CALPHAD) and Finite Element Methods (FEM). Small-scale mechanical testing, together with thermal cycling and FEM modeling, will provide guidance on the ideal coating system design. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15701: Time-dependent THMC Properties and Microstructural Evolution of Damage Rocks in Excavation Damage Zone | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,978.00 | The proposed project focuses on the geomechanical aspects of modeling by addressing the time-dependent evolution of rock microstructure and its coupling with the THC processes that are of first-order importance to the stability and the isolation performance of repositories. The research will delineate an integrated experimental, theoretical and numerical strategy in assessing the evolution EDZ over time and its implication on the long-term migration of hazardous species. These results will enhance the confidence of the predicted long-term performance of repositories, which helps to move forward the goal of one-million-year isolation of high-level nuclear wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15381: Multiaxial Failure Envelopes and Uncertainty Quantification of Nuclear-Grade SiCf/SiC Woven Ceramic Matrix Tubular Composites | University of Florida | $800,000.00 | This project proposes to develop a comprehensive experimental and computational approach for determining constitutive relations and multiaxial failure envelopes of nuclear-grade continuous silicon fiber (SiCf) and SiC matrix woven tubular composites. The result of this work can be adopted in industry for design refinement, optimization of performance under the desired operating conditions, and reliable prediction of failure under unforeseen accidental scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15496: Formation of Zeolites Responsible for Waste Glass Rate Acceleration: An Experimental and Computational Study for Understanding Thermodynamic and Kinetic Processes | University of Houston | $800,000.00 | Through experimental and computational studies, this project will expose the factors governing zeolite crystallization and their role in Stage III dissolution of radionuclide-containing glass waste forms generated in advanced nuclear fuel cycles. The overall goal of this project is to understand the formation of zeolite phases in order to develop process control methods to suppress Stage III dissolution. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14998: Novel Processes for Capture of Radioactive Iodine Species from Vessel Off-Gas Streams | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the sorption system performance and effectiveness for capture of radioiodine species present in the off-gas streams from the used nuclear fuel (UNF) recycling operations, focusing particularly on the organic iodine species. The dynamic sorption experimentation and theoretical modeling will offer fundamental insights on the mechanism enabling the design and prediction the control system performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15261: Friction Stir Based Repair Welding of Dry Storage Canisters and Mitigation Strategies: Effect of Engineered Barrier Layer on Environmental Degradation | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The project goal is to apply friction stir based repair and mitigation technique for eliminating failure associated with pitting and stress corrosion cracking in dry storage canisters for spent fuels. The goal of these activities is to obtain a fundamental understanding of the processing-structure-properties correlations. This work will contribute to the development of a crack repair/mitigation strategy based on friction stir technology that can be efficiently implemented for spent fuel dry storage casks, which will enhance safety and reliability of these systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15263: X-ray Studies of Interfacial Molecular Complexes in ALSEP Back-Extraction | University of Illinois at Chicago | $800,000.00 | This project will use synchrotron X-rays to characterize the interfacial molecular complexes (of extractants and radiologically derived impurities, complexants, buffers, and metal ions) formed during the Actinide-Lanthanide Separation Process (ALSEP) back-extraction. This work addresses the critical knowledge gap of slow stripping kinetics in ALSEP, as well as the influence of radiolytic degradation products. The outcome of the project will be a molecular-level understanding of the role of different components in the interfacial mechanism of back-extraction in the ALSEP process, therefore leading to development of more efficient and faster metal stripping relevant to the separation of actinides from lanthanides in the nuclear fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15030: Mechanistic Understanding of Radiolytically Assisted Hydrothermal Corrosion of SiC in LWR Coolant Environments | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to develop a mechanistic understanding of the hydrothermal corrosion behavior of monolithic SiC and SiC/SiC composites in LWR environment under the influence of water radiolysis products and radiation damage. Complementary atomistic simulations will be carried out to determine the rate controlling mechanisms for dissolution under different water chemistries and in the presence of radiation. Activation energies and kinetic rates will be calculated directly from these simulations and compared to experimentally fitted values. The dissolution rate constants determined and validated in this integrated experimental and modeling approach will allow predictions of long-term SiC corrosion behavior. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14999: Probabilistic Failure Criterion of SiC/SiC Composites Under Multi-Axial Loading | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $800,000.00 | This project aims to develop a probabilistic failure criterion of SiC/SiC composites under multi-axial loading and to incorporate the criterion into a reliability analysis of the structural integrity of LWR SiC/SiC fuel cladding. This research will be anchored by a seamless integration of novel experimental and analytical tools, which will lead to a robust methodology for dependable analysis of SiC/SiC composite structures for LWR fuel cladding, as well as other nuclear applications. The resulting model will be experimentally validated and applied to analyze the reliability of LWR SiC/SiC fuel cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15502: Reducing Uncertainty in Radionuclide Transport Prediction Using Multiple Environmental Tracers | University of Montana | $724,906.00 | In this project, direct modeling of multiple environmental tracers will be used to improve predictions of radionuclide transport in a shallow alluvial aquifer discharge. The research will take advantage of recent theoretical developments considering the use of environmental tracers, and advances in high-performance reactive flow and transport models, to obtain the maximum information on the transport system. The goal is to develop a new methodology to characterize natural reactive flow and transport systems, reduce predictive uncertainty in radionuclide transport simulations, determine the maximum information content of the tracer suite, and optimize future groundwater characterization efforts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15578: Computational and Experimental Investigation of Thermal-Mechanical- Chemical Mechanisms of High-burnup Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) Processes at Elevated Temperatures and Degradation Behavior in Geologic Repositories | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $800,000.00 | The overarching goal of this project is to use combined computational and experimental research and development activities to enhance understanding of the mechanisms and thermal-mechanical-chemical (TMC) parameters controlling the instant release fraction (IRF) and matrix dissolution of high-burnup (HB; burnup > 45 GWd/MTU) spent nuclear fuels (SNFs) and the subsequent formation, stability, and phase transformations of HB SNF alteration products under long-term storage and geological disposal conditions (e.g., high-temperature storage, _-radiolysis). The results of this research will be used to enhance the mechanistic detail of process models to reduce uncertainty in, and improve the technical bases of, safety cases and performance assessment analyses. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15439: Radiolytic Dissolution Rate of Silicon Carbide | University of Notre Dame | $400,000.00 | This project seeks to develop a matrix of dissolution rates for high-purity SiC material, using intense electron beam irradiation, and to measure the products of dissolution (silicic acid and CO2 (or CO)) in the water downstream of the irradiation zone. The objective is to determine the rate of SiC dissolution and gather sufficient insight about its mechanism in LWRs, so that the use of SiC/SiC composite materials for accident tolerant fuel cladding can proceed with confidence. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15061: Development of an MC&A Toolbox for Liquid-fueled Molten Salt Reactors with Online Reprocessing | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,207.00 | The purpose of this project is to develop a toolbox of swappable mass flow modules for liquid-fueled molten salt reactor (MSR) systems for the purposes of evaluating material control & accountancy measurement techniques. When combined together, these modules enable modeling of the time-dependent mass flows for a variety of MSR variants. The test platform will consist of a toolbox of independent process modules representing discrete physical units, each with its own self-contained physics responsive to the input mass flow, along with appropriate measurement models that can be coupled to key flow points. These dynamic physical signatures would allow testing of the viability and efficacy of potential accountancy techniques under the full range of reactor operating conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15307: A Novel and Flexible Approach for Converting LWR UNF Fuel Into Forms That Can Be Used to Fuel a Variety of Gen-IV Reactors | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $400,000.00 | This project will investigate the chemical decladding and the digestion of whole MOX-based fuel rods, using thionyl chloride and surrogate materials. Digesting entire LWR fuel assemblies results in product streams that include pure decontaminated ZrCl4; pure UCl4; and a stream containing TRU/FPs, as well as alloying metals (as chloride salts). The objectives of this project are to provide a new, highly efficient protocol for the transformation of used nuclear fuel into useful components and to effectively contain a concentrated stream of highly radioactive materials for appropriate handling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15459: Reduced Diffusion and Enhanced Retention of Multiple Radionuclides from Pore Structure Studies of Barrier Materials for Enhanced Repository Performance | University of Texas at Arlington | $567,831.00 | The project seeks to better understand and quantify the pore structure (geometry and topology) and pore connectivity of porous media and its emergent effect on diffusion and retention of various radionuclides in barrier materials. The anticipated outcome of the project will be to more accurately evaluate the performance of geological repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15649: Benchmarking Microscale Ductility Measurements | University of Utah | $776,669.00 | The objectives of this project are to establish best practices for obtaining tensile microscale ductility measurements and to validate methodologies for comparing them to macroscale ductility measurements. Anticipated outcomes of the project are: 1) measurement of grain and sub-grain localization processes micro and macroscales; 2) establishment of best practices for microtensile experimentation; 3) identification of statistically significant relationships between specimen geometry, microstructure variables and mechanical behavior; 4) modified phenomenological elongation-based ductility models to enable direct upscaling of ductility measurements from microscale to macroscopic. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15003: Advanced Coating and Surface Modification Technologies for SiC-SiC Composite for Hydrothermal Corrosion Protection in LWR | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,990.00 | This project focuses on the development of coatings and surface modification approaches for hydrothermal corrosion protection of SiC-SiC composite in normal LWR operation environments. Innovative surface treatment recipes will be explored using processes including, interfacial stitching to improve adhesion, multi-layered structures to improve ductility, and compositions and structures resulting from thermal treatments. The surface treatment concepts involve corrosion resistant metallic and ceramic materials, and are amenable to industrial scalability for the cladding application. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15332: Low-Force Solid-State Technologies for Mitigation of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dry Storage Canisters | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000.00 | This project will focus on evaluating and developing two technologies used for field mitigation and repair of stress corrosion cracking (SCC): 1) additive friction stir welding; and 2) cold spray deposition. The work involves developing low-force, low-heat input solid state technologies to lessen and repair SCC in stainless steel canisters for used nuclear fuel (UNF). This outcome of the study will inform feasibility of using the two technologies to conduct on-site field repairs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14913: The Role of Temperature on Non-Darcian Flows in Engineered Clay Barriers | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000.00 | This project intends to accomplish three tasks: 1) to develop a predictive model to facilitate experimental data interpretation and provide mechanistic insights into the role of temperature on non-Darcian flows in low-permeability engineered clay barriers; 2) conduct experiments to unravel the role of temperature on the threshold gradient of non-Darcian flow in both saturated and unsaturated bentonite; and 3) use molecular dynamics (MD) simulation to improve fundamental understanding. The experimental data, associated with the MD simulation, will provide valuable information to improve fundamental understanding and scientific knowledge with respect to the temperature dependence of threshold gradient in non-Darcian flows, because very limited experimental data for saturated flow and no experimental data for unsaturated flow are available. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14815: C-SiOC-SiC Coated Particle Fuels for Advanced Nuclear Reactors | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $400,000.00 | This project will study a new concept for nuclear fuel encapsulation using an amorphous SiOC plus carbon system as the inner coating and nanocrystalline SiC plus minor carbon as the outer coating for nuclear fuel kernel particles. The outcomes of this work are: 1) new directions and possible replacement guidance for current nuclear fuel materials in operation; 2) new fuel materials for future nuclear reactor material design and development; 3) nuclear composite microstructure evolution and performance degradation understanding; 4) screening tools to guide future nuclear fuel material activities; and 5) mechanisms of nuclear fuel material evolution and degradation and effective strategies to mitigate/reduce undesirable fuel behaviors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15226: An Evaluated, Transient Experiment based on Simultaneous, 3-D Neutron-Flux and Temperature Measurements | Kansas State University | $399,972.00 | This project will evaluate existing and near-term experimental data for inclusion in the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) handbook. The data to be evaluated include compositions from a recent fuel replacement as part of an LEU conversion, a number of critical, fresh-fuel configurations, fuel temperature measurements at fresh-fuel configurations, and records from nearly a decade of operation. The proposed work would lead to a first-of-a-kind evaluation of transient, spatially-dependent reaction rates. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project CFA-18-15773: Evaluation of the Thermal Scattering Law for Advanced Reactor Neutron Moderators and Reflectors | North Carolina State University | $398,821.00 | The objective of this project is to narrow the nuclear data gap for advanced nuclear reactors that are driven by thermal neutrons. This includes concepts such as gas-cooled high-temperature reactors and molten salt or salt-cooled high temperature reactors. The generated data TSL libraries will be provided in EDNF File 7 format to the National Nuclear Data Center (NDDC) to immediately include in beta releases of the ENDF/B libraries and to consider for the future release of ENDF/B-VIII.1. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15602: Modeling and Experimental Verification of Thermal Energy Storage Systems to Enable Load Following Capability for Nuclear Reactors | University of Idaho | $761,640.00 | This project purposes to integrate new thermal energy storage (TES) models, developed in Modelica, with ongoing nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (NRHES) modeling efforts, in order to evaluate economic potential and advantages of new process designs over baseload electricity production. The computational phase of this project includes developing mathematical and physics-based TES models, which could later be translated to Modelica and integrated with existing NRHES components. The testing and optimization would be conducted using RAVEN. A techno-economic analysis will be performed to evaluate the compatibility of the newly formed integration, as well as to quantify its feasibility and economic benefits. The experimental aspect is focused on the development of scaled TES systems, which serve as verification for the Modelica models and allow system testing upon being integrated with DETAIL. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14963: Development of Nuclear Hybrid Energy Systems: Temperature Amplification through Chemical Heat Pumps for Industrial Applications | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The overall goal of this project is to develop and demonstrate, through modeling and experimental investigations, temperature amplification capabilities of a chemical heat pump (CHP) system that can be coupled to a conventional light water reactor or a near-term small modular reactor. The outcomes would include nuclear hybrid energy system architecture containing a CHP, experimental data on the CHP performance, and dynamic model of the system, validated through experimentation, which could be used for scale-up and design. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15008: Development of Thermal Inelastic Scattering Covariance Data Capabilities with Demonstration of Light Water Evaluation | University of Michigan | $400,000.00 | The goal of this project is to produce a format for covariance data for inelastic thermal neutron scattering data for moderators in the ENDF format. To demonstrate the viability of this new format, an evaluation of the covariance data for thermal scattering in light water in this format will be produced, along with the capabilities to generate the files and test their efficacy. A capability for calculating sensitivity coefficients using multigroup methods to the fundamental physics parameters governing light-water scattering will be developed to facilitate identifying nuclear data needs related to thermal scattering. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15056: Model-Based Diagnostics and Mitigation of Cyber Threats | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | This project intends to develop a toolkit for modeling digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems for nuclear power plants so that the consequences of cyber-attacks on I&C systems may conveniently be modeled using nuclear plant simulation software. The results of the toolkit-based models, the corresponding responses, and the performance of the diagnostic schemes will be tested on a virtual control room driven by a plant simulator. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15055: NICSim: Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Simulation for Evaluating Response to Cyber-attacks | University of New Mexico | $799,945.00 | The objective of the project is to develop a Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Simulation (NICSim) platform with a novel emulytics capability to simulate control systems and components in nuclear power plants. The outcome of this work would be a first-in-class emulytics platform with an associated documentation and library of physical models of components that could be used by analysts and designers to assess the resilience and cybersecurity risks of different control system designs for a wide range of power plants. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15324: Validation of Pressure Relaxation Coefficient in RELAP-7 Seven-Equation Model | George Washington University | $800,000.00 | This project aims to validate the Seven-Equation model in RELAP-7 by: 1) measuring velocity and pressure in each phase and the interface as well as return to equilibrium in fast transients with high-speed non-intrusive laser diagnostics in canonical experiments; 2) complementing experimental data with a multiscale computational approach, including a 3D proprietary direct numerical solver; and 3) validating RELAP-7 with a combination of experimental data and first-principle simulations. This combination would provide unique and complete datasets to validate RELAP-7 with high confidence and offer a new class of experimental and numerical tools. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project CFA-18-15104: Demonstration of Utilization of High-fidelity NEAMS Tools to Inform the Improved Use of Conventional Tools within the NEAMS Workbench on the NEA/OECD C5G7-TD Benchmark | North Carolina State University | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to demonstrate the utilization of high-fidelity Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) tools (PROTEUS, Nek5000, and BISON) to inform the improved use of conventional tools (DIF-3D, CTF, and CTFFuel) within the NEAMS Workbench on the NEA/OECD C5G7-TD benchmark. This would result in more accurate predictions of safety parameters and margins, which is important for both safety and performance improvements of the nuclear power plants being currently operated and built. The developed Workbench-based framework will also assist end users to apply high-fidelity simulations to inform lower-order models for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14741: Demonstration of a Methodology for Direct Validation of MARMOT Irradiation-Induced Microstructural Evolution and Physical Property Models Using U-10Zr | Texas A&M University | $500,000.00 | The objective of this project is to demonstrate, for the first time, a methodology that enables the direct validation of microstructural evolution models for fuel in MARMOT, and the direct correlation of changes in physical properties with specific irradiation-induced microstructural features. Properly implementing this methodology will result in rapid development of MARMOT mesoscale models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15520: Accurate and Efficient Parametric Model-Order Reduction for Turbulent Thermal Transport | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000.00 | The project objective is to develop reduced-order models (ROMs) that will improve accuracy of LMR system-level analysis with low overhead. These new models will systematically mine high-fidelity DNS, LES, or uRANS simulations to construct low-order dynamical systems that can couple with a systems analysis code, such as the SAM code being developed under NEAMS. These simulations provide useful data and will be made available to the scientific community, and the overall effort will contribute to more efficient LMR conceptual design studies and licensing. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15484: A Novel High Fidelity Continuous-energy tTansport Tool for Efficient FHR Transient Calculations | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000.00 | The objective of the project is to develop a high-fidelity continuous energy (CE) transport tool for efficient transient calculations in fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactors with prismatic core/fuel assembly design. This will be accomplished by extending the high-fidelity 3-D continuous energy coarse mesh radiation transport (COMET) code with formidable computational speed to solve transient problems in FHRs with accurate thermal hydraulic feedback. The new capability would enable plant system codes to perform analyses necessary to address complex technical design, regulatory, reactor safety, and economic hurdles prior to construction. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15093: Determination of Molecular Structure and Dynamics of Molten Salts by Advanced Neutron and X-ray Scattering Measurements and Computer Modeling | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000.00 | This project will seek detailed knowledge about molecular structure and dynamics of molten salts to inform the design of new molten-salt reactors. A combination of advanced neutron and x-ray scattering and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations will be used to model the ionic-cluster structure of the fluid and solubility of impurities. Machine learning will be applied to regress from simulations and experiments in order to develop the model and predict chemical potentials as a function of composition and temperature. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15171: Oxidation Behavior of Silicon Carbide and Graphitic Materials | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000.00 | The objectives of this project are to determine the oxidation behavior of silicon carbide and graphitic materials in oxygen and/or moisture, to accurately measure the kinetic parameters of oxidation, to ascertain the oxidation mechanisms in relation to the microstructures, to determine the effect of irradiation on oxidation behavior, and to provide data and input to the safety analysis of high-temperature gas reactors under air and moisture ingress accident conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15276: Coping Time and Cost Analysis of Accident Tolerant Plant Design based on Dynamic PRA Methodology | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000.00 | This project will evaluate the failure modes of accident tolerant fuel ATF candidates to understand the different failure characteristics. The research aims to obtain a response surface of coping time by investigating the various uncertainties of accident mitigation in PWR and BWR reactors. These outputs will aid the decision making process on the implementation of ATF and FLEX to existing LWR plants from the perspective of risk reduction and economic feasibility. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15270: Innovative Use of Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) with the RCIC System to Enhance Passive Safety of Commercial LWRs | Texas A&M University | $748,000.00 | The overarching objectives of this project are to: 1) demonstrate new operational strategies with the combined use of Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) and the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) System to increase the passive safety capabilities of current Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs) in delaying or preventing core damage; and 2) pursue the delay of containment venting until after a 72-hour coping period through new BWR Suppression Pool mixing procedures. The research will use both simulation and experimental data to validate the objectives. The work has the potential to increase the ability of existing nuclear power plants to passively respond to beyond design basis events using existing equipment and without changes to the plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15346: Big Data For Operation and Maintenance Cost Reduction | The Ohio State University | $800,000.00 | This project will develop a first-of-a-kind framework for integrating Big Data capability into the daily activities of our current fleet of nuclear power plants. This research will mainly focus on incorporating the wide range of data heterogeneities in nuclear power plants into an integrated Big Data Analytics capability. The primary end product of this work will be a Big Data framework that is capable of dealing with the large volume and heterogeneity of the data found in nuclear power plants to extract timely and valuable information on equipment performance and to enable optimization of plant operation and maintenance based on the extracted information. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15065: in situ Measurement and Validation of Uranium Molten Salt Properties at Operationally Relevant Temperatures | University of Connecticut | $799,979.00 | This project proposes to use advanced spectroscopic and scattering methods to provide information at the atomic and molecular scale. The research will use synchrotron-based x-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy, at operationally relevant temperatures, to measure the local and intermediate structure as well as speciation of chloride fuel salts (NaCl, ZrCl, UCl3) for fast-spectrum applications and fluoride fuel salts ( 7 LiF, UF4) primarily for thermal spectrum applications This approach is expected to generate theories and concepts that would allow models to predict behavior, and develop the means for in situ monitoring. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15058: High-resolution Experiments for Extended LOFC and Steam Ingress Accidents in HTGRs | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to better understand key phenomena in high-temperature gas-cooled reactors relevant to steam ingress and loss of forced circulation (LOFC) accidents. Specifically, the research will: 1) experimentally investigate, using an existing integral-effect test facility with some improvements, the steam-ingress accident caused by a postulated steam generator tube rupture initiating event; 2) carry out integral-effect tests for the extended LOFC accident to study the establishment of global natural circulation flow in the primary loop; 3) design, based on a scaling analysis, and construct a separate-effect test facility to study the complex helium flows in the core and hot plenum during the extended LOFC accident; and 4) perform detailed, high-resolution, separate-effects experiments using the results obtained as boundary/initial conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15471: Integral Experimental Investigation of Radioisotope Retention in Flowing Lead for the Mechanistic Source Term Evaluation of Lead Cooled Fast Reactor | University of New Mexico | $800,000.00 | The purpose of this project is to experimentally investigate the integral effects of radioisotope interactions with liquid lead to support the following technical goals: 1) evaluating the mechanistic source term of the Lead-cooled Fast Reactor (LFR); 2) developing a universal integral effect test methodology for liquid metal source term evaluations; and 3) establishing a basis for the comparison of radioisotope retention between lead and sodium. This aim of the research is to advance the LFR licensing pathway by establishing the phenomenological foundation of the interaction between fission products and liquid lead. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15153: Understanding Molten Salt Chemistry Relevant to Advanced Molten Salt Reactors through Complementary Synthesis, Spectroscopy, and Modeling | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to understand molten salt chemistry relevant to advanced molten salt reactors through complementary synthesis, spectroscopy, and modeling. Through complementary synthetic, spectroscopic, and computational efforts, the aim is to achieve atomistic and molecular-level understanding of liquid structure, coordination geometry, chemical bonding, and reactivity of novel molten salt melts relevant to advanced molten reactor designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15111: Improving Nuclear Power Plant Efficiency Through Data Analytics | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,727.00 | This project aims to develop and provide data analytics solutions to improve nuclear power plan economic efficiency by utilizing empirical models to integrate disparate data sources while providing uncertainty estimates to quantify risk and support decisions. The outcomes will enhance the technical and economic competitiveness by enabling advanced monitoring of critical assets, improving the operating capability of the existing fleet, and helping achieve enhancements in organizational effectiveness. Additionally, the research would provide an agile and modular data analytic framework that would have high commercialization value and supports the industry-wide drive towards digital innovation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14846: Development of Corrosion Resistant Coatings and Liners for Structural Materials for Liquid Fueled Molten Salts Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to develop corrosion-resistant coatings and liners for structural materials for use in fuel dissolved molten salt environment for future Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). Innovative, but industrially scalable, surface cladding approaches are proposed to lead to promising surface and interfacial compositions. The processes themselves are commercial, and have high technology readiness levels, and consequently would facilitate the accelerated developments of MSRs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15280: Advanced Alloy Innovations for Structural Components of Molten Salt Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $796,792.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to develop and evaluate specific advanced metallic alloys for structural components in fluoride salt-cooled molten salt reactors (MSRs). The research will investigate four categories of metallic alloys: advanced Ni-based; radiation damage tolerant high entropy; refractory Mo-based, and compositionally-graded, designed for high-surface corrosion resistance and good bulk strength. Additionally, the propensity for radiation embrittlement, as well as weldability, of the alloys will be evaluated. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14957: Big Data Analytics Solutions to Improve Nuclear Power Plant Efficiency: Online Monitoring, Visualization, Prognosis, and Maintenance Decision Making | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $797,820.00 | The overarching goal of this project is to significantly advance the ability to assess equipment condition and predict the remaining useful life to support optimal maintenance decision making in nuclear power plants. This research will work toward accomplishing and establishing a modern set of data-driven modeling, online monitoring, visualization, prognosis, and operation decision-making methodologies to address the significant opportunities and challenges arising from the emerging data-rich environment in nuclear plants. The potential impact of the work is significant and transformative and could deliver important advances in productivity with reduced unscheduled downtime and improved equipment performance. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15097: Oxidation Study of High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor TRISO Fuels at Accidental Conditions | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000.00 | This project is to study the oxidation behaviors of TRISO fuels during accidental air and water vapor ingress conditions. The work focuses on the oxidation and burn-off of the graphite fuel matrix and oxidation of the TRISO fuel SiC layer at high-temperature accidental states in the presence of air and/or water vapor. It will include both unirradiated and irradiated graphite fuel matrix and simulated fuel particles with the SiC layer. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 19-16987: Novel miniature creep tester for virgin and neutron irradiated clad alloys with benchmarked multiscale modeling and simulations | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | This project will develop a miniature creep machine to collect rapid thermal creep and load relaxation data for two selected ferritic alloys under "as-received" and irradiated conditions. Fast and accurate measurements of creep deformation are essential for qualifying new alloys for long term use in current and next generation reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17150: Speciation and Behavior of Neptunium and Zirconium in Advanced Separation Process | Oregon State University | $800,000 | This project will further develop the understanding of nuclear fuel reprocessing using Co-Decontamination (CoDCon). Radiolytic degradation products of tributylphosphate, nitric acid, redox buffer, masking agent, and water greatly affect the redox speciation, complexation and partitioning of the recycled metals. Fundamental understanding of chemical speciation and partitioning of Neptunium and Zerconium under such conditions is required. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17395: Modeling and Uncertainty Analysis of MSR Nuclear Material Accounting Methods for Nuclear Safeguards | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | This project will model and analyze the limits of detection for the diversion of nuclear materials from a molten salt reactor (MSR) fuel cycle. MSR depletion under a range of uranium and/or plutonium diversion to quantify the resulting differences in salt composition will be evaluated. Sensors will also be investigated to quantify fuel salt contents and correlate the outputs with the reactor models to predict diversion detection. Results will be coupled with robust uncertainty analysis to determine limits of detection. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16583: Neutron Radiation Effect on Diffusion between Zr (and Zircaloy) and Cr for Accurate Lifetime Prediction of ATF | The Ohio State University | $499,997 | This project will perform systematic diffusion studies on both neutron-irradiated and unirradiated accident tolerant fuel samples to obtain precise diffusion coefficients. This will result in a precise evaluation of the pure neutron irradiation effect on diffusion in these systems and enable accurate life prediction of the accident tolerant fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17381: High Throughput Assessment of Creep Behavior of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Structural Alloys by Nano/microindentation | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $800,000 | This project will develop a high throughput assessment of creep behavior of advanced nuclear reactor structural alloys by nano/microindentation. Experimental datasets will inform polycrystalline deformation models to predict material response over a variety of creep conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16549: Thermal Conductivity Measurement of Irradiated Metallic Fuel Using TREAT | University of Pittsburgh | $500,000 | This project intends to provide accurate thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity data with microstructure characterization of metallic (U-Pu-Zr) fuel as a function of burnup and attain fundamental understanding of the thermal conductivity of the irradiated fuel to inform and validate computational models. This will be accomplished using an innovative thermal wave technique in the Transient Reactor Test Facility at the Idaho National Laboratory, with the Minimal Activation Reusable Capsule Holder. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17002: Remote Laser-based Nondestructive Evaluation for Post-Irradiation Examination of ATF Cladding | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | To enable advanced nondestructive characterization techniques for light water reactor fuels that can be applied to the cladding coating, a remote nondestructive evaluation post irradiation inspection approach will be developed. This technique will measure the cladding coating layer thickness and detect defects within the cladding such as corrosion, micro-cracking and delamination. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17276: Radiation-Induced Swelling in Advanced Nuclear Fuel | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,989 | The microstructural evolution of advanced fuel (uranium carbide and uranium nitride) under fission-fragment type radiation has not been studied and remains unclear. This project will utilize advanced synchrotron X-ray characterization using microgram samples to obtain detailed nanoscale information on radiation-induced volumetric swelling and microstrain. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16848: Metal-Functionalized Membranes for Radioiodine Capture | University of Utah | $799,031 | This proposed research will investigate high-surface area (>300 m2/g) metal-functionalized membranes. These novel chemically durable and mechanically robust membranes are formed using an aqueous fabrication process, which results in an interconnected porosity that is highly controllable, providing hierarchical structures ranging from the nano- to micrometer-scales. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17350: Development and Experimental Validation of Pitting and SCC Models for Welded Stainless Steel Dry Storage Containers Exposed to Atmospheric Environments | University of Virginia | $799,027 | The specific goals of this project are to: (a) validate the maximum pit size model for dry storage canister relevant corrosion conditions as well as quantifying the effects of limited cathodic current on stress corrosion cracking (SCC) kinetics, (b) demonstrate a means to quantitatively rank the risk of SCC based on measurable parameters, (c) perform probabilistic predictions of SCC growth, and (d) validate the model predictions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16879: Proactive Hybrid Nuclear with Load Forecasting | Brigham Young University | $799,933 | This project develops new capabilities of design and dispatch optimization of nuclear hybrid energy systems (NHES) in the "Risk Analysis Virtual Environment (RAVEN)" modelling software. Blended (physics-based and data-driven) machine learning will be applied to forecast demand and production of thermal and electrical loads. Two experimental case studies are proposed to test the software developments with a lab-scale thermal energy storage and with a large district energy system. As a final step, the software developments will be generalized to other NHES. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17461: Development and Evaluation of Neutron Thermalization Integral Benchmarks for Advanced Reactor Applications | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | This project will develop integral benchmarks that aim to examine thermal neutron scattering data for graphite (ideal and nuclear), light water, and molten salt. The benchmark evaluations will be contributed to the International Handbook of Evaluated Reactor Physics Benchmark Experiments (IRPhEP) database. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17219: Using Integral Benchmark Experiments to Improve Differential Nuclear Data Evaluations | University of New Mexico | $400,000 | This project will use the results of integral benchmark experiment to inform differential nuclear data evaluations and improve the predictive capability of modeling and simulation (M&S) tools. This goal will be accomplished by developing capabilities to assess the sensitivity of integral benchmark results to evaluated nuclear data parameters, and by using data assimilation tools to directly adjust the evaluated data parameters and improve the accuracy of M&S tools. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16743: Paths Forward for Nuclear Energy: Using a Nationwide Post-Stratified Hierarchical Model to Facilitate Matching of New Nuclear Technologies to Receptive Host Communities | University of Oklahoma | $390,393 | This project will enable deployment of advanced nuclear technologies by developing a model, and an accompanying web-based tool that can be utilized by technology entrepreneurs, that identifies public support for siting new nuclear technologies at very local spatial scales across the US. The model will employ hierarchically structured, post stratified analysis of the largest US pooled-time series dataset on geocoded public support for nuclear technologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16995: A Cyber-Attack Detection Platform for Cyber Security of Digital Instrumentation and Control Systems | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,995 | The proposed research will develop a robust cyber-attack detection system (CADS) for monitoring digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems. The project will develop a robust research tool for evaluating cyber defense of digital I&C systems and provide a framework for a cyber-attack detection system that provides continuous assurance of the security of digital I&C systems in nuclear power plants (NPPs). | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17327: Multi-Timescale Nuclear-Renewable Hybrid Energy Systems Operations to Improve Electricity System Resilience, Reliability, and Economic Efficiency | University of Texas at Dallas | $800,000 | The overarching objective of this project is to develop a multi-timescale nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (N-R HESs) operations framework to provide different types of grid products. The project will model and analyze the capabilities of N-R HESs to provide power grid services at different timescales ranging from seconds to days, such as day-ahead unit commitment, flexible ramping (5-45 minutes), regulation reserves (1-5 minutes), and frequency response (less than seconds). | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17192: The Design and Investigation of Novel Mechanical Filters for Molten Salt Reactors | Abilene Christian University | $762,246 | Researchers will develop a novel mechanical filtration system. The project will include the collection of filter media performance data and filter regeneration performance data for a novel sintered nickel-based filter prototype. The project will also provide a filter design that facilitates remote filter removal, cooling, replacement, and assay of fissile material hold-up in the filter media. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16980: Determining the Effects of Neutron Irradiation on the Structural Integrity of Additively Manufactured Heat Exchangers for Very Small Modular Reactor Applications | Auburn University | $400,000 | Researchers will determine how to best use laser-powder bed fusion additive manufacturing methods for generating radiation-resistant channel/pore-embedded structures from Inconel (alloy 625 or 718) nickel-based superalloys for special purpose reactor (i.e. very small modular reactor) heat exchangers. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17413: Validated, Multi-Scale Molecular Dynamics Simulations to Predict the Thermophysical Properties of Molten Salts Containing Fuel, Fission, and Corrosion Products | Brigham Young University | $798,291 | Researchers will use first principles molecular dynamics (FPMD) simulations on molten salts containing impurities including fuel, fission products, and corrosion products. These will be used to develop a classical molecular dynamics (CMD) potential. CMD will then be used to predict properties for a wide variety of salt compositions and temperatures, and physical property measurements will be performed to validate those predictions. Property correlations will be developed from this data. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17183: Mixing of helium with air in reactor cavities following a pipe break in HTGRs | City College of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct separate effects tests to obtain experimental validation data on mixing of helium and air in reactor building cavities during and after blowdown in HTGRs. Air and helium concentrations, and gas mixture velocity and temperature fields will be measured in simulated reactor cavities. An existing helium flow loop will be used as the source of high pressure/high temperature helium for injection into the cavities and different break configurations will be experimentally investigated. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16391: GuArDIAN: General Active Sensing for conDItion AssessmeNt | Duke University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a dependable, autonomous or semi-autonomous (i.e. low human involvement), and minimally disruptive framework for monitoring equipment and components in nuclear reactors. The project will develop GUARDIAN; a robust active sensing framework through the integration of model-based inference and mobile actuating/sensing robots. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17251: Measuring Mechanical Properties of Select Layers and Layer Interfaces of TRISO Particles via Micromachining and In-Microscope Tensile Testing | Idaho State University | $799,815 | Researchers will characterize the strength of TRISO-coated particle layers and interfaces using FIB micro-machining and in-TEM tensile testing. Tensile test samples from coating layers of (1) unirradiated surrogate (fuel) TRISO particles, (2) unirradiated fueled TRISO particles and (3) irradiated fueled TRISO particles will be studied. Results of this project will both benefit and leverage the AGR Program. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17185: Demonstrating Reactor Autonomous Control Framework using Graphite Exponential Pile | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will demonstrate a detection-prediction-feedback framework for nuclear system autonomous control. It will adopt multiple detector channels to enable control feedback to spatially dependent perturbations. It will also utilize high-fidelity solutions trained surrogate models for real-time prediction and decision-making. In addition to the method development, the proposal will entail a first-of-a-kind engineering demonstration using the MIT Graphite Exponential Pile (MGEP). | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16754: Simultaneous Corrosion/Irradiation Testing in Lead and Lead-Bismuth Eutectic: The Radiation Decelerated Corrosion Hypothesis | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $762,823 | Researchers will test candidate FeCrSi and F/M alloys in a new, simultaneous corrosion/radiation facility to try to identify an alloy that will satisfy all requirements for Lead Fast Reactor structural materials. Microstructural characterization, mechanical property testing, and corrosion tests, both during irradiation and following ion/He pre-conditioning, will assess how irradiation affects corrosion, potentially slowing it. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17173: Ni-based ODS alloys for Molten Salt Reactors | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | The objective of this work is to (i) propose and develop a new Nickel (Ni) based Oxide Dispersion-Strengthened (ODS) alloy that can be used for structural applications in Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) and other nuclear reactor harsh environments, (ii) to demonstrate that its high temperature mechanical properties are adequate for MSR operating temperatures, (iii) to demonstrate its radiation damage resistance through ion irradiation testing and (iv) to demonstrate its improved corrosion resistance in MSR environment. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17037: Investigation of HTGR Reactor Building Response to a Break in Primary Coolant Boundary | Purdue University | $799,832 | Researchers will perform a series of experiments to simulate HTGR reactor building response due to a break in the primary coolant boundary in a well-scaled test facility to obtain spatial distribution of oxygen concentration, perform analysis of the whole system response with 1-D thermal hydraulics codes and use CFD to make detailed localized predictions. The tests will be carried out with different locations and sizes of the breaks to create various vent and flow paths in the reactor cavity. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17093: Integrating Multi-modal Microscopy Techniques and the MOSAIC Simulation Environment to Assess Changes in the Physical Properties and Chemical Durability of Concrete Following Radiation Exposure | University of California, Los Angeles | $800,000 | Researchers will develop unprecedented multi-modal imaging methodologies that integrate multiple microscopy techniques. The team will develop a generalizable protocol for quantifying the changes in physical properties and chemical durability of concrete and concrete constituents (minerals and aggregates) following radiation exposure. The imaging analyses will be input into the MOSAIC framework to reveal the nature and extent of degradation that is expected to result. The outcomes offer insights that are needed to enable and inform second license renewals. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17167: Atomistically Informed and Experimentally Validated Model for Helium Bubble Growth in Welded Irradiated Metals | University of Florida | $797,861 | Researchers will construct a validated computational model for He bubble growth on grain boundaries in irradiated Fe-Ni-Cr microstructures, including intergranular fracture, as a function of material conditions and welding heat input. This model will be based on the phase-field methodology, leveraging numerical solvers in the MOOSE simulation platform, with critical inputs and validation provided by both atomic-level simulations and experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16909: Learning-based Computational Study of the Thermodynamic, Structural, and Dynamic Properties of Molten Salts at the Atomic and Electronic Scale and Experimental Validations | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will obtain the thermophysical, thermochemical, and transport properties, construct the phase diagrams, and build empirical physical models of molten salts that are relevant to Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) with first-principles accuracy using molecular dynamics simulations driven by machine-learned high-dimensional neural network potentials combined with neutron/X-ray scattering and thermodynamic experimental validations. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16298: I-PRA Decision-Making Algorithm and Computational Platform to Develop Safe and Cost-Effective Strategies for the Deployment of New Technologies | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an integrated probabilistic risk assessment decision-making algorithm to support risk-and-cost-informed decision-making related to the deployment of new technologies. The project will enhance the financial analysis module and the challenging interface of social and technical systems to advance the algorithm. The project will conduct a case study for evaluating the safety impact and cost-effectiveness of FLEX strategies to support operational flexibility. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16802: Evaluation of Semi-Autonomous Passive Control Systems for HTGR Type Special Purpose Reactors | University of Michigan | $400,000 | Researchers will investigate the use of variable flow controllers and a variable reflector as passive or semi-autonomous reactivity control mechanisms for multi-module HTGR type special purpose reactors. This applies to the commercially developed special purpose reactor concepts from HolosGen. The incorporation of these systems will reduce the movable parts count and enable more robust load follow capabilities over broader power ranges and local and global reactivity control. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17467: Understanding the Speciation and Molecular Structure of Molten Salts Using Laboratory and Synchrotron based In Situ Experimental Techniques and Predictive Modeling | University of Nevada, Reno | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology to accurately determine the structure and speciation of the molten salt electrolyte using laboratory-based spectroscopic techniques (Raman and UV-Vis-NIR) and synchrotron-based (scattering and absorption) techniques, in combination with computational modeling. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17231: Prevention of Common Fault-Trigger Combinations for Qualification of Digital Instrumentation and Control Technology | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will provide an effective design evaluation approach based on prevention of concurrent triggering conditions to eliminate common-cause failures (CCF) and enable qualification of digital I&C technology for application in nuclear plant modernization. The research involves classifying commonality among digital devices, categorizing faults and triggering conditions, determining fault-trigger relationships, and defining preventive design measures to resolve the potential for CCF. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17087: Economic Risk-Informed Maintenance Planning and Asset Management | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will provide a holistic framework for cost-minimizing risk-informed maintenance planning, including inspection. They will develop a two-tier framework that coarsely minimizes the total maintenance cost during the remaining normal operating cycle and uses the outputs of the first model to maximize the financial impact of these activities in the short term. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16811: Liquid Metal-cooled Fast Reactor Instrumentation Technology Development | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will explore three different areas that will help to improve commercialization of SFRs and to aid in testing for the VTR. These include: 1. Advancement in understanding of low prandtl number heat transfer 2. Testing of compact heat exchangers for use with sodium 3. Development of in pool submersible flow meters. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16954: Innovative In-Situ Analysis and Quantification of Corrosion and Erosion of 316 Stainless Steel in Molten Chloride Salt Flow Loops | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will use a thin-layer activation technique for the first time in molten salts, on 316H samples placed in natural convection and forced flow loops. The individual and synergistic effects of corrosion, irradiation and thermo-mechanical treatments will be evaluated in-situ to predict component service lifetimes and design limits. The effects of molten chloride flow velocity will also be assessed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17168: Fuel Salt Sampling and Enriching System Technology Development | Vanderbilt University | $799,989 | Researchers will combine insights from the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment with decades of advancements in applicable technologies into an enhanced Sampler Enricher (SE) concept to develop and test a flexible, reliable, and workable design. The prototype will then be tested in an existing salt loop. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16739: Improvements of Nuclear Data Evaluations for Lead Isotopes in Support of Next Generation Lead-Cooled Fast Systems | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | The objective of this project is to improve the accuracy of neutronics simulation of lead-based systems by improving the nuclear data of lead isotopes. The nuclear data for lead will be reevaluated with emphasis of the intermediate and fast energy regions that are required by reactor applications currently sought by several industrial entities. The deliverables of this project are new lead isotopes evaluations that will be candidates for inclusion in a future Evaluated Nuclear Data Library (ENDF) release. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 20-19373: Connecting Advanced High-Temperature X-ray and Raman Spectroscopy Structure/Dynamics Insights to High-Throughput Property Measurements | Boston University | $500,000 | Researchers will acquire molten salt structure and dynamics data at high-temperatures using high-energy x-ray techniques and Raman spectroscopy and relate them to their physical and chemical properties. High-throughput techniques will be developed to rapidly measure multiple high-temperature properties at one time. An understanding of the relationship of salt structure and dynamics to its properties will help to select and optimize melt chemistry in molten salt reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19371: Adsorption and Reduction of Uranium in Engineered Barrier Systems: Effects of Iron and Heat | California State University, East Bay | $800,000 | Reseachers will investigate uranium sorption and abiotic reduction processes in iron-rich montmorillonite systems as a function of solution chemistry and temperature. The team will develop a surface complexation model that can account for both uranium adsorption and reduction, and hence reduce the uncertainties associated with uranium mobility in iron-rich environments with engineering barrier systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19831: Optimizing Melt Processed Phosphate Glass Waste Forms via Composition-Property-Structure Correlations | Clemson University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and optimize highly durable and easily processable phosphate-based glass waste forms to immobilize the dehalogenated salt streams by tailoring the composition of the glasses. To complement the work conducted on glass waste forms at the national laboratories sponsored by the DOE-NE program, modified iron phosphate glass waste forms will be prepared and evaluated by the introduction of various glass modifiers (SnF2 and BaO) to the prototype glass compositions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19695: Quantifying radionuclide sorption to engineered barrier materials under elevated temperature and ionic strength conditions | Clemson University | $799,380 | Researchers will characterize actinide sorption to mineral surfaces and examine possible mechanisms of sorption at high temperature/ionic strength through examination of the effects of hydration and hydrolysis on actinide sorption. These data will provide an understanding of radionuclide behavior with engineered barrier materials. A greater understanding of these processes will reduce the uncertainty in strategies for sequestration of radionuclide bearing wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19789: Controlling Neptunium and Zirconium in Advanced Extraction Processes | Colorado School of Mines | $599,763 | Researchers will address continuing issues with separating neptunium and zironium in current separation techniques. They will use coupled optical and x-ray specroscopy, small angle scattering, equilibrium thermodynamics and chemical analysis to understand fundamental molecular-level behaviors of extracted Np and Zr. These techniques, using world-class irradiation facilities, will elucidate the specific chemistries underlying the problematic behavior in Np and Zr in radiation fields. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19660: Linear and nonlinear guided ultrasonic waves to characterize cladding of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researcherses will perform a combination of linear and nonlinear guided ultrasonic waves, integrated with new material behavior models to develop a non-destructive evaluation (NDE) approach for both quality control/quality assurance and in-service NDE characterization of the cladding integrity and bond strength. Current NDE techniques are effective for uncoated designs, but these coated fuels add new challenges, which will be addressed by this new approach. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19678: Flexible Hard Ceramic Coatings by Ultrasonic Spray Mist-CVD for Dry Storage Canisters of Spent Nuclear Fuel and Waste | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop advanced flexible hard ceramic coatings using ultrasonic spray mist-chemical vapor deposition technique manufacturing process to deposit on dry storage canisters. The team will test resistance to corrosion, heat, wear and hydrogen permeation thgourh microstructural characterization and material property evaluation. The ultimate goal is to enhance the long term reliability of spent nuclear fuel dry storage canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19797: High Throughput Computational Platform for Predictive Modeling of Thermochemical and Thermophysical Properties of Fluoride Molten Salts | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | Researchers will (1) develop an open-source high throughput (H-T) computational platform to understand, predict, and evaluate thermochemical and thermophysical properties of molten salts as demonstrated in the F-(K-Li-Na)-(Cr-Fe)-U system and (2) provide H-T approaches (CALPHAD modeling and AIMD simulations) and open-source codes together with thermodynamic models of molten salts and public-accessible databases verified by targeted experiments for the molten salt research community. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19627: Chemical Interaction and Compatibility of Uranium Nitride with Liquid Pb and Alumina-forming Austenitic Alloys | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | Researcherswill address critical issues with the compatibility and chemcial interations of uranium nitride fuel, alumina-forming austenitic alloys and lead coolants/sublayers. They will obtain critical data of fuel-coolant-cladding interactions and compatibility to evaluate key parameters of operation temperature, fuel impurities and coolant chemistry. This data will provide key operation windows and parameters for deployment of lead-cooled fast reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19924: First-principles free energies by hybrid thermodynamic integration for phase equilibria and fission product solubility in molten salts | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | Researchers will predict phase equilibria and solubility of fission products in molten salts using a novel hybrid framework for thermodynamic integration combining first-principles, molecular dynamics and continuum methods to calculate free energies. They will be benchmarked using Bayesian-targeted calorimetric, in-situ diffraction and spectroscopic experiments. The project will provide microscopic insights and quantitative parameters necessary for reliable thermophysical modeling of molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19939: Gallium Oxide Schottky Diode Detectors for Measurement of Actinide Concentrations from Measured Alpha Activities in Molten Salts | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and test, to high temperatures, a Schottky diode alpha particle detector that is based on the rapidly emerging ultrawide band gap semiconductor material gallium oxide. Ga2O3 Schottky diode detectors offer the potential of detecting alpha particles at high temperatures, with better resolution than SiC Schottky diode detectors, which the team has previously developed for similar purposes. These detectors could be used in pyrochemical processing streams and molten salt reactors with potential application in other reactor concepts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19966: Evaluating hydroxypyridinone-based ligands for actinide and fission products recovery in used fuels | University of California, Berkeley | $600,000 | Researchers will pursue novel chemical separation approaches for advanced reactor used fuels treatments and recycling, by leveraging the unique actinide and lanthanide coordination properties of hydroxypyridinone-based aqueous chelators. These chelators have not been tested in extreme conditions and this work would test potential process performance with a focus on radiation-induced changes and oxidation state distribution. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19545: Femtosecond Laser Ablation Machining & Examination - Center for Active Materials Processing (FLAME-CAMP) | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop, build, and test a femtosecond laser ablation machining & examination tool that can be deployed in a hot cell environment enabling microscopy sample fabrication, isotope and elemental analysis, and thermal analysis. The technology allows for non-contact materials processing, even through glass windows, potentially preventing contamination of surrounding areas and tools. Such a multi-function tool with high throughput material processing will accelerate the research on fuel and cladding tremendously. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19198: Functionalized clay buffer materials for the long-term sequestration of technetium and iodine | University of Florida | $800,000 | Researcherswill develop synthesize, test, and model novel functionalized clay buffer materials for the long-term sequestration of iodine and technetium. The project will also focus on key experimantal parameters and modeling of how the novel clay buffer material will sequester iodine and technetium species. Novel materials will support DOE's efforts to design improved geologic repository barrier systems and optimize repository performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19209: Investigation on multicomponent solubility in LiCl-KCl eutectic chloride salts using combinatorial approach | University of Idaho | $400,000 | Researchers will perform irradiation experiments to understand how gamma radiation changes trivalent metal ion complex coordination structure and extraction characteristics during the ALSEP process. This work will focus on understanding the types of degradation products that are formed during the extraction process and what effects these degradation products have on process performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19713: Multifunctional Laser Processing for Repair and Mitigation of Pitting and Cracks in Welded Stainless Steel Dry Storage Canisters | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a strategic solution that combines laser cleaning and laser peening for removal of surface contamination and mitigation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in welded stainless steels. Laser cleanning will remove surface contamination and reduce pitting caused by corrosion. Laser peening will then be used to mitigate stress corrosion cracking and provide enhanced corrosion resistance. The portability of the laser system means the system will be able to be deployed in the field. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19188: Single- and Polycrystalline Diamond Electrodes for Spectroelectrochemical Characterization of Various Molten Salts | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $600,000 | Researchers will develop optically transparent electrodes for spectroelectrochemical measurements in chloride- and fluoride-based radioactive molten salts. The primary electrode material will be boron-doped diamond. Measurements will elucidate important electrochemical properties of nuclear fuel and fission products such as redox potential, diffusion coefficient, and electron transfer stoichiometry. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19641: Mitigating stress corrosion cracking in austenitic stainless-steel canister welds using peening techniques | University of Nevada, Reno | $799,950 | Researchers seek to understand the mechanisms of pitting/SCC resistance of welds as affected by a) compressive stress b) surface texture modification and c) microstructural change in the substrate surface resulting from laser shock peening, shot peening, ultrasonic impact peening and laser surface texturing. The study will recommend the best peening and surface texturing process conditions for mitigation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in 304L welds. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19704: Multicomponent Thermochemistry of Complex Chloride Salts for Sustain-able Fuel Cycle Technologies | University of Pittsburgh | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive thermodynamic database of multicomponent chloride salts through a collaboration between experts in Gibbs energy modeling and thermochemical experiments. A thermochemical database of the multicomponent chloride system KCl-LiCl-NaCl-UCl3-LnCl3 (Ln: La, Pr, Nd) will be developed using the CALPHAD (Calculation of Phase Diagrams) method with supported ab initio calculations and thermal analysis experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19506: Engineered composite patch with NDE inspection for repair and mitigation of SCC in nuclear spent fuel dry storage canister | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an innovative 'engineered composite patch' that can absorb moisture, neutralize chloride, and prevent stress corrosion cracking from further growth. This 'patch' with have in integrated non-destructive evaluation capability using laser utrasonic characterization methods to montior quality and performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19374: Maintaining and building upon the Halden legacy of In-situ diagnostics | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will develop innovative instrumentation focusing on temperature and strain measurements to fill the void left by the Halden reactor and to enhance the experimental capabilities in the Transient Reactor Test Facility (TREAT) located at Idaho National Laboratory. The team will develop a fiber optic sensor system that offers an inherent resistance to electromagnetic interference unlike currently used sensors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19076: Investigation of Degradation Mechanisms of Cr-coated Zirconium Alloy Cladding in Reactivity Initiated Accidents (RIA) | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $500,000 | Researchers will investigate the thermal, mechanical, and irradiation response of chromium-coated zirconium alloy claddings under RIA conditions, in comparison to uncoated Zr-alloy cladding. The outcome of the project will be used for anticipated licensing applications to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), thereby accelerating use of coated accident tolerant fuel concepts in U.S. commercial power reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19318: Surface Peening and Hybrid Surface Engineering Approaches to Mitigate Initiation and Resurgence of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dry Cask Storage Stainless Steel Canisters | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,838 | Researchers will develop and evaluate a wide range of surface peening treatments, as well as hybrid surface treatments to mitigate initiation and growth of chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) in stainless-steel canisters for used nuclear fuel (UNF) dry cask storage. Canister mock-ups with prototypical fusion welds will be used for this study. Characterization and testing of microstructure, compressive stresses, corrosion and CISCC will be performed. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19614: New Coatings for Nuclear Fuel Waste Canister Storage and Transport | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop novel SiOCN(H) coatings for spent nuclear fuel canisters in order to support sustained nuclear reactor operation and safeguard nuclear waste storage, transport, and disposal, in both terrestrial and marine environments. The novel coating will specifically address pitting corrosion and stress corrosion cracking in spent nuclear fuel canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19382: Separated waste stream immobilization of iodine and offgas caustic scrubber solution | Washington State University | $400,000 | Researchers will produce a set of waste forms from separation of iodine from the caustic offgas scrubber solution. The primary caustic scrub containing iodine, halides, and carbonate will be immobilized in a glass-bonded composite of cancrinite/sodalite. The iodine-loaded silver sorbent will be stripped of iodine, converted to NaI, and immobilized into a separate durable glass-bonded iodosodalite waste form. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19912: Validation of Robustness in TCR Design Strategies | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will perform sensitivity analysis (SA) and uncertainty quantification (UQ) of TCR design parameters and relevant physical phenomena, using open-source time dependent Monte-Carlo code (OpenMC), NQA1 qualified commercial codes (STARCCM+), and ABAQUS for thermal-hydraulics and structural mechanics. The SA/UQ analysis will provide key insights to allow for development of performance metrics of robustness for autonomous operation sensors, by processing signals such as neutron flux, temperature and strains, as wll as inform the needed robustness for AI by enveloping the attainable level of decision making by the software. | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 | |
| NEUP Project 20-19216: Creation of Multiple Effect Evaporator and Combined Cycle Modelica Modules, and Optimization of Potable Water Generation from Saltwater Sources | North Carolina State University | $498,532 | Researchers will develop models of Multiple Effect Evaporators and Combined Cycle Gas Turbine systems to be used within the Modelica framework, with an end goal of creating an energy park that can supply its own energy and water through Small Modular Reactor nuclear systems and/or Combined Cycle Gas Turbine Systems with brackish to brine water sources. These same models will be capable of being implemented into larger models of grid independent and near independent energy parks located about military bases, large manufacturing facilities, and in small communities where freshwater is limited. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19590: Benchmark Evaluation of Transient Multi-Physics Experimental Data for Pellet Cladding Mechanical Interactions | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop an integral benchmark evaluation based on available experimental data from cold ramp tests performed at the Studsvik testing R2 reactor. Transient multiphysics benchmark evaluations are needed to support validation of the NEAMS ToolKit and the VERA suite. This research will focus on pellet cladding interaction and pellet cladding mechanical interaction and their associated events. The benchmark will be prepared for inclusion in the IRPhEP handbook. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19837: Reinforcement Learning Validation Framework for Quality Assurance of AI-guided Additive Manufacturing Digital Platforms | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will address the need to qualify the risk associated with AM fabricated nuclear reactor parts by incorporating a novel rendition of a well-established artificial intelligence learning strategy, the multi-armed bandit reinforcement learning (RL). The RL framework will be developed and demonstrated using TCR data and its associated digital platform. This research will assimilate in-process sensor data and physics-based simulation data to calculate risk measures in the form of failure probabilities for the AM parts. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19363: Integrated Solar & Nuclear Cogeneration of Electricity & Water using the sCO2 Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,427 | Researchers will design and model a renewable, nuclear Integrated Energy System (IES), compatible with the RAVEN/Modelica framework, for co-generation of cost competitive electricity and clean water. The components of the IES to be included are concentrated solar power, the supercritical CO2/sCO2 cyle, multi-effect distillation, and the lead-cooled fast reactor. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19066: Engineering-Informed, Data-Driven Degradation Modeling, Prognostics and Control for Radiation-induced Void Swelling in Reactor Steels | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will advance the capability to model, predict and control void swelling in irradiated structural components through developing engineering-informed, advanced data-driven statistical and machine learning techniques. Excess swelling not only leads to dimensional instability, but also can cause severe embrittlement of internal materials. The proposed efforts will ensure more effective regulation, aging management and license renewal. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19795: A High-Fidelity Novel and Fast Multigroup Cross Section Generation Method for Arbitrary Geometry and Spectrum | Georgia Institute of Technology | $600,000 | Researchers will develop a fast high-fidelity multigroup cross section generation method for arbitrary geometry configurations and energy spectra by developing a response-based high order perturbation method to perform hybrid stochastic-deterministic local transport calculations. The proposed method will be implemented as independent modules that can be easily embedded into any neutron transport or diffusion code and also be used as a standalone cross section generator. The modules will provide data that can interface with the associated NEAMS toolkit and workbench user interfaces to enable advanced neutronics tools that will perform high-fidelity multigroup multiphysics steady-state and transient calculations that capture and represent the complex resonance interactions and core environmental effects which exist in heterogeneous reactors, including advanced reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19968: Experimental Investigations and Numerical Modeling of Near-wall and Core Bypass Flows in Pebble Bed Reactors | Texas A&M University | $600,000 | Researchers will establish a highly coordinated, concurrent experimental and computational effort combining high-resolution turbulence simulations (including Nek5000, Star-CCM+) and experiments to deepen physical understanding and address long standing modeling inaccuracies related to near wall and bypass flow effects in pebble bed reactors. The project's acquired extensive database will be used to derive closure models and correlations needed for porous media code, such as Pronghorn. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19864: Development of innovative overlapping-domain coupling between SAM and NEK5000 | University of Michigan | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a robust, multi-scale coupling scheme between the SAM code and the CFD code, NEK5000, based on a novel overlapping domain approach. The developed coupling will be validated by using experiments specifically designed for the validation of multi-scale coupled codes. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-20074: Characterization of Plenum to Plenum Natural Circulation flows in a High Temperature Gas Reactor (HTGR) | CUNY, City College of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will obtain and provide experimental data on the plenum-to-plenum natural circulation flows in a typical high temperature gas reactor using helium and nitrogen over a wide range of temperatures and pressures to simulate natural circulation under both pressurized and depressurized conduction cooldown scenarios. The results of the project will yield new data and complement other very high temperature related studies. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19042: Flexible Siting Criteria and Staff Minimization for Micro-Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $440,517 | Researchers will develop siting criteria that are tailored to micro-reactors deployable in densely-populated areas by comparing the characteristics of the MIT research reactor with those of leading micro-reactor concepts, and evaluate whether and how the MIT research reactor design basis and associated regulations are applicable to micro-reactors. A model of operations for micro-reactors that would minimize the staffing requirements will also be conceptualized. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-20045: Highly Compact Steam Generators for Improved Economics of Small Modular Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will design and build a compact steam generator (CSG) test section that can be easily modified for different flow paths and geometries, as well as modify an existing loop to accept the test section. The conceptual optimized CSG system design, which could be deployed in small modular reactors, will be informed by CFD simulations to determine critical characteristics of the test section. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19205: Robust bullet-time tagging and tracking system based on computer vision for individual ex-core TRISO-fueled pebble identification | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a novel, validated, robust bullet-time tagging and tracking system, based on computer vision techniques, to tag and track each individual pebble in pebble bed reactors. The effort will utilize Residence Time Distribution and Radioactive Particle Tracking techniques to validate and refine the developed method, using a continuous cold flow pebble bed experimental setup. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19625: Corrosion Sensitivity of Stainless Steels in Pressurized Water Reactor Water Chemistry: Can KOH replace LiOH in PWRs? | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will perform a series of corrosion and stress corrosion tests on unirradiated alloys to determine the possibility of switching from LiOH to KOH to control the pH in nuclear reactors without worsening the corrosion behavior of the structural alloys used in pressurized water reactor core internal components. The impacts of such a change and the consequent water chemistry alterations on the corrosion processes and nucleaer power plant core-internal component service-life will be assessed and better understood. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19735: Experiments for Modeling and Validation of Liquid-Metal Heat Pipe Simulation Tools for Micro-Reactor | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will produce validation data for the heat pipe code, Sockeye, by measuring the internal thermal-hydraulic parameters of a single-heat pipe and the performance of an integrated multi-heat-pipe system in various operation scenarios. The results of this project will generate more liquid metal heat pipe validation data, which is currently lacking and needed to support micro-reactor design and licensing activities. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19367: Investigation of Novel Nickel-Based Alloys for Molten Chloride Fast Reactor Structural Applications | University of Cincinnati | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate and establish the scientific foundations for the development of promising Ni-Mo-W-Cr-Al-X alloys with a superior balance of properties compared to current materials for high temperature structural applications in molten chloride salt fast reactors. The project couples critical experiments with a high-value integrated computational materials engineering approach. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19693: Evaluation of micro-reactor requirements and performance in an existing well-characterized micro-grid | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will evaluate the opportunities and challenges of operating micro-reactors in decentralized power generation applications and the potential for deployment in established micro-grids with diverse power generation sources. By using a well-characterized prototypic environment platform, the Modelica-based Hybrid Energy System, the market potential for deployment of micro-reactors on campuses and other similar existing micro-grids will be quantified. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19195: The effect of LWR primary coolant water chemistry (LiOH vs. KOH) on stainless steel: An integrated experimental and computational study of the corrosion response of stainless steel for different surface microstructures and mechanica | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will study the effect of surface microstructure, mechanical stress factors, and radiation damage on the corrosion response of stainless steel under two different alkaline pressurized water reactor primary water chemistry conditions. The project will involve investigation of mechanical stress factors such as strain rate, residual stress, deformation induced persistent slip bands, dpa damage, and fatigue cracks and modeling to understand the physical phenomena associated with the measured corrosion response and inform the U.S. nuclear industry regarding KOH. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19491: Identifying and prioritizing sources of uncertainty in external hazard probabilistic risk assessments | University of Maryland, College Park | $799,979 | Researchers will develop a method for identifying and prioritizing sources of uncertainty in external hazard probabilistic risk assessment for nuclear power plants, with particular emphasis on uncertainties associated with hazard characterization. External flooding wil be utilized as the demonstration hazard during this project, while a common taxonomy for communicating uncertainties across a broad range of external hazards will be created. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19737: Innovative Enhanced Automation Control Strategies for Multi-unit SMRs | University of Michigan | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an innovative, enhanced automation control framework for small modular reactors (SMRs) that supports control of multiple units operating in a variety of reactor core conditions. Through these enhancements, SMR technology gains improved marketability through potential deployment to a broader range of markets and can also lead to reduced operating and maintenance costs for a SMR site, increasing the overall profitability. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19954: Deployment Pathways of Small Modular Reactors in Electric Power, Industrial, and Other Niche Markets to Achieve Cost Reductions and Widespread Use | University of Michigan | $691,658 | Researchers will explore how to leverage two key value propositions for small modular reactors (SMR) in shifting market conditions, in order to achieve widespread market deployment: (1) participation in small and large power and industrial markets and (2) cost reductions via mass fabrication. The result of this work will be advanced power system modeling, optimized SMR design with thermal storage for power and industry markets, and new SMR deployment pathways. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19752: Development and Demonstration of Scalable Fluoride Salt Pump Seals and Bearings for FHRs | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and demonstrate scalable advanced bearings and seals of fluoride salt pumps for fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactors. The systematic approach to be used will employ both experimental and numerical methods to investigate the static and dynamic performance of fluoride-salt-lubricated bearings and high-temperature seals. The outcomes of this research will directly contribute to the reliability, safety, design, and operation of the fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactor power plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19544: A Holistic Artificial Intelligence Tool to Mitigate Human Factor Uncertainty in Operation and Maintenance | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a holistic artificial intelligence tool to help the detection and mitigation of human factors errors in nuclear power plants. The tool will increase the efficiency of various activities such as testing, inspection, data collection, and interpretation, improve operation and maintenance decision-making, and reduce costs in nuclear power plants by minimizing the impact of human factors errors and providing warnings to mitigate them, when possible. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19524: Non-Intrusive Flow Monitoring for Liquid Metal and Molten Salt Cooled Reactors | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a first-of-its kind flow monitoring system with significantly enhanced capabilities for liquid metal fast reactors and other advanced reactors, such as molten salt reactors. The flow monitoring system will involve a proven and breakthrough fiber optic sensing technology that enables the harmonic-free interrogation of thousands of grating-based distributed interferometers along an optical fiber that is integrated into a sensing pad that can readily be installed at desired locations in the flow loop. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19671: Identifying Needed Fire Input Data to Reduce Modeling Uncertainty | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,393 | Researchers will identify fire parameters that have the largest impact on fire conditions, quantify those parameters contributing to uncertainties in the fire data through Monte Carlo simulation results, and use statistical analysis and machine learning models from the simulation results to assess existing data and recommend appropriate new fire tests to reduce uncertainties that are important to risk. With this information, researchers will develop a framework capable of determining the significant contributors to uncertainty in physical events that are relevant to the risk assessment and, then, determine the need for new experiments that would be of most value to reduce risk. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 21-24394: Computer vision and machine learning for microstructural qualification | Carnegie Mellon University | $497,518 | Quantifying and understanding microstructure is a key driver for performance-based materials qualification. In this proposal, well-curated data sets of microstructural images will be gathered and computer vision and machine learning will be applied to build quantitative deep learning frameworks to accelerate and enable qualification of nuclear materials based on microstructural features. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24156: Experimental thermofluidic validation of TCR fuel elements using distributed temperature and flow sensing | Kansas State University | $798,250 | The overall goal of this project will be to test the performance of 3D printed Transformational Challenge Reactor core geometry parts using existing Helium flow loops and distributed temperature, and velocity sensing systems. Thermal transport capabilities of scaled 3D printed ceramic core will be evaluated experimentally and measurements will be used to qualify computational models. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24636: Risk-informed Consequence-driven Physical Protection System Optimization for Microreactor Sites | Texas A&M University | $400,000 | This proposed project will utilize a risk-informed, consequence-driven analysis to develop an approach for "right-sizing" physical protection systems (PPS) for microreactors. The hypothesis presented for this proposal is that the explicit coupling of consequence modeling to PPS design will provide a similar benefit that can be applied prior to reactor construction. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24131: Total Mass Accounting in Advanced Liquid Fueled Reactors | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | A total mass determination method for nuclear materials accounting (NMA) in liquid-fueled molten salt reactors will be validated with fuel-bearing salt, mixed with a _+ radioisotope of known activity, that will be irradiated to reproduce the practical NMA scenario in a molten salt loop. Irradiated fuel salt will be sampled and measured for its mass and activity. The mass-to-activity ratio will be used to calculate the unknown salt mass in the original container. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24037: Design and intelligent optimization of the thermal storage and energy distribution for the TerraPower Molten Chloride Fast Reactor in an Integrated Energy System (IES) | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to explore the application of advanced reactors within Integrated Energy Systems, use extensive existing data from UIUC for model development and validation, and extend the predictions to larger grids and commercial applications. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24522: Targeted Materials Characterization and Testing of Additively Manufactured Metals and Ceramics to Inform Print/Build Data Analytics | University of Texas at San Antonio | $800,000 | A collaborative program between the University of Texas at San Antonio and Boise State University is proposed to supply materials testing and characterization data sets to be leveraged by the TCR program to inform build/print data analytics. With the data provided by the proposing team, correlations among steam oxidation performance, micromechanical properties, chemical composition, local microstructure, and location specific print/build data will be achieved. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24431: Location-specific material characterization of LPBF SS316L & IN718 TCR core structural materials | Utah State University | $800,000 | In this proposed work, we will experimentally characterize the spatial variability of the quasi-static (tensile), creep (strength and impression), and creep-fatigue properties as well as the underlying structures (microstructure and defect structures) for LPBF SS316L and IN718 components to be used as training data to the TCR program data-driven model. The resulting correlation will be used to drive the design process for an application as TCR core structural materials. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23978: Rapid, Non-Radioactive Methods for Prediction and Quantification of Radiolytic Radical Decomposition Products in Nuclear Separations | Clemson University | $399,999 | High-throughput, non-radioactive, radical assays will be used to determine decomposition of monoamide separations complexants. Radical assay results will be correlated with classic radiolytic damage results to develop predictive models for screening complexant stability. These models will aid in single-stage separations complexant optimization, in the transition from lab- to industrial-scale nuclear waste separations and, ultimately, could yield field tests for radiolytic damage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24350: Phosphate Mineral and Glass Waste Forms for Advanced Immobilization of Chloride and Fluoride-based Waste Streams | Clemson University | $600,000 | This proposal is intended to develop three waste form options for immobilizing the fluoride- and chloride-salt waste stream in highly durable and easily processable phosphate minerals and glasses, including phosphate apatite ceramic waste forms, phosphate glass waste forms, and phosphate glass-ceramic waste forms with apatite phase. Multiple monolithic waste form samples will be provided to DOE national laboratories for further testing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24292: Passive multimodal tomography for dry storage casks imaging using passive neutron and gamma dosimetry and cosmic ray muons | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | A method for multimodal tomography of dry storage casks will be developed to determine fuel relocation and cladding failures using passive neutrons and gamma emissions in combination with cosmic ray muons. The use of multimodal imaging will allow 3-D reconstructions of the dry storage cask that would be unachievable with any single radiation source. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24374: Effects of Radiolysis on Pertechnetate under Solvent Extraction Conditions, including Tri-Butyl Phosphate | CUNY, Hunter College | $399,624 | The overarching objective of the proposed work is to assess the impact of radiolysis on pertechnetate speciation during tri-butylphosphate (TBP) solvent extractions from the molecular level to macroscale. The research in this project is designed to understand the interplay of radiolysis, degradation product formation, other important redox active metals, and oxidation states of technetium on its speciation and distribution coefficients in solvent extraction processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24183: Experimental investigation and development of models and correlations for cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena in transient conditions in support of TREAT and the LWR fleet. | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Thermal-hydraulics transient heat transfer phenomena of relevance for the safety and the operation of the TREAT and light water reactors will be investigated. The performance of accident tolerant fuel materials during a reactivity initiated accident scenario and post-critical heat flux and reflood scenarios will be elucidated, as well as the development of models and correlations to be integrated into computational tools for the design and safety analysis of nuclear systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24666: Wireless Multifunctional Ultrasonic Arrays with Interdigital and Airborne Transducers for Monitoring Leakage and Corrosion Conditions of Welded Dry Storage Canisters | Mississippi State University | $800,000 | This project aims to develop and validate wireless, multifunctional, ultrasonic sensor arrays that enable on-demand, quantitative interrogation and real-time monitoring of both the canister leakage indicators (helium, helium/air mixture, internal pressure, and temperature) and corrosion conditions (free and/or vapor water). The developed arrays will be fully functional, wirelessly powered and communicated, and compact. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24188: Uranium recovery from used nuclear fuel using metal sulfides | Northwestern University | $400,000 | An alternative and original method to recover uranium from spent fuel is proposed. This method will utilize a new type of regenerable sorbent materials with high selectivity in capturing uranium from complex mixtures in acidic solutions, such as those found in used nuclear fuel of high-assay low-enriched uranium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24225: Characterizing Fuel Response and Quantifying Coolable Geometry of High-Burnup Fuel | Oregon State University | $800,000 | This study seeks to objectively determine, through empirical and numerical means, the actual impact of fuel dispersion in-core after fuel failure and whether high burnup dispersed fuel compromises coolable geometry and long-term cooling. The outcome of this study will yield an objective means of assessing two criteria (coolable geometry and long-term cooling) within the existing regulatory process to comprehensively understand whether it is feasible to increase burnup, while satisfying 10 CFR 50.46. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24288: Innovative Methods for Interrogation of DSC Internal Conditions | Oregon State University | $800,000 | The proposed work takes a two-pronged approach. The team will study techniques involving only external sensors and equipment, which could be deployed on existing dry storage canisters. In addition, small sensors located inside the canister that can be externally powered and read through the canister wall will also be investigated. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24439: Development of Novel Corrosion-Responsive Buffer Materials for Long-Term Immobilization of High-Level Nuclear Waste | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to develop a novel cementitious buffer material (CBM) for the safe disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF). The primary aim is to identify and characterize novel Mg-Al-P CBMs, complete with assessments of their repository stability as well as their transport and immobilization of radionuclides. The secondary aim is to use in-situ UT-EIS monitoring to understand the corrosive failure at the canister-CBM interface and provide long-term performance modeling of SNF packages. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24461: Estimation of low temperature cladding failures during an RIA transient | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers aim to create a multiphysics description of cladding response during a RIA, especially at high burnup, coupling reactor physics, thermal hydraulics and mechanics. The creation of a thermomechanical model in Bison will be the result of this project which can be used to evaluate the likelihood of low temperature cladding failures during a postulated RIA on a typical fuel rod (as these can lead to channel blockage), and thus identify the most important conditions to be studied at TREAT. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24460: Multiscale Modeling and Experiments for Investigating High Burnup LWR Fuel Rod Behavior Under Normal and Transient Conditions | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | The main objective of this work is to achieve a mechanistic understanding of and to develop a predictive model for the fuel rod behavior at high burn-up under both normal and transient conditions. Therefore, this study will provide the nuclear industry with validated, physics-based criteria to fuel fragmentation thresholds and rod mechanical integrity limits. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24388: Redox Chemistry of UO2 under Repository Relevant Conditions in the Presence of Zircaloy and Waste Canister Material | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | This project will seek to improve understanding of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) corrosion. Hydrothermal experiments of SNF with cladding and waste canister material will give insights into the redox potential formed due to secondary phase formation as consequence of corrosion in a failed canister. The experimentally derived data about secondary phase formation will be utilized for phase relationship analysis to decipher the redox conditions and thus provide source term for performance assessment models of deep geologic repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24006: High-fidelity modeling of fuel-to-coolant thermomechanical transport behaviors under transient conditions | University of Florida | $800,000 | The objective of the proposal is to develop a high-fidelity modeling tool that can capture some of the important phenomena in high burnup UO2 and ATF fuels during transient conditions. The BlueCRAB tool set will be improved and used to analyze TREAT loss of coolant accident experimental results. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24312: Accelerating the development of reliable and robust machine learning-based interatomic potentials for the prediction of molten salt structure and properties | University of Massachusetts Lowell | $400,000 | Machine learning-based interatomic potentials (MLIPs) used in molecular dynamics (MD) can accurately and efficiently predict molten salt properties. However many machine learning-based methods require large training sets, and can fail unpredictably. This project will overcome these challenges by developing a method for efficiently sampling diverse configurations from MD to train reliable and robust neural network potentials, and develop new models for predicting errors in MLIPs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24697: Dual External Leak Sensing and Monitoring for Dry Storage Canister | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers aim to develop two complementary external sensing methods to evaluate the integrity of DSC through internal pressure monitoring and helium leakage detection. The proposed diffuse ultrasonic wave method will be able to measure biaxial strains in the canister wall with high sensitivity and minimum temperature effects. An innovative capacitance MEMS sensor will be developed for helium concentration measurement in air based on the extremely low permittivity of helium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24449: Multi-modal Surface Acoustic Wave Sensing System for Pressure and Temperature monitoring of Spent Fuel Canisters | University of North Texas | $800,000 | University of North Texas (UNT) will collaborate with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to develop a multi-modal wireless passive SAW (Surface Acoustic Wave) sensor array, which are deployed on the outside surface of the canister, to monitor the strain of the canister and thus determine the inside pressure. In addition, the SAW strain sensor could also measure the surface temperature and potentially monitor helium gas leak. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24265: Fragmentation and Thermal Energy Transport of Cr-doped Fuels under Transient Conditions | University of Pittsburgh | $799,999 | This project will focus on multiple aspects of experimental testing and engineering-scale modeling in understanding thermal energy transport from high burnup, fractured/fragmented accident tolerant fuels, establishing a strong scientific basis to fill a critical knowledge data gap for modeling and simulation of transient fuel performance and safety, such as loss of coolant accident, for future integral testing and fuel licensing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24310: Fusion of Distributed Fiber Optics, Acoustic NDE, and Physics-Based AI for Spent Fuel Monitoring | University of Pittsburgh | $800,000 | The proposal will leverage new concepts in the fusion between fiber optic distributed acoustic sensing and advanced acoustic nondestructive evaluation techniques with artificial intelligence enhanced classification frameworks to quantitatively characterize the state of dry cask storage containers for spent fuel monitoring, externally and non-invasively, without introducing additional risks of failure. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24261: Internal Wireless Sensors for Dry Cask Storage | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | The effort will test the reliability of wireless, internal sensors after exposure to drying and storage conditions. These sensors are used to internally monitor temperature, pressure, and dose. Radiation shielding will also be designed to protect sensors during long-term storage. The effort will develop piezoelectric techniques for miniaturization of optical emission spectroscopy for internal monitoring of gas composition during drying and long-term storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24533: Non-destructive Evaluation of Dry Storage Canisters Using Acoustic Sensing | University of Southern California | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to develop a robust non-destructive evaluation (NDE) technique based on acoustic sensing to detect impurity gases in a sealed (welded) dry storage canister (DSC) using only measurements collected on the external surface of the DSC. The method is based on the time-of-flight analysis of acoustic signals propagating through the fill gas of a DSC, which is influenced by the composition, density and temperature of the propagation medium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23984: Safety Implications of High Burnup Fuel for a 2-Year PWR Fuel Cycle | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to perform safety analysis of high burnup fuel for a Westinghouse 4-Loop Pressurized Water Reactor. The work aims to identify potential opportunities and gaps for high burnup fuel by utilizing both well-established and modern methodologies to model reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, and plant system-level response that ultimately provide feedback to fuel performance analysis. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23985: Fuel-to-Coolant Thermomechanical Behaviors Under Transient Conditions | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This project will enhance the prediction of thermo-mechanical fuel-to-coolant heat transfer under transient conditions by using a coupled analysis and experiment approach. The effort is relevant to both high-burnup (> 62GWd/t) fuel applications and Accident Tolerant Fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24070: Modeling high-burnup LWR fuel behavior under normal operating and transient conditions | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This project aims to develop a high-burnup light water reactor fuel modeling capability to implement in the BISON code that would enable the accurate fuel rod behavior simulation during normal operation and design basis accidents, as wells as the identification of the rod life-limiting factors. Mechanistic engineering models will be developed for key phenomena, in particular, high burnup structure evolution, fuel fragmentation, and fission gas release. Traditional and accident tolerant fuels will be considered. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24033: Redox Chemistry in Nuclear Materials Storage Matrices under Ambient and Accelerated Aging Conditions | University of Washington | $800,000 | Deep geologic repositories must safely contain hazardous, high-activity nuclear wastes at geologic time-scales. However, such capability is centrally dependent on the element-specific redox chemistry within and at the interface of storage vessels. A comprehensive study of redox chemistry in cements used in long-term storage is proposed and emphasizes: 1) the actual consequences of accelerated aging modalities and 2) the novel use of newly available capabilities in advanced x-ray spectroscopies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24063: Post-DNB Thermo-mechanical Behavior of Near-term ATF Designs in Simulated Transient Conditions | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | The goals of the proposed research are to conduct coupled experimental and modeling investigations of thermo-mechanical performance of coated accident tolerant zirconium alloy claddings with simulated burnup doped fuels under thermal transients to predict complex thermal and mass transport phenomena of near-term Accident Tolerant Fuel designs in accident conditions. Experiments and modeling for understanding both cladding-coolant and fuel-coolant interactions will be performed. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24582: Machine-Learning-Accelerated Molecular Dynamics Approaches for Molten Salts | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $399,477 | New machine learning potential (MLP) approaches and new MLPs to enable rapid prediction of molten salt (FLiBe and Nal-MgCl2 with impurities) properties with near ab initio quantum mechanical accuracy will be developed. Uncertainty quantification with active learning and on-the-fly fitting will greatly accelerate MLP training. This work will support dramatically increased simulation speeds and associated data generation and understanding for molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24067: Development of Full Understanding of Mechanical-Chemical Coupling in Bentonite THMC processes | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | The central hypothesis is that mechanical stress in an engineered barrier can lead to pressure solution of solid minerals, leading to significant changes in pore water chemistry, which affects bentonite stability, longevity of the waste pack, and dissolution and migration of nuclides. The overall objective of this project is to develop full understanding of the role of pressure solution on pore water chemistry, the implications to large-scale heterogeneity, and THMC processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23987: Separate and Multi-Physics Effects IRPhEP Benchmark Evaluation using SNAP Experiments | Georgia Institute of Technology | $400,000 | The proposed project will develop an International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) mulitphysics microreactor benchmark evaluation based on data from the Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power (SNAP) program. This work will include systematic assessments of the experimental data with meticulous compilation and documentation, and validation of specific NEAMS tools to model effects that are unique to microreactors technologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24630: Integral Benchmark Evaluation of Zero-Power Tests and Multi-Cycle Depletion Experimental Data of TVA WB1 Cycles 1-3 | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | This project proposes to develop an integral benchmark evaluation of available experimental data for zero-power tests and multi-cycle depletion for consistent and comprehensive validation of both novel high-fidelity and traditional multi-physics tools. The benchmark evaluation will be based on operational and measured data from the Pressurized Water Reactor Watts Bar Unit 1 released by Tennessee Valley Authority. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24186: Regenerating Missing Experimental Parameters with Data-Assimilation Methods for MSRE Transient Benchmark Development and Evaluation | Virginia Commonwealth University | $400,000 | The proposed project will regenerate the undocumented basic data from available experimental data of the MSRE using advanced data-assimilation methods to facilitate the whole-loop modeling of the representative MSRE transients, and perform a thorough MSRE transient benchmark evaluation for the IRPhEP handbook. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24194: Implementation of improved quasi-static, time-dependent, multi-physics methodology in Shift | Georgia Institute of Technology | $600,000 | A practical reference calculation route for time-dependent coupled Monte Carlo calculations, using Shift, will be developed. The proposed framework will be tailored to depletion and slowly varying transients, but with the flexibility to perform thermal-hydraulic time-dependent calculations with minimal computational overheads. This method relies on a hybrid-resolution stochastic approach in conjunction with a substep technique. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24078: Material transport model development and integration in the System Analysis Module (SAM) code | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | This project proposes to develop and implement models for System Analysis Module, which accurately characterize the sink, source, and interaction terms of key material species that are or may be present in various advanced reactor designs. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24195: Enhancing Yellowjacket for Modeling the Impact of Radiation and Stress on the Corrosion of Molten-Salt-Facing Structural Components | University of Florida | $692,088 | The objective of this project is to add the capability to model the impact of radiation and stress on corrosion to the Yellowjacket code, as well as to use Yellowjacket to create surrogate models that will be added to engineering-scale codes like Grizzly. We will also collect new experimental data for validation that quantifies the impact of stress and radiation on corrosion of 316 stainless steel in molten fluoride salts. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24405: Development of a High-fidelity Flow Boiling Database for Validation of High-void-fraction Flow Regime Models | University of Michigan | $800,000 | The primary objective of this proposed research is to develop a comprehensive, high-resolution, multiphase computational fluid dynamics validation-grade flow boiling data from rod bundle geometry simulating current light water reactor fuel designs by taking advantage of the instrumentation and facility developed by the research team. In addition, the applicability of the data through initial evaluations of selected test cases using Nek-2P boiling closure models will be studied and demonstrated for two-phase flow simulations. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24471: Technical Basis of Microstructure Criteria and Accelerated Testing for Qualifying Additively-manufactured 316H Stainless Steel for High-temperature Cyclic Service | Auburn University | $800,000 | This project seeks to reveal the fundamental relationship for AM 316H SS working at 500-750 _C between additively-manufactured microstructures and creep/creep-fatigue properties through a multiscale experimental and modeling approach. The project also seeks to establish the technical basis for the microstructure criteria and accelerated testing method to support near-term nuclear qualification. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24152: Direct heating of chemical catalysts for hydrogen and fertilizer production using Microreactors | Kansas State University | $799,202 | This proposal presents a novel integration approach to deliver process heat from microreactors by directly heating the catalyst particles from the primary heat transfer fluid in a moving packed bed heat exchanger (MPBHX). In this design, the tube side of the MPBHX can be a heat pipe or primary Helium coolant as in several microreactor designs. The shell side will be moving catalyst particles, which will enter the high temperature chemical reactor upon heating. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24287: Investigating heat transfer in horizontally oriented HTGR under normal and PCC conditions | Kansas State University | $799,762 | Experimental research will be conducted to understand heat transfer inside the graphite matrix of horizontal microscale High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors. Existing high temperature test facilities will be used to simulate normal operation and Pressurized Conduction Cooldown. The focus of these experiments is to generate benchmark data under forced and natural convection with coupled multi-mode heat transfer in scaled-down prismatic blocks. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24104: Thermal Hydraulics Investigation of Horizontally Orientated Layout Micro HTGRs Under Normal Operation and PCC Conditions Using Integrated Advanced Measurement Techniques | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000 | The proposed novel work will make a significant pioneering contribution to advance the knowledge and understanding of horizontal micro-high temperature gas cooled reactors. Quantification of metrics will pertain to convective heat transfer coefficients along the channel and gaps, comparative rates of convective and radiative heat transfer, location of peak temperature and its temporal variation, timescales for onset of natural convection, local gas velocity profiles, gas dispersion, crossflows, and temperature profiles over channel diameter and gap thickness. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24004: An Open Source, Parallel, and Distributed Web-Based Probabilistic Risk Assessment Platform to Support Real Time Nuclear Power Plant Risk-Informed Operational Decisions | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | The main objective of the proposed work is to develop, demonstrate, and evaluate a probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) software platform needed to address the major challenges of the current legacy PRA tools. This includes better quantification speed, integration of multi-hazard models into traditional PRAs, and model modification/simplification and documentation automation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24228: Quantifying the Dynamic and Static Porosity/Microstructure Characteristics of Irradiated Graphite through Multi-technique Experiments and Mesoscale Modeling | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | This project proposes a joint experimental-computational approach to probe and quantify the porosity and microstructure characteristics of irradiated nuclear graphite grades and their influence on dimensional changes and turnaround behavior, as well as mechanical properties. The chief focus will be on quantifying both the static and dynamic porosity and crack characteristics in various graphitic phases through several experimental techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24247: Multi-scale Effects of Irradiation Damage on Nuclear Graphite Properties | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Irradiation induces microstructural damage in graphite, causing both dimensional and property (stiffness, strength and creep) changes as a function of the displacement damage and temperature. The biggest gap remains is the fundamental deformation mechanisms behind the property changes. Researchers propose to eliminate this gap in knowledge with a comprehensive, multi-scale experimental framework exploiting in-situ transmission electron and X-ray computed tomography. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23975: Development of Thermal Power Dispatch Simulation Tools for BWR Flexible Plant Operation and Generation | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | In the U.S. domestic light water reactor fleet, about one-third of operational nuclear power reactors are boiling water reactors (BWRs). Thermal power extraction technologies to be designed for BWRs will be different from those for pressurized water reactors due to differences in steam generation. This study proposes to investigate the thermal and electric power dispatch and required control algorithms for dynamic heat dispatch of up to 50% of the thermal energy from a BWR plant to a hydrogen plant. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24111: Experimental Investigations of HTGR Fission Product Transport in Separate-effect Test Facilities Under Prototypical Conditions for Depressurization and Water-ingress Accidents | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Experimental investigations will be performed for fission product (FP) lift-off, washoff, vaporization from plateout surfaces, and transport of FP at prototypical conditions representing depressurization and water-ingress accidents. Measurements will be performed on existing separate-effect facilities using intrusive and non-intrusive techniques to obtain shear stress, deposition velocity, thermal gradient, and gas impurity for advanced correlations. Modeling will be performed using system and computational fluid dynamics codes. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24644: High-Resolution Measurements and Advanced Modeling for Design Optimization of Advanced Small Modular Reactor Steam Generators | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Experiments and simulations will be performed to acquire multi-parameters of pressure drop, heat and mass transfer, and flow-induced vibration (FIV) effect for the design optimization of advanced small modular reactor steam generators (SMR SG). Measurements are performed on existing SMR SG facilities using intrusive/non-intrusive techniques to obtain velocity, temperature, pressure, heat flux, and FIV effects for various geo-dimensions, spacing, pitch angles. Simulations will be performed in StarCCM, Nek5000 and coupling with Diablo_ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24332: A Virtual Reality Environment for Human Reliability Assessment in the Context of Physical Security Attacks | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Recent studies have shown that the physical security workforce accounts for 20% of the entire workforce and, therefore, is responsible for significant operational and maintence costs. To reduce the security staffing, improve performance and reduce threats, modeling and simulation and models of attacker, defender and operator behavior could be employed. This proposal aims to model human behavior using a combination of known human reliability analyses models and experimental evidence from virtual reality experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24389: High Temperature Electromagnetic Acoustic (EMAT) Transducers for Structural Health Monitoring | University of Cincinnati | $800,000 | The aim of this project is to produce an electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT) technology to enable ultrasonic structural health monitoring at the METL facility and similar high temperature assets. Ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation methods can be used for monitoring a range of damage mechanisms including thermal fatigue and corrosion. The project will seek to establish core design solutions that can be used as the basis of a range of EMAT designs for different applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24380: Probabilistic Validation and Risk Importance Ranking Methodology for Automation Trustworthiness and Transparency in Nuclear Power Plants | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | This project develops a methodology to improve trustworthiness and transparency of automation technologies in nuclear power plants. The proposed methodology will monitor risk emerging from automation processes and rank the criticality of automation factors influencing automation output, plant equipment, and system performance. The feasibility and practicality of the proposed methodology will be demonstrated with two case studies focusing on implementation of nuclear power plant automation technologies. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24162: Self-powered wireless sensor system for health monitoring of liquid-sodium cooled fast reactors | University of Notre Dame | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to develop self-powered wireless multimodal sensors and instrumentation for health monitoring and diagnosing early-stage materials degradation for high-risk components in liquid-sodium cooled fast reactors. The synergistic and innovative integrations of the multimodal sensor array, wireless communication, and thermoelectric energy harvester have crosscutting benefit for a wide range of advanced reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24102: High temperature Molten salt reactor pump component development and testing | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | This project will provide relevant key information on the tribology of bearing material and components (such as magnets, couplers, ceramic coated wire, and coatings) in high temperature molten salts that will be required in the design of reactor pumps. Investigation of in-service inspection and monitoring of the pump internals will also be addressed in an effort to reduce down time and operation and maintenance costs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24226: Cost Reduction of Advanced Integration Heat Exchanger Technology for Micro-Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,713 | Heat exchanger technology is a high-cost component of a micro-reactor system that is also critical to the overall reliability and performance. This project will develop the underlying advanced heat exchanger technology necessary to integrate a micro-reactor with any end-user application, as well as providing internal heat exchange. Economic optimization of the heat exchanger and experimental demonstration of the technology will be accomplished. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24382: Advanced High-Fluence Low-Flux RPV Mechanical Property Models for Extended Life | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,717 | This project will further develop accurate models of the mechanical property changes under life-extension conditions in reactor pressure vessel (RPV) steels using reduced order Avrami models, cluster dynamics, and atomistic methods combined with massive comprehensive databases on irradiated steels. The work will provide models critical to extending the life of U.S. pressurized water reactors, as well as new fundamental insights into flux and fluence effects and sink and precipitate evolution in reactor pressure vessels and related steels. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| Integrated Marine Platform for Hydrogen and Ammonia Production | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | This study investigates the economic and environmental value of a floating integrated GW-scale green hydrogen/ammonia production facility powered by an advanced nuclear reactor. Floating Production Storage and Offloading units (FPSOs) are deployed worldwide in the oil and gas industry, and can be used for hydrogen and ammonia processing. Deployment of an advanced reactor on a floating platform offers several advantages, including the efficiencies of shipyard fabrication. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Functionally-graded Cermet Coatings for Molten Salt Technologies by High Throughput Finite Element Modeling and Additive Manufacturing | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $500,000 | This project proposes an integrated approach/methodology to design, manufacture and verify functionally-graded metal-ceramic composite coatings on structural alloys with desired interfacial properties, capabilities of mitigating residual stress and improved corrosion resistance for molten salt reactor applications. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| An Innovative Monitoring Technology for the Reactor Vessel of Micro-HTGR | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | This project seeks to develop an innovative sensor technology for real-time monitoring of the thermo-mechanical stresses in the reactor vessel of micro-HTGR. The technology will be based on a sparse network of outer wall temperature measurements and plant operating conditions. An integrated software-hardware sensing system aimed at monitoring the health of the pressure vessel of gas micro-reactors will be implemented and tested. The proposed work will have a broad impact on sensing in other reactor designs. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| High throughput mechanical testing of additively-manufactured materials | University of California, Berkeley | $500,000 | This project proposes fast and high throughput mechanical testing of AM produced materials. It will include the generation of automated tensile testing, hardness testing and microstructure assessment and data comparison to build data via machine learning. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Accelerated irradiation creep testing coupled with self-adaptive accelerated molecular dynamics simulations for scalability analysis | University of Michigan | $500,000 | The goal of the proposed work is to accelerate traditional irradiation creep using instrumented in-situ ion irradiation creep and long-time molecular dynamics simulations to accelerate traditional neutron irradiation creep testing. This goal will be accomplished by coupling a novel ion beam flux jump test using tapered creep specimens and self-adaptive accelerated molecular dynamics. The outcome is a rapid, low-cost accelerated method to determine the fundamental irradiation creep mechanisms. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Creation of a Pebble Database for Material Control and Accountancy in Pebble Bed Reactors | Virginia Commonwealth University | $399,969 | The primary goal of this proposed project is to develop a database of NDA signatures from a wide variety of used PBR pebbles. This database can be used for facility operations, safety, security, and safeguards (3S) to directly measure fission product content and indirectly 235U and plutonium content of each PBR pebble. This project has significant synergy with current 3S PBR research at ANL, BNL, and ORNL, all of whom are collaborators to this proposed project. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Quantifying Aerosol Deposition Mechanisms in Model Dry Cask Storage Systems | Clemson University | $800,000 | The objective of this work is to measure aerosol deposition and resuspension rates in laboratory models of dry cask storage systems to compare with and validate the DOE deposition model. The project team will conduct experiments to directly measure the deposition/resuspension rates of bulk aerosol in the system and to isolate and quantify individual aerosol deposition mechanisms, with a focus on those sensitive to variable humidity and surface temperature. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Using Amide-Functionalized Electrodes to Elucidate Interfacial Actinide Redox Chemistry for Improved HALEU Supply | Florida International University | $400,000 | The goal is to decrease HALEU fuel cycle costs by examination of the redox behavior of U, Np, and Pu at the water-organic interface using amide functionalized electrodes, and in organic media after extraction with amides. Experiments with redox active interferences including additional actinides in different oxidation states will also be conducted. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advancing the technical readiness of FeCrAl alloys and ODS steels under extreme conditions for fast reactor fuel cladding | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | A key technology gap for advanced high-performance fuel applications is the current unavailability of materials that can withstand extremely high doses without significant degradation of cladding performance. The project team will perform in-situ thermo-mechanical experiments (tension, torsion, creep, and creep-fatigue and nanoindentation) on ion-irradiated (to 400 dpa) cladding materials (up to 700 C) along with microstructures using TEM and mesoscale phase field simulations. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| A molten salt community framework for predictive modeling of critical characteristics | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | This research aims to develop a molten salt community framework to address the needs in advanced fuel cycles, including understanding salts via new theory of liquids, predicting salt characteristics via simulations (DFT, MD, and CALPHAD by implementing advanced models), optimizing inversely molten salts, and verifying simulations by experiments. This project has outstanding value for US taxpayers, educates students, and delivers outreach opportunities for academia, industry, and the public. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Understanding the Interfacial Structure of the Molten Chloride Salts by in-situ Electrocapillarity and Resonant Soft X-ray Scattering (RSoXS) | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | The objective of the proposed research is to investigate the interplay between the interfacial structure of the molten salts and their electrochemical corrosion properties in Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Clay Hydration, Drying, and Cracking in Nuclear Waste Repositories | Princeton University | $800,000 | This project will develop a new multiscale model of the thermal-hydrologic-mechanical-chemical (THMC) evolution of an engineered clay barrier in the near field of a nuclear waste repository, including initial hydration and eventual post-closure criticality. This new model will directly link micro-scale material properties to large-scale barrier performance, thus facilitating future design advances or modifications, and enable robust validation of large-scale simulation predictions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Physics-guided Smart Scaling Methodology for Accelerated Fuel Testing | Purdue University | $800,000 | This project proposes to employ novel informatics algorithms for mapping/scaling uncertainties from experimentally accessible scaled state to application/prototypical state, informed by an equivalent mapping obtained from high-fidelity multi-physics simulations for the fuel thermo-mechanical behavior, specifically, a rate theory-based model for thermal conductivity and fission gas behavior in the BISON code, and employing relevant HALDEN reactor and FAST experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Materials Accountancy During Disposal and Waste Processing of Molten Salt Reactor Fuel Salts | Texas A&M University | $399,997 | The objective of this work is to develop and validate a method for measuring and predicting hold-up to eliminate operational risks and expenses during disposal of salt-wetted MSR components. These objectives will be met by applying robust measurement/detection methods to realistic salt loop environments to validate their use in decommissioning MSRs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advanced Screening Approaches for Accelerating Development of Separations Technologies | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | The goal of this project is to establish a unified selection criterion for chelating molecular structures to more efficiently address ligand applicability to metal ion separation problems, for current and future nuclear fuel cycles. By establishing this criterion, the team will seek to enable the accelerated, cost-effective discovery of new separation workflows, as well as their implementation beyond early radiotracer experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advancing NMA of TRISO-fueled pebbles using fast and accurate gamma-ray spectroscopy | University of Colorado, Boulder | $385,307 | This proposal will provide new Nuclear Materials Analysis (NMA) capabilities for TRISO-fueled pebbles using gamma-ray spectroscopy, through a program of simulations of expected signatures from irradiated pebbles, resulting in a detailed measurement plan to monitor burnup and actinide content throughout the fuel cycle. These simulations will be used to develop requirements for NMA sensor technology and identify opportunities for focused technology development to meet these requirements. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Development of Irradiation and Creep Resistant High-Cr Ferritic/Martensitic Steels via Magnetic Field Heat Treatment | University of Kentucky | $800,000 | The objective of this proposed study is to develop and test new generation of Ferritic/Martensitic (F/M) steels specifically designed for advanced reactors that will exceed the current limitations due to temperature and irradiation dose. To achieve this objective, a systematic study is proposed to employ an innovative tempering heat treatment under high external magnetic field (up to 9T) on F/M steel HT9 to engineer an optimized microstructure composed of refined carbides and martensite laths. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Investigation into the processing parameters of phosphate-based dehalogenation for chloride-based waste salt | University of Nevada, Reno | $399,999 | This proposal will focus on several topics needed to advance the iron phosphate process: 1) Dehalogenation/vitrification processes using salt simulants to generate process flow sheets, 2) Reactions of crucible materials with phosphate products and byproducts, 3) Collection of glass property-composition data to develop models based on the glass-forming regions, 4) Development of a process for reacting recovered NH4Cl with metals that need to be fed into the system (U, Li, etc.). | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| A Validated Framework for Seismic Risk Assessment of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of Nevada, Reno | $799,883 | This is a collaborative research program with a primary objective of developing a validated numerical framework for seismic risk analysis of spent fuel storage facilities from the global cask behavior to the localized behavior of internal spent fuel assemblies. In building and validating this framework, advanced data analysis, data assimilation, and forward and inverse modeling techniques will be utilized. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| International Collaboration to Advance the Technical Readiness of High Uranium Density Fuels and Composites for Small Modular Reactors | University of Texas at San Antonio | $800,000 | An international team of high uranium density fuels (HDFs) experts advised by industry leaders in nuclear reactor innovation propose a US-UK collaboration to advance the technical readiness of UN, UB2, and their composites for fuel forms specific to small modular reactors (SMRs). The project will bridge the critical data gaps in HDF performance specific to the impact of common impurities and microstructural variations that originate at fabrication. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Development of Advanced Control Rod Assembly for Improved Accident Tolerance and High Burnup Fuel Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Research will focus on the development of new materials' designs for control rod sheaths and neutron absorbers, coupled with neutronics analysis and thermo-mechanical modeling to improve accident tolerance and to achieve higher fuel burnup in PWRs. Functionality of the proposed designs consisting of Cr coated control rod sheaths of current and advanced alloys as well as novel neutron absorbers will be evaluated in prototypical reactor conditions and accident scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Optical Basicity Determination of Molten Fluoride Salts and its Influence on Structural Material Corrosion | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | The proposed research is aimed at developing ion probes to determine the optical basicity of molten fluoride salts and studying its influence on structural material corrosion. Combining with the molten salt structure study using X-ray absorption spectroscopy, the salt chemical constitution, the resulting optical basicity, and molten salt structure will be inextricably linked and their connections will be unveiled. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Extending the HMF71 Benchmark Series for Graphite Reflector Thickness up to 18 Inches | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $399,522 | The objective of this proposal is to extend the HEU-MET-FAST-071 (HMF-71) experiment benchmark series in ICSBEP by evaluating the historical (existing) experimental data for critical experiments with graphite reflector thickness from 3 inches up to 18 inches. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2022 |
| Fast and Rigorous Methods for Multiphysics SPn Transport in Advanced Reactors | University of Michigan | $600,000 | This project proposes to perform rigorous theoretical and numerical analysis of the Generalized SPn method and underlying cross section models to enable a fast and robust multiphysics low-order transport capability for advanced reactors. This includes 5 major tasks focused on the efficient discretization and solution of the GSPn equations, numerical analysis of XS models having multiphysics and depletion, analysis of equivalence factors, improved MC estimators, and several V&V applications of the methods. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2022 |
| Development of Hydrogen Transport Models for High Temperature Metal Hydride Moderators | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Understanding the transient behavior of metal hydride moderator materials at high temperatures is a key challenge to the design and deployment of future microreactors. This project will use neutron radiography techniques provide the necessary data for this understanding and demonstrate the development of time and temperature dependent hydrogen transport models using both commercial FEA software coupled to MCNP and coupled models developed in the MOOSE framework. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Characterizing fast reactor fuel failure mode through separate effect and prototypic tests | Oregon State University | $800,000 | The project consists of conducting separate effect fuel pin failure tests with surrogate fluid and prototypic test with sodium. The outcome of this study will generate an experimental database that will be used to develop mechanistic model and validate the CDAP module of the SAS4A/SASSYS-1 code. Ultimately the quality data can be used to benchmark other fuel codes developed for LMFR application, which are seeking validation for licensing purpose. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Science-based development of ASTM standard tests for graphite-based fuel pebbles | University of California, Berkeley | $700,000 | This project proposes the development of mechanical test procedures as well as wear and friction tests on Graphite fuel pebbles | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Role of Heterogeneity in Manganese and Nickel Rich Precipitate Distribution on Hardening of Reactor Pressure Vessel Steels: Integrated Modeling and Experimental Characterization | University of Florida | $799,803 | The hypothesis of this work is that the different nucleation and coarsening kinetics of manganese and nickel rich precipitates (MNPs) compared to copper rich precipitates, and the heterogeneous distribution of manganese and nickel rich precipitates on or near dislocations, both lead to unique hardening behavior at high neutron fluence. The objective of this work is to understand hardening in reactor pressure vessel steels caused by MNPs via integrated multiscale modeling and experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Integrated Thermal-Electric Energy Management of All-Electric Ship with Advanced Nuclear Reactors | University of Texas at Dallas | $400,000 | The overall objective of this research is to comprehensively model, design, and evaluate the use of advanced nuclear reactors in future nuclear-powered ships, to enhance the efficiency, reliability, and resilience of shipboard energy distribution systems. The novelty of the proposed approach lies in (i) integrated thermal-electric modeling of advanced nuclear-powered shipboard energy system, and (ii) novel solutions for total-ship energy management to improve energy efficiency and resiliency. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Open Architecture for Nuclear Cost Reduction | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Open architecture has potential to reduce advanced reactor (AR) costs, through exploiting modular design and construction, with common, openly available interfaces between modules. A comprehensive assessment of the challenges and opportunities of open architecture for ARs will be performed. Supported by a pilot study, actionable recommendations for the implementation or otherwise of open architecture for ARs will be developed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Telescopic Control Rod for Significant Reduction in HTR Height and therefore Cost | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | This project proposes a design for a small modular High Temperature Reactor (HTR) control rod that extends telescopically, consisting of ~5 concentric annuli that nest together above the core when withdrawn. This compact component substantially reduces the length of the depth of the silo. Modelling and experimental testing will be performed to develop the control rod to evaluate feasibility, plus perform a cost-benefit analysis, with a view to its inclusion in both pebble bed and prismatic HTR designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Mechanism Driven Evaluations of Sequential and Simultaneous Irradiation-Creep-Fatigue Testing | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | This project addresses a critical need for irradiation and creep-fatigue testing by carrying out a systematic, mechanistic-driven benchmarking for irradiation creep, irradiation fatigue and creep-fatigue tests under various environments. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Mechanisms-based Acceleration of Materials Qualifications for Creep-Fatigue Performance in Advanced Nuclear Systems | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | The goal of this research is to fully understand, quantify and model creep-fatigue 'damage' as a function of loading patterns, temperature and microstructural evolution. Using this experimental information over a large range of relevant stress levels and temperatures, a mechanisms-based creep-fatigue analysis approach will be demonstrated which will properly qualify high temperature alloys for extended service in advanced nuclear systems where creep-fatigue is currently a major design limitation. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Subwavelength Ultrasonic Imaging for Rapid Qualification of Additively Manufactured Nuclear Structures and Components | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to develop a transformational capability for rapid nondestructive quality assessment of actual nuclear additively manufactured structures and components through advanced ultrasonic imaging with subwavelength resolution. The resolution of conventional ultrasonic systems is limited by diffraction on the order of the wavelength. In this project, the goal is to break the diffraction limits of ultrasonic imaging by implementing a negative-index lens. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| MXene as Sorbent Materials for Off-gas Radioiodine Capture and Immobilization | Clemson University | $1,000,000 | The overarching goal of this project is to develop efficient and stable new sorbent materials, for off-gas radioiodine capture and immobilization, that are based on MXenes with two-dimensional transition metal carbides/nitrides. The exploratory research will focus on three main objectives: 1) Design and synthesis of MXenes as radioiodine sorbent and support materials, 2) Quantification of iodine sorption capacity of MXenes in different forms, 3) Synthesis and characterization of consolidated waste forms. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Fundamental understanding of grain boundary cracking in LWR environments | University of California, Los Angeles | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to understand the details of stress corrosion cracking (SCC) and irradiation assisted stress corrosion cracking (IASCC) by targeted experiments and modeling efforts. A comprehensive model will be produced, which will predict the conditions under which these failure modes occur and when the materials may see onsets of the failure mode. This work will directly impact the nuclear industry by refining predictive models of component lifetime. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Facile manufacturing of fiber-reinforced-SiC/SiC composite using aerodynamic fiber deposition (AFD) and metal assisted polymer impregnation and pyrolysis processes (MAPIP) | University of Pittsburgh | $999,886 | SiC/SiC ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) are promising candidate materials for the cladding of accident tolerant fuels. Superior material properties of SiC/SiC CMC, however, come at a high manufacturing cost. The objective of the proposed research is to apply aerodynamic fiber deposition (AFD) and metal assisted polymer impregnation and pyrolysis (MAPIP) to develop a new facile manufacturing approach of SiC/SiC CMC. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| High Concentration Monoamide Separations: Phase Modifiers and Transuranic Chemistry | Colorado School of Mines | $999,900 | Extraction of actinides from used nuclear fuel with high concentrations of monoamide extractants is a promising strategy to intensify separation processes; however key issues remain to be understood and resolved. This project will examine three questions: 1) Can phase modifiers mitigate issues with organic phase viscosity? 2) Can the chemistry of neptunium be controlled to ensure complete separation? 3) Do high concentrations of monoamides affect the oxidation states of important metals and can that be exploited? | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Multiple Uranium Complexes in Chloride Fast Reactor Molten Salt Properties | University of Connecticut | $1,000,000 | Multivalent transition metal ions in a melt can exhibit multiple coordination states that affect molten salt properties. This project will use a new high-energy resolution fluorescence detection (HERFD) spectroscopy to overcome issues associated with measuring coordination numbers of multiple complexes, along with Raman spectroscopy and advanced simulations to accurately predict properties of molten salts with multiple uranium complexes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Validation of Geochemical Reactive Transport Long-Term predictions Using Natural Cements and Ancient Cements Analogues | Vanderbilt University | $950,000 | This project will validate long-term performance predictions of rock/cement interfaces based on characterization of natural analogues, ancient cements and interfaces with rock formations, and demonstrate applicability of the established testing and simulation workflow with argillite rock (representative of potential U.S. repository systems). This project addresses the research gap of long-term validation and uncertainty assessment associated with cement barrier performance and multi-physics models. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Predicting Pitting and Stress Corrosion Cracking of Dry Cask Storage Canisters via High Throughput Testing, Multiscale Characterization, and 3D Computer Vision based Machine Learning | The Ohio State University | $1,000,000 | This project consists of a US-UK collaborative research program focusing on the nucleation and growth of pits and stress corrosion cracking of stainless steel 304 (a canister material used for dry cask storage of spent nuclear fuels) by leveraging multi-scale characterization techniques, 2D/3D computer vision, and machine learning approaches. The study will enable the understanding and prediction of how and when pitting corrosion can nucleate, grow, and transition into stress corrosion cracking. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Multiscale Residual Stress Tailoring of Spent Fuel Canister CISCC Resistance | Purdue University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to understand the role of residual stress in chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) of austenitic steel, then tailor CISCC initiation and propagation through engineered multiscale residual stress distributions. Microscopic and macroscopic residual stresses will be systematically varied, then a novel sequence of advanced, site-specific, correlative characterization techniques will be applied to directly link residual stress, pitting, and crack propagation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Illuminating Emerging Supply Chain and Waste Management Challenges | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | Regional constraints on domestic fuel supply and greater variation in demand from advanced reactors has led to a shift in the U.S. fuel cycle, and modeling tools must reflect this. In this work, Cyclus will be updated to better reflect new and emergent regional supply constraints, spatial and temporal fluctuations in material needs, and those impacts on the back-end of the fuel cycle will be quantified. This work will allow for flexible, reproducible analysis to inform stakeholder decision-making. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Determination of Local Structure and Phase Stability of Uranium Species in Molten Halide Salts: Linking Microscopic Structure with Macroscopic Thermodynamics | Arizona State University | $1,000,000 | The goal of this project is to determine the local structures (valence state, coordination configuration and medium-range structure) and thermodynamic stability of uranium species in molten chloride and fluoride salts at high temperatures using a combination of experimental and modeling methods. The obtained results will allow for revelation of the structure-stability relations of the studied systems and development of acid-base scales to determine the solubility of uranium in molten halide salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Thermal-Hydraulics Assessment of SiC Compared to Other ATF Cladding Materials and its Performance to Mitigate CRUD | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | This project aims to experimentally investigate the thermal-hydraulics performance of SiC compared to the Cr-coated zircaloys and APMT ATF cladding materials under accident scenarios, including both DNB and dryout conditions. The project is divided into five tasks that will advance the understanding of the operation and optimization of heat pipes for advanced nuclear reactors. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Physics-Informed Artificial Intelligence for Non-Destructive Evaluation of Ceramic Composite Cladding by Creating Digital Fingerprints | University of Florida | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to spatially map the material composition, structure, and defect distribution of SiCf-SiCm composite tubes from ultrasonic wavefields measured from the materials and the defects within them. Specifically, this project will delve into the unique ultrasonic fingerprints (i.e., dispersion relations and mode shapes) of the SiCf-SiCm composites using physics-informed machine learning to assess the quality of the manufactured tubes based on their spatial-spectral ultrasonic characteristics. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Understanding Constituent Redistribution, Thermal Transport, and Fission Gas Behavior in U-Zr Annular Fuel Without a Sodium Bond | University of Florida | $999,462 | This project will investigate the reason for changed constituent redistribution in annular U-Zr fuel without a sodium bond and how it changes the fission gas behavior and thermal conductivity. This will be achieved using a combination of microstructure characterization and thermal conductivity measurements of irradiated U-Zr annular fuel and multiscale modeling and simulation using the MARMOT and BISON fuel performance codes. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Getting AnCers: Metallothermic Molten Salt Synthesis and Reaction Thermodynamics of Actinide Ceramic Fuels | Oregon State University | $1,000,000 | Synthesis of high quality actinide ceramics (AnCers) remains a costly challenge. A low-temperature, high-yield, short-duration reaction that directly synthesizes UN and UC could reduce the cost of these advanced fuels greatly. This proposal aims to demonstrate a method by which the costs of AnCers can be greatly reduced - metallothermic molten salt synthesis. Optimization and thermodynamics data will be obtained. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Integrated Stand-off Optical Sensors for Molten Salt Reactor Monitoring | University of Pittsburgh | $1,000,000 | This project intends to develop robust and stand-off optical sensors to perform real-time molten salt levels, flow, and impurity measurements of molten salts. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Cybersecurity in advanced reactor fleet by cyber-informed design, real-time anomaly detection, dynamic monitoring, and cost-effective mitigation strategies | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The goal of this research is to provide technical solutions to unique cybersecurity challenges in future microreactor fleet through cyber-informed design (C-ID), real-time anomaly detection, dynamic monitoring, and cost-effective mitigation strategies. The efforts will significantly improve the economics and effectiveness of cybersecurity risk management in future microreactor fleets. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Building Cyber-Resilient Architecture for Advanced Reactors via Integrated Operations and Network Digital Twin | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | The research will develop a secure-by-design architecture via integrating plant operation and network digital twins for advanced reactors. Automatic attack path and vulnerability analysis will be developed and used to assess and harden critical digital assets (CDA) against cyber risks prior to and during operation to identify vulnerabilities, attack pathways, and threat vectors. A CDA selection method will also be developed by combining vulnerability scores and assets importance. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Extending PRA and HRA legacy methods and tools with a cause-based model for comprehensive treatment of human error dependency | University of California, Los Angeles | $1,000,000 | This project aims at developing a solution to HRA dependency assessment in PRA from methodological and practical/computational perspectives within legacy PRA tools and methods. The solutions will include procedures for quantifying dependency when using PRA legacy tools, a method for modeling and quantifying dependency in HRA comprising a BN-causal model suitable for use with legacy PRA methods and tools, and the computational tools for its integration. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| An Integrated Elemental and Isotopic Detector for Real-Time Molten Salt Monitoring | North Carolina State University | $1,000,000 | The overarching theme of the proposed research is to develop and demonstrate a real-time elemental and isotopic detector of molten salts for advanced reactors and fuel fabrication and recycling processes. The detector's longevity, limits, and latency will be tested in static uranium chloride salts, in pyroprocessing chloride salt, and on flowing fluoride salt with evolving actinide composition, respectively. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Development of a Thin-Layer Electrochemical Sensor for Molten Salt Reactors and Fuel Cycle Processes | Brigham Young University | $811,755 | A thin-layer electrochemical sensor capable of detecting uranium, plutonium and other species of interest in molten salts, at both high and low concentrations, will be developed for application in molten salt reactors and fuel cycle process units. This will provide a valuable tool for performing material control and accountancy measurements. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Risk-Informed Consequence-Driven Hybrid Cyber-Physical Protection System Security Optimization for Advanced Reactor Sites | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | This project aims to develop an expanded methodology for designing a novel cybersecurity-integrated physical protection system (PPS) framework for advanced reactor concepts that serves to reduce the operational costs for the life of a reactor against that of a traditional light water reactor PPS design, promoting efforts to credit safety features of advanced reactors through proposed amendments to current security regulations, while integrating health and economic consequence analyses. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| A risk analysis framework for evaluating the safety, reliability, and economic implications of electrolysis for hydrogen production at NPPs | University of Maryland, College Park | $1,000,000 | The RAFELHyP project will develop a modular risk analysis framework that enables evaluating the safety, reliability, and economic implications of upcoming deployments of electrolyzers to produce hydrogen at nuclear power plants. The framework will be implemented to conduct an integrated safety, reliability, and economic analysis of multiple plant configurations to provide detailed recommendations for plant protective features and layouts. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Reduced Order Modeling of Heat and Fluid Flow: Multi-Scale Modeling of Advanced Reactors to Enable Faster Deployment | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | Novel multi-scale algorithms for thermal-hydraulics (TH) simulations of advanced reactors will be developed. The methods will leverage recent advances in hardware and reduced order modeling approaches to enable TH simulations of vastly accelerated speed, while maintaining accuracy comparable to high-fidelity methods, such as large-eddy simulation. The methods will allow designers to perform parameter sweeps, develop closures, and enable high fidelity simulation of transients. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Embedded Monte Carlo | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Monte Carlo methods have long been considered the standard in terms of accuracy and have seen increased use in design of small nuclear systems; however, the uncertainty quantification (UQ) of the desired output is often relegated to later stages of the design process. This project seeks to embed nuclear data UQ in a single Monte Carlo simulation, such that each desired quantity will not only provide the mean value and statistical uncertainty, but also the related nuclear data uncertainty. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| A Low Order Transport Method Based on the Dynamic Truncation of the Integral Transport Matrix Method (ITMM) that Converges to the SN Solution with Increasing Cell Optical Thickness | North Carolina State University | $1,000,000 | A novel low-order transport operator capable of approximating Monte Carlo (MC) results within a variance range will be developed. This does not require MC reference solutions to calibrate the low-order model, so repeated solutions of the latter in-transient scenarios does not require repeated MC simulations. Truncation of the low-order operator is done dynamically for evolving configurations to ensure accuracy of the low-order solution. This will involve proof of principle on Cartesian meshes, then implementation in Griffin. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| CFD based Critical Heat Flux predictions for enhanced DNBR margin | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | This project seeks to demonstrate a robust high-fidelity CFD-based methodology to predict CHF behavior at varying quality conditions, enabling the development of advanced DNBR correlations with reduced uncertainty, and in support of upgraded plant economics. The availability of a virtual CHF methodology will allow greatly extending the database for DNBR correlations development and further support advancement in the design of high-performing nuclear fuel. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Immersed Boundary Methods for Modeling of Complex Geometry: A Leap Forward in Multiscale Modeling using NekRS | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | A major challenge to Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling of complex geometries is the need to generate body-fitted meshes, which can occupy 80% of the CFD practitioner's time. Immersed boundary methods will be added in the NekRS CFD code, dramatically simplifying modeling of complex 3-D structures and facilitating a new paradigm for CFD-informed multiscale analysis. This will be demonstrated by informing SAM transient systems-level models with NekRS heat exchanger correlations for advanced reactors. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Uncertainty Quantification of Model Extrapolation in Neural Network-informed Turbulent Closures for Plenum Mixing in HTGRs | Utah State University | $1,000,000 | This project will quantify the uncertainty in prediction of Neural Network-informed Turbulent Closures when they are operating in a model extrapolation state. Once the method is developed for canonical buoyant jets, the protocols will be applied to plenum mixing in HTGRs. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Impact of moisture on corrosion of NiCr alloys in MgCl2-NaCl Salt Systems | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $999,983 | This project aims to gain a fundamental understanding of the impact of moisture and salt chemistry on corrosion of NiCr alloys in molten chloride salts. A novel approach coupling multiscale simulations and experiments will be designed to determine salt acidity, its dependence on salt composition (i.e., the NaCl to MgCl2 ratio), and its effects on the transport of H2O and Cr ions and the corrosion kinetics of NiCr alloys in chloride salt. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Transforming Microreactor Economics Through Hydride Moderator Enabled Neutron Economy | State University of New York, Stony Brook | $1,000,000 | Microreactors will potentially require the cost of electricity to be 10 MWD/kg at >3 kW/kg core specific power. These goals are best achieved through a well-thermalized spectrum. Neutron economy as a core material selection criterion to advance entrained hydride composite moderators will be used with the primary goal of significantly reducing fuel costs through novel microreactor designs. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Integrating Nuclear with ZLD Seawater Desalination and Mining | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | An integrated nuclear system will be developed that would utilize electricity and waste heat to operate a desalination and mining process from adjacent seawater. The desalination approach targets zero-liquid discharge with multiple marketable minerals extracted. The ability of nuclear facilities to load follow is increasingly important, so a cold thermal storage system will be incorporated. The desalination and mineral extraction process will be experimentally validated at lab scale. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Reference Designs of Green Ammonia Plants Powered by Small Modular Reactors | Utah State University | $1,000,000 | The overarching goal of this project is to develop two reference designs for green ammonia plants. One design uses freshwater as the source for hydrogen, while the other design uses seawater (or brackish water) as the source. In both designs, a small modular reactor (SMR) is used as the primary energy source providing both electricity and steam for the plants. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Development of the Technical Bases to Support Flexible Siting of Microreactors based on Right-Sized Emergency Planning Zones | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to provide the technical basis to support the application of a right-sized Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ) size to support the deployment of a microreactor at the Penn State University Park campus. This research study will serve as a template to provide flexible siting in support of future microreactor deployments that may be placed closer to demand centers, thereby making them more economically competitive. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Bayesian Optimization for Automatic Reactor Design Optimization | Arizona State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to develop analytical tools based on Gaussian process modeling and Bayesian Optimization that facilitate reactor design optimization by modeling the responses from the physics simulator. Existing capabilities will be applied in an AI field and they will be adapted to address the key characteristics of nuclear reactor design problem. This project will automate the simulation-based design procedure, reduce the number of iterations, and minimize the design cycle time. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Engaging New Mexican communities in developing an equitable and just approach to siting advanced reactor facilities | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | This project will engage diverse New Mexican communities to develop an equitable approach for advanced reactor siting. The findings of this project will shed light on how technology developers and the DOE can explore and potentially site advanced reactors with the informed consent and engagement of host communities, regions, and states. The findings of this study will also more generally apply to the potential for equitably exploring both brownfield and greenfield sites for nuclear facilities. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Deciphering Irradiation Effects of YHx through In-situ Evaluation and Micromechanics for Microreactor Applications | University of New Mexico | $998,000 | This project addresses a critical gap in accelerated testing of YH evolution coupling multi-length scale mechanical testing with ion irradiation and advanced characterization to establish a baseline understanding of YH evolution under ion irradiation. Our approach will couple ion irradiation and gamma irradiation with small scale mechanical testing to decipher multi-scale impacts on phase stability to advance understanding of YH in a microreactor moderator application. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Active Learning Estimation and Optimization (ALEO) of Irradiation Experimental Design for Efficient Accelerated Fuel Qualification | University of Texas at San Antonio | $997,247 | This collaborative project creates novel AI/ML models and algorithms integrated with physical knowledge and expertise to explore more efficient ways to calculate irradiation temperatures and fuel specimen burnups for new fuel sample configurations of MiniFuel experiments proposed for irradiation in the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Unraveling how mixing vane spacers affect cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena in light water reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $500,000 | Experiments will be conducted to quantify the effect of mixing vane spacers on cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena, namely single-phase forced convection, nucleate boiling, and CHF. The results of the experimental research will allow elucidating the physical phenomena triggered by the presence of mixing vane spacers. They will also allow assessing the performance of M-CFD tools developed within CASL and in use by the nuclear community. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Quantum Computing Algorithms for Deterministic Neutron Transport | University of Michigan | $500,000 | This project will develop algorithms for solving the k-eigenvalue form of the neutron transport equation in a nuclear reactor physics context on a quantum computer. The asymptotic scaling of the algorithms will be analyzed. Investigation into implementation will be made by making resource estimates by synthesizing explicit circuits for the algorithms and be studied by emulation on a classical computer. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Optimizing Application-Dependent Energy Group Structures for Multigroup Neutron Transport Models using Machine Learning | Colorado School of Mines | $500,000 | Machine Learning methods will be developed that will dramatically reduce both the computational run-time and manual effort needed to find multigroup energy structures that accurately capture the underlying physics of neutron reactions, while allowing multigroup simulations to run quickly without overwhelming available memory. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Understanding PM-HIP Interparticle Evolution and its Influence on Fracture Toughness in Alumina-Forming Steels | Purdue University | $1,100,000 | This project aims to understand how interparticle evolution during hot isostatic pressing (HIP) influences fracture toughness of Al-bearing steels. The team will use a series of interrupted HIP experiments with phase field models to understand the formation mechanisms of interparticle defects during HIP of alumina-forming austenitic (AFA) stainless steels and FeCrAl steels, and the influence of these defects on fracture behavior. | Document | Advanced Manufacturing Technologies | FY2024 |
| Multiscale high-throughput experiment/modeling approach to understanding creep behavior in Additively Manufactured reactor steels | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $1,043,271 | This project proposes to develop a predictive capability for processing-microstructure-property correlations in additive manufactured microstructures utilizing a multiscale approach encompassing bulk creep tests, miniaturized tensile testing, and a high-throughput, indentation based, cost-effective method for elevated temperature mechanical mapping of additively manufactured 316H Stainless Steel, Grade 91, and Titanium-Zirconium-Molybdenum (TZM) alloys. | Document | Advanced Manufacturing Technologies | FY2024 |
| Assessing molten salt corrosion resistance of stainless steel 316H in nuclear reactor environments | North Carolina State University | $1,100,000 | The proposed goal is to leverage a blend of innovative molten salt corrosion experiments and cutting-edge characterization techniques to advance our understanding of molten salt corrosion in both commercial and additively manufactured (AM) stainless steel (SS) 316H, particularly under radiation or stress environments. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Polymer-Derived C-SiC Coatings on Kernel Particles for Advanced Nuclear Reactors | University of Alabama at Birmingham | $1,100,000 | This program is to use a polymer-derived ceramic approach to develop C-SiC/ZrC coatings on ZrO2 kernel substitute particles. We aim to create new fuel encapsulation materials in replacement of the coatings on fuel kernel particles, including the TRISO layers, for advanced reactors, conduct ion irradiation testing of the new materials for nuclear performance evaluation, and carry out detailed microstructure and composition characterization to assess the C-SiC/ZrC coated fuel particle behaviors. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Sorbent regeneration, recycling, and transformation: A transformative approach to iodine capture and immobilization | University of Nevada, Reno | $1,000,000 | The project will focus on the development of materials and processes for regeneration and recycling of sorbents, and the transformation of iodine-loaded sorbents into waste forms. A combination of computational and experimental studies will be conducted to understand (a) how the components in a primary off-gas stream interact with the sorbent, (b) how this off-gas stream affects the regeneration lifetime, and (c) low-temperature binders and processing paths that leads to durable waste forms. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Accident Tolerant Fuels to Support Power Uprates in LWRs | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,100,000 | This project will demonstrate that power uprates higher than the current state of operation can be reached using accident tolerant fuels in light water reactors while not exceeding reactor safety margins during normal operation and accidents. We will analyze it considering fuel enriched up to 10% and peak rod average burnup up to 75GWd/tU concerning reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, reactor safety, and economics. Considerations will be made in consultation with the named industry advisory board. | Document | Existing Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Comparative study of three-dimensional microstructural imaging and thermal conductivity evolution of irradiated solid and annular U-Zr fuels | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Uranium-zirconium (U-Zr) annular metallic fuel holds the promise to simultaneously increase sodium fast reactor (SFR) core uranium loading and reduce peak cladding temperatures, thus greatly improving fuel performance. However, key convolved fuel degradation mechanisms during irradiation at temperature threaten to hold back its real-world applicability, requiring more detailed understanding to both predict U-Zr fuel performance and suggest improvements. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Mechanistic study and modeling of fission gas release in UO2 and doped UO2 | Oregon State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to enhance the safety and performance of light water reactors and other advanced reactor designs by gaining a fundamental understanding of fast gas reactor mechanisms and developing mechanistic models for UO2 and doped UO2 fuels under HBU and transient conditions. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Anisotropic Thermal Properties of SiC-SiC Cladding: Method Development & Characterization | University of Pittsburgh | $1,000,000 | We propose to develop a high-temperature nondestructive thermal conductivity (k) measurement system coupled with validated multiscale models to accurately determine the anisotropic thermal conductivity of SiC-SiC composite cladding tubes. The multiscale measurement and modeling results benefit both DOE ATF programs as well as providing a fundamental understanding of how the microstructure of the composite leads to its anisotropic properties. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Understanding the Performance of SiC-SiCf Composite Cladding Architectures with Cr Coating in Normal Operating and Accident Conditions in LWRs and Advanced Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The project will focus on investigating the impact of Cr-coating on the SiC-SiCf composite cladding of various architectures under normal operating and accident conditions in light water reactors and advanced reactors for the safe and economic deployment of SiC cladding. Cr-coating will provide protection from high-temperature corrosion and better hermeticity under accident conditions. The performance of the claddings will be evaluated through the corrosion test, reflood test, burst test, and non-destructive evaluation(NDE). | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Developing critical insights on the effects of Mo on _' precipitation and dislocation loop formation in FeCrAl alloys | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | This project aims at developing a mechanistic understanding on the effects of Mo on _' precipitation and dislocation loop formation in FeCrAl alloys in thermal and irradiation conditions and turns it into a set of design principles guiding further optimization, by integrating atomistic simulations, CALPHAD modeling, thermal aging, proton irradiation, and advanced characterization. The material discoveries will be generalized to other solutes other than Mo. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Inference of flow conditions from in-core detector measurements for accelerating SMR licensing | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Reactor modelling relies on the detailed description of reactor systems but often lacks the true as-built characteristics of a system. This proposal seeks to fill these geometrical data gaps using available detector data, predictive models and machine learning in order to provide better information to analysis tools and thus better prediction of future performance. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Non-Destructive Plutonium Assay in Pyroprocessing Bulk Materials with a 3D Boron-Coated-Straw Detector Array | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,100,000 | The objective of the proposed project is to develop and demonstrate a 3D boron-coated-straw detector array (3D-BCSDA) with high efficiency and spatial resolution. This detection system will be specifically designed to accurately assess the fissile mass in bulk nuclear material during pyroprocessing operations, thereby improving the precision and reliability of accountability measurements during separation. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Improving the computational efficiency and usability of dynamic PRA with reinforcement learning | University of Maryland, College Park | $1,064,400 | The overall objective of the proposed research is to improve the efficiency and usability of dynamic probabilistic risk assessment (PRA). Specifically, the first objective is to develop a new algorithm for dynamic PRA analysis that can significantly increase the computational efficiency. The second objective is to develop a question-answering system to streamline the process of risk-informed decision-making based on results obtained from the dynamic PRA analysis using the new algorithm. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Development of a Benchmark Model for the Near Real-Time Radionuclide Composition Measurement System using Microcalorimetry for Advanced Reactors | Virginia Commonwealth University | $1,100,000 | The primary goal of this proposed project is to develop high fidelity Monte Carlo radiation transport models of a microcalorimetry detector informed by fuel depletion models of a molten salt reactor and a pebble bed reactor to quantify the current and future capabilities of this detector technology to characterize and assay used fuel from these reactors in near real-time. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Development and Validation of a Dual-Purpose Instrument for On-line Monitoring of Molten Salt Composition and Thermal Behavior | Brigham Young University | $1,099,924 | We propose the development of an online monitoring instrument capable of quantifying heat transfer and salt composition for molten salt reactors (MSR). A dual electrochemistry/thermal conductivity probe (DETP) will be developed to measure the thermal properties and impurities within the salt simultaneously. The DETP will make use of a previously developed needle probe and electrodes for square-wave cyclic voltammetry measures of salt composition. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| In Situ Assessment of Molten Salt Transport into Nuclear Graphite Microstructures using Ultrasonic Sensors | Johns Hopkins University | $909,827 | This project focuses on the transport of molten salt into nuclear graphite along with the investigation of ultrasonic methods for sensing graphite material property changes, especially elastic modulus, associated with intrusion of molten salt into the graphite microstructure. Experimental studies coupled with physics-based simulations will be used to assess strategies for in situ sensing of salt intrusion in the reactor environment to enhance long-term viability of molten salt reactors. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| MONITORING CERAMIC FUEL FRACTURE VIA FIBER OPTIC ACOUSTIC EMISSION SENSORS | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $1,000,000 | In the proposed three-year program, the Center for Photonics Technology (CPT) at Virginia Tech will collaborate with Sentek Instrument (Sentek), Prysmian, and Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to develop and demonstrate a distributed acoustic emission (AE) sensing system for in-situ monitoring of ceramic fuel fracture. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| Concurrent Surrogate Model Development with Uncertainty Quantification in the MOOSE Framework Using Physics-Informed Gaussian-Process Machine Learning | University of Florida | $999,999 | The objective of this project is to develop a general capability for concurrent generation and use of physics-informed Gaussian process (GP)-based surrogate models to facilitate multiscale and multiphysics modeling. We will implement this new capability as part of the Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) so that every application based on the MOOSE framework will have access to it. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2024 |
| Unstructured Adaptive Mesh Algorithms for Monte Carlo Transport | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,098,000 | We propose to develop the fundamental methods and techniques for unstructured adaptive mesh refinement with Monte Carlo tallies. This work enables a transformative leap forward in speed, accuracy, and robustness to enhance the contribution of high-fidelity radiation transport to advanced simulation. Adaptive refinement is deployed on a challenging multiphysics simulation, cascading heat pipe failure, to study acceleration and stabilization properties. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2024 |
| Feasibility Study of Micro-Nuclear Reactor Thermal Output for Air Rotary Kilns in the High-Temperature Manufacturing of Portland Cement Clinker | Pennsylvania State University | $998,793 | This project aims to design and test a micro-nuclear reactor for high-temperature portland cement clinker production, a process responsible for 6%-8% of global CO2 emissions. Leveraging advanced reactors' heat output, the project explores TRISO-based nuclear microreactor core modifications and new working fluids for heat pipes. The research addresses uncertainties in micro-nuclear reactor deployment for clinker production and investigates high-efficiency heat exchanger designs. | Document | Non-Traditional and Non-electric Applications | FY2024 |
| Redox potential, ionic speciation, and separation and recovery challenges from molten salts containing actinides and fission products | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $999,999 | Establishing an efficient, safe, secure, and economical Molten-Salt Reactor (MSR) fuel cycle is imperative for MSR implementation. Molten salt fuel recycling technology requires predictive knowledge of the chemical and physical behavior of lanthanide and actinide ions with different oxidation states dissolved in solvent salts. A combination of off-gas and X-ray measurements with machine-learning simulations will be used to produce predictive modeling of separation and recovery conditions. | Document | Nuclear Fuel Recycle Technologies | FY2024 |
| Pre-Treatment and Bulk Separation of Used Fuels with Carbonate-Peroxide Solutions | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | To use carbonate-peroxide chemistries to develop a pre-processing method for used uranium-based fuels that enables the subsequent use and optimization of current solvent extraction reprocessing schemes. Using simple precipitation, this innovative method provides an initial, bulk separation of uranium from fission products and actinides. | Document | Nuclear Fuel Recycle Technologies | FY2024 |
| Optimization of Fueling Strategies and Material Surveillance through Real-time Pebble Tracking in Pebble Bed Reactors | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,100,000 | Flexible operation of the energy grid of the future introduces uncertainty in determining the optimal operating conditions of Pebble Bed Reactors. The proposed work will help to address these challenges and enable more economical operation by providing the tools to determine of optimal fuel reloading strategy through pebble identification and tracking. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Experimental Study and Computational Modeling of P-LOFC and D-LOFC Accidents in the Fast Modular Reactor Consisting of Silicon Carbide Composite Rods | University of Michigan | $1,100,000 | The primary objectives of this proposed research are to better understand NC flow phenomena and heat transfer under both D-LOFC and P-LOFC accidents in the FMR, produce experimental data in a well-scaled integral-effects test facility for the two accidents, and develop and validate predictive CFD models for NC flow phenomena in both accidents. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Sodium heat pipes; design and failure mode assessment for micro-reactor applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The present proposal aims to experimentally investigate the thermal-hydraulics performance of liquid sodium heat pipes applied to microreactors, with a focus on exploring different design parameters, effects of different parameters on operating performance and understanding the evolution and impact of different failure modes. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Interfacial Interactions between Graphite and Molten Fluoride Fuel Salt | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $1,000,000 | NaF-KF-UF4 fuel salt will be selected to study graphite-salt interactions and impact of the existence of fission products (FPs) and corrosion products on the interactions at different temperatures and pressures. Fundamental mechanisms of graphite-salt interaction and degradation will be understood. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Local resonance-based linear and nonlinear NDE techniques for repaired DSC wall structures | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | The proposed work plan will develop nondestructive examination (NDE) methods that develop and evaluate linear and nonlinear resonant ultrasound spectroscopy methods (such as NRUS, NIRAS, etc.) to cold spray (CS) repaired dry shielded canister (DSC) wall structures. With the support of our partners from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), we will perform technology development and validation on plain and cold spray-repaired DSC wall specimens. | Document | Spent Fuel, Waste Science & Technology and Integrated Waste Management System | FY2024 |
| Thermodynamic Models for Multivalent Actinide Solubility and Speciation as a Function of Temperature and Ionic Strength | University of Notre Dame | $1,000,000 | This proposed project will quantify the solubility and speciation of Np and Pu under temperatures, ionic strengths, and pH values that are relevant to the generic repository concept. The major deliverable will be full thermodynamic descriptions of the studied systems, which will lead to improved radionuclide transport models and support the development of a sound technical basis for the geologic disposal of spent nuclear fuel and other actinide-bearing wastes. | Document | Spent Fuel, Waste Science & Technology and Integrated Waste Management System | FY2024 |
| Advancing Fundamental Molten Salt Modeling using Ultrafast Spectroscopy | North Carolina State University | $600,000 | The overarching goal of the proposed research is to advance our fundamental understanding of molten salts by combining ultrafast spectroscopic experiments with high fidelity atomistic simulations. The proposed research will introduce a new experimental technique to the study of molten salts that will directly measure ion kinetics, specifically, terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS), which will further validate AIMD as a predictive modeling tool. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
| Hydrodynamics of Two-Phase Flow Under the Geometric Effects of Pipe Orientation and U-bends | Purdue University | $600,000 | Most two-phase flow analyses have been performed in straight vertical-upward pipes. However, nuclear reactor systems include piping with different geometric components, such as elbows or U-bends, as well as changes in flow orientations. The proposed work performs experiments in a scaled test facility existing at the institution's lab to investigate the effects of flow orientations and geometries relevant to nuclear reactor systems on the hydrodynamics of two-phase flow. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
| Interface-Resolved Experimental and Numerical Studies of Two-Phase Flow for Nuclear Engineering Applications | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $500,000 | The project aims at advancing the interface-resolved simulation capabilities for the two-phase flows found in various nuclear engineering applications. We will develop a comprehensive, high-resolution, interface-resolved database emphasizing bubble dynamics and bubble interaction mechanisms. The data will be used to validate the sub-grid models implemented in an interface-resolved simulation tool to improve simulation accuracy by developing physics-based coalescence models. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
FY 2017 Research and Development Awards
The Energy Department is awarding over $35.5 million through its Nuclear Energy University Programs (NEUP) to support 48 university-led nuclear energy research and development projects to develop innovative technologies and solutions. These projects will be led by 31 U.S. universities in 24 states.
A complete list of R&D projects with their associated abstracts is available below.
| Title | Institution | Estimated Funding* | Project Description | Abstract | Project Type | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fundamental Understanding of Ambient and High-Temperature Plasticity Phenomena in Structural Materials in Advanced Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Elastic/Inelastic Nuclear Data Development Project | Idaho State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Heterogeneous Recycling in Fast Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Thermodynamic Development of Corrosion Rate Modeling in Iron Phosphate Glasses | Missouri University of Science and Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Subspace-Based Hybrid Monte Carlo-Deterministic Algorithms for Reactor Physics Calculations | North Carolina State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Improvements to Nuclear Data and Its Uncertainties by Theoretical Modeling | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Sharp Interface Tracking in Rotating Microflows of Solvent Extraction | State University of New York at Stony Brook | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Bulk Nanostructured FCC Steels with Enhanced Radiation Tolerance | Texas A&M University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Fuel Performance Experiments and Modeling: Fission Gas Bubble Nucleation and Growth in Alloy Nuclear Fuels | Texas A&M University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| SiC Schottky Diode Detectors for Measurement of Actinide Concentrations from Alpha Activities in Molten Salt Electrolyte | The Ohio State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Computational Design of Advanced Nuclear Fuels | University of California, Davis | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Data Collection Methods For Validation of Advanced Multi-Resolution Fast Reactor Simulations | University of Idaho | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Simulations of the Thermodynamic and Diffusion Properties of Actinide Oxide Fuel Materials | University of Michigan | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Adsorptive Separation and Sequestration of Krypton, I and C14 on Diamond Nanoparticles | University of Missouri, Columbia | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Alternative Technetium Waste Forms | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Quantification of UV-Visible and Laser Spectroscopic Techniques for Materials Accountability and Process Control | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| High-Fidelity Space-Time Adaptive Multiphysics Simulations in Nuclear Engineering | University of Nevada, Reno | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Simulations of Failure via Three-Dimensional Cracking in Fuel Cladding for Advanced Nuclear Fuels | University of Texas, Dallas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Mesh-Enabled Monte Carlo Capability for Multi-Physics Reactor Analysis | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Ab Initio Enhanced Calphad Modeling of Actinide Rich Nuclear Fuels | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Diffusion Barrier Coatings and Deposition Technologies for Mitigating Fuel Cladding Chemical Interactions (FCCI) | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Thermal Properties of LiCl-KCl Molten Salt for Nuclear Waste Separation | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Neutron Damage and MAX Phase Ternary Compounds | Drexel University | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Atomistic Calculations of the Effect of Minor Actinides on Thermodynamic and Kinetic Properties of UO2+x | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Maximum Fuel Utilization in Fast Reactors without Chemical Reprocessing | University of California, Berkeley | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Developing a High Thermal Conductivity Fuel with Silicon Carbide Additives | University of Florida | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Fabrication of Tungsten-Rhenium Cladding Materials via Spark Plasma Sintering for Ultra High Temperature Reactor Applications | University of Idaho | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Ionic Liquid and Supercritical Fluid Hyphenated Techniques for Dissolution and Separation of Lanthanides, Actinides, and Fission Products | University of Idaho | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Improved Fission Neutron Data Base for Active Interrogation of Actinides | University of Michigan | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Utilization of Methacrylates and Polymer Matrices for the Synthesis of Ion Specific Resins | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Improved LWR Cladding Performance by EPD Surface Modification Technique | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Models of LWR Pressure Vessel Embrittlement for Low Flux-High Fluence Conditions | University of California, Santa Barbara | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) | FY2009 | ||
| Irradiation Creep in Graphite | Boise State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Modeling the Stress Strain Relationships and Predicting Failure Probabilities For Graphite Core Components | Cleveland State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| TRISO-Coated Fuel Durability Under Extreme Conditions | Colorado School of Mines | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| An Innovative and Advanced Coupled Neutron Transport and Thermal Hydraulic Method (Tool) for the Design, Analysis and Optimization of VHTR/NGNP Prismatic Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Removal of 14C from Irradiated Graphite for Graphite Recycle and Waste Volume Reduction | Idaho State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Millimeter-Wave Thermal Analysis Development and Application to Gen IV Reactor Materials | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Accurate Development of Thermal Neutron Scattering Cross Section Libraries | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Understanding Creep Mechanisms in Graphite with Experiments, Multiscale Simulations, and Modeling | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Verification & Validation of High-Order Short-Characteristics-Based Deterministic Transport Methodology on Unstructured Grids | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Microscale Heat Conduction Models and Doppler Feedback | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Optimizing Neutron Thermal Scattering Effects in Very High Temperature Reactors | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Multiaxial Creep-Fatigue and CreepRatcheting Failures of Grade 91 and Haynes 230 Alloys Toward Addressing Design Issues of Gen IV Nuclear Power Plants | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Investigation of Countercurrent Helium-air Flows in Air-ingress Accidents for VHTRs | Ohio State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Testing of Performance of Optical Fibers Under Irradiation in Intense Radiation Fields, When Subjected to Very High Temperatures | Ohio State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| A Distributed Fiber Optic Sensor Network for Online 3-D Temperature and Neutron Fluence Mapping in a VHTR Environment | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Investigation on the Core Bypass Flow in a Very High Temperature Reactor | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| CFD Model Development and Validation for High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor Cavity Cooling System (RCCS) Applications | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Study of Air ingress across the duct during the accident conditions | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Verification of the CENTRM Module for Adaptation of the SCALE Code to NGNP Prismatic and PBR Core Designs | University of Arizona | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Integral and Separate Effects Tests for Thermal Hydraulics Code Validation for Liquid-Salt Cooled Nuclear Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Mechanisms Governing the Creep Behavior of High Temperature Alloys for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems | University of Cincinnati | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| ALD Produced B2O3, Al2O3 and TiO2 Coatings on Gd2O3 Burnable Poison Nanoparticles | University of Colorado, Boulder | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Experimental Study and Computational Simulations of Key Pebble Bed Thermomechanics Issues for Design and Safety | University of Idaho | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Prediction and Monitoring Systems of Creep-Fracture Behavior of 9Cr-1Mo Steels for Reactor Pressure Vessels | University of Idaho | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Understanding Fundamental Material Degradation Processes in High Temperature Aggressive Chemomechanical Environments | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Multi-Scale Multi-physics Methods Development for the Calculation of Hot-Spots in the NGNP | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Corrosion and Creep of Candidate Alloys in High Temperature Helium and Steam Environments for the NGNP | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Creation of a Full-Core HTR Benchmark with the Fort St. Vrain Initial Core and Validation of the DHF Method with Helios for NGNP Configurations | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Fission Product Sorptivity in Graphite | University of Missouri, Columbia | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Identifying and Understanding Environment-Induced Crack Propagation Behavior in Ni-Based Superalloy INCONEL 617 | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Graphite Oxidation Simulation in HTR Accident Conditions | University of New Mexico | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Non Destructive Thermal Analysis and In Situ Investigation of Creep Mechanism of Graphite and Ceramic Composites using Phase-sensitive THz Imaging & Nonlinear Resonant Ultrasonic Spectroscopy | University of Rochester | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Tritium Sequestration in Gen IV NGNP Gas Stream via Proton Conducting Ceramic Pumps | University of South Carolina | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Materials, Turbomachinery and Heat Exchangers for Supercritical CO2 Systems | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Experimental Studies of NGNP Reactor Cavity Cooling System with Water | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Assessment of Embrittlement of VHTR Structural Alloys in Impure Helium Environments | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Modeling Fission Product Sorption in Graphite Structures | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Liquid Salt Heat Exchanger Technology for VHTR Based Applications | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Effect of Post-Weld Heat Treatment on Creep Rupture Properties of Grade 91 Steel Heavy Section Welds | Utah State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Alpha Radiolysis of Nuclear Solvent Extraction Ligands used for An(III) and Ln(III) Separations | California State University, Long Beach | $1,390,252 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Predictive Maturity of Multi-Scale Simulation Models for Fuel Performance | Clemson University | $614,690 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Freeze-casting as a Novel Manufacturing Process for Fast Reactor Fuels | Drexel University | $1,149,327 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Fuel Performance Experiments on the Atomistic Level, Studying Fuel Through Engineered Single Crystal UO2 | Idaho State University | $650,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Development of A Self Biased High Efficiency Solid-State Neutron Detector for MPACT Applications | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $810,141 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Development of a Innovative High Thermal Conductivity UO 2 Ceramic Composites Fuel Pellets with Carbon Nano-Tubes Using Spark Plasma Sintering | University of Florida | $894,042 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Exploration and Modeling of Structural Changes in Waste Glass under Corrosion | Pennsylvania State University | $1,377,444 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Evaluation of materials for interim storage of spent fuel for more than 100 years | University of Michigan | $931,603 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Implementation of On-the-Fly Doppler Broadening in MCNP5 for Multiphysics Simulation of Nuclear Reactors | University of Michigan | $406,712 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Methods and tools to allow molecular flow simulations to be coupled to higher level continuum descriptions of flows in porous/fractured media and aerosol/dust dynamics | University of Missouri-Columbi | $541,286 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Characterization and Modeling of Materials for Kr-Xe Separations | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $989,800 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Modeling Solute Thermokinetics in LiCl-KCl Molten Salt for Nuclear Waste Separation | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $616,073 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Advanced Aqueous Separation Systems for Actinide Partitioning: Develop Fundamental Understanding of An(III)/Ln(III) Separation | Washington State University | $1,451,784 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Consistent Multigroup Theory Enabling Accurate Coarse-Group Simulation of GenIV Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,046,277 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Studies of Deteriorated Heat Transfer in Prismatic Cores Stemming from Irradiation-Induced Geometry Distortion | Idaho State University | $1,287,921 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Carbide Coatings for Nickel Alloys, Graphite, and Carbon/Carbon Composites to be Used in Fluoride Salt Valves | Johns Hopkins University | $1,183,239 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Design, Testing, and Modeling of the Direct Reactor Auxiliary Cooling System for AHTRs | Ohio State University | $1,366,627 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Monitoring microstructural evolution of Alloy 617 with nonlinear acoustics for remaining useful life prediction; multiaxial creep-fatigue and creep-ratcheting | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development and Validation of Multidimensional Models of Supercritical CO 2 Energy Conversion Systems for Nuclear Power Reactors | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $475,005 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Microstructure and Property Evolution in Advanced Cladding and Duct Materials Under Long-Term and Elevated Temperature Irradiation: Modeling and Experimental Investigation | University of California-Berkeley | $1,320,667 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of Barrier Layers for the Protection of Candidate Alloys in the VHTR | University of California-Santa Barbara | $995,232 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Investigation of a Novel NDE Method for Monitoring Thermo-Mechanical Damage and Microstructure Evolution in Ferritic-Martensitic Steels for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems | University of Cincinnati | $833,109 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Fission Product Transport in TRISO Particle Layers under Operating and Off-Normal Conditions | University of Michigan | $966,581 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Microstructure and Property Evolution in Advanced Cladding and Duct Materials Under Long-Term Irradiation at Elevated Temperature: Critical Experiments | University of Michigan | $1,181,379 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Three-dimensional NDE of VHTR Core Components via Simulation-based Testing | University of Minnesota | $1,366,163 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Failure Predictions for VHTR Core Components using a Probabilistic Continuum Damage Mechanics Model | University of Minnesota | $854,542 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of a Scanning Microscale Fast Neutron Irradiation Platform for Examining the Correlation Between Local Neutron Damage and Graphite Microstructure | University of Missouri-Columbia | $703,064 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of Thermal Transient Flow Rate Sensors for High Temperature, Irradiation, Corrosive Environment | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $451,269 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Novel Methods of Tritium Sequestration: High Temperature Gettering and Separation Membrane Materials Discovery for Nuclear Energy Systems | University of South Carolina | $1,366,626 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Heat Transfer Salts for Nuclear Reactor Systems - Chemistry Control, Corrosion Mitigation, and Modeling | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,352,040 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Pulsed Magnetic Welding for Advanced Core and Cladding Steels | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $525,206 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Corrosion in Supercritical Carbon Dioxide: Materials, Environmental Purity, Surface Treatments, and Flow Issues | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $651,447 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Multiscale Concrete Modeling for Aging Degradation | Mississippi State University | $345,941 | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability | FY2010 | |
| Development of an advanced computational fluid dynamics technology for the next-generation nuclear reactor system analysis and safety margin characterization code | North Carolina State University | $418,199 | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability | FY2010 | |
| Precursor Derived Nanostructured Si-C-X Materials for Nuclear Applications | University of Washington | $899,518 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Development and Testing of an Open-Loop Oscillator for Small Reactivity Worth Samples | Idaho State University | $597,252 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Understanding the Irradiation Behavior of Zirconium Carbide | Pennsylvania State University | $870,613 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Modeling investigation of the stability and irradiation-induced evolution of nanoscale precipitates in advanced structural materials | University of Tennessee-Knoxville | $380,653 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Investigation of Laser Shock Peening for Enhancing Fatigue and Stress Corrosion Cracking Resistance of Nuclear Energy Materials | University of Cincinnati | $1,242,019 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Irradiation Accelerated Corrosion of Reactor Core Materials | University of Michigan | $798,943 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Study of Interfacial Interactions using Thin Film Surface Modification: Radiation and Oxidation Effects in Materials | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $538,032 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Novel Engineered Refractory Materials for Advanced Reactor Applications | North Carolina State University | $1,129,304 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Quantification of Cation Sorption to Engineered Barrier Materials Under Extreme Conditions | Clemson University | $1,171,380 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| In-Pile Instrumentation Multi-Parameter System Utilizing Photonic Fibers and Nanovision | Idaho State University | $1,199,990 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Development of Plasmonically Cloaked Nanoparticles | Idaho State University | $800,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Fission Product Transmutation in Mixed Radiation Fields | Idaho State University | $800,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Life Prediction of Spent Fuel Storage Canister Material | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $899,826 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Active Interrogation using Photofission Technique for Nuclear Materials Control and Accountability | Oregon State University | $900,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Anisotropic Azimuthal Power and Temperature Distribution on Fuel Rod: Impact of Hydride Distribution | Pennsylvania State University | $631,956 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Sorption Modeling and Verification for Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Microemulsions and Aggregation Formation in Extraction Processes for Used Nuclear Fuel: Thermodynamics and Structural Studies | University of California, Irvine | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Optimized Processing Fabrication Paths for Larger Heats of Nanostructured Ferritic Alloys | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Basic Physics Data: Measurement of Neutron Multiplicity from Induced Fission | University of Michigan | $973,364 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Radionuclide Incorporation and Long Term Performance of Apatite Waste Forms | University of Michigan | $862,500 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Actinide Foil Production for MPACT Research | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $156,897 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Enriched Boron-Doped Amorphous Selenium Based Position-Sensitive Solid-State Thermal Neutron Detector for MPACT Applications | University of South Carolina | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Development of Advanced High Uranium Density Fuels for Light Water Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Developing the User Experience for a Next Generation Nuclear Fuel Cycle Simulator | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,200,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Preparation and Development of Polymer-Supported Extractants | City College of New York, Hunter | $363,716 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| One-Dimensional Nanostructures for Neutron Detection | North Carolina State University | $455,629 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Feasibility and Safety Assessment for Advanced Reactor Concepts Using Vented Fuel | Oregon State University | $600,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| High Temperature Transducers for Online Monitoring of Microstructure Evolution | Pennsylvania State University | $455,628 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Laser-Arc Hybrid Welding of Thick Section Ni-base Alloys- Advanced Modeling and Experiments | Pennsylvania State University | $536,117 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Correlates of Sensitive Technologies | Texas A&M University | $509,467 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Improved Safety Margin Characterization of Risk from Loss of Offsite Power | Texas A&M University | $600,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| A High Temperature-Tolerant and Radiation-Resistant In-Core Neutron Sensor for Advanced Reactors | The Ohio State University | $455,629 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Pathway Aggregation in the Risk Assessment of Proliferation Resistance and Physical Protection (PR&PP) of Nuclear Energy Systems | The Ohio State University | $534,471 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Preparation of High Purity, High Molecular-Weight Chitin from Ionic Liquids for Use as an Adsorbate for the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Alabama | $338,260 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Selectivity in Ligand Binding to Uranyl Compounds: A Synthetic, Structural, Thermodynamic and Computational Study | University of California-Berkeley | $500,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Seismic Isolation Systems Using Periodic Materials | University of Houston | $538,154 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium from Seawater | University of Idaho | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Austenitic ODS Strengthened Alloys for Very High Temperature Applications | University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign | $538,154 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Enhancement of the Extraction of the Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Transient Safety Analysis of Fast Spectrum TRU Burning LWR with Internal Blankets | University of Michigan | $599,475 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Novel Sorbents for Uranium Extraction from Seawater | University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Radiation Behavior of High-Entropy Alloys for Advanced Reactors | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $538,159 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Rapid Computer Aided Ligand Design and Screening of Precious Metal Extractants from TRUEX Raffinate with Experimental Validation | Washington State University | $500,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of an Efficient Meso-Scale Multi-Phase Flow Solver in Nuclear Applications | City College of New York | $505,858 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Multiscale Modeling and Uncertainty Quantification for Nuclear Fuel Performance | Colorado State University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Fundamental Studies of the Role of Grain Boundaries on Uniform Corrosion of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Materials | Drexel University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Phenomena-based Uncertainty Quantification in Predictive Coupled-Physics Reactor Simulations | Texas A&M University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Characterization of Modeling of Grain Boundary Chemistry Evolution in Ferritic Steels Under Irradiation | University of Michigan | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Development of Multiscale Materials Modeling Techniques and Coarse-Graining Strategies for Predicting Materials Degradation in Extreme Irradiation Environments | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $750,000 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Diffusion, Thermal Properties and chemical Compatibilities of Select MAX Phases with Materials for Advanced Nuclear Systems | Drexel University | $535,927 | Document | Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) | FY2011 | |
| A New Light Weight Structural Material for Nuclear Structures | North Carolina State University | $399,490 | Document | Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) | FY2011 | |
| Experimental Investigation of Convection and Heat Transfer in the Reactor Core for a VHTR | City College of New York | $1,118,856 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Graphite Microstructural Characterization Using Time-Domain and Correlation-Based Ultrasonics | Johns Hopkins University | $1,199,997 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Methodology Development for Passive Component Reliability Modeling in a Multi-Physics Simulation Environment | The Ohio State University | $533,457 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Pebble Fuel Handling and Reactivity Control for Salt-Cooled High Temperature Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $612,721 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Self-Sustaining Thorium Boiling Water Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $1,145,932 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| High Fluency Low Flux Embrittlement Models of LWR Reactor Pressure Vessel Embrittlement and a Supporting Database from the UCSB ATR-2 Irradiation Experiment | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,199,607 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| A Research Program for Fission Product/Dust Transport in HTGR's | University of Missouri-Columbia | $1,157,367 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Development and Validation of a Lifecycle-based Prognostics Architecture with Test Bed Validation | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $846,315 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| In-situ Condition Monitoring of Components in Small Modular Reactors Using Process and Electrical Signature Analysis | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $650,000 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Technical Development for S-CO2 Advanced Energy Conversion | University of Wisconsin | $815,000 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Ag Transport Through Non-Irradiated and Irradiated SiC | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,055,456 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Critical Heat Flux Phenomena at High Pressure and Low Mass Fluxes: Tests and Models | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,199,781 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Modeling and Test Validation of a Reactor Cavity Cooling System with Air | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,199,988 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Transient Mixed Convection Validation for NGNP | Utah State University | $635,860 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Alternative High-Performance Ceramic Waste Forms | Alfred University | $840,000 | This project aims to advance fundamental understanding of the kinetics of structural evolution of crystalline ceramic waste forms. The structure/property relationships will be identified and will reveal new formulations, improved processing routes, and strategies for improved performance or ceramic waste forms. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Surface Layer Bulk Glass Interface Evolution with Aqueous Corrosion | Alfred University | $880,000 | This project will investigate the links between the morphology, structure and chemistry of surface layer-bulk glass interface and the long-term corrosion-reaction kinetics using in-situ and ex-situ experiments. The understanding will result in improved models for long-term predictive behavior of high-level-waste (HLW) glasses under repository conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Optimization of Deep Borehole Systems for HLW Disposal | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $850,000 | Researchers aim to carry out a comprehensive evaluation of the deep borehole option for disposal of used nuclear fuel and high livel waste. The models developed will predict potential movement of water through natural and engineered barriers and release of radionuclides to the biosphere which will aide in site selection. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Scholarship for Nuclear Communications and Methods for Evaluation of Nuclear Project Acceptability | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will work to develop a model to characterize the factors affecting social acceptance of nuclear projects with potential stakeholders. The resultant model will strengthen the ability to design and implement large projects more efficiently, leading to higher rates of success of future nuclear projects. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Accurate Holdup Calculations with Predictive Modeling and Data Integration | North Carolina State University | $875,000 | Researchers will develop and use state-of-the-art radiation transport codes to account accurately for the fissile material in a nuclear materials processing facility. An accurate estimation of the materials will allow for ensured radiological safety, security, waste management and efficient plant operation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Testing of Sapphire Optical Fiber and Sensors in Intense Radiation Fields, when Subjected to Very High Temperatures | The Ohio State University | $885,000 | The researchers on this project will investigate the performance of sapphire optical fibers and sensors in reactor environments. The project, if successful, will result in improved instrumentation to understand the behavior and predict performance of nuclear fuel systems at the microstructural level. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Concrete Materials with Ultra-High Damage Resistance and Self-Sensing Capacity for Extended Nuclear Fuel Storage Systems | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | Researchers aim to design a new class of multifunctional concrete materials. This project, if successful, will result in a novel multifunctional concrete material that possesses inherent degradation monitoring capability and is suitable for an extended storage system for the used nuclear fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Probabilistic Multi-Hazard Assessment of Dry Cask Structures | University of Houston | $865,000 | This project aims to investigate the performance of dry cask storage systems under multiple hazard systems (earthquake, tornados, combined with aging effects) using a probabilistic multi-hazard framework. This framework will be validated based on experimental research and will provide improved models for safety and reliability of spent nuclear fuels during storage and transportation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Electrochemical Corrosion Studies for Modeling Metallic Waste Form Release Rates | University of Nevada- Las Vegas | $790,000 | This project aims to use advanced electrochemical methods to investigate the corrosion related degradation of metal alloys used for housing fission products. The data obtained from this study will allow for the prediction of the long-term behavior of the metallic host phase materials over geological time-scales. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Development and Experimental Benchmark of Simulations to Predict Used Nuclear Fuel Cladding Temperatures during Drying and Transfer Operations | University of Nevada- Reno | $745,000 | Researchers will conduct experiments to investigate and develop advanced computational models of heat transfer in post-pool-storage drying operations. This project, if successful, will result in tools that can be used to design efficient drying processes to as to ensure suitability for dry-cask systems for long-term storage and transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Seismic Performance of Dry Casks Storage for Long-Term Exposure | University of Utah | $873,319 | Researchers will evaluate the mechanical performance of dry-cask storage under seismic loading for mid-term operational periods. Simulations will include scenarios for freestanding, anchored, and vaulted casks. The experimental tests will also evaluate the dynamic seismic response of freestanding and anchored dry-cask storage prototypes, providing recommendations for optimal Interim Spent Fuel Storage Installations (ISFSIs) design. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Coupling of Nuclear Waste Form Corrosion and Radionuclide Transport in Presence of Relevant Repository Sediments | Washington State University | $885,000 | Researchers will conduct experiments to understand the mechanisms responsible for the corrosion of nuclear waste forms in realistic chemical environments. The data generated from these experiments will enable increased reliability of the models used to predict the waste form performance in repository environments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| ABR for TRU Transmutation with Breed & Burn Thorium Blanket for Improved Economics and Resource Utilization | University of California- Berkeley | $450,000 | The research team will use detailed neutronic analysis for a new Advanced Burner Reactor concept with low conversion ratio. The concept will use a new core shape to improve the utilization of neutrons to perform breed and burn. | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2012 |
| Atomic-Scale to Meso-Scale Simulation Studies of Thermal Ageing and Irradiation Effects in Fe-Cr Alloys | Boston University | $874,997 | Researchers will develop predictive, multi-scale simulation tools for iron-chromium alloys, which are expected to be key components of advanced steels envisioned as fuel cladding and structural components for Generation IV reactors. Such modeling is necessary to avoid resource intensive and costly thermal and neutron irradiation experiments to obtain required performance data. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Validation Data and Model Development for Fuel Assembly Response to Seismic Loads | George Washington University | $862,435 | Researchers will conduct experiments that will provide comprehensive data characterizing the dynamics of the fluid and the structure in Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR) fuel assemblies under seismic loads (earthquakes and loss of coolant accidents). Completion of their project will greatly benefit the safety of existing and future nuclear reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Uncertainty Quantification and Management for Multiscale Nuclear Materials Modeling | Georgia Institute of Technology | $743,444 | Researchers will address the question of uncertainty propogation and error estimates associated with model prediction of material behavior under irradiation. Their work will facilitate a better understanding of the connection of various unit processes to collective responses in a multiscale model chain enabling the development of high strength and high ductility materials. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Nonlinear Ultrasonic Techniques to Monitor Radiation Damage in RPV and Internal Components | Georgia Institute of Technology | $877,000 | Researchers will explore new nondestructive materials evaluation and monitoring techniques utilizing nonlinear ultrasonic measurements . This technique will allow researchers to assess remaining useful life of select reactor components. Breakthroughs in this area will lead to the ability to characterize radiation damage in reactor pressure vessels and other components-leading to a clearer definition of reactor safety margins. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Intergral Reactor Containment Condensation Model and Experimental Validation | Oregon State University | $871,119 | Researchers will conduct experiments to enhance the safety and efficiency of small modular reactors (SMRs). This project will assess the impact of high-pressure steam condensation on steel containment vessels to be used for SMR deigns. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Irradiation Performance of Fe-Cr Base Alloys | University of Illinois- Urbana Champaign | $876,332 | _Researchers will perform post-radiation analysis and develop tools for future development and application of the Fe-Cr class of alloys. The results of this research will lead to better modeling of performance and development of an alloy designated as the primary choice for reactor fuel cladding and structural applications in advanced systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Experimentally Validated Numerical Models for Effects of Non-Isothermal Turbulent Mixing on Wall Stresses in High Temperature Reactors | University of Pittsburgh | $876,422 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive experimentally validated computational framework for the turbulent mixing in the lower plenum of a very high temperature reactor (VHTR). Through CFD modeling and experimental validation, the results from this project will lay the groundwork for future stress analysis, failure and fatigue studies, and uncertainty quantification for the VHTR system. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Mechanical Behavior of UO2 at Sub-grain Length Scales: Quantification of Elastic, Plastic and Creep Properties via Microscale Testing | Arizona State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop techniques to measure properties at sub-grain scales using depleted Uranium Oxide samples. The project will provide a framework to measure sub-grain scale mechanical properties, as well as provide experimental data to improve the understanding of advanced oxide fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| The Impacts of Pore-Scale Physical and Chemical Heterogeneities on the Transport of Radionuclide-Carrying Colloids | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will identify the dominant transport mechanisms to develop models that predict radionuclide distribution in porous materials. Experimental and computational models will be created that couple pore-scale geometric and interfacial structures. Simulators such as these are a necessary step towards fully predictive models for field-scale applications in the future. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Polymer-Supported Aminophosphinates as Selective Extractants | Hunter College, CUNY | $399,999 | Researchers will prepare a polymer-supported extractant for the recovery of uranium from seawater. The project will focus on primary amines that could provide a 3-fold increase in uranium capture capacity than current methods. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| In-pile Thermal Conductivity Characterization with Single-laser Heating/Time Resolved Raman | Iowa State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a time-resolved Raman-based thermal conductivity measurement system to improve remote in-pile thermal conductivity measurement. These measurements will provide new insights into the behavior of materials exposed to extreme radiation and temperature environments. Understanding the behavior of materials at the microstructural level will support optimized fuel designs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Organic Speciation and Interactions in ALSEP - One Step Partitioning Process of Minor Actinides, Lanthanides, and Fission Products | Oregon State University | $600,000 | Researchers will investigate the Actinide-Lanthanide Separation (ALSEP) process organic phase prior to aqueous phase separation and after aqueous separation phases of bare and metal-loaded acids. Quantifying these effects can be used to determine how an engineering scale process will perform and generate an accurate chemical model for the system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Glass Composition and Solution Speciation Effects on Stage III Dissolution | Pennsylvania State University | $700,000 | Researchers will study the chemical and structural triggers of long-term vitrified nuclear waste form behavior. They will study a range of waste glass compositions in corrosive environments. The study will improve understanding of the long-term residual rate and may provide new options for environmental control of glass dissolution rates. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Correlating Thermal, Mechanical, and Electrical Coupling Based Multiphysics Behavior of Nuclear Materials Through In-Situ Measurements | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will use in-situ experimental techniques to monitor the influence of extreme conditions on fuel cladding. The project will establish an in-situ experimental setup that can predict change in thermal properties and their correlation with mechanical properties and correlate such changes to changes in microstructural and chemical features. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Creation of a Geant4 Muon Tomography Package for Imaging of Nuclear Fuel in Dry Cask Storage | Purdue University | $440,000 | Researchers will develop a simulation and analysis package to aid in the non-destructive assessment of sealed used nuclear fuel dry casks using cosmic ray muons. Cosmic ray muon tomography allows for non-destructive assessment that can independently verify and identify weapons grade material sealed within dense dry casks. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Fuel Cycle Data Packages for Two-stage Fast Reactor Fuel Cycle Options for Optimum Resource Utilization and Waste Management | Purdue University | $400,000 | Researchers will evaluate the two different two-stage fast reactor fuel cycle options that will offer efficient use of uranium resources and the ability to burn actinides and long-live fission products. Evaluation of these fast fuel cycle options will serve as a useful complement to the options currently being considered in the Fuel Cycle Options Campaign. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Mixed Metal Phosphonate-Phosphate Resins for Separation of Lanthanides from Actinides | Texas A&M University | $650,000 | Researchers will use ion exchangers to cleanly separate lanthanides and curium from reusable actinides. The study will assist in the development of an inexpensive, simple way in which to separate lanthanides from actinides found in used nuclear fuel rods and to recover a large portion of the usable fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Safeguards in Pyroprocessing: an Integrated Model Development and Measurement Data Analysis | The Ohio State University | $626,151 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive and effective safeguards approach for a pyroprocessing facility to support safeguards for future fuel cycles in the United States. The new approach and design will focus directly on the special nuclear materials in the electrorefiner where actinides are separated from fission products through electrochemical process. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Using Ionic Liquids for the Development of Renewable Biopolymer-Based Adsorbents for the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater and Testing Under Marine Conditions | University of Alabama | $400,000 | Researchers will explore the fundamental engineering parameters for a renewable high-performance adsorbent for the extraction of uranium from sweater based on a recently proven ionic liquid (IL)-chitin platform. The project will use the platform to develop a versatile, modifiable adsorbent and characterize its performance and degradation in marine conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Developing Ultra-Small Scale Mechanical Testing Methods and Microstructural Investigation Procedures for Irradiated Materials. | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop new small-scale mechanical testing techniques to allow for the estimation or direct measurement of bulk properties. The combined experiments and modeling will significantly enhance the statistics and information that can be obtained on small radioactive archived samples, as well as new ion beam irradiated specimens. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Improved Delayed-Neutron Spectroscopy Using Trapped Ions | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will develop innovative spectroscopy techniques to measure the decay of fission fragments. The resulting data from these new techniques will be used to better understand reactor kinetics under accident conditions and failure scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Thermally and Chemically Responsive Nanoporous Materials for Efficient Capture of Fission Product Gases | University of California, Davis | $750,000 | Researchers will create new nanoporous materials that will be highly effective at capturing fission product gases. These materials would be relevant to both reactor fuels applications and reprocessing operations. Tests will be performed in carbon based and nitride based nanostructures, with the most promising materials from the modeling perspective undergoing further testing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Multiphase Nanocrystalline Ceramic Concept for Nuclear Fuel | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | Researchers will study the use of nanoparticles and nanostructured ceramics to create new materials that can extend the service life and increase efficiency for nuclear fuel. Multiphase nanocrystalline ceramics will be used to design simulated nuclear fuel that can provide added plasticity, better radiation tolerance and improved thermal conductivity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Novel Porous Sorbents for Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Chicago | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a highly porous sorbent for the extraction of uranium from seawater. Previous research has established sorbent performance. This project will use past foundational studies to design and investigate a new nanocomposites that will be processed into tacks or braids for field tests in seawater tests. The technology may also be used for other metals. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Microwave Readout Techniques for Very Large Arrays of Nuclear Sensors | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,937 | Researchers will develop a powerful readout technique based on microwave transmission and reflection. The technique will enable very large arrays of diverse sensor types for nuclear materials quantification and tracking. It will provide more accurate data on material composition and quantity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| BiI3 Gamma-Ray Spectrometers for Reliable Room-Temperature Nuclear Materials Safeguarding | University of Florida | $799,999 | Researchers will develop gamma-ray spectrometers based on BiI3 single crystals for MPACT applications such as burnup validation quantification, improved assay of plutonium, determination of uranium enrichment and overall monitoring spent fuel within the fuel cycle. The project will improve energy resolution, efficiency and environmental performance with this new gamma-ray detector. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Innovative Coating of Nanostructured Vanadium Carbide on the F/M Cladding Tube Inner Surface for Mitigating the Fuel Cladding Chemical Interactions | University of Florida | $760,276 | Researchers will develop barrier coatings on the inner surface of fuel cladding tubes to improve performance of materials at elevated temperatures and high neutron exposures in fast reactors. The project will develop and test a low temperature coating process of nanostructured vanadium carbide that will provide a benchmark for use in future studies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Doubling the Life of Concrete Structures | University of Idaho | $800,000 | Researchers will use nanoscale techniques to develop methods for doubling the service life of concrete structures. They will study the effect of temperature load and temperature cycling (freezing and thawing) on the durability of concrete with nanoscale viscosity modifiers. The project will benefit from non-destructive evaluation of concrete performance through electrochemical techniques. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Off-Gas Treatment: Evaluation of Nano-structured Sorbents for Selective Removal of Contaminants | University of Idaho | $785,910 | Researchers will evaluate nanostructured sorbent materials for their effectiveness in removing and immobilizing radionuclides for the off-gas treatment from used nuclear fuel recycling operations. The project aims at achieving near-zero emissions of radionuclides by capturing them from the off-gas of recycling operations, allowing for the development of advanced fuel cycles. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium and Transition Metals from Amidoxime-Based Sorbents | University of Idaho | $399,864 | Researchers will develop a new two-step elution process to achieve total recovery of uranium and effective recycling of the sorbent. The extraction process would selectively remove uranium from the sorbent with little or no damage. The process would then remove transition metals and regenerate the sorbent for repeated use, making uranium extraction from seawater economically viable. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Performance of a Steel/Oxide Composite Waste Form for Combined Waste Streams from Advanced Electrochemical Processes over Geologic Time Scales | University of Illinois at Chicago | $700,000 | Researchers will develop and validate a mechanistically-based corrosion model for cermet-type waste forms, creating a testing protocol and modeling approach for predicting long-term performance. The study will apply novel electrochemical testing and modeling methods to the behavior of metal/oxide phase boundaries to evaluate waste form performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Enhancement of the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland, College Park | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and optimize novel adsorbents for uranium recovery from seawater. The team will use radiation-induced grafting of organic phosphates onto polymers. The experiments will use ocean water, with mechanistic analysis, to provide a solid basis for large-scale demonstration of the performance of the new adsorbents in ocean environments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Improving the Understanding of the Coupled Thermal-Mechanical-Hydrologic Behavior of Consolidating Granular Salt | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will increase the understanding of granular salt seal materials for shafts, drifts and boreholes. By coupling thermal, mechanical and hydrological responses, the study will result in greater confidence in granular salt consolidation as a principal strategy for closure and isolation of long-term waste repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Fission Fragment Yield Data in Support of Advanced Reactor Technology | University of New Mexico | $399,816 | Researchers will produce a highly accurate data set for thermal fission. These precision data are necessary for high-accuracy simulations of nuclear criticality, transmutation rates, radiation effects and heating as well as for nuclear fuel, material accounting and identification needs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Molecular dynamics-based simulations of bulk/interfacial structures and diffusion behaviors in nuclear waste glasses | University of North Texas | $700,000 | Researchers will generate accurate atomic structural models for use in Monte Carlo simulations of the dissolution of nuclear waste glasses. Large-scale molecular dynamics-based computer simulations will be used to investigate self-diffusion behaviors, interfacial structure, and other structures formed during dissolution of these glasses. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| U3Si2 Fabrication and Testing for Implementation into the BISON Fuel Performance Code | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will fabricate, test and model a high uranium density, advanced nuclear fuel that operates at a much lower temperature and stores less energy. The work will deliver key research data on creep and grain growth, improving economics, through possible power uprates, and advancing accident tolerant fuels research. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Structural Health Monitoring of Nuclear Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of South Carolina | $738,618 | Researchers will develop a nuclear structural health monitoring system based on a sensing technology that monitors material degradation and aging for dry cask storage systems. The low-cost, low-profile sensors will perform on-demand monitoring of the structural integrity of individual components as well as the entire system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| ORIGEN-based Nuclear Fuel Depletion Module for Fuel Cycle Assessment | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $755,181 | Researchers will develop a flexible reactor analysis module for the CYCLUS fuel cycle simulator based on established tools for reactor fuel depletion and decay. They will use ORIGEN, a mature and experimentally validated code, affording greater flexibility and allowing for accurate evaluations of impacts of both present and future fuel cycle options. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Cost and System Analysis of Innovative Fuel Resources Concepts | University of Texas at Austin | $295,960 | This project will develop and test braided polymer fiber adsorbents that surpass the sorption capacity, selectivity and durability of the best existing technology to recover uranium from seawater. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Risk Assessment of Structural Integrity of Transportation Casks | University of Utah | $789,296 | Researchers will assess the loss of structural integrity of transportation casks and fuel cladding after extended storage. This risk assessment will conduct experimental tests and simulations to evaluate the structural performance of fuel, fuel assemblies and cask components when subjected to vibration and impact loads during transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Market-Based and System-Wide Fuel Cycle Optimization | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $612,731 | Researchers will create market and economic optimizers to improve calculations for the CYCLUS fuel cycle simulator. The team will leverage existing optimization software frameworks within the simulator to resolve top level policy questions. The optimizations will allow CYCLUS to move beyond static material compositions, providing a holistic view of the fuel cycle system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Optical Fiber Based System for Multiple Thermophysical Properties for Glove Box, Hot Cell and In-Pile Applications | Utah State University | $799,975 | Researchers will use a small pressure vessel to develop a robust technique for the measurement of multiple thermophysical properties at very high temperatures. The technique will lead to a system design moving toward the eventual measurement of irradiated fuels in a glovebox and/or hot cell with all sensors and electronics outside of the glovebox and/or hot cell. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of a Nano-Modified Concrete for Next Generation of Storage Systems | Vanderbilt University | $796,268 | Researchers will use nano-sized and nano-structured particles based on enhanced reactivity to develop a superior concrete for the long-term storage of used nuclear fuel. The project will use state-of-the-art experimental chemical and mechanical characterizations and computation analysis to assess the performance of nano-modified concretes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Fuel Cycle Data Packages for Thorium Fuel Cycle Options | Vanderbilt University | $797,995 | Researchers will develop six fuel cycle data packages for multi-stage, thermal fuel cycles which incorporate thorium. These new fuel cycle data packages will provide the opportunity to examine fuel cycle options beyond those which have traditionally been considered. A thorium fuel cycle database will also be assembled as a basis for thorium literature for future evaluations of the thorium fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Enhanced Shielding Performance of HLW Storage Packages via Multi-Component Coatings | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $796,947 | Researchers will develop a multi-layer composite that will enhance long-term storage and facilitate safe transport of storage packages. This novel multi-layer, multi-component coating would create an outer shield material that is resistant to the corrosion, radiation, diffusion and thermal cycling processes that affect fuel packages during long term storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Managing Zirconium Chemistry and Phase Compatibility in Combined Process Separations for Minor Actinide Partitioning | Washington State University | $700,000 | Researchers will address unique challenges for combining TRUEX and TALSPEAK processes for partitioning of lanthanides and minor actinides. The project will develop improved information on the thermodynamics of fission product zirconium and develop a framework for an organic phase solvation model. Combined process development could streamline separations processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Advances in the Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Studies Under Real Ocean Conditions | Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution | $398,882 | Researchers will provide infrastructure and expertise for marine testing of currently available adsorbents in real ocean conditions. The team will move adsorbent research from the lab to field testing in order to quantify sorptive properties and uranium uptake. The project will provide valuable field data that will show the potential of large scale applications of these technologies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| NEUP Project 20-19172: Irradiation of Sensors and Adhesive Couplants for Application in LWR Primary Loop Piping and Components | $497,881 | Researchers paln to attach ultrasonic transducers to substrates using various adhesive couplants that will be irradiated at elevated temperature to simulate LWR primary loop conditions at the PULSTAR reactor at North Carolina State University. Ultrasonic data will be taken in-situ. Subsequently, the sensors and couplant interfaces will be characterized using the LAMDA facility at ORNL. The results will be used to benefit a parallel EPRI project on online monitoring of cracks in LWR primary loop piping. | Document | Joint R&D with NSUF Access | FY2013 | |
| Lower Length Scale Characterization and Validation of Formation and Stability of Helium Bubbles in Nano-structured Ferritic Alloys under Irradiation | Clemson University | $399,870 | Researchers will provide a fundamental knowledge about the formation and stability of ultra-fine helium bubbles within 14YWT after neutron/ion irradiation for further design of new advanced structural materials with a characteristic high density nanoparticles feature which can increase the mechanical strength, hardness, irradiation resistance and the operational temperature range of materials. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Three-Dimensional Fuel Pin Model Validation by Prediction of Hydrogen Distribution in Cladding and Comparison with Experiment | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers will validate important three-dimensional aspects of the fuel pin modeling by using specialized numerical modeling techniques coupled with laboratory experiments to validate existing models for predicting fuel performance in light water reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Collocation-Based Surrogate Models for Uncertainty Quantification and Validation of Coupled, Multiphysics Fuel Performance Simulation Tools | University of Michigan | $596,835 | Researchers will provide the necessary high fidelity, coupled, multiphysics fuel performance simulator for computational modeling and develop surrogates which will accelerate and focus the validation of the coupled codes. This will be achieved by utilizing the high fidelity coupled fuel performance, thermal-hydraulics and neutronics codes BISON/STAR-CCM+/MPACT and an innovative collocation-based surrogate methodology. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Multi-Resolution In-Situ Testing and Mutliscale Simulation for Creep Damage Fatigue Damage Analysis of Alloy 617 | Arizona State University | $800,000 | This project will develop novel testing and experimentally validated prediction methodologies for micro-structural damage mechanisms of structural materials for advanced reactor systems. The investigations will focus on the characterization and testing of specific metal alloys, but the proposed testing and life-prediction methodologies are applicable to other structural materials as well. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Novel High Temperature and Radiation Resistant Infrared Glasses and Optical Fibers for Sensing in Advanced Small Modular Reactors | Clemson University | $800,000 | Clemson University, in partnership with the Iowa State University and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, will develop novel optical materials with improved heat and radiation exposure resistance in order to enable in-vessel fiber optic sensing for advanced Small Modular Reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Validation Data Acquisition in HTTF during PCC Events | George Washington University | $800,000 | Researchers at the George Washington University and Oregon State University will collaborate with NASA Langley Research Center to measure flow velocities in a high temperature test facility. This work supports the development of very-high temperature reactors with passive safety systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced High Temperature Inspection Capabilities for Small Modular Reactors | Iowa State University | $790,822 | The objective of this project is to develop non-destructive evaluation techniques for advanced small modular reactors. The research will provide key enabling inspection technologies needed to support the design and the reactor component performance validation process for advanced small modular reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Experimental and Computational Investigations of Plenum-to-Plenum Heat Transfer under Natural Circulation in a Prismatic Very High Temperature Reactor | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,999 | Researchers will perform experimental and computational investigations to study heat transfer and natural circulation phenomena in very-high temperature reactors. The study will assist in the ability to predict and analyze passive safety systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| New Mechanistic Models of Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth Interactions for Advanced High Temperature Reactor Components | Oregon State University | $790,790 | Researchers will create and validate a robust, multi-scale, numerical model to predict material degradation in nickel-based reactor alloys. If successful, this project will provide better numerical tools for reactor designers and greatly improve their capability to design against material failures for reactor alloys in the long term. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Self-Powered Wireless Dual-mode Langasite Sensor for Pressure/Temperature Monitoring of Nuclear Reactors | State University of New York, Stony Brook | $800,000 | This research will develop a novel self-powered wireless hybrid sensor that can accurately monitor both pressure and temperature using a single device without requiring external electricity, even in extreme harsh environments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Compact Heat Exchanger Design and Testing for Advanced Nuclear Reactors and Advanced Power Cycles | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to investigate optimal heat exchanger designs for advanced reactors. The research will study the optimization of printed circuit heat exchangers for specific fluids under a variety of conditions as well as perform numerical modeling. Experiments will focus on thermal performance and heat stress during extreme conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Fundamental Understanding of Creep-Fatigue Interactions in 9Cr-1MoV Steel Welds | The Ohio State University | $798,000 | This project will advance the state of knowledge and fundamental understanding of deforming materials and welds under loading conditions. Specifically, new integrated testing procedures will be evaluated and applied for conditions that are most detrimental to material stability leading to improved predictions of life expectancy for reactor steels and welds. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced Mechanistic 3D Spatial Modeling and Analysis Methods to Accurately Represent Nuclear Facility External Event Scenarios | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop three-dimensional characterization uncertainty analysis for commercial power plants. The project will involve combining experts from the fields of seismic structural modeling and advanced methods of risk assessment. This effort is expected to result in next generation tools that can be used for assessment of seismic risks. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Tritium Mitigation/Control for Advanced Reactor Systems | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a fluoride salt cooled high-temperature reactor featuring a specialized system to control tritium production. If successful, this will result in a significant reduction in size and cost in comparison to other reactor designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| A Pebble-Bed Breed and Burn Reactor | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will assess the feasibility of designing a type of metal cooled reactor able to establish and maintain operation when fueled with depleted uranium. If successful, this reactor will offer at least a 30-fold increase in the uranium ore utilization versus that achieved in contemporary light water reactors without the need for fuel reprocessing and recycling. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Investigation of Thermal Aging Effects on the Evolution of Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Cast Duplex Stainless Steels | University of Maryland, College Park | $799,966 | This research will provide a better understanding of the microstructural evolution and simultaneous change in mechanical response during aging. The results of the research will provide data that can be used to estimate degraded mechanical properties for an 80-year service life of light water reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Model validation using CFD-grade experimental database for NGNP Reactor Cavity Cooling Systems with water and air | University of Michigan | $799,348 | Researchers will use advanced innovative instrumentation to build a high-resolution experimental database and to use the novel experimental data to assess and further develop the predictive capabilities of computer codes for thermal hydraulics and computational fluid dynamics. The improved models developed by this project will also have the direct benefit of improving the predictive capability of the passive systems of third generation light water reactors and small modular reactor systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Long-Term Prediction of Emissivity of Structural Material for High Temperature Reactor Systems | University of Missouri | $799,117 | Researchers will study specific types of emissivity driven cooling from a variety of materials that are relevant to nuclear reactors. The research will provide a basis for numerical modeling to support reactor development. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced I&C for Fault-Tolerant Supervisory Control of Small Modular Reactors | University of Pittsburgh | $800,000 | The purpose of this research is to develop advanced instrumentation and control techniques for supervisory control of advanced small modular reactors. This research supports the operational goals of small modular reactor concepts through the development of improved oversight and surveillance techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Corrosion of Structural Materials for Advanced Supercritical Carbon-Dioxide Brayton Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $798,672 | Researchers will study a variety of materials for corrosion resistance under conditions that improve power conversion. In addition to studying the corrosion resistance of the materials, researchers will study the effect of additives to mitigate corrosion. Development of corrosion theories and modeling aimed at prediction of long-term corrosion will be the underlying theme throughout the project. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Component and Technology Development for Advanced Liquid Metal Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $798,920 | In support of liquid metal cooled reactors, the University of Wisconsin, Madison will evaluate advanced alloys and ceramics that come in contact with liquid metals. Additionally, a robust oxygen sensor and for use in liquid metals will be developed in order to better evaluate corrosion profiles in support of diagnostic testing. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| A New Paradigm for Understanding Multi-phase Ceramic Waste Form Performance | Clemson University | $800,000 | Researchers will use advanced characterization tools to develop 3-D microstructural data that can be incorporated into computer-based simulations in order to predict the performance of waste forms. Materials system modeling will incorporate elemental release and the interconnected microstructural network of phases to better understand performance and degradation, which will accelerate waste form acceptance in repository settings. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Controlling Hexavalent Americium: A Centerpiece to a Compact Nuclear Fuel Cycle | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and exploit the fundamental chemistry of Americium to enable an industrially viable means to co-recover the major and minor actinide elements from used nuclear fuel. The results would be a significant step forward in the development of aqueous separations approaches designed to recover the U-Am actinides based on the availability of the hexavalent oxidation state. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Zeolite Membranes for Krypton/Xenon Separation from Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Off-Gas | Georgia Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a high-performance, lower-cost zeolitic membrane process for Kr/Xe separations during spent nuclear fuel processing. Current separation methods are not considered economical and a membrane process would have relatively lower cost, equipment size, and ambient operating temperature. The process would form a sound basis for further development of this transformative separation technology for the nuclear fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Optimizing Polymer-Grafted Amidoxime-based Adsorbents for Uranium Uptake from Seawater | Georgia Institute of Technology | $399,999 | Researchers will work to increase the adsorbent capacity and selectivity toward uranium by optimizing the adsorbent morphology, synthesis variables, and conditioning parameters and by investigating the rate-limiting variables through transport and reaction modeling. A novel adsorption/partition concept that has the potential to substantially increase the adsorbent capacity will be tested, making uranium from seawater extraction more economically viable. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Extraction of Uranium from Seawater: Design and Testing of a Symbiotic System | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a seawater uranium extraction system that will work symbiotically with an offshore windmill by utilizing the structure, mooring and power of the windmill, while increasing the energy harvested by the installation. Uranium will be extracted by an adsorbent polymer belt, which will be cycled through the seawater and an elution plant located at the base of the windmill tower. Increasing the frequency of harvesting could overcome current economic barriers to seawater uranium extraction. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Imaging a Dry Storage Cask with Cosmic Ray Muons | Oregon State University | $799,871 | Researchers will develop an imaging system to monitor the content of a dry storage cask with cosmic ray muons. A very large amount of plutonium under nuclear safeguards is contained in used fuel assemblies stored in dry storage casks. Muon imaging will allow a cost effective and reliable way to evaluate dry storage cask content and integrity before transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Apatite and sodalite based glass-bonded waste forms for immobilization of 129I and mixed halide radioactive wastes | Rutgers University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop advanced and chemically durable waste forms for immobilizing 129I (aqueous based reprocessing of fuel) and mixed-halide wastes (molten-salt processing of fuel) by low temperature synthesis. Halide-containing sodalite and calcium phosphate-based apatite minerals will be synthesized, consolidated and tested for chemical durability. The project will provide needed baseline data for the development of advanced waste forms for immobilization of iodine and mixed-halide wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Sorption Modeling and Verification for Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $350,000 | Researchers will develop modeling tools supported by experiments for off-gas capture from future nuclear-fuel recycling facilities. Target species include tritium, iodine, krypton, and xenon. The models are intended to provide path forward recommendations to develop off-gas treatment adsorption processes. The project will contribute to the evaluation of options for environmentally acceptable recycle systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development of high performance ODS alloys | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will study swelling, radiation hardening and changes in mechanical properties of ODS alloys to develop two sets of advanced ODS alloys. Two sets of first-round candidate alloys that have already undergone extensive development and testing will evaluate irradiation performance. The study will meet the need for high strength, radiation-tolerant cladding and core components that have enhanced resistance to void swelling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Rare Earth Electrochemical Property Measurements and Phase Diagram Development in a Complex Molten Salt Mixture for Molten Salt Recycle | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate rare earth (RE) properties in complex molten salt mixtures. In a molten salt recycle approach, the RE drawdown by electrolysis is a key step in which REs are separated from salt containing other fission products. Investigation of RE electrolysis must consider the electrochemical properties of the REs. We propose to conduct studies of detailed experiments and corresponding models to provide the physical properties and phase diagrams required to predict the performance of RE drawdown for processing complex molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Computational and Experimental Studies of Microstructure-Scale Porosity in Metallic Fuels for Improved Gas Swelling Behavior | University of Arkansas | $796,823 | Researchers will study the microstructure of metallic uranium alloy fuels, and their resistance to densification, to minimize in-pile irradiation swelling through bimodal pore size distribution. The project will develop a predictive approach to design metallic fuel microstructures for optimal swelling resistance and fission gas retention. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Improved Hybrid Modeling of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of California, Berkeley | $645,393 | Researchers will develop a variance reduction method for computational transport that will improve the ability to design and operate monitoring systems for interim used fuel installations through enhanced modeling and simulation. This new tool will demonstrate that modeling calculations can be done more accurately in less time than with current tools and will perform studies characterizing how changes in material, cask configurations, and number of casks could impact monitoring systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Selective ligands for uranyl via combinatorial peptoid libraries: A synthetic, structural, thermodynamic and computational study | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will study how donor ligands bind to the uranyl ion, UO22+, with the longer-term goal of using this information to tackle selective recognition of uranyl in aqueous solution. The study will impact underlying approaches to controlling the behavior of uranium in these systems. The actinide separation technology could be used in several areas including uranium extraction from seawater, nuclear waste remediation and nuclear materials. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Combining Experiments and Simulations of Extraction Kinetics and Thermodynamics in Advanced Separation Processes for Used Nuclear Fuel | University of California, Irvine | $799,938 | Researchers will study how the kinetics and thermodynamics of metal ion extraction in advanced separation processes for used nuclear fuel can be described by molecular dynamic (MD) simulations and how the simulations can be validated by experimental data. The project would have broad impacts on several separations processes including advanced TALSPEAK, ALSEP and GANEX by increasing the confidence and accuracy of computer modeling of metal ion extraction. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Effect of Metallic Li on the Behavior of Metals in Molten Salts | University of Nevada, Reno | $458,250 | Researchers will identify the effect of metallic lithium on materials that are used in molten salt recycling. The study will try to understand how the presence of Li(0) in molten salts affects the degradation of alloys. Studying these changes will help accurately predict container material behavior and longevity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Assessment of Corrosion Resistance of Promising Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding under Reactor Conditions | University of Notre Dame | $800,000 | Researchers will assess the corrosion behavior of accident tolerant fuel candidate iron-based alloys under normal LWR operating conditions consisting of high temperature, relevant water chemistry and irradiation. The assessment will produce data about possible irradiation-accelerated corrosion rates of iron-based alloys, and the mechanisms by which such corrosion rates are accelerated. The project will advance the selection of appropriate replacements for Zircaloy cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Enhanced Accident-Tolerant Fuel Performance and Reliability for Aggressive iPWR/SMR Operation | University of Tennessee | $799,967 | To develop a process that evaluates operational and safety performance of reactor-and-fuel combinations by integrating whole-core 3D neutronics with MOOSE/BISON fuel performance assessments via explicit time and space dependent fuel rod operational power histories. The project will be valuable in analyzing and evaluating accident tolerant fuel concepts and furthering the understanding of reactor physics and fuel performance aspects of key accident tolerant fuel concepts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Nuclear Technology R&D Strategies in an Era of Energy Price Uncertainty | University of Texas, Austin | $799,112 | Researchers will identify nuclear technology options that are competitive over a wide range of plausible future business environments. No single nuclear technology or business practice will be the best choice across all or even most future conditions. The study will focus on hybrid nuclear-fossil technologies, energy storage and conversion, which will result in an identification of nuclear strategies that can succeed under future market conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development and Optimization of Voltammetric Methods for Real Time Analysis of Electrorefiner Salt with High Concentrations of Actinides and Fission Products | University of Utah | $621,612 | Researchers will develop an advanced voltammetry method to pursue the objective of real time monitoring of actinide concentrations in electrorefiner salt. This will include experimental measurement of key parameters such as activity coefficients and exchange current density. It will also involve simulation of voltammetry processes based on first principles. The project will allow for real time measurements that could support the commercialization of pyroprocessing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development of Self-Healing Zirconium-Silicide Coatings for Improved Performance of Zirconium-Alloy Fuel Cladding | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $798,621 | Researchers will study the deposition of self-healing zirconium-silicide coatings on zirconium-alloy fuel cladding material to improve corrosion resistance under normal and accident conditions. Under these conditions, Zr-Si coating evolves into a highly protective functionally-graded multilayered system. The study will lead to improved performance of zirconium-alloy fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Thermal Conductivity in Metallic Fuels | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,837 | Researchers will calculate the thermal conductivity of metallic uranium and neptunium alloys, including the effects of noble gasses, using density functional theory. The experiments will validate the calculated effective thermal conductivity using the MARMOT code and by helping determine DFT simulation parameters. The study works to improve fuel lifetime by understanding its thermal behavior. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| SiC-ODS Alloy Gradient Nanocomposites as Novel Cladding Materials | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,998 | Researchers will combine nuclear nanomaterial design, processing, testing, and characterization efforts to develop revolutionary materials that can withstand neutron irradiation for long period of time using nanostructured SiC and oxide dispersion strengthened steel. The ultimate objective is to offer new cladding materials with increased corrosion resistance, strength, and creep resistance in both steady state and accident conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Experimental Breeder Reactor II Benchmark Evaluation | Idaho State University | $400,000 | _Researchers will develop a benchmark evaluation of the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II). During nearly 30 years of operation numerous experiments were conducted at EBR-II. The most significant of these experiments were conducted in 1986 demonstrating inherent safety features in loss of flow without reactor scram and loss of heat sink without reactor scram. Benchmark evaluation will be valuable for the reactor design efforts in the United States and South Korea. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| Integral full core multi-physics PWR benchmark with measured data | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | _Researchers will introduce BEAVRS, a new multi-cycle full-core Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) depletion benchmark based on two operational cycles of a commercial nuclear power plant. This project aims at addressing the uncertainty quantification of the measured data and on making this benchmark a true non-proprietary international benchmark for the validation of high-fidelity multi-physics computational tools. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| Benchmark Evaluation of PROTEUS Gas-Cooled Reactor Experiments | University of Florida | $400,000 | _Researchers will create International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) benchmarks using data from 1970s experiments of the neutronics of gas-cooled fast reactor (GCFR) designs investigated in the PROTEUS reactor. The GCFR-PROTEUS experiments fill a gap in current integral benchmark data. These experiments can provide validation of computational models and nuclear data for next generation reactors. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| An Investigation To Establish Multiphysical Property Dataset Of Nuclear Materials Based On In-Situ Observations And Measurements | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will create an in-situ measurement based experimental approach to develop experimental validation dataset for NEAMS based code validation. Particular emphasis is on supplying data set for multiphysics simulations in extreme conditions as a function of material microstructure. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| Experimental Validation of UO2 Microstructural Evolutions for NEAMS tool MARMOT | University of Florida | $798,000 | _Researchers will experimentally validate MARMOT for predicting the microstructural evolutions of UO2 oxide fuel under the driving forces of high temperatures and large temperature gradient in reactors. By performing the experiments and simulations simultaneously using precisely defined initial conditions, the experiment data will provide direct benchmarking of the MARMOT code. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| High-resolution time-resolved experiments on mixing and entrainment of buoyant jets in stratified environments | University of Michigan | $799,983 | _Researchers will study high spatial and time-resolution experimental data of the fluid dynamics phenomena of flow jets interacting with a stratified layer. The issue plays an important role in the safety of several reactor designs, including sodium-cooled reactors. The data addresses the NEAMS needs for the validation of high fidelity computational fluid dynamics methodologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| Fundamental study of key issues related to advanced S-CO2 Brayton Cycle: prototypic HX development and Cavitation | Georgia Institute of Technology | $799,000 | _Researchers will study scientific and operational issues pertinent to compact heat exchanger systems and turbo-machinery. The project will work to resolve issues with the fabrication of diffusion bonded compact heat exchangers, alternate heat exchange technology for recuperators, and resolution of issues with cavitation and fluid instabilities. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Advanced Models for Nondestructive Evaluation of Aging Nuclear Power Plant Cables | Iowa State University | $787,291 | _Researchers will develop advanced models that relate environmentally induced microstructural and chemical changes in cable insulation polymers to their macroscopic electrical parameters. These parameters will be measured and modeled over a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum, covering several potential nondestructive evaluation techniques, enabling identification of the most sensitive techniques for future development. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Development of Novel Functionally Graded Transition Joints for Improving the Creep Strength of Dissimilar Metal Welds in Nuclear Applications | Lehigh University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop graded transition joints and improved creep life models for increasing the life of dissimilar metal welds (DMWs) in nuclear reactors. The research represents the first application of functionally graded material concepts for solving the problem of DMW failures through an integrated approach of additive manufacturing, modeling, microstructural characterization, and advanced strain-sensing techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Feasibility Assessment of a Micro Modular Reactor (MMR) | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | _Researchers will develop an innovative compact reactor concept that integrates power production, power conversion and electricity generation in a single unit: the Micro Modular Reactor (MMR). It is designed to be absolutely melt-down proof (MDP) under all circumstances including complete loss of coolant scenarios with no possible release of radioactive material, to have a cycle length of greater than 10 years, and to be highly proliferation resistant. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Scaling Studies for Advanced Gas Reactor Concepts | Oregon State University | $681,834 | _Researchers will expand the utilization of the Oregon State University High Temperature Test Facility (HTTF) to validate a broader range of advanced high temperature reactors and events. The facility will be revised to add a detailed scaling analysis of additional gas reactor concepts including advanced gas-cooled, molten salt, and sodium cooled reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Fluid Stratification Separate Effects Analysis, Testing and Benchmarking | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will study fluid stratification in high temperature gas reactors. Coolant stratification is the result of incomplete mixing of one or more fluids, leading to a density gradient, which may or may not dissipate under diffusive or convective effects. This combined analytical and experimental project seeks to investigate stratification driven by diffusive and convective mechanisms and is expected to yield insight into this phenomenon. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Probabilistic Economic Valuation of Safety Margin Management Analysis | Oregon State University | $795,364 | _Researchers will use RAVEN and develop a companion software package to facilitate economic analysis of safety margins. The project is a proof of concept that will use techniques to examine the cost of improving safety margins vs. the risk of accidents from not improving safety margins. This analysis can be used to evaluate the economic viability of various plant upgrades. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Novel Dissimilar Joints Between Alloy 800H and 2.25%Cr and 1%Mo Steel | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will fabricate and test dissimilar metal joints between a nickel base alloy and a steel with gradual variations of chemical composition, microstructure and properties in a manner that reduces abrupt thermal expansion mismatch and the resulting residual stresses. Data on structure and properties will serve as valuable inputs for the initiation of an ASME code case. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Multi-Phase Model Development to Assess RCIC System Capabilities under Severe Accident Conditions | Texas A&M University | $564,246 | _Researchers will develop physics-based models of the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) System and incorporating them into a multi-phase code for validation. The project will tackle the current major challenges in RCIC System analysis and enable evaluation of two-phase thermodynamic aspects. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Experimental Investigation and CFD Analysis of Steam Ingress Accidents in HTGRs | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will study the steam ingress scenario for HTGRs. The study will investigate thermal-hydraulic behavior and graphite oxidation of stream ingress phenomena to validate predictive CFD models. This work will resolve concerns about possible steam generator tube ruptures in a HTGR He-Steam Rankine cycle. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Coiled Tube Gas Heaters For Nuclear Gas-Brayton Power Conversion | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop heat exchangers for Brayton-cycle power conversion in reactors using sodium, NaK, or salt as intermediate coolants. The proposed coiled tube gas heaters (CTGHs) are expected to have excellent power density, thermal shock/creep, in-service inspection, and reparability characteristics. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Fundamental Studies of Irradiation-Induced Modifications in Microstructural Evolution and Mechanical Properties of Advanced Alloys | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop and test a mechanism for predicting neutron irradiation performance for optimized Grade 92 and Alloy 709 for applications in advanced reactor systems. The work will employ ion irradiations and available information from neutron irradiations of related alloys to develop a basis for predicting the neutron irradiation performance of the optimized alloys. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Integrated Computational and Experimental Study of Radiation Damage Effects in Grade 92 Steel and Alloy 709 | University of Tennessee | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop a mechanistic understanding and predictive models of irradiation-induced microstructural evolution and resulting mechanical properties in optimized ferritic-martensitic Grade 92 steel and austenitic alloy 709 using multiscale simulations coupled with rigorous experimental validation. The project will provide insights into the correlation between ion irradiation and fast neutron damage. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Meta-Level Design Guidance and Operator Performance Measures for Hybrid Control Rooms | Vanderbilt University | $799,869 | _Researchers will apply human factors engineering methods and relevant expertise from non-nuclear high-risk high-consequence domains toward the measurement of operator performance in analog, digital, and hybrid main control rooms. Performance measures will be developed for evaluating the situation awareness and decision-making proficiencies to support the transition to digital or hybrid control room displays. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| NEUP Project 15-8514: Elucidation of the kinetics of Advanced Separation systems | California State University, Long Beach | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a fundamental understanding of the chemical kinetics relevant to separation processes by measuring ligand complexation rate constants for both lanthanides and actinides in the aqueous and organic phases. These experiments will provide essential kinetic and mechanistic information required for developing a simplified, single-step recovery of transuranic elements. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8119: Kr/Xe separation over Metal Organic Framework Membranes | Colorado School of Mines | $375,000 | Researchers will develop metal organic framework (MOF) membranes that will be capable of effectively separating Kr from Xe with high flux and selectivity. This project may result in the development of membranes that will constitute a viable energy saving approach for the effective removal of Kr during the processing of used nuclear fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8347: Multilayer Composite Fuel Cladding for LWR Performance Enhancement and Severe Accident Tolerance | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop, manufacture, and weld a new multimetallic layered composite (MMLC) for enhanced severe accident tolerance and manufacturability in LWRs. Layers of stainless steel (facing the coolant) and Zircaloy (facing the fuel) will be separated by barrier layers of Cr and Nb. Severe accident testing in 1200C steam, LWR autoclave testing, and ion irradiation studies will demonstrate the MMLC's microstructural stability. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8112: Phase Separation and Crystallization of Complex Borosilicate Melts for Glass-Ceramic Waste Forms | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,806 | Researchers will study the mechanisms for microstructural development and properties of multi-phase, glass-ceramic materials that form when waste-loaded borosilicate glasses are cooled from above their liquidus or consolute temperatures through the glass transition temperature. The project will apply these tools to modified compositions to maximize the formation of the desirable crystalline phases. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8265: Electrically-Assisted Tubing Processes for Enhancing Manufacturability of Oxide Dispersion Strengthened Structural Materials for Nuclear Reactor Applications | Northwestern University | $800,000 | Researchers will enhance the formability of nanostructured ferritic alloys (NFAs) such that high-strength thin-walled claddings can be manufactured successfully and economically to be used in future reactors. The project will study the effects of continuous and pulsed electric currents on the deformation behavior of Fe-14Cr based NFA steel. The findings will be used to establish innovative fabrication processes including electrically-assisted extrusion and rolling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8126: Fundamental Electrochemical Properties of Liquid Metals in LiCl-KCl for Separation of Alkali/Alkaline-Earths (Cs, Sr and Ba) | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate the fundamental properties of novel liquid metal electrodes for separation of alkali/alkaline-earth fission products in LiCl-KCl electrolyte. The project will further the development of pyroprocessing by maximizing salt recycle and providing a method for recovery of alkali/alkaline-earth fission products as oxides (as opposed to chlorides) which will allow them to be encapsulated in a more conventional glass wasteform. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8074: Monitoring of Actinide Concentrations in Molten LiCl-KCl Salt using Alpha Spectroscopy | The Ohio State University | $799,969 | Researchers will develop a novel in-salt sensor that uses electrochemistry to pre-concentrate the actinides onto the sensor to measure the actinides concentration in a high temperature and high radiation field represented by a molten salt environment. The ability to monitor actinides to prevent misuse is critical to enhancing the control of nuclear materials. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8717: Understanding the Interactions of Seawater Ions with Amidoxime through X-Ray Crystallography | University of Alabama | $553,971 | _Researchers will investigate the fundamental interactions of the amidoxime (R-C(NH2)=NOH) functional group with metal ions found in seawater using a combined approach of single crystal X-ray diffraction and spectroscopy to understand the origin of the selectivity of amidoxime resins for uranyl ([UO2]2+] ions and establish structural benchmarks for interpretation of spectroscopic studies on actual sorbents to aid in identifying specific sorbent-metal interactions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8439: Developing a macro-scale SiC-cladding behavior model based on localized mechanical and thermal property evaluation on pre- and post-irradiation SiC-SiC composites | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a fundamental understanding of the macroscopic behavior of SiC-SiC composite structures before and after irradiation based on the microscopic property changes of each individual component (SiC matrix, fiber and interface). SiC-SiC composites will be tested in the as-fabricated condition, after being subjected to neutron and ion irradiation, micro-cracking, and oxidation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8536: Quantitative Prediction of Uranium Speciation and Amidoxime Binding in Seawater from Advanced Simulation Techniques | University of California, Riverside | $450,000 | Researchers will quantitatively predict stability of uranium species and thermochemistry (free energy, entropy, and enthalpy) of uranium binding with amidoxime ligands in seawater conditions. To achieve the goal, advanced simulation techniques including all-atom molecular dynamics, free-energy calculations, and the hybrid quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical approach will be employed to explicitly include water molecules and common seawater ions in the simulation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8286: Used Fuel Storage Monitoring Using Helium-4 Scintillation Fast Neutron Detectors and Neutron Spectral Analysis | University of Florida | $799,765 | Researchers will build and demonstrate a prototype detector device capable of unambiguously verifying the declared content of dry casks in a non-intrusive manner for the safeguarding and monitoring of used fuel storage installations. This will be achieved through a neutron spectroscopy and imaging system using high-efficiency Helium-4 (4He) gas scintillation fast neutron detectors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8663: Enhancement of the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland, College Park | $600,000 | Researchers will produce efficient adsorbents of uranium from seawater in seeking to optimize the functional ligands, the polymeric substrates, the grafting conditions and the adsorption/desorption durations based on sound chemical understanding. The result will be adsorbents that can be used through multiple cycles of uranium adsorption without significant degradation of the adsorbents capacity and selectivity for uranium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8111: Purification of Zirconium cladding using a chloride volatility process | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $798,877 | _Researchers will investigate the thermochemistry of used fuel Zr cladding components chlorides as well as their activation products and residual radionuclide metal chlorides to provide fundamental data that will support the development of a chlorination process for the purification of ZrCl4. Understanding the chemistry of these chloride species will provide process development guidance for the purification of Zr cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8323: Purification of Zirconium Tetrachloride from UNF Cladding | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $793,121 | _Researchers will develop and demonstrate a process to purify zirconium tetrachloride obtained from the direct chlorination of used Zircaloy cladding materials from used nuclear fuel rod assemblies. This study will increase understanding of purification protocols that will allow zirconium chloride to be recycled further. Increased recycling capability would significantly reduce the amount of high level waste associated with light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8752: Radiation Effects on High Thermal Conductivity Fuels | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $400,000 | _Researchers will use scoping ion and neutron irradiations to explore the structural stability and thermal conductivity of model high thermal conductivity fuels consisting of CeO2 and either Al2O3 (BeO surrogate) or SiC. Issues associated with thermal conductivity degradation (including micro cracking effects) and general phase stability of fuel systems will be examined. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8243: Radiation-induced swelling and microcracking in SiC cladding for LWRs | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $797,889 | _Researchers will use state of the art experimental characterization techniques and multi-scale methodology (developed within the MOOSE-MARMOT-BISON framework) to provide scientific basis for predictions of swelling and microcracking in SiC cladding as a function of temperature and irradiation histories. Predicting swelling and microcracking will further the potential for accident tolerant SiC cladding to be used in light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8081: Understanding influence of thermal history and glass chemistry on kinetics of phase separation and crystallization in borosilicate glass-ceramic waste forms for aqueous reprocessed high level waste | Washington State University | $799,911 | _Researchers will develop a fundamental and transformative understanding of the crystallization mechanisms in complex glass-ceramic high level waste (HLW) wasteforms,. This understanding will underpin the maturation of glass ceramic manufacture, by linking process variables to molecular scale mechanisms, enabling reliable production of wasteforms to the desired specification. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8210: A Transient Reactor Physics Experiment with High-Fidelity, 3-D Flux Measurements for Validation and Verification | Kansas State University | $799,198 | _Researchers will instrument the University of Wisconsin Nuclear Reactor with micro-pocket fission detectors (MPFDs) to measure 3-D flux distributions. The measurements will be compared to simulation using PROTEUS from the NEAMS toolkit. MPFDs are small, which leads to low gamma-ray sensitivity and small flux perturbations. A 3-D array of MPFDs and standard reactor instrumentation will be used to capture highly-resolved flux and temperature distributions for several steady-state and transient conditions. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8101: Development of Critical Experiments to Provide Validation Data for Multiphysics Coupling Methods | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $799,993 | Researchers will develop a set of benchmark validation experiments for multiphysics coupling by exploiting the inherent flexibility of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Reactor Critical Facility (RCF). This project will use targeted experiments to validate the coupling between neutronics, thermal hydraulics, and structural mechanics routines present in the NEAMS Reactor Product Line toolkit._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8229: Thermal Transport and Fracture Behavior of Sintered Fuel Pellets: Experimental Validation of NEAMS Tool MARMOT | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | _Researchers will perform experimental validation of the NEAMS tool MARMOT for predicting thermal transport and fuel fracture. By performing extensive thermal transport and fracture experiments on well-controlled microstructures of sintered UO2, the impact of microstructure on thermo-mechanical properties of sintered UO2 and mechanistic understanding will be achieved. The high quality experimental data will directly benchmark the MARMOT code by evaluating the thermal transport and fracture models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8208: Development of a Novel Accelerator for Neutron Transport Solution Using the Galerkin Spectral Element Methods | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $626,176 | _Researchers will develop a novel accelerator for neutron transport calculations based on the spectral element methods, continuous Galerkin (CG) and discontinuous Galerkin (DG) approximations. The CG and DG methods will be used to solve the multi-group neutron diffusion equation on the coarse-mesh structure (e.g., pin-size up to assembly-size), which is then coupled with the high-order neutron transport solution to speed up the neutron transport computation. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8338: Methodology Development for Cybersecurity Robustness and Vulnerability Assessment of University Research Reactors: A Case Study Using the PULSTAR Reactor | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop a methodology for assessing the cybersecurity robustness and vulnerability of university research reactors using an actual university reactor as a test case. While the developed methodology will be specifically tested and applied using this reactor, it will be formulated as a general blueprint and used as the starting point for the assessment of university research reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cyber Security R&D | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8121: Automatic Imagery Data Analysis for Proactive Computer-Based Workflow Management during Nuclear Power Plant Outages | Arizona State University | $799,738 | _Researchers will test the hypothesis that real-time imagery-based object tracking and spatial analysis, as well as human behavior modeling will significantly improve efficiency of outage control while lowering the rates of accidents and incidents. The project will examine computer vision methods and human behavior models for developing a proactive workflow management tool and integrate it into Computer-Based Procedures for supporting an Advanced Outage Control Center. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8308: Creep and creep-fatigue crack growth mechanisms in Alloy 709 | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _A joint US/UK team will study the crack growth mechanism and failure analysis of alloy 709 under creep and creep-fatigue conditions. The study will be done through in situ heating and loading during SEM observation to evaluate the crack growth under plane stress condition and traditional methods to study the crack growth under plane strain condition. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8582: Mechanistic and Validated Creep/Fatigue Predictions for Alloy 709 from Accelerated Experiments and Simulations | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will use mechanistic methods for predicting creep and creep-fatigue deformation rates/strains based on accelerated in-situ and ex-situ tests, and mesoscale dislocation dynamics simulations for Alloy 709. This research will support its qualification in the ASME code for use in advanced nuclear reactor applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8495: Advancement of Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Technology through Round Robin Testing and Fundamental Modeling | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will conduct a round robin test plan for S-CO2 corrosion testing across multiple institutions and the organization of a S-CO2 Materials Group to guide future materials testing directions. Furthermore, this proposal outlines identical tests in supercritical water, testing model alloys with various composition and environmental conditions, accompanied by modeling efforts to study rate controlling mechanisms of corrosion. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8489: Modeling and Validation of Irradiation Damage in Ni-based Alloys for Long-Term LWR Applications | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _A joint US/UK team will study thermal and irradiation-induced transformations mechanisms of Alloys 690 and 625 in order to extend Grizzly to include capabilities for modeling Ni-based alloys. The project will develop modeling tools for materials degradation in light water reactors, allowing for component replacement data and continued safe operation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-7983: Development of Steady-State Thermal-Hydraulic Analysis and Bowing Reactivity Evaluation Methods Based on Neutron and Gamma Transport Calculations | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop steady-state thermal-hydraulic analysis and assembly bowing reactivity evaluation methods based on the latest transport calculation capabilities in order to overcome the limitations and improve the accuracy of current design analysis methods. The outcome of the effort will be computer programs to calculate the steady-state heat source distributions in fuel pins and assembly duct walls and to calculate the reactivity worth of assembly displacements. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8627: Experimental Validation Data and Computational Models for Turbulent Mixing of Bypass and Coolant Jet Flows in Gas-Cooled Reactors | Texas A&M University | $799,613 | _Researchers will establish reliable models of the thermal-hydraulics in Gas-Cooled Reactors with experimental and computational efforts. Specifically, this work will focus on providing the relationship between fluctuating velocities and temperatures in the lower plenum and their dependency on the turbulent upstream mixing in the core and collection chambers leading up to the lower plenum. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8251: Enhanced Performance Fast Reactors with Engineered Passive Safety System | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | _Researchers will study the feasibility of improving the passive safety and economics of sodium cooled fast reactors (SFR) by incorporating within their fuel assemblies a novel Autonomous Reactivity Control (ARC) system. It is expected that the ARC systems will enable to design even low leakage SFR cores, such as breed-and-burn cores, to be passively safe and to improve the neutron economy and economic viability of more conventional SFR. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8258: Physics-Based Probabilistic Model of the Effects of Ionizing Radiation on Polymeric Insulators of Electric Cables used in Nuclear Power Plants | University of California, Los Angeles | $798,846 | _Researchers will develop and experimentally validate a probabilistic physics-based degradation models for polymeric insulators of electric cables to be used in integrated performance and safety codes, which will help reduce the uncertainty associated with the long-term aging of cable insulation. The project will deliver a C++ based simulation code that will be readily compatible with the MOOSE/Grizzly framework developed at the Idaho National Laboratory. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8000: The Influences of Neutron Irradiation on Aggregate Induced Degradation of Concrete | University of California, Los Angeles | $800,000 | _Researchers will quantify the impacts of irradiation on concrete degradation. The research will develop new understanding of the evolutions and manifestations of irradiation assisted aggregate concrete degradation caused by neutron exposure. This assessment will help to mitigate the risk of such degradation within the Grizzly framework, by careful integrations of nanoscale analytics and simulation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8458: Multiple Degradation Mechanisms in Reinforced Concrete Structures, Modeling and Risk Analysis | University of Houston | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a multi-physics framework to characterize the deterioration development in concrete due to environmental and mechanical loading, and the coupling effect among transport processes and the damage of concrete. This project will develop new computational tools that will be implemented in Grizzly, an application built on the MOOSE platform, to address a variety of aging mechanisms in nuclear power plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8623: Characterization of Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth in Alloy 709 and Prediction of Service Lives in Nuclear Reactor Components | University of Idaho | $799,927 | _Researchers will study creep-fatigue crack growth behavior in steel Alloy 709 in accelerated test conditions to predict extended service life of structural components. Extensive testing of Alloy 709 creep-fatigue specimens will be performed at elevated temperatures and applied stresses. Microstructure analysis will be performed to describe the crack propagation mechanisms. Computational models will be used to predict service of steel components. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8432: Multi-scale experimental study of creep-fatigue failure initiation in a 709 Stainless Steel alloy using high resolution digital image correlation | University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign | $800,00 | _Researchers will conduct a detailed experimental investigation of creep-fatigue crack initiation in a 709 alloy, and will also obtain a predictive failure initiation model that includes both thermo-mechanical and aging effects. The experiments will use ultra-high resolution digital image correlation to measure accumulation of plastic with cycling. The model will extend existing slip band-based energy minimization criterion to include thermal effects applicable to 709. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8599: Am-241 Nuclear Safety and Environmental Interactions | University of Missouri | $399,187 | _Researchers will investigate the release and transport mechanisms of Am-241 to understand the interactions it may have with the environment. The project will examine Am-241 through a series of accident scenarios using Am-241 aerosols that will allow researchers to understand the pathways for dose assessment. Methodologies and approaches for nuclear risk assessment for new space radioisotope power system applications will be developed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8667: Experimental Validation of a Compact Double-walled Twisted-Tube Heat Exchanger Concept | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | _Researchers will investigate a novel compact double-walled twisted-tube heat exchanger (DT-HXR) design that utilizes an outer twisted tube configuration in order to enhance shell-side heat transfer and make the overall bundle more compact. Utilizing outer twisted tube geometry improves heat transfer and allows for a tube bundle that does not require support plates or anti-vibration bars. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project: 15-8352: Development and Demonstration of an In-Situ Tritium Scavenger | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,988 | _Researchers will use a graphite moderator to capture and remove tritium from the primary coolant systems of salt- and gas-cooled reactors. The team will develop electrochemical techniques to characterize tritium transport in graphite and liquid fluoride salts (including flibe), demonstrate the in-situ effectiveness of tritium absorption by the fuel elements, and develop a design for a graphite bed tritium filter that can integrate with salt-to-air heat exchangers. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 16-10730: Visualization Tool for Comparing Low-Carbon Energy Options | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a web based visualization tool for comparing current and future nuclear fuel cycle options to other low-carbon and conventional energy technologies in the United States.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10679: Overcoming Kinetic Barriers to Actinide Recovery in ALSEP | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | The ALSEP process for group separations of trivalent actinide/lanthanide ions suffers from slow stripping kinetics. Researchers will perform detailed kinetic studies at different temperatures, supported by spectroscopic and computational studies to establish where the kinetic bottlenecks occur in the ALSEP process. They will then systematically alter the chemistry of the extractants and aqueous ligands to understand how to overcome the kinetic hindrances.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10058: An Integrated Multiscale Experimental-Numerical Analysis on Reconsolidation of Salt-Clay Mixture for Disposal of Heat-Generating Waste | Columbia University in the City of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will improve understanding of the thermal-mechanical-hydrologic-chemical (TMHC) coupling effect on reconsolidated granular (or crushed) salt-clay mixture used for seal systems of shafts and drifts in salt repositories. The project will integrate laboratory experiments and multiscale pore-to-continuum coupling simulations to explore the feasibility of using clay additive and moisture content to enhance performance of crushed salt as a seal material.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10088: Americium Separation By Electrochemical Oxidation | Florida International University | $800,000 | Researchers will separate Am from high-level waste by exploiting the high oxidation states of Am through design, and testing of new materials. This will be accomplished by designing and testing new electrodes, derivatized with surface-stabilized ligands and redox mediators to facilitate oxidation of trivalent Am, and by designing porous sorbent materials functionalized with molecules which selectively coordinate Am(VI) to enable its subsequent separation.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10668: Microstructure Experiments-Enabled MARMOT Simulations of SiC/SiC-Based Accident Tolerant Nuclear Fuel System | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will characterize steam attack, hydrothermal corrosion and radiation swelling of SiC/SiC composites-based accident tolerant fuel (ATF) using a combination of experiments, microstructure evaluation and phase-field simulations using MARMOT. Central to the project is the mapping of the microstructure after steam/hydrothermal/irradiation tests through a unique non-destructive x-ray microscopy technique followed by phase-field simulations of chemical transport in MARMOT.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10221: Alloying Agents to Stabilize Lanthanides Against Fuel Cladding Chemical Interaction: Tellurium and Antimony Studies | Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop alloying agents to stabilize lanthanides against fuel cladding chemical interactions (FCCIs). Based on the available binary phase diagrams for the periodic table, Te and Sb are selected as fuel dopants. The research will focus on Te. The mechanisms of using minor additives to stabilize and immobilize the lanthanide fission products will be investigated. Resulting thermodynamic data obtained by the proposed research will be integrated into MARMOT to enhance its ability to model metallic fuel performance.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10648: Oxidation and Corrosion-Resistant Uranium Silicide Fuels | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | Researchers will develop oxidation/corrosion resistant uranium silicide U3Si2 fuel by chemical doping/fillers to form a continuous borosilicate glass as a protective oxide layer with transformational fuel performance and accident tolerance. The team will use chemical doping/fillers include B or C showing effectiveness in improving high temperature oxidation resistance in transition metal silicides, and boron/silicon-containing compounds that can form a protective borosilicate glass layer.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10229: Mechanistic Understanding of Silver Sorbent Aging Processes in Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $800,000 | This project is focused on understanding the mechanisms of aging processes on silver exchanged mordenite and silver functionalized silica aerogel adsorbents under conditions of long term exposure to off gas streams containing air, I2, H2O, and NOx. The chemical and physical structural changes of the adsorbents under these conditions will be accounted for in equilibrium and kinetic models. Transport models will be developed to predict the performance of engineered off-gas treatment systems.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10394: Integration of Microwave Readout into Nuclear Process Monitoring | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,695 | Researchers will show that gamma-ray spectroscopy based on emerging microcalorimeter sensors can determine elemental and isotopic fractions with accuracy comparable to much slower mass spectrometry and with far better accuracy than germanium sensors. This advance will prevent the diversion of nuclear material by enabling nearly real time process monitoring in large nuclear facilities without loss of measurement accuracy.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10523: A Science Based Approach for Selecting Dopants in FCCI-Resistant Metallic Fuel Systems | University of Idaho | $800,000 | The project aims to use a science-based approach to set guidelines of selecting dopants for developing fuel cladding chemical interaction (FCCI)-resistant metallic fuel systems for fast reactors. Lanthanide fission products migrate to the fuel-cladding gap leading to cladding breaches. The team will perform both theoretical modeling and experiments to arrive at the guidelines that are based on sound science. If successful, this can lead to breakthroughs in minimizing the FCCI effect.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10813: Advanced Electrochemical Separations of Actinide/Fission Products via the Control of Nucleation and Growth of Electrodeposits | University of Idaho | $350,000 | Researchers will use unique capabilities to modulate the electrodeposition of actinides (depleted Uranium) and fission products (Ln) during nucleation and growth stages. The team aims to preclude formation of electrodeposits with dendritic morphology. Morphology of electrodeposits will be controlled by electrolyte composition.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10707: In Situ Spectroscopic Determination of Actinide Speciation and Concentration | University of Nevada, Reno | $369,221 | The research team will address two major issues in the pyroprocess based fuel cycle: low process efficiency and materials accounting for non-proliferation. There are currently no analytical techniques to ascertain the speciation and concentration of the actinides in the electrolyte. This project aims to develop an in-situ analytical method consisting of Raman spectroscopic analysis during electrochemical polarization.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10204: Phase Equilibria and Thermochemistry of Advanced Fuels: Modeling Burnup Behavior | University of South Carolina | $799,946 | Researchers will develop phase equilibria and thermochemical information to model and simulate advanced fuel behavior, including critical phenomena such as the contribution to fuel swelling of dissolved non-noble fission products and secondary phase formation, composite fuel stability, and fuel-clad chemical interactions.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10512: Demand-Driven Cycamore Archetypes | University of South Carolina | $799,956 | Modeling of the nuclear fuel cycle (NFC) is often posed as a set of demands coupled with available technologies. Demands may be singular or multivariate. Additionally, available technologies may have constraints on when they are deployable. This proposal aims to bring demand and deployment decisions into the NFC simulator itself, thereby simulating a more realistic process by which utilities, governments, and other stakeholders actually make facility deployment decisions.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10856: Integrating Data Sources for Improved Safeguards and Accountancy of Electrochemical Fuel Reprocessing Streams | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The SSPM Echem tracks elemental and bulk material flows through batch operations in electrochemical facilities. This project will augment the existing SSPM Echem model with models of DA, NDA, and process monitoring measurements, including appropriate accuracy, noise, and uncertainty characteristics. Diverse measurement and assay results will be fused to improve material accountancy and anomaly detection across the electrochemical process.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10190: Immobilization of High-Level Waste Salt in Dechlorinated Zeolite Waste Forms | University of Utah | $799,315 | The primary objective of the project is the development of a new glass-bonded waste form for the suitable disposal of electrorefiner waste salt. To achieve this goal, the proposed tasks will focus on the 1) dechlorination of the electrorefiner salt and 2) subsequent encapsulation into a sintered waste form. Achieving these goals will result in a compact waste form with higher fission product loading, which is instrumental in economically closing the nuclear fuel cycle.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10240: Molten Salt Reactor Experiment Benchmark Evaluation | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | _The objective of this project is to employ the data archive on the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) and develop a set of high-quality Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) reactor physics benchmarks for inclusion in the IRPhE Handbook that currently does not contain any benchmark set related to MSR technology._ | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10458: Multi-Group Transport Cross Section and Diffusion Coefficient Generation for Deterministic Reactor Models Using Monte Carlo Calculations | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and implement rigorous methods for generating multi-group transport cross section and diffusion coefficients for deterministic reactor models using Monte Carlo calculations. The project will eliminate the numerous approximations that currently contribute to significant mis-prediction of core power distributions when using deterministic core models.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10241: Development of Transient Capabilities for the NEAMS Neutronics Code PROTEUS | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop efficient transient transport methods for the PROTEUS-SN, PROTEUS-MOC and the first-order SN solvers of the NEAMS neutronics code PROTEUS. The team will also perform transient benchmark analyses._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10603: Experimental and Computational Analysis of NEAMS Pebble Bed Reactors | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct a coordinated experimental and computational effort to quantitatively map the full-field 3-D velocity and temperature fields in the interstitial spaces within pebble bed reactor systems. Key outcomes will include advanced correlations to predict flow and thermal transport within the pebble bed over a much wider range operating conditions and reactor types than is currently possible.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10421: Simulation of Fuel Rod Fragmentation, Relocation and Ballooning through Peridynamics in MOOSE Framework | University of Arizona | $675,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology that includes the appropriate governing physical fields within the realm of peridynamics to investigate fuel cracking, fragmentation, relocation, ballooning, pellet-cladding interaction, and cladding rapture and dispersion within the MOOSE framework.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10313: Development of a Comprehensive Two-phase Flow Database for the Validation of NEK-2P | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,817 | _Researchers will develop a comprehensive, high-resolution two-phase flow database by performing experiments in two air-water two-phase flow test facilities and a new heated rod-bundle test facility that will be built under this project. These data will be used to validate the two-phase flow models implemented in the NEK-2P code._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10744: Support for Reactor Operators in Case of Cyber-Security Threats | Ohio State University | $800,000 | This project addresses the need for research informing plant engineers and control room operators faced with cyber-security threats on appropriate responses. The approach taken uses distinguishing features of safety related events versus cyber-security threats; attack modeling, prediction, game theory and PRA knowledge to update operators procedures; and simulation for validation.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cyber Security R&D | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10578: Thermal Hydraulic & Structural Testing and Modeling of Compact Diffusion-Bonded Heat Exchangers for Supercritical CO2 Brayton Cycles | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will utilize both experimental and computational methods to test and model transient behavior of a mock up PCHE, which is a scaled down representation of the sCO2, cycle high temperature recuperator (HTR). In addition, the team will develop a methodology for quantification of the PCHEs production cost. The proposed project will provide valuable experiment data required to develop the Section III, Division 5 and Section VIII evaluation approach for compact heat exchangers.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10579: A Computational-Experimental Study to Simulate Mixing and Thermal Stratification in SFRs | Kansas State University | $799,320 | Researchers will use Thermographic Imaging and Ultrasonic Doppler Velocimetry (UDV) techniques to generate high fidelity thermal stratification and flow field data under various geometric and physical conditions for scaled models of outlet plena in sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs). Data from these experimental studies will be compared with those obtained using 1D codes such as SAS4A/SASSYS-1.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10714: ASME Code Application of the Compact Heat Exchanger for High Temperature Nuclear Service | North Carolina State University | $799,998 | Researchers will develop structural design methodologies for Type 316H stainless steel and Alloy 617 compact heat exchangers (CHX) using elastic-perfectly plastic (EPP) analysis methodology for the assessment of elevated temperature failure modes under sustained and cyclic thermal and pressure loading. The project will develop a technical basis for Section III, Division 5 ASME Code Case for CHX in high temperature nuclear service.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10885: Turbulent MHD Flow Modeling in Annular Linear Induction Pumps with Validation Experiments | North Carolina State University | $564,520 | Researchers seek to advance EMP design efforts for liquid metal reactors by 1.) Improving MHD modeling capability, particularly near the MHD stability criteria, 2.) Advancing simulation accuracy and fidelity in the typical operating range of large electromagnetic pumps for liquid metal cooled reactors, and 3.) Constructing a low barrier EMP test loop for model validation and instruction that can be easily replicated at low cost at other facilities.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10244: Integral System Testing for Prismatic Block Core Design HTGR | Oregon State University | $799,536 | _Researchers will conduct eight new tests be completed at the HTTF investigating a range of gas reactor events including DCC, PCC, and inlet plenum buoyant plume mixing. The data from these tests will be ideal for use in the validation of safety analysis codes used in gas reactor analysis. The data may also provide valuable insight into the validation of CFD codes for gas-reactor applications._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10324: Model Calibration-Based Design Methodologies for Structural Design of Supercritical CO2 Compact Heat Exchangers under Sustained Cyclic Temperature and Pressure Gradients | Oregon State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a design method for rapid structural assessment of diffusion-bonded Hybrid Compact Heat Exchangers, used as secondary heat exchangers in coupling Sodium Fast Reactors (SFRs) with supercritical CO2 (sCO2) Brayton power cycles. The team envisions that the developed method will (1) be usable in creation of an ASME code case for structural assessment of hybrid CHX; and (2) create design tools that ensure CHX code compliance under desired load conditions.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10285: Tribological Damage Mechanisms from Experiments and Validated Simulations of Alloy 800H and Inconel 617 in a Simulated HTGR/VHTR Helium Environment | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a mechanistic understanding of accelerated fretting, wear, and bonding between Alloy 800H and Inconel 617 surfaces. In order to achieve the objectives, a series of tribological experiments will be conducted in helium environments at elevated temperature with controlled concentrations of gaseous specious, attendant microstructure characterization (using electron microscopy, spectroscopy and atom-probe tomography), and validated continuum models.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10245: An Experimental Study of Design and Performance for the Water-Based Reactor Cavity Cooling System | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will extend and enhance the experimental tests using existing water-cooled RCCS facilities. The activity will be conducted in close collaboration with the water-cooled NSTF research team and will produce a unique set of high quality experimental data for support of existing system codes, system codes under development, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10457: Experimentally Validated Computational Modeling of Creep and Creep-Cracking for Nuclear Concrete Structures | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct novel 3D concrete creep tests under controlled environmental conditions to build a 3D constitutive model for concrete typical of existing containment structures. Decades long creep will be extracted via shorter tests (years long). The material model will be used in the Grizzly structural FEM code for simulating the response of real, 3D containment structures to changes in loading. Full-scale, long-term structural tests will enable validation.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10687: Development and Integration of Light Water Reactor (LWR) Materials Corrosion Degradation Codes into Grizzly | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop powerful codes for predicting environmentally-assisted localized corrosion in the primary coolant circuits (PCCs) of Generation II BWRs and PWRs. These codes and resulting models will be embedded into GRIZZLY. This will greatly extend the applicability of GRIZZLY to components in PCCs that are susceptible to pitting corrosion, stress corrosion cracking, and corrosion fatigue and will provide the stress intensity factor solutions for the crack growth rate models._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10083: Earth Abundant High Temperature Materials for Radioisotope Power Conversion System | University of California, Davis | $400,000 | Researchers will develop breakthrough efficiencies in segmented radioisotope thermal generators (RTG) power conversion systems through high temperature materials development. The approach will also reduce reliance on single-purpose supply chains.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10630: Validation of RELAP-7 for Forced Convection and Natural Circulation Reactor Flows | University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign | $799,368 | _Researcher will aid in the development of RELAP-7 through required experimental and computational efforts. The validation of the two-phase modeling capability of RELAP-7 will be accomplished through a series of tasks which include synthesis of existing forced convective data, acquisition of natural circulation data from an existing well-scaled facility, and uncertainty quantification in constitutive modeling._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10402: RELAP-7 Application and Enhancement for FLEX Strategies and ATF Behavior under Extended Loss of AC Power Conditions | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop new thermal hydraulic models that will be implemented into RELAP-7. Simulation studies will be performed for postulated ELAP scenarios in the PB Unit 2 reactor. The overarching goal of the proposed work is to perform a simulation study using RELAP-7, to model BWR ELAP scenarios with various mitigation measures and determine the range of time available for transition to portable FLEX equipment._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10080: Quantifying Properties for a Mechanistic, Predictive Understanding of Aqueous Impact on Ageing of Medium and Low Voltage AC and DC Cabling in Nuclear Power Plants | University of Minnesota, Duluth | $800,000 | _The degradation of medium and low voltage cabling is often associated with aqueous immersion. Electrical and mechanical data will be collected to develop a mechanistic model of the degradation of cabling to dielectric breakdown based on the temperature, oxidation, water conditions, and irradiation dose. The hypothesized model begins with solvent escape paths that expand and advance from the exterior surface toward the current carrying core at a rate dependent on the environment._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10214: Online Monitoring System for Concrete Structures Affected by Alkali-Silica Reaction (ASR) | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an online health monitoring system that integrates active and passive sensor networks and advanced signal processing algorithms to monitor ASR induced degradation in concrete structures. The obtained information will support an ongoing prognostic modeling research for health diagnosis and prognosis of aging concrete structures, in order to support long-term operational and maintenance decision making.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10210: Tribological Behavior of Structural Materials in High Temperature Helium Gas-Cooled Reactor Environments | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will work to understand, quantify, and model the elevated-temperature tribological behavior of alloys 617 and 800H in helium gas in HTGR conditions. Impurities in helium can induce a variety of corrosion mechanisms in structural materials that can profoundly affect tribological behavior. This study will investigate tribological behavior in various impurity concentration regimes and surface treatments to mitigate tribological damage in these environments.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10226: Enhancement of EM Pump Performance Through Modeling and Testing | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,856 | This project is aimed at the improvement of EM pumps for advanced liquid metal cooled reactors specifically the SFR. Initial tests will be conducted in the University of Wisconsin sodium loop on an existing moving magnet pump to help in the development of the models and to look at end effects associated with this pump. Additionally, tests will be conducted at ANL on the CMI ALIP. Ultimately, a small ALIP will be developed to test the principles and models developed to improve commercial scale.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10268: Sodium Cooled Fast Reactor Key Modeling and Analysis for Commercial Deployment | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,076 | This project will look at very low Prandtl number heat transfer from both an experimental and computational approach. Researchers will then establish key models to implement in plant dynamics codes. The team will also evaluate thermal stratification in large volumes making use of novel fiber optic distributed fiber measurements to get CFD quality data. Lastly, the team will evaluate some of the key remaining safety issues associated with the eventual commercialization of the sodium fast reactor.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10647: Experimental and Modeling Investigation of Overcooling Transients that Include Freezing, in Fluoride-Salt Cooled High-Temperature Reactors (FHRs) | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will make recommendations for design features of salt-reactor components that would take advantage of the phenomena characteristic to fluoride salts in order to be resilient to overcooling, and to recover gracefully from over-cooling transients. In support of this task a MOOSE-based computational tool will be developed, capable of modeling liquid-solid phase change, backed by experimental studies with the prototypical (flibe) coolant, and with simulant fluids.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10509: CFD and System Code Benchmark Data for Plenum-to-Plenum Flow Under Natural, Mixed and Forced Circulation Conditions | Utah State University | $800,000 | Researchers will generate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) validation data for forced, mixed, and natural convection through a parallel-path geometry relevant to gas reactor bypass flow. In addition, the team will independently build and validate CFD models based on the experimental results. The team has the experience and existing infrastructure for sharing complete validation datasets.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 17-12628: Effects of Mineral Impurities and Heat on Uranium(VI) Sorption onto Bentonite | California State University, East Bay | $785,714 | Mineral impurities are common in bentonite and clay buffer materials, proposed for many nuclear waste disposal options. Researchers will investigate the effects of calcite impurities on uranium(VI) sorption onto montmorillonite before and after mineral exposure to heat. Based on experimental sorption data and EXAFS analysis we will develop a new surface complexation model to determine under which conditions impurity effects are relevant, and how they can be incorporated in performance assessment models. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12798: Nanostructured Ceramic Membranes for Enhanced Tritium Management | Clemson University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a ceramic membrane technology for tritium separation and recovery to support the nuclear fuel cycle. Low-temperature water adsorption properties of nanoscale structured ceramics, combined with demonstrated hydrogen isotope exchange in their hydrated layers provide a low cost and unique avenue to address tritium management challenges. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12647: Determination of Critical Heat Flux and Leidenfrost Temperature on Candidate Accident Tolerant Fuel Materials | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $799,906 | Researchers will characterize the thermal-hydraulics behavior of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) materials by measuring critical heat flux (CHF) under normal and off-normal light water reactor conditions, and Leidenfrost temperature in post-loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) conditions. This work will yield material-specific models and/or correlations that can be readily implemented in state-of-the-art simulation tools. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13011: Gamma-ray Computed and Emission Tomography for Pool-Side Fuel Characterization | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,317 | Researchers will design, build, test and install a submersible tomography platform for performing pool-side physical, structural, and chemical characterization of irradiated fuel elements for test reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12496: Group Actinide Separation by Crystallization: A Single-Technology Approach to Used Nuclear Fuel Recycle | Texas A&M University | $399,857 | Researchers will explore bulk removal of U, Np, Pu and Am, from used nuclear fuel by studying the mechanisms of removal. A co-crystallization of the hexavalent actinides with U(VI) has already been demonstrated and researchers plan to develop a process based around this approach. Removal of these elements would be advantageous for future nuclear fuel recycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12824: Methods for Process Monitoring to Accurately Detect and Quantify Material Holdup in Advanced Recycle Facilities | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop better modeling methods, detectors, and facility design approaches to enable detection of inadvertent and deliberate hold up of fissile material in reprocessing and other nuclear material bulk handling facilities. The team will integrate results from this research project into a design methodology for future facilities to ensure accurate and reliable process monitoring for sustainable operation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12782: Effects of alpha and gamma radiation on complex and metal loaded solvents for advanced solvent extraction processes | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | This project will investigate the alpha and gamma radiolysis-induced chemical degradation of ligands used for the removal of minor actinides from used nuclear fuel in advanced extraction systems such as ALSEP. Researchers will emphasize organic phase degradation, particularly complex solvents with multiple ligands as well as metal loaded solvents. The project will improve predictive capabilities of extraction processes by elucidating degradation pathways. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12757: Elucidation of Electrochemical Behavior of Technetium, Tellurium, and Iodine in Molten Salt Solutions. | University of Idaho | $796,741 | This project will evaluate the electrochemical speciation behavior of iodide, and telluride in LiCl-KCl eutectic, LiCl, and LiCl + Li2O electrolytes at temperatures relevant to reprocessing conditions. By using rhenium as surrogate for technetium, the electrochemical, and chemical speciation properties of rhenium ions will be investigated in chloride molten salts with the addition of molybdenum and ruthenium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12701: Development and Experimental Benchmark of Computational Models to Predict Cladding Temperature and Vapor Removal from UNF Canisters during Drying Operations | University of Nevada, Reno | $400,000 | Researchers will develop physics-based computational tools to predict used nuclear fuel cladding temperatures within, and water vapor removal rates from, canisters during existing and proposed drying processes. The project will explore a range of gas pressures (including rarefication), and steady and unsteady external gas flows rates. The tools will be used to develop drying processes that minimize drying time while maintaining cladding temperatures. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12688: An Experimental and Analytical Investigation into Critical Heat Flux (CHF) Implications for Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF) Concepts | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a holistic best estimate assessment of the potential impact of different ATF cladding materials with regards to heat transfer characteristics, the boiling curve, critical heat flux, fuel mass/volume/specific power density, and neutronics effects due to changes in the lattice design or parasitic neutron absorption during design basis accident conditions in light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12996: Multipurpose, Radiation- and Temperature-Resistant Semiconductor Radiation Detectors for Advanced Process Monitoring and Nuclear Safeguards | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop detection systems capable of neutron, gamma-ray, x-ray, and alpha monitoring in high-temperature and high radiation environments for extended periods of time. The detectors will be used to strengthen nuclear safeguards by enhancing nuclear material control and accounting in nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13125: The Thermodynamics of Crystallization and Phase-Separation in Melt-Derived Nuclear Waste Forms | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This projects will study the thermodynamics of melt and quench phases of nuclear waste glasses and glass ceramics and link this information to the underlying short-range and medium-range structure. Advanced calorimetric techniques and neutron total scattering with pair distribution function analysis will be applied to obtain these data. Computer simulations will complement the experimental effort. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12886: Identifying, Predicting and Preventing Localized Corrosion in Kr-85 Storage Canisters | University of Virginia | $799,000 | Researchers will determine the root cause of corrosion within Kr-85 storage canisters in order to better understand current corrosion rates. The project will focus on expanding available research on Rb corrosion interactions and other contributing factors to better understand the corrosion phenomenon in current steel canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12463: Extreme Performance High Entropy Alloys (HEAs) Cladding for Fast Reactor Applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will develop extreme performance high entropy alloys (HEAs) as for new metal alloy cladding for fast reactor applications. Two very promising, single solution BCC HEAs will be investigated. The project will deliver an extensive irradiation resistance study of a new promising yet unexplored cladding concept. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12549: Critical Heat Flux Studies for Innovative Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding Surfaces | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will study critical heat flux (CHF) behavior focused on innovative accident tolerant fuel (ATF) cladding. The project includes separate effects screening tests to measure CHF for various ATF clad materials and surface characteristics with measurements of surface wettability. Pressurized flow boiling experiments will simulate prototypical reactor conditions for evaluating the best ATF clad materials coupled with CHF modeling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13019: Evaluation of Accident Tolerant Fuels Surface Characteristics in Critical Heat Flux Performance | Virginia Commonwealth University | $800,000 | Researchers will perform separate-effects and system-wide tests of the AREVA and GE accident tolerant fuel concepts currently under consideration. The project will investigate the impact of cladding surface characteristics in critical heat flux (CHF) under normal and anticipated off-normal conditions. The experimental results will be used to develop and validate enhanced models for the prediction of CHF and will be implemented in various subchannel and system analysis codes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13054: Simulated Used Nuclear Fuel Dissolution as a Function of Fuel Chemistry and Near Field Conditions | Washington State University | $800,000 | Researchers will study the effects of simulated used nuclear fuel (UNF) chemistry and microstructure on its dissolution in geologic repository conditions. The results will advance models for UNF evolution in repository conditions, enabling reliable prediction of degradation and long-term performance of used nuclear fuel for up to one million years. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12506: Development of Reactor Physics Benchmark Evaluations for Power Burst Facility Experiments | University of Florida | $398,265 | Researchers will perform reactor physics benchmark evaluations of Power Burst Facility experiments regarding differential reactivity worth of the control and transient rods, shim rod worth, in-pile-tube reactivity worth, shutdown reactivity, fuel assembly reactivity worth, core void coefficients of reactivity, in-pile-tube void coefficient, and coolant temperature coefficient of reactivity. The results will be incorporated in the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP). | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12748: Combined modeling and experiments to predict corrosion and embrittlement in dual-phase stainless steels within the MARMOT framework | Oregon State University | $800,000 | Researchers will enhance MARMOT to predict mechanical and corrosion properties of dual-phase stainless steels as a function of composition, aging time and temperature by using combined experimental data and lower length scale models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12797: In-Situ Ion Irradiation to Add Irradiation Assisted Grain Growth to the MARMOT Tool | Pennsylvania State University | $500,000 | Researchers will add the capability to model irradiation assisted grain growth to the MARMOT tool by using in-situ ion irradiation of UO2 to quantify the effect of irradiation on grain growth. The team will investigate the hypothesis that irradiation assisted grain growth is caused by thermal spikes resulting from atom collisions. The model added to MARMOT will couple the existing grain growth model to a heat conduction simulation using a stochastic heat source describing the thermal spike. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12555: Integration of high-fidelity Monte Carlo and deterministic transport codes into Workbench | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | Researchers will provide end users an ability to run both MCNP6 and PROTEUS codes from a common user input in Workbench by (1) templating user-provided engineering scale specifications to code-specific input requirements, (2) enabling multi-fidelity analysis of a system from a common input using MCNP6 and PROTEUS and (3) allowing the easy use of high-fidelity simulations to inform lower-order models for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems and experiments. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12939: Expansion of BISON Capabilities to Predict the Dynamic Response of Irradiated Fuel Rods | University of New Hampshire | $800,000 | Researchers will expand the capabilities of BISON and MOOSE to simulate the structural dynamic response of fuel rods and fuel assemblies during handling (wet and dry storage) and transportation. Expanding the capabilities of BISON and MOOSE to facilitate the evaluation of the dynamic response of fuel rods and assemblies is important to conduct a more reliable risk assessment of fuel assemblies, as well as storage and transportation casks. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13179: Implementation and Validation of Advanced Turbulence Modeling Methods for Liquid Metal Flow in Nek5000 | University of Oklahoma | $786,648 | Researchers will implement and validate state-of-the-art turbulence modeling techniques in Nek5000 to improve predition of liquid metal flows. Specific methods to be investigated include: variable PrT and algebraic heat flux models (AHFM) for URANS simulation; partially-averaged Navier-Stokes (PANS) and dynamic hybrid RANS-LES (DHRL) for hybrid RANS-LES simulation; and variable PrT subgrid heat flux modeling for LES. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12848: Development of Information Trustworthiness and Integrity Algorithms for Cybersecurity Defenses of Nuclear Power Reactors | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a first-of-a-kind physics-based defense-in-depth strategy to defend against false data injection attacks which attempt to change the information used by the I/C network to set reactor state. The approach employs a new design philosophy to check for information trustworthiness/integrity in order to determine whether the information is genuinely generated during the actual operation of the nuclear unit under either normal or off-normal conditions. | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cybersecurity | |
| NEUP Project 17-12538: Influence of dissolved salts and impurities in seawater on heat transfer degradation and fluid flow through fuel channels debris bed | Kansas State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate the role of raw water on degraded heat transfer and fluid flow in the reactor core and debris bed. X-ray imaging techniques, optical-fiber high speed temperature sensing systems and radioactive tracer salts will be used to simultaneously measure experimental data on void fraction, temperature and salt deposition rate. This data will be used to obtain correlations for heat transfer and fluid flow in case of raw water injection. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12502: High Resolution Temperature and Flow Measurements in Wire-Wrapped Fuel Assemblies | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will produce high-quality, high spatial and temporal resolution temperature and flow datasets for wire-wrapped rod bundle geometries. Different bundle sizes, configurations (including duct's and pin's deformation) and Low-Prandlt fluids will be investigated. A unique set of data will be produced to support advanced CFD tools validation, including Nek5000. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12723: Integrating Static PRA Information with RISMC Simulation Methods | The Ohio State University | $799,985 | Researchers will develop a computationally feasible and user friendly process to augment the traditional probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) results with improved representation of epistemic uncertainties and process/hardware/software/human interactions at plant level applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12664: Methods to Predict Thermal Radiation and to Design Scaled Separate and Integral Effects Testing For Molten Salt Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology for the design of molten salt reactor (MSR) Separate Effect Test and Integral Effect Test experiments. This methodology will identify and quantify sources of scaling distortion including radiative heat transport. The project would improve code performance and assist FHR/MSR vendors who are making licensing applications based on code results. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12523: Experimental and Computational Studies of Stress Corrosion Cracking of Alloys 308/309 and 82/182 Weldments in Corrosive and Radiation Environment | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will use advanced microanalytical analysis techniques to study SCC and IASCC of stainless steel and Ni-Cr alloy weldments. CERT, autoclave immersion, and ion irradiation will be used to determine synergistic effect of LWR environmental factors. Results from the experimental component of the proposed work scope will be used for enhanced predictive capability of the INL Grizzly code via XFEM. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12614: Systematic Enterprise Risk Management by Integrating the RISMC Toolkit and Cost-Benefit Analysis | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $799,998 | Researchers will develop a systematic Enterprise Risk Management framework, which utilizes Decision Tree (DT) logic to consider high-level production-loss scenarios, and their underlying physical and social causes throughout the lifecycle. In the proposed DT, uncertainty nodes will be quantified by plant-specific risk analysis using the Risk-Informed Safety Margin Characterization (RISMC) Toolkit, and cost-benefit analysis will be conducted for end states reflecting consequences of managerial decision-making. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12972: Design of a Commercial-Scale, Fluoride-Salt-Cooled, High-Temperature Reactor With Novel Refueling and Decay Heat Removal Capabilities | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $400,000 | Researchers will combine fluoride-salt-cooled, high temperature reactors (FHR) with advanced gas reactor (AGR) refueling technology to address several significant challenges that remain in the development of FHR technology. The project will adapt AGR refueling technology by using the new fuel-inside-radial-moderator fuel form, which will also introduce new ways of dealing with decay heat. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13115: Experimental Determination of Helium/air Mixing in Helium Cooled Reactor | University of Michigan | $800,000 | Researchers will examine the effects of coolant leakage and air ingress through three different investigations. The overall objective of this work is to characterize near and far field behavior of Helium/Air mixing in containment, and to determine rates and amounts of air leaked back into the reactor after a depressurization event. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12830: Radioisotope Retention in Graphite and Graphitic Materials | University of Missouri, Columbia | $800,000 | Researchers will use a variety of experimental techniques to acquire data for fission product diffusion, transport and adsorption of fission products in various graphites, relating to nuclear reactors at high temperatures. Measurements will be taken using non-irradiated graphite using fission product surrogates. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13020: Bimetallic Composite (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) Development and Compatibility in Flowing FLiBe as a Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) Structural Material | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a new bimetallic alloy (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) structural material for the MSR, and compare its post-exposure mechanical performance in flowing FLiBe with single alloys SS 316, Hastelloy N, and Incoloy 800H, in the context of ASME codification. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12678: Novel NDE Sensors, Waveforms, Models, and Algorithms for Cable Health Monitoring | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop NDE sensors and probabilistic cable insulation diagnosis and prognosis algorithms (particle filtering), and modeling and experiments to monitor cable insulation health. Two different types of sensor will be deployed to detect insulation damage. The team will also develop cable insulation degradation modeling to further understand defects in cable insulation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13080: Multiscale Investigation of SiC/SiC Composite Degradation in Helium Coolant Operating Environment | University of Virginia | $800,000 | Researchers will study the long-term degradation mechanisms of SiC/SiC composites in helium coolant environments by slow crack growth (SCG). This will be achieved through multiscale testing in hot, O2-contaminated He and evaluation of the effect of SCG on hermeticity during in situ testing. Results will be extended to predictive low-level and component-scale SCG models and integrated into the development of ASME standards for use of SiC/SiC in nuclear reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12481: Supercritical CO2 power cycle for space applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will develop an advanced supercritical Brayton power cycle directly coupled to a fission reactor. The project will carry out a comprehensive optimization of the cycle operating conditions, working fluid, and configuration; develop detailed designs of each subcomponent; and demonstrate/develop critical technologies such as turbomachinery seals and bearings, reactor material corrosion and strength demonstrations, and supercritical heat transfer. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13232: Radiative Heat Transport and Optical Characterization of High Temperature Molten Salts | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | The goal of the proposed research is to experimentally investigate radiation heat transport in molten salts, and to add functionality for radiative heat transport in a thermal-hydraulics system code. This includes obtaining highly resolved measurements of the optical absorption and emissivity of liquid salts. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 18-15345: Multiphysics Degradation Processes, and Their Mitigation, in Engineered and Geological Bariers: Experiments and Simulation | Duke University | $800,000.00 | This project will focus on filling the gaps in understanding of mechanisms of a series of degradation processes (thermal, hydric, geo-chemical, and transport processes phenomena) potentially affecting geo-materials used in repositories. The objectives of the work are to better recognize the conditions leading to preferential paths of radionuclide transport and rock weakening, and to build mathematical models and implement them into existing codes to predict material degradation and develop strategies to reduce the adverse consequences. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15043: Integration of Nuclear Material Accounting Data and Process Monitoring Data for Improvement on Detection Probability in Safeguarding Electrochemical Processing Facilities | Oregon State University | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to further studies on fusion of process monitoring (PM) data and nuclear material accounting (NMA) data. PM data, which includes monitoring by various types of equipment (radiation detectors, cameras, voltage, current sensors), can supplement NMA data to help improve safeguards. For aqueous-based reprocessing facilities, it is reported that PM, integrated with traditional NMA, has a high-detection probability for specific diversions. For electrochemical reprocessing, preliminary studies have shown that PM data can support traditional NMA by providing a basis to estimate some of the in-processing nuclear material inventories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15148: Recovery of Rare-Earth Elements (Nd, Gd, Sm) in Oxide Wasteform Using Liquid Metals (Bi, Sn) | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000.00 | This project investigates a new approach for recovering rare-earth (RE) fission products (Nd, Gd, and Sm) from molten chlorine salts using liquid metal (Bi and Sn) electrodes. The research aids molten salt recycling by converting the RE products into chloride-free RE oxides, which could be incorporated into conventional glass/ceramic waste forms. Successful outcomes of the project include advanced separation of fission products from molten salts with better control of chemical selectivity and high-recovery yield. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15103: Microstructure-Based Benchmarking for Nano/Microscale Tension and Ductility Testing of Irradiated Steels | Purdue University | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to standardize methods for nano/micro-scale tensile and ductility testing of irradiated Fe-Cr steels, through microstructure-based benchmarking. The study will investigate key process parameters for TEM in situ tension and ductility testing. Coupling experimental studies with multiscale models, the research will identify the approaches that provide consistent deformation mechanisms between the nano/micro-scale and macro-scale tests, from which standard practices will be obtained. The primary project outcome will be a set of recommended guidelines for nano/microscale mechanical testing, which will lead to unprecedented reductions in the time and cost for qualifying materials for in-reactor service and to ensure consistency of methods and validity of results. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15559: Cold Spray Repair & Mitigation of Stress Corrosion Cracks in Spent Nuclear Fuel Dry Storage Canisters | Purdue University | $799,982.00 | This goal of this project is to demonstrate cold spray repair and mitigation of chloride-induced stress corrosion cracks (SCC) and pits in stainless steel dry storage canisters. The research will optimize the repair process and gain a scientifically informed understanding of SCC mechanisms. The outcome is to further develop cold spray as an attractive solution for the repair of existing SCC and mitigation of potential SCC necessary to ensure long-term integrity, security, and regulatory compliance of spent nuclear fuel storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15596: Capture of Organic Iodides from Vessel Off-Gas Streams | Syracuse University | $799,548.00 | This project will study the capture of radioactive organoiodides from off-gas streams produced during nuclear fuel reprocessing by conducting adsorption experiments using a selected silver adsorbents. Multifaceted simulation adsorption models will be developed to assist in the design of necessary capture systems for off-gas streams. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15585: Impact of Coupled Gas Migration and Thermo-hydro-mechanical Processes on the Performance of Repositories for High Level Nuclear Waste | Texas A&M University | $608,375.00 | The main goal of this project is to better understand the possible effect of gas migration (particularly through discontinuities) on the performance and long-term behavior of engineered barrier systems (EBS) envisaged for the isolation of high-level radioactive waste (HLW). Specific outcomes of this study will be an improved understanding of the role of gas migration and discontinuities in the performance of HLW disposals, with the underlying aim to improve design of EBS used for HLW. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15531: Repair and Mitigation of Chloride-Induced Pitting and Chloride-Induced Stress Corrosion Cracking in Used Nuclear Fuel Dry Cask Canister Materials | The Ohio State University | $800,000.00 | This project will evaluate and develop a set of tools to repair and mitigate chloride-induced pitting and stress corrosion cracking in stainless steel nuclear fuel canisters. Advanced processes, including low temperature friction stir welding and cold spray deposition, will be evaluated according to various criteria, such as corrosion performance. In addition, technologies that have not yet been evaluated for UNF applications, including vaporizing foil actuator welding and soldering will be assessed. The two most promising technologies will selected for further development and comprehensive study. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14912: Bridging the Length Scales on Mechanical Property Evaluation | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000.00 | This project combines experimental and modeling methods to gain a comprehensive approach for addressing scaling effects on small-scale mechanical testing. Multiscale experiments, together with modeling on reactor-relevant and model alloys, will provide better understanding of appropriate scaling relationships. The study aims to gain fundamental understanding of plasticity interactions with specific strength-determining features, such as precipitates and grain boundaries. The goal of this work is to provide the basis to add small-scale mechanical testing in the toolbox for nuclear materials research. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14911: Understanding of degradation of SiC/SiC materials in nuclear systems and development of mitigation strategies | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000.00 | This project investigates the best possible coatings to prevent SiCf/SiCm corrosion in LWR environments. The research features a computational and experimental rapid screening approach for numerous coating compositions. The work includes autoclave exposure of rapid screening coupons in prototypical environments in combination with thermodynamic modeling (CALPHAD) and Finite Element Methods (FEM). Small-scale mechanical testing, together with thermal cycling and FEM modeling, will provide guidance on the ideal coating system design. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15701: Time-dependent THMC Properties and Microstructural Evolution of Damage Rocks in Excavation Damage Zone | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,978.00 | The proposed project focuses on the geomechanical aspects of modeling by addressing the time-dependent evolution of rock microstructure and its coupling with the THC processes that are of first-order importance to the stability and the isolation performance of repositories. The research will delineate an integrated experimental, theoretical and numerical strategy in assessing the evolution EDZ over time and its implication on the long-term migration of hazardous species. These results will enhance the confidence of the predicted long-term performance of repositories, which helps to move forward the goal of one-million-year isolation of high-level nuclear wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15381: Multiaxial Failure Envelopes and Uncertainty Quantification of Nuclear-Grade SiCf/SiC Woven Ceramic Matrix Tubular Composites | University of Florida | $800,000.00 | This project proposes to develop a comprehensive experimental and computational approach for determining constitutive relations and multiaxial failure envelopes of nuclear-grade continuous silicon fiber (SiCf) and SiC matrix woven tubular composites. The result of this work can be adopted in industry for design refinement, optimization of performance under the desired operating conditions, and reliable prediction of failure under unforeseen accidental scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15496: Formation of Zeolites Responsible for Waste Glass Rate Acceleration: An Experimental and Computational Study for Understanding Thermodynamic and Kinetic Processes | University of Houston | $800,000.00 | Through experimental and computational studies, this project will expose the factors governing zeolite crystallization and their role in Stage III dissolution of radionuclide-containing glass waste forms generated in advanced nuclear fuel cycles. The overall goal of this project is to understand the formation of zeolite phases in order to develop process control methods to suppress Stage III dissolution. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14998: Novel Processes for Capture of Radioactive Iodine Species from Vessel Off-Gas Streams | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the sorption system performance and effectiveness for capture of radioiodine species present in the off-gas streams from the used nuclear fuel (UNF) recycling operations, focusing particularly on the organic iodine species. The dynamic sorption experimentation and theoretical modeling will offer fundamental insights on the mechanism enabling the design and prediction the control system performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15261: Friction Stir Based Repair Welding of Dry Storage Canisters and Mitigation Strategies: Effect of Engineered Barrier Layer on Environmental Degradation | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The project goal is to apply friction stir based repair and mitigation technique for eliminating failure associated with pitting and stress corrosion cracking in dry storage canisters for spent fuels. The goal of these activities is to obtain a fundamental understanding of the processing-structure-properties correlations. This work will contribute to the development of a crack repair/mitigation strategy based on friction stir technology that can be efficiently implemented for spent fuel dry storage casks, which will enhance safety and reliability of these systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15263: X-ray Studies of Interfacial Molecular Complexes in ALSEP Back-Extraction | University of Illinois at Chicago | $800,000.00 | This project will use synchrotron X-rays to characterize the interfacial molecular complexes (of extractants and radiologically derived impurities, complexants, buffers, and metal ions) formed during the Actinide-Lanthanide Separation Process (ALSEP) back-extraction. This work addresses the critical knowledge gap of slow stripping kinetics in ALSEP, as well as the influence of radiolytic degradation products. The outcome of the project will be a molecular-level understanding of the role of different components in the interfacial mechanism of back-extraction in the ALSEP process, therefore leading to development of more efficient and faster metal stripping relevant to the separation of actinides from lanthanides in the nuclear fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15030: Mechanistic Understanding of Radiolytically Assisted Hydrothermal Corrosion of SiC in LWR Coolant Environments | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to develop a mechanistic understanding of the hydrothermal corrosion behavior of monolithic SiC and SiC/SiC composites in LWR environment under the influence of water radiolysis products and radiation damage. Complementary atomistic simulations will be carried out to determine the rate controlling mechanisms for dissolution under different water chemistries and in the presence of radiation. Activation energies and kinetic rates will be calculated directly from these simulations and compared to experimentally fitted values. The dissolution rate constants determined and validated in this integrated experimental and modeling approach will allow predictions of long-term SiC corrosion behavior. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14999: Probabilistic Failure Criterion of SiC/SiC Composites Under Multi-Axial Loading | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $800,000.00 | This project aims to develop a probabilistic failure criterion of SiC/SiC composites under multi-axial loading and to incorporate the criterion into a reliability analysis of the structural integrity of LWR SiC/SiC fuel cladding. This research will be anchored by a seamless integration of novel experimental and analytical tools, which will lead to a robust methodology for dependable analysis of SiC/SiC composite structures for LWR fuel cladding, as well as other nuclear applications. The resulting model will be experimentally validated and applied to analyze the reliability of LWR SiC/SiC fuel cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15502: Reducing Uncertainty in Radionuclide Transport Prediction Using Multiple Environmental Tracers | University of Montana | $724,906.00 | In this project, direct modeling of multiple environmental tracers will be used to improve predictions of radionuclide transport in a shallow alluvial aquifer discharge. The research will take advantage of recent theoretical developments considering the use of environmental tracers, and advances in high-performance reactive flow and transport models, to obtain the maximum information on the transport system. The goal is to develop a new methodology to characterize natural reactive flow and transport systems, reduce predictive uncertainty in radionuclide transport simulations, determine the maximum information content of the tracer suite, and optimize future groundwater characterization efforts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15578: Computational and Experimental Investigation of Thermal-Mechanical- Chemical Mechanisms of High-burnup Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) Processes at Elevated Temperatures and Degradation Behavior in Geologic Repositories | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $800,000.00 | The overarching goal of this project is to use combined computational and experimental research and development activities to enhance understanding of the mechanisms and thermal-mechanical-chemical (TMC) parameters controlling the instant release fraction (IRF) and matrix dissolution of high-burnup (HB; burnup > 45 GWd/MTU) spent nuclear fuels (SNFs) and the subsequent formation, stability, and phase transformations of HB SNF alteration products under long-term storage and geological disposal conditions (e.g., high-temperature storage, _-radiolysis). The results of this research will be used to enhance the mechanistic detail of process models to reduce uncertainty in, and improve the technical bases of, safety cases and performance assessment analyses. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15439: Radiolytic Dissolution Rate of Silicon Carbide | University of Notre Dame | $400,000.00 | This project seeks to develop a matrix of dissolution rates for high-purity SiC material, using intense electron beam irradiation, and to measure the products of dissolution (silicic acid and CO2 (or CO)) in the water downstream of the irradiation zone. The objective is to determine the rate of SiC dissolution and gather sufficient insight about its mechanism in LWRs, so that the use of SiC/SiC composite materials for accident tolerant fuel cladding can proceed with confidence. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15061: Development of an MC&A Toolbox for Liquid-fueled Molten Salt Reactors with Online Reprocessing | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,207.00 | The purpose of this project is to develop a toolbox of swappable mass flow modules for liquid-fueled molten salt reactor (MSR) systems for the purposes of evaluating material control & accountancy measurement techniques. When combined together, these modules enable modeling of the time-dependent mass flows for a variety of MSR variants. The test platform will consist of a toolbox of independent process modules representing discrete physical units, each with its own self-contained physics responsive to the input mass flow, along with appropriate measurement models that can be coupled to key flow points. These dynamic physical signatures would allow testing of the viability and efficacy of potential accountancy techniques under the full range of reactor operating conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15307: A Novel and Flexible Approach for Converting LWR UNF Fuel Into Forms That Can Be Used to Fuel a Variety of Gen-IV Reactors | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $400,000.00 | This project will investigate the chemical decladding and the digestion of whole MOX-based fuel rods, using thionyl chloride and surrogate materials. Digesting entire LWR fuel assemblies results in product streams that include pure decontaminated ZrCl4; pure UCl4; and a stream containing TRU/FPs, as well as alloying metals (as chloride salts). The objectives of this project are to provide a new, highly efficient protocol for the transformation of used nuclear fuel into useful components and to effectively contain a concentrated stream of highly radioactive materials for appropriate handling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15459: Reduced Diffusion and Enhanced Retention of Multiple Radionuclides from Pore Structure Studies of Barrier Materials for Enhanced Repository Performance | University of Texas at Arlington | $567,831.00 | The project seeks to better understand and quantify the pore structure (geometry and topology) and pore connectivity of porous media and its emergent effect on diffusion and retention of various radionuclides in barrier materials. The anticipated outcome of the project will be to more accurately evaluate the performance of geological repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15649: Benchmarking Microscale Ductility Measurements | University of Utah | $776,669.00 | The objectives of this project are to establish best practices for obtaining tensile microscale ductility measurements and to validate methodologies for comparing them to macroscale ductility measurements. Anticipated outcomes of the project are: 1) measurement of grain and sub-grain localization processes micro and macroscales; 2) establishment of best practices for microtensile experimentation; 3) identification of statistically significant relationships between specimen geometry, microstructure variables and mechanical behavior; 4) modified phenomenological elongation-based ductility models to enable direct upscaling of ductility measurements from microscale to macroscopic. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15003: Advanced Coating and Surface Modification Technologies for SiC-SiC Composite for Hydrothermal Corrosion Protection in LWR | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,990.00 | This project focuses on the development of coatings and surface modification approaches for hydrothermal corrosion protection of SiC-SiC composite in normal LWR operation environments. Innovative surface treatment recipes will be explored using processes including, interfacial stitching to improve adhesion, multi-layered structures to improve ductility, and compositions and structures resulting from thermal treatments. The surface treatment concepts involve corrosion resistant metallic and ceramic materials, and are amenable to industrial scalability for the cladding application. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15332: Low-Force Solid-State Technologies for Mitigation of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dry Storage Canisters | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000.00 | This project will focus on evaluating and developing two technologies used for field mitigation and repair of stress corrosion cracking (SCC): 1) additive friction stir welding; and 2) cold spray deposition. The work involves developing low-force, low-heat input solid state technologies to lessen and repair SCC in stainless steel canisters for used nuclear fuel (UNF). This outcome of the study will inform feasibility of using the two technologies to conduct on-site field repairs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14913: The Role of Temperature on Non-Darcian Flows in Engineered Clay Barriers | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000.00 | This project intends to accomplish three tasks: 1) to develop a predictive model to facilitate experimental data interpretation and provide mechanistic insights into the role of temperature on non-Darcian flows in low-permeability engineered clay barriers; 2) conduct experiments to unravel the role of temperature on the threshold gradient of non-Darcian flow in both saturated and unsaturated bentonite; and 3) use molecular dynamics (MD) simulation to improve fundamental understanding. The experimental data, associated with the MD simulation, will provide valuable information to improve fundamental understanding and scientific knowledge with respect to the temperature dependence of threshold gradient in non-Darcian flows, because very limited experimental data for saturated flow and no experimental data for unsaturated flow are available. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14815: C-SiOC-SiC Coated Particle Fuels for Advanced Nuclear Reactors | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $400,000.00 | This project will study a new concept for nuclear fuel encapsulation using an amorphous SiOC plus carbon system as the inner coating and nanocrystalline SiC plus minor carbon as the outer coating for nuclear fuel kernel particles. The outcomes of this work are: 1) new directions and possible replacement guidance for current nuclear fuel materials in operation; 2) new fuel materials for future nuclear reactor material design and development; 3) nuclear composite microstructure evolution and performance degradation understanding; 4) screening tools to guide future nuclear fuel material activities; and 5) mechanisms of nuclear fuel material evolution and degradation and effective strategies to mitigate/reduce undesirable fuel behaviors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15226: An Evaluated, Transient Experiment based on Simultaneous, 3-D Neutron-Flux and Temperature Measurements | Kansas State University | $399,972.00 | This project will evaluate existing and near-term experimental data for inclusion in the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) handbook. The data to be evaluated include compositions from a recent fuel replacement as part of an LEU conversion, a number of critical, fresh-fuel configurations, fuel temperature measurements at fresh-fuel configurations, and records from nearly a decade of operation. The proposed work would lead to a first-of-a-kind evaluation of transient, spatially-dependent reaction rates. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project CFA-18-15773: Evaluation of the Thermal Scattering Law for Advanced Reactor Neutron Moderators and Reflectors | North Carolina State University | $398,821.00 | The objective of this project is to narrow the nuclear data gap for advanced nuclear reactors that are driven by thermal neutrons. This includes concepts such as gas-cooled high-temperature reactors and molten salt or salt-cooled high temperature reactors. The generated data TSL libraries will be provided in EDNF File 7 format to the National Nuclear Data Center (NDDC) to immediately include in beta releases of the ENDF/B libraries and to consider for the future release of ENDF/B-VIII.1. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15602: Modeling and Experimental Verification of Thermal Energy Storage Systems to Enable Load Following Capability for Nuclear Reactors | University of Idaho | $761,640.00 | This project purposes to integrate new thermal energy storage (TES) models, developed in Modelica, with ongoing nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (NRHES) modeling efforts, in order to evaluate economic potential and advantages of new process designs over baseload electricity production. The computational phase of this project includes developing mathematical and physics-based TES models, which could later be translated to Modelica and integrated with existing NRHES components. The testing and optimization would be conducted using RAVEN. A techno-economic analysis will be performed to evaluate the compatibility of the newly formed integration, as well as to quantify its feasibility and economic benefits. The experimental aspect is focused on the development of scaled TES systems, which serve as verification for the Modelica models and allow system testing upon being integrated with DETAIL. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14963: Development of Nuclear Hybrid Energy Systems: Temperature Amplification through Chemical Heat Pumps for Industrial Applications | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The overall goal of this project is to develop and demonstrate, through modeling and experimental investigations, temperature amplification capabilities of a chemical heat pump (CHP) system that can be coupled to a conventional light water reactor or a near-term small modular reactor. The outcomes would include nuclear hybrid energy system architecture containing a CHP, experimental data on the CHP performance, and dynamic model of the system, validated through experimentation, which could be used for scale-up and design. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15008: Development of Thermal Inelastic Scattering Covariance Data Capabilities with Demonstration of Light Water Evaluation | University of Michigan | $400,000.00 | The goal of this project is to produce a format for covariance data for inelastic thermal neutron scattering data for moderators in the ENDF format. To demonstrate the viability of this new format, an evaluation of the covariance data for thermal scattering in light water in this format will be produced, along with the capabilities to generate the files and test their efficacy. A capability for calculating sensitivity coefficients using multigroup methods to the fundamental physics parameters governing light-water scattering will be developed to facilitate identifying nuclear data needs related to thermal scattering. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15056: Model-Based Diagnostics and Mitigation of Cyber Threats | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | This project intends to develop a toolkit for modeling digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems for nuclear power plants so that the consequences of cyber-attacks on I&C systems may conveniently be modeled using nuclear plant simulation software. The results of the toolkit-based models, the corresponding responses, and the performance of the diagnostic schemes will be tested on a virtual control room driven by a plant simulator. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15055: NICSim: Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Simulation for Evaluating Response to Cyber-attacks | University of New Mexico | $799,945.00 | The objective of the project is to develop a Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Simulation (NICSim) platform with a novel emulytics capability to simulate control systems and components in nuclear power plants. The outcome of this work would be a first-in-class emulytics platform with an associated documentation and library of physical models of components that could be used by analysts and designers to assess the resilience and cybersecurity risks of different control system designs for a wide range of power plants. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15324: Validation of Pressure Relaxation Coefficient in RELAP-7 Seven-Equation Model | George Washington University | $800,000.00 | This project aims to validate the Seven-Equation model in RELAP-7 by: 1) measuring velocity and pressure in each phase and the interface as well as return to equilibrium in fast transients with high-speed non-intrusive laser diagnostics in canonical experiments; 2) complementing experimental data with a multiscale computational approach, including a 3D proprietary direct numerical solver; and 3) validating RELAP-7 with a combination of experimental data and first-principle simulations. This combination would provide unique and complete datasets to validate RELAP-7 with high confidence and offer a new class of experimental and numerical tools. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project CFA-18-15104: Demonstration of Utilization of High-fidelity NEAMS Tools to Inform the Improved Use of Conventional Tools within the NEAMS Workbench on the NEA/OECD C5G7-TD Benchmark | North Carolina State University | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to demonstrate the utilization of high-fidelity Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) tools (PROTEUS, Nek5000, and BISON) to inform the improved use of conventional tools (DIF-3D, CTF, and CTFFuel) within the NEAMS Workbench on the NEA/OECD C5G7-TD benchmark. This would result in more accurate predictions of safety parameters and margins, which is important for both safety and performance improvements of the nuclear power plants being currently operated and built. The developed Workbench-based framework will also assist end users to apply high-fidelity simulations to inform lower-order models for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14741: Demonstration of a Methodology for Direct Validation of MARMOT Irradiation-Induced Microstructural Evolution and Physical Property Models Using U-10Zr | Texas A&M University | $500,000.00 | The objective of this project is to demonstrate, for the first time, a methodology that enables the direct validation of microstructural evolution models for fuel in MARMOT, and the direct correlation of changes in physical properties with specific irradiation-induced microstructural features. Properly implementing this methodology will result in rapid development of MARMOT mesoscale models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15520: Accurate and Efficient Parametric Model-Order Reduction for Turbulent Thermal Transport | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000.00 | The project objective is to develop reduced-order models (ROMs) that will improve accuracy of LMR system-level analysis with low overhead. These new models will systematically mine high-fidelity DNS, LES, or uRANS simulations to construct low-order dynamical systems that can couple with a systems analysis code, such as the SAM code being developed under NEAMS. These simulations provide useful data and will be made available to the scientific community, and the overall effort will contribute to more efficient LMR conceptual design studies and licensing. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15484: A Novel High Fidelity Continuous-energy tTansport Tool for Efficient FHR Transient Calculations | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000.00 | The objective of the project is to develop a high-fidelity continuous energy (CE) transport tool for efficient transient calculations in fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactors with prismatic core/fuel assembly design. This will be accomplished by extending the high-fidelity 3-D continuous energy coarse mesh radiation transport (COMET) code with formidable computational speed to solve transient problems in FHRs with accurate thermal hydraulic feedback. The new capability would enable plant system codes to perform analyses necessary to address complex technical design, regulatory, reactor safety, and economic hurdles prior to construction. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15093: Determination of Molecular Structure and Dynamics of Molten Salts by Advanced Neutron and X-ray Scattering Measurements and Computer Modeling | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000.00 | This project will seek detailed knowledge about molecular structure and dynamics of molten salts to inform the design of new molten-salt reactors. A combination of advanced neutron and x-ray scattering and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations will be used to model the ionic-cluster structure of the fluid and solubility of impurities. Machine learning will be applied to regress from simulations and experiments in order to develop the model and predict chemical potentials as a function of composition and temperature. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15171: Oxidation Behavior of Silicon Carbide and Graphitic Materials | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000.00 | The objectives of this project are to determine the oxidation behavior of silicon carbide and graphitic materials in oxygen and/or moisture, to accurately measure the kinetic parameters of oxidation, to ascertain the oxidation mechanisms in relation to the microstructures, to determine the effect of irradiation on oxidation behavior, and to provide data and input to the safety analysis of high-temperature gas reactors under air and moisture ingress accident conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15276: Coping Time and Cost Analysis of Accident Tolerant Plant Design based on Dynamic PRA Methodology | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000.00 | This project will evaluate the failure modes of accident tolerant fuel ATF candidates to understand the different failure characteristics. The research aims to obtain a response surface of coping time by investigating the various uncertainties of accident mitigation in PWR and BWR reactors. These outputs will aid the decision making process on the implementation of ATF and FLEX to existing LWR plants from the perspective of risk reduction and economic feasibility. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15270: Innovative Use of Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) with the RCIC System to Enhance Passive Safety of Commercial LWRs | Texas A&M University | $748,000.00 | The overarching objectives of this project are to: 1) demonstrate new operational strategies with the combined use of Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) and the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) System to increase the passive safety capabilities of current Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs) in delaying or preventing core damage; and 2) pursue the delay of containment venting until after a 72-hour coping period through new BWR Suppression Pool mixing procedures. The research will use both simulation and experimental data to validate the objectives. The work has the potential to increase the ability of existing nuclear power plants to passively respond to beyond design basis events using existing equipment and without changes to the plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15346: Big Data For Operation and Maintenance Cost Reduction | The Ohio State University | $800,000.00 | This project will develop a first-of-a-kind framework for integrating Big Data capability into the daily activities of our current fleet of nuclear power plants. This research will mainly focus on incorporating the wide range of data heterogeneities in nuclear power plants into an integrated Big Data Analytics capability. The primary end product of this work will be a Big Data framework that is capable of dealing with the large volume and heterogeneity of the data found in nuclear power plants to extract timely and valuable information on equipment performance and to enable optimization of plant operation and maintenance based on the extracted information. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15065: in situ Measurement and Validation of Uranium Molten Salt Properties at Operationally Relevant Temperatures | University of Connecticut | $799,979.00 | This project proposes to use advanced spectroscopic and scattering methods to provide information at the atomic and molecular scale. The research will use synchrotron-based x-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy, at operationally relevant temperatures, to measure the local and intermediate structure as well as speciation of chloride fuel salts (NaCl, ZrCl, UCl3) for fast-spectrum applications and fluoride fuel salts ( 7 LiF, UF4) primarily for thermal spectrum applications This approach is expected to generate theories and concepts that would allow models to predict behavior, and develop the means for in situ monitoring. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15058: High-resolution Experiments for Extended LOFC and Steam Ingress Accidents in HTGRs | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to better understand key phenomena in high-temperature gas-cooled reactors relevant to steam ingress and loss of forced circulation (LOFC) accidents. Specifically, the research will: 1) experimentally investigate, using an existing integral-effect test facility with some improvements, the steam-ingress accident caused by a postulated steam generator tube rupture initiating event; 2) carry out integral-effect tests for the extended LOFC accident to study the establishment of global natural circulation flow in the primary loop; 3) design, based on a scaling analysis, and construct a separate-effect test facility to study the complex helium flows in the core and hot plenum during the extended LOFC accident; and 4) perform detailed, high-resolution, separate-effects experiments using the results obtained as boundary/initial conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15471: Integral Experimental Investigation of Radioisotope Retention in Flowing Lead for the Mechanistic Source Term Evaluation of Lead Cooled Fast Reactor | University of New Mexico | $800,000.00 | The purpose of this project is to experimentally investigate the integral effects of radioisotope interactions with liquid lead to support the following technical goals: 1) evaluating the mechanistic source term of the Lead-cooled Fast Reactor (LFR); 2) developing a universal integral effect test methodology for liquid metal source term evaluations; and 3) establishing a basis for the comparison of radioisotope retention between lead and sodium. This aim of the research is to advance the LFR licensing pathway by establishing the phenomenological foundation of the interaction between fission products and liquid lead. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15153: Understanding Molten Salt Chemistry Relevant to Advanced Molten Salt Reactors through Complementary Synthesis, Spectroscopy, and Modeling | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to understand molten salt chemistry relevant to advanced molten salt reactors through complementary synthesis, spectroscopy, and modeling. Through complementary synthetic, spectroscopic, and computational efforts, the aim is to achieve atomistic and molecular-level understanding of liquid structure, coordination geometry, chemical bonding, and reactivity of novel molten salt melts relevant to advanced molten reactor designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15111: Improving Nuclear Power Plant Efficiency Through Data Analytics | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,727.00 | This project aims to develop and provide data analytics solutions to improve nuclear power plan economic efficiency by utilizing empirical models to integrate disparate data sources while providing uncertainty estimates to quantify risk and support decisions. The outcomes will enhance the technical and economic competitiveness by enabling advanced monitoring of critical assets, improving the operating capability of the existing fleet, and helping achieve enhancements in organizational effectiveness. Additionally, the research would provide an agile and modular data analytic framework that would have high commercialization value and supports the industry-wide drive towards digital innovation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14846: Development of Corrosion Resistant Coatings and Liners for Structural Materials for Liquid Fueled Molten Salts Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to develop corrosion-resistant coatings and liners for structural materials for use in fuel dissolved molten salt environment for future Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). Innovative, but industrially scalable, surface cladding approaches are proposed to lead to promising surface and interfacial compositions. The processes themselves are commercial, and have high technology readiness levels, and consequently would facilitate the accelerated developments of MSRs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15280: Advanced Alloy Innovations for Structural Components of Molten Salt Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $796,792.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to develop and evaluate specific advanced metallic alloys for structural components in fluoride salt-cooled molten salt reactors (MSRs). The research will investigate four categories of metallic alloys: advanced Ni-based; radiation damage tolerant high entropy; refractory Mo-based, and compositionally-graded, designed for high-surface corrosion resistance and good bulk strength. Additionally, the propensity for radiation embrittlement, as well as weldability, of the alloys will be evaluated. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14957: Big Data Analytics Solutions to Improve Nuclear Power Plant Efficiency: Online Monitoring, Visualization, Prognosis, and Maintenance Decision Making | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $797,820.00 | The overarching goal of this project is to significantly advance the ability to assess equipment condition and predict the remaining useful life to support optimal maintenance decision making in nuclear power plants. This research will work toward accomplishing and establishing a modern set of data-driven modeling, online monitoring, visualization, prognosis, and operation decision-making methodologies to address the significant opportunities and challenges arising from the emerging data-rich environment in nuclear plants. The potential impact of the work is significant and transformative and could deliver important advances in productivity with reduced unscheduled downtime and improved equipment performance. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15097: Oxidation Study of High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor TRISO Fuels at Accidental Conditions | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000.00 | This project is to study the oxidation behaviors of TRISO fuels during accidental air and water vapor ingress conditions. The work focuses on the oxidation and burn-off of the graphite fuel matrix and oxidation of the TRISO fuel SiC layer at high-temperature accidental states in the presence of air and/or water vapor. It will include both unirradiated and irradiated graphite fuel matrix and simulated fuel particles with the SiC layer. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 19-16987: Novel miniature creep tester for virgin and neutron irradiated clad alloys with benchmarked multiscale modeling and simulations | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | This project will develop a miniature creep machine to collect rapid thermal creep and load relaxation data for two selected ferritic alloys under "as-received" and irradiated conditions. Fast and accurate measurements of creep deformation are essential for qualifying new alloys for long term use in current and next generation reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17150: Speciation and Behavior of Neptunium and Zirconium in Advanced Separation Process | Oregon State University | $800,000 | This project will further develop the understanding of nuclear fuel reprocessing using Co-Decontamination (CoDCon). Radiolytic degradation products of tributylphosphate, nitric acid, redox buffer, masking agent, and water greatly affect the redox speciation, complexation and partitioning of the recycled metals. Fundamental understanding of chemical speciation and partitioning of Neptunium and Zerconium under such conditions is required. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17395: Modeling and Uncertainty Analysis of MSR Nuclear Material Accounting Methods for Nuclear Safeguards | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | This project will model and analyze the limits of detection for the diversion of nuclear materials from a molten salt reactor (MSR) fuel cycle. MSR depletion under a range of uranium and/or plutonium diversion to quantify the resulting differences in salt composition will be evaluated. Sensors will also be investigated to quantify fuel salt contents and correlate the outputs with the reactor models to predict diversion detection. Results will be coupled with robust uncertainty analysis to determine limits of detection. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16583: Neutron Radiation Effect on Diffusion between Zr (and Zircaloy) and Cr for Accurate Lifetime Prediction of ATF | The Ohio State University | $499,997 | This project will perform systematic diffusion studies on both neutron-irradiated and unirradiated accident tolerant fuel samples to obtain precise diffusion coefficients. This will result in a precise evaluation of the pure neutron irradiation effect on diffusion in these systems and enable accurate life prediction of the accident tolerant fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17381: High Throughput Assessment of Creep Behavior of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Structural Alloys by Nano/microindentation | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $800,000 | This project will develop a high throughput assessment of creep behavior of advanced nuclear reactor structural alloys by nano/microindentation. Experimental datasets will inform polycrystalline deformation models to predict material response over a variety of creep conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16549: Thermal Conductivity Measurement of Irradiated Metallic Fuel Using TREAT | University of Pittsburgh | $500,000 | This project intends to provide accurate thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity data with microstructure characterization of metallic (U-Pu-Zr) fuel as a function of burnup and attain fundamental understanding of the thermal conductivity of the irradiated fuel to inform and validate computational models. This will be accomplished using an innovative thermal wave technique in the Transient Reactor Test Facility at the Idaho National Laboratory, with the Minimal Activation Reusable Capsule Holder. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17002: Remote Laser-based Nondestructive Evaluation for Post-Irradiation Examination of ATF Cladding | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | To enable advanced nondestructive characterization techniques for light water reactor fuels that can be applied to the cladding coating, a remote nondestructive evaluation post irradiation inspection approach will be developed. This technique will measure the cladding coating layer thickness and detect defects within the cladding such as corrosion, micro-cracking and delamination. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17276: Radiation-Induced Swelling in Advanced Nuclear Fuel | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,989 | The microstructural evolution of advanced fuel (uranium carbide and uranium nitride) under fission-fragment type radiation has not been studied and remains unclear. This project will utilize advanced synchrotron X-ray characterization using microgram samples to obtain detailed nanoscale information on radiation-induced volumetric swelling and microstrain. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16848: Metal-Functionalized Membranes for Radioiodine Capture | University of Utah | $799,031 | This proposed research will investigate high-surface area (>300 m2/g) metal-functionalized membranes. These novel chemically durable and mechanically robust membranes are formed using an aqueous fabrication process, which results in an interconnected porosity that is highly controllable, providing hierarchical structures ranging from the nano- to micrometer-scales. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17350: Development and Experimental Validation of Pitting and SCC Models for Welded Stainless Steel Dry Storage Containers Exposed to Atmospheric Environments | University of Virginia | $799,027 | The specific goals of this project are to: (a) validate the maximum pit size model for dry storage canister relevant corrosion conditions as well as quantifying the effects of limited cathodic current on stress corrosion cracking (SCC) kinetics, (b) demonstrate a means to quantitatively rank the risk of SCC based on measurable parameters, (c) perform probabilistic predictions of SCC growth, and (d) validate the model predictions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16879: Proactive Hybrid Nuclear with Load Forecasting | Brigham Young University | $799,933 | This project develops new capabilities of design and dispatch optimization of nuclear hybrid energy systems (NHES) in the "Risk Analysis Virtual Environment (RAVEN)" modelling software. Blended (physics-based and data-driven) machine learning will be applied to forecast demand and production of thermal and electrical loads. Two experimental case studies are proposed to test the software developments with a lab-scale thermal energy storage and with a large district energy system. As a final step, the software developments will be generalized to other NHES. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17461: Development and Evaluation of Neutron Thermalization Integral Benchmarks for Advanced Reactor Applications | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | This project will develop integral benchmarks that aim to examine thermal neutron scattering data for graphite (ideal and nuclear), light water, and molten salt. The benchmark evaluations will be contributed to the International Handbook of Evaluated Reactor Physics Benchmark Experiments (IRPhEP) database. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17219: Using Integral Benchmark Experiments to Improve Differential Nuclear Data Evaluations | University of New Mexico | $400,000 | This project will use the results of integral benchmark experiment to inform differential nuclear data evaluations and improve the predictive capability of modeling and simulation (M&S) tools. This goal will be accomplished by developing capabilities to assess the sensitivity of integral benchmark results to evaluated nuclear data parameters, and by using data assimilation tools to directly adjust the evaluated data parameters and improve the accuracy of M&S tools. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16743: Paths Forward for Nuclear Energy: Using a Nationwide Post-Stratified Hierarchical Model to Facilitate Matching of New Nuclear Technologies to Receptive Host Communities | University of Oklahoma | $390,393 | This project will enable deployment of advanced nuclear technologies by developing a model, and an accompanying web-based tool that can be utilized by technology entrepreneurs, that identifies public support for siting new nuclear technologies at very local spatial scales across the US. The model will employ hierarchically structured, post stratified analysis of the largest US pooled-time series dataset on geocoded public support for nuclear technologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16995: A Cyber-Attack Detection Platform for Cyber Security of Digital Instrumentation and Control Systems | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,995 | The proposed research will develop a robust cyber-attack detection system (CADS) for monitoring digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems. The project will develop a robust research tool for evaluating cyber defense of digital I&C systems and provide a framework for a cyber-attack detection system that provides continuous assurance of the security of digital I&C systems in nuclear power plants (NPPs). | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17327: Multi-Timescale Nuclear-Renewable Hybrid Energy Systems Operations to Improve Electricity System Resilience, Reliability, and Economic Efficiency | University of Texas at Dallas | $800,000 | The overarching objective of this project is to develop a multi-timescale nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (N-R HESs) operations framework to provide different types of grid products. The project will model and analyze the capabilities of N-R HESs to provide power grid services at different timescales ranging from seconds to days, such as day-ahead unit commitment, flexible ramping (5-45 minutes), regulation reserves (1-5 minutes), and frequency response (less than seconds). | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17192: The Design and Investigation of Novel Mechanical Filters for Molten Salt Reactors | Abilene Christian University | $762,246 | Researchers will develop a novel mechanical filtration system. The project will include the collection of filter media performance data and filter regeneration performance data for a novel sintered nickel-based filter prototype. The project will also provide a filter design that facilitates remote filter removal, cooling, replacement, and assay of fissile material hold-up in the filter media. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16980: Determining the Effects of Neutron Irradiation on the Structural Integrity of Additively Manufactured Heat Exchangers for Very Small Modular Reactor Applications | Auburn University | $400,000 | Researchers will determine how to best use laser-powder bed fusion additive manufacturing methods for generating radiation-resistant channel/pore-embedded structures from Inconel (alloy 625 or 718) nickel-based superalloys for special purpose reactor (i.e. very small modular reactor) heat exchangers. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17413: Validated, Multi-Scale Molecular Dynamics Simulations to Predict the Thermophysical Properties of Molten Salts Containing Fuel, Fission, and Corrosion Products | Brigham Young University | $798,291 | Researchers will use first principles molecular dynamics (FPMD) simulations on molten salts containing impurities including fuel, fission products, and corrosion products. These will be used to develop a classical molecular dynamics (CMD) potential. CMD will then be used to predict properties for a wide variety of salt compositions and temperatures, and physical property measurements will be performed to validate those predictions. Property correlations will be developed from this data. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17183: Mixing of helium with air in reactor cavities following a pipe break in HTGRs | City College of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct separate effects tests to obtain experimental validation data on mixing of helium and air in reactor building cavities during and after blowdown in HTGRs. Air and helium concentrations, and gas mixture velocity and temperature fields will be measured in simulated reactor cavities. An existing helium flow loop will be used as the source of high pressure/high temperature helium for injection into the cavities and different break configurations will be experimentally investigated. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16391: GuArDIAN: General Active Sensing for conDItion AssessmeNt | Duke University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a dependable, autonomous or semi-autonomous (i.e. low human involvement), and minimally disruptive framework for monitoring equipment and components in nuclear reactors. The project will develop GUARDIAN; a robust active sensing framework through the integration of model-based inference and mobile actuating/sensing robots. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17251: Measuring Mechanical Properties of Select Layers and Layer Interfaces of TRISO Particles via Micromachining and In-Microscope Tensile Testing | Idaho State University | $799,815 | Researchers will characterize the strength of TRISO-coated particle layers and interfaces using FIB micro-machining and in-TEM tensile testing. Tensile test samples from coating layers of (1) unirradiated surrogate (fuel) TRISO particles, (2) unirradiated fueled TRISO particles and (3) irradiated fueled TRISO particles will be studied. Results of this project will both benefit and leverage the AGR Program. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17185: Demonstrating Reactor Autonomous Control Framework using Graphite Exponential Pile | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will demonstrate a detection-prediction-feedback framework for nuclear system autonomous control. It will adopt multiple detector channels to enable control feedback to spatially dependent perturbations. It will also utilize high-fidelity solutions trained surrogate models for real-time prediction and decision-making. In addition to the method development, the proposal will entail a first-of-a-kind engineering demonstration using the MIT Graphite Exponential Pile (MGEP). | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16754: Simultaneous Corrosion/Irradiation Testing in Lead and Lead-Bismuth Eutectic: The Radiation Decelerated Corrosion Hypothesis | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $762,823 | Researchers will test candidate FeCrSi and F/M alloys in a new, simultaneous corrosion/radiation facility to try to identify an alloy that will satisfy all requirements for Lead Fast Reactor structural materials. Microstructural characterization, mechanical property testing, and corrosion tests, both during irradiation and following ion/He pre-conditioning, will assess how irradiation affects corrosion, potentially slowing it. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17173: Ni-based ODS alloys for Molten Salt Reactors | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | The objective of this work is to (i) propose and develop a new Nickel (Ni) based Oxide Dispersion-Strengthened (ODS) alloy that can be used for structural applications in Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) and other nuclear reactor harsh environments, (ii) to demonstrate that its high temperature mechanical properties are adequate for MSR operating temperatures, (iii) to demonstrate its radiation damage resistance through ion irradiation testing and (iv) to demonstrate its improved corrosion resistance in MSR environment. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17037: Investigation of HTGR Reactor Building Response to a Break in Primary Coolant Boundary | Purdue University | $799,832 | Researchers will perform a series of experiments to simulate HTGR reactor building response due to a break in the primary coolant boundary in a well-scaled test facility to obtain spatial distribution of oxygen concentration, perform analysis of the whole system response with 1-D thermal hydraulics codes and use CFD to make detailed localized predictions. The tests will be carried out with different locations and sizes of the breaks to create various vent and flow paths in the reactor cavity. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17093: Integrating Multi-modal Microscopy Techniques and the MOSAIC Simulation Environment to Assess Changes in the Physical Properties and Chemical Durability of Concrete Following Radiation Exposure | University of California, Los Angeles | $800,000 | Researchers will develop unprecedented multi-modal imaging methodologies that integrate multiple microscopy techniques. The team will develop a generalizable protocol for quantifying the changes in physical properties and chemical durability of concrete and concrete constituents (minerals and aggregates) following radiation exposure. The imaging analyses will be input into the MOSAIC framework to reveal the nature and extent of degradation that is expected to result. The outcomes offer insights that are needed to enable and inform second license renewals. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17167: Atomistically Informed and Experimentally Validated Model for Helium Bubble Growth in Welded Irradiated Metals | University of Florida | $797,861 | Researchers will construct a validated computational model for He bubble growth on grain boundaries in irradiated Fe-Ni-Cr microstructures, including intergranular fracture, as a function of material conditions and welding heat input. This model will be based on the phase-field methodology, leveraging numerical solvers in the MOOSE simulation platform, with critical inputs and validation provided by both atomic-level simulations and experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16909: Learning-based Computational Study of the Thermodynamic, Structural, and Dynamic Properties of Molten Salts at the Atomic and Electronic Scale and Experimental Validations | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will obtain the thermophysical, thermochemical, and transport properties, construct the phase diagrams, and build empirical physical models of molten salts that are relevant to Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) with first-principles accuracy using molecular dynamics simulations driven by machine-learned high-dimensional neural network potentials combined with neutron/X-ray scattering and thermodynamic experimental validations. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16298: I-PRA Decision-Making Algorithm and Computational Platform to Develop Safe and Cost-Effective Strategies for the Deployment of New Technologies | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an integrated probabilistic risk assessment decision-making algorithm to support risk-and-cost-informed decision-making related to the deployment of new technologies. The project will enhance the financial analysis module and the challenging interface of social and technical systems to advance the algorithm. The project will conduct a case study for evaluating the safety impact and cost-effectiveness of FLEX strategies to support operational flexibility. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16802: Evaluation of Semi-Autonomous Passive Control Systems for HTGR Type Special Purpose Reactors | University of Michigan | $400,000 | Researchers will investigate the use of variable flow controllers and a variable reflector as passive or semi-autonomous reactivity control mechanisms for multi-module HTGR type special purpose reactors. This applies to the commercially developed special purpose reactor concepts from HolosGen. The incorporation of these systems will reduce the movable parts count and enable more robust load follow capabilities over broader power ranges and local and global reactivity control. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17467: Understanding the Speciation and Molecular Structure of Molten Salts Using Laboratory and Synchrotron based In Situ Experimental Techniques and Predictive Modeling | University of Nevada, Reno | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology to accurately determine the structure and speciation of the molten salt electrolyte using laboratory-based spectroscopic techniques (Raman and UV-Vis-NIR) and synchrotron-based (scattering and absorption) techniques, in combination with computational modeling. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17231: Prevention of Common Fault-Trigger Combinations for Qualification of Digital Instrumentation and Control Technology | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will provide an effective design evaluation approach based on prevention of concurrent triggering conditions to eliminate common-cause failures (CCF) and enable qualification of digital I&C technology for application in nuclear plant modernization. The research involves classifying commonality among digital devices, categorizing faults and triggering conditions, determining fault-trigger relationships, and defining preventive design measures to resolve the potential for CCF. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17087: Economic Risk-Informed Maintenance Planning and Asset Management | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will provide a holistic framework for cost-minimizing risk-informed maintenance planning, including inspection. They will develop a two-tier framework that coarsely minimizes the total maintenance cost during the remaining normal operating cycle and uses the outputs of the first model to maximize the financial impact of these activities in the short term. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16811: Liquid Metal-cooled Fast Reactor Instrumentation Technology Development | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will explore three different areas that will help to improve commercialization of SFRs and to aid in testing for the VTR. These include: 1. Advancement in understanding of low prandtl number heat transfer 2. Testing of compact heat exchangers for use with sodium 3. Development of in pool submersible flow meters. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16954: Innovative In-Situ Analysis and Quantification of Corrosion and Erosion of 316 Stainless Steel in Molten Chloride Salt Flow Loops | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will use a thin-layer activation technique for the first time in molten salts, on 316H samples placed in natural convection and forced flow loops. The individual and synergistic effects of corrosion, irradiation and thermo-mechanical treatments will be evaluated in-situ to predict component service lifetimes and design limits. The effects of molten chloride flow velocity will also be assessed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17168: Fuel Salt Sampling and Enriching System Technology Development | Vanderbilt University | $799,989 | Researchers will combine insights from the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment with decades of advancements in applicable technologies into an enhanced Sampler Enricher (SE) concept to develop and test a flexible, reliable, and workable design. The prototype will then be tested in an existing salt loop. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16739: Improvements of Nuclear Data Evaluations for Lead Isotopes in Support of Next Generation Lead-Cooled Fast Systems | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | The objective of this project is to improve the accuracy of neutronics simulation of lead-based systems by improving the nuclear data of lead isotopes. The nuclear data for lead will be reevaluated with emphasis of the intermediate and fast energy regions that are required by reactor applications currently sought by several industrial entities. The deliverables of this project are new lead isotopes evaluations that will be candidates for inclusion in a future Evaluated Nuclear Data Library (ENDF) release. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 20-19373: Connecting Advanced High-Temperature X-ray and Raman Spectroscopy Structure/Dynamics Insights to High-Throughput Property Measurements | Boston University | $500,000 | Researchers will acquire molten salt structure and dynamics data at high-temperatures using high-energy x-ray techniques and Raman spectroscopy and relate them to their physical and chemical properties. High-throughput techniques will be developed to rapidly measure multiple high-temperature properties at one time. An understanding of the relationship of salt structure and dynamics to its properties will help to select and optimize melt chemistry in molten salt reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19371: Adsorption and Reduction of Uranium in Engineered Barrier Systems: Effects of Iron and Heat | California State University, East Bay | $800,000 | Reseachers will investigate uranium sorption and abiotic reduction processes in iron-rich montmorillonite systems as a function of solution chemistry and temperature. The team will develop a surface complexation model that can account for both uranium adsorption and reduction, and hence reduce the uncertainties associated with uranium mobility in iron-rich environments with engineering barrier systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19831: Optimizing Melt Processed Phosphate Glass Waste Forms via Composition-Property-Structure Correlations | Clemson University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and optimize highly durable and easily processable phosphate-based glass waste forms to immobilize the dehalogenated salt streams by tailoring the composition of the glasses. To complement the work conducted on glass waste forms at the national laboratories sponsored by the DOE-NE program, modified iron phosphate glass waste forms will be prepared and evaluated by the introduction of various glass modifiers (SnF2 and BaO) to the prototype glass compositions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19695: Quantifying radionuclide sorption to engineered barrier materials under elevated temperature and ionic strength conditions | Clemson University | $799,380 | Researchers will characterize actinide sorption to mineral surfaces and examine possible mechanisms of sorption at high temperature/ionic strength through examination of the effects of hydration and hydrolysis on actinide sorption. These data will provide an understanding of radionuclide behavior with engineered barrier materials. A greater understanding of these processes will reduce the uncertainty in strategies for sequestration of radionuclide bearing wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19789: Controlling Neptunium and Zirconium in Advanced Extraction Processes | Colorado School of Mines | $599,763 | Researchers will address continuing issues with separating neptunium and zironium in current separation techniques. They will use coupled optical and x-ray specroscopy, small angle scattering, equilibrium thermodynamics and chemical analysis to understand fundamental molecular-level behaviors of extracted Np and Zr. These techniques, using world-class irradiation facilities, will elucidate the specific chemistries underlying the problematic behavior in Np and Zr in radiation fields. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19660: Linear and nonlinear guided ultrasonic waves to characterize cladding of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researcherses will perform a combination of linear and nonlinear guided ultrasonic waves, integrated with new material behavior models to develop a non-destructive evaluation (NDE) approach for both quality control/quality assurance and in-service NDE characterization of the cladding integrity and bond strength. Current NDE techniques are effective for uncoated designs, but these coated fuels add new challenges, which will be addressed by this new approach. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19678: Flexible Hard Ceramic Coatings by Ultrasonic Spray Mist-CVD for Dry Storage Canisters of Spent Nuclear Fuel and Waste | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop advanced flexible hard ceramic coatings using ultrasonic spray mist-chemical vapor deposition technique manufacturing process to deposit on dry storage canisters. The team will test resistance to corrosion, heat, wear and hydrogen permeation thgourh microstructural characterization and material property evaluation. The ultimate goal is to enhance the long term reliability of spent nuclear fuel dry storage canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19797: High Throughput Computational Platform for Predictive Modeling of Thermochemical and Thermophysical Properties of Fluoride Molten Salts | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | Researchers will (1) develop an open-source high throughput (H-T) computational platform to understand, predict, and evaluate thermochemical and thermophysical properties of molten salts as demonstrated in the F-(K-Li-Na)-(Cr-Fe)-U system and (2) provide H-T approaches (CALPHAD modeling and AIMD simulations) and open-source codes together with thermodynamic models of molten salts and public-accessible databases verified by targeted experiments for the molten salt research community. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19627: Chemical Interaction and Compatibility of Uranium Nitride with Liquid Pb and Alumina-forming Austenitic Alloys | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | Researcherswill address critical issues with the compatibility and chemcial interations of uranium nitride fuel, alumina-forming austenitic alloys and lead coolants/sublayers. They will obtain critical data of fuel-coolant-cladding interactions and compatibility to evaluate key parameters of operation temperature, fuel impurities and coolant chemistry. This data will provide key operation windows and parameters for deployment of lead-cooled fast reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19924: First-principles free energies by hybrid thermodynamic integration for phase equilibria and fission product solubility in molten salts | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | Researchers will predict phase equilibria and solubility of fission products in molten salts using a novel hybrid framework for thermodynamic integration combining first-principles, molecular dynamics and continuum methods to calculate free energies. They will be benchmarked using Bayesian-targeted calorimetric, in-situ diffraction and spectroscopic experiments. The project will provide microscopic insights and quantitative parameters necessary for reliable thermophysical modeling of molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19939: Gallium Oxide Schottky Diode Detectors for Measurement of Actinide Concentrations from Measured Alpha Activities in Molten Salts | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and test, to high temperatures, a Schottky diode alpha particle detector that is based on the rapidly emerging ultrawide band gap semiconductor material gallium oxide. Ga2O3 Schottky diode detectors offer the potential of detecting alpha particles at high temperatures, with better resolution than SiC Schottky diode detectors, which the team has previously developed for similar purposes. These detectors could be used in pyrochemical processing streams and molten salt reactors with potential application in other reactor concepts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19966: Evaluating hydroxypyridinone-based ligands for actinide and fission products recovery in used fuels | University of California, Berkeley | $600,000 | Researchers will pursue novel chemical separation approaches for advanced reactor used fuels treatments and recycling, by leveraging the unique actinide and lanthanide coordination properties of hydroxypyridinone-based aqueous chelators. These chelators have not been tested in extreme conditions and this work would test potential process performance with a focus on radiation-induced changes and oxidation state distribution. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19545: Femtosecond Laser Ablation Machining & Examination - Center for Active Materials Processing (FLAME-CAMP) | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop, build, and test a femtosecond laser ablation machining & examination tool that can be deployed in a hot cell environment enabling microscopy sample fabrication, isotope and elemental analysis, and thermal analysis. The technology allows for non-contact materials processing, even through glass windows, potentially preventing contamination of surrounding areas and tools. Such a multi-function tool with high throughput material processing will accelerate the research on fuel and cladding tremendously. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19198: Functionalized clay buffer materials for the long-term sequestration of technetium and iodine | University of Florida | $800,000 | Researcherswill develop synthesize, test, and model novel functionalized clay buffer materials for the long-term sequestration of iodine and technetium. The project will also focus on key experimantal parameters and modeling of how the novel clay buffer material will sequester iodine and technetium species. Novel materials will support DOE's efforts to design improved geologic repository barrier systems and optimize repository performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19209: Investigation on multicomponent solubility in LiCl-KCl eutectic chloride salts using combinatorial approach | University of Idaho | $400,000 | Researchers will perform irradiation experiments to understand how gamma radiation changes trivalent metal ion complex coordination structure and extraction characteristics during the ALSEP process. This work will focus on understanding the types of degradation products that are formed during the extraction process and what effects these degradation products have on process performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19713: Multifunctional Laser Processing for Repair and Mitigation of Pitting and Cracks in Welded Stainless Steel Dry Storage Canisters | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a strategic solution that combines laser cleaning and laser peening for removal of surface contamination and mitigation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in welded stainless steels. Laser cleanning will remove surface contamination and reduce pitting caused by corrosion. Laser peening will then be used to mitigate stress corrosion cracking and provide enhanced corrosion resistance. The portability of the laser system means the system will be able to be deployed in the field. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19188: Single- and Polycrystalline Diamond Electrodes for Spectroelectrochemical Characterization of Various Molten Salts | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $600,000 | Researchers will develop optically transparent electrodes for spectroelectrochemical measurements in chloride- and fluoride-based radioactive molten salts. The primary electrode material will be boron-doped diamond. Measurements will elucidate important electrochemical properties of nuclear fuel and fission products such as redox potential, diffusion coefficient, and electron transfer stoichiometry. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19641: Mitigating stress corrosion cracking in austenitic stainless-steel canister welds using peening techniques | University of Nevada, Reno | $799,950 | Researchers seek to understand the mechanisms of pitting/SCC resistance of welds as affected by a) compressive stress b) surface texture modification and c) microstructural change in the substrate surface resulting from laser shock peening, shot peening, ultrasonic impact peening and laser surface texturing. The study will recommend the best peening and surface texturing process conditions for mitigation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in 304L welds. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19704: Multicomponent Thermochemistry of Complex Chloride Salts for Sustain-able Fuel Cycle Technologies | University of Pittsburgh | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive thermodynamic database of multicomponent chloride salts through a collaboration between experts in Gibbs energy modeling and thermochemical experiments. A thermochemical database of the multicomponent chloride system KCl-LiCl-NaCl-UCl3-LnCl3 (Ln: La, Pr, Nd) will be developed using the CALPHAD (Calculation of Phase Diagrams) method with supported ab initio calculations and thermal analysis experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19506: Engineered composite patch with NDE inspection for repair and mitigation of SCC in nuclear spent fuel dry storage canister | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an innovative 'engineered composite patch' that can absorb moisture, neutralize chloride, and prevent stress corrosion cracking from further growth. This 'patch' with have in integrated non-destructive evaluation capability using laser utrasonic characterization methods to montior quality and performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19374: Maintaining and building upon the Halden legacy of In-situ diagnostics | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will develop innovative instrumentation focusing on temperature and strain measurements to fill the void left by the Halden reactor and to enhance the experimental capabilities in the Transient Reactor Test Facility (TREAT) located at Idaho National Laboratory. The team will develop a fiber optic sensor system that offers an inherent resistance to electromagnetic interference unlike currently used sensors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19076: Investigation of Degradation Mechanisms of Cr-coated Zirconium Alloy Cladding in Reactivity Initiated Accidents (RIA) | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $500,000 | Researchers will investigate the thermal, mechanical, and irradiation response of chromium-coated zirconium alloy claddings under RIA conditions, in comparison to uncoated Zr-alloy cladding. The outcome of the project will be used for anticipated licensing applications to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), thereby accelerating use of coated accident tolerant fuel concepts in U.S. commercial power reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19318: Surface Peening and Hybrid Surface Engineering Approaches to Mitigate Initiation and Resurgence of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dry Cask Storage Stainless Steel Canisters | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,838 | Researchers will develop and evaluate a wide range of surface peening treatments, as well as hybrid surface treatments to mitigate initiation and growth of chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) in stainless-steel canisters for used nuclear fuel (UNF) dry cask storage. Canister mock-ups with prototypical fusion welds will be used for this study. Characterization and testing of microstructure, compressive stresses, corrosion and CISCC will be performed. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19614: New Coatings for Nuclear Fuel Waste Canister Storage and Transport | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop novel SiOCN(H) coatings for spent nuclear fuel canisters in order to support sustained nuclear reactor operation and safeguard nuclear waste storage, transport, and disposal, in both terrestrial and marine environments. The novel coating will specifically address pitting corrosion and stress corrosion cracking in spent nuclear fuel canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19382: Separated waste stream immobilization of iodine and offgas caustic scrubber solution | Washington State University | $400,000 | Researchers will produce a set of waste forms from separation of iodine from the caustic offgas scrubber solution. The primary caustic scrub containing iodine, halides, and carbonate will be immobilized in a glass-bonded composite of cancrinite/sodalite. The iodine-loaded silver sorbent will be stripped of iodine, converted to NaI, and immobilized into a separate durable glass-bonded iodosodalite waste form. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19912: Validation of Robustness in TCR Design Strategies | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will perform sensitivity analysis (SA) and uncertainty quantification (UQ) of TCR design parameters and relevant physical phenomena, using open-source time dependent Monte-Carlo code (OpenMC), NQA1 qualified commercial codes (STARCCM+), and ABAQUS for thermal-hydraulics and structural mechanics. The SA/UQ analysis will provide key insights to allow for development of performance metrics of robustness for autonomous operation sensors, by processing signals such as neutron flux, temperature and strains, as wll as inform the needed robustness for AI by enveloping the attainable level of decision making by the software. | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 | |
| NEUP Project 20-19216: Creation of Multiple Effect Evaporator and Combined Cycle Modelica Modules, and Optimization of Potable Water Generation from Saltwater Sources | North Carolina State University | $498,532 | Researchers will develop models of Multiple Effect Evaporators and Combined Cycle Gas Turbine systems to be used within the Modelica framework, with an end goal of creating an energy park that can supply its own energy and water through Small Modular Reactor nuclear systems and/or Combined Cycle Gas Turbine Systems with brackish to brine water sources. These same models will be capable of being implemented into larger models of grid independent and near independent energy parks located about military bases, large manufacturing facilities, and in small communities where freshwater is limited. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19590: Benchmark Evaluation of Transient Multi-Physics Experimental Data for Pellet Cladding Mechanical Interactions | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop an integral benchmark evaluation based on available experimental data from cold ramp tests performed at the Studsvik testing R2 reactor. Transient multiphysics benchmark evaluations are needed to support validation of the NEAMS ToolKit and the VERA suite. This research will focus on pellet cladding interaction and pellet cladding mechanical interaction and their associated events. The benchmark will be prepared for inclusion in the IRPhEP handbook. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19837: Reinforcement Learning Validation Framework for Quality Assurance of AI-guided Additive Manufacturing Digital Platforms | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will address the need to qualify the risk associated with AM fabricated nuclear reactor parts by incorporating a novel rendition of a well-established artificial intelligence learning strategy, the multi-armed bandit reinforcement learning (RL). The RL framework will be developed and demonstrated using TCR data and its associated digital platform. This research will assimilate in-process sensor data and physics-based simulation data to calculate risk measures in the form of failure probabilities for the AM parts. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19363: Integrated Solar & Nuclear Cogeneration of Electricity & Water using the sCO2 Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,427 | Researchers will design and model a renewable, nuclear Integrated Energy System (IES), compatible with the RAVEN/Modelica framework, for co-generation of cost competitive electricity and clean water. The components of the IES to be included are concentrated solar power, the supercritical CO2/sCO2 cyle, multi-effect distillation, and the lead-cooled fast reactor. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19066: Engineering-Informed, Data-Driven Degradation Modeling, Prognostics and Control for Radiation-induced Void Swelling in Reactor Steels | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will advance the capability to model, predict and control void swelling in irradiated structural components through developing engineering-informed, advanced data-driven statistical and machine learning techniques. Excess swelling not only leads to dimensional instability, but also can cause severe embrittlement of internal materials. The proposed efforts will ensure more effective regulation, aging management and license renewal. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19795: A High-Fidelity Novel and Fast Multigroup Cross Section Generation Method for Arbitrary Geometry and Spectrum | Georgia Institute of Technology | $600,000 | Researchers will develop a fast high-fidelity multigroup cross section generation method for arbitrary geometry configurations and energy spectra by developing a response-based high order perturbation method to perform hybrid stochastic-deterministic local transport calculations. The proposed method will be implemented as independent modules that can be easily embedded into any neutron transport or diffusion code and also be used as a standalone cross section generator. The modules will provide data that can interface with the associated NEAMS toolkit and workbench user interfaces to enable advanced neutronics tools that will perform high-fidelity multigroup multiphysics steady-state and transient calculations that capture and represent the complex resonance interactions and core environmental effects which exist in heterogeneous reactors, including advanced reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19968: Experimental Investigations and Numerical Modeling of Near-wall and Core Bypass Flows in Pebble Bed Reactors | Texas A&M University | $600,000 | Researchers will establish a highly coordinated, concurrent experimental and computational effort combining high-resolution turbulence simulations (including Nek5000, Star-CCM+) and experiments to deepen physical understanding and address long standing modeling inaccuracies related to near wall and bypass flow effects in pebble bed reactors. The project's acquired extensive database will be used to derive closure models and correlations needed for porous media code, such as Pronghorn. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19864: Development of innovative overlapping-domain coupling between SAM and NEK5000 | University of Michigan | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a robust, multi-scale coupling scheme between the SAM code and the CFD code, NEK5000, based on a novel overlapping domain approach. The developed coupling will be validated by using experiments specifically designed for the validation of multi-scale coupled codes. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-20074: Characterization of Plenum to Plenum Natural Circulation flows in a High Temperature Gas Reactor (HTGR) | CUNY, City College of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will obtain and provide experimental data on the plenum-to-plenum natural circulation flows in a typical high temperature gas reactor using helium and nitrogen over a wide range of temperatures and pressures to simulate natural circulation under both pressurized and depressurized conduction cooldown scenarios. The results of the project will yield new data and complement other very high temperature related studies. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19042: Flexible Siting Criteria and Staff Minimization for Micro-Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $440,517 | Researchers will develop siting criteria that are tailored to micro-reactors deployable in densely-populated areas by comparing the characteristics of the MIT research reactor with those of leading micro-reactor concepts, and evaluate whether and how the MIT research reactor design basis and associated regulations are applicable to micro-reactors. A model of operations for micro-reactors that would minimize the staffing requirements will also be conceptualized. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-20045: Highly Compact Steam Generators for Improved Economics of Small Modular Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will design and build a compact steam generator (CSG) test section that can be easily modified for different flow paths and geometries, as well as modify an existing loop to accept the test section. The conceptual optimized CSG system design, which could be deployed in small modular reactors, will be informed by CFD simulations to determine critical characteristics of the test section. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19205: Robust bullet-time tagging and tracking system based on computer vision for individual ex-core TRISO-fueled pebble identification | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a novel, validated, robust bullet-time tagging and tracking system, based on computer vision techniques, to tag and track each individual pebble in pebble bed reactors. The effort will utilize Residence Time Distribution and Radioactive Particle Tracking techniques to validate and refine the developed method, using a continuous cold flow pebble bed experimental setup. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19625: Corrosion Sensitivity of Stainless Steels in Pressurized Water Reactor Water Chemistry: Can KOH replace LiOH in PWRs? | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will perform a series of corrosion and stress corrosion tests on unirradiated alloys to determine the possibility of switching from LiOH to KOH to control the pH in nuclear reactors without worsening the corrosion behavior of the structural alloys used in pressurized water reactor core internal components. The impacts of such a change and the consequent water chemistry alterations on the corrosion processes and nucleaer power plant core-internal component service-life will be assessed and better understood. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19735: Experiments for Modeling and Validation of Liquid-Metal Heat Pipe Simulation Tools for Micro-Reactor | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will produce validation data for the heat pipe code, Sockeye, by measuring the internal thermal-hydraulic parameters of a single-heat pipe and the performance of an integrated multi-heat-pipe system in various operation scenarios. The results of this project will generate more liquid metal heat pipe validation data, which is currently lacking and needed to support micro-reactor design and licensing activities. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19367: Investigation of Novel Nickel-Based Alloys for Molten Chloride Fast Reactor Structural Applications | University of Cincinnati | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate and establish the scientific foundations for the development of promising Ni-Mo-W-Cr-Al-X alloys with a superior balance of properties compared to current materials for high temperature structural applications in molten chloride salt fast reactors. The project couples critical experiments with a high-value integrated computational materials engineering approach. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19693: Evaluation of micro-reactor requirements and performance in an existing well-characterized micro-grid | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will evaluate the opportunities and challenges of operating micro-reactors in decentralized power generation applications and the potential for deployment in established micro-grids with diverse power generation sources. By using a well-characterized prototypic environment platform, the Modelica-based Hybrid Energy System, the market potential for deployment of micro-reactors on campuses and other similar existing micro-grids will be quantified. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19195: The effect of LWR primary coolant water chemistry (LiOH vs. KOH) on stainless steel: An integrated experimental and computational study of the corrosion response of stainless steel for different surface microstructures and mechanica | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will study the effect of surface microstructure, mechanical stress factors, and radiation damage on the corrosion response of stainless steel under two different alkaline pressurized water reactor primary water chemistry conditions. The project will involve investigation of mechanical stress factors such as strain rate, residual stress, deformation induced persistent slip bands, dpa damage, and fatigue cracks and modeling to understand the physical phenomena associated with the measured corrosion response and inform the U.S. nuclear industry regarding KOH. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19491: Identifying and prioritizing sources of uncertainty in external hazard probabilistic risk assessments | University of Maryland, College Park | $799,979 | Researchers will develop a method for identifying and prioritizing sources of uncertainty in external hazard probabilistic risk assessment for nuclear power plants, with particular emphasis on uncertainties associated with hazard characterization. External flooding wil be utilized as the demonstration hazard during this project, while a common taxonomy for communicating uncertainties across a broad range of external hazards will be created. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19737: Innovative Enhanced Automation Control Strategies for Multi-unit SMRs | University of Michigan | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an innovative, enhanced automation control framework for small modular reactors (SMRs) that supports control of multiple units operating in a variety of reactor core conditions. Through these enhancements, SMR technology gains improved marketability through potential deployment to a broader range of markets and can also lead to reduced operating and maintenance costs for a SMR site, increasing the overall profitability. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19954: Deployment Pathways of Small Modular Reactors in Electric Power, Industrial, and Other Niche Markets to Achieve Cost Reductions and Widespread Use | University of Michigan | $691,658 | Researchers will explore how to leverage two key value propositions for small modular reactors (SMR) in shifting market conditions, in order to achieve widespread market deployment: (1) participation in small and large power and industrial markets and (2) cost reductions via mass fabrication. The result of this work will be advanced power system modeling, optimized SMR design with thermal storage for power and industry markets, and new SMR deployment pathways. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19752: Development and Demonstration of Scalable Fluoride Salt Pump Seals and Bearings for FHRs | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and demonstrate scalable advanced bearings and seals of fluoride salt pumps for fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactors. The systematic approach to be used will employ both experimental and numerical methods to investigate the static and dynamic performance of fluoride-salt-lubricated bearings and high-temperature seals. The outcomes of this research will directly contribute to the reliability, safety, design, and operation of the fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactor power plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19544: A Holistic Artificial Intelligence Tool to Mitigate Human Factor Uncertainty in Operation and Maintenance | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a holistic artificial intelligence tool to help the detection and mitigation of human factors errors in nuclear power plants. The tool will increase the efficiency of various activities such as testing, inspection, data collection, and interpretation, improve operation and maintenance decision-making, and reduce costs in nuclear power plants by minimizing the impact of human factors errors and providing warnings to mitigate them, when possible. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19524: Non-Intrusive Flow Monitoring for Liquid Metal and Molten Salt Cooled Reactors | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a first-of-its kind flow monitoring system with significantly enhanced capabilities for liquid metal fast reactors and other advanced reactors, such as molten salt reactors. The flow monitoring system will involve a proven and breakthrough fiber optic sensing technology that enables the harmonic-free interrogation of thousands of grating-based distributed interferometers along an optical fiber that is integrated into a sensing pad that can readily be installed at desired locations in the flow loop. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19671: Identifying Needed Fire Input Data to Reduce Modeling Uncertainty | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,393 | Researchers will identify fire parameters that have the largest impact on fire conditions, quantify those parameters contributing to uncertainties in the fire data through Monte Carlo simulation results, and use statistical analysis and machine learning models from the simulation results to assess existing data and recommend appropriate new fire tests to reduce uncertainties that are important to risk. With this information, researchers will develop a framework capable of determining the significant contributors to uncertainty in physical events that are relevant to the risk assessment and, then, determine the need for new experiments that would be of most value to reduce risk. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 21-24394: Computer vision and machine learning for microstructural qualification | Carnegie Mellon University | $497,518 | Quantifying and understanding microstructure is a key driver for performance-based materials qualification. In this proposal, well-curated data sets of microstructural images will be gathered and computer vision and machine learning will be applied to build quantitative deep learning frameworks to accelerate and enable qualification of nuclear materials based on microstructural features. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24156: Experimental thermofluidic validation of TCR fuel elements using distributed temperature and flow sensing | Kansas State University | $798,250 | The overall goal of this project will be to test the performance of 3D printed Transformational Challenge Reactor core geometry parts using existing Helium flow loops and distributed temperature, and velocity sensing systems. Thermal transport capabilities of scaled 3D printed ceramic core will be evaluated experimentally and measurements will be used to qualify computational models. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24636: Risk-informed Consequence-driven Physical Protection System Optimization for Microreactor Sites | Texas A&M University | $400,000 | This proposed project will utilize a risk-informed, consequence-driven analysis to develop an approach for "right-sizing" physical protection systems (PPS) for microreactors. The hypothesis presented for this proposal is that the explicit coupling of consequence modeling to PPS design will provide a similar benefit that can be applied prior to reactor construction. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24131: Total Mass Accounting in Advanced Liquid Fueled Reactors | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | A total mass determination method for nuclear materials accounting (NMA) in liquid-fueled molten salt reactors will be validated with fuel-bearing salt, mixed with a _+ radioisotope of known activity, that will be irradiated to reproduce the practical NMA scenario in a molten salt loop. Irradiated fuel salt will be sampled and measured for its mass and activity. The mass-to-activity ratio will be used to calculate the unknown salt mass in the original container. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24037: Design and intelligent optimization of the thermal storage and energy distribution for the TerraPower Molten Chloride Fast Reactor in an Integrated Energy System (IES) | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to explore the application of advanced reactors within Integrated Energy Systems, use extensive existing data from UIUC for model development and validation, and extend the predictions to larger grids and commercial applications. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24522: Targeted Materials Characterization and Testing of Additively Manufactured Metals and Ceramics to Inform Print/Build Data Analytics | University of Texas at San Antonio | $800,000 | A collaborative program between the University of Texas at San Antonio and Boise State University is proposed to supply materials testing and characterization data sets to be leveraged by the TCR program to inform build/print data analytics. With the data provided by the proposing team, correlations among steam oxidation performance, micromechanical properties, chemical composition, local microstructure, and location specific print/build data will be achieved. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24431: Location-specific material characterization of LPBF SS316L & IN718 TCR core structural materials | Utah State University | $800,000 | In this proposed work, we will experimentally characterize the spatial variability of the quasi-static (tensile), creep (strength and impression), and creep-fatigue properties as well as the underlying structures (microstructure and defect structures) for LPBF SS316L and IN718 components to be used as training data to the TCR program data-driven model. The resulting correlation will be used to drive the design process for an application as TCR core structural materials. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23978: Rapid, Non-Radioactive Methods for Prediction and Quantification of Radiolytic Radical Decomposition Products in Nuclear Separations | Clemson University | $399,999 | High-throughput, non-radioactive, radical assays will be used to determine decomposition of monoamide separations complexants. Radical assay results will be correlated with classic radiolytic damage results to develop predictive models for screening complexant stability. These models will aid in single-stage separations complexant optimization, in the transition from lab- to industrial-scale nuclear waste separations and, ultimately, could yield field tests for radiolytic damage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24350: Phosphate Mineral and Glass Waste Forms for Advanced Immobilization of Chloride and Fluoride-based Waste Streams | Clemson University | $600,000 | This proposal is intended to develop three waste form options for immobilizing the fluoride- and chloride-salt waste stream in highly durable and easily processable phosphate minerals and glasses, including phosphate apatite ceramic waste forms, phosphate glass waste forms, and phosphate glass-ceramic waste forms with apatite phase. Multiple monolithic waste form samples will be provided to DOE national laboratories for further testing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24292: Passive multimodal tomography for dry storage casks imaging using passive neutron and gamma dosimetry and cosmic ray muons | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | A method for multimodal tomography of dry storage casks will be developed to determine fuel relocation and cladding failures using passive neutrons and gamma emissions in combination with cosmic ray muons. The use of multimodal imaging will allow 3-D reconstructions of the dry storage cask that would be unachievable with any single radiation source. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24374: Effects of Radiolysis on Pertechnetate under Solvent Extraction Conditions, including Tri-Butyl Phosphate | CUNY, Hunter College | $399,624 | The overarching objective of the proposed work is to assess the impact of radiolysis on pertechnetate speciation during tri-butylphosphate (TBP) solvent extractions from the molecular level to macroscale. The research in this project is designed to understand the interplay of radiolysis, degradation product formation, other important redox active metals, and oxidation states of technetium on its speciation and distribution coefficients in solvent extraction processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24183: Experimental investigation and development of models and correlations for cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena in transient conditions in support of TREAT and the LWR fleet. | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Thermal-hydraulics transient heat transfer phenomena of relevance for the safety and the operation of the TREAT and light water reactors will be investigated. The performance of accident tolerant fuel materials during a reactivity initiated accident scenario and post-critical heat flux and reflood scenarios will be elucidated, as well as the development of models and correlations to be integrated into computational tools for the design and safety analysis of nuclear systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24666: Wireless Multifunctional Ultrasonic Arrays with Interdigital and Airborne Transducers for Monitoring Leakage and Corrosion Conditions of Welded Dry Storage Canisters | Mississippi State University | $800,000 | This project aims to develop and validate wireless, multifunctional, ultrasonic sensor arrays that enable on-demand, quantitative interrogation and real-time monitoring of both the canister leakage indicators (helium, helium/air mixture, internal pressure, and temperature) and corrosion conditions (free and/or vapor water). The developed arrays will be fully functional, wirelessly powered and communicated, and compact. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24188: Uranium recovery from used nuclear fuel using metal sulfides | Northwestern University | $400,000 | An alternative and original method to recover uranium from spent fuel is proposed. This method will utilize a new type of regenerable sorbent materials with high selectivity in capturing uranium from complex mixtures in acidic solutions, such as those found in used nuclear fuel of high-assay low-enriched uranium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24225: Characterizing Fuel Response and Quantifying Coolable Geometry of High-Burnup Fuel | Oregon State University | $800,000 | This study seeks to objectively determine, through empirical and numerical means, the actual impact of fuel dispersion in-core after fuel failure and whether high burnup dispersed fuel compromises coolable geometry and long-term cooling. The outcome of this study will yield an objective means of assessing two criteria (coolable geometry and long-term cooling) within the existing regulatory process to comprehensively understand whether it is feasible to increase burnup, while satisfying 10 CFR 50.46. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24288: Innovative Methods for Interrogation of DSC Internal Conditions | Oregon State University | $800,000 | The proposed work takes a two-pronged approach. The team will study techniques involving only external sensors and equipment, which could be deployed on existing dry storage canisters. In addition, small sensors located inside the canister that can be externally powered and read through the canister wall will also be investigated. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24439: Development of Novel Corrosion-Responsive Buffer Materials for Long-Term Immobilization of High-Level Nuclear Waste | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to develop a novel cementitious buffer material (CBM) for the safe disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF). The primary aim is to identify and characterize novel Mg-Al-P CBMs, complete with assessments of their repository stability as well as their transport and immobilization of radionuclides. The secondary aim is to use in-situ UT-EIS monitoring to understand the corrosive failure at the canister-CBM interface and provide long-term performance modeling of SNF packages. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24461: Estimation of low temperature cladding failures during an RIA transient | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers aim to create a multiphysics description of cladding response during a RIA, especially at high burnup, coupling reactor physics, thermal hydraulics and mechanics. The creation of a thermomechanical model in Bison will be the result of this project which can be used to evaluate the likelihood of low temperature cladding failures during a postulated RIA on a typical fuel rod (as these can lead to channel blockage), and thus identify the most important conditions to be studied at TREAT. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24460: Multiscale Modeling and Experiments for Investigating High Burnup LWR Fuel Rod Behavior Under Normal and Transient Conditions | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | The main objective of this work is to achieve a mechanistic understanding of and to develop a predictive model for the fuel rod behavior at high burn-up under both normal and transient conditions. Therefore, this study will provide the nuclear industry with validated, physics-based criteria to fuel fragmentation thresholds and rod mechanical integrity limits. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24388: Redox Chemistry of UO2 under Repository Relevant Conditions in the Presence of Zircaloy and Waste Canister Material | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | This project will seek to improve understanding of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) corrosion. Hydrothermal experiments of SNF with cladding and waste canister material will give insights into the redox potential formed due to secondary phase formation as consequence of corrosion in a failed canister. The experimentally derived data about secondary phase formation will be utilized for phase relationship analysis to decipher the redox conditions and thus provide source term for performance assessment models of deep geologic repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24006: High-fidelity modeling of fuel-to-coolant thermomechanical transport behaviors under transient conditions | University of Florida | $800,000 | The objective of the proposal is to develop a high-fidelity modeling tool that can capture some of the important phenomena in high burnup UO2 and ATF fuels during transient conditions. The BlueCRAB tool set will be improved and used to analyze TREAT loss of coolant accident experimental results. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24312: Accelerating the development of reliable and robust machine learning-based interatomic potentials for the prediction of molten salt structure and properties | University of Massachusetts Lowell | $400,000 | Machine learning-based interatomic potentials (MLIPs) used in molecular dynamics (MD) can accurately and efficiently predict molten salt properties. However many machine learning-based methods require large training sets, and can fail unpredictably. This project will overcome these challenges by developing a method for efficiently sampling diverse configurations from MD to train reliable and robust neural network potentials, and develop new models for predicting errors in MLIPs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24697: Dual External Leak Sensing and Monitoring for Dry Storage Canister | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers aim to develop two complementary external sensing methods to evaluate the integrity of DSC through internal pressure monitoring and helium leakage detection. The proposed diffuse ultrasonic wave method will be able to measure biaxial strains in the canister wall with high sensitivity and minimum temperature effects. An innovative capacitance MEMS sensor will be developed for helium concentration measurement in air based on the extremely low permittivity of helium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24449: Multi-modal Surface Acoustic Wave Sensing System for Pressure and Temperature monitoring of Spent Fuel Canisters | University of North Texas | $800,000 | University of North Texas (UNT) will collaborate with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to develop a multi-modal wireless passive SAW (Surface Acoustic Wave) sensor array, which are deployed on the outside surface of the canister, to monitor the strain of the canister and thus determine the inside pressure. In addition, the SAW strain sensor could also measure the surface temperature and potentially monitor helium gas leak. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24265: Fragmentation and Thermal Energy Transport of Cr-doped Fuels under Transient Conditions | University of Pittsburgh | $799,999 | This project will focus on multiple aspects of experimental testing and engineering-scale modeling in understanding thermal energy transport from high burnup, fractured/fragmented accident tolerant fuels, establishing a strong scientific basis to fill a critical knowledge data gap for modeling and simulation of transient fuel performance and safety, such as loss of coolant accident, for future integral testing and fuel licensing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24310: Fusion of Distributed Fiber Optics, Acoustic NDE, and Physics-Based AI for Spent Fuel Monitoring | University of Pittsburgh | $800,000 | The proposal will leverage new concepts in the fusion between fiber optic distributed acoustic sensing and advanced acoustic nondestructive evaluation techniques with artificial intelligence enhanced classification frameworks to quantitatively characterize the state of dry cask storage containers for spent fuel monitoring, externally and non-invasively, without introducing additional risks of failure. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24261: Internal Wireless Sensors for Dry Cask Storage | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | The effort will test the reliability of wireless, internal sensors after exposure to drying and storage conditions. These sensors are used to internally monitor temperature, pressure, and dose. Radiation shielding will also be designed to protect sensors during long-term storage. The effort will develop piezoelectric techniques for miniaturization of optical emission spectroscopy for internal monitoring of gas composition during drying and long-term storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24533: Non-destructive Evaluation of Dry Storage Canisters Using Acoustic Sensing | University of Southern California | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to develop a robust non-destructive evaluation (NDE) technique based on acoustic sensing to detect impurity gases in a sealed (welded) dry storage canister (DSC) using only measurements collected on the external surface of the DSC. The method is based on the time-of-flight analysis of acoustic signals propagating through the fill gas of a DSC, which is influenced by the composition, density and temperature of the propagation medium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23984: Safety Implications of High Burnup Fuel for a 2-Year PWR Fuel Cycle | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to perform safety analysis of high burnup fuel for a Westinghouse 4-Loop Pressurized Water Reactor. The work aims to identify potential opportunities and gaps for high burnup fuel by utilizing both well-established and modern methodologies to model reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, and plant system-level response that ultimately provide feedback to fuel performance analysis. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23985: Fuel-to-Coolant Thermomechanical Behaviors Under Transient Conditions | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This project will enhance the prediction of thermo-mechanical fuel-to-coolant heat transfer under transient conditions by using a coupled analysis and experiment approach. The effort is relevant to both high-burnup (> 62GWd/t) fuel applications and Accident Tolerant Fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24070: Modeling high-burnup LWR fuel behavior under normal operating and transient conditions | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This project aims to develop a high-burnup light water reactor fuel modeling capability to implement in the BISON code that would enable the accurate fuel rod behavior simulation during normal operation and design basis accidents, as wells as the identification of the rod life-limiting factors. Mechanistic engineering models will be developed for key phenomena, in particular, high burnup structure evolution, fuel fragmentation, and fission gas release. Traditional and accident tolerant fuels will be considered. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24033: Redox Chemistry in Nuclear Materials Storage Matrices under Ambient and Accelerated Aging Conditions | University of Washington | $800,000 | Deep geologic repositories must safely contain hazardous, high-activity nuclear wastes at geologic time-scales. However, such capability is centrally dependent on the element-specific redox chemistry within and at the interface of storage vessels. A comprehensive study of redox chemistry in cements used in long-term storage is proposed and emphasizes: 1) the actual consequences of accelerated aging modalities and 2) the novel use of newly available capabilities in advanced x-ray spectroscopies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24063: Post-DNB Thermo-mechanical Behavior of Near-term ATF Designs in Simulated Transient Conditions | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | The goals of the proposed research are to conduct coupled experimental and modeling investigations of thermo-mechanical performance of coated accident tolerant zirconium alloy claddings with simulated burnup doped fuels under thermal transients to predict complex thermal and mass transport phenomena of near-term Accident Tolerant Fuel designs in accident conditions. Experiments and modeling for understanding both cladding-coolant and fuel-coolant interactions will be performed. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24582: Machine-Learning-Accelerated Molecular Dynamics Approaches for Molten Salts | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $399,477 | New machine learning potential (MLP) approaches and new MLPs to enable rapid prediction of molten salt (FLiBe and Nal-MgCl2 with impurities) properties with near ab initio quantum mechanical accuracy will be developed. Uncertainty quantification with active learning and on-the-fly fitting will greatly accelerate MLP training. This work will support dramatically increased simulation speeds and associated data generation and understanding for molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24067: Development of Full Understanding of Mechanical-Chemical Coupling in Bentonite THMC processes | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | The central hypothesis is that mechanical stress in an engineered barrier can lead to pressure solution of solid minerals, leading to significant changes in pore water chemistry, which affects bentonite stability, longevity of the waste pack, and dissolution and migration of nuclides. The overall objective of this project is to develop full understanding of the role of pressure solution on pore water chemistry, the implications to large-scale heterogeneity, and THMC processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23987: Separate and Multi-Physics Effects IRPhEP Benchmark Evaluation using SNAP Experiments | Georgia Institute of Technology | $400,000 | The proposed project will develop an International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) mulitphysics microreactor benchmark evaluation based on data from the Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power (SNAP) program. This work will include systematic assessments of the experimental data with meticulous compilation and documentation, and validation of specific NEAMS tools to model effects that are unique to microreactors technologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24630: Integral Benchmark Evaluation of Zero-Power Tests and Multi-Cycle Depletion Experimental Data of TVA WB1 Cycles 1-3 | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | This project proposes to develop an integral benchmark evaluation of available experimental data for zero-power tests and multi-cycle depletion for consistent and comprehensive validation of both novel high-fidelity and traditional multi-physics tools. The benchmark evaluation will be based on operational and measured data from the Pressurized Water Reactor Watts Bar Unit 1 released by Tennessee Valley Authority. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24186: Regenerating Missing Experimental Parameters with Data-Assimilation Methods for MSRE Transient Benchmark Development and Evaluation | Virginia Commonwealth University | $400,000 | The proposed project will regenerate the undocumented basic data from available experimental data of the MSRE using advanced data-assimilation methods to facilitate the whole-loop modeling of the representative MSRE transients, and perform a thorough MSRE transient benchmark evaluation for the IRPhEP handbook. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24194: Implementation of improved quasi-static, time-dependent, multi-physics methodology in Shift | Georgia Institute of Technology | $600,000 | A practical reference calculation route for time-dependent coupled Monte Carlo calculations, using Shift, will be developed. The proposed framework will be tailored to depletion and slowly varying transients, but with the flexibility to perform thermal-hydraulic time-dependent calculations with minimal computational overheads. This method relies on a hybrid-resolution stochastic approach in conjunction with a substep technique. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24078: Material transport model development and integration in the System Analysis Module (SAM) code | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | This project proposes to develop and implement models for System Analysis Module, which accurately characterize the sink, source, and interaction terms of key material species that are or may be present in various advanced reactor designs. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24195: Enhancing Yellowjacket for Modeling the Impact of Radiation and Stress on the Corrosion of Molten-Salt-Facing Structural Components | University of Florida | $692,088 | The objective of this project is to add the capability to model the impact of radiation and stress on corrosion to the Yellowjacket code, as well as to use Yellowjacket to create surrogate models that will be added to engineering-scale codes like Grizzly. We will also collect new experimental data for validation that quantifies the impact of stress and radiation on corrosion of 316 stainless steel in molten fluoride salts. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24405: Development of a High-fidelity Flow Boiling Database for Validation of High-void-fraction Flow Regime Models | University of Michigan | $800,000 | The primary objective of this proposed research is to develop a comprehensive, high-resolution, multiphase computational fluid dynamics validation-grade flow boiling data from rod bundle geometry simulating current light water reactor fuel designs by taking advantage of the instrumentation and facility developed by the research team. In addition, the applicability of the data through initial evaluations of selected test cases using Nek-2P boiling closure models will be studied and demonstrated for two-phase flow simulations. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24471: Technical Basis of Microstructure Criteria and Accelerated Testing for Qualifying Additively-manufactured 316H Stainless Steel for High-temperature Cyclic Service | Auburn University | $800,000 | This project seeks to reveal the fundamental relationship for AM 316H SS working at 500-750 _C between additively-manufactured microstructures and creep/creep-fatigue properties through a multiscale experimental and modeling approach. The project also seeks to establish the technical basis for the microstructure criteria and accelerated testing method to support near-term nuclear qualification. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24152: Direct heating of chemical catalysts for hydrogen and fertilizer production using Microreactors | Kansas State University | $799,202 | This proposal presents a novel integration approach to deliver process heat from microreactors by directly heating the catalyst particles from the primary heat transfer fluid in a moving packed bed heat exchanger (MPBHX). In this design, the tube side of the MPBHX can be a heat pipe or primary Helium coolant as in several microreactor designs. The shell side will be moving catalyst particles, which will enter the high temperature chemical reactor upon heating. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24287: Investigating heat transfer in horizontally oriented HTGR under normal and PCC conditions | Kansas State University | $799,762 | Experimental research will be conducted to understand heat transfer inside the graphite matrix of horizontal microscale High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors. Existing high temperature test facilities will be used to simulate normal operation and Pressurized Conduction Cooldown. The focus of these experiments is to generate benchmark data under forced and natural convection with coupled multi-mode heat transfer in scaled-down prismatic blocks. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24104: Thermal Hydraulics Investigation of Horizontally Orientated Layout Micro HTGRs Under Normal Operation and PCC Conditions Using Integrated Advanced Measurement Techniques | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000 | The proposed novel work will make a significant pioneering contribution to advance the knowledge and understanding of horizontal micro-high temperature gas cooled reactors. Quantification of metrics will pertain to convective heat transfer coefficients along the channel and gaps, comparative rates of convective and radiative heat transfer, location of peak temperature and its temporal variation, timescales for onset of natural convection, local gas velocity profiles, gas dispersion, crossflows, and temperature profiles over channel diameter and gap thickness. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24004: An Open Source, Parallel, and Distributed Web-Based Probabilistic Risk Assessment Platform to Support Real Time Nuclear Power Plant Risk-Informed Operational Decisions | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | The main objective of the proposed work is to develop, demonstrate, and evaluate a probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) software platform needed to address the major challenges of the current legacy PRA tools. This includes better quantification speed, integration of multi-hazard models into traditional PRAs, and model modification/simplification and documentation automation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24228: Quantifying the Dynamic and Static Porosity/Microstructure Characteristics of Irradiated Graphite through Multi-technique Experiments and Mesoscale Modeling | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | This project proposes a joint experimental-computational approach to probe and quantify the porosity and microstructure characteristics of irradiated nuclear graphite grades and their influence on dimensional changes and turnaround behavior, as well as mechanical properties. The chief focus will be on quantifying both the static and dynamic porosity and crack characteristics in various graphitic phases through several experimental techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24247: Multi-scale Effects of Irradiation Damage on Nuclear Graphite Properties | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Irradiation induces microstructural damage in graphite, causing both dimensional and property (stiffness, strength and creep) changes as a function of the displacement damage and temperature. The biggest gap remains is the fundamental deformation mechanisms behind the property changes. Researchers propose to eliminate this gap in knowledge with a comprehensive, multi-scale experimental framework exploiting in-situ transmission electron and X-ray computed tomography. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23975: Development of Thermal Power Dispatch Simulation Tools for BWR Flexible Plant Operation and Generation | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | In the U.S. domestic light water reactor fleet, about one-third of operational nuclear power reactors are boiling water reactors (BWRs). Thermal power extraction technologies to be designed for BWRs will be different from those for pressurized water reactors due to differences in steam generation. This study proposes to investigate the thermal and electric power dispatch and required control algorithms for dynamic heat dispatch of up to 50% of the thermal energy from a BWR plant to a hydrogen plant. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24111: Experimental Investigations of HTGR Fission Product Transport in Separate-effect Test Facilities Under Prototypical Conditions for Depressurization and Water-ingress Accidents | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Experimental investigations will be performed for fission product (FP) lift-off, washoff, vaporization from plateout surfaces, and transport of FP at prototypical conditions representing depressurization and water-ingress accidents. Measurements will be performed on existing separate-effect facilities using intrusive and non-intrusive techniques to obtain shear stress, deposition velocity, thermal gradient, and gas impurity for advanced correlations. Modeling will be performed using system and computational fluid dynamics codes. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24644: High-Resolution Measurements and Advanced Modeling for Design Optimization of Advanced Small Modular Reactor Steam Generators | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Experiments and simulations will be performed to acquire multi-parameters of pressure drop, heat and mass transfer, and flow-induced vibration (FIV) effect for the design optimization of advanced small modular reactor steam generators (SMR SG). Measurements are performed on existing SMR SG facilities using intrusive/non-intrusive techniques to obtain velocity, temperature, pressure, heat flux, and FIV effects for various geo-dimensions, spacing, pitch angles. Simulations will be performed in StarCCM, Nek5000 and coupling with Diablo_ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24332: A Virtual Reality Environment for Human Reliability Assessment in the Context of Physical Security Attacks | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Recent studies have shown that the physical security workforce accounts for 20% of the entire workforce and, therefore, is responsible for significant operational and maintence costs. To reduce the security staffing, improve performance and reduce threats, modeling and simulation and models of attacker, defender and operator behavior could be employed. This proposal aims to model human behavior using a combination of known human reliability analyses models and experimental evidence from virtual reality experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24389: High Temperature Electromagnetic Acoustic (EMAT) Transducers for Structural Health Monitoring | University of Cincinnati | $800,000 | The aim of this project is to produce an electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT) technology to enable ultrasonic structural health monitoring at the METL facility and similar high temperature assets. Ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation methods can be used for monitoring a range of damage mechanisms including thermal fatigue and corrosion. The project will seek to establish core design solutions that can be used as the basis of a range of EMAT designs for different applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24380: Probabilistic Validation and Risk Importance Ranking Methodology for Automation Trustworthiness and Transparency in Nuclear Power Plants | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | This project develops a methodology to improve trustworthiness and transparency of automation technologies in nuclear power plants. The proposed methodology will monitor risk emerging from automation processes and rank the criticality of automation factors influencing automation output, plant equipment, and system performance. The feasibility and practicality of the proposed methodology will be demonstrated with two case studies focusing on implementation of nuclear power plant automation technologies. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24162: Self-powered wireless sensor system for health monitoring of liquid-sodium cooled fast reactors | University of Notre Dame | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to develop self-powered wireless multimodal sensors and instrumentation for health monitoring and diagnosing early-stage materials degradation for high-risk components in liquid-sodium cooled fast reactors. The synergistic and innovative integrations of the multimodal sensor array, wireless communication, and thermoelectric energy harvester have crosscutting benefit for a wide range of advanced reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24102: High temperature Molten salt reactor pump component development and testing | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | This project will provide relevant key information on the tribology of bearing material and components (such as magnets, couplers, ceramic coated wire, and coatings) in high temperature molten salts that will be required in the design of reactor pumps. Investigation of in-service inspection and monitoring of the pump internals will also be addressed in an effort to reduce down time and operation and maintenance costs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24226: Cost Reduction of Advanced Integration Heat Exchanger Technology for Micro-Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,713 | Heat exchanger technology is a high-cost component of a micro-reactor system that is also critical to the overall reliability and performance. This project will develop the underlying advanced heat exchanger technology necessary to integrate a micro-reactor with any end-user application, as well as providing internal heat exchange. Economic optimization of the heat exchanger and experimental demonstration of the technology will be accomplished. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24382: Advanced High-Fluence Low-Flux RPV Mechanical Property Models for Extended Life | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,717 | This project will further develop accurate models of the mechanical property changes under life-extension conditions in reactor pressure vessel (RPV) steels using reduced order Avrami models, cluster dynamics, and atomistic methods combined with massive comprehensive databases on irradiated steels. The work will provide models critical to extending the life of U.S. pressurized water reactors, as well as new fundamental insights into flux and fluence effects and sink and precipitate evolution in reactor pressure vessels and related steels. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| Integrated Marine Platform for Hydrogen and Ammonia Production | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | This study investigates the economic and environmental value of a floating integrated GW-scale green hydrogen/ammonia production facility powered by an advanced nuclear reactor. Floating Production Storage and Offloading units (FPSOs) are deployed worldwide in the oil and gas industry, and can be used for hydrogen and ammonia processing. Deployment of an advanced reactor on a floating platform offers several advantages, including the efficiencies of shipyard fabrication. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Functionally-graded Cermet Coatings for Molten Salt Technologies by High Throughput Finite Element Modeling and Additive Manufacturing | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $500,000 | This project proposes an integrated approach/methodology to design, manufacture and verify functionally-graded metal-ceramic composite coatings on structural alloys with desired interfacial properties, capabilities of mitigating residual stress and improved corrosion resistance for molten salt reactor applications. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| An Innovative Monitoring Technology for the Reactor Vessel of Micro-HTGR | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | This project seeks to develop an innovative sensor technology for real-time monitoring of the thermo-mechanical stresses in the reactor vessel of micro-HTGR. The technology will be based on a sparse network of outer wall temperature measurements and plant operating conditions. An integrated software-hardware sensing system aimed at monitoring the health of the pressure vessel of gas micro-reactors will be implemented and tested. The proposed work will have a broad impact on sensing in other reactor designs. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| High throughput mechanical testing of additively-manufactured materials | University of California, Berkeley | $500,000 | This project proposes fast and high throughput mechanical testing of AM produced materials. It will include the generation of automated tensile testing, hardness testing and microstructure assessment and data comparison to build data via machine learning. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Accelerated irradiation creep testing coupled with self-adaptive accelerated molecular dynamics simulations for scalability analysis | University of Michigan | $500,000 | The goal of the proposed work is to accelerate traditional irradiation creep using instrumented in-situ ion irradiation creep and long-time molecular dynamics simulations to accelerate traditional neutron irradiation creep testing. This goal will be accomplished by coupling a novel ion beam flux jump test using tapered creep specimens and self-adaptive accelerated molecular dynamics. The outcome is a rapid, low-cost accelerated method to determine the fundamental irradiation creep mechanisms. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Creation of a Pebble Database for Material Control and Accountancy in Pebble Bed Reactors | Virginia Commonwealth University | $399,969 | The primary goal of this proposed project is to develop a database of NDA signatures from a wide variety of used PBR pebbles. This database can be used for facility operations, safety, security, and safeguards (3S) to directly measure fission product content and indirectly 235U and plutonium content of each PBR pebble. This project has significant synergy with current 3S PBR research at ANL, BNL, and ORNL, all of whom are collaborators to this proposed project. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Quantifying Aerosol Deposition Mechanisms in Model Dry Cask Storage Systems | Clemson University | $800,000 | The objective of this work is to measure aerosol deposition and resuspension rates in laboratory models of dry cask storage systems to compare with and validate the DOE deposition model. The project team will conduct experiments to directly measure the deposition/resuspension rates of bulk aerosol in the system and to isolate and quantify individual aerosol deposition mechanisms, with a focus on those sensitive to variable humidity and surface temperature. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Using Amide-Functionalized Electrodes to Elucidate Interfacial Actinide Redox Chemistry for Improved HALEU Supply | Florida International University | $400,000 | The goal is to decrease HALEU fuel cycle costs by examination of the redox behavior of U, Np, and Pu at the water-organic interface using amide functionalized electrodes, and in organic media after extraction with amides. Experiments with redox active interferences including additional actinides in different oxidation states will also be conducted. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advancing the technical readiness of FeCrAl alloys and ODS steels under extreme conditions for fast reactor fuel cladding | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | A key technology gap for advanced high-performance fuel applications is the current unavailability of materials that can withstand extremely high doses without significant degradation of cladding performance. The project team will perform in-situ thermo-mechanical experiments (tension, torsion, creep, and creep-fatigue and nanoindentation) on ion-irradiated (to 400 dpa) cladding materials (up to 700 C) along with microstructures using TEM and mesoscale phase field simulations. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| A molten salt community framework for predictive modeling of critical characteristics | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | This research aims to develop a molten salt community framework to address the needs in advanced fuel cycles, including understanding salts via new theory of liquids, predicting salt characteristics via simulations (DFT, MD, and CALPHAD by implementing advanced models), optimizing inversely molten salts, and verifying simulations by experiments. This project has outstanding value for US taxpayers, educates students, and delivers outreach opportunities for academia, industry, and the public. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Understanding the Interfacial Structure of the Molten Chloride Salts by in-situ Electrocapillarity and Resonant Soft X-ray Scattering (RSoXS) | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | The objective of the proposed research is to investigate the interplay between the interfacial structure of the molten salts and their electrochemical corrosion properties in Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Clay Hydration, Drying, and Cracking in Nuclear Waste Repositories | Princeton University | $800,000 | This project will develop a new multiscale model of the thermal-hydrologic-mechanical-chemical (THMC) evolution of an engineered clay barrier in the near field of a nuclear waste repository, including initial hydration and eventual post-closure criticality. This new model will directly link micro-scale material properties to large-scale barrier performance, thus facilitating future design advances or modifications, and enable robust validation of large-scale simulation predictions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Physics-guided Smart Scaling Methodology for Accelerated Fuel Testing | Purdue University | $800,000 | This project proposes to employ novel informatics algorithms for mapping/scaling uncertainties from experimentally accessible scaled state to application/prototypical state, informed by an equivalent mapping obtained from high-fidelity multi-physics simulations for the fuel thermo-mechanical behavior, specifically, a rate theory-based model for thermal conductivity and fission gas behavior in the BISON code, and employing relevant HALDEN reactor and FAST experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Materials Accountancy During Disposal and Waste Processing of Molten Salt Reactor Fuel Salts | Texas A&M University | $399,997 | The objective of this work is to develop and validate a method for measuring and predicting hold-up to eliminate operational risks and expenses during disposal of salt-wetted MSR components. These objectives will be met by applying robust measurement/detection methods to realistic salt loop environments to validate their use in decommissioning MSRs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advanced Screening Approaches for Accelerating Development of Separations Technologies | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | The goal of this project is to establish a unified selection criterion for chelating molecular structures to more efficiently address ligand applicability to metal ion separation problems, for current and future nuclear fuel cycles. By establishing this criterion, the team will seek to enable the accelerated, cost-effective discovery of new separation workflows, as well as their implementation beyond early radiotracer experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advancing NMA of TRISO-fueled pebbles using fast and accurate gamma-ray spectroscopy | University of Colorado, Boulder | $385,307 | This proposal will provide new Nuclear Materials Analysis (NMA) capabilities for TRISO-fueled pebbles using gamma-ray spectroscopy, through a program of simulations of expected signatures from irradiated pebbles, resulting in a detailed measurement plan to monitor burnup and actinide content throughout the fuel cycle. These simulations will be used to develop requirements for NMA sensor technology and identify opportunities for focused technology development to meet these requirements. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Development of Irradiation and Creep Resistant High-Cr Ferritic/Martensitic Steels via Magnetic Field Heat Treatment | University of Kentucky | $800,000 | The objective of this proposed study is to develop and test new generation of Ferritic/Martensitic (F/M) steels specifically designed for advanced reactors that will exceed the current limitations due to temperature and irradiation dose. To achieve this objective, a systematic study is proposed to employ an innovative tempering heat treatment under high external magnetic field (up to 9T) on F/M steel HT9 to engineer an optimized microstructure composed of refined carbides and martensite laths. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Investigation into the processing parameters of phosphate-based dehalogenation for chloride-based waste salt | University of Nevada, Reno | $399,999 | This proposal will focus on several topics needed to advance the iron phosphate process: 1) Dehalogenation/vitrification processes using salt simulants to generate process flow sheets, 2) Reactions of crucible materials with phosphate products and byproducts, 3) Collection of glass property-composition data to develop models based on the glass-forming regions, 4) Development of a process for reacting recovered NH4Cl with metals that need to be fed into the system (U, Li, etc.). | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| A Validated Framework for Seismic Risk Assessment of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of Nevada, Reno | $799,883 | This is a collaborative research program with a primary objective of developing a validated numerical framework for seismic risk analysis of spent fuel storage facilities from the global cask behavior to the localized behavior of internal spent fuel assemblies. In building and validating this framework, advanced data analysis, data assimilation, and forward and inverse modeling techniques will be utilized. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| International Collaboration to Advance the Technical Readiness of High Uranium Density Fuels and Composites for Small Modular Reactors | University of Texas at San Antonio | $800,000 | An international team of high uranium density fuels (HDFs) experts advised by industry leaders in nuclear reactor innovation propose a US-UK collaboration to advance the technical readiness of UN, UB2, and their composites for fuel forms specific to small modular reactors (SMRs). The project will bridge the critical data gaps in HDF performance specific to the impact of common impurities and microstructural variations that originate at fabrication. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Development of Advanced Control Rod Assembly for Improved Accident Tolerance and High Burnup Fuel Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Research will focus on the development of new materials' designs for control rod sheaths and neutron absorbers, coupled with neutronics analysis and thermo-mechanical modeling to improve accident tolerance and to achieve higher fuel burnup in PWRs. Functionality of the proposed designs consisting of Cr coated control rod sheaths of current and advanced alloys as well as novel neutron absorbers will be evaluated in prototypical reactor conditions and accident scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Optical Basicity Determination of Molten Fluoride Salts and its Influence on Structural Material Corrosion | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | The proposed research is aimed at developing ion probes to determine the optical basicity of molten fluoride salts and studying its influence on structural material corrosion. Combining with the molten salt structure study using X-ray absorption spectroscopy, the salt chemical constitution, the resulting optical basicity, and molten salt structure will be inextricably linked and their connections will be unveiled. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Extending the HMF71 Benchmark Series for Graphite Reflector Thickness up to 18 Inches | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $399,522 | The objective of this proposal is to extend the HEU-MET-FAST-071 (HMF-71) experiment benchmark series in ICSBEP by evaluating the historical (existing) experimental data for critical experiments with graphite reflector thickness from 3 inches up to 18 inches. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2022 |
| Fast and Rigorous Methods for Multiphysics SPn Transport in Advanced Reactors | University of Michigan | $600,000 | This project proposes to perform rigorous theoretical and numerical analysis of the Generalized SPn method and underlying cross section models to enable a fast and robust multiphysics low-order transport capability for advanced reactors. This includes 5 major tasks focused on the efficient discretization and solution of the GSPn equations, numerical analysis of XS models having multiphysics and depletion, analysis of equivalence factors, improved MC estimators, and several V&V applications of the methods. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2022 |
| Development of Hydrogen Transport Models for High Temperature Metal Hydride Moderators | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Understanding the transient behavior of metal hydride moderator materials at high temperatures is a key challenge to the design and deployment of future microreactors. This project will use neutron radiography techniques provide the necessary data for this understanding and demonstrate the development of time and temperature dependent hydrogen transport models using both commercial FEA software coupled to MCNP and coupled models developed in the MOOSE framework. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Characterizing fast reactor fuel failure mode through separate effect and prototypic tests | Oregon State University | $800,000 | The project consists of conducting separate effect fuel pin failure tests with surrogate fluid and prototypic test with sodium. The outcome of this study will generate an experimental database that will be used to develop mechanistic model and validate the CDAP module of the SAS4A/SASSYS-1 code. Ultimately the quality data can be used to benchmark other fuel codes developed for LMFR application, which are seeking validation for licensing purpose. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Science-based development of ASTM standard tests for graphite-based fuel pebbles | University of California, Berkeley | $700,000 | This project proposes the development of mechanical test procedures as well as wear and friction tests on Graphite fuel pebbles | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Role of Heterogeneity in Manganese and Nickel Rich Precipitate Distribution on Hardening of Reactor Pressure Vessel Steels: Integrated Modeling and Experimental Characterization | University of Florida | $799,803 | The hypothesis of this work is that the different nucleation and coarsening kinetics of manganese and nickel rich precipitates (MNPs) compared to copper rich precipitates, and the heterogeneous distribution of manganese and nickel rich precipitates on or near dislocations, both lead to unique hardening behavior at high neutron fluence. The objective of this work is to understand hardening in reactor pressure vessel steels caused by MNPs via integrated multiscale modeling and experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Integrated Thermal-Electric Energy Management of All-Electric Ship with Advanced Nuclear Reactors | University of Texas at Dallas | $400,000 | The overall objective of this research is to comprehensively model, design, and evaluate the use of advanced nuclear reactors in future nuclear-powered ships, to enhance the efficiency, reliability, and resilience of shipboard energy distribution systems. The novelty of the proposed approach lies in (i) integrated thermal-electric modeling of advanced nuclear-powered shipboard energy system, and (ii) novel solutions for total-ship energy management to improve energy efficiency and resiliency. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Open Architecture for Nuclear Cost Reduction | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Open architecture has potential to reduce advanced reactor (AR) costs, through exploiting modular design and construction, with common, openly available interfaces between modules. A comprehensive assessment of the challenges and opportunities of open architecture for ARs will be performed. Supported by a pilot study, actionable recommendations for the implementation or otherwise of open architecture for ARs will be developed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Telescopic Control Rod for Significant Reduction in HTR Height and therefore Cost | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | This project proposes a design for a small modular High Temperature Reactor (HTR) control rod that extends telescopically, consisting of ~5 concentric annuli that nest together above the core when withdrawn. This compact component substantially reduces the length of the depth of the silo. Modelling and experimental testing will be performed to develop the control rod to evaluate feasibility, plus perform a cost-benefit analysis, with a view to its inclusion in both pebble bed and prismatic HTR designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Mechanism Driven Evaluations of Sequential and Simultaneous Irradiation-Creep-Fatigue Testing | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | This project addresses a critical need for irradiation and creep-fatigue testing by carrying out a systematic, mechanistic-driven benchmarking for irradiation creep, irradiation fatigue and creep-fatigue tests under various environments. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Mechanisms-based Acceleration of Materials Qualifications for Creep-Fatigue Performance in Advanced Nuclear Systems | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | The goal of this research is to fully understand, quantify and model creep-fatigue 'damage' as a function of loading patterns, temperature and microstructural evolution. Using this experimental information over a large range of relevant stress levels and temperatures, a mechanisms-based creep-fatigue analysis approach will be demonstrated which will properly qualify high temperature alloys for extended service in advanced nuclear systems where creep-fatigue is currently a major design limitation. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Subwavelength Ultrasonic Imaging for Rapid Qualification of Additively Manufactured Nuclear Structures and Components | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to develop a transformational capability for rapid nondestructive quality assessment of actual nuclear additively manufactured structures and components through advanced ultrasonic imaging with subwavelength resolution. The resolution of conventional ultrasonic systems is limited by diffraction on the order of the wavelength. In this project, the goal is to break the diffraction limits of ultrasonic imaging by implementing a negative-index lens. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| MXene as Sorbent Materials for Off-gas Radioiodine Capture and Immobilization | Clemson University | $1,000,000 | The overarching goal of this project is to develop efficient and stable new sorbent materials, for off-gas radioiodine capture and immobilization, that are based on MXenes with two-dimensional transition metal carbides/nitrides. The exploratory research will focus on three main objectives: 1) Design and synthesis of MXenes as radioiodine sorbent and support materials, 2) Quantification of iodine sorption capacity of MXenes in different forms, 3) Synthesis and characterization of consolidated waste forms. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Fundamental understanding of grain boundary cracking in LWR environments | University of California, Los Angeles | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to understand the details of stress corrosion cracking (SCC) and irradiation assisted stress corrosion cracking (IASCC) by targeted experiments and modeling efforts. A comprehensive model will be produced, which will predict the conditions under which these failure modes occur and when the materials may see onsets of the failure mode. This work will directly impact the nuclear industry by refining predictive models of component lifetime. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Facile manufacturing of fiber-reinforced-SiC/SiC composite using aerodynamic fiber deposition (AFD) and metal assisted polymer impregnation and pyrolysis processes (MAPIP) | University of Pittsburgh | $999,886 | SiC/SiC ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) are promising candidate materials for the cladding of accident tolerant fuels. Superior material properties of SiC/SiC CMC, however, come at a high manufacturing cost. The objective of the proposed research is to apply aerodynamic fiber deposition (AFD) and metal assisted polymer impregnation and pyrolysis (MAPIP) to develop a new facile manufacturing approach of SiC/SiC CMC. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| High Concentration Monoamide Separations: Phase Modifiers and Transuranic Chemistry | Colorado School of Mines | $999,900 | Extraction of actinides from used nuclear fuel with high concentrations of monoamide extractants is a promising strategy to intensify separation processes; however key issues remain to be understood and resolved. This project will examine three questions: 1) Can phase modifiers mitigate issues with organic phase viscosity? 2) Can the chemistry of neptunium be controlled to ensure complete separation? 3) Do high concentrations of monoamides affect the oxidation states of important metals and can that be exploited? | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Multiple Uranium Complexes in Chloride Fast Reactor Molten Salt Properties | University of Connecticut | $1,000,000 | Multivalent transition metal ions in a melt can exhibit multiple coordination states that affect molten salt properties. This project will use a new high-energy resolution fluorescence detection (HERFD) spectroscopy to overcome issues associated with measuring coordination numbers of multiple complexes, along with Raman spectroscopy and advanced simulations to accurately predict properties of molten salts with multiple uranium complexes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Validation of Geochemical Reactive Transport Long-Term predictions Using Natural Cements and Ancient Cements Analogues | Vanderbilt University | $950,000 | This project will validate long-term performance predictions of rock/cement interfaces based on characterization of natural analogues, ancient cements and interfaces with rock formations, and demonstrate applicability of the established testing and simulation workflow with argillite rock (representative of potential U.S. repository systems). This project addresses the research gap of long-term validation and uncertainty assessment associated with cement barrier performance and multi-physics models. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Predicting Pitting and Stress Corrosion Cracking of Dry Cask Storage Canisters via High Throughput Testing, Multiscale Characterization, and 3D Computer Vision based Machine Learning | The Ohio State University | $1,000,000 | This project consists of a US-UK collaborative research program focusing on the nucleation and growth of pits and stress corrosion cracking of stainless steel 304 (a canister material used for dry cask storage of spent nuclear fuels) by leveraging multi-scale characterization techniques, 2D/3D computer vision, and machine learning approaches. The study will enable the understanding and prediction of how and when pitting corrosion can nucleate, grow, and transition into stress corrosion cracking. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Multiscale Residual Stress Tailoring of Spent Fuel Canister CISCC Resistance | Purdue University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to understand the role of residual stress in chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) of austenitic steel, then tailor CISCC initiation and propagation through engineered multiscale residual stress distributions. Microscopic and macroscopic residual stresses will be systematically varied, then a novel sequence of advanced, site-specific, correlative characterization techniques will be applied to directly link residual stress, pitting, and crack propagation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Illuminating Emerging Supply Chain and Waste Management Challenges | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | Regional constraints on domestic fuel supply and greater variation in demand from advanced reactors has led to a shift in the U.S. fuel cycle, and modeling tools must reflect this. In this work, Cyclus will be updated to better reflect new and emergent regional supply constraints, spatial and temporal fluctuations in material needs, and those impacts on the back-end of the fuel cycle will be quantified. This work will allow for flexible, reproducible analysis to inform stakeholder decision-making. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Determination of Local Structure and Phase Stability of Uranium Species in Molten Halide Salts: Linking Microscopic Structure with Macroscopic Thermodynamics | Arizona State University | $1,000,000 | The goal of this project is to determine the local structures (valence state, coordination configuration and medium-range structure) and thermodynamic stability of uranium species in molten chloride and fluoride salts at high temperatures using a combination of experimental and modeling methods. The obtained results will allow for revelation of the structure-stability relations of the studied systems and development of acid-base scales to determine the solubility of uranium in molten halide salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Thermal-Hydraulics Assessment of SiC Compared to Other ATF Cladding Materials and its Performance to Mitigate CRUD | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | This project aims to experimentally investigate the thermal-hydraulics performance of SiC compared to the Cr-coated zircaloys and APMT ATF cladding materials under accident scenarios, including both DNB and dryout conditions. The project is divided into five tasks that will advance the understanding of the operation and optimization of heat pipes for advanced nuclear reactors. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Physics-Informed Artificial Intelligence for Non-Destructive Evaluation of Ceramic Composite Cladding by Creating Digital Fingerprints | University of Florida | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to spatially map the material composition, structure, and defect distribution of SiCf-SiCm composite tubes from ultrasonic wavefields measured from the materials and the defects within them. Specifically, this project will delve into the unique ultrasonic fingerprints (i.e., dispersion relations and mode shapes) of the SiCf-SiCm composites using physics-informed machine learning to assess the quality of the manufactured tubes based on their spatial-spectral ultrasonic characteristics. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Understanding Constituent Redistribution, Thermal Transport, and Fission Gas Behavior in U-Zr Annular Fuel Without a Sodium Bond | University of Florida | $999,462 | This project will investigate the reason for changed constituent redistribution in annular U-Zr fuel without a sodium bond and how it changes the fission gas behavior and thermal conductivity. This will be achieved using a combination of microstructure characterization and thermal conductivity measurements of irradiated U-Zr annular fuel and multiscale modeling and simulation using the MARMOT and BISON fuel performance codes. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Getting AnCers: Metallothermic Molten Salt Synthesis and Reaction Thermodynamics of Actinide Ceramic Fuels | Oregon State University | $1,000,000 | Synthesis of high quality actinide ceramics (AnCers) remains a costly challenge. A low-temperature, high-yield, short-duration reaction that directly synthesizes UN and UC could reduce the cost of these advanced fuels greatly. This proposal aims to demonstrate a method by which the costs of AnCers can be greatly reduced - metallothermic molten salt synthesis. Optimization and thermodynamics data will be obtained. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Integrated Stand-off Optical Sensors for Molten Salt Reactor Monitoring | University of Pittsburgh | $1,000,000 | This project intends to develop robust and stand-off optical sensors to perform real-time molten salt levels, flow, and impurity measurements of molten salts. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Cybersecurity in advanced reactor fleet by cyber-informed design, real-time anomaly detection, dynamic monitoring, and cost-effective mitigation strategies | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The goal of this research is to provide technical solutions to unique cybersecurity challenges in future microreactor fleet through cyber-informed design (C-ID), real-time anomaly detection, dynamic monitoring, and cost-effective mitigation strategies. The efforts will significantly improve the economics and effectiveness of cybersecurity risk management in future microreactor fleets. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Building Cyber-Resilient Architecture for Advanced Reactors via Integrated Operations and Network Digital Twin | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | The research will develop a secure-by-design architecture via integrating plant operation and network digital twins for advanced reactors. Automatic attack path and vulnerability analysis will be developed and used to assess and harden critical digital assets (CDA) against cyber risks prior to and during operation to identify vulnerabilities, attack pathways, and threat vectors. A CDA selection method will also be developed by combining vulnerability scores and assets importance. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Extending PRA and HRA legacy methods and tools with a cause-based model for comprehensive treatment of human error dependency | University of California, Los Angeles | $1,000,000 | This project aims at developing a solution to HRA dependency assessment in PRA from methodological and practical/computational perspectives within legacy PRA tools and methods. The solutions will include procedures for quantifying dependency when using PRA legacy tools, a method for modeling and quantifying dependency in HRA comprising a BN-causal model suitable for use with legacy PRA methods and tools, and the computational tools for its integration. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| An Integrated Elemental and Isotopic Detector for Real-Time Molten Salt Monitoring | North Carolina State University | $1,000,000 | The overarching theme of the proposed research is to develop and demonstrate a real-time elemental and isotopic detector of molten salts for advanced reactors and fuel fabrication and recycling processes. The detector's longevity, limits, and latency will be tested in static uranium chloride salts, in pyroprocessing chloride salt, and on flowing fluoride salt with evolving actinide composition, respectively. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Development of a Thin-Layer Electrochemical Sensor for Molten Salt Reactors and Fuel Cycle Processes | Brigham Young University | $811,755 | A thin-layer electrochemical sensor capable of detecting uranium, plutonium and other species of interest in molten salts, at both high and low concentrations, will be developed for application in molten salt reactors and fuel cycle process units. This will provide a valuable tool for performing material control and accountancy measurements. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Risk-Informed Consequence-Driven Hybrid Cyber-Physical Protection System Security Optimization for Advanced Reactor Sites | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | This project aims to develop an expanded methodology for designing a novel cybersecurity-integrated physical protection system (PPS) framework for advanced reactor concepts that serves to reduce the operational costs for the life of a reactor against that of a traditional light water reactor PPS design, promoting efforts to credit safety features of advanced reactors through proposed amendments to current security regulations, while integrating health and economic consequence analyses. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| A risk analysis framework for evaluating the safety, reliability, and economic implications of electrolysis for hydrogen production at NPPs | University of Maryland, College Park | $1,000,000 | The RAFELHyP project will develop a modular risk analysis framework that enables evaluating the safety, reliability, and economic implications of upcoming deployments of electrolyzers to produce hydrogen at nuclear power plants. The framework will be implemented to conduct an integrated safety, reliability, and economic analysis of multiple plant configurations to provide detailed recommendations for plant protective features and layouts. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Reduced Order Modeling of Heat and Fluid Flow: Multi-Scale Modeling of Advanced Reactors to Enable Faster Deployment | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | Novel multi-scale algorithms for thermal-hydraulics (TH) simulations of advanced reactors will be developed. The methods will leverage recent advances in hardware and reduced order modeling approaches to enable TH simulations of vastly accelerated speed, while maintaining accuracy comparable to high-fidelity methods, such as large-eddy simulation. The methods will allow designers to perform parameter sweeps, develop closures, and enable high fidelity simulation of transients. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Embedded Monte Carlo | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Monte Carlo methods have long been considered the standard in terms of accuracy and have seen increased use in design of small nuclear systems; however, the uncertainty quantification (UQ) of the desired output is often relegated to later stages of the design process. This project seeks to embed nuclear data UQ in a single Monte Carlo simulation, such that each desired quantity will not only provide the mean value and statistical uncertainty, but also the related nuclear data uncertainty. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| A Low Order Transport Method Based on the Dynamic Truncation of the Integral Transport Matrix Method (ITMM) that Converges to the SN Solution with Increasing Cell Optical Thickness | North Carolina State University | $1,000,000 | A novel low-order transport operator capable of approximating Monte Carlo (MC) results within a variance range will be developed. This does not require MC reference solutions to calibrate the low-order model, so repeated solutions of the latter in-transient scenarios does not require repeated MC simulations. Truncation of the low-order operator is done dynamically for evolving configurations to ensure accuracy of the low-order solution. This will involve proof of principle on Cartesian meshes, then implementation in Griffin. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| CFD based Critical Heat Flux predictions for enhanced DNBR margin | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | This project seeks to demonstrate a robust high-fidelity CFD-based methodology to predict CHF behavior at varying quality conditions, enabling the development of advanced DNBR correlations with reduced uncertainty, and in support of upgraded plant economics. The availability of a virtual CHF methodology will allow greatly extending the database for DNBR correlations development and further support advancement in the design of high-performing nuclear fuel. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Immersed Boundary Methods for Modeling of Complex Geometry: A Leap Forward in Multiscale Modeling using NekRS | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | A major challenge to Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling of complex geometries is the need to generate body-fitted meshes, which can occupy 80% of the CFD practitioner's time. Immersed boundary methods will be added in the NekRS CFD code, dramatically simplifying modeling of complex 3-D structures and facilitating a new paradigm for CFD-informed multiscale analysis. This will be demonstrated by informing SAM transient systems-level models with NekRS heat exchanger correlations for advanced reactors. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Uncertainty Quantification of Model Extrapolation in Neural Network-informed Turbulent Closures for Plenum Mixing in HTGRs | Utah State University | $1,000,000 | This project will quantify the uncertainty in prediction of Neural Network-informed Turbulent Closures when they are operating in a model extrapolation state. Once the method is developed for canonical buoyant jets, the protocols will be applied to plenum mixing in HTGRs. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Impact of moisture on corrosion of NiCr alloys in MgCl2-NaCl Salt Systems | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $999,983 | This project aims to gain a fundamental understanding of the impact of moisture and salt chemistry on corrosion of NiCr alloys in molten chloride salts. A novel approach coupling multiscale simulations and experiments will be designed to determine salt acidity, its dependence on salt composition (i.e., the NaCl to MgCl2 ratio), and its effects on the transport of H2O and Cr ions and the corrosion kinetics of NiCr alloys in chloride salt. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Transforming Microreactor Economics Through Hydride Moderator Enabled Neutron Economy | State University of New York, Stony Brook | $1,000,000 | Microreactors will potentially require the cost of electricity to be 10 MWD/kg at >3 kW/kg core specific power. These goals are best achieved through a well-thermalized spectrum. Neutron economy as a core material selection criterion to advance entrained hydride composite moderators will be used with the primary goal of significantly reducing fuel costs through novel microreactor designs. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Integrating Nuclear with ZLD Seawater Desalination and Mining | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | An integrated nuclear system will be developed that would utilize electricity and waste heat to operate a desalination and mining process from adjacent seawater. The desalination approach targets zero-liquid discharge with multiple marketable minerals extracted. The ability of nuclear facilities to load follow is increasingly important, so a cold thermal storage system will be incorporated. The desalination and mineral extraction process will be experimentally validated at lab scale. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Reference Designs of Green Ammonia Plants Powered by Small Modular Reactors | Utah State University | $1,000,000 | The overarching goal of this project is to develop two reference designs for green ammonia plants. One design uses freshwater as the source for hydrogen, while the other design uses seawater (or brackish water) as the source. In both designs, a small modular reactor (SMR) is used as the primary energy source providing both electricity and steam for the plants. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Development of the Technical Bases to Support Flexible Siting of Microreactors based on Right-Sized Emergency Planning Zones | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to provide the technical basis to support the application of a right-sized Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ) size to support the deployment of a microreactor at the Penn State University Park campus. This research study will serve as a template to provide flexible siting in support of future microreactor deployments that may be placed closer to demand centers, thereby making them more economically competitive. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Bayesian Optimization for Automatic Reactor Design Optimization | Arizona State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to develop analytical tools based on Gaussian process modeling and Bayesian Optimization that facilitate reactor design optimization by modeling the responses from the physics simulator. Existing capabilities will be applied in an AI field and they will be adapted to address the key characteristics of nuclear reactor design problem. This project will automate the simulation-based design procedure, reduce the number of iterations, and minimize the design cycle time. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Engaging New Mexican communities in developing an equitable and just approach to siting advanced reactor facilities | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | This project will engage diverse New Mexican communities to develop an equitable approach for advanced reactor siting. The findings of this project will shed light on how technology developers and the DOE can explore and potentially site advanced reactors with the informed consent and engagement of host communities, regions, and states. The findings of this study will also more generally apply to the potential for equitably exploring both brownfield and greenfield sites for nuclear facilities. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Deciphering Irradiation Effects of YHx through In-situ Evaluation and Micromechanics for Microreactor Applications | University of New Mexico | $998,000 | This project addresses a critical gap in accelerated testing of YH evolution coupling multi-length scale mechanical testing with ion irradiation and advanced characterization to establish a baseline understanding of YH evolution under ion irradiation. Our approach will couple ion irradiation and gamma irradiation with small scale mechanical testing to decipher multi-scale impacts on phase stability to advance understanding of YH in a microreactor moderator application. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Active Learning Estimation and Optimization (ALEO) of Irradiation Experimental Design for Efficient Accelerated Fuel Qualification | University of Texas at San Antonio | $997,247 | This collaborative project creates novel AI/ML models and algorithms integrated with physical knowledge and expertise to explore more efficient ways to calculate irradiation temperatures and fuel specimen burnups for new fuel sample configurations of MiniFuel experiments proposed for irradiation in the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Unraveling how mixing vane spacers affect cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena in light water reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $500,000 | Experiments will be conducted to quantify the effect of mixing vane spacers on cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena, namely single-phase forced convection, nucleate boiling, and CHF. The results of the experimental research will allow elucidating the physical phenomena triggered by the presence of mixing vane spacers. They will also allow assessing the performance of M-CFD tools developed within CASL and in use by the nuclear community. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Quantum Computing Algorithms for Deterministic Neutron Transport | University of Michigan | $500,000 | This project will develop algorithms for solving the k-eigenvalue form of the neutron transport equation in a nuclear reactor physics context on a quantum computer. The asymptotic scaling of the algorithms will be analyzed. Investigation into implementation will be made by making resource estimates by synthesizing explicit circuits for the algorithms and be studied by emulation on a classical computer. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Optimizing Application-Dependent Energy Group Structures for Multigroup Neutron Transport Models using Machine Learning | Colorado School of Mines | $500,000 | Machine Learning methods will be developed that will dramatically reduce both the computational run-time and manual effort needed to find multigroup energy structures that accurately capture the underlying physics of neutron reactions, while allowing multigroup simulations to run quickly without overwhelming available memory. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Understanding PM-HIP Interparticle Evolution and its Influence on Fracture Toughness in Alumina-Forming Steels | Purdue University | $1,100,000 | This project aims to understand how interparticle evolution during hot isostatic pressing (HIP) influences fracture toughness of Al-bearing steels. The team will use a series of interrupted HIP experiments with phase field models to understand the formation mechanisms of interparticle defects during HIP of alumina-forming austenitic (AFA) stainless steels and FeCrAl steels, and the influence of these defects on fracture behavior. | Document | Advanced Manufacturing Technologies | FY2024 |
| Multiscale high-throughput experiment/modeling approach to understanding creep behavior in Additively Manufactured reactor steels | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $1,043,271 | This project proposes to develop a predictive capability for processing-microstructure-property correlations in additive manufactured microstructures utilizing a multiscale approach encompassing bulk creep tests, miniaturized tensile testing, and a high-throughput, indentation based, cost-effective method for elevated temperature mechanical mapping of additively manufactured 316H Stainless Steel, Grade 91, and Titanium-Zirconium-Molybdenum (TZM) alloys. | Document | Advanced Manufacturing Technologies | FY2024 |
| Assessing molten salt corrosion resistance of stainless steel 316H in nuclear reactor environments | North Carolina State University | $1,100,000 | The proposed goal is to leverage a blend of innovative molten salt corrosion experiments and cutting-edge characterization techniques to advance our understanding of molten salt corrosion in both commercial and additively manufactured (AM) stainless steel (SS) 316H, particularly under radiation or stress environments. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Polymer-Derived C-SiC Coatings on Kernel Particles for Advanced Nuclear Reactors | University of Alabama at Birmingham | $1,100,000 | This program is to use a polymer-derived ceramic approach to develop C-SiC/ZrC coatings on ZrO2 kernel substitute particles. We aim to create new fuel encapsulation materials in replacement of the coatings on fuel kernel particles, including the TRISO layers, for advanced reactors, conduct ion irradiation testing of the new materials for nuclear performance evaluation, and carry out detailed microstructure and composition characterization to assess the C-SiC/ZrC coated fuel particle behaviors. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Sorbent regeneration, recycling, and transformation: A transformative approach to iodine capture and immobilization | University of Nevada, Reno | $1,000,000 | The project will focus on the development of materials and processes for regeneration and recycling of sorbents, and the transformation of iodine-loaded sorbents into waste forms. A combination of computational and experimental studies will be conducted to understand (a) how the components in a primary off-gas stream interact with the sorbent, (b) how this off-gas stream affects the regeneration lifetime, and (c) low-temperature binders and processing paths that leads to durable waste forms. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Accident Tolerant Fuels to Support Power Uprates in LWRs | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,100,000 | This project will demonstrate that power uprates higher than the current state of operation can be reached using accident tolerant fuels in light water reactors while not exceeding reactor safety margins during normal operation and accidents. We will analyze it considering fuel enriched up to 10% and peak rod average burnup up to 75GWd/tU concerning reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, reactor safety, and economics. Considerations will be made in consultation with the named industry advisory board. | Document | Existing Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Comparative study of three-dimensional microstructural imaging and thermal conductivity evolution of irradiated solid and annular U-Zr fuels | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Uranium-zirconium (U-Zr) annular metallic fuel holds the promise to simultaneously increase sodium fast reactor (SFR) core uranium loading and reduce peak cladding temperatures, thus greatly improving fuel performance. However, key convolved fuel degradation mechanisms during irradiation at temperature threaten to hold back its real-world applicability, requiring more detailed understanding to both predict U-Zr fuel performance and suggest improvements. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Mechanistic study and modeling of fission gas release in UO2 and doped UO2 | Oregon State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to enhance the safety and performance of light water reactors and other advanced reactor designs by gaining a fundamental understanding of fast gas reactor mechanisms and developing mechanistic models for UO2 and doped UO2 fuels under HBU and transient conditions. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Anisotropic Thermal Properties of SiC-SiC Cladding: Method Development & Characterization | University of Pittsburgh | $1,000,000 | We propose to develop a high-temperature nondestructive thermal conductivity (k) measurement system coupled with validated multiscale models to accurately determine the anisotropic thermal conductivity of SiC-SiC composite cladding tubes. The multiscale measurement and modeling results benefit both DOE ATF programs as well as providing a fundamental understanding of how the microstructure of the composite leads to its anisotropic properties. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Understanding the Performance of SiC-SiCf Composite Cladding Architectures with Cr Coating in Normal Operating and Accident Conditions in LWRs and Advanced Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The project will focus on investigating the impact of Cr-coating on the SiC-SiCf composite cladding of various architectures under normal operating and accident conditions in light water reactors and advanced reactors for the safe and economic deployment of SiC cladding. Cr-coating will provide protection from high-temperature corrosion and better hermeticity under accident conditions. The performance of the claddings will be evaluated through the corrosion test, reflood test, burst test, and non-destructive evaluation(NDE). | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Developing critical insights on the effects of Mo on _' precipitation and dislocation loop formation in FeCrAl alloys | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | This project aims at developing a mechanistic understanding on the effects of Mo on _' precipitation and dislocation loop formation in FeCrAl alloys in thermal and irradiation conditions and turns it into a set of design principles guiding further optimization, by integrating atomistic simulations, CALPHAD modeling, thermal aging, proton irradiation, and advanced characterization. The material discoveries will be generalized to other solutes other than Mo. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Inference of flow conditions from in-core detector measurements for accelerating SMR licensing | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Reactor modelling relies on the detailed description of reactor systems but often lacks the true as-built characteristics of a system. This proposal seeks to fill these geometrical data gaps using available detector data, predictive models and machine learning in order to provide better information to analysis tools and thus better prediction of future performance. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Non-Destructive Plutonium Assay in Pyroprocessing Bulk Materials with a 3D Boron-Coated-Straw Detector Array | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,100,000 | The objective of the proposed project is to develop and demonstrate a 3D boron-coated-straw detector array (3D-BCSDA) with high efficiency and spatial resolution. This detection system will be specifically designed to accurately assess the fissile mass in bulk nuclear material during pyroprocessing operations, thereby improving the precision and reliability of accountability measurements during separation. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Improving the computational efficiency and usability of dynamic PRA with reinforcement learning | University of Maryland, College Park | $1,064,400 | The overall objective of the proposed research is to improve the efficiency and usability of dynamic probabilistic risk assessment (PRA). Specifically, the first objective is to develop a new algorithm for dynamic PRA analysis that can significantly increase the computational efficiency. The second objective is to develop a question-answering system to streamline the process of risk-informed decision-making based on results obtained from the dynamic PRA analysis using the new algorithm. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Development of a Benchmark Model for the Near Real-Time Radionuclide Composition Measurement System using Microcalorimetry for Advanced Reactors | Virginia Commonwealth University | $1,100,000 | The primary goal of this proposed project is to develop high fidelity Monte Carlo radiation transport models of a microcalorimetry detector informed by fuel depletion models of a molten salt reactor and a pebble bed reactor to quantify the current and future capabilities of this detector technology to characterize and assay used fuel from these reactors in near real-time. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Development and Validation of a Dual-Purpose Instrument for On-line Monitoring of Molten Salt Composition and Thermal Behavior | Brigham Young University | $1,099,924 | We propose the development of an online monitoring instrument capable of quantifying heat transfer and salt composition for molten salt reactors (MSR). A dual electrochemistry/thermal conductivity probe (DETP) will be developed to measure the thermal properties and impurities within the salt simultaneously. The DETP will make use of a previously developed needle probe and electrodes for square-wave cyclic voltammetry measures of salt composition. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| In Situ Assessment of Molten Salt Transport into Nuclear Graphite Microstructures using Ultrasonic Sensors | Johns Hopkins University | $909,827 | This project focuses on the transport of molten salt into nuclear graphite along with the investigation of ultrasonic methods for sensing graphite material property changes, especially elastic modulus, associated with intrusion of molten salt into the graphite microstructure. Experimental studies coupled with physics-based simulations will be used to assess strategies for in situ sensing of salt intrusion in the reactor environment to enhance long-term viability of molten salt reactors. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| MONITORING CERAMIC FUEL FRACTURE VIA FIBER OPTIC ACOUSTIC EMISSION SENSORS | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $1,000,000 | In the proposed three-year program, the Center for Photonics Technology (CPT) at Virginia Tech will collaborate with Sentek Instrument (Sentek), Prysmian, and Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to develop and demonstrate a distributed acoustic emission (AE) sensing system for in-situ monitoring of ceramic fuel fracture. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| Concurrent Surrogate Model Development with Uncertainty Quantification in the MOOSE Framework Using Physics-Informed Gaussian-Process Machine Learning | University of Florida | $999,999 | The objective of this project is to develop a general capability for concurrent generation and use of physics-informed Gaussian process (GP)-based surrogate models to facilitate multiscale and multiphysics modeling. We will implement this new capability as part of the Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) so that every application based on the MOOSE framework will have access to it. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2024 |
| Unstructured Adaptive Mesh Algorithms for Monte Carlo Transport | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,098,000 | We propose to develop the fundamental methods and techniques for unstructured adaptive mesh refinement with Monte Carlo tallies. This work enables a transformative leap forward in speed, accuracy, and robustness to enhance the contribution of high-fidelity radiation transport to advanced simulation. Adaptive refinement is deployed on a challenging multiphysics simulation, cascading heat pipe failure, to study acceleration and stabilization properties. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2024 |
| Feasibility Study of Micro-Nuclear Reactor Thermal Output for Air Rotary Kilns in the High-Temperature Manufacturing of Portland Cement Clinker | Pennsylvania State University | $998,793 | This project aims to design and test a micro-nuclear reactor for high-temperature portland cement clinker production, a process responsible for 6%-8% of global CO2 emissions. Leveraging advanced reactors' heat output, the project explores TRISO-based nuclear microreactor core modifications and new working fluids for heat pipes. The research addresses uncertainties in micro-nuclear reactor deployment for clinker production and investigates high-efficiency heat exchanger designs. | Document | Non-Traditional and Non-electric Applications | FY2024 |
| Redox potential, ionic speciation, and separation and recovery challenges from molten salts containing actinides and fission products | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $999,999 | Establishing an efficient, safe, secure, and economical Molten-Salt Reactor (MSR) fuel cycle is imperative for MSR implementation. Molten salt fuel recycling technology requires predictive knowledge of the chemical and physical behavior of lanthanide and actinide ions with different oxidation states dissolved in solvent salts. A combination of off-gas and X-ray measurements with machine-learning simulations will be used to produce predictive modeling of separation and recovery conditions. | Document | Nuclear Fuel Recycle Technologies | FY2024 |
| Pre-Treatment and Bulk Separation of Used Fuels with Carbonate-Peroxide Solutions | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | To use carbonate-peroxide chemistries to develop a pre-processing method for used uranium-based fuels that enables the subsequent use and optimization of current solvent extraction reprocessing schemes. Using simple precipitation, this innovative method provides an initial, bulk separation of uranium from fission products and actinides. | Document | Nuclear Fuel Recycle Technologies | FY2024 |
| Optimization of Fueling Strategies and Material Surveillance through Real-time Pebble Tracking in Pebble Bed Reactors | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,100,000 | Flexible operation of the energy grid of the future introduces uncertainty in determining the optimal operating conditions of Pebble Bed Reactors. The proposed work will help to address these challenges and enable more economical operation by providing the tools to determine of optimal fuel reloading strategy through pebble identification and tracking. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Experimental Study and Computational Modeling of P-LOFC and D-LOFC Accidents in the Fast Modular Reactor Consisting of Silicon Carbide Composite Rods | University of Michigan | $1,100,000 | The primary objectives of this proposed research are to better understand NC flow phenomena and heat transfer under both D-LOFC and P-LOFC accidents in the FMR, produce experimental data in a well-scaled integral-effects test facility for the two accidents, and develop and validate predictive CFD models for NC flow phenomena in both accidents. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Sodium heat pipes; design and failure mode assessment for micro-reactor applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The present proposal aims to experimentally investigate the thermal-hydraulics performance of liquid sodium heat pipes applied to microreactors, with a focus on exploring different design parameters, effects of different parameters on operating performance and understanding the evolution and impact of different failure modes. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Interfacial Interactions between Graphite and Molten Fluoride Fuel Salt | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $1,000,000 | NaF-KF-UF4 fuel salt will be selected to study graphite-salt interactions and impact of the existence of fission products (FPs) and corrosion products on the interactions at different temperatures and pressures. Fundamental mechanisms of graphite-salt interaction and degradation will be understood. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Local resonance-based linear and nonlinear NDE techniques for repaired DSC wall structures | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | The proposed work plan will develop nondestructive examination (NDE) methods that develop and evaluate linear and nonlinear resonant ultrasound spectroscopy methods (such as NRUS, NIRAS, etc.) to cold spray (CS) repaired dry shielded canister (DSC) wall structures. With the support of our partners from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), we will perform technology development and validation on plain and cold spray-repaired DSC wall specimens. | Document | Spent Fuel, Waste Science & Technology and Integrated Waste Management System | FY2024 |
| Thermodynamic Models for Multivalent Actinide Solubility and Speciation as a Function of Temperature and Ionic Strength | University of Notre Dame | $1,000,000 | This proposed project will quantify the solubility and speciation of Np and Pu under temperatures, ionic strengths, and pH values that are relevant to the generic repository concept. The major deliverable will be full thermodynamic descriptions of the studied systems, which will lead to improved radionuclide transport models and support the development of a sound technical basis for the geologic disposal of spent nuclear fuel and other actinide-bearing wastes. | Document | Spent Fuel, Waste Science & Technology and Integrated Waste Management System | FY2024 |
| Advancing Fundamental Molten Salt Modeling using Ultrafast Spectroscopy | North Carolina State University | $600,000 | The overarching goal of the proposed research is to advance our fundamental understanding of molten salts by combining ultrafast spectroscopic experiments with high fidelity atomistic simulations. The proposed research will introduce a new experimental technique to the study of molten salts that will directly measure ion kinetics, specifically, terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS), which will further validate AIMD as a predictive modeling tool. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
| Hydrodynamics of Two-Phase Flow Under the Geometric Effects of Pipe Orientation and U-bends | Purdue University | $600,000 | Most two-phase flow analyses have been performed in straight vertical-upward pipes. However, nuclear reactor systems include piping with different geometric components, such as elbows or U-bends, as well as changes in flow orientations. The proposed work performs experiments in a scaled test facility existing at the institution's lab to investigate the effects of flow orientations and geometries relevant to nuclear reactor systems on the hydrodynamics of two-phase flow. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
| Interface-Resolved Experimental and Numerical Studies of Two-Phase Flow for Nuclear Engineering Applications | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $500,000 | The project aims at advancing the interface-resolved simulation capabilities for the two-phase flows found in various nuclear engineering applications. We will develop a comprehensive, high-resolution, interface-resolved database emphasizing bubble dynamics and bubble interaction mechanisms. The data will be used to validate the sub-grid models implemented in an interface-resolved simulation tool to improve simulation accuracy by developing physics-based coalescence models. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
FY 2016 Research and Development Awards
The Energy Department is awarding over $35.5 million through its Nuclear Energy University Programs (NEUP) to support 48 university-led nuclear energy research and development projects to develop innovative technologies and solutions. These projects will be led by 31 U.S. universities in 24 states.
A complete list of R&D projects with their associated abstracts is available below.
| Title | Institution | Estimated Funding* | Project Description | Abstract | Project Type | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fundamental Understanding of Ambient and High-Temperature Plasticity Phenomena in Structural Materials in Advanced Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Elastic/Inelastic Nuclear Data Development Project | Idaho State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Heterogeneous Recycling in Fast Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Thermodynamic Development of Corrosion Rate Modeling in Iron Phosphate Glasses | Missouri University of Science and Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Subspace-Based Hybrid Monte Carlo-Deterministic Algorithms for Reactor Physics Calculations | North Carolina State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Improvements to Nuclear Data and Its Uncertainties by Theoretical Modeling | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Sharp Interface Tracking in Rotating Microflows of Solvent Extraction | State University of New York at Stony Brook | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Bulk Nanostructured FCC Steels with Enhanced Radiation Tolerance | Texas A&M University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Fuel Performance Experiments and Modeling: Fission Gas Bubble Nucleation and Growth in Alloy Nuclear Fuels | Texas A&M University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| SiC Schottky Diode Detectors for Measurement of Actinide Concentrations from Alpha Activities in Molten Salt Electrolyte | The Ohio State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Computational Design of Advanced Nuclear Fuels | University of California, Davis | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Data Collection Methods For Validation of Advanced Multi-Resolution Fast Reactor Simulations | University of Idaho | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Simulations of the Thermodynamic and Diffusion Properties of Actinide Oxide Fuel Materials | University of Michigan | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Adsorptive Separation and Sequestration of Krypton, I and C14 on Diamond Nanoparticles | University of Missouri, Columbia | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Alternative Technetium Waste Forms | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Quantification of UV-Visible and Laser Spectroscopic Techniques for Materials Accountability and Process Control | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| High-Fidelity Space-Time Adaptive Multiphysics Simulations in Nuclear Engineering | University of Nevada, Reno | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Simulations of Failure via Three-Dimensional Cracking in Fuel Cladding for Advanced Nuclear Fuels | University of Texas, Dallas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Mesh-Enabled Monte Carlo Capability for Multi-Physics Reactor Analysis | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Ab Initio Enhanced Calphad Modeling of Actinide Rich Nuclear Fuels | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Diffusion Barrier Coatings and Deposition Technologies for Mitigating Fuel Cladding Chemical Interactions (FCCI) | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Thermal Properties of LiCl-KCl Molten Salt for Nuclear Waste Separation | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Neutron Damage and MAX Phase Ternary Compounds | Drexel University | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Atomistic Calculations of the Effect of Minor Actinides on Thermodynamic and Kinetic Properties of UO2+x | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Maximum Fuel Utilization in Fast Reactors without Chemical Reprocessing | University of California, Berkeley | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Developing a High Thermal Conductivity Fuel with Silicon Carbide Additives | University of Florida | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Fabrication of Tungsten-Rhenium Cladding Materials via Spark Plasma Sintering for Ultra High Temperature Reactor Applications | University of Idaho | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Ionic Liquid and Supercritical Fluid Hyphenated Techniques for Dissolution and Separation of Lanthanides, Actinides, and Fission Products | University of Idaho | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Improved Fission Neutron Data Base for Active Interrogation of Actinides | University of Michigan | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Utilization of Methacrylates and Polymer Matrices for the Synthesis of Ion Specific Resins | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Improved LWR Cladding Performance by EPD Surface Modification Technique | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Models of LWR Pressure Vessel Embrittlement for Low Flux-High Fluence Conditions | University of California, Santa Barbara | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) | FY2009 | ||
| Irradiation Creep in Graphite | Boise State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Modeling the Stress Strain Relationships and Predicting Failure Probabilities For Graphite Core Components | Cleveland State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| TRISO-Coated Fuel Durability Under Extreme Conditions | Colorado School of Mines | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| An Innovative and Advanced Coupled Neutron Transport and Thermal Hydraulic Method (Tool) for the Design, Analysis and Optimization of VHTR/NGNP Prismatic Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Removal of 14C from Irradiated Graphite for Graphite Recycle and Waste Volume Reduction | Idaho State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Millimeter-Wave Thermal Analysis Development and Application to Gen IV Reactor Materials | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Accurate Development of Thermal Neutron Scattering Cross Section Libraries | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Understanding Creep Mechanisms in Graphite with Experiments, Multiscale Simulations, and Modeling | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Verification & Validation of High-Order Short-Characteristics-Based Deterministic Transport Methodology on Unstructured Grids | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Microscale Heat Conduction Models and Doppler Feedback | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Optimizing Neutron Thermal Scattering Effects in Very High Temperature Reactors | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Multiaxial Creep-Fatigue and CreepRatcheting Failures of Grade 91 and Haynes 230 Alloys Toward Addressing Design Issues of Gen IV Nuclear Power Plants | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Investigation of Countercurrent Helium-air Flows in Air-ingress Accidents for VHTRs | Ohio State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Testing of Performance of Optical Fibers Under Irradiation in Intense Radiation Fields, When Subjected to Very High Temperatures | Ohio State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| A Distributed Fiber Optic Sensor Network for Online 3-D Temperature and Neutron Fluence Mapping in a VHTR Environment | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Investigation on the Core Bypass Flow in a Very High Temperature Reactor | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| CFD Model Development and Validation for High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor Cavity Cooling System (RCCS) Applications | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Study of Air ingress across the duct during the accident conditions | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Verification of the CENTRM Module for Adaptation of the SCALE Code to NGNP Prismatic and PBR Core Designs | University of Arizona | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Integral and Separate Effects Tests for Thermal Hydraulics Code Validation for Liquid-Salt Cooled Nuclear Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Mechanisms Governing the Creep Behavior of High Temperature Alloys for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems | University of Cincinnati | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| ALD Produced B2O3, Al2O3 and TiO2 Coatings on Gd2O3 Burnable Poison Nanoparticles | University of Colorado, Boulder | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Experimental Study and Computational Simulations of Key Pebble Bed Thermomechanics Issues for Design and Safety | University of Idaho | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Prediction and Monitoring Systems of Creep-Fracture Behavior of 9Cr-1Mo Steels for Reactor Pressure Vessels | University of Idaho | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Understanding Fundamental Material Degradation Processes in High Temperature Aggressive Chemomechanical Environments | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Multi-Scale Multi-physics Methods Development for the Calculation of Hot-Spots in the NGNP | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Corrosion and Creep of Candidate Alloys in High Temperature Helium and Steam Environments for the NGNP | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Creation of a Full-Core HTR Benchmark with the Fort St. Vrain Initial Core and Validation of the DHF Method with Helios for NGNP Configurations | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Fission Product Sorptivity in Graphite | University of Missouri, Columbia | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Identifying and Understanding Environment-Induced Crack Propagation Behavior in Ni-Based Superalloy INCONEL 617 | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Graphite Oxidation Simulation in HTR Accident Conditions | University of New Mexico | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Non Destructive Thermal Analysis and In Situ Investigation of Creep Mechanism of Graphite and Ceramic Composites using Phase-sensitive THz Imaging & Nonlinear Resonant Ultrasonic Spectroscopy | University of Rochester | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Tritium Sequestration in Gen IV NGNP Gas Stream via Proton Conducting Ceramic Pumps | University of South Carolina | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Materials, Turbomachinery and Heat Exchangers for Supercritical CO2 Systems | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Experimental Studies of NGNP Reactor Cavity Cooling System with Water | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Assessment of Embrittlement of VHTR Structural Alloys in Impure Helium Environments | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Modeling Fission Product Sorption in Graphite Structures | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Liquid Salt Heat Exchanger Technology for VHTR Based Applications | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Effect of Post-Weld Heat Treatment on Creep Rupture Properties of Grade 91 Steel Heavy Section Welds | Utah State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Alpha Radiolysis of Nuclear Solvent Extraction Ligands used for An(III) and Ln(III) Separations | California State University, Long Beach | $1,390,252 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Predictive Maturity of Multi-Scale Simulation Models for Fuel Performance | Clemson University | $614,690 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Freeze-casting as a Novel Manufacturing Process for Fast Reactor Fuels | Drexel University | $1,149,327 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Fuel Performance Experiments on the Atomistic Level, Studying Fuel Through Engineered Single Crystal UO2 | Idaho State University | $650,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Development of A Self Biased High Efficiency Solid-State Neutron Detector for MPACT Applications | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $810,141 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Development of a Innovative High Thermal Conductivity UO 2 Ceramic Composites Fuel Pellets with Carbon Nano-Tubes Using Spark Plasma Sintering | University of Florida | $894,042 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Exploration and Modeling of Structural Changes in Waste Glass under Corrosion | Pennsylvania State University | $1,377,444 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Evaluation of materials for interim storage of spent fuel for more than 100 years | University of Michigan | $931,603 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Implementation of On-the-Fly Doppler Broadening in MCNP5 for Multiphysics Simulation of Nuclear Reactors | University of Michigan | $406,712 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Methods and tools to allow molecular flow simulations to be coupled to higher level continuum descriptions of flows in porous/fractured media and aerosol/dust dynamics | University of Missouri-Columbi | $541,286 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Characterization and Modeling of Materials for Kr-Xe Separations | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $989,800 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Modeling Solute Thermokinetics in LiCl-KCl Molten Salt for Nuclear Waste Separation | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $616,073 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Advanced Aqueous Separation Systems for Actinide Partitioning: Develop Fundamental Understanding of An(III)/Ln(III) Separation | Washington State University | $1,451,784 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Consistent Multigroup Theory Enabling Accurate Coarse-Group Simulation of GenIV Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,046,277 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Studies of Deteriorated Heat Transfer in Prismatic Cores Stemming from Irradiation-Induced Geometry Distortion | Idaho State University | $1,287,921 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Carbide Coatings for Nickel Alloys, Graphite, and Carbon/Carbon Composites to be Used in Fluoride Salt Valves | Johns Hopkins University | $1,183,239 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Design, Testing, and Modeling of the Direct Reactor Auxiliary Cooling System for AHTRs | Ohio State University | $1,366,627 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Monitoring microstructural evolution of Alloy 617 with nonlinear acoustics for remaining useful life prediction; multiaxial creep-fatigue and creep-ratcheting | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development and Validation of Multidimensional Models of Supercritical CO 2 Energy Conversion Systems for Nuclear Power Reactors | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $475,005 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Microstructure and Property Evolution in Advanced Cladding and Duct Materials Under Long-Term and Elevated Temperature Irradiation: Modeling and Experimental Investigation | University of California-Berkeley | $1,320,667 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of Barrier Layers for the Protection of Candidate Alloys in the VHTR | University of California-Santa Barbara | $995,232 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Investigation of a Novel NDE Method for Monitoring Thermo-Mechanical Damage and Microstructure Evolution in Ferritic-Martensitic Steels for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems | University of Cincinnati | $833,109 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Fission Product Transport in TRISO Particle Layers under Operating and Off-Normal Conditions | University of Michigan | $966,581 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Microstructure and Property Evolution in Advanced Cladding and Duct Materials Under Long-Term Irradiation at Elevated Temperature: Critical Experiments | University of Michigan | $1,181,379 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Three-dimensional NDE of VHTR Core Components via Simulation-based Testing | University of Minnesota | $1,366,163 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Failure Predictions for VHTR Core Components using a Probabilistic Continuum Damage Mechanics Model | University of Minnesota | $854,542 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of a Scanning Microscale Fast Neutron Irradiation Platform for Examining the Correlation Between Local Neutron Damage and Graphite Microstructure | University of Missouri-Columbia | $703,064 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of Thermal Transient Flow Rate Sensors for High Temperature, Irradiation, Corrosive Environment | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $451,269 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Novel Methods of Tritium Sequestration: High Temperature Gettering and Separation Membrane Materials Discovery for Nuclear Energy Systems | University of South Carolina | $1,366,626 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Heat Transfer Salts for Nuclear Reactor Systems - Chemistry Control, Corrosion Mitigation, and Modeling | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,352,040 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Pulsed Magnetic Welding for Advanced Core and Cladding Steels | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $525,206 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Corrosion in Supercritical Carbon Dioxide: Materials, Environmental Purity, Surface Treatments, and Flow Issues | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $651,447 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Multiscale Concrete Modeling for Aging Degradation | Mississippi State University | $345,941 | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability | FY2010 | |
| Development of an advanced computational fluid dynamics technology for the next-generation nuclear reactor system analysis and safety margin characterization code | North Carolina State University | $418,199 | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability | FY2010 | |
| Precursor Derived Nanostructured Si-C-X Materials for Nuclear Applications | University of Washington | $899,518 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Development and Testing of an Open-Loop Oscillator for Small Reactivity Worth Samples | Idaho State University | $597,252 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Understanding the Irradiation Behavior of Zirconium Carbide | Pennsylvania State University | $870,613 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Modeling investigation of the stability and irradiation-induced evolution of nanoscale precipitates in advanced structural materials | University of Tennessee-Knoxville | $380,653 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Investigation of Laser Shock Peening for Enhancing Fatigue and Stress Corrosion Cracking Resistance of Nuclear Energy Materials | University of Cincinnati | $1,242,019 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Irradiation Accelerated Corrosion of Reactor Core Materials | University of Michigan | $798,943 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Study of Interfacial Interactions using Thin Film Surface Modification: Radiation and Oxidation Effects in Materials | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $538,032 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Novel Engineered Refractory Materials for Advanced Reactor Applications | North Carolina State University | $1,129,304 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Quantification of Cation Sorption to Engineered Barrier Materials Under Extreme Conditions | Clemson University | $1,171,380 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| In-Pile Instrumentation Multi-Parameter System Utilizing Photonic Fibers and Nanovision | Idaho State University | $1,199,990 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Development of Plasmonically Cloaked Nanoparticles | Idaho State University | $800,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Fission Product Transmutation in Mixed Radiation Fields | Idaho State University | $800,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Life Prediction of Spent Fuel Storage Canister Material | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $899,826 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Active Interrogation using Photofission Technique for Nuclear Materials Control and Accountability | Oregon State University | $900,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Anisotropic Azimuthal Power and Temperature Distribution on Fuel Rod: Impact of Hydride Distribution | Pennsylvania State University | $631,956 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Sorption Modeling and Verification for Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Microemulsions and Aggregation Formation in Extraction Processes for Used Nuclear Fuel: Thermodynamics and Structural Studies | University of California, Irvine | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Optimized Processing Fabrication Paths for Larger Heats of Nanostructured Ferritic Alloys | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Basic Physics Data: Measurement of Neutron Multiplicity from Induced Fission | University of Michigan | $973,364 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Radionuclide Incorporation and Long Term Performance of Apatite Waste Forms | University of Michigan | $862,500 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Actinide Foil Production for MPACT Research | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $156,897 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Enriched Boron-Doped Amorphous Selenium Based Position-Sensitive Solid-State Thermal Neutron Detector for MPACT Applications | University of South Carolina | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Development of Advanced High Uranium Density Fuels for Light Water Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Developing the User Experience for a Next Generation Nuclear Fuel Cycle Simulator | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,200,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Preparation and Development of Polymer-Supported Extractants | City College of New York, Hunter | $363,716 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| One-Dimensional Nanostructures for Neutron Detection | North Carolina State University | $455,629 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Feasibility and Safety Assessment for Advanced Reactor Concepts Using Vented Fuel | Oregon State University | $600,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| High Temperature Transducers for Online Monitoring of Microstructure Evolution | Pennsylvania State University | $455,628 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Laser-Arc Hybrid Welding of Thick Section Ni-base Alloys- Advanced Modeling and Experiments | Pennsylvania State University | $536,117 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Correlates of Sensitive Technologies | Texas A&M University | $509,467 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Improved Safety Margin Characterization of Risk from Loss of Offsite Power | Texas A&M University | $600,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| A High Temperature-Tolerant and Radiation-Resistant In-Core Neutron Sensor for Advanced Reactors | The Ohio State University | $455,629 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Pathway Aggregation in the Risk Assessment of Proliferation Resistance and Physical Protection (PR&PP) of Nuclear Energy Systems | The Ohio State University | $534,471 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Preparation of High Purity, High Molecular-Weight Chitin from Ionic Liquids for Use as an Adsorbate for the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Alabama | $338,260 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Selectivity in Ligand Binding to Uranyl Compounds: A Synthetic, Structural, Thermodynamic and Computational Study | University of California-Berkeley | $500,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Seismic Isolation Systems Using Periodic Materials | University of Houston | $538,154 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium from Seawater | University of Idaho | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Austenitic ODS Strengthened Alloys for Very High Temperature Applications | University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign | $538,154 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Enhancement of the Extraction of the Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Transient Safety Analysis of Fast Spectrum TRU Burning LWR with Internal Blankets | University of Michigan | $599,475 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Novel Sorbents for Uranium Extraction from Seawater | University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Radiation Behavior of High-Entropy Alloys for Advanced Reactors | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $538,159 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Rapid Computer Aided Ligand Design and Screening of Precious Metal Extractants from TRUEX Raffinate with Experimental Validation | Washington State University | $500,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of an Efficient Meso-Scale Multi-Phase Flow Solver in Nuclear Applications | City College of New York | $505,858 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Multiscale Modeling and Uncertainty Quantification for Nuclear Fuel Performance | Colorado State University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Fundamental Studies of the Role of Grain Boundaries on Uniform Corrosion of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Materials | Drexel University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Phenomena-based Uncertainty Quantification in Predictive Coupled-Physics Reactor Simulations | Texas A&M University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Characterization of Modeling of Grain Boundary Chemistry Evolution in Ferritic Steels Under Irradiation | University of Michigan | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Development of Multiscale Materials Modeling Techniques and Coarse-Graining Strategies for Predicting Materials Degradation in Extreme Irradiation Environments | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $750,000 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Diffusion, Thermal Properties and chemical Compatibilities of Select MAX Phases with Materials for Advanced Nuclear Systems | Drexel University | $535,927 | Document | Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) | FY2011 | |
| A New Light Weight Structural Material for Nuclear Structures | North Carolina State University | $399,490 | Document | Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) | FY2011 | |
| Experimental Investigation of Convection and Heat Transfer in the Reactor Core for a VHTR | City College of New York | $1,118,856 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Graphite Microstructural Characterization Using Time-Domain and Correlation-Based Ultrasonics | Johns Hopkins University | $1,199,997 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Methodology Development for Passive Component Reliability Modeling in a Multi-Physics Simulation Environment | The Ohio State University | $533,457 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Pebble Fuel Handling and Reactivity Control for Salt-Cooled High Temperature Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $612,721 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Self-Sustaining Thorium Boiling Water Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $1,145,932 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| High Fluency Low Flux Embrittlement Models of LWR Reactor Pressure Vessel Embrittlement and a Supporting Database from the UCSB ATR-2 Irradiation Experiment | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,199,607 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| A Research Program for Fission Product/Dust Transport in HTGR's | University of Missouri-Columbia | $1,157,367 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Development and Validation of a Lifecycle-based Prognostics Architecture with Test Bed Validation | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $846,315 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| In-situ Condition Monitoring of Components in Small Modular Reactors Using Process and Electrical Signature Analysis | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $650,000 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Technical Development for S-CO2 Advanced Energy Conversion | University of Wisconsin | $815,000 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Ag Transport Through Non-Irradiated and Irradiated SiC | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,055,456 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Critical Heat Flux Phenomena at High Pressure and Low Mass Fluxes: Tests and Models | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,199,781 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Modeling and Test Validation of a Reactor Cavity Cooling System with Air | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,199,988 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Transient Mixed Convection Validation for NGNP | Utah State University | $635,860 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Alternative High-Performance Ceramic Waste Forms | Alfred University | $840,000 | This project aims to advance fundamental understanding of the kinetics of structural evolution of crystalline ceramic waste forms. The structure/property relationships will be identified and will reveal new formulations, improved processing routes, and strategies for improved performance or ceramic waste forms. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Surface Layer Bulk Glass Interface Evolution with Aqueous Corrosion | Alfred University | $880,000 | This project will investigate the links between the morphology, structure and chemistry of surface layer-bulk glass interface and the long-term corrosion-reaction kinetics using in-situ and ex-situ experiments. The understanding will result in improved models for long-term predictive behavior of high-level-waste (HLW) glasses under repository conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Optimization of Deep Borehole Systems for HLW Disposal | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $850,000 | Researchers aim to carry out a comprehensive evaluation of the deep borehole option for disposal of used nuclear fuel and high livel waste. The models developed will predict potential movement of water through natural and engineered barriers and release of radionuclides to the biosphere which will aide in site selection. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Scholarship for Nuclear Communications and Methods for Evaluation of Nuclear Project Acceptability | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will work to develop a model to characterize the factors affecting social acceptance of nuclear projects with potential stakeholders. The resultant model will strengthen the ability to design and implement large projects more efficiently, leading to higher rates of success of future nuclear projects. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Accurate Holdup Calculations with Predictive Modeling and Data Integration | North Carolina State University | $875,000 | Researchers will develop and use state-of-the-art radiation transport codes to account accurately for the fissile material in a nuclear materials processing facility. An accurate estimation of the materials will allow for ensured radiological safety, security, waste management and efficient plant operation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Testing of Sapphire Optical Fiber and Sensors in Intense Radiation Fields, when Subjected to Very High Temperatures | The Ohio State University | $885,000 | The researchers on this project will investigate the performance of sapphire optical fibers and sensors in reactor environments. The project, if successful, will result in improved instrumentation to understand the behavior and predict performance of nuclear fuel systems at the microstructural level. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Concrete Materials with Ultra-High Damage Resistance and Self-Sensing Capacity for Extended Nuclear Fuel Storage Systems | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | Researchers aim to design a new class of multifunctional concrete materials. This project, if successful, will result in a novel multifunctional concrete material that possesses inherent degradation monitoring capability and is suitable for an extended storage system for the used nuclear fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Probabilistic Multi-Hazard Assessment of Dry Cask Structures | University of Houston | $865,000 | This project aims to investigate the performance of dry cask storage systems under multiple hazard systems (earthquake, tornados, combined with aging effects) using a probabilistic multi-hazard framework. This framework will be validated based on experimental research and will provide improved models for safety and reliability of spent nuclear fuels during storage and transportation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Electrochemical Corrosion Studies for Modeling Metallic Waste Form Release Rates | University of Nevada- Las Vegas | $790,000 | This project aims to use advanced electrochemical methods to investigate the corrosion related degradation of metal alloys used for housing fission products. The data obtained from this study will allow for the prediction of the long-term behavior of the metallic host phase materials over geological time-scales. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Development and Experimental Benchmark of Simulations to Predict Used Nuclear Fuel Cladding Temperatures during Drying and Transfer Operations | University of Nevada- Reno | $745,000 | Researchers will conduct experiments to investigate and develop advanced computational models of heat transfer in post-pool-storage drying operations. This project, if successful, will result in tools that can be used to design efficient drying processes to as to ensure suitability for dry-cask systems for long-term storage and transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Seismic Performance of Dry Casks Storage for Long-Term Exposure | University of Utah | $873,319 | Researchers will evaluate the mechanical performance of dry-cask storage under seismic loading for mid-term operational periods. Simulations will include scenarios for freestanding, anchored, and vaulted casks. The experimental tests will also evaluate the dynamic seismic response of freestanding and anchored dry-cask storage prototypes, providing recommendations for optimal Interim Spent Fuel Storage Installations (ISFSIs) design. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Coupling of Nuclear Waste Form Corrosion and Radionuclide Transport in Presence of Relevant Repository Sediments | Washington State University | $885,000 | Researchers will conduct experiments to understand the mechanisms responsible for the corrosion of nuclear waste forms in realistic chemical environments. The data generated from these experiments will enable increased reliability of the models used to predict the waste form performance in repository environments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| ABR for TRU Transmutation with Breed & Burn Thorium Blanket for Improved Economics and Resource Utilization | University of California- Berkeley | $450,000 | The research team will use detailed neutronic analysis for a new Advanced Burner Reactor concept with low conversion ratio. The concept will use a new core shape to improve the utilization of neutrons to perform breed and burn. | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2012 |
| Atomic-Scale to Meso-Scale Simulation Studies of Thermal Ageing and Irradiation Effects in Fe-Cr Alloys | Boston University | $874,997 | Researchers will develop predictive, multi-scale simulation tools for iron-chromium alloys, which are expected to be key components of advanced steels envisioned as fuel cladding and structural components for Generation IV reactors. Such modeling is necessary to avoid resource intensive and costly thermal and neutron irradiation experiments to obtain required performance data. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Validation Data and Model Development for Fuel Assembly Response to Seismic Loads | George Washington University | $862,435 | Researchers will conduct experiments that will provide comprehensive data characterizing the dynamics of the fluid and the structure in Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR) fuel assemblies under seismic loads (earthquakes and loss of coolant accidents). Completion of their project will greatly benefit the safety of existing and future nuclear reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Uncertainty Quantification and Management for Multiscale Nuclear Materials Modeling | Georgia Institute of Technology | $743,444 | Researchers will address the question of uncertainty propogation and error estimates associated with model prediction of material behavior under irradiation. Their work will facilitate a better understanding of the connection of various unit processes to collective responses in a multiscale model chain enabling the development of high strength and high ductility materials. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Nonlinear Ultrasonic Techniques to Monitor Radiation Damage in RPV and Internal Components | Georgia Institute of Technology | $877,000 | Researchers will explore new nondestructive materials evaluation and monitoring techniques utilizing nonlinear ultrasonic measurements . This technique will allow researchers to assess remaining useful life of select reactor components. Breakthroughs in this area will lead to the ability to characterize radiation damage in reactor pressure vessels and other components-leading to a clearer definition of reactor safety margins. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Intergral Reactor Containment Condensation Model and Experimental Validation | Oregon State University | $871,119 | Researchers will conduct experiments to enhance the safety and efficiency of small modular reactors (SMRs). This project will assess the impact of high-pressure steam condensation on steel containment vessels to be used for SMR deigns. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Irradiation Performance of Fe-Cr Base Alloys | University of Illinois- Urbana Champaign | $876,332 | _Researchers will perform post-radiation analysis and develop tools for future development and application of the Fe-Cr class of alloys. The results of this research will lead to better modeling of performance and development of an alloy designated as the primary choice for reactor fuel cladding and structural applications in advanced systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Experimentally Validated Numerical Models for Effects of Non-Isothermal Turbulent Mixing on Wall Stresses in High Temperature Reactors | University of Pittsburgh | $876,422 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive experimentally validated computational framework for the turbulent mixing in the lower plenum of a very high temperature reactor (VHTR). Through CFD modeling and experimental validation, the results from this project will lay the groundwork for future stress analysis, failure and fatigue studies, and uncertainty quantification for the VHTR system. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Mechanical Behavior of UO2 at Sub-grain Length Scales: Quantification of Elastic, Plastic and Creep Properties via Microscale Testing | Arizona State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop techniques to measure properties at sub-grain scales using depleted Uranium Oxide samples. The project will provide a framework to measure sub-grain scale mechanical properties, as well as provide experimental data to improve the understanding of advanced oxide fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| The Impacts of Pore-Scale Physical and Chemical Heterogeneities on the Transport of Radionuclide-Carrying Colloids | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will identify the dominant transport mechanisms to develop models that predict radionuclide distribution in porous materials. Experimental and computational models will be created that couple pore-scale geometric and interfacial structures. Simulators such as these are a necessary step towards fully predictive models for field-scale applications in the future. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Polymer-Supported Aminophosphinates as Selective Extractants | Hunter College, CUNY | $399,999 | Researchers will prepare a polymer-supported extractant for the recovery of uranium from seawater. The project will focus on primary amines that could provide a 3-fold increase in uranium capture capacity than current methods. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| In-pile Thermal Conductivity Characterization with Single-laser Heating/Time Resolved Raman | Iowa State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a time-resolved Raman-based thermal conductivity measurement system to improve remote in-pile thermal conductivity measurement. These measurements will provide new insights into the behavior of materials exposed to extreme radiation and temperature environments. Understanding the behavior of materials at the microstructural level will support optimized fuel designs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Organic Speciation and Interactions in ALSEP - One Step Partitioning Process of Minor Actinides, Lanthanides, and Fission Products | Oregon State University | $600,000 | Researchers will investigate the Actinide-Lanthanide Separation (ALSEP) process organic phase prior to aqueous phase separation and after aqueous separation phases of bare and metal-loaded acids. Quantifying these effects can be used to determine how an engineering scale process will perform and generate an accurate chemical model for the system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Glass Composition and Solution Speciation Effects on Stage III Dissolution | Pennsylvania State University | $700,000 | Researchers will study the chemical and structural triggers of long-term vitrified nuclear waste form behavior. They will study a range of waste glass compositions in corrosive environments. The study will improve understanding of the long-term residual rate and may provide new options for environmental control of glass dissolution rates. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Correlating Thermal, Mechanical, and Electrical Coupling Based Multiphysics Behavior of Nuclear Materials Through In-Situ Measurements | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will use in-situ experimental techniques to monitor the influence of extreme conditions on fuel cladding. The project will establish an in-situ experimental setup that can predict change in thermal properties and their correlation with mechanical properties and correlate such changes to changes in microstructural and chemical features. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Creation of a Geant4 Muon Tomography Package for Imaging of Nuclear Fuel in Dry Cask Storage | Purdue University | $440,000 | Researchers will develop a simulation and analysis package to aid in the non-destructive assessment of sealed used nuclear fuel dry casks using cosmic ray muons. Cosmic ray muon tomography allows for non-destructive assessment that can independently verify and identify weapons grade material sealed within dense dry casks. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Fuel Cycle Data Packages for Two-stage Fast Reactor Fuel Cycle Options for Optimum Resource Utilization and Waste Management | Purdue University | $400,000 | Researchers will evaluate the two different two-stage fast reactor fuel cycle options that will offer efficient use of uranium resources and the ability to burn actinides and long-live fission products. Evaluation of these fast fuel cycle options will serve as a useful complement to the options currently being considered in the Fuel Cycle Options Campaign. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Mixed Metal Phosphonate-Phosphate Resins for Separation of Lanthanides from Actinides | Texas A&M University | $650,000 | Researchers will use ion exchangers to cleanly separate lanthanides and curium from reusable actinides. The study will assist in the development of an inexpensive, simple way in which to separate lanthanides from actinides found in used nuclear fuel rods and to recover a large portion of the usable fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Safeguards in Pyroprocessing: an Integrated Model Development and Measurement Data Analysis | The Ohio State University | $626,151 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive and effective safeguards approach for a pyroprocessing facility to support safeguards for future fuel cycles in the United States. The new approach and design will focus directly on the special nuclear materials in the electrorefiner where actinides are separated from fission products through electrochemical process. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Using Ionic Liquids for the Development of Renewable Biopolymer-Based Adsorbents for the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater and Testing Under Marine Conditions | University of Alabama | $400,000 | Researchers will explore the fundamental engineering parameters for a renewable high-performance adsorbent for the extraction of uranium from sweater based on a recently proven ionic liquid (IL)-chitin platform. The project will use the platform to develop a versatile, modifiable adsorbent and characterize its performance and degradation in marine conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Developing Ultra-Small Scale Mechanical Testing Methods and Microstructural Investigation Procedures for Irradiated Materials. | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop new small-scale mechanical testing techniques to allow for the estimation or direct measurement of bulk properties. The combined experiments and modeling will significantly enhance the statistics and information that can be obtained on small radioactive archived samples, as well as new ion beam irradiated specimens. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Improved Delayed-Neutron Spectroscopy Using Trapped Ions | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will develop innovative spectroscopy techniques to measure the decay of fission fragments. The resulting data from these new techniques will be used to better understand reactor kinetics under accident conditions and failure scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Thermally and Chemically Responsive Nanoporous Materials for Efficient Capture of Fission Product Gases | University of California, Davis | $750,000 | Researchers will create new nanoporous materials that will be highly effective at capturing fission product gases. These materials would be relevant to both reactor fuels applications and reprocessing operations. Tests will be performed in carbon based and nitride based nanostructures, with the most promising materials from the modeling perspective undergoing further testing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Multiphase Nanocrystalline Ceramic Concept for Nuclear Fuel | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | Researchers will study the use of nanoparticles and nanostructured ceramics to create new materials that can extend the service life and increase efficiency for nuclear fuel. Multiphase nanocrystalline ceramics will be used to design simulated nuclear fuel that can provide added plasticity, better radiation tolerance and improved thermal conductivity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Novel Porous Sorbents for Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Chicago | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a highly porous sorbent for the extraction of uranium from seawater. Previous research has established sorbent performance. This project will use past foundational studies to design and investigate a new nanocomposites that will be processed into tacks or braids for field tests in seawater tests. The technology may also be used for other metals. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Microwave Readout Techniques for Very Large Arrays of Nuclear Sensors | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,937 | Researchers will develop a powerful readout technique based on microwave transmission and reflection. The technique will enable very large arrays of diverse sensor types for nuclear materials quantification and tracking. It will provide more accurate data on material composition and quantity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| BiI3 Gamma-Ray Spectrometers for Reliable Room-Temperature Nuclear Materials Safeguarding | University of Florida | $799,999 | Researchers will develop gamma-ray spectrometers based on BiI3 single crystals for MPACT applications such as burnup validation quantification, improved assay of plutonium, determination of uranium enrichment and overall monitoring spent fuel within the fuel cycle. The project will improve energy resolution, efficiency and environmental performance with this new gamma-ray detector. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Innovative Coating of Nanostructured Vanadium Carbide on the F/M Cladding Tube Inner Surface for Mitigating the Fuel Cladding Chemical Interactions | University of Florida | $760,276 | Researchers will develop barrier coatings on the inner surface of fuel cladding tubes to improve performance of materials at elevated temperatures and high neutron exposures in fast reactors. The project will develop and test a low temperature coating process of nanostructured vanadium carbide that will provide a benchmark for use in future studies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Doubling the Life of Concrete Structures | University of Idaho | $800,000 | Researchers will use nanoscale techniques to develop methods for doubling the service life of concrete structures. They will study the effect of temperature load and temperature cycling (freezing and thawing) on the durability of concrete with nanoscale viscosity modifiers. The project will benefit from non-destructive evaluation of concrete performance through electrochemical techniques. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Off-Gas Treatment: Evaluation of Nano-structured Sorbents for Selective Removal of Contaminants | University of Idaho | $785,910 | Researchers will evaluate nanostructured sorbent materials for their effectiveness in removing and immobilizing radionuclides for the off-gas treatment from used nuclear fuel recycling operations. The project aims at achieving near-zero emissions of radionuclides by capturing them from the off-gas of recycling operations, allowing for the development of advanced fuel cycles. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium and Transition Metals from Amidoxime-Based Sorbents | University of Idaho | $399,864 | Researchers will develop a new two-step elution process to achieve total recovery of uranium and effective recycling of the sorbent. The extraction process would selectively remove uranium from the sorbent with little or no damage. The process would then remove transition metals and regenerate the sorbent for repeated use, making uranium extraction from seawater economically viable. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Performance of a Steel/Oxide Composite Waste Form for Combined Waste Streams from Advanced Electrochemical Processes over Geologic Time Scales | University of Illinois at Chicago | $700,000 | Researchers will develop and validate a mechanistically-based corrosion model for cermet-type waste forms, creating a testing protocol and modeling approach for predicting long-term performance. The study will apply novel electrochemical testing and modeling methods to the behavior of metal/oxide phase boundaries to evaluate waste form performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Enhancement of the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland, College Park | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and optimize novel adsorbents for uranium recovery from seawater. The team will use radiation-induced grafting of organic phosphates onto polymers. The experiments will use ocean water, with mechanistic analysis, to provide a solid basis for large-scale demonstration of the performance of the new adsorbents in ocean environments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Improving the Understanding of the Coupled Thermal-Mechanical-Hydrologic Behavior of Consolidating Granular Salt | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will increase the understanding of granular salt seal materials for shafts, drifts and boreholes. By coupling thermal, mechanical and hydrological responses, the study will result in greater confidence in granular salt consolidation as a principal strategy for closure and isolation of long-term waste repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Fission Fragment Yield Data in Support of Advanced Reactor Technology | University of New Mexico | $399,816 | Researchers will produce a highly accurate data set for thermal fission. These precision data are necessary for high-accuracy simulations of nuclear criticality, transmutation rates, radiation effects and heating as well as for nuclear fuel, material accounting and identification needs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Molecular dynamics-based simulations of bulk/interfacial structures and diffusion behaviors in nuclear waste glasses | University of North Texas | $700,000 | Researchers will generate accurate atomic structural models for use in Monte Carlo simulations of the dissolution of nuclear waste glasses. Large-scale molecular dynamics-based computer simulations will be used to investigate self-diffusion behaviors, interfacial structure, and other structures formed during dissolution of these glasses. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| U3Si2 Fabrication and Testing for Implementation into the BISON Fuel Performance Code | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will fabricate, test and model a high uranium density, advanced nuclear fuel that operates at a much lower temperature and stores less energy. The work will deliver key research data on creep and grain growth, improving economics, through possible power uprates, and advancing accident tolerant fuels research. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Structural Health Monitoring of Nuclear Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of South Carolina | $738,618 | Researchers will develop a nuclear structural health monitoring system based on a sensing technology that monitors material degradation and aging for dry cask storage systems. The low-cost, low-profile sensors will perform on-demand monitoring of the structural integrity of individual components as well as the entire system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| ORIGEN-based Nuclear Fuel Depletion Module for Fuel Cycle Assessment | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $755,181 | Researchers will develop a flexible reactor analysis module for the CYCLUS fuel cycle simulator based on established tools for reactor fuel depletion and decay. They will use ORIGEN, a mature and experimentally validated code, affording greater flexibility and allowing for accurate evaluations of impacts of both present and future fuel cycle options. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Cost and System Analysis of Innovative Fuel Resources Concepts | University of Texas at Austin | $295,960 | This project will develop and test braided polymer fiber adsorbents that surpass the sorption capacity, selectivity and durability of the best existing technology to recover uranium from seawater. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Risk Assessment of Structural Integrity of Transportation Casks | University of Utah | $789,296 | Researchers will assess the loss of structural integrity of transportation casks and fuel cladding after extended storage. This risk assessment will conduct experimental tests and simulations to evaluate the structural performance of fuel, fuel assemblies and cask components when subjected to vibration and impact loads during transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Market-Based and System-Wide Fuel Cycle Optimization | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $612,731 | Researchers will create market and economic optimizers to improve calculations for the CYCLUS fuel cycle simulator. The team will leverage existing optimization software frameworks within the simulator to resolve top level policy questions. The optimizations will allow CYCLUS to move beyond static material compositions, providing a holistic view of the fuel cycle system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Optical Fiber Based System for Multiple Thermophysical Properties for Glove Box, Hot Cell and In-Pile Applications | Utah State University | $799,975 | Researchers will use a small pressure vessel to develop a robust technique for the measurement of multiple thermophysical properties at very high temperatures. The technique will lead to a system design moving toward the eventual measurement of irradiated fuels in a glovebox and/or hot cell with all sensors and electronics outside of the glovebox and/or hot cell. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of a Nano-Modified Concrete for Next Generation of Storage Systems | Vanderbilt University | $796,268 | Researchers will use nano-sized and nano-structured particles based on enhanced reactivity to develop a superior concrete for the long-term storage of used nuclear fuel. The project will use state-of-the-art experimental chemical and mechanical characterizations and computation analysis to assess the performance of nano-modified concretes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Fuel Cycle Data Packages for Thorium Fuel Cycle Options | Vanderbilt University | $797,995 | Researchers will develop six fuel cycle data packages for multi-stage, thermal fuel cycles which incorporate thorium. These new fuel cycle data packages will provide the opportunity to examine fuel cycle options beyond those which have traditionally been considered. A thorium fuel cycle database will also be assembled as a basis for thorium literature for future evaluations of the thorium fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Enhanced Shielding Performance of HLW Storage Packages via Multi-Component Coatings | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $796,947 | Researchers will develop a multi-layer composite that will enhance long-term storage and facilitate safe transport of storage packages. This novel multi-layer, multi-component coating would create an outer shield material that is resistant to the corrosion, radiation, diffusion and thermal cycling processes that affect fuel packages during long term storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Managing Zirconium Chemistry and Phase Compatibility in Combined Process Separations for Minor Actinide Partitioning | Washington State University | $700,000 | Researchers will address unique challenges for combining TRUEX and TALSPEAK processes for partitioning of lanthanides and minor actinides. The project will develop improved information on the thermodynamics of fission product zirconium and develop a framework for an organic phase solvation model. Combined process development could streamline separations processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Advances in the Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Studies Under Real Ocean Conditions | Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution | $398,882 | Researchers will provide infrastructure and expertise for marine testing of currently available adsorbents in real ocean conditions. The team will move adsorbent research from the lab to field testing in order to quantify sorptive properties and uranium uptake. The project will provide valuable field data that will show the potential of large scale applications of these technologies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| NEUP Project 20-19172: Irradiation of Sensors and Adhesive Couplants for Application in LWR Primary Loop Piping and Components | $497,881 | Researchers paln to attach ultrasonic transducers to substrates using various adhesive couplants that will be irradiated at elevated temperature to simulate LWR primary loop conditions at the PULSTAR reactor at North Carolina State University. Ultrasonic data will be taken in-situ. Subsequently, the sensors and couplant interfaces will be characterized using the LAMDA facility at ORNL. The results will be used to benefit a parallel EPRI project on online monitoring of cracks in LWR primary loop piping. | Document | Joint R&D with NSUF Access | FY2013 | |
| Lower Length Scale Characterization and Validation of Formation and Stability of Helium Bubbles in Nano-structured Ferritic Alloys under Irradiation | Clemson University | $399,870 | Researchers will provide a fundamental knowledge about the formation and stability of ultra-fine helium bubbles within 14YWT after neutron/ion irradiation for further design of new advanced structural materials with a characteristic high density nanoparticles feature which can increase the mechanical strength, hardness, irradiation resistance and the operational temperature range of materials. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Three-Dimensional Fuel Pin Model Validation by Prediction of Hydrogen Distribution in Cladding and Comparison with Experiment | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers will validate important three-dimensional aspects of the fuel pin modeling by using specialized numerical modeling techniques coupled with laboratory experiments to validate existing models for predicting fuel performance in light water reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Collocation-Based Surrogate Models for Uncertainty Quantification and Validation of Coupled, Multiphysics Fuel Performance Simulation Tools | University of Michigan | $596,835 | Researchers will provide the necessary high fidelity, coupled, multiphysics fuel performance simulator for computational modeling and develop surrogates which will accelerate and focus the validation of the coupled codes. This will be achieved by utilizing the high fidelity coupled fuel performance, thermal-hydraulics and neutronics codes BISON/STAR-CCM+/MPACT and an innovative collocation-based surrogate methodology. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Multi-Resolution In-Situ Testing and Mutliscale Simulation for Creep Damage Fatigue Damage Analysis of Alloy 617 | Arizona State University | $800,000 | This project will develop novel testing and experimentally validated prediction methodologies for micro-structural damage mechanisms of structural materials for advanced reactor systems. The investigations will focus on the characterization and testing of specific metal alloys, but the proposed testing and life-prediction methodologies are applicable to other structural materials as well. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Novel High Temperature and Radiation Resistant Infrared Glasses and Optical Fibers for Sensing in Advanced Small Modular Reactors | Clemson University | $800,000 | Clemson University, in partnership with the Iowa State University and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, will develop novel optical materials with improved heat and radiation exposure resistance in order to enable in-vessel fiber optic sensing for advanced Small Modular Reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Validation Data Acquisition in HTTF during PCC Events | George Washington University | $800,000 | Researchers at the George Washington University and Oregon State University will collaborate with NASA Langley Research Center to measure flow velocities in a high temperature test facility. This work supports the development of very-high temperature reactors with passive safety systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced High Temperature Inspection Capabilities for Small Modular Reactors | Iowa State University | $790,822 | The objective of this project is to develop non-destructive evaluation techniques for advanced small modular reactors. The research will provide key enabling inspection technologies needed to support the design and the reactor component performance validation process for advanced small modular reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Experimental and Computational Investigations of Plenum-to-Plenum Heat Transfer under Natural Circulation in a Prismatic Very High Temperature Reactor | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,999 | Researchers will perform experimental and computational investigations to study heat transfer and natural circulation phenomena in very-high temperature reactors. The study will assist in the ability to predict and analyze passive safety systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| New Mechanistic Models of Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth Interactions for Advanced High Temperature Reactor Components | Oregon State University | $790,790 | Researchers will create and validate a robust, multi-scale, numerical model to predict material degradation in nickel-based reactor alloys. If successful, this project will provide better numerical tools for reactor designers and greatly improve their capability to design against material failures for reactor alloys in the long term. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Self-Powered Wireless Dual-mode Langasite Sensor for Pressure/Temperature Monitoring of Nuclear Reactors | State University of New York, Stony Brook | $800,000 | This research will develop a novel self-powered wireless hybrid sensor that can accurately monitor both pressure and temperature using a single device without requiring external electricity, even in extreme harsh environments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Compact Heat Exchanger Design and Testing for Advanced Nuclear Reactors and Advanced Power Cycles | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to investigate optimal heat exchanger designs for advanced reactors. The research will study the optimization of printed circuit heat exchangers for specific fluids under a variety of conditions as well as perform numerical modeling. Experiments will focus on thermal performance and heat stress during extreme conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Fundamental Understanding of Creep-Fatigue Interactions in 9Cr-1MoV Steel Welds | The Ohio State University | $798,000 | This project will advance the state of knowledge and fundamental understanding of deforming materials and welds under loading conditions. Specifically, new integrated testing procedures will be evaluated and applied for conditions that are most detrimental to material stability leading to improved predictions of life expectancy for reactor steels and welds. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced Mechanistic 3D Spatial Modeling and Analysis Methods to Accurately Represent Nuclear Facility External Event Scenarios | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop three-dimensional characterization uncertainty analysis for commercial power plants. The project will involve combining experts from the fields of seismic structural modeling and advanced methods of risk assessment. This effort is expected to result in next generation tools that can be used for assessment of seismic risks. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Tritium Mitigation/Control for Advanced Reactor Systems | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a fluoride salt cooled high-temperature reactor featuring a specialized system to control tritium production. If successful, this will result in a significant reduction in size and cost in comparison to other reactor designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| A Pebble-Bed Breed and Burn Reactor | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will assess the feasibility of designing a type of metal cooled reactor able to establish and maintain operation when fueled with depleted uranium. If successful, this reactor will offer at least a 30-fold increase in the uranium ore utilization versus that achieved in contemporary light water reactors without the need for fuel reprocessing and recycling. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Investigation of Thermal Aging Effects on the Evolution of Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Cast Duplex Stainless Steels | University of Maryland, College Park | $799,966 | This research will provide a better understanding of the microstructural evolution and simultaneous change in mechanical response during aging. The results of the research will provide data that can be used to estimate degraded mechanical properties for an 80-year service life of light water reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Model validation using CFD-grade experimental database for NGNP Reactor Cavity Cooling Systems with water and air | University of Michigan | $799,348 | Researchers will use advanced innovative instrumentation to build a high-resolution experimental database and to use the novel experimental data to assess and further develop the predictive capabilities of computer codes for thermal hydraulics and computational fluid dynamics. The improved models developed by this project will also have the direct benefit of improving the predictive capability of the passive systems of third generation light water reactors and small modular reactor systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Long-Term Prediction of Emissivity of Structural Material for High Temperature Reactor Systems | University of Missouri | $799,117 | Researchers will study specific types of emissivity driven cooling from a variety of materials that are relevant to nuclear reactors. The research will provide a basis for numerical modeling to support reactor development. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced I&C for Fault-Tolerant Supervisory Control of Small Modular Reactors | University of Pittsburgh | $800,000 | The purpose of this research is to develop advanced instrumentation and control techniques for supervisory control of advanced small modular reactors. This research supports the operational goals of small modular reactor concepts through the development of improved oversight and surveillance techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Corrosion of Structural Materials for Advanced Supercritical Carbon-Dioxide Brayton Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $798,672 | Researchers will study a variety of materials for corrosion resistance under conditions that improve power conversion. In addition to studying the corrosion resistance of the materials, researchers will study the effect of additives to mitigate corrosion. Development of corrosion theories and modeling aimed at prediction of long-term corrosion will be the underlying theme throughout the project. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Component and Technology Development for Advanced Liquid Metal Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $798,920 | In support of liquid metal cooled reactors, the University of Wisconsin, Madison will evaluate advanced alloys and ceramics that come in contact with liquid metals. Additionally, a robust oxygen sensor and for use in liquid metals will be developed in order to better evaluate corrosion profiles in support of diagnostic testing. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| A New Paradigm for Understanding Multi-phase Ceramic Waste Form Performance | Clemson University | $800,000 | Researchers will use advanced characterization tools to develop 3-D microstructural data that can be incorporated into computer-based simulations in order to predict the performance of waste forms. Materials system modeling will incorporate elemental release and the interconnected microstructural network of phases to better understand performance and degradation, which will accelerate waste form acceptance in repository settings. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Controlling Hexavalent Americium: A Centerpiece to a Compact Nuclear Fuel Cycle | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and exploit the fundamental chemistry of Americium to enable an industrially viable means to co-recover the major and minor actinide elements from used nuclear fuel. The results would be a significant step forward in the development of aqueous separations approaches designed to recover the U-Am actinides based on the availability of the hexavalent oxidation state. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Zeolite Membranes for Krypton/Xenon Separation from Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Off-Gas | Georgia Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a high-performance, lower-cost zeolitic membrane process for Kr/Xe separations during spent nuclear fuel processing. Current separation methods are not considered economical and a membrane process would have relatively lower cost, equipment size, and ambient operating temperature. The process would form a sound basis for further development of this transformative separation technology for the nuclear fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Optimizing Polymer-Grafted Amidoxime-based Adsorbents for Uranium Uptake from Seawater | Georgia Institute of Technology | $399,999 | Researchers will work to increase the adsorbent capacity and selectivity toward uranium by optimizing the adsorbent morphology, synthesis variables, and conditioning parameters and by investigating the rate-limiting variables through transport and reaction modeling. A novel adsorption/partition concept that has the potential to substantially increase the adsorbent capacity will be tested, making uranium from seawater extraction more economically viable. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Extraction of Uranium from Seawater: Design and Testing of a Symbiotic System | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a seawater uranium extraction system that will work symbiotically with an offshore windmill by utilizing the structure, mooring and power of the windmill, while increasing the energy harvested by the installation. Uranium will be extracted by an adsorbent polymer belt, which will be cycled through the seawater and an elution plant located at the base of the windmill tower. Increasing the frequency of harvesting could overcome current economic barriers to seawater uranium extraction. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Imaging a Dry Storage Cask with Cosmic Ray Muons | Oregon State University | $799,871 | Researchers will develop an imaging system to monitor the content of a dry storage cask with cosmic ray muons. A very large amount of plutonium under nuclear safeguards is contained in used fuel assemblies stored in dry storage casks. Muon imaging will allow a cost effective and reliable way to evaluate dry storage cask content and integrity before transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Apatite and sodalite based glass-bonded waste forms for immobilization of 129I and mixed halide radioactive wastes | Rutgers University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop advanced and chemically durable waste forms for immobilizing 129I (aqueous based reprocessing of fuel) and mixed-halide wastes (molten-salt processing of fuel) by low temperature synthesis. Halide-containing sodalite and calcium phosphate-based apatite minerals will be synthesized, consolidated and tested for chemical durability. The project will provide needed baseline data for the development of advanced waste forms for immobilization of iodine and mixed-halide wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Sorption Modeling and Verification for Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $350,000 | Researchers will develop modeling tools supported by experiments for off-gas capture from future nuclear-fuel recycling facilities. Target species include tritium, iodine, krypton, and xenon. The models are intended to provide path forward recommendations to develop off-gas treatment adsorption processes. The project will contribute to the evaluation of options for environmentally acceptable recycle systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development of high performance ODS alloys | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will study swelling, radiation hardening and changes in mechanical properties of ODS alloys to develop two sets of advanced ODS alloys. Two sets of first-round candidate alloys that have already undergone extensive development and testing will evaluate irradiation performance. The study will meet the need for high strength, radiation-tolerant cladding and core components that have enhanced resistance to void swelling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Rare Earth Electrochemical Property Measurements and Phase Diagram Development in a Complex Molten Salt Mixture for Molten Salt Recycle | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate rare earth (RE) properties in complex molten salt mixtures. In a molten salt recycle approach, the RE drawdown by electrolysis is a key step in which REs are separated from salt containing other fission products. Investigation of RE electrolysis must consider the electrochemical properties of the REs. We propose to conduct studies of detailed experiments and corresponding models to provide the physical properties and phase diagrams required to predict the performance of RE drawdown for processing complex molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Computational and Experimental Studies of Microstructure-Scale Porosity in Metallic Fuels for Improved Gas Swelling Behavior | University of Arkansas | $796,823 | Researchers will study the microstructure of metallic uranium alloy fuels, and their resistance to densification, to minimize in-pile irradiation swelling through bimodal pore size distribution. The project will develop a predictive approach to design metallic fuel microstructures for optimal swelling resistance and fission gas retention. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Improved Hybrid Modeling of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of California, Berkeley | $645,393 | Researchers will develop a variance reduction method for computational transport that will improve the ability to design and operate monitoring systems for interim used fuel installations through enhanced modeling and simulation. This new tool will demonstrate that modeling calculations can be done more accurately in less time than with current tools and will perform studies characterizing how changes in material, cask configurations, and number of casks could impact monitoring systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Selective ligands for uranyl via combinatorial peptoid libraries: A synthetic, structural, thermodynamic and computational study | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will study how donor ligands bind to the uranyl ion, UO22+, with the longer-term goal of using this information to tackle selective recognition of uranyl in aqueous solution. The study will impact underlying approaches to controlling the behavior of uranium in these systems. The actinide separation technology could be used in several areas including uranium extraction from seawater, nuclear waste remediation and nuclear materials. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Combining Experiments and Simulations of Extraction Kinetics and Thermodynamics in Advanced Separation Processes for Used Nuclear Fuel | University of California, Irvine | $799,938 | Researchers will study how the kinetics and thermodynamics of metal ion extraction in advanced separation processes for used nuclear fuel can be described by molecular dynamic (MD) simulations and how the simulations can be validated by experimental data. The project would have broad impacts on several separations processes including advanced TALSPEAK, ALSEP and GANEX by increasing the confidence and accuracy of computer modeling of metal ion extraction. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Effect of Metallic Li on the Behavior of Metals in Molten Salts | University of Nevada, Reno | $458,250 | Researchers will identify the effect of metallic lithium on materials that are used in molten salt recycling. The study will try to understand how the presence of Li(0) in molten salts affects the degradation of alloys. Studying these changes will help accurately predict container material behavior and longevity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Assessment of Corrosion Resistance of Promising Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding under Reactor Conditions | University of Notre Dame | $800,000 | Researchers will assess the corrosion behavior of accident tolerant fuel candidate iron-based alloys under normal LWR operating conditions consisting of high temperature, relevant water chemistry and irradiation. The assessment will produce data about possible irradiation-accelerated corrosion rates of iron-based alloys, and the mechanisms by which such corrosion rates are accelerated. The project will advance the selection of appropriate replacements for Zircaloy cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Enhanced Accident-Tolerant Fuel Performance and Reliability for Aggressive iPWR/SMR Operation | University of Tennessee | $799,967 | To develop a process that evaluates operational and safety performance of reactor-and-fuel combinations by integrating whole-core 3D neutronics with MOOSE/BISON fuel performance assessments via explicit time and space dependent fuel rod operational power histories. The project will be valuable in analyzing and evaluating accident tolerant fuel concepts and furthering the understanding of reactor physics and fuel performance aspects of key accident tolerant fuel concepts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Nuclear Technology R&D Strategies in an Era of Energy Price Uncertainty | University of Texas, Austin | $799,112 | Researchers will identify nuclear technology options that are competitive over a wide range of plausible future business environments. No single nuclear technology or business practice will be the best choice across all or even most future conditions. The study will focus on hybrid nuclear-fossil technologies, energy storage and conversion, which will result in an identification of nuclear strategies that can succeed under future market conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development and Optimization of Voltammetric Methods for Real Time Analysis of Electrorefiner Salt with High Concentrations of Actinides and Fission Products | University of Utah | $621,612 | Researchers will develop an advanced voltammetry method to pursue the objective of real time monitoring of actinide concentrations in electrorefiner salt. This will include experimental measurement of key parameters such as activity coefficients and exchange current density. It will also involve simulation of voltammetry processes based on first principles. The project will allow for real time measurements that could support the commercialization of pyroprocessing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development of Self-Healing Zirconium-Silicide Coatings for Improved Performance of Zirconium-Alloy Fuel Cladding | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $798,621 | Researchers will study the deposition of self-healing zirconium-silicide coatings on zirconium-alloy fuel cladding material to improve corrosion resistance under normal and accident conditions. Under these conditions, Zr-Si coating evolves into a highly protective functionally-graded multilayered system. The study will lead to improved performance of zirconium-alloy fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Thermal Conductivity in Metallic Fuels | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,837 | Researchers will calculate the thermal conductivity of metallic uranium and neptunium alloys, including the effects of noble gasses, using density functional theory. The experiments will validate the calculated effective thermal conductivity using the MARMOT code and by helping determine DFT simulation parameters. The study works to improve fuel lifetime by understanding its thermal behavior. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| SiC-ODS Alloy Gradient Nanocomposites as Novel Cladding Materials | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,998 | Researchers will combine nuclear nanomaterial design, processing, testing, and characterization efforts to develop revolutionary materials that can withstand neutron irradiation for long period of time using nanostructured SiC and oxide dispersion strengthened steel. The ultimate objective is to offer new cladding materials with increased corrosion resistance, strength, and creep resistance in both steady state and accident conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Experimental Breeder Reactor II Benchmark Evaluation | Idaho State University | $400,000 | _Researchers will develop a benchmark evaluation of the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II). During nearly 30 years of operation numerous experiments were conducted at EBR-II. The most significant of these experiments were conducted in 1986 demonstrating inherent safety features in loss of flow without reactor scram and loss of heat sink without reactor scram. Benchmark evaluation will be valuable for the reactor design efforts in the United States and South Korea. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| Integral full core multi-physics PWR benchmark with measured data | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | _Researchers will introduce BEAVRS, a new multi-cycle full-core Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) depletion benchmark based on two operational cycles of a commercial nuclear power plant. This project aims at addressing the uncertainty quantification of the measured data and on making this benchmark a true non-proprietary international benchmark for the validation of high-fidelity multi-physics computational tools. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| Benchmark Evaluation of PROTEUS Gas-Cooled Reactor Experiments | University of Florida | $400,000 | _Researchers will create International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) benchmarks using data from 1970s experiments of the neutronics of gas-cooled fast reactor (GCFR) designs investigated in the PROTEUS reactor. The GCFR-PROTEUS experiments fill a gap in current integral benchmark data. These experiments can provide validation of computational models and nuclear data for next generation reactors. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| An Investigation To Establish Multiphysical Property Dataset Of Nuclear Materials Based On In-Situ Observations And Measurements | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will create an in-situ measurement based experimental approach to develop experimental validation dataset for NEAMS based code validation. Particular emphasis is on supplying data set for multiphysics simulations in extreme conditions as a function of material microstructure. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| Experimental Validation of UO2 Microstructural Evolutions for NEAMS tool MARMOT | University of Florida | $798,000 | _Researchers will experimentally validate MARMOT for predicting the microstructural evolutions of UO2 oxide fuel under the driving forces of high temperatures and large temperature gradient in reactors. By performing the experiments and simulations simultaneously using precisely defined initial conditions, the experiment data will provide direct benchmarking of the MARMOT code. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| High-resolution time-resolved experiments on mixing and entrainment of buoyant jets in stratified environments | University of Michigan | $799,983 | _Researchers will study high spatial and time-resolution experimental data of the fluid dynamics phenomena of flow jets interacting with a stratified layer. The issue plays an important role in the safety of several reactor designs, including sodium-cooled reactors. The data addresses the NEAMS needs for the validation of high fidelity computational fluid dynamics methodologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| Fundamental study of key issues related to advanced S-CO2 Brayton Cycle: prototypic HX development and Cavitation | Georgia Institute of Technology | $799,000 | _Researchers will study scientific and operational issues pertinent to compact heat exchanger systems and turbo-machinery. The project will work to resolve issues with the fabrication of diffusion bonded compact heat exchangers, alternate heat exchange technology for recuperators, and resolution of issues with cavitation and fluid instabilities. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Advanced Models for Nondestructive Evaluation of Aging Nuclear Power Plant Cables | Iowa State University | $787,291 | _Researchers will develop advanced models that relate environmentally induced microstructural and chemical changes in cable insulation polymers to their macroscopic electrical parameters. These parameters will be measured and modeled over a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum, covering several potential nondestructive evaluation techniques, enabling identification of the most sensitive techniques for future development. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Development of Novel Functionally Graded Transition Joints for Improving the Creep Strength of Dissimilar Metal Welds in Nuclear Applications | Lehigh University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop graded transition joints and improved creep life models for increasing the life of dissimilar metal welds (DMWs) in nuclear reactors. The research represents the first application of functionally graded material concepts for solving the problem of DMW failures through an integrated approach of additive manufacturing, modeling, microstructural characterization, and advanced strain-sensing techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Feasibility Assessment of a Micro Modular Reactor (MMR) | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | _Researchers will develop an innovative compact reactor concept that integrates power production, power conversion and electricity generation in a single unit: the Micro Modular Reactor (MMR). It is designed to be absolutely melt-down proof (MDP) under all circumstances including complete loss of coolant scenarios with no possible release of radioactive material, to have a cycle length of greater than 10 years, and to be highly proliferation resistant. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Scaling Studies for Advanced Gas Reactor Concepts | Oregon State University | $681,834 | _Researchers will expand the utilization of the Oregon State University High Temperature Test Facility (HTTF) to validate a broader range of advanced high temperature reactors and events. The facility will be revised to add a detailed scaling analysis of additional gas reactor concepts including advanced gas-cooled, molten salt, and sodium cooled reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Fluid Stratification Separate Effects Analysis, Testing and Benchmarking | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will study fluid stratification in high temperature gas reactors. Coolant stratification is the result of incomplete mixing of one or more fluids, leading to a density gradient, which may or may not dissipate under diffusive or convective effects. This combined analytical and experimental project seeks to investigate stratification driven by diffusive and convective mechanisms and is expected to yield insight into this phenomenon. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Probabilistic Economic Valuation of Safety Margin Management Analysis | Oregon State University | $795,364 | _Researchers will use RAVEN and develop a companion software package to facilitate economic analysis of safety margins. The project is a proof of concept that will use techniques to examine the cost of improving safety margins vs. the risk of accidents from not improving safety margins. This analysis can be used to evaluate the economic viability of various plant upgrades. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Novel Dissimilar Joints Between Alloy 800H and 2.25%Cr and 1%Mo Steel | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will fabricate and test dissimilar metal joints between a nickel base alloy and a steel with gradual variations of chemical composition, microstructure and properties in a manner that reduces abrupt thermal expansion mismatch and the resulting residual stresses. Data on structure and properties will serve as valuable inputs for the initiation of an ASME code case. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Multi-Phase Model Development to Assess RCIC System Capabilities under Severe Accident Conditions | Texas A&M University | $564,246 | _Researchers will develop physics-based models of the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) System and incorporating them into a multi-phase code for validation. The project will tackle the current major challenges in RCIC System analysis and enable evaluation of two-phase thermodynamic aspects. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Experimental Investigation and CFD Analysis of Steam Ingress Accidents in HTGRs | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will study the steam ingress scenario for HTGRs. The study will investigate thermal-hydraulic behavior and graphite oxidation of stream ingress phenomena to validate predictive CFD models. This work will resolve concerns about possible steam generator tube ruptures in a HTGR He-Steam Rankine cycle. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Coiled Tube Gas Heaters For Nuclear Gas-Brayton Power Conversion | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop heat exchangers for Brayton-cycle power conversion in reactors using sodium, NaK, or salt as intermediate coolants. The proposed coiled tube gas heaters (CTGHs) are expected to have excellent power density, thermal shock/creep, in-service inspection, and reparability characteristics. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Fundamental Studies of Irradiation-Induced Modifications in Microstructural Evolution and Mechanical Properties of Advanced Alloys | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop and test a mechanism for predicting neutron irradiation performance for optimized Grade 92 and Alloy 709 for applications in advanced reactor systems. The work will employ ion irradiations and available information from neutron irradiations of related alloys to develop a basis for predicting the neutron irradiation performance of the optimized alloys. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Integrated Computational and Experimental Study of Radiation Damage Effects in Grade 92 Steel and Alloy 709 | University of Tennessee | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop a mechanistic understanding and predictive models of irradiation-induced microstructural evolution and resulting mechanical properties in optimized ferritic-martensitic Grade 92 steel and austenitic alloy 709 using multiscale simulations coupled with rigorous experimental validation. The project will provide insights into the correlation between ion irradiation and fast neutron damage. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Meta-Level Design Guidance and Operator Performance Measures for Hybrid Control Rooms | Vanderbilt University | $799,869 | _Researchers will apply human factors engineering methods and relevant expertise from non-nuclear high-risk high-consequence domains toward the measurement of operator performance in analog, digital, and hybrid main control rooms. Performance measures will be developed for evaluating the situation awareness and decision-making proficiencies to support the transition to digital or hybrid control room displays. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| NEUP Project 15-8514: Elucidation of the kinetics of Advanced Separation systems | California State University, Long Beach | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a fundamental understanding of the chemical kinetics relevant to separation processes by measuring ligand complexation rate constants for both lanthanides and actinides in the aqueous and organic phases. These experiments will provide essential kinetic and mechanistic information required for developing a simplified, single-step recovery of transuranic elements. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8119: Kr/Xe separation over Metal Organic Framework Membranes | Colorado School of Mines | $375,000 | Researchers will develop metal organic framework (MOF) membranes that will be capable of effectively separating Kr from Xe with high flux and selectivity. This project may result in the development of membranes that will constitute a viable energy saving approach for the effective removal of Kr during the processing of used nuclear fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8347: Multilayer Composite Fuel Cladding for LWR Performance Enhancement and Severe Accident Tolerance | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop, manufacture, and weld a new multimetallic layered composite (MMLC) for enhanced severe accident tolerance and manufacturability in LWRs. Layers of stainless steel (facing the coolant) and Zircaloy (facing the fuel) will be separated by barrier layers of Cr and Nb. Severe accident testing in 1200C steam, LWR autoclave testing, and ion irradiation studies will demonstrate the MMLC's microstructural stability. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8112: Phase Separation and Crystallization of Complex Borosilicate Melts for Glass-Ceramic Waste Forms | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,806 | Researchers will study the mechanisms for microstructural development and properties of multi-phase, glass-ceramic materials that form when waste-loaded borosilicate glasses are cooled from above their liquidus or consolute temperatures through the glass transition temperature. The project will apply these tools to modified compositions to maximize the formation of the desirable crystalline phases. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8265: Electrically-Assisted Tubing Processes for Enhancing Manufacturability of Oxide Dispersion Strengthened Structural Materials for Nuclear Reactor Applications | Northwestern University | $800,000 | Researchers will enhance the formability of nanostructured ferritic alloys (NFAs) such that high-strength thin-walled claddings can be manufactured successfully and economically to be used in future reactors. The project will study the effects of continuous and pulsed electric currents on the deformation behavior of Fe-14Cr based NFA steel. The findings will be used to establish innovative fabrication processes including electrically-assisted extrusion and rolling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8126: Fundamental Electrochemical Properties of Liquid Metals in LiCl-KCl for Separation of Alkali/Alkaline-Earths (Cs, Sr and Ba) | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate the fundamental properties of novel liquid metal electrodes for separation of alkali/alkaline-earth fission products in LiCl-KCl electrolyte. The project will further the development of pyroprocessing by maximizing salt recycle and providing a method for recovery of alkali/alkaline-earth fission products as oxides (as opposed to chlorides) which will allow them to be encapsulated in a more conventional glass wasteform. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8074: Monitoring of Actinide Concentrations in Molten LiCl-KCl Salt using Alpha Spectroscopy | The Ohio State University | $799,969 | Researchers will develop a novel in-salt sensor that uses electrochemistry to pre-concentrate the actinides onto the sensor to measure the actinides concentration in a high temperature and high radiation field represented by a molten salt environment. The ability to monitor actinides to prevent misuse is critical to enhancing the control of nuclear materials. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8717: Understanding the Interactions of Seawater Ions with Amidoxime through X-Ray Crystallography | University of Alabama | $553,971 | _Researchers will investigate the fundamental interactions of the amidoxime (R-C(NH2)=NOH) functional group with metal ions found in seawater using a combined approach of single crystal X-ray diffraction and spectroscopy to understand the origin of the selectivity of amidoxime resins for uranyl ([UO2]2+] ions and establish structural benchmarks for interpretation of spectroscopic studies on actual sorbents to aid in identifying specific sorbent-metal interactions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8439: Developing a macro-scale SiC-cladding behavior model based on localized mechanical and thermal property evaluation on pre- and post-irradiation SiC-SiC composites | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a fundamental understanding of the macroscopic behavior of SiC-SiC composite structures before and after irradiation based on the microscopic property changes of each individual component (SiC matrix, fiber and interface). SiC-SiC composites will be tested in the as-fabricated condition, after being subjected to neutron and ion irradiation, micro-cracking, and oxidation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8536: Quantitative Prediction of Uranium Speciation and Amidoxime Binding in Seawater from Advanced Simulation Techniques | University of California, Riverside | $450,000 | Researchers will quantitatively predict stability of uranium species and thermochemistry (free energy, entropy, and enthalpy) of uranium binding with amidoxime ligands in seawater conditions. To achieve the goal, advanced simulation techniques including all-atom molecular dynamics, free-energy calculations, and the hybrid quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical approach will be employed to explicitly include water molecules and common seawater ions in the simulation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8286: Used Fuel Storage Monitoring Using Helium-4 Scintillation Fast Neutron Detectors and Neutron Spectral Analysis | University of Florida | $799,765 | Researchers will build and demonstrate a prototype detector device capable of unambiguously verifying the declared content of dry casks in a non-intrusive manner for the safeguarding and monitoring of used fuel storage installations. This will be achieved through a neutron spectroscopy and imaging system using high-efficiency Helium-4 (4He) gas scintillation fast neutron detectors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8663: Enhancement of the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland, College Park | $600,000 | Researchers will produce efficient adsorbents of uranium from seawater in seeking to optimize the functional ligands, the polymeric substrates, the grafting conditions and the adsorption/desorption durations based on sound chemical understanding. The result will be adsorbents that can be used through multiple cycles of uranium adsorption without significant degradation of the adsorbents capacity and selectivity for uranium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8111: Purification of Zirconium cladding using a chloride volatility process | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $798,877 | _Researchers will investigate the thermochemistry of used fuel Zr cladding components chlorides as well as their activation products and residual radionuclide metal chlorides to provide fundamental data that will support the development of a chlorination process for the purification of ZrCl4. Understanding the chemistry of these chloride species will provide process development guidance for the purification of Zr cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8323: Purification of Zirconium Tetrachloride from UNF Cladding | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $793,121 | _Researchers will develop and demonstrate a process to purify zirconium tetrachloride obtained from the direct chlorination of used Zircaloy cladding materials from used nuclear fuel rod assemblies. This study will increase understanding of purification protocols that will allow zirconium chloride to be recycled further. Increased recycling capability would significantly reduce the amount of high level waste associated with light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8752: Radiation Effects on High Thermal Conductivity Fuels | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $400,000 | _Researchers will use scoping ion and neutron irradiations to explore the structural stability and thermal conductivity of model high thermal conductivity fuels consisting of CeO2 and either Al2O3 (BeO surrogate) or SiC. Issues associated with thermal conductivity degradation (including micro cracking effects) and general phase stability of fuel systems will be examined. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8243: Radiation-induced swelling and microcracking in SiC cladding for LWRs | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $797,889 | _Researchers will use state of the art experimental characterization techniques and multi-scale methodology (developed within the MOOSE-MARMOT-BISON framework) to provide scientific basis for predictions of swelling and microcracking in SiC cladding as a function of temperature and irradiation histories. Predicting swelling and microcracking will further the potential for accident tolerant SiC cladding to be used in light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8081: Understanding influence of thermal history and glass chemistry on kinetics of phase separation and crystallization in borosilicate glass-ceramic waste forms for aqueous reprocessed high level waste | Washington State University | $799,911 | _Researchers will develop a fundamental and transformative understanding of the crystallization mechanisms in complex glass-ceramic high level waste (HLW) wasteforms,. This understanding will underpin the maturation of glass ceramic manufacture, by linking process variables to molecular scale mechanisms, enabling reliable production of wasteforms to the desired specification. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8210: A Transient Reactor Physics Experiment with High-Fidelity, 3-D Flux Measurements for Validation and Verification | Kansas State University | $799,198 | _Researchers will instrument the University of Wisconsin Nuclear Reactor with micro-pocket fission detectors (MPFDs) to measure 3-D flux distributions. The measurements will be compared to simulation using PROTEUS from the NEAMS toolkit. MPFDs are small, which leads to low gamma-ray sensitivity and small flux perturbations. A 3-D array of MPFDs and standard reactor instrumentation will be used to capture highly-resolved flux and temperature distributions for several steady-state and transient conditions. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8101: Development of Critical Experiments to Provide Validation Data for Multiphysics Coupling Methods | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $799,993 | Researchers will develop a set of benchmark validation experiments for multiphysics coupling by exploiting the inherent flexibility of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Reactor Critical Facility (RCF). This project will use targeted experiments to validate the coupling between neutronics, thermal hydraulics, and structural mechanics routines present in the NEAMS Reactor Product Line toolkit._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8229: Thermal Transport and Fracture Behavior of Sintered Fuel Pellets: Experimental Validation of NEAMS Tool MARMOT | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | _Researchers will perform experimental validation of the NEAMS tool MARMOT for predicting thermal transport and fuel fracture. By performing extensive thermal transport and fracture experiments on well-controlled microstructures of sintered UO2, the impact of microstructure on thermo-mechanical properties of sintered UO2 and mechanistic understanding will be achieved. The high quality experimental data will directly benchmark the MARMOT code by evaluating the thermal transport and fracture models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8208: Development of a Novel Accelerator for Neutron Transport Solution Using the Galerkin Spectral Element Methods | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $626,176 | _Researchers will develop a novel accelerator for neutron transport calculations based on the spectral element methods, continuous Galerkin (CG) and discontinuous Galerkin (DG) approximations. The CG and DG methods will be used to solve the multi-group neutron diffusion equation on the coarse-mesh structure (e.g., pin-size up to assembly-size), which is then coupled with the high-order neutron transport solution to speed up the neutron transport computation. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8338: Methodology Development for Cybersecurity Robustness and Vulnerability Assessment of University Research Reactors: A Case Study Using the PULSTAR Reactor | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop a methodology for assessing the cybersecurity robustness and vulnerability of university research reactors using an actual university reactor as a test case. While the developed methodology will be specifically tested and applied using this reactor, it will be formulated as a general blueprint and used as the starting point for the assessment of university research reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cyber Security R&D | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8121: Automatic Imagery Data Analysis for Proactive Computer-Based Workflow Management during Nuclear Power Plant Outages | Arizona State University | $799,738 | _Researchers will test the hypothesis that real-time imagery-based object tracking and spatial analysis, as well as human behavior modeling will significantly improve efficiency of outage control while lowering the rates of accidents and incidents. The project will examine computer vision methods and human behavior models for developing a proactive workflow management tool and integrate it into Computer-Based Procedures for supporting an Advanced Outage Control Center. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8308: Creep and creep-fatigue crack growth mechanisms in Alloy 709 | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _A joint US/UK team will study the crack growth mechanism and failure analysis of alloy 709 under creep and creep-fatigue conditions. The study will be done through in situ heating and loading during SEM observation to evaluate the crack growth under plane stress condition and traditional methods to study the crack growth under plane strain condition. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8582: Mechanistic and Validated Creep/Fatigue Predictions for Alloy 709 from Accelerated Experiments and Simulations | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will use mechanistic methods for predicting creep and creep-fatigue deformation rates/strains based on accelerated in-situ and ex-situ tests, and mesoscale dislocation dynamics simulations for Alloy 709. This research will support its qualification in the ASME code for use in advanced nuclear reactor applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8495: Advancement of Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Technology through Round Robin Testing and Fundamental Modeling | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will conduct a round robin test plan for S-CO2 corrosion testing across multiple institutions and the organization of a S-CO2 Materials Group to guide future materials testing directions. Furthermore, this proposal outlines identical tests in supercritical water, testing model alloys with various composition and environmental conditions, accompanied by modeling efforts to study rate controlling mechanisms of corrosion. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8489: Modeling and Validation of Irradiation Damage in Ni-based Alloys for Long-Term LWR Applications | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _A joint US/UK team will study thermal and irradiation-induced transformations mechanisms of Alloys 690 and 625 in order to extend Grizzly to include capabilities for modeling Ni-based alloys. The project will develop modeling tools for materials degradation in light water reactors, allowing for component replacement data and continued safe operation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-7983: Development of Steady-State Thermal-Hydraulic Analysis and Bowing Reactivity Evaluation Methods Based on Neutron and Gamma Transport Calculations | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop steady-state thermal-hydraulic analysis and assembly bowing reactivity evaluation methods based on the latest transport calculation capabilities in order to overcome the limitations and improve the accuracy of current design analysis methods. The outcome of the effort will be computer programs to calculate the steady-state heat source distributions in fuel pins and assembly duct walls and to calculate the reactivity worth of assembly displacements. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8627: Experimental Validation Data and Computational Models for Turbulent Mixing of Bypass and Coolant Jet Flows in Gas-Cooled Reactors | Texas A&M University | $799,613 | _Researchers will establish reliable models of the thermal-hydraulics in Gas-Cooled Reactors with experimental and computational efforts. Specifically, this work will focus on providing the relationship between fluctuating velocities and temperatures in the lower plenum and their dependency on the turbulent upstream mixing in the core and collection chambers leading up to the lower plenum. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8251: Enhanced Performance Fast Reactors with Engineered Passive Safety System | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | _Researchers will study the feasibility of improving the passive safety and economics of sodium cooled fast reactors (SFR) by incorporating within their fuel assemblies a novel Autonomous Reactivity Control (ARC) system. It is expected that the ARC systems will enable to design even low leakage SFR cores, such as breed-and-burn cores, to be passively safe and to improve the neutron economy and economic viability of more conventional SFR. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8258: Physics-Based Probabilistic Model of the Effects of Ionizing Radiation on Polymeric Insulators of Electric Cables used in Nuclear Power Plants | University of California, Los Angeles | $798,846 | _Researchers will develop and experimentally validate a probabilistic physics-based degradation models for polymeric insulators of electric cables to be used in integrated performance and safety codes, which will help reduce the uncertainty associated with the long-term aging of cable insulation. The project will deliver a C++ based simulation code that will be readily compatible with the MOOSE/Grizzly framework developed at the Idaho National Laboratory. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8000: The Influences of Neutron Irradiation on Aggregate Induced Degradation of Concrete | University of California, Los Angeles | $800,000 | _Researchers will quantify the impacts of irradiation on concrete degradation. The research will develop new understanding of the evolutions and manifestations of irradiation assisted aggregate concrete degradation caused by neutron exposure. This assessment will help to mitigate the risk of such degradation within the Grizzly framework, by careful integrations of nanoscale analytics and simulation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8458: Multiple Degradation Mechanisms in Reinforced Concrete Structures, Modeling and Risk Analysis | University of Houston | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a multi-physics framework to characterize the deterioration development in concrete due to environmental and mechanical loading, and the coupling effect among transport processes and the damage of concrete. This project will develop new computational tools that will be implemented in Grizzly, an application built on the MOOSE platform, to address a variety of aging mechanisms in nuclear power plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8623: Characterization of Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth in Alloy 709 and Prediction of Service Lives in Nuclear Reactor Components | University of Idaho | $799,927 | _Researchers will study creep-fatigue crack growth behavior in steel Alloy 709 in accelerated test conditions to predict extended service life of structural components. Extensive testing of Alloy 709 creep-fatigue specimens will be performed at elevated temperatures and applied stresses. Microstructure analysis will be performed to describe the crack propagation mechanisms. Computational models will be used to predict service of steel components. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8432: Multi-scale experimental study of creep-fatigue failure initiation in a 709 Stainless Steel alloy using high resolution digital image correlation | University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign | $800,00 | _Researchers will conduct a detailed experimental investigation of creep-fatigue crack initiation in a 709 alloy, and will also obtain a predictive failure initiation model that includes both thermo-mechanical and aging effects. The experiments will use ultra-high resolution digital image correlation to measure accumulation of plastic with cycling. The model will extend existing slip band-based energy minimization criterion to include thermal effects applicable to 709. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8599: Am-241 Nuclear Safety and Environmental Interactions | University of Missouri | $399,187 | _Researchers will investigate the release and transport mechanisms of Am-241 to understand the interactions it may have with the environment. The project will examine Am-241 through a series of accident scenarios using Am-241 aerosols that will allow researchers to understand the pathways for dose assessment. Methodologies and approaches for nuclear risk assessment for new space radioisotope power system applications will be developed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8667: Experimental Validation of a Compact Double-walled Twisted-Tube Heat Exchanger Concept | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | _Researchers will investigate a novel compact double-walled twisted-tube heat exchanger (DT-HXR) design that utilizes an outer twisted tube configuration in order to enhance shell-side heat transfer and make the overall bundle more compact. Utilizing outer twisted tube geometry improves heat transfer and allows for a tube bundle that does not require support plates or anti-vibration bars. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project: 15-8352: Development and Demonstration of an In-Situ Tritium Scavenger | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,988 | _Researchers will use a graphite moderator to capture and remove tritium from the primary coolant systems of salt- and gas-cooled reactors. The team will develop electrochemical techniques to characterize tritium transport in graphite and liquid fluoride salts (including flibe), demonstrate the in-situ effectiveness of tritium absorption by the fuel elements, and develop a design for a graphite bed tritium filter that can integrate with salt-to-air heat exchangers. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 16-10730: Visualization Tool for Comparing Low-Carbon Energy Options | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a web based visualization tool for comparing current and future nuclear fuel cycle options to other low-carbon and conventional energy technologies in the United States.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10679: Overcoming Kinetic Barriers to Actinide Recovery in ALSEP | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | The ALSEP process for group separations of trivalent actinide/lanthanide ions suffers from slow stripping kinetics. Researchers will perform detailed kinetic studies at different temperatures, supported by spectroscopic and computational studies to establish where the kinetic bottlenecks occur in the ALSEP process. They will then systematically alter the chemistry of the extractants and aqueous ligands to understand how to overcome the kinetic hindrances.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10058: An Integrated Multiscale Experimental-Numerical Analysis on Reconsolidation of Salt-Clay Mixture for Disposal of Heat-Generating Waste | Columbia University in the City of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will improve understanding of the thermal-mechanical-hydrologic-chemical (TMHC) coupling effect on reconsolidated granular (or crushed) salt-clay mixture used for seal systems of shafts and drifts in salt repositories. The project will integrate laboratory experiments and multiscale pore-to-continuum coupling simulations to explore the feasibility of using clay additive and moisture content to enhance performance of crushed salt as a seal material.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10088: Americium Separation By Electrochemical Oxidation | Florida International University | $800,000 | Researchers will separate Am from high-level waste by exploiting the high oxidation states of Am through design, and testing of new materials. This will be accomplished by designing and testing new electrodes, derivatized with surface-stabilized ligands and redox mediators to facilitate oxidation of trivalent Am, and by designing porous sorbent materials functionalized with molecules which selectively coordinate Am(VI) to enable its subsequent separation.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10668: Microstructure Experiments-Enabled MARMOT Simulations of SiC/SiC-Based Accident Tolerant Nuclear Fuel System | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will characterize steam attack, hydrothermal corrosion and radiation swelling of SiC/SiC composites-based accident tolerant fuel (ATF) using a combination of experiments, microstructure evaluation and phase-field simulations using MARMOT. Central to the project is the mapping of the microstructure after steam/hydrothermal/irradiation tests through a unique non-destructive x-ray microscopy technique followed by phase-field simulations of chemical transport in MARMOT.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10221: Alloying Agents to Stabilize Lanthanides Against Fuel Cladding Chemical Interaction: Tellurium and Antimony Studies | Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop alloying agents to stabilize lanthanides against fuel cladding chemical interactions (FCCIs). Based on the available binary phase diagrams for the periodic table, Te and Sb are selected as fuel dopants. The research will focus on Te. The mechanisms of using minor additives to stabilize and immobilize the lanthanide fission products will be investigated. Resulting thermodynamic data obtained by the proposed research will be integrated into MARMOT to enhance its ability to model metallic fuel performance.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10648: Oxidation and Corrosion-Resistant Uranium Silicide Fuels | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | Researchers will develop oxidation/corrosion resistant uranium silicide U3Si2 fuel by chemical doping/fillers to form a continuous borosilicate glass as a protective oxide layer with transformational fuel performance and accident tolerance. The team will use chemical doping/fillers include B or C showing effectiveness in improving high temperature oxidation resistance in transition metal silicides, and boron/silicon-containing compounds that can form a protective borosilicate glass layer.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10229: Mechanistic Understanding of Silver Sorbent Aging Processes in Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $800,000 | This project is focused on understanding the mechanisms of aging processes on silver exchanged mordenite and silver functionalized silica aerogel adsorbents under conditions of long term exposure to off gas streams containing air, I2, H2O, and NOx. The chemical and physical structural changes of the adsorbents under these conditions will be accounted for in equilibrium and kinetic models. Transport models will be developed to predict the performance of engineered off-gas treatment systems.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10394: Integration of Microwave Readout into Nuclear Process Monitoring | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,695 | Researchers will show that gamma-ray spectroscopy based on emerging microcalorimeter sensors can determine elemental and isotopic fractions with accuracy comparable to much slower mass spectrometry and with far better accuracy than germanium sensors. This advance will prevent the diversion of nuclear material by enabling nearly real time process monitoring in large nuclear facilities without loss of measurement accuracy.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10523: A Science Based Approach for Selecting Dopants in FCCI-Resistant Metallic Fuel Systems | University of Idaho | $800,000 | The project aims to use a science-based approach to set guidelines of selecting dopants for developing fuel cladding chemical interaction (FCCI)-resistant metallic fuel systems for fast reactors. Lanthanide fission products migrate to the fuel-cladding gap leading to cladding breaches. The team will perform both theoretical modeling and experiments to arrive at the guidelines that are based on sound science. If successful, this can lead to breakthroughs in minimizing the FCCI effect.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10813: Advanced Electrochemical Separations of Actinide/Fission Products via the Control of Nucleation and Growth of Electrodeposits | University of Idaho | $350,000 | Researchers will use unique capabilities to modulate the electrodeposition of actinides (depleted Uranium) and fission products (Ln) during nucleation and growth stages. The team aims to preclude formation of electrodeposits with dendritic morphology. Morphology of electrodeposits will be controlled by electrolyte composition.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10707: In Situ Spectroscopic Determination of Actinide Speciation and Concentration | University of Nevada, Reno | $369,221 | The research team will address two major issues in the pyroprocess based fuel cycle: low process efficiency and materials accounting for non-proliferation. There are currently no analytical techniques to ascertain the speciation and concentration of the actinides in the electrolyte. This project aims to develop an in-situ analytical method consisting of Raman spectroscopic analysis during electrochemical polarization.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10204: Phase Equilibria and Thermochemistry of Advanced Fuels: Modeling Burnup Behavior | University of South Carolina | $799,946 | Researchers will develop phase equilibria and thermochemical information to model and simulate advanced fuel behavior, including critical phenomena such as the contribution to fuel swelling of dissolved non-noble fission products and secondary phase formation, composite fuel stability, and fuel-clad chemical interactions.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10512: Demand-Driven Cycamore Archetypes | University of South Carolina | $799,956 | Modeling of the nuclear fuel cycle (NFC) is often posed as a set of demands coupled with available technologies. Demands may be singular or multivariate. Additionally, available technologies may have constraints on when they are deployable. This proposal aims to bring demand and deployment decisions into the NFC simulator itself, thereby simulating a more realistic process by which utilities, governments, and other stakeholders actually make facility deployment decisions.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10856: Integrating Data Sources for Improved Safeguards and Accountancy of Electrochemical Fuel Reprocessing Streams | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The SSPM Echem tracks elemental and bulk material flows through batch operations in electrochemical facilities. This project will augment the existing SSPM Echem model with models of DA, NDA, and process monitoring measurements, including appropriate accuracy, noise, and uncertainty characteristics. Diverse measurement and assay results will be fused to improve material accountancy and anomaly detection across the electrochemical process.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10190: Immobilization of High-Level Waste Salt in Dechlorinated Zeolite Waste Forms | University of Utah | $799,315 | The primary objective of the project is the development of a new glass-bonded waste form for the suitable disposal of electrorefiner waste salt. To achieve this goal, the proposed tasks will focus on the 1) dechlorination of the electrorefiner salt and 2) subsequent encapsulation into a sintered waste form. Achieving these goals will result in a compact waste form with higher fission product loading, which is instrumental in economically closing the nuclear fuel cycle.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10240: Molten Salt Reactor Experiment Benchmark Evaluation | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | _The objective of this project is to employ the data archive on the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) and develop a set of high-quality Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) reactor physics benchmarks for inclusion in the IRPhE Handbook that currently does not contain any benchmark set related to MSR technology._ | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10458: Multi-Group Transport Cross Section and Diffusion Coefficient Generation for Deterministic Reactor Models Using Monte Carlo Calculations | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and implement rigorous methods for generating multi-group transport cross section and diffusion coefficients for deterministic reactor models using Monte Carlo calculations. The project will eliminate the numerous approximations that currently contribute to significant mis-prediction of core power distributions when using deterministic core models.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10241: Development of Transient Capabilities for the NEAMS Neutronics Code PROTEUS | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop efficient transient transport methods for the PROTEUS-SN, PROTEUS-MOC and the first-order SN solvers of the NEAMS neutronics code PROTEUS. The team will also perform transient benchmark analyses._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10603: Experimental and Computational Analysis of NEAMS Pebble Bed Reactors | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct a coordinated experimental and computational effort to quantitatively map the full-field 3-D velocity and temperature fields in the interstitial spaces within pebble bed reactor systems. Key outcomes will include advanced correlations to predict flow and thermal transport within the pebble bed over a much wider range operating conditions and reactor types than is currently possible.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10421: Simulation of Fuel Rod Fragmentation, Relocation and Ballooning through Peridynamics in MOOSE Framework | University of Arizona | $675,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology that includes the appropriate governing physical fields within the realm of peridynamics to investigate fuel cracking, fragmentation, relocation, ballooning, pellet-cladding interaction, and cladding rapture and dispersion within the MOOSE framework.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10313: Development of a Comprehensive Two-phase Flow Database for the Validation of NEK-2P | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,817 | _Researchers will develop a comprehensive, high-resolution two-phase flow database by performing experiments in two air-water two-phase flow test facilities and a new heated rod-bundle test facility that will be built under this project. These data will be used to validate the two-phase flow models implemented in the NEK-2P code._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10744: Support for Reactor Operators in Case of Cyber-Security Threats | Ohio State University | $800,000 | This project addresses the need for research informing plant engineers and control room operators faced with cyber-security threats on appropriate responses. The approach taken uses distinguishing features of safety related events versus cyber-security threats; attack modeling, prediction, game theory and PRA knowledge to update operators procedures; and simulation for validation.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cyber Security R&D | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10578: Thermal Hydraulic & Structural Testing and Modeling of Compact Diffusion-Bonded Heat Exchangers for Supercritical CO2 Brayton Cycles | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will utilize both experimental and computational methods to test and model transient behavior of a mock up PCHE, which is a scaled down representation of the sCO2, cycle high temperature recuperator (HTR). In addition, the team will develop a methodology for quantification of the PCHEs production cost. The proposed project will provide valuable experiment data required to develop the Section III, Division 5 and Section VIII evaluation approach for compact heat exchangers.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10579: A Computational-Experimental Study to Simulate Mixing and Thermal Stratification in SFRs | Kansas State University | $799,320 | Researchers will use Thermographic Imaging and Ultrasonic Doppler Velocimetry (UDV) techniques to generate high fidelity thermal stratification and flow field data under various geometric and physical conditions for scaled models of outlet plena in sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs). Data from these experimental studies will be compared with those obtained using 1D codes such as SAS4A/SASSYS-1.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10714: ASME Code Application of the Compact Heat Exchanger for High Temperature Nuclear Service | North Carolina State University | $799,998 | Researchers will develop structural design methodologies for Type 316H stainless steel and Alloy 617 compact heat exchangers (CHX) using elastic-perfectly plastic (EPP) analysis methodology for the assessment of elevated temperature failure modes under sustained and cyclic thermal and pressure loading. The project will develop a technical basis for Section III, Division 5 ASME Code Case for CHX in high temperature nuclear service.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10885: Turbulent MHD Flow Modeling in Annular Linear Induction Pumps with Validation Experiments | North Carolina State University | $564,520 | Researchers seek to advance EMP design efforts for liquid metal reactors by 1.) Improving MHD modeling capability, particularly near the MHD stability criteria, 2.) Advancing simulation accuracy and fidelity in the typical operating range of large electromagnetic pumps for liquid metal cooled reactors, and 3.) Constructing a low barrier EMP test loop for model validation and instruction that can be easily replicated at low cost at other facilities.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10244: Integral System Testing for Prismatic Block Core Design HTGR | Oregon State University | $799,536 | _Researchers will conduct eight new tests be completed at the HTTF investigating a range of gas reactor events including DCC, PCC, and inlet plenum buoyant plume mixing. The data from these tests will be ideal for use in the validation of safety analysis codes used in gas reactor analysis. The data may also provide valuable insight into the validation of CFD codes for gas-reactor applications._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10324: Model Calibration-Based Design Methodologies for Structural Design of Supercritical CO2 Compact Heat Exchangers under Sustained Cyclic Temperature and Pressure Gradients | Oregon State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a design method for rapid structural assessment of diffusion-bonded Hybrid Compact Heat Exchangers, used as secondary heat exchangers in coupling Sodium Fast Reactors (SFRs) with supercritical CO2 (sCO2) Brayton power cycles. The team envisions that the developed method will (1) be usable in creation of an ASME code case for structural assessment of hybrid CHX; and (2) create design tools that ensure CHX code compliance under desired load conditions.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10285: Tribological Damage Mechanisms from Experiments and Validated Simulations of Alloy 800H and Inconel 617 in a Simulated HTGR/VHTR Helium Environment | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a mechanistic understanding of accelerated fretting, wear, and bonding between Alloy 800H and Inconel 617 surfaces. In order to achieve the objectives, a series of tribological experiments will be conducted in helium environments at elevated temperature with controlled concentrations of gaseous specious, attendant microstructure characterization (using electron microscopy, spectroscopy and atom-probe tomography), and validated continuum models.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10245: An Experimental Study of Design and Performance for the Water-Based Reactor Cavity Cooling System | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will extend and enhance the experimental tests using existing water-cooled RCCS facilities. The activity will be conducted in close collaboration with the water-cooled NSTF research team and will produce a unique set of high quality experimental data for support of existing system codes, system codes under development, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10457: Experimentally Validated Computational Modeling of Creep and Creep-Cracking for Nuclear Concrete Structures | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct novel 3D concrete creep tests under controlled environmental conditions to build a 3D constitutive model for concrete typical of existing containment structures. Decades long creep will be extracted via shorter tests (years long). The material model will be used in the Grizzly structural FEM code for simulating the response of real, 3D containment structures to changes in loading. Full-scale, long-term structural tests will enable validation.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10687: Development and Integration of Light Water Reactor (LWR) Materials Corrosion Degradation Codes into Grizzly | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop powerful codes for predicting environmentally-assisted localized corrosion in the primary coolant circuits (PCCs) of Generation II BWRs and PWRs. These codes and resulting models will be embedded into GRIZZLY. This will greatly extend the applicability of GRIZZLY to components in PCCs that are susceptible to pitting corrosion, stress corrosion cracking, and corrosion fatigue and will provide the stress intensity factor solutions for the crack growth rate models._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10083: Earth Abundant High Temperature Materials for Radioisotope Power Conversion System | University of California, Davis | $400,000 | Researchers will develop breakthrough efficiencies in segmented radioisotope thermal generators (RTG) power conversion systems through high temperature materials development. The approach will also reduce reliance on single-purpose supply chains.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10630: Validation of RELAP-7 for Forced Convection and Natural Circulation Reactor Flows | University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign | $799,368 | _Researcher will aid in the development of RELAP-7 through required experimental and computational efforts. The validation of the two-phase modeling capability of RELAP-7 will be accomplished through a series of tasks which include synthesis of existing forced convective data, acquisition of natural circulation data from an existing well-scaled facility, and uncertainty quantification in constitutive modeling._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10402: RELAP-7 Application and Enhancement for FLEX Strategies and ATF Behavior under Extended Loss of AC Power Conditions | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop new thermal hydraulic models that will be implemented into RELAP-7. Simulation studies will be performed for postulated ELAP scenarios in the PB Unit 2 reactor. The overarching goal of the proposed work is to perform a simulation study using RELAP-7, to model BWR ELAP scenarios with various mitigation measures and determine the range of time available for transition to portable FLEX equipment._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10080: Quantifying Properties for a Mechanistic, Predictive Understanding of Aqueous Impact on Ageing of Medium and Low Voltage AC and DC Cabling in Nuclear Power Plants | University of Minnesota, Duluth | $800,000 | _The degradation of medium and low voltage cabling is often associated with aqueous immersion. Electrical and mechanical data will be collected to develop a mechanistic model of the degradation of cabling to dielectric breakdown based on the temperature, oxidation, water conditions, and irradiation dose. The hypothesized model begins with solvent escape paths that expand and advance from the exterior surface toward the current carrying core at a rate dependent on the environment._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10214: Online Monitoring System for Concrete Structures Affected by Alkali-Silica Reaction (ASR) | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an online health monitoring system that integrates active and passive sensor networks and advanced signal processing algorithms to monitor ASR induced degradation in concrete structures. The obtained information will support an ongoing prognostic modeling research for health diagnosis and prognosis of aging concrete structures, in order to support long-term operational and maintenance decision making.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10210: Tribological Behavior of Structural Materials in High Temperature Helium Gas-Cooled Reactor Environments | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will work to understand, quantify, and model the elevated-temperature tribological behavior of alloys 617 and 800H in helium gas in HTGR conditions. Impurities in helium can induce a variety of corrosion mechanisms in structural materials that can profoundly affect tribological behavior. This study will investigate tribological behavior in various impurity concentration regimes and surface treatments to mitigate tribological damage in these environments.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10226: Enhancement of EM Pump Performance Through Modeling and Testing | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,856 | This project is aimed at the improvement of EM pumps for advanced liquid metal cooled reactors specifically the SFR. Initial tests will be conducted in the University of Wisconsin sodium loop on an existing moving magnet pump to help in the development of the models and to look at end effects associated with this pump. Additionally, tests will be conducted at ANL on the CMI ALIP. Ultimately, a small ALIP will be developed to test the principles and models developed to improve commercial scale.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10268: Sodium Cooled Fast Reactor Key Modeling and Analysis for Commercial Deployment | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,076 | This project will look at very low Prandtl number heat transfer from both an experimental and computational approach. Researchers will then establish key models to implement in plant dynamics codes. The team will also evaluate thermal stratification in large volumes making use of novel fiber optic distributed fiber measurements to get CFD quality data. Lastly, the team will evaluate some of the key remaining safety issues associated with the eventual commercialization of the sodium fast reactor.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10647: Experimental and Modeling Investigation of Overcooling Transients that Include Freezing, in Fluoride-Salt Cooled High-Temperature Reactors (FHRs) | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will make recommendations for design features of salt-reactor components that would take advantage of the phenomena characteristic to fluoride salts in order to be resilient to overcooling, and to recover gracefully from over-cooling transients. In support of this task a MOOSE-based computational tool will be developed, capable of modeling liquid-solid phase change, backed by experimental studies with the prototypical (flibe) coolant, and with simulant fluids.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10509: CFD and System Code Benchmark Data for Plenum-to-Plenum Flow Under Natural, Mixed and Forced Circulation Conditions | Utah State University | $800,000 | Researchers will generate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) validation data for forced, mixed, and natural convection through a parallel-path geometry relevant to gas reactor bypass flow. In addition, the team will independently build and validate CFD models based on the experimental results. The team has the experience and existing infrastructure for sharing complete validation datasets.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 17-12628: Effects of Mineral Impurities and Heat on Uranium(VI) Sorption onto Bentonite | California State University, East Bay | $785,714 | Mineral impurities are common in bentonite and clay buffer materials, proposed for many nuclear waste disposal options. Researchers will investigate the effects of calcite impurities on uranium(VI) sorption onto montmorillonite before and after mineral exposure to heat. Based on experimental sorption data and EXAFS analysis we will develop a new surface complexation model to determine under which conditions impurity effects are relevant, and how they can be incorporated in performance assessment models. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12798: Nanostructured Ceramic Membranes for Enhanced Tritium Management | Clemson University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a ceramic membrane technology for tritium separation and recovery to support the nuclear fuel cycle. Low-temperature water adsorption properties of nanoscale structured ceramics, combined with demonstrated hydrogen isotope exchange in their hydrated layers provide a low cost and unique avenue to address tritium management challenges. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12647: Determination of Critical Heat Flux and Leidenfrost Temperature on Candidate Accident Tolerant Fuel Materials | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $799,906 | Researchers will characterize the thermal-hydraulics behavior of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) materials by measuring critical heat flux (CHF) under normal and off-normal light water reactor conditions, and Leidenfrost temperature in post-loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) conditions. This work will yield material-specific models and/or correlations that can be readily implemented in state-of-the-art simulation tools. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13011: Gamma-ray Computed and Emission Tomography for Pool-Side Fuel Characterization | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,317 | Researchers will design, build, test and install a submersible tomography platform for performing pool-side physical, structural, and chemical characterization of irradiated fuel elements for test reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12496: Group Actinide Separation by Crystallization: A Single-Technology Approach to Used Nuclear Fuel Recycle | Texas A&M University | $399,857 | Researchers will explore bulk removal of U, Np, Pu and Am, from used nuclear fuel by studying the mechanisms of removal. A co-crystallization of the hexavalent actinides with U(VI) has already been demonstrated and researchers plan to develop a process based around this approach. Removal of these elements would be advantageous for future nuclear fuel recycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12824: Methods for Process Monitoring to Accurately Detect and Quantify Material Holdup in Advanced Recycle Facilities | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop better modeling methods, detectors, and facility design approaches to enable detection of inadvertent and deliberate hold up of fissile material in reprocessing and other nuclear material bulk handling facilities. The team will integrate results from this research project into a design methodology for future facilities to ensure accurate and reliable process monitoring for sustainable operation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12782: Effects of alpha and gamma radiation on complex and metal loaded solvents for advanced solvent extraction processes | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | This project will investigate the alpha and gamma radiolysis-induced chemical degradation of ligands used for the removal of minor actinides from used nuclear fuel in advanced extraction systems such as ALSEP. Researchers will emphasize organic phase degradation, particularly complex solvents with multiple ligands as well as metal loaded solvents. The project will improve predictive capabilities of extraction processes by elucidating degradation pathways. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12757: Elucidation of Electrochemical Behavior of Technetium, Tellurium, and Iodine in Molten Salt Solutions. | University of Idaho | $796,741 | This project will evaluate the electrochemical speciation behavior of iodide, and telluride in LiCl-KCl eutectic, LiCl, and LiCl + Li2O electrolytes at temperatures relevant to reprocessing conditions. By using rhenium as surrogate for technetium, the electrochemical, and chemical speciation properties of rhenium ions will be investigated in chloride molten salts with the addition of molybdenum and ruthenium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12701: Development and Experimental Benchmark of Computational Models to Predict Cladding Temperature and Vapor Removal from UNF Canisters during Drying Operations | University of Nevada, Reno | $400,000 | Researchers will develop physics-based computational tools to predict used nuclear fuel cladding temperatures within, and water vapor removal rates from, canisters during existing and proposed drying processes. The project will explore a range of gas pressures (including rarefication), and steady and unsteady external gas flows rates. The tools will be used to develop drying processes that minimize drying time while maintaining cladding temperatures. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12688: An Experimental and Analytical Investigation into Critical Heat Flux (CHF) Implications for Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF) Concepts | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a holistic best estimate assessment of the potential impact of different ATF cladding materials with regards to heat transfer characteristics, the boiling curve, critical heat flux, fuel mass/volume/specific power density, and neutronics effects due to changes in the lattice design or parasitic neutron absorption during design basis accident conditions in light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12996: Multipurpose, Radiation- and Temperature-Resistant Semiconductor Radiation Detectors for Advanced Process Monitoring and Nuclear Safeguards | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop detection systems capable of neutron, gamma-ray, x-ray, and alpha monitoring in high-temperature and high radiation environments for extended periods of time. The detectors will be used to strengthen nuclear safeguards by enhancing nuclear material control and accounting in nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13125: The Thermodynamics of Crystallization and Phase-Separation in Melt-Derived Nuclear Waste Forms | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This projects will study the thermodynamics of melt and quench phases of nuclear waste glasses and glass ceramics and link this information to the underlying short-range and medium-range structure. Advanced calorimetric techniques and neutron total scattering with pair distribution function analysis will be applied to obtain these data. Computer simulations will complement the experimental effort. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12886: Identifying, Predicting and Preventing Localized Corrosion in Kr-85 Storage Canisters | University of Virginia | $799,000 | Researchers will determine the root cause of corrosion within Kr-85 storage canisters in order to better understand current corrosion rates. The project will focus on expanding available research on Rb corrosion interactions and other contributing factors to better understand the corrosion phenomenon in current steel canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12463: Extreme Performance High Entropy Alloys (HEAs) Cladding for Fast Reactor Applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will develop extreme performance high entropy alloys (HEAs) as for new metal alloy cladding for fast reactor applications. Two very promising, single solution BCC HEAs will be investigated. The project will deliver an extensive irradiation resistance study of a new promising yet unexplored cladding concept. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12549: Critical Heat Flux Studies for Innovative Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding Surfaces | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will study critical heat flux (CHF) behavior focused on innovative accident tolerant fuel (ATF) cladding. The project includes separate effects screening tests to measure CHF for various ATF clad materials and surface characteristics with measurements of surface wettability. Pressurized flow boiling experiments will simulate prototypical reactor conditions for evaluating the best ATF clad materials coupled with CHF modeling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13019: Evaluation of Accident Tolerant Fuels Surface Characteristics in Critical Heat Flux Performance | Virginia Commonwealth University | $800,000 | Researchers will perform separate-effects and system-wide tests of the AREVA and GE accident tolerant fuel concepts currently under consideration. The project will investigate the impact of cladding surface characteristics in critical heat flux (CHF) under normal and anticipated off-normal conditions. The experimental results will be used to develop and validate enhanced models for the prediction of CHF and will be implemented in various subchannel and system analysis codes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13054: Simulated Used Nuclear Fuel Dissolution as a Function of Fuel Chemistry and Near Field Conditions | Washington State University | $800,000 | Researchers will study the effects of simulated used nuclear fuel (UNF) chemistry and microstructure on its dissolution in geologic repository conditions. The results will advance models for UNF evolution in repository conditions, enabling reliable prediction of degradation and long-term performance of used nuclear fuel for up to one million years. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12506: Development of Reactor Physics Benchmark Evaluations for Power Burst Facility Experiments | University of Florida | $398,265 | Researchers will perform reactor physics benchmark evaluations of Power Burst Facility experiments regarding differential reactivity worth of the control and transient rods, shim rod worth, in-pile-tube reactivity worth, shutdown reactivity, fuel assembly reactivity worth, core void coefficients of reactivity, in-pile-tube void coefficient, and coolant temperature coefficient of reactivity. The results will be incorporated in the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP). | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12748: Combined modeling and experiments to predict corrosion and embrittlement in dual-phase stainless steels within the MARMOT framework | Oregon State University | $800,000 | Researchers will enhance MARMOT to predict mechanical and corrosion properties of dual-phase stainless steels as a function of composition, aging time and temperature by using combined experimental data and lower length scale models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12797: In-Situ Ion Irradiation to Add Irradiation Assisted Grain Growth to the MARMOT Tool | Pennsylvania State University | $500,000 | Researchers will add the capability to model irradiation assisted grain growth to the MARMOT tool by using in-situ ion irradiation of UO2 to quantify the effect of irradiation on grain growth. The team will investigate the hypothesis that irradiation assisted grain growth is caused by thermal spikes resulting from atom collisions. The model added to MARMOT will couple the existing grain growth model to a heat conduction simulation using a stochastic heat source describing the thermal spike. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12555: Integration of high-fidelity Monte Carlo and deterministic transport codes into Workbench | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | Researchers will provide end users an ability to run both MCNP6 and PROTEUS codes from a common user input in Workbench by (1) templating user-provided engineering scale specifications to code-specific input requirements, (2) enabling multi-fidelity analysis of a system from a common input using MCNP6 and PROTEUS and (3) allowing the easy use of high-fidelity simulations to inform lower-order models for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems and experiments. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12939: Expansion of BISON Capabilities to Predict the Dynamic Response of Irradiated Fuel Rods | University of New Hampshire | $800,000 | Researchers will expand the capabilities of BISON and MOOSE to simulate the structural dynamic response of fuel rods and fuel assemblies during handling (wet and dry storage) and transportation. Expanding the capabilities of BISON and MOOSE to facilitate the evaluation of the dynamic response of fuel rods and assemblies is important to conduct a more reliable risk assessment of fuel assemblies, as well as storage and transportation casks. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13179: Implementation and Validation of Advanced Turbulence Modeling Methods for Liquid Metal Flow in Nek5000 | University of Oklahoma | $786,648 | Researchers will implement and validate state-of-the-art turbulence modeling techniques in Nek5000 to improve predition of liquid metal flows. Specific methods to be investigated include: variable PrT and algebraic heat flux models (AHFM) for URANS simulation; partially-averaged Navier-Stokes (PANS) and dynamic hybrid RANS-LES (DHRL) for hybrid RANS-LES simulation; and variable PrT subgrid heat flux modeling for LES. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12848: Development of Information Trustworthiness and Integrity Algorithms for Cybersecurity Defenses of Nuclear Power Reactors | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a first-of-a-kind physics-based defense-in-depth strategy to defend against false data injection attacks which attempt to change the information used by the I/C network to set reactor state. The approach employs a new design philosophy to check for information trustworthiness/integrity in order to determine whether the information is genuinely generated during the actual operation of the nuclear unit under either normal or off-normal conditions. | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cybersecurity | |
| NEUP Project 17-12538: Influence of dissolved salts and impurities in seawater on heat transfer degradation and fluid flow through fuel channels debris bed | Kansas State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate the role of raw water on degraded heat transfer and fluid flow in the reactor core and debris bed. X-ray imaging techniques, optical-fiber high speed temperature sensing systems and radioactive tracer salts will be used to simultaneously measure experimental data on void fraction, temperature and salt deposition rate. This data will be used to obtain correlations for heat transfer and fluid flow in case of raw water injection. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12502: High Resolution Temperature and Flow Measurements in Wire-Wrapped Fuel Assemblies | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will produce high-quality, high spatial and temporal resolution temperature and flow datasets for wire-wrapped rod bundle geometries. Different bundle sizes, configurations (including duct's and pin's deformation) and Low-Prandlt fluids will be investigated. A unique set of data will be produced to support advanced CFD tools validation, including Nek5000. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12723: Integrating Static PRA Information with RISMC Simulation Methods | The Ohio State University | $799,985 | Researchers will develop a computationally feasible and user friendly process to augment the traditional probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) results with improved representation of epistemic uncertainties and process/hardware/software/human interactions at plant level applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12664: Methods to Predict Thermal Radiation and to Design Scaled Separate and Integral Effects Testing For Molten Salt Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology for the design of molten salt reactor (MSR) Separate Effect Test and Integral Effect Test experiments. This methodology will identify and quantify sources of scaling distortion including radiative heat transport. The project would improve code performance and assist FHR/MSR vendors who are making licensing applications based on code results. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12523: Experimental and Computational Studies of Stress Corrosion Cracking of Alloys 308/309 and 82/182 Weldments in Corrosive and Radiation Environment | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will use advanced microanalytical analysis techniques to study SCC and IASCC of stainless steel and Ni-Cr alloy weldments. CERT, autoclave immersion, and ion irradiation will be used to determine synergistic effect of LWR environmental factors. Results from the experimental component of the proposed work scope will be used for enhanced predictive capability of the INL Grizzly code via XFEM. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12614: Systematic Enterprise Risk Management by Integrating the RISMC Toolkit and Cost-Benefit Analysis | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $799,998 | Researchers will develop a systematic Enterprise Risk Management framework, which utilizes Decision Tree (DT) logic to consider high-level production-loss scenarios, and their underlying physical and social causes throughout the lifecycle. In the proposed DT, uncertainty nodes will be quantified by plant-specific risk analysis using the Risk-Informed Safety Margin Characterization (RISMC) Toolkit, and cost-benefit analysis will be conducted for end states reflecting consequences of managerial decision-making. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12972: Design of a Commercial-Scale, Fluoride-Salt-Cooled, High-Temperature Reactor With Novel Refueling and Decay Heat Removal Capabilities | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $400,000 | Researchers will combine fluoride-salt-cooled, high temperature reactors (FHR) with advanced gas reactor (AGR) refueling technology to address several significant challenges that remain in the development of FHR technology. The project will adapt AGR refueling technology by using the new fuel-inside-radial-moderator fuel form, which will also introduce new ways of dealing with decay heat. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13115: Experimental Determination of Helium/air Mixing in Helium Cooled Reactor | University of Michigan | $800,000 | Researchers will examine the effects of coolant leakage and air ingress through three different investigations. The overall objective of this work is to characterize near and far field behavior of Helium/Air mixing in containment, and to determine rates and amounts of air leaked back into the reactor after a depressurization event. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12830: Radioisotope Retention in Graphite and Graphitic Materials | University of Missouri, Columbia | $800,000 | Researchers will use a variety of experimental techniques to acquire data for fission product diffusion, transport and adsorption of fission products in various graphites, relating to nuclear reactors at high temperatures. Measurements will be taken using non-irradiated graphite using fission product surrogates. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13020: Bimetallic Composite (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) Development and Compatibility in Flowing FLiBe as a Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) Structural Material | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a new bimetallic alloy (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) structural material for the MSR, and compare its post-exposure mechanical performance in flowing FLiBe with single alloys SS 316, Hastelloy N, and Incoloy 800H, in the context of ASME codification. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12678: Novel NDE Sensors, Waveforms, Models, and Algorithms for Cable Health Monitoring | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop NDE sensors and probabilistic cable insulation diagnosis and prognosis algorithms (particle filtering), and modeling and experiments to monitor cable insulation health. Two different types of sensor will be deployed to detect insulation damage. The team will also develop cable insulation degradation modeling to further understand defects in cable insulation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13080: Multiscale Investigation of SiC/SiC Composite Degradation in Helium Coolant Operating Environment | University of Virginia | $800,000 | Researchers will study the long-term degradation mechanisms of SiC/SiC composites in helium coolant environments by slow crack growth (SCG). This will be achieved through multiscale testing in hot, O2-contaminated He and evaluation of the effect of SCG on hermeticity during in situ testing. Results will be extended to predictive low-level and component-scale SCG models and integrated into the development of ASME standards for use of SiC/SiC in nuclear reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12481: Supercritical CO2 power cycle for space applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will develop an advanced supercritical Brayton power cycle directly coupled to a fission reactor. The project will carry out a comprehensive optimization of the cycle operating conditions, working fluid, and configuration; develop detailed designs of each subcomponent; and demonstrate/develop critical technologies such as turbomachinery seals and bearings, reactor material corrosion and strength demonstrations, and supercritical heat transfer. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13232: Radiative Heat Transport and Optical Characterization of High Temperature Molten Salts | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | The goal of the proposed research is to experimentally investigate radiation heat transport in molten salts, and to add functionality for radiative heat transport in a thermal-hydraulics system code. This includes obtaining highly resolved measurements of the optical absorption and emissivity of liquid salts. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 18-15345: Multiphysics Degradation Processes, and Their Mitigation, in Engineered and Geological Bariers: Experiments and Simulation | Duke University | $800,000.00 | This project will focus on filling the gaps in understanding of mechanisms of a series of degradation processes (thermal, hydric, geo-chemical, and transport processes phenomena) potentially affecting geo-materials used in repositories. The objectives of the work are to better recognize the conditions leading to preferential paths of radionuclide transport and rock weakening, and to build mathematical models and implement them into existing codes to predict material degradation and develop strategies to reduce the adverse consequences. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15043: Integration of Nuclear Material Accounting Data and Process Monitoring Data for Improvement on Detection Probability in Safeguarding Electrochemical Processing Facilities | Oregon State University | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to further studies on fusion of process monitoring (PM) data and nuclear material accounting (NMA) data. PM data, which includes monitoring by various types of equipment (radiation detectors, cameras, voltage, current sensors), can supplement NMA data to help improve safeguards. For aqueous-based reprocessing facilities, it is reported that PM, integrated with traditional NMA, has a high-detection probability for specific diversions. For electrochemical reprocessing, preliminary studies have shown that PM data can support traditional NMA by providing a basis to estimate some of the in-processing nuclear material inventories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15148: Recovery of Rare-Earth Elements (Nd, Gd, Sm) in Oxide Wasteform Using Liquid Metals (Bi, Sn) | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000.00 | This project investigates a new approach for recovering rare-earth (RE) fission products (Nd, Gd, and Sm) from molten chlorine salts using liquid metal (Bi and Sn) electrodes. The research aids molten salt recycling by converting the RE products into chloride-free RE oxides, which could be incorporated into conventional glass/ceramic waste forms. Successful outcomes of the project include advanced separation of fission products from molten salts with better control of chemical selectivity and high-recovery yield. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15103: Microstructure-Based Benchmarking for Nano/Microscale Tension and Ductility Testing of Irradiated Steels | Purdue University | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to standardize methods for nano/micro-scale tensile and ductility testing of irradiated Fe-Cr steels, through microstructure-based benchmarking. The study will investigate key process parameters for TEM in situ tension and ductility testing. Coupling experimental studies with multiscale models, the research will identify the approaches that provide consistent deformation mechanisms between the nano/micro-scale and macro-scale tests, from which standard practices will be obtained. The primary project outcome will be a set of recommended guidelines for nano/microscale mechanical testing, which will lead to unprecedented reductions in the time and cost for qualifying materials for in-reactor service and to ensure consistency of methods and validity of results. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15559: Cold Spray Repair & Mitigation of Stress Corrosion Cracks in Spent Nuclear Fuel Dry Storage Canisters | Purdue University | $799,982.00 | This goal of this project is to demonstrate cold spray repair and mitigation of chloride-induced stress corrosion cracks (SCC) and pits in stainless steel dry storage canisters. The research will optimize the repair process and gain a scientifically informed understanding of SCC mechanisms. The outcome is to further develop cold spray as an attractive solution for the repair of existing SCC and mitigation of potential SCC necessary to ensure long-term integrity, security, and regulatory compliance of spent nuclear fuel storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15596: Capture of Organic Iodides from Vessel Off-Gas Streams | Syracuse University | $799,548.00 | This project will study the capture of radioactive organoiodides from off-gas streams produced during nuclear fuel reprocessing by conducting adsorption experiments using a selected silver adsorbents. Multifaceted simulation adsorption models will be developed to assist in the design of necessary capture systems for off-gas streams. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15585: Impact of Coupled Gas Migration and Thermo-hydro-mechanical Processes on the Performance of Repositories for High Level Nuclear Waste | Texas A&M University | $608,375.00 | The main goal of this project is to better understand the possible effect of gas migration (particularly through discontinuities) on the performance and long-term behavior of engineered barrier systems (EBS) envisaged for the isolation of high-level radioactive waste (HLW). Specific outcomes of this study will be an improved understanding of the role of gas migration and discontinuities in the performance of HLW disposals, with the underlying aim to improve design of EBS used for HLW. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15531: Repair and Mitigation of Chloride-Induced Pitting and Chloride-Induced Stress Corrosion Cracking in Used Nuclear Fuel Dry Cask Canister Materials | The Ohio State University | $800,000.00 | This project will evaluate and develop a set of tools to repair and mitigate chloride-induced pitting and stress corrosion cracking in stainless steel nuclear fuel canisters. Advanced processes, including low temperature friction stir welding and cold spray deposition, will be evaluated according to various criteria, such as corrosion performance. In addition, technologies that have not yet been evaluated for UNF applications, including vaporizing foil actuator welding and soldering will be assessed. The two most promising technologies will selected for further development and comprehensive study. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14912: Bridging the Length Scales on Mechanical Property Evaluation | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000.00 | This project combines experimental and modeling methods to gain a comprehensive approach for addressing scaling effects on small-scale mechanical testing. Multiscale experiments, together with modeling on reactor-relevant and model alloys, will provide better understanding of appropriate scaling relationships. The study aims to gain fundamental understanding of plasticity interactions with specific strength-determining features, such as precipitates and grain boundaries. The goal of this work is to provide the basis to add small-scale mechanical testing in the toolbox for nuclear materials research. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14911: Understanding of degradation of SiC/SiC materials in nuclear systems and development of mitigation strategies | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000.00 | This project investigates the best possible coatings to prevent SiCf/SiCm corrosion in LWR environments. The research features a computational and experimental rapid screening approach for numerous coating compositions. The work includes autoclave exposure of rapid screening coupons in prototypical environments in combination with thermodynamic modeling (CALPHAD) and Finite Element Methods (FEM). Small-scale mechanical testing, together with thermal cycling and FEM modeling, will provide guidance on the ideal coating system design. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15701: Time-dependent THMC Properties and Microstructural Evolution of Damage Rocks in Excavation Damage Zone | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,978.00 | The proposed project focuses on the geomechanical aspects of modeling by addressing the time-dependent evolution of rock microstructure and its coupling with the THC processes that are of first-order importance to the stability and the isolation performance of repositories. The research will delineate an integrated experimental, theoretical and numerical strategy in assessing the evolution EDZ over time and its implication on the long-term migration of hazardous species. These results will enhance the confidence of the predicted long-term performance of repositories, which helps to move forward the goal of one-million-year isolation of high-level nuclear wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15381: Multiaxial Failure Envelopes and Uncertainty Quantification of Nuclear-Grade SiCf/SiC Woven Ceramic Matrix Tubular Composites | University of Florida | $800,000.00 | This project proposes to develop a comprehensive experimental and computational approach for determining constitutive relations and multiaxial failure envelopes of nuclear-grade continuous silicon fiber (SiCf) and SiC matrix woven tubular composites. The result of this work can be adopted in industry for design refinement, optimization of performance under the desired operating conditions, and reliable prediction of failure under unforeseen accidental scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15496: Formation of Zeolites Responsible for Waste Glass Rate Acceleration: An Experimental and Computational Study for Understanding Thermodynamic and Kinetic Processes | University of Houston | $800,000.00 | Through experimental and computational studies, this project will expose the factors governing zeolite crystallization and their role in Stage III dissolution of radionuclide-containing glass waste forms generated in advanced nuclear fuel cycles. The overall goal of this project is to understand the formation of zeolite phases in order to develop process control methods to suppress Stage III dissolution. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14998: Novel Processes for Capture of Radioactive Iodine Species from Vessel Off-Gas Streams | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the sorption system performance and effectiveness for capture of radioiodine species present in the off-gas streams from the used nuclear fuel (UNF) recycling operations, focusing particularly on the organic iodine species. The dynamic sorption experimentation and theoretical modeling will offer fundamental insights on the mechanism enabling the design and prediction the control system performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15261: Friction Stir Based Repair Welding of Dry Storage Canisters and Mitigation Strategies: Effect of Engineered Barrier Layer on Environmental Degradation | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The project goal is to apply friction stir based repair and mitigation technique for eliminating failure associated with pitting and stress corrosion cracking in dry storage canisters for spent fuels. The goal of these activities is to obtain a fundamental understanding of the processing-structure-properties correlations. This work will contribute to the development of a crack repair/mitigation strategy based on friction stir technology that can be efficiently implemented for spent fuel dry storage casks, which will enhance safety and reliability of these systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15263: X-ray Studies of Interfacial Molecular Complexes in ALSEP Back-Extraction | University of Illinois at Chicago | $800,000.00 | This project will use synchrotron X-rays to characterize the interfacial molecular complexes (of extractants and radiologically derived impurities, complexants, buffers, and metal ions) formed during the Actinide-Lanthanide Separation Process (ALSEP) back-extraction. This work addresses the critical knowledge gap of slow stripping kinetics in ALSEP, as well as the influence of radiolytic degradation products. The outcome of the project will be a molecular-level understanding of the role of different components in the interfacial mechanism of back-extraction in the ALSEP process, therefore leading to development of more efficient and faster metal stripping relevant to the separation of actinides from lanthanides in the nuclear fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15030: Mechanistic Understanding of Radiolytically Assisted Hydrothermal Corrosion of SiC in LWR Coolant Environments | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to develop a mechanistic understanding of the hydrothermal corrosion behavior of monolithic SiC and SiC/SiC composites in LWR environment under the influence of water radiolysis products and radiation damage. Complementary atomistic simulations will be carried out to determine the rate controlling mechanisms for dissolution under different water chemistries and in the presence of radiation. Activation energies and kinetic rates will be calculated directly from these simulations and compared to experimentally fitted values. The dissolution rate constants determined and validated in this integrated experimental and modeling approach will allow predictions of long-term SiC corrosion behavior. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14999: Probabilistic Failure Criterion of SiC/SiC Composites Under Multi-Axial Loading | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $800,000.00 | This project aims to develop a probabilistic failure criterion of SiC/SiC composites under multi-axial loading and to incorporate the criterion into a reliability analysis of the structural integrity of LWR SiC/SiC fuel cladding. This research will be anchored by a seamless integration of novel experimental and analytical tools, which will lead to a robust methodology for dependable analysis of SiC/SiC composite structures for LWR fuel cladding, as well as other nuclear applications. The resulting model will be experimentally validated and applied to analyze the reliability of LWR SiC/SiC fuel cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15502: Reducing Uncertainty in Radionuclide Transport Prediction Using Multiple Environmental Tracers | University of Montana | $724,906.00 | In this project, direct modeling of multiple environmental tracers will be used to improve predictions of radionuclide transport in a shallow alluvial aquifer discharge. The research will take advantage of recent theoretical developments considering the use of environmental tracers, and advances in high-performance reactive flow and transport models, to obtain the maximum information on the transport system. The goal is to develop a new methodology to characterize natural reactive flow and transport systems, reduce predictive uncertainty in radionuclide transport simulations, determine the maximum information content of the tracer suite, and optimize future groundwater characterization efforts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15578: Computational and Experimental Investigation of Thermal-Mechanical- Chemical Mechanisms of High-burnup Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) Processes at Elevated Temperatures and Degradation Behavior in Geologic Repositories | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $800,000.00 | The overarching goal of this project is to use combined computational and experimental research and development activities to enhance understanding of the mechanisms and thermal-mechanical-chemical (TMC) parameters controlling the instant release fraction (IRF) and matrix dissolution of high-burnup (HB; burnup > 45 GWd/MTU) spent nuclear fuels (SNFs) and the subsequent formation, stability, and phase transformations of HB SNF alteration products under long-term storage and geological disposal conditions (e.g., high-temperature storage, _-radiolysis). The results of this research will be used to enhance the mechanistic detail of process models to reduce uncertainty in, and improve the technical bases of, safety cases and performance assessment analyses. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15439: Radiolytic Dissolution Rate of Silicon Carbide | University of Notre Dame | $400,000.00 | This project seeks to develop a matrix of dissolution rates for high-purity SiC material, using intense electron beam irradiation, and to measure the products of dissolution (silicic acid and CO2 (or CO)) in the water downstream of the irradiation zone. The objective is to determine the rate of SiC dissolution and gather sufficient insight about its mechanism in LWRs, so that the use of SiC/SiC composite materials for accident tolerant fuel cladding can proceed with confidence. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15061: Development of an MC&A Toolbox for Liquid-fueled Molten Salt Reactors with Online Reprocessing | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,207.00 | The purpose of this project is to develop a toolbox of swappable mass flow modules for liquid-fueled molten salt reactor (MSR) systems for the purposes of evaluating material control & accountancy measurement techniques. When combined together, these modules enable modeling of the time-dependent mass flows for a variety of MSR variants. The test platform will consist of a toolbox of independent process modules representing discrete physical units, each with its own self-contained physics responsive to the input mass flow, along with appropriate measurement models that can be coupled to key flow points. These dynamic physical signatures would allow testing of the viability and efficacy of potential accountancy techniques under the full range of reactor operating conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15307: A Novel and Flexible Approach for Converting LWR UNF Fuel Into Forms That Can Be Used to Fuel a Variety of Gen-IV Reactors | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $400,000.00 | This project will investigate the chemical decladding and the digestion of whole MOX-based fuel rods, using thionyl chloride and surrogate materials. Digesting entire LWR fuel assemblies results in product streams that include pure decontaminated ZrCl4; pure UCl4; and a stream containing TRU/FPs, as well as alloying metals (as chloride salts). The objectives of this project are to provide a new, highly efficient protocol for the transformation of used nuclear fuel into useful components and to effectively contain a concentrated stream of highly radioactive materials for appropriate handling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15459: Reduced Diffusion and Enhanced Retention of Multiple Radionuclides from Pore Structure Studies of Barrier Materials for Enhanced Repository Performance | University of Texas at Arlington | $567,831.00 | The project seeks to better understand and quantify the pore structure (geometry and topology) and pore connectivity of porous media and its emergent effect on diffusion and retention of various radionuclides in barrier materials. The anticipated outcome of the project will be to more accurately evaluate the performance of geological repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15649: Benchmarking Microscale Ductility Measurements | University of Utah | $776,669.00 | The objectives of this project are to establish best practices for obtaining tensile microscale ductility measurements and to validate methodologies for comparing them to macroscale ductility measurements. Anticipated outcomes of the project are: 1) measurement of grain and sub-grain localization processes micro and macroscales; 2) establishment of best practices for microtensile experimentation; 3) identification of statistically significant relationships between specimen geometry, microstructure variables and mechanical behavior; 4) modified phenomenological elongation-based ductility models to enable direct upscaling of ductility measurements from microscale to macroscopic. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15003: Advanced Coating and Surface Modification Technologies for SiC-SiC Composite for Hydrothermal Corrosion Protection in LWR | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,990.00 | This project focuses on the development of coatings and surface modification approaches for hydrothermal corrosion protection of SiC-SiC composite in normal LWR operation environments. Innovative surface treatment recipes will be explored using processes including, interfacial stitching to improve adhesion, multi-layered structures to improve ductility, and compositions and structures resulting from thermal treatments. The surface treatment concepts involve corrosion resistant metallic and ceramic materials, and are amenable to industrial scalability for the cladding application. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15332: Low-Force Solid-State Technologies for Mitigation of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dry Storage Canisters | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000.00 | This project will focus on evaluating and developing two technologies used for field mitigation and repair of stress corrosion cracking (SCC): 1) additive friction stir welding; and 2) cold spray deposition. The work involves developing low-force, low-heat input solid state technologies to lessen and repair SCC in stainless steel canisters for used nuclear fuel (UNF). This outcome of the study will inform feasibility of using the two technologies to conduct on-site field repairs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14913: The Role of Temperature on Non-Darcian Flows in Engineered Clay Barriers | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000.00 | This project intends to accomplish three tasks: 1) to develop a predictive model to facilitate experimental data interpretation and provide mechanistic insights into the role of temperature on non-Darcian flows in low-permeability engineered clay barriers; 2) conduct experiments to unravel the role of temperature on the threshold gradient of non-Darcian flow in both saturated and unsaturated bentonite; and 3) use molecular dynamics (MD) simulation to improve fundamental understanding. The experimental data, associated with the MD simulation, will provide valuable information to improve fundamental understanding and scientific knowledge with respect to the temperature dependence of threshold gradient in non-Darcian flows, because very limited experimental data for saturated flow and no experimental data for unsaturated flow are available. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14815: C-SiOC-SiC Coated Particle Fuels for Advanced Nuclear Reactors | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $400,000.00 | This project will study a new concept for nuclear fuel encapsulation using an amorphous SiOC plus carbon system as the inner coating and nanocrystalline SiC plus minor carbon as the outer coating for nuclear fuel kernel particles. The outcomes of this work are: 1) new directions and possible replacement guidance for current nuclear fuel materials in operation; 2) new fuel materials for future nuclear reactor material design and development; 3) nuclear composite microstructure evolution and performance degradation understanding; 4) screening tools to guide future nuclear fuel material activities; and 5) mechanisms of nuclear fuel material evolution and degradation and effective strategies to mitigate/reduce undesirable fuel behaviors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15226: An Evaluated, Transient Experiment based on Simultaneous, 3-D Neutron-Flux and Temperature Measurements | Kansas State University | $399,972.00 | This project will evaluate existing and near-term experimental data for inclusion in the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) handbook. The data to be evaluated include compositions from a recent fuel replacement as part of an LEU conversion, a number of critical, fresh-fuel configurations, fuel temperature measurements at fresh-fuel configurations, and records from nearly a decade of operation. The proposed work would lead to a first-of-a-kind evaluation of transient, spatially-dependent reaction rates. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project CFA-18-15773: Evaluation of the Thermal Scattering Law for Advanced Reactor Neutron Moderators and Reflectors | North Carolina State University | $398,821.00 | The objective of this project is to narrow the nuclear data gap for advanced nuclear reactors that are driven by thermal neutrons. This includes concepts such as gas-cooled high-temperature reactors and molten salt or salt-cooled high temperature reactors. The generated data TSL libraries will be provided in EDNF File 7 format to the National Nuclear Data Center (NDDC) to immediately include in beta releases of the ENDF/B libraries and to consider for the future release of ENDF/B-VIII.1. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15602: Modeling and Experimental Verification of Thermal Energy Storage Systems to Enable Load Following Capability for Nuclear Reactors | University of Idaho | $761,640.00 | This project purposes to integrate new thermal energy storage (TES) models, developed in Modelica, with ongoing nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (NRHES) modeling efforts, in order to evaluate economic potential and advantages of new process designs over baseload electricity production. The computational phase of this project includes developing mathematical and physics-based TES models, which could later be translated to Modelica and integrated with existing NRHES components. The testing and optimization would be conducted using RAVEN. A techno-economic analysis will be performed to evaluate the compatibility of the newly formed integration, as well as to quantify its feasibility and economic benefits. The experimental aspect is focused on the development of scaled TES systems, which serve as verification for the Modelica models and allow system testing upon being integrated with DETAIL. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14963: Development of Nuclear Hybrid Energy Systems: Temperature Amplification through Chemical Heat Pumps for Industrial Applications | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The overall goal of this project is to develop and demonstrate, through modeling and experimental investigations, temperature amplification capabilities of a chemical heat pump (CHP) system that can be coupled to a conventional light water reactor or a near-term small modular reactor. The outcomes would include nuclear hybrid energy system architecture containing a CHP, experimental data on the CHP performance, and dynamic model of the system, validated through experimentation, which could be used for scale-up and design. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15008: Development of Thermal Inelastic Scattering Covariance Data Capabilities with Demonstration of Light Water Evaluation | University of Michigan | $400,000.00 | The goal of this project is to produce a format for covariance data for inelastic thermal neutron scattering data for moderators in the ENDF format. To demonstrate the viability of this new format, an evaluation of the covariance data for thermal scattering in light water in this format will be produced, along with the capabilities to generate the files and test their efficacy. A capability for calculating sensitivity coefficients using multigroup methods to the fundamental physics parameters governing light-water scattering will be developed to facilitate identifying nuclear data needs related to thermal scattering. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15056: Model-Based Diagnostics and Mitigation of Cyber Threats | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | This project intends to develop a toolkit for modeling digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems for nuclear power plants so that the consequences of cyber-attacks on I&C systems may conveniently be modeled using nuclear plant simulation software. The results of the toolkit-based models, the corresponding responses, and the performance of the diagnostic schemes will be tested on a virtual control room driven by a plant simulator. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15055: NICSim: Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Simulation for Evaluating Response to Cyber-attacks | University of New Mexico | $799,945.00 | The objective of the project is to develop a Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Simulation (NICSim) platform with a novel emulytics capability to simulate control systems and components in nuclear power plants. The outcome of this work would be a first-in-class emulytics platform with an associated documentation and library of physical models of components that could be used by analysts and designers to assess the resilience and cybersecurity risks of different control system designs for a wide range of power plants. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15324: Validation of Pressure Relaxation Coefficient in RELAP-7 Seven-Equation Model | George Washington University | $800,000.00 | This project aims to validate the Seven-Equation model in RELAP-7 by: 1) measuring velocity and pressure in each phase and the interface as well as return to equilibrium in fast transients with high-speed non-intrusive laser diagnostics in canonical experiments; 2) complementing experimental data with a multiscale computational approach, including a 3D proprietary direct numerical solver; and 3) validating RELAP-7 with a combination of experimental data and first-principle simulations. This combination would provide unique and complete datasets to validate RELAP-7 with high confidence and offer a new class of experimental and numerical tools. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project CFA-18-15104: Demonstration of Utilization of High-fidelity NEAMS Tools to Inform the Improved Use of Conventional Tools within the NEAMS Workbench on the NEA/OECD C5G7-TD Benchmark | North Carolina State University | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to demonstrate the utilization of high-fidelity Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) tools (PROTEUS, Nek5000, and BISON) to inform the improved use of conventional tools (DIF-3D, CTF, and CTFFuel) within the NEAMS Workbench on the NEA/OECD C5G7-TD benchmark. This would result in more accurate predictions of safety parameters and margins, which is important for both safety and performance improvements of the nuclear power plants being currently operated and built. The developed Workbench-based framework will also assist end users to apply high-fidelity simulations to inform lower-order models for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14741: Demonstration of a Methodology for Direct Validation of MARMOT Irradiation-Induced Microstructural Evolution and Physical Property Models Using U-10Zr | Texas A&M University | $500,000.00 | The objective of this project is to demonstrate, for the first time, a methodology that enables the direct validation of microstructural evolution models for fuel in MARMOT, and the direct correlation of changes in physical properties with specific irradiation-induced microstructural features. Properly implementing this methodology will result in rapid development of MARMOT mesoscale models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15520: Accurate and Efficient Parametric Model-Order Reduction for Turbulent Thermal Transport | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000.00 | The project objective is to develop reduced-order models (ROMs) that will improve accuracy of LMR system-level analysis with low overhead. These new models will systematically mine high-fidelity DNS, LES, or uRANS simulations to construct low-order dynamical systems that can couple with a systems analysis code, such as the SAM code being developed under NEAMS. These simulations provide useful data and will be made available to the scientific community, and the overall effort will contribute to more efficient LMR conceptual design studies and licensing. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15484: A Novel High Fidelity Continuous-energy tTansport Tool for Efficient FHR Transient Calculations | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000.00 | The objective of the project is to develop a high-fidelity continuous energy (CE) transport tool for efficient transient calculations in fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactors with prismatic core/fuel assembly design. This will be accomplished by extending the high-fidelity 3-D continuous energy coarse mesh radiation transport (COMET) code with formidable computational speed to solve transient problems in FHRs with accurate thermal hydraulic feedback. The new capability would enable plant system codes to perform analyses necessary to address complex technical design, regulatory, reactor safety, and economic hurdles prior to construction. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15093: Determination of Molecular Structure and Dynamics of Molten Salts by Advanced Neutron and X-ray Scattering Measurements and Computer Modeling | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000.00 | This project will seek detailed knowledge about molecular structure and dynamics of molten salts to inform the design of new molten-salt reactors. A combination of advanced neutron and x-ray scattering and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations will be used to model the ionic-cluster structure of the fluid and solubility of impurities. Machine learning will be applied to regress from simulations and experiments in order to develop the model and predict chemical potentials as a function of composition and temperature. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15171: Oxidation Behavior of Silicon Carbide and Graphitic Materials | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000.00 | The objectives of this project are to determine the oxidation behavior of silicon carbide and graphitic materials in oxygen and/or moisture, to accurately measure the kinetic parameters of oxidation, to ascertain the oxidation mechanisms in relation to the microstructures, to determine the effect of irradiation on oxidation behavior, and to provide data and input to the safety analysis of high-temperature gas reactors under air and moisture ingress accident conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15276: Coping Time and Cost Analysis of Accident Tolerant Plant Design based on Dynamic PRA Methodology | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000.00 | This project will evaluate the failure modes of accident tolerant fuel ATF candidates to understand the different failure characteristics. The research aims to obtain a response surface of coping time by investigating the various uncertainties of accident mitigation in PWR and BWR reactors. These outputs will aid the decision making process on the implementation of ATF and FLEX to existing LWR plants from the perspective of risk reduction and economic feasibility. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15270: Innovative Use of Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) with the RCIC System to Enhance Passive Safety of Commercial LWRs | Texas A&M University | $748,000.00 | The overarching objectives of this project are to: 1) demonstrate new operational strategies with the combined use of Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) and the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) System to increase the passive safety capabilities of current Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs) in delaying or preventing core damage; and 2) pursue the delay of containment venting until after a 72-hour coping period through new BWR Suppression Pool mixing procedures. The research will use both simulation and experimental data to validate the objectives. The work has the potential to increase the ability of existing nuclear power plants to passively respond to beyond design basis events using existing equipment and without changes to the plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15346: Big Data For Operation and Maintenance Cost Reduction | The Ohio State University | $800,000.00 | This project will develop a first-of-a-kind framework for integrating Big Data capability into the daily activities of our current fleet of nuclear power plants. This research will mainly focus on incorporating the wide range of data heterogeneities in nuclear power plants into an integrated Big Data Analytics capability. The primary end product of this work will be a Big Data framework that is capable of dealing with the large volume and heterogeneity of the data found in nuclear power plants to extract timely and valuable information on equipment performance and to enable optimization of plant operation and maintenance based on the extracted information. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15065: in situ Measurement and Validation of Uranium Molten Salt Properties at Operationally Relevant Temperatures | University of Connecticut | $799,979.00 | This project proposes to use advanced spectroscopic and scattering methods to provide information at the atomic and molecular scale. The research will use synchrotron-based x-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy, at operationally relevant temperatures, to measure the local and intermediate structure as well as speciation of chloride fuel salts (NaCl, ZrCl, UCl3) for fast-spectrum applications and fluoride fuel salts ( 7 LiF, UF4) primarily for thermal spectrum applications This approach is expected to generate theories and concepts that would allow models to predict behavior, and develop the means for in situ monitoring. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15058: High-resolution Experiments for Extended LOFC and Steam Ingress Accidents in HTGRs | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to better understand key phenomena in high-temperature gas-cooled reactors relevant to steam ingress and loss of forced circulation (LOFC) accidents. Specifically, the research will: 1) experimentally investigate, using an existing integral-effect test facility with some improvements, the steam-ingress accident caused by a postulated steam generator tube rupture initiating event; 2) carry out integral-effect tests for the extended LOFC accident to study the establishment of global natural circulation flow in the primary loop; 3) design, based on a scaling analysis, and construct a separate-effect test facility to study the complex helium flows in the core and hot plenum during the extended LOFC accident; and 4) perform detailed, high-resolution, separate-effects experiments using the results obtained as boundary/initial conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15471: Integral Experimental Investigation of Radioisotope Retention in Flowing Lead for the Mechanistic Source Term Evaluation of Lead Cooled Fast Reactor | University of New Mexico | $800,000.00 | The purpose of this project is to experimentally investigate the integral effects of radioisotope interactions with liquid lead to support the following technical goals: 1) evaluating the mechanistic source term of the Lead-cooled Fast Reactor (LFR); 2) developing a universal integral effect test methodology for liquid metal source term evaluations; and 3) establishing a basis for the comparison of radioisotope retention between lead and sodium. This aim of the research is to advance the LFR licensing pathway by establishing the phenomenological foundation of the interaction between fission products and liquid lead. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15153: Understanding Molten Salt Chemistry Relevant to Advanced Molten Salt Reactors through Complementary Synthesis, Spectroscopy, and Modeling | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to understand molten salt chemistry relevant to advanced molten salt reactors through complementary synthesis, spectroscopy, and modeling. Through complementary synthetic, spectroscopic, and computational efforts, the aim is to achieve atomistic and molecular-level understanding of liquid structure, coordination geometry, chemical bonding, and reactivity of novel molten salt melts relevant to advanced molten reactor designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15111: Improving Nuclear Power Plant Efficiency Through Data Analytics | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,727.00 | This project aims to develop and provide data analytics solutions to improve nuclear power plan economic efficiency by utilizing empirical models to integrate disparate data sources while providing uncertainty estimates to quantify risk and support decisions. The outcomes will enhance the technical and economic competitiveness by enabling advanced monitoring of critical assets, improving the operating capability of the existing fleet, and helping achieve enhancements in organizational effectiveness. Additionally, the research would provide an agile and modular data analytic framework that would have high commercialization value and supports the industry-wide drive towards digital innovation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14846: Development of Corrosion Resistant Coatings and Liners for Structural Materials for Liquid Fueled Molten Salts Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to develop corrosion-resistant coatings and liners for structural materials for use in fuel dissolved molten salt environment for future Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). Innovative, but industrially scalable, surface cladding approaches are proposed to lead to promising surface and interfacial compositions. The processes themselves are commercial, and have high technology readiness levels, and consequently would facilitate the accelerated developments of MSRs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15280: Advanced Alloy Innovations for Structural Components of Molten Salt Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $796,792.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to develop and evaluate specific advanced metallic alloys for structural components in fluoride salt-cooled molten salt reactors (MSRs). The research will investigate four categories of metallic alloys: advanced Ni-based; radiation damage tolerant high entropy; refractory Mo-based, and compositionally-graded, designed for high-surface corrosion resistance and good bulk strength. Additionally, the propensity for radiation embrittlement, as well as weldability, of the alloys will be evaluated. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14957: Big Data Analytics Solutions to Improve Nuclear Power Plant Efficiency: Online Monitoring, Visualization, Prognosis, and Maintenance Decision Making | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $797,820.00 | The overarching goal of this project is to significantly advance the ability to assess equipment condition and predict the remaining useful life to support optimal maintenance decision making in nuclear power plants. This research will work toward accomplishing and establishing a modern set of data-driven modeling, online monitoring, visualization, prognosis, and operation decision-making methodologies to address the significant opportunities and challenges arising from the emerging data-rich environment in nuclear plants. The potential impact of the work is significant and transformative and could deliver important advances in productivity with reduced unscheduled downtime and improved equipment performance. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15097: Oxidation Study of High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor TRISO Fuels at Accidental Conditions | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000.00 | This project is to study the oxidation behaviors of TRISO fuels during accidental air and water vapor ingress conditions. The work focuses on the oxidation and burn-off of the graphite fuel matrix and oxidation of the TRISO fuel SiC layer at high-temperature accidental states in the presence of air and/or water vapor. It will include both unirradiated and irradiated graphite fuel matrix and simulated fuel particles with the SiC layer. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 19-16987: Novel miniature creep tester for virgin and neutron irradiated clad alloys with benchmarked multiscale modeling and simulations | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | This project will develop a miniature creep machine to collect rapid thermal creep and load relaxation data for two selected ferritic alloys under "as-received" and irradiated conditions. Fast and accurate measurements of creep deformation are essential for qualifying new alloys for long term use in current and next generation reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17150: Speciation and Behavior of Neptunium and Zirconium in Advanced Separation Process | Oregon State University | $800,000 | This project will further develop the understanding of nuclear fuel reprocessing using Co-Decontamination (CoDCon). Radiolytic degradation products of tributylphosphate, nitric acid, redox buffer, masking agent, and water greatly affect the redox speciation, complexation and partitioning of the recycled metals. Fundamental understanding of chemical speciation and partitioning of Neptunium and Zerconium under such conditions is required. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17395: Modeling and Uncertainty Analysis of MSR Nuclear Material Accounting Methods for Nuclear Safeguards | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | This project will model and analyze the limits of detection for the diversion of nuclear materials from a molten salt reactor (MSR) fuel cycle. MSR depletion under a range of uranium and/or plutonium diversion to quantify the resulting differences in salt composition will be evaluated. Sensors will also be investigated to quantify fuel salt contents and correlate the outputs with the reactor models to predict diversion detection. Results will be coupled with robust uncertainty analysis to determine limits of detection. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16583: Neutron Radiation Effect on Diffusion between Zr (and Zircaloy) and Cr for Accurate Lifetime Prediction of ATF | The Ohio State University | $499,997 | This project will perform systematic diffusion studies on both neutron-irradiated and unirradiated accident tolerant fuel samples to obtain precise diffusion coefficients. This will result in a precise evaluation of the pure neutron irradiation effect on diffusion in these systems and enable accurate life prediction of the accident tolerant fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17381: High Throughput Assessment of Creep Behavior of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Structural Alloys by Nano/microindentation | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $800,000 | This project will develop a high throughput assessment of creep behavior of advanced nuclear reactor structural alloys by nano/microindentation. Experimental datasets will inform polycrystalline deformation models to predict material response over a variety of creep conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16549: Thermal Conductivity Measurement of Irradiated Metallic Fuel Using TREAT | University of Pittsburgh | $500,000 | This project intends to provide accurate thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity data with microstructure characterization of metallic (U-Pu-Zr) fuel as a function of burnup and attain fundamental understanding of the thermal conductivity of the irradiated fuel to inform and validate computational models. This will be accomplished using an innovative thermal wave technique in the Transient Reactor Test Facility at the Idaho National Laboratory, with the Minimal Activation Reusable Capsule Holder. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17002: Remote Laser-based Nondestructive Evaluation for Post-Irradiation Examination of ATF Cladding | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | To enable advanced nondestructive characterization techniques for light water reactor fuels that can be applied to the cladding coating, a remote nondestructive evaluation post irradiation inspection approach will be developed. This technique will measure the cladding coating layer thickness and detect defects within the cladding such as corrosion, micro-cracking and delamination. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17276: Radiation-Induced Swelling in Advanced Nuclear Fuel | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,989 | The microstructural evolution of advanced fuel (uranium carbide and uranium nitride) under fission-fragment type radiation has not been studied and remains unclear. This project will utilize advanced synchrotron X-ray characterization using microgram samples to obtain detailed nanoscale information on radiation-induced volumetric swelling and microstrain. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16848: Metal-Functionalized Membranes for Radioiodine Capture | University of Utah | $799,031 | This proposed research will investigate high-surface area (>300 m2/g) metal-functionalized membranes. These novel chemically durable and mechanically robust membranes are formed using an aqueous fabrication process, which results in an interconnected porosity that is highly controllable, providing hierarchical structures ranging from the nano- to micrometer-scales. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17350: Development and Experimental Validation of Pitting and SCC Models for Welded Stainless Steel Dry Storage Containers Exposed to Atmospheric Environments | University of Virginia | $799,027 | The specific goals of this project are to: (a) validate the maximum pit size model for dry storage canister relevant corrosion conditions as well as quantifying the effects of limited cathodic current on stress corrosion cracking (SCC) kinetics, (b) demonstrate a means to quantitatively rank the risk of SCC based on measurable parameters, (c) perform probabilistic predictions of SCC growth, and (d) validate the model predictions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16879: Proactive Hybrid Nuclear with Load Forecasting | Brigham Young University | $799,933 | This project develops new capabilities of design and dispatch optimization of nuclear hybrid energy systems (NHES) in the "Risk Analysis Virtual Environment (RAVEN)" modelling software. Blended (physics-based and data-driven) machine learning will be applied to forecast demand and production of thermal and electrical loads. Two experimental case studies are proposed to test the software developments with a lab-scale thermal energy storage and with a large district energy system. As a final step, the software developments will be generalized to other NHES. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17461: Development and Evaluation of Neutron Thermalization Integral Benchmarks for Advanced Reactor Applications | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | This project will develop integral benchmarks that aim to examine thermal neutron scattering data for graphite (ideal and nuclear), light water, and molten salt. The benchmark evaluations will be contributed to the International Handbook of Evaluated Reactor Physics Benchmark Experiments (IRPhEP) database. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17219: Using Integral Benchmark Experiments to Improve Differential Nuclear Data Evaluations | University of New Mexico | $400,000 | This project will use the results of integral benchmark experiment to inform differential nuclear data evaluations and improve the predictive capability of modeling and simulation (M&S) tools. This goal will be accomplished by developing capabilities to assess the sensitivity of integral benchmark results to evaluated nuclear data parameters, and by using data assimilation tools to directly adjust the evaluated data parameters and improve the accuracy of M&S tools. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16743: Paths Forward for Nuclear Energy: Using a Nationwide Post-Stratified Hierarchical Model to Facilitate Matching of New Nuclear Technologies to Receptive Host Communities | University of Oklahoma | $390,393 | This project will enable deployment of advanced nuclear technologies by developing a model, and an accompanying web-based tool that can be utilized by technology entrepreneurs, that identifies public support for siting new nuclear technologies at very local spatial scales across the US. The model will employ hierarchically structured, post stratified analysis of the largest US pooled-time series dataset on geocoded public support for nuclear technologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16995: A Cyber-Attack Detection Platform for Cyber Security of Digital Instrumentation and Control Systems | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,995 | The proposed research will develop a robust cyber-attack detection system (CADS) for monitoring digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems. The project will develop a robust research tool for evaluating cyber defense of digital I&C systems and provide a framework for a cyber-attack detection system that provides continuous assurance of the security of digital I&C systems in nuclear power plants (NPPs). | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17327: Multi-Timescale Nuclear-Renewable Hybrid Energy Systems Operations to Improve Electricity System Resilience, Reliability, and Economic Efficiency | University of Texas at Dallas | $800,000 | The overarching objective of this project is to develop a multi-timescale nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (N-R HESs) operations framework to provide different types of grid products. The project will model and analyze the capabilities of N-R HESs to provide power grid services at different timescales ranging from seconds to days, such as day-ahead unit commitment, flexible ramping (5-45 minutes), regulation reserves (1-5 minutes), and frequency response (less than seconds). | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17192: The Design and Investigation of Novel Mechanical Filters for Molten Salt Reactors | Abilene Christian University | $762,246 | Researchers will develop a novel mechanical filtration system. The project will include the collection of filter media performance data and filter regeneration performance data for a novel sintered nickel-based filter prototype. The project will also provide a filter design that facilitates remote filter removal, cooling, replacement, and assay of fissile material hold-up in the filter media. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16980: Determining the Effects of Neutron Irradiation on the Structural Integrity of Additively Manufactured Heat Exchangers for Very Small Modular Reactor Applications | Auburn University | $400,000 | Researchers will determine how to best use laser-powder bed fusion additive manufacturing methods for generating radiation-resistant channel/pore-embedded structures from Inconel (alloy 625 or 718) nickel-based superalloys for special purpose reactor (i.e. very small modular reactor) heat exchangers. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17413: Validated, Multi-Scale Molecular Dynamics Simulations to Predict the Thermophysical Properties of Molten Salts Containing Fuel, Fission, and Corrosion Products | Brigham Young University | $798,291 | Researchers will use first principles molecular dynamics (FPMD) simulations on molten salts containing impurities including fuel, fission products, and corrosion products. These will be used to develop a classical molecular dynamics (CMD) potential. CMD will then be used to predict properties for a wide variety of salt compositions and temperatures, and physical property measurements will be performed to validate those predictions. Property correlations will be developed from this data. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17183: Mixing of helium with air in reactor cavities following a pipe break in HTGRs | City College of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct separate effects tests to obtain experimental validation data on mixing of helium and air in reactor building cavities during and after blowdown in HTGRs. Air and helium concentrations, and gas mixture velocity and temperature fields will be measured in simulated reactor cavities. An existing helium flow loop will be used as the source of high pressure/high temperature helium for injection into the cavities and different break configurations will be experimentally investigated. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16391: GuArDIAN: General Active Sensing for conDItion AssessmeNt | Duke University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a dependable, autonomous or semi-autonomous (i.e. low human involvement), and minimally disruptive framework for monitoring equipment and components in nuclear reactors. The project will develop GUARDIAN; a robust active sensing framework through the integration of model-based inference and mobile actuating/sensing robots. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17251: Measuring Mechanical Properties of Select Layers and Layer Interfaces of TRISO Particles via Micromachining and In-Microscope Tensile Testing | Idaho State University | $799,815 | Researchers will characterize the strength of TRISO-coated particle layers and interfaces using FIB micro-machining and in-TEM tensile testing. Tensile test samples from coating layers of (1) unirradiated surrogate (fuel) TRISO particles, (2) unirradiated fueled TRISO particles and (3) irradiated fueled TRISO particles will be studied. Results of this project will both benefit and leverage the AGR Program. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17185: Demonstrating Reactor Autonomous Control Framework using Graphite Exponential Pile | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will demonstrate a detection-prediction-feedback framework for nuclear system autonomous control. It will adopt multiple detector channels to enable control feedback to spatially dependent perturbations. It will also utilize high-fidelity solutions trained surrogate models for real-time prediction and decision-making. In addition to the method development, the proposal will entail a first-of-a-kind engineering demonstration using the MIT Graphite Exponential Pile (MGEP). | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16754: Simultaneous Corrosion/Irradiation Testing in Lead and Lead-Bismuth Eutectic: The Radiation Decelerated Corrosion Hypothesis | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $762,823 | Researchers will test candidate FeCrSi and F/M alloys in a new, simultaneous corrosion/radiation facility to try to identify an alloy that will satisfy all requirements for Lead Fast Reactor structural materials. Microstructural characterization, mechanical property testing, and corrosion tests, both during irradiation and following ion/He pre-conditioning, will assess how irradiation affects corrosion, potentially slowing it. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17173: Ni-based ODS alloys for Molten Salt Reactors | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | The objective of this work is to (i) propose and develop a new Nickel (Ni) based Oxide Dispersion-Strengthened (ODS) alloy that can be used for structural applications in Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) and other nuclear reactor harsh environments, (ii) to demonstrate that its high temperature mechanical properties are adequate for MSR operating temperatures, (iii) to demonstrate its radiation damage resistance through ion irradiation testing and (iv) to demonstrate its improved corrosion resistance in MSR environment. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17037: Investigation of HTGR Reactor Building Response to a Break in Primary Coolant Boundary | Purdue University | $799,832 | Researchers will perform a series of experiments to simulate HTGR reactor building response due to a break in the primary coolant boundary in a well-scaled test facility to obtain spatial distribution of oxygen concentration, perform analysis of the whole system response with 1-D thermal hydraulics codes and use CFD to make detailed localized predictions. The tests will be carried out with different locations and sizes of the breaks to create various vent and flow paths in the reactor cavity. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17093: Integrating Multi-modal Microscopy Techniques and the MOSAIC Simulation Environment to Assess Changes in the Physical Properties and Chemical Durability of Concrete Following Radiation Exposure | University of California, Los Angeles | $800,000 | Researchers will develop unprecedented multi-modal imaging methodologies that integrate multiple microscopy techniques. The team will develop a generalizable protocol for quantifying the changes in physical properties and chemical durability of concrete and concrete constituents (minerals and aggregates) following radiation exposure. The imaging analyses will be input into the MOSAIC framework to reveal the nature and extent of degradation that is expected to result. The outcomes offer insights that are needed to enable and inform second license renewals. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17167: Atomistically Informed and Experimentally Validated Model for Helium Bubble Growth in Welded Irradiated Metals | University of Florida | $797,861 | Researchers will construct a validated computational model for He bubble growth on grain boundaries in irradiated Fe-Ni-Cr microstructures, including intergranular fracture, as a function of material conditions and welding heat input. This model will be based on the phase-field methodology, leveraging numerical solvers in the MOOSE simulation platform, with critical inputs and validation provided by both atomic-level simulations and experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16909: Learning-based Computational Study of the Thermodynamic, Structural, and Dynamic Properties of Molten Salts at the Atomic and Electronic Scale and Experimental Validations | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will obtain the thermophysical, thermochemical, and transport properties, construct the phase diagrams, and build empirical physical models of molten salts that are relevant to Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) with first-principles accuracy using molecular dynamics simulations driven by machine-learned high-dimensional neural network potentials combined with neutron/X-ray scattering and thermodynamic experimental validations. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16298: I-PRA Decision-Making Algorithm and Computational Platform to Develop Safe and Cost-Effective Strategies for the Deployment of New Technologies | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an integrated probabilistic risk assessment decision-making algorithm to support risk-and-cost-informed decision-making related to the deployment of new technologies. The project will enhance the financial analysis module and the challenging interface of social and technical systems to advance the algorithm. The project will conduct a case study for evaluating the safety impact and cost-effectiveness of FLEX strategies to support operational flexibility. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16802: Evaluation of Semi-Autonomous Passive Control Systems for HTGR Type Special Purpose Reactors | University of Michigan | $400,000 | Researchers will investigate the use of variable flow controllers and a variable reflector as passive or semi-autonomous reactivity control mechanisms for multi-module HTGR type special purpose reactors. This applies to the commercially developed special purpose reactor concepts from HolosGen. The incorporation of these systems will reduce the movable parts count and enable more robust load follow capabilities over broader power ranges and local and global reactivity control. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17467: Understanding the Speciation and Molecular Structure of Molten Salts Using Laboratory and Synchrotron based In Situ Experimental Techniques and Predictive Modeling | University of Nevada, Reno | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology to accurately determine the structure and speciation of the molten salt electrolyte using laboratory-based spectroscopic techniques (Raman and UV-Vis-NIR) and synchrotron-based (scattering and absorption) techniques, in combination with computational modeling. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17231: Prevention of Common Fault-Trigger Combinations for Qualification of Digital Instrumentation and Control Technology | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will provide an effective design evaluation approach based on prevention of concurrent triggering conditions to eliminate common-cause failures (CCF) and enable qualification of digital I&C technology for application in nuclear plant modernization. The research involves classifying commonality among digital devices, categorizing faults and triggering conditions, determining fault-trigger relationships, and defining preventive design measures to resolve the potential for CCF. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17087: Economic Risk-Informed Maintenance Planning and Asset Management | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will provide a holistic framework for cost-minimizing risk-informed maintenance planning, including inspection. They will develop a two-tier framework that coarsely minimizes the total maintenance cost during the remaining normal operating cycle and uses the outputs of the first model to maximize the financial impact of these activities in the short term. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16811: Liquid Metal-cooled Fast Reactor Instrumentation Technology Development | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will explore three different areas that will help to improve commercialization of SFRs and to aid in testing for the VTR. These include: 1. Advancement in understanding of low prandtl number heat transfer 2. Testing of compact heat exchangers for use with sodium 3. Development of in pool submersible flow meters. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16954: Innovative In-Situ Analysis and Quantification of Corrosion and Erosion of 316 Stainless Steel in Molten Chloride Salt Flow Loops | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will use a thin-layer activation technique for the first time in molten salts, on 316H samples placed in natural convection and forced flow loops. The individual and synergistic effects of corrosion, irradiation and thermo-mechanical treatments will be evaluated in-situ to predict component service lifetimes and design limits. The effects of molten chloride flow velocity will also be assessed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17168: Fuel Salt Sampling and Enriching System Technology Development | Vanderbilt University | $799,989 | Researchers will combine insights from the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment with decades of advancements in applicable technologies into an enhanced Sampler Enricher (SE) concept to develop and test a flexible, reliable, and workable design. The prototype will then be tested in an existing salt loop. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16739: Improvements of Nuclear Data Evaluations for Lead Isotopes in Support of Next Generation Lead-Cooled Fast Systems | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | The objective of this project is to improve the accuracy of neutronics simulation of lead-based systems by improving the nuclear data of lead isotopes. The nuclear data for lead will be reevaluated with emphasis of the intermediate and fast energy regions that are required by reactor applications currently sought by several industrial entities. The deliverables of this project are new lead isotopes evaluations that will be candidates for inclusion in a future Evaluated Nuclear Data Library (ENDF) release. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 20-19373: Connecting Advanced High-Temperature X-ray and Raman Spectroscopy Structure/Dynamics Insights to High-Throughput Property Measurements | Boston University | $500,000 | Researchers will acquire molten salt structure and dynamics data at high-temperatures using high-energy x-ray techniques and Raman spectroscopy and relate them to their physical and chemical properties. High-throughput techniques will be developed to rapidly measure multiple high-temperature properties at one time. An understanding of the relationship of salt structure and dynamics to its properties will help to select and optimize melt chemistry in molten salt reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19371: Adsorption and Reduction of Uranium in Engineered Barrier Systems: Effects of Iron and Heat | California State University, East Bay | $800,000 | Reseachers will investigate uranium sorption and abiotic reduction processes in iron-rich montmorillonite systems as a function of solution chemistry and temperature. The team will develop a surface complexation model that can account for both uranium adsorption and reduction, and hence reduce the uncertainties associated with uranium mobility in iron-rich environments with engineering barrier systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19831: Optimizing Melt Processed Phosphate Glass Waste Forms via Composition-Property-Structure Correlations | Clemson University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and optimize highly durable and easily processable phosphate-based glass waste forms to immobilize the dehalogenated salt streams by tailoring the composition of the glasses. To complement the work conducted on glass waste forms at the national laboratories sponsored by the DOE-NE program, modified iron phosphate glass waste forms will be prepared and evaluated by the introduction of various glass modifiers (SnF2 and BaO) to the prototype glass compositions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19695: Quantifying radionuclide sorption to engineered barrier materials under elevated temperature and ionic strength conditions | Clemson University | $799,380 | Researchers will characterize actinide sorption to mineral surfaces and examine possible mechanisms of sorption at high temperature/ionic strength through examination of the effects of hydration and hydrolysis on actinide sorption. These data will provide an understanding of radionuclide behavior with engineered barrier materials. A greater understanding of these processes will reduce the uncertainty in strategies for sequestration of radionuclide bearing wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19789: Controlling Neptunium and Zirconium in Advanced Extraction Processes | Colorado School of Mines | $599,763 | Researchers will address continuing issues with separating neptunium and zironium in current separation techniques. They will use coupled optical and x-ray specroscopy, small angle scattering, equilibrium thermodynamics and chemical analysis to understand fundamental molecular-level behaviors of extracted Np and Zr. These techniques, using world-class irradiation facilities, will elucidate the specific chemistries underlying the problematic behavior in Np and Zr in radiation fields. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19660: Linear and nonlinear guided ultrasonic waves to characterize cladding of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researcherses will perform a combination of linear and nonlinear guided ultrasonic waves, integrated with new material behavior models to develop a non-destructive evaluation (NDE) approach for both quality control/quality assurance and in-service NDE characterization of the cladding integrity and bond strength. Current NDE techniques are effective for uncoated designs, but these coated fuels add new challenges, which will be addressed by this new approach. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19678: Flexible Hard Ceramic Coatings by Ultrasonic Spray Mist-CVD for Dry Storage Canisters of Spent Nuclear Fuel and Waste | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop advanced flexible hard ceramic coatings using ultrasonic spray mist-chemical vapor deposition technique manufacturing process to deposit on dry storage canisters. The team will test resistance to corrosion, heat, wear and hydrogen permeation thgourh microstructural characterization and material property evaluation. The ultimate goal is to enhance the long term reliability of spent nuclear fuel dry storage canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19797: High Throughput Computational Platform for Predictive Modeling of Thermochemical and Thermophysical Properties of Fluoride Molten Salts | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | Researchers will (1) develop an open-source high throughput (H-T) computational platform to understand, predict, and evaluate thermochemical and thermophysical properties of molten salts as demonstrated in the F-(K-Li-Na)-(Cr-Fe)-U system and (2) provide H-T approaches (CALPHAD modeling and AIMD simulations) and open-source codes together with thermodynamic models of molten salts and public-accessible databases verified by targeted experiments for the molten salt research community. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19627: Chemical Interaction and Compatibility of Uranium Nitride with Liquid Pb and Alumina-forming Austenitic Alloys | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | Researcherswill address critical issues with the compatibility and chemcial interations of uranium nitride fuel, alumina-forming austenitic alloys and lead coolants/sublayers. They will obtain critical data of fuel-coolant-cladding interactions and compatibility to evaluate key parameters of operation temperature, fuel impurities and coolant chemistry. This data will provide key operation windows and parameters for deployment of lead-cooled fast reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19924: First-principles free energies by hybrid thermodynamic integration for phase equilibria and fission product solubility in molten salts | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | Researchers will predict phase equilibria and solubility of fission products in molten salts using a novel hybrid framework for thermodynamic integration combining first-principles, molecular dynamics and continuum methods to calculate free energies. They will be benchmarked using Bayesian-targeted calorimetric, in-situ diffraction and spectroscopic experiments. The project will provide microscopic insights and quantitative parameters necessary for reliable thermophysical modeling of molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19939: Gallium Oxide Schottky Diode Detectors for Measurement of Actinide Concentrations from Measured Alpha Activities in Molten Salts | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and test, to high temperatures, a Schottky diode alpha particle detector that is based on the rapidly emerging ultrawide band gap semiconductor material gallium oxide. Ga2O3 Schottky diode detectors offer the potential of detecting alpha particles at high temperatures, with better resolution than SiC Schottky diode detectors, which the team has previously developed for similar purposes. These detectors could be used in pyrochemical processing streams and molten salt reactors with potential application in other reactor concepts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19966: Evaluating hydroxypyridinone-based ligands for actinide and fission products recovery in used fuels | University of California, Berkeley | $600,000 | Researchers will pursue novel chemical separation approaches for advanced reactor used fuels treatments and recycling, by leveraging the unique actinide and lanthanide coordination properties of hydroxypyridinone-based aqueous chelators. These chelators have not been tested in extreme conditions and this work would test potential process performance with a focus on radiation-induced changes and oxidation state distribution. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19545: Femtosecond Laser Ablation Machining & Examination - Center for Active Materials Processing (FLAME-CAMP) | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop, build, and test a femtosecond laser ablation machining & examination tool that can be deployed in a hot cell environment enabling microscopy sample fabrication, isotope and elemental analysis, and thermal analysis. The technology allows for non-contact materials processing, even through glass windows, potentially preventing contamination of surrounding areas and tools. Such a multi-function tool with high throughput material processing will accelerate the research on fuel and cladding tremendously. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19198: Functionalized clay buffer materials for the long-term sequestration of technetium and iodine | University of Florida | $800,000 | Researcherswill develop synthesize, test, and model novel functionalized clay buffer materials for the long-term sequestration of iodine and technetium. The project will also focus on key experimantal parameters and modeling of how the novel clay buffer material will sequester iodine and technetium species. Novel materials will support DOE's efforts to design improved geologic repository barrier systems and optimize repository performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19209: Investigation on multicomponent solubility in LiCl-KCl eutectic chloride salts using combinatorial approach | University of Idaho | $400,000 | Researchers will perform irradiation experiments to understand how gamma radiation changes trivalent metal ion complex coordination structure and extraction characteristics during the ALSEP process. This work will focus on understanding the types of degradation products that are formed during the extraction process and what effects these degradation products have on process performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19713: Multifunctional Laser Processing for Repair and Mitigation of Pitting and Cracks in Welded Stainless Steel Dry Storage Canisters | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a strategic solution that combines laser cleaning and laser peening for removal of surface contamination and mitigation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in welded stainless steels. Laser cleanning will remove surface contamination and reduce pitting caused by corrosion. Laser peening will then be used to mitigate stress corrosion cracking and provide enhanced corrosion resistance. The portability of the laser system means the system will be able to be deployed in the field. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19188: Single- and Polycrystalline Diamond Electrodes for Spectroelectrochemical Characterization of Various Molten Salts | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $600,000 | Researchers will develop optically transparent electrodes for spectroelectrochemical measurements in chloride- and fluoride-based radioactive molten salts. The primary electrode material will be boron-doped diamond. Measurements will elucidate important electrochemical properties of nuclear fuel and fission products such as redox potential, diffusion coefficient, and electron transfer stoichiometry. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19641: Mitigating stress corrosion cracking in austenitic stainless-steel canister welds using peening techniques | University of Nevada, Reno | $799,950 | Researchers seek to understand the mechanisms of pitting/SCC resistance of welds as affected by a) compressive stress b) surface texture modification and c) microstructural change in the substrate surface resulting from laser shock peening, shot peening, ultrasonic impact peening and laser surface texturing. The study will recommend the best peening and surface texturing process conditions for mitigation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in 304L welds. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19704: Multicomponent Thermochemistry of Complex Chloride Salts for Sustain-able Fuel Cycle Technologies | University of Pittsburgh | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive thermodynamic database of multicomponent chloride salts through a collaboration between experts in Gibbs energy modeling and thermochemical experiments. A thermochemical database of the multicomponent chloride system KCl-LiCl-NaCl-UCl3-LnCl3 (Ln: La, Pr, Nd) will be developed using the CALPHAD (Calculation of Phase Diagrams) method with supported ab initio calculations and thermal analysis experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19506: Engineered composite patch with NDE inspection for repair and mitigation of SCC in nuclear spent fuel dry storage canister | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an innovative 'engineered composite patch' that can absorb moisture, neutralize chloride, and prevent stress corrosion cracking from further growth. This 'patch' with have in integrated non-destructive evaluation capability using laser utrasonic characterization methods to montior quality and performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19374: Maintaining and building upon the Halden legacy of In-situ diagnostics | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will develop innovative instrumentation focusing on temperature and strain measurements to fill the void left by the Halden reactor and to enhance the experimental capabilities in the Transient Reactor Test Facility (TREAT) located at Idaho National Laboratory. The team will develop a fiber optic sensor system that offers an inherent resistance to electromagnetic interference unlike currently used sensors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19076: Investigation of Degradation Mechanisms of Cr-coated Zirconium Alloy Cladding in Reactivity Initiated Accidents (RIA) | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $500,000 | Researchers will investigate the thermal, mechanical, and irradiation response of chromium-coated zirconium alloy claddings under RIA conditions, in comparison to uncoated Zr-alloy cladding. The outcome of the project will be used for anticipated licensing applications to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), thereby accelerating use of coated accident tolerant fuel concepts in U.S. commercial power reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19318: Surface Peening and Hybrid Surface Engineering Approaches to Mitigate Initiation and Resurgence of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dry Cask Storage Stainless Steel Canisters | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,838 | Researchers will develop and evaluate a wide range of surface peening treatments, as well as hybrid surface treatments to mitigate initiation and growth of chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) in stainless-steel canisters for used nuclear fuel (UNF) dry cask storage. Canister mock-ups with prototypical fusion welds will be used for this study. Characterization and testing of microstructure, compressive stresses, corrosion and CISCC will be performed. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19614: New Coatings for Nuclear Fuel Waste Canister Storage and Transport | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop novel SiOCN(H) coatings for spent nuclear fuel canisters in order to support sustained nuclear reactor operation and safeguard nuclear waste storage, transport, and disposal, in both terrestrial and marine environments. The novel coating will specifically address pitting corrosion and stress corrosion cracking in spent nuclear fuel canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19382: Separated waste stream immobilization of iodine and offgas caustic scrubber solution | Washington State University | $400,000 | Researchers will produce a set of waste forms from separation of iodine from the caustic offgas scrubber solution. The primary caustic scrub containing iodine, halides, and carbonate will be immobilized in a glass-bonded composite of cancrinite/sodalite. The iodine-loaded silver sorbent will be stripped of iodine, converted to NaI, and immobilized into a separate durable glass-bonded iodosodalite waste form. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19912: Validation of Robustness in TCR Design Strategies | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will perform sensitivity analysis (SA) and uncertainty quantification (UQ) of TCR design parameters and relevant physical phenomena, using open-source time dependent Monte-Carlo code (OpenMC), NQA1 qualified commercial codes (STARCCM+), and ABAQUS for thermal-hydraulics and structural mechanics. The SA/UQ analysis will provide key insights to allow for development of performance metrics of robustness for autonomous operation sensors, by processing signals such as neutron flux, temperature and strains, as wll as inform the needed robustness for AI by enveloping the attainable level of decision making by the software. | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 | |
| NEUP Project 20-19216: Creation of Multiple Effect Evaporator and Combined Cycle Modelica Modules, and Optimization of Potable Water Generation from Saltwater Sources | North Carolina State University | $498,532 | Researchers will develop models of Multiple Effect Evaporators and Combined Cycle Gas Turbine systems to be used within the Modelica framework, with an end goal of creating an energy park that can supply its own energy and water through Small Modular Reactor nuclear systems and/or Combined Cycle Gas Turbine Systems with brackish to brine water sources. These same models will be capable of being implemented into larger models of grid independent and near independent energy parks located about military bases, large manufacturing facilities, and in small communities where freshwater is limited. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19590: Benchmark Evaluation of Transient Multi-Physics Experimental Data for Pellet Cladding Mechanical Interactions | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop an integral benchmark evaluation based on available experimental data from cold ramp tests performed at the Studsvik testing R2 reactor. Transient multiphysics benchmark evaluations are needed to support validation of the NEAMS ToolKit and the VERA suite. This research will focus on pellet cladding interaction and pellet cladding mechanical interaction and their associated events. The benchmark will be prepared for inclusion in the IRPhEP handbook. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19837: Reinforcement Learning Validation Framework for Quality Assurance of AI-guided Additive Manufacturing Digital Platforms | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will address the need to qualify the risk associated with AM fabricated nuclear reactor parts by incorporating a novel rendition of a well-established artificial intelligence learning strategy, the multi-armed bandit reinforcement learning (RL). The RL framework will be developed and demonstrated using TCR data and its associated digital platform. This research will assimilate in-process sensor data and physics-based simulation data to calculate risk measures in the form of failure probabilities for the AM parts. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19363: Integrated Solar & Nuclear Cogeneration of Electricity & Water using the sCO2 Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,427 | Researchers will design and model a renewable, nuclear Integrated Energy System (IES), compatible with the RAVEN/Modelica framework, for co-generation of cost competitive electricity and clean water. The components of the IES to be included are concentrated solar power, the supercritical CO2/sCO2 cyle, multi-effect distillation, and the lead-cooled fast reactor. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19066: Engineering-Informed, Data-Driven Degradation Modeling, Prognostics and Control for Radiation-induced Void Swelling in Reactor Steels | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will advance the capability to model, predict and control void swelling in irradiated structural components through developing engineering-informed, advanced data-driven statistical and machine learning techniques. Excess swelling not only leads to dimensional instability, but also can cause severe embrittlement of internal materials. The proposed efforts will ensure more effective regulation, aging management and license renewal. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19795: A High-Fidelity Novel and Fast Multigroup Cross Section Generation Method for Arbitrary Geometry and Spectrum | Georgia Institute of Technology | $600,000 | Researchers will develop a fast high-fidelity multigroup cross section generation method for arbitrary geometry configurations and energy spectra by developing a response-based high order perturbation method to perform hybrid stochastic-deterministic local transport calculations. The proposed method will be implemented as independent modules that can be easily embedded into any neutron transport or diffusion code and also be used as a standalone cross section generator. The modules will provide data that can interface with the associated NEAMS toolkit and workbench user interfaces to enable advanced neutronics tools that will perform high-fidelity multigroup multiphysics steady-state and transient calculations that capture and represent the complex resonance interactions and core environmental effects which exist in heterogeneous reactors, including advanced reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19968: Experimental Investigations and Numerical Modeling of Near-wall and Core Bypass Flows in Pebble Bed Reactors | Texas A&M University | $600,000 | Researchers will establish a highly coordinated, concurrent experimental and computational effort combining high-resolution turbulence simulations (including Nek5000, Star-CCM+) and experiments to deepen physical understanding and address long standing modeling inaccuracies related to near wall and bypass flow effects in pebble bed reactors. The project's acquired extensive database will be used to derive closure models and correlations needed for porous media code, such as Pronghorn. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19864: Development of innovative overlapping-domain coupling between SAM and NEK5000 | University of Michigan | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a robust, multi-scale coupling scheme between the SAM code and the CFD code, NEK5000, based on a novel overlapping domain approach. The developed coupling will be validated by using experiments specifically designed for the validation of multi-scale coupled codes. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-20074: Characterization of Plenum to Plenum Natural Circulation flows in a High Temperature Gas Reactor (HTGR) | CUNY, City College of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will obtain and provide experimental data on the plenum-to-plenum natural circulation flows in a typical high temperature gas reactor using helium and nitrogen over a wide range of temperatures and pressures to simulate natural circulation under both pressurized and depressurized conduction cooldown scenarios. The results of the project will yield new data and complement other very high temperature related studies. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19042: Flexible Siting Criteria and Staff Minimization for Micro-Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $440,517 | Researchers will develop siting criteria that are tailored to micro-reactors deployable in densely-populated areas by comparing the characteristics of the MIT research reactor with those of leading micro-reactor concepts, and evaluate whether and how the MIT research reactor design basis and associated regulations are applicable to micro-reactors. A model of operations for micro-reactors that would minimize the staffing requirements will also be conceptualized. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-20045: Highly Compact Steam Generators for Improved Economics of Small Modular Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will design and build a compact steam generator (CSG) test section that can be easily modified for different flow paths and geometries, as well as modify an existing loop to accept the test section. The conceptual optimized CSG system design, which could be deployed in small modular reactors, will be informed by CFD simulations to determine critical characteristics of the test section. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19205: Robust bullet-time tagging and tracking system based on computer vision for individual ex-core TRISO-fueled pebble identification | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a novel, validated, robust bullet-time tagging and tracking system, based on computer vision techniques, to tag and track each individual pebble in pebble bed reactors. The effort will utilize Residence Time Distribution and Radioactive Particle Tracking techniques to validate and refine the developed method, using a continuous cold flow pebble bed experimental setup. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19625: Corrosion Sensitivity of Stainless Steels in Pressurized Water Reactor Water Chemistry: Can KOH replace LiOH in PWRs? | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will perform a series of corrosion and stress corrosion tests on unirradiated alloys to determine the possibility of switching from LiOH to KOH to control the pH in nuclear reactors without worsening the corrosion behavior of the structural alloys used in pressurized water reactor core internal components. The impacts of such a change and the consequent water chemistry alterations on the corrosion processes and nucleaer power plant core-internal component service-life will be assessed and better understood. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19735: Experiments for Modeling and Validation of Liquid-Metal Heat Pipe Simulation Tools for Micro-Reactor | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will produce validation data for the heat pipe code, Sockeye, by measuring the internal thermal-hydraulic parameters of a single-heat pipe and the performance of an integrated multi-heat-pipe system in various operation scenarios. The results of this project will generate more liquid metal heat pipe validation data, which is currently lacking and needed to support micro-reactor design and licensing activities. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19367: Investigation of Novel Nickel-Based Alloys for Molten Chloride Fast Reactor Structural Applications | University of Cincinnati | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate and establish the scientific foundations for the development of promising Ni-Mo-W-Cr-Al-X alloys with a superior balance of properties compared to current materials for high temperature structural applications in molten chloride salt fast reactors. The project couples critical experiments with a high-value integrated computational materials engineering approach. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19693: Evaluation of micro-reactor requirements and performance in an existing well-characterized micro-grid | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will evaluate the opportunities and challenges of operating micro-reactors in decentralized power generation applications and the potential for deployment in established micro-grids with diverse power generation sources. By using a well-characterized prototypic environment platform, the Modelica-based Hybrid Energy System, the market potential for deployment of micro-reactors on campuses and other similar existing micro-grids will be quantified. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19195: The effect of LWR primary coolant water chemistry (LiOH vs. KOH) on stainless steel: An integrated experimental and computational study of the corrosion response of stainless steel for different surface microstructures and mechanica | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will study the effect of surface microstructure, mechanical stress factors, and radiation damage on the corrosion response of stainless steel under two different alkaline pressurized water reactor primary water chemistry conditions. The project will involve investigation of mechanical stress factors such as strain rate, residual stress, deformation induced persistent slip bands, dpa damage, and fatigue cracks and modeling to understand the physical phenomena associated with the measured corrosion response and inform the U.S. nuclear industry regarding KOH. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19491: Identifying and prioritizing sources of uncertainty in external hazard probabilistic risk assessments | University of Maryland, College Park | $799,979 | Researchers will develop a method for identifying and prioritizing sources of uncertainty in external hazard probabilistic risk assessment for nuclear power plants, with particular emphasis on uncertainties associated with hazard characterization. External flooding wil be utilized as the demonstration hazard during this project, while a common taxonomy for communicating uncertainties across a broad range of external hazards will be created. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19737: Innovative Enhanced Automation Control Strategies for Multi-unit SMRs | University of Michigan | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an innovative, enhanced automation control framework for small modular reactors (SMRs) that supports control of multiple units operating in a variety of reactor core conditions. Through these enhancements, SMR technology gains improved marketability through potential deployment to a broader range of markets and can also lead to reduced operating and maintenance costs for a SMR site, increasing the overall profitability. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19954: Deployment Pathways of Small Modular Reactors in Electric Power, Industrial, and Other Niche Markets to Achieve Cost Reductions and Widespread Use | University of Michigan | $691,658 | Researchers will explore how to leverage two key value propositions for small modular reactors (SMR) in shifting market conditions, in order to achieve widespread market deployment: (1) participation in small and large power and industrial markets and (2) cost reductions via mass fabrication. The result of this work will be advanced power system modeling, optimized SMR design with thermal storage for power and industry markets, and new SMR deployment pathways. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19752: Development and Demonstration of Scalable Fluoride Salt Pump Seals and Bearings for FHRs | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and demonstrate scalable advanced bearings and seals of fluoride salt pumps for fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactors. The systematic approach to be used will employ both experimental and numerical methods to investigate the static and dynamic performance of fluoride-salt-lubricated bearings and high-temperature seals. The outcomes of this research will directly contribute to the reliability, safety, design, and operation of the fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactor power plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19544: A Holistic Artificial Intelligence Tool to Mitigate Human Factor Uncertainty in Operation and Maintenance | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a holistic artificial intelligence tool to help the detection and mitigation of human factors errors in nuclear power plants. The tool will increase the efficiency of various activities such as testing, inspection, data collection, and interpretation, improve operation and maintenance decision-making, and reduce costs in nuclear power plants by minimizing the impact of human factors errors and providing warnings to mitigate them, when possible. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19524: Non-Intrusive Flow Monitoring for Liquid Metal and Molten Salt Cooled Reactors | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a first-of-its kind flow monitoring system with significantly enhanced capabilities for liquid metal fast reactors and other advanced reactors, such as molten salt reactors. The flow monitoring system will involve a proven and breakthrough fiber optic sensing technology that enables the harmonic-free interrogation of thousands of grating-based distributed interferometers along an optical fiber that is integrated into a sensing pad that can readily be installed at desired locations in the flow loop. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19671: Identifying Needed Fire Input Data to Reduce Modeling Uncertainty | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,393 | Researchers will identify fire parameters that have the largest impact on fire conditions, quantify those parameters contributing to uncertainties in the fire data through Monte Carlo simulation results, and use statistical analysis and machine learning models from the simulation results to assess existing data and recommend appropriate new fire tests to reduce uncertainties that are important to risk. With this information, researchers will develop a framework capable of determining the significant contributors to uncertainty in physical events that are relevant to the risk assessment and, then, determine the need for new experiments that would be of most value to reduce risk. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 21-24394: Computer vision and machine learning for microstructural qualification | Carnegie Mellon University | $497,518 | Quantifying and understanding microstructure is a key driver for performance-based materials qualification. In this proposal, well-curated data sets of microstructural images will be gathered and computer vision and machine learning will be applied to build quantitative deep learning frameworks to accelerate and enable qualification of nuclear materials based on microstructural features. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24156: Experimental thermofluidic validation of TCR fuel elements using distributed temperature and flow sensing | Kansas State University | $798,250 | The overall goal of this project will be to test the performance of 3D printed Transformational Challenge Reactor core geometry parts using existing Helium flow loops and distributed temperature, and velocity sensing systems. Thermal transport capabilities of scaled 3D printed ceramic core will be evaluated experimentally and measurements will be used to qualify computational models. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24636: Risk-informed Consequence-driven Physical Protection System Optimization for Microreactor Sites | Texas A&M University | $400,000 | This proposed project will utilize a risk-informed, consequence-driven analysis to develop an approach for "right-sizing" physical protection systems (PPS) for microreactors. The hypothesis presented for this proposal is that the explicit coupling of consequence modeling to PPS design will provide a similar benefit that can be applied prior to reactor construction. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24131: Total Mass Accounting in Advanced Liquid Fueled Reactors | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | A total mass determination method for nuclear materials accounting (NMA) in liquid-fueled molten salt reactors will be validated with fuel-bearing salt, mixed with a _+ radioisotope of known activity, that will be irradiated to reproduce the practical NMA scenario in a molten salt loop. Irradiated fuel salt will be sampled and measured for its mass and activity. The mass-to-activity ratio will be used to calculate the unknown salt mass in the original container. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24037: Design and intelligent optimization of the thermal storage and energy distribution for the TerraPower Molten Chloride Fast Reactor in an Integrated Energy System (IES) | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to explore the application of advanced reactors within Integrated Energy Systems, use extensive existing data from UIUC for model development and validation, and extend the predictions to larger grids and commercial applications. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24522: Targeted Materials Characterization and Testing of Additively Manufactured Metals and Ceramics to Inform Print/Build Data Analytics | University of Texas at San Antonio | $800,000 | A collaborative program between the University of Texas at San Antonio and Boise State University is proposed to supply materials testing and characterization data sets to be leveraged by the TCR program to inform build/print data analytics. With the data provided by the proposing team, correlations among steam oxidation performance, micromechanical properties, chemical composition, local microstructure, and location specific print/build data will be achieved. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24431: Location-specific material characterization of LPBF SS316L & IN718 TCR core structural materials | Utah State University | $800,000 | In this proposed work, we will experimentally characterize the spatial variability of the quasi-static (tensile), creep (strength and impression), and creep-fatigue properties as well as the underlying structures (microstructure and defect structures) for LPBF SS316L and IN718 components to be used as training data to the TCR program data-driven model. The resulting correlation will be used to drive the design process for an application as TCR core structural materials. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23978: Rapid, Non-Radioactive Methods for Prediction and Quantification of Radiolytic Radical Decomposition Products in Nuclear Separations | Clemson University | $399,999 | High-throughput, non-radioactive, radical assays will be used to determine decomposition of monoamide separations complexants. Radical assay results will be correlated with classic radiolytic damage results to develop predictive models for screening complexant stability. These models will aid in single-stage separations complexant optimization, in the transition from lab- to industrial-scale nuclear waste separations and, ultimately, could yield field tests for radiolytic damage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24350: Phosphate Mineral and Glass Waste Forms for Advanced Immobilization of Chloride and Fluoride-based Waste Streams | Clemson University | $600,000 | This proposal is intended to develop three waste form options for immobilizing the fluoride- and chloride-salt waste stream in highly durable and easily processable phosphate minerals and glasses, including phosphate apatite ceramic waste forms, phosphate glass waste forms, and phosphate glass-ceramic waste forms with apatite phase. Multiple monolithic waste form samples will be provided to DOE national laboratories for further testing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24292: Passive multimodal tomography for dry storage casks imaging using passive neutron and gamma dosimetry and cosmic ray muons | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | A method for multimodal tomography of dry storage casks will be developed to determine fuel relocation and cladding failures using passive neutrons and gamma emissions in combination with cosmic ray muons. The use of multimodal imaging will allow 3-D reconstructions of the dry storage cask that would be unachievable with any single radiation source. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24374: Effects of Radiolysis on Pertechnetate under Solvent Extraction Conditions, including Tri-Butyl Phosphate | CUNY, Hunter College | $399,624 | The overarching objective of the proposed work is to assess the impact of radiolysis on pertechnetate speciation during tri-butylphosphate (TBP) solvent extractions from the molecular level to macroscale. The research in this project is designed to understand the interplay of radiolysis, degradation product formation, other important redox active metals, and oxidation states of technetium on its speciation and distribution coefficients in solvent extraction processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24183: Experimental investigation and development of models and correlations for cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena in transient conditions in support of TREAT and the LWR fleet. | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Thermal-hydraulics transient heat transfer phenomena of relevance for the safety and the operation of the TREAT and light water reactors will be investigated. The performance of accident tolerant fuel materials during a reactivity initiated accident scenario and post-critical heat flux and reflood scenarios will be elucidated, as well as the development of models and correlations to be integrated into computational tools for the design and safety analysis of nuclear systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24666: Wireless Multifunctional Ultrasonic Arrays with Interdigital and Airborne Transducers for Monitoring Leakage and Corrosion Conditions of Welded Dry Storage Canisters | Mississippi State University | $800,000 | This project aims to develop and validate wireless, multifunctional, ultrasonic sensor arrays that enable on-demand, quantitative interrogation and real-time monitoring of both the canister leakage indicators (helium, helium/air mixture, internal pressure, and temperature) and corrosion conditions (free and/or vapor water). The developed arrays will be fully functional, wirelessly powered and communicated, and compact. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24188: Uranium recovery from used nuclear fuel using metal sulfides | Northwestern University | $400,000 | An alternative and original method to recover uranium from spent fuel is proposed. This method will utilize a new type of regenerable sorbent materials with high selectivity in capturing uranium from complex mixtures in acidic solutions, such as those found in used nuclear fuel of high-assay low-enriched uranium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24225: Characterizing Fuel Response and Quantifying Coolable Geometry of High-Burnup Fuel | Oregon State University | $800,000 | This study seeks to objectively determine, through empirical and numerical means, the actual impact of fuel dispersion in-core after fuel failure and whether high burnup dispersed fuel compromises coolable geometry and long-term cooling. The outcome of this study will yield an objective means of assessing two criteria (coolable geometry and long-term cooling) within the existing regulatory process to comprehensively understand whether it is feasible to increase burnup, while satisfying 10 CFR 50.46. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24288: Innovative Methods for Interrogation of DSC Internal Conditions | Oregon State University | $800,000 | The proposed work takes a two-pronged approach. The team will study techniques involving only external sensors and equipment, which could be deployed on existing dry storage canisters. In addition, small sensors located inside the canister that can be externally powered and read through the canister wall will also be investigated. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24439: Development of Novel Corrosion-Responsive Buffer Materials for Long-Term Immobilization of High-Level Nuclear Waste | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to develop a novel cementitious buffer material (CBM) for the safe disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF). The primary aim is to identify and characterize novel Mg-Al-P CBMs, complete with assessments of their repository stability as well as their transport and immobilization of radionuclides. The secondary aim is to use in-situ UT-EIS monitoring to understand the corrosive failure at the canister-CBM interface and provide long-term performance modeling of SNF packages. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24461: Estimation of low temperature cladding failures during an RIA transient | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers aim to create a multiphysics description of cladding response during a RIA, especially at high burnup, coupling reactor physics, thermal hydraulics and mechanics. The creation of a thermomechanical model in Bison will be the result of this project which can be used to evaluate the likelihood of low temperature cladding failures during a postulated RIA on a typical fuel rod (as these can lead to channel blockage), and thus identify the most important conditions to be studied at TREAT. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24460: Multiscale Modeling and Experiments for Investigating High Burnup LWR Fuel Rod Behavior Under Normal and Transient Conditions | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | The main objective of this work is to achieve a mechanistic understanding of and to develop a predictive model for the fuel rod behavior at high burn-up under both normal and transient conditions. Therefore, this study will provide the nuclear industry with validated, physics-based criteria to fuel fragmentation thresholds and rod mechanical integrity limits. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24388: Redox Chemistry of UO2 under Repository Relevant Conditions in the Presence of Zircaloy and Waste Canister Material | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | This project will seek to improve understanding of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) corrosion. Hydrothermal experiments of SNF with cladding and waste canister material will give insights into the redox potential formed due to secondary phase formation as consequence of corrosion in a failed canister. The experimentally derived data about secondary phase formation will be utilized for phase relationship analysis to decipher the redox conditions and thus provide source term for performance assessment models of deep geologic repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24006: High-fidelity modeling of fuel-to-coolant thermomechanical transport behaviors under transient conditions | University of Florida | $800,000 | The objective of the proposal is to develop a high-fidelity modeling tool that can capture some of the important phenomena in high burnup UO2 and ATF fuels during transient conditions. The BlueCRAB tool set will be improved and used to analyze TREAT loss of coolant accident experimental results. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24312: Accelerating the development of reliable and robust machine learning-based interatomic potentials for the prediction of molten salt structure and properties | University of Massachusetts Lowell | $400,000 | Machine learning-based interatomic potentials (MLIPs) used in molecular dynamics (MD) can accurately and efficiently predict molten salt properties. However many machine learning-based methods require large training sets, and can fail unpredictably. This project will overcome these challenges by developing a method for efficiently sampling diverse configurations from MD to train reliable and robust neural network potentials, and develop new models for predicting errors in MLIPs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24697: Dual External Leak Sensing and Monitoring for Dry Storage Canister | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers aim to develop two complementary external sensing methods to evaluate the integrity of DSC through internal pressure monitoring and helium leakage detection. The proposed diffuse ultrasonic wave method will be able to measure biaxial strains in the canister wall with high sensitivity and minimum temperature effects. An innovative capacitance MEMS sensor will be developed for helium concentration measurement in air based on the extremely low permittivity of helium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24449: Multi-modal Surface Acoustic Wave Sensing System for Pressure and Temperature monitoring of Spent Fuel Canisters | University of North Texas | $800,000 | University of North Texas (UNT) will collaborate with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to develop a multi-modal wireless passive SAW (Surface Acoustic Wave) sensor array, which are deployed on the outside surface of the canister, to monitor the strain of the canister and thus determine the inside pressure. In addition, the SAW strain sensor could also measure the surface temperature and potentially monitor helium gas leak. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24265: Fragmentation and Thermal Energy Transport of Cr-doped Fuels under Transient Conditions | University of Pittsburgh | $799,999 | This project will focus on multiple aspects of experimental testing and engineering-scale modeling in understanding thermal energy transport from high burnup, fractured/fragmented accident tolerant fuels, establishing a strong scientific basis to fill a critical knowledge data gap for modeling and simulation of transient fuel performance and safety, such as loss of coolant accident, for future integral testing and fuel licensing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24310: Fusion of Distributed Fiber Optics, Acoustic NDE, and Physics-Based AI for Spent Fuel Monitoring | University of Pittsburgh | $800,000 | The proposal will leverage new concepts in the fusion between fiber optic distributed acoustic sensing and advanced acoustic nondestructive evaluation techniques with artificial intelligence enhanced classification frameworks to quantitatively characterize the state of dry cask storage containers for spent fuel monitoring, externally and non-invasively, without introducing additional risks of failure. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24261: Internal Wireless Sensors for Dry Cask Storage | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | The effort will test the reliability of wireless, internal sensors after exposure to drying and storage conditions. These sensors are used to internally monitor temperature, pressure, and dose. Radiation shielding will also be designed to protect sensors during long-term storage. The effort will develop piezoelectric techniques for miniaturization of optical emission spectroscopy for internal monitoring of gas composition during drying and long-term storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24533: Non-destructive Evaluation of Dry Storage Canisters Using Acoustic Sensing | University of Southern California | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to develop a robust non-destructive evaluation (NDE) technique based on acoustic sensing to detect impurity gases in a sealed (welded) dry storage canister (DSC) using only measurements collected on the external surface of the DSC. The method is based on the time-of-flight analysis of acoustic signals propagating through the fill gas of a DSC, which is influenced by the composition, density and temperature of the propagation medium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23984: Safety Implications of High Burnup Fuel for a 2-Year PWR Fuel Cycle | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to perform safety analysis of high burnup fuel for a Westinghouse 4-Loop Pressurized Water Reactor. The work aims to identify potential opportunities and gaps for high burnup fuel by utilizing both well-established and modern methodologies to model reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, and plant system-level response that ultimately provide feedback to fuel performance analysis. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23985: Fuel-to-Coolant Thermomechanical Behaviors Under Transient Conditions | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This project will enhance the prediction of thermo-mechanical fuel-to-coolant heat transfer under transient conditions by using a coupled analysis and experiment approach. The effort is relevant to both high-burnup (> 62GWd/t) fuel applications and Accident Tolerant Fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24070: Modeling high-burnup LWR fuel behavior under normal operating and transient conditions | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This project aims to develop a high-burnup light water reactor fuel modeling capability to implement in the BISON code that would enable the accurate fuel rod behavior simulation during normal operation and design basis accidents, as wells as the identification of the rod life-limiting factors. Mechanistic engineering models will be developed for key phenomena, in particular, high burnup structure evolution, fuel fragmentation, and fission gas release. Traditional and accident tolerant fuels will be considered. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24033: Redox Chemistry in Nuclear Materials Storage Matrices under Ambient and Accelerated Aging Conditions | University of Washington | $800,000 | Deep geologic repositories must safely contain hazardous, high-activity nuclear wastes at geologic time-scales. However, such capability is centrally dependent on the element-specific redox chemistry within and at the interface of storage vessels. A comprehensive study of redox chemistry in cements used in long-term storage is proposed and emphasizes: 1) the actual consequences of accelerated aging modalities and 2) the novel use of newly available capabilities in advanced x-ray spectroscopies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24063: Post-DNB Thermo-mechanical Behavior of Near-term ATF Designs in Simulated Transient Conditions | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | The goals of the proposed research are to conduct coupled experimental and modeling investigations of thermo-mechanical performance of coated accident tolerant zirconium alloy claddings with simulated burnup doped fuels under thermal transients to predict complex thermal and mass transport phenomena of near-term Accident Tolerant Fuel designs in accident conditions. Experiments and modeling for understanding both cladding-coolant and fuel-coolant interactions will be performed. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24582: Machine-Learning-Accelerated Molecular Dynamics Approaches for Molten Salts | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $399,477 | New machine learning potential (MLP) approaches and new MLPs to enable rapid prediction of molten salt (FLiBe and Nal-MgCl2 with impurities) properties with near ab initio quantum mechanical accuracy will be developed. Uncertainty quantification with active learning and on-the-fly fitting will greatly accelerate MLP training. This work will support dramatically increased simulation speeds and associated data generation and understanding for molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24067: Development of Full Understanding of Mechanical-Chemical Coupling in Bentonite THMC processes | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | The central hypothesis is that mechanical stress in an engineered barrier can lead to pressure solution of solid minerals, leading to significant changes in pore water chemistry, which affects bentonite stability, longevity of the waste pack, and dissolution and migration of nuclides. The overall objective of this project is to develop full understanding of the role of pressure solution on pore water chemistry, the implications to large-scale heterogeneity, and THMC processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23987: Separate and Multi-Physics Effects IRPhEP Benchmark Evaluation using SNAP Experiments | Georgia Institute of Technology | $400,000 | The proposed project will develop an International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) mulitphysics microreactor benchmark evaluation based on data from the Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power (SNAP) program. This work will include systematic assessments of the experimental data with meticulous compilation and documentation, and validation of specific NEAMS tools to model effects that are unique to microreactors technologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24630: Integral Benchmark Evaluation of Zero-Power Tests and Multi-Cycle Depletion Experimental Data of TVA WB1 Cycles 1-3 | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | This project proposes to develop an integral benchmark evaluation of available experimental data for zero-power tests and multi-cycle depletion for consistent and comprehensive validation of both novel high-fidelity and traditional multi-physics tools. The benchmark evaluation will be based on operational and measured data from the Pressurized Water Reactor Watts Bar Unit 1 released by Tennessee Valley Authority. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24186: Regenerating Missing Experimental Parameters with Data-Assimilation Methods for MSRE Transient Benchmark Development and Evaluation | Virginia Commonwealth University | $400,000 | The proposed project will regenerate the undocumented basic data from available experimental data of the MSRE using advanced data-assimilation methods to facilitate the whole-loop modeling of the representative MSRE transients, and perform a thorough MSRE transient benchmark evaluation for the IRPhEP handbook. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24194: Implementation of improved quasi-static, time-dependent, multi-physics methodology in Shift | Georgia Institute of Technology | $600,000 | A practical reference calculation route for time-dependent coupled Monte Carlo calculations, using Shift, will be developed. The proposed framework will be tailored to depletion and slowly varying transients, but with the flexibility to perform thermal-hydraulic time-dependent calculations with minimal computational overheads. This method relies on a hybrid-resolution stochastic approach in conjunction with a substep technique. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24078: Material transport model development and integration in the System Analysis Module (SAM) code | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | This project proposes to develop and implement models for System Analysis Module, which accurately characterize the sink, source, and interaction terms of key material species that are or may be present in various advanced reactor designs. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24195: Enhancing Yellowjacket for Modeling the Impact of Radiation and Stress on the Corrosion of Molten-Salt-Facing Structural Components | University of Florida | $692,088 | The objective of this project is to add the capability to model the impact of radiation and stress on corrosion to the Yellowjacket code, as well as to use Yellowjacket to create surrogate models that will be added to engineering-scale codes like Grizzly. We will also collect new experimental data for validation that quantifies the impact of stress and radiation on corrosion of 316 stainless steel in molten fluoride salts. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24405: Development of a High-fidelity Flow Boiling Database for Validation of High-void-fraction Flow Regime Models | University of Michigan | $800,000 | The primary objective of this proposed research is to develop a comprehensive, high-resolution, multiphase computational fluid dynamics validation-grade flow boiling data from rod bundle geometry simulating current light water reactor fuel designs by taking advantage of the instrumentation and facility developed by the research team. In addition, the applicability of the data through initial evaluations of selected test cases using Nek-2P boiling closure models will be studied and demonstrated for two-phase flow simulations. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24471: Technical Basis of Microstructure Criteria and Accelerated Testing for Qualifying Additively-manufactured 316H Stainless Steel for High-temperature Cyclic Service | Auburn University | $800,000 | This project seeks to reveal the fundamental relationship for AM 316H SS working at 500-750 _C between additively-manufactured microstructures and creep/creep-fatigue properties through a multiscale experimental and modeling approach. The project also seeks to establish the technical basis for the microstructure criteria and accelerated testing method to support near-term nuclear qualification. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24152: Direct heating of chemical catalysts for hydrogen and fertilizer production using Microreactors | Kansas State University | $799,202 | This proposal presents a novel integration approach to deliver process heat from microreactors by directly heating the catalyst particles from the primary heat transfer fluid in a moving packed bed heat exchanger (MPBHX). In this design, the tube side of the MPBHX can be a heat pipe or primary Helium coolant as in several microreactor designs. The shell side will be moving catalyst particles, which will enter the high temperature chemical reactor upon heating. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24287: Investigating heat transfer in horizontally oriented HTGR under normal and PCC conditions | Kansas State University | $799,762 | Experimental research will be conducted to understand heat transfer inside the graphite matrix of horizontal microscale High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors. Existing high temperature test facilities will be used to simulate normal operation and Pressurized Conduction Cooldown. The focus of these experiments is to generate benchmark data under forced and natural convection with coupled multi-mode heat transfer in scaled-down prismatic blocks. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24104: Thermal Hydraulics Investigation of Horizontally Orientated Layout Micro HTGRs Under Normal Operation and PCC Conditions Using Integrated Advanced Measurement Techniques | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000 | The proposed novel work will make a significant pioneering contribution to advance the knowledge and understanding of horizontal micro-high temperature gas cooled reactors. Quantification of metrics will pertain to convective heat transfer coefficients along the channel and gaps, comparative rates of convective and radiative heat transfer, location of peak temperature and its temporal variation, timescales for onset of natural convection, local gas velocity profiles, gas dispersion, crossflows, and temperature profiles over channel diameter and gap thickness. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24004: An Open Source, Parallel, and Distributed Web-Based Probabilistic Risk Assessment Platform to Support Real Time Nuclear Power Plant Risk-Informed Operational Decisions | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | The main objective of the proposed work is to develop, demonstrate, and evaluate a probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) software platform needed to address the major challenges of the current legacy PRA tools. This includes better quantification speed, integration of multi-hazard models into traditional PRAs, and model modification/simplification and documentation automation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24228: Quantifying the Dynamic and Static Porosity/Microstructure Characteristics of Irradiated Graphite through Multi-technique Experiments and Mesoscale Modeling | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | This project proposes a joint experimental-computational approach to probe and quantify the porosity and microstructure characteristics of irradiated nuclear graphite grades and their influence on dimensional changes and turnaround behavior, as well as mechanical properties. The chief focus will be on quantifying both the static and dynamic porosity and crack characteristics in various graphitic phases through several experimental techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24247: Multi-scale Effects of Irradiation Damage on Nuclear Graphite Properties | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Irradiation induces microstructural damage in graphite, causing both dimensional and property (stiffness, strength and creep) changes as a function of the displacement damage and temperature. The biggest gap remains is the fundamental deformation mechanisms behind the property changes. Researchers propose to eliminate this gap in knowledge with a comprehensive, multi-scale experimental framework exploiting in-situ transmission electron and X-ray computed tomography. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23975: Development of Thermal Power Dispatch Simulation Tools for BWR Flexible Plant Operation and Generation | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | In the U.S. domestic light water reactor fleet, about one-third of operational nuclear power reactors are boiling water reactors (BWRs). Thermal power extraction technologies to be designed for BWRs will be different from those for pressurized water reactors due to differences in steam generation. This study proposes to investigate the thermal and electric power dispatch and required control algorithms for dynamic heat dispatch of up to 50% of the thermal energy from a BWR plant to a hydrogen plant. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24111: Experimental Investigations of HTGR Fission Product Transport in Separate-effect Test Facilities Under Prototypical Conditions for Depressurization and Water-ingress Accidents | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Experimental investigations will be performed for fission product (FP) lift-off, washoff, vaporization from plateout surfaces, and transport of FP at prototypical conditions representing depressurization and water-ingress accidents. Measurements will be performed on existing separate-effect facilities using intrusive and non-intrusive techniques to obtain shear stress, deposition velocity, thermal gradient, and gas impurity for advanced correlations. Modeling will be performed using system and computational fluid dynamics codes. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24644: High-Resolution Measurements and Advanced Modeling for Design Optimization of Advanced Small Modular Reactor Steam Generators | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Experiments and simulations will be performed to acquire multi-parameters of pressure drop, heat and mass transfer, and flow-induced vibration (FIV) effect for the design optimization of advanced small modular reactor steam generators (SMR SG). Measurements are performed on existing SMR SG facilities using intrusive/non-intrusive techniques to obtain velocity, temperature, pressure, heat flux, and FIV effects for various geo-dimensions, spacing, pitch angles. Simulations will be performed in StarCCM, Nek5000 and coupling with Diablo_ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24332: A Virtual Reality Environment for Human Reliability Assessment in the Context of Physical Security Attacks | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Recent studies have shown that the physical security workforce accounts for 20% of the entire workforce and, therefore, is responsible for significant operational and maintence costs. To reduce the security staffing, improve performance and reduce threats, modeling and simulation and models of attacker, defender and operator behavior could be employed. This proposal aims to model human behavior using a combination of known human reliability analyses models and experimental evidence from virtual reality experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24389: High Temperature Electromagnetic Acoustic (EMAT) Transducers for Structural Health Monitoring | University of Cincinnati | $800,000 | The aim of this project is to produce an electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT) technology to enable ultrasonic structural health monitoring at the METL facility and similar high temperature assets. Ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation methods can be used for monitoring a range of damage mechanisms including thermal fatigue and corrosion. The project will seek to establish core design solutions that can be used as the basis of a range of EMAT designs for different applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24380: Probabilistic Validation and Risk Importance Ranking Methodology for Automation Trustworthiness and Transparency in Nuclear Power Plants | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | This project develops a methodology to improve trustworthiness and transparency of automation technologies in nuclear power plants. The proposed methodology will monitor risk emerging from automation processes and rank the criticality of automation factors influencing automation output, plant equipment, and system performance. The feasibility and practicality of the proposed methodology will be demonstrated with two case studies focusing on implementation of nuclear power plant automation technologies. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24162: Self-powered wireless sensor system for health monitoring of liquid-sodium cooled fast reactors | University of Notre Dame | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to develop self-powered wireless multimodal sensors and instrumentation for health monitoring and diagnosing early-stage materials degradation for high-risk components in liquid-sodium cooled fast reactors. The synergistic and innovative integrations of the multimodal sensor array, wireless communication, and thermoelectric energy harvester have crosscutting benefit for a wide range of advanced reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24102: High temperature Molten salt reactor pump component development and testing | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | This project will provide relevant key information on the tribology of bearing material and components (such as magnets, couplers, ceramic coated wire, and coatings) in high temperature molten salts that will be required in the design of reactor pumps. Investigation of in-service inspection and monitoring of the pump internals will also be addressed in an effort to reduce down time and operation and maintenance costs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24226: Cost Reduction of Advanced Integration Heat Exchanger Technology for Micro-Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,713 | Heat exchanger technology is a high-cost component of a micro-reactor system that is also critical to the overall reliability and performance. This project will develop the underlying advanced heat exchanger technology necessary to integrate a micro-reactor with any end-user application, as well as providing internal heat exchange. Economic optimization of the heat exchanger and experimental demonstration of the technology will be accomplished. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24382: Advanced High-Fluence Low-Flux RPV Mechanical Property Models for Extended Life | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,717 | This project will further develop accurate models of the mechanical property changes under life-extension conditions in reactor pressure vessel (RPV) steels using reduced order Avrami models, cluster dynamics, and atomistic methods combined with massive comprehensive databases on irradiated steels. The work will provide models critical to extending the life of U.S. pressurized water reactors, as well as new fundamental insights into flux and fluence effects and sink and precipitate evolution in reactor pressure vessels and related steels. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| Integrated Marine Platform for Hydrogen and Ammonia Production | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | This study investigates the economic and environmental value of a floating integrated GW-scale green hydrogen/ammonia production facility powered by an advanced nuclear reactor. Floating Production Storage and Offloading units (FPSOs) are deployed worldwide in the oil and gas industry, and can be used for hydrogen and ammonia processing. Deployment of an advanced reactor on a floating platform offers several advantages, including the efficiencies of shipyard fabrication. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Functionally-graded Cermet Coatings for Molten Salt Technologies by High Throughput Finite Element Modeling and Additive Manufacturing | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $500,000 | This project proposes an integrated approach/methodology to design, manufacture and verify functionally-graded metal-ceramic composite coatings on structural alloys with desired interfacial properties, capabilities of mitigating residual stress and improved corrosion resistance for molten salt reactor applications. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| An Innovative Monitoring Technology for the Reactor Vessel of Micro-HTGR | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | This project seeks to develop an innovative sensor technology for real-time monitoring of the thermo-mechanical stresses in the reactor vessel of micro-HTGR. The technology will be based on a sparse network of outer wall temperature measurements and plant operating conditions. An integrated software-hardware sensing system aimed at monitoring the health of the pressure vessel of gas micro-reactors will be implemented and tested. The proposed work will have a broad impact on sensing in other reactor designs. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| High throughput mechanical testing of additively-manufactured materials | University of California, Berkeley | $500,000 | This project proposes fast and high throughput mechanical testing of AM produced materials. It will include the generation of automated tensile testing, hardness testing and microstructure assessment and data comparison to build data via machine learning. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Accelerated irradiation creep testing coupled with self-adaptive accelerated molecular dynamics simulations for scalability analysis | University of Michigan | $500,000 | The goal of the proposed work is to accelerate traditional irradiation creep using instrumented in-situ ion irradiation creep and long-time molecular dynamics simulations to accelerate traditional neutron irradiation creep testing. This goal will be accomplished by coupling a novel ion beam flux jump test using tapered creep specimens and self-adaptive accelerated molecular dynamics. The outcome is a rapid, low-cost accelerated method to determine the fundamental irradiation creep mechanisms. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Creation of a Pebble Database for Material Control and Accountancy in Pebble Bed Reactors | Virginia Commonwealth University | $399,969 | The primary goal of this proposed project is to develop a database of NDA signatures from a wide variety of used PBR pebbles. This database can be used for facility operations, safety, security, and safeguards (3S) to directly measure fission product content and indirectly 235U and plutonium content of each PBR pebble. This project has significant synergy with current 3S PBR research at ANL, BNL, and ORNL, all of whom are collaborators to this proposed project. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Quantifying Aerosol Deposition Mechanisms in Model Dry Cask Storage Systems | Clemson University | $800,000 | The objective of this work is to measure aerosol deposition and resuspension rates in laboratory models of dry cask storage systems to compare with and validate the DOE deposition model. The project team will conduct experiments to directly measure the deposition/resuspension rates of bulk aerosol in the system and to isolate and quantify individual aerosol deposition mechanisms, with a focus on those sensitive to variable humidity and surface temperature. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Using Amide-Functionalized Electrodes to Elucidate Interfacial Actinide Redox Chemistry for Improved HALEU Supply | Florida International University | $400,000 | The goal is to decrease HALEU fuel cycle costs by examination of the redox behavior of U, Np, and Pu at the water-organic interface using amide functionalized electrodes, and in organic media after extraction with amides. Experiments with redox active interferences including additional actinides in different oxidation states will also be conducted. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advancing the technical readiness of FeCrAl alloys and ODS steels under extreme conditions for fast reactor fuel cladding | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | A key technology gap for advanced high-performance fuel applications is the current unavailability of materials that can withstand extremely high doses without significant degradation of cladding performance. The project team will perform in-situ thermo-mechanical experiments (tension, torsion, creep, and creep-fatigue and nanoindentation) on ion-irradiated (to 400 dpa) cladding materials (up to 700 C) along with microstructures using TEM and mesoscale phase field simulations. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| A molten salt community framework for predictive modeling of critical characteristics | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | This research aims to develop a molten salt community framework to address the needs in advanced fuel cycles, including understanding salts via new theory of liquids, predicting salt characteristics via simulations (DFT, MD, and CALPHAD by implementing advanced models), optimizing inversely molten salts, and verifying simulations by experiments. This project has outstanding value for US taxpayers, educates students, and delivers outreach opportunities for academia, industry, and the public. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Understanding the Interfacial Structure of the Molten Chloride Salts by in-situ Electrocapillarity and Resonant Soft X-ray Scattering (RSoXS) | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | The objective of the proposed research is to investigate the interplay between the interfacial structure of the molten salts and their electrochemical corrosion properties in Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Clay Hydration, Drying, and Cracking in Nuclear Waste Repositories | Princeton University | $800,000 | This project will develop a new multiscale model of the thermal-hydrologic-mechanical-chemical (THMC) evolution of an engineered clay barrier in the near field of a nuclear waste repository, including initial hydration and eventual post-closure criticality. This new model will directly link micro-scale material properties to large-scale barrier performance, thus facilitating future design advances or modifications, and enable robust validation of large-scale simulation predictions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Physics-guided Smart Scaling Methodology for Accelerated Fuel Testing | Purdue University | $800,000 | This project proposes to employ novel informatics algorithms for mapping/scaling uncertainties from experimentally accessible scaled state to application/prototypical state, informed by an equivalent mapping obtained from high-fidelity multi-physics simulations for the fuel thermo-mechanical behavior, specifically, a rate theory-based model for thermal conductivity and fission gas behavior in the BISON code, and employing relevant HALDEN reactor and FAST experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Materials Accountancy During Disposal and Waste Processing of Molten Salt Reactor Fuel Salts | Texas A&M University | $399,997 | The objective of this work is to develop and validate a method for measuring and predicting hold-up to eliminate operational risks and expenses during disposal of salt-wetted MSR components. These objectives will be met by applying robust measurement/detection methods to realistic salt loop environments to validate their use in decommissioning MSRs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advanced Screening Approaches for Accelerating Development of Separations Technologies | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | The goal of this project is to establish a unified selection criterion for chelating molecular structures to more efficiently address ligand applicability to metal ion separation problems, for current and future nuclear fuel cycles. By establishing this criterion, the team will seek to enable the accelerated, cost-effective discovery of new separation workflows, as well as their implementation beyond early radiotracer experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advancing NMA of TRISO-fueled pebbles using fast and accurate gamma-ray spectroscopy | University of Colorado, Boulder | $385,307 | This proposal will provide new Nuclear Materials Analysis (NMA) capabilities for TRISO-fueled pebbles using gamma-ray spectroscopy, through a program of simulations of expected signatures from irradiated pebbles, resulting in a detailed measurement plan to monitor burnup and actinide content throughout the fuel cycle. These simulations will be used to develop requirements for NMA sensor technology and identify opportunities for focused technology development to meet these requirements. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Development of Irradiation and Creep Resistant High-Cr Ferritic/Martensitic Steels via Magnetic Field Heat Treatment | University of Kentucky | $800,000 | The objective of this proposed study is to develop and test new generation of Ferritic/Martensitic (F/M) steels specifically designed for advanced reactors that will exceed the current limitations due to temperature and irradiation dose. To achieve this objective, a systematic study is proposed to employ an innovative tempering heat treatment under high external magnetic field (up to 9T) on F/M steel HT9 to engineer an optimized microstructure composed of refined carbides and martensite laths. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Investigation into the processing parameters of phosphate-based dehalogenation for chloride-based waste salt | University of Nevada, Reno | $399,999 | This proposal will focus on several topics needed to advance the iron phosphate process: 1) Dehalogenation/vitrification processes using salt simulants to generate process flow sheets, 2) Reactions of crucible materials with phosphate products and byproducts, 3) Collection of glass property-composition data to develop models based on the glass-forming regions, 4) Development of a process for reacting recovered NH4Cl with metals that need to be fed into the system (U, Li, etc.). | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| A Validated Framework for Seismic Risk Assessment of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of Nevada, Reno | $799,883 | This is a collaborative research program with a primary objective of developing a validated numerical framework for seismic risk analysis of spent fuel storage facilities from the global cask behavior to the localized behavior of internal spent fuel assemblies. In building and validating this framework, advanced data analysis, data assimilation, and forward and inverse modeling techniques will be utilized. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| International Collaboration to Advance the Technical Readiness of High Uranium Density Fuels and Composites for Small Modular Reactors | University of Texas at San Antonio | $800,000 | An international team of high uranium density fuels (HDFs) experts advised by industry leaders in nuclear reactor innovation propose a US-UK collaboration to advance the technical readiness of UN, UB2, and their composites for fuel forms specific to small modular reactors (SMRs). The project will bridge the critical data gaps in HDF performance specific to the impact of common impurities and microstructural variations that originate at fabrication. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Development of Advanced Control Rod Assembly for Improved Accident Tolerance and High Burnup Fuel Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Research will focus on the development of new materials' designs for control rod sheaths and neutron absorbers, coupled with neutronics analysis and thermo-mechanical modeling to improve accident tolerance and to achieve higher fuel burnup in PWRs. Functionality of the proposed designs consisting of Cr coated control rod sheaths of current and advanced alloys as well as novel neutron absorbers will be evaluated in prototypical reactor conditions and accident scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Optical Basicity Determination of Molten Fluoride Salts and its Influence on Structural Material Corrosion | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | The proposed research is aimed at developing ion probes to determine the optical basicity of molten fluoride salts and studying its influence on structural material corrosion. Combining with the molten salt structure study using X-ray absorption spectroscopy, the salt chemical constitution, the resulting optical basicity, and molten salt structure will be inextricably linked and their connections will be unveiled. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Extending the HMF71 Benchmark Series for Graphite Reflector Thickness up to 18 Inches | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $399,522 | The objective of this proposal is to extend the HEU-MET-FAST-071 (HMF-71) experiment benchmark series in ICSBEP by evaluating the historical (existing) experimental data for critical experiments with graphite reflector thickness from 3 inches up to 18 inches. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2022 |
| Fast and Rigorous Methods for Multiphysics SPn Transport in Advanced Reactors | University of Michigan | $600,000 | This project proposes to perform rigorous theoretical and numerical analysis of the Generalized SPn method and underlying cross section models to enable a fast and robust multiphysics low-order transport capability for advanced reactors. This includes 5 major tasks focused on the efficient discretization and solution of the GSPn equations, numerical analysis of XS models having multiphysics and depletion, analysis of equivalence factors, improved MC estimators, and several V&V applications of the methods. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2022 |
| Development of Hydrogen Transport Models for High Temperature Metal Hydride Moderators | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Understanding the transient behavior of metal hydride moderator materials at high temperatures is a key challenge to the design and deployment of future microreactors. This project will use neutron radiography techniques provide the necessary data for this understanding and demonstrate the development of time and temperature dependent hydrogen transport models using both commercial FEA software coupled to MCNP and coupled models developed in the MOOSE framework. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Characterizing fast reactor fuel failure mode through separate effect and prototypic tests | Oregon State University | $800,000 | The project consists of conducting separate effect fuel pin failure tests with surrogate fluid and prototypic test with sodium. The outcome of this study will generate an experimental database that will be used to develop mechanistic model and validate the CDAP module of the SAS4A/SASSYS-1 code. Ultimately the quality data can be used to benchmark other fuel codes developed for LMFR application, which are seeking validation for licensing purpose. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Science-based development of ASTM standard tests for graphite-based fuel pebbles | University of California, Berkeley | $700,000 | This project proposes the development of mechanical test procedures as well as wear and friction tests on Graphite fuel pebbles | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Role of Heterogeneity in Manganese and Nickel Rich Precipitate Distribution on Hardening of Reactor Pressure Vessel Steels: Integrated Modeling and Experimental Characterization | University of Florida | $799,803 | The hypothesis of this work is that the different nucleation and coarsening kinetics of manganese and nickel rich precipitates (MNPs) compared to copper rich precipitates, and the heterogeneous distribution of manganese and nickel rich precipitates on or near dislocations, both lead to unique hardening behavior at high neutron fluence. The objective of this work is to understand hardening in reactor pressure vessel steels caused by MNPs via integrated multiscale modeling and experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Integrated Thermal-Electric Energy Management of All-Electric Ship with Advanced Nuclear Reactors | University of Texas at Dallas | $400,000 | The overall objective of this research is to comprehensively model, design, and evaluate the use of advanced nuclear reactors in future nuclear-powered ships, to enhance the efficiency, reliability, and resilience of shipboard energy distribution systems. The novelty of the proposed approach lies in (i) integrated thermal-electric modeling of advanced nuclear-powered shipboard energy system, and (ii) novel solutions for total-ship energy management to improve energy efficiency and resiliency. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Open Architecture for Nuclear Cost Reduction | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Open architecture has potential to reduce advanced reactor (AR) costs, through exploiting modular design and construction, with common, openly available interfaces between modules. A comprehensive assessment of the challenges and opportunities of open architecture for ARs will be performed. Supported by a pilot study, actionable recommendations for the implementation or otherwise of open architecture for ARs will be developed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Telescopic Control Rod for Significant Reduction in HTR Height and therefore Cost | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | This project proposes a design for a small modular High Temperature Reactor (HTR) control rod that extends telescopically, consisting of ~5 concentric annuli that nest together above the core when withdrawn. This compact component substantially reduces the length of the depth of the silo. Modelling and experimental testing will be performed to develop the control rod to evaluate feasibility, plus perform a cost-benefit analysis, with a view to its inclusion in both pebble bed and prismatic HTR designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Mechanism Driven Evaluations of Sequential and Simultaneous Irradiation-Creep-Fatigue Testing | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | This project addresses a critical need for irradiation and creep-fatigue testing by carrying out a systematic, mechanistic-driven benchmarking for irradiation creep, irradiation fatigue and creep-fatigue tests under various environments. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Mechanisms-based Acceleration of Materials Qualifications for Creep-Fatigue Performance in Advanced Nuclear Systems | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | The goal of this research is to fully understand, quantify and model creep-fatigue 'damage' as a function of loading patterns, temperature and microstructural evolution. Using this experimental information over a large range of relevant stress levels and temperatures, a mechanisms-based creep-fatigue analysis approach will be demonstrated which will properly qualify high temperature alloys for extended service in advanced nuclear systems where creep-fatigue is currently a major design limitation. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Subwavelength Ultrasonic Imaging for Rapid Qualification of Additively Manufactured Nuclear Structures and Components | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to develop a transformational capability for rapid nondestructive quality assessment of actual nuclear additively manufactured structures and components through advanced ultrasonic imaging with subwavelength resolution. The resolution of conventional ultrasonic systems is limited by diffraction on the order of the wavelength. In this project, the goal is to break the diffraction limits of ultrasonic imaging by implementing a negative-index lens. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| MXene as Sorbent Materials for Off-gas Radioiodine Capture and Immobilization | Clemson University | $1,000,000 | The overarching goal of this project is to develop efficient and stable new sorbent materials, for off-gas radioiodine capture and immobilization, that are based on MXenes with two-dimensional transition metal carbides/nitrides. The exploratory research will focus on three main objectives: 1) Design and synthesis of MXenes as radioiodine sorbent and support materials, 2) Quantification of iodine sorption capacity of MXenes in different forms, 3) Synthesis and characterization of consolidated waste forms. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Fundamental understanding of grain boundary cracking in LWR environments | University of California, Los Angeles | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to understand the details of stress corrosion cracking (SCC) and irradiation assisted stress corrosion cracking (IASCC) by targeted experiments and modeling efforts. A comprehensive model will be produced, which will predict the conditions under which these failure modes occur and when the materials may see onsets of the failure mode. This work will directly impact the nuclear industry by refining predictive models of component lifetime. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Facile manufacturing of fiber-reinforced-SiC/SiC composite using aerodynamic fiber deposition (AFD) and metal assisted polymer impregnation and pyrolysis processes (MAPIP) | University of Pittsburgh | $999,886 | SiC/SiC ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) are promising candidate materials for the cladding of accident tolerant fuels. Superior material properties of SiC/SiC CMC, however, come at a high manufacturing cost. The objective of the proposed research is to apply aerodynamic fiber deposition (AFD) and metal assisted polymer impregnation and pyrolysis (MAPIP) to develop a new facile manufacturing approach of SiC/SiC CMC. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| High Concentration Monoamide Separations: Phase Modifiers and Transuranic Chemistry | Colorado School of Mines | $999,900 | Extraction of actinides from used nuclear fuel with high concentrations of monoamide extractants is a promising strategy to intensify separation processes; however key issues remain to be understood and resolved. This project will examine three questions: 1) Can phase modifiers mitigate issues with organic phase viscosity? 2) Can the chemistry of neptunium be controlled to ensure complete separation? 3) Do high concentrations of monoamides affect the oxidation states of important metals and can that be exploited? | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Multiple Uranium Complexes in Chloride Fast Reactor Molten Salt Properties | University of Connecticut | $1,000,000 | Multivalent transition metal ions in a melt can exhibit multiple coordination states that affect molten salt properties. This project will use a new high-energy resolution fluorescence detection (HERFD) spectroscopy to overcome issues associated with measuring coordination numbers of multiple complexes, along with Raman spectroscopy and advanced simulations to accurately predict properties of molten salts with multiple uranium complexes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Validation of Geochemical Reactive Transport Long-Term predictions Using Natural Cements and Ancient Cements Analogues | Vanderbilt University | $950,000 | This project will validate long-term performance predictions of rock/cement interfaces based on characterization of natural analogues, ancient cements and interfaces with rock formations, and demonstrate applicability of the established testing and simulation workflow with argillite rock (representative of potential U.S. repository systems). This project addresses the research gap of long-term validation and uncertainty assessment associated with cement barrier performance and multi-physics models. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Predicting Pitting and Stress Corrosion Cracking of Dry Cask Storage Canisters via High Throughput Testing, Multiscale Characterization, and 3D Computer Vision based Machine Learning | The Ohio State University | $1,000,000 | This project consists of a US-UK collaborative research program focusing on the nucleation and growth of pits and stress corrosion cracking of stainless steel 304 (a canister material used for dry cask storage of spent nuclear fuels) by leveraging multi-scale characterization techniques, 2D/3D computer vision, and machine learning approaches. The study will enable the understanding and prediction of how and when pitting corrosion can nucleate, grow, and transition into stress corrosion cracking. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Multiscale Residual Stress Tailoring of Spent Fuel Canister CISCC Resistance | Purdue University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to understand the role of residual stress in chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) of austenitic steel, then tailor CISCC initiation and propagation through engineered multiscale residual stress distributions. Microscopic and macroscopic residual stresses will be systematically varied, then a novel sequence of advanced, site-specific, correlative characterization techniques will be applied to directly link residual stress, pitting, and crack propagation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Illuminating Emerging Supply Chain and Waste Management Challenges | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | Regional constraints on domestic fuel supply and greater variation in demand from advanced reactors has led to a shift in the U.S. fuel cycle, and modeling tools must reflect this. In this work, Cyclus will be updated to better reflect new and emergent regional supply constraints, spatial and temporal fluctuations in material needs, and those impacts on the back-end of the fuel cycle will be quantified. This work will allow for flexible, reproducible analysis to inform stakeholder decision-making. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Determination of Local Structure and Phase Stability of Uranium Species in Molten Halide Salts: Linking Microscopic Structure with Macroscopic Thermodynamics | Arizona State University | $1,000,000 | The goal of this project is to determine the local structures (valence state, coordination configuration and medium-range structure) and thermodynamic stability of uranium species in molten chloride and fluoride salts at high temperatures using a combination of experimental and modeling methods. The obtained results will allow for revelation of the structure-stability relations of the studied systems and development of acid-base scales to determine the solubility of uranium in molten halide salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Thermal-Hydraulics Assessment of SiC Compared to Other ATF Cladding Materials and its Performance to Mitigate CRUD | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | This project aims to experimentally investigate the thermal-hydraulics performance of SiC compared to the Cr-coated zircaloys and APMT ATF cladding materials under accident scenarios, including both DNB and dryout conditions. The project is divided into five tasks that will advance the understanding of the operation and optimization of heat pipes for advanced nuclear reactors. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Physics-Informed Artificial Intelligence for Non-Destructive Evaluation of Ceramic Composite Cladding by Creating Digital Fingerprints | University of Florida | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to spatially map the material composition, structure, and defect distribution of SiCf-SiCm composite tubes from ultrasonic wavefields measured from the materials and the defects within them. Specifically, this project will delve into the unique ultrasonic fingerprints (i.e., dispersion relations and mode shapes) of the SiCf-SiCm composites using physics-informed machine learning to assess the quality of the manufactured tubes based on their spatial-spectral ultrasonic characteristics. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Understanding Constituent Redistribution, Thermal Transport, and Fission Gas Behavior in U-Zr Annular Fuel Without a Sodium Bond | University of Florida | $999,462 | This project will investigate the reason for changed constituent redistribution in annular U-Zr fuel without a sodium bond and how it changes the fission gas behavior and thermal conductivity. This will be achieved using a combination of microstructure characterization and thermal conductivity measurements of irradiated U-Zr annular fuel and multiscale modeling and simulation using the MARMOT and BISON fuel performance codes. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Getting AnCers: Metallothermic Molten Salt Synthesis and Reaction Thermodynamics of Actinide Ceramic Fuels | Oregon State University | $1,000,000 | Synthesis of high quality actinide ceramics (AnCers) remains a costly challenge. A low-temperature, high-yield, short-duration reaction that directly synthesizes UN and UC could reduce the cost of these advanced fuels greatly. This proposal aims to demonstrate a method by which the costs of AnCers can be greatly reduced - metallothermic molten salt synthesis. Optimization and thermodynamics data will be obtained. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Integrated Stand-off Optical Sensors for Molten Salt Reactor Monitoring | University of Pittsburgh | $1,000,000 | This project intends to develop robust and stand-off optical sensors to perform real-time molten salt levels, flow, and impurity measurements of molten salts. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Cybersecurity in advanced reactor fleet by cyber-informed design, real-time anomaly detection, dynamic monitoring, and cost-effective mitigation strategies | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The goal of this research is to provide technical solutions to unique cybersecurity challenges in future microreactor fleet through cyber-informed design (C-ID), real-time anomaly detection, dynamic monitoring, and cost-effective mitigation strategies. The efforts will significantly improve the economics and effectiveness of cybersecurity risk management in future microreactor fleets. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Building Cyber-Resilient Architecture for Advanced Reactors via Integrated Operations and Network Digital Twin | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | The research will develop a secure-by-design architecture via integrating plant operation and network digital twins for advanced reactors. Automatic attack path and vulnerability analysis will be developed and used to assess and harden critical digital assets (CDA) against cyber risks prior to and during operation to identify vulnerabilities, attack pathways, and threat vectors. A CDA selection method will also be developed by combining vulnerability scores and assets importance. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Extending PRA and HRA legacy methods and tools with a cause-based model for comprehensive treatment of human error dependency | University of California, Los Angeles | $1,000,000 | This project aims at developing a solution to HRA dependency assessment in PRA from methodological and practical/computational perspectives within legacy PRA tools and methods. The solutions will include procedures for quantifying dependency when using PRA legacy tools, a method for modeling and quantifying dependency in HRA comprising a BN-causal model suitable for use with legacy PRA methods and tools, and the computational tools for its integration. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| An Integrated Elemental and Isotopic Detector for Real-Time Molten Salt Monitoring | North Carolina State University | $1,000,000 | The overarching theme of the proposed research is to develop and demonstrate a real-time elemental and isotopic detector of molten salts for advanced reactors and fuel fabrication and recycling processes. The detector's longevity, limits, and latency will be tested in static uranium chloride salts, in pyroprocessing chloride salt, and on flowing fluoride salt with evolving actinide composition, respectively. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Development of a Thin-Layer Electrochemical Sensor for Molten Salt Reactors and Fuel Cycle Processes | Brigham Young University | $811,755 | A thin-layer electrochemical sensor capable of detecting uranium, plutonium and other species of interest in molten salts, at both high and low concentrations, will be developed for application in molten salt reactors and fuel cycle process units. This will provide a valuable tool for performing material control and accountancy measurements. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Risk-Informed Consequence-Driven Hybrid Cyber-Physical Protection System Security Optimization for Advanced Reactor Sites | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | This project aims to develop an expanded methodology for designing a novel cybersecurity-integrated physical protection system (PPS) framework for advanced reactor concepts that serves to reduce the operational costs for the life of a reactor against that of a traditional light water reactor PPS design, promoting efforts to credit safety features of advanced reactors through proposed amendments to current security regulations, while integrating health and economic consequence analyses. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| A risk analysis framework for evaluating the safety, reliability, and economic implications of electrolysis for hydrogen production at NPPs | University of Maryland, College Park | $1,000,000 | The RAFELHyP project will develop a modular risk analysis framework that enables evaluating the safety, reliability, and economic implications of upcoming deployments of electrolyzers to produce hydrogen at nuclear power plants. The framework will be implemented to conduct an integrated safety, reliability, and economic analysis of multiple plant configurations to provide detailed recommendations for plant protective features and layouts. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Reduced Order Modeling of Heat and Fluid Flow: Multi-Scale Modeling of Advanced Reactors to Enable Faster Deployment | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | Novel multi-scale algorithms for thermal-hydraulics (TH) simulations of advanced reactors will be developed. The methods will leverage recent advances in hardware and reduced order modeling approaches to enable TH simulations of vastly accelerated speed, while maintaining accuracy comparable to high-fidelity methods, such as large-eddy simulation. The methods will allow designers to perform parameter sweeps, develop closures, and enable high fidelity simulation of transients. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Embedded Monte Carlo | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Monte Carlo methods have long been considered the standard in terms of accuracy and have seen increased use in design of small nuclear systems; however, the uncertainty quantification (UQ) of the desired output is often relegated to later stages of the design process. This project seeks to embed nuclear data UQ in a single Monte Carlo simulation, such that each desired quantity will not only provide the mean value and statistical uncertainty, but also the related nuclear data uncertainty. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| A Low Order Transport Method Based on the Dynamic Truncation of the Integral Transport Matrix Method (ITMM) that Converges to the SN Solution with Increasing Cell Optical Thickness | North Carolina State University | $1,000,000 | A novel low-order transport operator capable of approximating Monte Carlo (MC) results within a variance range will be developed. This does not require MC reference solutions to calibrate the low-order model, so repeated solutions of the latter in-transient scenarios does not require repeated MC simulations. Truncation of the low-order operator is done dynamically for evolving configurations to ensure accuracy of the low-order solution. This will involve proof of principle on Cartesian meshes, then implementation in Griffin. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| CFD based Critical Heat Flux predictions for enhanced DNBR margin | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | This project seeks to demonstrate a robust high-fidelity CFD-based methodology to predict CHF behavior at varying quality conditions, enabling the development of advanced DNBR correlations with reduced uncertainty, and in support of upgraded plant economics. The availability of a virtual CHF methodology will allow greatly extending the database for DNBR correlations development and further support advancement in the design of high-performing nuclear fuel. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Immersed Boundary Methods for Modeling of Complex Geometry: A Leap Forward in Multiscale Modeling using NekRS | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | A major challenge to Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling of complex geometries is the need to generate body-fitted meshes, which can occupy 80% of the CFD practitioner's time. Immersed boundary methods will be added in the NekRS CFD code, dramatically simplifying modeling of complex 3-D structures and facilitating a new paradigm for CFD-informed multiscale analysis. This will be demonstrated by informing SAM transient systems-level models with NekRS heat exchanger correlations for advanced reactors. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Uncertainty Quantification of Model Extrapolation in Neural Network-informed Turbulent Closures for Plenum Mixing in HTGRs | Utah State University | $1,000,000 | This project will quantify the uncertainty in prediction of Neural Network-informed Turbulent Closures when they are operating in a model extrapolation state. Once the method is developed for canonical buoyant jets, the protocols will be applied to plenum mixing in HTGRs. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Impact of moisture on corrosion of NiCr alloys in MgCl2-NaCl Salt Systems | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $999,983 | This project aims to gain a fundamental understanding of the impact of moisture and salt chemistry on corrosion of NiCr alloys in molten chloride salts. A novel approach coupling multiscale simulations and experiments will be designed to determine salt acidity, its dependence on salt composition (i.e., the NaCl to MgCl2 ratio), and its effects on the transport of H2O and Cr ions and the corrosion kinetics of NiCr alloys in chloride salt. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Transforming Microreactor Economics Through Hydride Moderator Enabled Neutron Economy | State University of New York, Stony Brook | $1,000,000 | Microreactors will potentially require the cost of electricity to be 10 MWD/kg at >3 kW/kg core specific power. These goals are best achieved through a well-thermalized spectrum. Neutron economy as a core material selection criterion to advance entrained hydride composite moderators will be used with the primary goal of significantly reducing fuel costs through novel microreactor designs. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Integrating Nuclear with ZLD Seawater Desalination and Mining | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | An integrated nuclear system will be developed that would utilize electricity and waste heat to operate a desalination and mining process from adjacent seawater. The desalination approach targets zero-liquid discharge with multiple marketable minerals extracted. The ability of nuclear facilities to load follow is increasingly important, so a cold thermal storage system will be incorporated. The desalination and mineral extraction process will be experimentally validated at lab scale. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Reference Designs of Green Ammonia Plants Powered by Small Modular Reactors | Utah State University | $1,000,000 | The overarching goal of this project is to develop two reference designs for green ammonia plants. One design uses freshwater as the source for hydrogen, while the other design uses seawater (or brackish water) as the source. In both designs, a small modular reactor (SMR) is used as the primary energy source providing both electricity and steam for the plants. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Development of the Technical Bases to Support Flexible Siting of Microreactors based on Right-Sized Emergency Planning Zones | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to provide the technical basis to support the application of a right-sized Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ) size to support the deployment of a microreactor at the Penn State University Park campus. This research study will serve as a template to provide flexible siting in support of future microreactor deployments that may be placed closer to demand centers, thereby making them more economically competitive. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Bayesian Optimization for Automatic Reactor Design Optimization | Arizona State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to develop analytical tools based on Gaussian process modeling and Bayesian Optimization that facilitate reactor design optimization by modeling the responses from the physics simulator. Existing capabilities will be applied in an AI field and they will be adapted to address the key characteristics of nuclear reactor design problem. This project will automate the simulation-based design procedure, reduce the number of iterations, and minimize the design cycle time. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Engaging New Mexican communities in developing an equitable and just approach to siting advanced reactor facilities | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | This project will engage diverse New Mexican communities to develop an equitable approach for advanced reactor siting. The findings of this project will shed light on how technology developers and the DOE can explore and potentially site advanced reactors with the informed consent and engagement of host communities, regions, and states. The findings of this study will also more generally apply to the potential for equitably exploring both brownfield and greenfield sites for nuclear facilities. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Deciphering Irradiation Effects of YHx through In-situ Evaluation and Micromechanics for Microreactor Applications | University of New Mexico | $998,000 | This project addresses a critical gap in accelerated testing of YH evolution coupling multi-length scale mechanical testing with ion irradiation and advanced characterization to establish a baseline understanding of YH evolution under ion irradiation. Our approach will couple ion irradiation and gamma irradiation with small scale mechanical testing to decipher multi-scale impacts on phase stability to advance understanding of YH in a microreactor moderator application. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Active Learning Estimation and Optimization (ALEO) of Irradiation Experimental Design for Efficient Accelerated Fuel Qualification | University of Texas at San Antonio | $997,247 | This collaborative project creates novel AI/ML models and algorithms integrated with physical knowledge and expertise to explore more efficient ways to calculate irradiation temperatures and fuel specimen burnups for new fuel sample configurations of MiniFuel experiments proposed for irradiation in the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Unraveling how mixing vane spacers affect cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena in light water reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $500,000 | Experiments will be conducted to quantify the effect of mixing vane spacers on cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena, namely single-phase forced convection, nucleate boiling, and CHF. The results of the experimental research will allow elucidating the physical phenomena triggered by the presence of mixing vane spacers. They will also allow assessing the performance of M-CFD tools developed within CASL and in use by the nuclear community. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Quantum Computing Algorithms for Deterministic Neutron Transport | University of Michigan | $500,000 | This project will develop algorithms for solving the k-eigenvalue form of the neutron transport equation in a nuclear reactor physics context on a quantum computer. The asymptotic scaling of the algorithms will be analyzed. Investigation into implementation will be made by making resource estimates by synthesizing explicit circuits for the algorithms and be studied by emulation on a classical computer. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Optimizing Application-Dependent Energy Group Structures for Multigroup Neutron Transport Models using Machine Learning | Colorado School of Mines | $500,000 | Machine Learning methods will be developed that will dramatically reduce both the computational run-time and manual effort needed to find multigroup energy structures that accurately capture the underlying physics of neutron reactions, while allowing multigroup simulations to run quickly without overwhelming available memory. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Understanding PM-HIP Interparticle Evolution and its Influence on Fracture Toughness in Alumina-Forming Steels | Purdue University | $1,100,000 | This project aims to understand how interparticle evolution during hot isostatic pressing (HIP) influences fracture toughness of Al-bearing steels. The team will use a series of interrupted HIP experiments with phase field models to understand the formation mechanisms of interparticle defects during HIP of alumina-forming austenitic (AFA) stainless steels and FeCrAl steels, and the influence of these defects on fracture behavior. | Document | Advanced Manufacturing Technologies | FY2024 |
| Multiscale high-throughput experiment/modeling approach to understanding creep behavior in Additively Manufactured reactor steels | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $1,043,271 | This project proposes to develop a predictive capability for processing-microstructure-property correlations in additive manufactured microstructures utilizing a multiscale approach encompassing bulk creep tests, miniaturized tensile testing, and a high-throughput, indentation based, cost-effective method for elevated temperature mechanical mapping of additively manufactured 316H Stainless Steel, Grade 91, and Titanium-Zirconium-Molybdenum (TZM) alloys. | Document | Advanced Manufacturing Technologies | FY2024 |
| Assessing molten salt corrosion resistance of stainless steel 316H in nuclear reactor environments | North Carolina State University | $1,100,000 | The proposed goal is to leverage a blend of innovative molten salt corrosion experiments and cutting-edge characterization techniques to advance our understanding of molten salt corrosion in both commercial and additively manufactured (AM) stainless steel (SS) 316H, particularly under radiation or stress environments. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Polymer-Derived C-SiC Coatings on Kernel Particles for Advanced Nuclear Reactors | University of Alabama at Birmingham | $1,100,000 | This program is to use a polymer-derived ceramic approach to develop C-SiC/ZrC coatings on ZrO2 kernel substitute particles. We aim to create new fuel encapsulation materials in replacement of the coatings on fuel kernel particles, including the TRISO layers, for advanced reactors, conduct ion irradiation testing of the new materials for nuclear performance evaluation, and carry out detailed microstructure and composition characterization to assess the C-SiC/ZrC coated fuel particle behaviors. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Sorbent regeneration, recycling, and transformation: A transformative approach to iodine capture and immobilization | University of Nevada, Reno | $1,000,000 | The project will focus on the development of materials and processes for regeneration and recycling of sorbents, and the transformation of iodine-loaded sorbents into waste forms. A combination of computational and experimental studies will be conducted to understand (a) how the components in a primary off-gas stream interact with the sorbent, (b) how this off-gas stream affects the regeneration lifetime, and (c) low-temperature binders and processing paths that leads to durable waste forms. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Accident Tolerant Fuels to Support Power Uprates in LWRs | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,100,000 | This project will demonstrate that power uprates higher than the current state of operation can be reached using accident tolerant fuels in light water reactors while not exceeding reactor safety margins during normal operation and accidents. We will analyze it considering fuel enriched up to 10% and peak rod average burnup up to 75GWd/tU concerning reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, reactor safety, and economics. Considerations will be made in consultation with the named industry advisory board. | Document | Existing Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Comparative study of three-dimensional microstructural imaging and thermal conductivity evolution of irradiated solid and annular U-Zr fuels | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Uranium-zirconium (U-Zr) annular metallic fuel holds the promise to simultaneously increase sodium fast reactor (SFR) core uranium loading and reduce peak cladding temperatures, thus greatly improving fuel performance. However, key convolved fuel degradation mechanisms during irradiation at temperature threaten to hold back its real-world applicability, requiring more detailed understanding to both predict U-Zr fuel performance and suggest improvements. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Mechanistic study and modeling of fission gas release in UO2 and doped UO2 | Oregon State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to enhance the safety and performance of light water reactors and other advanced reactor designs by gaining a fundamental understanding of fast gas reactor mechanisms and developing mechanistic models for UO2 and doped UO2 fuels under HBU and transient conditions. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Anisotropic Thermal Properties of SiC-SiC Cladding: Method Development & Characterization | University of Pittsburgh | $1,000,000 | We propose to develop a high-temperature nondestructive thermal conductivity (k) measurement system coupled with validated multiscale models to accurately determine the anisotropic thermal conductivity of SiC-SiC composite cladding tubes. The multiscale measurement and modeling results benefit both DOE ATF programs as well as providing a fundamental understanding of how the microstructure of the composite leads to its anisotropic properties. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Understanding the Performance of SiC-SiCf Composite Cladding Architectures with Cr Coating in Normal Operating and Accident Conditions in LWRs and Advanced Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The project will focus on investigating the impact of Cr-coating on the SiC-SiCf composite cladding of various architectures under normal operating and accident conditions in light water reactors and advanced reactors for the safe and economic deployment of SiC cladding. Cr-coating will provide protection from high-temperature corrosion and better hermeticity under accident conditions. The performance of the claddings will be evaluated through the corrosion test, reflood test, burst test, and non-destructive evaluation(NDE). | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Developing critical insights on the effects of Mo on _' precipitation and dislocation loop formation in FeCrAl alloys | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | This project aims at developing a mechanistic understanding on the effects of Mo on _' precipitation and dislocation loop formation in FeCrAl alloys in thermal and irradiation conditions and turns it into a set of design principles guiding further optimization, by integrating atomistic simulations, CALPHAD modeling, thermal aging, proton irradiation, and advanced characterization. The material discoveries will be generalized to other solutes other than Mo. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Inference of flow conditions from in-core detector measurements for accelerating SMR licensing | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Reactor modelling relies on the detailed description of reactor systems but often lacks the true as-built characteristics of a system. This proposal seeks to fill these geometrical data gaps using available detector data, predictive models and machine learning in order to provide better information to analysis tools and thus better prediction of future performance. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Non-Destructive Plutonium Assay in Pyroprocessing Bulk Materials with a 3D Boron-Coated-Straw Detector Array | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,100,000 | The objective of the proposed project is to develop and demonstrate a 3D boron-coated-straw detector array (3D-BCSDA) with high efficiency and spatial resolution. This detection system will be specifically designed to accurately assess the fissile mass in bulk nuclear material during pyroprocessing operations, thereby improving the precision and reliability of accountability measurements during separation. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Improving the computational efficiency and usability of dynamic PRA with reinforcement learning | University of Maryland, College Park | $1,064,400 | The overall objective of the proposed research is to improve the efficiency and usability of dynamic probabilistic risk assessment (PRA). Specifically, the first objective is to develop a new algorithm for dynamic PRA analysis that can significantly increase the computational efficiency. The second objective is to develop a question-answering system to streamline the process of risk-informed decision-making based on results obtained from the dynamic PRA analysis using the new algorithm. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Development of a Benchmark Model for the Near Real-Time Radionuclide Composition Measurement System using Microcalorimetry for Advanced Reactors | Virginia Commonwealth University | $1,100,000 | The primary goal of this proposed project is to develop high fidelity Monte Carlo radiation transport models of a microcalorimetry detector informed by fuel depletion models of a molten salt reactor and a pebble bed reactor to quantify the current and future capabilities of this detector technology to characterize and assay used fuel from these reactors in near real-time. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Development and Validation of a Dual-Purpose Instrument for On-line Monitoring of Molten Salt Composition and Thermal Behavior | Brigham Young University | $1,099,924 | We propose the development of an online monitoring instrument capable of quantifying heat transfer and salt composition for molten salt reactors (MSR). A dual electrochemistry/thermal conductivity probe (DETP) will be developed to measure the thermal properties and impurities within the salt simultaneously. The DETP will make use of a previously developed needle probe and electrodes for square-wave cyclic voltammetry measures of salt composition. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| In Situ Assessment of Molten Salt Transport into Nuclear Graphite Microstructures using Ultrasonic Sensors | Johns Hopkins University | $909,827 | This project focuses on the transport of molten salt into nuclear graphite along with the investigation of ultrasonic methods for sensing graphite material property changes, especially elastic modulus, associated with intrusion of molten salt into the graphite microstructure. Experimental studies coupled with physics-based simulations will be used to assess strategies for in situ sensing of salt intrusion in the reactor environment to enhance long-term viability of molten salt reactors. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| MONITORING CERAMIC FUEL FRACTURE VIA FIBER OPTIC ACOUSTIC EMISSION SENSORS | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $1,000,000 | In the proposed three-year program, the Center for Photonics Technology (CPT) at Virginia Tech will collaborate with Sentek Instrument (Sentek), Prysmian, and Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to develop and demonstrate a distributed acoustic emission (AE) sensing system for in-situ monitoring of ceramic fuel fracture. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| Concurrent Surrogate Model Development with Uncertainty Quantification in the MOOSE Framework Using Physics-Informed Gaussian-Process Machine Learning | University of Florida | $999,999 | The objective of this project is to develop a general capability for concurrent generation and use of physics-informed Gaussian process (GP)-based surrogate models to facilitate multiscale and multiphysics modeling. We will implement this new capability as part of the Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) so that every application based on the MOOSE framework will have access to it. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2024 |
| Unstructured Adaptive Mesh Algorithms for Monte Carlo Transport | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,098,000 | We propose to develop the fundamental methods and techniques for unstructured adaptive mesh refinement with Monte Carlo tallies. This work enables a transformative leap forward in speed, accuracy, and robustness to enhance the contribution of high-fidelity radiation transport to advanced simulation. Adaptive refinement is deployed on a challenging multiphysics simulation, cascading heat pipe failure, to study acceleration and stabilization properties. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2024 |
| Feasibility Study of Micro-Nuclear Reactor Thermal Output for Air Rotary Kilns in the High-Temperature Manufacturing of Portland Cement Clinker | Pennsylvania State University | $998,793 | This project aims to design and test a micro-nuclear reactor for high-temperature portland cement clinker production, a process responsible for 6%-8% of global CO2 emissions. Leveraging advanced reactors' heat output, the project explores TRISO-based nuclear microreactor core modifications and new working fluids for heat pipes. The research addresses uncertainties in micro-nuclear reactor deployment for clinker production and investigates high-efficiency heat exchanger designs. | Document | Non-Traditional and Non-electric Applications | FY2024 |
| Redox potential, ionic speciation, and separation and recovery challenges from molten salts containing actinides and fission products | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $999,999 | Establishing an efficient, safe, secure, and economical Molten-Salt Reactor (MSR) fuel cycle is imperative for MSR implementation. Molten salt fuel recycling technology requires predictive knowledge of the chemical and physical behavior of lanthanide and actinide ions with different oxidation states dissolved in solvent salts. A combination of off-gas and X-ray measurements with machine-learning simulations will be used to produce predictive modeling of separation and recovery conditions. | Document | Nuclear Fuel Recycle Technologies | FY2024 |
| Pre-Treatment and Bulk Separation of Used Fuels with Carbonate-Peroxide Solutions | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | To use carbonate-peroxide chemistries to develop a pre-processing method for used uranium-based fuels that enables the subsequent use and optimization of current solvent extraction reprocessing schemes. Using simple precipitation, this innovative method provides an initial, bulk separation of uranium from fission products and actinides. | Document | Nuclear Fuel Recycle Technologies | FY2024 |
| Optimization of Fueling Strategies and Material Surveillance through Real-time Pebble Tracking in Pebble Bed Reactors | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,100,000 | Flexible operation of the energy grid of the future introduces uncertainty in determining the optimal operating conditions of Pebble Bed Reactors. The proposed work will help to address these challenges and enable more economical operation by providing the tools to determine of optimal fuel reloading strategy through pebble identification and tracking. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Experimental Study and Computational Modeling of P-LOFC and D-LOFC Accidents in the Fast Modular Reactor Consisting of Silicon Carbide Composite Rods | University of Michigan | $1,100,000 | The primary objectives of this proposed research are to better understand NC flow phenomena and heat transfer under both D-LOFC and P-LOFC accidents in the FMR, produce experimental data in a well-scaled integral-effects test facility for the two accidents, and develop and validate predictive CFD models for NC flow phenomena in both accidents. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Sodium heat pipes; design and failure mode assessment for micro-reactor applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The present proposal aims to experimentally investigate the thermal-hydraulics performance of liquid sodium heat pipes applied to microreactors, with a focus on exploring different design parameters, effects of different parameters on operating performance and understanding the evolution and impact of different failure modes. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Interfacial Interactions between Graphite and Molten Fluoride Fuel Salt | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $1,000,000 | NaF-KF-UF4 fuel salt will be selected to study graphite-salt interactions and impact of the existence of fission products (FPs) and corrosion products on the interactions at different temperatures and pressures. Fundamental mechanisms of graphite-salt interaction and degradation will be understood. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Local resonance-based linear and nonlinear NDE techniques for repaired DSC wall structures | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | The proposed work plan will develop nondestructive examination (NDE) methods that develop and evaluate linear and nonlinear resonant ultrasound spectroscopy methods (such as NRUS, NIRAS, etc.) to cold spray (CS) repaired dry shielded canister (DSC) wall structures. With the support of our partners from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), we will perform technology development and validation on plain and cold spray-repaired DSC wall specimens. | Document | Spent Fuel, Waste Science & Technology and Integrated Waste Management System | FY2024 |
| Thermodynamic Models for Multivalent Actinide Solubility and Speciation as a Function of Temperature and Ionic Strength | University of Notre Dame | $1,000,000 | This proposed project will quantify the solubility and speciation of Np and Pu under temperatures, ionic strengths, and pH values that are relevant to the generic repository concept. The major deliverable will be full thermodynamic descriptions of the studied systems, which will lead to improved radionuclide transport models and support the development of a sound technical basis for the geologic disposal of spent nuclear fuel and other actinide-bearing wastes. | Document | Spent Fuel, Waste Science & Technology and Integrated Waste Management System | FY2024 |
| Advancing Fundamental Molten Salt Modeling using Ultrafast Spectroscopy | North Carolina State University | $600,000 | The overarching goal of the proposed research is to advance our fundamental understanding of molten salts by combining ultrafast spectroscopic experiments with high fidelity atomistic simulations. The proposed research will introduce a new experimental technique to the study of molten salts that will directly measure ion kinetics, specifically, terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS), which will further validate AIMD as a predictive modeling tool. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
| Hydrodynamics of Two-Phase Flow Under the Geometric Effects of Pipe Orientation and U-bends | Purdue University | $600,000 | Most two-phase flow analyses have been performed in straight vertical-upward pipes. However, nuclear reactor systems include piping with different geometric components, such as elbows or U-bends, as well as changes in flow orientations. The proposed work performs experiments in a scaled test facility existing at the institution's lab to investigate the effects of flow orientations and geometries relevant to nuclear reactor systems on the hydrodynamics of two-phase flow. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
| Interface-Resolved Experimental and Numerical Studies of Two-Phase Flow for Nuclear Engineering Applications | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $500,000 | The project aims at advancing the interface-resolved simulation capabilities for the two-phase flows found in various nuclear engineering applications. We will develop a comprehensive, high-resolution, interface-resolved database emphasizing bubble dynamics and bubble interaction mechanisms. The data will be used to validate the sub-grid models implemented in an interface-resolved simulation tool to improve simulation accuracy by developing physics-based coalescence models. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
FY 2015 Research and Development Awards
The Energy Department is awarding over $30 million through its Nuclear Energy University Programs (NEUP) to support 43 university-led nuclear energy research and development projects to develop innovative technologies and solutions. These projects will be led by 31 U.S. universities in 23 states.
A complete list of R&D projects with their associated abstracts is available below.
| Title | Institution | Estimated Funding* | Project Description | Abstract | Project Type | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fundamental Understanding of Ambient and High-Temperature Plasticity Phenomena in Structural Materials in Advanced Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Elastic/Inelastic Nuclear Data Development Project | Idaho State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Heterogeneous Recycling in Fast Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Thermodynamic Development of Corrosion Rate Modeling in Iron Phosphate Glasses | Missouri University of Science and Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Subspace-Based Hybrid Monte Carlo-Deterministic Algorithms for Reactor Physics Calculations | North Carolina State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Improvements to Nuclear Data and Its Uncertainties by Theoretical Modeling | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Sharp Interface Tracking in Rotating Microflows of Solvent Extraction | State University of New York at Stony Brook | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Bulk Nanostructured FCC Steels with Enhanced Radiation Tolerance | Texas A&M University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Fuel Performance Experiments and Modeling: Fission Gas Bubble Nucleation and Growth in Alloy Nuclear Fuels | Texas A&M University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| SiC Schottky Diode Detectors for Measurement of Actinide Concentrations from Alpha Activities in Molten Salt Electrolyte | The Ohio State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Computational Design of Advanced Nuclear Fuels | University of California, Davis | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Data Collection Methods For Validation of Advanced Multi-Resolution Fast Reactor Simulations | University of Idaho | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Simulations of the Thermodynamic and Diffusion Properties of Actinide Oxide Fuel Materials | University of Michigan | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Adsorptive Separation and Sequestration of Krypton, I and C14 on Diamond Nanoparticles | University of Missouri, Columbia | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Alternative Technetium Waste Forms | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Quantification of UV-Visible and Laser Spectroscopic Techniques for Materials Accountability and Process Control | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| High-Fidelity Space-Time Adaptive Multiphysics Simulations in Nuclear Engineering | University of Nevada, Reno | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Simulations of Failure via Three-Dimensional Cracking in Fuel Cladding for Advanced Nuclear Fuels | University of Texas, Dallas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Mesh-Enabled Monte Carlo Capability for Multi-Physics Reactor Analysis | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Ab Initio Enhanced Calphad Modeling of Actinide Rich Nuclear Fuels | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Diffusion Barrier Coatings and Deposition Technologies for Mitigating Fuel Cladding Chemical Interactions (FCCI) | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Thermal Properties of LiCl-KCl Molten Salt for Nuclear Waste Separation | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Neutron Damage and MAX Phase Ternary Compounds | Drexel University | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Atomistic Calculations of the Effect of Minor Actinides on Thermodynamic and Kinetic Properties of UO2+x | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Maximum Fuel Utilization in Fast Reactors without Chemical Reprocessing | University of California, Berkeley | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Developing a High Thermal Conductivity Fuel with Silicon Carbide Additives | University of Florida | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Fabrication of Tungsten-Rhenium Cladding Materials via Spark Plasma Sintering for Ultra High Temperature Reactor Applications | University of Idaho | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Ionic Liquid and Supercritical Fluid Hyphenated Techniques for Dissolution and Separation of Lanthanides, Actinides, and Fission Products | University of Idaho | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Improved Fission Neutron Data Base for Active Interrogation of Actinides | University of Michigan | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Utilization of Methacrylates and Polymer Matrices for the Synthesis of Ion Specific Resins | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Improved LWR Cladding Performance by EPD Surface Modification Technique | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Models of LWR Pressure Vessel Embrittlement for Low Flux-High Fluence Conditions | University of California, Santa Barbara | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) | FY2009 | ||
| Irradiation Creep in Graphite | Boise State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Modeling the Stress Strain Relationships and Predicting Failure Probabilities For Graphite Core Components | Cleveland State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| TRISO-Coated Fuel Durability Under Extreme Conditions | Colorado School of Mines | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| An Innovative and Advanced Coupled Neutron Transport and Thermal Hydraulic Method (Tool) for the Design, Analysis and Optimization of VHTR/NGNP Prismatic Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Removal of 14C from Irradiated Graphite for Graphite Recycle and Waste Volume Reduction | Idaho State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Millimeter-Wave Thermal Analysis Development and Application to Gen IV Reactor Materials | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Accurate Development of Thermal Neutron Scattering Cross Section Libraries | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Understanding Creep Mechanisms in Graphite with Experiments, Multiscale Simulations, and Modeling | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Verification & Validation of High-Order Short-Characteristics-Based Deterministic Transport Methodology on Unstructured Grids | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Microscale Heat Conduction Models and Doppler Feedback | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Optimizing Neutron Thermal Scattering Effects in Very High Temperature Reactors | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Multiaxial Creep-Fatigue and CreepRatcheting Failures of Grade 91 and Haynes 230 Alloys Toward Addressing Design Issues of Gen IV Nuclear Power Plants | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Investigation of Countercurrent Helium-air Flows in Air-ingress Accidents for VHTRs | Ohio State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Testing of Performance of Optical Fibers Under Irradiation in Intense Radiation Fields, When Subjected to Very High Temperatures | Ohio State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| A Distributed Fiber Optic Sensor Network for Online 3-D Temperature and Neutron Fluence Mapping in a VHTR Environment | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Investigation on the Core Bypass Flow in a Very High Temperature Reactor | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| CFD Model Development and Validation for High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor Cavity Cooling System (RCCS) Applications | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Study of Air ingress across the duct during the accident conditions | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Verification of the CENTRM Module for Adaptation of the SCALE Code to NGNP Prismatic and PBR Core Designs | University of Arizona | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Integral and Separate Effects Tests for Thermal Hydraulics Code Validation for Liquid-Salt Cooled Nuclear Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Mechanisms Governing the Creep Behavior of High Temperature Alloys for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems | University of Cincinnati | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| ALD Produced B2O3, Al2O3 and TiO2 Coatings on Gd2O3 Burnable Poison Nanoparticles | University of Colorado, Boulder | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Experimental Study and Computational Simulations of Key Pebble Bed Thermomechanics Issues for Design and Safety | University of Idaho | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Prediction and Monitoring Systems of Creep-Fracture Behavior of 9Cr-1Mo Steels for Reactor Pressure Vessels | University of Idaho | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Understanding Fundamental Material Degradation Processes in High Temperature Aggressive Chemomechanical Environments | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Multi-Scale Multi-physics Methods Development for the Calculation of Hot-Spots in the NGNP | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Corrosion and Creep of Candidate Alloys in High Temperature Helium and Steam Environments for the NGNP | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Creation of a Full-Core HTR Benchmark with the Fort St. Vrain Initial Core and Validation of the DHF Method with Helios for NGNP Configurations | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Fission Product Sorptivity in Graphite | University of Missouri, Columbia | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Identifying and Understanding Environment-Induced Crack Propagation Behavior in Ni-Based Superalloy INCONEL 617 | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Graphite Oxidation Simulation in HTR Accident Conditions | University of New Mexico | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Non Destructive Thermal Analysis and In Situ Investigation of Creep Mechanism of Graphite and Ceramic Composites using Phase-sensitive THz Imaging & Nonlinear Resonant Ultrasonic Spectroscopy | University of Rochester | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Tritium Sequestration in Gen IV NGNP Gas Stream via Proton Conducting Ceramic Pumps | University of South Carolina | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Materials, Turbomachinery and Heat Exchangers for Supercritical CO2 Systems | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Experimental Studies of NGNP Reactor Cavity Cooling System with Water | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Assessment of Embrittlement of VHTR Structural Alloys in Impure Helium Environments | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Modeling Fission Product Sorption in Graphite Structures | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Liquid Salt Heat Exchanger Technology for VHTR Based Applications | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Effect of Post-Weld Heat Treatment on Creep Rupture Properties of Grade 91 Steel Heavy Section Welds | Utah State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Alpha Radiolysis of Nuclear Solvent Extraction Ligands used for An(III) and Ln(III) Separations | California State University, Long Beach | $1,390,252 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Predictive Maturity of Multi-Scale Simulation Models for Fuel Performance | Clemson University | $614,690 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Freeze-casting as a Novel Manufacturing Process for Fast Reactor Fuels | Drexel University | $1,149,327 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Fuel Performance Experiments on the Atomistic Level, Studying Fuel Through Engineered Single Crystal UO2 | Idaho State University | $650,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Development of A Self Biased High Efficiency Solid-State Neutron Detector for MPACT Applications | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $810,141 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Development of a Innovative High Thermal Conductivity UO 2 Ceramic Composites Fuel Pellets with Carbon Nano-Tubes Using Spark Plasma Sintering | University of Florida | $894,042 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Exploration and Modeling of Structural Changes in Waste Glass under Corrosion | Pennsylvania State University | $1,377,444 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Evaluation of materials for interim storage of spent fuel for more than 100 years | University of Michigan | $931,603 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Implementation of On-the-Fly Doppler Broadening in MCNP5 for Multiphysics Simulation of Nuclear Reactors | University of Michigan | $406,712 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Methods and tools to allow molecular flow simulations to be coupled to higher level continuum descriptions of flows in porous/fractured media and aerosol/dust dynamics | University of Missouri-Columbi | $541,286 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Characterization and Modeling of Materials for Kr-Xe Separations | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $989,800 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Modeling Solute Thermokinetics in LiCl-KCl Molten Salt for Nuclear Waste Separation | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $616,073 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Advanced Aqueous Separation Systems for Actinide Partitioning: Develop Fundamental Understanding of An(III)/Ln(III) Separation | Washington State University | $1,451,784 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Consistent Multigroup Theory Enabling Accurate Coarse-Group Simulation of GenIV Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,046,277 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Studies of Deteriorated Heat Transfer in Prismatic Cores Stemming from Irradiation-Induced Geometry Distortion | Idaho State University | $1,287,921 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Carbide Coatings for Nickel Alloys, Graphite, and Carbon/Carbon Composites to be Used in Fluoride Salt Valves | Johns Hopkins University | $1,183,239 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Design, Testing, and Modeling of the Direct Reactor Auxiliary Cooling System for AHTRs | Ohio State University | $1,366,627 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Monitoring microstructural evolution of Alloy 617 with nonlinear acoustics for remaining useful life prediction; multiaxial creep-fatigue and creep-ratcheting | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development and Validation of Multidimensional Models of Supercritical CO 2 Energy Conversion Systems for Nuclear Power Reactors | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $475,005 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Microstructure and Property Evolution in Advanced Cladding and Duct Materials Under Long-Term and Elevated Temperature Irradiation: Modeling and Experimental Investigation | University of California-Berkeley | $1,320,667 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of Barrier Layers for the Protection of Candidate Alloys in the VHTR | University of California-Santa Barbara | $995,232 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Investigation of a Novel NDE Method for Monitoring Thermo-Mechanical Damage and Microstructure Evolution in Ferritic-Martensitic Steels for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems | University of Cincinnati | $833,109 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Fission Product Transport in TRISO Particle Layers under Operating and Off-Normal Conditions | University of Michigan | $966,581 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Microstructure and Property Evolution in Advanced Cladding and Duct Materials Under Long-Term Irradiation at Elevated Temperature: Critical Experiments | University of Michigan | $1,181,379 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Three-dimensional NDE of VHTR Core Components via Simulation-based Testing | University of Minnesota | $1,366,163 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Failure Predictions for VHTR Core Components using a Probabilistic Continuum Damage Mechanics Model | University of Minnesota | $854,542 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of a Scanning Microscale Fast Neutron Irradiation Platform for Examining the Correlation Between Local Neutron Damage and Graphite Microstructure | University of Missouri-Columbia | $703,064 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of Thermal Transient Flow Rate Sensors for High Temperature, Irradiation, Corrosive Environment | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $451,269 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Novel Methods of Tritium Sequestration: High Temperature Gettering and Separation Membrane Materials Discovery for Nuclear Energy Systems | University of South Carolina | $1,366,626 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Heat Transfer Salts for Nuclear Reactor Systems - Chemistry Control, Corrosion Mitigation, and Modeling | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,352,040 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Pulsed Magnetic Welding for Advanced Core and Cladding Steels | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $525,206 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Corrosion in Supercritical Carbon Dioxide: Materials, Environmental Purity, Surface Treatments, and Flow Issues | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $651,447 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Multiscale Concrete Modeling for Aging Degradation | Mississippi State University | $345,941 | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability | FY2010 | |
| Development of an advanced computational fluid dynamics technology for the next-generation nuclear reactor system analysis and safety margin characterization code | North Carolina State University | $418,199 | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability | FY2010 | |
| Precursor Derived Nanostructured Si-C-X Materials for Nuclear Applications | University of Washington | $899,518 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Development and Testing of an Open-Loop Oscillator for Small Reactivity Worth Samples | Idaho State University | $597,252 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Understanding the Irradiation Behavior of Zirconium Carbide | Pennsylvania State University | $870,613 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Modeling investigation of the stability and irradiation-induced evolution of nanoscale precipitates in advanced structural materials | University of Tennessee-Knoxville | $380,653 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Investigation of Laser Shock Peening for Enhancing Fatigue and Stress Corrosion Cracking Resistance of Nuclear Energy Materials | University of Cincinnati | $1,242,019 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Irradiation Accelerated Corrosion of Reactor Core Materials | University of Michigan | $798,943 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Study of Interfacial Interactions using Thin Film Surface Modification: Radiation and Oxidation Effects in Materials | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $538,032 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Novel Engineered Refractory Materials for Advanced Reactor Applications | North Carolina State University | $1,129,304 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Quantification of Cation Sorption to Engineered Barrier Materials Under Extreme Conditions | Clemson University | $1,171,380 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| In-Pile Instrumentation Multi-Parameter System Utilizing Photonic Fibers and Nanovision | Idaho State University | $1,199,990 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Development of Plasmonically Cloaked Nanoparticles | Idaho State University | $800,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Fission Product Transmutation in Mixed Radiation Fields | Idaho State University | $800,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Life Prediction of Spent Fuel Storage Canister Material | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $899,826 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Active Interrogation using Photofission Technique for Nuclear Materials Control and Accountability | Oregon State University | $900,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Anisotropic Azimuthal Power and Temperature Distribution on Fuel Rod: Impact of Hydride Distribution | Pennsylvania State University | $631,956 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Sorption Modeling and Verification for Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Microemulsions and Aggregation Formation in Extraction Processes for Used Nuclear Fuel: Thermodynamics and Structural Studies | University of California, Irvine | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Optimized Processing Fabrication Paths for Larger Heats of Nanostructured Ferritic Alloys | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Basic Physics Data: Measurement of Neutron Multiplicity from Induced Fission | University of Michigan | $973,364 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Radionuclide Incorporation and Long Term Performance of Apatite Waste Forms | University of Michigan | $862,500 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Actinide Foil Production for MPACT Research | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $156,897 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Enriched Boron-Doped Amorphous Selenium Based Position-Sensitive Solid-State Thermal Neutron Detector for MPACT Applications | University of South Carolina | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Development of Advanced High Uranium Density Fuels for Light Water Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Developing the User Experience for a Next Generation Nuclear Fuel Cycle Simulator | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,200,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Preparation and Development of Polymer-Supported Extractants | City College of New York, Hunter | $363,716 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| One-Dimensional Nanostructures for Neutron Detection | North Carolina State University | $455,629 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Feasibility and Safety Assessment for Advanced Reactor Concepts Using Vented Fuel | Oregon State University | $600,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| High Temperature Transducers for Online Monitoring of Microstructure Evolution | Pennsylvania State University | $455,628 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Laser-Arc Hybrid Welding of Thick Section Ni-base Alloys- Advanced Modeling and Experiments | Pennsylvania State University | $536,117 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Correlates of Sensitive Technologies | Texas A&M University | $509,467 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Improved Safety Margin Characterization of Risk from Loss of Offsite Power | Texas A&M University | $600,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| A High Temperature-Tolerant and Radiation-Resistant In-Core Neutron Sensor for Advanced Reactors | The Ohio State University | $455,629 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Pathway Aggregation in the Risk Assessment of Proliferation Resistance and Physical Protection (PR&PP) of Nuclear Energy Systems | The Ohio State University | $534,471 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Preparation of High Purity, High Molecular-Weight Chitin from Ionic Liquids for Use as an Adsorbate for the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Alabama | $338,260 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Selectivity in Ligand Binding to Uranyl Compounds: A Synthetic, Structural, Thermodynamic and Computational Study | University of California-Berkeley | $500,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Seismic Isolation Systems Using Periodic Materials | University of Houston | $538,154 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium from Seawater | University of Idaho | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Austenitic ODS Strengthened Alloys for Very High Temperature Applications | University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign | $538,154 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Enhancement of the Extraction of the Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Transient Safety Analysis of Fast Spectrum TRU Burning LWR with Internal Blankets | University of Michigan | $599,475 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Novel Sorbents for Uranium Extraction from Seawater | University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Radiation Behavior of High-Entropy Alloys for Advanced Reactors | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $538,159 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Rapid Computer Aided Ligand Design and Screening of Precious Metal Extractants from TRUEX Raffinate with Experimental Validation | Washington State University | $500,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of an Efficient Meso-Scale Multi-Phase Flow Solver in Nuclear Applications | City College of New York | $505,858 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Multiscale Modeling and Uncertainty Quantification for Nuclear Fuel Performance | Colorado State University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Fundamental Studies of the Role of Grain Boundaries on Uniform Corrosion of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Materials | Drexel University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Phenomena-based Uncertainty Quantification in Predictive Coupled-Physics Reactor Simulations | Texas A&M University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Characterization of Modeling of Grain Boundary Chemistry Evolution in Ferritic Steels Under Irradiation | University of Michigan | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Development of Multiscale Materials Modeling Techniques and Coarse-Graining Strategies for Predicting Materials Degradation in Extreme Irradiation Environments | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $750,000 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Diffusion, Thermal Properties and chemical Compatibilities of Select MAX Phases with Materials for Advanced Nuclear Systems | Drexel University | $535,927 | Document | Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) | FY2011 | |
| A New Light Weight Structural Material for Nuclear Structures | North Carolina State University | $399,490 | Document | Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) | FY2011 | |
| Experimental Investigation of Convection and Heat Transfer in the Reactor Core for a VHTR | City College of New York | $1,118,856 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Graphite Microstructural Characterization Using Time-Domain and Correlation-Based Ultrasonics | Johns Hopkins University | $1,199,997 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Methodology Development for Passive Component Reliability Modeling in a Multi-Physics Simulation Environment | The Ohio State University | $533,457 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Pebble Fuel Handling and Reactivity Control for Salt-Cooled High Temperature Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $612,721 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Self-Sustaining Thorium Boiling Water Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $1,145,932 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| High Fluency Low Flux Embrittlement Models of LWR Reactor Pressure Vessel Embrittlement and a Supporting Database from the UCSB ATR-2 Irradiation Experiment | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,199,607 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| A Research Program for Fission Product/Dust Transport in HTGR's | University of Missouri-Columbia | $1,157,367 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Development and Validation of a Lifecycle-based Prognostics Architecture with Test Bed Validation | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $846,315 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| In-situ Condition Monitoring of Components in Small Modular Reactors Using Process and Electrical Signature Analysis | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $650,000 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Technical Development for S-CO2 Advanced Energy Conversion | University of Wisconsin | $815,000 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Ag Transport Through Non-Irradiated and Irradiated SiC | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,055,456 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Critical Heat Flux Phenomena at High Pressure and Low Mass Fluxes: Tests and Models | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,199,781 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Modeling and Test Validation of a Reactor Cavity Cooling System with Air | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,199,988 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Transient Mixed Convection Validation for NGNP | Utah State University | $635,860 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Alternative High-Performance Ceramic Waste Forms | Alfred University | $840,000 | This project aims to advance fundamental understanding of the kinetics of structural evolution of crystalline ceramic waste forms. The structure/property relationships will be identified and will reveal new formulations, improved processing routes, and strategies for improved performance or ceramic waste forms. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Surface Layer Bulk Glass Interface Evolution with Aqueous Corrosion | Alfred University | $880,000 | This project will investigate the links between the morphology, structure and chemistry of surface layer-bulk glass interface and the long-term corrosion-reaction kinetics using in-situ and ex-situ experiments. The understanding will result in improved models for long-term predictive behavior of high-level-waste (HLW) glasses under repository conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Optimization of Deep Borehole Systems for HLW Disposal | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $850,000 | Researchers aim to carry out a comprehensive evaluation of the deep borehole option for disposal of used nuclear fuel and high livel waste. The models developed will predict potential movement of water through natural and engineered barriers and release of radionuclides to the biosphere which will aide in site selection. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Scholarship for Nuclear Communications and Methods for Evaluation of Nuclear Project Acceptability | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will work to develop a model to characterize the factors affecting social acceptance of nuclear projects with potential stakeholders. The resultant model will strengthen the ability to design and implement large projects more efficiently, leading to higher rates of success of future nuclear projects. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Accurate Holdup Calculations with Predictive Modeling and Data Integration | North Carolina State University | $875,000 | Researchers will develop and use state-of-the-art radiation transport codes to account accurately for the fissile material in a nuclear materials processing facility. An accurate estimation of the materials will allow for ensured radiological safety, security, waste management and efficient plant operation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Testing of Sapphire Optical Fiber and Sensors in Intense Radiation Fields, when Subjected to Very High Temperatures | The Ohio State University | $885,000 | The researchers on this project will investigate the performance of sapphire optical fibers and sensors in reactor environments. The project, if successful, will result in improved instrumentation to understand the behavior and predict performance of nuclear fuel systems at the microstructural level. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Concrete Materials with Ultra-High Damage Resistance and Self-Sensing Capacity for Extended Nuclear Fuel Storage Systems | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | Researchers aim to design a new class of multifunctional concrete materials. This project, if successful, will result in a novel multifunctional concrete material that possesses inherent degradation monitoring capability and is suitable for an extended storage system for the used nuclear fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Probabilistic Multi-Hazard Assessment of Dry Cask Structures | University of Houston | $865,000 | This project aims to investigate the performance of dry cask storage systems under multiple hazard systems (earthquake, tornados, combined with aging effects) using a probabilistic multi-hazard framework. This framework will be validated based on experimental research and will provide improved models for safety and reliability of spent nuclear fuels during storage and transportation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Electrochemical Corrosion Studies for Modeling Metallic Waste Form Release Rates | University of Nevada- Las Vegas | $790,000 | This project aims to use advanced electrochemical methods to investigate the corrosion related degradation of metal alloys used for housing fission products. The data obtained from this study will allow for the prediction of the long-term behavior of the metallic host phase materials over geological time-scales. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Development and Experimental Benchmark of Simulations to Predict Used Nuclear Fuel Cladding Temperatures during Drying and Transfer Operations | University of Nevada- Reno | $745,000 | Researchers will conduct experiments to investigate and develop advanced computational models of heat transfer in post-pool-storage drying operations. This project, if successful, will result in tools that can be used to design efficient drying processes to as to ensure suitability for dry-cask systems for long-term storage and transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Seismic Performance of Dry Casks Storage for Long-Term Exposure | University of Utah | $873,319 | Researchers will evaluate the mechanical performance of dry-cask storage under seismic loading for mid-term operational periods. Simulations will include scenarios for freestanding, anchored, and vaulted casks. The experimental tests will also evaluate the dynamic seismic response of freestanding and anchored dry-cask storage prototypes, providing recommendations for optimal Interim Spent Fuel Storage Installations (ISFSIs) design. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Coupling of Nuclear Waste Form Corrosion and Radionuclide Transport in Presence of Relevant Repository Sediments | Washington State University | $885,000 | Researchers will conduct experiments to understand the mechanisms responsible for the corrosion of nuclear waste forms in realistic chemical environments. The data generated from these experiments will enable increased reliability of the models used to predict the waste form performance in repository environments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| ABR for TRU Transmutation with Breed & Burn Thorium Blanket for Improved Economics and Resource Utilization | University of California- Berkeley | $450,000 | The research team will use detailed neutronic analysis for a new Advanced Burner Reactor concept with low conversion ratio. The concept will use a new core shape to improve the utilization of neutrons to perform breed and burn. | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2012 |
| Atomic-Scale to Meso-Scale Simulation Studies of Thermal Ageing and Irradiation Effects in Fe-Cr Alloys | Boston University | $874,997 | Researchers will develop predictive, multi-scale simulation tools for iron-chromium alloys, which are expected to be key components of advanced steels envisioned as fuel cladding and structural components for Generation IV reactors. Such modeling is necessary to avoid resource intensive and costly thermal and neutron irradiation experiments to obtain required performance data. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Validation Data and Model Development for Fuel Assembly Response to Seismic Loads | George Washington University | $862,435 | Researchers will conduct experiments that will provide comprehensive data characterizing the dynamics of the fluid and the structure in Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR) fuel assemblies under seismic loads (earthquakes and loss of coolant accidents). Completion of their project will greatly benefit the safety of existing and future nuclear reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Uncertainty Quantification and Management for Multiscale Nuclear Materials Modeling | Georgia Institute of Technology | $743,444 | Researchers will address the question of uncertainty propogation and error estimates associated with model prediction of material behavior under irradiation. Their work will facilitate a better understanding of the connection of various unit processes to collective responses in a multiscale model chain enabling the development of high strength and high ductility materials. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Nonlinear Ultrasonic Techniques to Monitor Radiation Damage in RPV and Internal Components | Georgia Institute of Technology | $877,000 | Researchers will explore new nondestructive materials evaluation and monitoring techniques utilizing nonlinear ultrasonic measurements . This technique will allow researchers to assess remaining useful life of select reactor components. Breakthroughs in this area will lead to the ability to characterize radiation damage in reactor pressure vessels and other components-leading to a clearer definition of reactor safety margins. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Intergral Reactor Containment Condensation Model and Experimental Validation | Oregon State University | $871,119 | Researchers will conduct experiments to enhance the safety and efficiency of small modular reactors (SMRs). This project will assess the impact of high-pressure steam condensation on steel containment vessels to be used for SMR deigns. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Irradiation Performance of Fe-Cr Base Alloys | University of Illinois- Urbana Champaign | $876,332 | _Researchers will perform post-radiation analysis and develop tools for future development and application of the Fe-Cr class of alloys. The results of this research will lead to better modeling of performance and development of an alloy designated as the primary choice for reactor fuel cladding and structural applications in advanced systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Experimentally Validated Numerical Models for Effects of Non-Isothermal Turbulent Mixing on Wall Stresses in High Temperature Reactors | University of Pittsburgh | $876,422 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive experimentally validated computational framework for the turbulent mixing in the lower plenum of a very high temperature reactor (VHTR). Through CFD modeling and experimental validation, the results from this project will lay the groundwork for future stress analysis, failure and fatigue studies, and uncertainty quantification for the VHTR system. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Mechanical Behavior of UO2 at Sub-grain Length Scales: Quantification of Elastic, Plastic and Creep Properties via Microscale Testing | Arizona State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop techniques to measure properties at sub-grain scales using depleted Uranium Oxide samples. The project will provide a framework to measure sub-grain scale mechanical properties, as well as provide experimental data to improve the understanding of advanced oxide fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| The Impacts of Pore-Scale Physical and Chemical Heterogeneities on the Transport of Radionuclide-Carrying Colloids | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will identify the dominant transport mechanisms to develop models that predict radionuclide distribution in porous materials. Experimental and computational models will be created that couple pore-scale geometric and interfacial structures. Simulators such as these are a necessary step towards fully predictive models for field-scale applications in the future. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Polymer-Supported Aminophosphinates as Selective Extractants | Hunter College, CUNY | $399,999 | Researchers will prepare a polymer-supported extractant for the recovery of uranium from seawater. The project will focus on primary amines that could provide a 3-fold increase in uranium capture capacity than current methods. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| In-pile Thermal Conductivity Characterization with Single-laser Heating/Time Resolved Raman | Iowa State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a time-resolved Raman-based thermal conductivity measurement system to improve remote in-pile thermal conductivity measurement. These measurements will provide new insights into the behavior of materials exposed to extreme radiation and temperature environments. Understanding the behavior of materials at the microstructural level will support optimized fuel designs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Organic Speciation and Interactions in ALSEP - One Step Partitioning Process of Minor Actinides, Lanthanides, and Fission Products | Oregon State University | $600,000 | Researchers will investigate the Actinide-Lanthanide Separation (ALSEP) process organic phase prior to aqueous phase separation and after aqueous separation phases of bare and metal-loaded acids. Quantifying these effects can be used to determine how an engineering scale process will perform and generate an accurate chemical model for the system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Glass Composition and Solution Speciation Effects on Stage III Dissolution | Pennsylvania State University | $700,000 | Researchers will study the chemical and structural triggers of long-term vitrified nuclear waste form behavior. They will study a range of waste glass compositions in corrosive environments. The study will improve understanding of the long-term residual rate and may provide new options for environmental control of glass dissolution rates. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Correlating Thermal, Mechanical, and Electrical Coupling Based Multiphysics Behavior of Nuclear Materials Through In-Situ Measurements | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will use in-situ experimental techniques to monitor the influence of extreme conditions on fuel cladding. The project will establish an in-situ experimental setup that can predict change in thermal properties and their correlation with mechanical properties and correlate such changes to changes in microstructural and chemical features. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Creation of a Geant4 Muon Tomography Package for Imaging of Nuclear Fuel in Dry Cask Storage | Purdue University | $440,000 | Researchers will develop a simulation and analysis package to aid in the non-destructive assessment of sealed used nuclear fuel dry casks using cosmic ray muons. Cosmic ray muon tomography allows for non-destructive assessment that can independently verify and identify weapons grade material sealed within dense dry casks. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Fuel Cycle Data Packages for Two-stage Fast Reactor Fuel Cycle Options for Optimum Resource Utilization and Waste Management | Purdue University | $400,000 | Researchers will evaluate the two different two-stage fast reactor fuel cycle options that will offer efficient use of uranium resources and the ability to burn actinides and long-live fission products. Evaluation of these fast fuel cycle options will serve as a useful complement to the options currently being considered in the Fuel Cycle Options Campaign. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Mixed Metal Phosphonate-Phosphate Resins for Separation of Lanthanides from Actinides | Texas A&M University | $650,000 | Researchers will use ion exchangers to cleanly separate lanthanides and curium from reusable actinides. The study will assist in the development of an inexpensive, simple way in which to separate lanthanides from actinides found in used nuclear fuel rods and to recover a large portion of the usable fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Safeguards in Pyroprocessing: an Integrated Model Development and Measurement Data Analysis | The Ohio State University | $626,151 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive and effective safeguards approach for a pyroprocessing facility to support safeguards for future fuel cycles in the United States. The new approach and design will focus directly on the special nuclear materials in the electrorefiner where actinides are separated from fission products through electrochemical process. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Using Ionic Liquids for the Development of Renewable Biopolymer-Based Adsorbents for the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater and Testing Under Marine Conditions | University of Alabama | $400,000 | Researchers will explore the fundamental engineering parameters for a renewable high-performance adsorbent for the extraction of uranium from sweater based on a recently proven ionic liquid (IL)-chitin platform. The project will use the platform to develop a versatile, modifiable adsorbent and characterize its performance and degradation in marine conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Developing Ultra-Small Scale Mechanical Testing Methods and Microstructural Investigation Procedures for Irradiated Materials. | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop new small-scale mechanical testing techniques to allow for the estimation or direct measurement of bulk properties. The combined experiments and modeling will significantly enhance the statistics and information that can be obtained on small radioactive archived samples, as well as new ion beam irradiated specimens. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Improved Delayed-Neutron Spectroscopy Using Trapped Ions | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will develop innovative spectroscopy techniques to measure the decay of fission fragments. The resulting data from these new techniques will be used to better understand reactor kinetics under accident conditions and failure scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Thermally and Chemically Responsive Nanoporous Materials for Efficient Capture of Fission Product Gases | University of California, Davis | $750,000 | Researchers will create new nanoporous materials that will be highly effective at capturing fission product gases. These materials would be relevant to both reactor fuels applications and reprocessing operations. Tests will be performed in carbon based and nitride based nanostructures, with the most promising materials from the modeling perspective undergoing further testing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Multiphase Nanocrystalline Ceramic Concept for Nuclear Fuel | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | Researchers will study the use of nanoparticles and nanostructured ceramics to create new materials that can extend the service life and increase efficiency for nuclear fuel. Multiphase nanocrystalline ceramics will be used to design simulated nuclear fuel that can provide added plasticity, better radiation tolerance and improved thermal conductivity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Novel Porous Sorbents for Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Chicago | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a highly porous sorbent for the extraction of uranium from seawater. Previous research has established sorbent performance. This project will use past foundational studies to design and investigate a new nanocomposites that will be processed into tacks or braids for field tests in seawater tests. The technology may also be used for other metals. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Microwave Readout Techniques for Very Large Arrays of Nuclear Sensors | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,937 | Researchers will develop a powerful readout technique based on microwave transmission and reflection. The technique will enable very large arrays of diverse sensor types for nuclear materials quantification and tracking. It will provide more accurate data on material composition and quantity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| BiI3 Gamma-Ray Spectrometers for Reliable Room-Temperature Nuclear Materials Safeguarding | University of Florida | $799,999 | Researchers will develop gamma-ray spectrometers based on BiI3 single crystals for MPACT applications such as burnup validation quantification, improved assay of plutonium, determination of uranium enrichment and overall monitoring spent fuel within the fuel cycle. The project will improve energy resolution, efficiency and environmental performance with this new gamma-ray detector. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Innovative Coating of Nanostructured Vanadium Carbide on the F/M Cladding Tube Inner Surface for Mitigating the Fuel Cladding Chemical Interactions | University of Florida | $760,276 | Researchers will develop barrier coatings on the inner surface of fuel cladding tubes to improve performance of materials at elevated temperatures and high neutron exposures in fast reactors. The project will develop and test a low temperature coating process of nanostructured vanadium carbide that will provide a benchmark for use in future studies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Doubling the Life of Concrete Structures | University of Idaho | $800,000 | Researchers will use nanoscale techniques to develop methods for doubling the service life of concrete structures. They will study the effect of temperature load and temperature cycling (freezing and thawing) on the durability of concrete with nanoscale viscosity modifiers. The project will benefit from non-destructive evaluation of concrete performance through electrochemical techniques. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Off-Gas Treatment: Evaluation of Nano-structured Sorbents for Selective Removal of Contaminants | University of Idaho | $785,910 | Researchers will evaluate nanostructured sorbent materials for their effectiveness in removing and immobilizing radionuclides for the off-gas treatment from used nuclear fuel recycling operations. The project aims at achieving near-zero emissions of radionuclides by capturing them from the off-gas of recycling operations, allowing for the development of advanced fuel cycles. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium and Transition Metals from Amidoxime-Based Sorbents | University of Idaho | $399,864 | Researchers will develop a new two-step elution process to achieve total recovery of uranium and effective recycling of the sorbent. The extraction process would selectively remove uranium from the sorbent with little or no damage. The process would then remove transition metals and regenerate the sorbent for repeated use, making uranium extraction from seawater economically viable. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Performance of a Steel/Oxide Composite Waste Form for Combined Waste Streams from Advanced Electrochemical Processes over Geologic Time Scales | University of Illinois at Chicago | $700,000 | Researchers will develop and validate a mechanistically-based corrosion model for cermet-type waste forms, creating a testing protocol and modeling approach for predicting long-term performance. The study will apply novel electrochemical testing and modeling methods to the behavior of metal/oxide phase boundaries to evaluate waste form performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Enhancement of the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland, College Park | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and optimize novel adsorbents for uranium recovery from seawater. The team will use radiation-induced grafting of organic phosphates onto polymers. The experiments will use ocean water, with mechanistic analysis, to provide a solid basis for large-scale demonstration of the performance of the new adsorbents in ocean environments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Improving the Understanding of the Coupled Thermal-Mechanical-Hydrologic Behavior of Consolidating Granular Salt | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will increase the understanding of granular salt seal materials for shafts, drifts and boreholes. By coupling thermal, mechanical and hydrological responses, the study will result in greater confidence in granular salt consolidation as a principal strategy for closure and isolation of long-term waste repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Fission Fragment Yield Data in Support of Advanced Reactor Technology | University of New Mexico | $399,816 | Researchers will produce a highly accurate data set for thermal fission. These precision data are necessary for high-accuracy simulations of nuclear criticality, transmutation rates, radiation effects and heating as well as for nuclear fuel, material accounting and identification needs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Molecular dynamics-based simulations of bulk/interfacial structures and diffusion behaviors in nuclear waste glasses | University of North Texas | $700,000 | Researchers will generate accurate atomic structural models for use in Monte Carlo simulations of the dissolution of nuclear waste glasses. Large-scale molecular dynamics-based computer simulations will be used to investigate self-diffusion behaviors, interfacial structure, and other structures formed during dissolution of these glasses. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| U3Si2 Fabrication and Testing for Implementation into the BISON Fuel Performance Code | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will fabricate, test and model a high uranium density, advanced nuclear fuel that operates at a much lower temperature and stores less energy. The work will deliver key research data on creep and grain growth, improving economics, through possible power uprates, and advancing accident tolerant fuels research. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Structural Health Monitoring of Nuclear Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of South Carolina | $738,618 | Researchers will develop a nuclear structural health monitoring system based on a sensing technology that monitors material degradation and aging for dry cask storage systems. The low-cost, low-profile sensors will perform on-demand monitoring of the structural integrity of individual components as well as the entire system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| ORIGEN-based Nuclear Fuel Depletion Module for Fuel Cycle Assessment | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $755,181 | Researchers will develop a flexible reactor analysis module for the CYCLUS fuel cycle simulator based on established tools for reactor fuel depletion and decay. They will use ORIGEN, a mature and experimentally validated code, affording greater flexibility and allowing for accurate evaluations of impacts of both present and future fuel cycle options. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Cost and System Analysis of Innovative Fuel Resources Concepts | University of Texas at Austin | $295,960 | This project will develop and test braided polymer fiber adsorbents that surpass the sorption capacity, selectivity and durability of the best existing technology to recover uranium from seawater. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Risk Assessment of Structural Integrity of Transportation Casks | University of Utah | $789,296 | Researchers will assess the loss of structural integrity of transportation casks and fuel cladding after extended storage. This risk assessment will conduct experimental tests and simulations to evaluate the structural performance of fuel, fuel assemblies and cask components when subjected to vibration and impact loads during transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Market-Based and System-Wide Fuel Cycle Optimization | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $612,731 | Researchers will create market and economic optimizers to improve calculations for the CYCLUS fuel cycle simulator. The team will leverage existing optimization software frameworks within the simulator to resolve top level policy questions. The optimizations will allow CYCLUS to move beyond static material compositions, providing a holistic view of the fuel cycle system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Optical Fiber Based System for Multiple Thermophysical Properties for Glove Box, Hot Cell and In-Pile Applications | Utah State University | $799,975 | Researchers will use a small pressure vessel to develop a robust technique for the measurement of multiple thermophysical properties at very high temperatures. The technique will lead to a system design moving toward the eventual measurement of irradiated fuels in a glovebox and/or hot cell with all sensors and electronics outside of the glovebox and/or hot cell. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of a Nano-Modified Concrete for Next Generation of Storage Systems | Vanderbilt University | $796,268 | Researchers will use nano-sized and nano-structured particles based on enhanced reactivity to develop a superior concrete for the long-term storage of used nuclear fuel. The project will use state-of-the-art experimental chemical and mechanical characterizations and computation analysis to assess the performance of nano-modified concretes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Fuel Cycle Data Packages for Thorium Fuel Cycle Options | Vanderbilt University | $797,995 | Researchers will develop six fuel cycle data packages for multi-stage, thermal fuel cycles which incorporate thorium. These new fuel cycle data packages will provide the opportunity to examine fuel cycle options beyond those which have traditionally been considered. A thorium fuel cycle database will also be assembled as a basis for thorium literature for future evaluations of the thorium fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Enhanced Shielding Performance of HLW Storage Packages via Multi-Component Coatings | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $796,947 | Researchers will develop a multi-layer composite that will enhance long-term storage and facilitate safe transport of storage packages. This novel multi-layer, multi-component coating would create an outer shield material that is resistant to the corrosion, radiation, diffusion and thermal cycling processes that affect fuel packages during long term storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Managing Zirconium Chemistry and Phase Compatibility in Combined Process Separations for Minor Actinide Partitioning | Washington State University | $700,000 | Researchers will address unique challenges for combining TRUEX and TALSPEAK processes for partitioning of lanthanides and minor actinides. The project will develop improved information on the thermodynamics of fission product zirconium and develop a framework for an organic phase solvation model. Combined process development could streamline separations processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Advances in the Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Studies Under Real Ocean Conditions | Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution | $398,882 | Researchers will provide infrastructure and expertise for marine testing of currently available adsorbents in real ocean conditions. The team will move adsorbent research from the lab to field testing in order to quantify sorptive properties and uranium uptake. The project will provide valuable field data that will show the potential of large scale applications of these technologies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| NEUP Project 20-19172: Irradiation of Sensors and Adhesive Couplants for Application in LWR Primary Loop Piping and Components | $497,881 | Researchers paln to attach ultrasonic transducers to substrates using various adhesive couplants that will be irradiated at elevated temperature to simulate LWR primary loop conditions at the PULSTAR reactor at North Carolina State University. Ultrasonic data will be taken in-situ. Subsequently, the sensors and couplant interfaces will be characterized using the LAMDA facility at ORNL. The results will be used to benefit a parallel EPRI project on online monitoring of cracks in LWR primary loop piping. | Document | Joint R&D with NSUF Access | FY2013 | |
| Lower Length Scale Characterization and Validation of Formation and Stability of Helium Bubbles in Nano-structured Ferritic Alloys under Irradiation | Clemson University | $399,870 | Researchers will provide a fundamental knowledge about the formation and stability of ultra-fine helium bubbles within 14YWT after neutron/ion irradiation for further design of new advanced structural materials with a characteristic high density nanoparticles feature which can increase the mechanical strength, hardness, irradiation resistance and the operational temperature range of materials. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Three-Dimensional Fuel Pin Model Validation by Prediction of Hydrogen Distribution in Cladding and Comparison with Experiment | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers will validate important three-dimensional aspects of the fuel pin modeling by using specialized numerical modeling techniques coupled with laboratory experiments to validate existing models for predicting fuel performance in light water reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Collocation-Based Surrogate Models for Uncertainty Quantification and Validation of Coupled, Multiphysics Fuel Performance Simulation Tools | University of Michigan | $596,835 | Researchers will provide the necessary high fidelity, coupled, multiphysics fuel performance simulator for computational modeling and develop surrogates which will accelerate and focus the validation of the coupled codes. This will be achieved by utilizing the high fidelity coupled fuel performance, thermal-hydraulics and neutronics codes BISON/STAR-CCM+/MPACT and an innovative collocation-based surrogate methodology. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Multi-Resolution In-Situ Testing and Mutliscale Simulation for Creep Damage Fatigue Damage Analysis of Alloy 617 | Arizona State University | $800,000 | This project will develop novel testing and experimentally validated prediction methodologies for micro-structural damage mechanisms of structural materials for advanced reactor systems. The investigations will focus on the characterization and testing of specific metal alloys, but the proposed testing and life-prediction methodologies are applicable to other structural materials as well. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Novel High Temperature and Radiation Resistant Infrared Glasses and Optical Fibers for Sensing in Advanced Small Modular Reactors | Clemson University | $800,000 | Clemson University, in partnership with the Iowa State University and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, will develop novel optical materials with improved heat and radiation exposure resistance in order to enable in-vessel fiber optic sensing for advanced Small Modular Reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Validation Data Acquisition in HTTF during PCC Events | George Washington University | $800,000 | Researchers at the George Washington University and Oregon State University will collaborate with NASA Langley Research Center to measure flow velocities in a high temperature test facility. This work supports the development of very-high temperature reactors with passive safety systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced High Temperature Inspection Capabilities for Small Modular Reactors | Iowa State University | $790,822 | The objective of this project is to develop non-destructive evaluation techniques for advanced small modular reactors. The research will provide key enabling inspection technologies needed to support the design and the reactor component performance validation process for advanced small modular reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Experimental and Computational Investigations of Plenum-to-Plenum Heat Transfer under Natural Circulation in a Prismatic Very High Temperature Reactor | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,999 | Researchers will perform experimental and computational investigations to study heat transfer and natural circulation phenomena in very-high temperature reactors. The study will assist in the ability to predict and analyze passive safety systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| New Mechanistic Models of Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth Interactions for Advanced High Temperature Reactor Components | Oregon State University | $790,790 | Researchers will create and validate a robust, multi-scale, numerical model to predict material degradation in nickel-based reactor alloys. If successful, this project will provide better numerical tools for reactor designers and greatly improve their capability to design against material failures for reactor alloys in the long term. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Self-Powered Wireless Dual-mode Langasite Sensor for Pressure/Temperature Monitoring of Nuclear Reactors | State University of New York, Stony Brook | $800,000 | This research will develop a novel self-powered wireless hybrid sensor that can accurately monitor both pressure and temperature using a single device without requiring external electricity, even in extreme harsh environments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Compact Heat Exchanger Design and Testing for Advanced Nuclear Reactors and Advanced Power Cycles | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to investigate optimal heat exchanger designs for advanced reactors. The research will study the optimization of printed circuit heat exchangers for specific fluids under a variety of conditions as well as perform numerical modeling. Experiments will focus on thermal performance and heat stress during extreme conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Fundamental Understanding of Creep-Fatigue Interactions in 9Cr-1MoV Steel Welds | The Ohio State University | $798,000 | This project will advance the state of knowledge and fundamental understanding of deforming materials and welds under loading conditions. Specifically, new integrated testing procedures will be evaluated and applied for conditions that are most detrimental to material stability leading to improved predictions of life expectancy for reactor steels and welds. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced Mechanistic 3D Spatial Modeling and Analysis Methods to Accurately Represent Nuclear Facility External Event Scenarios | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop three-dimensional characterization uncertainty analysis for commercial power plants. The project will involve combining experts from the fields of seismic structural modeling and advanced methods of risk assessment. This effort is expected to result in next generation tools that can be used for assessment of seismic risks. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Tritium Mitigation/Control for Advanced Reactor Systems | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a fluoride salt cooled high-temperature reactor featuring a specialized system to control tritium production. If successful, this will result in a significant reduction in size and cost in comparison to other reactor designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| A Pebble-Bed Breed and Burn Reactor | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will assess the feasibility of designing a type of metal cooled reactor able to establish and maintain operation when fueled with depleted uranium. If successful, this reactor will offer at least a 30-fold increase in the uranium ore utilization versus that achieved in contemporary light water reactors without the need for fuel reprocessing and recycling. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Investigation of Thermal Aging Effects on the Evolution of Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Cast Duplex Stainless Steels | University of Maryland, College Park | $799,966 | This research will provide a better understanding of the microstructural evolution and simultaneous change in mechanical response during aging. The results of the research will provide data that can be used to estimate degraded mechanical properties for an 80-year service life of light water reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Model validation using CFD-grade experimental database for NGNP Reactor Cavity Cooling Systems with water and air | University of Michigan | $799,348 | Researchers will use advanced innovative instrumentation to build a high-resolution experimental database and to use the novel experimental data to assess and further develop the predictive capabilities of computer codes for thermal hydraulics and computational fluid dynamics. The improved models developed by this project will also have the direct benefit of improving the predictive capability of the passive systems of third generation light water reactors and small modular reactor systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Long-Term Prediction of Emissivity of Structural Material for High Temperature Reactor Systems | University of Missouri | $799,117 | Researchers will study specific types of emissivity driven cooling from a variety of materials that are relevant to nuclear reactors. The research will provide a basis for numerical modeling to support reactor development. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced I&C for Fault-Tolerant Supervisory Control of Small Modular Reactors | University of Pittsburgh | $800,000 | The purpose of this research is to develop advanced instrumentation and control techniques for supervisory control of advanced small modular reactors. This research supports the operational goals of small modular reactor concepts through the development of improved oversight and surveillance techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Corrosion of Structural Materials for Advanced Supercritical Carbon-Dioxide Brayton Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $798,672 | Researchers will study a variety of materials for corrosion resistance under conditions that improve power conversion. In addition to studying the corrosion resistance of the materials, researchers will study the effect of additives to mitigate corrosion. Development of corrosion theories and modeling aimed at prediction of long-term corrosion will be the underlying theme throughout the project. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Component and Technology Development for Advanced Liquid Metal Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $798,920 | In support of liquid metal cooled reactors, the University of Wisconsin, Madison will evaluate advanced alloys and ceramics that come in contact with liquid metals. Additionally, a robust oxygen sensor and for use in liquid metals will be developed in order to better evaluate corrosion profiles in support of diagnostic testing. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| A New Paradigm for Understanding Multi-phase Ceramic Waste Form Performance | Clemson University | $800,000 | Researchers will use advanced characterization tools to develop 3-D microstructural data that can be incorporated into computer-based simulations in order to predict the performance of waste forms. Materials system modeling will incorporate elemental release and the interconnected microstructural network of phases to better understand performance and degradation, which will accelerate waste form acceptance in repository settings. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Controlling Hexavalent Americium: A Centerpiece to a Compact Nuclear Fuel Cycle | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and exploit the fundamental chemistry of Americium to enable an industrially viable means to co-recover the major and minor actinide elements from used nuclear fuel. The results would be a significant step forward in the development of aqueous separations approaches designed to recover the U-Am actinides based on the availability of the hexavalent oxidation state. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Zeolite Membranes for Krypton/Xenon Separation from Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Off-Gas | Georgia Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a high-performance, lower-cost zeolitic membrane process for Kr/Xe separations during spent nuclear fuel processing. Current separation methods are not considered economical and a membrane process would have relatively lower cost, equipment size, and ambient operating temperature. The process would form a sound basis for further development of this transformative separation technology for the nuclear fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Optimizing Polymer-Grafted Amidoxime-based Adsorbents for Uranium Uptake from Seawater | Georgia Institute of Technology | $399,999 | Researchers will work to increase the adsorbent capacity and selectivity toward uranium by optimizing the adsorbent morphology, synthesis variables, and conditioning parameters and by investigating the rate-limiting variables through transport and reaction modeling. A novel adsorption/partition concept that has the potential to substantially increase the adsorbent capacity will be tested, making uranium from seawater extraction more economically viable. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Extraction of Uranium from Seawater: Design and Testing of a Symbiotic System | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a seawater uranium extraction system that will work symbiotically with an offshore windmill by utilizing the structure, mooring and power of the windmill, while increasing the energy harvested by the installation. Uranium will be extracted by an adsorbent polymer belt, which will be cycled through the seawater and an elution plant located at the base of the windmill tower. Increasing the frequency of harvesting could overcome current economic barriers to seawater uranium extraction. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Imaging a Dry Storage Cask with Cosmic Ray Muons | Oregon State University | $799,871 | Researchers will develop an imaging system to monitor the content of a dry storage cask with cosmic ray muons. A very large amount of plutonium under nuclear safeguards is contained in used fuel assemblies stored in dry storage casks. Muon imaging will allow a cost effective and reliable way to evaluate dry storage cask content and integrity before transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Apatite and sodalite based glass-bonded waste forms for immobilization of 129I and mixed halide radioactive wastes | Rutgers University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop advanced and chemically durable waste forms for immobilizing 129I (aqueous based reprocessing of fuel) and mixed-halide wastes (molten-salt processing of fuel) by low temperature synthesis. Halide-containing sodalite and calcium phosphate-based apatite minerals will be synthesized, consolidated and tested for chemical durability. The project will provide needed baseline data for the development of advanced waste forms for immobilization of iodine and mixed-halide wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Sorption Modeling and Verification for Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $350,000 | Researchers will develop modeling tools supported by experiments for off-gas capture from future nuclear-fuel recycling facilities. Target species include tritium, iodine, krypton, and xenon. The models are intended to provide path forward recommendations to develop off-gas treatment adsorption processes. The project will contribute to the evaluation of options for environmentally acceptable recycle systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development of high performance ODS alloys | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will study swelling, radiation hardening and changes in mechanical properties of ODS alloys to develop two sets of advanced ODS alloys. Two sets of first-round candidate alloys that have already undergone extensive development and testing will evaluate irradiation performance. The study will meet the need for high strength, radiation-tolerant cladding and core components that have enhanced resistance to void swelling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Rare Earth Electrochemical Property Measurements and Phase Diagram Development in a Complex Molten Salt Mixture for Molten Salt Recycle | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate rare earth (RE) properties in complex molten salt mixtures. In a molten salt recycle approach, the RE drawdown by electrolysis is a key step in which REs are separated from salt containing other fission products. Investigation of RE electrolysis must consider the electrochemical properties of the REs. We propose to conduct studies of detailed experiments and corresponding models to provide the physical properties and phase diagrams required to predict the performance of RE drawdown for processing complex molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Computational and Experimental Studies of Microstructure-Scale Porosity in Metallic Fuels for Improved Gas Swelling Behavior | University of Arkansas | $796,823 | Researchers will study the microstructure of metallic uranium alloy fuels, and their resistance to densification, to minimize in-pile irradiation swelling through bimodal pore size distribution. The project will develop a predictive approach to design metallic fuel microstructures for optimal swelling resistance and fission gas retention. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Improved Hybrid Modeling of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of California, Berkeley | $645,393 | Researchers will develop a variance reduction method for computational transport that will improve the ability to design and operate monitoring systems for interim used fuel installations through enhanced modeling and simulation. This new tool will demonstrate that modeling calculations can be done more accurately in less time than with current tools and will perform studies characterizing how changes in material, cask configurations, and number of casks could impact monitoring systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Selective ligands for uranyl via combinatorial peptoid libraries: A synthetic, structural, thermodynamic and computational study | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will study how donor ligands bind to the uranyl ion, UO22+, with the longer-term goal of using this information to tackle selective recognition of uranyl in aqueous solution. The study will impact underlying approaches to controlling the behavior of uranium in these systems. The actinide separation technology could be used in several areas including uranium extraction from seawater, nuclear waste remediation and nuclear materials. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Combining Experiments and Simulations of Extraction Kinetics and Thermodynamics in Advanced Separation Processes for Used Nuclear Fuel | University of California, Irvine | $799,938 | Researchers will study how the kinetics and thermodynamics of metal ion extraction in advanced separation processes for used nuclear fuel can be described by molecular dynamic (MD) simulations and how the simulations can be validated by experimental data. The project would have broad impacts on several separations processes including advanced TALSPEAK, ALSEP and GANEX by increasing the confidence and accuracy of computer modeling of metal ion extraction. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Effect of Metallic Li on the Behavior of Metals in Molten Salts | University of Nevada, Reno | $458,250 | Researchers will identify the effect of metallic lithium on materials that are used in molten salt recycling. The study will try to understand how the presence of Li(0) in molten salts affects the degradation of alloys. Studying these changes will help accurately predict container material behavior and longevity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Assessment of Corrosion Resistance of Promising Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding under Reactor Conditions | University of Notre Dame | $800,000 | Researchers will assess the corrosion behavior of accident tolerant fuel candidate iron-based alloys under normal LWR operating conditions consisting of high temperature, relevant water chemistry and irradiation. The assessment will produce data about possible irradiation-accelerated corrosion rates of iron-based alloys, and the mechanisms by which such corrosion rates are accelerated. The project will advance the selection of appropriate replacements for Zircaloy cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Enhanced Accident-Tolerant Fuel Performance and Reliability for Aggressive iPWR/SMR Operation | University of Tennessee | $799,967 | To develop a process that evaluates operational and safety performance of reactor-and-fuel combinations by integrating whole-core 3D neutronics with MOOSE/BISON fuel performance assessments via explicit time and space dependent fuel rod operational power histories. The project will be valuable in analyzing and evaluating accident tolerant fuel concepts and furthering the understanding of reactor physics and fuel performance aspects of key accident tolerant fuel concepts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Nuclear Technology R&D Strategies in an Era of Energy Price Uncertainty | University of Texas, Austin | $799,112 | Researchers will identify nuclear technology options that are competitive over a wide range of plausible future business environments. No single nuclear technology or business practice will be the best choice across all or even most future conditions. The study will focus on hybrid nuclear-fossil technologies, energy storage and conversion, which will result in an identification of nuclear strategies that can succeed under future market conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development and Optimization of Voltammetric Methods for Real Time Analysis of Electrorefiner Salt with High Concentrations of Actinides and Fission Products | University of Utah | $621,612 | Researchers will develop an advanced voltammetry method to pursue the objective of real time monitoring of actinide concentrations in electrorefiner salt. This will include experimental measurement of key parameters such as activity coefficients and exchange current density. It will also involve simulation of voltammetry processes based on first principles. The project will allow for real time measurements that could support the commercialization of pyroprocessing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development of Self-Healing Zirconium-Silicide Coatings for Improved Performance of Zirconium-Alloy Fuel Cladding | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $798,621 | Researchers will study the deposition of self-healing zirconium-silicide coatings on zirconium-alloy fuel cladding material to improve corrosion resistance under normal and accident conditions. Under these conditions, Zr-Si coating evolves into a highly protective functionally-graded multilayered system. The study will lead to improved performance of zirconium-alloy fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Thermal Conductivity in Metallic Fuels | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,837 | Researchers will calculate the thermal conductivity of metallic uranium and neptunium alloys, including the effects of noble gasses, using density functional theory. The experiments will validate the calculated effective thermal conductivity using the MARMOT code and by helping determine DFT simulation parameters. The study works to improve fuel lifetime by understanding its thermal behavior. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| SiC-ODS Alloy Gradient Nanocomposites as Novel Cladding Materials | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,998 | Researchers will combine nuclear nanomaterial design, processing, testing, and characterization efforts to develop revolutionary materials that can withstand neutron irradiation for long period of time using nanostructured SiC and oxide dispersion strengthened steel. The ultimate objective is to offer new cladding materials with increased corrosion resistance, strength, and creep resistance in both steady state and accident conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Experimental Breeder Reactor II Benchmark Evaluation | Idaho State University | $400,000 | _Researchers will develop a benchmark evaluation of the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II). During nearly 30 years of operation numerous experiments were conducted at EBR-II. The most significant of these experiments were conducted in 1986 demonstrating inherent safety features in loss of flow without reactor scram and loss of heat sink without reactor scram. Benchmark evaluation will be valuable for the reactor design efforts in the United States and South Korea. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| Integral full core multi-physics PWR benchmark with measured data | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | _Researchers will introduce BEAVRS, a new multi-cycle full-core Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) depletion benchmark based on two operational cycles of a commercial nuclear power plant. This project aims at addressing the uncertainty quantification of the measured data and on making this benchmark a true non-proprietary international benchmark for the validation of high-fidelity multi-physics computational tools. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| Benchmark Evaluation of PROTEUS Gas-Cooled Reactor Experiments | University of Florida | $400,000 | _Researchers will create International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) benchmarks using data from 1970s experiments of the neutronics of gas-cooled fast reactor (GCFR) designs investigated in the PROTEUS reactor. The GCFR-PROTEUS experiments fill a gap in current integral benchmark data. These experiments can provide validation of computational models and nuclear data for next generation reactors. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| An Investigation To Establish Multiphysical Property Dataset Of Nuclear Materials Based On In-Situ Observations And Measurements | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will create an in-situ measurement based experimental approach to develop experimental validation dataset for NEAMS based code validation. Particular emphasis is on supplying data set for multiphysics simulations in extreme conditions as a function of material microstructure. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| Experimental Validation of UO2 Microstructural Evolutions for NEAMS tool MARMOT | University of Florida | $798,000 | _Researchers will experimentally validate MARMOT for predicting the microstructural evolutions of UO2 oxide fuel under the driving forces of high temperatures and large temperature gradient in reactors. By performing the experiments and simulations simultaneously using precisely defined initial conditions, the experiment data will provide direct benchmarking of the MARMOT code. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| High-resolution time-resolved experiments on mixing and entrainment of buoyant jets in stratified environments | University of Michigan | $799,983 | _Researchers will study high spatial and time-resolution experimental data of the fluid dynamics phenomena of flow jets interacting with a stratified layer. The issue plays an important role in the safety of several reactor designs, including sodium-cooled reactors. The data addresses the NEAMS needs for the validation of high fidelity computational fluid dynamics methodologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| Fundamental study of key issues related to advanced S-CO2 Brayton Cycle: prototypic HX development and Cavitation | Georgia Institute of Technology | $799,000 | _Researchers will study scientific and operational issues pertinent to compact heat exchanger systems and turbo-machinery. The project will work to resolve issues with the fabrication of diffusion bonded compact heat exchangers, alternate heat exchange technology for recuperators, and resolution of issues with cavitation and fluid instabilities. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Advanced Models for Nondestructive Evaluation of Aging Nuclear Power Plant Cables | Iowa State University | $787,291 | _Researchers will develop advanced models that relate environmentally induced microstructural and chemical changes in cable insulation polymers to their macroscopic electrical parameters. These parameters will be measured and modeled over a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum, covering several potential nondestructive evaluation techniques, enabling identification of the most sensitive techniques for future development. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Development of Novel Functionally Graded Transition Joints for Improving the Creep Strength of Dissimilar Metal Welds in Nuclear Applications | Lehigh University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop graded transition joints and improved creep life models for increasing the life of dissimilar metal welds (DMWs) in nuclear reactors. The research represents the first application of functionally graded material concepts for solving the problem of DMW failures through an integrated approach of additive manufacturing, modeling, microstructural characterization, and advanced strain-sensing techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Feasibility Assessment of a Micro Modular Reactor (MMR) | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | _Researchers will develop an innovative compact reactor concept that integrates power production, power conversion and electricity generation in a single unit: the Micro Modular Reactor (MMR). It is designed to be absolutely melt-down proof (MDP) under all circumstances including complete loss of coolant scenarios with no possible release of radioactive material, to have a cycle length of greater than 10 years, and to be highly proliferation resistant. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Scaling Studies for Advanced Gas Reactor Concepts | Oregon State University | $681,834 | _Researchers will expand the utilization of the Oregon State University High Temperature Test Facility (HTTF) to validate a broader range of advanced high temperature reactors and events. The facility will be revised to add a detailed scaling analysis of additional gas reactor concepts including advanced gas-cooled, molten salt, and sodium cooled reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Fluid Stratification Separate Effects Analysis, Testing and Benchmarking | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will study fluid stratification in high temperature gas reactors. Coolant stratification is the result of incomplete mixing of one or more fluids, leading to a density gradient, which may or may not dissipate under diffusive or convective effects. This combined analytical and experimental project seeks to investigate stratification driven by diffusive and convective mechanisms and is expected to yield insight into this phenomenon. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Probabilistic Economic Valuation of Safety Margin Management Analysis | Oregon State University | $795,364 | _Researchers will use RAVEN and develop a companion software package to facilitate economic analysis of safety margins. The project is a proof of concept that will use techniques to examine the cost of improving safety margins vs. the risk of accidents from not improving safety margins. This analysis can be used to evaluate the economic viability of various plant upgrades. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Novel Dissimilar Joints Between Alloy 800H and 2.25%Cr and 1%Mo Steel | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will fabricate and test dissimilar metal joints between a nickel base alloy and a steel with gradual variations of chemical composition, microstructure and properties in a manner that reduces abrupt thermal expansion mismatch and the resulting residual stresses. Data on structure and properties will serve as valuable inputs for the initiation of an ASME code case. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Multi-Phase Model Development to Assess RCIC System Capabilities under Severe Accident Conditions | Texas A&M University | $564,246 | _Researchers will develop physics-based models of the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) System and incorporating them into a multi-phase code for validation. The project will tackle the current major challenges in RCIC System analysis and enable evaluation of two-phase thermodynamic aspects. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Experimental Investigation and CFD Analysis of Steam Ingress Accidents in HTGRs | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will study the steam ingress scenario for HTGRs. The study will investigate thermal-hydraulic behavior and graphite oxidation of stream ingress phenomena to validate predictive CFD models. This work will resolve concerns about possible steam generator tube ruptures in a HTGR He-Steam Rankine cycle. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Coiled Tube Gas Heaters For Nuclear Gas-Brayton Power Conversion | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop heat exchangers for Brayton-cycle power conversion in reactors using sodium, NaK, or salt as intermediate coolants. The proposed coiled tube gas heaters (CTGHs) are expected to have excellent power density, thermal shock/creep, in-service inspection, and reparability characteristics. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Fundamental Studies of Irradiation-Induced Modifications in Microstructural Evolution and Mechanical Properties of Advanced Alloys | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop and test a mechanism for predicting neutron irradiation performance for optimized Grade 92 and Alloy 709 for applications in advanced reactor systems. The work will employ ion irradiations and available information from neutron irradiations of related alloys to develop a basis for predicting the neutron irradiation performance of the optimized alloys. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Integrated Computational and Experimental Study of Radiation Damage Effects in Grade 92 Steel and Alloy 709 | University of Tennessee | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop a mechanistic understanding and predictive models of irradiation-induced microstructural evolution and resulting mechanical properties in optimized ferritic-martensitic Grade 92 steel and austenitic alloy 709 using multiscale simulations coupled with rigorous experimental validation. The project will provide insights into the correlation between ion irradiation and fast neutron damage. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Meta-Level Design Guidance and Operator Performance Measures for Hybrid Control Rooms | Vanderbilt University | $799,869 | _Researchers will apply human factors engineering methods and relevant expertise from non-nuclear high-risk high-consequence domains toward the measurement of operator performance in analog, digital, and hybrid main control rooms. Performance measures will be developed for evaluating the situation awareness and decision-making proficiencies to support the transition to digital or hybrid control room displays. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| NEUP Project 15-8514: Elucidation of the kinetics of Advanced Separation systems | California State University, Long Beach | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a fundamental understanding of the chemical kinetics relevant to separation processes by measuring ligand complexation rate constants for both lanthanides and actinides in the aqueous and organic phases. These experiments will provide essential kinetic and mechanistic information required for developing a simplified, single-step recovery of transuranic elements. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8119: Kr/Xe separation over Metal Organic Framework Membranes | Colorado School of Mines | $375,000 | Researchers will develop metal organic framework (MOF) membranes that will be capable of effectively separating Kr from Xe with high flux and selectivity. This project may result in the development of membranes that will constitute a viable energy saving approach for the effective removal of Kr during the processing of used nuclear fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8347: Multilayer Composite Fuel Cladding for LWR Performance Enhancement and Severe Accident Tolerance | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop, manufacture, and weld a new multimetallic layered composite (MMLC) for enhanced severe accident tolerance and manufacturability in LWRs. Layers of stainless steel (facing the coolant) and Zircaloy (facing the fuel) will be separated by barrier layers of Cr and Nb. Severe accident testing in 1200C steam, LWR autoclave testing, and ion irradiation studies will demonstrate the MMLC's microstructural stability. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8112: Phase Separation and Crystallization of Complex Borosilicate Melts for Glass-Ceramic Waste Forms | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,806 | Researchers will study the mechanisms for microstructural development and properties of multi-phase, glass-ceramic materials that form when waste-loaded borosilicate glasses are cooled from above their liquidus or consolute temperatures through the glass transition temperature. The project will apply these tools to modified compositions to maximize the formation of the desirable crystalline phases. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8265: Electrically-Assisted Tubing Processes for Enhancing Manufacturability of Oxide Dispersion Strengthened Structural Materials for Nuclear Reactor Applications | Northwestern University | $800,000 | Researchers will enhance the formability of nanostructured ferritic alloys (NFAs) such that high-strength thin-walled claddings can be manufactured successfully and economically to be used in future reactors. The project will study the effects of continuous and pulsed electric currents on the deformation behavior of Fe-14Cr based NFA steel. The findings will be used to establish innovative fabrication processes including electrically-assisted extrusion and rolling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8126: Fundamental Electrochemical Properties of Liquid Metals in LiCl-KCl for Separation of Alkali/Alkaline-Earths (Cs, Sr and Ba) | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate the fundamental properties of novel liquid metal electrodes for separation of alkali/alkaline-earth fission products in LiCl-KCl electrolyte. The project will further the development of pyroprocessing by maximizing salt recycle and providing a method for recovery of alkali/alkaline-earth fission products as oxides (as opposed to chlorides) which will allow them to be encapsulated in a more conventional glass wasteform. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8074: Monitoring of Actinide Concentrations in Molten LiCl-KCl Salt using Alpha Spectroscopy | The Ohio State University | $799,969 | Researchers will develop a novel in-salt sensor that uses electrochemistry to pre-concentrate the actinides onto the sensor to measure the actinides concentration in a high temperature and high radiation field represented by a molten salt environment. The ability to monitor actinides to prevent misuse is critical to enhancing the control of nuclear materials. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8717: Understanding the Interactions of Seawater Ions with Amidoxime through X-Ray Crystallography | University of Alabama | $553,971 | _Researchers will investigate the fundamental interactions of the amidoxime (R-C(NH2)=NOH) functional group with metal ions found in seawater using a combined approach of single crystal X-ray diffraction and spectroscopy to understand the origin of the selectivity of amidoxime resins for uranyl ([UO2]2+] ions and establish structural benchmarks for interpretation of spectroscopic studies on actual sorbents to aid in identifying specific sorbent-metal interactions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8439: Developing a macro-scale SiC-cladding behavior model based on localized mechanical and thermal property evaluation on pre- and post-irradiation SiC-SiC composites | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a fundamental understanding of the macroscopic behavior of SiC-SiC composite structures before and after irradiation based on the microscopic property changes of each individual component (SiC matrix, fiber and interface). SiC-SiC composites will be tested in the as-fabricated condition, after being subjected to neutron and ion irradiation, micro-cracking, and oxidation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8536: Quantitative Prediction of Uranium Speciation and Amidoxime Binding in Seawater from Advanced Simulation Techniques | University of California, Riverside | $450,000 | Researchers will quantitatively predict stability of uranium species and thermochemistry (free energy, entropy, and enthalpy) of uranium binding with amidoxime ligands in seawater conditions. To achieve the goal, advanced simulation techniques including all-atom molecular dynamics, free-energy calculations, and the hybrid quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical approach will be employed to explicitly include water molecules and common seawater ions in the simulation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8286: Used Fuel Storage Monitoring Using Helium-4 Scintillation Fast Neutron Detectors and Neutron Spectral Analysis | University of Florida | $799,765 | Researchers will build and demonstrate a prototype detector device capable of unambiguously verifying the declared content of dry casks in a non-intrusive manner for the safeguarding and monitoring of used fuel storage installations. This will be achieved through a neutron spectroscopy and imaging system using high-efficiency Helium-4 (4He) gas scintillation fast neutron detectors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8663: Enhancement of the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland, College Park | $600,000 | Researchers will produce efficient adsorbents of uranium from seawater in seeking to optimize the functional ligands, the polymeric substrates, the grafting conditions and the adsorption/desorption durations based on sound chemical understanding. The result will be adsorbents that can be used through multiple cycles of uranium adsorption without significant degradation of the adsorbents capacity and selectivity for uranium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8111: Purification of Zirconium cladding using a chloride volatility process | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $798,877 | _Researchers will investigate the thermochemistry of used fuel Zr cladding components chlorides as well as their activation products and residual radionuclide metal chlorides to provide fundamental data that will support the development of a chlorination process for the purification of ZrCl4. Understanding the chemistry of these chloride species will provide process development guidance for the purification of Zr cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8323: Purification of Zirconium Tetrachloride from UNF Cladding | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $793,121 | _Researchers will develop and demonstrate a process to purify zirconium tetrachloride obtained from the direct chlorination of used Zircaloy cladding materials from used nuclear fuel rod assemblies. This study will increase understanding of purification protocols that will allow zirconium chloride to be recycled further. Increased recycling capability would significantly reduce the amount of high level waste associated with light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8752: Radiation Effects on High Thermal Conductivity Fuels | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $400,000 | _Researchers will use scoping ion and neutron irradiations to explore the structural stability and thermal conductivity of model high thermal conductivity fuels consisting of CeO2 and either Al2O3 (BeO surrogate) or SiC. Issues associated with thermal conductivity degradation (including micro cracking effects) and general phase stability of fuel systems will be examined. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8243: Radiation-induced swelling and microcracking in SiC cladding for LWRs | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $797,889 | _Researchers will use state of the art experimental characterization techniques and multi-scale methodology (developed within the MOOSE-MARMOT-BISON framework) to provide scientific basis for predictions of swelling and microcracking in SiC cladding as a function of temperature and irradiation histories. Predicting swelling and microcracking will further the potential for accident tolerant SiC cladding to be used in light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8081: Understanding influence of thermal history and glass chemistry on kinetics of phase separation and crystallization in borosilicate glass-ceramic waste forms for aqueous reprocessed high level waste | Washington State University | $799,911 | _Researchers will develop a fundamental and transformative understanding of the crystallization mechanisms in complex glass-ceramic high level waste (HLW) wasteforms,. This understanding will underpin the maturation of glass ceramic manufacture, by linking process variables to molecular scale mechanisms, enabling reliable production of wasteforms to the desired specification. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8210: A Transient Reactor Physics Experiment with High-Fidelity, 3-D Flux Measurements for Validation and Verification | Kansas State University | $799,198 | _Researchers will instrument the University of Wisconsin Nuclear Reactor with micro-pocket fission detectors (MPFDs) to measure 3-D flux distributions. The measurements will be compared to simulation using PROTEUS from the NEAMS toolkit. MPFDs are small, which leads to low gamma-ray sensitivity and small flux perturbations. A 3-D array of MPFDs and standard reactor instrumentation will be used to capture highly-resolved flux and temperature distributions for several steady-state and transient conditions. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8101: Development of Critical Experiments to Provide Validation Data for Multiphysics Coupling Methods | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $799,993 | Researchers will develop a set of benchmark validation experiments for multiphysics coupling by exploiting the inherent flexibility of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Reactor Critical Facility (RCF). This project will use targeted experiments to validate the coupling between neutronics, thermal hydraulics, and structural mechanics routines present in the NEAMS Reactor Product Line toolkit._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8229: Thermal Transport and Fracture Behavior of Sintered Fuel Pellets: Experimental Validation of NEAMS Tool MARMOT | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | _Researchers will perform experimental validation of the NEAMS tool MARMOT for predicting thermal transport and fuel fracture. By performing extensive thermal transport and fracture experiments on well-controlled microstructures of sintered UO2, the impact of microstructure on thermo-mechanical properties of sintered UO2 and mechanistic understanding will be achieved. The high quality experimental data will directly benchmark the MARMOT code by evaluating the thermal transport and fracture models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8208: Development of a Novel Accelerator for Neutron Transport Solution Using the Galerkin Spectral Element Methods | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $626,176 | _Researchers will develop a novel accelerator for neutron transport calculations based on the spectral element methods, continuous Galerkin (CG) and discontinuous Galerkin (DG) approximations. The CG and DG methods will be used to solve the multi-group neutron diffusion equation on the coarse-mesh structure (e.g., pin-size up to assembly-size), which is then coupled with the high-order neutron transport solution to speed up the neutron transport computation. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8338: Methodology Development for Cybersecurity Robustness and Vulnerability Assessment of University Research Reactors: A Case Study Using the PULSTAR Reactor | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop a methodology for assessing the cybersecurity robustness and vulnerability of university research reactors using an actual university reactor as a test case. While the developed methodology will be specifically tested and applied using this reactor, it will be formulated as a general blueprint and used as the starting point for the assessment of university research reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cyber Security R&D | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8121: Automatic Imagery Data Analysis for Proactive Computer-Based Workflow Management during Nuclear Power Plant Outages | Arizona State University | $799,738 | _Researchers will test the hypothesis that real-time imagery-based object tracking and spatial analysis, as well as human behavior modeling will significantly improve efficiency of outage control while lowering the rates of accidents and incidents. The project will examine computer vision methods and human behavior models for developing a proactive workflow management tool and integrate it into Computer-Based Procedures for supporting an Advanced Outage Control Center. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8308: Creep and creep-fatigue crack growth mechanisms in Alloy 709 | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _A joint US/UK team will study the crack growth mechanism and failure analysis of alloy 709 under creep and creep-fatigue conditions. The study will be done through in situ heating and loading during SEM observation to evaluate the crack growth under plane stress condition and traditional methods to study the crack growth under plane strain condition. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8582: Mechanistic and Validated Creep/Fatigue Predictions for Alloy 709 from Accelerated Experiments and Simulations | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will use mechanistic methods for predicting creep and creep-fatigue deformation rates/strains based on accelerated in-situ and ex-situ tests, and mesoscale dislocation dynamics simulations for Alloy 709. This research will support its qualification in the ASME code for use in advanced nuclear reactor applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8495: Advancement of Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Technology through Round Robin Testing and Fundamental Modeling | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will conduct a round robin test plan for S-CO2 corrosion testing across multiple institutions and the organization of a S-CO2 Materials Group to guide future materials testing directions. Furthermore, this proposal outlines identical tests in supercritical water, testing model alloys with various composition and environmental conditions, accompanied by modeling efforts to study rate controlling mechanisms of corrosion. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8489: Modeling and Validation of Irradiation Damage in Ni-based Alloys for Long-Term LWR Applications | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _A joint US/UK team will study thermal and irradiation-induced transformations mechanisms of Alloys 690 and 625 in order to extend Grizzly to include capabilities for modeling Ni-based alloys. The project will develop modeling tools for materials degradation in light water reactors, allowing for component replacement data and continued safe operation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-7983: Development of Steady-State Thermal-Hydraulic Analysis and Bowing Reactivity Evaluation Methods Based on Neutron and Gamma Transport Calculations | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop steady-state thermal-hydraulic analysis and assembly bowing reactivity evaluation methods based on the latest transport calculation capabilities in order to overcome the limitations and improve the accuracy of current design analysis methods. The outcome of the effort will be computer programs to calculate the steady-state heat source distributions in fuel pins and assembly duct walls and to calculate the reactivity worth of assembly displacements. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8627: Experimental Validation Data and Computational Models for Turbulent Mixing of Bypass and Coolant Jet Flows in Gas-Cooled Reactors | Texas A&M University | $799,613 | _Researchers will establish reliable models of the thermal-hydraulics in Gas-Cooled Reactors with experimental and computational efforts. Specifically, this work will focus on providing the relationship between fluctuating velocities and temperatures in the lower plenum and their dependency on the turbulent upstream mixing in the core and collection chambers leading up to the lower plenum. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8251: Enhanced Performance Fast Reactors with Engineered Passive Safety System | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | _Researchers will study the feasibility of improving the passive safety and economics of sodium cooled fast reactors (SFR) by incorporating within their fuel assemblies a novel Autonomous Reactivity Control (ARC) system. It is expected that the ARC systems will enable to design even low leakage SFR cores, such as breed-and-burn cores, to be passively safe and to improve the neutron economy and economic viability of more conventional SFR. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8258: Physics-Based Probabilistic Model of the Effects of Ionizing Radiation on Polymeric Insulators of Electric Cables used in Nuclear Power Plants | University of California, Los Angeles | $798,846 | _Researchers will develop and experimentally validate a probabilistic physics-based degradation models for polymeric insulators of electric cables to be used in integrated performance and safety codes, which will help reduce the uncertainty associated with the long-term aging of cable insulation. The project will deliver a C++ based simulation code that will be readily compatible with the MOOSE/Grizzly framework developed at the Idaho National Laboratory. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8000: The Influences of Neutron Irradiation on Aggregate Induced Degradation of Concrete | University of California, Los Angeles | $800,000 | _Researchers will quantify the impacts of irradiation on concrete degradation. The research will develop new understanding of the evolutions and manifestations of irradiation assisted aggregate concrete degradation caused by neutron exposure. This assessment will help to mitigate the risk of such degradation within the Grizzly framework, by careful integrations of nanoscale analytics and simulation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8458: Multiple Degradation Mechanisms in Reinforced Concrete Structures, Modeling and Risk Analysis | University of Houston | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a multi-physics framework to characterize the deterioration development in concrete due to environmental and mechanical loading, and the coupling effect among transport processes and the damage of concrete. This project will develop new computational tools that will be implemented in Grizzly, an application built on the MOOSE platform, to address a variety of aging mechanisms in nuclear power plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8623: Characterization of Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth in Alloy 709 and Prediction of Service Lives in Nuclear Reactor Components | University of Idaho | $799,927 | _Researchers will study creep-fatigue crack growth behavior in steel Alloy 709 in accelerated test conditions to predict extended service life of structural components. Extensive testing of Alloy 709 creep-fatigue specimens will be performed at elevated temperatures and applied stresses. Microstructure analysis will be performed to describe the crack propagation mechanisms. Computational models will be used to predict service of steel components. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8432: Multi-scale experimental study of creep-fatigue failure initiation in a 709 Stainless Steel alloy using high resolution digital image correlation | University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign | $800,00 | _Researchers will conduct a detailed experimental investigation of creep-fatigue crack initiation in a 709 alloy, and will also obtain a predictive failure initiation model that includes both thermo-mechanical and aging effects. The experiments will use ultra-high resolution digital image correlation to measure accumulation of plastic with cycling. The model will extend existing slip band-based energy minimization criterion to include thermal effects applicable to 709. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8599: Am-241 Nuclear Safety and Environmental Interactions | University of Missouri | $399,187 | _Researchers will investigate the release and transport mechanisms of Am-241 to understand the interactions it may have with the environment. The project will examine Am-241 through a series of accident scenarios using Am-241 aerosols that will allow researchers to understand the pathways for dose assessment. Methodologies and approaches for nuclear risk assessment for new space radioisotope power system applications will be developed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8667: Experimental Validation of a Compact Double-walled Twisted-Tube Heat Exchanger Concept | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | _Researchers will investigate a novel compact double-walled twisted-tube heat exchanger (DT-HXR) design that utilizes an outer twisted tube configuration in order to enhance shell-side heat transfer and make the overall bundle more compact. Utilizing outer twisted tube geometry improves heat transfer and allows for a tube bundle that does not require support plates or anti-vibration bars. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project: 15-8352: Development and Demonstration of an In-Situ Tritium Scavenger | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,988 | _Researchers will use a graphite moderator to capture and remove tritium from the primary coolant systems of salt- and gas-cooled reactors. The team will develop electrochemical techniques to characterize tritium transport in graphite and liquid fluoride salts (including flibe), demonstrate the in-situ effectiveness of tritium absorption by the fuel elements, and develop a design for a graphite bed tritium filter that can integrate with salt-to-air heat exchangers. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 16-10730: Visualization Tool for Comparing Low-Carbon Energy Options | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a web based visualization tool for comparing current and future nuclear fuel cycle options to other low-carbon and conventional energy technologies in the United States.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10679: Overcoming Kinetic Barriers to Actinide Recovery in ALSEP | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | The ALSEP process for group separations of trivalent actinide/lanthanide ions suffers from slow stripping kinetics. Researchers will perform detailed kinetic studies at different temperatures, supported by spectroscopic and computational studies to establish where the kinetic bottlenecks occur in the ALSEP process. They will then systematically alter the chemistry of the extractants and aqueous ligands to understand how to overcome the kinetic hindrances.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10058: An Integrated Multiscale Experimental-Numerical Analysis on Reconsolidation of Salt-Clay Mixture for Disposal of Heat-Generating Waste | Columbia University in the City of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will improve understanding of the thermal-mechanical-hydrologic-chemical (TMHC) coupling effect on reconsolidated granular (or crushed) salt-clay mixture used for seal systems of shafts and drifts in salt repositories. The project will integrate laboratory experiments and multiscale pore-to-continuum coupling simulations to explore the feasibility of using clay additive and moisture content to enhance performance of crushed salt as a seal material.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10088: Americium Separation By Electrochemical Oxidation | Florida International University | $800,000 | Researchers will separate Am from high-level waste by exploiting the high oxidation states of Am through design, and testing of new materials. This will be accomplished by designing and testing new electrodes, derivatized with surface-stabilized ligands and redox mediators to facilitate oxidation of trivalent Am, and by designing porous sorbent materials functionalized with molecules which selectively coordinate Am(VI) to enable its subsequent separation.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10668: Microstructure Experiments-Enabled MARMOT Simulations of SiC/SiC-Based Accident Tolerant Nuclear Fuel System | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will characterize steam attack, hydrothermal corrosion and radiation swelling of SiC/SiC composites-based accident tolerant fuel (ATF) using a combination of experiments, microstructure evaluation and phase-field simulations using MARMOT. Central to the project is the mapping of the microstructure after steam/hydrothermal/irradiation tests through a unique non-destructive x-ray microscopy technique followed by phase-field simulations of chemical transport in MARMOT.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10221: Alloying Agents to Stabilize Lanthanides Against Fuel Cladding Chemical Interaction: Tellurium and Antimony Studies | Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop alloying agents to stabilize lanthanides against fuel cladding chemical interactions (FCCIs). Based on the available binary phase diagrams for the periodic table, Te and Sb are selected as fuel dopants. The research will focus on Te. The mechanisms of using minor additives to stabilize and immobilize the lanthanide fission products will be investigated. Resulting thermodynamic data obtained by the proposed research will be integrated into MARMOT to enhance its ability to model metallic fuel performance.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10648: Oxidation and Corrosion-Resistant Uranium Silicide Fuels | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | Researchers will develop oxidation/corrosion resistant uranium silicide U3Si2 fuel by chemical doping/fillers to form a continuous borosilicate glass as a protective oxide layer with transformational fuel performance and accident tolerance. The team will use chemical doping/fillers include B or C showing effectiveness in improving high temperature oxidation resistance in transition metal silicides, and boron/silicon-containing compounds that can form a protective borosilicate glass layer.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10229: Mechanistic Understanding of Silver Sorbent Aging Processes in Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $800,000 | This project is focused on understanding the mechanisms of aging processes on silver exchanged mordenite and silver functionalized silica aerogel adsorbents under conditions of long term exposure to off gas streams containing air, I2, H2O, and NOx. The chemical and physical structural changes of the adsorbents under these conditions will be accounted for in equilibrium and kinetic models. Transport models will be developed to predict the performance of engineered off-gas treatment systems.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10394: Integration of Microwave Readout into Nuclear Process Monitoring | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,695 | Researchers will show that gamma-ray spectroscopy based on emerging microcalorimeter sensors can determine elemental and isotopic fractions with accuracy comparable to much slower mass spectrometry and with far better accuracy than germanium sensors. This advance will prevent the diversion of nuclear material by enabling nearly real time process monitoring in large nuclear facilities without loss of measurement accuracy.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10523: A Science Based Approach for Selecting Dopants in FCCI-Resistant Metallic Fuel Systems | University of Idaho | $800,000 | The project aims to use a science-based approach to set guidelines of selecting dopants for developing fuel cladding chemical interaction (FCCI)-resistant metallic fuel systems for fast reactors. Lanthanide fission products migrate to the fuel-cladding gap leading to cladding breaches. The team will perform both theoretical modeling and experiments to arrive at the guidelines that are based on sound science. If successful, this can lead to breakthroughs in minimizing the FCCI effect.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10813: Advanced Electrochemical Separations of Actinide/Fission Products via the Control of Nucleation and Growth of Electrodeposits | University of Idaho | $350,000 | Researchers will use unique capabilities to modulate the electrodeposition of actinides (depleted Uranium) and fission products (Ln) during nucleation and growth stages. The team aims to preclude formation of electrodeposits with dendritic morphology. Morphology of electrodeposits will be controlled by electrolyte composition.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10707: In Situ Spectroscopic Determination of Actinide Speciation and Concentration | University of Nevada, Reno | $369,221 | The research team will address two major issues in the pyroprocess based fuel cycle: low process efficiency and materials accounting for non-proliferation. There are currently no analytical techniques to ascertain the speciation and concentration of the actinides in the electrolyte. This project aims to develop an in-situ analytical method consisting of Raman spectroscopic analysis during electrochemical polarization.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10204: Phase Equilibria and Thermochemistry of Advanced Fuels: Modeling Burnup Behavior | University of South Carolina | $799,946 | Researchers will develop phase equilibria and thermochemical information to model and simulate advanced fuel behavior, including critical phenomena such as the contribution to fuel swelling of dissolved non-noble fission products and secondary phase formation, composite fuel stability, and fuel-clad chemical interactions.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10512: Demand-Driven Cycamore Archetypes | University of South Carolina | $799,956 | Modeling of the nuclear fuel cycle (NFC) is often posed as a set of demands coupled with available technologies. Demands may be singular or multivariate. Additionally, available technologies may have constraints on when they are deployable. This proposal aims to bring demand and deployment decisions into the NFC simulator itself, thereby simulating a more realistic process by which utilities, governments, and other stakeholders actually make facility deployment decisions.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10856: Integrating Data Sources for Improved Safeguards and Accountancy of Electrochemical Fuel Reprocessing Streams | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The SSPM Echem tracks elemental and bulk material flows through batch operations in electrochemical facilities. This project will augment the existing SSPM Echem model with models of DA, NDA, and process monitoring measurements, including appropriate accuracy, noise, and uncertainty characteristics. Diverse measurement and assay results will be fused to improve material accountancy and anomaly detection across the electrochemical process.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10190: Immobilization of High-Level Waste Salt in Dechlorinated Zeolite Waste Forms | University of Utah | $799,315 | The primary objective of the project is the development of a new glass-bonded waste form for the suitable disposal of electrorefiner waste salt. To achieve this goal, the proposed tasks will focus on the 1) dechlorination of the electrorefiner salt and 2) subsequent encapsulation into a sintered waste form. Achieving these goals will result in a compact waste form with higher fission product loading, which is instrumental in economically closing the nuclear fuel cycle.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10240: Molten Salt Reactor Experiment Benchmark Evaluation | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | _The objective of this project is to employ the data archive on the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) and develop a set of high-quality Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) reactor physics benchmarks for inclusion in the IRPhE Handbook that currently does not contain any benchmark set related to MSR technology._ | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10458: Multi-Group Transport Cross Section and Diffusion Coefficient Generation for Deterministic Reactor Models Using Monte Carlo Calculations | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and implement rigorous methods for generating multi-group transport cross section and diffusion coefficients for deterministic reactor models using Monte Carlo calculations. The project will eliminate the numerous approximations that currently contribute to significant mis-prediction of core power distributions when using deterministic core models.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10241: Development of Transient Capabilities for the NEAMS Neutronics Code PROTEUS | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop efficient transient transport methods for the PROTEUS-SN, PROTEUS-MOC and the first-order SN solvers of the NEAMS neutronics code PROTEUS. The team will also perform transient benchmark analyses._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10603: Experimental and Computational Analysis of NEAMS Pebble Bed Reactors | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct a coordinated experimental and computational effort to quantitatively map the full-field 3-D velocity and temperature fields in the interstitial spaces within pebble bed reactor systems. Key outcomes will include advanced correlations to predict flow and thermal transport within the pebble bed over a much wider range operating conditions and reactor types than is currently possible.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10421: Simulation of Fuel Rod Fragmentation, Relocation and Ballooning through Peridynamics in MOOSE Framework | University of Arizona | $675,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology that includes the appropriate governing physical fields within the realm of peridynamics to investigate fuel cracking, fragmentation, relocation, ballooning, pellet-cladding interaction, and cladding rapture and dispersion within the MOOSE framework.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10313: Development of a Comprehensive Two-phase Flow Database for the Validation of NEK-2P | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,817 | _Researchers will develop a comprehensive, high-resolution two-phase flow database by performing experiments in two air-water two-phase flow test facilities and a new heated rod-bundle test facility that will be built under this project. These data will be used to validate the two-phase flow models implemented in the NEK-2P code._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10744: Support for Reactor Operators in Case of Cyber-Security Threats | Ohio State University | $800,000 | This project addresses the need for research informing plant engineers and control room operators faced with cyber-security threats on appropriate responses. The approach taken uses distinguishing features of safety related events versus cyber-security threats; attack modeling, prediction, game theory and PRA knowledge to update operators procedures; and simulation for validation.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cyber Security R&D | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10578: Thermal Hydraulic & Structural Testing and Modeling of Compact Diffusion-Bonded Heat Exchangers for Supercritical CO2 Brayton Cycles | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will utilize both experimental and computational methods to test and model transient behavior of a mock up PCHE, which is a scaled down representation of the sCO2, cycle high temperature recuperator (HTR). In addition, the team will develop a methodology for quantification of the PCHEs production cost. The proposed project will provide valuable experiment data required to develop the Section III, Division 5 and Section VIII evaluation approach for compact heat exchangers.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10579: A Computational-Experimental Study to Simulate Mixing and Thermal Stratification in SFRs | Kansas State University | $799,320 | Researchers will use Thermographic Imaging and Ultrasonic Doppler Velocimetry (UDV) techniques to generate high fidelity thermal stratification and flow field data under various geometric and physical conditions for scaled models of outlet plena in sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs). Data from these experimental studies will be compared with those obtained using 1D codes such as SAS4A/SASSYS-1.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10714: ASME Code Application of the Compact Heat Exchanger for High Temperature Nuclear Service | North Carolina State University | $799,998 | Researchers will develop structural design methodologies for Type 316H stainless steel and Alloy 617 compact heat exchangers (CHX) using elastic-perfectly plastic (EPP) analysis methodology for the assessment of elevated temperature failure modes under sustained and cyclic thermal and pressure loading. The project will develop a technical basis for Section III, Division 5 ASME Code Case for CHX in high temperature nuclear service.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10885: Turbulent MHD Flow Modeling in Annular Linear Induction Pumps with Validation Experiments | North Carolina State University | $564,520 | Researchers seek to advance EMP design efforts for liquid metal reactors by 1.) Improving MHD modeling capability, particularly near the MHD stability criteria, 2.) Advancing simulation accuracy and fidelity in the typical operating range of large electromagnetic pumps for liquid metal cooled reactors, and 3.) Constructing a low barrier EMP test loop for model validation and instruction that can be easily replicated at low cost at other facilities.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10244: Integral System Testing for Prismatic Block Core Design HTGR | Oregon State University | $799,536 | _Researchers will conduct eight new tests be completed at the HTTF investigating a range of gas reactor events including DCC, PCC, and inlet plenum buoyant plume mixing. The data from these tests will be ideal for use in the validation of safety analysis codes used in gas reactor analysis. The data may also provide valuable insight into the validation of CFD codes for gas-reactor applications._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10324: Model Calibration-Based Design Methodologies for Structural Design of Supercritical CO2 Compact Heat Exchangers under Sustained Cyclic Temperature and Pressure Gradients | Oregon State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a design method for rapid structural assessment of diffusion-bonded Hybrid Compact Heat Exchangers, used as secondary heat exchangers in coupling Sodium Fast Reactors (SFRs) with supercritical CO2 (sCO2) Brayton power cycles. The team envisions that the developed method will (1) be usable in creation of an ASME code case for structural assessment of hybrid CHX; and (2) create design tools that ensure CHX code compliance under desired load conditions.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10285: Tribological Damage Mechanisms from Experiments and Validated Simulations of Alloy 800H and Inconel 617 in a Simulated HTGR/VHTR Helium Environment | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a mechanistic understanding of accelerated fretting, wear, and bonding between Alloy 800H and Inconel 617 surfaces. In order to achieve the objectives, a series of tribological experiments will be conducted in helium environments at elevated temperature with controlled concentrations of gaseous specious, attendant microstructure characterization (using electron microscopy, spectroscopy and atom-probe tomography), and validated continuum models.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10245: An Experimental Study of Design and Performance for the Water-Based Reactor Cavity Cooling System | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will extend and enhance the experimental tests using existing water-cooled RCCS facilities. The activity will be conducted in close collaboration with the water-cooled NSTF research team and will produce a unique set of high quality experimental data for support of existing system codes, system codes under development, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10457: Experimentally Validated Computational Modeling of Creep and Creep-Cracking for Nuclear Concrete Structures | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct novel 3D concrete creep tests under controlled environmental conditions to build a 3D constitutive model for concrete typical of existing containment structures. Decades long creep will be extracted via shorter tests (years long). The material model will be used in the Grizzly structural FEM code for simulating the response of real, 3D containment structures to changes in loading. Full-scale, long-term structural tests will enable validation.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10687: Development and Integration of Light Water Reactor (LWR) Materials Corrosion Degradation Codes into Grizzly | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop powerful codes for predicting environmentally-assisted localized corrosion in the primary coolant circuits (PCCs) of Generation II BWRs and PWRs. These codes and resulting models will be embedded into GRIZZLY. This will greatly extend the applicability of GRIZZLY to components in PCCs that are susceptible to pitting corrosion, stress corrosion cracking, and corrosion fatigue and will provide the stress intensity factor solutions for the crack growth rate models._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10083: Earth Abundant High Temperature Materials for Radioisotope Power Conversion System | University of California, Davis | $400,000 | Researchers will develop breakthrough efficiencies in segmented radioisotope thermal generators (RTG) power conversion systems through high temperature materials development. The approach will also reduce reliance on single-purpose supply chains.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10630: Validation of RELAP-7 for Forced Convection and Natural Circulation Reactor Flows | University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign | $799,368 | _Researcher will aid in the development of RELAP-7 through required experimental and computational efforts. The validation of the two-phase modeling capability of RELAP-7 will be accomplished through a series of tasks which include synthesis of existing forced convective data, acquisition of natural circulation data from an existing well-scaled facility, and uncertainty quantification in constitutive modeling._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10402: RELAP-7 Application and Enhancement for FLEX Strategies and ATF Behavior under Extended Loss of AC Power Conditions | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop new thermal hydraulic models that will be implemented into RELAP-7. Simulation studies will be performed for postulated ELAP scenarios in the PB Unit 2 reactor. The overarching goal of the proposed work is to perform a simulation study using RELAP-7, to model BWR ELAP scenarios with various mitigation measures and determine the range of time available for transition to portable FLEX equipment._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10080: Quantifying Properties for a Mechanistic, Predictive Understanding of Aqueous Impact on Ageing of Medium and Low Voltage AC and DC Cabling in Nuclear Power Plants | University of Minnesota, Duluth | $800,000 | _The degradation of medium and low voltage cabling is often associated with aqueous immersion. Electrical and mechanical data will be collected to develop a mechanistic model of the degradation of cabling to dielectric breakdown based on the temperature, oxidation, water conditions, and irradiation dose. The hypothesized model begins with solvent escape paths that expand and advance from the exterior surface toward the current carrying core at a rate dependent on the environment._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10214: Online Monitoring System for Concrete Structures Affected by Alkali-Silica Reaction (ASR) | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an online health monitoring system that integrates active and passive sensor networks and advanced signal processing algorithms to monitor ASR induced degradation in concrete structures. The obtained information will support an ongoing prognostic modeling research for health diagnosis and prognosis of aging concrete structures, in order to support long-term operational and maintenance decision making.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10210: Tribological Behavior of Structural Materials in High Temperature Helium Gas-Cooled Reactor Environments | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will work to understand, quantify, and model the elevated-temperature tribological behavior of alloys 617 and 800H in helium gas in HTGR conditions. Impurities in helium can induce a variety of corrosion mechanisms in structural materials that can profoundly affect tribological behavior. This study will investigate tribological behavior in various impurity concentration regimes and surface treatments to mitigate tribological damage in these environments.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10226: Enhancement of EM Pump Performance Through Modeling and Testing | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,856 | This project is aimed at the improvement of EM pumps for advanced liquid metal cooled reactors specifically the SFR. Initial tests will be conducted in the University of Wisconsin sodium loop on an existing moving magnet pump to help in the development of the models and to look at end effects associated with this pump. Additionally, tests will be conducted at ANL on the CMI ALIP. Ultimately, a small ALIP will be developed to test the principles and models developed to improve commercial scale.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10268: Sodium Cooled Fast Reactor Key Modeling and Analysis for Commercial Deployment | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,076 | This project will look at very low Prandtl number heat transfer from both an experimental and computational approach. Researchers will then establish key models to implement in plant dynamics codes. The team will also evaluate thermal stratification in large volumes making use of novel fiber optic distributed fiber measurements to get CFD quality data. Lastly, the team will evaluate some of the key remaining safety issues associated with the eventual commercialization of the sodium fast reactor.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10647: Experimental and Modeling Investigation of Overcooling Transients that Include Freezing, in Fluoride-Salt Cooled High-Temperature Reactors (FHRs) | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will make recommendations for design features of salt-reactor components that would take advantage of the phenomena characteristic to fluoride salts in order to be resilient to overcooling, and to recover gracefully from over-cooling transients. In support of this task a MOOSE-based computational tool will be developed, capable of modeling liquid-solid phase change, backed by experimental studies with the prototypical (flibe) coolant, and with simulant fluids.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10509: CFD and System Code Benchmark Data for Plenum-to-Plenum Flow Under Natural, Mixed and Forced Circulation Conditions | Utah State University | $800,000 | Researchers will generate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) validation data for forced, mixed, and natural convection through a parallel-path geometry relevant to gas reactor bypass flow. In addition, the team will independently build and validate CFD models based on the experimental results. The team has the experience and existing infrastructure for sharing complete validation datasets.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 17-12628: Effects of Mineral Impurities and Heat on Uranium(VI) Sorption onto Bentonite | California State University, East Bay | $785,714 | Mineral impurities are common in bentonite and clay buffer materials, proposed for many nuclear waste disposal options. Researchers will investigate the effects of calcite impurities on uranium(VI) sorption onto montmorillonite before and after mineral exposure to heat. Based on experimental sorption data and EXAFS analysis we will develop a new surface complexation model to determine under which conditions impurity effects are relevant, and how they can be incorporated in performance assessment models. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12798: Nanostructured Ceramic Membranes for Enhanced Tritium Management | Clemson University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a ceramic membrane technology for tritium separation and recovery to support the nuclear fuel cycle. Low-temperature water adsorption properties of nanoscale structured ceramics, combined with demonstrated hydrogen isotope exchange in their hydrated layers provide a low cost and unique avenue to address tritium management challenges. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12647: Determination of Critical Heat Flux and Leidenfrost Temperature on Candidate Accident Tolerant Fuel Materials | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $799,906 | Researchers will characterize the thermal-hydraulics behavior of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) materials by measuring critical heat flux (CHF) under normal and off-normal light water reactor conditions, and Leidenfrost temperature in post-loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) conditions. This work will yield material-specific models and/or correlations that can be readily implemented in state-of-the-art simulation tools. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13011: Gamma-ray Computed and Emission Tomography for Pool-Side Fuel Characterization | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,317 | Researchers will design, build, test and install a submersible tomography platform for performing pool-side physical, structural, and chemical characterization of irradiated fuel elements for test reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12496: Group Actinide Separation by Crystallization: A Single-Technology Approach to Used Nuclear Fuel Recycle | Texas A&M University | $399,857 | Researchers will explore bulk removal of U, Np, Pu and Am, from used nuclear fuel by studying the mechanisms of removal. A co-crystallization of the hexavalent actinides with U(VI) has already been demonstrated and researchers plan to develop a process based around this approach. Removal of these elements would be advantageous for future nuclear fuel recycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12824: Methods for Process Monitoring to Accurately Detect and Quantify Material Holdup in Advanced Recycle Facilities | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop better modeling methods, detectors, and facility design approaches to enable detection of inadvertent and deliberate hold up of fissile material in reprocessing and other nuclear material bulk handling facilities. The team will integrate results from this research project into a design methodology for future facilities to ensure accurate and reliable process monitoring for sustainable operation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12782: Effects of alpha and gamma radiation on complex and metal loaded solvents for advanced solvent extraction processes | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | This project will investigate the alpha and gamma radiolysis-induced chemical degradation of ligands used for the removal of minor actinides from used nuclear fuel in advanced extraction systems such as ALSEP. Researchers will emphasize organic phase degradation, particularly complex solvents with multiple ligands as well as metal loaded solvents. The project will improve predictive capabilities of extraction processes by elucidating degradation pathways. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12757: Elucidation of Electrochemical Behavior of Technetium, Tellurium, and Iodine in Molten Salt Solutions. | University of Idaho | $796,741 | This project will evaluate the electrochemical speciation behavior of iodide, and telluride in LiCl-KCl eutectic, LiCl, and LiCl + Li2O electrolytes at temperatures relevant to reprocessing conditions. By using rhenium as surrogate for technetium, the electrochemical, and chemical speciation properties of rhenium ions will be investigated in chloride molten salts with the addition of molybdenum and ruthenium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12701: Development and Experimental Benchmark of Computational Models to Predict Cladding Temperature and Vapor Removal from UNF Canisters during Drying Operations | University of Nevada, Reno | $400,000 | Researchers will develop physics-based computational tools to predict used nuclear fuel cladding temperatures within, and water vapor removal rates from, canisters during existing and proposed drying processes. The project will explore a range of gas pressures (including rarefication), and steady and unsteady external gas flows rates. The tools will be used to develop drying processes that minimize drying time while maintaining cladding temperatures. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12688: An Experimental and Analytical Investigation into Critical Heat Flux (CHF) Implications for Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF) Concepts | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a holistic best estimate assessment of the potential impact of different ATF cladding materials with regards to heat transfer characteristics, the boiling curve, critical heat flux, fuel mass/volume/specific power density, and neutronics effects due to changes in the lattice design or parasitic neutron absorption during design basis accident conditions in light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12996: Multipurpose, Radiation- and Temperature-Resistant Semiconductor Radiation Detectors for Advanced Process Monitoring and Nuclear Safeguards | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop detection systems capable of neutron, gamma-ray, x-ray, and alpha monitoring in high-temperature and high radiation environments for extended periods of time. The detectors will be used to strengthen nuclear safeguards by enhancing nuclear material control and accounting in nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13125: The Thermodynamics of Crystallization and Phase-Separation in Melt-Derived Nuclear Waste Forms | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This projects will study the thermodynamics of melt and quench phases of nuclear waste glasses and glass ceramics and link this information to the underlying short-range and medium-range structure. Advanced calorimetric techniques and neutron total scattering with pair distribution function analysis will be applied to obtain these data. Computer simulations will complement the experimental effort. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12886: Identifying, Predicting and Preventing Localized Corrosion in Kr-85 Storage Canisters | University of Virginia | $799,000 | Researchers will determine the root cause of corrosion within Kr-85 storage canisters in order to better understand current corrosion rates. The project will focus on expanding available research on Rb corrosion interactions and other contributing factors to better understand the corrosion phenomenon in current steel canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12463: Extreme Performance High Entropy Alloys (HEAs) Cladding for Fast Reactor Applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will develop extreme performance high entropy alloys (HEAs) as for new metal alloy cladding for fast reactor applications. Two very promising, single solution BCC HEAs will be investigated. The project will deliver an extensive irradiation resistance study of a new promising yet unexplored cladding concept. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12549: Critical Heat Flux Studies for Innovative Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding Surfaces | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will study critical heat flux (CHF) behavior focused on innovative accident tolerant fuel (ATF) cladding. The project includes separate effects screening tests to measure CHF for various ATF clad materials and surface characteristics with measurements of surface wettability. Pressurized flow boiling experiments will simulate prototypical reactor conditions for evaluating the best ATF clad materials coupled with CHF modeling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13019: Evaluation of Accident Tolerant Fuels Surface Characteristics in Critical Heat Flux Performance | Virginia Commonwealth University | $800,000 | Researchers will perform separate-effects and system-wide tests of the AREVA and GE accident tolerant fuel concepts currently under consideration. The project will investigate the impact of cladding surface characteristics in critical heat flux (CHF) under normal and anticipated off-normal conditions. The experimental results will be used to develop and validate enhanced models for the prediction of CHF and will be implemented in various subchannel and system analysis codes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13054: Simulated Used Nuclear Fuel Dissolution as a Function of Fuel Chemistry and Near Field Conditions | Washington State University | $800,000 | Researchers will study the effects of simulated used nuclear fuel (UNF) chemistry and microstructure on its dissolution in geologic repository conditions. The results will advance models for UNF evolution in repository conditions, enabling reliable prediction of degradation and long-term performance of used nuclear fuel for up to one million years. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12506: Development of Reactor Physics Benchmark Evaluations for Power Burst Facility Experiments | University of Florida | $398,265 | Researchers will perform reactor physics benchmark evaluations of Power Burst Facility experiments regarding differential reactivity worth of the control and transient rods, shim rod worth, in-pile-tube reactivity worth, shutdown reactivity, fuel assembly reactivity worth, core void coefficients of reactivity, in-pile-tube void coefficient, and coolant temperature coefficient of reactivity. The results will be incorporated in the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP). | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12748: Combined modeling and experiments to predict corrosion and embrittlement in dual-phase stainless steels within the MARMOT framework | Oregon State University | $800,000 | Researchers will enhance MARMOT to predict mechanical and corrosion properties of dual-phase stainless steels as a function of composition, aging time and temperature by using combined experimental data and lower length scale models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12797: In-Situ Ion Irradiation to Add Irradiation Assisted Grain Growth to the MARMOT Tool | Pennsylvania State University | $500,000 | Researchers will add the capability to model irradiation assisted grain growth to the MARMOT tool by using in-situ ion irradiation of UO2 to quantify the effect of irradiation on grain growth. The team will investigate the hypothesis that irradiation assisted grain growth is caused by thermal spikes resulting from atom collisions. The model added to MARMOT will couple the existing grain growth model to a heat conduction simulation using a stochastic heat source describing the thermal spike. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12555: Integration of high-fidelity Monte Carlo and deterministic transport codes into Workbench | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | Researchers will provide end users an ability to run both MCNP6 and PROTEUS codes from a common user input in Workbench by (1) templating user-provided engineering scale specifications to code-specific input requirements, (2) enabling multi-fidelity analysis of a system from a common input using MCNP6 and PROTEUS and (3) allowing the easy use of high-fidelity simulations to inform lower-order models for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems and experiments. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12939: Expansion of BISON Capabilities to Predict the Dynamic Response of Irradiated Fuel Rods | University of New Hampshire | $800,000 | Researchers will expand the capabilities of BISON and MOOSE to simulate the structural dynamic response of fuel rods and fuel assemblies during handling (wet and dry storage) and transportation. Expanding the capabilities of BISON and MOOSE to facilitate the evaluation of the dynamic response of fuel rods and assemblies is important to conduct a more reliable risk assessment of fuel assemblies, as well as storage and transportation casks. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13179: Implementation and Validation of Advanced Turbulence Modeling Methods for Liquid Metal Flow in Nek5000 | University of Oklahoma | $786,648 | Researchers will implement and validate state-of-the-art turbulence modeling techniques in Nek5000 to improve predition of liquid metal flows. Specific methods to be investigated include: variable PrT and algebraic heat flux models (AHFM) for URANS simulation; partially-averaged Navier-Stokes (PANS) and dynamic hybrid RANS-LES (DHRL) for hybrid RANS-LES simulation; and variable PrT subgrid heat flux modeling for LES. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12848: Development of Information Trustworthiness and Integrity Algorithms for Cybersecurity Defenses of Nuclear Power Reactors | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a first-of-a-kind physics-based defense-in-depth strategy to defend against false data injection attacks which attempt to change the information used by the I/C network to set reactor state. The approach employs a new design philosophy to check for information trustworthiness/integrity in order to determine whether the information is genuinely generated during the actual operation of the nuclear unit under either normal or off-normal conditions. | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cybersecurity | |
| NEUP Project 17-12538: Influence of dissolved salts and impurities in seawater on heat transfer degradation and fluid flow through fuel channels debris bed | Kansas State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate the role of raw water on degraded heat transfer and fluid flow in the reactor core and debris bed. X-ray imaging techniques, optical-fiber high speed temperature sensing systems and radioactive tracer salts will be used to simultaneously measure experimental data on void fraction, temperature and salt deposition rate. This data will be used to obtain correlations for heat transfer and fluid flow in case of raw water injection. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12502: High Resolution Temperature and Flow Measurements in Wire-Wrapped Fuel Assemblies | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will produce high-quality, high spatial and temporal resolution temperature and flow datasets for wire-wrapped rod bundle geometries. Different bundle sizes, configurations (including duct's and pin's deformation) and Low-Prandlt fluids will be investigated. A unique set of data will be produced to support advanced CFD tools validation, including Nek5000. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12723: Integrating Static PRA Information with RISMC Simulation Methods | The Ohio State University | $799,985 | Researchers will develop a computationally feasible and user friendly process to augment the traditional probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) results with improved representation of epistemic uncertainties and process/hardware/software/human interactions at plant level applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12664: Methods to Predict Thermal Radiation and to Design Scaled Separate and Integral Effects Testing For Molten Salt Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology for the design of molten salt reactor (MSR) Separate Effect Test and Integral Effect Test experiments. This methodology will identify and quantify sources of scaling distortion including radiative heat transport. The project would improve code performance and assist FHR/MSR vendors who are making licensing applications based on code results. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12523: Experimental and Computational Studies of Stress Corrosion Cracking of Alloys 308/309 and 82/182 Weldments in Corrosive and Radiation Environment | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will use advanced microanalytical analysis techniques to study SCC and IASCC of stainless steel and Ni-Cr alloy weldments. CERT, autoclave immersion, and ion irradiation will be used to determine synergistic effect of LWR environmental factors. Results from the experimental component of the proposed work scope will be used for enhanced predictive capability of the INL Grizzly code via XFEM. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12614: Systematic Enterprise Risk Management by Integrating the RISMC Toolkit and Cost-Benefit Analysis | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $799,998 | Researchers will develop a systematic Enterprise Risk Management framework, which utilizes Decision Tree (DT) logic to consider high-level production-loss scenarios, and their underlying physical and social causes throughout the lifecycle. In the proposed DT, uncertainty nodes will be quantified by plant-specific risk analysis using the Risk-Informed Safety Margin Characterization (RISMC) Toolkit, and cost-benefit analysis will be conducted for end states reflecting consequences of managerial decision-making. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12972: Design of a Commercial-Scale, Fluoride-Salt-Cooled, High-Temperature Reactor With Novel Refueling and Decay Heat Removal Capabilities | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $400,000 | Researchers will combine fluoride-salt-cooled, high temperature reactors (FHR) with advanced gas reactor (AGR) refueling technology to address several significant challenges that remain in the development of FHR technology. The project will adapt AGR refueling technology by using the new fuel-inside-radial-moderator fuel form, which will also introduce new ways of dealing with decay heat. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13115: Experimental Determination of Helium/air Mixing in Helium Cooled Reactor | University of Michigan | $800,000 | Researchers will examine the effects of coolant leakage and air ingress through three different investigations. The overall objective of this work is to characterize near and far field behavior of Helium/Air mixing in containment, and to determine rates and amounts of air leaked back into the reactor after a depressurization event. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12830: Radioisotope Retention in Graphite and Graphitic Materials | University of Missouri, Columbia | $800,000 | Researchers will use a variety of experimental techniques to acquire data for fission product diffusion, transport and adsorption of fission products in various graphites, relating to nuclear reactors at high temperatures. Measurements will be taken using non-irradiated graphite using fission product surrogates. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13020: Bimetallic Composite (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) Development and Compatibility in Flowing FLiBe as a Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) Structural Material | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a new bimetallic alloy (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) structural material for the MSR, and compare its post-exposure mechanical performance in flowing FLiBe with single alloys SS 316, Hastelloy N, and Incoloy 800H, in the context of ASME codification. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12678: Novel NDE Sensors, Waveforms, Models, and Algorithms for Cable Health Monitoring | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop NDE sensors and probabilistic cable insulation diagnosis and prognosis algorithms (particle filtering), and modeling and experiments to monitor cable insulation health. Two different types of sensor will be deployed to detect insulation damage. The team will also develop cable insulation degradation modeling to further understand defects in cable insulation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13080: Multiscale Investigation of SiC/SiC Composite Degradation in Helium Coolant Operating Environment | University of Virginia | $800,000 | Researchers will study the long-term degradation mechanisms of SiC/SiC composites in helium coolant environments by slow crack growth (SCG). This will be achieved through multiscale testing in hot, O2-contaminated He and evaluation of the effect of SCG on hermeticity during in situ testing. Results will be extended to predictive low-level and component-scale SCG models and integrated into the development of ASME standards for use of SiC/SiC in nuclear reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12481: Supercritical CO2 power cycle for space applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will develop an advanced supercritical Brayton power cycle directly coupled to a fission reactor. The project will carry out a comprehensive optimization of the cycle operating conditions, working fluid, and configuration; develop detailed designs of each subcomponent; and demonstrate/develop critical technologies such as turbomachinery seals and bearings, reactor material corrosion and strength demonstrations, and supercritical heat transfer. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13232: Radiative Heat Transport and Optical Characterization of High Temperature Molten Salts | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | The goal of the proposed research is to experimentally investigate radiation heat transport in molten salts, and to add functionality for radiative heat transport in a thermal-hydraulics system code. This includes obtaining highly resolved measurements of the optical absorption and emissivity of liquid salts. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 18-15345: Multiphysics Degradation Processes, and Their Mitigation, in Engineered and Geological Bariers: Experiments and Simulation | Duke University | $800,000.00 | This project will focus on filling the gaps in understanding of mechanisms of a series of degradation processes (thermal, hydric, geo-chemical, and transport processes phenomena) potentially affecting geo-materials used in repositories. The objectives of the work are to better recognize the conditions leading to preferential paths of radionuclide transport and rock weakening, and to build mathematical models and implement them into existing codes to predict material degradation and develop strategies to reduce the adverse consequences. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15043: Integration of Nuclear Material Accounting Data and Process Monitoring Data for Improvement on Detection Probability in Safeguarding Electrochemical Processing Facilities | Oregon State University | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to further studies on fusion of process monitoring (PM) data and nuclear material accounting (NMA) data. PM data, which includes monitoring by various types of equipment (radiation detectors, cameras, voltage, current sensors), can supplement NMA data to help improve safeguards. For aqueous-based reprocessing facilities, it is reported that PM, integrated with traditional NMA, has a high-detection probability for specific diversions. For electrochemical reprocessing, preliminary studies have shown that PM data can support traditional NMA by providing a basis to estimate some of the in-processing nuclear material inventories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15148: Recovery of Rare-Earth Elements (Nd, Gd, Sm) in Oxide Wasteform Using Liquid Metals (Bi, Sn) | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000.00 | This project investigates a new approach for recovering rare-earth (RE) fission products (Nd, Gd, and Sm) from molten chlorine salts using liquid metal (Bi and Sn) electrodes. The research aids molten salt recycling by converting the RE products into chloride-free RE oxides, which could be incorporated into conventional glass/ceramic waste forms. Successful outcomes of the project include advanced separation of fission products from molten salts with better control of chemical selectivity and high-recovery yield. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15103: Microstructure-Based Benchmarking for Nano/Microscale Tension and Ductility Testing of Irradiated Steels | Purdue University | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to standardize methods for nano/micro-scale tensile and ductility testing of irradiated Fe-Cr steels, through microstructure-based benchmarking. The study will investigate key process parameters for TEM in situ tension and ductility testing. Coupling experimental studies with multiscale models, the research will identify the approaches that provide consistent deformation mechanisms between the nano/micro-scale and macro-scale tests, from which standard practices will be obtained. The primary project outcome will be a set of recommended guidelines for nano/microscale mechanical testing, which will lead to unprecedented reductions in the time and cost for qualifying materials for in-reactor service and to ensure consistency of methods and validity of results. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15559: Cold Spray Repair & Mitigation of Stress Corrosion Cracks in Spent Nuclear Fuel Dry Storage Canisters | Purdue University | $799,982.00 | This goal of this project is to demonstrate cold spray repair and mitigation of chloride-induced stress corrosion cracks (SCC) and pits in stainless steel dry storage canisters. The research will optimize the repair process and gain a scientifically informed understanding of SCC mechanisms. The outcome is to further develop cold spray as an attractive solution for the repair of existing SCC and mitigation of potential SCC necessary to ensure long-term integrity, security, and regulatory compliance of spent nuclear fuel storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15596: Capture of Organic Iodides from Vessel Off-Gas Streams | Syracuse University | $799,548.00 | This project will study the capture of radioactive organoiodides from off-gas streams produced during nuclear fuel reprocessing by conducting adsorption experiments using a selected silver adsorbents. Multifaceted simulation adsorption models will be developed to assist in the design of necessary capture systems for off-gas streams. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15585: Impact of Coupled Gas Migration and Thermo-hydro-mechanical Processes on the Performance of Repositories for High Level Nuclear Waste | Texas A&M University | $608,375.00 | The main goal of this project is to better understand the possible effect of gas migration (particularly through discontinuities) on the performance and long-term behavior of engineered barrier systems (EBS) envisaged for the isolation of high-level radioactive waste (HLW). Specific outcomes of this study will be an improved understanding of the role of gas migration and discontinuities in the performance of HLW disposals, with the underlying aim to improve design of EBS used for HLW. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15531: Repair and Mitigation of Chloride-Induced Pitting and Chloride-Induced Stress Corrosion Cracking in Used Nuclear Fuel Dry Cask Canister Materials | The Ohio State University | $800,000.00 | This project will evaluate and develop a set of tools to repair and mitigate chloride-induced pitting and stress corrosion cracking in stainless steel nuclear fuel canisters. Advanced processes, including low temperature friction stir welding and cold spray deposition, will be evaluated according to various criteria, such as corrosion performance. In addition, technologies that have not yet been evaluated for UNF applications, including vaporizing foil actuator welding and soldering will be assessed. The two most promising technologies will selected for further development and comprehensive study. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14912: Bridging the Length Scales on Mechanical Property Evaluation | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000.00 | This project combines experimental and modeling methods to gain a comprehensive approach for addressing scaling effects on small-scale mechanical testing. Multiscale experiments, together with modeling on reactor-relevant and model alloys, will provide better understanding of appropriate scaling relationships. The study aims to gain fundamental understanding of plasticity interactions with specific strength-determining features, such as precipitates and grain boundaries. The goal of this work is to provide the basis to add small-scale mechanical testing in the toolbox for nuclear materials research. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14911: Understanding of degradation of SiC/SiC materials in nuclear systems and development of mitigation strategies | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000.00 | This project investigates the best possible coatings to prevent SiCf/SiCm corrosion in LWR environments. The research features a computational and experimental rapid screening approach for numerous coating compositions. The work includes autoclave exposure of rapid screening coupons in prototypical environments in combination with thermodynamic modeling (CALPHAD) and Finite Element Methods (FEM). Small-scale mechanical testing, together with thermal cycling and FEM modeling, will provide guidance on the ideal coating system design. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15701: Time-dependent THMC Properties and Microstructural Evolution of Damage Rocks in Excavation Damage Zone | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,978.00 | The proposed project focuses on the geomechanical aspects of modeling by addressing the time-dependent evolution of rock microstructure and its coupling with the THC processes that are of first-order importance to the stability and the isolation performance of repositories. The research will delineate an integrated experimental, theoretical and numerical strategy in assessing the evolution EDZ over time and its implication on the long-term migration of hazardous species. These results will enhance the confidence of the predicted long-term performance of repositories, which helps to move forward the goal of one-million-year isolation of high-level nuclear wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15381: Multiaxial Failure Envelopes and Uncertainty Quantification of Nuclear-Grade SiCf/SiC Woven Ceramic Matrix Tubular Composites | University of Florida | $800,000.00 | This project proposes to develop a comprehensive experimental and computational approach for determining constitutive relations and multiaxial failure envelopes of nuclear-grade continuous silicon fiber (SiCf) and SiC matrix woven tubular composites. The result of this work can be adopted in industry for design refinement, optimization of performance under the desired operating conditions, and reliable prediction of failure under unforeseen accidental scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15496: Formation of Zeolites Responsible for Waste Glass Rate Acceleration: An Experimental and Computational Study for Understanding Thermodynamic and Kinetic Processes | University of Houston | $800,000.00 | Through experimental and computational studies, this project will expose the factors governing zeolite crystallization and their role in Stage III dissolution of radionuclide-containing glass waste forms generated in advanced nuclear fuel cycles. The overall goal of this project is to understand the formation of zeolite phases in order to develop process control methods to suppress Stage III dissolution. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14998: Novel Processes for Capture of Radioactive Iodine Species from Vessel Off-Gas Streams | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the sorption system performance and effectiveness for capture of radioiodine species present in the off-gas streams from the used nuclear fuel (UNF) recycling operations, focusing particularly on the organic iodine species. The dynamic sorption experimentation and theoretical modeling will offer fundamental insights on the mechanism enabling the design and prediction the control system performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15261: Friction Stir Based Repair Welding of Dry Storage Canisters and Mitigation Strategies: Effect of Engineered Barrier Layer on Environmental Degradation | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The project goal is to apply friction stir based repair and mitigation technique for eliminating failure associated with pitting and stress corrosion cracking in dry storage canisters for spent fuels. The goal of these activities is to obtain a fundamental understanding of the processing-structure-properties correlations. This work will contribute to the development of a crack repair/mitigation strategy based on friction stir technology that can be efficiently implemented for spent fuel dry storage casks, which will enhance safety and reliability of these systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15263: X-ray Studies of Interfacial Molecular Complexes in ALSEP Back-Extraction | University of Illinois at Chicago | $800,000.00 | This project will use synchrotron X-rays to characterize the interfacial molecular complexes (of extractants and radiologically derived impurities, complexants, buffers, and metal ions) formed during the Actinide-Lanthanide Separation Process (ALSEP) back-extraction. This work addresses the critical knowledge gap of slow stripping kinetics in ALSEP, as well as the influence of radiolytic degradation products. The outcome of the project will be a molecular-level understanding of the role of different components in the interfacial mechanism of back-extraction in the ALSEP process, therefore leading to development of more efficient and faster metal stripping relevant to the separation of actinides from lanthanides in the nuclear fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15030: Mechanistic Understanding of Radiolytically Assisted Hydrothermal Corrosion of SiC in LWR Coolant Environments | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to develop a mechanistic understanding of the hydrothermal corrosion behavior of monolithic SiC and SiC/SiC composites in LWR environment under the influence of water radiolysis products and radiation damage. Complementary atomistic simulations will be carried out to determine the rate controlling mechanisms for dissolution under different water chemistries and in the presence of radiation. Activation energies and kinetic rates will be calculated directly from these simulations and compared to experimentally fitted values. The dissolution rate constants determined and validated in this integrated experimental and modeling approach will allow predictions of long-term SiC corrosion behavior. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14999: Probabilistic Failure Criterion of SiC/SiC Composites Under Multi-Axial Loading | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $800,000.00 | This project aims to develop a probabilistic failure criterion of SiC/SiC composites under multi-axial loading and to incorporate the criterion into a reliability analysis of the structural integrity of LWR SiC/SiC fuel cladding. This research will be anchored by a seamless integration of novel experimental and analytical tools, which will lead to a robust methodology for dependable analysis of SiC/SiC composite structures for LWR fuel cladding, as well as other nuclear applications. The resulting model will be experimentally validated and applied to analyze the reliability of LWR SiC/SiC fuel cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15502: Reducing Uncertainty in Radionuclide Transport Prediction Using Multiple Environmental Tracers | University of Montana | $724,906.00 | In this project, direct modeling of multiple environmental tracers will be used to improve predictions of radionuclide transport in a shallow alluvial aquifer discharge. The research will take advantage of recent theoretical developments considering the use of environmental tracers, and advances in high-performance reactive flow and transport models, to obtain the maximum information on the transport system. The goal is to develop a new methodology to characterize natural reactive flow and transport systems, reduce predictive uncertainty in radionuclide transport simulations, determine the maximum information content of the tracer suite, and optimize future groundwater characterization efforts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15578: Computational and Experimental Investigation of Thermal-Mechanical- Chemical Mechanisms of High-burnup Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) Processes at Elevated Temperatures and Degradation Behavior in Geologic Repositories | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $800,000.00 | The overarching goal of this project is to use combined computational and experimental research and development activities to enhance understanding of the mechanisms and thermal-mechanical-chemical (TMC) parameters controlling the instant release fraction (IRF) and matrix dissolution of high-burnup (HB; burnup > 45 GWd/MTU) spent nuclear fuels (SNFs) and the subsequent formation, stability, and phase transformations of HB SNF alteration products under long-term storage and geological disposal conditions (e.g., high-temperature storage, _-radiolysis). The results of this research will be used to enhance the mechanistic detail of process models to reduce uncertainty in, and improve the technical bases of, safety cases and performance assessment analyses. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15439: Radiolytic Dissolution Rate of Silicon Carbide | University of Notre Dame | $400,000.00 | This project seeks to develop a matrix of dissolution rates for high-purity SiC material, using intense electron beam irradiation, and to measure the products of dissolution (silicic acid and CO2 (or CO)) in the water downstream of the irradiation zone. The objective is to determine the rate of SiC dissolution and gather sufficient insight about its mechanism in LWRs, so that the use of SiC/SiC composite materials for accident tolerant fuel cladding can proceed with confidence. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15061: Development of an MC&A Toolbox for Liquid-fueled Molten Salt Reactors with Online Reprocessing | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,207.00 | The purpose of this project is to develop a toolbox of swappable mass flow modules for liquid-fueled molten salt reactor (MSR) systems for the purposes of evaluating material control & accountancy measurement techniques. When combined together, these modules enable modeling of the time-dependent mass flows for a variety of MSR variants. The test platform will consist of a toolbox of independent process modules representing discrete physical units, each with its own self-contained physics responsive to the input mass flow, along with appropriate measurement models that can be coupled to key flow points. These dynamic physical signatures would allow testing of the viability and efficacy of potential accountancy techniques under the full range of reactor operating conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15307: A Novel and Flexible Approach for Converting LWR UNF Fuel Into Forms That Can Be Used to Fuel a Variety of Gen-IV Reactors | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $400,000.00 | This project will investigate the chemical decladding and the digestion of whole MOX-based fuel rods, using thionyl chloride and surrogate materials. Digesting entire LWR fuel assemblies results in product streams that include pure decontaminated ZrCl4; pure UCl4; and a stream containing TRU/FPs, as well as alloying metals (as chloride salts). The objectives of this project are to provide a new, highly efficient protocol for the transformation of used nuclear fuel into useful components and to effectively contain a concentrated stream of highly radioactive materials for appropriate handling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15459: Reduced Diffusion and Enhanced Retention of Multiple Radionuclides from Pore Structure Studies of Barrier Materials for Enhanced Repository Performance | University of Texas at Arlington | $567,831.00 | The project seeks to better understand and quantify the pore structure (geometry and topology) and pore connectivity of porous media and its emergent effect on diffusion and retention of various radionuclides in barrier materials. The anticipated outcome of the project will be to more accurately evaluate the performance of geological repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15649: Benchmarking Microscale Ductility Measurements | University of Utah | $776,669.00 | The objectives of this project are to establish best practices for obtaining tensile microscale ductility measurements and to validate methodologies for comparing them to macroscale ductility measurements. Anticipated outcomes of the project are: 1) measurement of grain and sub-grain localization processes micro and macroscales; 2) establishment of best practices for microtensile experimentation; 3) identification of statistically significant relationships between specimen geometry, microstructure variables and mechanical behavior; 4) modified phenomenological elongation-based ductility models to enable direct upscaling of ductility measurements from microscale to macroscopic. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15003: Advanced Coating and Surface Modification Technologies for SiC-SiC Composite for Hydrothermal Corrosion Protection in LWR | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,990.00 | This project focuses on the development of coatings and surface modification approaches for hydrothermal corrosion protection of SiC-SiC composite in normal LWR operation environments. Innovative surface treatment recipes will be explored using processes including, interfacial stitching to improve adhesion, multi-layered structures to improve ductility, and compositions and structures resulting from thermal treatments. The surface treatment concepts involve corrosion resistant metallic and ceramic materials, and are amenable to industrial scalability for the cladding application. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15332: Low-Force Solid-State Technologies for Mitigation of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dry Storage Canisters | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000.00 | This project will focus on evaluating and developing two technologies used for field mitigation and repair of stress corrosion cracking (SCC): 1) additive friction stir welding; and 2) cold spray deposition. The work involves developing low-force, low-heat input solid state technologies to lessen and repair SCC in stainless steel canisters for used nuclear fuel (UNF). This outcome of the study will inform feasibility of using the two technologies to conduct on-site field repairs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14913: The Role of Temperature on Non-Darcian Flows in Engineered Clay Barriers | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000.00 | This project intends to accomplish three tasks: 1) to develop a predictive model to facilitate experimental data interpretation and provide mechanistic insights into the role of temperature on non-Darcian flows in low-permeability engineered clay barriers; 2) conduct experiments to unravel the role of temperature on the threshold gradient of non-Darcian flow in both saturated and unsaturated bentonite; and 3) use molecular dynamics (MD) simulation to improve fundamental understanding. The experimental data, associated with the MD simulation, will provide valuable information to improve fundamental understanding and scientific knowledge with respect to the temperature dependence of threshold gradient in non-Darcian flows, because very limited experimental data for saturated flow and no experimental data for unsaturated flow are available. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14815: C-SiOC-SiC Coated Particle Fuels for Advanced Nuclear Reactors | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $400,000.00 | This project will study a new concept for nuclear fuel encapsulation using an amorphous SiOC plus carbon system as the inner coating and nanocrystalline SiC plus minor carbon as the outer coating for nuclear fuel kernel particles. The outcomes of this work are: 1) new directions and possible replacement guidance for current nuclear fuel materials in operation; 2) new fuel materials for future nuclear reactor material design and development; 3) nuclear composite microstructure evolution and performance degradation understanding; 4) screening tools to guide future nuclear fuel material activities; and 5) mechanisms of nuclear fuel material evolution and degradation and effective strategies to mitigate/reduce undesirable fuel behaviors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15226: An Evaluated, Transient Experiment based on Simultaneous, 3-D Neutron-Flux and Temperature Measurements | Kansas State University | $399,972.00 | This project will evaluate existing and near-term experimental data for inclusion in the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) handbook. The data to be evaluated include compositions from a recent fuel replacement as part of an LEU conversion, a number of critical, fresh-fuel configurations, fuel temperature measurements at fresh-fuel configurations, and records from nearly a decade of operation. The proposed work would lead to a first-of-a-kind evaluation of transient, spatially-dependent reaction rates. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project CFA-18-15773: Evaluation of the Thermal Scattering Law for Advanced Reactor Neutron Moderators and Reflectors | North Carolina State University | $398,821.00 | The objective of this project is to narrow the nuclear data gap for advanced nuclear reactors that are driven by thermal neutrons. This includes concepts such as gas-cooled high-temperature reactors and molten salt or salt-cooled high temperature reactors. The generated data TSL libraries will be provided in EDNF File 7 format to the National Nuclear Data Center (NDDC) to immediately include in beta releases of the ENDF/B libraries and to consider for the future release of ENDF/B-VIII.1. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15602: Modeling and Experimental Verification of Thermal Energy Storage Systems to Enable Load Following Capability for Nuclear Reactors | University of Idaho | $761,640.00 | This project purposes to integrate new thermal energy storage (TES) models, developed in Modelica, with ongoing nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (NRHES) modeling efforts, in order to evaluate economic potential and advantages of new process designs over baseload electricity production. The computational phase of this project includes developing mathematical and physics-based TES models, which could later be translated to Modelica and integrated with existing NRHES components. The testing and optimization would be conducted using RAVEN. A techno-economic analysis will be performed to evaluate the compatibility of the newly formed integration, as well as to quantify its feasibility and economic benefits. The experimental aspect is focused on the development of scaled TES systems, which serve as verification for the Modelica models and allow system testing upon being integrated with DETAIL. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14963: Development of Nuclear Hybrid Energy Systems: Temperature Amplification through Chemical Heat Pumps for Industrial Applications | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The overall goal of this project is to develop and demonstrate, through modeling and experimental investigations, temperature amplification capabilities of a chemical heat pump (CHP) system that can be coupled to a conventional light water reactor or a near-term small modular reactor. The outcomes would include nuclear hybrid energy system architecture containing a CHP, experimental data on the CHP performance, and dynamic model of the system, validated through experimentation, which could be used for scale-up and design. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15008: Development of Thermal Inelastic Scattering Covariance Data Capabilities with Demonstration of Light Water Evaluation | University of Michigan | $400,000.00 | The goal of this project is to produce a format for covariance data for inelastic thermal neutron scattering data for moderators in the ENDF format. To demonstrate the viability of this new format, an evaluation of the covariance data for thermal scattering in light water in this format will be produced, along with the capabilities to generate the files and test their efficacy. A capability for calculating sensitivity coefficients using multigroup methods to the fundamental physics parameters governing light-water scattering will be developed to facilitate identifying nuclear data needs related to thermal scattering. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15056: Model-Based Diagnostics and Mitigation of Cyber Threats | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | This project intends to develop a toolkit for modeling digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems for nuclear power plants so that the consequences of cyber-attacks on I&C systems may conveniently be modeled using nuclear plant simulation software. The results of the toolkit-based models, the corresponding responses, and the performance of the diagnostic schemes will be tested on a virtual control room driven by a plant simulator. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15055: NICSim: Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Simulation for Evaluating Response to Cyber-attacks | University of New Mexico | $799,945.00 | The objective of the project is to develop a Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Simulation (NICSim) platform with a novel emulytics capability to simulate control systems and components in nuclear power plants. The outcome of this work would be a first-in-class emulytics platform with an associated documentation and library of physical models of components that could be used by analysts and designers to assess the resilience and cybersecurity risks of different control system designs for a wide range of power plants. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15324: Validation of Pressure Relaxation Coefficient in RELAP-7 Seven-Equation Model | George Washington University | $800,000.00 | This project aims to validate the Seven-Equation model in RELAP-7 by: 1) measuring velocity and pressure in each phase and the interface as well as return to equilibrium in fast transients with high-speed non-intrusive laser diagnostics in canonical experiments; 2) complementing experimental data with a multiscale computational approach, including a 3D proprietary direct numerical solver; and 3) validating RELAP-7 with a combination of experimental data and first-principle simulations. This combination would provide unique and complete datasets to validate RELAP-7 with high confidence and offer a new class of experimental and numerical tools. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project CFA-18-15104: Demonstration of Utilization of High-fidelity NEAMS Tools to Inform the Improved Use of Conventional Tools within the NEAMS Workbench on the NEA/OECD C5G7-TD Benchmark | North Carolina State University | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to demonstrate the utilization of high-fidelity Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) tools (PROTEUS, Nek5000, and BISON) to inform the improved use of conventional tools (DIF-3D, CTF, and CTFFuel) within the NEAMS Workbench on the NEA/OECD C5G7-TD benchmark. This would result in more accurate predictions of safety parameters and margins, which is important for both safety and performance improvements of the nuclear power plants being currently operated and built. The developed Workbench-based framework will also assist end users to apply high-fidelity simulations to inform lower-order models for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14741: Demonstration of a Methodology for Direct Validation of MARMOT Irradiation-Induced Microstructural Evolution and Physical Property Models Using U-10Zr | Texas A&M University | $500,000.00 | The objective of this project is to demonstrate, for the first time, a methodology that enables the direct validation of microstructural evolution models for fuel in MARMOT, and the direct correlation of changes in physical properties with specific irradiation-induced microstructural features. Properly implementing this methodology will result in rapid development of MARMOT mesoscale models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15520: Accurate and Efficient Parametric Model-Order Reduction for Turbulent Thermal Transport | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000.00 | The project objective is to develop reduced-order models (ROMs) that will improve accuracy of LMR system-level analysis with low overhead. These new models will systematically mine high-fidelity DNS, LES, or uRANS simulations to construct low-order dynamical systems that can couple with a systems analysis code, such as the SAM code being developed under NEAMS. These simulations provide useful data and will be made available to the scientific community, and the overall effort will contribute to more efficient LMR conceptual design studies and licensing. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15484: A Novel High Fidelity Continuous-energy tTansport Tool for Efficient FHR Transient Calculations | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000.00 | The objective of the project is to develop a high-fidelity continuous energy (CE) transport tool for efficient transient calculations in fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactors with prismatic core/fuel assembly design. This will be accomplished by extending the high-fidelity 3-D continuous energy coarse mesh radiation transport (COMET) code with formidable computational speed to solve transient problems in FHRs with accurate thermal hydraulic feedback. The new capability would enable plant system codes to perform analyses necessary to address complex technical design, regulatory, reactor safety, and economic hurdles prior to construction. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15093: Determination of Molecular Structure and Dynamics of Molten Salts by Advanced Neutron and X-ray Scattering Measurements and Computer Modeling | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000.00 | This project will seek detailed knowledge about molecular structure and dynamics of molten salts to inform the design of new molten-salt reactors. A combination of advanced neutron and x-ray scattering and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations will be used to model the ionic-cluster structure of the fluid and solubility of impurities. Machine learning will be applied to regress from simulations and experiments in order to develop the model and predict chemical potentials as a function of composition and temperature. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15171: Oxidation Behavior of Silicon Carbide and Graphitic Materials | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000.00 | The objectives of this project are to determine the oxidation behavior of silicon carbide and graphitic materials in oxygen and/or moisture, to accurately measure the kinetic parameters of oxidation, to ascertain the oxidation mechanisms in relation to the microstructures, to determine the effect of irradiation on oxidation behavior, and to provide data and input to the safety analysis of high-temperature gas reactors under air and moisture ingress accident conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15276: Coping Time and Cost Analysis of Accident Tolerant Plant Design based on Dynamic PRA Methodology | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000.00 | This project will evaluate the failure modes of accident tolerant fuel ATF candidates to understand the different failure characteristics. The research aims to obtain a response surface of coping time by investigating the various uncertainties of accident mitigation in PWR and BWR reactors. These outputs will aid the decision making process on the implementation of ATF and FLEX to existing LWR plants from the perspective of risk reduction and economic feasibility. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15270: Innovative Use of Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) with the RCIC System to Enhance Passive Safety of Commercial LWRs | Texas A&M University | $748,000.00 | The overarching objectives of this project are to: 1) demonstrate new operational strategies with the combined use of Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) and the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) System to increase the passive safety capabilities of current Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs) in delaying or preventing core damage; and 2) pursue the delay of containment venting until after a 72-hour coping period through new BWR Suppression Pool mixing procedures. The research will use both simulation and experimental data to validate the objectives. The work has the potential to increase the ability of existing nuclear power plants to passively respond to beyond design basis events using existing equipment and without changes to the plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15346: Big Data For Operation and Maintenance Cost Reduction | The Ohio State University | $800,000.00 | This project will develop a first-of-a-kind framework for integrating Big Data capability into the daily activities of our current fleet of nuclear power plants. This research will mainly focus on incorporating the wide range of data heterogeneities in nuclear power plants into an integrated Big Data Analytics capability. The primary end product of this work will be a Big Data framework that is capable of dealing with the large volume and heterogeneity of the data found in nuclear power plants to extract timely and valuable information on equipment performance and to enable optimization of plant operation and maintenance based on the extracted information. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15065: in situ Measurement and Validation of Uranium Molten Salt Properties at Operationally Relevant Temperatures | University of Connecticut | $799,979.00 | This project proposes to use advanced spectroscopic and scattering methods to provide information at the atomic and molecular scale. The research will use synchrotron-based x-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy, at operationally relevant temperatures, to measure the local and intermediate structure as well as speciation of chloride fuel salts (NaCl, ZrCl, UCl3) for fast-spectrum applications and fluoride fuel salts ( 7 LiF, UF4) primarily for thermal spectrum applications This approach is expected to generate theories and concepts that would allow models to predict behavior, and develop the means for in situ monitoring. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15058: High-resolution Experiments for Extended LOFC and Steam Ingress Accidents in HTGRs | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to better understand key phenomena in high-temperature gas-cooled reactors relevant to steam ingress and loss of forced circulation (LOFC) accidents. Specifically, the research will: 1) experimentally investigate, using an existing integral-effect test facility with some improvements, the steam-ingress accident caused by a postulated steam generator tube rupture initiating event; 2) carry out integral-effect tests for the extended LOFC accident to study the establishment of global natural circulation flow in the primary loop; 3) design, based on a scaling analysis, and construct a separate-effect test facility to study the complex helium flows in the core and hot plenum during the extended LOFC accident; and 4) perform detailed, high-resolution, separate-effects experiments using the results obtained as boundary/initial conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15471: Integral Experimental Investigation of Radioisotope Retention in Flowing Lead for the Mechanistic Source Term Evaluation of Lead Cooled Fast Reactor | University of New Mexico | $800,000.00 | The purpose of this project is to experimentally investigate the integral effects of radioisotope interactions with liquid lead to support the following technical goals: 1) evaluating the mechanistic source term of the Lead-cooled Fast Reactor (LFR); 2) developing a universal integral effect test methodology for liquid metal source term evaluations; and 3) establishing a basis for the comparison of radioisotope retention between lead and sodium. This aim of the research is to advance the LFR licensing pathway by establishing the phenomenological foundation of the interaction between fission products and liquid lead. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15153: Understanding Molten Salt Chemistry Relevant to Advanced Molten Salt Reactors through Complementary Synthesis, Spectroscopy, and Modeling | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to understand molten salt chemistry relevant to advanced molten salt reactors through complementary synthesis, spectroscopy, and modeling. Through complementary synthetic, spectroscopic, and computational efforts, the aim is to achieve atomistic and molecular-level understanding of liquid structure, coordination geometry, chemical bonding, and reactivity of novel molten salt melts relevant to advanced molten reactor designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15111: Improving Nuclear Power Plant Efficiency Through Data Analytics | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,727.00 | This project aims to develop and provide data analytics solutions to improve nuclear power plan economic efficiency by utilizing empirical models to integrate disparate data sources while providing uncertainty estimates to quantify risk and support decisions. The outcomes will enhance the technical and economic competitiveness by enabling advanced monitoring of critical assets, improving the operating capability of the existing fleet, and helping achieve enhancements in organizational effectiveness. Additionally, the research would provide an agile and modular data analytic framework that would have high commercialization value and supports the industry-wide drive towards digital innovation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14846: Development of Corrosion Resistant Coatings and Liners for Structural Materials for Liquid Fueled Molten Salts Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to develop corrosion-resistant coatings and liners for structural materials for use in fuel dissolved molten salt environment for future Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). Innovative, but industrially scalable, surface cladding approaches are proposed to lead to promising surface and interfacial compositions. The processes themselves are commercial, and have high technology readiness levels, and consequently would facilitate the accelerated developments of MSRs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15280: Advanced Alloy Innovations for Structural Components of Molten Salt Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $796,792.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to develop and evaluate specific advanced metallic alloys for structural components in fluoride salt-cooled molten salt reactors (MSRs). The research will investigate four categories of metallic alloys: advanced Ni-based; radiation damage tolerant high entropy; refractory Mo-based, and compositionally-graded, designed for high-surface corrosion resistance and good bulk strength. Additionally, the propensity for radiation embrittlement, as well as weldability, of the alloys will be evaluated. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14957: Big Data Analytics Solutions to Improve Nuclear Power Plant Efficiency: Online Monitoring, Visualization, Prognosis, and Maintenance Decision Making | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $797,820.00 | The overarching goal of this project is to significantly advance the ability to assess equipment condition and predict the remaining useful life to support optimal maintenance decision making in nuclear power plants. This research will work toward accomplishing and establishing a modern set of data-driven modeling, online monitoring, visualization, prognosis, and operation decision-making methodologies to address the significant opportunities and challenges arising from the emerging data-rich environment in nuclear plants. The potential impact of the work is significant and transformative and could deliver important advances in productivity with reduced unscheduled downtime and improved equipment performance. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15097: Oxidation Study of High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor TRISO Fuels at Accidental Conditions | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000.00 | This project is to study the oxidation behaviors of TRISO fuels during accidental air and water vapor ingress conditions. The work focuses on the oxidation and burn-off of the graphite fuel matrix and oxidation of the TRISO fuel SiC layer at high-temperature accidental states in the presence of air and/or water vapor. It will include both unirradiated and irradiated graphite fuel matrix and simulated fuel particles with the SiC layer. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 19-16987: Novel miniature creep tester for virgin and neutron irradiated clad alloys with benchmarked multiscale modeling and simulations | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | This project will develop a miniature creep machine to collect rapid thermal creep and load relaxation data for two selected ferritic alloys under "as-received" and irradiated conditions. Fast and accurate measurements of creep deformation are essential for qualifying new alloys for long term use in current and next generation reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17150: Speciation and Behavior of Neptunium and Zirconium in Advanced Separation Process | Oregon State University | $800,000 | This project will further develop the understanding of nuclear fuel reprocessing using Co-Decontamination (CoDCon). Radiolytic degradation products of tributylphosphate, nitric acid, redox buffer, masking agent, and water greatly affect the redox speciation, complexation and partitioning of the recycled metals. Fundamental understanding of chemical speciation and partitioning of Neptunium and Zerconium under such conditions is required. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17395: Modeling and Uncertainty Analysis of MSR Nuclear Material Accounting Methods for Nuclear Safeguards | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | This project will model and analyze the limits of detection for the diversion of nuclear materials from a molten salt reactor (MSR) fuel cycle. MSR depletion under a range of uranium and/or plutonium diversion to quantify the resulting differences in salt composition will be evaluated. Sensors will also be investigated to quantify fuel salt contents and correlate the outputs with the reactor models to predict diversion detection. Results will be coupled with robust uncertainty analysis to determine limits of detection. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16583: Neutron Radiation Effect on Diffusion between Zr (and Zircaloy) and Cr for Accurate Lifetime Prediction of ATF | The Ohio State University | $499,997 | This project will perform systematic diffusion studies on both neutron-irradiated and unirradiated accident tolerant fuel samples to obtain precise diffusion coefficients. This will result in a precise evaluation of the pure neutron irradiation effect on diffusion in these systems and enable accurate life prediction of the accident tolerant fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17381: High Throughput Assessment of Creep Behavior of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Structural Alloys by Nano/microindentation | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $800,000 | This project will develop a high throughput assessment of creep behavior of advanced nuclear reactor structural alloys by nano/microindentation. Experimental datasets will inform polycrystalline deformation models to predict material response over a variety of creep conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16549: Thermal Conductivity Measurement of Irradiated Metallic Fuel Using TREAT | University of Pittsburgh | $500,000 | This project intends to provide accurate thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity data with microstructure characterization of metallic (U-Pu-Zr) fuel as a function of burnup and attain fundamental understanding of the thermal conductivity of the irradiated fuel to inform and validate computational models. This will be accomplished using an innovative thermal wave technique in the Transient Reactor Test Facility at the Idaho National Laboratory, with the Minimal Activation Reusable Capsule Holder. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17002: Remote Laser-based Nondestructive Evaluation for Post-Irradiation Examination of ATF Cladding | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | To enable advanced nondestructive characterization techniques for light water reactor fuels that can be applied to the cladding coating, a remote nondestructive evaluation post irradiation inspection approach will be developed. This technique will measure the cladding coating layer thickness and detect defects within the cladding such as corrosion, micro-cracking and delamination. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17276: Radiation-Induced Swelling in Advanced Nuclear Fuel | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,989 | The microstructural evolution of advanced fuel (uranium carbide and uranium nitride) under fission-fragment type radiation has not been studied and remains unclear. This project will utilize advanced synchrotron X-ray characterization using microgram samples to obtain detailed nanoscale information on radiation-induced volumetric swelling and microstrain. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16848: Metal-Functionalized Membranes for Radioiodine Capture | University of Utah | $799,031 | This proposed research will investigate high-surface area (>300 m2/g) metal-functionalized membranes. These novel chemically durable and mechanically robust membranes are formed using an aqueous fabrication process, which results in an interconnected porosity that is highly controllable, providing hierarchical structures ranging from the nano- to micrometer-scales. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17350: Development and Experimental Validation of Pitting and SCC Models for Welded Stainless Steel Dry Storage Containers Exposed to Atmospheric Environments | University of Virginia | $799,027 | The specific goals of this project are to: (a) validate the maximum pit size model for dry storage canister relevant corrosion conditions as well as quantifying the effects of limited cathodic current on stress corrosion cracking (SCC) kinetics, (b) demonstrate a means to quantitatively rank the risk of SCC based on measurable parameters, (c) perform probabilistic predictions of SCC growth, and (d) validate the model predictions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16879: Proactive Hybrid Nuclear with Load Forecasting | Brigham Young University | $799,933 | This project develops new capabilities of design and dispatch optimization of nuclear hybrid energy systems (NHES) in the "Risk Analysis Virtual Environment (RAVEN)" modelling software. Blended (physics-based and data-driven) machine learning will be applied to forecast demand and production of thermal and electrical loads. Two experimental case studies are proposed to test the software developments with a lab-scale thermal energy storage and with a large district energy system. As a final step, the software developments will be generalized to other NHES. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17461: Development and Evaluation of Neutron Thermalization Integral Benchmarks for Advanced Reactor Applications | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | This project will develop integral benchmarks that aim to examine thermal neutron scattering data for graphite (ideal and nuclear), light water, and molten salt. The benchmark evaluations will be contributed to the International Handbook of Evaluated Reactor Physics Benchmark Experiments (IRPhEP) database. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17219: Using Integral Benchmark Experiments to Improve Differential Nuclear Data Evaluations | University of New Mexico | $400,000 | This project will use the results of integral benchmark experiment to inform differential nuclear data evaluations and improve the predictive capability of modeling and simulation (M&S) tools. This goal will be accomplished by developing capabilities to assess the sensitivity of integral benchmark results to evaluated nuclear data parameters, and by using data assimilation tools to directly adjust the evaluated data parameters and improve the accuracy of M&S tools. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16743: Paths Forward for Nuclear Energy: Using a Nationwide Post-Stratified Hierarchical Model to Facilitate Matching of New Nuclear Technologies to Receptive Host Communities | University of Oklahoma | $390,393 | This project will enable deployment of advanced nuclear technologies by developing a model, and an accompanying web-based tool that can be utilized by technology entrepreneurs, that identifies public support for siting new nuclear technologies at very local spatial scales across the US. The model will employ hierarchically structured, post stratified analysis of the largest US pooled-time series dataset on geocoded public support for nuclear technologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16995: A Cyber-Attack Detection Platform for Cyber Security of Digital Instrumentation and Control Systems | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,995 | The proposed research will develop a robust cyber-attack detection system (CADS) for monitoring digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems. The project will develop a robust research tool for evaluating cyber defense of digital I&C systems and provide a framework for a cyber-attack detection system that provides continuous assurance of the security of digital I&C systems in nuclear power plants (NPPs). | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17327: Multi-Timescale Nuclear-Renewable Hybrid Energy Systems Operations to Improve Electricity System Resilience, Reliability, and Economic Efficiency | University of Texas at Dallas | $800,000 | The overarching objective of this project is to develop a multi-timescale nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (N-R HESs) operations framework to provide different types of grid products. The project will model and analyze the capabilities of N-R HESs to provide power grid services at different timescales ranging from seconds to days, such as day-ahead unit commitment, flexible ramping (5-45 minutes), regulation reserves (1-5 minutes), and frequency response (less than seconds). | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17192: The Design and Investigation of Novel Mechanical Filters for Molten Salt Reactors | Abilene Christian University | $762,246 | Researchers will develop a novel mechanical filtration system. The project will include the collection of filter media performance data and filter regeneration performance data for a novel sintered nickel-based filter prototype. The project will also provide a filter design that facilitates remote filter removal, cooling, replacement, and assay of fissile material hold-up in the filter media. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16980: Determining the Effects of Neutron Irradiation on the Structural Integrity of Additively Manufactured Heat Exchangers for Very Small Modular Reactor Applications | Auburn University | $400,000 | Researchers will determine how to best use laser-powder bed fusion additive manufacturing methods for generating radiation-resistant channel/pore-embedded structures from Inconel (alloy 625 or 718) nickel-based superalloys for special purpose reactor (i.e. very small modular reactor) heat exchangers. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17413: Validated, Multi-Scale Molecular Dynamics Simulations to Predict the Thermophysical Properties of Molten Salts Containing Fuel, Fission, and Corrosion Products | Brigham Young University | $798,291 | Researchers will use first principles molecular dynamics (FPMD) simulations on molten salts containing impurities including fuel, fission products, and corrosion products. These will be used to develop a classical molecular dynamics (CMD) potential. CMD will then be used to predict properties for a wide variety of salt compositions and temperatures, and physical property measurements will be performed to validate those predictions. Property correlations will be developed from this data. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17183: Mixing of helium with air in reactor cavities following a pipe break in HTGRs | City College of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct separate effects tests to obtain experimental validation data on mixing of helium and air in reactor building cavities during and after blowdown in HTGRs. Air and helium concentrations, and gas mixture velocity and temperature fields will be measured in simulated reactor cavities. An existing helium flow loop will be used as the source of high pressure/high temperature helium for injection into the cavities and different break configurations will be experimentally investigated. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16391: GuArDIAN: General Active Sensing for conDItion AssessmeNt | Duke University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a dependable, autonomous or semi-autonomous (i.e. low human involvement), and minimally disruptive framework for monitoring equipment and components in nuclear reactors. The project will develop GUARDIAN; a robust active sensing framework through the integration of model-based inference and mobile actuating/sensing robots. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17251: Measuring Mechanical Properties of Select Layers and Layer Interfaces of TRISO Particles via Micromachining and In-Microscope Tensile Testing | Idaho State University | $799,815 | Researchers will characterize the strength of TRISO-coated particle layers and interfaces using FIB micro-machining and in-TEM tensile testing. Tensile test samples from coating layers of (1) unirradiated surrogate (fuel) TRISO particles, (2) unirradiated fueled TRISO particles and (3) irradiated fueled TRISO particles will be studied. Results of this project will both benefit and leverage the AGR Program. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17185: Demonstrating Reactor Autonomous Control Framework using Graphite Exponential Pile | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will demonstrate a detection-prediction-feedback framework for nuclear system autonomous control. It will adopt multiple detector channels to enable control feedback to spatially dependent perturbations. It will also utilize high-fidelity solutions trained surrogate models for real-time prediction and decision-making. In addition to the method development, the proposal will entail a first-of-a-kind engineering demonstration using the MIT Graphite Exponential Pile (MGEP). | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16754: Simultaneous Corrosion/Irradiation Testing in Lead and Lead-Bismuth Eutectic: The Radiation Decelerated Corrosion Hypothesis | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $762,823 | Researchers will test candidate FeCrSi and F/M alloys in a new, simultaneous corrosion/radiation facility to try to identify an alloy that will satisfy all requirements for Lead Fast Reactor structural materials. Microstructural characterization, mechanical property testing, and corrosion tests, both during irradiation and following ion/He pre-conditioning, will assess how irradiation affects corrosion, potentially slowing it. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17173: Ni-based ODS alloys for Molten Salt Reactors | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | The objective of this work is to (i) propose and develop a new Nickel (Ni) based Oxide Dispersion-Strengthened (ODS) alloy that can be used for structural applications in Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) and other nuclear reactor harsh environments, (ii) to demonstrate that its high temperature mechanical properties are adequate for MSR operating temperatures, (iii) to demonstrate its radiation damage resistance through ion irradiation testing and (iv) to demonstrate its improved corrosion resistance in MSR environment. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17037: Investigation of HTGR Reactor Building Response to a Break in Primary Coolant Boundary | Purdue University | $799,832 | Researchers will perform a series of experiments to simulate HTGR reactor building response due to a break in the primary coolant boundary in a well-scaled test facility to obtain spatial distribution of oxygen concentration, perform analysis of the whole system response with 1-D thermal hydraulics codes and use CFD to make detailed localized predictions. The tests will be carried out with different locations and sizes of the breaks to create various vent and flow paths in the reactor cavity. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17093: Integrating Multi-modal Microscopy Techniques and the MOSAIC Simulation Environment to Assess Changes in the Physical Properties and Chemical Durability of Concrete Following Radiation Exposure | University of California, Los Angeles | $800,000 | Researchers will develop unprecedented multi-modal imaging methodologies that integrate multiple microscopy techniques. The team will develop a generalizable protocol for quantifying the changes in physical properties and chemical durability of concrete and concrete constituents (minerals and aggregates) following radiation exposure. The imaging analyses will be input into the MOSAIC framework to reveal the nature and extent of degradation that is expected to result. The outcomes offer insights that are needed to enable and inform second license renewals. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17167: Atomistically Informed and Experimentally Validated Model for Helium Bubble Growth in Welded Irradiated Metals | University of Florida | $797,861 | Researchers will construct a validated computational model for He bubble growth on grain boundaries in irradiated Fe-Ni-Cr microstructures, including intergranular fracture, as a function of material conditions and welding heat input. This model will be based on the phase-field methodology, leveraging numerical solvers in the MOOSE simulation platform, with critical inputs and validation provided by both atomic-level simulations and experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16909: Learning-based Computational Study of the Thermodynamic, Structural, and Dynamic Properties of Molten Salts at the Atomic and Electronic Scale and Experimental Validations | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will obtain the thermophysical, thermochemical, and transport properties, construct the phase diagrams, and build empirical physical models of molten salts that are relevant to Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) with first-principles accuracy using molecular dynamics simulations driven by machine-learned high-dimensional neural network potentials combined with neutron/X-ray scattering and thermodynamic experimental validations. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16298: I-PRA Decision-Making Algorithm and Computational Platform to Develop Safe and Cost-Effective Strategies for the Deployment of New Technologies | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an integrated probabilistic risk assessment decision-making algorithm to support risk-and-cost-informed decision-making related to the deployment of new technologies. The project will enhance the financial analysis module and the challenging interface of social and technical systems to advance the algorithm. The project will conduct a case study for evaluating the safety impact and cost-effectiveness of FLEX strategies to support operational flexibility. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16802: Evaluation of Semi-Autonomous Passive Control Systems for HTGR Type Special Purpose Reactors | University of Michigan | $400,000 | Researchers will investigate the use of variable flow controllers and a variable reflector as passive or semi-autonomous reactivity control mechanisms for multi-module HTGR type special purpose reactors. This applies to the commercially developed special purpose reactor concepts from HolosGen. The incorporation of these systems will reduce the movable parts count and enable more robust load follow capabilities over broader power ranges and local and global reactivity control. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17467: Understanding the Speciation and Molecular Structure of Molten Salts Using Laboratory and Synchrotron based In Situ Experimental Techniques and Predictive Modeling | University of Nevada, Reno | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology to accurately determine the structure and speciation of the molten salt electrolyte using laboratory-based spectroscopic techniques (Raman and UV-Vis-NIR) and synchrotron-based (scattering and absorption) techniques, in combination with computational modeling. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17231: Prevention of Common Fault-Trigger Combinations for Qualification of Digital Instrumentation and Control Technology | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will provide an effective design evaluation approach based on prevention of concurrent triggering conditions to eliminate common-cause failures (CCF) and enable qualification of digital I&C technology for application in nuclear plant modernization. The research involves classifying commonality among digital devices, categorizing faults and triggering conditions, determining fault-trigger relationships, and defining preventive design measures to resolve the potential for CCF. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17087: Economic Risk-Informed Maintenance Planning and Asset Management | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will provide a holistic framework for cost-minimizing risk-informed maintenance planning, including inspection. They will develop a two-tier framework that coarsely minimizes the total maintenance cost during the remaining normal operating cycle and uses the outputs of the first model to maximize the financial impact of these activities in the short term. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16811: Liquid Metal-cooled Fast Reactor Instrumentation Technology Development | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will explore three different areas that will help to improve commercialization of SFRs and to aid in testing for the VTR. These include: 1. Advancement in understanding of low prandtl number heat transfer 2. Testing of compact heat exchangers for use with sodium 3. Development of in pool submersible flow meters. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16954: Innovative In-Situ Analysis and Quantification of Corrosion and Erosion of 316 Stainless Steel in Molten Chloride Salt Flow Loops | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will use a thin-layer activation technique for the first time in molten salts, on 316H samples placed in natural convection and forced flow loops. The individual and synergistic effects of corrosion, irradiation and thermo-mechanical treatments will be evaluated in-situ to predict component service lifetimes and design limits. The effects of molten chloride flow velocity will also be assessed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17168: Fuel Salt Sampling and Enriching System Technology Development | Vanderbilt University | $799,989 | Researchers will combine insights from the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment with decades of advancements in applicable technologies into an enhanced Sampler Enricher (SE) concept to develop and test a flexible, reliable, and workable design. The prototype will then be tested in an existing salt loop. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16739: Improvements of Nuclear Data Evaluations for Lead Isotopes in Support of Next Generation Lead-Cooled Fast Systems | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | The objective of this project is to improve the accuracy of neutronics simulation of lead-based systems by improving the nuclear data of lead isotopes. The nuclear data for lead will be reevaluated with emphasis of the intermediate and fast energy regions that are required by reactor applications currently sought by several industrial entities. The deliverables of this project are new lead isotopes evaluations that will be candidates for inclusion in a future Evaluated Nuclear Data Library (ENDF) release. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 20-19373: Connecting Advanced High-Temperature X-ray and Raman Spectroscopy Structure/Dynamics Insights to High-Throughput Property Measurements | Boston University | $500,000 | Researchers will acquire molten salt structure and dynamics data at high-temperatures using high-energy x-ray techniques and Raman spectroscopy and relate them to their physical and chemical properties. High-throughput techniques will be developed to rapidly measure multiple high-temperature properties at one time. An understanding of the relationship of salt structure and dynamics to its properties will help to select and optimize melt chemistry in molten salt reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19371: Adsorption and Reduction of Uranium in Engineered Barrier Systems: Effects of Iron and Heat | California State University, East Bay | $800,000 | Reseachers will investigate uranium sorption and abiotic reduction processes in iron-rich montmorillonite systems as a function of solution chemistry and temperature. The team will develop a surface complexation model that can account for both uranium adsorption and reduction, and hence reduce the uncertainties associated with uranium mobility in iron-rich environments with engineering barrier systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19831: Optimizing Melt Processed Phosphate Glass Waste Forms via Composition-Property-Structure Correlations | Clemson University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and optimize highly durable and easily processable phosphate-based glass waste forms to immobilize the dehalogenated salt streams by tailoring the composition of the glasses. To complement the work conducted on glass waste forms at the national laboratories sponsored by the DOE-NE program, modified iron phosphate glass waste forms will be prepared and evaluated by the introduction of various glass modifiers (SnF2 and BaO) to the prototype glass compositions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19695: Quantifying radionuclide sorption to engineered barrier materials under elevated temperature and ionic strength conditions | Clemson University | $799,380 | Researchers will characterize actinide sorption to mineral surfaces and examine possible mechanisms of sorption at high temperature/ionic strength through examination of the effects of hydration and hydrolysis on actinide sorption. These data will provide an understanding of radionuclide behavior with engineered barrier materials. A greater understanding of these processes will reduce the uncertainty in strategies for sequestration of radionuclide bearing wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19789: Controlling Neptunium and Zirconium in Advanced Extraction Processes | Colorado School of Mines | $599,763 | Researchers will address continuing issues with separating neptunium and zironium in current separation techniques. They will use coupled optical and x-ray specroscopy, small angle scattering, equilibrium thermodynamics and chemical analysis to understand fundamental molecular-level behaviors of extracted Np and Zr. These techniques, using world-class irradiation facilities, will elucidate the specific chemistries underlying the problematic behavior in Np and Zr in radiation fields. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19660: Linear and nonlinear guided ultrasonic waves to characterize cladding of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researcherses will perform a combination of linear and nonlinear guided ultrasonic waves, integrated with new material behavior models to develop a non-destructive evaluation (NDE) approach for both quality control/quality assurance and in-service NDE characterization of the cladding integrity and bond strength. Current NDE techniques are effective for uncoated designs, but these coated fuels add new challenges, which will be addressed by this new approach. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19678: Flexible Hard Ceramic Coatings by Ultrasonic Spray Mist-CVD for Dry Storage Canisters of Spent Nuclear Fuel and Waste | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop advanced flexible hard ceramic coatings using ultrasonic spray mist-chemical vapor deposition technique manufacturing process to deposit on dry storage canisters. The team will test resistance to corrosion, heat, wear and hydrogen permeation thgourh microstructural characterization and material property evaluation. The ultimate goal is to enhance the long term reliability of spent nuclear fuel dry storage canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19797: High Throughput Computational Platform for Predictive Modeling of Thermochemical and Thermophysical Properties of Fluoride Molten Salts | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | Researchers will (1) develop an open-source high throughput (H-T) computational platform to understand, predict, and evaluate thermochemical and thermophysical properties of molten salts as demonstrated in the F-(K-Li-Na)-(Cr-Fe)-U system and (2) provide H-T approaches (CALPHAD modeling and AIMD simulations) and open-source codes together with thermodynamic models of molten salts and public-accessible databases verified by targeted experiments for the molten salt research community. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19627: Chemical Interaction and Compatibility of Uranium Nitride with Liquid Pb and Alumina-forming Austenitic Alloys | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | Researcherswill address critical issues with the compatibility and chemcial interations of uranium nitride fuel, alumina-forming austenitic alloys and lead coolants/sublayers. They will obtain critical data of fuel-coolant-cladding interactions and compatibility to evaluate key parameters of operation temperature, fuel impurities and coolant chemistry. This data will provide key operation windows and parameters for deployment of lead-cooled fast reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19924: First-principles free energies by hybrid thermodynamic integration for phase equilibria and fission product solubility in molten salts | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | Researchers will predict phase equilibria and solubility of fission products in molten salts using a novel hybrid framework for thermodynamic integration combining first-principles, molecular dynamics and continuum methods to calculate free energies. They will be benchmarked using Bayesian-targeted calorimetric, in-situ diffraction and spectroscopic experiments. The project will provide microscopic insights and quantitative parameters necessary for reliable thermophysical modeling of molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19939: Gallium Oxide Schottky Diode Detectors for Measurement of Actinide Concentrations from Measured Alpha Activities in Molten Salts | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and test, to high temperatures, a Schottky diode alpha particle detector that is based on the rapidly emerging ultrawide band gap semiconductor material gallium oxide. Ga2O3 Schottky diode detectors offer the potential of detecting alpha particles at high temperatures, with better resolution than SiC Schottky diode detectors, which the team has previously developed for similar purposes. These detectors could be used in pyrochemical processing streams and molten salt reactors with potential application in other reactor concepts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19966: Evaluating hydroxypyridinone-based ligands for actinide and fission products recovery in used fuels | University of California, Berkeley | $600,000 | Researchers will pursue novel chemical separation approaches for advanced reactor used fuels treatments and recycling, by leveraging the unique actinide and lanthanide coordination properties of hydroxypyridinone-based aqueous chelators. These chelators have not been tested in extreme conditions and this work would test potential process performance with a focus on radiation-induced changes and oxidation state distribution. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19545: Femtosecond Laser Ablation Machining & Examination - Center for Active Materials Processing (FLAME-CAMP) | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop, build, and test a femtosecond laser ablation machining & examination tool that can be deployed in a hot cell environment enabling microscopy sample fabrication, isotope and elemental analysis, and thermal analysis. The technology allows for non-contact materials processing, even through glass windows, potentially preventing contamination of surrounding areas and tools. Such a multi-function tool with high throughput material processing will accelerate the research on fuel and cladding tremendously. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19198: Functionalized clay buffer materials for the long-term sequestration of technetium and iodine | University of Florida | $800,000 | Researcherswill develop synthesize, test, and model novel functionalized clay buffer materials for the long-term sequestration of iodine and technetium. The project will also focus on key experimantal parameters and modeling of how the novel clay buffer material will sequester iodine and technetium species. Novel materials will support DOE's efforts to design improved geologic repository barrier systems and optimize repository performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19209: Investigation on multicomponent solubility in LiCl-KCl eutectic chloride salts using combinatorial approach | University of Idaho | $400,000 | Researchers will perform irradiation experiments to understand how gamma radiation changes trivalent metal ion complex coordination structure and extraction characteristics during the ALSEP process. This work will focus on understanding the types of degradation products that are formed during the extraction process and what effects these degradation products have on process performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19713: Multifunctional Laser Processing for Repair and Mitigation of Pitting and Cracks in Welded Stainless Steel Dry Storage Canisters | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a strategic solution that combines laser cleaning and laser peening for removal of surface contamination and mitigation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in welded stainless steels. Laser cleanning will remove surface contamination and reduce pitting caused by corrosion. Laser peening will then be used to mitigate stress corrosion cracking and provide enhanced corrosion resistance. The portability of the laser system means the system will be able to be deployed in the field. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19188: Single- and Polycrystalline Diamond Electrodes for Spectroelectrochemical Characterization of Various Molten Salts | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $600,000 | Researchers will develop optically transparent electrodes for spectroelectrochemical measurements in chloride- and fluoride-based radioactive molten salts. The primary electrode material will be boron-doped diamond. Measurements will elucidate important electrochemical properties of nuclear fuel and fission products such as redox potential, diffusion coefficient, and electron transfer stoichiometry. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19641: Mitigating stress corrosion cracking in austenitic stainless-steel canister welds using peening techniques | University of Nevada, Reno | $799,950 | Researchers seek to understand the mechanisms of pitting/SCC resistance of welds as affected by a) compressive stress b) surface texture modification and c) microstructural change in the substrate surface resulting from laser shock peening, shot peening, ultrasonic impact peening and laser surface texturing. The study will recommend the best peening and surface texturing process conditions for mitigation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in 304L welds. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19704: Multicomponent Thermochemistry of Complex Chloride Salts for Sustain-able Fuel Cycle Technologies | University of Pittsburgh | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive thermodynamic database of multicomponent chloride salts through a collaboration between experts in Gibbs energy modeling and thermochemical experiments. A thermochemical database of the multicomponent chloride system KCl-LiCl-NaCl-UCl3-LnCl3 (Ln: La, Pr, Nd) will be developed using the CALPHAD (Calculation of Phase Diagrams) method with supported ab initio calculations and thermal analysis experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19506: Engineered composite patch with NDE inspection for repair and mitigation of SCC in nuclear spent fuel dry storage canister | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an innovative 'engineered composite patch' that can absorb moisture, neutralize chloride, and prevent stress corrosion cracking from further growth. This 'patch' with have in integrated non-destructive evaluation capability using laser utrasonic characterization methods to montior quality and performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19374: Maintaining and building upon the Halden legacy of In-situ diagnostics | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will develop innovative instrumentation focusing on temperature and strain measurements to fill the void left by the Halden reactor and to enhance the experimental capabilities in the Transient Reactor Test Facility (TREAT) located at Idaho National Laboratory. The team will develop a fiber optic sensor system that offers an inherent resistance to electromagnetic interference unlike currently used sensors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19076: Investigation of Degradation Mechanisms of Cr-coated Zirconium Alloy Cladding in Reactivity Initiated Accidents (RIA) | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $500,000 | Researchers will investigate the thermal, mechanical, and irradiation response of chromium-coated zirconium alloy claddings under RIA conditions, in comparison to uncoated Zr-alloy cladding. The outcome of the project will be used for anticipated licensing applications to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), thereby accelerating use of coated accident tolerant fuel concepts in U.S. commercial power reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19318: Surface Peening and Hybrid Surface Engineering Approaches to Mitigate Initiation and Resurgence of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dry Cask Storage Stainless Steel Canisters | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,838 | Researchers will develop and evaluate a wide range of surface peening treatments, as well as hybrid surface treatments to mitigate initiation and growth of chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) in stainless-steel canisters for used nuclear fuel (UNF) dry cask storage. Canister mock-ups with prototypical fusion welds will be used for this study. Characterization and testing of microstructure, compressive stresses, corrosion and CISCC will be performed. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19614: New Coatings for Nuclear Fuel Waste Canister Storage and Transport | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop novel SiOCN(H) coatings for spent nuclear fuel canisters in order to support sustained nuclear reactor operation and safeguard nuclear waste storage, transport, and disposal, in both terrestrial and marine environments. The novel coating will specifically address pitting corrosion and stress corrosion cracking in spent nuclear fuel canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19382: Separated waste stream immobilization of iodine and offgas caustic scrubber solution | Washington State University | $400,000 | Researchers will produce a set of waste forms from separation of iodine from the caustic offgas scrubber solution. The primary caustic scrub containing iodine, halides, and carbonate will be immobilized in a glass-bonded composite of cancrinite/sodalite. The iodine-loaded silver sorbent will be stripped of iodine, converted to NaI, and immobilized into a separate durable glass-bonded iodosodalite waste form. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19912: Validation of Robustness in TCR Design Strategies | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will perform sensitivity analysis (SA) and uncertainty quantification (UQ) of TCR design parameters and relevant physical phenomena, using open-source time dependent Monte-Carlo code (OpenMC), NQA1 qualified commercial codes (STARCCM+), and ABAQUS for thermal-hydraulics and structural mechanics. The SA/UQ analysis will provide key insights to allow for development of performance metrics of robustness for autonomous operation sensors, by processing signals such as neutron flux, temperature and strains, as wll as inform the needed robustness for AI by enveloping the attainable level of decision making by the software. | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 | |
| NEUP Project 20-19216: Creation of Multiple Effect Evaporator and Combined Cycle Modelica Modules, and Optimization of Potable Water Generation from Saltwater Sources | North Carolina State University | $498,532 | Researchers will develop models of Multiple Effect Evaporators and Combined Cycle Gas Turbine systems to be used within the Modelica framework, with an end goal of creating an energy park that can supply its own energy and water through Small Modular Reactor nuclear systems and/or Combined Cycle Gas Turbine Systems with brackish to brine water sources. These same models will be capable of being implemented into larger models of grid independent and near independent energy parks located about military bases, large manufacturing facilities, and in small communities where freshwater is limited. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19590: Benchmark Evaluation of Transient Multi-Physics Experimental Data for Pellet Cladding Mechanical Interactions | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop an integral benchmark evaluation based on available experimental data from cold ramp tests performed at the Studsvik testing R2 reactor. Transient multiphysics benchmark evaluations are needed to support validation of the NEAMS ToolKit and the VERA suite. This research will focus on pellet cladding interaction and pellet cladding mechanical interaction and their associated events. The benchmark will be prepared for inclusion in the IRPhEP handbook. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19837: Reinforcement Learning Validation Framework for Quality Assurance of AI-guided Additive Manufacturing Digital Platforms | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will address the need to qualify the risk associated with AM fabricated nuclear reactor parts by incorporating a novel rendition of a well-established artificial intelligence learning strategy, the multi-armed bandit reinforcement learning (RL). The RL framework will be developed and demonstrated using TCR data and its associated digital platform. This research will assimilate in-process sensor data and physics-based simulation data to calculate risk measures in the form of failure probabilities for the AM parts. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19363: Integrated Solar & Nuclear Cogeneration of Electricity & Water using the sCO2 Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,427 | Researchers will design and model a renewable, nuclear Integrated Energy System (IES), compatible with the RAVEN/Modelica framework, for co-generation of cost competitive electricity and clean water. The components of the IES to be included are concentrated solar power, the supercritical CO2/sCO2 cyle, multi-effect distillation, and the lead-cooled fast reactor. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19066: Engineering-Informed, Data-Driven Degradation Modeling, Prognostics and Control for Radiation-induced Void Swelling in Reactor Steels | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will advance the capability to model, predict and control void swelling in irradiated structural components through developing engineering-informed, advanced data-driven statistical and machine learning techniques. Excess swelling not only leads to dimensional instability, but also can cause severe embrittlement of internal materials. The proposed efforts will ensure more effective regulation, aging management and license renewal. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19795: A High-Fidelity Novel and Fast Multigroup Cross Section Generation Method for Arbitrary Geometry and Spectrum | Georgia Institute of Technology | $600,000 | Researchers will develop a fast high-fidelity multigroup cross section generation method for arbitrary geometry configurations and energy spectra by developing a response-based high order perturbation method to perform hybrid stochastic-deterministic local transport calculations. The proposed method will be implemented as independent modules that can be easily embedded into any neutron transport or diffusion code and also be used as a standalone cross section generator. The modules will provide data that can interface with the associated NEAMS toolkit and workbench user interfaces to enable advanced neutronics tools that will perform high-fidelity multigroup multiphysics steady-state and transient calculations that capture and represent the complex resonance interactions and core environmental effects which exist in heterogeneous reactors, including advanced reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19968: Experimental Investigations and Numerical Modeling of Near-wall and Core Bypass Flows in Pebble Bed Reactors | Texas A&M University | $600,000 | Researchers will establish a highly coordinated, concurrent experimental and computational effort combining high-resolution turbulence simulations (including Nek5000, Star-CCM+) and experiments to deepen physical understanding and address long standing modeling inaccuracies related to near wall and bypass flow effects in pebble bed reactors. The project's acquired extensive database will be used to derive closure models and correlations needed for porous media code, such as Pronghorn. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19864: Development of innovative overlapping-domain coupling between SAM and NEK5000 | University of Michigan | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a robust, multi-scale coupling scheme between the SAM code and the CFD code, NEK5000, based on a novel overlapping domain approach. The developed coupling will be validated by using experiments specifically designed for the validation of multi-scale coupled codes. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-20074: Characterization of Plenum to Plenum Natural Circulation flows in a High Temperature Gas Reactor (HTGR) | CUNY, City College of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will obtain and provide experimental data on the plenum-to-plenum natural circulation flows in a typical high temperature gas reactor using helium and nitrogen over a wide range of temperatures and pressures to simulate natural circulation under both pressurized and depressurized conduction cooldown scenarios. The results of the project will yield new data and complement other very high temperature related studies. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19042: Flexible Siting Criteria and Staff Minimization for Micro-Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $440,517 | Researchers will develop siting criteria that are tailored to micro-reactors deployable in densely-populated areas by comparing the characteristics of the MIT research reactor with those of leading micro-reactor concepts, and evaluate whether and how the MIT research reactor design basis and associated regulations are applicable to micro-reactors. A model of operations for micro-reactors that would minimize the staffing requirements will also be conceptualized. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-20045: Highly Compact Steam Generators for Improved Economics of Small Modular Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will design and build a compact steam generator (CSG) test section that can be easily modified for different flow paths and geometries, as well as modify an existing loop to accept the test section. The conceptual optimized CSG system design, which could be deployed in small modular reactors, will be informed by CFD simulations to determine critical characteristics of the test section. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19205: Robust bullet-time tagging and tracking system based on computer vision for individual ex-core TRISO-fueled pebble identification | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a novel, validated, robust bullet-time tagging and tracking system, based on computer vision techniques, to tag and track each individual pebble in pebble bed reactors. The effort will utilize Residence Time Distribution and Radioactive Particle Tracking techniques to validate and refine the developed method, using a continuous cold flow pebble bed experimental setup. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19625: Corrosion Sensitivity of Stainless Steels in Pressurized Water Reactor Water Chemistry: Can KOH replace LiOH in PWRs? | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will perform a series of corrosion and stress corrosion tests on unirradiated alloys to determine the possibility of switching from LiOH to KOH to control the pH in nuclear reactors without worsening the corrosion behavior of the structural alloys used in pressurized water reactor core internal components. The impacts of such a change and the consequent water chemistry alterations on the corrosion processes and nucleaer power plant core-internal component service-life will be assessed and better understood. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19735: Experiments for Modeling and Validation of Liquid-Metal Heat Pipe Simulation Tools for Micro-Reactor | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will produce validation data for the heat pipe code, Sockeye, by measuring the internal thermal-hydraulic parameters of a single-heat pipe and the performance of an integrated multi-heat-pipe system in various operation scenarios. The results of this project will generate more liquid metal heat pipe validation data, which is currently lacking and needed to support micro-reactor design and licensing activities. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19367: Investigation of Novel Nickel-Based Alloys for Molten Chloride Fast Reactor Structural Applications | University of Cincinnati | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate and establish the scientific foundations for the development of promising Ni-Mo-W-Cr-Al-X alloys with a superior balance of properties compared to current materials for high temperature structural applications in molten chloride salt fast reactors. The project couples critical experiments with a high-value integrated computational materials engineering approach. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19693: Evaluation of micro-reactor requirements and performance in an existing well-characterized micro-grid | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will evaluate the opportunities and challenges of operating micro-reactors in decentralized power generation applications and the potential for deployment in established micro-grids with diverse power generation sources. By using a well-characterized prototypic environment platform, the Modelica-based Hybrid Energy System, the market potential for deployment of micro-reactors on campuses and other similar existing micro-grids will be quantified. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19195: The effect of LWR primary coolant water chemistry (LiOH vs. KOH) on stainless steel: An integrated experimental and computational study of the corrosion response of stainless steel for different surface microstructures and mechanica | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will study the effect of surface microstructure, mechanical stress factors, and radiation damage on the corrosion response of stainless steel under two different alkaline pressurized water reactor primary water chemistry conditions. The project will involve investigation of mechanical stress factors such as strain rate, residual stress, deformation induced persistent slip bands, dpa damage, and fatigue cracks and modeling to understand the physical phenomena associated with the measured corrosion response and inform the U.S. nuclear industry regarding KOH. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19491: Identifying and prioritizing sources of uncertainty in external hazard probabilistic risk assessments | University of Maryland, College Park | $799,979 | Researchers will develop a method for identifying and prioritizing sources of uncertainty in external hazard probabilistic risk assessment for nuclear power plants, with particular emphasis on uncertainties associated with hazard characterization. External flooding wil be utilized as the demonstration hazard during this project, while a common taxonomy for communicating uncertainties across a broad range of external hazards will be created. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19737: Innovative Enhanced Automation Control Strategies for Multi-unit SMRs | University of Michigan | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an innovative, enhanced automation control framework for small modular reactors (SMRs) that supports control of multiple units operating in a variety of reactor core conditions. Through these enhancements, SMR technology gains improved marketability through potential deployment to a broader range of markets and can also lead to reduced operating and maintenance costs for a SMR site, increasing the overall profitability. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19954: Deployment Pathways of Small Modular Reactors in Electric Power, Industrial, and Other Niche Markets to Achieve Cost Reductions and Widespread Use | University of Michigan | $691,658 | Researchers will explore how to leverage two key value propositions for small modular reactors (SMR) in shifting market conditions, in order to achieve widespread market deployment: (1) participation in small and large power and industrial markets and (2) cost reductions via mass fabrication. The result of this work will be advanced power system modeling, optimized SMR design with thermal storage for power and industry markets, and new SMR deployment pathways. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19752: Development and Demonstration of Scalable Fluoride Salt Pump Seals and Bearings for FHRs | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and demonstrate scalable advanced bearings and seals of fluoride salt pumps for fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactors. The systematic approach to be used will employ both experimental and numerical methods to investigate the static and dynamic performance of fluoride-salt-lubricated bearings and high-temperature seals. The outcomes of this research will directly contribute to the reliability, safety, design, and operation of the fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactor power plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19544: A Holistic Artificial Intelligence Tool to Mitigate Human Factor Uncertainty in Operation and Maintenance | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a holistic artificial intelligence tool to help the detection and mitigation of human factors errors in nuclear power plants. The tool will increase the efficiency of various activities such as testing, inspection, data collection, and interpretation, improve operation and maintenance decision-making, and reduce costs in nuclear power plants by minimizing the impact of human factors errors and providing warnings to mitigate them, when possible. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19524: Non-Intrusive Flow Monitoring for Liquid Metal and Molten Salt Cooled Reactors | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a first-of-its kind flow monitoring system with significantly enhanced capabilities for liquid metal fast reactors and other advanced reactors, such as molten salt reactors. The flow monitoring system will involve a proven and breakthrough fiber optic sensing technology that enables the harmonic-free interrogation of thousands of grating-based distributed interferometers along an optical fiber that is integrated into a sensing pad that can readily be installed at desired locations in the flow loop. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19671: Identifying Needed Fire Input Data to Reduce Modeling Uncertainty | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,393 | Researchers will identify fire parameters that have the largest impact on fire conditions, quantify those parameters contributing to uncertainties in the fire data through Monte Carlo simulation results, and use statistical analysis and machine learning models from the simulation results to assess existing data and recommend appropriate new fire tests to reduce uncertainties that are important to risk. With this information, researchers will develop a framework capable of determining the significant contributors to uncertainty in physical events that are relevant to the risk assessment and, then, determine the need for new experiments that would be of most value to reduce risk. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 21-24394: Computer vision and machine learning for microstructural qualification | Carnegie Mellon University | $497,518 | Quantifying and understanding microstructure is a key driver for performance-based materials qualification. In this proposal, well-curated data sets of microstructural images will be gathered and computer vision and machine learning will be applied to build quantitative deep learning frameworks to accelerate and enable qualification of nuclear materials based on microstructural features. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24156: Experimental thermofluidic validation of TCR fuel elements using distributed temperature and flow sensing | Kansas State University | $798,250 | The overall goal of this project will be to test the performance of 3D printed Transformational Challenge Reactor core geometry parts using existing Helium flow loops and distributed temperature, and velocity sensing systems. Thermal transport capabilities of scaled 3D printed ceramic core will be evaluated experimentally and measurements will be used to qualify computational models. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24636: Risk-informed Consequence-driven Physical Protection System Optimization for Microreactor Sites | Texas A&M University | $400,000 | This proposed project will utilize a risk-informed, consequence-driven analysis to develop an approach for "right-sizing" physical protection systems (PPS) for microreactors. The hypothesis presented for this proposal is that the explicit coupling of consequence modeling to PPS design will provide a similar benefit that can be applied prior to reactor construction. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24131: Total Mass Accounting in Advanced Liquid Fueled Reactors | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | A total mass determination method for nuclear materials accounting (NMA) in liquid-fueled molten salt reactors will be validated with fuel-bearing salt, mixed with a _+ radioisotope of known activity, that will be irradiated to reproduce the practical NMA scenario in a molten salt loop. Irradiated fuel salt will be sampled and measured for its mass and activity. The mass-to-activity ratio will be used to calculate the unknown salt mass in the original container. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24037: Design and intelligent optimization of the thermal storage and energy distribution for the TerraPower Molten Chloride Fast Reactor in an Integrated Energy System (IES) | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to explore the application of advanced reactors within Integrated Energy Systems, use extensive existing data from UIUC for model development and validation, and extend the predictions to larger grids and commercial applications. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24522: Targeted Materials Characterization and Testing of Additively Manufactured Metals and Ceramics to Inform Print/Build Data Analytics | University of Texas at San Antonio | $800,000 | A collaborative program between the University of Texas at San Antonio and Boise State University is proposed to supply materials testing and characterization data sets to be leveraged by the TCR program to inform build/print data analytics. With the data provided by the proposing team, correlations among steam oxidation performance, micromechanical properties, chemical composition, local microstructure, and location specific print/build data will be achieved. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24431: Location-specific material characterization of LPBF SS316L & IN718 TCR core structural materials | Utah State University | $800,000 | In this proposed work, we will experimentally characterize the spatial variability of the quasi-static (tensile), creep (strength and impression), and creep-fatigue properties as well as the underlying structures (microstructure and defect structures) for LPBF SS316L and IN718 components to be used as training data to the TCR program data-driven model. The resulting correlation will be used to drive the design process for an application as TCR core structural materials. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23978: Rapid, Non-Radioactive Methods for Prediction and Quantification of Radiolytic Radical Decomposition Products in Nuclear Separations | Clemson University | $399,999 | High-throughput, non-radioactive, radical assays will be used to determine decomposition of monoamide separations complexants. Radical assay results will be correlated with classic radiolytic damage results to develop predictive models for screening complexant stability. These models will aid in single-stage separations complexant optimization, in the transition from lab- to industrial-scale nuclear waste separations and, ultimately, could yield field tests for radiolytic damage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24350: Phosphate Mineral and Glass Waste Forms for Advanced Immobilization of Chloride and Fluoride-based Waste Streams | Clemson University | $600,000 | This proposal is intended to develop three waste form options for immobilizing the fluoride- and chloride-salt waste stream in highly durable and easily processable phosphate minerals and glasses, including phosphate apatite ceramic waste forms, phosphate glass waste forms, and phosphate glass-ceramic waste forms with apatite phase. Multiple monolithic waste form samples will be provided to DOE national laboratories for further testing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24292: Passive multimodal tomography for dry storage casks imaging using passive neutron and gamma dosimetry and cosmic ray muons | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | A method for multimodal tomography of dry storage casks will be developed to determine fuel relocation and cladding failures using passive neutrons and gamma emissions in combination with cosmic ray muons. The use of multimodal imaging will allow 3-D reconstructions of the dry storage cask that would be unachievable with any single radiation source. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24374: Effects of Radiolysis on Pertechnetate under Solvent Extraction Conditions, including Tri-Butyl Phosphate | CUNY, Hunter College | $399,624 | The overarching objective of the proposed work is to assess the impact of radiolysis on pertechnetate speciation during tri-butylphosphate (TBP) solvent extractions from the molecular level to macroscale. The research in this project is designed to understand the interplay of radiolysis, degradation product formation, other important redox active metals, and oxidation states of technetium on its speciation and distribution coefficients in solvent extraction processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24183: Experimental investigation and development of models and correlations for cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena in transient conditions in support of TREAT and the LWR fleet. | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Thermal-hydraulics transient heat transfer phenomena of relevance for the safety and the operation of the TREAT and light water reactors will be investigated. The performance of accident tolerant fuel materials during a reactivity initiated accident scenario and post-critical heat flux and reflood scenarios will be elucidated, as well as the development of models and correlations to be integrated into computational tools for the design and safety analysis of nuclear systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24666: Wireless Multifunctional Ultrasonic Arrays with Interdigital and Airborne Transducers for Monitoring Leakage and Corrosion Conditions of Welded Dry Storage Canisters | Mississippi State University | $800,000 | This project aims to develop and validate wireless, multifunctional, ultrasonic sensor arrays that enable on-demand, quantitative interrogation and real-time monitoring of both the canister leakage indicators (helium, helium/air mixture, internal pressure, and temperature) and corrosion conditions (free and/or vapor water). The developed arrays will be fully functional, wirelessly powered and communicated, and compact. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24188: Uranium recovery from used nuclear fuel using metal sulfides | Northwestern University | $400,000 | An alternative and original method to recover uranium from spent fuel is proposed. This method will utilize a new type of regenerable sorbent materials with high selectivity in capturing uranium from complex mixtures in acidic solutions, such as those found in used nuclear fuel of high-assay low-enriched uranium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24225: Characterizing Fuel Response and Quantifying Coolable Geometry of High-Burnup Fuel | Oregon State University | $800,000 | This study seeks to objectively determine, through empirical and numerical means, the actual impact of fuel dispersion in-core after fuel failure and whether high burnup dispersed fuel compromises coolable geometry and long-term cooling. The outcome of this study will yield an objective means of assessing two criteria (coolable geometry and long-term cooling) within the existing regulatory process to comprehensively understand whether it is feasible to increase burnup, while satisfying 10 CFR 50.46. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24288: Innovative Methods for Interrogation of DSC Internal Conditions | Oregon State University | $800,000 | The proposed work takes a two-pronged approach. The team will study techniques involving only external sensors and equipment, which could be deployed on existing dry storage canisters. In addition, small sensors located inside the canister that can be externally powered and read through the canister wall will also be investigated. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24439: Development of Novel Corrosion-Responsive Buffer Materials for Long-Term Immobilization of High-Level Nuclear Waste | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to develop a novel cementitious buffer material (CBM) for the safe disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF). The primary aim is to identify and characterize novel Mg-Al-P CBMs, complete with assessments of their repository stability as well as their transport and immobilization of radionuclides. The secondary aim is to use in-situ UT-EIS monitoring to understand the corrosive failure at the canister-CBM interface and provide long-term performance modeling of SNF packages. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24461: Estimation of low temperature cladding failures during an RIA transient | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers aim to create a multiphysics description of cladding response during a RIA, especially at high burnup, coupling reactor physics, thermal hydraulics and mechanics. The creation of a thermomechanical model in Bison will be the result of this project which can be used to evaluate the likelihood of low temperature cladding failures during a postulated RIA on a typical fuel rod (as these can lead to channel blockage), and thus identify the most important conditions to be studied at TREAT. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24460: Multiscale Modeling and Experiments for Investigating High Burnup LWR Fuel Rod Behavior Under Normal and Transient Conditions | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | The main objective of this work is to achieve a mechanistic understanding of and to develop a predictive model for the fuel rod behavior at high burn-up under both normal and transient conditions. Therefore, this study will provide the nuclear industry with validated, physics-based criteria to fuel fragmentation thresholds and rod mechanical integrity limits. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24388: Redox Chemistry of UO2 under Repository Relevant Conditions in the Presence of Zircaloy and Waste Canister Material | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | This project will seek to improve understanding of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) corrosion. Hydrothermal experiments of SNF with cladding and waste canister material will give insights into the redox potential formed due to secondary phase formation as consequence of corrosion in a failed canister. The experimentally derived data about secondary phase formation will be utilized for phase relationship analysis to decipher the redox conditions and thus provide source term for performance assessment models of deep geologic repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24006: High-fidelity modeling of fuel-to-coolant thermomechanical transport behaviors under transient conditions | University of Florida | $800,000 | The objective of the proposal is to develop a high-fidelity modeling tool that can capture some of the important phenomena in high burnup UO2 and ATF fuels during transient conditions. The BlueCRAB tool set will be improved and used to analyze TREAT loss of coolant accident experimental results. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24312: Accelerating the development of reliable and robust machine learning-based interatomic potentials for the prediction of molten salt structure and properties | University of Massachusetts Lowell | $400,000 | Machine learning-based interatomic potentials (MLIPs) used in molecular dynamics (MD) can accurately and efficiently predict molten salt properties. However many machine learning-based methods require large training sets, and can fail unpredictably. This project will overcome these challenges by developing a method for efficiently sampling diverse configurations from MD to train reliable and robust neural network potentials, and develop new models for predicting errors in MLIPs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24697: Dual External Leak Sensing and Monitoring for Dry Storage Canister | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers aim to develop two complementary external sensing methods to evaluate the integrity of DSC through internal pressure monitoring and helium leakage detection. The proposed diffuse ultrasonic wave method will be able to measure biaxial strains in the canister wall with high sensitivity and minimum temperature effects. An innovative capacitance MEMS sensor will be developed for helium concentration measurement in air based on the extremely low permittivity of helium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24449: Multi-modal Surface Acoustic Wave Sensing System for Pressure and Temperature monitoring of Spent Fuel Canisters | University of North Texas | $800,000 | University of North Texas (UNT) will collaborate with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to develop a multi-modal wireless passive SAW (Surface Acoustic Wave) sensor array, which are deployed on the outside surface of the canister, to monitor the strain of the canister and thus determine the inside pressure. In addition, the SAW strain sensor could also measure the surface temperature and potentially monitor helium gas leak. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24265: Fragmentation and Thermal Energy Transport of Cr-doped Fuels under Transient Conditions | University of Pittsburgh | $799,999 | This project will focus on multiple aspects of experimental testing and engineering-scale modeling in understanding thermal energy transport from high burnup, fractured/fragmented accident tolerant fuels, establishing a strong scientific basis to fill a critical knowledge data gap for modeling and simulation of transient fuel performance and safety, such as loss of coolant accident, for future integral testing and fuel licensing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24310: Fusion of Distributed Fiber Optics, Acoustic NDE, and Physics-Based AI for Spent Fuel Monitoring | University of Pittsburgh | $800,000 | The proposal will leverage new concepts in the fusion between fiber optic distributed acoustic sensing and advanced acoustic nondestructive evaluation techniques with artificial intelligence enhanced classification frameworks to quantitatively characterize the state of dry cask storage containers for spent fuel monitoring, externally and non-invasively, without introducing additional risks of failure. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24261: Internal Wireless Sensors for Dry Cask Storage | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | The effort will test the reliability of wireless, internal sensors after exposure to drying and storage conditions. These sensors are used to internally monitor temperature, pressure, and dose. Radiation shielding will also be designed to protect sensors during long-term storage. The effort will develop piezoelectric techniques for miniaturization of optical emission spectroscopy for internal monitoring of gas composition during drying and long-term storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24533: Non-destructive Evaluation of Dry Storage Canisters Using Acoustic Sensing | University of Southern California | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to develop a robust non-destructive evaluation (NDE) technique based on acoustic sensing to detect impurity gases in a sealed (welded) dry storage canister (DSC) using only measurements collected on the external surface of the DSC. The method is based on the time-of-flight analysis of acoustic signals propagating through the fill gas of a DSC, which is influenced by the composition, density and temperature of the propagation medium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23984: Safety Implications of High Burnup Fuel for a 2-Year PWR Fuel Cycle | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to perform safety analysis of high burnup fuel for a Westinghouse 4-Loop Pressurized Water Reactor. The work aims to identify potential opportunities and gaps for high burnup fuel by utilizing both well-established and modern methodologies to model reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, and plant system-level response that ultimately provide feedback to fuel performance analysis. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23985: Fuel-to-Coolant Thermomechanical Behaviors Under Transient Conditions | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This project will enhance the prediction of thermo-mechanical fuel-to-coolant heat transfer under transient conditions by using a coupled analysis and experiment approach. The effort is relevant to both high-burnup (> 62GWd/t) fuel applications and Accident Tolerant Fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24070: Modeling high-burnup LWR fuel behavior under normal operating and transient conditions | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This project aims to develop a high-burnup light water reactor fuel modeling capability to implement in the BISON code that would enable the accurate fuel rod behavior simulation during normal operation and design basis accidents, as wells as the identification of the rod life-limiting factors. Mechanistic engineering models will be developed for key phenomena, in particular, high burnup structure evolution, fuel fragmentation, and fission gas release. Traditional and accident tolerant fuels will be considered. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24033: Redox Chemistry in Nuclear Materials Storage Matrices under Ambient and Accelerated Aging Conditions | University of Washington | $800,000 | Deep geologic repositories must safely contain hazardous, high-activity nuclear wastes at geologic time-scales. However, such capability is centrally dependent on the element-specific redox chemistry within and at the interface of storage vessels. A comprehensive study of redox chemistry in cements used in long-term storage is proposed and emphasizes: 1) the actual consequences of accelerated aging modalities and 2) the novel use of newly available capabilities in advanced x-ray spectroscopies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24063: Post-DNB Thermo-mechanical Behavior of Near-term ATF Designs in Simulated Transient Conditions | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | The goals of the proposed research are to conduct coupled experimental and modeling investigations of thermo-mechanical performance of coated accident tolerant zirconium alloy claddings with simulated burnup doped fuels under thermal transients to predict complex thermal and mass transport phenomena of near-term Accident Tolerant Fuel designs in accident conditions. Experiments and modeling for understanding both cladding-coolant and fuel-coolant interactions will be performed. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24582: Machine-Learning-Accelerated Molecular Dynamics Approaches for Molten Salts | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $399,477 | New machine learning potential (MLP) approaches and new MLPs to enable rapid prediction of molten salt (FLiBe and Nal-MgCl2 with impurities) properties with near ab initio quantum mechanical accuracy will be developed. Uncertainty quantification with active learning and on-the-fly fitting will greatly accelerate MLP training. This work will support dramatically increased simulation speeds and associated data generation and understanding for molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24067: Development of Full Understanding of Mechanical-Chemical Coupling in Bentonite THMC processes | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | The central hypothesis is that mechanical stress in an engineered barrier can lead to pressure solution of solid minerals, leading to significant changes in pore water chemistry, which affects bentonite stability, longevity of the waste pack, and dissolution and migration of nuclides. The overall objective of this project is to develop full understanding of the role of pressure solution on pore water chemistry, the implications to large-scale heterogeneity, and THMC processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23987: Separate and Multi-Physics Effects IRPhEP Benchmark Evaluation using SNAP Experiments | Georgia Institute of Technology | $400,000 | The proposed project will develop an International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) mulitphysics microreactor benchmark evaluation based on data from the Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power (SNAP) program. This work will include systematic assessments of the experimental data with meticulous compilation and documentation, and validation of specific NEAMS tools to model effects that are unique to microreactors technologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24630: Integral Benchmark Evaluation of Zero-Power Tests and Multi-Cycle Depletion Experimental Data of TVA WB1 Cycles 1-3 | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | This project proposes to develop an integral benchmark evaluation of available experimental data for zero-power tests and multi-cycle depletion for consistent and comprehensive validation of both novel high-fidelity and traditional multi-physics tools. The benchmark evaluation will be based on operational and measured data from the Pressurized Water Reactor Watts Bar Unit 1 released by Tennessee Valley Authority. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24186: Regenerating Missing Experimental Parameters with Data-Assimilation Methods for MSRE Transient Benchmark Development and Evaluation | Virginia Commonwealth University | $400,000 | The proposed project will regenerate the undocumented basic data from available experimental data of the MSRE using advanced data-assimilation methods to facilitate the whole-loop modeling of the representative MSRE transients, and perform a thorough MSRE transient benchmark evaluation for the IRPhEP handbook. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24194: Implementation of improved quasi-static, time-dependent, multi-physics methodology in Shift | Georgia Institute of Technology | $600,000 | A practical reference calculation route for time-dependent coupled Monte Carlo calculations, using Shift, will be developed. The proposed framework will be tailored to depletion and slowly varying transients, but with the flexibility to perform thermal-hydraulic time-dependent calculations with minimal computational overheads. This method relies on a hybrid-resolution stochastic approach in conjunction with a substep technique. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24078: Material transport model development and integration in the System Analysis Module (SAM) code | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | This project proposes to develop and implement models for System Analysis Module, which accurately characterize the sink, source, and interaction terms of key material species that are or may be present in various advanced reactor designs. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24195: Enhancing Yellowjacket for Modeling the Impact of Radiation and Stress on the Corrosion of Molten-Salt-Facing Structural Components | University of Florida | $692,088 | The objective of this project is to add the capability to model the impact of radiation and stress on corrosion to the Yellowjacket code, as well as to use Yellowjacket to create surrogate models that will be added to engineering-scale codes like Grizzly. We will also collect new experimental data for validation that quantifies the impact of stress and radiation on corrosion of 316 stainless steel in molten fluoride salts. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24405: Development of a High-fidelity Flow Boiling Database for Validation of High-void-fraction Flow Regime Models | University of Michigan | $800,000 | The primary objective of this proposed research is to develop a comprehensive, high-resolution, multiphase computational fluid dynamics validation-grade flow boiling data from rod bundle geometry simulating current light water reactor fuel designs by taking advantage of the instrumentation and facility developed by the research team. In addition, the applicability of the data through initial evaluations of selected test cases using Nek-2P boiling closure models will be studied and demonstrated for two-phase flow simulations. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24471: Technical Basis of Microstructure Criteria and Accelerated Testing for Qualifying Additively-manufactured 316H Stainless Steel for High-temperature Cyclic Service | Auburn University | $800,000 | This project seeks to reveal the fundamental relationship for AM 316H SS working at 500-750 _C between additively-manufactured microstructures and creep/creep-fatigue properties through a multiscale experimental and modeling approach. The project also seeks to establish the technical basis for the microstructure criteria and accelerated testing method to support near-term nuclear qualification. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24152: Direct heating of chemical catalysts for hydrogen and fertilizer production using Microreactors | Kansas State University | $799,202 | This proposal presents a novel integration approach to deliver process heat from microreactors by directly heating the catalyst particles from the primary heat transfer fluid in a moving packed bed heat exchanger (MPBHX). In this design, the tube side of the MPBHX can be a heat pipe or primary Helium coolant as in several microreactor designs. The shell side will be moving catalyst particles, which will enter the high temperature chemical reactor upon heating. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24287: Investigating heat transfer in horizontally oriented HTGR under normal and PCC conditions | Kansas State University | $799,762 | Experimental research will be conducted to understand heat transfer inside the graphite matrix of horizontal microscale High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors. Existing high temperature test facilities will be used to simulate normal operation and Pressurized Conduction Cooldown. The focus of these experiments is to generate benchmark data under forced and natural convection with coupled multi-mode heat transfer in scaled-down prismatic blocks. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24104: Thermal Hydraulics Investigation of Horizontally Orientated Layout Micro HTGRs Under Normal Operation and PCC Conditions Using Integrated Advanced Measurement Techniques | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000 | The proposed novel work will make a significant pioneering contribution to advance the knowledge and understanding of horizontal micro-high temperature gas cooled reactors. Quantification of metrics will pertain to convective heat transfer coefficients along the channel and gaps, comparative rates of convective and radiative heat transfer, location of peak temperature and its temporal variation, timescales for onset of natural convection, local gas velocity profiles, gas dispersion, crossflows, and temperature profiles over channel diameter and gap thickness. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24004: An Open Source, Parallel, and Distributed Web-Based Probabilistic Risk Assessment Platform to Support Real Time Nuclear Power Plant Risk-Informed Operational Decisions | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | The main objective of the proposed work is to develop, demonstrate, and evaluate a probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) software platform needed to address the major challenges of the current legacy PRA tools. This includes better quantification speed, integration of multi-hazard models into traditional PRAs, and model modification/simplification and documentation automation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24228: Quantifying the Dynamic and Static Porosity/Microstructure Characteristics of Irradiated Graphite through Multi-technique Experiments and Mesoscale Modeling | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | This project proposes a joint experimental-computational approach to probe and quantify the porosity and microstructure characteristics of irradiated nuclear graphite grades and their influence on dimensional changes and turnaround behavior, as well as mechanical properties. The chief focus will be on quantifying both the static and dynamic porosity and crack characteristics in various graphitic phases through several experimental techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24247: Multi-scale Effects of Irradiation Damage on Nuclear Graphite Properties | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Irradiation induces microstructural damage in graphite, causing both dimensional and property (stiffness, strength and creep) changes as a function of the displacement damage and temperature. The biggest gap remains is the fundamental deformation mechanisms behind the property changes. Researchers propose to eliminate this gap in knowledge with a comprehensive, multi-scale experimental framework exploiting in-situ transmission electron and X-ray computed tomography. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23975: Development of Thermal Power Dispatch Simulation Tools for BWR Flexible Plant Operation and Generation | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | In the U.S. domestic light water reactor fleet, about one-third of operational nuclear power reactors are boiling water reactors (BWRs). Thermal power extraction technologies to be designed for BWRs will be different from those for pressurized water reactors due to differences in steam generation. This study proposes to investigate the thermal and electric power dispatch and required control algorithms for dynamic heat dispatch of up to 50% of the thermal energy from a BWR plant to a hydrogen plant. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24111: Experimental Investigations of HTGR Fission Product Transport in Separate-effect Test Facilities Under Prototypical Conditions for Depressurization and Water-ingress Accidents | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Experimental investigations will be performed for fission product (FP) lift-off, washoff, vaporization from plateout surfaces, and transport of FP at prototypical conditions representing depressurization and water-ingress accidents. Measurements will be performed on existing separate-effect facilities using intrusive and non-intrusive techniques to obtain shear stress, deposition velocity, thermal gradient, and gas impurity for advanced correlations. Modeling will be performed using system and computational fluid dynamics codes. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24644: High-Resolution Measurements and Advanced Modeling for Design Optimization of Advanced Small Modular Reactor Steam Generators | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Experiments and simulations will be performed to acquire multi-parameters of pressure drop, heat and mass transfer, and flow-induced vibration (FIV) effect for the design optimization of advanced small modular reactor steam generators (SMR SG). Measurements are performed on existing SMR SG facilities using intrusive/non-intrusive techniques to obtain velocity, temperature, pressure, heat flux, and FIV effects for various geo-dimensions, spacing, pitch angles. Simulations will be performed in StarCCM, Nek5000 and coupling with Diablo_ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24332: A Virtual Reality Environment for Human Reliability Assessment in the Context of Physical Security Attacks | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Recent studies have shown that the physical security workforce accounts for 20% of the entire workforce and, therefore, is responsible for significant operational and maintence costs. To reduce the security staffing, improve performance and reduce threats, modeling and simulation and models of attacker, defender and operator behavior could be employed. This proposal aims to model human behavior using a combination of known human reliability analyses models and experimental evidence from virtual reality experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24389: High Temperature Electromagnetic Acoustic (EMAT) Transducers for Structural Health Monitoring | University of Cincinnati | $800,000 | The aim of this project is to produce an electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT) technology to enable ultrasonic structural health monitoring at the METL facility and similar high temperature assets. Ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation methods can be used for monitoring a range of damage mechanisms including thermal fatigue and corrosion. The project will seek to establish core design solutions that can be used as the basis of a range of EMAT designs for different applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24380: Probabilistic Validation and Risk Importance Ranking Methodology for Automation Trustworthiness and Transparency in Nuclear Power Plants | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | This project develops a methodology to improve trustworthiness and transparency of automation technologies in nuclear power plants. The proposed methodology will monitor risk emerging from automation processes and rank the criticality of automation factors influencing automation output, plant equipment, and system performance. The feasibility and practicality of the proposed methodology will be demonstrated with two case studies focusing on implementation of nuclear power plant automation technologies. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24162: Self-powered wireless sensor system for health monitoring of liquid-sodium cooled fast reactors | University of Notre Dame | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to develop self-powered wireless multimodal sensors and instrumentation for health monitoring and diagnosing early-stage materials degradation for high-risk components in liquid-sodium cooled fast reactors. The synergistic and innovative integrations of the multimodal sensor array, wireless communication, and thermoelectric energy harvester have crosscutting benefit for a wide range of advanced reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24102: High temperature Molten salt reactor pump component development and testing | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | This project will provide relevant key information on the tribology of bearing material and components (such as magnets, couplers, ceramic coated wire, and coatings) in high temperature molten salts that will be required in the design of reactor pumps. Investigation of in-service inspection and monitoring of the pump internals will also be addressed in an effort to reduce down time and operation and maintenance costs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24226: Cost Reduction of Advanced Integration Heat Exchanger Technology for Micro-Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,713 | Heat exchanger technology is a high-cost component of a micro-reactor system that is also critical to the overall reliability and performance. This project will develop the underlying advanced heat exchanger technology necessary to integrate a micro-reactor with any end-user application, as well as providing internal heat exchange. Economic optimization of the heat exchanger and experimental demonstration of the technology will be accomplished. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24382: Advanced High-Fluence Low-Flux RPV Mechanical Property Models for Extended Life | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,717 | This project will further develop accurate models of the mechanical property changes under life-extension conditions in reactor pressure vessel (RPV) steels using reduced order Avrami models, cluster dynamics, and atomistic methods combined with massive comprehensive databases on irradiated steels. The work will provide models critical to extending the life of U.S. pressurized water reactors, as well as new fundamental insights into flux and fluence effects and sink and precipitate evolution in reactor pressure vessels and related steels. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| Integrated Marine Platform for Hydrogen and Ammonia Production | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | This study investigates the economic and environmental value of a floating integrated GW-scale green hydrogen/ammonia production facility powered by an advanced nuclear reactor. Floating Production Storage and Offloading units (FPSOs) are deployed worldwide in the oil and gas industry, and can be used for hydrogen and ammonia processing. Deployment of an advanced reactor on a floating platform offers several advantages, including the efficiencies of shipyard fabrication. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Functionally-graded Cermet Coatings for Molten Salt Technologies by High Throughput Finite Element Modeling and Additive Manufacturing | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $500,000 | This project proposes an integrated approach/methodology to design, manufacture and verify functionally-graded metal-ceramic composite coatings on structural alloys with desired interfacial properties, capabilities of mitigating residual stress and improved corrosion resistance for molten salt reactor applications. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| An Innovative Monitoring Technology for the Reactor Vessel of Micro-HTGR | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | This project seeks to develop an innovative sensor technology for real-time monitoring of the thermo-mechanical stresses in the reactor vessel of micro-HTGR. The technology will be based on a sparse network of outer wall temperature measurements and plant operating conditions. An integrated software-hardware sensing system aimed at monitoring the health of the pressure vessel of gas micro-reactors will be implemented and tested. The proposed work will have a broad impact on sensing in other reactor designs. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| High throughput mechanical testing of additively-manufactured materials | University of California, Berkeley | $500,000 | This project proposes fast and high throughput mechanical testing of AM produced materials. It will include the generation of automated tensile testing, hardness testing and microstructure assessment and data comparison to build data via machine learning. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Accelerated irradiation creep testing coupled with self-adaptive accelerated molecular dynamics simulations for scalability analysis | University of Michigan | $500,000 | The goal of the proposed work is to accelerate traditional irradiation creep using instrumented in-situ ion irradiation creep and long-time molecular dynamics simulations to accelerate traditional neutron irradiation creep testing. This goal will be accomplished by coupling a novel ion beam flux jump test using tapered creep specimens and self-adaptive accelerated molecular dynamics. The outcome is a rapid, low-cost accelerated method to determine the fundamental irradiation creep mechanisms. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Creation of a Pebble Database for Material Control and Accountancy in Pebble Bed Reactors | Virginia Commonwealth University | $399,969 | The primary goal of this proposed project is to develop a database of NDA signatures from a wide variety of used PBR pebbles. This database can be used for facility operations, safety, security, and safeguards (3S) to directly measure fission product content and indirectly 235U and plutonium content of each PBR pebble. This project has significant synergy with current 3S PBR research at ANL, BNL, and ORNL, all of whom are collaborators to this proposed project. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Quantifying Aerosol Deposition Mechanisms in Model Dry Cask Storage Systems | Clemson University | $800,000 | The objective of this work is to measure aerosol deposition and resuspension rates in laboratory models of dry cask storage systems to compare with and validate the DOE deposition model. The project team will conduct experiments to directly measure the deposition/resuspension rates of bulk aerosol in the system and to isolate and quantify individual aerosol deposition mechanisms, with a focus on those sensitive to variable humidity and surface temperature. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Using Amide-Functionalized Electrodes to Elucidate Interfacial Actinide Redox Chemistry for Improved HALEU Supply | Florida International University | $400,000 | The goal is to decrease HALEU fuel cycle costs by examination of the redox behavior of U, Np, and Pu at the water-organic interface using amide functionalized electrodes, and in organic media after extraction with amides. Experiments with redox active interferences including additional actinides in different oxidation states will also be conducted. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advancing the technical readiness of FeCrAl alloys and ODS steels under extreme conditions for fast reactor fuel cladding | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | A key technology gap for advanced high-performance fuel applications is the current unavailability of materials that can withstand extremely high doses without significant degradation of cladding performance. The project team will perform in-situ thermo-mechanical experiments (tension, torsion, creep, and creep-fatigue and nanoindentation) on ion-irradiated (to 400 dpa) cladding materials (up to 700 C) along with microstructures using TEM and mesoscale phase field simulations. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| A molten salt community framework for predictive modeling of critical characteristics | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | This research aims to develop a molten salt community framework to address the needs in advanced fuel cycles, including understanding salts via new theory of liquids, predicting salt characteristics via simulations (DFT, MD, and CALPHAD by implementing advanced models), optimizing inversely molten salts, and verifying simulations by experiments. This project has outstanding value for US taxpayers, educates students, and delivers outreach opportunities for academia, industry, and the public. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Understanding the Interfacial Structure of the Molten Chloride Salts by in-situ Electrocapillarity and Resonant Soft X-ray Scattering (RSoXS) | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | The objective of the proposed research is to investigate the interplay between the interfacial structure of the molten salts and their electrochemical corrosion properties in Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Clay Hydration, Drying, and Cracking in Nuclear Waste Repositories | Princeton University | $800,000 | This project will develop a new multiscale model of the thermal-hydrologic-mechanical-chemical (THMC) evolution of an engineered clay barrier in the near field of a nuclear waste repository, including initial hydration and eventual post-closure criticality. This new model will directly link micro-scale material properties to large-scale barrier performance, thus facilitating future design advances or modifications, and enable robust validation of large-scale simulation predictions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Physics-guided Smart Scaling Methodology for Accelerated Fuel Testing | Purdue University | $800,000 | This project proposes to employ novel informatics algorithms for mapping/scaling uncertainties from experimentally accessible scaled state to application/prototypical state, informed by an equivalent mapping obtained from high-fidelity multi-physics simulations for the fuel thermo-mechanical behavior, specifically, a rate theory-based model for thermal conductivity and fission gas behavior in the BISON code, and employing relevant HALDEN reactor and FAST experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Materials Accountancy During Disposal and Waste Processing of Molten Salt Reactor Fuel Salts | Texas A&M University | $399,997 | The objective of this work is to develop and validate a method for measuring and predicting hold-up to eliminate operational risks and expenses during disposal of salt-wetted MSR components. These objectives will be met by applying robust measurement/detection methods to realistic salt loop environments to validate their use in decommissioning MSRs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advanced Screening Approaches for Accelerating Development of Separations Technologies | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | The goal of this project is to establish a unified selection criterion for chelating molecular structures to more efficiently address ligand applicability to metal ion separation problems, for current and future nuclear fuel cycles. By establishing this criterion, the team will seek to enable the accelerated, cost-effective discovery of new separation workflows, as well as their implementation beyond early radiotracer experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advancing NMA of TRISO-fueled pebbles using fast and accurate gamma-ray spectroscopy | University of Colorado, Boulder | $385,307 | This proposal will provide new Nuclear Materials Analysis (NMA) capabilities for TRISO-fueled pebbles using gamma-ray spectroscopy, through a program of simulations of expected signatures from irradiated pebbles, resulting in a detailed measurement plan to monitor burnup and actinide content throughout the fuel cycle. These simulations will be used to develop requirements for NMA sensor technology and identify opportunities for focused technology development to meet these requirements. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Development of Irradiation and Creep Resistant High-Cr Ferritic/Martensitic Steels via Magnetic Field Heat Treatment | University of Kentucky | $800,000 | The objective of this proposed study is to develop and test new generation of Ferritic/Martensitic (F/M) steels specifically designed for advanced reactors that will exceed the current limitations due to temperature and irradiation dose. To achieve this objective, a systematic study is proposed to employ an innovative tempering heat treatment under high external magnetic field (up to 9T) on F/M steel HT9 to engineer an optimized microstructure composed of refined carbides and martensite laths. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Investigation into the processing parameters of phosphate-based dehalogenation for chloride-based waste salt | University of Nevada, Reno | $399,999 | This proposal will focus on several topics needed to advance the iron phosphate process: 1) Dehalogenation/vitrification processes using salt simulants to generate process flow sheets, 2) Reactions of crucible materials with phosphate products and byproducts, 3) Collection of glass property-composition data to develop models based on the glass-forming regions, 4) Development of a process for reacting recovered NH4Cl with metals that need to be fed into the system (U, Li, etc.). | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| A Validated Framework for Seismic Risk Assessment of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of Nevada, Reno | $799,883 | This is a collaborative research program with a primary objective of developing a validated numerical framework for seismic risk analysis of spent fuel storage facilities from the global cask behavior to the localized behavior of internal spent fuel assemblies. In building and validating this framework, advanced data analysis, data assimilation, and forward and inverse modeling techniques will be utilized. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| International Collaboration to Advance the Technical Readiness of High Uranium Density Fuels and Composites for Small Modular Reactors | University of Texas at San Antonio | $800,000 | An international team of high uranium density fuels (HDFs) experts advised by industry leaders in nuclear reactor innovation propose a US-UK collaboration to advance the technical readiness of UN, UB2, and their composites for fuel forms specific to small modular reactors (SMRs). The project will bridge the critical data gaps in HDF performance specific to the impact of common impurities and microstructural variations that originate at fabrication. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Development of Advanced Control Rod Assembly for Improved Accident Tolerance and High Burnup Fuel Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Research will focus on the development of new materials' designs for control rod sheaths and neutron absorbers, coupled with neutronics analysis and thermo-mechanical modeling to improve accident tolerance and to achieve higher fuel burnup in PWRs. Functionality of the proposed designs consisting of Cr coated control rod sheaths of current and advanced alloys as well as novel neutron absorbers will be evaluated in prototypical reactor conditions and accident scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Optical Basicity Determination of Molten Fluoride Salts and its Influence on Structural Material Corrosion | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | The proposed research is aimed at developing ion probes to determine the optical basicity of molten fluoride salts and studying its influence on structural material corrosion. Combining with the molten salt structure study using X-ray absorption spectroscopy, the salt chemical constitution, the resulting optical basicity, and molten salt structure will be inextricably linked and their connections will be unveiled. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Extending the HMF71 Benchmark Series for Graphite Reflector Thickness up to 18 Inches | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $399,522 | The objective of this proposal is to extend the HEU-MET-FAST-071 (HMF-71) experiment benchmark series in ICSBEP by evaluating the historical (existing) experimental data for critical experiments with graphite reflector thickness from 3 inches up to 18 inches. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2022 |
| Fast and Rigorous Methods for Multiphysics SPn Transport in Advanced Reactors | University of Michigan | $600,000 | This project proposes to perform rigorous theoretical and numerical analysis of the Generalized SPn method and underlying cross section models to enable a fast and robust multiphysics low-order transport capability for advanced reactors. This includes 5 major tasks focused on the efficient discretization and solution of the GSPn equations, numerical analysis of XS models having multiphysics and depletion, analysis of equivalence factors, improved MC estimators, and several V&V applications of the methods. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2022 |
| Development of Hydrogen Transport Models for High Temperature Metal Hydride Moderators | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Understanding the transient behavior of metal hydride moderator materials at high temperatures is a key challenge to the design and deployment of future microreactors. This project will use neutron radiography techniques provide the necessary data for this understanding and demonstrate the development of time and temperature dependent hydrogen transport models using both commercial FEA software coupled to MCNP and coupled models developed in the MOOSE framework. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Characterizing fast reactor fuel failure mode through separate effect and prototypic tests | Oregon State University | $800,000 | The project consists of conducting separate effect fuel pin failure tests with surrogate fluid and prototypic test with sodium. The outcome of this study will generate an experimental database that will be used to develop mechanistic model and validate the CDAP module of the SAS4A/SASSYS-1 code. Ultimately the quality data can be used to benchmark other fuel codes developed for LMFR application, which are seeking validation for licensing purpose. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Science-based development of ASTM standard tests for graphite-based fuel pebbles | University of California, Berkeley | $700,000 | This project proposes the development of mechanical test procedures as well as wear and friction tests on Graphite fuel pebbles | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Role of Heterogeneity in Manganese and Nickel Rich Precipitate Distribution on Hardening of Reactor Pressure Vessel Steels: Integrated Modeling and Experimental Characterization | University of Florida | $799,803 | The hypothesis of this work is that the different nucleation and coarsening kinetics of manganese and nickel rich precipitates (MNPs) compared to copper rich precipitates, and the heterogeneous distribution of manganese and nickel rich precipitates on or near dislocations, both lead to unique hardening behavior at high neutron fluence. The objective of this work is to understand hardening in reactor pressure vessel steels caused by MNPs via integrated multiscale modeling and experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Integrated Thermal-Electric Energy Management of All-Electric Ship with Advanced Nuclear Reactors | University of Texas at Dallas | $400,000 | The overall objective of this research is to comprehensively model, design, and evaluate the use of advanced nuclear reactors in future nuclear-powered ships, to enhance the efficiency, reliability, and resilience of shipboard energy distribution systems. The novelty of the proposed approach lies in (i) integrated thermal-electric modeling of advanced nuclear-powered shipboard energy system, and (ii) novel solutions for total-ship energy management to improve energy efficiency and resiliency. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Open Architecture for Nuclear Cost Reduction | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Open architecture has potential to reduce advanced reactor (AR) costs, through exploiting modular design and construction, with common, openly available interfaces between modules. A comprehensive assessment of the challenges and opportunities of open architecture for ARs will be performed. Supported by a pilot study, actionable recommendations for the implementation or otherwise of open architecture for ARs will be developed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Telescopic Control Rod for Significant Reduction in HTR Height and therefore Cost | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | This project proposes a design for a small modular High Temperature Reactor (HTR) control rod that extends telescopically, consisting of ~5 concentric annuli that nest together above the core when withdrawn. This compact component substantially reduces the length of the depth of the silo. Modelling and experimental testing will be performed to develop the control rod to evaluate feasibility, plus perform a cost-benefit analysis, with a view to its inclusion in both pebble bed and prismatic HTR designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Mechanism Driven Evaluations of Sequential and Simultaneous Irradiation-Creep-Fatigue Testing | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | This project addresses a critical need for irradiation and creep-fatigue testing by carrying out a systematic, mechanistic-driven benchmarking for irradiation creep, irradiation fatigue and creep-fatigue tests under various environments. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Mechanisms-based Acceleration of Materials Qualifications for Creep-Fatigue Performance in Advanced Nuclear Systems | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | The goal of this research is to fully understand, quantify and model creep-fatigue 'damage' as a function of loading patterns, temperature and microstructural evolution. Using this experimental information over a large range of relevant stress levels and temperatures, a mechanisms-based creep-fatigue analysis approach will be demonstrated which will properly qualify high temperature alloys for extended service in advanced nuclear systems where creep-fatigue is currently a major design limitation. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Subwavelength Ultrasonic Imaging for Rapid Qualification of Additively Manufactured Nuclear Structures and Components | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to develop a transformational capability for rapid nondestructive quality assessment of actual nuclear additively manufactured structures and components through advanced ultrasonic imaging with subwavelength resolution. The resolution of conventional ultrasonic systems is limited by diffraction on the order of the wavelength. In this project, the goal is to break the diffraction limits of ultrasonic imaging by implementing a negative-index lens. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| MXene as Sorbent Materials for Off-gas Radioiodine Capture and Immobilization | Clemson University | $1,000,000 | The overarching goal of this project is to develop efficient and stable new sorbent materials, for off-gas radioiodine capture and immobilization, that are based on MXenes with two-dimensional transition metal carbides/nitrides. The exploratory research will focus on three main objectives: 1) Design and synthesis of MXenes as radioiodine sorbent and support materials, 2) Quantification of iodine sorption capacity of MXenes in different forms, 3) Synthesis and characterization of consolidated waste forms. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Fundamental understanding of grain boundary cracking in LWR environments | University of California, Los Angeles | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to understand the details of stress corrosion cracking (SCC) and irradiation assisted stress corrosion cracking (IASCC) by targeted experiments and modeling efforts. A comprehensive model will be produced, which will predict the conditions under which these failure modes occur and when the materials may see onsets of the failure mode. This work will directly impact the nuclear industry by refining predictive models of component lifetime. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Facile manufacturing of fiber-reinforced-SiC/SiC composite using aerodynamic fiber deposition (AFD) and metal assisted polymer impregnation and pyrolysis processes (MAPIP) | University of Pittsburgh | $999,886 | SiC/SiC ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) are promising candidate materials for the cladding of accident tolerant fuels. Superior material properties of SiC/SiC CMC, however, come at a high manufacturing cost. The objective of the proposed research is to apply aerodynamic fiber deposition (AFD) and metal assisted polymer impregnation and pyrolysis (MAPIP) to develop a new facile manufacturing approach of SiC/SiC CMC. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| High Concentration Monoamide Separations: Phase Modifiers and Transuranic Chemistry | Colorado School of Mines | $999,900 | Extraction of actinides from used nuclear fuel with high concentrations of monoamide extractants is a promising strategy to intensify separation processes; however key issues remain to be understood and resolved. This project will examine three questions: 1) Can phase modifiers mitigate issues with organic phase viscosity? 2) Can the chemistry of neptunium be controlled to ensure complete separation? 3) Do high concentrations of monoamides affect the oxidation states of important metals and can that be exploited? | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Multiple Uranium Complexes in Chloride Fast Reactor Molten Salt Properties | University of Connecticut | $1,000,000 | Multivalent transition metal ions in a melt can exhibit multiple coordination states that affect molten salt properties. This project will use a new high-energy resolution fluorescence detection (HERFD) spectroscopy to overcome issues associated with measuring coordination numbers of multiple complexes, along with Raman spectroscopy and advanced simulations to accurately predict properties of molten salts with multiple uranium complexes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Validation of Geochemical Reactive Transport Long-Term predictions Using Natural Cements and Ancient Cements Analogues | Vanderbilt University | $950,000 | This project will validate long-term performance predictions of rock/cement interfaces based on characterization of natural analogues, ancient cements and interfaces with rock formations, and demonstrate applicability of the established testing and simulation workflow with argillite rock (representative of potential U.S. repository systems). This project addresses the research gap of long-term validation and uncertainty assessment associated with cement barrier performance and multi-physics models. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Predicting Pitting and Stress Corrosion Cracking of Dry Cask Storage Canisters via High Throughput Testing, Multiscale Characterization, and 3D Computer Vision based Machine Learning | The Ohio State University | $1,000,000 | This project consists of a US-UK collaborative research program focusing on the nucleation and growth of pits and stress corrosion cracking of stainless steel 304 (a canister material used for dry cask storage of spent nuclear fuels) by leveraging multi-scale characterization techniques, 2D/3D computer vision, and machine learning approaches. The study will enable the understanding and prediction of how and when pitting corrosion can nucleate, grow, and transition into stress corrosion cracking. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Multiscale Residual Stress Tailoring of Spent Fuel Canister CISCC Resistance | Purdue University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to understand the role of residual stress in chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) of austenitic steel, then tailor CISCC initiation and propagation through engineered multiscale residual stress distributions. Microscopic and macroscopic residual stresses will be systematically varied, then a novel sequence of advanced, site-specific, correlative characterization techniques will be applied to directly link residual stress, pitting, and crack propagation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Illuminating Emerging Supply Chain and Waste Management Challenges | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | Regional constraints on domestic fuel supply and greater variation in demand from advanced reactors has led to a shift in the U.S. fuel cycle, and modeling tools must reflect this. In this work, Cyclus will be updated to better reflect new and emergent regional supply constraints, spatial and temporal fluctuations in material needs, and those impacts on the back-end of the fuel cycle will be quantified. This work will allow for flexible, reproducible analysis to inform stakeholder decision-making. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Determination of Local Structure and Phase Stability of Uranium Species in Molten Halide Salts: Linking Microscopic Structure with Macroscopic Thermodynamics | Arizona State University | $1,000,000 | The goal of this project is to determine the local structures (valence state, coordination configuration and medium-range structure) and thermodynamic stability of uranium species in molten chloride and fluoride salts at high temperatures using a combination of experimental and modeling methods. The obtained results will allow for revelation of the structure-stability relations of the studied systems and development of acid-base scales to determine the solubility of uranium in molten halide salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Thermal-Hydraulics Assessment of SiC Compared to Other ATF Cladding Materials and its Performance to Mitigate CRUD | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | This project aims to experimentally investigate the thermal-hydraulics performance of SiC compared to the Cr-coated zircaloys and APMT ATF cladding materials under accident scenarios, including both DNB and dryout conditions. The project is divided into five tasks that will advance the understanding of the operation and optimization of heat pipes for advanced nuclear reactors. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Physics-Informed Artificial Intelligence for Non-Destructive Evaluation of Ceramic Composite Cladding by Creating Digital Fingerprints | University of Florida | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to spatially map the material composition, structure, and defect distribution of SiCf-SiCm composite tubes from ultrasonic wavefields measured from the materials and the defects within them. Specifically, this project will delve into the unique ultrasonic fingerprints (i.e., dispersion relations and mode shapes) of the SiCf-SiCm composites using physics-informed machine learning to assess the quality of the manufactured tubes based on their spatial-spectral ultrasonic characteristics. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Understanding Constituent Redistribution, Thermal Transport, and Fission Gas Behavior in U-Zr Annular Fuel Without a Sodium Bond | University of Florida | $999,462 | This project will investigate the reason for changed constituent redistribution in annular U-Zr fuel without a sodium bond and how it changes the fission gas behavior and thermal conductivity. This will be achieved using a combination of microstructure characterization and thermal conductivity measurements of irradiated U-Zr annular fuel and multiscale modeling and simulation using the MARMOT and BISON fuel performance codes. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Getting AnCers: Metallothermic Molten Salt Synthesis and Reaction Thermodynamics of Actinide Ceramic Fuels | Oregon State University | $1,000,000 | Synthesis of high quality actinide ceramics (AnCers) remains a costly challenge. A low-temperature, high-yield, short-duration reaction that directly synthesizes UN and UC could reduce the cost of these advanced fuels greatly. This proposal aims to demonstrate a method by which the costs of AnCers can be greatly reduced - metallothermic molten salt synthesis. Optimization and thermodynamics data will be obtained. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Integrated Stand-off Optical Sensors for Molten Salt Reactor Monitoring | University of Pittsburgh | $1,000,000 | This project intends to develop robust and stand-off optical sensors to perform real-time molten salt levels, flow, and impurity measurements of molten salts. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Cybersecurity in advanced reactor fleet by cyber-informed design, real-time anomaly detection, dynamic monitoring, and cost-effective mitigation strategies | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The goal of this research is to provide technical solutions to unique cybersecurity challenges in future microreactor fleet through cyber-informed design (C-ID), real-time anomaly detection, dynamic monitoring, and cost-effective mitigation strategies. The efforts will significantly improve the economics and effectiveness of cybersecurity risk management in future microreactor fleets. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Building Cyber-Resilient Architecture for Advanced Reactors via Integrated Operations and Network Digital Twin | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | The research will develop a secure-by-design architecture via integrating plant operation and network digital twins for advanced reactors. Automatic attack path and vulnerability analysis will be developed and used to assess and harden critical digital assets (CDA) against cyber risks prior to and during operation to identify vulnerabilities, attack pathways, and threat vectors. A CDA selection method will also be developed by combining vulnerability scores and assets importance. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Extending PRA and HRA legacy methods and tools with a cause-based model for comprehensive treatment of human error dependency | University of California, Los Angeles | $1,000,000 | This project aims at developing a solution to HRA dependency assessment in PRA from methodological and practical/computational perspectives within legacy PRA tools and methods. The solutions will include procedures for quantifying dependency when using PRA legacy tools, a method for modeling and quantifying dependency in HRA comprising a BN-causal model suitable for use with legacy PRA methods and tools, and the computational tools for its integration. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| An Integrated Elemental and Isotopic Detector for Real-Time Molten Salt Monitoring | North Carolina State University | $1,000,000 | The overarching theme of the proposed research is to develop and demonstrate a real-time elemental and isotopic detector of molten salts for advanced reactors and fuel fabrication and recycling processes. The detector's longevity, limits, and latency will be tested in static uranium chloride salts, in pyroprocessing chloride salt, and on flowing fluoride salt with evolving actinide composition, respectively. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Development of a Thin-Layer Electrochemical Sensor for Molten Salt Reactors and Fuel Cycle Processes | Brigham Young University | $811,755 | A thin-layer electrochemical sensor capable of detecting uranium, plutonium and other species of interest in molten salts, at both high and low concentrations, will be developed for application in molten salt reactors and fuel cycle process units. This will provide a valuable tool for performing material control and accountancy measurements. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Risk-Informed Consequence-Driven Hybrid Cyber-Physical Protection System Security Optimization for Advanced Reactor Sites | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | This project aims to develop an expanded methodology for designing a novel cybersecurity-integrated physical protection system (PPS) framework for advanced reactor concepts that serves to reduce the operational costs for the life of a reactor against that of a traditional light water reactor PPS design, promoting efforts to credit safety features of advanced reactors through proposed amendments to current security regulations, while integrating health and economic consequence analyses. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| A risk analysis framework for evaluating the safety, reliability, and economic implications of electrolysis for hydrogen production at NPPs | University of Maryland, College Park | $1,000,000 | The RAFELHyP project will develop a modular risk analysis framework that enables evaluating the safety, reliability, and economic implications of upcoming deployments of electrolyzers to produce hydrogen at nuclear power plants. The framework will be implemented to conduct an integrated safety, reliability, and economic analysis of multiple plant configurations to provide detailed recommendations for plant protective features and layouts. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Reduced Order Modeling of Heat and Fluid Flow: Multi-Scale Modeling of Advanced Reactors to Enable Faster Deployment | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | Novel multi-scale algorithms for thermal-hydraulics (TH) simulations of advanced reactors will be developed. The methods will leverage recent advances in hardware and reduced order modeling approaches to enable TH simulations of vastly accelerated speed, while maintaining accuracy comparable to high-fidelity methods, such as large-eddy simulation. The methods will allow designers to perform parameter sweeps, develop closures, and enable high fidelity simulation of transients. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Embedded Monte Carlo | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Monte Carlo methods have long been considered the standard in terms of accuracy and have seen increased use in design of small nuclear systems; however, the uncertainty quantification (UQ) of the desired output is often relegated to later stages of the design process. This project seeks to embed nuclear data UQ in a single Monte Carlo simulation, such that each desired quantity will not only provide the mean value and statistical uncertainty, but also the related nuclear data uncertainty. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| A Low Order Transport Method Based on the Dynamic Truncation of the Integral Transport Matrix Method (ITMM) that Converges to the SN Solution with Increasing Cell Optical Thickness | North Carolina State University | $1,000,000 | A novel low-order transport operator capable of approximating Monte Carlo (MC) results within a variance range will be developed. This does not require MC reference solutions to calibrate the low-order model, so repeated solutions of the latter in-transient scenarios does not require repeated MC simulations. Truncation of the low-order operator is done dynamically for evolving configurations to ensure accuracy of the low-order solution. This will involve proof of principle on Cartesian meshes, then implementation in Griffin. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| CFD based Critical Heat Flux predictions for enhanced DNBR margin | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | This project seeks to demonstrate a robust high-fidelity CFD-based methodology to predict CHF behavior at varying quality conditions, enabling the development of advanced DNBR correlations with reduced uncertainty, and in support of upgraded plant economics. The availability of a virtual CHF methodology will allow greatly extending the database for DNBR correlations development and further support advancement in the design of high-performing nuclear fuel. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Immersed Boundary Methods for Modeling of Complex Geometry: A Leap Forward in Multiscale Modeling using NekRS | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | A major challenge to Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling of complex geometries is the need to generate body-fitted meshes, which can occupy 80% of the CFD practitioner's time. Immersed boundary methods will be added in the NekRS CFD code, dramatically simplifying modeling of complex 3-D structures and facilitating a new paradigm for CFD-informed multiscale analysis. This will be demonstrated by informing SAM transient systems-level models with NekRS heat exchanger correlations for advanced reactors. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Uncertainty Quantification of Model Extrapolation in Neural Network-informed Turbulent Closures for Plenum Mixing in HTGRs | Utah State University | $1,000,000 | This project will quantify the uncertainty in prediction of Neural Network-informed Turbulent Closures when they are operating in a model extrapolation state. Once the method is developed for canonical buoyant jets, the protocols will be applied to plenum mixing in HTGRs. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Impact of moisture on corrosion of NiCr alloys in MgCl2-NaCl Salt Systems | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $999,983 | This project aims to gain a fundamental understanding of the impact of moisture and salt chemistry on corrosion of NiCr alloys in molten chloride salts. A novel approach coupling multiscale simulations and experiments will be designed to determine salt acidity, its dependence on salt composition (i.e., the NaCl to MgCl2 ratio), and its effects on the transport of H2O and Cr ions and the corrosion kinetics of NiCr alloys in chloride salt. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Transforming Microreactor Economics Through Hydride Moderator Enabled Neutron Economy | State University of New York, Stony Brook | $1,000,000 | Microreactors will potentially require the cost of electricity to be 10 MWD/kg at >3 kW/kg core specific power. These goals are best achieved through a well-thermalized spectrum. Neutron economy as a core material selection criterion to advance entrained hydride composite moderators will be used with the primary goal of significantly reducing fuel costs through novel microreactor designs. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Integrating Nuclear with ZLD Seawater Desalination and Mining | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | An integrated nuclear system will be developed that would utilize electricity and waste heat to operate a desalination and mining process from adjacent seawater. The desalination approach targets zero-liquid discharge with multiple marketable minerals extracted. The ability of nuclear facilities to load follow is increasingly important, so a cold thermal storage system will be incorporated. The desalination and mineral extraction process will be experimentally validated at lab scale. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Reference Designs of Green Ammonia Plants Powered by Small Modular Reactors | Utah State University | $1,000,000 | The overarching goal of this project is to develop two reference designs for green ammonia plants. One design uses freshwater as the source for hydrogen, while the other design uses seawater (or brackish water) as the source. In both designs, a small modular reactor (SMR) is used as the primary energy source providing both electricity and steam for the plants. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Development of the Technical Bases to Support Flexible Siting of Microreactors based on Right-Sized Emergency Planning Zones | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to provide the technical basis to support the application of a right-sized Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ) size to support the deployment of a microreactor at the Penn State University Park campus. This research study will serve as a template to provide flexible siting in support of future microreactor deployments that may be placed closer to demand centers, thereby making them more economically competitive. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Bayesian Optimization for Automatic Reactor Design Optimization | Arizona State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to develop analytical tools based on Gaussian process modeling and Bayesian Optimization that facilitate reactor design optimization by modeling the responses from the physics simulator. Existing capabilities will be applied in an AI field and they will be adapted to address the key characteristics of nuclear reactor design problem. This project will automate the simulation-based design procedure, reduce the number of iterations, and minimize the design cycle time. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Engaging New Mexican communities in developing an equitable and just approach to siting advanced reactor facilities | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | This project will engage diverse New Mexican communities to develop an equitable approach for advanced reactor siting. The findings of this project will shed light on how technology developers and the DOE can explore and potentially site advanced reactors with the informed consent and engagement of host communities, regions, and states. The findings of this study will also more generally apply to the potential for equitably exploring both brownfield and greenfield sites for nuclear facilities. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Deciphering Irradiation Effects of YHx through In-situ Evaluation and Micromechanics for Microreactor Applications | University of New Mexico | $998,000 | This project addresses a critical gap in accelerated testing of YH evolution coupling multi-length scale mechanical testing with ion irradiation and advanced characterization to establish a baseline understanding of YH evolution under ion irradiation. Our approach will couple ion irradiation and gamma irradiation with small scale mechanical testing to decipher multi-scale impacts on phase stability to advance understanding of YH in a microreactor moderator application. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Active Learning Estimation and Optimization (ALEO) of Irradiation Experimental Design for Efficient Accelerated Fuel Qualification | University of Texas at San Antonio | $997,247 | This collaborative project creates novel AI/ML models and algorithms integrated with physical knowledge and expertise to explore more efficient ways to calculate irradiation temperatures and fuel specimen burnups for new fuel sample configurations of MiniFuel experiments proposed for irradiation in the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Unraveling how mixing vane spacers affect cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena in light water reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $500,000 | Experiments will be conducted to quantify the effect of mixing vane spacers on cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena, namely single-phase forced convection, nucleate boiling, and CHF. The results of the experimental research will allow elucidating the physical phenomena triggered by the presence of mixing vane spacers. They will also allow assessing the performance of M-CFD tools developed within CASL and in use by the nuclear community. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Quantum Computing Algorithms for Deterministic Neutron Transport | University of Michigan | $500,000 | This project will develop algorithms for solving the k-eigenvalue form of the neutron transport equation in a nuclear reactor physics context on a quantum computer. The asymptotic scaling of the algorithms will be analyzed. Investigation into implementation will be made by making resource estimates by synthesizing explicit circuits for the algorithms and be studied by emulation on a classical computer. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Optimizing Application-Dependent Energy Group Structures for Multigroup Neutron Transport Models using Machine Learning | Colorado School of Mines | $500,000 | Machine Learning methods will be developed that will dramatically reduce both the computational run-time and manual effort needed to find multigroup energy structures that accurately capture the underlying physics of neutron reactions, while allowing multigroup simulations to run quickly without overwhelming available memory. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Understanding PM-HIP Interparticle Evolution and its Influence on Fracture Toughness in Alumina-Forming Steels | Purdue University | $1,100,000 | This project aims to understand how interparticle evolution during hot isostatic pressing (HIP) influences fracture toughness of Al-bearing steels. The team will use a series of interrupted HIP experiments with phase field models to understand the formation mechanisms of interparticle defects during HIP of alumina-forming austenitic (AFA) stainless steels and FeCrAl steels, and the influence of these defects on fracture behavior. | Document | Advanced Manufacturing Technologies | FY2024 |
| Multiscale high-throughput experiment/modeling approach to understanding creep behavior in Additively Manufactured reactor steels | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $1,043,271 | This project proposes to develop a predictive capability for processing-microstructure-property correlations in additive manufactured microstructures utilizing a multiscale approach encompassing bulk creep tests, miniaturized tensile testing, and a high-throughput, indentation based, cost-effective method for elevated temperature mechanical mapping of additively manufactured 316H Stainless Steel, Grade 91, and Titanium-Zirconium-Molybdenum (TZM) alloys. | Document | Advanced Manufacturing Technologies | FY2024 |
| Assessing molten salt corrosion resistance of stainless steel 316H in nuclear reactor environments | North Carolina State University | $1,100,000 | The proposed goal is to leverage a blend of innovative molten salt corrosion experiments and cutting-edge characterization techniques to advance our understanding of molten salt corrosion in both commercial and additively manufactured (AM) stainless steel (SS) 316H, particularly under radiation or stress environments. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Polymer-Derived C-SiC Coatings on Kernel Particles for Advanced Nuclear Reactors | University of Alabama at Birmingham | $1,100,000 | This program is to use a polymer-derived ceramic approach to develop C-SiC/ZrC coatings on ZrO2 kernel substitute particles. We aim to create new fuel encapsulation materials in replacement of the coatings on fuel kernel particles, including the TRISO layers, for advanced reactors, conduct ion irradiation testing of the new materials for nuclear performance evaluation, and carry out detailed microstructure and composition characterization to assess the C-SiC/ZrC coated fuel particle behaviors. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Sorbent regeneration, recycling, and transformation: A transformative approach to iodine capture and immobilization | University of Nevada, Reno | $1,000,000 | The project will focus on the development of materials and processes for regeneration and recycling of sorbents, and the transformation of iodine-loaded sorbents into waste forms. A combination of computational and experimental studies will be conducted to understand (a) how the components in a primary off-gas stream interact with the sorbent, (b) how this off-gas stream affects the regeneration lifetime, and (c) low-temperature binders and processing paths that leads to durable waste forms. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Accident Tolerant Fuels to Support Power Uprates in LWRs | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,100,000 | This project will demonstrate that power uprates higher than the current state of operation can be reached using accident tolerant fuels in light water reactors while not exceeding reactor safety margins during normal operation and accidents. We will analyze it considering fuel enriched up to 10% and peak rod average burnup up to 75GWd/tU concerning reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, reactor safety, and economics. Considerations will be made in consultation with the named industry advisory board. | Document | Existing Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Comparative study of three-dimensional microstructural imaging and thermal conductivity evolution of irradiated solid and annular U-Zr fuels | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Uranium-zirconium (U-Zr) annular metallic fuel holds the promise to simultaneously increase sodium fast reactor (SFR) core uranium loading and reduce peak cladding temperatures, thus greatly improving fuel performance. However, key convolved fuel degradation mechanisms during irradiation at temperature threaten to hold back its real-world applicability, requiring more detailed understanding to both predict U-Zr fuel performance and suggest improvements. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Mechanistic study and modeling of fission gas release in UO2 and doped UO2 | Oregon State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to enhance the safety and performance of light water reactors and other advanced reactor designs by gaining a fundamental understanding of fast gas reactor mechanisms and developing mechanistic models for UO2 and doped UO2 fuels under HBU and transient conditions. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Anisotropic Thermal Properties of SiC-SiC Cladding: Method Development & Characterization | University of Pittsburgh | $1,000,000 | We propose to develop a high-temperature nondestructive thermal conductivity (k) measurement system coupled with validated multiscale models to accurately determine the anisotropic thermal conductivity of SiC-SiC composite cladding tubes. The multiscale measurement and modeling results benefit both DOE ATF programs as well as providing a fundamental understanding of how the microstructure of the composite leads to its anisotropic properties. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Understanding the Performance of SiC-SiCf Composite Cladding Architectures with Cr Coating in Normal Operating and Accident Conditions in LWRs and Advanced Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The project will focus on investigating the impact of Cr-coating on the SiC-SiCf composite cladding of various architectures under normal operating and accident conditions in light water reactors and advanced reactors for the safe and economic deployment of SiC cladding. Cr-coating will provide protection from high-temperature corrosion and better hermeticity under accident conditions. The performance of the claddings will be evaluated through the corrosion test, reflood test, burst test, and non-destructive evaluation(NDE). | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Developing critical insights on the effects of Mo on _' precipitation and dislocation loop formation in FeCrAl alloys | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | This project aims at developing a mechanistic understanding on the effects of Mo on _' precipitation and dislocation loop formation in FeCrAl alloys in thermal and irradiation conditions and turns it into a set of design principles guiding further optimization, by integrating atomistic simulations, CALPHAD modeling, thermal aging, proton irradiation, and advanced characterization. The material discoveries will be generalized to other solutes other than Mo. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Inference of flow conditions from in-core detector measurements for accelerating SMR licensing | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Reactor modelling relies on the detailed description of reactor systems but often lacks the true as-built characteristics of a system. This proposal seeks to fill these geometrical data gaps using available detector data, predictive models and machine learning in order to provide better information to analysis tools and thus better prediction of future performance. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Non-Destructive Plutonium Assay in Pyroprocessing Bulk Materials with a 3D Boron-Coated-Straw Detector Array | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,100,000 | The objective of the proposed project is to develop and demonstrate a 3D boron-coated-straw detector array (3D-BCSDA) with high efficiency and spatial resolution. This detection system will be specifically designed to accurately assess the fissile mass in bulk nuclear material during pyroprocessing operations, thereby improving the precision and reliability of accountability measurements during separation. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Improving the computational efficiency and usability of dynamic PRA with reinforcement learning | University of Maryland, College Park | $1,064,400 | The overall objective of the proposed research is to improve the efficiency and usability of dynamic probabilistic risk assessment (PRA). Specifically, the first objective is to develop a new algorithm for dynamic PRA analysis that can significantly increase the computational efficiency. The second objective is to develop a question-answering system to streamline the process of risk-informed decision-making based on results obtained from the dynamic PRA analysis using the new algorithm. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Development of a Benchmark Model for the Near Real-Time Radionuclide Composition Measurement System using Microcalorimetry for Advanced Reactors | Virginia Commonwealth University | $1,100,000 | The primary goal of this proposed project is to develop high fidelity Monte Carlo radiation transport models of a microcalorimetry detector informed by fuel depletion models of a molten salt reactor and a pebble bed reactor to quantify the current and future capabilities of this detector technology to characterize and assay used fuel from these reactors in near real-time. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Development and Validation of a Dual-Purpose Instrument for On-line Monitoring of Molten Salt Composition and Thermal Behavior | Brigham Young University | $1,099,924 | We propose the development of an online monitoring instrument capable of quantifying heat transfer and salt composition for molten salt reactors (MSR). A dual electrochemistry/thermal conductivity probe (DETP) will be developed to measure the thermal properties and impurities within the salt simultaneously. The DETP will make use of a previously developed needle probe and electrodes for square-wave cyclic voltammetry measures of salt composition. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| In Situ Assessment of Molten Salt Transport into Nuclear Graphite Microstructures using Ultrasonic Sensors | Johns Hopkins University | $909,827 | This project focuses on the transport of molten salt into nuclear graphite along with the investigation of ultrasonic methods for sensing graphite material property changes, especially elastic modulus, associated with intrusion of molten salt into the graphite microstructure. Experimental studies coupled with physics-based simulations will be used to assess strategies for in situ sensing of salt intrusion in the reactor environment to enhance long-term viability of molten salt reactors. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| MONITORING CERAMIC FUEL FRACTURE VIA FIBER OPTIC ACOUSTIC EMISSION SENSORS | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $1,000,000 | In the proposed three-year program, the Center for Photonics Technology (CPT) at Virginia Tech will collaborate with Sentek Instrument (Sentek), Prysmian, and Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to develop and demonstrate a distributed acoustic emission (AE) sensing system for in-situ monitoring of ceramic fuel fracture. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| Concurrent Surrogate Model Development with Uncertainty Quantification in the MOOSE Framework Using Physics-Informed Gaussian-Process Machine Learning | University of Florida | $999,999 | The objective of this project is to develop a general capability for concurrent generation and use of physics-informed Gaussian process (GP)-based surrogate models to facilitate multiscale and multiphysics modeling. We will implement this new capability as part of the Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) so that every application based on the MOOSE framework will have access to it. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2024 |
| Unstructured Adaptive Mesh Algorithms for Monte Carlo Transport | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,098,000 | We propose to develop the fundamental methods and techniques for unstructured adaptive mesh refinement with Monte Carlo tallies. This work enables a transformative leap forward in speed, accuracy, and robustness to enhance the contribution of high-fidelity radiation transport to advanced simulation. Adaptive refinement is deployed on a challenging multiphysics simulation, cascading heat pipe failure, to study acceleration and stabilization properties. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2024 |
| Feasibility Study of Micro-Nuclear Reactor Thermal Output for Air Rotary Kilns in the High-Temperature Manufacturing of Portland Cement Clinker | Pennsylvania State University | $998,793 | This project aims to design and test a micro-nuclear reactor for high-temperature portland cement clinker production, a process responsible for 6%-8% of global CO2 emissions. Leveraging advanced reactors' heat output, the project explores TRISO-based nuclear microreactor core modifications and new working fluids for heat pipes. The research addresses uncertainties in micro-nuclear reactor deployment for clinker production and investigates high-efficiency heat exchanger designs. | Document | Non-Traditional and Non-electric Applications | FY2024 |
| Redox potential, ionic speciation, and separation and recovery challenges from molten salts containing actinides and fission products | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $999,999 | Establishing an efficient, safe, secure, and economical Molten-Salt Reactor (MSR) fuel cycle is imperative for MSR implementation. Molten salt fuel recycling technology requires predictive knowledge of the chemical and physical behavior of lanthanide and actinide ions with different oxidation states dissolved in solvent salts. A combination of off-gas and X-ray measurements with machine-learning simulations will be used to produce predictive modeling of separation and recovery conditions. | Document | Nuclear Fuel Recycle Technologies | FY2024 |
| Pre-Treatment and Bulk Separation of Used Fuels with Carbonate-Peroxide Solutions | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | To use carbonate-peroxide chemistries to develop a pre-processing method for used uranium-based fuels that enables the subsequent use and optimization of current solvent extraction reprocessing schemes. Using simple precipitation, this innovative method provides an initial, bulk separation of uranium from fission products and actinides. | Document | Nuclear Fuel Recycle Technologies | FY2024 |
| Optimization of Fueling Strategies and Material Surveillance through Real-time Pebble Tracking in Pebble Bed Reactors | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,100,000 | Flexible operation of the energy grid of the future introduces uncertainty in determining the optimal operating conditions of Pebble Bed Reactors. The proposed work will help to address these challenges and enable more economical operation by providing the tools to determine of optimal fuel reloading strategy through pebble identification and tracking. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Experimental Study and Computational Modeling of P-LOFC and D-LOFC Accidents in the Fast Modular Reactor Consisting of Silicon Carbide Composite Rods | University of Michigan | $1,100,000 | The primary objectives of this proposed research are to better understand NC flow phenomena and heat transfer under both D-LOFC and P-LOFC accidents in the FMR, produce experimental data in a well-scaled integral-effects test facility for the two accidents, and develop and validate predictive CFD models for NC flow phenomena in both accidents. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Sodium heat pipes; design and failure mode assessment for micro-reactor applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The present proposal aims to experimentally investigate the thermal-hydraulics performance of liquid sodium heat pipes applied to microreactors, with a focus on exploring different design parameters, effects of different parameters on operating performance and understanding the evolution and impact of different failure modes. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Interfacial Interactions between Graphite and Molten Fluoride Fuel Salt | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $1,000,000 | NaF-KF-UF4 fuel salt will be selected to study graphite-salt interactions and impact of the existence of fission products (FPs) and corrosion products on the interactions at different temperatures and pressures. Fundamental mechanisms of graphite-salt interaction and degradation will be understood. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Local resonance-based linear and nonlinear NDE techniques for repaired DSC wall structures | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | The proposed work plan will develop nondestructive examination (NDE) methods that develop and evaluate linear and nonlinear resonant ultrasound spectroscopy methods (such as NRUS, NIRAS, etc.) to cold spray (CS) repaired dry shielded canister (DSC) wall structures. With the support of our partners from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), we will perform technology development and validation on plain and cold spray-repaired DSC wall specimens. | Document | Spent Fuel, Waste Science & Technology and Integrated Waste Management System | FY2024 |
| Thermodynamic Models for Multivalent Actinide Solubility and Speciation as a Function of Temperature and Ionic Strength | University of Notre Dame | $1,000,000 | This proposed project will quantify the solubility and speciation of Np and Pu under temperatures, ionic strengths, and pH values that are relevant to the generic repository concept. The major deliverable will be full thermodynamic descriptions of the studied systems, which will lead to improved radionuclide transport models and support the development of a sound technical basis for the geologic disposal of spent nuclear fuel and other actinide-bearing wastes. | Document | Spent Fuel, Waste Science & Technology and Integrated Waste Management System | FY2024 |
| Advancing Fundamental Molten Salt Modeling using Ultrafast Spectroscopy | North Carolina State University | $600,000 | The overarching goal of the proposed research is to advance our fundamental understanding of molten salts by combining ultrafast spectroscopic experiments with high fidelity atomistic simulations. The proposed research will introduce a new experimental technique to the study of molten salts that will directly measure ion kinetics, specifically, terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS), which will further validate AIMD as a predictive modeling tool. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
| Hydrodynamics of Two-Phase Flow Under the Geometric Effects of Pipe Orientation and U-bends | Purdue University | $600,000 | Most two-phase flow analyses have been performed in straight vertical-upward pipes. However, nuclear reactor systems include piping with different geometric components, such as elbows or U-bends, as well as changes in flow orientations. The proposed work performs experiments in a scaled test facility existing at the institution's lab to investigate the effects of flow orientations and geometries relevant to nuclear reactor systems on the hydrodynamics of two-phase flow. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
| Interface-Resolved Experimental and Numerical Studies of Two-Phase Flow for Nuclear Engineering Applications | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $500,000 | The project aims at advancing the interface-resolved simulation capabilities for the two-phase flows found in various nuclear engineering applications. We will develop a comprehensive, high-resolution, interface-resolved database emphasizing bubble dynamics and bubble interaction mechanisms. The data will be used to validate the sub-grid models implemented in an interface-resolved simulation tool to improve simulation accuracy by developing physics-based coalescence models. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
FY 2014 Research and Development Awards
The Department of Energy is awarding $30 million in support of the Nuclear Energy University Programs for 44 nuclear energy research and development projects focused on developing innovative solutions in the following fields: Fuel Cycle Technologies; Reactor Concepts Research; Development & Demonstration; and Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling & Simulation.
These projects, selected for negotiation of award, are led by 30 American universities and colleges in 29 states and the District of Columbia. Other universities, industry leaders and National Laboratories will serve as collaborators and research partners.
A complete list of R&D projects with their associated abstracts is available below.
| Title | Institution | Estimated Funding* | Project Description | Abstract | Project Type | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fundamental Understanding of Ambient and High-Temperature Plasticity Phenomena in Structural Materials in Advanced Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Elastic/Inelastic Nuclear Data Development Project | Idaho State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Heterogeneous Recycling in Fast Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Thermodynamic Development of Corrosion Rate Modeling in Iron Phosphate Glasses | Missouri University of Science and Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Subspace-Based Hybrid Monte Carlo-Deterministic Algorithms for Reactor Physics Calculations | North Carolina State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Improvements to Nuclear Data and Its Uncertainties by Theoretical Modeling | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Sharp Interface Tracking in Rotating Microflows of Solvent Extraction | State University of New York at Stony Brook | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Bulk Nanostructured FCC Steels with Enhanced Radiation Tolerance | Texas A&M University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Fuel Performance Experiments and Modeling: Fission Gas Bubble Nucleation and Growth in Alloy Nuclear Fuels | Texas A&M University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| SiC Schottky Diode Detectors for Measurement of Actinide Concentrations from Alpha Activities in Molten Salt Electrolyte | The Ohio State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Computational Design of Advanced Nuclear Fuels | University of California, Davis | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Data Collection Methods For Validation of Advanced Multi-Resolution Fast Reactor Simulations | University of Idaho | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Simulations of the Thermodynamic and Diffusion Properties of Actinide Oxide Fuel Materials | University of Michigan | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Adsorptive Separation and Sequestration of Krypton, I and C14 on Diamond Nanoparticles | University of Missouri, Columbia | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Alternative Technetium Waste Forms | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Quantification of UV-Visible and Laser Spectroscopic Techniques for Materials Accountability and Process Control | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| High-Fidelity Space-Time Adaptive Multiphysics Simulations in Nuclear Engineering | University of Nevada, Reno | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Simulations of Failure via Three-Dimensional Cracking in Fuel Cladding for Advanced Nuclear Fuels | University of Texas, Dallas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Mesh-Enabled Monte Carlo Capability for Multi-Physics Reactor Analysis | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Ab Initio Enhanced Calphad Modeling of Actinide Rich Nuclear Fuels | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Diffusion Barrier Coatings and Deposition Technologies for Mitigating Fuel Cladding Chemical Interactions (FCCI) | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Thermal Properties of LiCl-KCl Molten Salt for Nuclear Waste Separation | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Neutron Damage and MAX Phase Ternary Compounds | Drexel University | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Atomistic Calculations of the Effect of Minor Actinides on Thermodynamic and Kinetic Properties of UO2+x | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Maximum Fuel Utilization in Fast Reactors without Chemical Reprocessing | University of California, Berkeley | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Developing a High Thermal Conductivity Fuel with Silicon Carbide Additives | University of Florida | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Fabrication of Tungsten-Rhenium Cladding Materials via Spark Plasma Sintering for Ultra High Temperature Reactor Applications | University of Idaho | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Ionic Liquid and Supercritical Fluid Hyphenated Techniques for Dissolution and Separation of Lanthanides, Actinides, and Fission Products | University of Idaho | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Improved Fission Neutron Data Base for Active Interrogation of Actinides | University of Michigan | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Utilization of Methacrylates and Polymer Matrices for the Synthesis of Ion Specific Resins | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Improved LWR Cladding Performance by EPD Surface Modification Technique | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Models of LWR Pressure Vessel Embrittlement for Low Flux-High Fluence Conditions | University of California, Santa Barbara | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) | FY2009 | ||
| Irradiation Creep in Graphite | Boise State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Modeling the Stress Strain Relationships and Predicting Failure Probabilities For Graphite Core Components | Cleveland State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| TRISO-Coated Fuel Durability Under Extreme Conditions | Colorado School of Mines | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| An Innovative and Advanced Coupled Neutron Transport and Thermal Hydraulic Method (Tool) for the Design, Analysis and Optimization of VHTR/NGNP Prismatic Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Removal of 14C from Irradiated Graphite for Graphite Recycle and Waste Volume Reduction | Idaho State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Millimeter-Wave Thermal Analysis Development and Application to Gen IV Reactor Materials | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Accurate Development of Thermal Neutron Scattering Cross Section Libraries | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Understanding Creep Mechanisms in Graphite with Experiments, Multiscale Simulations, and Modeling | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Verification & Validation of High-Order Short-Characteristics-Based Deterministic Transport Methodology on Unstructured Grids | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Microscale Heat Conduction Models and Doppler Feedback | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Optimizing Neutron Thermal Scattering Effects in Very High Temperature Reactors | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Multiaxial Creep-Fatigue and CreepRatcheting Failures of Grade 91 and Haynes 230 Alloys Toward Addressing Design Issues of Gen IV Nuclear Power Plants | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Investigation of Countercurrent Helium-air Flows in Air-ingress Accidents for VHTRs | Ohio State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Testing of Performance of Optical Fibers Under Irradiation in Intense Radiation Fields, When Subjected to Very High Temperatures | Ohio State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| A Distributed Fiber Optic Sensor Network for Online 3-D Temperature and Neutron Fluence Mapping in a VHTR Environment | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Investigation on the Core Bypass Flow in a Very High Temperature Reactor | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| CFD Model Development and Validation for High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor Cavity Cooling System (RCCS) Applications | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Study of Air ingress across the duct during the accident conditions | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Verification of the CENTRM Module for Adaptation of the SCALE Code to NGNP Prismatic and PBR Core Designs | University of Arizona | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Integral and Separate Effects Tests for Thermal Hydraulics Code Validation for Liquid-Salt Cooled Nuclear Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Mechanisms Governing the Creep Behavior of High Temperature Alloys for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems | University of Cincinnati | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| ALD Produced B2O3, Al2O3 and TiO2 Coatings on Gd2O3 Burnable Poison Nanoparticles | University of Colorado, Boulder | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Experimental Study and Computational Simulations of Key Pebble Bed Thermomechanics Issues for Design and Safety | University of Idaho | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Prediction and Monitoring Systems of Creep-Fracture Behavior of 9Cr-1Mo Steels for Reactor Pressure Vessels | University of Idaho | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Understanding Fundamental Material Degradation Processes in High Temperature Aggressive Chemomechanical Environments | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Multi-Scale Multi-physics Methods Development for the Calculation of Hot-Spots in the NGNP | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Corrosion and Creep of Candidate Alloys in High Temperature Helium and Steam Environments for the NGNP | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Creation of a Full-Core HTR Benchmark with the Fort St. Vrain Initial Core and Validation of the DHF Method with Helios for NGNP Configurations | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Fission Product Sorptivity in Graphite | University of Missouri, Columbia | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Identifying and Understanding Environment-Induced Crack Propagation Behavior in Ni-Based Superalloy INCONEL 617 | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Graphite Oxidation Simulation in HTR Accident Conditions | University of New Mexico | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Non Destructive Thermal Analysis and In Situ Investigation of Creep Mechanism of Graphite and Ceramic Composites using Phase-sensitive THz Imaging & Nonlinear Resonant Ultrasonic Spectroscopy | University of Rochester | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Tritium Sequestration in Gen IV NGNP Gas Stream via Proton Conducting Ceramic Pumps | University of South Carolina | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Materials, Turbomachinery and Heat Exchangers for Supercritical CO2 Systems | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Experimental Studies of NGNP Reactor Cavity Cooling System with Water | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Assessment of Embrittlement of VHTR Structural Alloys in Impure Helium Environments | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Modeling Fission Product Sorption in Graphite Structures | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Liquid Salt Heat Exchanger Technology for VHTR Based Applications | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Effect of Post-Weld Heat Treatment on Creep Rupture Properties of Grade 91 Steel Heavy Section Welds | Utah State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Alpha Radiolysis of Nuclear Solvent Extraction Ligands used for An(III) and Ln(III) Separations | California State University, Long Beach | $1,390,252 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Predictive Maturity of Multi-Scale Simulation Models for Fuel Performance | Clemson University | $614,690 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Freeze-casting as a Novel Manufacturing Process for Fast Reactor Fuels | Drexel University | $1,149,327 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Fuel Performance Experiments on the Atomistic Level, Studying Fuel Through Engineered Single Crystal UO2 | Idaho State University | $650,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Development of A Self Biased High Efficiency Solid-State Neutron Detector for MPACT Applications | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $810,141 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Development of a Innovative High Thermal Conductivity UO 2 Ceramic Composites Fuel Pellets with Carbon Nano-Tubes Using Spark Plasma Sintering | University of Florida | $894,042 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Exploration and Modeling of Structural Changes in Waste Glass under Corrosion | Pennsylvania State University | $1,377,444 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Evaluation of materials for interim storage of spent fuel for more than 100 years | University of Michigan | $931,603 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Implementation of On-the-Fly Doppler Broadening in MCNP5 for Multiphysics Simulation of Nuclear Reactors | University of Michigan | $406,712 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Methods and tools to allow molecular flow simulations to be coupled to higher level continuum descriptions of flows in porous/fractured media and aerosol/dust dynamics | University of Missouri-Columbi | $541,286 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Characterization and Modeling of Materials for Kr-Xe Separations | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $989,800 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Modeling Solute Thermokinetics in LiCl-KCl Molten Salt for Nuclear Waste Separation | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $616,073 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Advanced Aqueous Separation Systems for Actinide Partitioning: Develop Fundamental Understanding of An(III)/Ln(III) Separation | Washington State University | $1,451,784 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Consistent Multigroup Theory Enabling Accurate Coarse-Group Simulation of GenIV Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,046,277 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Studies of Deteriorated Heat Transfer in Prismatic Cores Stemming from Irradiation-Induced Geometry Distortion | Idaho State University | $1,287,921 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Carbide Coatings for Nickel Alloys, Graphite, and Carbon/Carbon Composites to be Used in Fluoride Salt Valves | Johns Hopkins University | $1,183,239 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Design, Testing, and Modeling of the Direct Reactor Auxiliary Cooling System for AHTRs | Ohio State University | $1,366,627 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Monitoring microstructural evolution of Alloy 617 with nonlinear acoustics for remaining useful life prediction; multiaxial creep-fatigue and creep-ratcheting | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development and Validation of Multidimensional Models of Supercritical CO 2 Energy Conversion Systems for Nuclear Power Reactors | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $475,005 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Microstructure and Property Evolution in Advanced Cladding and Duct Materials Under Long-Term and Elevated Temperature Irradiation: Modeling and Experimental Investigation | University of California-Berkeley | $1,320,667 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of Barrier Layers for the Protection of Candidate Alloys in the VHTR | University of California-Santa Barbara | $995,232 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Investigation of a Novel NDE Method for Monitoring Thermo-Mechanical Damage and Microstructure Evolution in Ferritic-Martensitic Steels for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems | University of Cincinnati | $833,109 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Fission Product Transport in TRISO Particle Layers under Operating and Off-Normal Conditions | University of Michigan | $966,581 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Microstructure and Property Evolution in Advanced Cladding and Duct Materials Under Long-Term Irradiation at Elevated Temperature: Critical Experiments | University of Michigan | $1,181,379 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Three-dimensional NDE of VHTR Core Components via Simulation-based Testing | University of Minnesota | $1,366,163 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Failure Predictions for VHTR Core Components using a Probabilistic Continuum Damage Mechanics Model | University of Minnesota | $854,542 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of a Scanning Microscale Fast Neutron Irradiation Platform for Examining the Correlation Between Local Neutron Damage and Graphite Microstructure | University of Missouri-Columbia | $703,064 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of Thermal Transient Flow Rate Sensors for High Temperature, Irradiation, Corrosive Environment | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $451,269 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Novel Methods of Tritium Sequestration: High Temperature Gettering and Separation Membrane Materials Discovery for Nuclear Energy Systems | University of South Carolina | $1,366,626 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Heat Transfer Salts for Nuclear Reactor Systems - Chemistry Control, Corrosion Mitigation, and Modeling | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,352,040 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Pulsed Magnetic Welding for Advanced Core and Cladding Steels | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $525,206 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Corrosion in Supercritical Carbon Dioxide: Materials, Environmental Purity, Surface Treatments, and Flow Issues | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $651,447 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Multiscale Concrete Modeling for Aging Degradation | Mississippi State University | $345,941 | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability | FY2010 | |
| Development of an advanced computational fluid dynamics technology for the next-generation nuclear reactor system analysis and safety margin characterization code | North Carolina State University | $418,199 | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability | FY2010 | |
| Precursor Derived Nanostructured Si-C-X Materials for Nuclear Applications | University of Washington | $899,518 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Development and Testing of an Open-Loop Oscillator for Small Reactivity Worth Samples | Idaho State University | $597,252 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Understanding the Irradiation Behavior of Zirconium Carbide | Pennsylvania State University | $870,613 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Modeling investigation of the stability and irradiation-induced evolution of nanoscale precipitates in advanced structural materials | University of Tennessee-Knoxville | $380,653 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Investigation of Laser Shock Peening for Enhancing Fatigue and Stress Corrosion Cracking Resistance of Nuclear Energy Materials | University of Cincinnati | $1,242,019 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Irradiation Accelerated Corrosion of Reactor Core Materials | University of Michigan | $798,943 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Study of Interfacial Interactions using Thin Film Surface Modification: Radiation and Oxidation Effects in Materials | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $538,032 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Novel Engineered Refractory Materials for Advanced Reactor Applications | North Carolina State University | $1,129,304 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Quantification of Cation Sorption to Engineered Barrier Materials Under Extreme Conditions | Clemson University | $1,171,380 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| In-Pile Instrumentation Multi-Parameter System Utilizing Photonic Fibers and Nanovision | Idaho State University | $1,199,990 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Development of Plasmonically Cloaked Nanoparticles | Idaho State University | $800,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Fission Product Transmutation in Mixed Radiation Fields | Idaho State University | $800,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Life Prediction of Spent Fuel Storage Canister Material | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $899,826 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Active Interrogation using Photofission Technique for Nuclear Materials Control and Accountability | Oregon State University | $900,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Anisotropic Azimuthal Power and Temperature Distribution on Fuel Rod: Impact of Hydride Distribution | Pennsylvania State University | $631,956 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Sorption Modeling and Verification for Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Microemulsions and Aggregation Formation in Extraction Processes for Used Nuclear Fuel: Thermodynamics and Structural Studies | University of California, Irvine | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Optimized Processing Fabrication Paths for Larger Heats of Nanostructured Ferritic Alloys | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Basic Physics Data: Measurement of Neutron Multiplicity from Induced Fission | University of Michigan | $973,364 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Radionuclide Incorporation and Long Term Performance of Apatite Waste Forms | University of Michigan | $862,500 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Actinide Foil Production for MPACT Research | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $156,897 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Enriched Boron-Doped Amorphous Selenium Based Position-Sensitive Solid-State Thermal Neutron Detector for MPACT Applications | University of South Carolina | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Development of Advanced High Uranium Density Fuels for Light Water Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Developing the User Experience for a Next Generation Nuclear Fuel Cycle Simulator | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,200,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Preparation and Development of Polymer-Supported Extractants | City College of New York, Hunter | $363,716 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| One-Dimensional Nanostructures for Neutron Detection | North Carolina State University | $455,629 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Feasibility and Safety Assessment for Advanced Reactor Concepts Using Vented Fuel | Oregon State University | $600,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| High Temperature Transducers for Online Monitoring of Microstructure Evolution | Pennsylvania State University | $455,628 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Laser-Arc Hybrid Welding of Thick Section Ni-base Alloys- Advanced Modeling and Experiments | Pennsylvania State University | $536,117 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Correlates of Sensitive Technologies | Texas A&M University | $509,467 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Improved Safety Margin Characterization of Risk from Loss of Offsite Power | Texas A&M University | $600,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| A High Temperature-Tolerant and Radiation-Resistant In-Core Neutron Sensor for Advanced Reactors | The Ohio State University | $455,629 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Pathway Aggregation in the Risk Assessment of Proliferation Resistance and Physical Protection (PR&PP) of Nuclear Energy Systems | The Ohio State University | $534,471 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Preparation of High Purity, High Molecular-Weight Chitin from Ionic Liquids for Use as an Adsorbate for the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Alabama | $338,260 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Selectivity in Ligand Binding to Uranyl Compounds: A Synthetic, Structural, Thermodynamic and Computational Study | University of California-Berkeley | $500,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Seismic Isolation Systems Using Periodic Materials | University of Houston | $538,154 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium from Seawater | University of Idaho | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Austenitic ODS Strengthened Alloys for Very High Temperature Applications | University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign | $538,154 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Enhancement of the Extraction of the Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Transient Safety Analysis of Fast Spectrum TRU Burning LWR with Internal Blankets | University of Michigan | $599,475 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Novel Sorbents for Uranium Extraction from Seawater | University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Radiation Behavior of High-Entropy Alloys for Advanced Reactors | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $538,159 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Rapid Computer Aided Ligand Design and Screening of Precious Metal Extractants from TRUEX Raffinate with Experimental Validation | Washington State University | $500,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of an Efficient Meso-Scale Multi-Phase Flow Solver in Nuclear Applications | City College of New York | $505,858 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Multiscale Modeling and Uncertainty Quantification for Nuclear Fuel Performance | Colorado State University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Fundamental Studies of the Role of Grain Boundaries on Uniform Corrosion of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Materials | Drexel University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Phenomena-based Uncertainty Quantification in Predictive Coupled-Physics Reactor Simulations | Texas A&M University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Characterization of Modeling of Grain Boundary Chemistry Evolution in Ferritic Steels Under Irradiation | University of Michigan | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Development of Multiscale Materials Modeling Techniques and Coarse-Graining Strategies for Predicting Materials Degradation in Extreme Irradiation Environments | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $750,000 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Diffusion, Thermal Properties and chemical Compatibilities of Select MAX Phases with Materials for Advanced Nuclear Systems | Drexel University | $535,927 | Document | Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) | FY2011 | |
| A New Light Weight Structural Material for Nuclear Structures | North Carolina State University | $399,490 | Document | Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) | FY2011 | |
| Experimental Investigation of Convection and Heat Transfer in the Reactor Core for a VHTR | City College of New York | $1,118,856 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Graphite Microstructural Characterization Using Time-Domain and Correlation-Based Ultrasonics | Johns Hopkins University | $1,199,997 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Methodology Development for Passive Component Reliability Modeling in a Multi-Physics Simulation Environment | The Ohio State University | $533,457 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Pebble Fuel Handling and Reactivity Control for Salt-Cooled High Temperature Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $612,721 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Self-Sustaining Thorium Boiling Water Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $1,145,932 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| High Fluency Low Flux Embrittlement Models of LWR Reactor Pressure Vessel Embrittlement and a Supporting Database from the UCSB ATR-2 Irradiation Experiment | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,199,607 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| A Research Program for Fission Product/Dust Transport in HTGR's | University of Missouri-Columbia | $1,157,367 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Development and Validation of a Lifecycle-based Prognostics Architecture with Test Bed Validation | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $846,315 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| In-situ Condition Monitoring of Components in Small Modular Reactors Using Process and Electrical Signature Analysis | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $650,000 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Technical Development for S-CO2 Advanced Energy Conversion | University of Wisconsin | $815,000 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Ag Transport Through Non-Irradiated and Irradiated SiC | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,055,456 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Critical Heat Flux Phenomena at High Pressure and Low Mass Fluxes: Tests and Models | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,199,781 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Modeling and Test Validation of a Reactor Cavity Cooling System with Air | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,199,988 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Transient Mixed Convection Validation for NGNP | Utah State University | $635,860 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Alternative High-Performance Ceramic Waste Forms | Alfred University | $840,000 | This project aims to advance fundamental understanding of the kinetics of structural evolution of crystalline ceramic waste forms. The structure/property relationships will be identified and will reveal new formulations, improved processing routes, and strategies for improved performance or ceramic waste forms. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Surface Layer Bulk Glass Interface Evolution with Aqueous Corrosion | Alfred University | $880,000 | This project will investigate the links between the morphology, structure and chemistry of surface layer-bulk glass interface and the long-term corrosion-reaction kinetics using in-situ and ex-situ experiments. The understanding will result in improved models for long-term predictive behavior of high-level-waste (HLW) glasses under repository conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Optimization of Deep Borehole Systems for HLW Disposal | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $850,000 | Researchers aim to carry out a comprehensive evaluation of the deep borehole option for disposal of used nuclear fuel and high livel waste. The models developed will predict potential movement of water through natural and engineered barriers and release of radionuclides to the biosphere which will aide in site selection. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Scholarship for Nuclear Communications and Methods for Evaluation of Nuclear Project Acceptability | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will work to develop a model to characterize the factors affecting social acceptance of nuclear projects with potential stakeholders. The resultant model will strengthen the ability to design and implement large projects more efficiently, leading to higher rates of success of future nuclear projects. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Accurate Holdup Calculations with Predictive Modeling and Data Integration | North Carolina State University | $875,000 | Researchers will develop and use state-of-the-art radiation transport codes to account accurately for the fissile material in a nuclear materials processing facility. An accurate estimation of the materials will allow for ensured radiological safety, security, waste management and efficient plant operation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Testing of Sapphire Optical Fiber and Sensors in Intense Radiation Fields, when Subjected to Very High Temperatures | The Ohio State University | $885,000 | The researchers on this project will investigate the performance of sapphire optical fibers and sensors in reactor environments. The project, if successful, will result in improved instrumentation to understand the behavior and predict performance of nuclear fuel systems at the microstructural level. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Concrete Materials with Ultra-High Damage Resistance and Self-Sensing Capacity for Extended Nuclear Fuel Storage Systems | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | Researchers aim to design a new class of multifunctional concrete materials. This project, if successful, will result in a novel multifunctional concrete material that possesses inherent degradation monitoring capability and is suitable for an extended storage system for the used nuclear fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Probabilistic Multi-Hazard Assessment of Dry Cask Structures | University of Houston | $865,000 | This project aims to investigate the performance of dry cask storage systems under multiple hazard systems (earthquake, tornados, combined with aging effects) using a probabilistic multi-hazard framework. This framework will be validated based on experimental research and will provide improved models for safety and reliability of spent nuclear fuels during storage and transportation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Electrochemical Corrosion Studies for Modeling Metallic Waste Form Release Rates | University of Nevada- Las Vegas | $790,000 | This project aims to use advanced electrochemical methods to investigate the corrosion related degradation of metal alloys used for housing fission products. The data obtained from this study will allow for the prediction of the long-term behavior of the metallic host phase materials over geological time-scales. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Development and Experimental Benchmark of Simulations to Predict Used Nuclear Fuel Cladding Temperatures during Drying and Transfer Operations | University of Nevada- Reno | $745,000 | Researchers will conduct experiments to investigate and develop advanced computational models of heat transfer in post-pool-storage drying operations. This project, if successful, will result in tools that can be used to design efficient drying processes to as to ensure suitability for dry-cask systems for long-term storage and transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Seismic Performance of Dry Casks Storage for Long-Term Exposure | University of Utah | $873,319 | Researchers will evaluate the mechanical performance of dry-cask storage under seismic loading for mid-term operational periods. Simulations will include scenarios for freestanding, anchored, and vaulted casks. The experimental tests will also evaluate the dynamic seismic response of freestanding and anchored dry-cask storage prototypes, providing recommendations for optimal Interim Spent Fuel Storage Installations (ISFSIs) design. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Coupling of Nuclear Waste Form Corrosion and Radionuclide Transport in Presence of Relevant Repository Sediments | Washington State University | $885,000 | Researchers will conduct experiments to understand the mechanisms responsible for the corrosion of nuclear waste forms in realistic chemical environments. The data generated from these experiments will enable increased reliability of the models used to predict the waste form performance in repository environments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| ABR for TRU Transmutation with Breed & Burn Thorium Blanket for Improved Economics and Resource Utilization | University of California- Berkeley | $450,000 | The research team will use detailed neutronic analysis for a new Advanced Burner Reactor concept with low conversion ratio. The concept will use a new core shape to improve the utilization of neutrons to perform breed and burn. | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2012 |
| Atomic-Scale to Meso-Scale Simulation Studies of Thermal Ageing and Irradiation Effects in Fe-Cr Alloys | Boston University | $874,997 | Researchers will develop predictive, multi-scale simulation tools for iron-chromium alloys, which are expected to be key components of advanced steels envisioned as fuel cladding and structural components for Generation IV reactors. Such modeling is necessary to avoid resource intensive and costly thermal and neutron irradiation experiments to obtain required performance data. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Validation Data and Model Development for Fuel Assembly Response to Seismic Loads | George Washington University | $862,435 | Researchers will conduct experiments that will provide comprehensive data characterizing the dynamics of the fluid and the structure in Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR) fuel assemblies under seismic loads (earthquakes and loss of coolant accidents). Completion of their project will greatly benefit the safety of existing and future nuclear reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Uncertainty Quantification and Management for Multiscale Nuclear Materials Modeling | Georgia Institute of Technology | $743,444 | Researchers will address the question of uncertainty propogation and error estimates associated with model prediction of material behavior under irradiation. Their work will facilitate a better understanding of the connection of various unit processes to collective responses in a multiscale model chain enabling the development of high strength and high ductility materials. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Nonlinear Ultrasonic Techniques to Monitor Radiation Damage in RPV and Internal Components | Georgia Institute of Technology | $877,000 | Researchers will explore new nondestructive materials evaluation and monitoring techniques utilizing nonlinear ultrasonic measurements . This technique will allow researchers to assess remaining useful life of select reactor components. Breakthroughs in this area will lead to the ability to characterize radiation damage in reactor pressure vessels and other components-leading to a clearer definition of reactor safety margins. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Intergral Reactor Containment Condensation Model and Experimental Validation | Oregon State University | $871,119 | Researchers will conduct experiments to enhance the safety and efficiency of small modular reactors (SMRs). This project will assess the impact of high-pressure steam condensation on steel containment vessels to be used for SMR deigns. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Irradiation Performance of Fe-Cr Base Alloys | University of Illinois- Urbana Champaign | $876,332 | _Researchers will perform post-radiation analysis and develop tools for future development and application of the Fe-Cr class of alloys. The results of this research will lead to better modeling of performance and development of an alloy designated as the primary choice for reactor fuel cladding and structural applications in advanced systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Experimentally Validated Numerical Models for Effects of Non-Isothermal Turbulent Mixing on Wall Stresses in High Temperature Reactors | University of Pittsburgh | $876,422 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive experimentally validated computational framework for the turbulent mixing in the lower plenum of a very high temperature reactor (VHTR). Through CFD modeling and experimental validation, the results from this project will lay the groundwork for future stress analysis, failure and fatigue studies, and uncertainty quantification for the VHTR system. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Mechanical Behavior of UO2 at Sub-grain Length Scales: Quantification of Elastic, Plastic and Creep Properties via Microscale Testing | Arizona State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop techniques to measure properties at sub-grain scales using depleted Uranium Oxide samples. The project will provide a framework to measure sub-grain scale mechanical properties, as well as provide experimental data to improve the understanding of advanced oxide fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| The Impacts of Pore-Scale Physical and Chemical Heterogeneities on the Transport of Radionuclide-Carrying Colloids | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will identify the dominant transport mechanisms to develop models that predict radionuclide distribution in porous materials. Experimental and computational models will be created that couple pore-scale geometric and interfacial structures. Simulators such as these are a necessary step towards fully predictive models for field-scale applications in the future. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Polymer-Supported Aminophosphinates as Selective Extractants | Hunter College, CUNY | $399,999 | Researchers will prepare a polymer-supported extractant for the recovery of uranium from seawater. The project will focus on primary amines that could provide a 3-fold increase in uranium capture capacity than current methods. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| In-pile Thermal Conductivity Characterization with Single-laser Heating/Time Resolved Raman | Iowa State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a time-resolved Raman-based thermal conductivity measurement system to improve remote in-pile thermal conductivity measurement. These measurements will provide new insights into the behavior of materials exposed to extreme radiation and temperature environments. Understanding the behavior of materials at the microstructural level will support optimized fuel designs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Organic Speciation and Interactions in ALSEP - One Step Partitioning Process of Minor Actinides, Lanthanides, and Fission Products | Oregon State University | $600,000 | Researchers will investigate the Actinide-Lanthanide Separation (ALSEP) process organic phase prior to aqueous phase separation and after aqueous separation phases of bare and metal-loaded acids. Quantifying these effects can be used to determine how an engineering scale process will perform and generate an accurate chemical model for the system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Glass Composition and Solution Speciation Effects on Stage III Dissolution | Pennsylvania State University | $700,000 | Researchers will study the chemical and structural triggers of long-term vitrified nuclear waste form behavior. They will study a range of waste glass compositions in corrosive environments. The study will improve understanding of the long-term residual rate and may provide new options for environmental control of glass dissolution rates. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Correlating Thermal, Mechanical, and Electrical Coupling Based Multiphysics Behavior of Nuclear Materials Through In-Situ Measurements | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will use in-situ experimental techniques to monitor the influence of extreme conditions on fuel cladding. The project will establish an in-situ experimental setup that can predict change in thermal properties and their correlation with mechanical properties and correlate such changes to changes in microstructural and chemical features. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Creation of a Geant4 Muon Tomography Package for Imaging of Nuclear Fuel in Dry Cask Storage | Purdue University | $440,000 | Researchers will develop a simulation and analysis package to aid in the non-destructive assessment of sealed used nuclear fuel dry casks using cosmic ray muons. Cosmic ray muon tomography allows for non-destructive assessment that can independently verify and identify weapons grade material sealed within dense dry casks. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Fuel Cycle Data Packages for Two-stage Fast Reactor Fuel Cycle Options for Optimum Resource Utilization and Waste Management | Purdue University | $400,000 | Researchers will evaluate the two different two-stage fast reactor fuel cycle options that will offer efficient use of uranium resources and the ability to burn actinides and long-live fission products. Evaluation of these fast fuel cycle options will serve as a useful complement to the options currently being considered in the Fuel Cycle Options Campaign. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Mixed Metal Phosphonate-Phosphate Resins for Separation of Lanthanides from Actinides | Texas A&M University | $650,000 | Researchers will use ion exchangers to cleanly separate lanthanides and curium from reusable actinides. The study will assist in the development of an inexpensive, simple way in which to separate lanthanides from actinides found in used nuclear fuel rods and to recover a large portion of the usable fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Safeguards in Pyroprocessing: an Integrated Model Development and Measurement Data Analysis | The Ohio State University | $626,151 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive and effective safeguards approach for a pyroprocessing facility to support safeguards for future fuel cycles in the United States. The new approach and design will focus directly on the special nuclear materials in the electrorefiner where actinides are separated from fission products through electrochemical process. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Using Ionic Liquids for the Development of Renewable Biopolymer-Based Adsorbents for the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater and Testing Under Marine Conditions | University of Alabama | $400,000 | Researchers will explore the fundamental engineering parameters for a renewable high-performance adsorbent for the extraction of uranium from sweater based on a recently proven ionic liquid (IL)-chitin platform. The project will use the platform to develop a versatile, modifiable adsorbent and characterize its performance and degradation in marine conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Developing Ultra-Small Scale Mechanical Testing Methods and Microstructural Investigation Procedures for Irradiated Materials. | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop new small-scale mechanical testing techniques to allow for the estimation or direct measurement of bulk properties. The combined experiments and modeling will significantly enhance the statistics and information that can be obtained on small radioactive archived samples, as well as new ion beam irradiated specimens. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Improved Delayed-Neutron Spectroscopy Using Trapped Ions | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will develop innovative spectroscopy techniques to measure the decay of fission fragments. The resulting data from these new techniques will be used to better understand reactor kinetics under accident conditions and failure scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Thermally and Chemically Responsive Nanoporous Materials for Efficient Capture of Fission Product Gases | University of California, Davis | $750,000 | Researchers will create new nanoporous materials that will be highly effective at capturing fission product gases. These materials would be relevant to both reactor fuels applications and reprocessing operations. Tests will be performed in carbon based and nitride based nanostructures, with the most promising materials from the modeling perspective undergoing further testing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Multiphase Nanocrystalline Ceramic Concept for Nuclear Fuel | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | Researchers will study the use of nanoparticles and nanostructured ceramics to create new materials that can extend the service life and increase efficiency for nuclear fuel. Multiphase nanocrystalline ceramics will be used to design simulated nuclear fuel that can provide added plasticity, better radiation tolerance and improved thermal conductivity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Novel Porous Sorbents for Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Chicago | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a highly porous sorbent for the extraction of uranium from seawater. Previous research has established sorbent performance. This project will use past foundational studies to design and investigate a new nanocomposites that will be processed into tacks or braids for field tests in seawater tests. The technology may also be used for other metals. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Microwave Readout Techniques for Very Large Arrays of Nuclear Sensors | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,937 | Researchers will develop a powerful readout technique based on microwave transmission and reflection. The technique will enable very large arrays of diverse sensor types for nuclear materials quantification and tracking. It will provide more accurate data on material composition and quantity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| BiI3 Gamma-Ray Spectrometers for Reliable Room-Temperature Nuclear Materials Safeguarding | University of Florida | $799,999 | Researchers will develop gamma-ray spectrometers based on BiI3 single crystals for MPACT applications such as burnup validation quantification, improved assay of plutonium, determination of uranium enrichment and overall monitoring spent fuel within the fuel cycle. The project will improve energy resolution, efficiency and environmental performance with this new gamma-ray detector. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Innovative Coating of Nanostructured Vanadium Carbide on the F/M Cladding Tube Inner Surface for Mitigating the Fuel Cladding Chemical Interactions | University of Florida | $760,276 | Researchers will develop barrier coatings on the inner surface of fuel cladding tubes to improve performance of materials at elevated temperatures and high neutron exposures in fast reactors. The project will develop and test a low temperature coating process of nanostructured vanadium carbide that will provide a benchmark for use in future studies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Doubling the Life of Concrete Structures | University of Idaho | $800,000 | Researchers will use nanoscale techniques to develop methods for doubling the service life of concrete structures. They will study the effect of temperature load and temperature cycling (freezing and thawing) on the durability of concrete with nanoscale viscosity modifiers. The project will benefit from non-destructive evaluation of concrete performance through electrochemical techniques. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Off-Gas Treatment: Evaluation of Nano-structured Sorbents for Selective Removal of Contaminants | University of Idaho | $785,910 | Researchers will evaluate nanostructured sorbent materials for their effectiveness in removing and immobilizing radionuclides for the off-gas treatment from used nuclear fuel recycling operations. The project aims at achieving near-zero emissions of radionuclides by capturing them from the off-gas of recycling operations, allowing for the development of advanced fuel cycles. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium and Transition Metals from Amidoxime-Based Sorbents | University of Idaho | $399,864 | Researchers will develop a new two-step elution process to achieve total recovery of uranium and effective recycling of the sorbent. The extraction process would selectively remove uranium from the sorbent with little or no damage. The process would then remove transition metals and regenerate the sorbent for repeated use, making uranium extraction from seawater economically viable. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Performance of a Steel/Oxide Composite Waste Form for Combined Waste Streams from Advanced Electrochemical Processes over Geologic Time Scales | University of Illinois at Chicago | $700,000 | Researchers will develop and validate a mechanistically-based corrosion model for cermet-type waste forms, creating a testing protocol and modeling approach for predicting long-term performance. The study will apply novel electrochemical testing and modeling methods to the behavior of metal/oxide phase boundaries to evaluate waste form performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Enhancement of the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland, College Park | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and optimize novel adsorbents for uranium recovery from seawater. The team will use radiation-induced grafting of organic phosphates onto polymers. The experiments will use ocean water, with mechanistic analysis, to provide a solid basis for large-scale demonstration of the performance of the new adsorbents in ocean environments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Improving the Understanding of the Coupled Thermal-Mechanical-Hydrologic Behavior of Consolidating Granular Salt | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will increase the understanding of granular salt seal materials for shafts, drifts and boreholes. By coupling thermal, mechanical and hydrological responses, the study will result in greater confidence in granular salt consolidation as a principal strategy for closure and isolation of long-term waste repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Fission Fragment Yield Data in Support of Advanced Reactor Technology | University of New Mexico | $399,816 | Researchers will produce a highly accurate data set for thermal fission. These precision data are necessary for high-accuracy simulations of nuclear criticality, transmutation rates, radiation effects and heating as well as for nuclear fuel, material accounting and identification needs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Molecular dynamics-based simulations of bulk/interfacial structures and diffusion behaviors in nuclear waste glasses | University of North Texas | $700,000 | Researchers will generate accurate atomic structural models for use in Monte Carlo simulations of the dissolution of nuclear waste glasses. Large-scale molecular dynamics-based computer simulations will be used to investigate self-diffusion behaviors, interfacial structure, and other structures formed during dissolution of these glasses. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| U3Si2 Fabrication and Testing for Implementation into the BISON Fuel Performance Code | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will fabricate, test and model a high uranium density, advanced nuclear fuel that operates at a much lower temperature and stores less energy. The work will deliver key research data on creep and grain growth, improving economics, through possible power uprates, and advancing accident tolerant fuels research. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Structural Health Monitoring of Nuclear Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of South Carolina | $738,618 | Researchers will develop a nuclear structural health monitoring system based on a sensing technology that monitors material degradation and aging for dry cask storage systems. The low-cost, low-profile sensors will perform on-demand monitoring of the structural integrity of individual components as well as the entire system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| ORIGEN-based Nuclear Fuel Depletion Module for Fuel Cycle Assessment | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $755,181 | Researchers will develop a flexible reactor analysis module for the CYCLUS fuel cycle simulator based on established tools for reactor fuel depletion and decay. They will use ORIGEN, a mature and experimentally validated code, affording greater flexibility and allowing for accurate evaluations of impacts of both present and future fuel cycle options. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Cost and System Analysis of Innovative Fuel Resources Concepts | University of Texas at Austin | $295,960 | This project will develop and test braided polymer fiber adsorbents that surpass the sorption capacity, selectivity and durability of the best existing technology to recover uranium from seawater. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Risk Assessment of Structural Integrity of Transportation Casks | University of Utah | $789,296 | Researchers will assess the loss of structural integrity of transportation casks and fuel cladding after extended storage. This risk assessment will conduct experimental tests and simulations to evaluate the structural performance of fuel, fuel assemblies and cask components when subjected to vibration and impact loads during transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Market-Based and System-Wide Fuel Cycle Optimization | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $612,731 | Researchers will create market and economic optimizers to improve calculations for the CYCLUS fuel cycle simulator. The team will leverage existing optimization software frameworks within the simulator to resolve top level policy questions. The optimizations will allow CYCLUS to move beyond static material compositions, providing a holistic view of the fuel cycle system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Optical Fiber Based System for Multiple Thermophysical Properties for Glove Box, Hot Cell and In-Pile Applications | Utah State University | $799,975 | Researchers will use a small pressure vessel to develop a robust technique for the measurement of multiple thermophysical properties at very high temperatures. The technique will lead to a system design moving toward the eventual measurement of irradiated fuels in a glovebox and/or hot cell with all sensors and electronics outside of the glovebox and/or hot cell. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of a Nano-Modified Concrete for Next Generation of Storage Systems | Vanderbilt University | $796,268 | Researchers will use nano-sized and nano-structured particles based on enhanced reactivity to develop a superior concrete for the long-term storage of used nuclear fuel. The project will use state-of-the-art experimental chemical and mechanical characterizations and computation analysis to assess the performance of nano-modified concretes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Fuel Cycle Data Packages for Thorium Fuel Cycle Options | Vanderbilt University | $797,995 | Researchers will develop six fuel cycle data packages for multi-stage, thermal fuel cycles which incorporate thorium. These new fuel cycle data packages will provide the opportunity to examine fuel cycle options beyond those which have traditionally been considered. A thorium fuel cycle database will also be assembled as a basis for thorium literature for future evaluations of the thorium fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Enhanced Shielding Performance of HLW Storage Packages via Multi-Component Coatings | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $796,947 | Researchers will develop a multi-layer composite that will enhance long-term storage and facilitate safe transport of storage packages. This novel multi-layer, multi-component coating would create an outer shield material that is resistant to the corrosion, radiation, diffusion and thermal cycling processes that affect fuel packages during long term storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Managing Zirconium Chemistry and Phase Compatibility in Combined Process Separations for Minor Actinide Partitioning | Washington State University | $700,000 | Researchers will address unique challenges for combining TRUEX and TALSPEAK processes for partitioning of lanthanides and minor actinides. The project will develop improved information on the thermodynamics of fission product zirconium and develop a framework for an organic phase solvation model. Combined process development could streamline separations processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Advances in the Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Studies Under Real Ocean Conditions | Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution | $398,882 | Researchers will provide infrastructure and expertise for marine testing of currently available adsorbents in real ocean conditions. The team will move adsorbent research from the lab to field testing in order to quantify sorptive properties and uranium uptake. The project will provide valuable field data that will show the potential of large scale applications of these technologies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| NEUP Project 20-19172: Irradiation of Sensors and Adhesive Couplants for Application in LWR Primary Loop Piping and Components | $497,881 | Researchers paln to attach ultrasonic transducers to substrates using various adhesive couplants that will be irradiated at elevated temperature to simulate LWR primary loop conditions at the PULSTAR reactor at North Carolina State University. Ultrasonic data will be taken in-situ. Subsequently, the sensors and couplant interfaces will be characterized using the LAMDA facility at ORNL. The results will be used to benefit a parallel EPRI project on online monitoring of cracks in LWR primary loop piping. | Document | Joint R&D with NSUF Access | FY2013 | |
| Lower Length Scale Characterization and Validation of Formation and Stability of Helium Bubbles in Nano-structured Ferritic Alloys under Irradiation | Clemson University | $399,870 | Researchers will provide a fundamental knowledge about the formation and stability of ultra-fine helium bubbles within 14YWT after neutron/ion irradiation for further design of new advanced structural materials with a characteristic high density nanoparticles feature which can increase the mechanical strength, hardness, irradiation resistance and the operational temperature range of materials. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Three-Dimensional Fuel Pin Model Validation by Prediction of Hydrogen Distribution in Cladding and Comparison with Experiment | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers will validate important three-dimensional aspects of the fuel pin modeling by using specialized numerical modeling techniques coupled with laboratory experiments to validate existing models for predicting fuel performance in light water reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Collocation-Based Surrogate Models for Uncertainty Quantification and Validation of Coupled, Multiphysics Fuel Performance Simulation Tools | University of Michigan | $596,835 | Researchers will provide the necessary high fidelity, coupled, multiphysics fuel performance simulator for computational modeling and develop surrogates which will accelerate and focus the validation of the coupled codes. This will be achieved by utilizing the high fidelity coupled fuel performance, thermal-hydraulics and neutronics codes BISON/STAR-CCM+/MPACT and an innovative collocation-based surrogate methodology. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Multi-Resolution In-Situ Testing and Mutliscale Simulation for Creep Damage Fatigue Damage Analysis of Alloy 617 | Arizona State University | $800,000 | This project will develop novel testing and experimentally validated prediction methodologies for micro-structural damage mechanisms of structural materials for advanced reactor systems. The investigations will focus on the characterization and testing of specific metal alloys, but the proposed testing and life-prediction methodologies are applicable to other structural materials as well. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Novel High Temperature and Radiation Resistant Infrared Glasses and Optical Fibers for Sensing in Advanced Small Modular Reactors | Clemson University | $800,000 | Clemson University, in partnership with the Iowa State University and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, will develop novel optical materials with improved heat and radiation exposure resistance in order to enable in-vessel fiber optic sensing for advanced Small Modular Reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Validation Data Acquisition in HTTF during PCC Events | George Washington University | $800,000 | Researchers at the George Washington University and Oregon State University will collaborate with NASA Langley Research Center to measure flow velocities in a high temperature test facility. This work supports the development of very-high temperature reactors with passive safety systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced High Temperature Inspection Capabilities for Small Modular Reactors | Iowa State University | $790,822 | The objective of this project is to develop non-destructive evaluation techniques for advanced small modular reactors. The research will provide key enabling inspection technologies needed to support the design and the reactor component performance validation process for advanced small modular reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Experimental and Computational Investigations of Plenum-to-Plenum Heat Transfer under Natural Circulation in a Prismatic Very High Temperature Reactor | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,999 | Researchers will perform experimental and computational investigations to study heat transfer and natural circulation phenomena in very-high temperature reactors. The study will assist in the ability to predict and analyze passive safety systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| New Mechanistic Models of Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth Interactions for Advanced High Temperature Reactor Components | Oregon State University | $790,790 | Researchers will create and validate a robust, multi-scale, numerical model to predict material degradation in nickel-based reactor alloys. If successful, this project will provide better numerical tools for reactor designers and greatly improve their capability to design against material failures for reactor alloys in the long term. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Self-Powered Wireless Dual-mode Langasite Sensor for Pressure/Temperature Monitoring of Nuclear Reactors | State University of New York, Stony Brook | $800,000 | This research will develop a novel self-powered wireless hybrid sensor that can accurately monitor both pressure and temperature using a single device without requiring external electricity, even in extreme harsh environments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Compact Heat Exchanger Design and Testing for Advanced Nuclear Reactors and Advanced Power Cycles | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to investigate optimal heat exchanger designs for advanced reactors. The research will study the optimization of printed circuit heat exchangers for specific fluids under a variety of conditions as well as perform numerical modeling. Experiments will focus on thermal performance and heat stress during extreme conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Fundamental Understanding of Creep-Fatigue Interactions in 9Cr-1MoV Steel Welds | The Ohio State University | $798,000 | This project will advance the state of knowledge and fundamental understanding of deforming materials and welds under loading conditions. Specifically, new integrated testing procedures will be evaluated and applied for conditions that are most detrimental to material stability leading to improved predictions of life expectancy for reactor steels and welds. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced Mechanistic 3D Spatial Modeling and Analysis Methods to Accurately Represent Nuclear Facility External Event Scenarios | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop three-dimensional characterization uncertainty analysis for commercial power plants. The project will involve combining experts from the fields of seismic structural modeling and advanced methods of risk assessment. This effort is expected to result in next generation tools that can be used for assessment of seismic risks. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Tritium Mitigation/Control for Advanced Reactor Systems | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a fluoride salt cooled high-temperature reactor featuring a specialized system to control tritium production. If successful, this will result in a significant reduction in size and cost in comparison to other reactor designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| A Pebble-Bed Breed and Burn Reactor | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will assess the feasibility of designing a type of metal cooled reactor able to establish and maintain operation when fueled with depleted uranium. If successful, this reactor will offer at least a 30-fold increase in the uranium ore utilization versus that achieved in contemporary light water reactors without the need for fuel reprocessing and recycling. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Investigation of Thermal Aging Effects on the Evolution of Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Cast Duplex Stainless Steels | University of Maryland, College Park | $799,966 | This research will provide a better understanding of the microstructural evolution and simultaneous change in mechanical response during aging. The results of the research will provide data that can be used to estimate degraded mechanical properties for an 80-year service life of light water reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Model validation using CFD-grade experimental database for NGNP Reactor Cavity Cooling Systems with water and air | University of Michigan | $799,348 | Researchers will use advanced innovative instrumentation to build a high-resolution experimental database and to use the novel experimental data to assess and further develop the predictive capabilities of computer codes for thermal hydraulics and computational fluid dynamics. The improved models developed by this project will also have the direct benefit of improving the predictive capability of the passive systems of third generation light water reactors and small modular reactor systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Long-Term Prediction of Emissivity of Structural Material for High Temperature Reactor Systems | University of Missouri | $799,117 | Researchers will study specific types of emissivity driven cooling from a variety of materials that are relevant to nuclear reactors. The research will provide a basis for numerical modeling to support reactor development. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced I&C for Fault-Tolerant Supervisory Control of Small Modular Reactors | University of Pittsburgh | $800,000 | The purpose of this research is to develop advanced instrumentation and control techniques for supervisory control of advanced small modular reactors. This research supports the operational goals of small modular reactor concepts through the development of improved oversight and surveillance techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Corrosion of Structural Materials for Advanced Supercritical Carbon-Dioxide Brayton Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $798,672 | Researchers will study a variety of materials for corrosion resistance under conditions that improve power conversion. In addition to studying the corrosion resistance of the materials, researchers will study the effect of additives to mitigate corrosion. Development of corrosion theories and modeling aimed at prediction of long-term corrosion will be the underlying theme throughout the project. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Component and Technology Development for Advanced Liquid Metal Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $798,920 | In support of liquid metal cooled reactors, the University of Wisconsin, Madison will evaluate advanced alloys and ceramics that come in contact with liquid metals. Additionally, a robust oxygen sensor and for use in liquid metals will be developed in order to better evaluate corrosion profiles in support of diagnostic testing. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| A New Paradigm for Understanding Multi-phase Ceramic Waste Form Performance | Clemson University | $800,000 | Researchers will use advanced characterization tools to develop 3-D microstructural data that can be incorporated into computer-based simulations in order to predict the performance of waste forms. Materials system modeling will incorporate elemental release and the interconnected microstructural network of phases to better understand performance and degradation, which will accelerate waste form acceptance in repository settings. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Controlling Hexavalent Americium: A Centerpiece to a Compact Nuclear Fuel Cycle | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and exploit the fundamental chemistry of Americium to enable an industrially viable means to co-recover the major and minor actinide elements from used nuclear fuel. The results would be a significant step forward in the development of aqueous separations approaches designed to recover the U-Am actinides based on the availability of the hexavalent oxidation state. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Zeolite Membranes for Krypton/Xenon Separation from Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Off-Gas | Georgia Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a high-performance, lower-cost zeolitic membrane process for Kr/Xe separations during spent nuclear fuel processing. Current separation methods are not considered economical and a membrane process would have relatively lower cost, equipment size, and ambient operating temperature. The process would form a sound basis for further development of this transformative separation technology for the nuclear fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Optimizing Polymer-Grafted Amidoxime-based Adsorbents for Uranium Uptake from Seawater | Georgia Institute of Technology | $399,999 | Researchers will work to increase the adsorbent capacity and selectivity toward uranium by optimizing the adsorbent morphology, synthesis variables, and conditioning parameters and by investigating the rate-limiting variables through transport and reaction modeling. A novel adsorption/partition concept that has the potential to substantially increase the adsorbent capacity will be tested, making uranium from seawater extraction more economically viable. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Extraction of Uranium from Seawater: Design and Testing of a Symbiotic System | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a seawater uranium extraction system that will work symbiotically with an offshore windmill by utilizing the structure, mooring and power of the windmill, while increasing the energy harvested by the installation. Uranium will be extracted by an adsorbent polymer belt, which will be cycled through the seawater and an elution plant located at the base of the windmill tower. Increasing the frequency of harvesting could overcome current economic barriers to seawater uranium extraction. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Imaging a Dry Storage Cask with Cosmic Ray Muons | Oregon State University | $799,871 | Researchers will develop an imaging system to monitor the content of a dry storage cask with cosmic ray muons. A very large amount of plutonium under nuclear safeguards is contained in used fuel assemblies stored in dry storage casks. Muon imaging will allow a cost effective and reliable way to evaluate dry storage cask content and integrity before transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Apatite and sodalite based glass-bonded waste forms for immobilization of 129I and mixed halide radioactive wastes | Rutgers University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop advanced and chemically durable waste forms for immobilizing 129I (aqueous based reprocessing of fuel) and mixed-halide wastes (molten-salt processing of fuel) by low temperature synthesis. Halide-containing sodalite and calcium phosphate-based apatite minerals will be synthesized, consolidated and tested for chemical durability. The project will provide needed baseline data for the development of advanced waste forms for immobilization of iodine and mixed-halide wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Sorption Modeling and Verification for Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $350,000 | Researchers will develop modeling tools supported by experiments for off-gas capture from future nuclear-fuel recycling facilities. Target species include tritium, iodine, krypton, and xenon. The models are intended to provide path forward recommendations to develop off-gas treatment adsorption processes. The project will contribute to the evaluation of options for environmentally acceptable recycle systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development of high performance ODS alloys | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will study swelling, radiation hardening and changes in mechanical properties of ODS alloys to develop two sets of advanced ODS alloys. Two sets of first-round candidate alloys that have already undergone extensive development and testing will evaluate irradiation performance. The study will meet the need for high strength, radiation-tolerant cladding and core components that have enhanced resistance to void swelling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Rare Earth Electrochemical Property Measurements and Phase Diagram Development in a Complex Molten Salt Mixture for Molten Salt Recycle | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate rare earth (RE) properties in complex molten salt mixtures. In a molten salt recycle approach, the RE drawdown by electrolysis is a key step in which REs are separated from salt containing other fission products. Investigation of RE electrolysis must consider the electrochemical properties of the REs. We propose to conduct studies of detailed experiments and corresponding models to provide the physical properties and phase diagrams required to predict the performance of RE drawdown for processing complex molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Computational and Experimental Studies of Microstructure-Scale Porosity in Metallic Fuels for Improved Gas Swelling Behavior | University of Arkansas | $796,823 | Researchers will study the microstructure of metallic uranium alloy fuels, and their resistance to densification, to minimize in-pile irradiation swelling through bimodal pore size distribution. The project will develop a predictive approach to design metallic fuel microstructures for optimal swelling resistance and fission gas retention. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Improved Hybrid Modeling of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of California, Berkeley | $645,393 | Researchers will develop a variance reduction method for computational transport that will improve the ability to design and operate monitoring systems for interim used fuel installations through enhanced modeling and simulation. This new tool will demonstrate that modeling calculations can be done more accurately in less time than with current tools and will perform studies characterizing how changes in material, cask configurations, and number of casks could impact monitoring systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Selective ligands for uranyl via combinatorial peptoid libraries: A synthetic, structural, thermodynamic and computational study | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will study how donor ligands bind to the uranyl ion, UO22+, with the longer-term goal of using this information to tackle selective recognition of uranyl in aqueous solution. The study will impact underlying approaches to controlling the behavior of uranium in these systems. The actinide separation technology could be used in several areas including uranium extraction from seawater, nuclear waste remediation and nuclear materials. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Combining Experiments and Simulations of Extraction Kinetics and Thermodynamics in Advanced Separation Processes for Used Nuclear Fuel | University of California, Irvine | $799,938 | Researchers will study how the kinetics and thermodynamics of metal ion extraction in advanced separation processes for used nuclear fuel can be described by molecular dynamic (MD) simulations and how the simulations can be validated by experimental data. The project would have broad impacts on several separations processes including advanced TALSPEAK, ALSEP and GANEX by increasing the confidence and accuracy of computer modeling of metal ion extraction. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Effect of Metallic Li on the Behavior of Metals in Molten Salts | University of Nevada, Reno | $458,250 | Researchers will identify the effect of metallic lithium on materials that are used in molten salt recycling. The study will try to understand how the presence of Li(0) in molten salts affects the degradation of alloys. Studying these changes will help accurately predict container material behavior and longevity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Assessment of Corrosion Resistance of Promising Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding under Reactor Conditions | University of Notre Dame | $800,000 | Researchers will assess the corrosion behavior of accident tolerant fuel candidate iron-based alloys under normal LWR operating conditions consisting of high temperature, relevant water chemistry and irradiation. The assessment will produce data about possible irradiation-accelerated corrosion rates of iron-based alloys, and the mechanisms by which such corrosion rates are accelerated. The project will advance the selection of appropriate replacements for Zircaloy cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Enhanced Accident-Tolerant Fuel Performance and Reliability for Aggressive iPWR/SMR Operation | University of Tennessee | $799,967 | To develop a process that evaluates operational and safety performance of reactor-and-fuel combinations by integrating whole-core 3D neutronics with MOOSE/BISON fuel performance assessments via explicit time and space dependent fuel rod operational power histories. The project will be valuable in analyzing and evaluating accident tolerant fuel concepts and furthering the understanding of reactor physics and fuel performance aspects of key accident tolerant fuel concepts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Nuclear Technology R&D Strategies in an Era of Energy Price Uncertainty | University of Texas, Austin | $799,112 | Researchers will identify nuclear technology options that are competitive over a wide range of plausible future business environments. No single nuclear technology or business practice will be the best choice across all or even most future conditions. The study will focus on hybrid nuclear-fossil technologies, energy storage and conversion, which will result in an identification of nuclear strategies that can succeed under future market conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development and Optimization of Voltammetric Methods for Real Time Analysis of Electrorefiner Salt with High Concentrations of Actinides and Fission Products | University of Utah | $621,612 | Researchers will develop an advanced voltammetry method to pursue the objective of real time monitoring of actinide concentrations in electrorefiner salt. This will include experimental measurement of key parameters such as activity coefficients and exchange current density. It will also involve simulation of voltammetry processes based on first principles. The project will allow for real time measurements that could support the commercialization of pyroprocessing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development of Self-Healing Zirconium-Silicide Coatings for Improved Performance of Zirconium-Alloy Fuel Cladding | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $798,621 | Researchers will study the deposition of self-healing zirconium-silicide coatings on zirconium-alloy fuel cladding material to improve corrosion resistance under normal and accident conditions. Under these conditions, Zr-Si coating evolves into a highly protective functionally-graded multilayered system. The study will lead to improved performance of zirconium-alloy fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Thermal Conductivity in Metallic Fuels | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,837 | Researchers will calculate the thermal conductivity of metallic uranium and neptunium alloys, including the effects of noble gasses, using density functional theory. The experiments will validate the calculated effective thermal conductivity using the MARMOT code and by helping determine DFT simulation parameters. The study works to improve fuel lifetime by understanding its thermal behavior. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| SiC-ODS Alloy Gradient Nanocomposites as Novel Cladding Materials | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,998 | Researchers will combine nuclear nanomaterial design, processing, testing, and characterization efforts to develop revolutionary materials that can withstand neutron irradiation for long period of time using nanostructured SiC and oxide dispersion strengthened steel. The ultimate objective is to offer new cladding materials with increased corrosion resistance, strength, and creep resistance in both steady state and accident conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Experimental Breeder Reactor II Benchmark Evaluation | Idaho State University | $400,000 | _Researchers will develop a benchmark evaluation of the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II). During nearly 30 years of operation numerous experiments were conducted at EBR-II. The most significant of these experiments were conducted in 1986 demonstrating inherent safety features in loss of flow without reactor scram and loss of heat sink without reactor scram. Benchmark evaluation will be valuable for the reactor design efforts in the United States and South Korea. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| Integral full core multi-physics PWR benchmark with measured data | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | _Researchers will introduce BEAVRS, a new multi-cycle full-core Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) depletion benchmark based on two operational cycles of a commercial nuclear power plant. This project aims at addressing the uncertainty quantification of the measured data and on making this benchmark a true non-proprietary international benchmark for the validation of high-fidelity multi-physics computational tools. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| Benchmark Evaluation of PROTEUS Gas-Cooled Reactor Experiments | University of Florida | $400,000 | _Researchers will create International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) benchmarks using data from 1970s experiments of the neutronics of gas-cooled fast reactor (GCFR) designs investigated in the PROTEUS reactor. The GCFR-PROTEUS experiments fill a gap in current integral benchmark data. These experiments can provide validation of computational models and nuclear data for next generation reactors. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| An Investigation To Establish Multiphysical Property Dataset Of Nuclear Materials Based On In-Situ Observations And Measurements | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will create an in-situ measurement based experimental approach to develop experimental validation dataset for NEAMS based code validation. Particular emphasis is on supplying data set for multiphysics simulations in extreme conditions as a function of material microstructure. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| Experimental Validation of UO2 Microstructural Evolutions for NEAMS tool MARMOT | University of Florida | $798,000 | _Researchers will experimentally validate MARMOT for predicting the microstructural evolutions of UO2 oxide fuel under the driving forces of high temperatures and large temperature gradient in reactors. By performing the experiments and simulations simultaneously using precisely defined initial conditions, the experiment data will provide direct benchmarking of the MARMOT code. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| High-resolution time-resolved experiments on mixing and entrainment of buoyant jets in stratified environments | University of Michigan | $799,983 | _Researchers will study high spatial and time-resolution experimental data of the fluid dynamics phenomena of flow jets interacting with a stratified layer. The issue plays an important role in the safety of several reactor designs, including sodium-cooled reactors. The data addresses the NEAMS needs for the validation of high fidelity computational fluid dynamics methodologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| Fundamental study of key issues related to advanced S-CO2 Brayton Cycle: prototypic HX development and Cavitation | Georgia Institute of Technology | $799,000 | _Researchers will study scientific and operational issues pertinent to compact heat exchanger systems and turbo-machinery. The project will work to resolve issues with the fabrication of diffusion bonded compact heat exchangers, alternate heat exchange technology for recuperators, and resolution of issues with cavitation and fluid instabilities. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Advanced Models for Nondestructive Evaluation of Aging Nuclear Power Plant Cables | Iowa State University | $787,291 | _Researchers will develop advanced models that relate environmentally induced microstructural and chemical changes in cable insulation polymers to their macroscopic electrical parameters. These parameters will be measured and modeled over a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum, covering several potential nondestructive evaluation techniques, enabling identification of the most sensitive techniques for future development. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Development of Novel Functionally Graded Transition Joints for Improving the Creep Strength of Dissimilar Metal Welds in Nuclear Applications | Lehigh University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop graded transition joints and improved creep life models for increasing the life of dissimilar metal welds (DMWs) in nuclear reactors. The research represents the first application of functionally graded material concepts for solving the problem of DMW failures through an integrated approach of additive manufacturing, modeling, microstructural characterization, and advanced strain-sensing techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Feasibility Assessment of a Micro Modular Reactor (MMR) | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | _Researchers will develop an innovative compact reactor concept that integrates power production, power conversion and electricity generation in a single unit: the Micro Modular Reactor (MMR). It is designed to be absolutely melt-down proof (MDP) under all circumstances including complete loss of coolant scenarios with no possible release of radioactive material, to have a cycle length of greater than 10 years, and to be highly proliferation resistant. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Scaling Studies for Advanced Gas Reactor Concepts | Oregon State University | $681,834 | _Researchers will expand the utilization of the Oregon State University High Temperature Test Facility (HTTF) to validate a broader range of advanced high temperature reactors and events. The facility will be revised to add a detailed scaling analysis of additional gas reactor concepts including advanced gas-cooled, molten salt, and sodium cooled reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Fluid Stratification Separate Effects Analysis, Testing and Benchmarking | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will study fluid stratification in high temperature gas reactors. Coolant stratification is the result of incomplete mixing of one or more fluids, leading to a density gradient, which may or may not dissipate under diffusive or convective effects. This combined analytical and experimental project seeks to investigate stratification driven by diffusive and convective mechanisms and is expected to yield insight into this phenomenon. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Probabilistic Economic Valuation of Safety Margin Management Analysis | Oregon State University | $795,364 | _Researchers will use RAVEN and develop a companion software package to facilitate economic analysis of safety margins. The project is a proof of concept that will use techniques to examine the cost of improving safety margins vs. the risk of accidents from not improving safety margins. This analysis can be used to evaluate the economic viability of various plant upgrades. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Novel Dissimilar Joints Between Alloy 800H and 2.25%Cr and 1%Mo Steel | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will fabricate and test dissimilar metal joints between a nickel base alloy and a steel with gradual variations of chemical composition, microstructure and properties in a manner that reduces abrupt thermal expansion mismatch and the resulting residual stresses. Data on structure and properties will serve as valuable inputs for the initiation of an ASME code case. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Multi-Phase Model Development to Assess RCIC System Capabilities under Severe Accident Conditions | Texas A&M University | $564,246 | _Researchers will develop physics-based models of the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) System and incorporating them into a multi-phase code for validation. The project will tackle the current major challenges in RCIC System analysis and enable evaluation of two-phase thermodynamic aspects. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Experimental Investigation and CFD Analysis of Steam Ingress Accidents in HTGRs | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will study the steam ingress scenario for HTGRs. The study will investigate thermal-hydraulic behavior and graphite oxidation of stream ingress phenomena to validate predictive CFD models. This work will resolve concerns about possible steam generator tube ruptures in a HTGR He-Steam Rankine cycle. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Coiled Tube Gas Heaters For Nuclear Gas-Brayton Power Conversion | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop heat exchangers for Brayton-cycle power conversion in reactors using sodium, NaK, or salt as intermediate coolants. The proposed coiled tube gas heaters (CTGHs) are expected to have excellent power density, thermal shock/creep, in-service inspection, and reparability characteristics. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Fundamental Studies of Irradiation-Induced Modifications in Microstructural Evolution and Mechanical Properties of Advanced Alloys | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop and test a mechanism for predicting neutron irradiation performance for optimized Grade 92 and Alloy 709 for applications in advanced reactor systems. The work will employ ion irradiations and available information from neutron irradiations of related alloys to develop a basis for predicting the neutron irradiation performance of the optimized alloys. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Integrated Computational and Experimental Study of Radiation Damage Effects in Grade 92 Steel and Alloy 709 | University of Tennessee | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop a mechanistic understanding and predictive models of irradiation-induced microstructural evolution and resulting mechanical properties in optimized ferritic-martensitic Grade 92 steel and austenitic alloy 709 using multiscale simulations coupled with rigorous experimental validation. The project will provide insights into the correlation between ion irradiation and fast neutron damage. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Meta-Level Design Guidance and Operator Performance Measures for Hybrid Control Rooms | Vanderbilt University | $799,869 | _Researchers will apply human factors engineering methods and relevant expertise from non-nuclear high-risk high-consequence domains toward the measurement of operator performance in analog, digital, and hybrid main control rooms. Performance measures will be developed for evaluating the situation awareness and decision-making proficiencies to support the transition to digital or hybrid control room displays. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| NEUP Project 15-8514: Elucidation of the kinetics of Advanced Separation systems | California State University, Long Beach | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a fundamental understanding of the chemical kinetics relevant to separation processes by measuring ligand complexation rate constants for both lanthanides and actinides in the aqueous and organic phases. These experiments will provide essential kinetic and mechanistic information required for developing a simplified, single-step recovery of transuranic elements. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8119: Kr/Xe separation over Metal Organic Framework Membranes | Colorado School of Mines | $375,000 | Researchers will develop metal organic framework (MOF) membranes that will be capable of effectively separating Kr from Xe with high flux and selectivity. This project may result in the development of membranes that will constitute a viable energy saving approach for the effective removal of Kr during the processing of used nuclear fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8347: Multilayer Composite Fuel Cladding for LWR Performance Enhancement and Severe Accident Tolerance | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop, manufacture, and weld a new multimetallic layered composite (MMLC) for enhanced severe accident tolerance and manufacturability in LWRs. Layers of stainless steel (facing the coolant) and Zircaloy (facing the fuel) will be separated by barrier layers of Cr and Nb. Severe accident testing in 1200C steam, LWR autoclave testing, and ion irradiation studies will demonstrate the MMLC's microstructural stability. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8112: Phase Separation and Crystallization of Complex Borosilicate Melts for Glass-Ceramic Waste Forms | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,806 | Researchers will study the mechanisms for microstructural development and properties of multi-phase, glass-ceramic materials that form when waste-loaded borosilicate glasses are cooled from above their liquidus or consolute temperatures through the glass transition temperature. The project will apply these tools to modified compositions to maximize the formation of the desirable crystalline phases. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8265: Electrically-Assisted Tubing Processes for Enhancing Manufacturability of Oxide Dispersion Strengthened Structural Materials for Nuclear Reactor Applications | Northwestern University | $800,000 | Researchers will enhance the formability of nanostructured ferritic alloys (NFAs) such that high-strength thin-walled claddings can be manufactured successfully and economically to be used in future reactors. The project will study the effects of continuous and pulsed electric currents on the deformation behavior of Fe-14Cr based NFA steel. The findings will be used to establish innovative fabrication processes including electrically-assisted extrusion and rolling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8126: Fundamental Electrochemical Properties of Liquid Metals in LiCl-KCl for Separation of Alkali/Alkaline-Earths (Cs, Sr and Ba) | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate the fundamental properties of novel liquid metal electrodes for separation of alkali/alkaline-earth fission products in LiCl-KCl electrolyte. The project will further the development of pyroprocessing by maximizing salt recycle and providing a method for recovery of alkali/alkaline-earth fission products as oxides (as opposed to chlorides) which will allow them to be encapsulated in a more conventional glass wasteform. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8074: Monitoring of Actinide Concentrations in Molten LiCl-KCl Salt using Alpha Spectroscopy | The Ohio State University | $799,969 | Researchers will develop a novel in-salt sensor that uses electrochemistry to pre-concentrate the actinides onto the sensor to measure the actinides concentration in a high temperature and high radiation field represented by a molten salt environment. The ability to monitor actinides to prevent misuse is critical to enhancing the control of nuclear materials. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8717: Understanding the Interactions of Seawater Ions with Amidoxime through X-Ray Crystallography | University of Alabama | $553,971 | _Researchers will investigate the fundamental interactions of the amidoxime (R-C(NH2)=NOH) functional group with metal ions found in seawater using a combined approach of single crystal X-ray diffraction and spectroscopy to understand the origin of the selectivity of amidoxime resins for uranyl ([UO2]2+] ions and establish structural benchmarks for interpretation of spectroscopic studies on actual sorbents to aid in identifying specific sorbent-metal interactions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8439: Developing a macro-scale SiC-cladding behavior model based on localized mechanical and thermal property evaluation on pre- and post-irradiation SiC-SiC composites | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a fundamental understanding of the macroscopic behavior of SiC-SiC composite structures before and after irradiation based on the microscopic property changes of each individual component (SiC matrix, fiber and interface). SiC-SiC composites will be tested in the as-fabricated condition, after being subjected to neutron and ion irradiation, micro-cracking, and oxidation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8536: Quantitative Prediction of Uranium Speciation and Amidoxime Binding in Seawater from Advanced Simulation Techniques | University of California, Riverside | $450,000 | Researchers will quantitatively predict stability of uranium species and thermochemistry (free energy, entropy, and enthalpy) of uranium binding with amidoxime ligands in seawater conditions. To achieve the goal, advanced simulation techniques including all-atom molecular dynamics, free-energy calculations, and the hybrid quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical approach will be employed to explicitly include water molecules and common seawater ions in the simulation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8286: Used Fuel Storage Monitoring Using Helium-4 Scintillation Fast Neutron Detectors and Neutron Spectral Analysis | University of Florida | $799,765 | Researchers will build and demonstrate a prototype detector device capable of unambiguously verifying the declared content of dry casks in a non-intrusive manner for the safeguarding and monitoring of used fuel storage installations. This will be achieved through a neutron spectroscopy and imaging system using high-efficiency Helium-4 (4He) gas scintillation fast neutron detectors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8663: Enhancement of the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland, College Park | $600,000 | Researchers will produce efficient adsorbents of uranium from seawater in seeking to optimize the functional ligands, the polymeric substrates, the grafting conditions and the adsorption/desorption durations based on sound chemical understanding. The result will be adsorbents that can be used through multiple cycles of uranium adsorption without significant degradation of the adsorbents capacity and selectivity for uranium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8111: Purification of Zirconium cladding using a chloride volatility process | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $798,877 | _Researchers will investigate the thermochemistry of used fuel Zr cladding components chlorides as well as their activation products and residual radionuclide metal chlorides to provide fundamental data that will support the development of a chlorination process for the purification of ZrCl4. Understanding the chemistry of these chloride species will provide process development guidance for the purification of Zr cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8323: Purification of Zirconium Tetrachloride from UNF Cladding | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $793,121 | _Researchers will develop and demonstrate a process to purify zirconium tetrachloride obtained from the direct chlorination of used Zircaloy cladding materials from used nuclear fuel rod assemblies. This study will increase understanding of purification protocols that will allow zirconium chloride to be recycled further. Increased recycling capability would significantly reduce the amount of high level waste associated with light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8752: Radiation Effects on High Thermal Conductivity Fuels | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $400,000 | _Researchers will use scoping ion and neutron irradiations to explore the structural stability and thermal conductivity of model high thermal conductivity fuels consisting of CeO2 and either Al2O3 (BeO surrogate) or SiC. Issues associated with thermal conductivity degradation (including micro cracking effects) and general phase stability of fuel systems will be examined. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8243: Radiation-induced swelling and microcracking in SiC cladding for LWRs | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $797,889 | _Researchers will use state of the art experimental characterization techniques and multi-scale methodology (developed within the MOOSE-MARMOT-BISON framework) to provide scientific basis for predictions of swelling and microcracking in SiC cladding as a function of temperature and irradiation histories. Predicting swelling and microcracking will further the potential for accident tolerant SiC cladding to be used in light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8081: Understanding influence of thermal history and glass chemistry on kinetics of phase separation and crystallization in borosilicate glass-ceramic waste forms for aqueous reprocessed high level waste | Washington State University | $799,911 | _Researchers will develop a fundamental and transformative understanding of the crystallization mechanisms in complex glass-ceramic high level waste (HLW) wasteforms,. This understanding will underpin the maturation of glass ceramic manufacture, by linking process variables to molecular scale mechanisms, enabling reliable production of wasteforms to the desired specification. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8210: A Transient Reactor Physics Experiment with High-Fidelity, 3-D Flux Measurements for Validation and Verification | Kansas State University | $799,198 | _Researchers will instrument the University of Wisconsin Nuclear Reactor with micro-pocket fission detectors (MPFDs) to measure 3-D flux distributions. The measurements will be compared to simulation using PROTEUS from the NEAMS toolkit. MPFDs are small, which leads to low gamma-ray sensitivity and small flux perturbations. A 3-D array of MPFDs and standard reactor instrumentation will be used to capture highly-resolved flux and temperature distributions for several steady-state and transient conditions. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8101: Development of Critical Experiments to Provide Validation Data for Multiphysics Coupling Methods | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $799,993 | Researchers will develop a set of benchmark validation experiments for multiphysics coupling by exploiting the inherent flexibility of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Reactor Critical Facility (RCF). This project will use targeted experiments to validate the coupling between neutronics, thermal hydraulics, and structural mechanics routines present in the NEAMS Reactor Product Line toolkit._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8229: Thermal Transport and Fracture Behavior of Sintered Fuel Pellets: Experimental Validation of NEAMS Tool MARMOT | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | _Researchers will perform experimental validation of the NEAMS tool MARMOT for predicting thermal transport and fuel fracture. By performing extensive thermal transport and fracture experiments on well-controlled microstructures of sintered UO2, the impact of microstructure on thermo-mechanical properties of sintered UO2 and mechanistic understanding will be achieved. The high quality experimental data will directly benchmark the MARMOT code by evaluating the thermal transport and fracture models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8208: Development of a Novel Accelerator for Neutron Transport Solution Using the Galerkin Spectral Element Methods | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $626,176 | _Researchers will develop a novel accelerator for neutron transport calculations based on the spectral element methods, continuous Galerkin (CG) and discontinuous Galerkin (DG) approximations. The CG and DG methods will be used to solve the multi-group neutron diffusion equation on the coarse-mesh structure (e.g., pin-size up to assembly-size), which is then coupled with the high-order neutron transport solution to speed up the neutron transport computation. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8338: Methodology Development for Cybersecurity Robustness and Vulnerability Assessment of University Research Reactors: A Case Study Using the PULSTAR Reactor | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop a methodology for assessing the cybersecurity robustness and vulnerability of university research reactors using an actual university reactor as a test case. While the developed methodology will be specifically tested and applied using this reactor, it will be formulated as a general blueprint and used as the starting point for the assessment of university research reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cyber Security R&D | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8121: Automatic Imagery Data Analysis for Proactive Computer-Based Workflow Management during Nuclear Power Plant Outages | Arizona State University | $799,738 | _Researchers will test the hypothesis that real-time imagery-based object tracking and spatial analysis, as well as human behavior modeling will significantly improve efficiency of outage control while lowering the rates of accidents and incidents. The project will examine computer vision methods and human behavior models for developing a proactive workflow management tool and integrate it into Computer-Based Procedures for supporting an Advanced Outage Control Center. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8308: Creep and creep-fatigue crack growth mechanisms in Alloy 709 | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _A joint US/UK team will study the crack growth mechanism and failure analysis of alloy 709 under creep and creep-fatigue conditions. The study will be done through in situ heating and loading during SEM observation to evaluate the crack growth under plane stress condition and traditional methods to study the crack growth under plane strain condition. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8582: Mechanistic and Validated Creep/Fatigue Predictions for Alloy 709 from Accelerated Experiments and Simulations | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will use mechanistic methods for predicting creep and creep-fatigue deformation rates/strains based on accelerated in-situ and ex-situ tests, and mesoscale dislocation dynamics simulations for Alloy 709. This research will support its qualification in the ASME code for use in advanced nuclear reactor applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8495: Advancement of Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Technology through Round Robin Testing and Fundamental Modeling | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will conduct a round robin test plan for S-CO2 corrosion testing across multiple institutions and the organization of a S-CO2 Materials Group to guide future materials testing directions. Furthermore, this proposal outlines identical tests in supercritical water, testing model alloys with various composition and environmental conditions, accompanied by modeling efforts to study rate controlling mechanisms of corrosion. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8489: Modeling and Validation of Irradiation Damage in Ni-based Alloys for Long-Term LWR Applications | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _A joint US/UK team will study thermal and irradiation-induced transformations mechanisms of Alloys 690 and 625 in order to extend Grizzly to include capabilities for modeling Ni-based alloys. The project will develop modeling tools for materials degradation in light water reactors, allowing for component replacement data and continued safe operation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-7983: Development of Steady-State Thermal-Hydraulic Analysis and Bowing Reactivity Evaluation Methods Based on Neutron and Gamma Transport Calculations | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop steady-state thermal-hydraulic analysis and assembly bowing reactivity evaluation methods based on the latest transport calculation capabilities in order to overcome the limitations and improve the accuracy of current design analysis methods. The outcome of the effort will be computer programs to calculate the steady-state heat source distributions in fuel pins and assembly duct walls and to calculate the reactivity worth of assembly displacements. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8627: Experimental Validation Data and Computational Models for Turbulent Mixing of Bypass and Coolant Jet Flows in Gas-Cooled Reactors | Texas A&M University | $799,613 | _Researchers will establish reliable models of the thermal-hydraulics in Gas-Cooled Reactors with experimental and computational efforts. Specifically, this work will focus on providing the relationship between fluctuating velocities and temperatures in the lower plenum and their dependency on the turbulent upstream mixing in the core and collection chambers leading up to the lower plenum. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8251: Enhanced Performance Fast Reactors with Engineered Passive Safety System | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | _Researchers will study the feasibility of improving the passive safety and economics of sodium cooled fast reactors (SFR) by incorporating within their fuel assemblies a novel Autonomous Reactivity Control (ARC) system. It is expected that the ARC systems will enable to design even low leakage SFR cores, such as breed-and-burn cores, to be passively safe and to improve the neutron economy and economic viability of more conventional SFR. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8258: Physics-Based Probabilistic Model of the Effects of Ionizing Radiation on Polymeric Insulators of Electric Cables used in Nuclear Power Plants | University of California, Los Angeles | $798,846 | _Researchers will develop and experimentally validate a probabilistic physics-based degradation models for polymeric insulators of electric cables to be used in integrated performance and safety codes, which will help reduce the uncertainty associated with the long-term aging of cable insulation. The project will deliver a C++ based simulation code that will be readily compatible with the MOOSE/Grizzly framework developed at the Idaho National Laboratory. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8000: The Influences of Neutron Irradiation on Aggregate Induced Degradation of Concrete | University of California, Los Angeles | $800,000 | _Researchers will quantify the impacts of irradiation on concrete degradation. The research will develop new understanding of the evolutions and manifestations of irradiation assisted aggregate concrete degradation caused by neutron exposure. This assessment will help to mitigate the risk of such degradation within the Grizzly framework, by careful integrations of nanoscale analytics and simulation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8458: Multiple Degradation Mechanisms in Reinforced Concrete Structures, Modeling and Risk Analysis | University of Houston | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a multi-physics framework to characterize the deterioration development in concrete due to environmental and mechanical loading, and the coupling effect among transport processes and the damage of concrete. This project will develop new computational tools that will be implemented in Grizzly, an application built on the MOOSE platform, to address a variety of aging mechanisms in nuclear power plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8623: Characterization of Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth in Alloy 709 and Prediction of Service Lives in Nuclear Reactor Components | University of Idaho | $799,927 | _Researchers will study creep-fatigue crack growth behavior in steel Alloy 709 in accelerated test conditions to predict extended service life of structural components. Extensive testing of Alloy 709 creep-fatigue specimens will be performed at elevated temperatures and applied stresses. Microstructure analysis will be performed to describe the crack propagation mechanisms. Computational models will be used to predict service of steel components. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8432: Multi-scale experimental study of creep-fatigue failure initiation in a 709 Stainless Steel alloy using high resolution digital image correlation | University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign | $800,00 | _Researchers will conduct a detailed experimental investigation of creep-fatigue crack initiation in a 709 alloy, and will also obtain a predictive failure initiation model that includes both thermo-mechanical and aging effects. The experiments will use ultra-high resolution digital image correlation to measure accumulation of plastic with cycling. The model will extend existing slip band-based energy minimization criterion to include thermal effects applicable to 709. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8599: Am-241 Nuclear Safety and Environmental Interactions | University of Missouri | $399,187 | _Researchers will investigate the release and transport mechanisms of Am-241 to understand the interactions it may have with the environment. The project will examine Am-241 through a series of accident scenarios using Am-241 aerosols that will allow researchers to understand the pathways for dose assessment. Methodologies and approaches for nuclear risk assessment for new space radioisotope power system applications will be developed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8667: Experimental Validation of a Compact Double-walled Twisted-Tube Heat Exchanger Concept | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | _Researchers will investigate a novel compact double-walled twisted-tube heat exchanger (DT-HXR) design that utilizes an outer twisted tube configuration in order to enhance shell-side heat transfer and make the overall bundle more compact. Utilizing outer twisted tube geometry improves heat transfer and allows for a tube bundle that does not require support plates or anti-vibration bars. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project: 15-8352: Development and Demonstration of an In-Situ Tritium Scavenger | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,988 | _Researchers will use a graphite moderator to capture and remove tritium from the primary coolant systems of salt- and gas-cooled reactors. The team will develop electrochemical techniques to characterize tritium transport in graphite and liquid fluoride salts (including flibe), demonstrate the in-situ effectiveness of tritium absorption by the fuel elements, and develop a design for a graphite bed tritium filter that can integrate with salt-to-air heat exchangers. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 16-10730: Visualization Tool for Comparing Low-Carbon Energy Options | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a web based visualization tool for comparing current and future nuclear fuel cycle options to other low-carbon and conventional energy technologies in the United States.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10679: Overcoming Kinetic Barriers to Actinide Recovery in ALSEP | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | The ALSEP process for group separations of trivalent actinide/lanthanide ions suffers from slow stripping kinetics. Researchers will perform detailed kinetic studies at different temperatures, supported by spectroscopic and computational studies to establish where the kinetic bottlenecks occur in the ALSEP process. They will then systematically alter the chemistry of the extractants and aqueous ligands to understand how to overcome the kinetic hindrances.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10058: An Integrated Multiscale Experimental-Numerical Analysis on Reconsolidation of Salt-Clay Mixture for Disposal of Heat-Generating Waste | Columbia University in the City of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will improve understanding of the thermal-mechanical-hydrologic-chemical (TMHC) coupling effect on reconsolidated granular (or crushed) salt-clay mixture used for seal systems of shafts and drifts in salt repositories. The project will integrate laboratory experiments and multiscale pore-to-continuum coupling simulations to explore the feasibility of using clay additive and moisture content to enhance performance of crushed salt as a seal material.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10088: Americium Separation By Electrochemical Oxidation | Florida International University | $800,000 | Researchers will separate Am from high-level waste by exploiting the high oxidation states of Am through design, and testing of new materials. This will be accomplished by designing and testing new electrodes, derivatized with surface-stabilized ligands and redox mediators to facilitate oxidation of trivalent Am, and by designing porous sorbent materials functionalized with molecules which selectively coordinate Am(VI) to enable its subsequent separation.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10668: Microstructure Experiments-Enabled MARMOT Simulations of SiC/SiC-Based Accident Tolerant Nuclear Fuel System | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will characterize steam attack, hydrothermal corrosion and radiation swelling of SiC/SiC composites-based accident tolerant fuel (ATF) using a combination of experiments, microstructure evaluation and phase-field simulations using MARMOT. Central to the project is the mapping of the microstructure after steam/hydrothermal/irradiation tests through a unique non-destructive x-ray microscopy technique followed by phase-field simulations of chemical transport in MARMOT.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10221: Alloying Agents to Stabilize Lanthanides Against Fuel Cladding Chemical Interaction: Tellurium and Antimony Studies | Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop alloying agents to stabilize lanthanides against fuel cladding chemical interactions (FCCIs). Based on the available binary phase diagrams for the periodic table, Te and Sb are selected as fuel dopants. The research will focus on Te. The mechanisms of using minor additives to stabilize and immobilize the lanthanide fission products will be investigated. Resulting thermodynamic data obtained by the proposed research will be integrated into MARMOT to enhance its ability to model metallic fuel performance.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10648: Oxidation and Corrosion-Resistant Uranium Silicide Fuels | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | Researchers will develop oxidation/corrosion resistant uranium silicide U3Si2 fuel by chemical doping/fillers to form a continuous borosilicate glass as a protective oxide layer with transformational fuel performance and accident tolerance. The team will use chemical doping/fillers include B or C showing effectiveness in improving high temperature oxidation resistance in transition metal silicides, and boron/silicon-containing compounds that can form a protective borosilicate glass layer.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10229: Mechanistic Understanding of Silver Sorbent Aging Processes in Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $800,000 | This project is focused on understanding the mechanisms of aging processes on silver exchanged mordenite and silver functionalized silica aerogel adsorbents under conditions of long term exposure to off gas streams containing air, I2, H2O, and NOx. The chemical and physical structural changes of the adsorbents under these conditions will be accounted for in equilibrium and kinetic models. Transport models will be developed to predict the performance of engineered off-gas treatment systems.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10394: Integration of Microwave Readout into Nuclear Process Monitoring | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,695 | Researchers will show that gamma-ray spectroscopy based on emerging microcalorimeter sensors can determine elemental and isotopic fractions with accuracy comparable to much slower mass spectrometry and with far better accuracy than germanium sensors. This advance will prevent the diversion of nuclear material by enabling nearly real time process monitoring in large nuclear facilities without loss of measurement accuracy.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10523: A Science Based Approach for Selecting Dopants in FCCI-Resistant Metallic Fuel Systems | University of Idaho | $800,000 | The project aims to use a science-based approach to set guidelines of selecting dopants for developing fuel cladding chemical interaction (FCCI)-resistant metallic fuel systems for fast reactors. Lanthanide fission products migrate to the fuel-cladding gap leading to cladding breaches. The team will perform both theoretical modeling and experiments to arrive at the guidelines that are based on sound science. If successful, this can lead to breakthroughs in minimizing the FCCI effect.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10813: Advanced Electrochemical Separations of Actinide/Fission Products via the Control of Nucleation and Growth of Electrodeposits | University of Idaho | $350,000 | Researchers will use unique capabilities to modulate the electrodeposition of actinides (depleted Uranium) and fission products (Ln) during nucleation and growth stages. The team aims to preclude formation of electrodeposits with dendritic morphology. Morphology of electrodeposits will be controlled by electrolyte composition.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10707: In Situ Spectroscopic Determination of Actinide Speciation and Concentration | University of Nevada, Reno | $369,221 | The research team will address two major issues in the pyroprocess based fuel cycle: low process efficiency and materials accounting for non-proliferation. There are currently no analytical techniques to ascertain the speciation and concentration of the actinides in the electrolyte. This project aims to develop an in-situ analytical method consisting of Raman spectroscopic analysis during electrochemical polarization.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10204: Phase Equilibria and Thermochemistry of Advanced Fuels: Modeling Burnup Behavior | University of South Carolina | $799,946 | Researchers will develop phase equilibria and thermochemical information to model and simulate advanced fuel behavior, including critical phenomena such as the contribution to fuel swelling of dissolved non-noble fission products and secondary phase formation, composite fuel stability, and fuel-clad chemical interactions.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10512: Demand-Driven Cycamore Archetypes | University of South Carolina | $799,956 | Modeling of the nuclear fuel cycle (NFC) is often posed as a set of demands coupled with available technologies. Demands may be singular or multivariate. Additionally, available technologies may have constraints on when they are deployable. This proposal aims to bring demand and deployment decisions into the NFC simulator itself, thereby simulating a more realistic process by which utilities, governments, and other stakeholders actually make facility deployment decisions.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10856: Integrating Data Sources for Improved Safeguards and Accountancy of Electrochemical Fuel Reprocessing Streams | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The SSPM Echem tracks elemental and bulk material flows through batch operations in electrochemical facilities. This project will augment the existing SSPM Echem model with models of DA, NDA, and process monitoring measurements, including appropriate accuracy, noise, and uncertainty characteristics. Diverse measurement and assay results will be fused to improve material accountancy and anomaly detection across the electrochemical process.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10190: Immobilization of High-Level Waste Salt in Dechlorinated Zeolite Waste Forms | University of Utah | $799,315 | The primary objective of the project is the development of a new glass-bonded waste form for the suitable disposal of electrorefiner waste salt. To achieve this goal, the proposed tasks will focus on the 1) dechlorination of the electrorefiner salt and 2) subsequent encapsulation into a sintered waste form. Achieving these goals will result in a compact waste form with higher fission product loading, which is instrumental in economically closing the nuclear fuel cycle.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10240: Molten Salt Reactor Experiment Benchmark Evaluation | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | _The objective of this project is to employ the data archive on the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) and develop a set of high-quality Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) reactor physics benchmarks for inclusion in the IRPhE Handbook that currently does not contain any benchmark set related to MSR technology._ | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10458: Multi-Group Transport Cross Section and Diffusion Coefficient Generation for Deterministic Reactor Models Using Monte Carlo Calculations | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and implement rigorous methods for generating multi-group transport cross section and diffusion coefficients for deterministic reactor models using Monte Carlo calculations. The project will eliminate the numerous approximations that currently contribute to significant mis-prediction of core power distributions when using deterministic core models.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10241: Development of Transient Capabilities for the NEAMS Neutronics Code PROTEUS | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop efficient transient transport methods for the PROTEUS-SN, PROTEUS-MOC and the first-order SN solvers of the NEAMS neutronics code PROTEUS. The team will also perform transient benchmark analyses._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10603: Experimental and Computational Analysis of NEAMS Pebble Bed Reactors | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct a coordinated experimental and computational effort to quantitatively map the full-field 3-D velocity and temperature fields in the interstitial spaces within pebble bed reactor systems. Key outcomes will include advanced correlations to predict flow and thermal transport within the pebble bed over a much wider range operating conditions and reactor types than is currently possible.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10421: Simulation of Fuel Rod Fragmentation, Relocation and Ballooning through Peridynamics in MOOSE Framework | University of Arizona | $675,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology that includes the appropriate governing physical fields within the realm of peridynamics to investigate fuel cracking, fragmentation, relocation, ballooning, pellet-cladding interaction, and cladding rapture and dispersion within the MOOSE framework.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10313: Development of a Comprehensive Two-phase Flow Database for the Validation of NEK-2P | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,817 | _Researchers will develop a comprehensive, high-resolution two-phase flow database by performing experiments in two air-water two-phase flow test facilities and a new heated rod-bundle test facility that will be built under this project. These data will be used to validate the two-phase flow models implemented in the NEK-2P code._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10744: Support for Reactor Operators in Case of Cyber-Security Threats | Ohio State University | $800,000 | This project addresses the need for research informing plant engineers and control room operators faced with cyber-security threats on appropriate responses. The approach taken uses distinguishing features of safety related events versus cyber-security threats; attack modeling, prediction, game theory and PRA knowledge to update operators procedures; and simulation for validation.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cyber Security R&D | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10578: Thermal Hydraulic & Structural Testing and Modeling of Compact Diffusion-Bonded Heat Exchangers for Supercritical CO2 Brayton Cycles | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will utilize both experimental and computational methods to test and model transient behavior of a mock up PCHE, which is a scaled down representation of the sCO2, cycle high temperature recuperator (HTR). In addition, the team will develop a methodology for quantification of the PCHEs production cost. The proposed project will provide valuable experiment data required to develop the Section III, Division 5 and Section VIII evaluation approach for compact heat exchangers.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10579: A Computational-Experimental Study to Simulate Mixing and Thermal Stratification in SFRs | Kansas State University | $799,320 | Researchers will use Thermographic Imaging and Ultrasonic Doppler Velocimetry (UDV) techniques to generate high fidelity thermal stratification and flow field data under various geometric and physical conditions for scaled models of outlet plena in sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs). Data from these experimental studies will be compared with those obtained using 1D codes such as SAS4A/SASSYS-1.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10714: ASME Code Application of the Compact Heat Exchanger for High Temperature Nuclear Service | North Carolina State University | $799,998 | Researchers will develop structural design methodologies for Type 316H stainless steel and Alloy 617 compact heat exchangers (CHX) using elastic-perfectly plastic (EPP) analysis methodology for the assessment of elevated temperature failure modes under sustained and cyclic thermal and pressure loading. The project will develop a technical basis for Section III, Division 5 ASME Code Case for CHX in high temperature nuclear service.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10885: Turbulent MHD Flow Modeling in Annular Linear Induction Pumps with Validation Experiments | North Carolina State University | $564,520 | Researchers seek to advance EMP design efforts for liquid metal reactors by 1.) Improving MHD modeling capability, particularly near the MHD stability criteria, 2.) Advancing simulation accuracy and fidelity in the typical operating range of large electromagnetic pumps for liquid metal cooled reactors, and 3.) Constructing a low barrier EMP test loop for model validation and instruction that can be easily replicated at low cost at other facilities.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10244: Integral System Testing for Prismatic Block Core Design HTGR | Oregon State University | $799,536 | _Researchers will conduct eight new tests be completed at the HTTF investigating a range of gas reactor events including DCC, PCC, and inlet plenum buoyant plume mixing. The data from these tests will be ideal for use in the validation of safety analysis codes used in gas reactor analysis. The data may also provide valuable insight into the validation of CFD codes for gas-reactor applications._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10324: Model Calibration-Based Design Methodologies for Structural Design of Supercritical CO2 Compact Heat Exchangers under Sustained Cyclic Temperature and Pressure Gradients | Oregon State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a design method for rapid structural assessment of diffusion-bonded Hybrid Compact Heat Exchangers, used as secondary heat exchangers in coupling Sodium Fast Reactors (SFRs) with supercritical CO2 (sCO2) Brayton power cycles. The team envisions that the developed method will (1) be usable in creation of an ASME code case for structural assessment of hybrid CHX; and (2) create design tools that ensure CHX code compliance under desired load conditions.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10285: Tribological Damage Mechanisms from Experiments and Validated Simulations of Alloy 800H and Inconel 617 in a Simulated HTGR/VHTR Helium Environment | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a mechanistic understanding of accelerated fretting, wear, and bonding between Alloy 800H and Inconel 617 surfaces. In order to achieve the objectives, a series of tribological experiments will be conducted in helium environments at elevated temperature with controlled concentrations of gaseous specious, attendant microstructure characterization (using electron microscopy, spectroscopy and atom-probe tomography), and validated continuum models.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10245: An Experimental Study of Design and Performance for the Water-Based Reactor Cavity Cooling System | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will extend and enhance the experimental tests using existing water-cooled RCCS facilities. The activity will be conducted in close collaboration with the water-cooled NSTF research team and will produce a unique set of high quality experimental data for support of existing system codes, system codes under development, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10457: Experimentally Validated Computational Modeling of Creep and Creep-Cracking for Nuclear Concrete Structures | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct novel 3D concrete creep tests under controlled environmental conditions to build a 3D constitutive model for concrete typical of existing containment structures. Decades long creep will be extracted via shorter tests (years long). The material model will be used in the Grizzly structural FEM code for simulating the response of real, 3D containment structures to changes in loading. Full-scale, long-term structural tests will enable validation.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10687: Development and Integration of Light Water Reactor (LWR) Materials Corrosion Degradation Codes into Grizzly | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop powerful codes for predicting environmentally-assisted localized corrosion in the primary coolant circuits (PCCs) of Generation II BWRs and PWRs. These codes and resulting models will be embedded into GRIZZLY. This will greatly extend the applicability of GRIZZLY to components in PCCs that are susceptible to pitting corrosion, stress corrosion cracking, and corrosion fatigue and will provide the stress intensity factor solutions for the crack growth rate models._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10083: Earth Abundant High Temperature Materials for Radioisotope Power Conversion System | University of California, Davis | $400,000 | Researchers will develop breakthrough efficiencies in segmented radioisotope thermal generators (RTG) power conversion systems through high temperature materials development. The approach will also reduce reliance on single-purpose supply chains.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10630: Validation of RELAP-7 for Forced Convection and Natural Circulation Reactor Flows | University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign | $799,368 | _Researcher will aid in the development of RELAP-7 through required experimental and computational efforts. The validation of the two-phase modeling capability of RELAP-7 will be accomplished through a series of tasks which include synthesis of existing forced convective data, acquisition of natural circulation data from an existing well-scaled facility, and uncertainty quantification in constitutive modeling._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10402: RELAP-7 Application and Enhancement for FLEX Strategies and ATF Behavior under Extended Loss of AC Power Conditions | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop new thermal hydraulic models that will be implemented into RELAP-7. Simulation studies will be performed for postulated ELAP scenarios in the PB Unit 2 reactor. The overarching goal of the proposed work is to perform a simulation study using RELAP-7, to model BWR ELAP scenarios with various mitigation measures and determine the range of time available for transition to portable FLEX equipment._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10080: Quantifying Properties for a Mechanistic, Predictive Understanding of Aqueous Impact on Ageing of Medium and Low Voltage AC and DC Cabling in Nuclear Power Plants | University of Minnesota, Duluth | $800,000 | _The degradation of medium and low voltage cabling is often associated with aqueous immersion. Electrical and mechanical data will be collected to develop a mechanistic model of the degradation of cabling to dielectric breakdown based on the temperature, oxidation, water conditions, and irradiation dose. The hypothesized model begins with solvent escape paths that expand and advance from the exterior surface toward the current carrying core at a rate dependent on the environment._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10214: Online Monitoring System for Concrete Structures Affected by Alkali-Silica Reaction (ASR) | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an online health monitoring system that integrates active and passive sensor networks and advanced signal processing algorithms to monitor ASR induced degradation in concrete structures. The obtained information will support an ongoing prognostic modeling research for health diagnosis and prognosis of aging concrete structures, in order to support long-term operational and maintenance decision making.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10210: Tribological Behavior of Structural Materials in High Temperature Helium Gas-Cooled Reactor Environments | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will work to understand, quantify, and model the elevated-temperature tribological behavior of alloys 617 and 800H in helium gas in HTGR conditions. Impurities in helium can induce a variety of corrosion mechanisms in structural materials that can profoundly affect tribological behavior. This study will investigate tribological behavior in various impurity concentration regimes and surface treatments to mitigate tribological damage in these environments.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10226: Enhancement of EM Pump Performance Through Modeling and Testing | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,856 | This project is aimed at the improvement of EM pumps for advanced liquid metal cooled reactors specifically the SFR. Initial tests will be conducted in the University of Wisconsin sodium loop on an existing moving magnet pump to help in the development of the models and to look at end effects associated with this pump. Additionally, tests will be conducted at ANL on the CMI ALIP. Ultimately, a small ALIP will be developed to test the principles and models developed to improve commercial scale.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10268: Sodium Cooled Fast Reactor Key Modeling and Analysis for Commercial Deployment | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,076 | This project will look at very low Prandtl number heat transfer from both an experimental and computational approach. Researchers will then establish key models to implement in plant dynamics codes. The team will also evaluate thermal stratification in large volumes making use of novel fiber optic distributed fiber measurements to get CFD quality data. Lastly, the team will evaluate some of the key remaining safety issues associated with the eventual commercialization of the sodium fast reactor.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10647: Experimental and Modeling Investigation of Overcooling Transients that Include Freezing, in Fluoride-Salt Cooled High-Temperature Reactors (FHRs) | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will make recommendations for design features of salt-reactor components that would take advantage of the phenomena characteristic to fluoride salts in order to be resilient to overcooling, and to recover gracefully from over-cooling transients. In support of this task a MOOSE-based computational tool will be developed, capable of modeling liquid-solid phase change, backed by experimental studies with the prototypical (flibe) coolant, and with simulant fluids.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10509: CFD and System Code Benchmark Data for Plenum-to-Plenum Flow Under Natural, Mixed and Forced Circulation Conditions | Utah State University | $800,000 | Researchers will generate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) validation data for forced, mixed, and natural convection through a parallel-path geometry relevant to gas reactor bypass flow. In addition, the team will independently build and validate CFD models based on the experimental results. The team has the experience and existing infrastructure for sharing complete validation datasets.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 17-12628: Effects of Mineral Impurities and Heat on Uranium(VI) Sorption onto Bentonite | California State University, East Bay | $785,714 | Mineral impurities are common in bentonite and clay buffer materials, proposed for many nuclear waste disposal options. Researchers will investigate the effects of calcite impurities on uranium(VI) sorption onto montmorillonite before and after mineral exposure to heat. Based on experimental sorption data and EXAFS analysis we will develop a new surface complexation model to determine under which conditions impurity effects are relevant, and how they can be incorporated in performance assessment models. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12798: Nanostructured Ceramic Membranes for Enhanced Tritium Management | Clemson University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a ceramic membrane technology for tritium separation and recovery to support the nuclear fuel cycle. Low-temperature water adsorption properties of nanoscale structured ceramics, combined with demonstrated hydrogen isotope exchange in their hydrated layers provide a low cost and unique avenue to address tritium management challenges. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12647: Determination of Critical Heat Flux and Leidenfrost Temperature on Candidate Accident Tolerant Fuel Materials | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $799,906 | Researchers will characterize the thermal-hydraulics behavior of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) materials by measuring critical heat flux (CHF) under normal and off-normal light water reactor conditions, and Leidenfrost temperature in post-loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) conditions. This work will yield material-specific models and/or correlations that can be readily implemented in state-of-the-art simulation tools. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13011: Gamma-ray Computed and Emission Tomography for Pool-Side Fuel Characterization | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,317 | Researchers will design, build, test and install a submersible tomography platform for performing pool-side physical, structural, and chemical characterization of irradiated fuel elements for test reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12496: Group Actinide Separation by Crystallization: A Single-Technology Approach to Used Nuclear Fuel Recycle | Texas A&M University | $399,857 | Researchers will explore bulk removal of U, Np, Pu and Am, from used nuclear fuel by studying the mechanisms of removal. A co-crystallization of the hexavalent actinides with U(VI) has already been demonstrated and researchers plan to develop a process based around this approach. Removal of these elements would be advantageous for future nuclear fuel recycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12824: Methods for Process Monitoring to Accurately Detect and Quantify Material Holdup in Advanced Recycle Facilities | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop better modeling methods, detectors, and facility design approaches to enable detection of inadvertent and deliberate hold up of fissile material in reprocessing and other nuclear material bulk handling facilities. The team will integrate results from this research project into a design methodology for future facilities to ensure accurate and reliable process monitoring for sustainable operation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12782: Effects of alpha and gamma radiation on complex and metal loaded solvents for advanced solvent extraction processes | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | This project will investigate the alpha and gamma radiolysis-induced chemical degradation of ligands used for the removal of minor actinides from used nuclear fuel in advanced extraction systems such as ALSEP. Researchers will emphasize organic phase degradation, particularly complex solvents with multiple ligands as well as metal loaded solvents. The project will improve predictive capabilities of extraction processes by elucidating degradation pathways. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12757: Elucidation of Electrochemical Behavior of Technetium, Tellurium, and Iodine in Molten Salt Solutions. | University of Idaho | $796,741 | This project will evaluate the electrochemical speciation behavior of iodide, and telluride in LiCl-KCl eutectic, LiCl, and LiCl + Li2O electrolytes at temperatures relevant to reprocessing conditions. By using rhenium as surrogate for technetium, the electrochemical, and chemical speciation properties of rhenium ions will be investigated in chloride molten salts with the addition of molybdenum and ruthenium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12701: Development and Experimental Benchmark of Computational Models to Predict Cladding Temperature and Vapor Removal from UNF Canisters during Drying Operations | University of Nevada, Reno | $400,000 | Researchers will develop physics-based computational tools to predict used nuclear fuel cladding temperatures within, and water vapor removal rates from, canisters during existing and proposed drying processes. The project will explore a range of gas pressures (including rarefication), and steady and unsteady external gas flows rates. The tools will be used to develop drying processes that minimize drying time while maintaining cladding temperatures. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12688: An Experimental and Analytical Investigation into Critical Heat Flux (CHF) Implications for Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF) Concepts | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a holistic best estimate assessment of the potential impact of different ATF cladding materials with regards to heat transfer characteristics, the boiling curve, critical heat flux, fuel mass/volume/specific power density, and neutronics effects due to changes in the lattice design or parasitic neutron absorption during design basis accident conditions in light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12996: Multipurpose, Radiation- and Temperature-Resistant Semiconductor Radiation Detectors for Advanced Process Monitoring and Nuclear Safeguards | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop detection systems capable of neutron, gamma-ray, x-ray, and alpha monitoring in high-temperature and high radiation environments for extended periods of time. The detectors will be used to strengthen nuclear safeguards by enhancing nuclear material control and accounting in nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13125: The Thermodynamics of Crystallization and Phase-Separation in Melt-Derived Nuclear Waste Forms | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This projects will study the thermodynamics of melt and quench phases of nuclear waste glasses and glass ceramics and link this information to the underlying short-range and medium-range structure. Advanced calorimetric techniques and neutron total scattering with pair distribution function analysis will be applied to obtain these data. Computer simulations will complement the experimental effort. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12886: Identifying, Predicting and Preventing Localized Corrosion in Kr-85 Storage Canisters | University of Virginia | $799,000 | Researchers will determine the root cause of corrosion within Kr-85 storage canisters in order to better understand current corrosion rates. The project will focus on expanding available research on Rb corrosion interactions and other contributing factors to better understand the corrosion phenomenon in current steel canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12463: Extreme Performance High Entropy Alloys (HEAs) Cladding for Fast Reactor Applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will develop extreme performance high entropy alloys (HEAs) as for new metal alloy cladding for fast reactor applications. Two very promising, single solution BCC HEAs will be investigated. The project will deliver an extensive irradiation resistance study of a new promising yet unexplored cladding concept. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12549: Critical Heat Flux Studies for Innovative Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding Surfaces | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will study critical heat flux (CHF) behavior focused on innovative accident tolerant fuel (ATF) cladding. The project includes separate effects screening tests to measure CHF for various ATF clad materials and surface characteristics with measurements of surface wettability. Pressurized flow boiling experiments will simulate prototypical reactor conditions for evaluating the best ATF clad materials coupled with CHF modeling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13019: Evaluation of Accident Tolerant Fuels Surface Characteristics in Critical Heat Flux Performance | Virginia Commonwealth University | $800,000 | Researchers will perform separate-effects and system-wide tests of the AREVA and GE accident tolerant fuel concepts currently under consideration. The project will investigate the impact of cladding surface characteristics in critical heat flux (CHF) under normal and anticipated off-normal conditions. The experimental results will be used to develop and validate enhanced models for the prediction of CHF and will be implemented in various subchannel and system analysis codes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13054: Simulated Used Nuclear Fuel Dissolution as a Function of Fuel Chemistry and Near Field Conditions | Washington State University | $800,000 | Researchers will study the effects of simulated used nuclear fuel (UNF) chemistry and microstructure on its dissolution in geologic repository conditions. The results will advance models for UNF evolution in repository conditions, enabling reliable prediction of degradation and long-term performance of used nuclear fuel for up to one million years. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12506: Development of Reactor Physics Benchmark Evaluations for Power Burst Facility Experiments | University of Florida | $398,265 | Researchers will perform reactor physics benchmark evaluations of Power Burst Facility experiments regarding differential reactivity worth of the control and transient rods, shim rod worth, in-pile-tube reactivity worth, shutdown reactivity, fuel assembly reactivity worth, core void coefficients of reactivity, in-pile-tube void coefficient, and coolant temperature coefficient of reactivity. The results will be incorporated in the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP). | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12748: Combined modeling and experiments to predict corrosion and embrittlement in dual-phase stainless steels within the MARMOT framework | Oregon State University | $800,000 | Researchers will enhance MARMOT to predict mechanical and corrosion properties of dual-phase stainless steels as a function of composition, aging time and temperature by using combined experimental data and lower length scale models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12797: In-Situ Ion Irradiation to Add Irradiation Assisted Grain Growth to the MARMOT Tool | Pennsylvania State University | $500,000 | Researchers will add the capability to model irradiation assisted grain growth to the MARMOT tool by using in-situ ion irradiation of UO2 to quantify the effect of irradiation on grain growth. The team will investigate the hypothesis that irradiation assisted grain growth is caused by thermal spikes resulting from atom collisions. The model added to MARMOT will couple the existing grain growth model to a heat conduction simulation using a stochastic heat source describing the thermal spike. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12555: Integration of high-fidelity Monte Carlo and deterministic transport codes into Workbench | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | Researchers will provide end users an ability to run both MCNP6 and PROTEUS codes from a common user input in Workbench by (1) templating user-provided engineering scale specifications to code-specific input requirements, (2) enabling multi-fidelity analysis of a system from a common input using MCNP6 and PROTEUS and (3) allowing the easy use of high-fidelity simulations to inform lower-order models for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems and experiments. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12939: Expansion of BISON Capabilities to Predict the Dynamic Response of Irradiated Fuel Rods | University of New Hampshire | $800,000 | Researchers will expand the capabilities of BISON and MOOSE to simulate the structural dynamic response of fuel rods and fuel assemblies during handling (wet and dry storage) and transportation. Expanding the capabilities of BISON and MOOSE to facilitate the evaluation of the dynamic response of fuel rods and assemblies is important to conduct a more reliable risk assessment of fuel assemblies, as well as storage and transportation casks. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13179: Implementation and Validation of Advanced Turbulence Modeling Methods for Liquid Metal Flow in Nek5000 | University of Oklahoma | $786,648 | Researchers will implement and validate state-of-the-art turbulence modeling techniques in Nek5000 to improve predition of liquid metal flows. Specific methods to be investigated include: variable PrT and algebraic heat flux models (AHFM) for URANS simulation; partially-averaged Navier-Stokes (PANS) and dynamic hybrid RANS-LES (DHRL) for hybrid RANS-LES simulation; and variable PrT subgrid heat flux modeling for LES. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12848: Development of Information Trustworthiness and Integrity Algorithms for Cybersecurity Defenses of Nuclear Power Reactors | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a first-of-a-kind physics-based defense-in-depth strategy to defend against false data injection attacks which attempt to change the information used by the I/C network to set reactor state. The approach employs a new design philosophy to check for information trustworthiness/integrity in order to determine whether the information is genuinely generated during the actual operation of the nuclear unit under either normal or off-normal conditions. | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cybersecurity | |
| NEUP Project 17-12538: Influence of dissolved salts and impurities in seawater on heat transfer degradation and fluid flow through fuel channels debris bed | Kansas State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate the role of raw water on degraded heat transfer and fluid flow in the reactor core and debris bed. X-ray imaging techniques, optical-fiber high speed temperature sensing systems and radioactive tracer salts will be used to simultaneously measure experimental data on void fraction, temperature and salt deposition rate. This data will be used to obtain correlations for heat transfer and fluid flow in case of raw water injection. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12502: High Resolution Temperature and Flow Measurements in Wire-Wrapped Fuel Assemblies | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will produce high-quality, high spatial and temporal resolution temperature and flow datasets for wire-wrapped rod bundle geometries. Different bundle sizes, configurations (including duct's and pin's deformation) and Low-Prandlt fluids will be investigated. A unique set of data will be produced to support advanced CFD tools validation, including Nek5000. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12723: Integrating Static PRA Information with RISMC Simulation Methods | The Ohio State University | $799,985 | Researchers will develop a computationally feasible and user friendly process to augment the traditional probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) results with improved representation of epistemic uncertainties and process/hardware/software/human interactions at plant level applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12664: Methods to Predict Thermal Radiation and to Design Scaled Separate and Integral Effects Testing For Molten Salt Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology for the design of molten salt reactor (MSR) Separate Effect Test and Integral Effect Test experiments. This methodology will identify and quantify sources of scaling distortion including radiative heat transport. The project would improve code performance and assist FHR/MSR vendors who are making licensing applications based on code results. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12523: Experimental and Computational Studies of Stress Corrosion Cracking of Alloys 308/309 and 82/182 Weldments in Corrosive and Radiation Environment | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will use advanced microanalytical analysis techniques to study SCC and IASCC of stainless steel and Ni-Cr alloy weldments. CERT, autoclave immersion, and ion irradiation will be used to determine synergistic effect of LWR environmental factors. Results from the experimental component of the proposed work scope will be used for enhanced predictive capability of the INL Grizzly code via XFEM. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12614: Systematic Enterprise Risk Management by Integrating the RISMC Toolkit and Cost-Benefit Analysis | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $799,998 | Researchers will develop a systematic Enterprise Risk Management framework, which utilizes Decision Tree (DT) logic to consider high-level production-loss scenarios, and their underlying physical and social causes throughout the lifecycle. In the proposed DT, uncertainty nodes will be quantified by plant-specific risk analysis using the Risk-Informed Safety Margin Characterization (RISMC) Toolkit, and cost-benefit analysis will be conducted for end states reflecting consequences of managerial decision-making. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12972: Design of a Commercial-Scale, Fluoride-Salt-Cooled, High-Temperature Reactor With Novel Refueling and Decay Heat Removal Capabilities | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $400,000 | Researchers will combine fluoride-salt-cooled, high temperature reactors (FHR) with advanced gas reactor (AGR) refueling technology to address several significant challenges that remain in the development of FHR technology. The project will adapt AGR refueling technology by using the new fuel-inside-radial-moderator fuel form, which will also introduce new ways of dealing with decay heat. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13115: Experimental Determination of Helium/air Mixing in Helium Cooled Reactor | University of Michigan | $800,000 | Researchers will examine the effects of coolant leakage and air ingress through three different investigations. The overall objective of this work is to characterize near and far field behavior of Helium/Air mixing in containment, and to determine rates and amounts of air leaked back into the reactor after a depressurization event. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12830: Radioisotope Retention in Graphite and Graphitic Materials | University of Missouri, Columbia | $800,000 | Researchers will use a variety of experimental techniques to acquire data for fission product diffusion, transport and adsorption of fission products in various graphites, relating to nuclear reactors at high temperatures. Measurements will be taken using non-irradiated graphite using fission product surrogates. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13020: Bimetallic Composite (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) Development and Compatibility in Flowing FLiBe as a Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) Structural Material | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a new bimetallic alloy (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) structural material for the MSR, and compare its post-exposure mechanical performance in flowing FLiBe with single alloys SS 316, Hastelloy N, and Incoloy 800H, in the context of ASME codification. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12678: Novel NDE Sensors, Waveforms, Models, and Algorithms for Cable Health Monitoring | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop NDE sensors and probabilistic cable insulation diagnosis and prognosis algorithms (particle filtering), and modeling and experiments to monitor cable insulation health. Two different types of sensor will be deployed to detect insulation damage. The team will also develop cable insulation degradation modeling to further understand defects in cable insulation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13080: Multiscale Investigation of SiC/SiC Composite Degradation in Helium Coolant Operating Environment | University of Virginia | $800,000 | Researchers will study the long-term degradation mechanisms of SiC/SiC composites in helium coolant environments by slow crack growth (SCG). This will be achieved through multiscale testing in hot, O2-contaminated He and evaluation of the effect of SCG on hermeticity during in situ testing. Results will be extended to predictive low-level and component-scale SCG models and integrated into the development of ASME standards for use of SiC/SiC in nuclear reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12481: Supercritical CO2 power cycle for space applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will develop an advanced supercritical Brayton power cycle directly coupled to a fission reactor. The project will carry out a comprehensive optimization of the cycle operating conditions, working fluid, and configuration; develop detailed designs of each subcomponent; and demonstrate/develop critical technologies such as turbomachinery seals and bearings, reactor material corrosion and strength demonstrations, and supercritical heat transfer. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13232: Radiative Heat Transport and Optical Characterization of High Temperature Molten Salts | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | The goal of the proposed research is to experimentally investigate radiation heat transport in molten salts, and to add functionality for radiative heat transport in a thermal-hydraulics system code. This includes obtaining highly resolved measurements of the optical absorption and emissivity of liquid salts. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 18-15345: Multiphysics Degradation Processes, and Their Mitigation, in Engineered and Geological Bariers: Experiments and Simulation | Duke University | $800,000.00 | This project will focus on filling the gaps in understanding of mechanisms of a series of degradation processes (thermal, hydric, geo-chemical, and transport processes phenomena) potentially affecting geo-materials used in repositories. The objectives of the work are to better recognize the conditions leading to preferential paths of radionuclide transport and rock weakening, and to build mathematical models and implement them into existing codes to predict material degradation and develop strategies to reduce the adverse consequences. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15043: Integration of Nuclear Material Accounting Data and Process Monitoring Data for Improvement on Detection Probability in Safeguarding Electrochemical Processing Facilities | Oregon State University | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to further studies on fusion of process monitoring (PM) data and nuclear material accounting (NMA) data. PM data, which includes monitoring by various types of equipment (radiation detectors, cameras, voltage, current sensors), can supplement NMA data to help improve safeguards. For aqueous-based reprocessing facilities, it is reported that PM, integrated with traditional NMA, has a high-detection probability for specific diversions. For electrochemical reprocessing, preliminary studies have shown that PM data can support traditional NMA by providing a basis to estimate some of the in-processing nuclear material inventories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15148: Recovery of Rare-Earth Elements (Nd, Gd, Sm) in Oxide Wasteform Using Liquid Metals (Bi, Sn) | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000.00 | This project investigates a new approach for recovering rare-earth (RE) fission products (Nd, Gd, and Sm) from molten chlorine salts using liquid metal (Bi and Sn) electrodes. The research aids molten salt recycling by converting the RE products into chloride-free RE oxides, which could be incorporated into conventional glass/ceramic waste forms. Successful outcomes of the project include advanced separation of fission products from molten salts with better control of chemical selectivity and high-recovery yield. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15103: Microstructure-Based Benchmarking for Nano/Microscale Tension and Ductility Testing of Irradiated Steels | Purdue University | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to standardize methods for nano/micro-scale tensile and ductility testing of irradiated Fe-Cr steels, through microstructure-based benchmarking. The study will investigate key process parameters for TEM in situ tension and ductility testing. Coupling experimental studies with multiscale models, the research will identify the approaches that provide consistent deformation mechanisms between the nano/micro-scale and macro-scale tests, from which standard practices will be obtained. The primary project outcome will be a set of recommended guidelines for nano/microscale mechanical testing, which will lead to unprecedented reductions in the time and cost for qualifying materials for in-reactor service and to ensure consistency of methods and validity of results. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15559: Cold Spray Repair & Mitigation of Stress Corrosion Cracks in Spent Nuclear Fuel Dry Storage Canisters | Purdue University | $799,982.00 | This goal of this project is to demonstrate cold spray repair and mitigation of chloride-induced stress corrosion cracks (SCC) and pits in stainless steel dry storage canisters. The research will optimize the repair process and gain a scientifically informed understanding of SCC mechanisms. The outcome is to further develop cold spray as an attractive solution for the repair of existing SCC and mitigation of potential SCC necessary to ensure long-term integrity, security, and regulatory compliance of spent nuclear fuel storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15596: Capture of Organic Iodides from Vessel Off-Gas Streams | Syracuse University | $799,548.00 | This project will study the capture of radioactive organoiodides from off-gas streams produced during nuclear fuel reprocessing by conducting adsorption experiments using a selected silver adsorbents. Multifaceted simulation adsorption models will be developed to assist in the design of necessary capture systems for off-gas streams. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15585: Impact of Coupled Gas Migration and Thermo-hydro-mechanical Processes on the Performance of Repositories for High Level Nuclear Waste | Texas A&M University | $608,375.00 | The main goal of this project is to better understand the possible effect of gas migration (particularly through discontinuities) on the performance and long-term behavior of engineered barrier systems (EBS) envisaged for the isolation of high-level radioactive waste (HLW). Specific outcomes of this study will be an improved understanding of the role of gas migration and discontinuities in the performance of HLW disposals, with the underlying aim to improve design of EBS used for HLW. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15531: Repair and Mitigation of Chloride-Induced Pitting and Chloride-Induced Stress Corrosion Cracking in Used Nuclear Fuel Dry Cask Canister Materials | The Ohio State University | $800,000.00 | This project will evaluate and develop a set of tools to repair and mitigate chloride-induced pitting and stress corrosion cracking in stainless steel nuclear fuel canisters. Advanced processes, including low temperature friction stir welding and cold spray deposition, will be evaluated according to various criteria, such as corrosion performance. In addition, technologies that have not yet been evaluated for UNF applications, including vaporizing foil actuator welding and soldering will be assessed. The two most promising technologies will selected for further development and comprehensive study. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14912: Bridging the Length Scales on Mechanical Property Evaluation | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000.00 | This project combines experimental and modeling methods to gain a comprehensive approach for addressing scaling effects on small-scale mechanical testing. Multiscale experiments, together with modeling on reactor-relevant and model alloys, will provide better understanding of appropriate scaling relationships. The study aims to gain fundamental understanding of plasticity interactions with specific strength-determining features, such as precipitates and grain boundaries. The goal of this work is to provide the basis to add small-scale mechanical testing in the toolbox for nuclear materials research. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14911: Understanding of degradation of SiC/SiC materials in nuclear systems and development of mitigation strategies | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000.00 | This project investigates the best possible coatings to prevent SiCf/SiCm corrosion in LWR environments. The research features a computational and experimental rapid screening approach for numerous coating compositions. The work includes autoclave exposure of rapid screening coupons in prototypical environments in combination with thermodynamic modeling (CALPHAD) and Finite Element Methods (FEM). Small-scale mechanical testing, together with thermal cycling and FEM modeling, will provide guidance on the ideal coating system design. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15701: Time-dependent THMC Properties and Microstructural Evolution of Damage Rocks in Excavation Damage Zone | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,978.00 | The proposed project focuses on the geomechanical aspects of modeling by addressing the time-dependent evolution of rock microstructure and its coupling with the THC processes that are of first-order importance to the stability and the isolation performance of repositories. The research will delineate an integrated experimental, theoretical and numerical strategy in assessing the evolution EDZ over time and its implication on the long-term migration of hazardous species. These results will enhance the confidence of the predicted long-term performance of repositories, which helps to move forward the goal of one-million-year isolation of high-level nuclear wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15381: Multiaxial Failure Envelopes and Uncertainty Quantification of Nuclear-Grade SiCf/SiC Woven Ceramic Matrix Tubular Composites | University of Florida | $800,000.00 | This project proposes to develop a comprehensive experimental and computational approach for determining constitutive relations and multiaxial failure envelopes of nuclear-grade continuous silicon fiber (SiCf) and SiC matrix woven tubular composites. The result of this work can be adopted in industry for design refinement, optimization of performance under the desired operating conditions, and reliable prediction of failure under unforeseen accidental scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15496: Formation of Zeolites Responsible for Waste Glass Rate Acceleration: An Experimental and Computational Study for Understanding Thermodynamic and Kinetic Processes | University of Houston | $800,000.00 | Through experimental and computational studies, this project will expose the factors governing zeolite crystallization and their role in Stage III dissolution of radionuclide-containing glass waste forms generated in advanced nuclear fuel cycles. The overall goal of this project is to understand the formation of zeolite phases in order to develop process control methods to suppress Stage III dissolution. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14998: Novel Processes for Capture of Radioactive Iodine Species from Vessel Off-Gas Streams | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the sorption system performance and effectiveness for capture of radioiodine species present in the off-gas streams from the used nuclear fuel (UNF) recycling operations, focusing particularly on the organic iodine species. The dynamic sorption experimentation and theoretical modeling will offer fundamental insights on the mechanism enabling the design and prediction the control system performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15261: Friction Stir Based Repair Welding of Dry Storage Canisters and Mitigation Strategies: Effect of Engineered Barrier Layer on Environmental Degradation | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The project goal is to apply friction stir based repair and mitigation technique for eliminating failure associated with pitting and stress corrosion cracking in dry storage canisters for spent fuels. The goal of these activities is to obtain a fundamental understanding of the processing-structure-properties correlations. This work will contribute to the development of a crack repair/mitigation strategy based on friction stir technology that can be efficiently implemented for spent fuel dry storage casks, which will enhance safety and reliability of these systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15263: X-ray Studies of Interfacial Molecular Complexes in ALSEP Back-Extraction | University of Illinois at Chicago | $800,000.00 | This project will use synchrotron X-rays to characterize the interfacial molecular complexes (of extractants and radiologically derived impurities, complexants, buffers, and metal ions) formed during the Actinide-Lanthanide Separation Process (ALSEP) back-extraction. This work addresses the critical knowledge gap of slow stripping kinetics in ALSEP, as well as the influence of radiolytic degradation products. The outcome of the project will be a molecular-level understanding of the role of different components in the interfacial mechanism of back-extraction in the ALSEP process, therefore leading to development of more efficient and faster metal stripping relevant to the separation of actinides from lanthanides in the nuclear fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15030: Mechanistic Understanding of Radiolytically Assisted Hydrothermal Corrosion of SiC in LWR Coolant Environments | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to develop a mechanistic understanding of the hydrothermal corrosion behavior of monolithic SiC and SiC/SiC composites in LWR environment under the influence of water radiolysis products and radiation damage. Complementary atomistic simulations will be carried out to determine the rate controlling mechanisms for dissolution under different water chemistries and in the presence of radiation. Activation energies and kinetic rates will be calculated directly from these simulations and compared to experimentally fitted values. The dissolution rate constants determined and validated in this integrated experimental and modeling approach will allow predictions of long-term SiC corrosion behavior. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14999: Probabilistic Failure Criterion of SiC/SiC Composites Under Multi-Axial Loading | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $800,000.00 | This project aims to develop a probabilistic failure criterion of SiC/SiC composites under multi-axial loading and to incorporate the criterion into a reliability analysis of the structural integrity of LWR SiC/SiC fuel cladding. This research will be anchored by a seamless integration of novel experimental and analytical tools, which will lead to a robust methodology for dependable analysis of SiC/SiC composite structures for LWR fuel cladding, as well as other nuclear applications. The resulting model will be experimentally validated and applied to analyze the reliability of LWR SiC/SiC fuel cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15502: Reducing Uncertainty in Radionuclide Transport Prediction Using Multiple Environmental Tracers | University of Montana | $724,906.00 | In this project, direct modeling of multiple environmental tracers will be used to improve predictions of radionuclide transport in a shallow alluvial aquifer discharge. The research will take advantage of recent theoretical developments considering the use of environmental tracers, and advances in high-performance reactive flow and transport models, to obtain the maximum information on the transport system. The goal is to develop a new methodology to characterize natural reactive flow and transport systems, reduce predictive uncertainty in radionuclide transport simulations, determine the maximum information content of the tracer suite, and optimize future groundwater characterization efforts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15578: Computational and Experimental Investigation of Thermal-Mechanical- Chemical Mechanisms of High-burnup Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) Processes at Elevated Temperatures and Degradation Behavior in Geologic Repositories | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $800,000.00 | The overarching goal of this project is to use combined computational and experimental research and development activities to enhance understanding of the mechanisms and thermal-mechanical-chemical (TMC) parameters controlling the instant release fraction (IRF) and matrix dissolution of high-burnup (HB; burnup > 45 GWd/MTU) spent nuclear fuels (SNFs) and the subsequent formation, stability, and phase transformations of HB SNF alteration products under long-term storage and geological disposal conditions (e.g., high-temperature storage, _-radiolysis). The results of this research will be used to enhance the mechanistic detail of process models to reduce uncertainty in, and improve the technical bases of, safety cases and performance assessment analyses. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15439: Radiolytic Dissolution Rate of Silicon Carbide | University of Notre Dame | $400,000.00 | This project seeks to develop a matrix of dissolution rates for high-purity SiC material, using intense electron beam irradiation, and to measure the products of dissolution (silicic acid and CO2 (or CO)) in the water downstream of the irradiation zone. The objective is to determine the rate of SiC dissolution and gather sufficient insight about its mechanism in LWRs, so that the use of SiC/SiC composite materials for accident tolerant fuel cladding can proceed with confidence. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15061: Development of an MC&A Toolbox for Liquid-fueled Molten Salt Reactors with Online Reprocessing | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,207.00 | The purpose of this project is to develop a toolbox of swappable mass flow modules for liquid-fueled molten salt reactor (MSR) systems for the purposes of evaluating material control & accountancy measurement techniques. When combined together, these modules enable modeling of the time-dependent mass flows for a variety of MSR variants. The test platform will consist of a toolbox of independent process modules representing discrete physical units, each with its own self-contained physics responsive to the input mass flow, along with appropriate measurement models that can be coupled to key flow points. These dynamic physical signatures would allow testing of the viability and efficacy of potential accountancy techniques under the full range of reactor operating conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15307: A Novel and Flexible Approach for Converting LWR UNF Fuel Into Forms That Can Be Used to Fuel a Variety of Gen-IV Reactors | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $400,000.00 | This project will investigate the chemical decladding and the digestion of whole MOX-based fuel rods, using thionyl chloride and surrogate materials. Digesting entire LWR fuel assemblies results in product streams that include pure decontaminated ZrCl4; pure UCl4; and a stream containing TRU/FPs, as well as alloying metals (as chloride salts). The objectives of this project are to provide a new, highly efficient protocol for the transformation of used nuclear fuel into useful components and to effectively contain a concentrated stream of highly radioactive materials for appropriate handling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15459: Reduced Diffusion and Enhanced Retention of Multiple Radionuclides from Pore Structure Studies of Barrier Materials for Enhanced Repository Performance | University of Texas at Arlington | $567,831.00 | The project seeks to better understand and quantify the pore structure (geometry and topology) and pore connectivity of porous media and its emergent effect on diffusion and retention of various radionuclides in barrier materials. The anticipated outcome of the project will be to more accurately evaluate the performance of geological repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15649: Benchmarking Microscale Ductility Measurements | University of Utah | $776,669.00 | The objectives of this project are to establish best practices for obtaining tensile microscale ductility measurements and to validate methodologies for comparing them to macroscale ductility measurements. Anticipated outcomes of the project are: 1) measurement of grain and sub-grain localization processes micro and macroscales; 2) establishment of best practices for microtensile experimentation; 3) identification of statistically significant relationships between specimen geometry, microstructure variables and mechanical behavior; 4) modified phenomenological elongation-based ductility models to enable direct upscaling of ductility measurements from microscale to macroscopic. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15003: Advanced Coating and Surface Modification Technologies for SiC-SiC Composite for Hydrothermal Corrosion Protection in LWR | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,990.00 | This project focuses on the development of coatings and surface modification approaches for hydrothermal corrosion protection of SiC-SiC composite in normal LWR operation environments. Innovative surface treatment recipes will be explored using processes including, interfacial stitching to improve adhesion, multi-layered structures to improve ductility, and compositions and structures resulting from thermal treatments. The surface treatment concepts involve corrosion resistant metallic and ceramic materials, and are amenable to industrial scalability for the cladding application. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15332: Low-Force Solid-State Technologies for Mitigation of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dry Storage Canisters | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000.00 | This project will focus on evaluating and developing two technologies used for field mitigation and repair of stress corrosion cracking (SCC): 1) additive friction stir welding; and 2) cold spray deposition. The work involves developing low-force, low-heat input solid state technologies to lessen and repair SCC in stainless steel canisters for used nuclear fuel (UNF). This outcome of the study will inform feasibility of using the two technologies to conduct on-site field repairs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14913: The Role of Temperature on Non-Darcian Flows in Engineered Clay Barriers | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000.00 | This project intends to accomplish three tasks: 1) to develop a predictive model to facilitate experimental data interpretation and provide mechanistic insights into the role of temperature on non-Darcian flows in low-permeability engineered clay barriers; 2) conduct experiments to unravel the role of temperature on the threshold gradient of non-Darcian flow in both saturated and unsaturated bentonite; and 3) use molecular dynamics (MD) simulation to improve fundamental understanding. The experimental data, associated with the MD simulation, will provide valuable information to improve fundamental understanding and scientific knowledge with respect to the temperature dependence of threshold gradient in non-Darcian flows, because very limited experimental data for saturated flow and no experimental data for unsaturated flow are available. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14815: C-SiOC-SiC Coated Particle Fuels for Advanced Nuclear Reactors | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $400,000.00 | This project will study a new concept for nuclear fuel encapsulation using an amorphous SiOC plus carbon system as the inner coating and nanocrystalline SiC plus minor carbon as the outer coating for nuclear fuel kernel particles. The outcomes of this work are: 1) new directions and possible replacement guidance for current nuclear fuel materials in operation; 2) new fuel materials for future nuclear reactor material design and development; 3) nuclear composite microstructure evolution and performance degradation understanding; 4) screening tools to guide future nuclear fuel material activities; and 5) mechanisms of nuclear fuel material evolution and degradation and effective strategies to mitigate/reduce undesirable fuel behaviors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15226: An Evaluated, Transient Experiment based on Simultaneous, 3-D Neutron-Flux and Temperature Measurements | Kansas State University | $399,972.00 | This project will evaluate existing and near-term experimental data for inclusion in the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) handbook. The data to be evaluated include compositions from a recent fuel replacement as part of an LEU conversion, a number of critical, fresh-fuel configurations, fuel temperature measurements at fresh-fuel configurations, and records from nearly a decade of operation. The proposed work would lead to a first-of-a-kind evaluation of transient, spatially-dependent reaction rates. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project CFA-18-15773: Evaluation of the Thermal Scattering Law for Advanced Reactor Neutron Moderators and Reflectors | North Carolina State University | $398,821.00 | The objective of this project is to narrow the nuclear data gap for advanced nuclear reactors that are driven by thermal neutrons. This includes concepts such as gas-cooled high-temperature reactors and molten salt or salt-cooled high temperature reactors. The generated data TSL libraries will be provided in EDNF File 7 format to the National Nuclear Data Center (NDDC) to immediately include in beta releases of the ENDF/B libraries and to consider for the future release of ENDF/B-VIII.1. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15602: Modeling and Experimental Verification of Thermal Energy Storage Systems to Enable Load Following Capability for Nuclear Reactors | University of Idaho | $761,640.00 | This project purposes to integrate new thermal energy storage (TES) models, developed in Modelica, with ongoing nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (NRHES) modeling efforts, in order to evaluate economic potential and advantages of new process designs over baseload electricity production. The computational phase of this project includes developing mathematical and physics-based TES models, which could later be translated to Modelica and integrated with existing NRHES components. The testing and optimization would be conducted using RAVEN. A techno-economic analysis will be performed to evaluate the compatibility of the newly formed integration, as well as to quantify its feasibility and economic benefits. The experimental aspect is focused on the development of scaled TES systems, which serve as verification for the Modelica models and allow system testing upon being integrated with DETAIL. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14963: Development of Nuclear Hybrid Energy Systems: Temperature Amplification through Chemical Heat Pumps for Industrial Applications | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The overall goal of this project is to develop and demonstrate, through modeling and experimental investigations, temperature amplification capabilities of a chemical heat pump (CHP) system that can be coupled to a conventional light water reactor or a near-term small modular reactor. The outcomes would include nuclear hybrid energy system architecture containing a CHP, experimental data on the CHP performance, and dynamic model of the system, validated through experimentation, which could be used for scale-up and design. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15008: Development of Thermal Inelastic Scattering Covariance Data Capabilities with Demonstration of Light Water Evaluation | University of Michigan | $400,000.00 | The goal of this project is to produce a format for covariance data for inelastic thermal neutron scattering data for moderators in the ENDF format. To demonstrate the viability of this new format, an evaluation of the covariance data for thermal scattering in light water in this format will be produced, along with the capabilities to generate the files and test their efficacy. A capability for calculating sensitivity coefficients using multigroup methods to the fundamental physics parameters governing light-water scattering will be developed to facilitate identifying nuclear data needs related to thermal scattering. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15056: Model-Based Diagnostics and Mitigation of Cyber Threats | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | This project intends to develop a toolkit for modeling digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems for nuclear power plants so that the consequences of cyber-attacks on I&C systems may conveniently be modeled using nuclear plant simulation software. The results of the toolkit-based models, the corresponding responses, and the performance of the diagnostic schemes will be tested on a virtual control room driven by a plant simulator. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15055: NICSim: Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Simulation for Evaluating Response to Cyber-attacks | University of New Mexico | $799,945.00 | The objective of the project is to develop a Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Simulation (NICSim) platform with a novel emulytics capability to simulate control systems and components in nuclear power plants. The outcome of this work would be a first-in-class emulytics platform with an associated documentation and library of physical models of components that could be used by analysts and designers to assess the resilience and cybersecurity risks of different control system designs for a wide range of power plants. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15324: Validation of Pressure Relaxation Coefficient in RELAP-7 Seven-Equation Model | George Washington University | $800,000.00 | This project aims to validate the Seven-Equation model in RELAP-7 by: 1) measuring velocity and pressure in each phase and the interface as well as return to equilibrium in fast transients with high-speed non-intrusive laser diagnostics in canonical experiments; 2) complementing experimental data with a multiscale computational approach, including a 3D proprietary direct numerical solver; and 3) validating RELAP-7 with a combination of experimental data and first-principle simulations. This combination would provide unique and complete datasets to validate RELAP-7 with high confidence and offer a new class of experimental and numerical tools. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project CFA-18-15104: Demonstration of Utilization of High-fidelity NEAMS Tools to Inform the Improved Use of Conventional Tools within the NEAMS Workbench on the NEA/OECD C5G7-TD Benchmark | North Carolina State University | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to demonstrate the utilization of high-fidelity Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) tools (PROTEUS, Nek5000, and BISON) to inform the improved use of conventional tools (DIF-3D, CTF, and CTFFuel) within the NEAMS Workbench on the NEA/OECD C5G7-TD benchmark. This would result in more accurate predictions of safety parameters and margins, which is important for both safety and performance improvements of the nuclear power plants being currently operated and built. The developed Workbench-based framework will also assist end users to apply high-fidelity simulations to inform lower-order models for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14741: Demonstration of a Methodology for Direct Validation of MARMOT Irradiation-Induced Microstructural Evolution and Physical Property Models Using U-10Zr | Texas A&M University | $500,000.00 | The objective of this project is to demonstrate, for the first time, a methodology that enables the direct validation of microstructural evolution models for fuel in MARMOT, and the direct correlation of changes in physical properties with specific irradiation-induced microstructural features. Properly implementing this methodology will result in rapid development of MARMOT mesoscale models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15520: Accurate and Efficient Parametric Model-Order Reduction for Turbulent Thermal Transport | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000.00 | The project objective is to develop reduced-order models (ROMs) that will improve accuracy of LMR system-level analysis with low overhead. These new models will systematically mine high-fidelity DNS, LES, or uRANS simulations to construct low-order dynamical systems that can couple with a systems analysis code, such as the SAM code being developed under NEAMS. These simulations provide useful data and will be made available to the scientific community, and the overall effort will contribute to more efficient LMR conceptual design studies and licensing. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15484: A Novel High Fidelity Continuous-energy tTansport Tool for Efficient FHR Transient Calculations | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000.00 | The objective of the project is to develop a high-fidelity continuous energy (CE) transport tool for efficient transient calculations in fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactors with prismatic core/fuel assembly design. This will be accomplished by extending the high-fidelity 3-D continuous energy coarse mesh radiation transport (COMET) code with formidable computational speed to solve transient problems in FHRs with accurate thermal hydraulic feedback. The new capability would enable plant system codes to perform analyses necessary to address complex technical design, regulatory, reactor safety, and economic hurdles prior to construction. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15093: Determination of Molecular Structure and Dynamics of Molten Salts by Advanced Neutron and X-ray Scattering Measurements and Computer Modeling | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000.00 | This project will seek detailed knowledge about molecular structure and dynamics of molten salts to inform the design of new molten-salt reactors. A combination of advanced neutron and x-ray scattering and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations will be used to model the ionic-cluster structure of the fluid and solubility of impurities. Machine learning will be applied to regress from simulations and experiments in order to develop the model and predict chemical potentials as a function of composition and temperature. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15171: Oxidation Behavior of Silicon Carbide and Graphitic Materials | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000.00 | The objectives of this project are to determine the oxidation behavior of silicon carbide and graphitic materials in oxygen and/or moisture, to accurately measure the kinetic parameters of oxidation, to ascertain the oxidation mechanisms in relation to the microstructures, to determine the effect of irradiation on oxidation behavior, and to provide data and input to the safety analysis of high-temperature gas reactors under air and moisture ingress accident conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15276: Coping Time and Cost Analysis of Accident Tolerant Plant Design based on Dynamic PRA Methodology | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000.00 | This project will evaluate the failure modes of accident tolerant fuel ATF candidates to understand the different failure characteristics. The research aims to obtain a response surface of coping time by investigating the various uncertainties of accident mitigation in PWR and BWR reactors. These outputs will aid the decision making process on the implementation of ATF and FLEX to existing LWR plants from the perspective of risk reduction and economic feasibility. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15270: Innovative Use of Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) with the RCIC System to Enhance Passive Safety of Commercial LWRs | Texas A&M University | $748,000.00 | The overarching objectives of this project are to: 1) demonstrate new operational strategies with the combined use of Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) and the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) System to increase the passive safety capabilities of current Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs) in delaying or preventing core damage; and 2) pursue the delay of containment venting until after a 72-hour coping period through new BWR Suppression Pool mixing procedures. The research will use both simulation and experimental data to validate the objectives. The work has the potential to increase the ability of existing nuclear power plants to passively respond to beyond design basis events using existing equipment and without changes to the plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15346: Big Data For Operation and Maintenance Cost Reduction | The Ohio State University | $800,000.00 | This project will develop a first-of-a-kind framework for integrating Big Data capability into the daily activities of our current fleet of nuclear power plants. This research will mainly focus on incorporating the wide range of data heterogeneities in nuclear power plants into an integrated Big Data Analytics capability. The primary end product of this work will be a Big Data framework that is capable of dealing with the large volume and heterogeneity of the data found in nuclear power plants to extract timely and valuable information on equipment performance and to enable optimization of plant operation and maintenance based on the extracted information. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15065: in situ Measurement and Validation of Uranium Molten Salt Properties at Operationally Relevant Temperatures | University of Connecticut | $799,979.00 | This project proposes to use advanced spectroscopic and scattering methods to provide information at the atomic and molecular scale. The research will use synchrotron-based x-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy, at operationally relevant temperatures, to measure the local and intermediate structure as well as speciation of chloride fuel salts (NaCl, ZrCl, UCl3) for fast-spectrum applications and fluoride fuel salts ( 7 LiF, UF4) primarily for thermal spectrum applications This approach is expected to generate theories and concepts that would allow models to predict behavior, and develop the means for in situ monitoring. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15058: High-resolution Experiments for Extended LOFC and Steam Ingress Accidents in HTGRs | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to better understand key phenomena in high-temperature gas-cooled reactors relevant to steam ingress and loss of forced circulation (LOFC) accidents. Specifically, the research will: 1) experimentally investigate, using an existing integral-effect test facility with some improvements, the steam-ingress accident caused by a postulated steam generator tube rupture initiating event; 2) carry out integral-effect tests for the extended LOFC accident to study the establishment of global natural circulation flow in the primary loop; 3) design, based on a scaling analysis, and construct a separate-effect test facility to study the complex helium flows in the core and hot plenum during the extended LOFC accident; and 4) perform detailed, high-resolution, separate-effects experiments using the results obtained as boundary/initial conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15471: Integral Experimental Investigation of Radioisotope Retention in Flowing Lead for the Mechanistic Source Term Evaluation of Lead Cooled Fast Reactor | University of New Mexico | $800,000.00 | The purpose of this project is to experimentally investigate the integral effects of radioisotope interactions with liquid lead to support the following technical goals: 1) evaluating the mechanistic source term of the Lead-cooled Fast Reactor (LFR); 2) developing a universal integral effect test methodology for liquid metal source term evaluations; and 3) establishing a basis for the comparison of radioisotope retention between lead and sodium. This aim of the research is to advance the LFR licensing pathway by establishing the phenomenological foundation of the interaction between fission products and liquid lead. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15153: Understanding Molten Salt Chemistry Relevant to Advanced Molten Salt Reactors through Complementary Synthesis, Spectroscopy, and Modeling | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to understand molten salt chemistry relevant to advanced molten salt reactors through complementary synthesis, spectroscopy, and modeling. Through complementary synthetic, spectroscopic, and computational efforts, the aim is to achieve atomistic and molecular-level understanding of liquid structure, coordination geometry, chemical bonding, and reactivity of novel molten salt melts relevant to advanced molten reactor designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15111: Improving Nuclear Power Plant Efficiency Through Data Analytics | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,727.00 | This project aims to develop and provide data analytics solutions to improve nuclear power plan economic efficiency by utilizing empirical models to integrate disparate data sources while providing uncertainty estimates to quantify risk and support decisions. The outcomes will enhance the technical and economic competitiveness by enabling advanced monitoring of critical assets, improving the operating capability of the existing fleet, and helping achieve enhancements in organizational effectiveness. Additionally, the research would provide an agile and modular data analytic framework that would have high commercialization value and supports the industry-wide drive towards digital innovation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14846: Development of Corrosion Resistant Coatings and Liners for Structural Materials for Liquid Fueled Molten Salts Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to develop corrosion-resistant coatings and liners for structural materials for use in fuel dissolved molten salt environment for future Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). Innovative, but industrially scalable, surface cladding approaches are proposed to lead to promising surface and interfacial compositions. The processes themselves are commercial, and have high technology readiness levels, and consequently would facilitate the accelerated developments of MSRs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15280: Advanced Alloy Innovations for Structural Components of Molten Salt Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $796,792.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to develop and evaluate specific advanced metallic alloys for structural components in fluoride salt-cooled molten salt reactors (MSRs). The research will investigate four categories of metallic alloys: advanced Ni-based; radiation damage tolerant high entropy; refractory Mo-based, and compositionally-graded, designed for high-surface corrosion resistance and good bulk strength. Additionally, the propensity for radiation embrittlement, as well as weldability, of the alloys will be evaluated. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14957: Big Data Analytics Solutions to Improve Nuclear Power Plant Efficiency: Online Monitoring, Visualization, Prognosis, and Maintenance Decision Making | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $797,820.00 | The overarching goal of this project is to significantly advance the ability to assess equipment condition and predict the remaining useful life to support optimal maintenance decision making in nuclear power plants. This research will work toward accomplishing and establishing a modern set of data-driven modeling, online monitoring, visualization, prognosis, and operation decision-making methodologies to address the significant opportunities and challenges arising from the emerging data-rich environment in nuclear plants. The potential impact of the work is significant and transformative and could deliver important advances in productivity with reduced unscheduled downtime and improved equipment performance. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15097: Oxidation Study of High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor TRISO Fuels at Accidental Conditions | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000.00 | This project is to study the oxidation behaviors of TRISO fuels during accidental air and water vapor ingress conditions. The work focuses on the oxidation and burn-off of the graphite fuel matrix and oxidation of the TRISO fuel SiC layer at high-temperature accidental states in the presence of air and/or water vapor. It will include both unirradiated and irradiated graphite fuel matrix and simulated fuel particles with the SiC layer. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 19-16987: Novel miniature creep tester for virgin and neutron irradiated clad alloys with benchmarked multiscale modeling and simulations | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | This project will develop a miniature creep machine to collect rapid thermal creep and load relaxation data for two selected ferritic alloys under "as-received" and irradiated conditions. Fast and accurate measurements of creep deformation are essential for qualifying new alloys for long term use in current and next generation reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17150: Speciation and Behavior of Neptunium and Zirconium in Advanced Separation Process | Oregon State University | $800,000 | This project will further develop the understanding of nuclear fuel reprocessing using Co-Decontamination (CoDCon). Radiolytic degradation products of tributylphosphate, nitric acid, redox buffer, masking agent, and water greatly affect the redox speciation, complexation and partitioning of the recycled metals. Fundamental understanding of chemical speciation and partitioning of Neptunium and Zerconium under such conditions is required. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17395: Modeling and Uncertainty Analysis of MSR Nuclear Material Accounting Methods for Nuclear Safeguards | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | This project will model and analyze the limits of detection for the diversion of nuclear materials from a molten salt reactor (MSR) fuel cycle. MSR depletion under a range of uranium and/or plutonium diversion to quantify the resulting differences in salt composition will be evaluated. Sensors will also be investigated to quantify fuel salt contents and correlate the outputs with the reactor models to predict diversion detection. Results will be coupled with robust uncertainty analysis to determine limits of detection. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16583: Neutron Radiation Effect on Diffusion between Zr (and Zircaloy) and Cr for Accurate Lifetime Prediction of ATF | The Ohio State University | $499,997 | This project will perform systematic diffusion studies on both neutron-irradiated and unirradiated accident tolerant fuel samples to obtain precise diffusion coefficients. This will result in a precise evaluation of the pure neutron irradiation effect on diffusion in these systems and enable accurate life prediction of the accident tolerant fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17381: High Throughput Assessment of Creep Behavior of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Structural Alloys by Nano/microindentation | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $800,000 | This project will develop a high throughput assessment of creep behavior of advanced nuclear reactor structural alloys by nano/microindentation. Experimental datasets will inform polycrystalline deformation models to predict material response over a variety of creep conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16549: Thermal Conductivity Measurement of Irradiated Metallic Fuel Using TREAT | University of Pittsburgh | $500,000 | This project intends to provide accurate thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity data with microstructure characterization of metallic (U-Pu-Zr) fuel as a function of burnup and attain fundamental understanding of the thermal conductivity of the irradiated fuel to inform and validate computational models. This will be accomplished using an innovative thermal wave technique in the Transient Reactor Test Facility at the Idaho National Laboratory, with the Minimal Activation Reusable Capsule Holder. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17002: Remote Laser-based Nondestructive Evaluation for Post-Irradiation Examination of ATF Cladding | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | To enable advanced nondestructive characterization techniques for light water reactor fuels that can be applied to the cladding coating, a remote nondestructive evaluation post irradiation inspection approach will be developed. This technique will measure the cladding coating layer thickness and detect defects within the cladding such as corrosion, micro-cracking and delamination. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17276: Radiation-Induced Swelling in Advanced Nuclear Fuel | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,989 | The microstructural evolution of advanced fuel (uranium carbide and uranium nitride) under fission-fragment type radiation has not been studied and remains unclear. This project will utilize advanced synchrotron X-ray characterization using microgram samples to obtain detailed nanoscale information on radiation-induced volumetric swelling and microstrain. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16848: Metal-Functionalized Membranes for Radioiodine Capture | University of Utah | $799,031 | This proposed research will investigate high-surface area (>300 m2/g) metal-functionalized membranes. These novel chemically durable and mechanically robust membranes are formed using an aqueous fabrication process, which results in an interconnected porosity that is highly controllable, providing hierarchical structures ranging from the nano- to micrometer-scales. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17350: Development and Experimental Validation of Pitting and SCC Models for Welded Stainless Steel Dry Storage Containers Exposed to Atmospheric Environments | University of Virginia | $799,027 | The specific goals of this project are to: (a) validate the maximum pit size model for dry storage canister relevant corrosion conditions as well as quantifying the effects of limited cathodic current on stress corrosion cracking (SCC) kinetics, (b) demonstrate a means to quantitatively rank the risk of SCC based on measurable parameters, (c) perform probabilistic predictions of SCC growth, and (d) validate the model predictions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16879: Proactive Hybrid Nuclear with Load Forecasting | Brigham Young University | $799,933 | This project develops new capabilities of design and dispatch optimization of nuclear hybrid energy systems (NHES) in the "Risk Analysis Virtual Environment (RAVEN)" modelling software. Blended (physics-based and data-driven) machine learning will be applied to forecast demand and production of thermal and electrical loads. Two experimental case studies are proposed to test the software developments with a lab-scale thermal energy storage and with a large district energy system. As a final step, the software developments will be generalized to other NHES. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17461: Development and Evaluation of Neutron Thermalization Integral Benchmarks for Advanced Reactor Applications | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | This project will develop integral benchmarks that aim to examine thermal neutron scattering data for graphite (ideal and nuclear), light water, and molten salt. The benchmark evaluations will be contributed to the International Handbook of Evaluated Reactor Physics Benchmark Experiments (IRPhEP) database. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17219: Using Integral Benchmark Experiments to Improve Differential Nuclear Data Evaluations | University of New Mexico | $400,000 | This project will use the results of integral benchmark experiment to inform differential nuclear data evaluations and improve the predictive capability of modeling and simulation (M&S) tools. This goal will be accomplished by developing capabilities to assess the sensitivity of integral benchmark results to evaluated nuclear data parameters, and by using data assimilation tools to directly adjust the evaluated data parameters and improve the accuracy of M&S tools. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16743: Paths Forward for Nuclear Energy: Using a Nationwide Post-Stratified Hierarchical Model to Facilitate Matching of New Nuclear Technologies to Receptive Host Communities | University of Oklahoma | $390,393 | This project will enable deployment of advanced nuclear technologies by developing a model, and an accompanying web-based tool that can be utilized by technology entrepreneurs, that identifies public support for siting new nuclear technologies at very local spatial scales across the US. The model will employ hierarchically structured, post stratified analysis of the largest US pooled-time series dataset on geocoded public support for nuclear technologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16995: A Cyber-Attack Detection Platform for Cyber Security of Digital Instrumentation and Control Systems | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,995 | The proposed research will develop a robust cyber-attack detection system (CADS) for monitoring digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems. The project will develop a robust research tool for evaluating cyber defense of digital I&C systems and provide a framework for a cyber-attack detection system that provides continuous assurance of the security of digital I&C systems in nuclear power plants (NPPs). | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17327: Multi-Timescale Nuclear-Renewable Hybrid Energy Systems Operations to Improve Electricity System Resilience, Reliability, and Economic Efficiency | University of Texas at Dallas | $800,000 | The overarching objective of this project is to develop a multi-timescale nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (N-R HESs) operations framework to provide different types of grid products. The project will model and analyze the capabilities of N-R HESs to provide power grid services at different timescales ranging from seconds to days, such as day-ahead unit commitment, flexible ramping (5-45 minutes), regulation reserves (1-5 minutes), and frequency response (less than seconds). | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17192: The Design and Investigation of Novel Mechanical Filters for Molten Salt Reactors | Abilene Christian University | $762,246 | Researchers will develop a novel mechanical filtration system. The project will include the collection of filter media performance data and filter regeneration performance data for a novel sintered nickel-based filter prototype. The project will also provide a filter design that facilitates remote filter removal, cooling, replacement, and assay of fissile material hold-up in the filter media. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16980: Determining the Effects of Neutron Irradiation on the Structural Integrity of Additively Manufactured Heat Exchangers for Very Small Modular Reactor Applications | Auburn University | $400,000 | Researchers will determine how to best use laser-powder bed fusion additive manufacturing methods for generating radiation-resistant channel/pore-embedded structures from Inconel (alloy 625 or 718) nickel-based superalloys for special purpose reactor (i.e. very small modular reactor) heat exchangers. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17413: Validated, Multi-Scale Molecular Dynamics Simulations to Predict the Thermophysical Properties of Molten Salts Containing Fuel, Fission, and Corrosion Products | Brigham Young University | $798,291 | Researchers will use first principles molecular dynamics (FPMD) simulations on molten salts containing impurities including fuel, fission products, and corrosion products. These will be used to develop a classical molecular dynamics (CMD) potential. CMD will then be used to predict properties for a wide variety of salt compositions and temperatures, and physical property measurements will be performed to validate those predictions. Property correlations will be developed from this data. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17183: Mixing of helium with air in reactor cavities following a pipe break in HTGRs | City College of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct separate effects tests to obtain experimental validation data on mixing of helium and air in reactor building cavities during and after blowdown in HTGRs. Air and helium concentrations, and gas mixture velocity and temperature fields will be measured in simulated reactor cavities. An existing helium flow loop will be used as the source of high pressure/high temperature helium for injection into the cavities and different break configurations will be experimentally investigated. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16391: GuArDIAN: General Active Sensing for conDItion AssessmeNt | Duke University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a dependable, autonomous or semi-autonomous (i.e. low human involvement), and minimally disruptive framework for monitoring equipment and components in nuclear reactors. The project will develop GUARDIAN; a robust active sensing framework through the integration of model-based inference and mobile actuating/sensing robots. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17251: Measuring Mechanical Properties of Select Layers and Layer Interfaces of TRISO Particles via Micromachining and In-Microscope Tensile Testing | Idaho State University | $799,815 | Researchers will characterize the strength of TRISO-coated particle layers and interfaces using FIB micro-machining and in-TEM tensile testing. Tensile test samples from coating layers of (1) unirradiated surrogate (fuel) TRISO particles, (2) unirradiated fueled TRISO particles and (3) irradiated fueled TRISO particles will be studied. Results of this project will both benefit and leverage the AGR Program. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17185: Demonstrating Reactor Autonomous Control Framework using Graphite Exponential Pile | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will demonstrate a detection-prediction-feedback framework for nuclear system autonomous control. It will adopt multiple detector channels to enable control feedback to spatially dependent perturbations. It will also utilize high-fidelity solutions trained surrogate models for real-time prediction and decision-making. In addition to the method development, the proposal will entail a first-of-a-kind engineering demonstration using the MIT Graphite Exponential Pile (MGEP). | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16754: Simultaneous Corrosion/Irradiation Testing in Lead and Lead-Bismuth Eutectic: The Radiation Decelerated Corrosion Hypothesis | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $762,823 | Researchers will test candidate FeCrSi and F/M alloys in a new, simultaneous corrosion/radiation facility to try to identify an alloy that will satisfy all requirements for Lead Fast Reactor structural materials. Microstructural characterization, mechanical property testing, and corrosion tests, both during irradiation and following ion/He pre-conditioning, will assess how irradiation affects corrosion, potentially slowing it. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17173: Ni-based ODS alloys for Molten Salt Reactors | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | The objective of this work is to (i) propose and develop a new Nickel (Ni) based Oxide Dispersion-Strengthened (ODS) alloy that can be used for structural applications in Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) and other nuclear reactor harsh environments, (ii) to demonstrate that its high temperature mechanical properties are adequate for MSR operating temperatures, (iii) to demonstrate its radiation damage resistance through ion irradiation testing and (iv) to demonstrate its improved corrosion resistance in MSR environment. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17037: Investigation of HTGR Reactor Building Response to a Break in Primary Coolant Boundary | Purdue University | $799,832 | Researchers will perform a series of experiments to simulate HTGR reactor building response due to a break in the primary coolant boundary in a well-scaled test facility to obtain spatial distribution of oxygen concentration, perform analysis of the whole system response with 1-D thermal hydraulics codes and use CFD to make detailed localized predictions. The tests will be carried out with different locations and sizes of the breaks to create various vent and flow paths in the reactor cavity. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17093: Integrating Multi-modal Microscopy Techniques and the MOSAIC Simulation Environment to Assess Changes in the Physical Properties and Chemical Durability of Concrete Following Radiation Exposure | University of California, Los Angeles | $800,000 | Researchers will develop unprecedented multi-modal imaging methodologies that integrate multiple microscopy techniques. The team will develop a generalizable protocol for quantifying the changes in physical properties and chemical durability of concrete and concrete constituents (minerals and aggregates) following radiation exposure. The imaging analyses will be input into the MOSAIC framework to reveal the nature and extent of degradation that is expected to result. The outcomes offer insights that are needed to enable and inform second license renewals. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17167: Atomistically Informed and Experimentally Validated Model for Helium Bubble Growth in Welded Irradiated Metals | University of Florida | $797,861 | Researchers will construct a validated computational model for He bubble growth on grain boundaries in irradiated Fe-Ni-Cr microstructures, including intergranular fracture, as a function of material conditions and welding heat input. This model will be based on the phase-field methodology, leveraging numerical solvers in the MOOSE simulation platform, with critical inputs and validation provided by both atomic-level simulations and experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16909: Learning-based Computational Study of the Thermodynamic, Structural, and Dynamic Properties of Molten Salts at the Atomic and Electronic Scale and Experimental Validations | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will obtain the thermophysical, thermochemical, and transport properties, construct the phase diagrams, and build empirical physical models of molten salts that are relevant to Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) with first-principles accuracy using molecular dynamics simulations driven by machine-learned high-dimensional neural network potentials combined with neutron/X-ray scattering and thermodynamic experimental validations. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16298: I-PRA Decision-Making Algorithm and Computational Platform to Develop Safe and Cost-Effective Strategies for the Deployment of New Technologies | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an integrated probabilistic risk assessment decision-making algorithm to support risk-and-cost-informed decision-making related to the deployment of new technologies. The project will enhance the financial analysis module and the challenging interface of social and technical systems to advance the algorithm. The project will conduct a case study for evaluating the safety impact and cost-effectiveness of FLEX strategies to support operational flexibility. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16802: Evaluation of Semi-Autonomous Passive Control Systems for HTGR Type Special Purpose Reactors | University of Michigan | $400,000 | Researchers will investigate the use of variable flow controllers and a variable reflector as passive or semi-autonomous reactivity control mechanisms for multi-module HTGR type special purpose reactors. This applies to the commercially developed special purpose reactor concepts from HolosGen. The incorporation of these systems will reduce the movable parts count and enable more robust load follow capabilities over broader power ranges and local and global reactivity control. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17467: Understanding the Speciation and Molecular Structure of Molten Salts Using Laboratory and Synchrotron based In Situ Experimental Techniques and Predictive Modeling | University of Nevada, Reno | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology to accurately determine the structure and speciation of the molten salt electrolyte using laboratory-based spectroscopic techniques (Raman and UV-Vis-NIR) and synchrotron-based (scattering and absorption) techniques, in combination with computational modeling. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17231: Prevention of Common Fault-Trigger Combinations for Qualification of Digital Instrumentation and Control Technology | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will provide an effective design evaluation approach based on prevention of concurrent triggering conditions to eliminate common-cause failures (CCF) and enable qualification of digital I&C technology for application in nuclear plant modernization. The research involves classifying commonality among digital devices, categorizing faults and triggering conditions, determining fault-trigger relationships, and defining preventive design measures to resolve the potential for CCF. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17087: Economic Risk-Informed Maintenance Planning and Asset Management | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will provide a holistic framework for cost-minimizing risk-informed maintenance planning, including inspection. They will develop a two-tier framework that coarsely minimizes the total maintenance cost during the remaining normal operating cycle and uses the outputs of the first model to maximize the financial impact of these activities in the short term. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16811: Liquid Metal-cooled Fast Reactor Instrumentation Technology Development | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will explore three different areas that will help to improve commercialization of SFRs and to aid in testing for the VTR. These include: 1. Advancement in understanding of low prandtl number heat transfer 2. Testing of compact heat exchangers for use with sodium 3. Development of in pool submersible flow meters. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16954: Innovative In-Situ Analysis and Quantification of Corrosion and Erosion of 316 Stainless Steel in Molten Chloride Salt Flow Loops | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will use a thin-layer activation technique for the first time in molten salts, on 316H samples placed in natural convection and forced flow loops. The individual and synergistic effects of corrosion, irradiation and thermo-mechanical treatments will be evaluated in-situ to predict component service lifetimes and design limits. The effects of molten chloride flow velocity will also be assessed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17168: Fuel Salt Sampling and Enriching System Technology Development | Vanderbilt University | $799,989 | Researchers will combine insights from the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment with decades of advancements in applicable technologies into an enhanced Sampler Enricher (SE) concept to develop and test a flexible, reliable, and workable design. The prototype will then be tested in an existing salt loop. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16739: Improvements of Nuclear Data Evaluations for Lead Isotopes in Support of Next Generation Lead-Cooled Fast Systems | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | The objective of this project is to improve the accuracy of neutronics simulation of lead-based systems by improving the nuclear data of lead isotopes. The nuclear data for lead will be reevaluated with emphasis of the intermediate and fast energy regions that are required by reactor applications currently sought by several industrial entities. The deliverables of this project are new lead isotopes evaluations that will be candidates for inclusion in a future Evaluated Nuclear Data Library (ENDF) release. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 20-19373: Connecting Advanced High-Temperature X-ray and Raman Spectroscopy Structure/Dynamics Insights to High-Throughput Property Measurements | Boston University | $500,000 | Researchers will acquire molten salt structure and dynamics data at high-temperatures using high-energy x-ray techniques and Raman spectroscopy and relate them to their physical and chemical properties. High-throughput techniques will be developed to rapidly measure multiple high-temperature properties at one time. An understanding of the relationship of salt structure and dynamics to its properties will help to select and optimize melt chemistry in molten salt reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19371: Adsorption and Reduction of Uranium in Engineered Barrier Systems: Effects of Iron and Heat | California State University, East Bay | $800,000 | Reseachers will investigate uranium sorption and abiotic reduction processes in iron-rich montmorillonite systems as a function of solution chemistry and temperature. The team will develop a surface complexation model that can account for both uranium adsorption and reduction, and hence reduce the uncertainties associated with uranium mobility in iron-rich environments with engineering barrier systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19831: Optimizing Melt Processed Phosphate Glass Waste Forms via Composition-Property-Structure Correlations | Clemson University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and optimize highly durable and easily processable phosphate-based glass waste forms to immobilize the dehalogenated salt streams by tailoring the composition of the glasses. To complement the work conducted on glass waste forms at the national laboratories sponsored by the DOE-NE program, modified iron phosphate glass waste forms will be prepared and evaluated by the introduction of various glass modifiers (SnF2 and BaO) to the prototype glass compositions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19695: Quantifying radionuclide sorption to engineered barrier materials under elevated temperature and ionic strength conditions | Clemson University | $799,380 | Researchers will characterize actinide sorption to mineral surfaces and examine possible mechanisms of sorption at high temperature/ionic strength through examination of the effects of hydration and hydrolysis on actinide sorption. These data will provide an understanding of radionuclide behavior with engineered barrier materials. A greater understanding of these processes will reduce the uncertainty in strategies for sequestration of radionuclide bearing wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19789: Controlling Neptunium and Zirconium in Advanced Extraction Processes | Colorado School of Mines | $599,763 | Researchers will address continuing issues with separating neptunium and zironium in current separation techniques. They will use coupled optical and x-ray specroscopy, small angle scattering, equilibrium thermodynamics and chemical analysis to understand fundamental molecular-level behaviors of extracted Np and Zr. These techniques, using world-class irradiation facilities, will elucidate the specific chemistries underlying the problematic behavior in Np and Zr in radiation fields. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19660: Linear and nonlinear guided ultrasonic waves to characterize cladding of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researcherses will perform a combination of linear and nonlinear guided ultrasonic waves, integrated with new material behavior models to develop a non-destructive evaluation (NDE) approach for both quality control/quality assurance and in-service NDE characterization of the cladding integrity and bond strength. Current NDE techniques are effective for uncoated designs, but these coated fuels add new challenges, which will be addressed by this new approach. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19678: Flexible Hard Ceramic Coatings by Ultrasonic Spray Mist-CVD for Dry Storage Canisters of Spent Nuclear Fuel and Waste | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop advanced flexible hard ceramic coatings using ultrasonic spray mist-chemical vapor deposition technique manufacturing process to deposit on dry storage canisters. The team will test resistance to corrosion, heat, wear and hydrogen permeation thgourh microstructural characterization and material property evaluation. The ultimate goal is to enhance the long term reliability of spent nuclear fuel dry storage canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19797: High Throughput Computational Platform for Predictive Modeling of Thermochemical and Thermophysical Properties of Fluoride Molten Salts | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | Researchers will (1) develop an open-source high throughput (H-T) computational platform to understand, predict, and evaluate thermochemical and thermophysical properties of molten salts as demonstrated in the F-(K-Li-Na)-(Cr-Fe)-U system and (2) provide H-T approaches (CALPHAD modeling and AIMD simulations) and open-source codes together with thermodynamic models of molten salts and public-accessible databases verified by targeted experiments for the molten salt research community. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19627: Chemical Interaction and Compatibility of Uranium Nitride with Liquid Pb and Alumina-forming Austenitic Alloys | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | Researcherswill address critical issues with the compatibility and chemcial interations of uranium nitride fuel, alumina-forming austenitic alloys and lead coolants/sublayers. They will obtain critical data of fuel-coolant-cladding interactions and compatibility to evaluate key parameters of operation temperature, fuel impurities and coolant chemistry. This data will provide key operation windows and parameters for deployment of lead-cooled fast reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19924: First-principles free energies by hybrid thermodynamic integration for phase equilibria and fission product solubility in molten salts | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | Researchers will predict phase equilibria and solubility of fission products in molten salts using a novel hybrid framework for thermodynamic integration combining first-principles, molecular dynamics and continuum methods to calculate free energies. They will be benchmarked using Bayesian-targeted calorimetric, in-situ diffraction and spectroscopic experiments. The project will provide microscopic insights and quantitative parameters necessary for reliable thermophysical modeling of molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19939: Gallium Oxide Schottky Diode Detectors for Measurement of Actinide Concentrations from Measured Alpha Activities in Molten Salts | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and test, to high temperatures, a Schottky diode alpha particle detector that is based on the rapidly emerging ultrawide band gap semiconductor material gallium oxide. Ga2O3 Schottky diode detectors offer the potential of detecting alpha particles at high temperatures, with better resolution than SiC Schottky diode detectors, which the team has previously developed for similar purposes. These detectors could be used in pyrochemical processing streams and molten salt reactors with potential application in other reactor concepts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19966: Evaluating hydroxypyridinone-based ligands for actinide and fission products recovery in used fuels | University of California, Berkeley | $600,000 | Researchers will pursue novel chemical separation approaches for advanced reactor used fuels treatments and recycling, by leveraging the unique actinide and lanthanide coordination properties of hydroxypyridinone-based aqueous chelators. These chelators have not been tested in extreme conditions and this work would test potential process performance with a focus on radiation-induced changes and oxidation state distribution. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19545: Femtosecond Laser Ablation Machining & Examination - Center for Active Materials Processing (FLAME-CAMP) | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop, build, and test a femtosecond laser ablation machining & examination tool that can be deployed in a hot cell environment enabling microscopy sample fabrication, isotope and elemental analysis, and thermal analysis. The technology allows for non-contact materials processing, even through glass windows, potentially preventing contamination of surrounding areas and tools. Such a multi-function tool with high throughput material processing will accelerate the research on fuel and cladding tremendously. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19198: Functionalized clay buffer materials for the long-term sequestration of technetium and iodine | University of Florida | $800,000 | Researcherswill develop synthesize, test, and model novel functionalized clay buffer materials for the long-term sequestration of iodine and technetium. The project will also focus on key experimantal parameters and modeling of how the novel clay buffer material will sequester iodine and technetium species. Novel materials will support DOE's efforts to design improved geologic repository barrier systems and optimize repository performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19209: Investigation on multicomponent solubility in LiCl-KCl eutectic chloride salts using combinatorial approach | University of Idaho | $400,000 | Researchers will perform irradiation experiments to understand how gamma radiation changes trivalent metal ion complex coordination structure and extraction characteristics during the ALSEP process. This work will focus on understanding the types of degradation products that are formed during the extraction process and what effects these degradation products have on process performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19713: Multifunctional Laser Processing for Repair and Mitigation of Pitting and Cracks in Welded Stainless Steel Dry Storage Canisters | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a strategic solution that combines laser cleaning and laser peening for removal of surface contamination and mitigation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in welded stainless steels. Laser cleanning will remove surface contamination and reduce pitting caused by corrosion. Laser peening will then be used to mitigate stress corrosion cracking and provide enhanced corrosion resistance. The portability of the laser system means the system will be able to be deployed in the field. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19188: Single- and Polycrystalline Diamond Electrodes for Spectroelectrochemical Characterization of Various Molten Salts | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $600,000 | Researchers will develop optically transparent electrodes for spectroelectrochemical measurements in chloride- and fluoride-based radioactive molten salts. The primary electrode material will be boron-doped diamond. Measurements will elucidate important electrochemical properties of nuclear fuel and fission products such as redox potential, diffusion coefficient, and electron transfer stoichiometry. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19641: Mitigating stress corrosion cracking in austenitic stainless-steel canister welds using peening techniques | University of Nevada, Reno | $799,950 | Researchers seek to understand the mechanisms of pitting/SCC resistance of welds as affected by a) compressive stress b) surface texture modification and c) microstructural change in the substrate surface resulting from laser shock peening, shot peening, ultrasonic impact peening and laser surface texturing. The study will recommend the best peening and surface texturing process conditions for mitigation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in 304L welds. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19704: Multicomponent Thermochemistry of Complex Chloride Salts for Sustain-able Fuel Cycle Technologies | University of Pittsburgh | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive thermodynamic database of multicomponent chloride salts through a collaboration between experts in Gibbs energy modeling and thermochemical experiments. A thermochemical database of the multicomponent chloride system KCl-LiCl-NaCl-UCl3-LnCl3 (Ln: La, Pr, Nd) will be developed using the CALPHAD (Calculation of Phase Diagrams) method with supported ab initio calculations and thermal analysis experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19506: Engineered composite patch with NDE inspection for repair and mitigation of SCC in nuclear spent fuel dry storage canister | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an innovative 'engineered composite patch' that can absorb moisture, neutralize chloride, and prevent stress corrosion cracking from further growth. This 'patch' with have in integrated non-destructive evaluation capability using laser utrasonic characterization methods to montior quality and performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19374: Maintaining and building upon the Halden legacy of In-situ diagnostics | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will develop innovative instrumentation focusing on temperature and strain measurements to fill the void left by the Halden reactor and to enhance the experimental capabilities in the Transient Reactor Test Facility (TREAT) located at Idaho National Laboratory. The team will develop a fiber optic sensor system that offers an inherent resistance to electromagnetic interference unlike currently used sensors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19076: Investigation of Degradation Mechanisms of Cr-coated Zirconium Alloy Cladding in Reactivity Initiated Accidents (RIA) | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $500,000 | Researchers will investigate the thermal, mechanical, and irradiation response of chromium-coated zirconium alloy claddings under RIA conditions, in comparison to uncoated Zr-alloy cladding. The outcome of the project will be used for anticipated licensing applications to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), thereby accelerating use of coated accident tolerant fuel concepts in U.S. commercial power reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19318: Surface Peening and Hybrid Surface Engineering Approaches to Mitigate Initiation and Resurgence of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dry Cask Storage Stainless Steel Canisters | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,838 | Researchers will develop and evaluate a wide range of surface peening treatments, as well as hybrid surface treatments to mitigate initiation and growth of chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) in stainless-steel canisters for used nuclear fuel (UNF) dry cask storage. Canister mock-ups with prototypical fusion welds will be used for this study. Characterization and testing of microstructure, compressive stresses, corrosion and CISCC will be performed. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19614: New Coatings for Nuclear Fuel Waste Canister Storage and Transport | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop novel SiOCN(H) coatings for spent nuclear fuel canisters in order to support sustained nuclear reactor operation and safeguard nuclear waste storage, transport, and disposal, in both terrestrial and marine environments. The novel coating will specifically address pitting corrosion and stress corrosion cracking in spent nuclear fuel canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19382: Separated waste stream immobilization of iodine and offgas caustic scrubber solution | Washington State University | $400,000 | Researchers will produce a set of waste forms from separation of iodine from the caustic offgas scrubber solution. The primary caustic scrub containing iodine, halides, and carbonate will be immobilized in a glass-bonded composite of cancrinite/sodalite. The iodine-loaded silver sorbent will be stripped of iodine, converted to NaI, and immobilized into a separate durable glass-bonded iodosodalite waste form. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19912: Validation of Robustness in TCR Design Strategies | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will perform sensitivity analysis (SA) and uncertainty quantification (UQ) of TCR design parameters and relevant physical phenomena, using open-source time dependent Monte-Carlo code (OpenMC), NQA1 qualified commercial codes (STARCCM+), and ABAQUS for thermal-hydraulics and structural mechanics. The SA/UQ analysis will provide key insights to allow for development of performance metrics of robustness for autonomous operation sensors, by processing signals such as neutron flux, temperature and strains, as wll as inform the needed robustness for AI by enveloping the attainable level of decision making by the software. | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 | |
| NEUP Project 20-19216: Creation of Multiple Effect Evaporator and Combined Cycle Modelica Modules, and Optimization of Potable Water Generation from Saltwater Sources | North Carolina State University | $498,532 | Researchers will develop models of Multiple Effect Evaporators and Combined Cycle Gas Turbine systems to be used within the Modelica framework, with an end goal of creating an energy park that can supply its own energy and water through Small Modular Reactor nuclear systems and/or Combined Cycle Gas Turbine Systems with brackish to brine water sources. These same models will be capable of being implemented into larger models of grid independent and near independent energy parks located about military bases, large manufacturing facilities, and in small communities where freshwater is limited. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19590: Benchmark Evaluation of Transient Multi-Physics Experimental Data for Pellet Cladding Mechanical Interactions | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop an integral benchmark evaluation based on available experimental data from cold ramp tests performed at the Studsvik testing R2 reactor. Transient multiphysics benchmark evaluations are needed to support validation of the NEAMS ToolKit and the VERA suite. This research will focus on pellet cladding interaction and pellet cladding mechanical interaction and their associated events. The benchmark will be prepared for inclusion in the IRPhEP handbook. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19837: Reinforcement Learning Validation Framework for Quality Assurance of AI-guided Additive Manufacturing Digital Platforms | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will address the need to qualify the risk associated with AM fabricated nuclear reactor parts by incorporating a novel rendition of a well-established artificial intelligence learning strategy, the multi-armed bandit reinforcement learning (RL). The RL framework will be developed and demonstrated using TCR data and its associated digital platform. This research will assimilate in-process sensor data and physics-based simulation data to calculate risk measures in the form of failure probabilities for the AM parts. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19363: Integrated Solar & Nuclear Cogeneration of Electricity & Water using the sCO2 Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,427 | Researchers will design and model a renewable, nuclear Integrated Energy System (IES), compatible with the RAVEN/Modelica framework, for co-generation of cost competitive electricity and clean water. The components of the IES to be included are concentrated solar power, the supercritical CO2/sCO2 cyle, multi-effect distillation, and the lead-cooled fast reactor. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19066: Engineering-Informed, Data-Driven Degradation Modeling, Prognostics and Control for Radiation-induced Void Swelling in Reactor Steels | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will advance the capability to model, predict and control void swelling in irradiated structural components through developing engineering-informed, advanced data-driven statistical and machine learning techniques. Excess swelling not only leads to dimensional instability, but also can cause severe embrittlement of internal materials. The proposed efforts will ensure more effective regulation, aging management and license renewal. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19795: A High-Fidelity Novel and Fast Multigroup Cross Section Generation Method for Arbitrary Geometry and Spectrum | Georgia Institute of Technology | $600,000 | Researchers will develop a fast high-fidelity multigroup cross section generation method for arbitrary geometry configurations and energy spectra by developing a response-based high order perturbation method to perform hybrid stochastic-deterministic local transport calculations. The proposed method will be implemented as independent modules that can be easily embedded into any neutron transport or diffusion code and also be used as a standalone cross section generator. The modules will provide data that can interface with the associated NEAMS toolkit and workbench user interfaces to enable advanced neutronics tools that will perform high-fidelity multigroup multiphysics steady-state and transient calculations that capture and represent the complex resonance interactions and core environmental effects which exist in heterogeneous reactors, including advanced reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19968: Experimental Investigations and Numerical Modeling of Near-wall and Core Bypass Flows in Pebble Bed Reactors | Texas A&M University | $600,000 | Researchers will establish a highly coordinated, concurrent experimental and computational effort combining high-resolution turbulence simulations (including Nek5000, Star-CCM+) and experiments to deepen physical understanding and address long standing modeling inaccuracies related to near wall and bypass flow effects in pebble bed reactors. The project's acquired extensive database will be used to derive closure models and correlations needed for porous media code, such as Pronghorn. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19864: Development of innovative overlapping-domain coupling between SAM and NEK5000 | University of Michigan | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a robust, multi-scale coupling scheme between the SAM code and the CFD code, NEK5000, based on a novel overlapping domain approach. The developed coupling will be validated by using experiments specifically designed for the validation of multi-scale coupled codes. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-20074: Characterization of Plenum to Plenum Natural Circulation flows in a High Temperature Gas Reactor (HTGR) | CUNY, City College of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will obtain and provide experimental data on the plenum-to-plenum natural circulation flows in a typical high temperature gas reactor using helium and nitrogen over a wide range of temperatures and pressures to simulate natural circulation under both pressurized and depressurized conduction cooldown scenarios. The results of the project will yield new data and complement other very high temperature related studies. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19042: Flexible Siting Criteria and Staff Minimization for Micro-Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $440,517 | Researchers will develop siting criteria that are tailored to micro-reactors deployable in densely-populated areas by comparing the characteristics of the MIT research reactor with those of leading micro-reactor concepts, and evaluate whether and how the MIT research reactor design basis and associated regulations are applicable to micro-reactors. A model of operations for micro-reactors that would minimize the staffing requirements will also be conceptualized. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-20045: Highly Compact Steam Generators for Improved Economics of Small Modular Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will design and build a compact steam generator (CSG) test section that can be easily modified for different flow paths and geometries, as well as modify an existing loop to accept the test section. The conceptual optimized CSG system design, which could be deployed in small modular reactors, will be informed by CFD simulations to determine critical characteristics of the test section. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19205: Robust bullet-time tagging and tracking system based on computer vision for individual ex-core TRISO-fueled pebble identification | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a novel, validated, robust bullet-time tagging and tracking system, based on computer vision techniques, to tag and track each individual pebble in pebble bed reactors. The effort will utilize Residence Time Distribution and Radioactive Particle Tracking techniques to validate and refine the developed method, using a continuous cold flow pebble bed experimental setup. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19625: Corrosion Sensitivity of Stainless Steels in Pressurized Water Reactor Water Chemistry: Can KOH replace LiOH in PWRs? | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will perform a series of corrosion and stress corrosion tests on unirradiated alloys to determine the possibility of switching from LiOH to KOH to control the pH in nuclear reactors without worsening the corrosion behavior of the structural alloys used in pressurized water reactor core internal components. The impacts of such a change and the consequent water chemistry alterations on the corrosion processes and nucleaer power plant core-internal component service-life will be assessed and better understood. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19735: Experiments for Modeling and Validation of Liquid-Metal Heat Pipe Simulation Tools for Micro-Reactor | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will produce validation data for the heat pipe code, Sockeye, by measuring the internal thermal-hydraulic parameters of a single-heat pipe and the performance of an integrated multi-heat-pipe system in various operation scenarios. The results of this project will generate more liquid metal heat pipe validation data, which is currently lacking and needed to support micro-reactor design and licensing activities. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19367: Investigation of Novel Nickel-Based Alloys for Molten Chloride Fast Reactor Structural Applications | University of Cincinnati | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate and establish the scientific foundations for the development of promising Ni-Mo-W-Cr-Al-X alloys with a superior balance of properties compared to current materials for high temperature structural applications in molten chloride salt fast reactors. The project couples critical experiments with a high-value integrated computational materials engineering approach. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19693: Evaluation of micro-reactor requirements and performance in an existing well-characterized micro-grid | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will evaluate the opportunities and challenges of operating micro-reactors in decentralized power generation applications and the potential for deployment in established micro-grids with diverse power generation sources. By using a well-characterized prototypic environment platform, the Modelica-based Hybrid Energy System, the market potential for deployment of micro-reactors on campuses and other similar existing micro-grids will be quantified. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19195: The effect of LWR primary coolant water chemistry (LiOH vs. KOH) on stainless steel: An integrated experimental and computational study of the corrosion response of stainless steel for different surface microstructures and mechanica | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will study the effect of surface microstructure, mechanical stress factors, and radiation damage on the corrosion response of stainless steel under two different alkaline pressurized water reactor primary water chemistry conditions. The project will involve investigation of mechanical stress factors such as strain rate, residual stress, deformation induced persistent slip bands, dpa damage, and fatigue cracks and modeling to understand the physical phenomena associated with the measured corrosion response and inform the U.S. nuclear industry regarding KOH. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19491: Identifying and prioritizing sources of uncertainty in external hazard probabilistic risk assessments | University of Maryland, College Park | $799,979 | Researchers will develop a method for identifying and prioritizing sources of uncertainty in external hazard probabilistic risk assessment for nuclear power plants, with particular emphasis on uncertainties associated with hazard characterization. External flooding wil be utilized as the demonstration hazard during this project, while a common taxonomy for communicating uncertainties across a broad range of external hazards will be created. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19737: Innovative Enhanced Automation Control Strategies for Multi-unit SMRs | University of Michigan | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an innovative, enhanced automation control framework for small modular reactors (SMRs) that supports control of multiple units operating in a variety of reactor core conditions. Through these enhancements, SMR technology gains improved marketability through potential deployment to a broader range of markets and can also lead to reduced operating and maintenance costs for a SMR site, increasing the overall profitability. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19954: Deployment Pathways of Small Modular Reactors in Electric Power, Industrial, and Other Niche Markets to Achieve Cost Reductions and Widespread Use | University of Michigan | $691,658 | Researchers will explore how to leverage two key value propositions for small modular reactors (SMR) in shifting market conditions, in order to achieve widespread market deployment: (1) participation in small and large power and industrial markets and (2) cost reductions via mass fabrication. The result of this work will be advanced power system modeling, optimized SMR design with thermal storage for power and industry markets, and new SMR deployment pathways. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19752: Development and Demonstration of Scalable Fluoride Salt Pump Seals and Bearings for FHRs | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and demonstrate scalable advanced bearings and seals of fluoride salt pumps for fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactors. The systematic approach to be used will employ both experimental and numerical methods to investigate the static and dynamic performance of fluoride-salt-lubricated bearings and high-temperature seals. The outcomes of this research will directly contribute to the reliability, safety, design, and operation of the fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactor power plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19544: A Holistic Artificial Intelligence Tool to Mitigate Human Factor Uncertainty in Operation and Maintenance | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a holistic artificial intelligence tool to help the detection and mitigation of human factors errors in nuclear power plants. The tool will increase the efficiency of various activities such as testing, inspection, data collection, and interpretation, improve operation and maintenance decision-making, and reduce costs in nuclear power plants by minimizing the impact of human factors errors and providing warnings to mitigate them, when possible. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19524: Non-Intrusive Flow Monitoring for Liquid Metal and Molten Salt Cooled Reactors | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a first-of-its kind flow monitoring system with significantly enhanced capabilities for liquid metal fast reactors and other advanced reactors, such as molten salt reactors. The flow monitoring system will involve a proven and breakthrough fiber optic sensing technology that enables the harmonic-free interrogation of thousands of grating-based distributed interferometers along an optical fiber that is integrated into a sensing pad that can readily be installed at desired locations in the flow loop. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19671: Identifying Needed Fire Input Data to Reduce Modeling Uncertainty | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,393 | Researchers will identify fire parameters that have the largest impact on fire conditions, quantify those parameters contributing to uncertainties in the fire data through Monte Carlo simulation results, and use statistical analysis and machine learning models from the simulation results to assess existing data and recommend appropriate new fire tests to reduce uncertainties that are important to risk. With this information, researchers will develop a framework capable of determining the significant contributors to uncertainty in physical events that are relevant to the risk assessment and, then, determine the need for new experiments that would be of most value to reduce risk. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 21-24394: Computer vision and machine learning for microstructural qualification | Carnegie Mellon University | $497,518 | Quantifying and understanding microstructure is a key driver for performance-based materials qualification. In this proposal, well-curated data sets of microstructural images will be gathered and computer vision and machine learning will be applied to build quantitative deep learning frameworks to accelerate and enable qualification of nuclear materials based on microstructural features. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24156: Experimental thermofluidic validation of TCR fuel elements using distributed temperature and flow sensing | Kansas State University | $798,250 | The overall goal of this project will be to test the performance of 3D printed Transformational Challenge Reactor core geometry parts using existing Helium flow loops and distributed temperature, and velocity sensing systems. Thermal transport capabilities of scaled 3D printed ceramic core will be evaluated experimentally and measurements will be used to qualify computational models. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24636: Risk-informed Consequence-driven Physical Protection System Optimization for Microreactor Sites | Texas A&M University | $400,000 | This proposed project will utilize a risk-informed, consequence-driven analysis to develop an approach for "right-sizing" physical protection systems (PPS) for microreactors. The hypothesis presented for this proposal is that the explicit coupling of consequence modeling to PPS design will provide a similar benefit that can be applied prior to reactor construction. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24131: Total Mass Accounting in Advanced Liquid Fueled Reactors | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | A total mass determination method for nuclear materials accounting (NMA) in liquid-fueled molten salt reactors will be validated with fuel-bearing salt, mixed with a _+ radioisotope of known activity, that will be irradiated to reproduce the practical NMA scenario in a molten salt loop. Irradiated fuel salt will be sampled and measured for its mass and activity. The mass-to-activity ratio will be used to calculate the unknown salt mass in the original container. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24037: Design and intelligent optimization of the thermal storage and energy distribution for the TerraPower Molten Chloride Fast Reactor in an Integrated Energy System (IES) | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to explore the application of advanced reactors within Integrated Energy Systems, use extensive existing data from UIUC for model development and validation, and extend the predictions to larger grids and commercial applications. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24522: Targeted Materials Characterization and Testing of Additively Manufactured Metals and Ceramics to Inform Print/Build Data Analytics | University of Texas at San Antonio | $800,000 | A collaborative program between the University of Texas at San Antonio and Boise State University is proposed to supply materials testing and characterization data sets to be leveraged by the TCR program to inform build/print data analytics. With the data provided by the proposing team, correlations among steam oxidation performance, micromechanical properties, chemical composition, local microstructure, and location specific print/build data will be achieved. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24431: Location-specific material characterization of LPBF SS316L & IN718 TCR core structural materials | Utah State University | $800,000 | In this proposed work, we will experimentally characterize the spatial variability of the quasi-static (tensile), creep (strength and impression), and creep-fatigue properties as well as the underlying structures (microstructure and defect structures) for LPBF SS316L and IN718 components to be used as training data to the TCR program data-driven model. The resulting correlation will be used to drive the design process for an application as TCR core structural materials. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23978: Rapid, Non-Radioactive Methods for Prediction and Quantification of Radiolytic Radical Decomposition Products in Nuclear Separations | Clemson University | $399,999 | High-throughput, non-radioactive, radical assays will be used to determine decomposition of monoamide separations complexants. Radical assay results will be correlated with classic radiolytic damage results to develop predictive models for screening complexant stability. These models will aid in single-stage separations complexant optimization, in the transition from lab- to industrial-scale nuclear waste separations and, ultimately, could yield field tests for radiolytic damage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24350: Phosphate Mineral and Glass Waste Forms for Advanced Immobilization of Chloride and Fluoride-based Waste Streams | Clemson University | $600,000 | This proposal is intended to develop three waste form options for immobilizing the fluoride- and chloride-salt waste stream in highly durable and easily processable phosphate minerals and glasses, including phosphate apatite ceramic waste forms, phosphate glass waste forms, and phosphate glass-ceramic waste forms with apatite phase. Multiple monolithic waste form samples will be provided to DOE national laboratories for further testing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24292: Passive multimodal tomography for dry storage casks imaging using passive neutron and gamma dosimetry and cosmic ray muons | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | A method for multimodal tomography of dry storage casks will be developed to determine fuel relocation and cladding failures using passive neutrons and gamma emissions in combination with cosmic ray muons. The use of multimodal imaging will allow 3-D reconstructions of the dry storage cask that would be unachievable with any single radiation source. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24374: Effects of Radiolysis on Pertechnetate under Solvent Extraction Conditions, including Tri-Butyl Phosphate | CUNY, Hunter College | $399,624 | The overarching objective of the proposed work is to assess the impact of radiolysis on pertechnetate speciation during tri-butylphosphate (TBP) solvent extractions from the molecular level to macroscale. The research in this project is designed to understand the interplay of radiolysis, degradation product formation, other important redox active metals, and oxidation states of technetium on its speciation and distribution coefficients in solvent extraction processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24183: Experimental investigation and development of models and correlations for cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena in transient conditions in support of TREAT and the LWR fleet. | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Thermal-hydraulics transient heat transfer phenomena of relevance for the safety and the operation of the TREAT and light water reactors will be investigated. The performance of accident tolerant fuel materials during a reactivity initiated accident scenario and post-critical heat flux and reflood scenarios will be elucidated, as well as the development of models and correlations to be integrated into computational tools for the design and safety analysis of nuclear systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24666: Wireless Multifunctional Ultrasonic Arrays with Interdigital and Airborne Transducers for Monitoring Leakage and Corrosion Conditions of Welded Dry Storage Canisters | Mississippi State University | $800,000 | This project aims to develop and validate wireless, multifunctional, ultrasonic sensor arrays that enable on-demand, quantitative interrogation and real-time monitoring of both the canister leakage indicators (helium, helium/air mixture, internal pressure, and temperature) and corrosion conditions (free and/or vapor water). The developed arrays will be fully functional, wirelessly powered and communicated, and compact. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24188: Uranium recovery from used nuclear fuel using metal sulfides | Northwestern University | $400,000 | An alternative and original method to recover uranium from spent fuel is proposed. This method will utilize a new type of regenerable sorbent materials with high selectivity in capturing uranium from complex mixtures in acidic solutions, such as those found in used nuclear fuel of high-assay low-enriched uranium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24225: Characterizing Fuel Response and Quantifying Coolable Geometry of High-Burnup Fuel | Oregon State University | $800,000 | This study seeks to objectively determine, through empirical and numerical means, the actual impact of fuel dispersion in-core after fuel failure and whether high burnup dispersed fuel compromises coolable geometry and long-term cooling. The outcome of this study will yield an objective means of assessing two criteria (coolable geometry and long-term cooling) within the existing regulatory process to comprehensively understand whether it is feasible to increase burnup, while satisfying 10 CFR 50.46. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24288: Innovative Methods for Interrogation of DSC Internal Conditions | Oregon State University | $800,000 | The proposed work takes a two-pronged approach. The team will study techniques involving only external sensors and equipment, which could be deployed on existing dry storage canisters. In addition, small sensors located inside the canister that can be externally powered and read through the canister wall will also be investigated. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24439: Development of Novel Corrosion-Responsive Buffer Materials for Long-Term Immobilization of High-Level Nuclear Waste | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to develop a novel cementitious buffer material (CBM) for the safe disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF). The primary aim is to identify and characterize novel Mg-Al-P CBMs, complete with assessments of their repository stability as well as their transport and immobilization of radionuclides. The secondary aim is to use in-situ UT-EIS monitoring to understand the corrosive failure at the canister-CBM interface and provide long-term performance modeling of SNF packages. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24461: Estimation of low temperature cladding failures during an RIA transient | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers aim to create a multiphysics description of cladding response during a RIA, especially at high burnup, coupling reactor physics, thermal hydraulics and mechanics. The creation of a thermomechanical model in Bison will be the result of this project which can be used to evaluate the likelihood of low temperature cladding failures during a postulated RIA on a typical fuel rod (as these can lead to channel blockage), and thus identify the most important conditions to be studied at TREAT. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24460: Multiscale Modeling and Experiments for Investigating High Burnup LWR Fuel Rod Behavior Under Normal and Transient Conditions | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | The main objective of this work is to achieve a mechanistic understanding of and to develop a predictive model for the fuel rod behavior at high burn-up under both normal and transient conditions. Therefore, this study will provide the nuclear industry with validated, physics-based criteria to fuel fragmentation thresholds and rod mechanical integrity limits. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24388: Redox Chemistry of UO2 under Repository Relevant Conditions in the Presence of Zircaloy and Waste Canister Material | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | This project will seek to improve understanding of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) corrosion. Hydrothermal experiments of SNF with cladding and waste canister material will give insights into the redox potential formed due to secondary phase formation as consequence of corrosion in a failed canister. The experimentally derived data about secondary phase formation will be utilized for phase relationship analysis to decipher the redox conditions and thus provide source term for performance assessment models of deep geologic repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24006: High-fidelity modeling of fuel-to-coolant thermomechanical transport behaviors under transient conditions | University of Florida | $800,000 | The objective of the proposal is to develop a high-fidelity modeling tool that can capture some of the important phenomena in high burnup UO2 and ATF fuels during transient conditions. The BlueCRAB tool set will be improved and used to analyze TREAT loss of coolant accident experimental results. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24312: Accelerating the development of reliable and robust machine learning-based interatomic potentials for the prediction of molten salt structure and properties | University of Massachusetts Lowell | $400,000 | Machine learning-based interatomic potentials (MLIPs) used in molecular dynamics (MD) can accurately and efficiently predict molten salt properties. However many machine learning-based methods require large training sets, and can fail unpredictably. This project will overcome these challenges by developing a method for efficiently sampling diverse configurations from MD to train reliable and robust neural network potentials, and develop new models for predicting errors in MLIPs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24697: Dual External Leak Sensing and Monitoring for Dry Storage Canister | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers aim to develop two complementary external sensing methods to evaluate the integrity of DSC through internal pressure monitoring and helium leakage detection. The proposed diffuse ultrasonic wave method will be able to measure biaxial strains in the canister wall with high sensitivity and minimum temperature effects. An innovative capacitance MEMS sensor will be developed for helium concentration measurement in air based on the extremely low permittivity of helium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24449: Multi-modal Surface Acoustic Wave Sensing System for Pressure and Temperature monitoring of Spent Fuel Canisters | University of North Texas | $800,000 | University of North Texas (UNT) will collaborate with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to develop a multi-modal wireless passive SAW (Surface Acoustic Wave) sensor array, which are deployed on the outside surface of the canister, to monitor the strain of the canister and thus determine the inside pressure. In addition, the SAW strain sensor could also measure the surface temperature and potentially monitor helium gas leak. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24265: Fragmentation and Thermal Energy Transport of Cr-doped Fuels under Transient Conditions | University of Pittsburgh | $799,999 | This project will focus on multiple aspects of experimental testing and engineering-scale modeling in understanding thermal energy transport from high burnup, fractured/fragmented accident tolerant fuels, establishing a strong scientific basis to fill a critical knowledge data gap for modeling and simulation of transient fuel performance and safety, such as loss of coolant accident, for future integral testing and fuel licensing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24310: Fusion of Distributed Fiber Optics, Acoustic NDE, and Physics-Based AI for Spent Fuel Monitoring | University of Pittsburgh | $800,000 | The proposal will leverage new concepts in the fusion between fiber optic distributed acoustic sensing and advanced acoustic nondestructive evaluation techniques with artificial intelligence enhanced classification frameworks to quantitatively characterize the state of dry cask storage containers for spent fuel monitoring, externally and non-invasively, without introducing additional risks of failure. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24261: Internal Wireless Sensors for Dry Cask Storage | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | The effort will test the reliability of wireless, internal sensors after exposure to drying and storage conditions. These sensors are used to internally monitor temperature, pressure, and dose. Radiation shielding will also be designed to protect sensors during long-term storage. The effort will develop piezoelectric techniques for miniaturization of optical emission spectroscopy for internal monitoring of gas composition during drying and long-term storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24533: Non-destructive Evaluation of Dry Storage Canisters Using Acoustic Sensing | University of Southern California | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to develop a robust non-destructive evaluation (NDE) technique based on acoustic sensing to detect impurity gases in a sealed (welded) dry storage canister (DSC) using only measurements collected on the external surface of the DSC. The method is based on the time-of-flight analysis of acoustic signals propagating through the fill gas of a DSC, which is influenced by the composition, density and temperature of the propagation medium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23984: Safety Implications of High Burnup Fuel for a 2-Year PWR Fuel Cycle | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to perform safety analysis of high burnup fuel for a Westinghouse 4-Loop Pressurized Water Reactor. The work aims to identify potential opportunities and gaps for high burnup fuel by utilizing both well-established and modern methodologies to model reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, and plant system-level response that ultimately provide feedback to fuel performance analysis. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23985: Fuel-to-Coolant Thermomechanical Behaviors Under Transient Conditions | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This project will enhance the prediction of thermo-mechanical fuel-to-coolant heat transfer under transient conditions by using a coupled analysis and experiment approach. The effort is relevant to both high-burnup (> 62GWd/t) fuel applications and Accident Tolerant Fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24070: Modeling high-burnup LWR fuel behavior under normal operating and transient conditions | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This project aims to develop a high-burnup light water reactor fuel modeling capability to implement in the BISON code that would enable the accurate fuel rod behavior simulation during normal operation and design basis accidents, as wells as the identification of the rod life-limiting factors. Mechanistic engineering models will be developed for key phenomena, in particular, high burnup structure evolution, fuel fragmentation, and fission gas release. Traditional and accident tolerant fuels will be considered. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24033: Redox Chemistry in Nuclear Materials Storage Matrices under Ambient and Accelerated Aging Conditions | University of Washington | $800,000 | Deep geologic repositories must safely contain hazardous, high-activity nuclear wastes at geologic time-scales. However, such capability is centrally dependent on the element-specific redox chemistry within and at the interface of storage vessels. A comprehensive study of redox chemistry in cements used in long-term storage is proposed and emphasizes: 1) the actual consequences of accelerated aging modalities and 2) the novel use of newly available capabilities in advanced x-ray spectroscopies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24063: Post-DNB Thermo-mechanical Behavior of Near-term ATF Designs in Simulated Transient Conditions | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | The goals of the proposed research are to conduct coupled experimental and modeling investigations of thermo-mechanical performance of coated accident tolerant zirconium alloy claddings with simulated burnup doped fuels under thermal transients to predict complex thermal and mass transport phenomena of near-term Accident Tolerant Fuel designs in accident conditions. Experiments and modeling for understanding both cladding-coolant and fuel-coolant interactions will be performed. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24582: Machine-Learning-Accelerated Molecular Dynamics Approaches for Molten Salts | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $399,477 | New machine learning potential (MLP) approaches and new MLPs to enable rapid prediction of molten salt (FLiBe and Nal-MgCl2 with impurities) properties with near ab initio quantum mechanical accuracy will be developed. Uncertainty quantification with active learning and on-the-fly fitting will greatly accelerate MLP training. This work will support dramatically increased simulation speeds and associated data generation and understanding for molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24067: Development of Full Understanding of Mechanical-Chemical Coupling in Bentonite THMC processes | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | The central hypothesis is that mechanical stress in an engineered barrier can lead to pressure solution of solid minerals, leading to significant changes in pore water chemistry, which affects bentonite stability, longevity of the waste pack, and dissolution and migration of nuclides. The overall objective of this project is to develop full understanding of the role of pressure solution on pore water chemistry, the implications to large-scale heterogeneity, and THMC processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23987: Separate and Multi-Physics Effects IRPhEP Benchmark Evaluation using SNAP Experiments | Georgia Institute of Technology | $400,000 | The proposed project will develop an International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) mulitphysics microreactor benchmark evaluation based on data from the Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power (SNAP) program. This work will include systematic assessments of the experimental data with meticulous compilation and documentation, and validation of specific NEAMS tools to model effects that are unique to microreactors technologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24630: Integral Benchmark Evaluation of Zero-Power Tests and Multi-Cycle Depletion Experimental Data of TVA WB1 Cycles 1-3 | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | This project proposes to develop an integral benchmark evaluation of available experimental data for zero-power tests and multi-cycle depletion for consistent and comprehensive validation of both novel high-fidelity and traditional multi-physics tools. The benchmark evaluation will be based on operational and measured data from the Pressurized Water Reactor Watts Bar Unit 1 released by Tennessee Valley Authority. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24186: Regenerating Missing Experimental Parameters with Data-Assimilation Methods for MSRE Transient Benchmark Development and Evaluation | Virginia Commonwealth University | $400,000 | The proposed project will regenerate the undocumented basic data from available experimental data of the MSRE using advanced data-assimilation methods to facilitate the whole-loop modeling of the representative MSRE transients, and perform a thorough MSRE transient benchmark evaluation for the IRPhEP handbook. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24194: Implementation of improved quasi-static, time-dependent, multi-physics methodology in Shift | Georgia Institute of Technology | $600,000 | A practical reference calculation route for time-dependent coupled Monte Carlo calculations, using Shift, will be developed. The proposed framework will be tailored to depletion and slowly varying transients, but with the flexibility to perform thermal-hydraulic time-dependent calculations with minimal computational overheads. This method relies on a hybrid-resolution stochastic approach in conjunction with a substep technique. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24078: Material transport model development and integration in the System Analysis Module (SAM) code | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | This project proposes to develop and implement models for System Analysis Module, which accurately characterize the sink, source, and interaction terms of key material species that are or may be present in various advanced reactor designs. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24195: Enhancing Yellowjacket for Modeling the Impact of Radiation and Stress on the Corrosion of Molten-Salt-Facing Structural Components | University of Florida | $692,088 | The objective of this project is to add the capability to model the impact of radiation and stress on corrosion to the Yellowjacket code, as well as to use Yellowjacket to create surrogate models that will be added to engineering-scale codes like Grizzly. We will also collect new experimental data for validation that quantifies the impact of stress and radiation on corrosion of 316 stainless steel in molten fluoride salts. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24405: Development of a High-fidelity Flow Boiling Database for Validation of High-void-fraction Flow Regime Models | University of Michigan | $800,000 | The primary objective of this proposed research is to develop a comprehensive, high-resolution, multiphase computational fluid dynamics validation-grade flow boiling data from rod bundle geometry simulating current light water reactor fuel designs by taking advantage of the instrumentation and facility developed by the research team. In addition, the applicability of the data through initial evaluations of selected test cases using Nek-2P boiling closure models will be studied and demonstrated for two-phase flow simulations. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24471: Technical Basis of Microstructure Criteria and Accelerated Testing for Qualifying Additively-manufactured 316H Stainless Steel for High-temperature Cyclic Service | Auburn University | $800,000 | This project seeks to reveal the fundamental relationship for AM 316H SS working at 500-750 _C between additively-manufactured microstructures and creep/creep-fatigue properties through a multiscale experimental and modeling approach. The project also seeks to establish the technical basis for the microstructure criteria and accelerated testing method to support near-term nuclear qualification. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24152: Direct heating of chemical catalysts for hydrogen and fertilizer production using Microreactors | Kansas State University | $799,202 | This proposal presents a novel integration approach to deliver process heat from microreactors by directly heating the catalyst particles from the primary heat transfer fluid in a moving packed bed heat exchanger (MPBHX). In this design, the tube side of the MPBHX can be a heat pipe or primary Helium coolant as in several microreactor designs. The shell side will be moving catalyst particles, which will enter the high temperature chemical reactor upon heating. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24287: Investigating heat transfer in horizontally oriented HTGR under normal and PCC conditions | Kansas State University | $799,762 | Experimental research will be conducted to understand heat transfer inside the graphite matrix of horizontal microscale High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors. Existing high temperature test facilities will be used to simulate normal operation and Pressurized Conduction Cooldown. The focus of these experiments is to generate benchmark data under forced and natural convection with coupled multi-mode heat transfer in scaled-down prismatic blocks. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24104: Thermal Hydraulics Investigation of Horizontally Orientated Layout Micro HTGRs Under Normal Operation and PCC Conditions Using Integrated Advanced Measurement Techniques | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000 | The proposed novel work will make a significant pioneering contribution to advance the knowledge and understanding of horizontal micro-high temperature gas cooled reactors. Quantification of metrics will pertain to convective heat transfer coefficients along the channel and gaps, comparative rates of convective and radiative heat transfer, location of peak temperature and its temporal variation, timescales for onset of natural convection, local gas velocity profiles, gas dispersion, crossflows, and temperature profiles over channel diameter and gap thickness. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24004: An Open Source, Parallel, and Distributed Web-Based Probabilistic Risk Assessment Platform to Support Real Time Nuclear Power Plant Risk-Informed Operational Decisions | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | The main objective of the proposed work is to develop, demonstrate, and evaluate a probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) software platform needed to address the major challenges of the current legacy PRA tools. This includes better quantification speed, integration of multi-hazard models into traditional PRAs, and model modification/simplification and documentation automation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24228: Quantifying the Dynamic and Static Porosity/Microstructure Characteristics of Irradiated Graphite through Multi-technique Experiments and Mesoscale Modeling | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | This project proposes a joint experimental-computational approach to probe and quantify the porosity and microstructure characteristics of irradiated nuclear graphite grades and their influence on dimensional changes and turnaround behavior, as well as mechanical properties. The chief focus will be on quantifying both the static and dynamic porosity and crack characteristics in various graphitic phases through several experimental techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24247: Multi-scale Effects of Irradiation Damage on Nuclear Graphite Properties | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Irradiation induces microstructural damage in graphite, causing both dimensional and property (stiffness, strength and creep) changes as a function of the displacement damage and temperature. The biggest gap remains is the fundamental deformation mechanisms behind the property changes. Researchers propose to eliminate this gap in knowledge with a comprehensive, multi-scale experimental framework exploiting in-situ transmission electron and X-ray computed tomography. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23975: Development of Thermal Power Dispatch Simulation Tools for BWR Flexible Plant Operation and Generation | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | In the U.S. domestic light water reactor fleet, about one-third of operational nuclear power reactors are boiling water reactors (BWRs). Thermal power extraction technologies to be designed for BWRs will be different from those for pressurized water reactors due to differences in steam generation. This study proposes to investigate the thermal and electric power dispatch and required control algorithms for dynamic heat dispatch of up to 50% of the thermal energy from a BWR plant to a hydrogen plant. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24111: Experimental Investigations of HTGR Fission Product Transport in Separate-effect Test Facilities Under Prototypical Conditions for Depressurization and Water-ingress Accidents | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Experimental investigations will be performed for fission product (FP) lift-off, washoff, vaporization from plateout surfaces, and transport of FP at prototypical conditions representing depressurization and water-ingress accidents. Measurements will be performed on existing separate-effect facilities using intrusive and non-intrusive techniques to obtain shear stress, deposition velocity, thermal gradient, and gas impurity for advanced correlations. Modeling will be performed using system and computational fluid dynamics codes. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24644: High-Resolution Measurements and Advanced Modeling for Design Optimization of Advanced Small Modular Reactor Steam Generators | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Experiments and simulations will be performed to acquire multi-parameters of pressure drop, heat and mass transfer, and flow-induced vibration (FIV) effect for the design optimization of advanced small modular reactor steam generators (SMR SG). Measurements are performed on existing SMR SG facilities using intrusive/non-intrusive techniques to obtain velocity, temperature, pressure, heat flux, and FIV effects for various geo-dimensions, spacing, pitch angles. Simulations will be performed in StarCCM, Nek5000 and coupling with Diablo_ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24332: A Virtual Reality Environment for Human Reliability Assessment in the Context of Physical Security Attacks | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Recent studies have shown that the physical security workforce accounts for 20% of the entire workforce and, therefore, is responsible for significant operational and maintence costs. To reduce the security staffing, improve performance and reduce threats, modeling and simulation and models of attacker, defender and operator behavior could be employed. This proposal aims to model human behavior using a combination of known human reliability analyses models and experimental evidence from virtual reality experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24389: High Temperature Electromagnetic Acoustic (EMAT) Transducers for Structural Health Monitoring | University of Cincinnati | $800,000 | The aim of this project is to produce an electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT) technology to enable ultrasonic structural health monitoring at the METL facility and similar high temperature assets. Ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation methods can be used for monitoring a range of damage mechanisms including thermal fatigue and corrosion. The project will seek to establish core design solutions that can be used as the basis of a range of EMAT designs for different applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24380: Probabilistic Validation and Risk Importance Ranking Methodology for Automation Trustworthiness and Transparency in Nuclear Power Plants | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | This project develops a methodology to improve trustworthiness and transparency of automation technologies in nuclear power plants. The proposed methodology will monitor risk emerging from automation processes and rank the criticality of automation factors influencing automation output, plant equipment, and system performance. The feasibility and practicality of the proposed methodology will be demonstrated with two case studies focusing on implementation of nuclear power plant automation technologies. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24162: Self-powered wireless sensor system for health monitoring of liquid-sodium cooled fast reactors | University of Notre Dame | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to develop self-powered wireless multimodal sensors and instrumentation for health monitoring and diagnosing early-stage materials degradation for high-risk components in liquid-sodium cooled fast reactors. The synergistic and innovative integrations of the multimodal sensor array, wireless communication, and thermoelectric energy harvester have crosscutting benefit for a wide range of advanced reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24102: High temperature Molten salt reactor pump component development and testing | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | This project will provide relevant key information on the tribology of bearing material and components (such as magnets, couplers, ceramic coated wire, and coatings) in high temperature molten salts that will be required in the design of reactor pumps. Investigation of in-service inspection and monitoring of the pump internals will also be addressed in an effort to reduce down time and operation and maintenance costs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24226: Cost Reduction of Advanced Integration Heat Exchanger Technology for Micro-Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,713 | Heat exchanger technology is a high-cost component of a micro-reactor system that is also critical to the overall reliability and performance. This project will develop the underlying advanced heat exchanger technology necessary to integrate a micro-reactor with any end-user application, as well as providing internal heat exchange. Economic optimization of the heat exchanger and experimental demonstration of the technology will be accomplished. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24382: Advanced High-Fluence Low-Flux RPV Mechanical Property Models for Extended Life | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,717 | This project will further develop accurate models of the mechanical property changes under life-extension conditions in reactor pressure vessel (RPV) steels using reduced order Avrami models, cluster dynamics, and atomistic methods combined with massive comprehensive databases on irradiated steels. The work will provide models critical to extending the life of U.S. pressurized water reactors, as well as new fundamental insights into flux and fluence effects and sink and precipitate evolution in reactor pressure vessels and related steels. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| Integrated Marine Platform for Hydrogen and Ammonia Production | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | This study investigates the economic and environmental value of a floating integrated GW-scale green hydrogen/ammonia production facility powered by an advanced nuclear reactor. Floating Production Storage and Offloading units (FPSOs) are deployed worldwide in the oil and gas industry, and can be used for hydrogen and ammonia processing. Deployment of an advanced reactor on a floating platform offers several advantages, including the efficiencies of shipyard fabrication. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Functionally-graded Cermet Coatings for Molten Salt Technologies by High Throughput Finite Element Modeling and Additive Manufacturing | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $500,000 | This project proposes an integrated approach/methodology to design, manufacture and verify functionally-graded metal-ceramic composite coatings on structural alloys with desired interfacial properties, capabilities of mitigating residual stress and improved corrosion resistance for molten salt reactor applications. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| An Innovative Monitoring Technology for the Reactor Vessel of Micro-HTGR | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | This project seeks to develop an innovative sensor technology for real-time monitoring of the thermo-mechanical stresses in the reactor vessel of micro-HTGR. The technology will be based on a sparse network of outer wall temperature measurements and plant operating conditions. An integrated software-hardware sensing system aimed at monitoring the health of the pressure vessel of gas micro-reactors will be implemented and tested. The proposed work will have a broad impact on sensing in other reactor designs. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| High throughput mechanical testing of additively-manufactured materials | University of California, Berkeley | $500,000 | This project proposes fast and high throughput mechanical testing of AM produced materials. It will include the generation of automated tensile testing, hardness testing and microstructure assessment and data comparison to build data via machine learning. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Accelerated irradiation creep testing coupled with self-adaptive accelerated molecular dynamics simulations for scalability analysis | University of Michigan | $500,000 | The goal of the proposed work is to accelerate traditional irradiation creep using instrumented in-situ ion irradiation creep and long-time molecular dynamics simulations to accelerate traditional neutron irradiation creep testing. This goal will be accomplished by coupling a novel ion beam flux jump test using tapered creep specimens and self-adaptive accelerated molecular dynamics. The outcome is a rapid, low-cost accelerated method to determine the fundamental irradiation creep mechanisms. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Creation of a Pebble Database for Material Control and Accountancy in Pebble Bed Reactors | Virginia Commonwealth University | $399,969 | The primary goal of this proposed project is to develop a database of NDA signatures from a wide variety of used PBR pebbles. This database can be used for facility operations, safety, security, and safeguards (3S) to directly measure fission product content and indirectly 235U and plutonium content of each PBR pebble. This project has significant synergy with current 3S PBR research at ANL, BNL, and ORNL, all of whom are collaborators to this proposed project. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Quantifying Aerosol Deposition Mechanisms in Model Dry Cask Storage Systems | Clemson University | $800,000 | The objective of this work is to measure aerosol deposition and resuspension rates in laboratory models of dry cask storage systems to compare with and validate the DOE deposition model. The project team will conduct experiments to directly measure the deposition/resuspension rates of bulk aerosol in the system and to isolate and quantify individual aerosol deposition mechanisms, with a focus on those sensitive to variable humidity and surface temperature. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Using Amide-Functionalized Electrodes to Elucidate Interfacial Actinide Redox Chemistry for Improved HALEU Supply | Florida International University | $400,000 | The goal is to decrease HALEU fuel cycle costs by examination of the redox behavior of U, Np, and Pu at the water-organic interface using amide functionalized electrodes, and in organic media after extraction with amides. Experiments with redox active interferences including additional actinides in different oxidation states will also be conducted. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advancing the technical readiness of FeCrAl alloys and ODS steels under extreme conditions for fast reactor fuel cladding | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | A key technology gap for advanced high-performance fuel applications is the current unavailability of materials that can withstand extremely high doses without significant degradation of cladding performance. The project team will perform in-situ thermo-mechanical experiments (tension, torsion, creep, and creep-fatigue and nanoindentation) on ion-irradiated (to 400 dpa) cladding materials (up to 700 C) along with microstructures using TEM and mesoscale phase field simulations. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| A molten salt community framework for predictive modeling of critical characteristics | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | This research aims to develop a molten salt community framework to address the needs in advanced fuel cycles, including understanding salts via new theory of liquids, predicting salt characteristics via simulations (DFT, MD, and CALPHAD by implementing advanced models), optimizing inversely molten salts, and verifying simulations by experiments. This project has outstanding value for US taxpayers, educates students, and delivers outreach opportunities for academia, industry, and the public. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Understanding the Interfacial Structure of the Molten Chloride Salts by in-situ Electrocapillarity and Resonant Soft X-ray Scattering (RSoXS) | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | The objective of the proposed research is to investigate the interplay between the interfacial structure of the molten salts and their electrochemical corrosion properties in Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Clay Hydration, Drying, and Cracking in Nuclear Waste Repositories | Princeton University | $800,000 | This project will develop a new multiscale model of the thermal-hydrologic-mechanical-chemical (THMC) evolution of an engineered clay barrier in the near field of a nuclear waste repository, including initial hydration and eventual post-closure criticality. This new model will directly link micro-scale material properties to large-scale barrier performance, thus facilitating future design advances or modifications, and enable robust validation of large-scale simulation predictions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Physics-guided Smart Scaling Methodology for Accelerated Fuel Testing | Purdue University | $800,000 | This project proposes to employ novel informatics algorithms for mapping/scaling uncertainties from experimentally accessible scaled state to application/prototypical state, informed by an equivalent mapping obtained from high-fidelity multi-physics simulations for the fuel thermo-mechanical behavior, specifically, a rate theory-based model for thermal conductivity and fission gas behavior in the BISON code, and employing relevant HALDEN reactor and FAST experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Materials Accountancy During Disposal and Waste Processing of Molten Salt Reactor Fuel Salts | Texas A&M University | $399,997 | The objective of this work is to develop and validate a method for measuring and predicting hold-up to eliminate operational risks and expenses during disposal of salt-wetted MSR components. These objectives will be met by applying robust measurement/detection methods to realistic salt loop environments to validate their use in decommissioning MSRs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advanced Screening Approaches for Accelerating Development of Separations Technologies | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | The goal of this project is to establish a unified selection criterion for chelating molecular structures to more efficiently address ligand applicability to metal ion separation problems, for current and future nuclear fuel cycles. By establishing this criterion, the team will seek to enable the accelerated, cost-effective discovery of new separation workflows, as well as their implementation beyond early radiotracer experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advancing NMA of TRISO-fueled pebbles using fast and accurate gamma-ray spectroscopy | University of Colorado, Boulder | $385,307 | This proposal will provide new Nuclear Materials Analysis (NMA) capabilities for TRISO-fueled pebbles using gamma-ray spectroscopy, through a program of simulations of expected signatures from irradiated pebbles, resulting in a detailed measurement plan to monitor burnup and actinide content throughout the fuel cycle. These simulations will be used to develop requirements for NMA sensor technology and identify opportunities for focused technology development to meet these requirements. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Development of Irradiation and Creep Resistant High-Cr Ferritic/Martensitic Steels via Magnetic Field Heat Treatment | University of Kentucky | $800,000 | The objective of this proposed study is to develop and test new generation of Ferritic/Martensitic (F/M) steels specifically designed for advanced reactors that will exceed the current limitations due to temperature and irradiation dose. To achieve this objective, a systematic study is proposed to employ an innovative tempering heat treatment under high external magnetic field (up to 9T) on F/M steel HT9 to engineer an optimized microstructure composed of refined carbides and martensite laths. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Investigation into the processing parameters of phosphate-based dehalogenation for chloride-based waste salt | University of Nevada, Reno | $399,999 | This proposal will focus on several topics needed to advance the iron phosphate process: 1) Dehalogenation/vitrification processes using salt simulants to generate process flow sheets, 2) Reactions of crucible materials with phosphate products and byproducts, 3) Collection of glass property-composition data to develop models based on the glass-forming regions, 4) Development of a process for reacting recovered NH4Cl with metals that need to be fed into the system (U, Li, etc.). | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| A Validated Framework for Seismic Risk Assessment of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of Nevada, Reno | $799,883 | This is a collaborative research program with a primary objective of developing a validated numerical framework for seismic risk analysis of spent fuel storage facilities from the global cask behavior to the localized behavior of internal spent fuel assemblies. In building and validating this framework, advanced data analysis, data assimilation, and forward and inverse modeling techniques will be utilized. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| International Collaboration to Advance the Technical Readiness of High Uranium Density Fuels and Composites for Small Modular Reactors | University of Texas at San Antonio | $800,000 | An international team of high uranium density fuels (HDFs) experts advised by industry leaders in nuclear reactor innovation propose a US-UK collaboration to advance the technical readiness of UN, UB2, and their composites for fuel forms specific to small modular reactors (SMRs). The project will bridge the critical data gaps in HDF performance specific to the impact of common impurities and microstructural variations that originate at fabrication. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Development of Advanced Control Rod Assembly for Improved Accident Tolerance and High Burnup Fuel Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Research will focus on the development of new materials' designs for control rod sheaths and neutron absorbers, coupled with neutronics analysis and thermo-mechanical modeling to improve accident tolerance and to achieve higher fuel burnup in PWRs. Functionality of the proposed designs consisting of Cr coated control rod sheaths of current and advanced alloys as well as novel neutron absorbers will be evaluated in prototypical reactor conditions and accident scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Optical Basicity Determination of Molten Fluoride Salts and its Influence on Structural Material Corrosion | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | The proposed research is aimed at developing ion probes to determine the optical basicity of molten fluoride salts and studying its influence on structural material corrosion. Combining with the molten salt structure study using X-ray absorption spectroscopy, the salt chemical constitution, the resulting optical basicity, and molten salt structure will be inextricably linked and their connections will be unveiled. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Extending the HMF71 Benchmark Series for Graphite Reflector Thickness up to 18 Inches | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $399,522 | The objective of this proposal is to extend the HEU-MET-FAST-071 (HMF-71) experiment benchmark series in ICSBEP by evaluating the historical (existing) experimental data for critical experiments with graphite reflector thickness from 3 inches up to 18 inches. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2022 |
| Fast and Rigorous Methods for Multiphysics SPn Transport in Advanced Reactors | University of Michigan | $600,000 | This project proposes to perform rigorous theoretical and numerical analysis of the Generalized SPn method and underlying cross section models to enable a fast and robust multiphysics low-order transport capability for advanced reactors. This includes 5 major tasks focused on the efficient discretization and solution of the GSPn equations, numerical analysis of XS models having multiphysics and depletion, analysis of equivalence factors, improved MC estimators, and several V&V applications of the methods. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2022 |
| Development of Hydrogen Transport Models for High Temperature Metal Hydride Moderators | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Understanding the transient behavior of metal hydride moderator materials at high temperatures is a key challenge to the design and deployment of future microreactors. This project will use neutron radiography techniques provide the necessary data for this understanding and demonstrate the development of time and temperature dependent hydrogen transport models using both commercial FEA software coupled to MCNP and coupled models developed in the MOOSE framework. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Characterizing fast reactor fuel failure mode through separate effect and prototypic tests | Oregon State University | $800,000 | The project consists of conducting separate effect fuel pin failure tests with surrogate fluid and prototypic test with sodium. The outcome of this study will generate an experimental database that will be used to develop mechanistic model and validate the CDAP module of the SAS4A/SASSYS-1 code. Ultimately the quality data can be used to benchmark other fuel codes developed for LMFR application, which are seeking validation for licensing purpose. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Science-based development of ASTM standard tests for graphite-based fuel pebbles | University of California, Berkeley | $700,000 | This project proposes the development of mechanical test procedures as well as wear and friction tests on Graphite fuel pebbles | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Role of Heterogeneity in Manganese and Nickel Rich Precipitate Distribution on Hardening of Reactor Pressure Vessel Steels: Integrated Modeling and Experimental Characterization | University of Florida | $799,803 | The hypothesis of this work is that the different nucleation and coarsening kinetics of manganese and nickel rich precipitates (MNPs) compared to copper rich precipitates, and the heterogeneous distribution of manganese and nickel rich precipitates on or near dislocations, both lead to unique hardening behavior at high neutron fluence. The objective of this work is to understand hardening in reactor pressure vessel steels caused by MNPs via integrated multiscale modeling and experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Integrated Thermal-Electric Energy Management of All-Electric Ship with Advanced Nuclear Reactors | University of Texas at Dallas | $400,000 | The overall objective of this research is to comprehensively model, design, and evaluate the use of advanced nuclear reactors in future nuclear-powered ships, to enhance the efficiency, reliability, and resilience of shipboard energy distribution systems. The novelty of the proposed approach lies in (i) integrated thermal-electric modeling of advanced nuclear-powered shipboard energy system, and (ii) novel solutions for total-ship energy management to improve energy efficiency and resiliency. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Open Architecture for Nuclear Cost Reduction | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Open architecture has potential to reduce advanced reactor (AR) costs, through exploiting modular design and construction, with common, openly available interfaces between modules. A comprehensive assessment of the challenges and opportunities of open architecture for ARs will be performed. Supported by a pilot study, actionable recommendations for the implementation or otherwise of open architecture for ARs will be developed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Telescopic Control Rod for Significant Reduction in HTR Height and therefore Cost | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | This project proposes a design for a small modular High Temperature Reactor (HTR) control rod that extends telescopically, consisting of ~5 concentric annuli that nest together above the core when withdrawn. This compact component substantially reduces the length of the depth of the silo. Modelling and experimental testing will be performed to develop the control rod to evaluate feasibility, plus perform a cost-benefit analysis, with a view to its inclusion in both pebble bed and prismatic HTR designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Mechanism Driven Evaluations of Sequential and Simultaneous Irradiation-Creep-Fatigue Testing | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | This project addresses a critical need for irradiation and creep-fatigue testing by carrying out a systematic, mechanistic-driven benchmarking for irradiation creep, irradiation fatigue and creep-fatigue tests under various environments. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Mechanisms-based Acceleration of Materials Qualifications for Creep-Fatigue Performance in Advanced Nuclear Systems | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | The goal of this research is to fully understand, quantify and model creep-fatigue 'damage' as a function of loading patterns, temperature and microstructural evolution. Using this experimental information over a large range of relevant stress levels and temperatures, a mechanisms-based creep-fatigue analysis approach will be demonstrated which will properly qualify high temperature alloys for extended service in advanced nuclear systems where creep-fatigue is currently a major design limitation. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Subwavelength Ultrasonic Imaging for Rapid Qualification of Additively Manufactured Nuclear Structures and Components | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to develop a transformational capability for rapid nondestructive quality assessment of actual nuclear additively manufactured structures and components through advanced ultrasonic imaging with subwavelength resolution. The resolution of conventional ultrasonic systems is limited by diffraction on the order of the wavelength. In this project, the goal is to break the diffraction limits of ultrasonic imaging by implementing a negative-index lens. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| MXene as Sorbent Materials for Off-gas Radioiodine Capture and Immobilization | Clemson University | $1,000,000 | The overarching goal of this project is to develop efficient and stable new sorbent materials, for off-gas radioiodine capture and immobilization, that are based on MXenes with two-dimensional transition metal carbides/nitrides. The exploratory research will focus on three main objectives: 1) Design and synthesis of MXenes as radioiodine sorbent and support materials, 2) Quantification of iodine sorption capacity of MXenes in different forms, 3) Synthesis and characterization of consolidated waste forms. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Fundamental understanding of grain boundary cracking in LWR environments | University of California, Los Angeles | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to understand the details of stress corrosion cracking (SCC) and irradiation assisted stress corrosion cracking (IASCC) by targeted experiments and modeling efforts. A comprehensive model will be produced, which will predict the conditions under which these failure modes occur and when the materials may see onsets of the failure mode. This work will directly impact the nuclear industry by refining predictive models of component lifetime. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Facile manufacturing of fiber-reinforced-SiC/SiC composite using aerodynamic fiber deposition (AFD) and metal assisted polymer impregnation and pyrolysis processes (MAPIP) | University of Pittsburgh | $999,886 | SiC/SiC ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) are promising candidate materials for the cladding of accident tolerant fuels. Superior material properties of SiC/SiC CMC, however, come at a high manufacturing cost. The objective of the proposed research is to apply aerodynamic fiber deposition (AFD) and metal assisted polymer impregnation and pyrolysis (MAPIP) to develop a new facile manufacturing approach of SiC/SiC CMC. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| High Concentration Monoamide Separations: Phase Modifiers and Transuranic Chemistry | Colorado School of Mines | $999,900 | Extraction of actinides from used nuclear fuel with high concentrations of monoamide extractants is a promising strategy to intensify separation processes; however key issues remain to be understood and resolved. This project will examine three questions: 1) Can phase modifiers mitigate issues with organic phase viscosity? 2) Can the chemistry of neptunium be controlled to ensure complete separation? 3) Do high concentrations of monoamides affect the oxidation states of important metals and can that be exploited? | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Multiple Uranium Complexes in Chloride Fast Reactor Molten Salt Properties | University of Connecticut | $1,000,000 | Multivalent transition metal ions in a melt can exhibit multiple coordination states that affect molten salt properties. This project will use a new high-energy resolution fluorescence detection (HERFD) spectroscopy to overcome issues associated with measuring coordination numbers of multiple complexes, along with Raman spectroscopy and advanced simulations to accurately predict properties of molten salts with multiple uranium complexes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Validation of Geochemical Reactive Transport Long-Term predictions Using Natural Cements and Ancient Cements Analogues | Vanderbilt University | $950,000 | This project will validate long-term performance predictions of rock/cement interfaces based on characterization of natural analogues, ancient cements and interfaces with rock formations, and demonstrate applicability of the established testing and simulation workflow with argillite rock (representative of potential U.S. repository systems). This project addresses the research gap of long-term validation and uncertainty assessment associated with cement barrier performance and multi-physics models. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Predicting Pitting and Stress Corrosion Cracking of Dry Cask Storage Canisters via High Throughput Testing, Multiscale Characterization, and 3D Computer Vision based Machine Learning | The Ohio State University | $1,000,000 | This project consists of a US-UK collaborative research program focusing on the nucleation and growth of pits and stress corrosion cracking of stainless steel 304 (a canister material used for dry cask storage of spent nuclear fuels) by leveraging multi-scale characterization techniques, 2D/3D computer vision, and machine learning approaches. The study will enable the understanding and prediction of how and when pitting corrosion can nucleate, grow, and transition into stress corrosion cracking. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Multiscale Residual Stress Tailoring of Spent Fuel Canister CISCC Resistance | Purdue University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to understand the role of residual stress in chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) of austenitic steel, then tailor CISCC initiation and propagation through engineered multiscale residual stress distributions. Microscopic and macroscopic residual stresses will be systematically varied, then a novel sequence of advanced, site-specific, correlative characterization techniques will be applied to directly link residual stress, pitting, and crack propagation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Illuminating Emerging Supply Chain and Waste Management Challenges | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | Regional constraints on domestic fuel supply and greater variation in demand from advanced reactors has led to a shift in the U.S. fuel cycle, and modeling tools must reflect this. In this work, Cyclus will be updated to better reflect new and emergent regional supply constraints, spatial and temporal fluctuations in material needs, and those impacts on the back-end of the fuel cycle will be quantified. This work will allow for flexible, reproducible analysis to inform stakeholder decision-making. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Determination of Local Structure and Phase Stability of Uranium Species in Molten Halide Salts: Linking Microscopic Structure with Macroscopic Thermodynamics | Arizona State University | $1,000,000 | The goal of this project is to determine the local structures (valence state, coordination configuration and medium-range structure) and thermodynamic stability of uranium species in molten chloride and fluoride salts at high temperatures using a combination of experimental and modeling methods. The obtained results will allow for revelation of the structure-stability relations of the studied systems and development of acid-base scales to determine the solubility of uranium in molten halide salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Thermal-Hydraulics Assessment of SiC Compared to Other ATF Cladding Materials and its Performance to Mitigate CRUD | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | This project aims to experimentally investigate the thermal-hydraulics performance of SiC compared to the Cr-coated zircaloys and APMT ATF cladding materials under accident scenarios, including both DNB and dryout conditions. The project is divided into five tasks that will advance the understanding of the operation and optimization of heat pipes for advanced nuclear reactors. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Physics-Informed Artificial Intelligence for Non-Destructive Evaluation of Ceramic Composite Cladding by Creating Digital Fingerprints | University of Florida | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to spatially map the material composition, structure, and defect distribution of SiCf-SiCm composite tubes from ultrasonic wavefields measured from the materials and the defects within them. Specifically, this project will delve into the unique ultrasonic fingerprints (i.e., dispersion relations and mode shapes) of the SiCf-SiCm composites using physics-informed machine learning to assess the quality of the manufactured tubes based on their spatial-spectral ultrasonic characteristics. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Understanding Constituent Redistribution, Thermal Transport, and Fission Gas Behavior in U-Zr Annular Fuel Without a Sodium Bond | University of Florida | $999,462 | This project will investigate the reason for changed constituent redistribution in annular U-Zr fuel without a sodium bond and how it changes the fission gas behavior and thermal conductivity. This will be achieved using a combination of microstructure characterization and thermal conductivity measurements of irradiated U-Zr annular fuel and multiscale modeling and simulation using the MARMOT and BISON fuel performance codes. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Getting AnCers: Metallothermic Molten Salt Synthesis and Reaction Thermodynamics of Actinide Ceramic Fuels | Oregon State University | $1,000,000 | Synthesis of high quality actinide ceramics (AnCers) remains a costly challenge. A low-temperature, high-yield, short-duration reaction that directly synthesizes UN and UC could reduce the cost of these advanced fuels greatly. This proposal aims to demonstrate a method by which the costs of AnCers can be greatly reduced - metallothermic molten salt synthesis. Optimization and thermodynamics data will be obtained. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Integrated Stand-off Optical Sensors for Molten Salt Reactor Monitoring | University of Pittsburgh | $1,000,000 | This project intends to develop robust and stand-off optical sensors to perform real-time molten salt levels, flow, and impurity measurements of molten salts. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Cybersecurity in advanced reactor fleet by cyber-informed design, real-time anomaly detection, dynamic monitoring, and cost-effective mitigation strategies | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The goal of this research is to provide technical solutions to unique cybersecurity challenges in future microreactor fleet through cyber-informed design (C-ID), real-time anomaly detection, dynamic monitoring, and cost-effective mitigation strategies. The efforts will significantly improve the economics and effectiveness of cybersecurity risk management in future microreactor fleets. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Building Cyber-Resilient Architecture for Advanced Reactors via Integrated Operations and Network Digital Twin | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | The research will develop a secure-by-design architecture via integrating plant operation and network digital twins for advanced reactors. Automatic attack path and vulnerability analysis will be developed and used to assess and harden critical digital assets (CDA) against cyber risks prior to and during operation to identify vulnerabilities, attack pathways, and threat vectors. A CDA selection method will also be developed by combining vulnerability scores and assets importance. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Extending PRA and HRA legacy methods and tools with a cause-based model for comprehensive treatment of human error dependency | University of California, Los Angeles | $1,000,000 | This project aims at developing a solution to HRA dependency assessment in PRA from methodological and practical/computational perspectives within legacy PRA tools and methods. The solutions will include procedures for quantifying dependency when using PRA legacy tools, a method for modeling and quantifying dependency in HRA comprising a BN-causal model suitable for use with legacy PRA methods and tools, and the computational tools for its integration. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| An Integrated Elemental and Isotopic Detector for Real-Time Molten Salt Monitoring | North Carolina State University | $1,000,000 | The overarching theme of the proposed research is to develop and demonstrate a real-time elemental and isotopic detector of molten salts for advanced reactors and fuel fabrication and recycling processes. The detector's longevity, limits, and latency will be tested in static uranium chloride salts, in pyroprocessing chloride salt, and on flowing fluoride salt with evolving actinide composition, respectively. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Development of a Thin-Layer Electrochemical Sensor for Molten Salt Reactors and Fuel Cycle Processes | Brigham Young University | $811,755 | A thin-layer electrochemical sensor capable of detecting uranium, plutonium and other species of interest in molten salts, at both high and low concentrations, will be developed for application in molten salt reactors and fuel cycle process units. This will provide a valuable tool for performing material control and accountancy measurements. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Risk-Informed Consequence-Driven Hybrid Cyber-Physical Protection System Security Optimization for Advanced Reactor Sites | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | This project aims to develop an expanded methodology for designing a novel cybersecurity-integrated physical protection system (PPS) framework for advanced reactor concepts that serves to reduce the operational costs for the life of a reactor against that of a traditional light water reactor PPS design, promoting efforts to credit safety features of advanced reactors through proposed amendments to current security regulations, while integrating health and economic consequence analyses. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| A risk analysis framework for evaluating the safety, reliability, and economic implications of electrolysis for hydrogen production at NPPs | University of Maryland, College Park | $1,000,000 | The RAFELHyP project will develop a modular risk analysis framework that enables evaluating the safety, reliability, and economic implications of upcoming deployments of electrolyzers to produce hydrogen at nuclear power plants. The framework will be implemented to conduct an integrated safety, reliability, and economic analysis of multiple plant configurations to provide detailed recommendations for plant protective features and layouts. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Reduced Order Modeling of Heat and Fluid Flow: Multi-Scale Modeling of Advanced Reactors to Enable Faster Deployment | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | Novel multi-scale algorithms for thermal-hydraulics (TH) simulations of advanced reactors will be developed. The methods will leverage recent advances in hardware and reduced order modeling approaches to enable TH simulations of vastly accelerated speed, while maintaining accuracy comparable to high-fidelity methods, such as large-eddy simulation. The methods will allow designers to perform parameter sweeps, develop closures, and enable high fidelity simulation of transients. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Embedded Monte Carlo | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Monte Carlo methods have long been considered the standard in terms of accuracy and have seen increased use in design of small nuclear systems; however, the uncertainty quantification (UQ) of the desired output is often relegated to later stages of the design process. This project seeks to embed nuclear data UQ in a single Monte Carlo simulation, such that each desired quantity will not only provide the mean value and statistical uncertainty, but also the related nuclear data uncertainty. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| A Low Order Transport Method Based on the Dynamic Truncation of the Integral Transport Matrix Method (ITMM) that Converges to the SN Solution with Increasing Cell Optical Thickness | North Carolina State University | $1,000,000 | A novel low-order transport operator capable of approximating Monte Carlo (MC) results within a variance range will be developed. This does not require MC reference solutions to calibrate the low-order model, so repeated solutions of the latter in-transient scenarios does not require repeated MC simulations. Truncation of the low-order operator is done dynamically for evolving configurations to ensure accuracy of the low-order solution. This will involve proof of principle on Cartesian meshes, then implementation in Griffin. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| CFD based Critical Heat Flux predictions for enhanced DNBR margin | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | This project seeks to demonstrate a robust high-fidelity CFD-based methodology to predict CHF behavior at varying quality conditions, enabling the development of advanced DNBR correlations with reduced uncertainty, and in support of upgraded plant economics. The availability of a virtual CHF methodology will allow greatly extending the database for DNBR correlations development and further support advancement in the design of high-performing nuclear fuel. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Immersed Boundary Methods for Modeling of Complex Geometry: A Leap Forward in Multiscale Modeling using NekRS | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | A major challenge to Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling of complex geometries is the need to generate body-fitted meshes, which can occupy 80% of the CFD practitioner's time. Immersed boundary methods will be added in the NekRS CFD code, dramatically simplifying modeling of complex 3-D structures and facilitating a new paradigm for CFD-informed multiscale analysis. This will be demonstrated by informing SAM transient systems-level models with NekRS heat exchanger correlations for advanced reactors. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Uncertainty Quantification of Model Extrapolation in Neural Network-informed Turbulent Closures for Plenum Mixing in HTGRs | Utah State University | $1,000,000 | This project will quantify the uncertainty in prediction of Neural Network-informed Turbulent Closures when they are operating in a model extrapolation state. Once the method is developed for canonical buoyant jets, the protocols will be applied to plenum mixing in HTGRs. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Impact of moisture on corrosion of NiCr alloys in MgCl2-NaCl Salt Systems | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $999,983 | This project aims to gain a fundamental understanding of the impact of moisture and salt chemistry on corrosion of NiCr alloys in molten chloride salts. A novel approach coupling multiscale simulations and experiments will be designed to determine salt acidity, its dependence on salt composition (i.e., the NaCl to MgCl2 ratio), and its effects on the transport of H2O and Cr ions and the corrosion kinetics of NiCr alloys in chloride salt. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Transforming Microreactor Economics Through Hydride Moderator Enabled Neutron Economy | State University of New York, Stony Brook | $1,000,000 | Microreactors will potentially require the cost of electricity to be 10 MWD/kg at >3 kW/kg core specific power. These goals are best achieved through a well-thermalized spectrum. Neutron economy as a core material selection criterion to advance entrained hydride composite moderators will be used with the primary goal of significantly reducing fuel costs through novel microreactor designs. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Integrating Nuclear with ZLD Seawater Desalination and Mining | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | An integrated nuclear system will be developed that would utilize electricity and waste heat to operate a desalination and mining process from adjacent seawater. The desalination approach targets zero-liquid discharge with multiple marketable minerals extracted. The ability of nuclear facilities to load follow is increasingly important, so a cold thermal storage system will be incorporated. The desalination and mineral extraction process will be experimentally validated at lab scale. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Reference Designs of Green Ammonia Plants Powered by Small Modular Reactors | Utah State University | $1,000,000 | The overarching goal of this project is to develop two reference designs for green ammonia plants. One design uses freshwater as the source for hydrogen, while the other design uses seawater (or brackish water) as the source. In both designs, a small modular reactor (SMR) is used as the primary energy source providing both electricity and steam for the plants. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Development of the Technical Bases to Support Flexible Siting of Microreactors based on Right-Sized Emergency Planning Zones | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to provide the technical basis to support the application of a right-sized Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ) size to support the deployment of a microreactor at the Penn State University Park campus. This research study will serve as a template to provide flexible siting in support of future microreactor deployments that may be placed closer to demand centers, thereby making them more economically competitive. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Bayesian Optimization for Automatic Reactor Design Optimization | Arizona State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to develop analytical tools based on Gaussian process modeling and Bayesian Optimization that facilitate reactor design optimization by modeling the responses from the physics simulator. Existing capabilities will be applied in an AI field and they will be adapted to address the key characteristics of nuclear reactor design problem. This project will automate the simulation-based design procedure, reduce the number of iterations, and minimize the design cycle time. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Engaging New Mexican communities in developing an equitable and just approach to siting advanced reactor facilities | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | This project will engage diverse New Mexican communities to develop an equitable approach for advanced reactor siting. The findings of this project will shed light on how technology developers and the DOE can explore and potentially site advanced reactors with the informed consent and engagement of host communities, regions, and states. The findings of this study will also more generally apply to the potential for equitably exploring both brownfield and greenfield sites for nuclear facilities. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Deciphering Irradiation Effects of YHx through In-situ Evaluation and Micromechanics for Microreactor Applications | University of New Mexico | $998,000 | This project addresses a critical gap in accelerated testing of YH evolution coupling multi-length scale mechanical testing with ion irradiation and advanced characterization to establish a baseline understanding of YH evolution under ion irradiation. Our approach will couple ion irradiation and gamma irradiation with small scale mechanical testing to decipher multi-scale impacts on phase stability to advance understanding of YH in a microreactor moderator application. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Active Learning Estimation and Optimization (ALEO) of Irradiation Experimental Design for Efficient Accelerated Fuel Qualification | University of Texas at San Antonio | $997,247 | This collaborative project creates novel AI/ML models and algorithms integrated with physical knowledge and expertise to explore more efficient ways to calculate irradiation temperatures and fuel specimen burnups for new fuel sample configurations of MiniFuel experiments proposed for irradiation in the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Unraveling how mixing vane spacers affect cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena in light water reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $500,000 | Experiments will be conducted to quantify the effect of mixing vane spacers on cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena, namely single-phase forced convection, nucleate boiling, and CHF. The results of the experimental research will allow elucidating the physical phenomena triggered by the presence of mixing vane spacers. They will also allow assessing the performance of M-CFD tools developed within CASL and in use by the nuclear community. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Quantum Computing Algorithms for Deterministic Neutron Transport | University of Michigan | $500,000 | This project will develop algorithms for solving the k-eigenvalue form of the neutron transport equation in a nuclear reactor physics context on a quantum computer. The asymptotic scaling of the algorithms will be analyzed. Investigation into implementation will be made by making resource estimates by synthesizing explicit circuits for the algorithms and be studied by emulation on a classical computer. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Optimizing Application-Dependent Energy Group Structures for Multigroup Neutron Transport Models using Machine Learning | Colorado School of Mines | $500,000 | Machine Learning methods will be developed that will dramatically reduce both the computational run-time and manual effort needed to find multigroup energy structures that accurately capture the underlying physics of neutron reactions, while allowing multigroup simulations to run quickly without overwhelming available memory. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Understanding PM-HIP Interparticle Evolution and its Influence on Fracture Toughness in Alumina-Forming Steels | Purdue University | $1,100,000 | This project aims to understand how interparticle evolution during hot isostatic pressing (HIP) influences fracture toughness of Al-bearing steels. The team will use a series of interrupted HIP experiments with phase field models to understand the formation mechanisms of interparticle defects during HIP of alumina-forming austenitic (AFA) stainless steels and FeCrAl steels, and the influence of these defects on fracture behavior. | Document | Advanced Manufacturing Technologies | FY2024 |
| Multiscale high-throughput experiment/modeling approach to understanding creep behavior in Additively Manufactured reactor steels | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $1,043,271 | This project proposes to develop a predictive capability for processing-microstructure-property correlations in additive manufactured microstructures utilizing a multiscale approach encompassing bulk creep tests, miniaturized tensile testing, and a high-throughput, indentation based, cost-effective method for elevated temperature mechanical mapping of additively manufactured 316H Stainless Steel, Grade 91, and Titanium-Zirconium-Molybdenum (TZM) alloys. | Document | Advanced Manufacturing Technologies | FY2024 |
| Assessing molten salt corrosion resistance of stainless steel 316H in nuclear reactor environments | North Carolina State University | $1,100,000 | The proposed goal is to leverage a blend of innovative molten salt corrosion experiments and cutting-edge characterization techniques to advance our understanding of molten salt corrosion in both commercial and additively manufactured (AM) stainless steel (SS) 316H, particularly under radiation or stress environments. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Polymer-Derived C-SiC Coatings on Kernel Particles for Advanced Nuclear Reactors | University of Alabama at Birmingham | $1,100,000 | This program is to use a polymer-derived ceramic approach to develop C-SiC/ZrC coatings on ZrO2 kernel substitute particles. We aim to create new fuel encapsulation materials in replacement of the coatings on fuel kernel particles, including the TRISO layers, for advanced reactors, conduct ion irradiation testing of the new materials for nuclear performance evaluation, and carry out detailed microstructure and composition characterization to assess the C-SiC/ZrC coated fuel particle behaviors. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Sorbent regeneration, recycling, and transformation: A transformative approach to iodine capture and immobilization | University of Nevada, Reno | $1,000,000 | The project will focus on the development of materials and processes for regeneration and recycling of sorbents, and the transformation of iodine-loaded sorbents into waste forms. A combination of computational and experimental studies will be conducted to understand (a) how the components in a primary off-gas stream interact with the sorbent, (b) how this off-gas stream affects the regeneration lifetime, and (c) low-temperature binders and processing paths that leads to durable waste forms. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Accident Tolerant Fuels to Support Power Uprates in LWRs | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,100,000 | This project will demonstrate that power uprates higher than the current state of operation can be reached using accident tolerant fuels in light water reactors while not exceeding reactor safety margins during normal operation and accidents. We will analyze it considering fuel enriched up to 10% and peak rod average burnup up to 75GWd/tU concerning reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, reactor safety, and economics. Considerations will be made in consultation with the named industry advisory board. | Document | Existing Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Comparative study of three-dimensional microstructural imaging and thermal conductivity evolution of irradiated solid and annular U-Zr fuels | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Uranium-zirconium (U-Zr) annular metallic fuel holds the promise to simultaneously increase sodium fast reactor (SFR) core uranium loading and reduce peak cladding temperatures, thus greatly improving fuel performance. However, key convolved fuel degradation mechanisms during irradiation at temperature threaten to hold back its real-world applicability, requiring more detailed understanding to both predict U-Zr fuel performance and suggest improvements. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Mechanistic study and modeling of fission gas release in UO2 and doped UO2 | Oregon State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to enhance the safety and performance of light water reactors and other advanced reactor designs by gaining a fundamental understanding of fast gas reactor mechanisms and developing mechanistic models for UO2 and doped UO2 fuels under HBU and transient conditions. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Anisotropic Thermal Properties of SiC-SiC Cladding: Method Development & Characterization | University of Pittsburgh | $1,000,000 | We propose to develop a high-temperature nondestructive thermal conductivity (k) measurement system coupled with validated multiscale models to accurately determine the anisotropic thermal conductivity of SiC-SiC composite cladding tubes. The multiscale measurement and modeling results benefit both DOE ATF programs as well as providing a fundamental understanding of how the microstructure of the composite leads to its anisotropic properties. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Understanding the Performance of SiC-SiCf Composite Cladding Architectures with Cr Coating in Normal Operating and Accident Conditions in LWRs and Advanced Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The project will focus on investigating the impact of Cr-coating on the SiC-SiCf composite cladding of various architectures under normal operating and accident conditions in light water reactors and advanced reactors for the safe and economic deployment of SiC cladding. Cr-coating will provide protection from high-temperature corrosion and better hermeticity under accident conditions. The performance of the claddings will be evaluated through the corrosion test, reflood test, burst test, and non-destructive evaluation(NDE). | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Developing critical insights on the effects of Mo on _' precipitation and dislocation loop formation in FeCrAl alloys | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | This project aims at developing a mechanistic understanding on the effects of Mo on _' precipitation and dislocation loop formation in FeCrAl alloys in thermal and irradiation conditions and turns it into a set of design principles guiding further optimization, by integrating atomistic simulations, CALPHAD modeling, thermal aging, proton irradiation, and advanced characterization. The material discoveries will be generalized to other solutes other than Mo. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Inference of flow conditions from in-core detector measurements for accelerating SMR licensing | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Reactor modelling relies on the detailed description of reactor systems but often lacks the true as-built characteristics of a system. This proposal seeks to fill these geometrical data gaps using available detector data, predictive models and machine learning in order to provide better information to analysis tools and thus better prediction of future performance. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Non-Destructive Plutonium Assay in Pyroprocessing Bulk Materials with a 3D Boron-Coated-Straw Detector Array | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,100,000 | The objective of the proposed project is to develop and demonstrate a 3D boron-coated-straw detector array (3D-BCSDA) with high efficiency and spatial resolution. This detection system will be specifically designed to accurately assess the fissile mass in bulk nuclear material during pyroprocessing operations, thereby improving the precision and reliability of accountability measurements during separation. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Improving the computational efficiency and usability of dynamic PRA with reinforcement learning | University of Maryland, College Park | $1,064,400 | The overall objective of the proposed research is to improve the efficiency and usability of dynamic probabilistic risk assessment (PRA). Specifically, the first objective is to develop a new algorithm for dynamic PRA analysis that can significantly increase the computational efficiency. The second objective is to develop a question-answering system to streamline the process of risk-informed decision-making based on results obtained from the dynamic PRA analysis using the new algorithm. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Development of a Benchmark Model for the Near Real-Time Radionuclide Composition Measurement System using Microcalorimetry for Advanced Reactors | Virginia Commonwealth University | $1,100,000 | The primary goal of this proposed project is to develop high fidelity Monte Carlo radiation transport models of a microcalorimetry detector informed by fuel depletion models of a molten salt reactor and a pebble bed reactor to quantify the current and future capabilities of this detector technology to characterize and assay used fuel from these reactors in near real-time. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Development and Validation of a Dual-Purpose Instrument for On-line Monitoring of Molten Salt Composition and Thermal Behavior | Brigham Young University | $1,099,924 | We propose the development of an online monitoring instrument capable of quantifying heat transfer and salt composition for molten salt reactors (MSR). A dual electrochemistry/thermal conductivity probe (DETP) will be developed to measure the thermal properties and impurities within the salt simultaneously. The DETP will make use of a previously developed needle probe and electrodes for square-wave cyclic voltammetry measures of salt composition. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| In Situ Assessment of Molten Salt Transport into Nuclear Graphite Microstructures using Ultrasonic Sensors | Johns Hopkins University | $909,827 | This project focuses on the transport of molten salt into nuclear graphite along with the investigation of ultrasonic methods for sensing graphite material property changes, especially elastic modulus, associated with intrusion of molten salt into the graphite microstructure. Experimental studies coupled with physics-based simulations will be used to assess strategies for in situ sensing of salt intrusion in the reactor environment to enhance long-term viability of molten salt reactors. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| MONITORING CERAMIC FUEL FRACTURE VIA FIBER OPTIC ACOUSTIC EMISSION SENSORS | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $1,000,000 | In the proposed three-year program, the Center for Photonics Technology (CPT) at Virginia Tech will collaborate with Sentek Instrument (Sentek), Prysmian, and Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to develop and demonstrate a distributed acoustic emission (AE) sensing system for in-situ monitoring of ceramic fuel fracture. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| Concurrent Surrogate Model Development with Uncertainty Quantification in the MOOSE Framework Using Physics-Informed Gaussian-Process Machine Learning | University of Florida | $999,999 | The objective of this project is to develop a general capability for concurrent generation and use of physics-informed Gaussian process (GP)-based surrogate models to facilitate multiscale and multiphysics modeling. We will implement this new capability as part of the Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) so that every application based on the MOOSE framework will have access to it. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2024 |
| Unstructured Adaptive Mesh Algorithms for Monte Carlo Transport | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,098,000 | We propose to develop the fundamental methods and techniques for unstructured adaptive mesh refinement with Monte Carlo tallies. This work enables a transformative leap forward in speed, accuracy, and robustness to enhance the contribution of high-fidelity radiation transport to advanced simulation. Adaptive refinement is deployed on a challenging multiphysics simulation, cascading heat pipe failure, to study acceleration and stabilization properties. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2024 |
| Feasibility Study of Micro-Nuclear Reactor Thermal Output for Air Rotary Kilns in the High-Temperature Manufacturing of Portland Cement Clinker | Pennsylvania State University | $998,793 | This project aims to design and test a micro-nuclear reactor for high-temperature portland cement clinker production, a process responsible for 6%-8% of global CO2 emissions. Leveraging advanced reactors' heat output, the project explores TRISO-based nuclear microreactor core modifications and new working fluids for heat pipes. The research addresses uncertainties in micro-nuclear reactor deployment for clinker production and investigates high-efficiency heat exchanger designs. | Document | Non-Traditional and Non-electric Applications | FY2024 |
| Redox potential, ionic speciation, and separation and recovery challenges from molten salts containing actinides and fission products | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $999,999 | Establishing an efficient, safe, secure, and economical Molten-Salt Reactor (MSR) fuel cycle is imperative for MSR implementation. Molten salt fuel recycling technology requires predictive knowledge of the chemical and physical behavior of lanthanide and actinide ions with different oxidation states dissolved in solvent salts. A combination of off-gas and X-ray measurements with machine-learning simulations will be used to produce predictive modeling of separation and recovery conditions. | Document | Nuclear Fuel Recycle Technologies | FY2024 |
| Pre-Treatment and Bulk Separation of Used Fuels with Carbonate-Peroxide Solutions | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | To use carbonate-peroxide chemistries to develop a pre-processing method for used uranium-based fuels that enables the subsequent use and optimization of current solvent extraction reprocessing schemes. Using simple precipitation, this innovative method provides an initial, bulk separation of uranium from fission products and actinides. | Document | Nuclear Fuel Recycle Technologies | FY2024 |
| Optimization of Fueling Strategies and Material Surveillance through Real-time Pebble Tracking in Pebble Bed Reactors | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,100,000 | Flexible operation of the energy grid of the future introduces uncertainty in determining the optimal operating conditions of Pebble Bed Reactors. The proposed work will help to address these challenges and enable more economical operation by providing the tools to determine of optimal fuel reloading strategy through pebble identification and tracking. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Experimental Study and Computational Modeling of P-LOFC and D-LOFC Accidents in the Fast Modular Reactor Consisting of Silicon Carbide Composite Rods | University of Michigan | $1,100,000 | The primary objectives of this proposed research are to better understand NC flow phenomena and heat transfer under both D-LOFC and P-LOFC accidents in the FMR, produce experimental data in a well-scaled integral-effects test facility for the two accidents, and develop and validate predictive CFD models for NC flow phenomena in both accidents. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Sodium heat pipes; design and failure mode assessment for micro-reactor applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The present proposal aims to experimentally investigate the thermal-hydraulics performance of liquid sodium heat pipes applied to microreactors, with a focus on exploring different design parameters, effects of different parameters on operating performance and understanding the evolution and impact of different failure modes. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Interfacial Interactions between Graphite and Molten Fluoride Fuel Salt | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $1,000,000 | NaF-KF-UF4 fuel salt will be selected to study graphite-salt interactions and impact of the existence of fission products (FPs) and corrosion products on the interactions at different temperatures and pressures. Fundamental mechanisms of graphite-salt interaction and degradation will be understood. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Local resonance-based linear and nonlinear NDE techniques for repaired DSC wall structures | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | The proposed work plan will develop nondestructive examination (NDE) methods that develop and evaluate linear and nonlinear resonant ultrasound spectroscopy methods (such as NRUS, NIRAS, etc.) to cold spray (CS) repaired dry shielded canister (DSC) wall structures. With the support of our partners from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), we will perform technology development and validation on plain and cold spray-repaired DSC wall specimens. | Document | Spent Fuel, Waste Science & Technology and Integrated Waste Management System | FY2024 |
| Thermodynamic Models for Multivalent Actinide Solubility and Speciation as a Function of Temperature and Ionic Strength | University of Notre Dame | $1,000,000 | This proposed project will quantify the solubility and speciation of Np and Pu under temperatures, ionic strengths, and pH values that are relevant to the generic repository concept. The major deliverable will be full thermodynamic descriptions of the studied systems, which will lead to improved radionuclide transport models and support the development of a sound technical basis for the geologic disposal of spent nuclear fuel and other actinide-bearing wastes. | Document | Spent Fuel, Waste Science & Technology and Integrated Waste Management System | FY2024 |
| Advancing Fundamental Molten Salt Modeling using Ultrafast Spectroscopy | North Carolina State University | $600,000 | The overarching goal of the proposed research is to advance our fundamental understanding of molten salts by combining ultrafast spectroscopic experiments with high fidelity atomistic simulations. The proposed research will introduce a new experimental technique to the study of molten salts that will directly measure ion kinetics, specifically, terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS), which will further validate AIMD as a predictive modeling tool. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
| Hydrodynamics of Two-Phase Flow Under the Geometric Effects of Pipe Orientation and U-bends | Purdue University | $600,000 | Most two-phase flow analyses have been performed in straight vertical-upward pipes. However, nuclear reactor systems include piping with different geometric components, such as elbows or U-bends, as well as changes in flow orientations. The proposed work performs experiments in a scaled test facility existing at the institution's lab to investigate the effects of flow orientations and geometries relevant to nuclear reactor systems on the hydrodynamics of two-phase flow. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
| Interface-Resolved Experimental and Numerical Studies of Two-Phase Flow for Nuclear Engineering Applications | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $500,000 | The project aims at advancing the interface-resolved simulation capabilities for the two-phase flows found in various nuclear engineering applications. We will develop a comprehensive, high-resolution, interface-resolved database emphasizing bubble dynamics and bubble interaction mechanisms. The data will be used to validate the sub-grid models implemented in an interface-resolved simulation tool to improve simulation accuracy by developing physics-based coalescence models. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
FY 2013 Research and Development Awards
The Department of Energy is awarding $37.9 million in support of the Nuclear Energy University Programs for 48 nuclear energy research and development projects focused on four fields: FuelThe Department of Energy is awarding $42 million in support of the Nuclear Energy University Programs for 61 nuclear energy research and development projects focused on developing innovative solutions in the following fields: Fuel Cycle Technologies; Reactor Concepts Research; Development & Demonstration; and Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling & Simulation.
These projects, selected for negotiation of award, are led by 38 American universities and colleges in 28 states and the District of Columbia. Other universities, industry leaders and National Laboratories will serve as collaborators and research partners.
A complete list of R&D projects with their associated abstracts is available below. Cycle Research & Development; Reactor Concepts Research, Development & Demonstration; Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling & Simulation; and Transformative Research.
These projects, selected for negotiation of award, are led by 33 American universities and colleges in more than 22 states and the District of Columbia. Other universities, industry leaders and National Laboratories will serve as collaborators and research partners.
A complete list of R&D projects with their associated abstracts is available below.
| Title | Institution | Estimated Funding* | Project Description | Abstract | Project Type | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fundamental Understanding of Ambient and High-Temperature Plasticity Phenomena in Structural Materials in Advanced Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Elastic/Inelastic Nuclear Data Development Project | Idaho State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Heterogeneous Recycling in Fast Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Thermodynamic Development of Corrosion Rate Modeling in Iron Phosphate Glasses | Missouri University of Science and Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Subspace-Based Hybrid Monte Carlo-Deterministic Algorithms for Reactor Physics Calculations | North Carolina State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Improvements to Nuclear Data and Its Uncertainties by Theoretical Modeling | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Sharp Interface Tracking in Rotating Microflows of Solvent Extraction | State University of New York at Stony Brook | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Bulk Nanostructured FCC Steels with Enhanced Radiation Tolerance | Texas A&M University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Fuel Performance Experiments and Modeling: Fission Gas Bubble Nucleation and Growth in Alloy Nuclear Fuels | Texas A&M University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| SiC Schottky Diode Detectors for Measurement of Actinide Concentrations from Alpha Activities in Molten Salt Electrolyte | The Ohio State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Computational Design of Advanced Nuclear Fuels | University of California, Davis | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Data Collection Methods For Validation of Advanced Multi-Resolution Fast Reactor Simulations | University of Idaho | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Simulations of the Thermodynamic and Diffusion Properties of Actinide Oxide Fuel Materials | University of Michigan | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Adsorptive Separation and Sequestration of Krypton, I and C14 on Diamond Nanoparticles | University of Missouri, Columbia | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Alternative Technetium Waste Forms | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Quantification of UV-Visible and Laser Spectroscopic Techniques for Materials Accountability and Process Control | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| High-Fidelity Space-Time Adaptive Multiphysics Simulations in Nuclear Engineering | University of Nevada, Reno | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Simulations of Failure via Three-Dimensional Cracking in Fuel Cladding for Advanced Nuclear Fuels | University of Texas, Dallas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Mesh-Enabled Monte Carlo Capability for Multi-Physics Reactor Analysis | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Ab Initio Enhanced Calphad Modeling of Actinide Rich Nuclear Fuels | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Diffusion Barrier Coatings and Deposition Technologies for Mitigating Fuel Cladding Chemical Interactions (FCCI) | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Thermal Properties of LiCl-KCl Molten Salt for Nuclear Waste Separation | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Neutron Damage and MAX Phase Ternary Compounds | Drexel University | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Atomistic Calculations of the Effect of Minor Actinides on Thermodynamic and Kinetic Properties of UO2+x | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Maximum Fuel Utilization in Fast Reactors without Chemical Reprocessing | University of California, Berkeley | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Developing a High Thermal Conductivity Fuel with Silicon Carbide Additives | University of Florida | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Fabrication of Tungsten-Rhenium Cladding Materials via Spark Plasma Sintering for Ultra High Temperature Reactor Applications | University of Idaho | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Ionic Liquid and Supercritical Fluid Hyphenated Techniques for Dissolution and Separation of Lanthanides, Actinides, and Fission Products | University of Idaho | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Improved Fission Neutron Data Base for Active Interrogation of Actinides | University of Michigan | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Utilization of Methacrylates and Polymer Matrices for the Synthesis of Ion Specific Resins | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Improved LWR Cladding Performance by EPD Surface Modification Technique | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Models of LWR Pressure Vessel Embrittlement for Low Flux-High Fluence Conditions | University of California, Santa Barbara | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) | FY2009 | ||
| Irradiation Creep in Graphite | Boise State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Modeling the Stress Strain Relationships and Predicting Failure Probabilities For Graphite Core Components | Cleveland State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| TRISO-Coated Fuel Durability Under Extreme Conditions | Colorado School of Mines | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| An Innovative and Advanced Coupled Neutron Transport and Thermal Hydraulic Method (Tool) for the Design, Analysis and Optimization of VHTR/NGNP Prismatic Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Removal of 14C from Irradiated Graphite for Graphite Recycle and Waste Volume Reduction | Idaho State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Millimeter-Wave Thermal Analysis Development and Application to Gen IV Reactor Materials | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Accurate Development of Thermal Neutron Scattering Cross Section Libraries | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Understanding Creep Mechanisms in Graphite with Experiments, Multiscale Simulations, and Modeling | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Verification & Validation of High-Order Short-Characteristics-Based Deterministic Transport Methodology on Unstructured Grids | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Microscale Heat Conduction Models and Doppler Feedback | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Optimizing Neutron Thermal Scattering Effects in Very High Temperature Reactors | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Multiaxial Creep-Fatigue and CreepRatcheting Failures of Grade 91 and Haynes 230 Alloys Toward Addressing Design Issues of Gen IV Nuclear Power Plants | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Investigation of Countercurrent Helium-air Flows in Air-ingress Accidents for VHTRs | Ohio State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Testing of Performance of Optical Fibers Under Irradiation in Intense Radiation Fields, When Subjected to Very High Temperatures | Ohio State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| A Distributed Fiber Optic Sensor Network for Online 3-D Temperature and Neutron Fluence Mapping in a VHTR Environment | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Investigation on the Core Bypass Flow in a Very High Temperature Reactor | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| CFD Model Development and Validation for High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor Cavity Cooling System (RCCS) Applications | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Study of Air ingress across the duct during the accident conditions | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Verification of the CENTRM Module for Adaptation of the SCALE Code to NGNP Prismatic and PBR Core Designs | University of Arizona | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Integral and Separate Effects Tests for Thermal Hydraulics Code Validation for Liquid-Salt Cooled Nuclear Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Mechanisms Governing the Creep Behavior of High Temperature Alloys for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems | University of Cincinnati | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| ALD Produced B2O3, Al2O3 and TiO2 Coatings on Gd2O3 Burnable Poison Nanoparticles | University of Colorado, Boulder | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Experimental Study and Computational Simulations of Key Pebble Bed Thermomechanics Issues for Design and Safety | University of Idaho | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Prediction and Monitoring Systems of Creep-Fracture Behavior of 9Cr-1Mo Steels for Reactor Pressure Vessels | University of Idaho | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Understanding Fundamental Material Degradation Processes in High Temperature Aggressive Chemomechanical Environments | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Multi-Scale Multi-physics Methods Development for the Calculation of Hot-Spots in the NGNP | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Corrosion and Creep of Candidate Alloys in High Temperature Helium and Steam Environments for the NGNP | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Creation of a Full-Core HTR Benchmark with the Fort St. Vrain Initial Core and Validation of the DHF Method with Helios for NGNP Configurations | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Fission Product Sorptivity in Graphite | University of Missouri, Columbia | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Identifying and Understanding Environment-Induced Crack Propagation Behavior in Ni-Based Superalloy INCONEL 617 | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Graphite Oxidation Simulation in HTR Accident Conditions | University of New Mexico | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Non Destructive Thermal Analysis and In Situ Investigation of Creep Mechanism of Graphite and Ceramic Composites using Phase-sensitive THz Imaging & Nonlinear Resonant Ultrasonic Spectroscopy | University of Rochester | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Tritium Sequestration in Gen IV NGNP Gas Stream via Proton Conducting Ceramic Pumps | University of South Carolina | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Materials, Turbomachinery and Heat Exchangers for Supercritical CO2 Systems | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Experimental Studies of NGNP Reactor Cavity Cooling System with Water | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Assessment of Embrittlement of VHTR Structural Alloys in Impure Helium Environments | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Modeling Fission Product Sorption in Graphite Structures | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Liquid Salt Heat Exchanger Technology for VHTR Based Applications | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Effect of Post-Weld Heat Treatment on Creep Rupture Properties of Grade 91 Steel Heavy Section Welds | Utah State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Alpha Radiolysis of Nuclear Solvent Extraction Ligands used for An(III) and Ln(III) Separations | California State University, Long Beach | $1,390,252 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Predictive Maturity of Multi-Scale Simulation Models for Fuel Performance | Clemson University | $614,690 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Freeze-casting as a Novel Manufacturing Process for Fast Reactor Fuels | Drexel University | $1,149,327 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Fuel Performance Experiments on the Atomistic Level, Studying Fuel Through Engineered Single Crystal UO2 | Idaho State University | $650,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Development of A Self Biased High Efficiency Solid-State Neutron Detector for MPACT Applications | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $810,141 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Development of a Innovative High Thermal Conductivity UO 2 Ceramic Composites Fuel Pellets with Carbon Nano-Tubes Using Spark Plasma Sintering | University of Florida | $894,042 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Exploration and Modeling of Structural Changes in Waste Glass under Corrosion | Pennsylvania State University | $1,377,444 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Evaluation of materials for interim storage of spent fuel for more than 100 years | University of Michigan | $931,603 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Implementation of On-the-Fly Doppler Broadening in MCNP5 for Multiphysics Simulation of Nuclear Reactors | University of Michigan | $406,712 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Methods and tools to allow molecular flow simulations to be coupled to higher level continuum descriptions of flows in porous/fractured media and aerosol/dust dynamics | University of Missouri-Columbi | $541,286 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Characterization and Modeling of Materials for Kr-Xe Separations | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $989,800 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Modeling Solute Thermokinetics in LiCl-KCl Molten Salt for Nuclear Waste Separation | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $616,073 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Advanced Aqueous Separation Systems for Actinide Partitioning: Develop Fundamental Understanding of An(III)/Ln(III) Separation | Washington State University | $1,451,784 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Consistent Multigroup Theory Enabling Accurate Coarse-Group Simulation of GenIV Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,046,277 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Studies of Deteriorated Heat Transfer in Prismatic Cores Stemming from Irradiation-Induced Geometry Distortion | Idaho State University | $1,287,921 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Carbide Coatings for Nickel Alloys, Graphite, and Carbon/Carbon Composites to be Used in Fluoride Salt Valves | Johns Hopkins University | $1,183,239 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Design, Testing, and Modeling of the Direct Reactor Auxiliary Cooling System for AHTRs | Ohio State University | $1,366,627 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Monitoring microstructural evolution of Alloy 617 with nonlinear acoustics for remaining useful life prediction; multiaxial creep-fatigue and creep-ratcheting | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development and Validation of Multidimensional Models of Supercritical CO 2 Energy Conversion Systems for Nuclear Power Reactors | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $475,005 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Microstructure and Property Evolution in Advanced Cladding and Duct Materials Under Long-Term and Elevated Temperature Irradiation: Modeling and Experimental Investigation | University of California-Berkeley | $1,320,667 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of Barrier Layers for the Protection of Candidate Alloys in the VHTR | University of California-Santa Barbara | $995,232 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Investigation of a Novel NDE Method for Monitoring Thermo-Mechanical Damage and Microstructure Evolution in Ferritic-Martensitic Steels for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems | University of Cincinnati | $833,109 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Fission Product Transport in TRISO Particle Layers under Operating and Off-Normal Conditions | University of Michigan | $966,581 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Microstructure and Property Evolution in Advanced Cladding and Duct Materials Under Long-Term Irradiation at Elevated Temperature: Critical Experiments | University of Michigan | $1,181,379 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Three-dimensional NDE of VHTR Core Components via Simulation-based Testing | University of Minnesota | $1,366,163 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Failure Predictions for VHTR Core Components using a Probabilistic Continuum Damage Mechanics Model | University of Minnesota | $854,542 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of a Scanning Microscale Fast Neutron Irradiation Platform for Examining the Correlation Between Local Neutron Damage and Graphite Microstructure | University of Missouri-Columbia | $703,064 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of Thermal Transient Flow Rate Sensors for High Temperature, Irradiation, Corrosive Environment | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $451,269 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Novel Methods of Tritium Sequestration: High Temperature Gettering and Separation Membrane Materials Discovery for Nuclear Energy Systems | University of South Carolina | $1,366,626 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Heat Transfer Salts for Nuclear Reactor Systems - Chemistry Control, Corrosion Mitigation, and Modeling | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,352,040 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Pulsed Magnetic Welding for Advanced Core and Cladding Steels | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $525,206 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Corrosion in Supercritical Carbon Dioxide: Materials, Environmental Purity, Surface Treatments, and Flow Issues | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $651,447 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Multiscale Concrete Modeling for Aging Degradation | Mississippi State University | $345,941 | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability | FY2010 | |
| Development of an advanced computational fluid dynamics technology for the next-generation nuclear reactor system analysis and safety margin characterization code | North Carolina State University | $418,199 | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability | FY2010 | |
| Precursor Derived Nanostructured Si-C-X Materials for Nuclear Applications | University of Washington | $899,518 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Development and Testing of an Open-Loop Oscillator for Small Reactivity Worth Samples | Idaho State University | $597,252 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Understanding the Irradiation Behavior of Zirconium Carbide | Pennsylvania State University | $870,613 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Modeling investigation of the stability and irradiation-induced evolution of nanoscale precipitates in advanced structural materials | University of Tennessee-Knoxville | $380,653 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Investigation of Laser Shock Peening for Enhancing Fatigue and Stress Corrosion Cracking Resistance of Nuclear Energy Materials | University of Cincinnati | $1,242,019 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Irradiation Accelerated Corrosion of Reactor Core Materials | University of Michigan | $798,943 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Study of Interfacial Interactions using Thin Film Surface Modification: Radiation and Oxidation Effects in Materials | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $538,032 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Novel Engineered Refractory Materials for Advanced Reactor Applications | North Carolina State University | $1,129,304 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Quantification of Cation Sorption to Engineered Barrier Materials Under Extreme Conditions | Clemson University | $1,171,380 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| In-Pile Instrumentation Multi-Parameter System Utilizing Photonic Fibers and Nanovision | Idaho State University | $1,199,990 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Development of Plasmonically Cloaked Nanoparticles | Idaho State University | $800,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Fission Product Transmutation in Mixed Radiation Fields | Idaho State University | $800,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Life Prediction of Spent Fuel Storage Canister Material | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $899,826 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Active Interrogation using Photofission Technique for Nuclear Materials Control and Accountability | Oregon State University | $900,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Anisotropic Azimuthal Power and Temperature Distribution on Fuel Rod: Impact of Hydride Distribution | Pennsylvania State University | $631,956 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Sorption Modeling and Verification for Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Microemulsions and Aggregation Formation in Extraction Processes for Used Nuclear Fuel: Thermodynamics and Structural Studies | University of California, Irvine | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Optimized Processing Fabrication Paths for Larger Heats of Nanostructured Ferritic Alloys | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Basic Physics Data: Measurement of Neutron Multiplicity from Induced Fission | University of Michigan | $973,364 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Radionuclide Incorporation and Long Term Performance of Apatite Waste Forms | University of Michigan | $862,500 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Actinide Foil Production for MPACT Research | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $156,897 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Enriched Boron-Doped Amorphous Selenium Based Position-Sensitive Solid-State Thermal Neutron Detector for MPACT Applications | University of South Carolina | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Development of Advanced High Uranium Density Fuels for Light Water Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Developing the User Experience for a Next Generation Nuclear Fuel Cycle Simulator | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,200,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Preparation and Development of Polymer-Supported Extractants | City College of New York, Hunter | $363,716 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| One-Dimensional Nanostructures for Neutron Detection | North Carolina State University | $455,629 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Feasibility and Safety Assessment for Advanced Reactor Concepts Using Vented Fuel | Oregon State University | $600,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| High Temperature Transducers for Online Monitoring of Microstructure Evolution | Pennsylvania State University | $455,628 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Laser-Arc Hybrid Welding of Thick Section Ni-base Alloys- Advanced Modeling and Experiments | Pennsylvania State University | $536,117 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Correlates of Sensitive Technologies | Texas A&M University | $509,467 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Improved Safety Margin Characterization of Risk from Loss of Offsite Power | Texas A&M University | $600,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| A High Temperature-Tolerant and Radiation-Resistant In-Core Neutron Sensor for Advanced Reactors | The Ohio State University | $455,629 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Pathway Aggregation in the Risk Assessment of Proliferation Resistance and Physical Protection (PR&PP) of Nuclear Energy Systems | The Ohio State University | $534,471 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Preparation of High Purity, High Molecular-Weight Chitin from Ionic Liquids for Use as an Adsorbate for the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Alabama | $338,260 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Selectivity in Ligand Binding to Uranyl Compounds: A Synthetic, Structural, Thermodynamic and Computational Study | University of California-Berkeley | $500,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Seismic Isolation Systems Using Periodic Materials | University of Houston | $538,154 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium from Seawater | University of Idaho | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Austenitic ODS Strengthened Alloys for Very High Temperature Applications | University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign | $538,154 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Enhancement of the Extraction of the Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Transient Safety Analysis of Fast Spectrum TRU Burning LWR with Internal Blankets | University of Michigan | $599,475 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Novel Sorbents for Uranium Extraction from Seawater | University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Radiation Behavior of High-Entropy Alloys for Advanced Reactors | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $538,159 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Rapid Computer Aided Ligand Design and Screening of Precious Metal Extractants from TRUEX Raffinate with Experimental Validation | Washington State University | $500,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of an Efficient Meso-Scale Multi-Phase Flow Solver in Nuclear Applications | City College of New York | $505,858 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Multiscale Modeling and Uncertainty Quantification for Nuclear Fuel Performance | Colorado State University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Fundamental Studies of the Role of Grain Boundaries on Uniform Corrosion of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Materials | Drexel University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Phenomena-based Uncertainty Quantification in Predictive Coupled-Physics Reactor Simulations | Texas A&M University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Characterization of Modeling of Grain Boundary Chemistry Evolution in Ferritic Steels Under Irradiation | University of Michigan | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Development of Multiscale Materials Modeling Techniques and Coarse-Graining Strategies for Predicting Materials Degradation in Extreme Irradiation Environments | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $750,000 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Diffusion, Thermal Properties and chemical Compatibilities of Select MAX Phases with Materials for Advanced Nuclear Systems | Drexel University | $535,927 | Document | Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) | FY2011 | |
| A New Light Weight Structural Material for Nuclear Structures | North Carolina State University | $399,490 | Document | Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) | FY2011 | |
| Experimental Investigation of Convection and Heat Transfer in the Reactor Core for a VHTR | City College of New York | $1,118,856 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Graphite Microstructural Characterization Using Time-Domain and Correlation-Based Ultrasonics | Johns Hopkins University | $1,199,997 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Methodology Development for Passive Component Reliability Modeling in a Multi-Physics Simulation Environment | The Ohio State University | $533,457 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Pebble Fuel Handling and Reactivity Control for Salt-Cooled High Temperature Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $612,721 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Self-Sustaining Thorium Boiling Water Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $1,145,932 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| High Fluency Low Flux Embrittlement Models of LWR Reactor Pressure Vessel Embrittlement and a Supporting Database from the UCSB ATR-2 Irradiation Experiment | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,199,607 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| A Research Program for Fission Product/Dust Transport in HTGR's | University of Missouri-Columbia | $1,157,367 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Development and Validation of a Lifecycle-based Prognostics Architecture with Test Bed Validation | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $846,315 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| In-situ Condition Monitoring of Components in Small Modular Reactors Using Process and Electrical Signature Analysis | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $650,000 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Technical Development for S-CO2 Advanced Energy Conversion | University of Wisconsin | $815,000 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Ag Transport Through Non-Irradiated and Irradiated SiC | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,055,456 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Critical Heat Flux Phenomena at High Pressure and Low Mass Fluxes: Tests and Models | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,199,781 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Modeling and Test Validation of a Reactor Cavity Cooling System with Air | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,199,988 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Transient Mixed Convection Validation for NGNP | Utah State University | $635,860 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Alternative High-Performance Ceramic Waste Forms | Alfred University | $840,000 | This project aims to advance fundamental understanding of the kinetics of structural evolution of crystalline ceramic waste forms. The structure/property relationships will be identified and will reveal new formulations, improved processing routes, and strategies for improved performance or ceramic waste forms. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Surface Layer Bulk Glass Interface Evolution with Aqueous Corrosion | Alfred University | $880,000 | This project will investigate the links between the morphology, structure and chemistry of surface layer-bulk glass interface and the long-term corrosion-reaction kinetics using in-situ and ex-situ experiments. The understanding will result in improved models for long-term predictive behavior of high-level-waste (HLW) glasses under repository conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Optimization of Deep Borehole Systems for HLW Disposal | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $850,000 | Researchers aim to carry out a comprehensive evaluation of the deep borehole option for disposal of used nuclear fuel and high livel waste. The models developed will predict potential movement of water through natural and engineered barriers and release of radionuclides to the biosphere which will aide in site selection. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Scholarship for Nuclear Communications and Methods for Evaluation of Nuclear Project Acceptability | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will work to develop a model to characterize the factors affecting social acceptance of nuclear projects with potential stakeholders. The resultant model will strengthen the ability to design and implement large projects more efficiently, leading to higher rates of success of future nuclear projects. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Accurate Holdup Calculations with Predictive Modeling and Data Integration | North Carolina State University | $875,000 | Researchers will develop and use state-of-the-art radiation transport codes to account accurately for the fissile material in a nuclear materials processing facility. An accurate estimation of the materials will allow for ensured radiological safety, security, waste management and efficient plant operation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Testing of Sapphire Optical Fiber and Sensors in Intense Radiation Fields, when Subjected to Very High Temperatures | The Ohio State University | $885,000 | The researchers on this project will investigate the performance of sapphire optical fibers and sensors in reactor environments. The project, if successful, will result in improved instrumentation to understand the behavior and predict performance of nuclear fuel systems at the microstructural level. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Concrete Materials with Ultra-High Damage Resistance and Self-Sensing Capacity for Extended Nuclear Fuel Storage Systems | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | Researchers aim to design a new class of multifunctional concrete materials. This project, if successful, will result in a novel multifunctional concrete material that possesses inherent degradation monitoring capability and is suitable for an extended storage system for the used nuclear fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Probabilistic Multi-Hazard Assessment of Dry Cask Structures | University of Houston | $865,000 | This project aims to investigate the performance of dry cask storage systems under multiple hazard systems (earthquake, tornados, combined with aging effects) using a probabilistic multi-hazard framework. This framework will be validated based on experimental research and will provide improved models for safety and reliability of spent nuclear fuels during storage and transportation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Electrochemical Corrosion Studies for Modeling Metallic Waste Form Release Rates | University of Nevada- Las Vegas | $790,000 | This project aims to use advanced electrochemical methods to investigate the corrosion related degradation of metal alloys used for housing fission products. The data obtained from this study will allow for the prediction of the long-term behavior of the metallic host phase materials over geological time-scales. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Development and Experimental Benchmark of Simulations to Predict Used Nuclear Fuel Cladding Temperatures during Drying and Transfer Operations | University of Nevada- Reno | $745,000 | Researchers will conduct experiments to investigate and develop advanced computational models of heat transfer in post-pool-storage drying operations. This project, if successful, will result in tools that can be used to design efficient drying processes to as to ensure suitability for dry-cask systems for long-term storage and transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Seismic Performance of Dry Casks Storage for Long-Term Exposure | University of Utah | $873,319 | Researchers will evaluate the mechanical performance of dry-cask storage under seismic loading for mid-term operational periods. Simulations will include scenarios for freestanding, anchored, and vaulted casks. The experimental tests will also evaluate the dynamic seismic response of freestanding and anchored dry-cask storage prototypes, providing recommendations for optimal Interim Spent Fuel Storage Installations (ISFSIs) design. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Coupling of Nuclear Waste Form Corrosion and Radionuclide Transport in Presence of Relevant Repository Sediments | Washington State University | $885,000 | Researchers will conduct experiments to understand the mechanisms responsible for the corrosion of nuclear waste forms in realistic chemical environments. The data generated from these experiments will enable increased reliability of the models used to predict the waste form performance in repository environments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| ABR for TRU Transmutation with Breed & Burn Thorium Blanket for Improved Economics and Resource Utilization | University of California- Berkeley | $450,000 | The research team will use detailed neutronic analysis for a new Advanced Burner Reactor concept with low conversion ratio. The concept will use a new core shape to improve the utilization of neutrons to perform breed and burn. | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2012 |
| Atomic-Scale to Meso-Scale Simulation Studies of Thermal Ageing and Irradiation Effects in Fe-Cr Alloys | Boston University | $874,997 | Researchers will develop predictive, multi-scale simulation tools for iron-chromium alloys, which are expected to be key components of advanced steels envisioned as fuel cladding and structural components for Generation IV reactors. Such modeling is necessary to avoid resource intensive and costly thermal and neutron irradiation experiments to obtain required performance data. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Validation Data and Model Development for Fuel Assembly Response to Seismic Loads | George Washington University | $862,435 | Researchers will conduct experiments that will provide comprehensive data characterizing the dynamics of the fluid and the structure in Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR) fuel assemblies under seismic loads (earthquakes and loss of coolant accidents). Completion of their project will greatly benefit the safety of existing and future nuclear reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Uncertainty Quantification and Management for Multiscale Nuclear Materials Modeling | Georgia Institute of Technology | $743,444 | Researchers will address the question of uncertainty propogation and error estimates associated with model prediction of material behavior under irradiation. Their work will facilitate a better understanding of the connection of various unit processes to collective responses in a multiscale model chain enabling the development of high strength and high ductility materials. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Nonlinear Ultrasonic Techniques to Monitor Radiation Damage in RPV and Internal Components | Georgia Institute of Technology | $877,000 | Researchers will explore new nondestructive materials evaluation and monitoring techniques utilizing nonlinear ultrasonic measurements . This technique will allow researchers to assess remaining useful life of select reactor components. Breakthroughs in this area will lead to the ability to characterize radiation damage in reactor pressure vessels and other components-leading to a clearer definition of reactor safety margins. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Intergral Reactor Containment Condensation Model and Experimental Validation | Oregon State University | $871,119 | Researchers will conduct experiments to enhance the safety and efficiency of small modular reactors (SMRs). This project will assess the impact of high-pressure steam condensation on steel containment vessels to be used for SMR deigns. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Irradiation Performance of Fe-Cr Base Alloys | University of Illinois- Urbana Champaign | $876,332 | _Researchers will perform post-radiation analysis and develop tools for future development and application of the Fe-Cr class of alloys. The results of this research will lead to better modeling of performance and development of an alloy designated as the primary choice for reactor fuel cladding and structural applications in advanced systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Experimentally Validated Numerical Models for Effects of Non-Isothermal Turbulent Mixing on Wall Stresses in High Temperature Reactors | University of Pittsburgh | $876,422 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive experimentally validated computational framework for the turbulent mixing in the lower plenum of a very high temperature reactor (VHTR). Through CFD modeling and experimental validation, the results from this project will lay the groundwork for future stress analysis, failure and fatigue studies, and uncertainty quantification for the VHTR system. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Mechanical Behavior of UO2 at Sub-grain Length Scales: Quantification of Elastic, Plastic and Creep Properties via Microscale Testing | Arizona State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop techniques to measure properties at sub-grain scales using depleted Uranium Oxide samples. The project will provide a framework to measure sub-grain scale mechanical properties, as well as provide experimental data to improve the understanding of advanced oxide fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| The Impacts of Pore-Scale Physical and Chemical Heterogeneities on the Transport of Radionuclide-Carrying Colloids | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will identify the dominant transport mechanisms to develop models that predict radionuclide distribution in porous materials. Experimental and computational models will be created that couple pore-scale geometric and interfacial structures. Simulators such as these are a necessary step towards fully predictive models for field-scale applications in the future. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Polymer-Supported Aminophosphinates as Selective Extractants | Hunter College, CUNY | $399,999 | Researchers will prepare a polymer-supported extractant for the recovery of uranium from seawater. The project will focus on primary amines that could provide a 3-fold increase in uranium capture capacity than current methods. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| In-pile Thermal Conductivity Characterization with Single-laser Heating/Time Resolved Raman | Iowa State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a time-resolved Raman-based thermal conductivity measurement system to improve remote in-pile thermal conductivity measurement. These measurements will provide new insights into the behavior of materials exposed to extreme radiation and temperature environments. Understanding the behavior of materials at the microstructural level will support optimized fuel designs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Organic Speciation and Interactions in ALSEP - One Step Partitioning Process of Minor Actinides, Lanthanides, and Fission Products | Oregon State University | $600,000 | Researchers will investigate the Actinide-Lanthanide Separation (ALSEP) process organic phase prior to aqueous phase separation and after aqueous separation phases of bare and metal-loaded acids. Quantifying these effects can be used to determine how an engineering scale process will perform and generate an accurate chemical model for the system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Glass Composition and Solution Speciation Effects on Stage III Dissolution | Pennsylvania State University | $700,000 | Researchers will study the chemical and structural triggers of long-term vitrified nuclear waste form behavior. They will study a range of waste glass compositions in corrosive environments. The study will improve understanding of the long-term residual rate and may provide new options for environmental control of glass dissolution rates. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Correlating Thermal, Mechanical, and Electrical Coupling Based Multiphysics Behavior of Nuclear Materials Through In-Situ Measurements | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will use in-situ experimental techniques to monitor the influence of extreme conditions on fuel cladding. The project will establish an in-situ experimental setup that can predict change in thermal properties and their correlation with mechanical properties and correlate such changes to changes in microstructural and chemical features. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Creation of a Geant4 Muon Tomography Package for Imaging of Nuclear Fuel in Dry Cask Storage | Purdue University | $440,000 | Researchers will develop a simulation and analysis package to aid in the non-destructive assessment of sealed used nuclear fuel dry casks using cosmic ray muons. Cosmic ray muon tomography allows for non-destructive assessment that can independently verify and identify weapons grade material sealed within dense dry casks. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Fuel Cycle Data Packages for Two-stage Fast Reactor Fuel Cycle Options for Optimum Resource Utilization and Waste Management | Purdue University | $400,000 | Researchers will evaluate the two different two-stage fast reactor fuel cycle options that will offer efficient use of uranium resources and the ability to burn actinides and long-live fission products. Evaluation of these fast fuel cycle options will serve as a useful complement to the options currently being considered in the Fuel Cycle Options Campaign. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Mixed Metal Phosphonate-Phosphate Resins for Separation of Lanthanides from Actinides | Texas A&M University | $650,000 | Researchers will use ion exchangers to cleanly separate lanthanides and curium from reusable actinides. The study will assist in the development of an inexpensive, simple way in which to separate lanthanides from actinides found in used nuclear fuel rods and to recover a large portion of the usable fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Safeguards in Pyroprocessing: an Integrated Model Development and Measurement Data Analysis | The Ohio State University | $626,151 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive and effective safeguards approach for a pyroprocessing facility to support safeguards for future fuel cycles in the United States. The new approach and design will focus directly on the special nuclear materials in the electrorefiner where actinides are separated from fission products through electrochemical process. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Using Ionic Liquids for the Development of Renewable Biopolymer-Based Adsorbents for the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater and Testing Under Marine Conditions | University of Alabama | $400,000 | Researchers will explore the fundamental engineering parameters for a renewable high-performance adsorbent for the extraction of uranium from sweater based on a recently proven ionic liquid (IL)-chitin platform. The project will use the platform to develop a versatile, modifiable adsorbent and characterize its performance and degradation in marine conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Developing Ultra-Small Scale Mechanical Testing Methods and Microstructural Investigation Procedures for Irradiated Materials. | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop new small-scale mechanical testing techniques to allow for the estimation or direct measurement of bulk properties. The combined experiments and modeling will significantly enhance the statistics and information that can be obtained on small radioactive archived samples, as well as new ion beam irradiated specimens. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Improved Delayed-Neutron Spectroscopy Using Trapped Ions | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will develop innovative spectroscopy techniques to measure the decay of fission fragments. The resulting data from these new techniques will be used to better understand reactor kinetics under accident conditions and failure scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Thermally and Chemically Responsive Nanoporous Materials for Efficient Capture of Fission Product Gases | University of California, Davis | $750,000 | Researchers will create new nanoporous materials that will be highly effective at capturing fission product gases. These materials would be relevant to both reactor fuels applications and reprocessing operations. Tests will be performed in carbon based and nitride based nanostructures, with the most promising materials from the modeling perspective undergoing further testing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Multiphase Nanocrystalline Ceramic Concept for Nuclear Fuel | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | Researchers will study the use of nanoparticles and nanostructured ceramics to create new materials that can extend the service life and increase efficiency for nuclear fuel. Multiphase nanocrystalline ceramics will be used to design simulated nuclear fuel that can provide added plasticity, better radiation tolerance and improved thermal conductivity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Novel Porous Sorbents for Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Chicago | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a highly porous sorbent for the extraction of uranium from seawater. Previous research has established sorbent performance. This project will use past foundational studies to design and investigate a new nanocomposites that will be processed into tacks or braids for field tests in seawater tests. The technology may also be used for other metals. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Microwave Readout Techniques for Very Large Arrays of Nuclear Sensors | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,937 | Researchers will develop a powerful readout technique based on microwave transmission and reflection. The technique will enable very large arrays of diverse sensor types for nuclear materials quantification and tracking. It will provide more accurate data on material composition and quantity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| BiI3 Gamma-Ray Spectrometers for Reliable Room-Temperature Nuclear Materials Safeguarding | University of Florida | $799,999 | Researchers will develop gamma-ray spectrometers based on BiI3 single crystals for MPACT applications such as burnup validation quantification, improved assay of plutonium, determination of uranium enrichment and overall monitoring spent fuel within the fuel cycle. The project will improve energy resolution, efficiency and environmental performance with this new gamma-ray detector. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Innovative Coating of Nanostructured Vanadium Carbide on the F/M Cladding Tube Inner Surface for Mitigating the Fuel Cladding Chemical Interactions | University of Florida | $760,276 | Researchers will develop barrier coatings on the inner surface of fuel cladding tubes to improve performance of materials at elevated temperatures and high neutron exposures in fast reactors. The project will develop and test a low temperature coating process of nanostructured vanadium carbide that will provide a benchmark for use in future studies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Doubling the Life of Concrete Structures | University of Idaho | $800,000 | Researchers will use nanoscale techniques to develop methods for doubling the service life of concrete structures. They will study the effect of temperature load and temperature cycling (freezing and thawing) on the durability of concrete with nanoscale viscosity modifiers. The project will benefit from non-destructive evaluation of concrete performance through electrochemical techniques. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Off-Gas Treatment: Evaluation of Nano-structured Sorbents for Selective Removal of Contaminants | University of Idaho | $785,910 | Researchers will evaluate nanostructured sorbent materials for their effectiveness in removing and immobilizing radionuclides for the off-gas treatment from used nuclear fuel recycling operations. The project aims at achieving near-zero emissions of radionuclides by capturing them from the off-gas of recycling operations, allowing for the development of advanced fuel cycles. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium and Transition Metals from Amidoxime-Based Sorbents | University of Idaho | $399,864 | Researchers will develop a new two-step elution process to achieve total recovery of uranium and effective recycling of the sorbent. The extraction process would selectively remove uranium from the sorbent with little or no damage. The process would then remove transition metals and regenerate the sorbent for repeated use, making uranium extraction from seawater economically viable. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Performance of a Steel/Oxide Composite Waste Form for Combined Waste Streams from Advanced Electrochemical Processes over Geologic Time Scales | University of Illinois at Chicago | $700,000 | Researchers will develop and validate a mechanistically-based corrosion model for cermet-type waste forms, creating a testing protocol and modeling approach for predicting long-term performance. The study will apply novel electrochemical testing and modeling methods to the behavior of metal/oxide phase boundaries to evaluate waste form performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Enhancement of the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland, College Park | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and optimize novel adsorbents for uranium recovery from seawater. The team will use radiation-induced grafting of organic phosphates onto polymers. The experiments will use ocean water, with mechanistic analysis, to provide a solid basis for large-scale demonstration of the performance of the new adsorbents in ocean environments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Improving the Understanding of the Coupled Thermal-Mechanical-Hydrologic Behavior of Consolidating Granular Salt | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will increase the understanding of granular salt seal materials for shafts, drifts and boreholes. By coupling thermal, mechanical and hydrological responses, the study will result in greater confidence in granular salt consolidation as a principal strategy for closure and isolation of long-term waste repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Fission Fragment Yield Data in Support of Advanced Reactor Technology | University of New Mexico | $399,816 | Researchers will produce a highly accurate data set for thermal fission. These precision data are necessary for high-accuracy simulations of nuclear criticality, transmutation rates, radiation effects and heating as well as for nuclear fuel, material accounting and identification needs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Molecular dynamics-based simulations of bulk/interfacial structures and diffusion behaviors in nuclear waste glasses | University of North Texas | $700,000 | Researchers will generate accurate atomic structural models for use in Monte Carlo simulations of the dissolution of nuclear waste glasses. Large-scale molecular dynamics-based computer simulations will be used to investigate self-diffusion behaviors, interfacial structure, and other structures formed during dissolution of these glasses. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| U3Si2 Fabrication and Testing for Implementation into the BISON Fuel Performance Code | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will fabricate, test and model a high uranium density, advanced nuclear fuel that operates at a much lower temperature and stores less energy. The work will deliver key research data on creep and grain growth, improving economics, through possible power uprates, and advancing accident tolerant fuels research. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Structural Health Monitoring of Nuclear Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of South Carolina | $738,618 | Researchers will develop a nuclear structural health monitoring system based on a sensing technology that monitors material degradation and aging for dry cask storage systems. The low-cost, low-profile sensors will perform on-demand monitoring of the structural integrity of individual components as well as the entire system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| ORIGEN-based Nuclear Fuel Depletion Module for Fuel Cycle Assessment | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $755,181 | Researchers will develop a flexible reactor analysis module for the CYCLUS fuel cycle simulator based on established tools for reactor fuel depletion and decay. They will use ORIGEN, a mature and experimentally validated code, affording greater flexibility and allowing for accurate evaluations of impacts of both present and future fuel cycle options. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Cost and System Analysis of Innovative Fuel Resources Concepts | University of Texas at Austin | $295,960 | This project will develop and test braided polymer fiber adsorbents that surpass the sorption capacity, selectivity and durability of the best existing technology to recover uranium from seawater. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Risk Assessment of Structural Integrity of Transportation Casks | University of Utah | $789,296 | Researchers will assess the loss of structural integrity of transportation casks and fuel cladding after extended storage. This risk assessment will conduct experimental tests and simulations to evaluate the structural performance of fuel, fuel assemblies and cask components when subjected to vibration and impact loads during transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Market-Based and System-Wide Fuel Cycle Optimization | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $612,731 | Researchers will create market and economic optimizers to improve calculations for the CYCLUS fuel cycle simulator. The team will leverage existing optimization software frameworks within the simulator to resolve top level policy questions. The optimizations will allow CYCLUS to move beyond static material compositions, providing a holistic view of the fuel cycle system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Optical Fiber Based System for Multiple Thermophysical Properties for Glove Box, Hot Cell and In-Pile Applications | Utah State University | $799,975 | Researchers will use a small pressure vessel to develop a robust technique for the measurement of multiple thermophysical properties at very high temperatures. The technique will lead to a system design moving toward the eventual measurement of irradiated fuels in a glovebox and/or hot cell with all sensors and electronics outside of the glovebox and/or hot cell. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of a Nano-Modified Concrete for Next Generation of Storage Systems | Vanderbilt University | $796,268 | Researchers will use nano-sized and nano-structured particles based on enhanced reactivity to develop a superior concrete for the long-term storage of used nuclear fuel. The project will use state-of-the-art experimental chemical and mechanical characterizations and computation analysis to assess the performance of nano-modified concretes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Fuel Cycle Data Packages for Thorium Fuel Cycle Options | Vanderbilt University | $797,995 | Researchers will develop six fuel cycle data packages for multi-stage, thermal fuel cycles which incorporate thorium. These new fuel cycle data packages will provide the opportunity to examine fuel cycle options beyond those which have traditionally been considered. A thorium fuel cycle database will also be assembled as a basis for thorium literature for future evaluations of the thorium fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Enhanced Shielding Performance of HLW Storage Packages via Multi-Component Coatings | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $796,947 | Researchers will develop a multi-layer composite that will enhance long-term storage and facilitate safe transport of storage packages. This novel multi-layer, multi-component coating would create an outer shield material that is resistant to the corrosion, radiation, diffusion and thermal cycling processes that affect fuel packages during long term storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Managing Zirconium Chemistry and Phase Compatibility in Combined Process Separations for Minor Actinide Partitioning | Washington State University | $700,000 | Researchers will address unique challenges for combining TRUEX and TALSPEAK processes for partitioning of lanthanides and minor actinides. The project will develop improved information on the thermodynamics of fission product zirconium and develop a framework for an organic phase solvation model. Combined process development could streamline separations processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Advances in the Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Studies Under Real Ocean Conditions | Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution | $398,882 | Researchers will provide infrastructure and expertise for marine testing of currently available adsorbents in real ocean conditions. The team will move adsorbent research from the lab to field testing in order to quantify sorptive properties and uranium uptake. The project will provide valuable field data that will show the potential of large scale applications of these technologies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| NEUP Project 20-19172: Irradiation of Sensors and Adhesive Couplants for Application in LWR Primary Loop Piping and Components | $497,881 | Researchers paln to attach ultrasonic transducers to substrates using various adhesive couplants that will be irradiated at elevated temperature to simulate LWR primary loop conditions at the PULSTAR reactor at North Carolina State University. Ultrasonic data will be taken in-situ. Subsequently, the sensors and couplant interfaces will be characterized using the LAMDA facility at ORNL. The results will be used to benefit a parallel EPRI project on online monitoring of cracks in LWR primary loop piping. | Document | Joint R&D with NSUF Access | FY2013 | |
| Lower Length Scale Characterization and Validation of Formation and Stability of Helium Bubbles in Nano-structured Ferritic Alloys under Irradiation | Clemson University | $399,870 | Researchers will provide a fundamental knowledge about the formation and stability of ultra-fine helium bubbles within 14YWT after neutron/ion irradiation for further design of new advanced structural materials with a characteristic high density nanoparticles feature which can increase the mechanical strength, hardness, irradiation resistance and the operational temperature range of materials. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Three-Dimensional Fuel Pin Model Validation by Prediction of Hydrogen Distribution in Cladding and Comparison with Experiment | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers will validate important three-dimensional aspects of the fuel pin modeling by using specialized numerical modeling techniques coupled with laboratory experiments to validate existing models for predicting fuel performance in light water reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Collocation-Based Surrogate Models for Uncertainty Quantification and Validation of Coupled, Multiphysics Fuel Performance Simulation Tools | University of Michigan | $596,835 | Researchers will provide the necessary high fidelity, coupled, multiphysics fuel performance simulator for computational modeling and develop surrogates which will accelerate and focus the validation of the coupled codes. This will be achieved by utilizing the high fidelity coupled fuel performance, thermal-hydraulics and neutronics codes BISON/STAR-CCM+/MPACT and an innovative collocation-based surrogate methodology. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Multi-Resolution In-Situ Testing and Mutliscale Simulation for Creep Damage Fatigue Damage Analysis of Alloy 617 | Arizona State University | $800,000 | This project will develop novel testing and experimentally validated prediction methodologies for micro-structural damage mechanisms of structural materials for advanced reactor systems. The investigations will focus on the characterization and testing of specific metal alloys, but the proposed testing and life-prediction methodologies are applicable to other structural materials as well. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Novel High Temperature and Radiation Resistant Infrared Glasses and Optical Fibers for Sensing in Advanced Small Modular Reactors | Clemson University | $800,000 | Clemson University, in partnership with the Iowa State University and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, will develop novel optical materials with improved heat and radiation exposure resistance in order to enable in-vessel fiber optic sensing for advanced Small Modular Reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Validation Data Acquisition in HTTF during PCC Events | George Washington University | $800,000 | Researchers at the George Washington University and Oregon State University will collaborate with NASA Langley Research Center to measure flow velocities in a high temperature test facility. This work supports the development of very-high temperature reactors with passive safety systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced High Temperature Inspection Capabilities for Small Modular Reactors | Iowa State University | $790,822 | The objective of this project is to develop non-destructive evaluation techniques for advanced small modular reactors. The research will provide key enabling inspection technologies needed to support the design and the reactor component performance validation process for advanced small modular reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Experimental and Computational Investigations of Plenum-to-Plenum Heat Transfer under Natural Circulation in a Prismatic Very High Temperature Reactor | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,999 | Researchers will perform experimental and computational investigations to study heat transfer and natural circulation phenomena in very-high temperature reactors. The study will assist in the ability to predict and analyze passive safety systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| New Mechanistic Models of Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth Interactions for Advanced High Temperature Reactor Components | Oregon State University | $790,790 | Researchers will create and validate a robust, multi-scale, numerical model to predict material degradation in nickel-based reactor alloys. If successful, this project will provide better numerical tools for reactor designers and greatly improve their capability to design against material failures for reactor alloys in the long term. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Self-Powered Wireless Dual-mode Langasite Sensor for Pressure/Temperature Monitoring of Nuclear Reactors | State University of New York, Stony Brook | $800,000 | This research will develop a novel self-powered wireless hybrid sensor that can accurately monitor both pressure and temperature using a single device without requiring external electricity, even in extreme harsh environments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Compact Heat Exchanger Design and Testing for Advanced Nuclear Reactors and Advanced Power Cycles | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to investigate optimal heat exchanger designs for advanced reactors. The research will study the optimization of printed circuit heat exchangers for specific fluids under a variety of conditions as well as perform numerical modeling. Experiments will focus on thermal performance and heat stress during extreme conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Fundamental Understanding of Creep-Fatigue Interactions in 9Cr-1MoV Steel Welds | The Ohio State University | $798,000 | This project will advance the state of knowledge and fundamental understanding of deforming materials and welds under loading conditions. Specifically, new integrated testing procedures will be evaluated and applied for conditions that are most detrimental to material stability leading to improved predictions of life expectancy for reactor steels and welds. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced Mechanistic 3D Spatial Modeling and Analysis Methods to Accurately Represent Nuclear Facility External Event Scenarios | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop three-dimensional characterization uncertainty analysis for commercial power plants. The project will involve combining experts from the fields of seismic structural modeling and advanced methods of risk assessment. This effort is expected to result in next generation tools that can be used for assessment of seismic risks. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Tritium Mitigation/Control for Advanced Reactor Systems | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a fluoride salt cooled high-temperature reactor featuring a specialized system to control tritium production. If successful, this will result in a significant reduction in size and cost in comparison to other reactor designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| A Pebble-Bed Breed and Burn Reactor | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will assess the feasibility of designing a type of metal cooled reactor able to establish and maintain operation when fueled with depleted uranium. If successful, this reactor will offer at least a 30-fold increase in the uranium ore utilization versus that achieved in contemporary light water reactors without the need for fuel reprocessing and recycling. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Investigation of Thermal Aging Effects on the Evolution of Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Cast Duplex Stainless Steels | University of Maryland, College Park | $799,966 | This research will provide a better understanding of the microstructural evolution and simultaneous change in mechanical response during aging. The results of the research will provide data that can be used to estimate degraded mechanical properties for an 80-year service life of light water reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Model validation using CFD-grade experimental database for NGNP Reactor Cavity Cooling Systems with water and air | University of Michigan | $799,348 | Researchers will use advanced innovative instrumentation to build a high-resolution experimental database and to use the novel experimental data to assess and further develop the predictive capabilities of computer codes for thermal hydraulics and computational fluid dynamics. The improved models developed by this project will also have the direct benefit of improving the predictive capability of the passive systems of third generation light water reactors and small modular reactor systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Long-Term Prediction of Emissivity of Structural Material for High Temperature Reactor Systems | University of Missouri | $799,117 | Researchers will study specific types of emissivity driven cooling from a variety of materials that are relevant to nuclear reactors. The research will provide a basis for numerical modeling to support reactor development. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced I&C for Fault-Tolerant Supervisory Control of Small Modular Reactors | University of Pittsburgh | $800,000 | The purpose of this research is to develop advanced instrumentation and control techniques for supervisory control of advanced small modular reactors. This research supports the operational goals of small modular reactor concepts through the development of improved oversight and surveillance techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Corrosion of Structural Materials for Advanced Supercritical Carbon-Dioxide Brayton Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $798,672 | Researchers will study a variety of materials for corrosion resistance under conditions that improve power conversion. In addition to studying the corrosion resistance of the materials, researchers will study the effect of additives to mitigate corrosion. Development of corrosion theories and modeling aimed at prediction of long-term corrosion will be the underlying theme throughout the project. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Component and Technology Development for Advanced Liquid Metal Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $798,920 | In support of liquid metal cooled reactors, the University of Wisconsin, Madison will evaluate advanced alloys and ceramics that come in contact with liquid metals. Additionally, a robust oxygen sensor and for use in liquid metals will be developed in order to better evaluate corrosion profiles in support of diagnostic testing. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| A New Paradigm for Understanding Multi-phase Ceramic Waste Form Performance | Clemson University | $800,000 | Researchers will use advanced characterization tools to develop 3-D microstructural data that can be incorporated into computer-based simulations in order to predict the performance of waste forms. Materials system modeling will incorporate elemental release and the interconnected microstructural network of phases to better understand performance and degradation, which will accelerate waste form acceptance in repository settings. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Controlling Hexavalent Americium: A Centerpiece to a Compact Nuclear Fuel Cycle | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and exploit the fundamental chemistry of Americium to enable an industrially viable means to co-recover the major and minor actinide elements from used nuclear fuel. The results would be a significant step forward in the development of aqueous separations approaches designed to recover the U-Am actinides based on the availability of the hexavalent oxidation state. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Zeolite Membranes for Krypton/Xenon Separation from Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Off-Gas | Georgia Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a high-performance, lower-cost zeolitic membrane process for Kr/Xe separations during spent nuclear fuel processing. Current separation methods are not considered economical and a membrane process would have relatively lower cost, equipment size, and ambient operating temperature. The process would form a sound basis for further development of this transformative separation technology for the nuclear fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Optimizing Polymer-Grafted Amidoxime-based Adsorbents for Uranium Uptake from Seawater | Georgia Institute of Technology | $399,999 | Researchers will work to increase the adsorbent capacity and selectivity toward uranium by optimizing the adsorbent morphology, synthesis variables, and conditioning parameters and by investigating the rate-limiting variables through transport and reaction modeling. A novel adsorption/partition concept that has the potential to substantially increase the adsorbent capacity will be tested, making uranium from seawater extraction more economically viable. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Extraction of Uranium from Seawater: Design and Testing of a Symbiotic System | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a seawater uranium extraction system that will work symbiotically with an offshore windmill by utilizing the structure, mooring and power of the windmill, while increasing the energy harvested by the installation. Uranium will be extracted by an adsorbent polymer belt, which will be cycled through the seawater and an elution plant located at the base of the windmill tower. Increasing the frequency of harvesting could overcome current economic barriers to seawater uranium extraction. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Imaging a Dry Storage Cask with Cosmic Ray Muons | Oregon State University | $799,871 | Researchers will develop an imaging system to monitor the content of a dry storage cask with cosmic ray muons. A very large amount of plutonium under nuclear safeguards is contained in used fuel assemblies stored in dry storage casks. Muon imaging will allow a cost effective and reliable way to evaluate dry storage cask content and integrity before transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Apatite and sodalite based glass-bonded waste forms for immobilization of 129I and mixed halide radioactive wastes | Rutgers University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop advanced and chemically durable waste forms for immobilizing 129I (aqueous based reprocessing of fuel) and mixed-halide wastes (molten-salt processing of fuel) by low temperature synthesis. Halide-containing sodalite and calcium phosphate-based apatite minerals will be synthesized, consolidated and tested for chemical durability. The project will provide needed baseline data for the development of advanced waste forms for immobilization of iodine and mixed-halide wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Sorption Modeling and Verification for Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $350,000 | Researchers will develop modeling tools supported by experiments for off-gas capture from future nuclear-fuel recycling facilities. Target species include tritium, iodine, krypton, and xenon. The models are intended to provide path forward recommendations to develop off-gas treatment adsorption processes. The project will contribute to the evaluation of options for environmentally acceptable recycle systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development of high performance ODS alloys | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will study swelling, radiation hardening and changes in mechanical properties of ODS alloys to develop two sets of advanced ODS alloys. Two sets of first-round candidate alloys that have already undergone extensive development and testing will evaluate irradiation performance. The study will meet the need for high strength, radiation-tolerant cladding and core components that have enhanced resistance to void swelling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Rare Earth Electrochemical Property Measurements and Phase Diagram Development in a Complex Molten Salt Mixture for Molten Salt Recycle | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate rare earth (RE) properties in complex molten salt mixtures. In a molten salt recycle approach, the RE drawdown by electrolysis is a key step in which REs are separated from salt containing other fission products. Investigation of RE electrolysis must consider the electrochemical properties of the REs. We propose to conduct studies of detailed experiments and corresponding models to provide the physical properties and phase diagrams required to predict the performance of RE drawdown for processing complex molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Computational and Experimental Studies of Microstructure-Scale Porosity in Metallic Fuels for Improved Gas Swelling Behavior | University of Arkansas | $796,823 | Researchers will study the microstructure of metallic uranium alloy fuels, and their resistance to densification, to minimize in-pile irradiation swelling through bimodal pore size distribution. The project will develop a predictive approach to design metallic fuel microstructures for optimal swelling resistance and fission gas retention. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Improved Hybrid Modeling of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of California, Berkeley | $645,393 | Researchers will develop a variance reduction method for computational transport that will improve the ability to design and operate monitoring systems for interim used fuel installations through enhanced modeling and simulation. This new tool will demonstrate that modeling calculations can be done more accurately in less time than with current tools and will perform studies characterizing how changes in material, cask configurations, and number of casks could impact monitoring systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Selective ligands for uranyl via combinatorial peptoid libraries: A synthetic, structural, thermodynamic and computational study | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will study how donor ligands bind to the uranyl ion, UO22+, with the longer-term goal of using this information to tackle selective recognition of uranyl in aqueous solution. The study will impact underlying approaches to controlling the behavior of uranium in these systems. The actinide separation technology could be used in several areas including uranium extraction from seawater, nuclear waste remediation and nuclear materials. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Combining Experiments and Simulations of Extraction Kinetics and Thermodynamics in Advanced Separation Processes for Used Nuclear Fuel | University of California, Irvine | $799,938 | Researchers will study how the kinetics and thermodynamics of metal ion extraction in advanced separation processes for used nuclear fuel can be described by molecular dynamic (MD) simulations and how the simulations can be validated by experimental data. The project would have broad impacts on several separations processes including advanced TALSPEAK, ALSEP and GANEX by increasing the confidence and accuracy of computer modeling of metal ion extraction. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Effect of Metallic Li on the Behavior of Metals in Molten Salts | University of Nevada, Reno | $458,250 | Researchers will identify the effect of metallic lithium on materials that are used in molten salt recycling. The study will try to understand how the presence of Li(0) in molten salts affects the degradation of alloys. Studying these changes will help accurately predict container material behavior and longevity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Assessment of Corrosion Resistance of Promising Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding under Reactor Conditions | University of Notre Dame | $800,000 | Researchers will assess the corrosion behavior of accident tolerant fuel candidate iron-based alloys under normal LWR operating conditions consisting of high temperature, relevant water chemistry and irradiation. The assessment will produce data about possible irradiation-accelerated corrosion rates of iron-based alloys, and the mechanisms by which such corrosion rates are accelerated. The project will advance the selection of appropriate replacements for Zircaloy cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Enhanced Accident-Tolerant Fuel Performance and Reliability for Aggressive iPWR/SMR Operation | University of Tennessee | $799,967 | To develop a process that evaluates operational and safety performance of reactor-and-fuel combinations by integrating whole-core 3D neutronics with MOOSE/BISON fuel performance assessments via explicit time and space dependent fuel rod operational power histories. The project will be valuable in analyzing and evaluating accident tolerant fuel concepts and furthering the understanding of reactor physics and fuel performance aspects of key accident tolerant fuel concepts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Nuclear Technology R&D Strategies in an Era of Energy Price Uncertainty | University of Texas, Austin | $799,112 | Researchers will identify nuclear technology options that are competitive over a wide range of plausible future business environments. No single nuclear technology or business practice will be the best choice across all or even most future conditions. The study will focus on hybrid nuclear-fossil technologies, energy storage and conversion, which will result in an identification of nuclear strategies that can succeed under future market conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development and Optimization of Voltammetric Methods for Real Time Analysis of Electrorefiner Salt with High Concentrations of Actinides and Fission Products | University of Utah | $621,612 | Researchers will develop an advanced voltammetry method to pursue the objective of real time monitoring of actinide concentrations in electrorefiner salt. This will include experimental measurement of key parameters such as activity coefficients and exchange current density. It will also involve simulation of voltammetry processes based on first principles. The project will allow for real time measurements that could support the commercialization of pyroprocessing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development of Self-Healing Zirconium-Silicide Coatings for Improved Performance of Zirconium-Alloy Fuel Cladding | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $798,621 | Researchers will study the deposition of self-healing zirconium-silicide coatings on zirconium-alloy fuel cladding material to improve corrosion resistance under normal and accident conditions. Under these conditions, Zr-Si coating evolves into a highly protective functionally-graded multilayered system. The study will lead to improved performance of zirconium-alloy fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Thermal Conductivity in Metallic Fuels | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,837 | Researchers will calculate the thermal conductivity of metallic uranium and neptunium alloys, including the effects of noble gasses, using density functional theory. The experiments will validate the calculated effective thermal conductivity using the MARMOT code and by helping determine DFT simulation parameters. The study works to improve fuel lifetime by understanding its thermal behavior. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| SiC-ODS Alloy Gradient Nanocomposites as Novel Cladding Materials | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,998 | Researchers will combine nuclear nanomaterial design, processing, testing, and characterization efforts to develop revolutionary materials that can withstand neutron irradiation for long period of time using nanostructured SiC and oxide dispersion strengthened steel. The ultimate objective is to offer new cladding materials with increased corrosion resistance, strength, and creep resistance in both steady state and accident conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Experimental Breeder Reactor II Benchmark Evaluation | Idaho State University | $400,000 | _Researchers will develop a benchmark evaluation of the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II). During nearly 30 years of operation numerous experiments were conducted at EBR-II. The most significant of these experiments were conducted in 1986 demonstrating inherent safety features in loss of flow without reactor scram and loss of heat sink without reactor scram. Benchmark evaluation will be valuable for the reactor design efforts in the United States and South Korea. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| Integral full core multi-physics PWR benchmark with measured data | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | _Researchers will introduce BEAVRS, a new multi-cycle full-core Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) depletion benchmark based on two operational cycles of a commercial nuclear power plant. This project aims at addressing the uncertainty quantification of the measured data and on making this benchmark a true non-proprietary international benchmark for the validation of high-fidelity multi-physics computational tools. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| Benchmark Evaluation of PROTEUS Gas-Cooled Reactor Experiments | University of Florida | $400,000 | _Researchers will create International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) benchmarks using data from 1970s experiments of the neutronics of gas-cooled fast reactor (GCFR) designs investigated in the PROTEUS reactor. The GCFR-PROTEUS experiments fill a gap in current integral benchmark data. These experiments can provide validation of computational models and nuclear data for next generation reactors. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| An Investigation To Establish Multiphysical Property Dataset Of Nuclear Materials Based On In-Situ Observations And Measurements | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will create an in-situ measurement based experimental approach to develop experimental validation dataset for NEAMS based code validation. Particular emphasis is on supplying data set for multiphysics simulations in extreme conditions as a function of material microstructure. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| Experimental Validation of UO2 Microstructural Evolutions for NEAMS tool MARMOT | University of Florida | $798,000 | _Researchers will experimentally validate MARMOT for predicting the microstructural evolutions of UO2 oxide fuel under the driving forces of high temperatures and large temperature gradient in reactors. By performing the experiments and simulations simultaneously using precisely defined initial conditions, the experiment data will provide direct benchmarking of the MARMOT code. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| High-resolution time-resolved experiments on mixing and entrainment of buoyant jets in stratified environments | University of Michigan | $799,983 | _Researchers will study high spatial and time-resolution experimental data of the fluid dynamics phenomena of flow jets interacting with a stratified layer. The issue plays an important role in the safety of several reactor designs, including sodium-cooled reactors. The data addresses the NEAMS needs for the validation of high fidelity computational fluid dynamics methodologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| Fundamental study of key issues related to advanced S-CO2 Brayton Cycle: prototypic HX development and Cavitation | Georgia Institute of Technology | $799,000 | _Researchers will study scientific and operational issues pertinent to compact heat exchanger systems and turbo-machinery. The project will work to resolve issues with the fabrication of diffusion bonded compact heat exchangers, alternate heat exchange technology for recuperators, and resolution of issues with cavitation and fluid instabilities. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Advanced Models for Nondestructive Evaluation of Aging Nuclear Power Plant Cables | Iowa State University | $787,291 | _Researchers will develop advanced models that relate environmentally induced microstructural and chemical changes in cable insulation polymers to their macroscopic electrical parameters. These parameters will be measured and modeled over a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum, covering several potential nondestructive evaluation techniques, enabling identification of the most sensitive techniques for future development. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Development of Novel Functionally Graded Transition Joints for Improving the Creep Strength of Dissimilar Metal Welds in Nuclear Applications | Lehigh University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop graded transition joints and improved creep life models for increasing the life of dissimilar metal welds (DMWs) in nuclear reactors. The research represents the first application of functionally graded material concepts for solving the problem of DMW failures through an integrated approach of additive manufacturing, modeling, microstructural characterization, and advanced strain-sensing techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Feasibility Assessment of a Micro Modular Reactor (MMR) | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | _Researchers will develop an innovative compact reactor concept that integrates power production, power conversion and electricity generation in a single unit: the Micro Modular Reactor (MMR). It is designed to be absolutely melt-down proof (MDP) under all circumstances including complete loss of coolant scenarios with no possible release of radioactive material, to have a cycle length of greater than 10 years, and to be highly proliferation resistant. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Scaling Studies for Advanced Gas Reactor Concepts | Oregon State University | $681,834 | _Researchers will expand the utilization of the Oregon State University High Temperature Test Facility (HTTF) to validate a broader range of advanced high temperature reactors and events. The facility will be revised to add a detailed scaling analysis of additional gas reactor concepts including advanced gas-cooled, molten salt, and sodium cooled reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Fluid Stratification Separate Effects Analysis, Testing and Benchmarking | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will study fluid stratification in high temperature gas reactors. Coolant stratification is the result of incomplete mixing of one or more fluids, leading to a density gradient, which may or may not dissipate under diffusive or convective effects. This combined analytical and experimental project seeks to investigate stratification driven by diffusive and convective mechanisms and is expected to yield insight into this phenomenon. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Probabilistic Economic Valuation of Safety Margin Management Analysis | Oregon State University | $795,364 | _Researchers will use RAVEN and develop a companion software package to facilitate economic analysis of safety margins. The project is a proof of concept that will use techniques to examine the cost of improving safety margins vs. the risk of accidents from not improving safety margins. This analysis can be used to evaluate the economic viability of various plant upgrades. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Novel Dissimilar Joints Between Alloy 800H and 2.25%Cr and 1%Mo Steel | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will fabricate and test dissimilar metal joints between a nickel base alloy and a steel with gradual variations of chemical composition, microstructure and properties in a manner that reduces abrupt thermal expansion mismatch and the resulting residual stresses. Data on structure and properties will serve as valuable inputs for the initiation of an ASME code case. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Multi-Phase Model Development to Assess RCIC System Capabilities under Severe Accident Conditions | Texas A&M University | $564,246 | _Researchers will develop physics-based models of the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) System and incorporating them into a multi-phase code for validation. The project will tackle the current major challenges in RCIC System analysis and enable evaluation of two-phase thermodynamic aspects. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Experimental Investigation and CFD Analysis of Steam Ingress Accidents in HTGRs | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will study the steam ingress scenario for HTGRs. The study will investigate thermal-hydraulic behavior and graphite oxidation of stream ingress phenomena to validate predictive CFD models. This work will resolve concerns about possible steam generator tube ruptures in a HTGR He-Steam Rankine cycle. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Coiled Tube Gas Heaters For Nuclear Gas-Brayton Power Conversion | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop heat exchangers for Brayton-cycle power conversion in reactors using sodium, NaK, or salt as intermediate coolants. The proposed coiled tube gas heaters (CTGHs) are expected to have excellent power density, thermal shock/creep, in-service inspection, and reparability characteristics. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Fundamental Studies of Irradiation-Induced Modifications in Microstructural Evolution and Mechanical Properties of Advanced Alloys | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop and test a mechanism for predicting neutron irradiation performance for optimized Grade 92 and Alloy 709 for applications in advanced reactor systems. The work will employ ion irradiations and available information from neutron irradiations of related alloys to develop a basis for predicting the neutron irradiation performance of the optimized alloys. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Integrated Computational and Experimental Study of Radiation Damage Effects in Grade 92 Steel and Alloy 709 | University of Tennessee | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop a mechanistic understanding and predictive models of irradiation-induced microstructural evolution and resulting mechanical properties in optimized ferritic-martensitic Grade 92 steel and austenitic alloy 709 using multiscale simulations coupled with rigorous experimental validation. The project will provide insights into the correlation between ion irradiation and fast neutron damage. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Meta-Level Design Guidance and Operator Performance Measures for Hybrid Control Rooms | Vanderbilt University | $799,869 | _Researchers will apply human factors engineering methods and relevant expertise from non-nuclear high-risk high-consequence domains toward the measurement of operator performance in analog, digital, and hybrid main control rooms. Performance measures will be developed for evaluating the situation awareness and decision-making proficiencies to support the transition to digital or hybrid control room displays. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| NEUP Project 15-8514: Elucidation of the kinetics of Advanced Separation systems | California State University, Long Beach | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a fundamental understanding of the chemical kinetics relevant to separation processes by measuring ligand complexation rate constants for both lanthanides and actinides in the aqueous and organic phases. These experiments will provide essential kinetic and mechanistic information required for developing a simplified, single-step recovery of transuranic elements. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8119: Kr/Xe separation over Metal Organic Framework Membranes | Colorado School of Mines | $375,000 | Researchers will develop metal organic framework (MOF) membranes that will be capable of effectively separating Kr from Xe with high flux and selectivity. This project may result in the development of membranes that will constitute a viable energy saving approach for the effective removal of Kr during the processing of used nuclear fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8347: Multilayer Composite Fuel Cladding for LWR Performance Enhancement and Severe Accident Tolerance | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop, manufacture, and weld a new multimetallic layered composite (MMLC) for enhanced severe accident tolerance and manufacturability in LWRs. Layers of stainless steel (facing the coolant) and Zircaloy (facing the fuel) will be separated by barrier layers of Cr and Nb. Severe accident testing in 1200C steam, LWR autoclave testing, and ion irradiation studies will demonstrate the MMLC's microstructural stability. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8112: Phase Separation and Crystallization of Complex Borosilicate Melts for Glass-Ceramic Waste Forms | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,806 | Researchers will study the mechanisms for microstructural development and properties of multi-phase, glass-ceramic materials that form when waste-loaded borosilicate glasses are cooled from above their liquidus or consolute temperatures through the glass transition temperature. The project will apply these tools to modified compositions to maximize the formation of the desirable crystalline phases. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8265: Electrically-Assisted Tubing Processes for Enhancing Manufacturability of Oxide Dispersion Strengthened Structural Materials for Nuclear Reactor Applications | Northwestern University | $800,000 | Researchers will enhance the formability of nanostructured ferritic alloys (NFAs) such that high-strength thin-walled claddings can be manufactured successfully and economically to be used in future reactors. The project will study the effects of continuous and pulsed electric currents on the deformation behavior of Fe-14Cr based NFA steel. The findings will be used to establish innovative fabrication processes including electrically-assisted extrusion and rolling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8126: Fundamental Electrochemical Properties of Liquid Metals in LiCl-KCl for Separation of Alkali/Alkaline-Earths (Cs, Sr and Ba) | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate the fundamental properties of novel liquid metal electrodes for separation of alkali/alkaline-earth fission products in LiCl-KCl electrolyte. The project will further the development of pyroprocessing by maximizing salt recycle and providing a method for recovery of alkali/alkaline-earth fission products as oxides (as opposed to chlorides) which will allow them to be encapsulated in a more conventional glass wasteform. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8074: Monitoring of Actinide Concentrations in Molten LiCl-KCl Salt using Alpha Spectroscopy | The Ohio State University | $799,969 | Researchers will develop a novel in-salt sensor that uses electrochemistry to pre-concentrate the actinides onto the sensor to measure the actinides concentration in a high temperature and high radiation field represented by a molten salt environment. The ability to monitor actinides to prevent misuse is critical to enhancing the control of nuclear materials. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8717: Understanding the Interactions of Seawater Ions with Amidoxime through X-Ray Crystallography | University of Alabama | $553,971 | _Researchers will investigate the fundamental interactions of the amidoxime (R-C(NH2)=NOH) functional group with metal ions found in seawater using a combined approach of single crystal X-ray diffraction and spectroscopy to understand the origin of the selectivity of amidoxime resins for uranyl ([UO2]2+] ions and establish structural benchmarks for interpretation of spectroscopic studies on actual sorbents to aid in identifying specific sorbent-metal interactions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8439: Developing a macro-scale SiC-cladding behavior model based on localized mechanical and thermal property evaluation on pre- and post-irradiation SiC-SiC composites | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a fundamental understanding of the macroscopic behavior of SiC-SiC composite structures before and after irradiation based on the microscopic property changes of each individual component (SiC matrix, fiber and interface). SiC-SiC composites will be tested in the as-fabricated condition, after being subjected to neutron and ion irradiation, micro-cracking, and oxidation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8536: Quantitative Prediction of Uranium Speciation and Amidoxime Binding in Seawater from Advanced Simulation Techniques | University of California, Riverside | $450,000 | Researchers will quantitatively predict stability of uranium species and thermochemistry (free energy, entropy, and enthalpy) of uranium binding with amidoxime ligands in seawater conditions. To achieve the goal, advanced simulation techniques including all-atom molecular dynamics, free-energy calculations, and the hybrid quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical approach will be employed to explicitly include water molecules and common seawater ions in the simulation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8286: Used Fuel Storage Monitoring Using Helium-4 Scintillation Fast Neutron Detectors and Neutron Spectral Analysis | University of Florida | $799,765 | Researchers will build and demonstrate a prototype detector device capable of unambiguously verifying the declared content of dry casks in a non-intrusive manner for the safeguarding and monitoring of used fuel storage installations. This will be achieved through a neutron spectroscopy and imaging system using high-efficiency Helium-4 (4He) gas scintillation fast neutron detectors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8663: Enhancement of the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland, College Park | $600,000 | Researchers will produce efficient adsorbents of uranium from seawater in seeking to optimize the functional ligands, the polymeric substrates, the grafting conditions and the adsorption/desorption durations based on sound chemical understanding. The result will be adsorbents that can be used through multiple cycles of uranium adsorption without significant degradation of the adsorbents capacity and selectivity for uranium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8111: Purification of Zirconium cladding using a chloride volatility process | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $798,877 | _Researchers will investigate the thermochemistry of used fuel Zr cladding components chlorides as well as their activation products and residual radionuclide metal chlorides to provide fundamental data that will support the development of a chlorination process for the purification of ZrCl4. Understanding the chemistry of these chloride species will provide process development guidance for the purification of Zr cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8323: Purification of Zirconium Tetrachloride from UNF Cladding | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $793,121 | _Researchers will develop and demonstrate a process to purify zirconium tetrachloride obtained from the direct chlorination of used Zircaloy cladding materials from used nuclear fuel rod assemblies. This study will increase understanding of purification protocols that will allow zirconium chloride to be recycled further. Increased recycling capability would significantly reduce the amount of high level waste associated with light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8752: Radiation Effects on High Thermal Conductivity Fuels | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $400,000 | _Researchers will use scoping ion and neutron irradiations to explore the structural stability and thermal conductivity of model high thermal conductivity fuels consisting of CeO2 and either Al2O3 (BeO surrogate) or SiC. Issues associated with thermal conductivity degradation (including micro cracking effects) and general phase stability of fuel systems will be examined. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8243: Radiation-induced swelling and microcracking in SiC cladding for LWRs | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $797,889 | _Researchers will use state of the art experimental characterization techniques and multi-scale methodology (developed within the MOOSE-MARMOT-BISON framework) to provide scientific basis for predictions of swelling and microcracking in SiC cladding as a function of temperature and irradiation histories. Predicting swelling and microcracking will further the potential for accident tolerant SiC cladding to be used in light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8081: Understanding influence of thermal history and glass chemistry on kinetics of phase separation and crystallization in borosilicate glass-ceramic waste forms for aqueous reprocessed high level waste | Washington State University | $799,911 | _Researchers will develop a fundamental and transformative understanding of the crystallization mechanisms in complex glass-ceramic high level waste (HLW) wasteforms,. This understanding will underpin the maturation of glass ceramic manufacture, by linking process variables to molecular scale mechanisms, enabling reliable production of wasteforms to the desired specification. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8210: A Transient Reactor Physics Experiment with High-Fidelity, 3-D Flux Measurements for Validation and Verification | Kansas State University | $799,198 | _Researchers will instrument the University of Wisconsin Nuclear Reactor with micro-pocket fission detectors (MPFDs) to measure 3-D flux distributions. The measurements will be compared to simulation using PROTEUS from the NEAMS toolkit. MPFDs are small, which leads to low gamma-ray sensitivity and small flux perturbations. A 3-D array of MPFDs and standard reactor instrumentation will be used to capture highly-resolved flux and temperature distributions for several steady-state and transient conditions. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8101: Development of Critical Experiments to Provide Validation Data for Multiphysics Coupling Methods | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $799,993 | Researchers will develop a set of benchmark validation experiments for multiphysics coupling by exploiting the inherent flexibility of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Reactor Critical Facility (RCF). This project will use targeted experiments to validate the coupling between neutronics, thermal hydraulics, and structural mechanics routines present in the NEAMS Reactor Product Line toolkit._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8229: Thermal Transport and Fracture Behavior of Sintered Fuel Pellets: Experimental Validation of NEAMS Tool MARMOT | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | _Researchers will perform experimental validation of the NEAMS tool MARMOT for predicting thermal transport and fuel fracture. By performing extensive thermal transport and fracture experiments on well-controlled microstructures of sintered UO2, the impact of microstructure on thermo-mechanical properties of sintered UO2 and mechanistic understanding will be achieved. The high quality experimental data will directly benchmark the MARMOT code by evaluating the thermal transport and fracture models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8208: Development of a Novel Accelerator for Neutron Transport Solution Using the Galerkin Spectral Element Methods | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $626,176 | _Researchers will develop a novel accelerator for neutron transport calculations based on the spectral element methods, continuous Galerkin (CG) and discontinuous Galerkin (DG) approximations. The CG and DG methods will be used to solve the multi-group neutron diffusion equation on the coarse-mesh structure (e.g., pin-size up to assembly-size), which is then coupled with the high-order neutron transport solution to speed up the neutron transport computation. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8338: Methodology Development for Cybersecurity Robustness and Vulnerability Assessment of University Research Reactors: A Case Study Using the PULSTAR Reactor | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop a methodology for assessing the cybersecurity robustness and vulnerability of university research reactors using an actual university reactor as a test case. While the developed methodology will be specifically tested and applied using this reactor, it will be formulated as a general blueprint and used as the starting point for the assessment of university research reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cyber Security R&D | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8121: Automatic Imagery Data Analysis for Proactive Computer-Based Workflow Management during Nuclear Power Plant Outages | Arizona State University | $799,738 | _Researchers will test the hypothesis that real-time imagery-based object tracking and spatial analysis, as well as human behavior modeling will significantly improve efficiency of outage control while lowering the rates of accidents and incidents. The project will examine computer vision methods and human behavior models for developing a proactive workflow management tool and integrate it into Computer-Based Procedures for supporting an Advanced Outage Control Center. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8308: Creep and creep-fatigue crack growth mechanisms in Alloy 709 | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _A joint US/UK team will study the crack growth mechanism and failure analysis of alloy 709 under creep and creep-fatigue conditions. The study will be done through in situ heating and loading during SEM observation to evaluate the crack growth under plane stress condition and traditional methods to study the crack growth under plane strain condition. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8582: Mechanistic and Validated Creep/Fatigue Predictions for Alloy 709 from Accelerated Experiments and Simulations | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will use mechanistic methods for predicting creep and creep-fatigue deformation rates/strains based on accelerated in-situ and ex-situ tests, and mesoscale dislocation dynamics simulations for Alloy 709. This research will support its qualification in the ASME code for use in advanced nuclear reactor applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8495: Advancement of Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Technology through Round Robin Testing and Fundamental Modeling | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will conduct a round robin test plan for S-CO2 corrosion testing across multiple institutions and the organization of a S-CO2 Materials Group to guide future materials testing directions. Furthermore, this proposal outlines identical tests in supercritical water, testing model alloys with various composition and environmental conditions, accompanied by modeling efforts to study rate controlling mechanisms of corrosion. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8489: Modeling and Validation of Irradiation Damage in Ni-based Alloys for Long-Term LWR Applications | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _A joint US/UK team will study thermal and irradiation-induced transformations mechanisms of Alloys 690 and 625 in order to extend Grizzly to include capabilities for modeling Ni-based alloys. The project will develop modeling tools for materials degradation in light water reactors, allowing for component replacement data and continued safe operation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-7983: Development of Steady-State Thermal-Hydraulic Analysis and Bowing Reactivity Evaluation Methods Based on Neutron and Gamma Transport Calculations | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop steady-state thermal-hydraulic analysis and assembly bowing reactivity evaluation methods based on the latest transport calculation capabilities in order to overcome the limitations and improve the accuracy of current design analysis methods. The outcome of the effort will be computer programs to calculate the steady-state heat source distributions in fuel pins and assembly duct walls and to calculate the reactivity worth of assembly displacements. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8627: Experimental Validation Data and Computational Models for Turbulent Mixing of Bypass and Coolant Jet Flows in Gas-Cooled Reactors | Texas A&M University | $799,613 | _Researchers will establish reliable models of the thermal-hydraulics in Gas-Cooled Reactors with experimental and computational efforts. Specifically, this work will focus on providing the relationship between fluctuating velocities and temperatures in the lower plenum and their dependency on the turbulent upstream mixing in the core and collection chambers leading up to the lower plenum. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8251: Enhanced Performance Fast Reactors with Engineered Passive Safety System | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | _Researchers will study the feasibility of improving the passive safety and economics of sodium cooled fast reactors (SFR) by incorporating within their fuel assemblies a novel Autonomous Reactivity Control (ARC) system. It is expected that the ARC systems will enable to design even low leakage SFR cores, such as breed-and-burn cores, to be passively safe and to improve the neutron economy and economic viability of more conventional SFR. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8258: Physics-Based Probabilistic Model of the Effects of Ionizing Radiation on Polymeric Insulators of Electric Cables used in Nuclear Power Plants | University of California, Los Angeles | $798,846 | _Researchers will develop and experimentally validate a probabilistic physics-based degradation models for polymeric insulators of electric cables to be used in integrated performance and safety codes, which will help reduce the uncertainty associated with the long-term aging of cable insulation. The project will deliver a C++ based simulation code that will be readily compatible with the MOOSE/Grizzly framework developed at the Idaho National Laboratory. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8000: The Influences of Neutron Irradiation on Aggregate Induced Degradation of Concrete | University of California, Los Angeles | $800,000 | _Researchers will quantify the impacts of irradiation on concrete degradation. The research will develop new understanding of the evolutions and manifestations of irradiation assisted aggregate concrete degradation caused by neutron exposure. This assessment will help to mitigate the risk of such degradation within the Grizzly framework, by careful integrations of nanoscale analytics and simulation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8458: Multiple Degradation Mechanisms in Reinforced Concrete Structures, Modeling and Risk Analysis | University of Houston | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a multi-physics framework to characterize the deterioration development in concrete due to environmental and mechanical loading, and the coupling effect among transport processes and the damage of concrete. This project will develop new computational tools that will be implemented in Grizzly, an application built on the MOOSE platform, to address a variety of aging mechanisms in nuclear power plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8623: Characterization of Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth in Alloy 709 and Prediction of Service Lives in Nuclear Reactor Components | University of Idaho | $799,927 | _Researchers will study creep-fatigue crack growth behavior in steel Alloy 709 in accelerated test conditions to predict extended service life of structural components. Extensive testing of Alloy 709 creep-fatigue specimens will be performed at elevated temperatures and applied stresses. Microstructure analysis will be performed to describe the crack propagation mechanisms. Computational models will be used to predict service of steel components. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8432: Multi-scale experimental study of creep-fatigue failure initiation in a 709 Stainless Steel alloy using high resolution digital image correlation | University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign | $800,00 | _Researchers will conduct a detailed experimental investigation of creep-fatigue crack initiation in a 709 alloy, and will also obtain a predictive failure initiation model that includes both thermo-mechanical and aging effects. The experiments will use ultra-high resolution digital image correlation to measure accumulation of plastic with cycling. The model will extend existing slip band-based energy minimization criterion to include thermal effects applicable to 709. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8599: Am-241 Nuclear Safety and Environmental Interactions | University of Missouri | $399,187 | _Researchers will investigate the release and transport mechanisms of Am-241 to understand the interactions it may have with the environment. The project will examine Am-241 through a series of accident scenarios using Am-241 aerosols that will allow researchers to understand the pathways for dose assessment. Methodologies and approaches for nuclear risk assessment for new space radioisotope power system applications will be developed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8667: Experimental Validation of a Compact Double-walled Twisted-Tube Heat Exchanger Concept | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | _Researchers will investigate a novel compact double-walled twisted-tube heat exchanger (DT-HXR) design that utilizes an outer twisted tube configuration in order to enhance shell-side heat transfer and make the overall bundle more compact. Utilizing outer twisted tube geometry improves heat transfer and allows for a tube bundle that does not require support plates or anti-vibration bars. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project: 15-8352: Development and Demonstration of an In-Situ Tritium Scavenger | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,988 | _Researchers will use a graphite moderator to capture and remove tritium from the primary coolant systems of salt- and gas-cooled reactors. The team will develop electrochemical techniques to characterize tritium transport in graphite and liquid fluoride salts (including flibe), demonstrate the in-situ effectiveness of tritium absorption by the fuel elements, and develop a design for a graphite bed tritium filter that can integrate with salt-to-air heat exchangers. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 16-10730: Visualization Tool for Comparing Low-Carbon Energy Options | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a web based visualization tool for comparing current and future nuclear fuel cycle options to other low-carbon and conventional energy technologies in the United States.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10679: Overcoming Kinetic Barriers to Actinide Recovery in ALSEP | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | The ALSEP process for group separations of trivalent actinide/lanthanide ions suffers from slow stripping kinetics. Researchers will perform detailed kinetic studies at different temperatures, supported by spectroscopic and computational studies to establish where the kinetic bottlenecks occur in the ALSEP process. They will then systematically alter the chemistry of the extractants and aqueous ligands to understand how to overcome the kinetic hindrances.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10058: An Integrated Multiscale Experimental-Numerical Analysis on Reconsolidation of Salt-Clay Mixture for Disposal of Heat-Generating Waste | Columbia University in the City of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will improve understanding of the thermal-mechanical-hydrologic-chemical (TMHC) coupling effect on reconsolidated granular (or crushed) salt-clay mixture used for seal systems of shafts and drifts in salt repositories. The project will integrate laboratory experiments and multiscale pore-to-continuum coupling simulations to explore the feasibility of using clay additive and moisture content to enhance performance of crushed salt as a seal material.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10088: Americium Separation By Electrochemical Oxidation | Florida International University | $800,000 | Researchers will separate Am from high-level waste by exploiting the high oxidation states of Am through design, and testing of new materials. This will be accomplished by designing and testing new electrodes, derivatized with surface-stabilized ligands and redox mediators to facilitate oxidation of trivalent Am, and by designing porous sorbent materials functionalized with molecules which selectively coordinate Am(VI) to enable its subsequent separation.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10668: Microstructure Experiments-Enabled MARMOT Simulations of SiC/SiC-Based Accident Tolerant Nuclear Fuel System | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will characterize steam attack, hydrothermal corrosion and radiation swelling of SiC/SiC composites-based accident tolerant fuel (ATF) using a combination of experiments, microstructure evaluation and phase-field simulations using MARMOT. Central to the project is the mapping of the microstructure after steam/hydrothermal/irradiation tests through a unique non-destructive x-ray microscopy technique followed by phase-field simulations of chemical transport in MARMOT.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10221: Alloying Agents to Stabilize Lanthanides Against Fuel Cladding Chemical Interaction: Tellurium and Antimony Studies | Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop alloying agents to stabilize lanthanides against fuel cladding chemical interactions (FCCIs). Based on the available binary phase diagrams for the periodic table, Te and Sb are selected as fuel dopants. The research will focus on Te. The mechanisms of using minor additives to stabilize and immobilize the lanthanide fission products will be investigated. Resulting thermodynamic data obtained by the proposed research will be integrated into MARMOT to enhance its ability to model metallic fuel performance.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10648: Oxidation and Corrosion-Resistant Uranium Silicide Fuels | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | Researchers will develop oxidation/corrosion resistant uranium silicide U3Si2 fuel by chemical doping/fillers to form a continuous borosilicate glass as a protective oxide layer with transformational fuel performance and accident tolerance. The team will use chemical doping/fillers include B or C showing effectiveness in improving high temperature oxidation resistance in transition metal silicides, and boron/silicon-containing compounds that can form a protective borosilicate glass layer.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10229: Mechanistic Understanding of Silver Sorbent Aging Processes in Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $800,000 | This project is focused on understanding the mechanisms of aging processes on silver exchanged mordenite and silver functionalized silica aerogel adsorbents under conditions of long term exposure to off gas streams containing air, I2, H2O, and NOx. The chemical and physical structural changes of the adsorbents under these conditions will be accounted for in equilibrium and kinetic models. Transport models will be developed to predict the performance of engineered off-gas treatment systems.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10394: Integration of Microwave Readout into Nuclear Process Monitoring | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,695 | Researchers will show that gamma-ray spectroscopy based on emerging microcalorimeter sensors can determine elemental and isotopic fractions with accuracy comparable to much slower mass spectrometry and with far better accuracy than germanium sensors. This advance will prevent the diversion of nuclear material by enabling nearly real time process monitoring in large nuclear facilities without loss of measurement accuracy.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10523: A Science Based Approach for Selecting Dopants in FCCI-Resistant Metallic Fuel Systems | University of Idaho | $800,000 | The project aims to use a science-based approach to set guidelines of selecting dopants for developing fuel cladding chemical interaction (FCCI)-resistant metallic fuel systems for fast reactors. Lanthanide fission products migrate to the fuel-cladding gap leading to cladding breaches. The team will perform both theoretical modeling and experiments to arrive at the guidelines that are based on sound science. If successful, this can lead to breakthroughs in minimizing the FCCI effect.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10813: Advanced Electrochemical Separations of Actinide/Fission Products via the Control of Nucleation and Growth of Electrodeposits | University of Idaho | $350,000 | Researchers will use unique capabilities to modulate the electrodeposition of actinides (depleted Uranium) and fission products (Ln) during nucleation and growth stages. The team aims to preclude formation of electrodeposits with dendritic morphology. Morphology of electrodeposits will be controlled by electrolyte composition.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10707: In Situ Spectroscopic Determination of Actinide Speciation and Concentration | University of Nevada, Reno | $369,221 | The research team will address two major issues in the pyroprocess based fuel cycle: low process efficiency and materials accounting for non-proliferation. There are currently no analytical techniques to ascertain the speciation and concentration of the actinides in the electrolyte. This project aims to develop an in-situ analytical method consisting of Raman spectroscopic analysis during electrochemical polarization.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10204: Phase Equilibria and Thermochemistry of Advanced Fuels: Modeling Burnup Behavior | University of South Carolina | $799,946 | Researchers will develop phase equilibria and thermochemical information to model and simulate advanced fuel behavior, including critical phenomena such as the contribution to fuel swelling of dissolved non-noble fission products and secondary phase formation, composite fuel stability, and fuel-clad chemical interactions.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10512: Demand-Driven Cycamore Archetypes | University of South Carolina | $799,956 | Modeling of the nuclear fuel cycle (NFC) is often posed as a set of demands coupled with available technologies. Demands may be singular or multivariate. Additionally, available technologies may have constraints on when they are deployable. This proposal aims to bring demand and deployment decisions into the NFC simulator itself, thereby simulating a more realistic process by which utilities, governments, and other stakeholders actually make facility deployment decisions.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10856: Integrating Data Sources for Improved Safeguards and Accountancy of Electrochemical Fuel Reprocessing Streams | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The SSPM Echem tracks elemental and bulk material flows through batch operations in electrochemical facilities. This project will augment the existing SSPM Echem model with models of DA, NDA, and process monitoring measurements, including appropriate accuracy, noise, and uncertainty characteristics. Diverse measurement and assay results will be fused to improve material accountancy and anomaly detection across the electrochemical process.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10190: Immobilization of High-Level Waste Salt in Dechlorinated Zeolite Waste Forms | University of Utah | $799,315 | The primary objective of the project is the development of a new glass-bonded waste form for the suitable disposal of electrorefiner waste salt. To achieve this goal, the proposed tasks will focus on the 1) dechlorination of the electrorefiner salt and 2) subsequent encapsulation into a sintered waste form. Achieving these goals will result in a compact waste form with higher fission product loading, which is instrumental in economically closing the nuclear fuel cycle.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10240: Molten Salt Reactor Experiment Benchmark Evaluation | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | _The objective of this project is to employ the data archive on the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) and develop a set of high-quality Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) reactor physics benchmarks for inclusion in the IRPhE Handbook that currently does not contain any benchmark set related to MSR technology._ | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10458: Multi-Group Transport Cross Section and Diffusion Coefficient Generation for Deterministic Reactor Models Using Monte Carlo Calculations | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and implement rigorous methods for generating multi-group transport cross section and diffusion coefficients for deterministic reactor models using Monte Carlo calculations. The project will eliminate the numerous approximations that currently contribute to significant mis-prediction of core power distributions when using deterministic core models.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10241: Development of Transient Capabilities for the NEAMS Neutronics Code PROTEUS | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop efficient transient transport methods for the PROTEUS-SN, PROTEUS-MOC and the first-order SN solvers of the NEAMS neutronics code PROTEUS. The team will also perform transient benchmark analyses._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10603: Experimental and Computational Analysis of NEAMS Pebble Bed Reactors | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct a coordinated experimental and computational effort to quantitatively map the full-field 3-D velocity and temperature fields in the interstitial spaces within pebble bed reactor systems. Key outcomes will include advanced correlations to predict flow and thermal transport within the pebble bed over a much wider range operating conditions and reactor types than is currently possible.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10421: Simulation of Fuel Rod Fragmentation, Relocation and Ballooning through Peridynamics in MOOSE Framework | University of Arizona | $675,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology that includes the appropriate governing physical fields within the realm of peridynamics to investigate fuel cracking, fragmentation, relocation, ballooning, pellet-cladding interaction, and cladding rapture and dispersion within the MOOSE framework.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10313: Development of a Comprehensive Two-phase Flow Database for the Validation of NEK-2P | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,817 | _Researchers will develop a comprehensive, high-resolution two-phase flow database by performing experiments in two air-water two-phase flow test facilities and a new heated rod-bundle test facility that will be built under this project. These data will be used to validate the two-phase flow models implemented in the NEK-2P code._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10744: Support for Reactor Operators in Case of Cyber-Security Threats | Ohio State University | $800,000 | This project addresses the need for research informing plant engineers and control room operators faced with cyber-security threats on appropriate responses. The approach taken uses distinguishing features of safety related events versus cyber-security threats; attack modeling, prediction, game theory and PRA knowledge to update operators procedures; and simulation for validation.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cyber Security R&D | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10578: Thermal Hydraulic & Structural Testing and Modeling of Compact Diffusion-Bonded Heat Exchangers for Supercritical CO2 Brayton Cycles | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will utilize both experimental and computational methods to test and model transient behavior of a mock up PCHE, which is a scaled down representation of the sCO2, cycle high temperature recuperator (HTR). In addition, the team will develop a methodology for quantification of the PCHEs production cost. The proposed project will provide valuable experiment data required to develop the Section III, Division 5 and Section VIII evaluation approach for compact heat exchangers.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10579: A Computational-Experimental Study to Simulate Mixing and Thermal Stratification in SFRs | Kansas State University | $799,320 | Researchers will use Thermographic Imaging and Ultrasonic Doppler Velocimetry (UDV) techniques to generate high fidelity thermal stratification and flow field data under various geometric and physical conditions for scaled models of outlet plena in sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs). Data from these experimental studies will be compared with those obtained using 1D codes such as SAS4A/SASSYS-1.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10714: ASME Code Application of the Compact Heat Exchanger for High Temperature Nuclear Service | North Carolina State University | $799,998 | Researchers will develop structural design methodologies for Type 316H stainless steel and Alloy 617 compact heat exchangers (CHX) using elastic-perfectly plastic (EPP) analysis methodology for the assessment of elevated temperature failure modes under sustained and cyclic thermal and pressure loading. The project will develop a technical basis for Section III, Division 5 ASME Code Case for CHX in high temperature nuclear service.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10885: Turbulent MHD Flow Modeling in Annular Linear Induction Pumps with Validation Experiments | North Carolina State University | $564,520 | Researchers seek to advance EMP design efforts for liquid metal reactors by 1.) Improving MHD modeling capability, particularly near the MHD stability criteria, 2.) Advancing simulation accuracy and fidelity in the typical operating range of large electromagnetic pumps for liquid metal cooled reactors, and 3.) Constructing a low barrier EMP test loop for model validation and instruction that can be easily replicated at low cost at other facilities.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10244: Integral System Testing for Prismatic Block Core Design HTGR | Oregon State University | $799,536 | _Researchers will conduct eight new tests be completed at the HTTF investigating a range of gas reactor events including DCC, PCC, and inlet plenum buoyant plume mixing. The data from these tests will be ideal for use in the validation of safety analysis codes used in gas reactor analysis. The data may also provide valuable insight into the validation of CFD codes for gas-reactor applications._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10324: Model Calibration-Based Design Methodologies for Structural Design of Supercritical CO2 Compact Heat Exchangers under Sustained Cyclic Temperature and Pressure Gradients | Oregon State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a design method for rapid structural assessment of diffusion-bonded Hybrid Compact Heat Exchangers, used as secondary heat exchangers in coupling Sodium Fast Reactors (SFRs) with supercritical CO2 (sCO2) Brayton power cycles. The team envisions that the developed method will (1) be usable in creation of an ASME code case for structural assessment of hybrid CHX; and (2) create design tools that ensure CHX code compliance under desired load conditions.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10285: Tribological Damage Mechanisms from Experiments and Validated Simulations of Alloy 800H and Inconel 617 in a Simulated HTGR/VHTR Helium Environment | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a mechanistic understanding of accelerated fretting, wear, and bonding between Alloy 800H and Inconel 617 surfaces. In order to achieve the objectives, a series of tribological experiments will be conducted in helium environments at elevated temperature with controlled concentrations of gaseous specious, attendant microstructure characterization (using electron microscopy, spectroscopy and atom-probe tomography), and validated continuum models.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10245: An Experimental Study of Design and Performance for the Water-Based Reactor Cavity Cooling System | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will extend and enhance the experimental tests using existing water-cooled RCCS facilities. The activity will be conducted in close collaboration with the water-cooled NSTF research team and will produce a unique set of high quality experimental data for support of existing system codes, system codes under development, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10457: Experimentally Validated Computational Modeling of Creep and Creep-Cracking for Nuclear Concrete Structures | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct novel 3D concrete creep tests under controlled environmental conditions to build a 3D constitutive model for concrete typical of existing containment structures. Decades long creep will be extracted via shorter tests (years long). The material model will be used in the Grizzly structural FEM code for simulating the response of real, 3D containment structures to changes in loading. Full-scale, long-term structural tests will enable validation.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10687: Development and Integration of Light Water Reactor (LWR) Materials Corrosion Degradation Codes into Grizzly | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop powerful codes for predicting environmentally-assisted localized corrosion in the primary coolant circuits (PCCs) of Generation II BWRs and PWRs. These codes and resulting models will be embedded into GRIZZLY. This will greatly extend the applicability of GRIZZLY to components in PCCs that are susceptible to pitting corrosion, stress corrosion cracking, and corrosion fatigue and will provide the stress intensity factor solutions for the crack growth rate models._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10083: Earth Abundant High Temperature Materials for Radioisotope Power Conversion System | University of California, Davis | $400,000 | Researchers will develop breakthrough efficiencies in segmented radioisotope thermal generators (RTG) power conversion systems through high temperature materials development. The approach will also reduce reliance on single-purpose supply chains.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10630: Validation of RELAP-7 for Forced Convection and Natural Circulation Reactor Flows | University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign | $799,368 | _Researcher will aid in the development of RELAP-7 through required experimental and computational efforts. The validation of the two-phase modeling capability of RELAP-7 will be accomplished through a series of tasks which include synthesis of existing forced convective data, acquisition of natural circulation data from an existing well-scaled facility, and uncertainty quantification in constitutive modeling._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10402: RELAP-7 Application and Enhancement for FLEX Strategies and ATF Behavior under Extended Loss of AC Power Conditions | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop new thermal hydraulic models that will be implemented into RELAP-7. Simulation studies will be performed for postulated ELAP scenarios in the PB Unit 2 reactor. The overarching goal of the proposed work is to perform a simulation study using RELAP-7, to model BWR ELAP scenarios with various mitigation measures and determine the range of time available for transition to portable FLEX equipment._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10080: Quantifying Properties for a Mechanistic, Predictive Understanding of Aqueous Impact on Ageing of Medium and Low Voltage AC and DC Cabling in Nuclear Power Plants | University of Minnesota, Duluth | $800,000 | _The degradation of medium and low voltage cabling is often associated with aqueous immersion. Electrical and mechanical data will be collected to develop a mechanistic model of the degradation of cabling to dielectric breakdown based on the temperature, oxidation, water conditions, and irradiation dose. The hypothesized model begins with solvent escape paths that expand and advance from the exterior surface toward the current carrying core at a rate dependent on the environment._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10214: Online Monitoring System for Concrete Structures Affected by Alkali-Silica Reaction (ASR) | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an online health monitoring system that integrates active and passive sensor networks and advanced signal processing algorithms to monitor ASR induced degradation in concrete structures. The obtained information will support an ongoing prognostic modeling research for health diagnosis and prognosis of aging concrete structures, in order to support long-term operational and maintenance decision making.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10210: Tribological Behavior of Structural Materials in High Temperature Helium Gas-Cooled Reactor Environments | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will work to understand, quantify, and model the elevated-temperature tribological behavior of alloys 617 and 800H in helium gas in HTGR conditions. Impurities in helium can induce a variety of corrosion mechanisms in structural materials that can profoundly affect tribological behavior. This study will investigate tribological behavior in various impurity concentration regimes and surface treatments to mitigate tribological damage in these environments.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10226: Enhancement of EM Pump Performance Through Modeling and Testing | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,856 | This project is aimed at the improvement of EM pumps for advanced liquid metal cooled reactors specifically the SFR. Initial tests will be conducted in the University of Wisconsin sodium loop on an existing moving magnet pump to help in the development of the models and to look at end effects associated with this pump. Additionally, tests will be conducted at ANL on the CMI ALIP. Ultimately, a small ALIP will be developed to test the principles and models developed to improve commercial scale.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10268: Sodium Cooled Fast Reactor Key Modeling and Analysis for Commercial Deployment | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,076 | This project will look at very low Prandtl number heat transfer from both an experimental and computational approach. Researchers will then establish key models to implement in plant dynamics codes. The team will also evaluate thermal stratification in large volumes making use of novel fiber optic distributed fiber measurements to get CFD quality data. Lastly, the team will evaluate some of the key remaining safety issues associated with the eventual commercialization of the sodium fast reactor.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10647: Experimental and Modeling Investigation of Overcooling Transients that Include Freezing, in Fluoride-Salt Cooled High-Temperature Reactors (FHRs) | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will make recommendations for design features of salt-reactor components that would take advantage of the phenomena characteristic to fluoride salts in order to be resilient to overcooling, and to recover gracefully from over-cooling transients. In support of this task a MOOSE-based computational tool will be developed, capable of modeling liquid-solid phase change, backed by experimental studies with the prototypical (flibe) coolant, and with simulant fluids.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10509: CFD and System Code Benchmark Data for Plenum-to-Plenum Flow Under Natural, Mixed and Forced Circulation Conditions | Utah State University | $800,000 | Researchers will generate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) validation data for forced, mixed, and natural convection through a parallel-path geometry relevant to gas reactor bypass flow. In addition, the team will independently build and validate CFD models based on the experimental results. The team has the experience and existing infrastructure for sharing complete validation datasets.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 17-12628: Effects of Mineral Impurities and Heat on Uranium(VI) Sorption onto Bentonite | California State University, East Bay | $785,714 | Mineral impurities are common in bentonite and clay buffer materials, proposed for many nuclear waste disposal options. Researchers will investigate the effects of calcite impurities on uranium(VI) sorption onto montmorillonite before and after mineral exposure to heat. Based on experimental sorption data and EXAFS analysis we will develop a new surface complexation model to determine under which conditions impurity effects are relevant, and how they can be incorporated in performance assessment models. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12798: Nanostructured Ceramic Membranes for Enhanced Tritium Management | Clemson University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a ceramic membrane technology for tritium separation and recovery to support the nuclear fuel cycle. Low-temperature water adsorption properties of nanoscale structured ceramics, combined with demonstrated hydrogen isotope exchange in their hydrated layers provide a low cost and unique avenue to address tritium management challenges. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12647: Determination of Critical Heat Flux and Leidenfrost Temperature on Candidate Accident Tolerant Fuel Materials | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $799,906 | Researchers will characterize the thermal-hydraulics behavior of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) materials by measuring critical heat flux (CHF) under normal and off-normal light water reactor conditions, and Leidenfrost temperature in post-loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) conditions. This work will yield material-specific models and/or correlations that can be readily implemented in state-of-the-art simulation tools. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13011: Gamma-ray Computed and Emission Tomography for Pool-Side Fuel Characterization | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,317 | Researchers will design, build, test and install a submersible tomography platform for performing pool-side physical, structural, and chemical characterization of irradiated fuel elements for test reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12496: Group Actinide Separation by Crystallization: A Single-Technology Approach to Used Nuclear Fuel Recycle | Texas A&M University | $399,857 | Researchers will explore bulk removal of U, Np, Pu and Am, from used nuclear fuel by studying the mechanisms of removal. A co-crystallization of the hexavalent actinides with U(VI) has already been demonstrated and researchers plan to develop a process based around this approach. Removal of these elements would be advantageous for future nuclear fuel recycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12824: Methods for Process Monitoring to Accurately Detect and Quantify Material Holdup in Advanced Recycle Facilities | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop better modeling methods, detectors, and facility design approaches to enable detection of inadvertent and deliberate hold up of fissile material in reprocessing and other nuclear material bulk handling facilities. The team will integrate results from this research project into a design methodology for future facilities to ensure accurate and reliable process monitoring for sustainable operation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12782: Effects of alpha and gamma radiation on complex and metal loaded solvents for advanced solvent extraction processes | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | This project will investigate the alpha and gamma radiolysis-induced chemical degradation of ligands used for the removal of minor actinides from used nuclear fuel in advanced extraction systems such as ALSEP. Researchers will emphasize organic phase degradation, particularly complex solvents with multiple ligands as well as metal loaded solvents. The project will improve predictive capabilities of extraction processes by elucidating degradation pathways. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12757: Elucidation of Electrochemical Behavior of Technetium, Tellurium, and Iodine in Molten Salt Solutions. | University of Idaho | $796,741 | This project will evaluate the electrochemical speciation behavior of iodide, and telluride in LiCl-KCl eutectic, LiCl, and LiCl + Li2O electrolytes at temperatures relevant to reprocessing conditions. By using rhenium as surrogate for technetium, the electrochemical, and chemical speciation properties of rhenium ions will be investigated in chloride molten salts with the addition of molybdenum and ruthenium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12701: Development and Experimental Benchmark of Computational Models to Predict Cladding Temperature and Vapor Removal from UNF Canisters during Drying Operations | University of Nevada, Reno | $400,000 | Researchers will develop physics-based computational tools to predict used nuclear fuel cladding temperatures within, and water vapor removal rates from, canisters during existing and proposed drying processes. The project will explore a range of gas pressures (including rarefication), and steady and unsteady external gas flows rates. The tools will be used to develop drying processes that minimize drying time while maintaining cladding temperatures. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12688: An Experimental and Analytical Investigation into Critical Heat Flux (CHF) Implications for Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF) Concepts | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a holistic best estimate assessment of the potential impact of different ATF cladding materials with regards to heat transfer characteristics, the boiling curve, critical heat flux, fuel mass/volume/specific power density, and neutronics effects due to changes in the lattice design or parasitic neutron absorption during design basis accident conditions in light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12996: Multipurpose, Radiation- and Temperature-Resistant Semiconductor Radiation Detectors for Advanced Process Monitoring and Nuclear Safeguards | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop detection systems capable of neutron, gamma-ray, x-ray, and alpha monitoring in high-temperature and high radiation environments for extended periods of time. The detectors will be used to strengthen nuclear safeguards by enhancing nuclear material control and accounting in nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13125: The Thermodynamics of Crystallization and Phase-Separation in Melt-Derived Nuclear Waste Forms | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This projects will study the thermodynamics of melt and quench phases of nuclear waste glasses and glass ceramics and link this information to the underlying short-range and medium-range structure. Advanced calorimetric techniques and neutron total scattering with pair distribution function analysis will be applied to obtain these data. Computer simulations will complement the experimental effort. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12886: Identifying, Predicting and Preventing Localized Corrosion in Kr-85 Storage Canisters | University of Virginia | $799,000 | Researchers will determine the root cause of corrosion within Kr-85 storage canisters in order to better understand current corrosion rates. The project will focus on expanding available research on Rb corrosion interactions and other contributing factors to better understand the corrosion phenomenon in current steel canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12463: Extreme Performance High Entropy Alloys (HEAs) Cladding for Fast Reactor Applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will develop extreme performance high entropy alloys (HEAs) as for new metal alloy cladding for fast reactor applications. Two very promising, single solution BCC HEAs will be investigated. The project will deliver an extensive irradiation resistance study of a new promising yet unexplored cladding concept. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12549: Critical Heat Flux Studies for Innovative Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding Surfaces | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will study critical heat flux (CHF) behavior focused on innovative accident tolerant fuel (ATF) cladding. The project includes separate effects screening tests to measure CHF for various ATF clad materials and surface characteristics with measurements of surface wettability. Pressurized flow boiling experiments will simulate prototypical reactor conditions for evaluating the best ATF clad materials coupled with CHF modeling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13019: Evaluation of Accident Tolerant Fuels Surface Characteristics in Critical Heat Flux Performance | Virginia Commonwealth University | $800,000 | Researchers will perform separate-effects and system-wide tests of the AREVA and GE accident tolerant fuel concepts currently under consideration. The project will investigate the impact of cladding surface characteristics in critical heat flux (CHF) under normal and anticipated off-normal conditions. The experimental results will be used to develop and validate enhanced models for the prediction of CHF and will be implemented in various subchannel and system analysis codes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13054: Simulated Used Nuclear Fuel Dissolution as a Function of Fuel Chemistry and Near Field Conditions | Washington State University | $800,000 | Researchers will study the effects of simulated used nuclear fuel (UNF) chemistry and microstructure on its dissolution in geologic repository conditions. The results will advance models for UNF evolution in repository conditions, enabling reliable prediction of degradation and long-term performance of used nuclear fuel for up to one million years. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12506: Development of Reactor Physics Benchmark Evaluations for Power Burst Facility Experiments | University of Florida | $398,265 | Researchers will perform reactor physics benchmark evaluations of Power Burst Facility experiments regarding differential reactivity worth of the control and transient rods, shim rod worth, in-pile-tube reactivity worth, shutdown reactivity, fuel assembly reactivity worth, core void coefficients of reactivity, in-pile-tube void coefficient, and coolant temperature coefficient of reactivity. The results will be incorporated in the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP). | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12748: Combined modeling and experiments to predict corrosion and embrittlement in dual-phase stainless steels within the MARMOT framework | Oregon State University | $800,000 | Researchers will enhance MARMOT to predict mechanical and corrosion properties of dual-phase stainless steels as a function of composition, aging time and temperature by using combined experimental data and lower length scale models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12797: In-Situ Ion Irradiation to Add Irradiation Assisted Grain Growth to the MARMOT Tool | Pennsylvania State University | $500,000 | Researchers will add the capability to model irradiation assisted grain growth to the MARMOT tool by using in-situ ion irradiation of UO2 to quantify the effect of irradiation on grain growth. The team will investigate the hypothesis that irradiation assisted grain growth is caused by thermal spikes resulting from atom collisions. The model added to MARMOT will couple the existing grain growth model to a heat conduction simulation using a stochastic heat source describing the thermal spike. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12555: Integration of high-fidelity Monte Carlo and deterministic transport codes into Workbench | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | Researchers will provide end users an ability to run both MCNP6 and PROTEUS codes from a common user input in Workbench by (1) templating user-provided engineering scale specifications to code-specific input requirements, (2) enabling multi-fidelity analysis of a system from a common input using MCNP6 and PROTEUS and (3) allowing the easy use of high-fidelity simulations to inform lower-order models for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems and experiments. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12939: Expansion of BISON Capabilities to Predict the Dynamic Response of Irradiated Fuel Rods | University of New Hampshire | $800,000 | Researchers will expand the capabilities of BISON and MOOSE to simulate the structural dynamic response of fuel rods and fuel assemblies during handling (wet and dry storage) and transportation. Expanding the capabilities of BISON and MOOSE to facilitate the evaluation of the dynamic response of fuel rods and assemblies is important to conduct a more reliable risk assessment of fuel assemblies, as well as storage and transportation casks. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13179: Implementation and Validation of Advanced Turbulence Modeling Methods for Liquid Metal Flow in Nek5000 | University of Oklahoma | $786,648 | Researchers will implement and validate state-of-the-art turbulence modeling techniques in Nek5000 to improve predition of liquid metal flows. Specific methods to be investigated include: variable PrT and algebraic heat flux models (AHFM) for URANS simulation; partially-averaged Navier-Stokes (PANS) and dynamic hybrid RANS-LES (DHRL) for hybrid RANS-LES simulation; and variable PrT subgrid heat flux modeling for LES. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12848: Development of Information Trustworthiness and Integrity Algorithms for Cybersecurity Defenses of Nuclear Power Reactors | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a first-of-a-kind physics-based defense-in-depth strategy to defend against false data injection attacks which attempt to change the information used by the I/C network to set reactor state. The approach employs a new design philosophy to check for information trustworthiness/integrity in order to determine whether the information is genuinely generated during the actual operation of the nuclear unit under either normal or off-normal conditions. | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cybersecurity | |
| NEUP Project 17-12538: Influence of dissolved salts and impurities in seawater on heat transfer degradation and fluid flow through fuel channels debris bed | Kansas State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate the role of raw water on degraded heat transfer and fluid flow in the reactor core and debris bed. X-ray imaging techniques, optical-fiber high speed temperature sensing systems and radioactive tracer salts will be used to simultaneously measure experimental data on void fraction, temperature and salt deposition rate. This data will be used to obtain correlations for heat transfer and fluid flow in case of raw water injection. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12502: High Resolution Temperature and Flow Measurements in Wire-Wrapped Fuel Assemblies | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will produce high-quality, high spatial and temporal resolution temperature and flow datasets for wire-wrapped rod bundle geometries. Different bundle sizes, configurations (including duct's and pin's deformation) and Low-Prandlt fluids will be investigated. A unique set of data will be produced to support advanced CFD tools validation, including Nek5000. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12723: Integrating Static PRA Information with RISMC Simulation Methods | The Ohio State University | $799,985 | Researchers will develop a computationally feasible and user friendly process to augment the traditional probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) results with improved representation of epistemic uncertainties and process/hardware/software/human interactions at plant level applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12664: Methods to Predict Thermal Radiation and to Design Scaled Separate and Integral Effects Testing For Molten Salt Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology for the design of molten salt reactor (MSR) Separate Effect Test and Integral Effect Test experiments. This methodology will identify and quantify sources of scaling distortion including radiative heat transport. The project would improve code performance and assist FHR/MSR vendors who are making licensing applications based on code results. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12523: Experimental and Computational Studies of Stress Corrosion Cracking of Alloys 308/309 and 82/182 Weldments in Corrosive and Radiation Environment | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will use advanced microanalytical analysis techniques to study SCC and IASCC of stainless steel and Ni-Cr alloy weldments. CERT, autoclave immersion, and ion irradiation will be used to determine synergistic effect of LWR environmental factors. Results from the experimental component of the proposed work scope will be used for enhanced predictive capability of the INL Grizzly code via XFEM. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12614: Systematic Enterprise Risk Management by Integrating the RISMC Toolkit and Cost-Benefit Analysis | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $799,998 | Researchers will develop a systematic Enterprise Risk Management framework, which utilizes Decision Tree (DT) logic to consider high-level production-loss scenarios, and their underlying physical and social causes throughout the lifecycle. In the proposed DT, uncertainty nodes will be quantified by plant-specific risk analysis using the Risk-Informed Safety Margin Characterization (RISMC) Toolkit, and cost-benefit analysis will be conducted for end states reflecting consequences of managerial decision-making. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12972: Design of a Commercial-Scale, Fluoride-Salt-Cooled, High-Temperature Reactor With Novel Refueling and Decay Heat Removal Capabilities | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $400,000 | Researchers will combine fluoride-salt-cooled, high temperature reactors (FHR) with advanced gas reactor (AGR) refueling technology to address several significant challenges that remain in the development of FHR technology. The project will adapt AGR refueling technology by using the new fuel-inside-radial-moderator fuel form, which will also introduce new ways of dealing with decay heat. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13115: Experimental Determination of Helium/air Mixing in Helium Cooled Reactor | University of Michigan | $800,000 | Researchers will examine the effects of coolant leakage and air ingress through three different investigations. The overall objective of this work is to characterize near and far field behavior of Helium/Air mixing in containment, and to determine rates and amounts of air leaked back into the reactor after a depressurization event. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12830: Radioisotope Retention in Graphite and Graphitic Materials | University of Missouri, Columbia | $800,000 | Researchers will use a variety of experimental techniques to acquire data for fission product diffusion, transport and adsorption of fission products in various graphites, relating to nuclear reactors at high temperatures. Measurements will be taken using non-irradiated graphite using fission product surrogates. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13020: Bimetallic Composite (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) Development and Compatibility in Flowing FLiBe as a Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) Structural Material | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a new bimetallic alloy (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) structural material for the MSR, and compare its post-exposure mechanical performance in flowing FLiBe with single alloys SS 316, Hastelloy N, and Incoloy 800H, in the context of ASME codification. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12678: Novel NDE Sensors, Waveforms, Models, and Algorithms for Cable Health Monitoring | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop NDE sensors and probabilistic cable insulation diagnosis and prognosis algorithms (particle filtering), and modeling and experiments to monitor cable insulation health. Two different types of sensor will be deployed to detect insulation damage. The team will also develop cable insulation degradation modeling to further understand defects in cable insulation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13080: Multiscale Investigation of SiC/SiC Composite Degradation in Helium Coolant Operating Environment | University of Virginia | $800,000 | Researchers will study the long-term degradation mechanisms of SiC/SiC composites in helium coolant environments by slow crack growth (SCG). This will be achieved through multiscale testing in hot, O2-contaminated He and evaluation of the effect of SCG on hermeticity during in situ testing. Results will be extended to predictive low-level and component-scale SCG models and integrated into the development of ASME standards for use of SiC/SiC in nuclear reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12481: Supercritical CO2 power cycle for space applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will develop an advanced supercritical Brayton power cycle directly coupled to a fission reactor. The project will carry out a comprehensive optimization of the cycle operating conditions, working fluid, and configuration; develop detailed designs of each subcomponent; and demonstrate/develop critical technologies such as turbomachinery seals and bearings, reactor material corrosion and strength demonstrations, and supercritical heat transfer. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13232: Radiative Heat Transport and Optical Characterization of High Temperature Molten Salts | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | The goal of the proposed research is to experimentally investigate radiation heat transport in molten salts, and to add functionality for radiative heat transport in a thermal-hydraulics system code. This includes obtaining highly resolved measurements of the optical absorption and emissivity of liquid salts. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 18-15345: Multiphysics Degradation Processes, and Their Mitigation, in Engineered and Geological Bariers: Experiments and Simulation | Duke University | $800,000.00 | This project will focus on filling the gaps in understanding of mechanisms of a series of degradation processes (thermal, hydric, geo-chemical, and transport processes phenomena) potentially affecting geo-materials used in repositories. The objectives of the work are to better recognize the conditions leading to preferential paths of radionuclide transport and rock weakening, and to build mathematical models and implement them into existing codes to predict material degradation and develop strategies to reduce the adverse consequences. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15043: Integration of Nuclear Material Accounting Data and Process Monitoring Data for Improvement on Detection Probability in Safeguarding Electrochemical Processing Facilities | Oregon State University | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to further studies on fusion of process monitoring (PM) data and nuclear material accounting (NMA) data. PM data, which includes monitoring by various types of equipment (radiation detectors, cameras, voltage, current sensors), can supplement NMA data to help improve safeguards. For aqueous-based reprocessing facilities, it is reported that PM, integrated with traditional NMA, has a high-detection probability for specific diversions. For electrochemical reprocessing, preliminary studies have shown that PM data can support traditional NMA by providing a basis to estimate some of the in-processing nuclear material inventories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15148: Recovery of Rare-Earth Elements (Nd, Gd, Sm) in Oxide Wasteform Using Liquid Metals (Bi, Sn) | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000.00 | This project investigates a new approach for recovering rare-earth (RE) fission products (Nd, Gd, and Sm) from molten chlorine salts using liquid metal (Bi and Sn) electrodes. The research aids molten salt recycling by converting the RE products into chloride-free RE oxides, which could be incorporated into conventional glass/ceramic waste forms. Successful outcomes of the project include advanced separation of fission products from molten salts with better control of chemical selectivity and high-recovery yield. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15103: Microstructure-Based Benchmarking for Nano/Microscale Tension and Ductility Testing of Irradiated Steels | Purdue University | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to standardize methods for nano/micro-scale tensile and ductility testing of irradiated Fe-Cr steels, through microstructure-based benchmarking. The study will investigate key process parameters for TEM in situ tension and ductility testing. Coupling experimental studies with multiscale models, the research will identify the approaches that provide consistent deformation mechanisms between the nano/micro-scale and macro-scale tests, from which standard practices will be obtained. The primary project outcome will be a set of recommended guidelines for nano/microscale mechanical testing, which will lead to unprecedented reductions in the time and cost for qualifying materials for in-reactor service and to ensure consistency of methods and validity of results. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15559: Cold Spray Repair & Mitigation of Stress Corrosion Cracks in Spent Nuclear Fuel Dry Storage Canisters | Purdue University | $799,982.00 | This goal of this project is to demonstrate cold spray repair and mitigation of chloride-induced stress corrosion cracks (SCC) and pits in stainless steel dry storage canisters. The research will optimize the repair process and gain a scientifically informed understanding of SCC mechanisms. The outcome is to further develop cold spray as an attractive solution for the repair of existing SCC and mitigation of potential SCC necessary to ensure long-term integrity, security, and regulatory compliance of spent nuclear fuel storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15596: Capture of Organic Iodides from Vessel Off-Gas Streams | Syracuse University | $799,548.00 | This project will study the capture of radioactive organoiodides from off-gas streams produced during nuclear fuel reprocessing by conducting adsorption experiments using a selected silver adsorbents. Multifaceted simulation adsorption models will be developed to assist in the design of necessary capture systems for off-gas streams. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15585: Impact of Coupled Gas Migration and Thermo-hydro-mechanical Processes on the Performance of Repositories for High Level Nuclear Waste | Texas A&M University | $608,375.00 | The main goal of this project is to better understand the possible effect of gas migration (particularly through discontinuities) on the performance and long-term behavior of engineered barrier systems (EBS) envisaged for the isolation of high-level radioactive waste (HLW). Specific outcomes of this study will be an improved understanding of the role of gas migration and discontinuities in the performance of HLW disposals, with the underlying aim to improve design of EBS used for HLW. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15531: Repair and Mitigation of Chloride-Induced Pitting and Chloride-Induced Stress Corrosion Cracking in Used Nuclear Fuel Dry Cask Canister Materials | The Ohio State University | $800,000.00 | This project will evaluate and develop a set of tools to repair and mitigate chloride-induced pitting and stress corrosion cracking in stainless steel nuclear fuel canisters. Advanced processes, including low temperature friction stir welding and cold spray deposition, will be evaluated according to various criteria, such as corrosion performance. In addition, technologies that have not yet been evaluated for UNF applications, including vaporizing foil actuator welding and soldering will be assessed. The two most promising technologies will selected for further development and comprehensive study. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14912: Bridging the Length Scales on Mechanical Property Evaluation | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000.00 | This project combines experimental and modeling methods to gain a comprehensive approach for addressing scaling effects on small-scale mechanical testing. Multiscale experiments, together with modeling on reactor-relevant and model alloys, will provide better understanding of appropriate scaling relationships. The study aims to gain fundamental understanding of plasticity interactions with specific strength-determining features, such as precipitates and grain boundaries. The goal of this work is to provide the basis to add small-scale mechanical testing in the toolbox for nuclear materials research. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14911: Understanding of degradation of SiC/SiC materials in nuclear systems and development of mitigation strategies | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000.00 | This project investigates the best possible coatings to prevent SiCf/SiCm corrosion in LWR environments. The research features a computational and experimental rapid screening approach for numerous coating compositions. The work includes autoclave exposure of rapid screening coupons in prototypical environments in combination with thermodynamic modeling (CALPHAD) and Finite Element Methods (FEM). Small-scale mechanical testing, together with thermal cycling and FEM modeling, will provide guidance on the ideal coating system design. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15701: Time-dependent THMC Properties and Microstructural Evolution of Damage Rocks in Excavation Damage Zone | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,978.00 | The proposed project focuses on the geomechanical aspects of modeling by addressing the time-dependent evolution of rock microstructure and its coupling with the THC processes that are of first-order importance to the stability and the isolation performance of repositories. The research will delineate an integrated experimental, theoretical and numerical strategy in assessing the evolution EDZ over time and its implication on the long-term migration of hazardous species. These results will enhance the confidence of the predicted long-term performance of repositories, which helps to move forward the goal of one-million-year isolation of high-level nuclear wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15381: Multiaxial Failure Envelopes and Uncertainty Quantification of Nuclear-Grade SiCf/SiC Woven Ceramic Matrix Tubular Composites | University of Florida | $800,000.00 | This project proposes to develop a comprehensive experimental and computational approach for determining constitutive relations and multiaxial failure envelopes of nuclear-grade continuous silicon fiber (SiCf) and SiC matrix woven tubular composites. The result of this work can be adopted in industry for design refinement, optimization of performance under the desired operating conditions, and reliable prediction of failure under unforeseen accidental scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15496: Formation of Zeolites Responsible for Waste Glass Rate Acceleration: An Experimental and Computational Study for Understanding Thermodynamic and Kinetic Processes | University of Houston | $800,000.00 | Through experimental and computational studies, this project will expose the factors governing zeolite crystallization and their role in Stage III dissolution of radionuclide-containing glass waste forms generated in advanced nuclear fuel cycles. The overall goal of this project is to understand the formation of zeolite phases in order to develop process control methods to suppress Stage III dissolution. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14998: Novel Processes for Capture of Radioactive Iodine Species from Vessel Off-Gas Streams | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the sorption system performance and effectiveness for capture of radioiodine species present in the off-gas streams from the used nuclear fuel (UNF) recycling operations, focusing particularly on the organic iodine species. The dynamic sorption experimentation and theoretical modeling will offer fundamental insights on the mechanism enabling the design and prediction the control system performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15261: Friction Stir Based Repair Welding of Dry Storage Canisters and Mitigation Strategies: Effect of Engineered Barrier Layer on Environmental Degradation | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The project goal is to apply friction stir based repair and mitigation technique for eliminating failure associated with pitting and stress corrosion cracking in dry storage canisters for spent fuels. The goal of these activities is to obtain a fundamental understanding of the processing-structure-properties correlations. This work will contribute to the development of a crack repair/mitigation strategy based on friction stir technology that can be efficiently implemented for spent fuel dry storage casks, which will enhance safety and reliability of these systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15263: X-ray Studies of Interfacial Molecular Complexes in ALSEP Back-Extraction | University of Illinois at Chicago | $800,000.00 | This project will use synchrotron X-rays to characterize the interfacial molecular complexes (of extractants and radiologically derived impurities, complexants, buffers, and metal ions) formed during the Actinide-Lanthanide Separation Process (ALSEP) back-extraction. This work addresses the critical knowledge gap of slow stripping kinetics in ALSEP, as well as the influence of radiolytic degradation products. The outcome of the project will be a molecular-level understanding of the role of different components in the interfacial mechanism of back-extraction in the ALSEP process, therefore leading to development of more efficient and faster metal stripping relevant to the separation of actinides from lanthanides in the nuclear fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15030: Mechanistic Understanding of Radiolytically Assisted Hydrothermal Corrosion of SiC in LWR Coolant Environments | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to develop a mechanistic understanding of the hydrothermal corrosion behavior of monolithic SiC and SiC/SiC composites in LWR environment under the influence of water radiolysis products and radiation damage. Complementary atomistic simulations will be carried out to determine the rate controlling mechanisms for dissolution under different water chemistries and in the presence of radiation. Activation energies and kinetic rates will be calculated directly from these simulations and compared to experimentally fitted values. The dissolution rate constants determined and validated in this integrated experimental and modeling approach will allow predictions of long-term SiC corrosion behavior. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14999: Probabilistic Failure Criterion of SiC/SiC Composites Under Multi-Axial Loading | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $800,000.00 | This project aims to develop a probabilistic failure criterion of SiC/SiC composites under multi-axial loading and to incorporate the criterion into a reliability analysis of the structural integrity of LWR SiC/SiC fuel cladding. This research will be anchored by a seamless integration of novel experimental and analytical tools, which will lead to a robust methodology for dependable analysis of SiC/SiC composite structures for LWR fuel cladding, as well as other nuclear applications. The resulting model will be experimentally validated and applied to analyze the reliability of LWR SiC/SiC fuel cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15502: Reducing Uncertainty in Radionuclide Transport Prediction Using Multiple Environmental Tracers | University of Montana | $724,906.00 | In this project, direct modeling of multiple environmental tracers will be used to improve predictions of radionuclide transport in a shallow alluvial aquifer discharge. The research will take advantage of recent theoretical developments considering the use of environmental tracers, and advances in high-performance reactive flow and transport models, to obtain the maximum information on the transport system. The goal is to develop a new methodology to characterize natural reactive flow and transport systems, reduce predictive uncertainty in radionuclide transport simulations, determine the maximum information content of the tracer suite, and optimize future groundwater characterization efforts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15578: Computational and Experimental Investigation of Thermal-Mechanical- Chemical Mechanisms of High-burnup Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) Processes at Elevated Temperatures and Degradation Behavior in Geologic Repositories | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $800,000.00 | The overarching goal of this project is to use combined computational and experimental research and development activities to enhance understanding of the mechanisms and thermal-mechanical-chemical (TMC) parameters controlling the instant release fraction (IRF) and matrix dissolution of high-burnup (HB; burnup > 45 GWd/MTU) spent nuclear fuels (SNFs) and the subsequent formation, stability, and phase transformations of HB SNF alteration products under long-term storage and geological disposal conditions (e.g., high-temperature storage, _-radiolysis). The results of this research will be used to enhance the mechanistic detail of process models to reduce uncertainty in, and improve the technical bases of, safety cases and performance assessment analyses. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15439: Radiolytic Dissolution Rate of Silicon Carbide | University of Notre Dame | $400,000.00 | This project seeks to develop a matrix of dissolution rates for high-purity SiC material, using intense electron beam irradiation, and to measure the products of dissolution (silicic acid and CO2 (or CO)) in the water downstream of the irradiation zone. The objective is to determine the rate of SiC dissolution and gather sufficient insight about its mechanism in LWRs, so that the use of SiC/SiC composite materials for accident tolerant fuel cladding can proceed with confidence. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15061: Development of an MC&A Toolbox for Liquid-fueled Molten Salt Reactors with Online Reprocessing | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,207.00 | The purpose of this project is to develop a toolbox of swappable mass flow modules for liquid-fueled molten salt reactor (MSR) systems for the purposes of evaluating material control & accountancy measurement techniques. When combined together, these modules enable modeling of the time-dependent mass flows for a variety of MSR variants. The test platform will consist of a toolbox of independent process modules representing discrete physical units, each with its own self-contained physics responsive to the input mass flow, along with appropriate measurement models that can be coupled to key flow points. These dynamic physical signatures would allow testing of the viability and efficacy of potential accountancy techniques under the full range of reactor operating conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15307: A Novel and Flexible Approach for Converting LWR UNF Fuel Into Forms That Can Be Used to Fuel a Variety of Gen-IV Reactors | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $400,000.00 | This project will investigate the chemical decladding and the digestion of whole MOX-based fuel rods, using thionyl chloride and surrogate materials. Digesting entire LWR fuel assemblies results in product streams that include pure decontaminated ZrCl4; pure UCl4; and a stream containing TRU/FPs, as well as alloying metals (as chloride salts). The objectives of this project are to provide a new, highly efficient protocol for the transformation of used nuclear fuel into useful components and to effectively contain a concentrated stream of highly radioactive materials for appropriate handling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15459: Reduced Diffusion and Enhanced Retention of Multiple Radionuclides from Pore Structure Studies of Barrier Materials for Enhanced Repository Performance | University of Texas at Arlington | $567,831.00 | The project seeks to better understand and quantify the pore structure (geometry and topology) and pore connectivity of porous media and its emergent effect on diffusion and retention of various radionuclides in barrier materials. The anticipated outcome of the project will be to more accurately evaluate the performance of geological repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15649: Benchmarking Microscale Ductility Measurements | University of Utah | $776,669.00 | The objectives of this project are to establish best practices for obtaining tensile microscale ductility measurements and to validate methodologies for comparing them to macroscale ductility measurements. Anticipated outcomes of the project are: 1) measurement of grain and sub-grain localization processes micro and macroscales; 2) establishment of best practices for microtensile experimentation; 3) identification of statistically significant relationships between specimen geometry, microstructure variables and mechanical behavior; 4) modified phenomenological elongation-based ductility models to enable direct upscaling of ductility measurements from microscale to macroscopic. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15003: Advanced Coating and Surface Modification Technologies for SiC-SiC Composite for Hydrothermal Corrosion Protection in LWR | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,990.00 | This project focuses on the development of coatings and surface modification approaches for hydrothermal corrosion protection of SiC-SiC composite in normal LWR operation environments. Innovative surface treatment recipes will be explored using processes including, interfacial stitching to improve adhesion, multi-layered structures to improve ductility, and compositions and structures resulting from thermal treatments. The surface treatment concepts involve corrosion resistant metallic and ceramic materials, and are amenable to industrial scalability for the cladding application. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15332: Low-Force Solid-State Technologies for Mitigation of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dry Storage Canisters | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000.00 | This project will focus on evaluating and developing two technologies used for field mitigation and repair of stress corrosion cracking (SCC): 1) additive friction stir welding; and 2) cold spray deposition. The work involves developing low-force, low-heat input solid state technologies to lessen and repair SCC in stainless steel canisters for used nuclear fuel (UNF). This outcome of the study will inform feasibility of using the two technologies to conduct on-site field repairs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14913: The Role of Temperature on Non-Darcian Flows in Engineered Clay Barriers | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000.00 | This project intends to accomplish three tasks: 1) to develop a predictive model to facilitate experimental data interpretation and provide mechanistic insights into the role of temperature on non-Darcian flows in low-permeability engineered clay barriers; 2) conduct experiments to unravel the role of temperature on the threshold gradient of non-Darcian flow in both saturated and unsaturated bentonite; and 3) use molecular dynamics (MD) simulation to improve fundamental understanding. The experimental data, associated with the MD simulation, will provide valuable information to improve fundamental understanding and scientific knowledge with respect to the temperature dependence of threshold gradient in non-Darcian flows, because very limited experimental data for saturated flow and no experimental data for unsaturated flow are available. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14815: C-SiOC-SiC Coated Particle Fuels for Advanced Nuclear Reactors | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $400,000.00 | This project will study a new concept for nuclear fuel encapsulation using an amorphous SiOC plus carbon system as the inner coating and nanocrystalline SiC plus minor carbon as the outer coating for nuclear fuel kernel particles. The outcomes of this work are: 1) new directions and possible replacement guidance for current nuclear fuel materials in operation; 2) new fuel materials for future nuclear reactor material design and development; 3) nuclear composite microstructure evolution and performance degradation understanding; 4) screening tools to guide future nuclear fuel material activities; and 5) mechanisms of nuclear fuel material evolution and degradation and effective strategies to mitigate/reduce undesirable fuel behaviors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15226: An Evaluated, Transient Experiment based on Simultaneous, 3-D Neutron-Flux and Temperature Measurements | Kansas State University | $399,972.00 | This project will evaluate existing and near-term experimental data for inclusion in the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) handbook. The data to be evaluated include compositions from a recent fuel replacement as part of an LEU conversion, a number of critical, fresh-fuel configurations, fuel temperature measurements at fresh-fuel configurations, and records from nearly a decade of operation. The proposed work would lead to a first-of-a-kind evaluation of transient, spatially-dependent reaction rates. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project CFA-18-15773: Evaluation of the Thermal Scattering Law for Advanced Reactor Neutron Moderators and Reflectors | North Carolina State University | $398,821.00 | The objective of this project is to narrow the nuclear data gap for advanced nuclear reactors that are driven by thermal neutrons. This includes concepts such as gas-cooled high-temperature reactors and molten salt or salt-cooled high temperature reactors. The generated data TSL libraries will be provided in EDNF File 7 format to the National Nuclear Data Center (NDDC) to immediately include in beta releases of the ENDF/B libraries and to consider for the future release of ENDF/B-VIII.1. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15602: Modeling and Experimental Verification of Thermal Energy Storage Systems to Enable Load Following Capability for Nuclear Reactors | University of Idaho | $761,640.00 | This project purposes to integrate new thermal energy storage (TES) models, developed in Modelica, with ongoing nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (NRHES) modeling efforts, in order to evaluate economic potential and advantages of new process designs over baseload electricity production. The computational phase of this project includes developing mathematical and physics-based TES models, which could later be translated to Modelica and integrated with existing NRHES components. The testing and optimization would be conducted using RAVEN. A techno-economic analysis will be performed to evaluate the compatibility of the newly formed integration, as well as to quantify its feasibility and economic benefits. The experimental aspect is focused on the development of scaled TES systems, which serve as verification for the Modelica models and allow system testing upon being integrated with DETAIL. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14963: Development of Nuclear Hybrid Energy Systems: Temperature Amplification through Chemical Heat Pumps for Industrial Applications | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The overall goal of this project is to develop and demonstrate, through modeling and experimental investigations, temperature amplification capabilities of a chemical heat pump (CHP) system that can be coupled to a conventional light water reactor or a near-term small modular reactor. The outcomes would include nuclear hybrid energy system architecture containing a CHP, experimental data on the CHP performance, and dynamic model of the system, validated through experimentation, which could be used for scale-up and design. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15008: Development of Thermal Inelastic Scattering Covariance Data Capabilities with Demonstration of Light Water Evaluation | University of Michigan | $400,000.00 | The goal of this project is to produce a format for covariance data for inelastic thermal neutron scattering data for moderators in the ENDF format. To demonstrate the viability of this new format, an evaluation of the covariance data for thermal scattering in light water in this format will be produced, along with the capabilities to generate the files and test their efficacy. A capability for calculating sensitivity coefficients using multigroup methods to the fundamental physics parameters governing light-water scattering will be developed to facilitate identifying nuclear data needs related to thermal scattering. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15056: Model-Based Diagnostics and Mitigation of Cyber Threats | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | This project intends to develop a toolkit for modeling digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems for nuclear power plants so that the consequences of cyber-attacks on I&C systems may conveniently be modeled using nuclear plant simulation software. The results of the toolkit-based models, the corresponding responses, and the performance of the diagnostic schemes will be tested on a virtual control room driven by a plant simulator. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15055: NICSim: Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Simulation for Evaluating Response to Cyber-attacks | University of New Mexico | $799,945.00 | The objective of the project is to develop a Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Simulation (NICSim) platform with a novel emulytics capability to simulate control systems and components in nuclear power plants. The outcome of this work would be a first-in-class emulytics platform with an associated documentation and library of physical models of components that could be used by analysts and designers to assess the resilience and cybersecurity risks of different control system designs for a wide range of power plants. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15324: Validation of Pressure Relaxation Coefficient in RELAP-7 Seven-Equation Model | George Washington University | $800,000.00 | This project aims to validate the Seven-Equation model in RELAP-7 by: 1) measuring velocity and pressure in each phase and the interface as well as return to equilibrium in fast transients with high-speed non-intrusive laser diagnostics in canonical experiments; 2) complementing experimental data with a multiscale computational approach, including a 3D proprietary direct numerical solver; and 3) validating RELAP-7 with a combination of experimental data and first-principle simulations. This combination would provide unique and complete datasets to validate RELAP-7 with high confidence and offer a new class of experimental and numerical tools. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project CFA-18-15104: Demonstration of Utilization of High-fidelity NEAMS Tools to Inform the Improved Use of Conventional Tools within the NEAMS Workbench on the NEA/OECD C5G7-TD Benchmark | North Carolina State University | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to demonstrate the utilization of high-fidelity Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) tools (PROTEUS, Nek5000, and BISON) to inform the improved use of conventional tools (DIF-3D, CTF, and CTFFuel) within the NEAMS Workbench on the NEA/OECD C5G7-TD benchmark. This would result in more accurate predictions of safety parameters and margins, which is important for both safety and performance improvements of the nuclear power plants being currently operated and built. The developed Workbench-based framework will also assist end users to apply high-fidelity simulations to inform lower-order models for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14741: Demonstration of a Methodology for Direct Validation of MARMOT Irradiation-Induced Microstructural Evolution and Physical Property Models Using U-10Zr | Texas A&M University | $500,000.00 | The objective of this project is to demonstrate, for the first time, a methodology that enables the direct validation of microstructural evolution models for fuel in MARMOT, and the direct correlation of changes in physical properties with specific irradiation-induced microstructural features. Properly implementing this methodology will result in rapid development of MARMOT mesoscale models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15520: Accurate and Efficient Parametric Model-Order Reduction for Turbulent Thermal Transport | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000.00 | The project objective is to develop reduced-order models (ROMs) that will improve accuracy of LMR system-level analysis with low overhead. These new models will systematically mine high-fidelity DNS, LES, or uRANS simulations to construct low-order dynamical systems that can couple with a systems analysis code, such as the SAM code being developed under NEAMS. These simulations provide useful data and will be made available to the scientific community, and the overall effort will contribute to more efficient LMR conceptual design studies and licensing. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15484: A Novel High Fidelity Continuous-energy tTansport Tool for Efficient FHR Transient Calculations | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000.00 | The objective of the project is to develop a high-fidelity continuous energy (CE) transport tool for efficient transient calculations in fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactors with prismatic core/fuel assembly design. This will be accomplished by extending the high-fidelity 3-D continuous energy coarse mesh radiation transport (COMET) code with formidable computational speed to solve transient problems in FHRs with accurate thermal hydraulic feedback. The new capability would enable plant system codes to perform analyses necessary to address complex technical design, regulatory, reactor safety, and economic hurdles prior to construction. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15093: Determination of Molecular Structure and Dynamics of Molten Salts by Advanced Neutron and X-ray Scattering Measurements and Computer Modeling | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000.00 | This project will seek detailed knowledge about molecular structure and dynamics of molten salts to inform the design of new molten-salt reactors. A combination of advanced neutron and x-ray scattering and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations will be used to model the ionic-cluster structure of the fluid and solubility of impurities. Machine learning will be applied to regress from simulations and experiments in order to develop the model and predict chemical potentials as a function of composition and temperature. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15171: Oxidation Behavior of Silicon Carbide and Graphitic Materials | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000.00 | The objectives of this project are to determine the oxidation behavior of silicon carbide and graphitic materials in oxygen and/or moisture, to accurately measure the kinetic parameters of oxidation, to ascertain the oxidation mechanisms in relation to the microstructures, to determine the effect of irradiation on oxidation behavior, and to provide data and input to the safety analysis of high-temperature gas reactors under air and moisture ingress accident conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15276: Coping Time and Cost Analysis of Accident Tolerant Plant Design based on Dynamic PRA Methodology | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000.00 | This project will evaluate the failure modes of accident tolerant fuel ATF candidates to understand the different failure characteristics. The research aims to obtain a response surface of coping time by investigating the various uncertainties of accident mitigation in PWR and BWR reactors. These outputs will aid the decision making process on the implementation of ATF and FLEX to existing LWR plants from the perspective of risk reduction and economic feasibility. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15270: Innovative Use of Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) with the RCIC System to Enhance Passive Safety of Commercial LWRs | Texas A&M University | $748,000.00 | The overarching objectives of this project are to: 1) demonstrate new operational strategies with the combined use of Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) and the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) System to increase the passive safety capabilities of current Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs) in delaying or preventing core damage; and 2) pursue the delay of containment venting until after a 72-hour coping period through new BWR Suppression Pool mixing procedures. The research will use both simulation and experimental data to validate the objectives. The work has the potential to increase the ability of existing nuclear power plants to passively respond to beyond design basis events using existing equipment and without changes to the plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15346: Big Data For Operation and Maintenance Cost Reduction | The Ohio State University | $800,000.00 | This project will develop a first-of-a-kind framework for integrating Big Data capability into the daily activities of our current fleet of nuclear power plants. This research will mainly focus on incorporating the wide range of data heterogeneities in nuclear power plants into an integrated Big Data Analytics capability. The primary end product of this work will be a Big Data framework that is capable of dealing with the large volume and heterogeneity of the data found in nuclear power plants to extract timely and valuable information on equipment performance and to enable optimization of plant operation and maintenance based on the extracted information. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15065: in situ Measurement and Validation of Uranium Molten Salt Properties at Operationally Relevant Temperatures | University of Connecticut | $799,979.00 | This project proposes to use advanced spectroscopic and scattering methods to provide information at the atomic and molecular scale. The research will use synchrotron-based x-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy, at operationally relevant temperatures, to measure the local and intermediate structure as well as speciation of chloride fuel salts (NaCl, ZrCl, UCl3) for fast-spectrum applications and fluoride fuel salts ( 7 LiF, UF4) primarily for thermal spectrum applications This approach is expected to generate theories and concepts that would allow models to predict behavior, and develop the means for in situ monitoring. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15058: High-resolution Experiments for Extended LOFC and Steam Ingress Accidents in HTGRs | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to better understand key phenomena in high-temperature gas-cooled reactors relevant to steam ingress and loss of forced circulation (LOFC) accidents. Specifically, the research will: 1) experimentally investigate, using an existing integral-effect test facility with some improvements, the steam-ingress accident caused by a postulated steam generator tube rupture initiating event; 2) carry out integral-effect tests for the extended LOFC accident to study the establishment of global natural circulation flow in the primary loop; 3) design, based on a scaling analysis, and construct a separate-effect test facility to study the complex helium flows in the core and hot plenum during the extended LOFC accident; and 4) perform detailed, high-resolution, separate-effects experiments using the results obtained as boundary/initial conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15471: Integral Experimental Investigation of Radioisotope Retention in Flowing Lead for the Mechanistic Source Term Evaluation of Lead Cooled Fast Reactor | University of New Mexico | $800,000.00 | The purpose of this project is to experimentally investigate the integral effects of radioisotope interactions with liquid lead to support the following technical goals: 1) evaluating the mechanistic source term of the Lead-cooled Fast Reactor (LFR); 2) developing a universal integral effect test methodology for liquid metal source term evaluations; and 3) establishing a basis for the comparison of radioisotope retention between lead and sodium. This aim of the research is to advance the LFR licensing pathway by establishing the phenomenological foundation of the interaction between fission products and liquid lead. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15153: Understanding Molten Salt Chemistry Relevant to Advanced Molten Salt Reactors through Complementary Synthesis, Spectroscopy, and Modeling | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to understand molten salt chemistry relevant to advanced molten salt reactors through complementary synthesis, spectroscopy, and modeling. Through complementary synthetic, spectroscopic, and computational efforts, the aim is to achieve atomistic and molecular-level understanding of liquid structure, coordination geometry, chemical bonding, and reactivity of novel molten salt melts relevant to advanced molten reactor designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15111: Improving Nuclear Power Plant Efficiency Through Data Analytics | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,727.00 | This project aims to develop and provide data analytics solutions to improve nuclear power plan economic efficiency by utilizing empirical models to integrate disparate data sources while providing uncertainty estimates to quantify risk and support decisions. The outcomes will enhance the technical and economic competitiveness by enabling advanced monitoring of critical assets, improving the operating capability of the existing fleet, and helping achieve enhancements in organizational effectiveness. Additionally, the research would provide an agile and modular data analytic framework that would have high commercialization value and supports the industry-wide drive towards digital innovation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14846: Development of Corrosion Resistant Coatings and Liners for Structural Materials for Liquid Fueled Molten Salts Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to develop corrosion-resistant coatings and liners for structural materials for use in fuel dissolved molten salt environment for future Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). Innovative, but industrially scalable, surface cladding approaches are proposed to lead to promising surface and interfacial compositions. The processes themselves are commercial, and have high technology readiness levels, and consequently would facilitate the accelerated developments of MSRs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15280: Advanced Alloy Innovations for Structural Components of Molten Salt Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $796,792.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to develop and evaluate specific advanced metallic alloys for structural components in fluoride salt-cooled molten salt reactors (MSRs). The research will investigate four categories of metallic alloys: advanced Ni-based; radiation damage tolerant high entropy; refractory Mo-based, and compositionally-graded, designed for high-surface corrosion resistance and good bulk strength. Additionally, the propensity for radiation embrittlement, as well as weldability, of the alloys will be evaluated. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14957: Big Data Analytics Solutions to Improve Nuclear Power Plant Efficiency: Online Monitoring, Visualization, Prognosis, and Maintenance Decision Making | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $797,820.00 | The overarching goal of this project is to significantly advance the ability to assess equipment condition and predict the remaining useful life to support optimal maintenance decision making in nuclear power plants. This research will work toward accomplishing and establishing a modern set of data-driven modeling, online monitoring, visualization, prognosis, and operation decision-making methodologies to address the significant opportunities and challenges arising from the emerging data-rich environment in nuclear plants. The potential impact of the work is significant and transformative and could deliver important advances in productivity with reduced unscheduled downtime and improved equipment performance. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15097: Oxidation Study of High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor TRISO Fuels at Accidental Conditions | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000.00 | This project is to study the oxidation behaviors of TRISO fuels during accidental air and water vapor ingress conditions. The work focuses on the oxidation and burn-off of the graphite fuel matrix and oxidation of the TRISO fuel SiC layer at high-temperature accidental states in the presence of air and/or water vapor. It will include both unirradiated and irradiated graphite fuel matrix and simulated fuel particles with the SiC layer. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 19-16987: Novel miniature creep tester for virgin and neutron irradiated clad alloys with benchmarked multiscale modeling and simulations | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | This project will develop a miniature creep machine to collect rapid thermal creep and load relaxation data for two selected ferritic alloys under "as-received" and irradiated conditions. Fast and accurate measurements of creep deformation are essential for qualifying new alloys for long term use in current and next generation reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17150: Speciation and Behavior of Neptunium and Zirconium in Advanced Separation Process | Oregon State University | $800,000 | This project will further develop the understanding of nuclear fuel reprocessing using Co-Decontamination (CoDCon). Radiolytic degradation products of tributylphosphate, nitric acid, redox buffer, masking agent, and water greatly affect the redox speciation, complexation and partitioning of the recycled metals. Fundamental understanding of chemical speciation and partitioning of Neptunium and Zerconium under such conditions is required. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17395: Modeling and Uncertainty Analysis of MSR Nuclear Material Accounting Methods for Nuclear Safeguards | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | This project will model and analyze the limits of detection for the diversion of nuclear materials from a molten salt reactor (MSR) fuel cycle. MSR depletion under a range of uranium and/or plutonium diversion to quantify the resulting differences in salt composition will be evaluated. Sensors will also be investigated to quantify fuel salt contents and correlate the outputs with the reactor models to predict diversion detection. Results will be coupled with robust uncertainty analysis to determine limits of detection. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16583: Neutron Radiation Effect on Diffusion between Zr (and Zircaloy) and Cr for Accurate Lifetime Prediction of ATF | The Ohio State University | $499,997 | This project will perform systematic diffusion studies on both neutron-irradiated and unirradiated accident tolerant fuel samples to obtain precise diffusion coefficients. This will result in a precise evaluation of the pure neutron irradiation effect on diffusion in these systems and enable accurate life prediction of the accident tolerant fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17381: High Throughput Assessment of Creep Behavior of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Structural Alloys by Nano/microindentation | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $800,000 | This project will develop a high throughput assessment of creep behavior of advanced nuclear reactor structural alloys by nano/microindentation. Experimental datasets will inform polycrystalline deformation models to predict material response over a variety of creep conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16549: Thermal Conductivity Measurement of Irradiated Metallic Fuel Using TREAT | University of Pittsburgh | $500,000 | This project intends to provide accurate thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity data with microstructure characterization of metallic (U-Pu-Zr) fuel as a function of burnup and attain fundamental understanding of the thermal conductivity of the irradiated fuel to inform and validate computational models. This will be accomplished using an innovative thermal wave technique in the Transient Reactor Test Facility at the Idaho National Laboratory, with the Minimal Activation Reusable Capsule Holder. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17002: Remote Laser-based Nondestructive Evaluation for Post-Irradiation Examination of ATF Cladding | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | To enable advanced nondestructive characterization techniques for light water reactor fuels that can be applied to the cladding coating, a remote nondestructive evaluation post irradiation inspection approach will be developed. This technique will measure the cladding coating layer thickness and detect defects within the cladding such as corrosion, micro-cracking and delamination. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17276: Radiation-Induced Swelling in Advanced Nuclear Fuel | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,989 | The microstructural evolution of advanced fuel (uranium carbide and uranium nitride) under fission-fragment type radiation has not been studied and remains unclear. This project will utilize advanced synchrotron X-ray characterization using microgram samples to obtain detailed nanoscale information on radiation-induced volumetric swelling and microstrain. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16848: Metal-Functionalized Membranes for Radioiodine Capture | University of Utah | $799,031 | This proposed research will investigate high-surface area (>300 m2/g) metal-functionalized membranes. These novel chemically durable and mechanically robust membranes are formed using an aqueous fabrication process, which results in an interconnected porosity that is highly controllable, providing hierarchical structures ranging from the nano- to micrometer-scales. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17350: Development and Experimental Validation of Pitting and SCC Models for Welded Stainless Steel Dry Storage Containers Exposed to Atmospheric Environments | University of Virginia | $799,027 | The specific goals of this project are to: (a) validate the maximum pit size model for dry storage canister relevant corrosion conditions as well as quantifying the effects of limited cathodic current on stress corrosion cracking (SCC) kinetics, (b) demonstrate a means to quantitatively rank the risk of SCC based on measurable parameters, (c) perform probabilistic predictions of SCC growth, and (d) validate the model predictions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16879: Proactive Hybrid Nuclear with Load Forecasting | Brigham Young University | $799,933 | This project develops new capabilities of design and dispatch optimization of nuclear hybrid energy systems (NHES) in the "Risk Analysis Virtual Environment (RAVEN)" modelling software. Blended (physics-based and data-driven) machine learning will be applied to forecast demand and production of thermal and electrical loads. Two experimental case studies are proposed to test the software developments with a lab-scale thermal energy storage and with a large district energy system. As a final step, the software developments will be generalized to other NHES. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17461: Development and Evaluation of Neutron Thermalization Integral Benchmarks for Advanced Reactor Applications | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | This project will develop integral benchmarks that aim to examine thermal neutron scattering data for graphite (ideal and nuclear), light water, and molten salt. The benchmark evaluations will be contributed to the International Handbook of Evaluated Reactor Physics Benchmark Experiments (IRPhEP) database. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17219: Using Integral Benchmark Experiments to Improve Differential Nuclear Data Evaluations | University of New Mexico | $400,000 | This project will use the results of integral benchmark experiment to inform differential nuclear data evaluations and improve the predictive capability of modeling and simulation (M&S) tools. This goal will be accomplished by developing capabilities to assess the sensitivity of integral benchmark results to evaluated nuclear data parameters, and by using data assimilation tools to directly adjust the evaluated data parameters and improve the accuracy of M&S tools. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16743: Paths Forward for Nuclear Energy: Using a Nationwide Post-Stratified Hierarchical Model to Facilitate Matching of New Nuclear Technologies to Receptive Host Communities | University of Oklahoma | $390,393 | This project will enable deployment of advanced nuclear technologies by developing a model, and an accompanying web-based tool that can be utilized by technology entrepreneurs, that identifies public support for siting new nuclear technologies at very local spatial scales across the US. The model will employ hierarchically structured, post stratified analysis of the largest US pooled-time series dataset on geocoded public support for nuclear technologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16995: A Cyber-Attack Detection Platform for Cyber Security of Digital Instrumentation and Control Systems | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,995 | The proposed research will develop a robust cyber-attack detection system (CADS) for monitoring digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems. The project will develop a robust research tool for evaluating cyber defense of digital I&C systems and provide a framework for a cyber-attack detection system that provides continuous assurance of the security of digital I&C systems in nuclear power plants (NPPs). | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17327: Multi-Timescale Nuclear-Renewable Hybrid Energy Systems Operations to Improve Electricity System Resilience, Reliability, and Economic Efficiency | University of Texas at Dallas | $800,000 | The overarching objective of this project is to develop a multi-timescale nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (N-R HESs) operations framework to provide different types of grid products. The project will model and analyze the capabilities of N-R HESs to provide power grid services at different timescales ranging from seconds to days, such as day-ahead unit commitment, flexible ramping (5-45 minutes), regulation reserves (1-5 minutes), and frequency response (less than seconds). | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17192: The Design and Investigation of Novel Mechanical Filters for Molten Salt Reactors | Abilene Christian University | $762,246 | Researchers will develop a novel mechanical filtration system. The project will include the collection of filter media performance data and filter regeneration performance data for a novel sintered nickel-based filter prototype. The project will also provide a filter design that facilitates remote filter removal, cooling, replacement, and assay of fissile material hold-up in the filter media. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16980: Determining the Effects of Neutron Irradiation on the Structural Integrity of Additively Manufactured Heat Exchangers for Very Small Modular Reactor Applications | Auburn University | $400,000 | Researchers will determine how to best use laser-powder bed fusion additive manufacturing methods for generating radiation-resistant channel/pore-embedded structures from Inconel (alloy 625 or 718) nickel-based superalloys for special purpose reactor (i.e. very small modular reactor) heat exchangers. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17413: Validated, Multi-Scale Molecular Dynamics Simulations to Predict the Thermophysical Properties of Molten Salts Containing Fuel, Fission, and Corrosion Products | Brigham Young University | $798,291 | Researchers will use first principles molecular dynamics (FPMD) simulations on molten salts containing impurities including fuel, fission products, and corrosion products. These will be used to develop a classical molecular dynamics (CMD) potential. CMD will then be used to predict properties for a wide variety of salt compositions and temperatures, and physical property measurements will be performed to validate those predictions. Property correlations will be developed from this data. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17183: Mixing of helium with air in reactor cavities following a pipe break in HTGRs | City College of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct separate effects tests to obtain experimental validation data on mixing of helium and air in reactor building cavities during and after blowdown in HTGRs. Air and helium concentrations, and gas mixture velocity and temperature fields will be measured in simulated reactor cavities. An existing helium flow loop will be used as the source of high pressure/high temperature helium for injection into the cavities and different break configurations will be experimentally investigated. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16391: GuArDIAN: General Active Sensing for conDItion AssessmeNt | Duke University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a dependable, autonomous or semi-autonomous (i.e. low human involvement), and minimally disruptive framework for monitoring equipment and components in nuclear reactors. The project will develop GUARDIAN; a robust active sensing framework through the integration of model-based inference and mobile actuating/sensing robots. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17251: Measuring Mechanical Properties of Select Layers and Layer Interfaces of TRISO Particles via Micromachining and In-Microscope Tensile Testing | Idaho State University | $799,815 | Researchers will characterize the strength of TRISO-coated particle layers and interfaces using FIB micro-machining and in-TEM tensile testing. Tensile test samples from coating layers of (1) unirradiated surrogate (fuel) TRISO particles, (2) unirradiated fueled TRISO particles and (3) irradiated fueled TRISO particles will be studied. Results of this project will both benefit and leverage the AGR Program. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17185: Demonstrating Reactor Autonomous Control Framework using Graphite Exponential Pile | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will demonstrate a detection-prediction-feedback framework for nuclear system autonomous control. It will adopt multiple detector channels to enable control feedback to spatially dependent perturbations. It will also utilize high-fidelity solutions trained surrogate models for real-time prediction and decision-making. In addition to the method development, the proposal will entail a first-of-a-kind engineering demonstration using the MIT Graphite Exponential Pile (MGEP). | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16754: Simultaneous Corrosion/Irradiation Testing in Lead and Lead-Bismuth Eutectic: The Radiation Decelerated Corrosion Hypothesis | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $762,823 | Researchers will test candidate FeCrSi and F/M alloys in a new, simultaneous corrosion/radiation facility to try to identify an alloy that will satisfy all requirements for Lead Fast Reactor structural materials. Microstructural characterization, mechanical property testing, and corrosion tests, both during irradiation and following ion/He pre-conditioning, will assess how irradiation affects corrosion, potentially slowing it. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17173: Ni-based ODS alloys for Molten Salt Reactors | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | The objective of this work is to (i) propose and develop a new Nickel (Ni) based Oxide Dispersion-Strengthened (ODS) alloy that can be used for structural applications in Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) and other nuclear reactor harsh environments, (ii) to demonstrate that its high temperature mechanical properties are adequate for MSR operating temperatures, (iii) to demonstrate its radiation damage resistance through ion irradiation testing and (iv) to demonstrate its improved corrosion resistance in MSR environment. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17037: Investigation of HTGR Reactor Building Response to a Break in Primary Coolant Boundary | Purdue University | $799,832 | Researchers will perform a series of experiments to simulate HTGR reactor building response due to a break in the primary coolant boundary in a well-scaled test facility to obtain spatial distribution of oxygen concentration, perform analysis of the whole system response with 1-D thermal hydraulics codes and use CFD to make detailed localized predictions. The tests will be carried out with different locations and sizes of the breaks to create various vent and flow paths in the reactor cavity. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17093: Integrating Multi-modal Microscopy Techniques and the MOSAIC Simulation Environment to Assess Changes in the Physical Properties and Chemical Durability of Concrete Following Radiation Exposure | University of California, Los Angeles | $800,000 | Researchers will develop unprecedented multi-modal imaging methodologies that integrate multiple microscopy techniques. The team will develop a generalizable protocol for quantifying the changes in physical properties and chemical durability of concrete and concrete constituents (minerals and aggregates) following radiation exposure. The imaging analyses will be input into the MOSAIC framework to reveal the nature and extent of degradation that is expected to result. The outcomes offer insights that are needed to enable and inform second license renewals. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17167: Atomistically Informed and Experimentally Validated Model for Helium Bubble Growth in Welded Irradiated Metals | University of Florida | $797,861 | Researchers will construct a validated computational model for He bubble growth on grain boundaries in irradiated Fe-Ni-Cr microstructures, including intergranular fracture, as a function of material conditions and welding heat input. This model will be based on the phase-field methodology, leveraging numerical solvers in the MOOSE simulation platform, with critical inputs and validation provided by both atomic-level simulations and experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16909: Learning-based Computational Study of the Thermodynamic, Structural, and Dynamic Properties of Molten Salts at the Atomic and Electronic Scale and Experimental Validations | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will obtain the thermophysical, thermochemical, and transport properties, construct the phase diagrams, and build empirical physical models of molten salts that are relevant to Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) with first-principles accuracy using molecular dynamics simulations driven by machine-learned high-dimensional neural network potentials combined with neutron/X-ray scattering and thermodynamic experimental validations. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16298: I-PRA Decision-Making Algorithm and Computational Platform to Develop Safe and Cost-Effective Strategies for the Deployment of New Technologies | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an integrated probabilistic risk assessment decision-making algorithm to support risk-and-cost-informed decision-making related to the deployment of new technologies. The project will enhance the financial analysis module and the challenging interface of social and technical systems to advance the algorithm. The project will conduct a case study for evaluating the safety impact and cost-effectiveness of FLEX strategies to support operational flexibility. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16802: Evaluation of Semi-Autonomous Passive Control Systems for HTGR Type Special Purpose Reactors | University of Michigan | $400,000 | Researchers will investigate the use of variable flow controllers and a variable reflector as passive or semi-autonomous reactivity control mechanisms for multi-module HTGR type special purpose reactors. This applies to the commercially developed special purpose reactor concepts from HolosGen. The incorporation of these systems will reduce the movable parts count and enable more robust load follow capabilities over broader power ranges and local and global reactivity control. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17467: Understanding the Speciation and Molecular Structure of Molten Salts Using Laboratory and Synchrotron based In Situ Experimental Techniques and Predictive Modeling | University of Nevada, Reno | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology to accurately determine the structure and speciation of the molten salt electrolyte using laboratory-based spectroscopic techniques (Raman and UV-Vis-NIR) and synchrotron-based (scattering and absorption) techniques, in combination with computational modeling. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17231: Prevention of Common Fault-Trigger Combinations for Qualification of Digital Instrumentation and Control Technology | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will provide an effective design evaluation approach based on prevention of concurrent triggering conditions to eliminate common-cause failures (CCF) and enable qualification of digital I&C technology for application in nuclear plant modernization. The research involves classifying commonality among digital devices, categorizing faults and triggering conditions, determining fault-trigger relationships, and defining preventive design measures to resolve the potential for CCF. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17087: Economic Risk-Informed Maintenance Planning and Asset Management | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will provide a holistic framework for cost-minimizing risk-informed maintenance planning, including inspection. They will develop a two-tier framework that coarsely minimizes the total maintenance cost during the remaining normal operating cycle and uses the outputs of the first model to maximize the financial impact of these activities in the short term. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16811: Liquid Metal-cooled Fast Reactor Instrumentation Technology Development | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will explore three different areas that will help to improve commercialization of SFRs and to aid in testing for the VTR. These include: 1. Advancement in understanding of low prandtl number heat transfer 2. Testing of compact heat exchangers for use with sodium 3. Development of in pool submersible flow meters. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16954: Innovative In-Situ Analysis and Quantification of Corrosion and Erosion of 316 Stainless Steel in Molten Chloride Salt Flow Loops | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will use a thin-layer activation technique for the first time in molten salts, on 316H samples placed in natural convection and forced flow loops. The individual and synergistic effects of corrosion, irradiation and thermo-mechanical treatments will be evaluated in-situ to predict component service lifetimes and design limits. The effects of molten chloride flow velocity will also be assessed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17168: Fuel Salt Sampling and Enriching System Technology Development | Vanderbilt University | $799,989 | Researchers will combine insights from the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment with decades of advancements in applicable technologies into an enhanced Sampler Enricher (SE) concept to develop and test a flexible, reliable, and workable design. The prototype will then be tested in an existing salt loop. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16739: Improvements of Nuclear Data Evaluations for Lead Isotopes in Support of Next Generation Lead-Cooled Fast Systems | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | The objective of this project is to improve the accuracy of neutronics simulation of lead-based systems by improving the nuclear data of lead isotopes. The nuclear data for lead will be reevaluated with emphasis of the intermediate and fast energy regions that are required by reactor applications currently sought by several industrial entities. The deliverables of this project are new lead isotopes evaluations that will be candidates for inclusion in a future Evaluated Nuclear Data Library (ENDF) release. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 20-19373: Connecting Advanced High-Temperature X-ray and Raman Spectroscopy Structure/Dynamics Insights to High-Throughput Property Measurements | Boston University | $500,000 | Researchers will acquire molten salt structure and dynamics data at high-temperatures using high-energy x-ray techniques and Raman spectroscopy and relate them to their physical and chemical properties. High-throughput techniques will be developed to rapidly measure multiple high-temperature properties at one time. An understanding of the relationship of salt structure and dynamics to its properties will help to select and optimize melt chemistry in molten salt reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19371: Adsorption and Reduction of Uranium in Engineered Barrier Systems: Effects of Iron and Heat | California State University, East Bay | $800,000 | Reseachers will investigate uranium sorption and abiotic reduction processes in iron-rich montmorillonite systems as a function of solution chemistry and temperature. The team will develop a surface complexation model that can account for both uranium adsorption and reduction, and hence reduce the uncertainties associated with uranium mobility in iron-rich environments with engineering barrier systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19831: Optimizing Melt Processed Phosphate Glass Waste Forms via Composition-Property-Structure Correlations | Clemson University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and optimize highly durable and easily processable phosphate-based glass waste forms to immobilize the dehalogenated salt streams by tailoring the composition of the glasses. To complement the work conducted on glass waste forms at the national laboratories sponsored by the DOE-NE program, modified iron phosphate glass waste forms will be prepared and evaluated by the introduction of various glass modifiers (SnF2 and BaO) to the prototype glass compositions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19695: Quantifying radionuclide sorption to engineered barrier materials under elevated temperature and ionic strength conditions | Clemson University | $799,380 | Researchers will characterize actinide sorption to mineral surfaces and examine possible mechanisms of sorption at high temperature/ionic strength through examination of the effects of hydration and hydrolysis on actinide sorption. These data will provide an understanding of radionuclide behavior with engineered barrier materials. A greater understanding of these processes will reduce the uncertainty in strategies for sequestration of radionuclide bearing wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19789: Controlling Neptunium and Zirconium in Advanced Extraction Processes | Colorado School of Mines | $599,763 | Researchers will address continuing issues with separating neptunium and zironium in current separation techniques. They will use coupled optical and x-ray specroscopy, small angle scattering, equilibrium thermodynamics and chemical analysis to understand fundamental molecular-level behaviors of extracted Np and Zr. These techniques, using world-class irradiation facilities, will elucidate the specific chemistries underlying the problematic behavior in Np and Zr in radiation fields. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19660: Linear and nonlinear guided ultrasonic waves to characterize cladding of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researcherses will perform a combination of linear and nonlinear guided ultrasonic waves, integrated with new material behavior models to develop a non-destructive evaluation (NDE) approach for both quality control/quality assurance and in-service NDE characterization of the cladding integrity and bond strength. Current NDE techniques are effective for uncoated designs, but these coated fuels add new challenges, which will be addressed by this new approach. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19678: Flexible Hard Ceramic Coatings by Ultrasonic Spray Mist-CVD for Dry Storage Canisters of Spent Nuclear Fuel and Waste | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop advanced flexible hard ceramic coatings using ultrasonic spray mist-chemical vapor deposition technique manufacturing process to deposit on dry storage canisters. The team will test resistance to corrosion, heat, wear and hydrogen permeation thgourh microstructural characterization and material property evaluation. The ultimate goal is to enhance the long term reliability of spent nuclear fuel dry storage canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19797: High Throughput Computational Platform for Predictive Modeling of Thermochemical and Thermophysical Properties of Fluoride Molten Salts | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | Researchers will (1) develop an open-source high throughput (H-T) computational platform to understand, predict, and evaluate thermochemical and thermophysical properties of molten salts as demonstrated in the F-(K-Li-Na)-(Cr-Fe)-U system and (2) provide H-T approaches (CALPHAD modeling and AIMD simulations) and open-source codes together with thermodynamic models of molten salts and public-accessible databases verified by targeted experiments for the molten salt research community. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19627: Chemical Interaction and Compatibility of Uranium Nitride with Liquid Pb and Alumina-forming Austenitic Alloys | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | Researcherswill address critical issues with the compatibility and chemcial interations of uranium nitride fuel, alumina-forming austenitic alloys and lead coolants/sublayers. They will obtain critical data of fuel-coolant-cladding interactions and compatibility to evaluate key parameters of operation temperature, fuel impurities and coolant chemistry. This data will provide key operation windows and parameters for deployment of lead-cooled fast reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19924: First-principles free energies by hybrid thermodynamic integration for phase equilibria and fission product solubility in molten salts | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | Researchers will predict phase equilibria and solubility of fission products in molten salts using a novel hybrid framework for thermodynamic integration combining first-principles, molecular dynamics and continuum methods to calculate free energies. They will be benchmarked using Bayesian-targeted calorimetric, in-situ diffraction and spectroscopic experiments. The project will provide microscopic insights and quantitative parameters necessary for reliable thermophysical modeling of molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19939: Gallium Oxide Schottky Diode Detectors for Measurement of Actinide Concentrations from Measured Alpha Activities in Molten Salts | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and test, to high temperatures, a Schottky diode alpha particle detector that is based on the rapidly emerging ultrawide band gap semiconductor material gallium oxide. Ga2O3 Schottky diode detectors offer the potential of detecting alpha particles at high temperatures, with better resolution than SiC Schottky diode detectors, which the team has previously developed for similar purposes. These detectors could be used in pyrochemical processing streams and molten salt reactors with potential application in other reactor concepts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19966: Evaluating hydroxypyridinone-based ligands for actinide and fission products recovery in used fuels | University of California, Berkeley | $600,000 | Researchers will pursue novel chemical separation approaches for advanced reactor used fuels treatments and recycling, by leveraging the unique actinide and lanthanide coordination properties of hydroxypyridinone-based aqueous chelators. These chelators have not been tested in extreme conditions and this work would test potential process performance with a focus on radiation-induced changes and oxidation state distribution. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19545: Femtosecond Laser Ablation Machining & Examination - Center for Active Materials Processing (FLAME-CAMP) | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop, build, and test a femtosecond laser ablation machining & examination tool that can be deployed in a hot cell environment enabling microscopy sample fabrication, isotope and elemental analysis, and thermal analysis. The technology allows for non-contact materials processing, even through glass windows, potentially preventing contamination of surrounding areas and tools. Such a multi-function tool with high throughput material processing will accelerate the research on fuel and cladding tremendously. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19198: Functionalized clay buffer materials for the long-term sequestration of technetium and iodine | University of Florida | $800,000 | Researcherswill develop synthesize, test, and model novel functionalized clay buffer materials for the long-term sequestration of iodine and technetium. The project will also focus on key experimantal parameters and modeling of how the novel clay buffer material will sequester iodine and technetium species. Novel materials will support DOE's efforts to design improved geologic repository barrier systems and optimize repository performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19209: Investigation on multicomponent solubility in LiCl-KCl eutectic chloride salts using combinatorial approach | University of Idaho | $400,000 | Researchers will perform irradiation experiments to understand how gamma radiation changes trivalent metal ion complex coordination structure and extraction characteristics during the ALSEP process. This work will focus on understanding the types of degradation products that are formed during the extraction process and what effects these degradation products have on process performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19713: Multifunctional Laser Processing for Repair and Mitigation of Pitting and Cracks in Welded Stainless Steel Dry Storage Canisters | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a strategic solution that combines laser cleaning and laser peening for removal of surface contamination and mitigation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in welded stainless steels. Laser cleanning will remove surface contamination and reduce pitting caused by corrosion. Laser peening will then be used to mitigate stress corrosion cracking and provide enhanced corrosion resistance. The portability of the laser system means the system will be able to be deployed in the field. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19188: Single- and Polycrystalline Diamond Electrodes for Spectroelectrochemical Characterization of Various Molten Salts | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $600,000 | Researchers will develop optically transparent electrodes for spectroelectrochemical measurements in chloride- and fluoride-based radioactive molten salts. The primary electrode material will be boron-doped diamond. Measurements will elucidate important electrochemical properties of nuclear fuel and fission products such as redox potential, diffusion coefficient, and electron transfer stoichiometry. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19641: Mitigating stress corrosion cracking in austenitic stainless-steel canister welds using peening techniques | University of Nevada, Reno | $799,950 | Researchers seek to understand the mechanisms of pitting/SCC resistance of welds as affected by a) compressive stress b) surface texture modification and c) microstructural change in the substrate surface resulting from laser shock peening, shot peening, ultrasonic impact peening and laser surface texturing. The study will recommend the best peening and surface texturing process conditions for mitigation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in 304L welds. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19704: Multicomponent Thermochemistry of Complex Chloride Salts for Sustain-able Fuel Cycle Technologies | University of Pittsburgh | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive thermodynamic database of multicomponent chloride salts through a collaboration between experts in Gibbs energy modeling and thermochemical experiments. A thermochemical database of the multicomponent chloride system KCl-LiCl-NaCl-UCl3-LnCl3 (Ln: La, Pr, Nd) will be developed using the CALPHAD (Calculation of Phase Diagrams) method with supported ab initio calculations and thermal analysis experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19506: Engineered composite patch with NDE inspection for repair and mitigation of SCC in nuclear spent fuel dry storage canister | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an innovative 'engineered composite patch' that can absorb moisture, neutralize chloride, and prevent stress corrosion cracking from further growth. This 'patch' with have in integrated non-destructive evaluation capability using laser utrasonic characterization methods to montior quality and performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19374: Maintaining and building upon the Halden legacy of In-situ diagnostics | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will develop innovative instrumentation focusing on temperature and strain measurements to fill the void left by the Halden reactor and to enhance the experimental capabilities in the Transient Reactor Test Facility (TREAT) located at Idaho National Laboratory. The team will develop a fiber optic sensor system that offers an inherent resistance to electromagnetic interference unlike currently used sensors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19076: Investigation of Degradation Mechanisms of Cr-coated Zirconium Alloy Cladding in Reactivity Initiated Accidents (RIA) | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $500,000 | Researchers will investigate the thermal, mechanical, and irradiation response of chromium-coated zirconium alloy claddings under RIA conditions, in comparison to uncoated Zr-alloy cladding. The outcome of the project will be used for anticipated licensing applications to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), thereby accelerating use of coated accident tolerant fuel concepts in U.S. commercial power reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19318: Surface Peening and Hybrid Surface Engineering Approaches to Mitigate Initiation and Resurgence of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dry Cask Storage Stainless Steel Canisters | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,838 | Researchers will develop and evaluate a wide range of surface peening treatments, as well as hybrid surface treatments to mitigate initiation and growth of chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) in stainless-steel canisters for used nuclear fuel (UNF) dry cask storage. Canister mock-ups with prototypical fusion welds will be used for this study. Characterization and testing of microstructure, compressive stresses, corrosion and CISCC will be performed. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19614: New Coatings for Nuclear Fuel Waste Canister Storage and Transport | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop novel SiOCN(H) coatings for spent nuclear fuel canisters in order to support sustained nuclear reactor operation and safeguard nuclear waste storage, transport, and disposal, in both terrestrial and marine environments. The novel coating will specifically address pitting corrosion and stress corrosion cracking in spent nuclear fuel canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19382: Separated waste stream immobilization of iodine and offgas caustic scrubber solution | Washington State University | $400,000 | Researchers will produce a set of waste forms from separation of iodine from the caustic offgas scrubber solution. The primary caustic scrub containing iodine, halides, and carbonate will be immobilized in a glass-bonded composite of cancrinite/sodalite. The iodine-loaded silver sorbent will be stripped of iodine, converted to NaI, and immobilized into a separate durable glass-bonded iodosodalite waste form. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19912: Validation of Robustness in TCR Design Strategies | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will perform sensitivity analysis (SA) and uncertainty quantification (UQ) of TCR design parameters and relevant physical phenomena, using open-source time dependent Monte-Carlo code (OpenMC), NQA1 qualified commercial codes (STARCCM+), and ABAQUS for thermal-hydraulics and structural mechanics. The SA/UQ analysis will provide key insights to allow for development of performance metrics of robustness for autonomous operation sensors, by processing signals such as neutron flux, temperature and strains, as wll as inform the needed robustness for AI by enveloping the attainable level of decision making by the software. | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 | |
| NEUP Project 20-19216: Creation of Multiple Effect Evaporator and Combined Cycle Modelica Modules, and Optimization of Potable Water Generation from Saltwater Sources | North Carolina State University | $498,532 | Researchers will develop models of Multiple Effect Evaporators and Combined Cycle Gas Turbine systems to be used within the Modelica framework, with an end goal of creating an energy park that can supply its own energy and water through Small Modular Reactor nuclear systems and/or Combined Cycle Gas Turbine Systems with brackish to brine water sources. These same models will be capable of being implemented into larger models of grid independent and near independent energy parks located about military bases, large manufacturing facilities, and in small communities where freshwater is limited. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19590: Benchmark Evaluation of Transient Multi-Physics Experimental Data for Pellet Cladding Mechanical Interactions | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop an integral benchmark evaluation based on available experimental data from cold ramp tests performed at the Studsvik testing R2 reactor. Transient multiphysics benchmark evaluations are needed to support validation of the NEAMS ToolKit and the VERA suite. This research will focus on pellet cladding interaction and pellet cladding mechanical interaction and their associated events. The benchmark will be prepared for inclusion in the IRPhEP handbook. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19837: Reinforcement Learning Validation Framework for Quality Assurance of AI-guided Additive Manufacturing Digital Platforms | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will address the need to qualify the risk associated with AM fabricated nuclear reactor parts by incorporating a novel rendition of a well-established artificial intelligence learning strategy, the multi-armed bandit reinforcement learning (RL). The RL framework will be developed and demonstrated using TCR data and its associated digital platform. This research will assimilate in-process sensor data and physics-based simulation data to calculate risk measures in the form of failure probabilities for the AM parts. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19363: Integrated Solar & Nuclear Cogeneration of Electricity & Water using the sCO2 Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,427 | Researchers will design and model a renewable, nuclear Integrated Energy System (IES), compatible with the RAVEN/Modelica framework, for co-generation of cost competitive electricity and clean water. The components of the IES to be included are concentrated solar power, the supercritical CO2/sCO2 cyle, multi-effect distillation, and the lead-cooled fast reactor. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19066: Engineering-Informed, Data-Driven Degradation Modeling, Prognostics and Control for Radiation-induced Void Swelling in Reactor Steels | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will advance the capability to model, predict and control void swelling in irradiated structural components through developing engineering-informed, advanced data-driven statistical and machine learning techniques. Excess swelling not only leads to dimensional instability, but also can cause severe embrittlement of internal materials. The proposed efforts will ensure more effective regulation, aging management and license renewal. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19795: A High-Fidelity Novel and Fast Multigroup Cross Section Generation Method for Arbitrary Geometry and Spectrum | Georgia Institute of Technology | $600,000 | Researchers will develop a fast high-fidelity multigroup cross section generation method for arbitrary geometry configurations and energy spectra by developing a response-based high order perturbation method to perform hybrid stochastic-deterministic local transport calculations. The proposed method will be implemented as independent modules that can be easily embedded into any neutron transport or diffusion code and also be used as a standalone cross section generator. The modules will provide data that can interface with the associated NEAMS toolkit and workbench user interfaces to enable advanced neutronics tools that will perform high-fidelity multigroup multiphysics steady-state and transient calculations that capture and represent the complex resonance interactions and core environmental effects which exist in heterogeneous reactors, including advanced reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19968: Experimental Investigations and Numerical Modeling of Near-wall and Core Bypass Flows in Pebble Bed Reactors | Texas A&M University | $600,000 | Researchers will establish a highly coordinated, concurrent experimental and computational effort combining high-resolution turbulence simulations (including Nek5000, Star-CCM+) and experiments to deepen physical understanding and address long standing modeling inaccuracies related to near wall and bypass flow effects in pebble bed reactors. The project's acquired extensive database will be used to derive closure models and correlations needed for porous media code, such as Pronghorn. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19864: Development of innovative overlapping-domain coupling between SAM and NEK5000 | University of Michigan | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a robust, multi-scale coupling scheme between the SAM code and the CFD code, NEK5000, based on a novel overlapping domain approach. The developed coupling will be validated by using experiments specifically designed for the validation of multi-scale coupled codes. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-20074: Characterization of Plenum to Plenum Natural Circulation flows in a High Temperature Gas Reactor (HTGR) | CUNY, City College of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will obtain and provide experimental data on the plenum-to-plenum natural circulation flows in a typical high temperature gas reactor using helium and nitrogen over a wide range of temperatures and pressures to simulate natural circulation under both pressurized and depressurized conduction cooldown scenarios. The results of the project will yield new data and complement other very high temperature related studies. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19042: Flexible Siting Criteria and Staff Minimization for Micro-Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $440,517 | Researchers will develop siting criteria that are tailored to micro-reactors deployable in densely-populated areas by comparing the characteristics of the MIT research reactor with those of leading micro-reactor concepts, and evaluate whether and how the MIT research reactor design basis and associated regulations are applicable to micro-reactors. A model of operations for micro-reactors that would minimize the staffing requirements will also be conceptualized. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-20045: Highly Compact Steam Generators for Improved Economics of Small Modular Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will design and build a compact steam generator (CSG) test section that can be easily modified for different flow paths and geometries, as well as modify an existing loop to accept the test section. The conceptual optimized CSG system design, which could be deployed in small modular reactors, will be informed by CFD simulations to determine critical characteristics of the test section. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19205: Robust bullet-time tagging and tracking system based on computer vision for individual ex-core TRISO-fueled pebble identification | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a novel, validated, robust bullet-time tagging and tracking system, based on computer vision techniques, to tag and track each individual pebble in pebble bed reactors. The effort will utilize Residence Time Distribution and Radioactive Particle Tracking techniques to validate and refine the developed method, using a continuous cold flow pebble bed experimental setup. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19625: Corrosion Sensitivity of Stainless Steels in Pressurized Water Reactor Water Chemistry: Can KOH replace LiOH in PWRs? | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will perform a series of corrosion and stress corrosion tests on unirradiated alloys to determine the possibility of switching from LiOH to KOH to control the pH in nuclear reactors without worsening the corrosion behavior of the structural alloys used in pressurized water reactor core internal components. The impacts of such a change and the consequent water chemistry alterations on the corrosion processes and nucleaer power plant core-internal component service-life will be assessed and better understood. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19735: Experiments for Modeling and Validation of Liquid-Metal Heat Pipe Simulation Tools for Micro-Reactor | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will produce validation data for the heat pipe code, Sockeye, by measuring the internal thermal-hydraulic parameters of a single-heat pipe and the performance of an integrated multi-heat-pipe system in various operation scenarios. The results of this project will generate more liquid metal heat pipe validation data, which is currently lacking and needed to support micro-reactor design and licensing activities. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19367: Investigation of Novel Nickel-Based Alloys for Molten Chloride Fast Reactor Structural Applications | University of Cincinnati | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate and establish the scientific foundations for the development of promising Ni-Mo-W-Cr-Al-X alloys with a superior balance of properties compared to current materials for high temperature structural applications in molten chloride salt fast reactors. The project couples critical experiments with a high-value integrated computational materials engineering approach. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19693: Evaluation of micro-reactor requirements and performance in an existing well-characterized micro-grid | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will evaluate the opportunities and challenges of operating micro-reactors in decentralized power generation applications and the potential for deployment in established micro-grids with diverse power generation sources. By using a well-characterized prototypic environment platform, the Modelica-based Hybrid Energy System, the market potential for deployment of micro-reactors on campuses and other similar existing micro-grids will be quantified. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19195: The effect of LWR primary coolant water chemistry (LiOH vs. KOH) on stainless steel: An integrated experimental and computational study of the corrosion response of stainless steel for different surface microstructures and mechanica | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will study the effect of surface microstructure, mechanical stress factors, and radiation damage on the corrosion response of stainless steel under two different alkaline pressurized water reactor primary water chemistry conditions. The project will involve investigation of mechanical stress factors such as strain rate, residual stress, deformation induced persistent slip bands, dpa damage, and fatigue cracks and modeling to understand the physical phenomena associated with the measured corrosion response and inform the U.S. nuclear industry regarding KOH. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19491: Identifying and prioritizing sources of uncertainty in external hazard probabilistic risk assessments | University of Maryland, College Park | $799,979 | Researchers will develop a method for identifying and prioritizing sources of uncertainty in external hazard probabilistic risk assessment for nuclear power plants, with particular emphasis on uncertainties associated with hazard characterization. External flooding wil be utilized as the demonstration hazard during this project, while a common taxonomy for communicating uncertainties across a broad range of external hazards will be created. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19737: Innovative Enhanced Automation Control Strategies for Multi-unit SMRs | University of Michigan | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an innovative, enhanced automation control framework for small modular reactors (SMRs) that supports control of multiple units operating in a variety of reactor core conditions. Through these enhancements, SMR technology gains improved marketability through potential deployment to a broader range of markets and can also lead to reduced operating and maintenance costs for a SMR site, increasing the overall profitability. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19954: Deployment Pathways of Small Modular Reactors in Electric Power, Industrial, and Other Niche Markets to Achieve Cost Reductions and Widespread Use | University of Michigan | $691,658 | Researchers will explore how to leverage two key value propositions for small modular reactors (SMR) in shifting market conditions, in order to achieve widespread market deployment: (1) participation in small and large power and industrial markets and (2) cost reductions via mass fabrication. The result of this work will be advanced power system modeling, optimized SMR design with thermal storage for power and industry markets, and new SMR deployment pathways. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19752: Development and Demonstration of Scalable Fluoride Salt Pump Seals and Bearings for FHRs | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and demonstrate scalable advanced bearings and seals of fluoride salt pumps for fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactors. The systematic approach to be used will employ both experimental and numerical methods to investigate the static and dynamic performance of fluoride-salt-lubricated bearings and high-temperature seals. The outcomes of this research will directly contribute to the reliability, safety, design, and operation of the fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactor power plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19544: A Holistic Artificial Intelligence Tool to Mitigate Human Factor Uncertainty in Operation and Maintenance | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a holistic artificial intelligence tool to help the detection and mitigation of human factors errors in nuclear power plants. The tool will increase the efficiency of various activities such as testing, inspection, data collection, and interpretation, improve operation and maintenance decision-making, and reduce costs in nuclear power plants by minimizing the impact of human factors errors and providing warnings to mitigate them, when possible. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19524: Non-Intrusive Flow Monitoring for Liquid Metal and Molten Salt Cooled Reactors | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a first-of-its kind flow monitoring system with significantly enhanced capabilities for liquid metal fast reactors and other advanced reactors, such as molten salt reactors. The flow monitoring system will involve a proven and breakthrough fiber optic sensing technology that enables the harmonic-free interrogation of thousands of grating-based distributed interferometers along an optical fiber that is integrated into a sensing pad that can readily be installed at desired locations in the flow loop. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19671: Identifying Needed Fire Input Data to Reduce Modeling Uncertainty | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,393 | Researchers will identify fire parameters that have the largest impact on fire conditions, quantify those parameters contributing to uncertainties in the fire data through Monte Carlo simulation results, and use statistical analysis and machine learning models from the simulation results to assess existing data and recommend appropriate new fire tests to reduce uncertainties that are important to risk. With this information, researchers will develop a framework capable of determining the significant contributors to uncertainty in physical events that are relevant to the risk assessment and, then, determine the need for new experiments that would be of most value to reduce risk. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 21-24394: Computer vision and machine learning for microstructural qualification | Carnegie Mellon University | $497,518 | Quantifying and understanding microstructure is a key driver for performance-based materials qualification. In this proposal, well-curated data sets of microstructural images will be gathered and computer vision and machine learning will be applied to build quantitative deep learning frameworks to accelerate and enable qualification of nuclear materials based on microstructural features. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24156: Experimental thermofluidic validation of TCR fuel elements using distributed temperature and flow sensing | Kansas State University | $798,250 | The overall goal of this project will be to test the performance of 3D printed Transformational Challenge Reactor core geometry parts using existing Helium flow loops and distributed temperature, and velocity sensing systems. Thermal transport capabilities of scaled 3D printed ceramic core will be evaluated experimentally and measurements will be used to qualify computational models. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24636: Risk-informed Consequence-driven Physical Protection System Optimization for Microreactor Sites | Texas A&M University | $400,000 | This proposed project will utilize a risk-informed, consequence-driven analysis to develop an approach for "right-sizing" physical protection systems (PPS) for microreactors. The hypothesis presented for this proposal is that the explicit coupling of consequence modeling to PPS design will provide a similar benefit that can be applied prior to reactor construction. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24131: Total Mass Accounting in Advanced Liquid Fueled Reactors | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | A total mass determination method for nuclear materials accounting (NMA) in liquid-fueled molten salt reactors will be validated with fuel-bearing salt, mixed with a _+ radioisotope of known activity, that will be irradiated to reproduce the practical NMA scenario in a molten salt loop. Irradiated fuel salt will be sampled and measured for its mass and activity. The mass-to-activity ratio will be used to calculate the unknown salt mass in the original container. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24037: Design and intelligent optimization of the thermal storage and energy distribution for the TerraPower Molten Chloride Fast Reactor in an Integrated Energy System (IES) | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to explore the application of advanced reactors within Integrated Energy Systems, use extensive existing data from UIUC for model development and validation, and extend the predictions to larger grids and commercial applications. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24522: Targeted Materials Characterization and Testing of Additively Manufactured Metals and Ceramics to Inform Print/Build Data Analytics | University of Texas at San Antonio | $800,000 | A collaborative program between the University of Texas at San Antonio and Boise State University is proposed to supply materials testing and characterization data sets to be leveraged by the TCR program to inform build/print data analytics. With the data provided by the proposing team, correlations among steam oxidation performance, micromechanical properties, chemical composition, local microstructure, and location specific print/build data will be achieved. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24431: Location-specific material characterization of LPBF SS316L & IN718 TCR core structural materials | Utah State University | $800,000 | In this proposed work, we will experimentally characterize the spatial variability of the quasi-static (tensile), creep (strength and impression), and creep-fatigue properties as well as the underlying structures (microstructure and defect structures) for LPBF SS316L and IN718 components to be used as training data to the TCR program data-driven model. The resulting correlation will be used to drive the design process for an application as TCR core structural materials. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23978: Rapid, Non-Radioactive Methods for Prediction and Quantification of Radiolytic Radical Decomposition Products in Nuclear Separations | Clemson University | $399,999 | High-throughput, non-radioactive, radical assays will be used to determine decomposition of monoamide separations complexants. Radical assay results will be correlated with classic radiolytic damage results to develop predictive models for screening complexant stability. These models will aid in single-stage separations complexant optimization, in the transition from lab- to industrial-scale nuclear waste separations and, ultimately, could yield field tests for radiolytic damage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24350: Phosphate Mineral and Glass Waste Forms for Advanced Immobilization of Chloride and Fluoride-based Waste Streams | Clemson University | $600,000 | This proposal is intended to develop three waste form options for immobilizing the fluoride- and chloride-salt waste stream in highly durable and easily processable phosphate minerals and glasses, including phosphate apatite ceramic waste forms, phosphate glass waste forms, and phosphate glass-ceramic waste forms with apatite phase. Multiple monolithic waste form samples will be provided to DOE national laboratories for further testing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24292: Passive multimodal tomography for dry storage casks imaging using passive neutron and gamma dosimetry and cosmic ray muons | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | A method for multimodal tomography of dry storage casks will be developed to determine fuel relocation and cladding failures using passive neutrons and gamma emissions in combination with cosmic ray muons. The use of multimodal imaging will allow 3-D reconstructions of the dry storage cask that would be unachievable with any single radiation source. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24374: Effects of Radiolysis on Pertechnetate under Solvent Extraction Conditions, including Tri-Butyl Phosphate | CUNY, Hunter College | $399,624 | The overarching objective of the proposed work is to assess the impact of radiolysis on pertechnetate speciation during tri-butylphosphate (TBP) solvent extractions from the molecular level to macroscale. The research in this project is designed to understand the interplay of radiolysis, degradation product formation, other important redox active metals, and oxidation states of technetium on its speciation and distribution coefficients in solvent extraction processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24183: Experimental investigation and development of models and correlations for cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena in transient conditions in support of TREAT and the LWR fleet. | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Thermal-hydraulics transient heat transfer phenomena of relevance for the safety and the operation of the TREAT and light water reactors will be investigated. The performance of accident tolerant fuel materials during a reactivity initiated accident scenario and post-critical heat flux and reflood scenarios will be elucidated, as well as the development of models and correlations to be integrated into computational tools for the design and safety analysis of nuclear systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24666: Wireless Multifunctional Ultrasonic Arrays with Interdigital and Airborne Transducers for Monitoring Leakage and Corrosion Conditions of Welded Dry Storage Canisters | Mississippi State University | $800,000 | This project aims to develop and validate wireless, multifunctional, ultrasonic sensor arrays that enable on-demand, quantitative interrogation and real-time monitoring of both the canister leakage indicators (helium, helium/air mixture, internal pressure, and temperature) and corrosion conditions (free and/or vapor water). The developed arrays will be fully functional, wirelessly powered and communicated, and compact. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24188: Uranium recovery from used nuclear fuel using metal sulfides | Northwestern University | $400,000 | An alternative and original method to recover uranium from spent fuel is proposed. This method will utilize a new type of regenerable sorbent materials with high selectivity in capturing uranium from complex mixtures in acidic solutions, such as those found in used nuclear fuel of high-assay low-enriched uranium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24225: Characterizing Fuel Response and Quantifying Coolable Geometry of High-Burnup Fuel | Oregon State University | $800,000 | This study seeks to objectively determine, through empirical and numerical means, the actual impact of fuel dispersion in-core after fuel failure and whether high burnup dispersed fuel compromises coolable geometry and long-term cooling. The outcome of this study will yield an objective means of assessing two criteria (coolable geometry and long-term cooling) within the existing regulatory process to comprehensively understand whether it is feasible to increase burnup, while satisfying 10 CFR 50.46. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24288: Innovative Methods for Interrogation of DSC Internal Conditions | Oregon State University | $800,000 | The proposed work takes a two-pronged approach. The team will study techniques involving only external sensors and equipment, which could be deployed on existing dry storage canisters. In addition, small sensors located inside the canister that can be externally powered and read through the canister wall will also be investigated. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24439: Development of Novel Corrosion-Responsive Buffer Materials for Long-Term Immobilization of High-Level Nuclear Waste | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to develop a novel cementitious buffer material (CBM) for the safe disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF). The primary aim is to identify and characterize novel Mg-Al-P CBMs, complete with assessments of their repository stability as well as their transport and immobilization of radionuclides. The secondary aim is to use in-situ UT-EIS monitoring to understand the corrosive failure at the canister-CBM interface and provide long-term performance modeling of SNF packages. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24461: Estimation of low temperature cladding failures during an RIA transient | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers aim to create a multiphysics description of cladding response during a RIA, especially at high burnup, coupling reactor physics, thermal hydraulics and mechanics. The creation of a thermomechanical model in Bison will be the result of this project which can be used to evaluate the likelihood of low temperature cladding failures during a postulated RIA on a typical fuel rod (as these can lead to channel blockage), and thus identify the most important conditions to be studied at TREAT. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24460: Multiscale Modeling and Experiments for Investigating High Burnup LWR Fuel Rod Behavior Under Normal and Transient Conditions | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | The main objective of this work is to achieve a mechanistic understanding of and to develop a predictive model for the fuel rod behavior at high burn-up under both normal and transient conditions. Therefore, this study will provide the nuclear industry with validated, physics-based criteria to fuel fragmentation thresholds and rod mechanical integrity limits. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24388: Redox Chemistry of UO2 under Repository Relevant Conditions in the Presence of Zircaloy and Waste Canister Material | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | This project will seek to improve understanding of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) corrosion. Hydrothermal experiments of SNF with cladding and waste canister material will give insights into the redox potential formed due to secondary phase formation as consequence of corrosion in a failed canister. The experimentally derived data about secondary phase formation will be utilized for phase relationship analysis to decipher the redox conditions and thus provide source term for performance assessment models of deep geologic repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24006: High-fidelity modeling of fuel-to-coolant thermomechanical transport behaviors under transient conditions | University of Florida | $800,000 | The objective of the proposal is to develop a high-fidelity modeling tool that can capture some of the important phenomena in high burnup UO2 and ATF fuels during transient conditions. The BlueCRAB tool set will be improved and used to analyze TREAT loss of coolant accident experimental results. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24312: Accelerating the development of reliable and robust machine learning-based interatomic potentials for the prediction of molten salt structure and properties | University of Massachusetts Lowell | $400,000 | Machine learning-based interatomic potentials (MLIPs) used in molecular dynamics (MD) can accurately and efficiently predict molten salt properties. However many machine learning-based methods require large training sets, and can fail unpredictably. This project will overcome these challenges by developing a method for efficiently sampling diverse configurations from MD to train reliable and robust neural network potentials, and develop new models for predicting errors in MLIPs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24697: Dual External Leak Sensing and Monitoring for Dry Storage Canister | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers aim to develop two complementary external sensing methods to evaluate the integrity of DSC through internal pressure monitoring and helium leakage detection. The proposed diffuse ultrasonic wave method will be able to measure biaxial strains in the canister wall with high sensitivity and minimum temperature effects. An innovative capacitance MEMS sensor will be developed for helium concentration measurement in air based on the extremely low permittivity of helium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24449: Multi-modal Surface Acoustic Wave Sensing System for Pressure and Temperature monitoring of Spent Fuel Canisters | University of North Texas | $800,000 | University of North Texas (UNT) will collaborate with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to develop a multi-modal wireless passive SAW (Surface Acoustic Wave) sensor array, which are deployed on the outside surface of the canister, to monitor the strain of the canister and thus determine the inside pressure. In addition, the SAW strain sensor could also measure the surface temperature and potentially monitor helium gas leak. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24265: Fragmentation and Thermal Energy Transport of Cr-doped Fuels under Transient Conditions | University of Pittsburgh | $799,999 | This project will focus on multiple aspects of experimental testing and engineering-scale modeling in understanding thermal energy transport from high burnup, fractured/fragmented accident tolerant fuels, establishing a strong scientific basis to fill a critical knowledge data gap for modeling and simulation of transient fuel performance and safety, such as loss of coolant accident, for future integral testing and fuel licensing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24310: Fusion of Distributed Fiber Optics, Acoustic NDE, and Physics-Based AI for Spent Fuel Monitoring | University of Pittsburgh | $800,000 | The proposal will leverage new concepts in the fusion between fiber optic distributed acoustic sensing and advanced acoustic nondestructive evaluation techniques with artificial intelligence enhanced classification frameworks to quantitatively characterize the state of dry cask storage containers for spent fuel monitoring, externally and non-invasively, without introducing additional risks of failure. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24261: Internal Wireless Sensors for Dry Cask Storage | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | The effort will test the reliability of wireless, internal sensors after exposure to drying and storage conditions. These sensors are used to internally monitor temperature, pressure, and dose. Radiation shielding will also be designed to protect sensors during long-term storage. The effort will develop piezoelectric techniques for miniaturization of optical emission spectroscopy for internal monitoring of gas composition during drying and long-term storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24533: Non-destructive Evaluation of Dry Storage Canisters Using Acoustic Sensing | University of Southern California | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to develop a robust non-destructive evaluation (NDE) technique based on acoustic sensing to detect impurity gases in a sealed (welded) dry storage canister (DSC) using only measurements collected on the external surface of the DSC. The method is based on the time-of-flight analysis of acoustic signals propagating through the fill gas of a DSC, which is influenced by the composition, density and temperature of the propagation medium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23984: Safety Implications of High Burnup Fuel for a 2-Year PWR Fuel Cycle | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to perform safety analysis of high burnup fuel for a Westinghouse 4-Loop Pressurized Water Reactor. The work aims to identify potential opportunities and gaps for high burnup fuel by utilizing both well-established and modern methodologies to model reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, and plant system-level response that ultimately provide feedback to fuel performance analysis. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23985: Fuel-to-Coolant Thermomechanical Behaviors Under Transient Conditions | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This project will enhance the prediction of thermo-mechanical fuel-to-coolant heat transfer under transient conditions by using a coupled analysis and experiment approach. The effort is relevant to both high-burnup (> 62GWd/t) fuel applications and Accident Tolerant Fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24070: Modeling high-burnup LWR fuel behavior under normal operating and transient conditions | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This project aims to develop a high-burnup light water reactor fuel modeling capability to implement in the BISON code that would enable the accurate fuel rod behavior simulation during normal operation and design basis accidents, as wells as the identification of the rod life-limiting factors. Mechanistic engineering models will be developed for key phenomena, in particular, high burnup structure evolution, fuel fragmentation, and fission gas release. Traditional and accident tolerant fuels will be considered. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24033: Redox Chemistry in Nuclear Materials Storage Matrices under Ambient and Accelerated Aging Conditions | University of Washington | $800,000 | Deep geologic repositories must safely contain hazardous, high-activity nuclear wastes at geologic time-scales. However, such capability is centrally dependent on the element-specific redox chemistry within and at the interface of storage vessels. A comprehensive study of redox chemistry in cements used in long-term storage is proposed and emphasizes: 1) the actual consequences of accelerated aging modalities and 2) the novel use of newly available capabilities in advanced x-ray spectroscopies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24063: Post-DNB Thermo-mechanical Behavior of Near-term ATF Designs in Simulated Transient Conditions | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | The goals of the proposed research are to conduct coupled experimental and modeling investigations of thermo-mechanical performance of coated accident tolerant zirconium alloy claddings with simulated burnup doped fuels under thermal transients to predict complex thermal and mass transport phenomena of near-term Accident Tolerant Fuel designs in accident conditions. Experiments and modeling for understanding both cladding-coolant and fuel-coolant interactions will be performed. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24582: Machine-Learning-Accelerated Molecular Dynamics Approaches for Molten Salts | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $399,477 | New machine learning potential (MLP) approaches and new MLPs to enable rapid prediction of molten salt (FLiBe and Nal-MgCl2 with impurities) properties with near ab initio quantum mechanical accuracy will be developed. Uncertainty quantification with active learning and on-the-fly fitting will greatly accelerate MLP training. This work will support dramatically increased simulation speeds and associated data generation and understanding for molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24067: Development of Full Understanding of Mechanical-Chemical Coupling in Bentonite THMC processes | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | The central hypothesis is that mechanical stress in an engineered barrier can lead to pressure solution of solid minerals, leading to significant changes in pore water chemistry, which affects bentonite stability, longevity of the waste pack, and dissolution and migration of nuclides. The overall objective of this project is to develop full understanding of the role of pressure solution on pore water chemistry, the implications to large-scale heterogeneity, and THMC processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23987: Separate and Multi-Physics Effects IRPhEP Benchmark Evaluation using SNAP Experiments | Georgia Institute of Technology | $400,000 | The proposed project will develop an International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) mulitphysics microreactor benchmark evaluation based on data from the Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power (SNAP) program. This work will include systematic assessments of the experimental data with meticulous compilation and documentation, and validation of specific NEAMS tools to model effects that are unique to microreactors technologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24630: Integral Benchmark Evaluation of Zero-Power Tests and Multi-Cycle Depletion Experimental Data of TVA WB1 Cycles 1-3 | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | This project proposes to develop an integral benchmark evaluation of available experimental data for zero-power tests and multi-cycle depletion for consistent and comprehensive validation of both novel high-fidelity and traditional multi-physics tools. The benchmark evaluation will be based on operational and measured data from the Pressurized Water Reactor Watts Bar Unit 1 released by Tennessee Valley Authority. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24186: Regenerating Missing Experimental Parameters with Data-Assimilation Methods for MSRE Transient Benchmark Development and Evaluation | Virginia Commonwealth University | $400,000 | The proposed project will regenerate the undocumented basic data from available experimental data of the MSRE using advanced data-assimilation methods to facilitate the whole-loop modeling of the representative MSRE transients, and perform a thorough MSRE transient benchmark evaluation for the IRPhEP handbook. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24194: Implementation of improved quasi-static, time-dependent, multi-physics methodology in Shift | Georgia Institute of Technology | $600,000 | A practical reference calculation route for time-dependent coupled Monte Carlo calculations, using Shift, will be developed. The proposed framework will be tailored to depletion and slowly varying transients, but with the flexibility to perform thermal-hydraulic time-dependent calculations with minimal computational overheads. This method relies on a hybrid-resolution stochastic approach in conjunction with a substep technique. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24078: Material transport model development and integration in the System Analysis Module (SAM) code | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | This project proposes to develop and implement models for System Analysis Module, which accurately characterize the sink, source, and interaction terms of key material species that are or may be present in various advanced reactor designs. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24195: Enhancing Yellowjacket for Modeling the Impact of Radiation and Stress on the Corrosion of Molten-Salt-Facing Structural Components | University of Florida | $692,088 | The objective of this project is to add the capability to model the impact of radiation and stress on corrosion to the Yellowjacket code, as well as to use Yellowjacket to create surrogate models that will be added to engineering-scale codes like Grizzly. We will also collect new experimental data for validation that quantifies the impact of stress and radiation on corrosion of 316 stainless steel in molten fluoride salts. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24405: Development of a High-fidelity Flow Boiling Database for Validation of High-void-fraction Flow Regime Models | University of Michigan | $800,000 | The primary objective of this proposed research is to develop a comprehensive, high-resolution, multiphase computational fluid dynamics validation-grade flow boiling data from rod bundle geometry simulating current light water reactor fuel designs by taking advantage of the instrumentation and facility developed by the research team. In addition, the applicability of the data through initial evaluations of selected test cases using Nek-2P boiling closure models will be studied and demonstrated for two-phase flow simulations. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24471: Technical Basis of Microstructure Criteria and Accelerated Testing for Qualifying Additively-manufactured 316H Stainless Steel for High-temperature Cyclic Service | Auburn University | $800,000 | This project seeks to reveal the fundamental relationship for AM 316H SS working at 500-750 _C between additively-manufactured microstructures and creep/creep-fatigue properties through a multiscale experimental and modeling approach. The project also seeks to establish the technical basis for the microstructure criteria and accelerated testing method to support near-term nuclear qualification. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24152: Direct heating of chemical catalysts for hydrogen and fertilizer production using Microreactors | Kansas State University | $799,202 | This proposal presents a novel integration approach to deliver process heat from microreactors by directly heating the catalyst particles from the primary heat transfer fluid in a moving packed bed heat exchanger (MPBHX). In this design, the tube side of the MPBHX can be a heat pipe or primary Helium coolant as in several microreactor designs. The shell side will be moving catalyst particles, which will enter the high temperature chemical reactor upon heating. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24287: Investigating heat transfer in horizontally oriented HTGR under normal and PCC conditions | Kansas State University | $799,762 | Experimental research will be conducted to understand heat transfer inside the graphite matrix of horizontal microscale High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors. Existing high temperature test facilities will be used to simulate normal operation and Pressurized Conduction Cooldown. The focus of these experiments is to generate benchmark data under forced and natural convection with coupled multi-mode heat transfer in scaled-down prismatic blocks. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24104: Thermal Hydraulics Investigation of Horizontally Orientated Layout Micro HTGRs Under Normal Operation and PCC Conditions Using Integrated Advanced Measurement Techniques | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000 | The proposed novel work will make a significant pioneering contribution to advance the knowledge and understanding of horizontal micro-high temperature gas cooled reactors. Quantification of metrics will pertain to convective heat transfer coefficients along the channel and gaps, comparative rates of convective and radiative heat transfer, location of peak temperature and its temporal variation, timescales for onset of natural convection, local gas velocity profiles, gas dispersion, crossflows, and temperature profiles over channel diameter and gap thickness. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24004: An Open Source, Parallel, and Distributed Web-Based Probabilistic Risk Assessment Platform to Support Real Time Nuclear Power Plant Risk-Informed Operational Decisions | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | The main objective of the proposed work is to develop, demonstrate, and evaluate a probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) software platform needed to address the major challenges of the current legacy PRA tools. This includes better quantification speed, integration of multi-hazard models into traditional PRAs, and model modification/simplification and documentation automation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24228: Quantifying the Dynamic and Static Porosity/Microstructure Characteristics of Irradiated Graphite through Multi-technique Experiments and Mesoscale Modeling | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | This project proposes a joint experimental-computational approach to probe and quantify the porosity and microstructure characteristics of irradiated nuclear graphite grades and their influence on dimensional changes and turnaround behavior, as well as mechanical properties. The chief focus will be on quantifying both the static and dynamic porosity and crack characteristics in various graphitic phases through several experimental techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24247: Multi-scale Effects of Irradiation Damage on Nuclear Graphite Properties | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Irradiation induces microstructural damage in graphite, causing both dimensional and property (stiffness, strength and creep) changes as a function of the displacement damage and temperature. The biggest gap remains is the fundamental deformation mechanisms behind the property changes. Researchers propose to eliminate this gap in knowledge with a comprehensive, multi-scale experimental framework exploiting in-situ transmission electron and X-ray computed tomography. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23975: Development of Thermal Power Dispatch Simulation Tools for BWR Flexible Plant Operation and Generation | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | In the U.S. domestic light water reactor fleet, about one-third of operational nuclear power reactors are boiling water reactors (BWRs). Thermal power extraction technologies to be designed for BWRs will be different from those for pressurized water reactors due to differences in steam generation. This study proposes to investigate the thermal and electric power dispatch and required control algorithms for dynamic heat dispatch of up to 50% of the thermal energy from a BWR plant to a hydrogen plant. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24111: Experimental Investigations of HTGR Fission Product Transport in Separate-effect Test Facilities Under Prototypical Conditions for Depressurization and Water-ingress Accidents | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Experimental investigations will be performed for fission product (FP) lift-off, washoff, vaporization from plateout surfaces, and transport of FP at prototypical conditions representing depressurization and water-ingress accidents. Measurements will be performed on existing separate-effect facilities using intrusive and non-intrusive techniques to obtain shear stress, deposition velocity, thermal gradient, and gas impurity for advanced correlations. Modeling will be performed using system and computational fluid dynamics codes. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24644: High-Resolution Measurements and Advanced Modeling for Design Optimization of Advanced Small Modular Reactor Steam Generators | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Experiments and simulations will be performed to acquire multi-parameters of pressure drop, heat and mass transfer, and flow-induced vibration (FIV) effect for the design optimization of advanced small modular reactor steam generators (SMR SG). Measurements are performed on existing SMR SG facilities using intrusive/non-intrusive techniques to obtain velocity, temperature, pressure, heat flux, and FIV effects for various geo-dimensions, spacing, pitch angles. Simulations will be performed in StarCCM, Nek5000 and coupling with Diablo_ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24332: A Virtual Reality Environment for Human Reliability Assessment in the Context of Physical Security Attacks | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Recent studies have shown that the physical security workforce accounts for 20% of the entire workforce and, therefore, is responsible for significant operational and maintence costs. To reduce the security staffing, improve performance and reduce threats, modeling and simulation and models of attacker, defender and operator behavior could be employed. This proposal aims to model human behavior using a combination of known human reliability analyses models and experimental evidence from virtual reality experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24389: High Temperature Electromagnetic Acoustic (EMAT) Transducers for Structural Health Monitoring | University of Cincinnati | $800,000 | The aim of this project is to produce an electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT) technology to enable ultrasonic structural health monitoring at the METL facility and similar high temperature assets. Ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation methods can be used for monitoring a range of damage mechanisms including thermal fatigue and corrosion. The project will seek to establish core design solutions that can be used as the basis of a range of EMAT designs for different applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24380: Probabilistic Validation and Risk Importance Ranking Methodology for Automation Trustworthiness and Transparency in Nuclear Power Plants | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | This project develops a methodology to improve trustworthiness and transparency of automation technologies in nuclear power plants. The proposed methodology will monitor risk emerging from automation processes and rank the criticality of automation factors influencing automation output, plant equipment, and system performance. The feasibility and practicality of the proposed methodology will be demonstrated with two case studies focusing on implementation of nuclear power plant automation technologies. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24162: Self-powered wireless sensor system for health monitoring of liquid-sodium cooled fast reactors | University of Notre Dame | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to develop self-powered wireless multimodal sensors and instrumentation for health monitoring and diagnosing early-stage materials degradation for high-risk components in liquid-sodium cooled fast reactors. The synergistic and innovative integrations of the multimodal sensor array, wireless communication, and thermoelectric energy harvester have crosscutting benefit for a wide range of advanced reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24102: High temperature Molten salt reactor pump component development and testing | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | This project will provide relevant key information on the tribology of bearing material and components (such as magnets, couplers, ceramic coated wire, and coatings) in high temperature molten salts that will be required in the design of reactor pumps. Investigation of in-service inspection and monitoring of the pump internals will also be addressed in an effort to reduce down time and operation and maintenance costs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24226: Cost Reduction of Advanced Integration Heat Exchanger Technology for Micro-Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,713 | Heat exchanger technology is a high-cost component of a micro-reactor system that is also critical to the overall reliability and performance. This project will develop the underlying advanced heat exchanger technology necessary to integrate a micro-reactor with any end-user application, as well as providing internal heat exchange. Economic optimization of the heat exchanger and experimental demonstration of the technology will be accomplished. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24382: Advanced High-Fluence Low-Flux RPV Mechanical Property Models for Extended Life | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,717 | This project will further develop accurate models of the mechanical property changes under life-extension conditions in reactor pressure vessel (RPV) steels using reduced order Avrami models, cluster dynamics, and atomistic methods combined with massive comprehensive databases on irradiated steels. The work will provide models critical to extending the life of U.S. pressurized water reactors, as well as new fundamental insights into flux and fluence effects and sink and precipitate evolution in reactor pressure vessels and related steels. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| Integrated Marine Platform for Hydrogen and Ammonia Production | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | This study investigates the economic and environmental value of a floating integrated GW-scale green hydrogen/ammonia production facility powered by an advanced nuclear reactor. Floating Production Storage and Offloading units (FPSOs) are deployed worldwide in the oil and gas industry, and can be used for hydrogen and ammonia processing. Deployment of an advanced reactor on a floating platform offers several advantages, including the efficiencies of shipyard fabrication. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Functionally-graded Cermet Coatings for Molten Salt Technologies by High Throughput Finite Element Modeling and Additive Manufacturing | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $500,000 | This project proposes an integrated approach/methodology to design, manufacture and verify functionally-graded metal-ceramic composite coatings on structural alloys with desired interfacial properties, capabilities of mitigating residual stress and improved corrosion resistance for molten salt reactor applications. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| An Innovative Monitoring Technology for the Reactor Vessel of Micro-HTGR | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | This project seeks to develop an innovative sensor technology for real-time monitoring of the thermo-mechanical stresses in the reactor vessel of micro-HTGR. The technology will be based on a sparse network of outer wall temperature measurements and plant operating conditions. An integrated software-hardware sensing system aimed at monitoring the health of the pressure vessel of gas micro-reactors will be implemented and tested. The proposed work will have a broad impact on sensing in other reactor designs. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| High throughput mechanical testing of additively-manufactured materials | University of California, Berkeley | $500,000 | This project proposes fast and high throughput mechanical testing of AM produced materials. It will include the generation of automated tensile testing, hardness testing and microstructure assessment and data comparison to build data via machine learning. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Accelerated irradiation creep testing coupled with self-adaptive accelerated molecular dynamics simulations for scalability analysis | University of Michigan | $500,000 | The goal of the proposed work is to accelerate traditional irradiation creep using instrumented in-situ ion irradiation creep and long-time molecular dynamics simulations to accelerate traditional neutron irradiation creep testing. This goal will be accomplished by coupling a novel ion beam flux jump test using tapered creep specimens and self-adaptive accelerated molecular dynamics. The outcome is a rapid, low-cost accelerated method to determine the fundamental irradiation creep mechanisms. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Creation of a Pebble Database for Material Control and Accountancy in Pebble Bed Reactors | Virginia Commonwealth University | $399,969 | The primary goal of this proposed project is to develop a database of NDA signatures from a wide variety of used PBR pebbles. This database can be used for facility operations, safety, security, and safeguards (3S) to directly measure fission product content and indirectly 235U and plutonium content of each PBR pebble. This project has significant synergy with current 3S PBR research at ANL, BNL, and ORNL, all of whom are collaborators to this proposed project. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Quantifying Aerosol Deposition Mechanisms in Model Dry Cask Storage Systems | Clemson University | $800,000 | The objective of this work is to measure aerosol deposition and resuspension rates in laboratory models of dry cask storage systems to compare with and validate the DOE deposition model. The project team will conduct experiments to directly measure the deposition/resuspension rates of bulk aerosol in the system and to isolate and quantify individual aerosol deposition mechanisms, with a focus on those sensitive to variable humidity and surface temperature. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Using Amide-Functionalized Electrodes to Elucidate Interfacial Actinide Redox Chemistry for Improved HALEU Supply | Florida International University | $400,000 | The goal is to decrease HALEU fuel cycle costs by examination of the redox behavior of U, Np, and Pu at the water-organic interface using amide functionalized electrodes, and in organic media after extraction with amides. Experiments with redox active interferences including additional actinides in different oxidation states will also be conducted. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advancing the technical readiness of FeCrAl alloys and ODS steels under extreme conditions for fast reactor fuel cladding | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | A key technology gap for advanced high-performance fuel applications is the current unavailability of materials that can withstand extremely high doses without significant degradation of cladding performance. The project team will perform in-situ thermo-mechanical experiments (tension, torsion, creep, and creep-fatigue and nanoindentation) on ion-irradiated (to 400 dpa) cladding materials (up to 700 C) along with microstructures using TEM and mesoscale phase field simulations. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| A molten salt community framework for predictive modeling of critical characteristics | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | This research aims to develop a molten salt community framework to address the needs in advanced fuel cycles, including understanding salts via new theory of liquids, predicting salt characteristics via simulations (DFT, MD, and CALPHAD by implementing advanced models), optimizing inversely molten salts, and verifying simulations by experiments. This project has outstanding value for US taxpayers, educates students, and delivers outreach opportunities for academia, industry, and the public. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Understanding the Interfacial Structure of the Molten Chloride Salts by in-situ Electrocapillarity and Resonant Soft X-ray Scattering (RSoXS) | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | The objective of the proposed research is to investigate the interplay between the interfacial structure of the molten salts and their electrochemical corrosion properties in Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Clay Hydration, Drying, and Cracking in Nuclear Waste Repositories | Princeton University | $800,000 | This project will develop a new multiscale model of the thermal-hydrologic-mechanical-chemical (THMC) evolution of an engineered clay barrier in the near field of a nuclear waste repository, including initial hydration and eventual post-closure criticality. This new model will directly link micro-scale material properties to large-scale barrier performance, thus facilitating future design advances or modifications, and enable robust validation of large-scale simulation predictions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Physics-guided Smart Scaling Methodology for Accelerated Fuel Testing | Purdue University | $800,000 | This project proposes to employ novel informatics algorithms for mapping/scaling uncertainties from experimentally accessible scaled state to application/prototypical state, informed by an equivalent mapping obtained from high-fidelity multi-physics simulations for the fuel thermo-mechanical behavior, specifically, a rate theory-based model for thermal conductivity and fission gas behavior in the BISON code, and employing relevant HALDEN reactor and FAST experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Materials Accountancy During Disposal and Waste Processing of Molten Salt Reactor Fuel Salts | Texas A&M University | $399,997 | The objective of this work is to develop and validate a method for measuring and predicting hold-up to eliminate operational risks and expenses during disposal of salt-wetted MSR components. These objectives will be met by applying robust measurement/detection methods to realistic salt loop environments to validate their use in decommissioning MSRs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advanced Screening Approaches for Accelerating Development of Separations Technologies | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | The goal of this project is to establish a unified selection criterion for chelating molecular structures to more efficiently address ligand applicability to metal ion separation problems, for current and future nuclear fuel cycles. By establishing this criterion, the team will seek to enable the accelerated, cost-effective discovery of new separation workflows, as well as their implementation beyond early radiotracer experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advancing NMA of TRISO-fueled pebbles using fast and accurate gamma-ray spectroscopy | University of Colorado, Boulder | $385,307 | This proposal will provide new Nuclear Materials Analysis (NMA) capabilities for TRISO-fueled pebbles using gamma-ray spectroscopy, through a program of simulations of expected signatures from irradiated pebbles, resulting in a detailed measurement plan to monitor burnup and actinide content throughout the fuel cycle. These simulations will be used to develop requirements for NMA sensor technology and identify opportunities for focused technology development to meet these requirements. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Development of Irradiation and Creep Resistant High-Cr Ferritic/Martensitic Steels via Magnetic Field Heat Treatment | University of Kentucky | $800,000 | The objective of this proposed study is to develop and test new generation of Ferritic/Martensitic (F/M) steels specifically designed for advanced reactors that will exceed the current limitations due to temperature and irradiation dose. To achieve this objective, a systematic study is proposed to employ an innovative tempering heat treatment under high external magnetic field (up to 9T) on F/M steel HT9 to engineer an optimized microstructure composed of refined carbides and martensite laths. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Investigation into the processing parameters of phosphate-based dehalogenation for chloride-based waste salt | University of Nevada, Reno | $399,999 | This proposal will focus on several topics needed to advance the iron phosphate process: 1) Dehalogenation/vitrification processes using salt simulants to generate process flow sheets, 2) Reactions of crucible materials with phosphate products and byproducts, 3) Collection of glass property-composition data to develop models based on the glass-forming regions, 4) Development of a process for reacting recovered NH4Cl with metals that need to be fed into the system (U, Li, etc.). | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| A Validated Framework for Seismic Risk Assessment of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of Nevada, Reno | $799,883 | This is a collaborative research program with a primary objective of developing a validated numerical framework for seismic risk analysis of spent fuel storage facilities from the global cask behavior to the localized behavior of internal spent fuel assemblies. In building and validating this framework, advanced data analysis, data assimilation, and forward and inverse modeling techniques will be utilized. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| International Collaboration to Advance the Technical Readiness of High Uranium Density Fuels and Composites for Small Modular Reactors | University of Texas at San Antonio | $800,000 | An international team of high uranium density fuels (HDFs) experts advised by industry leaders in nuclear reactor innovation propose a US-UK collaboration to advance the technical readiness of UN, UB2, and their composites for fuel forms specific to small modular reactors (SMRs). The project will bridge the critical data gaps in HDF performance specific to the impact of common impurities and microstructural variations that originate at fabrication. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Development of Advanced Control Rod Assembly for Improved Accident Tolerance and High Burnup Fuel Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Research will focus on the development of new materials' designs for control rod sheaths and neutron absorbers, coupled with neutronics analysis and thermo-mechanical modeling to improve accident tolerance and to achieve higher fuel burnup in PWRs. Functionality of the proposed designs consisting of Cr coated control rod sheaths of current and advanced alloys as well as novel neutron absorbers will be evaluated in prototypical reactor conditions and accident scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Optical Basicity Determination of Molten Fluoride Salts and its Influence on Structural Material Corrosion | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | The proposed research is aimed at developing ion probes to determine the optical basicity of molten fluoride salts and studying its influence on structural material corrosion. Combining with the molten salt structure study using X-ray absorption spectroscopy, the salt chemical constitution, the resulting optical basicity, and molten salt structure will be inextricably linked and their connections will be unveiled. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Extending the HMF71 Benchmark Series for Graphite Reflector Thickness up to 18 Inches | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $399,522 | The objective of this proposal is to extend the HEU-MET-FAST-071 (HMF-71) experiment benchmark series in ICSBEP by evaluating the historical (existing) experimental data for critical experiments with graphite reflector thickness from 3 inches up to 18 inches. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2022 |
| Fast and Rigorous Methods for Multiphysics SPn Transport in Advanced Reactors | University of Michigan | $600,000 | This project proposes to perform rigorous theoretical and numerical analysis of the Generalized SPn method and underlying cross section models to enable a fast and robust multiphysics low-order transport capability for advanced reactors. This includes 5 major tasks focused on the efficient discretization and solution of the GSPn equations, numerical analysis of XS models having multiphysics and depletion, analysis of equivalence factors, improved MC estimators, and several V&V applications of the methods. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2022 |
| Development of Hydrogen Transport Models for High Temperature Metal Hydride Moderators | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Understanding the transient behavior of metal hydride moderator materials at high temperatures is a key challenge to the design and deployment of future microreactors. This project will use neutron radiography techniques provide the necessary data for this understanding and demonstrate the development of time and temperature dependent hydrogen transport models using both commercial FEA software coupled to MCNP and coupled models developed in the MOOSE framework. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Characterizing fast reactor fuel failure mode through separate effect and prototypic tests | Oregon State University | $800,000 | The project consists of conducting separate effect fuel pin failure tests with surrogate fluid and prototypic test with sodium. The outcome of this study will generate an experimental database that will be used to develop mechanistic model and validate the CDAP module of the SAS4A/SASSYS-1 code. Ultimately the quality data can be used to benchmark other fuel codes developed for LMFR application, which are seeking validation for licensing purpose. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Science-based development of ASTM standard tests for graphite-based fuel pebbles | University of California, Berkeley | $700,000 | This project proposes the development of mechanical test procedures as well as wear and friction tests on Graphite fuel pebbles | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Role of Heterogeneity in Manganese and Nickel Rich Precipitate Distribution on Hardening of Reactor Pressure Vessel Steels: Integrated Modeling and Experimental Characterization | University of Florida | $799,803 | The hypothesis of this work is that the different nucleation and coarsening kinetics of manganese and nickel rich precipitates (MNPs) compared to copper rich precipitates, and the heterogeneous distribution of manganese and nickel rich precipitates on or near dislocations, both lead to unique hardening behavior at high neutron fluence. The objective of this work is to understand hardening in reactor pressure vessel steels caused by MNPs via integrated multiscale modeling and experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Integrated Thermal-Electric Energy Management of All-Electric Ship with Advanced Nuclear Reactors | University of Texas at Dallas | $400,000 | The overall objective of this research is to comprehensively model, design, and evaluate the use of advanced nuclear reactors in future nuclear-powered ships, to enhance the efficiency, reliability, and resilience of shipboard energy distribution systems. The novelty of the proposed approach lies in (i) integrated thermal-electric modeling of advanced nuclear-powered shipboard energy system, and (ii) novel solutions for total-ship energy management to improve energy efficiency and resiliency. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Open Architecture for Nuclear Cost Reduction | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Open architecture has potential to reduce advanced reactor (AR) costs, through exploiting modular design and construction, with common, openly available interfaces between modules. A comprehensive assessment of the challenges and opportunities of open architecture for ARs will be performed. Supported by a pilot study, actionable recommendations for the implementation or otherwise of open architecture for ARs will be developed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Telescopic Control Rod for Significant Reduction in HTR Height and therefore Cost | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | This project proposes a design for a small modular High Temperature Reactor (HTR) control rod that extends telescopically, consisting of ~5 concentric annuli that nest together above the core when withdrawn. This compact component substantially reduces the length of the depth of the silo. Modelling and experimental testing will be performed to develop the control rod to evaluate feasibility, plus perform a cost-benefit analysis, with a view to its inclusion in both pebble bed and prismatic HTR designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Mechanism Driven Evaluations of Sequential and Simultaneous Irradiation-Creep-Fatigue Testing | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | This project addresses a critical need for irradiation and creep-fatigue testing by carrying out a systematic, mechanistic-driven benchmarking for irradiation creep, irradiation fatigue and creep-fatigue tests under various environments. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Mechanisms-based Acceleration of Materials Qualifications for Creep-Fatigue Performance in Advanced Nuclear Systems | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | The goal of this research is to fully understand, quantify and model creep-fatigue 'damage' as a function of loading patterns, temperature and microstructural evolution. Using this experimental information over a large range of relevant stress levels and temperatures, a mechanisms-based creep-fatigue analysis approach will be demonstrated which will properly qualify high temperature alloys for extended service in advanced nuclear systems where creep-fatigue is currently a major design limitation. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Subwavelength Ultrasonic Imaging for Rapid Qualification of Additively Manufactured Nuclear Structures and Components | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to develop a transformational capability for rapid nondestructive quality assessment of actual nuclear additively manufactured structures and components through advanced ultrasonic imaging with subwavelength resolution. The resolution of conventional ultrasonic systems is limited by diffraction on the order of the wavelength. In this project, the goal is to break the diffraction limits of ultrasonic imaging by implementing a negative-index lens. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| MXene as Sorbent Materials for Off-gas Radioiodine Capture and Immobilization | Clemson University | $1,000,000 | The overarching goal of this project is to develop efficient and stable new sorbent materials, for off-gas radioiodine capture and immobilization, that are based on MXenes with two-dimensional transition metal carbides/nitrides. The exploratory research will focus on three main objectives: 1) Design and synthesis of MXenes as radioiodine sorbent and support materials, 2) Quantification of iodine sorption capacity of MXenes in different forms, 3) Synthesis and characterization of consolidated waste forms. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Fundamental understanding of grain boundary cracking in LWR environments | University of California, Los Angeles | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to understand the details of stress corrosion cracking (SCC) and irradiation assisted stress corrosion cracking (IASCC) by targeted experiments and modeling efforts. A comprehensive model will be produced, which will predict the conditions under which these failure modes occur and when the materials may see onsets of the failure mode. This work will directly impact the nuclear industry by refining predictive models of component lifetime. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Facile manufacturing of fiber-reinforced-SiC/SiC composite using aerodynamic fiber deposition (AFD) and metal assisted polymer impregnation and pyrolysis processes (MAPIP) | University of Pittsburgh | $999,886 | SiC/SiC ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) are promising candidate materials for the cladding of accident tolerant fuels. Superior material properties of SiC/SiC CMC, however, come at a high manufacturing cost. The objective of the proposed research is to apply aerodynamic fiber deposition (AFD) and metal assisted polymer impregnation and pyrolysis (MAPIP) to develop a new facile manufacturing approach of SiC/SiC CMC. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| High Concentration Monoamide Separations: Phase Modifiers and Transuranic Chemistry | Colorado School of Mines | $999,900 | Extraction of actinides from used nuclear fuel with high concentrations of monoamide extractants is a promising strategy to intensify separation processes; however key issues remain to be understood and resolved. This project will examine three questions: 1) Can phase modifiers mitigate issues with organic phase viscosity? 2) Can the chemistry of neptunium be controlled to ensure complete separation? 3) Do high concentrations of monoamides affect the oxidation states of important metals and can that be exploited? | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Multiple Uranium Complexes in Chloride Fast Reactor Molten Salt Properties | University of Connecticut | $1,000,000 | Multivalent transition metal ions in a melt can exhibit multiple coordination states that affect molten salt properties. This project will use a new high-energy resolution fluorescence detection (HERFD) spectroscopy to overcome issues associated with measuring coordination numbers of multiple complexes, along with Raman spectroscopy and advanced simulations to accurately predict properties of molten salts with multiple uranium complexes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Validation of Geochemical Reactive Transport Long-Term predictions Using Natural Cements and Ancient Cements Analogues | Vanderbilt University | $950,000 | This project will validate long-term performance predictions of rock/cement interfaces based on characterization of natural analogues, ancient cements and interfaces with rock formations, and demonstrate applicability of the established testing and simulation workflow with argillite rock (representative of potential U.S. repository systems). This project addresses the research gap of long-term validation and uncertainty assessment associated with cement barrier performance and multi-physics models. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Predicting Pitting and Stress Corrosion Cracking of Dry Cask Storage Canisters via High Throughput Testing, Multiscale Characterization, and 3D Computer Vision based Machine Learning | The Ohio State University | $1,000,000 | This project consists of a US-UK collaborative research program focusing on the nucleation and growth of pits and stress corrosion cracking of stainless steel 304 (a canister material used for dry cask storage of spent nuclear fuels) by leveraging multi-scale characterization techniques, 2D/3D computer vision, and machine learning approaches. The study will enable the understanding and prediction of how and when pitting corrosion can nucleate, grow, and transition into stress corrosion cracking. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Multiscale Residual Stress Tailoring of Spent Fuel Canister CISCC Resistance | Purdue University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to understand the role of residual stress in chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) of austenitic steel, then tailor CISCC initiation and propagation through engineered multiscale residual stress distributions. Microscopic and macroscopic residual stresses will be systematically varied, then a novel sequence of advanced, site-specific, correlative characterization techniques will be applied to directly link residual stress, pitting, and crack propagation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Illuminating Emerging Supply Chain and Waste Management Challenges | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | Regional constraints on domestic fuel supply and greater variation in demand from advanced reactors has led to a shift in the U.S. fuel cycle, and modeling tools must reflect this. In this work, Cyclus will be updated to better reflect new and emergent regional supply constraints, spatial and temporal fluctuations in material needs, and those impacts on the back-end of the fuel cycle will be quantified. This work will allow for flexible, reproducible analysis to inform stakeholder decision-making. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Determination of Local Structure and Phase Stability of Uranium Species in Molten Halide Salts: Linking Microscopic Structure with Macroscopic Thermodynamics | Arizona State University | $1,000,000 | The goal of this project is to determine the local structures (valence state, coordination configuration and medium-range structure) and thermodynamic stability of uranium species in molten chloride and fluoride salts at high temperatures using a combination of experimental and modeling methods. The obtained results will allow for revelation of the structure-stability relations of the studied systems and development of acid-base scales to determine the solubility of uranium in molten halide salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Thermal-Hydraulics Assessment of SiC Compared to Other ATF Cladding Materials and its Performance to Mitigate CRUD | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | This project aims to experimentally investigate the thermal-hydraulics performance of SiC compared to the Cr-coated zircaloys and APMT ATF cladding materials under accident scenarios, including both DNB and dryout conditions. The project is divided into five tasks that will advance the understanding of the operation and optimization of heat pipes for advanced nuclear reactors. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Physics-Informed Artificial Intelligence for Non-Destructive Evaluation of Ceramic Composite Cladding by Creating Digital Fingerprints | University of Florida | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to spatially map the material composition, structure, and defect distribution of SiCf-SiCm composite tubes from ultrasonic wavefields measured from the materials and the defects within them. Specifically, this project will delve into the unique ultrasonic fingerprints (i.e., dispersion relations and mode shapes) of the SiCf-SiCm composites using physics-informed machine learning to assess the quality of the manufactured tubes based on their spatial-spectral ultrasonic characteristics. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Understanding Constituent Redistribution, Thermal Transport, and Fission Gas Behavior in U-Zr Annular Fuel Without a Sodium Bond | University of Florida | $999,462 | This project will investigate the reason for changed constituent redistribution in annular U-Zr fuel without a sodium bond and how it changes the fission gas behavior and thermal conductivity. This will be achieved using a combination of microstructure characterization and thermal conductivity measurements of irradiated U-Zr annular fuel and multiscale modeling and simulation using the MARMOT and BISON fuel performance codes. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Getting AnCers: Metallothermic Molten Salt Synthesis and Reaction Thermodynamics of Actinide Ceramic Fuels | Oregon State University | $1,000,000 | Synthesis of high quality actinide ceramics (AnCers) remains a costly challenge. A low-temperature, high-yield, short-duration reaction that directly synthesizes UN and UC could reduce the cost of these advanced fuels greatly. This proposal aims to demonstrate a method by which the costs of AnCers can be greatly reduced - metallothermic molten salt synthesis. Optimization and thermodynamics data will be obtained. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Integrated Stand-off Optical Sensors for Molten Salt Reactor Monitoring | University of Pittsburgh | $1,000,000 | This project intends to develop robust and stand-off optical sensors to perform real-time molten salt levels, flow, and impurity measurements of molten salts. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Cybersecurity in advanced reactor fleet by cyber-informed design, real-time anomaly detection, dynamic monitoring, and cost-effective mitigation strategies | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The goal of this research is to provide technical solutions to unique cybersecurity challenges in future microreactor fleet through cyber-informed design (C-ID), real-time anomaly detection, dynamic monitoring, and cost-effective mitigation strategies. The efforts will significantly improve the economics and effectiveness of cybersecurity risk management in future microreactor fleets. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Building Cyber-Resilient Architecture for Advanced Reactors via Integrated Operations and Network Digital Twin | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | The research will develop a secure-by-design architecture via integrating plant operation and network digital twins for advanced reactors. Automatic attack path and vulnerability analysis will be developed and used to assess and harden critical digital assets (CDA) against cyber risks prior to and during operation to identify vulnerabilities, attack pathways, and threat vectors. A CDA selection method will also be developed by combining vulnerability scores and assets importance. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Extending PRA and HRA legacy methods and tools with a cause-based model for comprehensive treatment of human error dependency | University of California, Los Angeles | $1,000,000 | This project aims at developing a solution to HRA dependency assessment in PRA from methodological and practical/computational perspectives within legacy PRA tools and methods. The solutions will include procedures for quantifying dependency when using PRA legacy tools, a method for modeling and quantifying dependency in HRA comprising a BN-causal model suitable for use with legacy PRA methods and tools, and the computational tools for its integration. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| An Integrated Elemental and Isotopic Detector for Real-Time Molten Salt Monitoring | North Carolina State University | $1,000,000 | The overarching theme of the proposed research is to develop and demonstrate a real-time elemental and isotopic detector of molten salts for advanced reactors and fuel fabrication and recycling processes. The detector's longevity, limits, and latency will be tested in static uranium chloride salts, in pyroprocessing chloride salt, and on flowing fluoride salt with evolving actinide composition, respectively. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Development of a Thin-Layer Electrochemical Sensor for Molten Salt Reactors and Fuel Cycle Processes | Brigham Young University | $811,755 | A thin-layer electrochemical sensor capable of detecting uranium, plutonium and other species of interest in molten salts, at both high and low concentrations, will be developed for application in molten salt reactors and fuel cycle process units. This will provide a valuable tool for performing material control and accountancy measurements. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Risk-Informed Consequence-Driven Hybrid Cyber-Physical Protection System Security Optimization for Advanced Reactor Sites | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | This project aims to develop an expanded methodology for designing a novel cybersecurity-integrated physical protection system (PPS) framework for advanced reactor concepts that serves to reduce the operational costs for the life of a reactor against that of a traditional light water reactor PPS design, promoting efforts to credit safety features of advanced reactors through proposed amendments to current security regulations, while integrating health and economic consequence analyses. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| A risk analysis framework for evaluating the safety, reliability, and economic implications of electrolysis for hydrogen production at NPPs | University of Maryland, College Park | $1,000,000 | The RAFELHyP project will develop a modular risk analysis framework that enables evaluating the safety, reliability, and economic implications of upcoming deployments of electrolyzers to produce hydrogen at nuclear power plants. The framework will be implemented to conduct an integrated safety, reliability, and economic analysis of multiple plant configurations to provide detailed recommendations for plant protective features and layouts. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Reduced Order Modeling of Heat and Fluid Flow: Multi-Scale Modeling of Advanced Reactors to Enable Faster Deployment | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | Novel multi-scale algorithms for thermal-hydraulics (TH) simulations of advanced reactors will be developed. The methods will leverage recent advances in hardware and reduced order modeling approaches to enable TH simulations of vastly accelerated speed, while maintaining accuracy comparable to high-fidelity methods, such as large-eddy simulation. The methods will allow designers to perform parameter sweeps, develop closures, and enable high fidelity simulation of transients. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Embedded Monte Carlo | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Monte Carlo methods have long been considered the standard in terms of accuracy and have seen increased use in design of small nuclear systems; however, the uncertainty quantification (UQ) of the desired output is often relegated to later stages of the design process. This project seeks to embed nuclear data UQ in a single Monte Carlo simulation, such that each desired quantity will not only provide the mean value and statistical uncertainty, but also the related nuclear data uncertainty. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| A Low Order Transport Method Based on the Dynamic Truncation of the Integral Transport Matrix Method (ITMM) that Converges to the SN Solution with Increasing Cell Optical Thickness | North Carolina State University | $1,000,000 | A novel low-order transport operator capable of approximating Monte Carlo (MC) results within a variance range will be developed. This does not require MC reference solutions to calibrate the low-order model, so repeated solutions of the latter in-transient scenarios does not require repeated MC simulations. Truncation of the low-order operator is done dynamically for evolving configurations to ensure accuracy of the low-order solution. This will involve proof of principle on Cartesian meshes, then implementation in Griffin. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| CFD based Critical Heat Flux predictions for enhanced DNBR margin | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | This project seeks to demonstrate a robust high-fidelity CFD-based methodology to predict CHF behavior at varying quality conditions, enabling the development of advanced DNBR correlations with reduced uncertainty, and in support of upgraded plant economics. The availability of a virtual CHF methodology will allow greatly extending the database for DNBR correlations development and further support advancement in the design of high-performing nuclear fuel. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Immersed Boundary Methods for Modeling of Complex Geometry: A Leap Forward in Multiscale Modeling using NekRS | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | A major challenge to Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling of complex geometries is the need to generate body-fitted meshes, which can occupy 80% of the CFD practitioner's time. Immersed boundary methods will be added in the NekRS CFD code, dramatically simplifying modeling of complex 3-D structures and facilitating a new paradigm for CFD-informed multiscale analysis. This will be demonstrated by informing SAM transient systems-level models with NekRS heat exchanger correlations for advanced reactors. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Uncertainty Quantification of Model Extrapolation in Neural Network-informed Turbulent Closures for Plenum Mixing in HTGRs | Utah State University | $1,000,000 | This project will quantify the uncertainty in prediction of Neural Network-informed Turbulent Closures when they are operating in a model extrapolation state. Once the method is developed for canonical buoyant jets, the protocols will be applied to plenum mixing in HTGRs. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Impact of moisture on corrosion of NiCr alloys in MgCl2-NaCl Salt Systems | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $999,983 | This project aims to gain a fundamental understanding of the impact of moisture and salt chemistry on corrosion of NiCr alloys in molten chloride salts. A novel approach coupling multiscale simulations and experiments will be designed to determine salt acidity, its dependence on salt composition (i.e., the NaCl to MgCl2 ratio), and its effects on the transport of H2O and Cr ions and the corrosion kinetics of NiCr alloys in chloride salt. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Transforming Microreactor Economics Through Hydride Moderator Enabled Neutron Economy | State University of New York, Stony Brook | $1,000,000 | Microreactors will potentially require the cost of electricity to be 10 MWD/kg at >3 kW/kg core specific power. These goals are best achieved through a well-thermalized spectrum. Neutron economy as a core material selection criterion to advance entrained hydride composite moderators will be used with the primary goal of significantly reducing fuel costs through novel microreactor designs. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Integrating Nuclear with ZLD Seawater Desalination and Mining | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | An integrated nuclear system will be developed that would utilize electricity and waste heat to operate a desalination and mining process from adjacent seawater. The desalination approach targets zero-liquid discharge with multiple marketable minerals extracted. The ability of nuclear facilities to load follow is increasingly important, so a cold thermal storage system will be incorporated. The desalination and mineral extraction process will be experimentally validated at lab scale. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Reference Designs of Green Ammonia Plants Powered by Small Modular Reactors | Utah State University | $1,000,000 | The overarching goal of this project is to develop two reference designs for green ammonia plants. One design uses freshwater as the source for hydrogen, while the other design uses seawater (or brackish water) as the source. In both designs, a small modular reactor (SMR) is used as the primary energy source providing both electricity and steam for the plants. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Development of the Technical Bases to Support Flexible Siting of Microreactors based on Right-Sized Emergency Planning Zones | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to provide the technical basis to support the application of a right-sized Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ) size to support the deployment of a microreactor at the Penn State University Park campus. This research study will serve as a template to provide flexible siting in support of future microreactor deployments that may be placed closer to demand centers, thereby making them more economically competitive. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Bayesian Optimization for Automatic Reactor Design Optimization | Arizona State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to develop analytical tools based on Gaussian process modeling and Bayesian Optimization that facilitate reactor design optimization by modeling the responses from the physics simulator. Existing capabilities will be applied in an AI field and they will be adapted to address the key characteristics of nuclear reactor design problem. This project will automate the simulation-based design procedure, reduce the number of iterations, and minimize the design cycle time. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Engaging New Mexican communities in developing an equitable and just approach to siting advanced reactor facilities | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | This project will engage diverse New Mexican communities to develop an equitable approach for advanced reactor siting. The findings of this project will shed light on how technology developers and the DOE can explore and potentially site advanced reactors with the informed consent and engagement of host communities, regions, and states. The findings of this study will also more generally apply to the potential for equitably exploring both brownfield and greenfield sites for nuclear facilities. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Deciphering Irradiation Effects of YHx through In-situ Evaluation and Micromechanics for Microreactor Applications | University of New Mexico | $998,000 | This project addresses a critical gap in accelerated testing of YH evolution coupling multi-length scale mechanical testing with ion irradiation and advanced characterization to establish a baseline understanding of YH evolution under ion irradiation. Our approach will couple ion irradiation and gamma irradiation with small scale mechanical testing to decipher multi-scale impacts on phase stability to advance understanding of YH in a microreactor moderator application. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Active Learning Estimation and Optimization (ALEO) of Irradiation Experimental Design for Efficient Accelerated Fuel Qualification | University of Texas at San Antonio | $997,247 | This collaborative project creates novel AI/ML models and algorithms integrated with physical knowledge and expertise to explore more efficient ways to calculate irradiation temperatures and fuel specimen burnups for new fuel sample configurations of MiniFuel experiments proposed for irradiation in the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Unraveling how mixing vane spacers affect cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena in light water reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $500,000 | Experiments will be conducted to quantify the effect of mixing vane spacers on cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena, namely single-phase forced convection, nucleate boiling, and CHF. The results of the experimental research will allow elucidating the physical phenomena triggered by the presence of mixing vane spacers. They will also allow assessing the performance of M-CFD tools developed within CASL and in use by the nuclear community. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Quantum Computing Algorithms for Deterministic Neutron Transport | University of Michigan | $500,000 | This project will develop algorithms for solving the k-eigenvalue form of the neutron transport equation in a nuclear reactor physics context on a quantum computer. The asymptotic scaling of the algorithms will be analyzed. Investigation into implementation will be made by making resource estimates by synthesizing explicit circuits for the algorithms and be studied by emulation on a classical computer. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Optimizing Application-Dependent Energy Group Structures for Multigroup Neutron Transport Models using Machine Learning | Colorado School of Mines | $500,000 | Machine Learning methods will be developed that will dramatically reduce both the computational run-time and manual effort needed to find multigroup energy structures that accurately capture the underlying physics of neutron reactions, while allowing multigroup simulations to run quickly without overwhelming available memory. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Understanding PM-HIP Interparticle Evolution and its Influence on Fracture Toughness in Alumina-Forming Steels | Purdue University | $1,100,000 | This project aims to understand how interparticle evolution during hot isostatic pressing (HIP) influences fracture toughness of Al-bearing steels. The team will use a series of interrupted HIP experiments with phase field models to understand the formation mechanisms of interparticle defects during HIP of alumina-forming austenitic (AFA) stainless steels and FeCrAl steels, and the influence of these defects on fracture behavior. | Document | Advanced Manufacturing Technologies | FY2024 |
| Multiscale high-throughput experiment/modeling approach to understanding creep behavior in Additively Manufactured reactor steels | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $1,043,271 | This project proposes to develop a predictive capability for processing-microstructure-property correlations in additive manufactured microstructures utilizing a multiscale approach encompassing bulk creep tests, miniaturized tensile testing, and a high-throughput, indentation based, cost-effective method for elevated temperature mechanical mapping of additively manufactured 316H Stainless Steel, Grade 91, and Titanium-Zirconium-Molybdenum (TZM) alloys. | Document | Advanced Manufacturing Technologies | FY2024 |
| Assessing molten salt corrosion resistance of stainless steel 316H in nuclear reactor environments | North Carolina State University | $1,100,000 | The proposed goal is to leverage a blend of innovative molten salt corrosion experiments and cutting-edge characterization techniques to advance our understanding of molten salt corrosion in both commercial and additively manufactured (AM) stainless steel (SS) 316H, particularly under radiation or stress environments. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Polymer-Derived C-SiC Coatings on Kernel Particles for Advanced Nuclear Reactors | University of Alabama at Birmingham | $1,100,000 | This program is to use a polymer-derived ceramic approach to develop C-SiC/ZrC coatings on ZrO2 kernel substitute particles. We aim to create new fuel encapsulation materials in replacement of the coatings on fuel kernel particles, including the TRISO layers, for advanced reactors, conduct ion irradiation testing of the new materials for nuclear performance evaluation, and carry out detailed microstructure and composition characterization to assess the C-SiC/ZrC coated fuel particle behaviors. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Sorbent regeneration, recycling, and transformation: A transformative approach to iodine capture and immobilization | University of Nevada, Reno | $1,000,000 | The project will focus on the development of materials and processes for regeneration and recycling of sorbents, and the transformation of iodine-loaded sorbents into waste forms. A combination of computational and experimental studies will be conducted to understand (a) how the components in a primary off-gas stream interact with the sorbent, (b) how this off-gas stream affects the regeneration lifetime, and (c) low-temperature binders and processing paths that leads to durable waste forms. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Accident Tolerant Fuels to Support Power Uprates in LWRs | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,100,000 | This project will demonstrate that power uprates higher than the current state of operation can be reached using accident tolerant fuels in light water reactors while not exceeding reactor safety margins during normal operation and accidents. We will analyze it considering fuel enriched up to 10% and peak rod average burnup up to 75GWd/tU concerning reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, reactor safety, and economics. Considerations will be made in consultation with the named industry advisory board. | Document | Existing Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Comparative study of three-dimensional microstructural imaging and thermal conductivity evolution of irradiated solid and annular U-Zr fuels | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Uranium-zirconium (U-Zr) annular metallic fuel holds the promise to simultaneously increase sodium fast reactor (SFR) core uranium loading and reduce peak cladding temperatures, thus greatly improving fuel performance. However, key convolved fuel degradation mechanisms during irradiation at temperature threaten to hold back its real-world applicability, requiring more detailed understanding to both predict U-Zr fuel performance and suggest improvements. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Mechanistic study and modeling of fission gas release in UO2 and doped UO2 | Oregon State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to enhance the safety and performance of light water reactors and other advanced reactor designs by gaining a fundamental understanding of fast gas reactor mechanisms and developing mechanistic models for UO2 and doped UO2 fuels under HBU and transient conditions. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Anisotropic Thermal Properties of SiC-SiC Cladding: Method Development & Characterization | University of Pittsburgh | $1,000,000 | We propose to develop a high-temperature nondestructive thermal conductivity (k) measurement system coupled with validated multiscale models to accurately determine the anisotropic thermal conductivity of SiC-SiC composite cladding tubes. The multiscale measurement and modeling results benefit both DOE ATF programs as well as providing a fundamental understanding of how the microstructure of the composite leads to its anisotropic properties. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Understanding the Performance of SiC-SiCf Composite Cladding Architectures with Cr Coating in Normal Operating and Accident Conditions in LWRs and Advanced Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The project will focus on investigating the impact of Cr-coating on the SiC-SiCf composite cladding of various architectures under normal operating and accident conditions in light water reactors and advanced reactors for the safe and economic deployment of SiC cladding. Cr-coating will provide protection from high-temperature corrosion and better hermeticity under accident conditions. The performance of the claddings will be evaluated through the corrosion test, reflood test, burst test, and non-destructive evaluation(NDE). | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Developing critical insights on the effects of Mo on _' precipitation and dislocation loop formation in FeCrAl alloys | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | This project aims at developing a mechanistic understanding on the effects of Mo on _' precipitation and dislocation loop formation in FeCrAl alloys in thermal and irradiation conditions and turns it into a set of design principles guiding further optimization, by integrating atomistic simulations, CALPHAD modeling, thermal aging, proton irradiation, and advanced characterization. The material discoveries will be generalized to other solutes other than Mo. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Inference of flow conditions from in-core detector measurements for accelerating SMR licensing | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Reactor modelling relies on the detailed description of reactor systems but often lacks the true as-built characteristics of a system. This proposal seeks to fill these geometrical data gaps using available detector data, predictive models and machine learning in order to provide better information to analysis tools and thus better prediction of future performance. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Non-Destructive Plutonium Assay in Pyroprocessing Bulk Materials with a 3D Boron-Coated-Straw Detector Array | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,100,000 | The objective of the proposed project is to develop and demonstrate a 3D boron-coated-straw detector array (3D-BCSDA) with high efficiency and spatial resolution. This detection system will be specifically designed to accurately assess the fissile mass in bulk nuclear material during pyroprocessing operations, thereby improving the precision and reliability of accountability measurements during separation. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Improving the computational efficiency and usability of dynamic PRA with reinforcement learning | University of Maryland, College Park | $1,064,400 | The overall objective of the proposed research is to improve the efficiency and usability of dynamic probabilistic risk assessment (PRA). Specifically, the first objective is to develop a new algorithm for dynamic PRA analysis that can significantly increase the computational efficiency. The second objective is to develop a question-answering system to streamline the process of risk-informed decision-making based on results obtained from the dynamic PRA analysis using the new algorithm. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Development of a Benchmark Model for the Near Real-Time Radionuclide Composition Measurement System using Microcalorimetry for Advanced Reactors | Virginia Commonwealth University | $1,100,000 | The primary goal of this proposed project is to develop high fidelity Monte Carlo radiation transport models of a microcalorimetry detector informed by fuel depletion models of a molten salt reactor and a pebble bed reactor to quantify the current and future capabilities of this detector technology to characterize and assay used fuel from these reactors in near real-time. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Development and Validation of a Dual-Purpose Instrument for On-line Monitoring of Molten Salt Composition and Thermal Behavior | Brigham Young University | $1,099,924 | We propose the development of an online monitoring instrument capable of quantifying heat transfer and salt composition for molten salt reactors (MSR). A dual electrochemistry/thermal conductivity probe (DETP) will be developed to measure the thermal properties and impurities within the salt simultaneously. The DETP will make use of a previously developed needle probe and electrodes for square-wave cyclic voltammetry measures of salt composition. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| In Situ Assessment of Molten Salt Transport into Nuclear Graphite Microstructures using Ultrasonic Sensors | Johns Hopkins University | $909,827 | This project focuses on the transport of molten salt into nuclear graphite along with the investigation of ultrasonic methods for sensing graphite material property changes, especially elastic modulus, associated with intrusion of molten salt into the graphite microstructure. Experimental studies coupled with physics-based simulations will be used to assess strategies for in situ sensing of salt intrusion in the reactor environment to enhance long-term viability of molten salt reactors. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| MONITORING CERAMIC FUEL FRACTURE VIA FIBER OPTIC ACOUSTIC EMISSION SENSORS | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $1,000,000 | In the proposed three-year program, the Center for Photonics Technology (CPT) at Virginia Tech will collaborate with Sentek Instrument (Sentek), Prysmian, and Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to develop and demonstrate a distributed acoustic emission (AE) sensing system for in-situ monitoring of ceramic fuel fracture. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| Concurrent Surrogate Model Development with Uncertainty Quantification in the MOOSE Framework Using Physics-Informed Gaussian-Process Machine Learning | University of Florida | $999,999 | The objective of this project is to develop a general capability for concurrent generation and use of physics-informed Gaussian process (GP)-based surrogate models to facilitate multiscale and multiphysics modeling. We will implement this new capability as part of the Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) so that every application based on the MOOSE framework will have access to it. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2024 |
| Unstructured Adaptive Mesh Algorithms for Monte Carlo Transport | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,098,000 | We propose to develop the fundamental methods and techniques for unstructured adaptive mesh refinement with Monte Carlo tallies. This work enables a transformative leap forward in speed, accuracy, and robustness to enhance the contribution of high-fidelity radiation transport to advanced simulation. Adaptive refinement is deployed on a challenging multiphysics simulation, cascading heat pipe failure, to study acceleration and stabilization properties. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2024 |
| Feasibility Study of Micro-Nuclear Reactor Thermal Output for Air Rotary Kilns in the High-Temperature Manufacturing of Portland Cement Clinker | Pennsylvania State University | $998,793 | This project aims to design and test a micro-nuclear reactor for high-temperature portland cement clinker production, a process responsible for 6%-8% of global CO2 emissions. Leveraging advanced reactors' heat output, the project explores TRISO-based nuclear microreactor core modifications and new working fluids for heat pipes. The research addresses uncertainties in micro-nuclear reactor deployment for clinker production and investigates high-efficiency heat exchanger designs. | Document | Non-Traditional and Non-electric Applications | FY2024 |
| Redox potential, ionic speciation, and separation and recovery challenges from molten salts containing actinides and fission products | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $999,999 | Establishing an efficient, safe, secure, and economical Molten-Salt Reactor (MSR) fuel cycle is imperative for MSR implementation. Molten salt fuel recycling technology requires predictive knowledge of the chemical and physical behavior of lanthanide and actinide ions with different oxidation states dissolved in solvent salts. A combination of off-gas and X-ray measurements with machine-learning simulations will be used to produce predictive modeling of separation and recovery conditions. | Document | Nuclear Fuel Recycle Technologies | FY2024 |
| Pre-Treatment and Bulk Separation of Used Fuels with Carbonate-Peroxide Solutions | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | To use carbonate-peroxide chemistries to develop a pre-processing method for used uranium-based fuels that enables the subsequent use and optimization of current solvent extraction reprocessing schemes. Using simple precipitation, this innovative method provides an initial, bulk separation of uranium from fission products and actinides. | Document | Nuclear Fuel Recycle Technologies | FY2024 |
| Optimization of Fueling Strategies and Material Surveillance through Real-time Pebble Tracking in Pebble Bed Reactors | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,100,000 | Flexible operation of the energy grid of the future introduces uncertainty in determining the optimal operating conditions of Pebble Bed Reactors. The proposed work will help to address these challenges and enable more economical operation by providing the tools to determine of optimal fuel reloading strategy through pebble identification and tracking. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Experimental Study and Computational Modeling of P-LOFC and D-LOFC Accidents in the Fast Modular Reactor Consisting of Silicon Carbide Composite Rods | University of Michigan | $1,100,000 | The primary objectives of this proposed research are to better understand NC flow phenomena and heat transfer under both D-LOFC and P-LOFC accidents in the FMR, produce experimental data in a well-scaled integral-effects test facility for the two accidents, and develop and validate predictive CFD models for NC flow phenomena in both accidents. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Sodium heat pipes; design and failure mode assessment for micro-reactor applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The present proposal aims to experimentally investigate the thermal-hydraulics performance of liquid sodium heat pipes applied to microreactors, with a focus on exploring different design parameters, effects of different parameters on operating performance and understanding the evolution and impact of different failure modes. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Interfacial Interactions between Graphite and Molten Fluoride Fuel Salt | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $1,000,000 | NaF-KF-UF4 fuel salt will be selected to study graphite-salt interactions and impact of the existence of fission products (FPs) and corrosion products on the interactions at different temperatures and pressures. Fundamental mechanisms of graphite-salt interaction and degradation will be understood. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Local resonance-based linear and nonlinear NDE techniques for repaired DSC wall structures | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | The proposed work plan will develop nondestructive examination (NDE) methods that develop and evaluate linear and nonlinear resonant ultrasound spectroscopy methods (such as NRUS, NIRAS, etc.) to cold spray (CS) repaired dry shielded canister (DSC) wall structures. With the support of our partners from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), we will perform technology development and validation on plain and cold spray-repaired DSC wall specimens. | Document | Spent Fuel, Waste Science & Technology and Integrated Waste Management System | FY2024 |
| Thermodynamic Models for Multivalent Actinide Solubility and Speciation as a Function of Temperature and Ionic Strength | University of Notre Dame | $1,000,000 | This proposed project will quantify the solubility and speciation of Np and Pu under temperatures, ionic strengths, and pH values that are relevant to the generic repository concept. The major deliverable will be full thermodynamic descriptions of the studied systems, which will lead to improved radionuclide transport models and support the development of a sound technical basis for the geologic disposal of spent nuclear fuel and other actinide-bearing wastes. | Document | Spent Fuel, Waste Science & Technology and Integrated Waste Management System | FY2024 |
| Advancing Fundamental Molten Salt Modeling using Ultrafast Spectroscopy | North Carolina State University | $600,000 | The overarching goal of the proposed research is to advance our fundamental understanding of molten salts by combining ultrafast spectroscopic experiments with high fidelity atomistic simulations. The proposed research will introduce a new experimental technique to the study of molten salts that will directly measure ion kinetics, specifically, terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS), which will further validate AIMD as a predictive modeling tool. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
| Hydrodynamics of Two-Phase Flow Under the Geometric Effects of Pipe Orientation and U-bends | Purdue University | $600,000 | Most two-phase flow analyses have been performed in straight vertical-upward pipes. However, nuclear reactor systems include piping with different geometric components, such as elbows or U-bends, as well as changes in flow orientations. The proposed work performs experiments in a scaled test facility existing at the institution's lab to investigate the effects of flow orientations and geometries relevant to nuclear reactor systems on the hydrodynamics of two-phase flow. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
| Interface-Resolved Experimental and Numerical Studies of Two-Phase Flow for Nuclear Engineering Applications | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $500,000 | The project aims at advancing the interface-resolved simulation capabilities for the two-phase flows found in various nuclear engineering applications. We will develop a comprehensive, high-resolution, interface-resolved database emphasizing bubble dynamics and bubble interaction mechanisms. The data will be used to validate the sub-grid models implemented in an interface-resolved simulation tool to improve simulation accuracy by developing physics-based coalescence models. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
FY 2012 Research and Development Awards
The Department of Energy is awarding $37.9 million in support of the Nuclear Energy University Programs for 48 nuclear energy research and development projects focused on four fields: Fuel Cycle Research & Development; Reactor Concepts Research, Development & Demonstration; Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling & Simulation; and Transformative Research.
These projects, selected for negotiation of award, are led by 33 American universities and colleges in more than 22 states and the District of Columbia. Other universities, industry leaders and National Laboratories will serve as collaborators and research partners.
A complete list of R&D projects with their associated abstracts is available below.
| Title | Institution | Estimated Funding* | Project Description | Abstract | Project Type | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fundamental Understanding of Ambient and High-Temperature Plasticity Phenomena in Structural Materials in Advanced Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Elastic/Inelastic Nuclear Data Development Project | Idaho State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Heterogeneous Recycling in Fast Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Thermodynamic Development of Corrosion Rate Modeling in Iron Phosphate Glasses | Missouri University of Science and Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Subspace-Based Hybrid Monte Carlo-Deterministic Algorithms for Reactor Physics Calculations | North Carolina State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Improvements to Nuclear Data and Its Uncertainties by Theoretical Modeling | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Sharp Interface Tracking in Rotating Microflows of Solvent Extraction | State University of New York at Stony Brook | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Bulk Nanostructured FCC Steels with Enhanced Radiation Tolerance | Texas A&M University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Fuel Performance Experiments and Modeling: Fission Gas Bubble Nucleation and Growth in Alloy Nuclear Fuels | Texas A&M University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| SiC Schottky Diode Detectors for Measurement of Actinide Concentrations from Alpha Activities in Molten Salt Electrolyte | The Ohio State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Computational Design of Advanced Nuclear Fuels | University of California, Davis | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Data Collection Methods For Validation of Advanced Multi-Resolution Fast Reactor Simulations | University of Idaho | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Simulations of the Thermodynamic and Diffusion Properties of Actinide Oxide Fuel Materials | University of Michigan | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Adsorptive Separation and Sequestration of Krypton, I and C14 on Diamond Nanoparticles | University of Missouri, Columbia | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Alternative Technetium Waste Forms | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Quantification of UV-Visible and Laser Spectroscopic Techniques for Materials Accountability and Process Control | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| High-Fidelity Space-Time Adaptive Multiphysics Simulations in Nuclear Engineering | University of Nevada, Reno | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Simulations of Failure via Three-Dimensional Cracking in Fuel Cladding for Advanced Nuclear Fuels | University of Texas, Dallas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Mesh-Enabled Monte Carlo Capability for Multi-Physics Reactor Analysis | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Ab Initio Enhanced Calphad Modeling of Actinide Rich Nuclear Fuels | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Diffusion Barrier Coatings and Deposition Technologies for Mitigating Fuel Cladding Chemical Interactions (FCCI) | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Thermal Properties of LiCl-KCl Molten Salt for Nuclear Waste Separation | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Neutron Damage and MAX Phase Ternary Compounds | Drexel University | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Atomistic Calculations of the Effect of Minor Actinides on Thermodynamic and Kinetic Properties of UO2+x | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Maximum Fuel Utilization in Fast Reactors without Chemical Reprocessing | University of California, Berkeley | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Developing a High Thermal Conductivity Fuel with Silicon Carbide Additives | University of Florida | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Fabrication of Tungsten-Rhenium Cladding Materials via Spark Plasma Sintering for Ultra High Temperature Reactor Applications | University of Idaho | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Ionic Liquid and Supercritical Fluid Hyphenated Techniques for Dissolution and Separation of Lanthanides, Actinides, and Fission Products | University of Idaho | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Improved Fission Neutron Data Base for Active Interrogation of Actinides | University of Michigan | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Utilization of Methacrylates and Polymer Matrices for the Synthesis of Ion Specific Resins | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Improved LWR Cladding Performance by EPD Surface Modification Technique | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Models of LWR Pressure Vessel Embrittlement for Low Flux-High Fluence Conditions | University of California, Santa Barbara | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) | FY2009 | ||
| Irradiation Creep in Graphite | Boise State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Modeling the Stress Strain Relationships and Predicting Failure Probabilities For Graphite Core Components | Cleveland State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| TRISO-Coated Fuel Durability Under Extreme Conditions | Colorado School of Mines | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| An Innovative and Advanced Coupled Neutron Transport and Thermal Hydraulic Method (Tool) for the Design, Analysis and Optimization of VHTR/NGNP Prismatic Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Removal of 14C from Irradiated Graphite for Graphite Recycle and Waste Volume Reduction | Idaho State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Millimeter-Wave Thermal Analysis Development and Application to Gen IV Reactor Materials | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Accurate Development of Thermal Neutron Scattering Cross Section Libraries | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Understanding Creep Mechanisms in Graphite with Experiments, Multiscale Simulations, and Modeling | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Verification & Validation of High-Order Short-Characteristics-Based Deterministic Transport Methodology on Unstructured Grids | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Microscale Heat Conduction Models and Doppler Feedback | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Optimizing Neutron Thermal Scattering Effects in Very High Temperature Reactors | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Multiaxial Creep-Fatigue and CreepRatcheting Failures of Grade 91 and Haynes 230 Alloys Toward Addressing Design Issues of Gen IV Nuclear Power Plants | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Investigation of Countercurrent Helium-air Flows in Air-ingress Accidents for VHTRs | Ohio State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Testing of Performance of Optical Fibers Under Irradiation in Intense Radiation Fields, When Subjected to Very High Temperatures | Ohio State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| A Distributed Fiber Optic Sensor Network for Online 3-D Temperature and Neutron Fluence Mapping in a VHTR Environment | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Investigation on the Core Bypass Flow in a Very High Temperature Reactor | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| CFD Model Development and Validation for High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor Cavity Cooling System (RCCS) Applications | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Study of Air ingress across the duct during the accident conditions | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Verification of the CENTRM Module for Adaptation of the SCALE Code to NGNP Prismatic and PBR Core Designs | University of Arizona | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Integral and Separate Effects Tests for Thermal Hydraulics Code Validation for Liquid-Salt Cooled Nuclear Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Mechanisms Governing the Creep Behavior of High Temperature Alloys for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems | University of Cincinnati | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| ALD Produced B2O3, Al2O3 and TiO2 Coatings on Gd2O3 Burnable Poison Nanoparticles | University of Colorado, Boulder | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Experimental Study and Computational Simulations of Key Pebble Bed Thermomechanics Issues for Design and Safety | University of Idaho | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Prediction and Monitoring Systems of Creep-Fracture Behavior of 9Cr-1Mo Steels for Reactor Pressure Vessels | University of Idaho | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Understanding Fundamental Material Degradation Processes in High Temperature Aggressive Chemomechanical Environments | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Multi-Scale Multi-physics Methods Development for the Calculation of Hot-Spots in the NGNP | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Corrosion and Creep of Candidate Alloys in High Temperature Helium and Steam Environments for the NGNP | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Creation of a Full-Core HTR Benchmark with the Fort St. Vrain Initial Core and Validation of the DHF Method with Helios for NGNP Configurations | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Fission Product Sorptivity in Graphite | University of Missouri, Columbia | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Identifying and Understanding Environment-Induced Crack Propagation Behavior in Ni-Based Superalloy INCONEL 617 | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Graphite Oxidation Simulation in HTR Accident Conditions | University of New Mexico | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Non Destructive Thermal Analysis and In Situ Investigation of Creep Mechanism of Graphite and Ceramic Composites using Phase-sensitive THz Imaging & Nonlinear Resonant Ultrasonic Spectroscopy | University of Rochester | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Tritium Sequestration in Gen IV NGNP Gas Stream via Proton Conducting Ceramic Pumps | University of South Carolina | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Materials, Turbomachinery and Heat Exchangers for Supercritical CO2 Systems | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Experimental Studies of NGNP Reactor Cavity Cooling System with Water | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Assessment of Embrittlement of VHTR Structural Alloys in Impure Helium Environments | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Modeling Fission Product Sorption in Graphite Structures | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Liquid Salt Heat Exchanger Technology for VHTR Based Applications | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Effect of Post-Weld Heat Treatment on Creep Rupture Properties of Grade 91 Steel Heavy Section Welds | Utah State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Alpha Radiolysis of Nuclear Solvent Extraction Ligands used for An(III) and Ln(III) Separations | California State University, Long Beach | $1,390,252 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Predictive Maturity of Multi-Scale Simulation Models for Fuel Performance | Clemson University | $614,690 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Freeze-casting as a Novel Manufacturing Process for Fast Reactor Fuels | Drexel University | $1,149,327 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Fuel Performance Experiments on the Atomistic Level, Studying Fuel Through Engineered Single Crystal UO2 | Idaho State University | $650,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Development of A Self Biased High Efficiency Solid-State Neutron Detector for MPACT Applications | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $810,141 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Development of a Innovative High Thermal Conductivity UO 2 Ceramic Composites Fuel Pellets with Carbon Nano-Tubes Using Spark Plasma Sintering | University of Florida | $894,042 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Exploration and Modeling of Structural Changes in Waste Glass under Corrosion | Pennsylvania State University | $1,377,444 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Evaluation of materials for interim storage of spent fuel for more than 100 years | University of Michigan | $931,603 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Implementation of On-the-Fly Doppler Broadening in MCNP5 for Multiphysics Simulation of Nuclear Reactors | University of Michigan | $406,712 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Methods and tools to allow molecular flow simulations to be coupled to higher level continuum descriptions of flows in porous/fractured media and aerosol/dust dynamics | University of Missouri-Columbi | $541,286 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Characterization and Modeling of Materials for Kr-Xe Separations | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $989,800 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Modeling Solute Thermokinetics in LiCl-KCl Molten Salt for Nuclear Waste Separation | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $616,073 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Advanced Aqueous Separation Systems for Actinide Partitioning: Develop Fundamental Understanding of An(III)/Ln(III) Separation | Washington State University | $1,451,784 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Consistent Multigroup Theory Enabling Accurate Coarse-Group Simulation of GenIV Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,046,277 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Studies of Deteriorated Heat Transfer in Prismatic Cores Stemming from Irradiation-Induced Geometry Distortion | Idaho State University | $1,287,921 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Carbide Coatings for Nickel Alloys, Graphite, and Carbon/Carbon Composites to be Used in Fluoride Salt Valves | Johns Hopkins University | $1,183,239 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Design, Testing, and Modeling of the Direct Reactor Auxiliary Cooling System for AHTRs | Ohio State University | $1,366,627 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Monitoring microstructural evolution of Alloy 617 with nonlinear acoustics for remaining useful life prediction; multiaxial creep-fatigue and creep-ratcheting | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development and Validation of Multidimensional Models of Supercritical CO 2 Energy Conversion Systems for Nuclear Power Reactors | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $475,005 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Microstructure and Property Evolution in Advanced Cladding and Duct Materials Under Long-Term and Elevated Temperature Irradiation: Modeling and Experimental Investigation | University of California-Berkeley | $1,320,667 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of Barrier Layers for the Protection of Candidate Alloys in the VHTR | University of California-Santa Barbara | $995,232 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Investigation of a Novel NDE Method for Monitoring Thermo-Mechanical Damage and Microstructure Evolution in Ferritic-Martensitic Steels for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems | University of Cincinnati | $833,109 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Fission Product Transport in TRISO Particle Layers under Operating and Off-Normal Conditions | University of Michigan | $966,581 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Microstructure and Property Evolution in Advanced Cladding and Duct Materials Under Long-Term Irradiation at Elevated Temperature: Critical Experiments | University of Michigan | $1,181,379 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Three-dimensional NDE of VHTR Core Components via Simulation-based Testing | University of Minnesota | $1,366,163 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Failure Predictions for VHTR Core Components using a Probabilistic Continuum Damage Mechanics Model | University of Minnesota | $854,542 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of a Scanning Microscale Fast Neutron Irradiation Platform for Examining the Correlation Between Local Neutron Damage and Graphite Microstructure | University of Missouri-Columbia | $703,064 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of Thermal Transient Flow Rate Sensors for High Temperature, Irradiation, Corrosive Environment | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $451,269 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Novel Methods of Tritium Sequestration: High Temperature Gettering and Separation Membrane Materials Discovery for Nuclear Energy Systems | University of South Carolina | $1,366,626 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Heat Transfer Salts for Nuclear Reactor Systems - Chemistry Control, Corrosion Mitigation, and Modeling | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,352,040 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Pulsed Magnetic Welding for Advanced Core and Cladding Steels | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $525,206 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Corrosion in Supercritical Carbon Dioxide: Materials, Environmental Purity, Surface Treatments, and Flow Issues | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $651,447 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Multiscale Concrete Modeling for Aging Degradation | Mississippi State University | $345,941 | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability | FY2010 | |
| Development of an advanced computational fluid dynamics technology for the next-generation nuclear reactor system analysis and safety margin characterization code | North Carolina State University | $418,199 | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability | FY2010 | |
| Precursor Derived Nanostructured Si-C-X Materials for Nuclear Applications | University of Washington | $899,518 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Development and Testing of an Open-Loop Oscillator for Small Reactivity Worth Samples | Idaho State University | $597,252 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Understanding the Irradiation Behavior of Zirconium Carbide | Pennsylvania State University | $870,613 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Modeling investigation of the stability and irradiation-induced evolution of nanoscale precipitates in advanced structural materials | University of Tennessee-Knoxville | $380,653 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Investigation of Laser Shock Peening for Enhancing Fatigue and Stress Corrosion Cracking Resistance of Nuclear Energy Materials | University of Cincinnati | $1,242,019 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Irradiation Accelerated Corrosion of Reactor Core Materials | University of Michigan | $798,943 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Study of Interfacial Interactions using Thin Film Surface Modification: Radiation and Oxidation Effects in Materials | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $538,032 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Novel Engineered Refractory Materials for Advanced Reactor Applications | North Carolina State University | $1,129,304 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Quantification of Cation Sorption to Engineered Barrier Materials Under Extreme Conditions | Clemson University | $1,171,380 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| In-Pile Instrumentation Multi-Parameter System Utilizing Photonic Fibers and Nanovision | Idaho State University | $1,199,990 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Development of Plasmonically Cloaked Nanoparticles | Idaho State University | $800,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Fission Product Transmutation in Mixed Radiation Fields | Idaho State University | $800,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Life Prediction of Spent Fuel Storage Canister Material | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $899,826 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Active Interrogation using Photofission Technique for Nuclear Materials Control and Accountability | Oregon State University | $900,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Anisotropic Azimuthal Power and Temperature Distribution on Fuel Rod: Impact of Hydride Distribution | Pennsylvania State University | $631,956 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Sorption Modeling and Verification for Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Microemulsions and Aggregation Formation in Extraction Processes for Used Nuclear Fuel: Thermodynamics and Structural Studies | University of California, Irvine | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Optimized Processing Fabrication Paths for Larger Heats of Nanostructured Ferritic Alloys | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Basic Physics Data: Measurement of Neutron Multiplicity from Induced Fission | University of Michigan | $973,364 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Radionuclide Incorporation and Long Term Performance of Apatite Waste Forms | University of Michigan | $862,500 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Actinide Foil Production for MPACT Research | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $156,897 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Enriched Boron-Doped Amorphous Selenium Based Position-Sensitive Solid-State Thermal Neutron Detector for MPACT Applications | University of South Carolina | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Development of Advanced High Uranium Density Fuels for Light Water Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Developing the User Experience for a Next Generation Nuclear Fuel Cycle Simulator | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,200,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Preparation and Development of Polymer-Supported Extractants | City College of New York, Hunter | $363,716 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| One-Dimensional Nanostructures for Neutron Detection | North Carolina State University | $455,629 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Feasibility and Safety Assessment for Advanced Reactor Concepts Using Vented Fuel | Oregon State University | $600,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| High Temperature Transducers for Online Monitoring of Microstructure Evolution | Pennsylvania State University | $455,628 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Laser-Arc Hybrid Welding of Thick Section Ni-base Alloys- Advanced Modeling and Experiments | Pennsylvania State University | $536,117 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Correlates of Sensitive Technologies | Texas A&M University | $509,467 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Improved Safety Margin Characterization of Risk from Loss of Offsite Power | Texas A&M University | $600,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| A High Temperature-Tolerant and Radiation-Resistant In-Core Neutron Sensor for Advanced Reactors | The Ohio State University | $455,629 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Pathway Aggregation in the Risk Assessment of Proliferation Resistance and Physical Protection (PR&PP) of Nuclear Energy Systems | The Ohio State University | $534,471 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Preparation of High Purity, High Molecular-Weight Chitin from Ionic Liquids for Use as an Adsorbate for the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Alabama | $338,260 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Selectivity in Ligand Binding to Uranyl Compounds: A Synthetic, Structural, Thermodynamic and Computational Study | University of California-Berkeley | $500,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Seismic Isolation Systems Using Periodic Materials | University of Houston | $538,154 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium from Seawater | University of Idaho | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Austenitic ODS Strengthened Alloys for Very High Temperature Applications | University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign | $538,154 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Enhancement of the Extraction of the Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Transient Safety Analysis of Fast Spectrum TRU Burning LWR with Internal Blankets | University of Michigan | $599,475 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Novel Sorbents for Uranium Extraction from Seawater | University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Radiation Behavior of High-Entropy Alloys for Advanced Reactors | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $538,159 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Rapid Computer Aided Ligand Design and Screening of Precious Metal Extractants from TRUEX Raffinate with Experimental Validation | Washington State University | $500,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of an Efficient Meso-Scale Multi-Phase Flow Solver in Nuclear Applications | City College of New York | $505,858 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Multiscale Modeling and Uncertainty Quantification for Nuclear Fuel Performance | Colorado State University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Fundamental Studies of the Role of Grain Boundaries on Uniform Corrosion of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Materials | Drexel University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Phenomena-based Uncertainty Quantification in Predictive Coupled-Physics Reactor Simulations | Texas A&M University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Characterization of Modeling of Grain Boundary Chemistry Evolution in Ferritic Steels Under Irradiation | University of Michigan | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Development of Multiscale Materials Modeling Techniques and Coarse-Graining Strategies for Predicting Materials Degradation in Extreme Irradiation Environments | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $750,000 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Diffusion, Thermal Properties and chemical Compatibilities of Select MAX Phases with Materials for Advanced Nuclear Systems | Drexel University | $535,927 | Document | Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) | FY2011 | |
| A New Light Weight Structural Material for Nuclear Structures | North Carolina State University | $399,490 | Document | Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) | FY2011 | |
| Experimental Investigation of Convection and Heat Transfer in the Reactor Core for a VHTR | City College of New York | $1,118,856 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Graphite Microstructural Characterization Using Time-Domain and Correlation-Based Ultrasonics | Johns Hopkins University | $1,199,997 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Methodology Development for Passive Component Reliability Modeling in a Multi-Physics Simulation Environment | The Ohio State University | $533,457 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Pebble Fuel Handling and Reactivity Control for Salt-Cooled High Temperature Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $612,721 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Self-Sustaining Thorium Boiling Water Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $1,145,932 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| High Fluency Low Flux Embrittlement Models of LWR Reactor Pressure Vessel Embrittlement and a Supporting Database from the UCSB ATR-2 Irradiation Experiment | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,199,607 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| A Research Program for Fission Product/Dust Transport in HTGR's | University of Missouri-Columbia | $1,157,367 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Development and Validation of a Lifecycle-based Prognostics Architecture with Test Bed Validation | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $846,315 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| In-situ Condition Monitoring of Components in Small Modular Reactors Using Process and Electrical Signature Analysis | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $650,000 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Technical Development for S-CO2 Advanced Energy Conversion | University of Wisconsin | $815,000 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Ag Transport Through Non-Irradiated and Irradiated SiC | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,055,456 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Critical Heat Flux Phenomena at High Pressure and Low Mass Fluxes: Tests and Models | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,199,781 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Modeling and Test Validation of a Reactor Cavity Cooling System with Air | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,199,988 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Transient Mixed Convection Validation for NGNP | Utah State University | $635,860 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Alternative High-Performance Ceramic Waste Forms | Alfred University | $840,000 | This project aims to advance fundamental understanding of the kinetics of structural evolution of crystalline ceramic waste forms. The structure/property relationships will be identified and will reveal new formulations, improved processing routes, and strategies for improved performance or ceramic waste forms. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Surface Layer Bulk Glass Interface Evolution with Aqueous Corrosion | Alfred University | $880,000 | This project will investigate the links between the morphology, structure and chemistry of surface layer-bulk glass interface and the long-term corrosion-reaction kinetics using in-situ and ex-situ experiments. The understanding will result in improved models for long-term predictive behavior of high-level-waste (HLW) glasses under repository conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Optimization of Deep Borehole Systems for HLW Disposal | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $850,000 | Researchers aim to carry out a comprehensive evaluation of the deep borehole option for disposal of used nuclear fuel and high livel waste. The models developed will predict potential movement of water through natural and engineered barriers and release of radionuclides to the biosphere which will aide in site selection. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Scholarship for Nuclear Communications and Methods for Evaluation of Nuclear Project Acceptability | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will work to develop a model to characterize the factors affecting social acceptance of nuclear projects with potential stakeholders. The resultant model will strengthen the ability to design and implement large projects more efficiently, leading to higher rates of success of future nuclear projects. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Accurate Holdup Calculations with Predictive Modeling and Data Integration | North Carolina State University | $875,000 | Researchers will develop and use state-of-the-art radiation transport codes to account accurately for the fissile material in a nuclear materials processing facility. An accurate estimation of the materials will allow for ensured radiological safety, security, waste management and efficient plant operation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Testing of Sapphire Optical Fiber and Sensors in Intense Radiation Fields, when Subjected to Very High Temperatures | The Ohio State University | $885,000 | The researchers on this project will investigate the performance of sapphire optical fibers and sensors in reactor environments. The project, if successful, will result in improved instrumentation to understand the behavior and predict performance of nuclear fuel systems at the microstructural level. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Concrete Materials with Ultra-High Damage Resistance and Self-Sensing Capacity for Extended Nuclear Fuel Storage Systems | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | Researchers aim to design a new class of multifunctional concrete materials. This project, if successful, will result in a novel multifunctional concrete material that possesses inherent degradation monitoring capability and is suitable for an extended storage system for the used nuclear fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Probabilistic Multi-Hazard Assessment of Dry Cask Structures | University of Houston | $865,000 | This project aims to investigate the performance of dry cask storage systems under multiple hazard systems (earthquake, tornados, combined with aging effects) using a probabilistic multi-hazard framework. This framework will be validated based on experimental research and will provide improved models for safety and reliability of spent nuclear fuels during storage and transportation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Electrochemical Corrosion Studies for Modeling Metallic Waste Form Release Rates | University of Nevada- Las Vegas | $790,000 | This project aims to use advanced electrochemical methods to investigate the corrosion related degradation of metal alloys used for housing fission products. The data obtained from this study will allow for the prediction of the long-term behavior of the metallic host phase materials over geological time-scales. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Development and Experimental Benchmark of Simulations to Predict Used Nuclear Fuel Cladding Temperatures during Drying and Transfer Operations | University of Nevada- Reno | $745,000 | Researchers will conduct experiments to investigate and develop advanced computational models of heat transfer in post-pool-storage drying operations. This project, if successful, will result in tools that can be used to design efficient drying processes to as to ensure suitability for dry-cask systems for long-term storage and transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Seismic Performance of Dry Casks Storage for Long-Term Exposure | University of Utah | $873,319 | Researchers will evaluate the mechanical performance of dry-cask storage under seismic loading for mid-term operational periods. Simulations will include scenarios for freestanding, anchored, and vaulted casks. The experimental tests will also evaluate the dynamic seismic response of freestanding and anchored dry-cask storage prototypes, providing recommendations for optimal Interim Spent Fuel Storage Installations (ISFSIs) design. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Coupling of Nuclear Waste Form Corrosion and Radionuclide Transport in Presence of Relevant Repository Sediments | Washington State University | $885,000 | Researchers will conduct experiments to understand the mechanisms responsible for the corrosion of nuclear waste forms in realistic chemical environments. The data generated from these experiments will enable increased reliability of the models used to predict the waste form performance in repository environments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| ABR for TRU Transmutation with Breed & Burn Thorium Blanket for Improved Economics and Resource Utilization | University of California- Berkeley | $450,000 | The research team will use detailed neutronic analysis for a new Advanced Burner Reactor concept with low conversion ratio. The concept will use a new core shape to improve the utilization of neutrons to perform breed and burn. | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2012 |
| Atomic-Scale to Meso-Scale Simulation Studies of Thermal Ageing and Irradiation Effects in Fe-Cr Alloys | Boston University | $874,997 | Researchers will develop predictive, multi-scale simulation tools for iron-chromium alloys, which are expected to be key components of advanced steels envisioned as fuel cladding and structural components for Generation IV reactors. Such modeling is necessary to avoid resource intensive and costly thermal and neutron irradiation experiments to obtain required performance data. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Validation Data and Model Development for Fuel Assembly Response to Seismic Loads | George Washington University | $862,435 | Researchers will conduct experiments that will provide comprehensive data characterizing the dynamics of the fluid and the structure in Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR) fuel assemblies under seismic loads (earthquakes and loss of coolant accidents). Completion of their project will greatly benefit the safety of existing and future nuclear reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Uncertainty Quantification and Management for Multiscale Nuclear Materials Modeling | Georgia Institute of Technology | $743,444 | Researchers will address the question of uncertainty propogation and error estimates associated with model prediction of material behavior under irradiation. Their work will facilitate a better understanding of the connection of various unit processes to collective responses in a multiscale model chain enabling the development of high strength and high ductility materials. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Nonlinear Ultrasonic Techniques to Monitor Radiation Damage in RPV and Internal Components | Georgia Institute of Technology | $877,000 | Researchers will explore new nondestructive materials evaluation and monitoring techniques utilizing nonlinear ultrasonic measurements . This technique will allow researchers to assess remaining useful life of select reactor components. Breakthroughs in this area will lead to the ability to characterize radiation damage in reactor pressure vessels and other components-leading to a clearer definition of reactor safety margins. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Intergral Reactor Containment Condensation Model and Experimental Validation | Oregon State University | $871,119 | Researchers will conduct experiments to enhance the safety and efficiency of small modular reactors (SMRs). This project will assess the impact of high-pressure steam condensation on steel containment vessels to be used for SMR deigns. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Irradiation Performance of Fe-Cr Base Alloys | University of Illinois- Urbana Champaign | $876,332 | _Researchers will perform post-radiation analysis and develop tools for future development and application of the Fe-Cr class of alloys. The results of this research will lead to better modeling of performance and development of an alloy designated as the primary choice for reactor fuel cladding and structural applications in advanced systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Experimentally Validated Numerical Models for Effects of Non-Isothermal Turbulent Mixing on Wall Stresses in High Temperature Reactors | University of Pittsburgh | $876,422 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive experimentally validated computational framework for the turbulent mixing in the lower plenum of a very high temperature reactor (VHTR). Through CFD modeling and experimental validation, the results from this project will lay the groundwork for future stress analysis, failure and fatigue studies, and uncertainty quantification for the VHTR system. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Mechanical Behavior of UO2 at Sub-grain Length Scales: Quantification of Elastic, Plastic and Creep Properties via Microscale Testing | Arizona State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop techniques to measure properties at sub-grain scales using depleted Uranium Oxide samples. The project will provide a framework to measure sub-grain scale mechanical properties, as well as provide experimental data to improve the understanding of advanced oxide fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| The Impacts of Pore-Scale Physical and Chemical Heterogeneities on the Transport of Radionuclide-Carrying Colloids | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will identify the dominant transport mechanisms to develop models that predict radionuclide distribution in porous materials. Experimental and computational models will be created that couple pore-scale geometric and interfacial structures. Simulators such as these are a necessary step towards fully predictive models for field-scale applications in the future. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Polymer-Supported Aminophosphinates as Selective Extractants | Hunter College, CUNY | $399,999 | Researchers will prepare a polymer-supported extractant for the recovery of uranium from seawater. The project will focus on primary amines that could provide a 3-fold increase in uranium capture capacity than current methods. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| In-pile Thermal Conductivity Characterization with Single-laser Heating/Time Resolved Raman | Iowa State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a time-resolved Raman-based thermal conductivity measurement system to improve remote in-pile thermal conductivity measurement. These measurements will provide new insights into the behavior of materials exposed to extreme radiation and temperature environments. Understanding the behavior of materials at the microstructural level will support optimized fuel designs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Organic Speciation and Interactions in ALSEP - One Step Partitioning Process of Minor Actinides, Lanthanides, and Fission Products | Oregon State University | $600,000 | Researchers will investigate the Actinide-Lanthanide Separation (ALSEP) process organic phase prior to aqueous phase separation and after aqueous separation phases of bare and metal-loaded acids. Quantifying these effects can be used to determine how an engineering scale process will perform and generate an accurate chemical model for the system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Glass Composition and Solution Speciation Effects on Stage III Dissolution | Pennsylvania State University | $700,000 | Researchers will study the chemical and structural triggers of long-term vitrified nuclear waste form behavior. They will study a range of waste glass compositions in corrosive environments. The study will improve understanding of the long-term residual rate and may provide new options for environmental control of glass dissolution rates. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Correlating Thermal, Mechanical, and Electrical Coupling Based Multiphysics Behavior of Nuclear Materials Through In-Situ Measurements | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will use in-situ experimental techniques to monitor the influence of extreme conditions on fuel cladding. The project will establish an in-situ experimental setup that can predict change in thermal properties and their correlation with mechanical properties and correlate such changes to changes in microstructural and chemical features. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Creation of a Geant4 Muon Tomography Package for Imaging of Nuclear Fuel in Dry Cask Storage | Purdue University | $440,000 | Researchers will develop a simulation and analysis package to aid in the non-destructive assessment of sealed used nuclear fuel dry casks using cosmic ray muons. Cosmic ray muon tomography allows for non-destructive assessment that can independently verify and identify weapons grade material sealed within dense dry casks. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Fuel Cycle Data Packages for Two-stage Fast Reactor Fuel Cycle Options for Optimum Resource Utilization and Waste Management | Purdue University | $400,000 | Researchers will evaluate the two different two-stage fast reactor fuel cycle options that will offer efficient use of uranium resources and the ability to burn actinides and long-live fission products. Evaluation of these fast fuel cycle options will serve as a useful complement to the options currently being considered in the Fuel Cycle Options Campaign. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Mixed Metal Phosphonate-Phosphate Resins for Separation of Lanthanides from Actinides | Texas A&M University | $650,000 | Researchers will use ion exchangers to cleanly separate lanthanides and curium from reusable actinides. The study will assist in the development of an inexpensive, simple way in which to separate lanthanides from actinides found in used nuclear fuel rods and to recover a large portion of the usable fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Safeguards in Pyroprocessing: an Integrated Model Development and Measurement Data Analysis | The Ohio State University | $626,151 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive and effective safeguards approach for a pyroprocessing facility to support safeguards for future fuel cycles in the United States. The new approach and design will focus directly on the special nuclear materials in the electrorefiner where actinides are separated from fission products through electrochemical process. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Using Ionic Liquids for the Development of Renewable Biopolymer-Based Adsorbents for the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater and Testing Under Marine Conditions | University of Alabama | $400,000 | Researchers will explore the fundamental engineering parameters for a renewable high-performance adsorbent for the extraction of uranium from sweater based on a recently proven ionic liquid (IL)-chitin platform. The project will use the platform to develop a versatile, modifiable adsorbent and characterize its performance and degradation in marine conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Developing Ultra-Small Scale Mechanical Testing Methods and Microstructural Investigation Procedures for Irradiated Materials. | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop new small-scale mechanical testing techniques to allow for the estimation or direct measurement of bulk properties. The combined experiments and modeling will significantly enhance the statistics and information that can be obtained on small radioactive archived samples, as well as new ion beam irradiated specimens. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Improved Delayed-Neutron Spectroscopy Using Trapped Ions | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will develop innovative spectroscopy techniques to measure the decay of fission fragments. The resulting data from these new techniques will be used to better understand reactor kinetics under accident conditions and failure scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Thermally and Chemically Responsive Nanoporous Materials for Efficient Capture of Fission Product Gases | University of California, Davis | $750,000 | Researchers will create new nanoporous materials that will be highly effective at capturing fission product gases. These materials would be relevant to both reactor fuels applications and reprocessing operations. Tests will be performed in carbon based and nitride based nanostructures, with the most promising materials from the modeling perspective undergoing further testing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Multiphase Nanocrystalline Ceramic Concept for Nuclear Fuel | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | Researchers will study the use of nanoparticles and nanostructured ceramics to create new materials that can extend the service life and increase efficiency for nuclear fuel. Multiphase nanocrystalline ceramics will be used to design simulated nuclear fuel that can provide added plasticity, better radiation tolerance and improved thermal conductivity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Novel Porous Sorbents for Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Chicago | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a highly porous sorbent for the extraction of uranium from seawater. Previous research has established sorbent performance. This project will use past foundational studies to design and investigate a new nanocomposites that will be processed into tacks or braids for field tests in seawater tests. The technology may also be used for other metals. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Microwave Readout Techniques for Very Large Arrays of Nuclear Sensors | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,937 | Researchers will develop a powerful readout technique based on microwave transmission and reflection. The technique will enable very large arrays of diverse sensor types for nuclear materials quantification and tracking. It will provide more accurate data on material composition and quantity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| BiI3 Gamma-Ray Spectrometers for Reliable Room-Temperature Nuclear Materials Safeguarding | University of Florida | $799,999 | Researchers will develop gamma-ray spectrometers based on BiI3 single crystals for MPACT applications such as burnup validation quantification, improved assay of plutonium, determination of uranium enrichment and overall monitoring spent fuel within the fuel cycle. The project will improve energy resolution, efficiency and environmental performance with this new gamma-ray detector. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Innovative Coating of Nanostructured Vanadium Carbide on the F/M Cladding Tube Inner Surface for Mitigating the Fuel Cladding Chemical Interactions | University of Florida | $760,276 | Researchers will develop barrier coatings on the inner surface of fuel cladding tubes to improve performance of materials at elevated temperatures and high neutron exposures in fast reactors. The project will develop and test a low temperature coating process of nanostructured vanadium carbide that will provide a benchmark for use in future studies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Doubling the Life of Concrete Structures | University of Idaho | $800,000 | Researchers will use nanoscale techniques to develop methods for doubling the service life of concrete structures. They will study the effect of temperature load and temperature cycling (freezing and thawing) on the durability of concrete with nanoscale viscosity modifiers. The project will benefit from non-destructive evaluation of concrete performance through electrochemical techniques. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Off-Gas Treatment: Evaluation of Nano-structured Sorbents for Selective Removal of Contaminants | University of Idaho | $785,910 | Researchers will evaluate nanostructured sorbent materials for their effectiveness in removing and immobilizing radionuclides for the off-gas treatment from used nuclear fuel recycling operations. The project aims at achieving near-zero emissions of radionuclides by capturing them from the off-gas of recycling operations, allowing for the development of advanced fuel cycles. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium and Transition Metals from Amidoxime-Based Sorbents | University of Idaho | $399,864 | Researchers will develop a new two-step elution process to achieve total recovery of uranium and effective recycling of the sorbent. The extraction process would selectively remove uranium from the sorbent with little or no damage. The process would then remove transition metals and regenerate the sorbent for repeated use, making uranium extraction from seawater economically viable. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Performance of a Steel/Oxide Composite Waste Form for Combined Waste Streams from Advanced Electrochemical Processes over Geologic Time Scales | University of Illinois at Chicago | $700,000 | Researchers will develop and validate a mechanistically-based corrosion model for cermet-type waste forms, creating a testing protocol and modeling approach for predicting long-term performance. The study will apply novel electrochemical testing and modeling methods to the behavior of metal/oxide phase boundaries to evaluate waste form performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Enhancement of the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland, College Park | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and optimize novel adsorbents for uranium recovery from seawater. The team will use radiation-induced grafting of organic phosphates onto polymers. The experiments will use ocean water, with mechanistic analysis, to provide a solid basis for large-scale demonstration of the performance of the new adsorbents in ocean environments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Improving the Understanding of the Coupled Thermal-Mechanical-Hydrologic Behavior of Consolidating Granular Salt | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will increase the understanding of granular salt seal materials for shafts, drifts and boreholes. By coupling thermal, mechanical and hydrological responses, the study will result in greater confidence in granular salt consolidation as a principal strategy for closure and isolation of long-term waste repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Fission Fragment Yield Data in Support of Advanced Reactor Technology | University of New Mexico | $399,816 | Researchers will produce a highly accurate data set for thermal fission. These precision data are necessary for high-accuracy simulations of nuclear criticality, transmutation rates, radiation effects and heating as well as for nuclear fuel, material accounting and identification needs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Molecular dynamics-based simulations of bulk/interfacial structures and diffusion behaviors in nuclear waste glasses | University of North Texas | $700,000 | Researchers will generate accurate atomic structural models for use in Monte Carlo simulations of the dissolution of nuclear waste glasses. Large-scale molecular dynamics-based computer simulations will be used to investigate self-diffusion behaviors, interfacial structure, and other structures formed during dissolution of these glasses. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| U3Si2 Fabrication and Testing for Implementation into the BISON Fuel Performance Code | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will fabricate, test and model a high uranium density, advanced nuclear fuel that operates at a much lower temperature and stores less energy. The work will deliver key research data on creep and grain growth, improving economics, through possible power uprates, and advancing accident tolerant fuels research. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Structural Health Monitoring of Nuclear Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of South Carolina | $738,618 | Researchers will develop a nuclear structural health monitoring system based on a sensing technology that monitors material degradation and aging for dry cask storage systems. The low-cost, low-profile sensors will perform on-demand monitoring of the structural integrity of individual components as well as the entire system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| ORIGEN-based Nuclear Fuel Depletion Module for Fuel Cycle Assessment | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $755,181 | Researchers will develop a flexible reactor analysis module for the CYCLUS fuel cycle simulator based on established tools for reactor fuel depletion and decay. They will use ORIGEN, a mature and experimentally validated code, affording greater flexibility and allowing for accurate evaluations of impacts of both present and future fuel cycle options. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Cost and System Analysis of Innovative Fuel Resources Concepts | University of Texas at Austin | $295,960 | This project will develop and test braided polymer fiber adsorbents that surpass the sorption capacity, selectivity and durability of the best existing technology to recover uranium from seawater. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Risk Assessment of Structural Integrity of Transportation Casks | University of Utah | $789,296 | Researchers will assess the loss of structural integrity of transportation casks and fuel cladding after extended storage. This risk assessment will conduct experimental tests and simulations to evaluate the structural performance of fuel, fuel assemblies and cask components when subjected to vibration and impact loads during transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Market-Based and System-Wide Fuel Cycle Optimization | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $612,731 | Researchers will create market and economic optimizers to improve calculations for the CYCLUS fuel cycle simulator. The team will leverage existing optimization software frameworks within the simulator to resolve top level policy questions. The optimizations will allow CYCLUS to move beyond static material compositions, providing a holistic view of the fuel cycle system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Optical Fiber Based System for Multiple Thermophysical Properties for Glove Box, Hot Cell and In-Pile Applications | Utah State University | $799,975 | Researchers will use a small pressure vessel to develop a robust technique for the measurement of multiple thermophysical properties at very high temperatures. The technique will lead to a system design moving toward the eventual measurement of irradiated fuels in a glovebox and/or hot cell with all sensors and electronics outside of the glovebox and/or hot cell. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of a Nano-Modified Concrete for Next Generation of Storage Systems | Vanderbilt University | $796,268 | Researchers will use nano-sized and nano-structured particles based on enhanced reactivity to develop a superior concrete for the long-term storage of used nuclear fuel. The project will use state-of-the-art experimental chemical and mechanical characterizations and computation analysis to assess the performance of nano-modified concretes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Fuel Cycle Data Packages for Thorium Fuel Cycle Options | Vanderbilt University | $797,995 | Researchers will develop six fuel cycle data packages for multi-stage, thermal fuel cycles which incorporate thorium. These new fuel cycle data packages will provide the opportunity to examine fuel cycle options beyond those which have traditionally been considered. A thorium fuel cycle database will also be assembled as a basis for thorium literature for future evaluations of the thorium fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Enhanced Shielding Performance of HLW Storage Packages via Multi-Component Coatings | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $796,947 | Researchers will develop a multi-layer composite that will enhance long-term storage and facilitate safe transport of storage packages. This novel multi-layer, multi-component coating would create an outer shield material that is resistant to the corrosion, radiation, diffusion and thermal cycling processes that affect fuel packages during long term storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Managing Zirconium Chemistry and Phase Compatibility in Combined Process Separations for Minor Actinide Partitioning | Washington State University | $700,000 | Researchers will address unique challenges for combining TRUEX and TALSPEAK processes for partitioning of lanthanides and minor actinides. The project will develop improved information on the thermodynamics of fission product zirconium and develop a framework for an organic phase solvation model. Combined process development could streamline separations processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Advances in the Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Studies Under Real Ocean Conditions | Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution | $398,882 | Researchers will provide infrastructure and expertise for marine testing of currently available adsorbents in real ocean conditions. The team will move adsorbent research from the lab to field testing in order to quantify sorptive properties and uranium uptake. The project will provide valuable field data that will show the potential of large scale applications of these technologies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| NEUP Project 20-19172: Irradiation of Sensors and Adhesive Couplants for Application in LWR Primary Loop Piping and Components | $497,881 | Researchers paln to attach ultrasonic transducers to substrates using various adhesive couplants that will be irradiated at elevated temperature to simulate LWR primary loop conditions at the PULSTAR reactor at North Carolina State University. Ultrasonic data will be taken in-situ. Subsequently, the sensors and couplant interfaces will be characterized using the LAMDA facility at ORNL. The results will be used to benefit a parallel EPRI project on online monitoring of cracks in LWR primary loop piping. | Document | Joint R&D with NSUF Access | FY2013 | |
| Lower Length Scale Characterization and Validation of Formation and Stability of Helium Bubbles in Nano-structured Ferritic Alloys under Irradiation | Clemson University | $399,870 | Researchers will provide a fundamental knowledge about the formation and stability of ultra-fine helium bubbles within 14YWT after neutron/ion irradiation for further design of new advanced structural materials with a characteristic high density nanoparticles feature which can increase the mechanical strength, hardness, irradiation resistance and the operational temperature range of materials. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Three-Dimensional Fuel Pin Model Validation by Prediction of Hydrogen Distribution in Cladding and Comparison with Experiment | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers will validate important three-dimensional aspects of the fuel pin modeling by using specialized numerical modeling techniques coupled with laboratory experiments to validate existing models for predicting fuel performance in light water reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Collocation-Based Surrogate Models for Uncertainty Quantification and Validation of Coupled, Multiphysics Fuel Performance Simulation Tools | University of Michigan | $596,835 | Researchers will provide the necessary high fidelity, coupled, multiphysics fuel performance simulator for computational modeling and develop surrogates which will accelerate and focus the validation of the coupled codes. This will be achieved by utilizing the high fidelity coupled fuel performance, thermal-hydraulics and neutronics codes BISON/STAR-CCM+/MPACT and an innovative collocation-based surrogate methodology. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Multi-Resolution In-Situ Testing and Mutliscale Simulation for Creep Damage Fatigue Damage Analysis of Alloy 617 | Arizona State University | $800,000 | This project will develop novel testing and experimentally validated prediction methodologies for micro-structural damage mechanisms of structural materials for advanced reactor systems. The investigations will focus on the characterization and testing of specific metal alloys, but the proposed testing and life-prediction methodologies are applicable to other structural materials as well. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Novel High Temperature and Radiation Resistant Infrared Glasses and Optical Fibers for Sensing in Advanced Small Modular Reactors | Clemson University | $800,000 | Clemson University, in partnership with the Iowa State University and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, will develop novel optical materials with improved heat and radiation exposure resistance in order to enable in-vessel fiber optic sensing for advanced Small Modular Reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Validation Data Acquisition in HTTF during PCC Events | George Washington University | $800,000 | Researchers at the George Washington University and Oregon State University will collaborate with NASA Langley Research Center to measure flow velocities in a high temperature test facility. This work supports the development of very-high temperature reactors with passive safety systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced High Temperature Inspection Capabilities for Small Modular Reactors | Iowa State University | $790,822 | The objective of this project is to develop non-destructive evaluation techniques for advanced small modular reactors. The research will provide key enabling inspection technologies needed to support the design and the reactor component performance validation process for advanced small modular reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Experimental and Computational Investigations of Plenum-to-Plenum Heat Transfer under Natural Circulation in a Prismatic Very High Temperature Reactor | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,999 | Researchers will perform experimental and computational investigations to study heat transfer and natural circulation phenomena in very-high temperature reactors. The study will assist in the ability to predict and analyze passive safety systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| New Mechanistic Models of Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth Interactions for Advanced High Temperature Reactor Components | Oregon State University | $790,790 | Researchers will create and validate a robust, multi-scale, numerical model to predict material degradation in nickel-based reactor alloys. If successful, this project will provide better numerical tools for reactor designers and greatly improve their capability to design against material failures for reactor alloys in the long term. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Self-Powered Wireless Dual-mode Langasite Sensor for Pressure/Temperature Monitoring of Nuclear Reactors | State University of New York, Stony Brook | $800,000 | This research will develop a novel self-powered wireless hybrid sensor that can accurately monitor both pressure and temperature using a single device without requiring external electricity, even in extreme harsh environments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Compact Heat Exchanger Design and Testing for Advanced Nuclear Reactors and Advanced Power Cycles | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to investigate optimal heat exchanger designs for advanced reactors. The research will study the optimization of printed circuit heat exchangers for specific fluids under a variety of conditions as well as perform numerical modeling. Experiments will focus on thermal performance and heat stress during extreme conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Fundamental Understanding of Creep-Fatigue Interactions in 9Cr-1MoV Steel Welds | The Ohio State University | $798,000 | This project will advance the state of knowledge and fundamental understanding of deforming materials and welds under loading conditions. Specifically, new integrated testing procedures will be evaluated and applied for conditions that are most detrimental to material stability leading to improved predictions of life expectancy for reactor steels and welds. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced Mechanistic 3D Spatial Modeling and Analysis Methods to Accurately Represent Nuclear Facility External Event Scenarios | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop three-dimensional characterization uncertainty analysis for commercial power plants. The project will involve combining experts from the fields of seismic structural modeling and advanced methods of risk assessment. This effort is expected to result in next generation tools that can be used for assessment of seismic risks. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Tritium Mitigation/Control for Advanced Reactor Systems | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a fluoride salt cooled high-temperature reactor featuring a specialized system to control tritium production. If successful, this will result in a significant reduction in size and cost in comparison to other reactor designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| A Pebble-Bed Breed and Burn Reactor | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will assess the feasibility of designing a type of metal cooled reactor able to establish and maintain operation when fueled with depleted uranium. If successful, this reactor will offer at least a 30-fold increase in the uranium ore utilization versus that achieved in contemporary light water reactors without the need for fuel reprocessing and recycling. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Investigation of Thermal Aging Effects on the Evolution of Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Cast Duplex Stainless Steels | University of Maryland, College Park | $799,966 | This research will provide a better understanding of the microstructural evolution and simultaneous change in mechanical response during aging. The results of the research will provide data that can be used to estimate degraded mechanical properties for an 80-year service life of light water reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Model validation using CFD-grade experimental database for NGNP Reactor Cavity Cooling Systems with water and air | University of Michigan | $799,348 | Researchers will use advanced innovative instrumentation to build a high-resolution experimental database and to use the novel experimental data to assess and further develop the predictive capabilities of computer codes for thermal hydraulics and computational fluid dynamics. The improved models developed by this project will also have the direct benefit of improving the predictive capability of the passive systems of third generation light water reactors and small modular reactor systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Long-Term Prediction of Emissivity of Structural Material for High Temperature Reactor Systems | University of Missouri | $799,117 | Researchers will study specific types of emissivity driven cooling from a variety of materials that are relevant to nuclear reactors. The research will provide a basis for numerical modeling to support reactor development. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced I&C for Fault-Tolerant Supervisory Control of Small Modular Reactors | University of Pittsburgh | $800,000 | The purpose of this research is to develop advanced instrumentation and control techniques for supervisory control of advanced small modular reactors. This research supports the operational goals of small modular reactor concepts through the development of improved oversight and surveillance techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Corrosion of Structural Materials for Advanced Supercritical Carbon-Dioxide Brayton Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $798,672 | Researchers will study a variety of materials for corrosion resistance under conditions that improve power conversion. In addition to studying the corrosion resistance of the materials, researchers will study the effect of additives to mitigate corrosion. Development of corrosion theories and modeling aimed at prediction of long-term corrosion will be the underlying theme throughout the project. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Component and Technology Development for Advanced Liquid Metal Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $798,920 | In support of liquid metal cooled reactors, the University of Wisconsin, Madison will evaluate advanced alloys and ceramics that come in contact with liquid metals. Additionally, a robust oxygen sensor and for use in liquid metals will be developed in order to better evaluate corrosion profiles in support of diagnostic testing. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| A New Paradigm for Understanding Multi-phase Ceramic Waste Form Performance | Clemson University | $800,000 | Researchers will use advanced characterization tools to develop 3-D microstructural data that can be incorporated into computer-based simulations in order to predict the performance of waste forms. Materials system modeling will incorporate elemental release and the interconnected microstructural network of phases to better understand performance and degradation, which will accelerate waste form acceptance in repository settings. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Controlling Hexavalent Americium: A Centerpiece to a Compact Nuclear Fuel Cycle | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and exploit the fundamental chemistry of Americium to enable an industrially viable means to co-recover the major and minor actinide elements from used nuclear fuel. The results would be a significant step forward in the development of aqueous separations approaches designed to recover the U-Am actinides based on the availability of the hexavalent oxidation state. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Zeolite Membranes for Krypton/Xenon Separation from Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Off-Gas | Georgia Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a high-performance, lower-cost zeolitic membrane process for Kr/Xe separations during spent nuclear fuel processing. Current separation methods are not considered economical and a membrane process would have relatively lower cost, equipment size, and ambient operating temperature. The process would form a sound basis for further development of this transformative separation technology for the nuclear fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Optimizing Polymer-Grafted Amidoxime-based Adsorbents for Uranium Uptake from Seawater | Georgia Institute of Technology | $399,999 | Researchers will work to increase the adsorbent capacity and selectivity toward uranium by optimizing the adsorbent morphology, synthesis variables, and conditioning parameters and by investigating the rate-limiting variables through transport and reaction modeling. A novel adsorption/partition concept that has the potential to substantially increase the adsorbent capacity will be tested, making uranium from seawater extraction more economically viable. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Extraction of Uranium from Seawater: Design and Testing of a Symbiotic System | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a seawater uranium extraction system that will work symbiotically with an offshore windmill by utilizing the structure, mooring and power of the windmill, while increasing the energy harvested by the installation. Uranium will be extracted by an adsorbent polymer belt, which will be cycled through the seawater and an elution plant located at the base of the windmill tower. Increasing the frequency of harvesting could overcome current economic barriers to seawater uranium extraction. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Imaging a Dry Storage Cask with Cosmic Ray Muons | Oregon State University | $799,871 | Researchers will develop an imaging system to monitor the content of a dry storage cask with cosmic ray muons. A very large amount of plutonium under nuclear safeguards is contained in used fuel assemblies stored in dry storage casks. Muon imaging will allow a cost effective and reliable way to evaluate dry storage cask content and integrity before transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Apatite and sodalite based glass-bonded waste forms for immobilization of 129I and mixed halide radioactive wastes | Rutgers University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop advanced and chemically durable waste forms for immobilizing 129I (aqueous based reprocessing of fuel) and mixed-halide wastes (molten-salt processing of fuel) by low temperature synthesis. Halide-containing sodalite and calcium phosphate-based apatite minerals will be synthesized, consolidated and tested for chemical durability. The project will provide needed baseline data for the development of advanced waste forms for immobilization of iodine and mixed-halide wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Sorption Modeling and Verification for Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $350,000 | Researchers will develop modeling tools supported by experiments for off-gas capture from future nuclear-fuel recycling facilities. Target species include tritium, iodine, krypton, and xenon. The models are intended to provide path forward recommendations to develop off-gas treatment adsorption processes. The project will contribute to the evaluation of options for environmentally acceptable recycle systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development of high performance ODS alloys | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will study swelling, radiation hardening and changes in mechanical properties of ODS alloys to develop two sets of advanced ODS alloys. Two sets of first-round candidate alloys that have already undergone extensive development and testing will evaluate irradiation performance. The study will meet the need for high strength, radiation-tolerant cladding and core components that have enhanced resistance to void swelling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Rare Earth Electrochemical Property Measurements and Phase Diagram Development in a Complex Molten Salt Mixture for Molten Salt Recycle | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate rare earth (RE) properties in complex molten salt mixtures. In a molten salt recycle approach, the RE drawdown by electrolysis is a key step in which REs are separated from salt containing other fission products. Investigation of RE electrolysis must consider the electrochemical properties of the REs. We propose to conduct studies of detailed experiments and corresponding models to provide the physical properties and phase diagrams required to predict the performance of RE drawdown for processing complex molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Computational and Experimental Studies of Microstructure-Scale Porosity in Metallic Fuels for Improved Gas Swelling Behavior | University of Arkansas | $796,823 | Researchers will study the microstructure of metallic uranium alloy fuels, and their resistance to densification, to minimize in-pile irradiation swelling through bimodal pore size distribution. The project will develop a predictive approach to design metallic fuel microstructures for optimal swelling resistance and fission gas retention. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Improved Hybrid Modeling of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of California, Berkeley | $645,393 | Researchers will develop a variance reduction method for computational transport that will improve the ability to design and operate monitoring systems for interim used fuel installations through enhanced modeling and simulation. This new tool will demonstrate that modeling calculations can be done more accurately in less time than with current tools and will perform studies characterizing how changes in material, cask configurations, and number of casks could impact monitoring systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Selective ligands for uranyl via combinatorial peptoid libraries: A synthetic, structural, thermodynamic and computational study | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will study how donor ligands bind to the uranyl ion, UO22+, with the longer-term goal of using this information to tackle selective recognition of uranyl in aqueous solution. The study will impact underlying approaches to controlling the behavior of uranium in these systems. The actinide separation technology could be used in several areas including uranium extraction from seawater, nuclear waste remediation and nuclear materials. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Combining Experiments and Simulations of Extraction Kinetics and Thermodynamics in Advanced Separation Processes for Used Nuclear Fuel | University of California, Irvine | $799,938 | Researchers will study how the kinetics and thermodynamics of metal ion extraction in advanced separation processes for used nuclear fuel can be described by molecular dynamic (MD) simulations and how the simulations can be validated by experimental data. The project would have broad impacts on several separations processes including advanced TALSPEAK, ALSEP and GANEX by increasing the confidence and accuracy of computer modeling of metal ion extraction. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Effect of Metallic Li on the Behavior of Metals in Molten Salts | University of Nevada, Reno | $458,250 | Researchers will identify the effect of metallic lithium on materials that are used in molten salt recycling. The study will try to understand how the presence of Li(0) in molten salts affects the degradation of alloys. Studying these changes will help accurately predict container material behavior and longevity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Assessment of Corrosion Resistance of Promising Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding under Reactor Conditions | University of Notre Dame | $800,000 | Researchers will assess the corrosion behavior of accident tolerant fuel candidate iron-based alloys under normal LWR operating conditions consisting of high temperature, relevant water chemistry and irradiation. The assessment will produce data about possible irradiation-accelerated corrosion rates of iron-based alloys, and the mechanisms by which such corrosion rates are accelerated. The project will advance the selection of appropriate replacements for Zircaloy cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Enhanced Accident-Tolerant Fuel Performance and Reliability for Aggressive iPWR/SMR Operation | University of Tennessee | $799,967 | To develop a process that evaluates operational and safety performance of reactor-and-fuel combinations by integrating whole-core 3D neutronics with MOOSE/BISON fuel performance assessments via explicit time and space dependent fuel rod operational power histories. The project will be valuable in analyzing and evaluating accident tolerant fuel concepts and furthering the understanding of reactor physics and fuel performance aspects of key accident tolerant fuel concepts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Nuclear Technology R&D Strategies in an Era of Energy Price Uncertainty | University of Texas, Austin | $799,112 | Researchers will identify nuclear technology options that are competitive over a wide range of plausible future business environments. No single nuclear technology or business practice will be the best choice across all or even most future conditions. The study will focus on hybrid nuclear-fossil technologies, energy storage and conversion, which will result in an identification of nuclear strategies that can succeed under future market conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development and Optimization of Voltammetric Methods for Real Time Analysis of Electrorefiner Salt with High Concentrations of Actinides and Fission Products | University of Utah | $621,612 | Researchers will develop an advanced voltammetry method to pursue the objective of real time monitoring of actinide concentrations in electrorefiner salt. This will include experimental measurement of key parameters such as activity coefficients and exchange current density. It will also involve simulation of voltammetry processes based on first principles. The project will allow for real time measurements that could support the commercialization of pyroprocessing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development of Self-Healing Zirconium-Silicide Coatings for Improved Performance of Zirconium-Alloy Fuel Cladding | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $798,621 | Researchers will study the deposition of self-healing zirconium-silicide coatings on zirconium-alloy fuel cladding material to improve corrosion resistance under normal and accident conditions. Under these conditions, Zr-Si coating evolves into a highly protective functionally-graded multilayered system. The study will lead to improved performance of zirconium-alloy fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Thermal Conductivity in Metallic Fuels | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,837 | Researchers will calculate the thermal conductivity of metallic uranium and neptunium alloys, including the effects of noble gasses, using density functional theory. The experiments will validate the calculated effective thermal conductivity using the MARMOT code and by helping determine DFT simulation parameters. The study works to improve fuel lifetime by understanding its thermal behavior. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| SiC-ODS Alloy Gradient Nanocomposites as Novel Cladding Materials | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,998 | Researchers will combine nuclear nanomaterial design, processing, testing, and characterization efforts to develop revolutionary materials that can withstand neutron irradiation for long period of time using nanostructured SiC and oxide dispersion strengthened steel. The ultimate objective is to offer new cladding materials with increased corrosion resistance, strength, and creep resistance in both steady state and accident conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Experimental Breeder Reactor II Benchmark Evaluation | Idaho State University | $400,000 | _Researchers will develop a benchmark evaluation of the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II). During nearly 30 years of operation numerous experiments were conducted at EBR-II. The most significant of these experiments were conducted in 1986 demonstrating inherent safety features in loss of flow without reactor scram and loss of heat sink without reactor scram. Benchmark evaluation will be valuable for the reactor design efforts in the United States and South Korea. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| Integral full core multi-physics PWR benchmark with measured data | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | _Researchers will introduce BEAVRS, a new multi-cycle full-core Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) depletion benchmark based on two operational cycles of a commercial nuclear power plant. This project aims at addressing the uncertainty quantification of the measured data and on making this benchmark a true non-proprietary international benchmark for the validation of high-fidelity multi-physics computational tools. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| Benchmark Evaluation of PROTEUS Gas-Cooled Reactor Experiments | University of Florida | $400,000 | _Researchers will create International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) benchmarks using data from 1970s experiments of the neutronics of gas-cooled fast reactor (GCFR) designs investigated in the PROTEUS reactor. The GCFR-PROTEUS experiments fill a gap in current integral benchmark data. These experiments can provide validation of computational models and nuclear data for next generation reactors. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| An Investigation To Establish Multiphysical Property Dataset Of Nuclear Materials Based On In-Situ Observations And Measurements | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will create an in-situ measurement based experimental approach to develop experimental validation dataset for NEAMS based code validation. Particular emphasis is on supplying data set for multiphysics simulations in extreme conditions as a function of material microstructure. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| Experimental Validation of UO2 Microstructural Evolutions for NEAMS tool MARMOT | University of Florida | $798,000 | _Researchers will experimentally validate MARMOT for predicting the microstructural evolutions of UO2 oxide fuel under the driving forces of high temperatures and large temperature gradient in reactors. By performing the experiments and simulations simultaneously using precisely defined initial conditions, the experiment data will provide direct benchmarking of the MARMOT code. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| High-resolution time-resolved experiments on mixing and entrainment of buoyant jets in stratified environments | University of Michigan | $799,983 | _Researchers will study high spatial and time-resolution experimental data of the fluid dynamics phenomena of flow jets interacting with a stratified layer. The issue plays an important role in the safety of several reactor designs, including sodium-cooled reactors. The data addresses the NEAMS needs for the validation of high fidelity computational fluid dynamics methodologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| Fundamental study of key issues related to advanced S-CO2 Brayton Cycle: prototypic HX development and Cavitation | Georgia Institute of Technology | $799,000 | _Researchers will study scientific and operational issues pertinent to compact heat exchanger systems and turbo-machinery. The project will work to resolve issues with the fabrication of diffusion bonded compact heat exchangers, alternate heat exchange technology for recuperators, and resolution of issues with cavitation and fluid instabilities. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Advanced Models for Nondestructive Evaluation of Aging Nuclear Power Plant Cables | Iowa State University | $787,291 | _Researchers will develop advanced models that relate environmentally induced microstructural and chemical changes in cable insulation polymers to their macroscopic electrical parameters. These parameters will be measured and modeled over a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum, covering several potential nondestructive evaluation techniques, enabling identification of the most sensitive techniques for future development. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Development of Novel Functionally Graded Transition Joints for Improving the Creep Strength of Dissimilar Metal Welds in Nuclear Applications | Lehigh University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop graded transition joints and improved creep life models for increasing the life of dissimilar metal welds (DMWs) in nuclear reactors. The research represents the first application of functionally graded material concepts for solving the problem of DMW failures through an integrated approach of additive manufacturing, modeling, microstructural characterization, and advanced strain-sensing techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Feasibility Assessment of a Micro Modular Reactor (MMR) | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | _Researchers will develop an innovative compact reactor concept that integrates power production, power conversion and electricity generation in a single unit: the Micro Modular Reactor (MMR). It is designed to be absolutely melt-down proof (MDP) under all circumstances including complete loss of coolant scenarios with no possible release of radioactive material, to have a cycle length of greater than 10 years, and to be highly proliferation resistant. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Scaling Studies for Advanced Gas Reactor Concepts | Oregon State University | $681,834 | _Researchers will expand the utilization of the Oregon State University High Temperature Test Facility (HTTF) to validate a broader range of advanced high temperature reactors and events. The facility will be revised to add a detailed scaling analysis of additional gas reactor concepts including advanced gas-cooled, molten salt, and sodium cooled reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Fluid Stratification Separate Effects Analysis, Testing and Benchmarking | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will study fluid stratification in high temperature gas reactors. Coolant stratification is the result of incomplete mixing of one or more fluids, leading to a density gradient, which may or may not dissipate under diffusive or convective effects. This combined analytical and experimental project seeks to investigate stratification driven by diffusive and convective mechanisms and is expected to yield insight into this phenomenon. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Probabilistic Economic Valuation of Safety Margin Management Analysis | Oregon State University | $795,364 | _Researchers will use RAVEN and develop a companion software package to facilitate economic analysis of safety margins. The project is a proof of concept that will use techniques to examine the cost of improving safety margins vs. the risk of accidents from not improving safety margins. This analysis can be used to evaluate the economic viability of various plant upgrades. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Novel Dissimilar Joints Between Alloy 800H and 2.25%Cr and 1%Mo Steel | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will fabricate and test dissimilar metal joints between a nickel base alloy and a steel with gradual variations of chemical composition, microstructure and properties in a manner that reduces abrupt thermal expansion mismatch and the resulting residual stresses. Data on structure and properties will serve as valuable inputs for the initiation of an ASME code case. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Multi-Phase Model Development to Assess RCIC System Capabilities under Severe Accident Conditions | Texas A&M University | $564,246 | _Researchers will develop physics-based models of the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) System and incorporating them into a multi-phase code for validation. The project will tackle the current major challenges in RCIC System analysis and enable evaluation of two-phase thermodynamic aspects. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Experimental Investigation and CFD Analysis of Steam Ingress Accidents in HTGRs | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will study the steam ingress scenario for HTGRs. The study will investigate thermal-hydraulic behavior and graphite oxidation of stream ingress phenomena to validate predictive CFD models. This work will resolve concerns about possible steam generator tube ruptures in a HTGR He-Steam Rankine cycle. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Coiled Tube Gas Heaters For Nuclear Gas-Brayton Power Conversion | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop heat exchangers for Brayton-cycle power conversion in reactors using sodium, NaK, or salt as intermediate coolants. The proposed coiled tube gas heaters (CTGHs) are expected to have excellent power density, thermal shock/creep, in-service inspection, and reparability characteristics. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Fundamental Studies of Irradiation-Induced Modifications in Microstructural Evolution and Mechanical Properties of Advanced Alloys | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop and test a mechanism for predicting neutron irradiation performance for optimized Grade 92 and Alloy 709 for applications in advanced reactor systems. The work will employ ion irradiations and available information from neutron irradiations of related alloys to develop a basis for predicting the neutron irradiation performance of the optimized alloys. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Integrated Computational and Experimental Study of Radiation Damage Effects in Grade 92 Steel and Alloy 709 | University of Tennessee | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop a mechanistic understanding and predictive models of irradiation-induced microstructural evolution and resulting mechanical properties in optimized ferritic-martensitic Grade 92 steel and austenitic alloy 709 using multiscale simulations coupled with rigorous experimental validation. The project will provide insights into the correlation between ion irradiation and fast neutron damage. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Meta-Level Design Guidance and Operator Performance Measures for Hybrid Control Rooms | Vanderbilt University | $799,869 | _Researchers will apply human factors engineering methods and relevant expertise from non-nuclear high-risk high-consequence domains toward the measurement of operator performance in analog, digital, and hybrid main control rooms. Performance measures will be developed for evaluating the situation awareness and decision-making proficiencies to support the transition to digital or hybrid control room displays. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| NEUP Project 15-8514: Elucidation of the kinetics of Advanced Separation systems | California State University, Long Beach | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a fundamental understanding of the chemical kinetics relevant to separation processes by measuring ligand complexation rate constants for both lanthanides and actinides in the aqueous and organic phases. These experiments will provide essential kinetic and mechanistic information required for developing a simplified, single-step recovery of transuranic elements. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8119: Kr/Xe separation over Metal Organic Framework Membranes | Colorado School of Mines | $375,000 | Researchers will develop metal organic framework (MOF) membranes that will be capable of effectively separating Kr from Xe with high flux and selectivity. This project may result in the development of membranes that will constitute a viable energy saving approach for the effective removal of Kr during the processing of used nuclear fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8347: Multilayer Composite Fuel Cladding for LWR Performance Enhancement and Severe Accident Tolerance | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop, manufacture, and weld a new multimetallic layered composite (MMLC) for enhanced severe accident tolerance and manufacturability in LWRs. Layers of stainless steel (facing the coolant) and Zircaloy (facing the fuel) will be separated by barrier layers of Cr and Nb. Severe accident testing in 1200C steam, LWR autoclave testing, and ion irradiation studies will demonstrate the MMLC's microstructural stability. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8112: Phase Separation and Crystallization of Complex Borosilicate Melts for Glass-Ceramic Waste Forms | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,806 | Researchers will study the mechanisms for microstructural development and properties of multi-phase, glass-ceramic materials that form when waste-loaded borosilicate glasses are cooled from above their liquidus or consolute temperatures through the glass transition temperature. The project will apply these tools to modified compositions to maximize the formation of the desirable crystalline phases. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8265: Electrically-Assisted Tubing Processes for Enhancing Manufacturability of Oxide Dispersion Strengthened Structural Materials for Nuclear Reactor Applications | Northwestern University | $800,000 | Researchers will enhance the formability of nanostructured ferritic alloys (NFAs) such that high-strength thin-walled claddings can be manufactured successfully and economically to be used in future reactors. The project will study the effects of continuous and pulsed electric currents on the deformation behavior of Fe-14Cr based NFA steel. The findings will be used to establish innovative fabrication processes including electrically-assisted extrusion and rolling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8126: Fundamental Electrochemical Properties of Liquid Metals in LiCl-KCl for Separation of Alkali/Alkaline-Earths (Cs, Sr and Ba) | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate the fundamental properties of novel liquid metal electrodes for separation of alkali/alkaline-earth fission products in LiCl-KCl electrolyte. The project will further the development of pyroprocessing by maximizing salt recycle and providing a method for recovery of alkali/alkaline-earth fission products as oxides (as opposed to chlorides) which will allow them to be encapsulated in a more conventional glass wasteform. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8074: Monitoring of Actinide Concentrations in Molten LiCl-KCl Salt using Alpha Spectroscopy | The Ohio State University | $799,969 | Researchers will develop a novel in-salt sensor that uses electrochemistry to pre-concentrate the actinides onto the sensor to measure the actinides concentration in a high temperature and high radiation field represented by a molten salt environment. The ability to monitor actinides to prevent misuse is critical to enhancing the control of nuclear materials. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8717: Understanding the Interactions of Seawater Ions with Amidoxime through X-Ray Crystallography | University of Alabama | $553,971 | _Researchers will investigate the fundamental interactions of the amidoxime (R-C(NH2)=NOH) functional group with metal ions found in seawater using a combined approach of single crystal X-ray diffraction and spectroscopy to understand the origin of the selectivity of amidoxime resins for uranyl ([UO2]2+] ions and establish structural benchmarks for interpretation of spectroscopic studies on actual sorbents to aid in identifying specific sorbent-metal interactions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8439: Developing a macro-scale SiC-cladding behavior model based on localized mechanical and thermal property evaluation on pre- and post-irradiation SiC-SiC composites | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a fundamental understanding of the macroscopic behavior of SiC-SiC composite structures before and after irradiation based on the microscopic property changes of each individual component (SiC matrix, fiber and interface). SiC-SiC composites will be tested in the as-fabricated condition, after being subjected to neutron and ion irradiation, micro-cracking, and oxidation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8536: Quantitative Prediction of Uranium Speciation and Amidoxime Binding in Seawater from Advanced Simulation Techniques | University of California, Riverside | $450,000 | Researchers will quantitatively predict stability of uranium species and thermochemistry (free energy, entropy, and enthalpy) of uranium binding with amidoxime ligands in seawater conditions. To achieve the goal, advanced simulation techniques including all-atom molecular dynamics, free-energy calculations, and the hybrid quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical approach will be employed to explicitly include water molecules and common seawater ions in the simulation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8286: Used Fuel Storage Monitoring Using Helium-4 Scintillation Fast Neutron Detectors and Neutron Spectral Analysis | University of Florida | $799,765 | Researchers will build and demonstrate a prototype detector device capable of unambiguously verifying the declared content of dry casks in a non-intrusive manner for the safeguarding and monitoring of used fuel storage installations. This will be achieved through a neutron spectroscopy and imaging system using high-efficiency Helium-4 (4He) gas scintillation fast neutron detectors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8663: Enhancement of the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland, College Park | $600,000 | Researchers will produce efficient adsorbents of uranium from seawater in seeking to optimize the functional ligands, the polymeric substrates, the grafting conditions and the adsorption/desorption durations based on sound chemical understanding. The result will be adsorbents that can be used through multiple cycles of uranium adsorption without significant degradation of the adsorbents capacity and selectivity for uranium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8111: Purification of Zirconium cladding using a chloride volatility process | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $798,877 | _Researchers will investigate the thermochemistry of used fuel Zr cladding components chlorides as well as their activation products and residual radionuclide metal chlorides to provide fundamental data that will support the development of a chlorination process for the purification of ZrCl4. Understanding the chemistry of these chloride species will provide process development guidance for the purification of Zr cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8323: Purification of Zirconium Tetrachloride from UNF Cladding | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $793,121 | _Researchers will develop and demonstrate a process to purify zirconium tetrachloride obtained from the direct chlorination of used Zircaloy cladding materials from used nuclear fuel rod assemblies. This study will increase understanding of purification protocols that will allow zirconium chloride to be recycled further. Increased recycling capability would significantly reduce the amount of high level waste associated with light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8752: Radiation Effects on High Thermal Conductivity Fuels | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $400,000 | _Researchers will use scoping ion and neutron irradiations to explore the structural stability and thermal conductivity of model high thermal conductivity fuels consisting of CeO2 and either Al2O3 (BeO surrogate) or SiC. Issues associated with thermal conductivity degradation (including micro cracking effects) and general phase stability of fuel systems will be examined. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8243: Radiation-induced swelling and microcracking in SiC cladding for LWRs | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $797,889 | _Researchers will use state of the art experimental characterization techniques and multi-scale methodology (developed within the MOOSE-MARMOT-BISON framework) to provide scientific basis for predictions of swelling and microcracking in SiC cladding as a function of temperature and irradiation histories. Predicting swelling and microcracking will further the potential for accident tolerant SiC cladding to be used in light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8081: Understanding influence of thermal history and glass chemistry on kinetics of phase separation and crystallization in borosilicate glass-ceramic waste forms for aqueous reprocessed high level waste | Washington State University | $799,911 | _Researchers will develop a fundamental and transformative understanding of the crystallization mechanisms in complex glass-ceramic high level waste (HLW) wasteforms,. This understanding will underpin the maturation of glass ceramic manufacture, by linking process variables to molecular scale mechanisms, enabling reliable production of wasteforms to the desired specification. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8210: A Transient Reactor Physics Experiment with High-Fidelity, 3-D Flux Measurements for Validation and Verification | Kansas State University | $799,198 | _Researchers will instrument the University of Wisconsin Nuclear Reactor with micro-pocket fission detectors (MPFDs) to measure 3-D flux distributions. The measurements will be compared to simulation using PROTEUS from the NEAMS toolkit. MPFDs are small, which leads to low gamma-ray sensitivity and small flux perturbations. A 3-D array of MPFDs and standard reactor instrumentation will be used to capture highly-resolved flux and temperature distributions for several steady-state and transient conditions. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8101: Development of Critical Experiments to Provide Validation Data for Multiphysics Coupling Methods | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $799,993 | Researchers will develop a set of benchmark validation experiments for multiphysics coupling by exploiting the inherent flexibility of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Reactor Critical Facility (RCF). This project will use targeted experiments to validate the coupling between neutronics, thermal hydraulics, and structural mechanics routines present in the NEAMS Reactor Product Line toolkit._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8229: Thermal Transport and Fracture Behavior of Sintered Fuel Pellets: Experimental Validation of NEAMS Tool MARMOT | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | _Researchers will perform experimental validation of the NEAMS tool MARMOT for predicting thermal transport and fuel fracture. By performing extensive thermal transport and fracture experiments on well-controlled microstructures of sintered UO2, the impact of microstructure on thermo-mechanical properties of sintered UO2 and mechanistic understanding will be achieved. The high quality experimental data will directly benchmark the MARMOT code by evaluating the thermal transport and fracture models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8208: Development of a Novel Accelerator for Neutron Transport Solution Using the Galerkin Spectral Element Methods | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $626,176 | _Researchers will develop a novel accelerator for neutron transport calculations based on the spectral element methods, continuous Galerkin (CG) and discontinuous Galerkin (DG) approximations. The CG and DG methods will be used to solve the multi-group neutron diffusion equation on the coarse-mesh structure (e.g., pin-size up to assembly-size), which is then coupled with the high-order neutron transport solution to speed up the neutron transport computation. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8338: Methodology Development for Cybersecurity Robustness and Vulnerability Assessment of University Research Reactors: A Case Study Using the PULSTAR Reactor | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop a methodology for assessing the cybersecurity robustness and vulnerability of university research reactors using an actual university reactor as a test case. While the developed methodology will be specifically tested and applied using this reactor, it will be formulated as a general blueprint and used as the starting point for the assessment of university research reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cyber Security R&D | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8121: Automatic Imagery Data Analysis for Proactive Computer-Based Workflow Management during Nuclear Power Plant Outages | Arizona State University | $799,738 | _Researchers will test the hypothesis that real-time imagery-based object tracking and spatial analysis, as well as human behavior modeling will significantly improve efficiency of outage control while lowering the rates of accidents and incidents. The project will examine computer vision methods and human behavior models for developing a proactive workflow management tool and integrate it into Computer-Based Procedures for supporting an Advanced Outage Control Center. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8308: Creep and creep-fatigue crack growth mechanisms in Alloy 709 | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _A joint US/UK team will study the crack growth mechanism and failure analysis of alloy 709 under creep and creep-fatigue conditions. The study will be done through in situ heating and loading during SEM observation to evaluate the crack growth under plane stress condition and traditional methods to study the crack growth under plane strain condition. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8582: Mechanistic and Validated Creep/Fatigue Predictions for Alloy 709 from Accelerated Experiments and Simulations | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will use mechanistic methods for predicting creep and creep-fatigue deformation rates/strains based on accelerated in-situ and ex-situ tests, and mesoscale dislocation dynamics simulations for Alloy 709. This research will support its qualification in the ASME code for use in advanced nuclear reactor applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8495: Advancement of Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Technology through Round Robin Testing and Fundamental Modeling | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will conduct a round robin test plan for S-CO2 corrosion testing across multiple institutions and the organization of a S-CO2 Materials Group to guide future materials testing directions. Furthermore, this proposal outlines identical tests in supercritical water, testing model alloys with various composition and environmental conditions, accompanied by modeling efforts to study rate controlling mechanisms of corrosion. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8489: Modeling and Validation of Irradiation Damage in Ni-based Alloys for Long-Term LWR Applications | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _A joint US/UK team will study thermal and irradiation-induced transformations mechanisms of Alloys 690 and 625 in order to extend Grizzly to include capabilities for modeling Ni-based alloys. The project will develop modeling tools for materials degradation in light water reactors, allowing for component replacement data and continued safe operation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-7983: Development of Steady-State Thermal-Hydraulic Analysis and Bowing Reactivity Evaluation Methods Based on Neutron and Gamma Transport Calculations | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop steady-state thermal-hydraulic analysis and assembly bowing reactivity evaluation methods based on the latest transport calculation capabilities in order to overcome the limitations and improve the accuracy of current design analysis methods. The outcome of the effort will be computer programs to calculate the steady-state heat source distributions in fuel pins and assembly duct walls and to calculate the reactivity worth of assembly displacements. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8627: Experimental Validation Data and Computational Models for Turbulent Mixing of Bypass and Coolant Jet Flows in Gas-Cooled Reactors | Texas A&M University | $799,613 | _Researchers will establish reliable models of the thermal-hydraulics in Gas-Cooled Reactors with experimental and computational efforts. Specifically, this work will focus on providing the relationship between fluctuating velocities and temperatures in the lower plenum and their dependency on the turbulent upstream mixing in the core and collection chambers leading up to the lower plenum. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8251: Enhanced Performance Fast Reactors with Engineered Passive Safety System | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | _Researchers will study the feasibility of improving the passive safety and economics of sodium cooled fast reactors (SFR) by incorporating within their fuel assemblies a novel Autonomous Reactivity Control (ARC) system. It is expected that the ARC systems will enable to design even low leakage SFR cores, such as breed-and-burn cores, to be passively safe and to improve the neutron economy and economic viability of more conventional SFR. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8258: Physics-Based Probabilistic Model of the Effects of Ionizing Radiation on Polymeric Insulators of Electric Cables used in Nuclear Power Plants | University of California, Los Angeles | $798,846 | _Researchers will develop and experimentally validate a probabilistic physics-based degradation models for polymeric insulators of electric cables to be used in integrated performance and safety codes, which will help reduce the uncertainty associated with the long-term aging of cable insulation. The project will deliver a C++ based simulation code that will be readily compatible with the MOOSE/Grizzly framework developed at the Idaho National Laboratory. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8000: The Influences of Neutron Irradiation on Aggregate Induced Degradation of Concrete | University of California, Los Angeles | $800,000 | _Researchers will quantify the impacts of irradiation on concrete degradation. The research will develop new understanding of the evolutions and manifestations of irradiation assisted aggregate concrete degradation caused by neutron exposure. This assessment will help to mitigate the risk of such degradation within the Grizzly framework, by careful integrations of nanoscale analytics and simulation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8458: Multiple Degradation Mechanisms in Reinforced Concrete Structures, Modeling and Risk Analysis | University of Houston | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a multi-physics framework to characterize the deterioration development in concrete due to environmental and mechanical loading, and the coupling effect among transport processes and the damage of concrete. This project will develop new computational tools that will be implemented in Grizzly, an application built on the MOOSE platform, to address a variety of aging mechanisms in nuclear power plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8623: Characterization of Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth in Alloy 709 and Prediction of Service Lives in Nuclear Reactor Components | University of Idaho | $799,927 | _Researchers will study creep-fatigue crack growth behavior in steel Alloy 709 in accelerated test conditions to predict extended service life of structural components. Extensive testing of Alloy 709 creep-fatigue specimens will be performed at elevated temperatures and applied stresses. Microstructure analysis will be performed to describe the crack propagation mechanisms. Computational models will be used to predict service of steel components. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8432: Multi-scale experimental study of creep-fatigue failure initiation in a 709 Stainless Steel alloy using high resolution digital image correlation | University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign | $800,00 | _Researchers will conduct a detailed experimental investigation of creep-fatigue crack initiation in a 709 alloy, and will also obtain a predictive failure initiation model that includes both thermo-mechanical and aging effects. The experiments will use ultra-high resolution digital image correlation to measure accumulation of plastic with cycling. The model will extend existing slip band-based energy minimization criterion to include thermal effects applicable to 709. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8599: Am-241 Nuclear Safety and Environmental Interactions | University of Missouri | $399,187 | _Researchers will investigate the release and transport mechanisms of Am-241 to understand the interactions it may have with the environment. The project will examine Am-241 through a series of accident scenarios using Am-241 aerosols that will allow researchers to understand the pathways for dose assessment. Methodologies and approaches for nuclear risk assessment for new space radioisotope power system applications will be developed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8667: Experimental Validation of a Compact Double-walled Twisted-Tube Heat Exchanger Concept | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | _Researchers will investigate a novel compact double-walled twisted-tube heat exchanger (DT-HXR) design that utilizes an outer twisted tube configuration in order to enhance shell-side heat transfer and make the overall bundle more compact. Utilizing outer twisted tube geometry improves heat transfer and allows for a tube bundle that does not require support plates or anti-vibration bars. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project: 15-8352: Development and Demonstration of an In-Situ Tritium Scavenger | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,988 | _Researchers will use a graphite moderator to capture and remove tritium from the primary coolant systems of salt- and gas-cooled reactors. The team will develop electrochemical techniques to characterize tritium transport in graphite and liquid fluoride salts (including flibe), demonstrate the in-situ effectiveness of tritium absorption by the fuel elements, and develop a design for a graphite bed tritium filter that can integrate with salt-to-air heat exchangers. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 16-10730: Visualization Tool for Comparing Low-Carbon Energy Options | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a web based visualization tool for comparing current and future nuclear fuel cycle options to other low-carbon and conventional energy technologies in the United States.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10679: Overcoming Kinetic Barriers to Actinide Recovery in ALSEP | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | The ALSEP process for group separations of trivalent actinide/lanthanide ions suffers from slow stripping kinetics. Researchers will perform detailed kinetic studies at different temperatures, supported by spectroscopic and computational studies to establish where the kinetic bottlenecks occur in the ALSEP process. They will then systematically alter the chemistry of the extractants and aqueous ligands to understand how to overcome the kinetic hindrances.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10058: An Integrated Multiscale Experimental-Numerical Analysis on Reconsolidation of Salt-Clay Mixture for Disposal of Heat-Generating Waste | Columbia University in the City of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will improve understanding of the thermal-mechanical-hydrologic-chemical (TMHC) coupling effect on reconsolidated granular (or crushed) salt-clay mixture used for seal systems of shafts and drifts in salt repositories. The project will integrate laboratory experiments and multiscale pore-to-continuum coupling simulations to explore the feasibility of using clay additive and moisture content to enhance performance of crushed salt as a seal material.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10088: Americium Separation By Electrochemical Oxidation | Florida International University | $800,000 | Researchers will separate Am from high-level waste by exploiting the high oxidation states of Am through design, and testing of new materials. This will be accomplished by designing and testing new electrodes, derivatized with surface-stabilized ligands and redox mediators to facilitate oxidation of trivalent Am, and by designing porous sorbent materials functionalized with molecules which selectively coordinate Am(VI) to enable its subsequent separation.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10668: Microstructure Experiments-Enabled MARMOT Simulations of SiC/SiC-Based Accident Tolerant Nuclear Fuel System | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will characterize steam attack, hydrothermal corrosion and radiation swelling of SiC/SiC composites-based accident tolerant fuel (ATF) using a combination of experiments, microstructure evaluation and phase-field simulations using MARMOT. Central to the project is the mapping of the microstructure after steam/hydrothermal/irradiation tests through a unique non-destructive x-ray microscopy technique followed by phase-field simulations of chemical transport in MARMOT.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10221: Alloying Agents to Stabilize Lanthanides Against Fuel Cladding Chemical Interaction: Tellurium and Antimony Studies | Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop alloying agents to stabilize lanthanides against fuel cladding chemical interactions (FCCIs). Based on the available binary phase diagrams for the periodic table, Te and Sb are selected as fuel dopants. The research will focus on Te. The mechanisms of using minor additives to stabilize and immobilize the lanthanide fission products will be investigated. Resulting thermodynamic data obtained by the proposed research will be integrated into MARMOT to enhance its ability to model metallic fuel performance.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10648: Oxidation and Corrosion-Resistant Uranium Silicide Fuels | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | Researchers will develop oxidation/corrosion resistant uranium silicide U3Si2 fuel by chemical doping/fillers to form a continuous borosilicate glass as a protective oxide layer with transformational fuel performance and accident tolerance. The team will use chemical doping/fillers include B or C showing effectiveness in improving high temperature oxidation resistance in transition metal silicides, and boron/silicon-containing compounds that can form a protective borosilicate glass layer.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10229: Mechanistic Understanding of Silver Sorbent Aging Processes in Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $800,000 | This project is focused on understanding the mechanisms of aging processes on silver exchanged mordenite and silver functionalized silica aerogel adsorbents under conditions of long term exposure to off gas streams containing air, I2, H2O, and NOx. The chemical and physical structural changes of the adsorbents under these conditions will be accounted for in equilibrium and kinetic models. Transport models will be developed to predict the performance of engineered off-gas treatment systems.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10394: Integration of Microwave Readout into Nuclear Process Monitoring | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,695 | Researchers will show that gamma-ray spectroscopy based on emerging microcalorimeter sensors can determine elemental and isotopic fractions with accuracy comparable to much slower mass spectrometry and with far better accuracy than germanium sensors. This advance will prevent the diversion of nuclear material by enabling nearly real time process monitoring in large nuclear facilities without loss of measurement accuracy.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10523: A Science Based Approach for Selecting Dopants in FCCI-Resistant Metallic Fuel Systems | University of Idaho | $800,000 | The project aims to use a science-based approach to set guidelines of selecting dopants for developing fuel cladding chemical interaction (FCCI)-resistant metallic fuel systems for fast reactors. Lanthanide fission products migrate to the fuel-cladding gap leading to cladding breaches. The team will perform both theoretical modeling and experiments to arrive at the guidelines that are based on sound science. If successful, this can lead to breakthroughs in minimizing the FCCI effect.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10813: Advanced Electrochemical Separations of Actinide/Fission Products via the Control of Nucleation and Growth of Electrodeposits | University of Idaho | $350,000 | Researchers will use unique capabilities to modulate the electrodeposition of actinides (depleted Uranium) and fission products (Ln) during nucleation and growth stages. The team aims to preclude formation of electrodeposits with dendritic morphology. Morphology of electrodeposits will be controlled by electrolyte composition.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10707: In Situ Spectroscopic Determination of Actinide Speciation and Concentration | University of Nevada, Reno | $369,221 | The research team will address two major issues in the pyroprocess based fuel cycle: low process efficiency and materials accounting for non-proliferation. There are currently no analytical techniques to ascertain the speciation and concentration of the actinides in the electrolyte. This project aims to develop an in-situ analytical method consisting of Raman spectroscopic analysis during electrochemical polarization.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10204: Phase Equilibria and Thermochemistry of Advanced Fuels: Modeling Burnup Behavior | University of South Carolina | $799,946 | Researchers will develop phase equilibria and thermochemical information to model and simulate advanced fuel behavior, including critical phenomena such as the contribution to fuel swelling of dissolved non-noble fission products and secondary phase formation, composite fuel stability, and fuel-clad chemical interactions.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10512: Demand-Driven Cycamore Archetypes | University of South Carolina | $799,956 | Modeling of the nuclear fuel cycle (NFC) is often posed as a set of demands coupled with available technologies. Demands may be singular or multivariate. Additionally, available technologies may have constraints on when they are deployable. This proposal aims to bring demand and deployment decisions into the NFC simulator itself, thereby simulating a more realistic process by which utilities, governments, and other stakeholders actually make facility deployment decisions.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10856: Integrating Data Sources for Improved Safeguards and Accountancy of Electrochemical Fuel Reprocessing Streams | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The SSPM Echem tracks elemental and bulk material flows through batch operations in electrochemical facilities. This project will augment the existing SSPM Echem model with models of DA, NDA, and process monitoring measurements, including appropriate accuracy, noise, and uncertainty characteristics. Diverse measurement and assay results will be fused to improve material accountancy and anomaly detection across the electrochemical process.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10190: Immobilization of High-Level Waste Salt in Dechlorinated Zeolite Waste Forms | University of Utah | $799,315 | The primary objective of the project is the development of a new glass-bonded waste form for the suitable disposal of electrorefiner waste salt. To achieve this goal, the proposed tasks will focus on the 1) dechlorination of the electrorefiner salt and 2) subsequent encapsulation into a sintered waste form. Achieving these goals will result in a compact waste form with higher fission product loading, which is instrumental in economically closing the nuclear fuel cycle.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10240: Molten Salt Reactor Experiment Benchmark Evaluation | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | _The objective of this project is to employ the data archive on the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) and develop a set of high-quality Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) reactor physics benchmarks for inclusion in the IRPhE Handbook that currently does not contain any benchmark set related to MSR technology._ | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10458: Multi-Group Transport Cross Section and Diffusion Coefficient Generation for Deterministic Reactor Models Using Monte Carlo Calculations | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and implement rigorous methods for generating multi-group transport cross section and diffusion coefficients for deterministic reactor models using Monte Carlo calculations. The project will eliminate the numerous approximations that currently contribute to significant mis-prediction of core power distributions when using deterministic core models.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10241: Development of Transient Capabilities for the NEAMS Neutronics Code PROTEUS | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop efficient transient transport methods for the PROTEUS-SN, PROTEUS-MOC and the first-order SN solvers of the NEAMS neutronics code PROTEUS. The team will also perform transient benchmark analyses._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10603: Experimental and Computational Analysis of NEAMS Pebble Bed Reactors | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct a coordinated experimental and computational effort to quantitatively map the full-field 3-D velocity and temperature fields in the interstitial spaces within pebble bed reactor systems. Key outcomes will include advanced correlations to predict flow and thermal transport within the pebble bed over a much wider range operating conditions and reactor types than is currently possible.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10421: Simulation of Fuel Rod Fragmentation, Relocation and Ballooning through Peridynamics in MOOSE Framework | University of Arizona | $675,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology that includes the appropriate governing physical fields within the realm of peridynamics to investigate fuel cracking, fragmentation, relocation, ballooning, pellet-cladding interaction, and cladding rapture and dispersion within the MOOSE framework.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10313: Development of a Comprehensive Two-phase Flow Database for the Validation of NEK-2P | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,817 | _Researchers will develop a comprehensive, high-resolution two-phase flow database by performing experiments in two air-water two-phase flow test facilities and a new heated rod-bundle test facility that will be built under this project. These data will be used to validate the two-phase flow models implemented in the NEK-2P code._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10744: Support for Reactor Operators in Case of Cyber-Security Threats | Ohio State University | $800,000 | This project addresses the need for research informing plant engineers and control room operators faced with cyber-security threats on appropriate responses. The approach taken uses distinguishing features of safety related events versus cyber-security threats; attack modeling, prediction, game theory and PRA knowledge to update operators procedures; and simulation for validation.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cyber Security R&D | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10578: Thermal Hydraulic & Structural Testing and Modeling of Compact Diffusion-Bonded Heat Exchangers for Supercritical CO2 Brayton Cycles | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will utilize both experimental and computational methods to test and model transient behavior of a mock up PCHE, which is a scaled down representation of the sCO2, cycle high temperature recuperator (HTR). In addition, the team will develop a methodology for quantification of the PCHEs production cost. The proposed project will provide valuable experiment data required to develop the Section III, Division 5 and Section VIII evaluation approach for compact heat exchangers.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10579: A Computational-Experimental Study to Simulate Mixing and Thermal Stratification in SFRs | Kansas State University | $799,320 | Researchers will use Thermographic Imaging and Ultrasonic Doppler Velocimetry (UDV) techniques to generate high fidelity thermal stratification and flow field data under various geometric and physical conditions for scaled models of outlet plena in sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs). Data from these experimental studies will be compared with those obtained using 1D codes such as SAS4A/SASSYS-1.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10714: ASME Code Application of the Compact Heat Exchanger for High Temperature Nuclear Service | North Carolina State University | $799,998 | Researchers will develop structural design methodologies for Type 316H stainless steel and Alloy 617 compact heat exchangers (CHX) using elastic-perfectly plastic (EPP) analysis methodology for the assessment of elevated temperature failure modes under sustained and cyclic thermal and pressure loading. The project will develop a technical basis for Section III, Division 5 ASME Code Case for CHX in high temperature nuclear service.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10885: Turbulent MHD Flow Modeling in Annular Linear Induction Pumps with Validation Experiments | North Carolina State University | $564,520 | Researchers seek to advance EMP design efforts for liquid metal reactors by 1.) Improving MHD modeling capability, particularly near the MHD stability criteria, 2.) Advancing simulation accuracy and fidelity in the typical operating range of large electromagnetic pumps for liquid metal cooled reactors, and 3.) Constructing a low barrier EMP test loop for model validation and instruction that can be easily replicated at low cost at other facilities.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10244: Integral System Testing for Prismatic Block Core Design HTGR | Oregon State University | $799,536 | _Researchers will conduct eight new tests be completed at the HTTF investigating a range of gas reactor events including DCC, PCC, and inlet plenum buoyant plume mixing. The data from these tests will be ideal for use in the validation of safety analysis codes used in gas reactor analysis. The data may also provide valuable insight into the validation of CFD codes for gas-reactor applications._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10324: Model Calibration-Based Design Methodologies for Structural Design of Supercritical CO2 Compact Heat Exchangers under Sustained Cyclic Temperature and Pressure Gradients | Oregon State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a design method for rapid structural assessment of diffusion-bonded Hybrid Compact Heat Exchangers, used as secondary heat exchangers in coupling Sodium Fast Reactors (SFRs) with supercritical CO2 (sCO2) Brayton power cycles. The team envisions that the developed method will (1) be usable in creation of an ASME code case for structural assessment of hybrid CHX; and (2) create design tools that ensure CHX code compliance under desired load conditions.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10285: Tribological Damage Mechanisms from Experiments and Validated Simulations of Alloy 800H and Inconel 617 in a Simulated HTGR/VHTR Helium Environment | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a mechanistic understanding of accelerated fretting, wear, and bonding between Alloy 800H and Inconel 617 surfaces. In order to achieve the objectives, a series of tribological experiments will be conducted in helium environments at elevated temperature with controlled concentrations of gaseous specious, attendant microstructure characterization (using electron microscopy, spectroscopy and atom-probe tomography), and validated continuum models.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10245: An Experimental Study of Design and Performance for the Water-Based Reactor Cavity Cooling System | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will extend and enhance the experimental tests using existing water-cooled RCCS facilities. The activity will be conducted in close collaboration with the water-cooled NSTF research team and will produce a unique set of high quality experimental data for support of existing system codes, system codes under development, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10457: Experimentally Validated Computational Modeling of Creep and Creep-Cracking for Nuclear Concrete Structures | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct novel 3D concrete creep tests under controlled environmental conditions to build a 3D constitutive model for concrete typical of existing containment structures. Decades long creep will be extracted via shorter tests (years long). The material model will be used in the Grizzly structural FEM code for simulating the response of real, 3D containment structures to changes in loading. Full-scale, long-term structural tests will enable validation.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10687: Development and Integration of Light Water Reactor (LWR) Materials Corrosion Degradation Codes into Grizzly | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop powerful codes for predicting environmentally-assisted localized corrosion in the primary coolant circuits (PCCs) of Generation II BWRs and PWRs. These codes and resulting models will be embedded into GRIZZLY. This will greatly extend the applicability of GRIZZLY to components in PCCs that are susceptible to pitting corrosion, stress corrosion cracking, and corrosion fatigue and will provide the stress intensity factor solutions for the crack growth rate models._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10083: Earth Abundant High Temperature Materials for Radioisotope Power Conversion System | University of California, Davis | $400,000 | Researchers will develop breakthrough efficiencies in segmented radioisotope thermal generators (RTG) power conversion systems through high temperature materials development. The approach will also reduce reliance on single-purpose supply chains.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10630: Validation of RELAP-7 for Forced Convection and Natural Circulation Reactor Flows | University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign | $799,368 | _Researcher will aid in the development of RELAP-7 through required experimental and computational efforts. The validation of the two-phase modeling capability of RELAP-7 will be accomplished through a series of tasks which include synthesis of existing forced convective data, acquisition of natural circulation data from an existing well-scaled facility, and uncertainty quantification in constitutive modeling._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10402: RELAP-7 Application and Enhancement for FLEX Strategies and ATF Behavior under Extended Loss of AC Power Conditions | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop new thermal hydraulic models that will be implemented into RELAP-7. Simulation studies will be performed for postulated ELAP scenarios in the PB Unit 2 reactor. The overarching goal of the proposed work is to perform a simulation study using RELAP-7, to model BWR ELAP scenarios with various mitigation measures and determine the range of time available for transition to portable FLEX equipment._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10080: Quantifying Properties for a Mechanistic, Predictive Understanding of Aqueous Impact on Ageing of Medium and Low Voltage AC and DC Cabling in Nuclear Power Plants | University of Minnesota, Duluth | $800,000 | _The degradation of medium and low voltage cabling is often associated with aqueous immersion. Electrical and mechanical data will be collected to develop a mechanistic model of the degradation of cabling to dielectric breakdown based on the temperature, oxidation, water conditions, and irradiation dose. The hypothesized model begins with solvent escape paths that expand and advance from the exterior surface toward the current carrying core at a rate dependent on the environment._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10214: Online Monitoring System for Concrete Structures Affected by Alkali-Silica Reaction (ASR) | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an online health monitoring system that integrates active and passive sensor networks and advanced signal processing algorithms to monitor ASR induced degradation in concrete structures. The obtained information will support an ongoing prognostic modeling research for health diagnosis and prognosis of aging concrete structures, in order to support long-term operational and maintenance decision making.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10210: Tribological Behavior of Structural Materials in High Temperature Helium Gas-Cooled Reactor Environments | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will work to understand, quantify, and model the elevated-temperature tribological behavior of alloys 617 and 800H in helium gas in HTGR conditions. Impurities in helium can induce a variety of corrosion mechanisms in structural materials that can profoundly affect tribological behavior. This study will investigate tribological behavior in various impurity concentration regimes and surface treatments to mitigate tribological damage in these environments.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10226: Enhancement of EM Pump Performance Through Modeling and Testing | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,856 | This project is aimed at the improvement of EM pumps for advanced liquid metal cooled reactors specifically the SFR. Initial tests will be conducted in the University of Wisconsin sodium loop on an existing moving magnet pump to help in the development of the models and to look at end effects associated with this pump. Additionally, tests will be conducted at ANL on the CMI ALIP. Ultimately, a small ALIP will be developed to test the principles and models developed to improve commercial scale.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10268: Sodium Cooled Fast Reactor Key Modeling and Analysis for Commercial Deployment | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,076 | This project will look at very low Prandtl number heat transfer from both an experimental and computational approach. Researchers will then establish key models to implement in plant dynamics codes. The team will also evaluate thermal stratification in large volumes making use of novel fiber optic distributed fiber measurements to get CFD quality data. Lastly, the team will evaluate some of the key remaining safety issues associated with the eventual commercialization of the sodium fast reactor.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10647: Experimental and Modeling Investigation of Overcooling Transients that Include Freezing, in Fluoride-Salt Cooled High-Temperature Reactors (FHRs) | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will make recommendations for design features of salt-reactor components that would take advantage of the phenomena characteristic to fluoride salts in order to be resilient to overcooling, and to recover gracefully from over-cooling transients. In support of this task a MOOSE-based computational tool will be developed, capable of modeling liquid-solid phase change, backed by experimental studies with the prototypical (flibe) coolant, and with simulant fluids.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10509: CFD and System Code Benchmark Data for Plenum-to-Plenum Flow Under Natural, Mixed and Forced Circulation Conditions | Utah State University | $800,000 | Researchers will generate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) validation data for forced, mixed, and natural convection through a parallel-path geometry relevant to gas reactor bypass flow. In addition, the team will independently build and validate CFD models based on the experimental results. The team has the experience and existing infrastructure for sharing complete validation datasets.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 17-12628: Effects of Mineral Impurities and Heat on Uranium(VI) Sorption onto Bentonite | California State University, East Bay | $785,714 | Mineral impurities are common in bentonite and clay buffer materials, proposed for many nuclear waste disposal options. Researchers will investigate the effects of calcite impurities on uranium(VI) sorption onto montmorillonite before and after mineral exposure to heat. Based on experimental sorption data and EXAFS analysis we will develop a new surface complexation model to determine under which conditions impurity effects are relevant, and how they can be incorporated in performance assessment models. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12798: Nanostructured Ceramic Membranes for Enhanced Tritium Management | Clemson University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a ceramic membrane technology for tritium separation and recovery to support the nuclear fuel cycle. Low-temperature water adsorption properties of nanoscale structured ceramics, combined with demonstrated hydrogen isotope exchange in their hydrated layers provide a low cost and unique avenue to address tritium management challenges. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12647: Determination of Critical Heat Flux and Leidenfrost Temperature on Candidate Accident Tolerant Fuel Materials | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $799,906 | Researchers will characterize the thermal-hydraulics behavior of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) materials by measuring critical heat flux (CHF) under normal and off-normal light water reactor conditions, and Leidenfrost temperature in post-loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) conditions. This work will yield material-specific models and/or correlations that can be readily implemented in state-of-the-art simulation tools. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13011: Gamma-ray Computed and Emission Tomography for Pool-Side Fuel Characterization | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,317 | Researchers will design, build, test and install a submersible tomography platform for performing pool-side physical, structural, and chemical characterization of irradiated fuel elements for test reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12496: Group Actinide Separation by Crystallization: A Single-Technology Approach to Used Nuclear Fuel Recycle | Texas A&M University | $399,857 | Researchers will explore bulk removal of U, Np, Pu and Am, from used nuclear fuel by studying the mechanisms of removal. A co-crystallization of the hexavalent actinides with U(VI) has already been demonstrated and researchers plan to develop a process based around this approach. Removal of these elements would be advantageous for future nuclear fuel recycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12824: Methods for Process Monitoring to Accurately Detect and Quantify Material Holdup in Advanced Recycle Facilities | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop better modeling methods, detectors, and facility design approaches to enable detection of inadvertent and deliberate hold up of fissile material in reprocessing and other nuclear material bulk handling facilities. The team will integrate results from this research project into a design methodology for future facilities to ensure accurate and reliable process monitoring for sustainable operation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12782: Effects of alpha and gamma radiation on complex and metal loaded solvents for advanced solvent extraction processes | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | This project will investigate the alpha and gamma radiolysis-induced chemical degradation of ligands used for the removal of minor actinides from used nuclear fuel in advanced extraction systems such as ALSEP. Researchers will emphasize organic phase degradation, particularly complex solvents with multiple ligands as well as metal loaded solvents. The project will improve predictive capabilities of extraction processes by elucidating degradation pathways. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12757: Elucidation of Electrochemical Behavior of Technetium, Tellurium, and Iodine in Molten Salt Solutions. | University of Idaho | $796,741 | This project will evaluate the electrochemical speciation behavior of iodide, and telluride in LiCl-KCl eutectic, LiCl, and LiCl + Li2O electrolytes at temperatures relevant to reprocessing conditions. By using rhenium as surrogate for technetium, the electrochemical, and chemical speciation properties of rhenium ions will be investigated in chloride molten salts with the addition of molybdenum and ruthenium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12701: Development and Experimental Benchmark of Computational Models to Predict Cladding Temperature and Vapor Removal from UNF Canisters during Drying Operations | University of Nevada, Reno | $400,000 | Researchers will develop physics-based computational tools to predict used nuclear fuel cladding temperatures within, and water vapor removal rates from, canisters during existing and proposed drying processes. The project will explore a range of gas pressures (including rarefication), and steady and unsteady external gas flows rates. The tools will be used to develop drying processes that minimize drying time while maintaining cladding temperatures. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12688: An Experimental and Analytical Investigation into Critical Heat Flux (CHF) Implications for Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF) Concepts | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a holistic best estimate assessment of the potential impact of different ATF cladding materials with regards to heat transfer characteristics, the boiling curve, critical heat flux, fuel mass/volume/specific power density, and neutronics effects due to changes in the lattice design or parasitic neutron absorption during design basis accident conditions in light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12996: Multipurpose, Radiation- and Temperature-Resistant Semiconductor Radiation Detectors for Advanced Process Monitoring and Nuclear Safeguards | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop detection systems capable of neutron, gamma-ray, x-ray, and alpha monitoring in high-temperature and high radiation environments for extended periods of time. The detectors will be used to strengthen nuclear safeguards by enhancing nuclear material control and accounting in nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13125: The Thermodynamics of Crystallization and Phase-Separation in Melt-Derived Nuclear Waste Forms | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This projects will study the thermodynamics of melt and quench phases of nuclear waste glasses and glass ceramics and link this information to the underlying short-range and medium-range structure. Advanced calorimetric techniques and neutron total scattering with pair distribution function analysis will be applied to obtain these data. Computer simulations will complement the experimental effort. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12886: Identifying, Predicting and Preventing Localized Corrosion in Kr-85 Storage Canisters | University of Virginia | $799,000 | Researchers will determine the root cause of corrosion within Kr-85 storage canisters in order to better understand current corrosion rates. The project will focus on expanding available research on Rb corrosion interactions and other contributing factors to better understand the corrosion phenomenon in current steel canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12463: Extreme Performance High Entropy Alloys (HEAs) Cladding for Fast Reactor Applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will develop extreme performance high entropy alloys (HEAs) as for new metal alloy cladding for fast reactor applications. Two very promising, single solution BCC HEAs will be investigated. The project will deliver an extensive irradiation resistance study of a new promising yet unexplored cladding concept. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12549: Critical Heat Flux Studies for Innovative Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding Surfaces | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will study critical heat flux (CHF) behavior focused on innovative accident tolerant fuel (ATF) cladding. The project includes separate effects screening tests to measure CHF for various ATF clad materials and surface characteristics with measurements of surface wettability. Pressurized flow boiling experiments will simulate prototypical reactor conditions for evaluating the best ATF clad materials coupled with CHF modeling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13019: Evaluation of Accident Tolerant Fuels Surface Characteristics in Critical Heat Flux Performance | Virginia Commonwealth University | $800,000 | Researchers will perform separate-effects and system-wide tests of the AREVA and GE accident tolerant fuel concepts currently under consideration. The project will investigate the impact of cladding surface characteristics in critical heat flux (CHF) under normal and anticipated off-normal conditions. The experimental results will be used to develop and validate enhanced models for the prediction of CHF and will be implemented in various subchannel and system analysis codes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13054: Simulated Used Nuclear Fuel Dissolution as a Function of Fuel Chemistry and Near Field Conditions | Washington State University | $800,000 | Researchers will study the effects of simulated used nuclear fuel (UNF) chemistry and microstructure on its dissolution in geologic repository conditions. The results will advance models for UNF evolution in repository conditions, enabling reliable prediction of degradation and long-term performance of used nuclear fuel for up to one million years. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12506: Development of Reactor Physics Benchmark Evaluations for Power Burst Facility Experiments | University of Florida | $398,265 | Researchers will perform reactor physics benchmark evaluations of Power Burst Facility experiments regarding differential reactivity worth of the control and transient rods, shim rod worth, in-pile-tube reactivity worth, shutdown reactivity, fuel assembly reactivity worth, core void coefficients of reactivity, in-pile-tube void coefficient, and coolant temperature coefficient of reactivity. The results will be incorporated in the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP). | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12748: Combined modeling and experiments to predict corrosion and embrittlement in dual-phase stainless steels within the MARMOT framework | Oregon State University | $800,000 | Researchers will enhance MARMOT to predict mechanical and corrosion properties of dual-phase stainless steels as a function of composition, aging time and temperature by using combined experimental data and lower length scale models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12797: In-Situ Ion Irradiation to Add Irradiation Assisted Grain Growth to the MARMOT Tool | Pennsylvania State University | $500,000 | Researchers will add the capability to model irradiation assisted grain growth to the MARMOT tool by using in-situ ion irradiation of UO2 to quantify the effect of irradiation on grain growth. The team will investigate the hypothesis that irradiation assisted grain growth is caused by thermal spikes resulting from atom collisions. The model added to MARMOT will couple the existing grain growth model to a heat conduction simulation using a stochastic heat source describing the thermal spike. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12555: Integration of high-fidelity Monte Carlo and deterministic transport codes into Workbench | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | Researchers will provide end users an ability to run both MCNP6 and PROTEUS codes from a common user input in Workbench by (1) templating user-provided engineering scale specifications to code-specific input requirements, (2) enabling multi-fidelity analysis of a system from a common input using MCNP6 and PROTEUS and (3) allowing the easy use of high-fidelity simulations to inform lower-order models for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems and experiments. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12939: Expansion of BISON Capabilities to Predict the Dynamic Response of Irradiated Fuel Rods | University of New Hampshire | $800,000 | Researchers will expand the capabilities of BISON and MOOSE to simulate the structural dynamic response of fuel rods and fuel assemblies during handling (wet and dry storage) and transportation. Expanding the capabilities of BISON and MOOSE to facilitate the evaluation of the dynamic response of fuel rods and assemblies is important to conduct a more reliable risk assessment of fuel assemblies, as well as storage and transportation casks. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13179: Implementation and Validation of Advanced Turbulence Modeling Methods for Liquid Metal Flow in Nek5000 | University of Oklahoma | $786,648 | Researchers will implement and validate state-of-the-art turbulence modeling techniques in Nek5000 to improve predition of liquid metal flows. Specific methods to be investigated include: variable PrT and algebraic heat flux models (AHFM) for URANS simulation; partially-averaged Navier-Stokes (PANS) and dynamic hybrid RANS-LES (DHRL) for hybrid RANS-LES simulation; and variable PrT subgrid heat flux modeling for LES. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12848: Development of Information Trustworthiness and Integrity Algorithms for Cybersecurity Defenses of Nuclear Power Reactors | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a first-of-a-kind physics-based defense-in-depth strategy to defend against false data injection attacks which attempt to change the information used by the I/C network to set reactor state. The approach employs a new design philosophy to check for information trustworthiness/integrity in order to determine whether the information is genuinely generated during the actual operation of the nuclear unit under either normal or off-normal conditions. | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cybersecurity | |
| NEUP Project 17-12538: Influence of dissolved salts and impurities in seawater on heat transfer degradation and fluid flow through fuel channels debris bed | Kansas State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate the role of raw water on degraded heat transfer and fluid flow in the reactor core and debris bed. X-ray imaging techniques, optical-fiber high speed temperature sensing systems and radioactive tracer salts will be used to simultaneously measure experimental data on void fraction, temperature and salt deposition rate. This data will be used to obtain correlations for heat transfer and fluid flow in case of raw water injection. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12502: High Resolution Temperature and Flow Measurements in Wire-Wrapped Fuel Assemblies | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will produce high-quality, high spatial and temporal resolution temperature and flow datasets for wire-wrapped rod bundle geometries. Different bundle sizes, configurations (including duct's and pin's deformation) and Low-Prandlt fluids will be investigated. A unique set of data will be produced to support advanced CFD tools validation, including Nek5000. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12723: Integrating Static PRA Information with RISMC Simulation Methods | The Ohio State University | $799,985 | Researchers will develop a computationally feasible and user friendly process to augment the traditional probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) results with improved representation of epistemic uncertainties and process/hardware/software/human interactions at plant level applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12664: Methods to Predict Thermal Radiation and to Design Scaled Separate and Integral Effects Testing For Molten Salt Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology for the design of molten salt reactor (MSR) Separate Effect Test and Integral Effect Test experiments. This methodology will identify and quantify sources of scaling distortion including radiative heat transport. The project would improve code performance and assist FHR/MSR vendors who are making licensing applications based on code results. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12523: Experimental and Computational Studies of Stress Corrosion Cracking of Alloys 308/309 and 82/182 Weldments in Corrosive and Radiation Environment | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will use advanced microanalytical analysis techniques to study SCC and IASCC of stainless steel and Ni-Cr alloy weldments. CERT, autoclave immersion, and ion irradiation will be used to determine synergistic effect of LWR environmental factors. Results from the experimental component of the proposed work scope will be used for enhanced predictive capability of the INL Grizzly code via XFEM. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12614: Systematic Enterprise Risk Management by Integrating the RISMC Toolkit and Cost-Benefit Analysis | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $799,998 | Researchers will develop a systematic Enterprise Risk Management framework, which utilizes Decision Tree (DT) logic to consider high-level production-loss scenarios, and their underlying physical and social causes throughout the lifecycle. In the proposed DT, uncertainty nodes will be quantified by plant-specific risk analysis using the Risk-Informed Safety Margin Characterization (RISMC) Toolkit, and cost-benefit analysis will be conducted for end states reflecting consequences of managerial decision-making. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12972: Design of a Commercial-Scale, Fluoride-Salt-Cooled, High-Temperature Reactor With Novel Refueling and Decay Heat Removal Capabilities | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $400,000 | Researchers will combine fluoride-salt-cooled, high temperature reactors (FHR) with advanced gas reactor (AGR) refueling technology to address several significant challenges that remain in the development of FHR technology. The project will adapt AGR refueling technology by using the new fuel-inside-radial-moderator fuel form, which will also introduce new ways of dealing with decay heat. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13115: Experimental Determination of Helium/air Mixing in Helium Cooled Reactor | University of Michigan | $800,000 | Researchers will examine the effects of coolant leakage and air ingress through three different investigations. The overall objective of this work is to characterize near and far field behavior of Helium/Air mixing in containment, and to determine rates and amounts of air leaked back into the reactor after a depressurization event. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12830: Radioisotope Retention in Graphite and Graphitic Materials | University of Missouri, Columbia | $800,000 | Researchers will use a variety of experimental techniques to acquire data for fission product diffusion, transport and adsorption of fission products in various graphites, relating to nuclear reactors at high temperatures. Measurements will be taken using non-irradiated graphite using fission product surrogates. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13020: Bimetallic Composite (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) Development and Compatibility in Flowing FLiBe as a Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) Structural Material | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a new bimetallic alloy (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) structural material for the MSR, and compare its post-exposure mechanical performance in flowing FLiBe with single alloys SS 316, Hastelloy N, and Incoloy 800H, in the context of ASME codification. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12678: Novel NDE Sensors, Waveforms, Models, and Algorithms for Cable Health Monitoring | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop NDE sensors and probabilistic cable insulation diagnosis and prognosis algorithms (particle filtering), and modeling and experiments to monitor cable insulation health. Two different types of sensor will be deployed to detect insulation damage. The team will also develop cable insulation degradation modeling to further understand defects in cable insulation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13080: Multiscale Investigation of SiC/SiC Composite Degradation in Helium Coolant Operating Environment | University of Virginia | $800,000 | Researchers will study the long-term degradation mechanisms of SiC/SiC composites in helium coolant environments by slow crack growth (SCG). This will be achieved through multiscale testing in hot, O2-contaminated He and evaluation of the effect of SCG on hermeticity during in situ testing. Results will be extended to predictive low-level and component-scale SCG models and integrated into the development of ASME standards for use of SiC/SiC in nuclear reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12481: Supercritical CO2 power cycle for space applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will develop an advanced supercritical Brayton power cycle directly coupled to a fission reactor. The project will carry out a comprehensive optimization of the cycle operating conditions, working fluid, and configuration; develop detailed designs of each subcomponent; and demonstrate/develop critical technologies such as turbomachinery seals and bearings, reactor material corrosion and strength demonstrations, and supercritical heat transfer. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13232: Radiative Heat Transport and Optical Characterization of High Temperature Molten Salts | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | The goal of the proposed research is to experimentally investigate radiation heat transport in molten salts, and to add functionality for radiative heat transport in a thermal-hydraulics system code. This includes obtaining highly resolved measurements of the optical absorption and emissivity of liquid salts. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 18-15345: Multiphysics Degradation Processes, and Their Mitigation, in Engineered and Geological Bariers: Experiments and Simulation | Duke University | $800,000.00 | This project will focus on filling the gaps in understanding of mechanisms of a series of degradation processes (thermal, hydric, geo-chemical, and transport processes phenomena) potentially affecting geo-materials used in repositories. The objectives of the work are to better recognize the conditions leading to preferential paths of radionuclide transport and rock weakening, and to build mathematical models and implement them into existing codes to predict material degradation and develop strategies to reduce the adverse consequences. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15043: Integration of Nuclear Material Accounting Data and Process Monitoring Data for Improvement on Detection Probability in Safeguarding Electrochemical Processing Facilities | Oregon State University | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to further studies on fusion of process monitoring (PM) data and nuclear material accounting (NMA) data. PM data, which includes monitoring by various types of equipment (radiation detectors, cameras, voltage, current sensors), can supplement NMA data to help improve safeguards. For aqueous-based reprocessing facilities, it is reported that PM, integrated with traditional NMA, has a high-detection probability for specific diversions. For electrochemical reprocessing, preliminary studies have shown that PM data can support traditional NMA by providing a basis to estimate some of the in-processing nuclear material inventories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15148: Recovery of Rare-Earth Elements (Nd, Gd, Sm) in Oxide Wasteform Using Liquid Metals (Bi, Sn) | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000.00 | This project investigates a new approach for recovering rare-earth (RE) fission products (Nd, Gd, and Sm) from molten chlorine salts using liquid metal (Bi and Sn) electrodes. The research aids molten salt recycling by converting the RE products into chloride-free RE oxides, which could be incorporated into conventional glass/ceramic waste forms. Successful outcomes of the project include advanced separation of fission products from molten salts with better control of chemical selectivity and high-recovery yield. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15103: Microstructure-Based Benchmarking for Nano/Microscale Tension and Ductility Testing of Irradiated Steels | Purdue University | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to standardize methods for nano/micro-scale tensile and ductility testing of irradiated Fe-Cr steels, through microstructure-based benchmarking. The study will investigate key process parameters for TEM in situ tension and ductility testing. Coupling experimental studies with multiscale models, the research will identify the approaches that provide consistent deformation mechanisms between the nano/micro-scale and macro-scale tests, from which standard practices will be obtained. The primary project outcome will be a set of recommended guidelines for nano/microscale mechanical testing, which will lead to unprecedented reductions in the time and cost for qualifying materials for in-reactor service and to ensure consistency of methods and validity of results. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15559: Cold Spray Repair & Mitigation of Stress Corrosion Cracks in Spent Nuclear Fuel Dry Storage Canisters | Purdue University | $799,982.00 | This goal of this project is to demonstrate cold spray repair and mitigation of chloride-induced stress corrosion cracks (SCC) and pits in stainless steel dry storage canisters. The research will optimize the repair process and gain a scientifically informed understanding of SCC mechanisms. The outcome is to further develop cold spray as an attractive solution for the repair of existing SCC and mitigation of potential SCC necessary to ensure long-term integrity, security, and regulatory compliance of spent nuclear fuel storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15596: Capture of Organic Iodides from Vessel Off-Gas Streams | Syracuse University | $799,548.00 | This project will study the capture of radioactive organoiodides from off-gas streams produced during nuclear fuel reprocessing by conducting adsorption experiments using a selected silver adsorbents. Multifaceted simulation adsorption models will be developed to assist in the design of necessary capture systems for off-gas streams. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15585: Impact of Coupled Gas Migration and Thermo-hydro-mechanical Processes on the Performance of Repositories for High Level Nuclear Waste | Texas A&M University | $608,375.00 | The main goal of this project is to better understand the possible effect of gas migration (particularly through discontinuities) on the performance and long-term behavior of engineered barrier systems (EBS) envisaged for the isolation of high-level radioactive waste (HLW). Specific outcomes of this study will be an improved understanding of the role of gas migration and discontinuities in the performance of HLW disposals, with the underlying aim to improve design of EBS used for HLW. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15531: Repair and Mitigation of Chloride-Induced Pitting and Chloride-Induced Stress Corrosion Cracking in Used Nuclear Fuel Dry Cask Canister Materials | The Ohio State University | $800,000.00 | This project will evaluate and develop a set of tools to repair and mitigate chloride-induced pitting and stress corrosion cracking in stainless steel nuclear fuel canisters. Advanced processes, including low temperature friction stir welding and cold spray deposition, will be evaluated according to various criteria, such as corrosion performance. In addition, technologies that have not yet been evaluated for UNF applications, including vaporizing foil actuator welding and soldering will be assessed. The two most promising technologies will selected for further development and comprehensive study. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14912: Bridging the Length Scales on Mechanical Property Evaluation | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000.00 | This project combines experimental and modeling methods to gain a comprehensive approach for addressing scaling effects on small-scale mechanical testing. Multiscale experiments, together with modeling on reactor-relevant and model alloys, will provide better understanding of appropriate scaling relationships. The study aims to gain fundamental understanding of plasticity interactions with specific strength-determining features, such as precipitates and grain boundaries. The goal of this work is to provide the basis to add small-scale mechanical testing in the toolbox for nuclear materials research. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14911: Understanding of degradation of SiC/SiC materials in nuclear systems and development of mitigation strategies | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000.00 | This project investigates the best possible coatings to prevent SiCf/SiCm corrosion in LWR environments. The research features a computational and experimental rapid screening approach for numerous coating compositions. The work includes autoclave exposure of rapid screening coupons in prototypical environments in combination with thermodynamic modeling (CALPHAD) and Finite Element Methods (FEM). Small-scale mechanical testing, together with thermal cycling and FEM modeling, will provide guidance on the ideal coating system design. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15701: Time-dependent THMC Properties and Microstructural Evolution of Damage Rocks in Excavation Damage Zone | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,978.00 | The proposed project focuses on the geomechanical aspects of modeling by addressing the time-dependent evolution of rock microstructure and its coupling with the THC processes that are of first-order importance to the stability and the isolation performance of repositories. The research will delineate an integrated experimental, theoretical and numerical strategy in assessing the evolution EDZ over time and its implication on the long-term migration of hazardous species. These results will enhance the confidence of the predicted long-term performance of repositories, which helps to move forward the goal of one-million-year isolation of high-level nuclear wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15381: Multiaxial Failure Envelopes and Uncertainty Quantification of Nuclear-Grade SiCf/SiC Woven Ceramic Matrix Tubular Composites | University of Florida | $800,000.00 | This project proposes to develop a comprehensive experimental and computational approach for determining constitutive relations and multiaxial failure envelopes of nuclear-grade continuous silicon fiber (SiCf) and SiC matrix woven tubular composites. The result of this work can be adopted in industry for design refinement, optimization of performance under the desired operating conditions, and reliable prediction of failure under unforeseen accidental scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15496: Formation of Zeolites Responsible for Waste Glass Rate Acceleration: An Experimental and Computational Study for Understanding Thermodynamic and Kinetic Processes | University of Houston | $800,000.00 | Through experimental and computational studies, this project will expose the factors governing zeolite crystallization and their role in Stage III dissolution of radionuclide-containing glass waste forms generated in advanced nuclear fuel cycles. The overall goal of this project is to understand the formation of zeolite phases in order to develop process control methods to suppress Stage III dissolution. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14998: Novel Processes for Capture of Radioactive Iodine Species from Vessel Off-Gas Streams | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the sorption system performance and effectiveness for capture of radioiodine species present in the off-gas streams from the used nuclear fuel (UNF) recycling operations, focusing particularly on the organic iodine species. The dynamic sorption experimentation and theoretical modeling will offer fundamental insights on the mechanism enabling the design and prediction the control system performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15261: Friction Stir Based Repair Welding of Dry Storage Canisters and Mitigation Strategies: Effect of Engineered Barrier Layer on Environmental Degradation | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The project goal is to apply friction stir based repair and mitigation technique for eliminating failure associated with pitting and stress corrosion cracking in dry storage canisters for spent fuels. The goal of these activities is to obtain a fundamental understanding of the processing-structure-properties correlations. This work will contribute to the development of a crack repair/mitigation strategy based on friction stir technology that can be efficiently implemented for spent fuel dry storage casks, which will enhance safety and reliability of these systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15263: X-ray Studies of Interfacial Molecular Complexes in ALSEP Back-Extraction | University of Illinois at Chicago | $800,000.00 | This project will use synchrotron X-rays to characterize the interfacial molecular complexes (of extractants and radiologically derived impurities, complexants, buffers, and metal ions) formed during the Actinide-Lanthanide Separation Process (ALSEP) back-extraction. This work addresses the critical knowledge gap of slow stripping kinetics in ALSEP, as well as the influence of radiolytic degradation products. The outcome of the project will be a molecular-level understanding of the role of different components in the interfacial mechanism of back-extraction in the ALSEP process, therefore leading to development of more efficient and faster metal stripping relevant to the separation of actinides from lanthanides in the nuclear fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15030: Mechanistic Understanding of Radiolytically Assisted Hydrothermal Corrosion of SiC in LWR Coolant Environments | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to develop a mechanistic understanding of the hydrothermal corrosion behavior of monolithic SiC and SiC/SiC composites in LWR environment under the influence of water radiolysis products and radiation damage. Complementary atomistic simulations will be carried out to determine the rate controlling mechanisms for dissolution under different water chemistries and in the presence of radiation. Activation energies and kinetic rates will be calculated directly from these simulations and compared to experimentally fitted values. The dissolution rate constants determined and validated in this integrated experimental and modeling approach will allow predictions of long-term SiC corrosion behavior. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14999: Probabilistic Failure Criterion of SiC/SiC Composites Under Multi-Axial Loading | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $800,000.00 | This project aims to develop a probabilistic failure criterion of SiC/SiC composites under multi-axial loading and to incorporate the criterion into a reliability analysis of the structural integrity of LWR SiC/SiC fuel cladding. This research will be anchored by a seamless integration of novel experimental and analytical tools, which will lead to a robust methodology for dependable analysis of SiC/SiC composite structures for LWR fuel cladding, as well as other nuclear applications. The resulting model will be experimentally validated and applied to analyze the reliability of LWR SiC/SiC fuel cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15502: Reducing Uncertainty in Radionuclide Transport Prediction Using Multiple Environmental Tracers | University of Montana | $724,906.00 | In this project, direct modeling of multiple environmental tracers will be used to improve predictions of radionuclide transport in a shallow alluvial aquifer discharge. The research will take advantage of recent theoretical developments considering the use of environmental tracers, and advances in high-performance reactive flow and transport models, to obtain the maximum information on the transport system. The goal is to develop a new methodology to characterize natural reactive flow and transport systems, reduce predictive uncertainty in radionuclide transport simulations, determine the maximum information content of the tracer suite, and optimize future groundwater characterization efforts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15578: Computational and Experimental Investigation of Thermal-Mechanical- Chemical Mechanisms of High-burnup Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) Processes at Elevated Temperatures and Degradation Behavior in Geologic Repositories | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $800,000.00 | The overarching goal of this project is to use combined computational and experimental research and development activities to enhance understanding of the mechanisms and thermal-mechanical-chemical (TMC) parameters controlling the instant release fraction (IRF) and matrix dissolution of high-burnup (HB; burnup > 45 GWd/MTU) spent nuclear fuels (SNFs) and the subsequent formation, stability, and phase transformations of HB SNF alteration products under long-term storage and geological disposal conditions (e.g., high-temperature storage, _-radiolysis). The results of this research will be used to enhance the mechanistic detail of process models to reduce uncertainty in, and improve the technical bases of, safety cases and performance assessment analyses. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15439: Radiolytic Dissolution Rate of Silicon Carbide | University of Notre Dame | $400,000.00 | This project seeks to develop a matrix of dissolution rates for high-purity SiC material, using intense electron beam irradiation, and to measure the products of dissolution (silicic acid and CO2 (or CO)) in the water downstream of the irradiation zone. The objective is to determine the rate of SiC dissolution and gather sufficient insight about its mechanism in LWRs, so that the use of SiC/SiC composite materials for accident tolerant fuel cladding can proceed with confidence. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15061: Development of an MC&A Toolbox for Liquid-fueled Molten Salt Reactors with Online Reprocessing | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,207.00 | The purpose of this project is to develop a toolbox of swappable mass flow modules for liquid-fueled molten salt reactor (MSR) systems for the purposes of evaluating material control & accountancy measurement techniques. When combined together, these modules enable modeling of the time-dependent mass flows for a variety of MSR variants. The test platform will consist of a toolbox of independent process modules representing discrete physical units, each with its own self-contained physics responsive to the input mass flow, along with appropriate measurement models that can be coupled to key flow points. These dynamic physical signatures would allow testing of the viability and efficacy of potential accountancy techniques under the full range of reactor operating conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15307: A Novel and Flexible Approach for Converting LWR UNF Fuel Into Forms That Can Be Used to Fuel a Variety of Gen-IV Reactors | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $400,000.00 | This project will investigate the chemical decladding and the digestion of whole MOX-based fuel rods, using thionyl chloride and surrogate materials. Digesting entire LWR fuel assemblies results in product streams that include pure decontaminated ZrCl4; pure UCl4; and a stream containing TRU/FPs, as well as alloying metals (as chloride salts). The objectives of this project are to provide a new, highly efficient protocol for the transformation of used nuclear fuel into useful components and to effectively contain a concentrated stream of highly radioactive materials for appropriate handling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15459: Reduced Diffusion and Enhanced Retention of Multiple Radionuclides from Pore Structure Studies of Barrier Materials for Enhanced Repository Performance | University of Texas at Arlington | $567,831.00 | The project seeks to better understand and quantify the pore structure (geometry and topology) and pore connectivity of porous media and its emergent effect on diffusion and retention of various radionuclides in barrier materials. The anticipated outcome of the project will be to more accurately evaluate the performance of geological repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15649: Benchmarking Microscale Ductility Measurements | University of Utah | $776,669.00 | The objectives of this project are to establish best practices for obtaining tensile microscale ductility measurements and to validate methodologies for comparing them to macroscale ductility measurements. Anticipated outcomes of the project are: 1) measurement of grain and sub-grain localization processes micro and macroscales; 2) establishment of best practices for microtensile experimentation; 3) identification of statistically significant relationships between specimen geometry, microstructure variables and mechanical behavior; 4) modified phenomenological elongation-based ductility models to enable direct upscaling of ductility measurements from microscale to macroscopic. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15003: Advanced Coating and Surface Modification Technologies for SiC-SiC Composite for Hydrothermal Corrosion Protection in LWR | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,990.00 | This project focuses on the development of coatings and surface modification approaches for hydrothermal corrosion protection of SiC-SiC composite in normal LWR operation environments. Innovative surface treatment recipes will be explored using processes including, interfacial stitching to improve adhesion, multi-layered structures to improve ductility, and compositions and structures resulting from thermal treatments. The surface treatment concepts involve corrosion resistant metallic and ceramic materials, and are amenable to industrial scalability for the cladding application. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15332: Low-Force Solid-State Technologies for Mitigation of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dry Storage Canisters | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000.00 | This project will focus on evaluating and developing two technologies used for field mitigation and repair of stress corrosion cracking (SCC): 1) additive friction stir welding; and 2) cold spray deposition. The work involves developing low-force, low-heat input solid state technologies to lessen and repair SCC in stainless steel canisters for used nuclear fuel (UNF). This outcome of the study will inform feasibility of using the two technologies to conduct on-site field repairs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14913: The Role of Temperature on Non-Darcian Flows in Engineered Clay Barriers | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000.00 | This project intends to accomplish three tasks: 1) to develop a predictive model to facilitate experimental data interpretation and provide mechanistic insights into the role of temperature on non-Darcian flows in low-permeability engineered clay barriers; 2) conduct experiments to unravel the role of temperature on the threshold gradient of non-Darcian flow in both saturated and unsaturated bentonite; and 3) use molecular dynamics (MD) simulation to improve fundamental understanding. The experimental data, associated with the MD simulation, will provide valuable information to improve fundamental understanding and scientific knowledge with respect to the temperature dependence of threshold gradient in non-Darcian flows, because very limited experimental data for saturated flow and no experimental data for unsaturated flow are available. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14815: C-SiOC-SiC Coated Particle Fuels for Advanced Nuclear Reactors | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $400,000.00 | This project will study a new concept for nuclear fuel encapsulation using an amorphous SiOC plus carbon system as the inner coating and nanocrystalline SiC plus minor carbon as the outer coating for nuclear fuel kernel particles. The outcomes of this work are: 1) new directions and possible replacement guidance for current nuclear fuel materials in operation; 2) new fuel materials for future nuclear reactor material design and development; 3) nuclear composite microstructure evolution and performance degradation understanding; 4) screening tools to guide future nuclear fuel material activities; and 5) mechanisms of nuclear fuel material evolution and degradation and effective strategies to mitigate/reduce undesirable fuel behaviors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15226: An Evaluated, Transient Experiment based on Simultaneous, 3-D Neutron-Flux and Temperature Measurements | Kansas State University | $399,972.00 | This project will evaluate existing and near-term experimental data for inclusion in the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) handbook. The data to be evaluated include compositions from a recent fuel replacement as part of an LEU conversion, a number of critical, fresh-fuel configurations, fuel temperature measurements at fresh-fuel configurations, and records from nearly a decade of operation. The proposed work would lead to a first-of-a-kind evaluation of transient, spatially-dependent reaction rates. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project CFA-18-15773: Evaluation of the Thermal Scattering Law for Advanced Reactor Neutron Moderators and Reflectors | North Carolina State University | $398,821.00 | The objective of this project is to narrow the nuclear data gap for advanced nuclear reactors that are driven by thermal neutrons. This includes concepts such as gas-cooled high-temperature reactors and molten salt or salt-cooled high temperature reactors. The generated data TSL libraries will be provided in EDNF File 7 format to the National Nuclear Data Center (NDDC) to immediately include in beta releases of the ENDF/B libraries and to consider for the future release of ENDF/B-VIII.1. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15602: Modeling and Experimental Verification of Thermal Energy Storage Systems to Enable Load Following Capability for Nuclear Reactors | University of Idaho | $761,640.00 | This project purposes to integrate new thermal energy storage (TES) models, developed in Modelica, with ongoing nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (NRHES) modeling efforts, in order to evaluate economic potential and advantages of new process designs over baseload electricity production. The computational phase of this project includes developing mathematical and physics-based TES models, which could later be translated to Modelica and integrated with existing NRHES components. The testing and optimization would be conducted using RAVEN. A techno-economic analysis will be performed to evaluate the compatibility of the newly formed integration, as well as to quantify its feasibility and economic benefits. The experimental aspect is focused on the development of scaled TES systems, which serve as verification for the Modelica models and allow system testing upon being integrated with DETAIL. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14963: Development of Nuclear Hybrid Energy Systems: Temperature Amplification through Chemical Heat Pumps for Industrial Applications | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The overall goal of this project is to develop and demonstrate, through modeling and experimental investigations, temperature amplification capabilities of a chemical heat pump (CHP) system that can be coupled to a conventional light water reactor or a near-term small modular reactor. The outcomes would include nuclear hybrid energy system architecture containing a CHP, experimental data on the CHP performance, and dynamic model of the system, validated through experimentation, which could be used for scale-up and design. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15008: Development of Thermal Inelastic Scattering Covariance Data Capabilities with Demonstration of Light Water Evaluation | University of Michigan | $400,000.00 | The goal of this project is to produce a format for covariance data for inelastic thermal neutron scattering data for moderators in the ENDF format. To demonstrate the viability of this new format, an evaluation of the covariance data for thermal scattering in light water in this format will be produced, along with the capabilities to generate the files and test their efficacy. A capability for calculating sensitivity coefficients using multigroup methods to the fundamental physics parameters governing light-water scattering will be developed to facilitate identifying nuclear data needs related to thermal scattering. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15056: Model-Based Diagnostics and Mitigation of Cyber Threats | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | This project intends to develop a toolkit for modeling digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems for nuclear power plants so that the consequences of cyber-attacks on I&C systems may conveniently be modeled using nuclear plant simulation software. The results of the toolkit-based models, the corresponding responses, and the performance of the diagnostic schemes will be tested on a virtual control room driven by a plant simulator. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15055: NICSim: Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Simulation for Evaluating Response to Cyber-attacks | University of New Mexico | $799,945.00 | The objective of the project is to develop a Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Simulation (NICSim) platform with a novel emulytics capability to simulate control systems and components in nuclear power plants. The outcome of this work would be a first-in-class emulytics platform with an associated documentation and library of physical models of components that could be used by analysts and designers to assess the resilience and cybersecurity risks of different control system designs for a wide range of power plants. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15324: Validation of Pressure Relaxation Coefficient in RELAP-7 Seven-Equation Model | George Washington University | $800,000.00 | This project aims to validate the Seven-Equation model in RELAP-7 by: 1) measuring velocity and pressure in each phase and the interface as well as return to equilibrium in fast transients with high-speed non-intrusive laser diagnostics in canonical experiments; 2) complementing experimental data with a multiscale computational approach, including a 3D proprietary direct numerical solver; and 3) validating RELAP-7 with a combination of experimental data and first-principle simulations. This combination would provide unique and complete datasets to validate RELAP-7 with high confidence and offer a new class of experimental and numerical tools. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project CFA-18-15104: Demonstration of Utilization of High-fidelity NEAMS Tools to Inform the Improved Use of Conventional Tools within the NEAMS Workbench on the NEA/OECD C5G7-TD Benchmark | North Carolina State University | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to demonstrate the utilization of high-fidelity Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) tools (PROTEUS, Nek5000, and BISON) to inform the improved use of conventional tools (DIF-3D, CTF, and CTFFuel) within the NEAMS Workbench on the NEA/OECD C5G7-TD benchmark. This would result in more accurate predictions of safety parameters and margins, which is important for both safety and performance improvements of the nuclear power plants being currently operated and built. The developed Workbench-based framework will also assist end users to apply high-fidelity simulations to inform lower-order models for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14741: Demonstration of a Methodology for Direct Validation of MARMOT Irradiation-Induced Microstructural Evolution and Physical Property Models Using U-10Zr | Texas A&M University | $500,000.00 | The objective of this project is to demonstrate, for the first time, a methodology that enables the direct validation of microstructural evolution models for fuel in MARMOT, and the direct correlation of changes in physical properties with specific irradiation-induced microstructural features. Properly implementing this methodology will result in rapid development of MARMOT mesoscale models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15520: Accurate and Efficient Parametric Model-Order Reduction for Turbulent Thermal Transport | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000.00 | The project objective is to develop reduced-order models (ROMs) that will improve accuracy of LMR system-level analysis with low overhead. These new models will systematically mine high-fidelity DNS, LES, or uRANS simulations to construct low-order dynamical systems that can couple with a systems analysis code, such as the SAM code being developed under NEAMS. These simulations provide useful data and will be made available to the scientific community, and the overall effort will contribute to more efficient LMR conceptual design studies and licensing. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15484: A Novel High Fidelity Continuous-energy tTansport Tool for Efficient FHR Transient Calculations | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000.00 | The objective of the project is to develop a high-fidelity continuous energy (CE) transport tool for efficient transient calculations in fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactors with prismatic core/fuel assembly design. This will be accomplished by extending the high-fidelity 3-D continuous energy coarse mesh radiation transport (COMET) code with formidable computational speed to solve transient problems in FHRs with accurate thermal hydraulic feedback. The new capability would enable plant system codes to perform analyses necessary to address complex technical design, regulatory, reactor safety, and economic hurdles prior to construction. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15093: Determination of Molecular Structure and Dynamics of Molten Salts by Advanced Neutron and X-ray Scattering Measurements and Computer Modeling | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000.00 | This project will seek detailed knowledge about molecular structure and dynamics of molten salts to inform the design of new molten-salt reactors. A combination of advanced neutron and x-ray scattering and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations will be used to model the ionic-cluster structure of the fluid and solubility of impurities. Machine learning will be applied to regress from simulations and experiments in order to develop the model and predict chemical potentials as a function of composition and temperature. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15171: Oxidation Behavior of Silicon Carbide and Graphitic Materials | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000.00 | The objectives of this project are to determine the oxidation behavior of silicon carbide and graphitic materials in oxygen and/or moisture, to accurately measure the kinetic parameters of oxidation, to ascertain the oxidation mechanisms in relation to the microstructures, to determine the effect of irradiation on oxidation behavior, and to provide data and input to the safety analysis of high-temperature gas reactors under air and moisture ingress accident conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15276: Coping Time and Cost Analysis of Accident Tolerant Plant Design based on Dynamic PRA Methodology | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000.00 | This project will evaluate the failure modes of accident tolerant fuel ATF candidates to understand the different failure characteristics. The research aims to obtain a response surface of coping time by investigating the various uncertainties of accident mitigation in PWR and BWR reactors. These outputs will aid the decision making process on the implementation of ATF and FLEX to existing LWR plants from the perspective of risk reduction and economic feasibility. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15270: Innovative Use of Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) with the RCIC System to Enhance Passive Safety of Commercial LWRs | Texas A&M University | $748,000.00 | The overarching objectives of this project are to: 1) demonstrate new operational strategies with the combined use of Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) and the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) System to increase the passive safety capabilities of current Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs) in delaying or preventing core damage; and 2) pursue the delay of containment venting until after a 72-hour coping period through new BWR Suppression Pool mixing procedures. The research will use both simulation and experimental data to validate the objectives. The work has the potential to increase the ability of existing nuclear power plants to passively respond to beyond design basis events using existing equipment and without changes to the plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15346: Big Data For Operation and Maintenance Cost Reduction | The Ohio State University | $800,000.00 | This project will develop a first-of-a-kind framework for integrating Big Data capability into the daily activities of our current fleet of nuclear power plants. This research will mainly focus on incorporating the wide range of data heterogeneities in nuclear power plants into an integrated Big Data Analytics capability. The primary end product of this work will be a Big Data framework that is capable of dealing with the large volume and heterogeneity of the data found in nuclear power plants to extract timely and valuable information on equipment performance and to enable optimization of plant operation and maintenance based on the extracted information. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15065: in situ Measurement and Validation of Uranium Molten Salt Properties at Operationally Relevant Temperatures | University of Connecticut | $799,979.00 | This project proposes to use advanced spectroscopic and scattering methods to provide information at the atomic and molecular scale. The research will use synchrotron-based x-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy, at operationally relevant temperatures, to measure the local and intermediate structure as well as speciation of chloride fuel salts (NaCl, ZrCl, UCl3) for fast-spectrum applications and fluoride fuel salts ( 7 LiF, UF4) primarily for thermal spectrum applications This approach is expected to generate theories and concepts that would allow models to predict behavior, and develop the means for in situ monitoring. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15058: High-resolution Experiments for Extended LOFC and Steam Ingress Accidents in HTGRs | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to better understand key phenomena in high-temperature gas-cooled reactors relevant to steam ingress and loss of forced circulation (LOFC) accidents. Specifically, the research will: 1) experimentally investigate, using an existing integral-effect test facility with some improvements, the steam-ingress accident caused by a postulated steam generator tube rupture initiating event; 2) carry out integral-effect tests for the extended LOFC accident to study the establishment of global natural circulation flow in the primary loop; 3) design, based on a scaling analysis, and construct a separate-effect test facility to study the complex helium flows in the core and hot plenum during the extended LOFC accident; and 4) perform detailed, high-resolution, separate-effects experiments using the results obtained as boundary/initial conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15471: Integral Experimental Investigation of Radioisotope Retention in Flowing Lead for the Mechanistic Source Term Evaluation of Lead Cooled Fast Reactor | University of New Mexico | $800,000.00 | The purpose of this project is to experimentally investigate the integral effects of radioisotope interactions with liquid lead to support the following technical goals: 1) evaluating the mechanistic source term of the Lead-cooled Fast Reactor (LFR); 2) developing a universal integral effect test methodology for liquid metal source term evaluations; and 3) establishing a basis for the comparison of radioisotope retention between lead and sodium. This aim of the research is to advance the LFR licensing pathway by establishing the phenomenological foundation of the interaction between fission products and liquid lead. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15153: Understanding Molten Salt Chemistry Relevant to Advanced Molten Salt Reactors through Complementary Synthesis, Spectroscopy, and Modeling | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to understand molten salt chemistry relevant to advanced molten salt reactors through complementary synthesis, spectroscopy, and modeling. Through complementary synthetic, spectroscopic, and computational efforts, the aim is to achieve atomistic and molecular-level understanding of liquid structure, coordination geometry, chemical bonding, and reactivity of novel molten salt melts relevant to advanced molten reactor designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15111: Improving Nuclear Power Plant Efficiency Through Data Analytics | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,727.00 | This project aims to develop and provide data analytics solutions to improve nuclear power plan economic efficiency by utilizing empirical models to integrate disparate data sources while providing uncertainty estimates to quantify risk and support decisions. The outcomes will enhance the technical and economic competitiveness by enabling advanced monitoring of critical assets, improving the operating capability of the existing fleet, and helping achieve enhancements in organizational effectiveness. Additionally, the research would provide an agile and modular data analytic framework that would have high commercialization value and supports the industry-wide drive towards digital innovation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14846: Development of Corrosion Resistant Coatings and Liners for Structural Materials for Liquid Fueled Molten Salts Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to develop corrosion-resistant coatings and liners for structural materials for use in fuel dissolved molten salt environment for future Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). Innovative, but industrially scalable, surface cladding approaches are proposed to lead to promising surface and interfacial compositions. The processes themselves are commercial, and have high technology readiness levels, and consequently would facilitate the accelerated developments of MSRs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15280: Advanced Alloy Innovations for Structural Components of Molten Salt Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $796,792.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to develop and evaluate specific advanced metallic alloys for structural components in fluoride salt-cooled molten salt reactors (MSRs). The research will investigate four categories of metallic alloys: advanced Ni-based; radiation damage tolerant high entropy; refractory Mo-based, and compositionally-graded, designed for high-surface corrosion resistance and good bulk strength. Additionally, the propensity for radiation embrittlement, as well as weldability, of the alloys will be evaluated. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14957: Big Data Analytics Solutions to Improve Nuclear Power Plant Efficiency: Online Monitoring, Visualization, Prognosis, and Maintenance Decision Making | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $797,820.00 | The overarching goal of this project is to significantly advance the ability to assess equipment condition and predict the remaining useful life to support optimal maintenance decision making in nuclear power plants. This research will work toward accomplishing and establishing a modern set of data-driven modeling, online monitoring, visualization, prognosis, and operation decision-making methodologies to address the significant opportunities and challenges arising from the emerging data-rich environment in nuclear plants. The potential impact of the work is significant and transformative and could deliver important advances in productivity with reduced unscheduled downtime and improved equipment performance. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15097: Oxidation Study of High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor TRISO Fuels at Accidental Conditions | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000.00 | This project is to study the oxidation behaviors of TRISO fuels during accidental air and water vapor ingress conditions. The work focuses on the oxidation and burn-off of the graphite fuel matrix and oxidation of the TRISO fuel SiC layer at high-temperature accidental states in the presence of air and/or water vapor. It will include both unirradiated and irradiated graphite fuel matrix and simulated fuel particles with the SiC layer. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 19-16987: Novel miniature creep tester for virgin and neutron irradiated clad alloys with benchmarked multiscale modeling and simulations | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | This project will develop a miniature creep machine to collect rapid thermal creep and load relaxation data for two selected ferritic alloys under "as-received" and irradiated conditions. Fast and accurate measurements of creep deformation are essential for qualifying new alloys for long term use in current and next generation reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17150: Speciation and Behavior of Neptunium and Zirconium in Advanced Separation Process | Oregon State University | $800,000 | This project will further develop the understanding of nuclear fuel reprocessing using Co-Decontamination (CoDCon). Radiolytic degradation products of tributylphosphate, nitric acid, redox buffer, masking agent, and water greatly affect the redox speciation, complexation and partitioning of the recycled metals. Fundamental understanding of chemical speciation and partitioning of Neptunium and Zerconium under such conditions is required. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17395: Modeling and Uncertainty Analysis of MSR Nuclear Material Accounting Methods for Nuclear Safeguards | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | This project will model and analyze the limits of detection for the diversion of nuclear materials from a molten salt reactor (MSR) fuel cycle. MSR depletion under a range of uranium and/or plutonium diversion to quantify the resulting differences in salt composition will be evaluated. Sensors will also be investigated to quantify fuel salt contents and correlate the outputs with the reactor models to predict diversion detection. Results will be coupled with robust uncertainty analysis to determine limits of detection. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16583: Neutron Radiation Effect on Diffusion between Zr (and Zircaloy) and Cr for Accurate Lifetime Prediction of ATF | The Ohio State University | $499,997 | This project will perform systematic diffusion studies on both neutron-irradiated and unirradiated accident tolerant fuel samples to obtain precise diffusion coefficients. This will result in a precise evaluation of the pure neutron irradiation effect on diffusion in these systems and enable accurate life prediction of the accident tolerant fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17381: High Throughput Assessment of Creep Behavior of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Structural Alloys by Nano/microindentation | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $800,000 | This project will develop a high throughput assessment of creep behavior of advanced nuclear reactor structural alloys by nano/microindentation. Experimental datasets will inform polycrystalline deformation models to predict material response over a variety of creep conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16549: Thermal Conductivity Measurement of Irradiated Metallic Fuel Using TREAT | University of Pittsburgh | $500,000 | This project intends to provide accurate thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity data with microstructure characterization of metallic (U-Pu-Zr) fuel as a function of burnup and attain fundamental understanding of the thermal conductivity of the irradiated fuel to inform and validate computational models. This will be accomplished using an innovative thermal wave technique in the Transient Reactor Test Facility at the Idaho National Laboratory, with the Minimal Activation Reusable Capsule Holder. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17002: Remote Laser-based Nondestructive Evaluation for Post-Irradiation Examination of ATF Cladding | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | To enable advanced nondestructive characterization techniques for light water reactor fuels that can be applied to the cladding coating, a remote nondestructive evaluation post irradiation inspection approach will be developed. This technique will measure the cladding coating layer thickness and detect defects within the cladding such as corrosion, micro-cracking and delamination. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17276: Radiation-Induced Swelling in Advanced Nuclear Fuel | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,989 | The microstructural evolution of advanced fuel (uranium carbide and uranium nitride) under fission-fragment type radiation has not been studied and remains unclear. This project will utilize advanced synchrotron X-ray characterization using microgram samples to obtain detailed nanoscale information on radiation-induced volumetric swelling and microstrain. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16848: Metal-Functionalized Membranes for Radioiodine Capture | University of Utah | $799,031 | This proposed research will investigate high-surface area (>300 m2/g) metal-functionalized membranes. These novel chemically durable and mechanically robust membranes are formed using an aqueous fabrication process, which results in an interconnected porosity that is highly controllable, providing hierarchical structures ranging from the nano- to micrometer-scales. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17350: Development and Experimental Validation of Pitting and SCC Models for Welded Stainless Steel Dry Storage Containers Exposed to Atmospheric Environments | University of Virginia | $799,027 | The specific goals of this project are to: (a) validate the maximum pit size model for dry storage canister relevant corrosion conditions as well as quantifying the effects of limited cathodic current on stress corrosion cracking (SCC) kinetics, (b) demonstrate a means to quantitatively rank the risk of SCC based on measurable parameters, (c) perform probabilistic predictions of SCC growth, and (d) validate the model predictions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16879: Proactive Hybrid Nuclear with Load Forecasting | Brigham Young University | $799,933 | This project develops new capabilities of design and dispatch optimization of nuclear hybrid energy systems (NHES) in the "Risk Analysis Virtual Environment (RAVEN)" modelling software. Blended (physics-based and data-driven) machine learning will be applied to forecast demand and production of thermal and electrical loads. Two experimental case studies are proposed to test the software developments with a lab-scale thermal energy storage and with a large district energy system. As a final step, the software developments will be generalized to other NHES. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17461: Development and Evaluation of Neutron Thermalization Integral Benchmarks for Advanced Reactor Applications | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | This project will develop integral benchmarks that aim to examine thermal neutron scattering data for graphite (ideal and nuclear), light water, and molten salt. The benchmark evaluations will be contributed to the International Handbook of Evaluated Reactor Physics Benchmark Experiments (IRPhEP) database. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17219: Using Integral Benchmark Experiments to Improve Differential Nuclear Data Evaluations | University of New Mexico | $400,000 | This project will use the results of integral benchmark experiment to inform differential nuclear data evaluations and improve the predictive capability of modeling and simulation (M&S) tools. This goal will be accomplished by developing capabilities to assess the sensitivity of integral benchmark results to evaluated nuclear data parameters, and by using data assimilation tools to directly adjust the evaluated data parameters and improve the accuracy of M&S tools. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16743: Paths Forward for Nuclear Energy: Using a Nationwide Post-Stratified Hierarchical Model to Facilitate Matching of New Nuclear Technologies to Receptive Host Communities | University of Oklahoma | $390,393 | This project will enable deployment of advanced nuclear technologies by developing a model, and an accompanying web-based tool that can be utilized by technology entrepreneurs, that identifies public support for siting new nuclear technologies at very local spatial scales across the US. The model will employ hierarchically structured, post stratified analysis of the largest US pooled-time series dataset on geocoded public support for nuclear technologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16995: A Cyber-Attack Detection Platform for Cyber Security of Digital Instrumentation and Control Systems | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,995 | The proposed research will develop a robust cyber-attack detection system (CADS) for monitoring digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems. The project will develop a robust research tool for evaluating cyber defense of digital I&C systems and provide a framework for a cyber-attack detection system that provides continuous assurance of the security of digital I&C systems in nuclear power plants (NPPs). | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17327: Multi-Timescale Nuclear-Renewable Hybrid Energy Systems Operations to Improve Electricity System Resilience, Reliability, and Economic Efficiency | University of Texas at Dallas | $800,000 | The overarching objective of this project is to develop a multi-timescale nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (N-R HESs) operations framework to provide different types of grid products. The project will model and analyze the capabilities of N-R HESs to provide power grid services at different timescales ranging from seconds to days, such as day-ahead unit commitment, flexible ramping (5-45 minutes), regulation reserves (1-5 minutes), and frequency response (less than seconds). | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17192: The Design and Investigation of Novel Mechanical Filters for Molten Salt Reactors | Abilene Christian University | $762,246 | Researchers will develop a novel mechanical filtration system. The project will include the collection of filter media performance data and filter regeneration performance data for a novel sintered nickel-based filter prototype. The project will also provide a filter design that facilitates remote filter removal, cooling, replacement, and assay of fissile material hold-up in the filter media. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16980: Determining the Effects of Neutron Irradiation on the Structural Integrity of Additively Manufactured Heat Exchangers for Very Small Modular Reactor Applications | Auburn University | $400,000 | Researchers will determine how to best use laser-powder bed fusion additive manufacturing methods for generating radiation-resistant channel/pore-embedded structures from Inconel (alloy 625 or 718) nickel-based superalloys for special purpose reactor (i.e. very small modular reactor) heat exchangers. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17413: Validated, Multi-Scale Molecular Dynamics Simulations to Predict the Thermophysical Properties of Molten Salts Containing Fuel, Fission, and Corrosion Products | Brigham Young University | $798,291 | Researchers will use first principles molecular dynamics (FPMD) simulations on molten salts containing impurities including fuel, fission products, and corrosion products. These will be used to develop a classical molecular dynamics (CMD) potential. CMD will then be used to predict properties for a wide variety of salt compositions and temperatures, and physical property measurements will be performed to validate those predictions. Property correlations will be developed from this data. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17183: Mixing of helium with air in reactor cavities following a pipe break in HTGRs | City College of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct separate effects tests to obtain experimental validation data on mixing of helium and air in reactor building cavities during and after blowdown in HTGRs. Air and helium concentrations, and gas mixture velocity and temperature fields will be measured in simulated reactor cavities. An existing helium flow loop will be used as the source of high pressure/high temperature helium for injection into the cavities and different break configurations will be experimentally investigated. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16391: GuArDIAN: General Active Sensing for conDItion AssessmeNt | Duke University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a dependable, autonomous or semi-autonomous (i.e. low human involvement), and minimally disruptive framework for monitoring equipment and components in nuclear reactors. The project will develop GUARDIAN; a robust active sensing framework through the integration of model-based inference and mobile actuating/sensing robots. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17251: Measuring Mechanical Properties of Select Layers and Layer Interfaces of TRISO Particles via Micromachining and In-Microscope Tensile Testing | Idaho State University | $799,815 | Researchers will characterize the strength of TRISO-coated particle layers and interfaces using FIB micro-machining and in-TEM tensile testing. Tensile test samples from coating layers of (1) unirradiated surrogate (fuel) TRISO particles, (2) unirradiated fueled TRISO particles and (3) irradiated fueled TRISO particles will be studied. Results of this project will both benefit and leverage the AGR Program. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17185: Demonstrating Reactor Autonomous Control Framework using Graphite Exponential Pile | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will demonstrate a detection-prediction-feedback framework for nuclear system autonomous control. It will adopt multiple detector channels to enable control feedback to spatially dependent perturbations. It will also utilize high-fidelity solutions trained surrogate models for real-time prediction and decision-making. In addition to the method development, the proposal will entail a first-of-a-kind engineering demonstration using the MIT Graphite Exponential Pile (MGEP). | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16754: Simultaneous Corrosion/Irradiation Testing in Lead and Lead-Bismuth Eutectic: The Radiation Decelerated Corrosion Hypothesis | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $762,823 | Researchers will test candidate FeCrSi and F/M alloys in a new, simultaneous corrosion/radiation facility to try to identify an alloy that will satisfy all requirements for Lead Fast Reactor structural materials. Microstructural characterization, mechanical property testing, and corrosion tests, both during irradiation and following ion/He pre-conditioning, will assess how irradiation affects corrosion, potentially slowing it. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17173: Ni-based ODS alloys for Molten Salt Reactors | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | The objective of this work is to (i) propose and develop a new Nickel (Ni) based Oxide Dispersion-Strengthened (ODS) alloy that can be used for structural applications in Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) and other nuclear reactor harsh environments, (ii) to demonstrate that its high temperature mechanical properties are adequate for MSR operating temperatures, (iii) to demonstrate its radiation damage resistance through ion irradiation testing and (iv) to demonstrate its improved corrosion resistance in MSR environment. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17037: Investigation of HTGR Reactor Building Response to a Break in Primary Coolant Boundary | Purdue University | $799,832 | Researchers will perform a series of experiments to simulate HTGR reactor building response due to a break in the primary coolant boundary in a well-scaled test facility to obtain spatial distribution of oxygen concentration, perform analysis of the whole system response with 1-D thermal hydraulics codes and use CFD to make detailed localized predictions. The tests will be carried out with different locations and sizes of the breaks to create various vent and flow paths in the reactor cavity. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17093: Integrating Multi-modal Microscopy Techniques and the MOSAIC Simulation Environment to Assess Changes in the Physical Properties and Chemical Durability of Concrete Following Radiation Exposure | University of California, Los Angeles | $800,000 | Researchers will develop unprecedented multi-modal imaging methodologies that integrate multiple microscopy techniques. The team will develop a generalizable protocol for quantifying the changes in physical properties and chemical durability of concrete and concrete constituents (minerals and aggregates) following radiation exposure. The imaging analyses will be input into the MOSAIC framework to reveal the nature and extent of degradation that is expected to result. The outcomes offer insights that are needed to enable and inform second license renewals. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17167: Atomistically Informed and Experimentally Validated Model for Helium Bubble Growth in Welded Irradiated Metals | University of Florida | $797,861 | Researchers will construct a validated computational model for He bubble growth on grain boundaries in irradiated Fe-Ni-Cr microstructures, including intergranular fracture, as a function of material conditions and welding heat input. This model will be based on the phase-field methodology, leveraging numerical solvers in the MOOSE simulation platform, with critical inputs and validation provided by both atomic-level simulations and experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16909: Learning-based Computational Study of the Thermodynamic, Structural, and Dynamic Properties of Molten Salts at the Atomic and Electronic Scale and Experimental Validations | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will obtain the thermophysical, thermochemical, and transport properties, construct the phase diagrams, and build empirical physical models of molten salts that are relevant to Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) with first-principles accuracy using molecular dynamics simulations driven by machine-learned high-dimensional neural network potentials combined with neutron/X-ray scattering and thermodynamic experimental validations. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16298: I-PRA Decision-Making Algorithm and Computational Platform to Develop Safe and Cost-Effective Strategies for the Deployment of New Technologies | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an integrated probabilistic risk assessment decision-making algorithm to support risk-and-cost-informed decision-making related to the deployment of new technologies. The project will enhance the financial analysis module and the challenging interface of social and technical systems to advance the algorithm. The project will conduct a case study for evaluating the safety impact and cost-effectiveness of FLEX strategies to support operational flexibility. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16802: Evaluation of Semi-Autonomous Passive Control Systems for HTGR Type Special Purpose Reactors | University of Michigan | $400,000 | Researchers will investigate the use of variable flow controllers and a variable reflector as passive or semi-autonomous reactivity control mechanisms for multi-module HTGR type special purpose reactors. This applies to the commercially developed special purpose reactor concepts from HolosGen. The incorporation of these systems will reduce the movable parts count and enable more robust load follow capabilities over broader power ranges and local and global reactivity control. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17467: Understanding the Speciation and Molecular Structure of Molten Salts Using Laboratory and Synchrotron based In Situ Experimental Techniques and Predictive Modeling | University of Nevada, Reno | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology to accurately determine the structure and speciation of the molten salt electrolyte using laboratory-based spectroscopic techniques (Raman and UV-Vis-NIR) and synchrotron-based (scattering and absorption) techniques, in combination with computational modeling. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17231: Prevention of Common Fault-Trigger Combinations for Qualification of Digital Instrumentation and Control Technology | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will provide an effective design evaluation approach based on prevention of concurrent triggering conditions to eliminate common-cause failures (CCF) and enable qualification of digital I&C technology for application in nuclear plant modernization. The research involves classifying commonality among digital devices, categorizing faults and triggering conditions, determining fault-trigger relationships, and defining preventive design measures to resolve the potential for CCF. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17087: Economic Risk-Informed Maintenance Planning and Asset Management | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will provide a holistic framework for cost-minimizing risk-informed maintenance planning, including inspection. They will develop a two-tier framework that coarsely minimizes the total maintenance cost during the remaining normal operating cycle and uses the outputs of the first model to maximize the financial impact of these activities in the short term. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16811: Liquid Metal-cooled Fast Reactor Instrumentation Technology Development | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will explore three different areas that will help to improve commercialization of SFRs and to aid in testing for the VTR. These include: 1. Advancement in understanding of low prandtl number heat transfer 2. Testing of compact heat exchangers for use with sodium 3. Development of in pool submersible flow meters. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16954: Innovative In-Situ Analysis and Quantification of Corrosion and Erosion of 316 Stainless Steel in Molten Chloride Salt Flow Loops | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will use a thin-layer activation technique for the first time in molten salts, on 316H samples placed in natural convection and forced flow loops. The individual and synergistic effects of corrosion, irradiation and thermo-mechanical treatments will be evaluated in-situ to predict component service lifetimes and design limits. The effects of molten chloride flow velocity will also be assessed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17168: Fuel Salt Sampling and Enriching System Technology Development | Vanderbilt University | $799,989 | Researchers will combine insights from the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment with decades of advancements in applicable technologies into an enhanced Sampler Enricher (SE) concept to develop and test a flexible, reliable, and workable design. The prototype will then be tested in an existing salt loop. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16739: Improvements of Nuclear Data Evaluations for Lead Isotopes in Support of Next Generation Lead-Cooled Fast Systems | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | The objective of this project is to improve the accuracy of neutronics simulation of lead-based systems by improving the nuclear data of lead isotopes. The nuclear data for lead will be reevaluated with emphasis of the intermediate and fast energy regions that are required by reactor applications currently sought by several industrial entities. The deliverables of this project are new lead isotopes evaluations that will be candidates for inclusion in a future Evaluated Nuclear Data Library (ENDF) release. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 20-19373: Connecting Advanced High-Temperature X-ray and Raman Spectroscopy Structure/Dynamics Insights to High-Throughput Property Measurements | Boston University | $500,000 | Researchers will acquire molten salt structure and dynamics data at high-temperatures using high-energy x-ray techniques and Raman spectroscopy and relate them to their physical and chemical properties. High-throughput techniques will be developed to rapidly measure multiple high-temperature properties at one time. An understanding of the relationship of salt structure and dynamics to its properties will help to select and optimize melt chemistry in molten salt reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19371: Adsorption and Reduction of Uranium in Engineered Barrier Systems: Effects of Iron and Heat | California State University, East Bay | $800,000 | Reseachers will investigate uranium sorption and abiotic reduction processes in iron-rich montmorillonite systems as a function of solution chemistry and temperature. The team will develop a surface complexation model that can account for both uranium adsorption and reduction, and hence reduce the uncertainties associated with uranium mobility in iron-rich environments with engineering barrier systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19831: Optimizing Melt Processed Phosphate Glass Waste Forms via Composition-Property-Structure Correlations | Clemson University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and optimize highly durable and easily processable phosphate-based glass waste forms to immobilize the dehalogenated salt streams by tailoring the composition of the glasses. To complement the work conducted on glass waste forms at the national laboratories sponsored by the DOE-NE program, modified iron phosphate glass waste forms will be prepared and evaluated by the introduction of various glass modifiers (SnF2 and BaO) to the prototype glass compositions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19695: Quantifying radionuclide sorption to engineered barrier materials under elevated temperature and ionic strength conditions | Clemson University | $799,380 | Researchers will characterize actinide sorption to mineral surfaces and examine possible mechanisms of sorption at high temperature/ionic strength through examination of the effects of hydration and hydrolysis on actinide sorption. These data will provide an understanding of radionuclide behavior with engineered barrier materials. A greater understanding of these processes will reduce the uncertainty in strategies for sequestration of radionuclide bearing wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19789: Controlling Neptunium and Zirconium in Advanced Extraction Processes | Colorado School of Mines | $599,763 | Researchers will address continuing issues with separating neptunium and zironium in current separation techniques. They will use coupled optical and x-ray specroscopy, small angle scattering, equilibrium thermodynamics and chemical analysis to understand fundamental molecular-level behaviors of extracted Np and Zr. These techniques, using world-class irradiation facilities, will elucidate the specific chemistries underlying the problematic behavior in Np and Zr in radiation fields. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19660: Linear and nonlinear guided ultrasonic waves to characterize cladding of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researcherses will perform a combination of linear and nonlinear guided ultrasonic waves, integrated with new material behavior models to develop a non-destructive evaluation (NDE) approach for both quality control/quality assurance and in-service NDE characterization of the cladding integrity and bond strength. Current NDE techniques are effective for uncoated designs, but these coated fuels add new challenges, which will be addressed by this new approach. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19678: Flexible Hard Ceramic Coatings by Ultrasonic Spray Mist-CVD for Dry Storage Canisters of Spent Nuclear Fuel and Waste | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop advanced flexible hard ceramic coatings using ultrasonic spray mist-chemical vapor deposition technique manufacturing process to deposit on dry storage canisters. The team will test resistance to corrosion, heat, wear and hydrogen permeation thgourh microstructural characterization and material property evaluation. The ultimate goal is to enhance the long term reliability of spent nuclear fuel dry storage canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19797: High Throughput Computational Platform for Predictive Modeling of Thermochemical and Thermophysical Properties of Fluoride Molten Salts | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | Researchers will (1) develop an open-source high throughput (H-T) computational platform to understand, predict, and evaluate thermochemical and thermophysical properties of molten salts as demonstrated in the F-(K-Li-Na)-(Cr-Fe)-U system and (2) provide H-T approaches (CALPHAD modeling and AIMD simulations) and open-source codes together with thermodynamic models of molten salts and public-accessible databases verified by targeted experiments for the molten salt research community. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19627: Chemical Interaction and Compatibility of Uranium Nitride with Liquid Pb and Alumina-forming Austenitic Alloys | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | Researcherswill address critical issues with the compatibility and chemcial interations of uranium nitride fuel, alumina-forming austenitic alloys and lead coolants/sublayers. They will obtain critical data of fuel-coolant-cladding interactions and compatibility to evaluate key parameters of operation temperature, fuel impurities and coolant chemistry. This data will provide key operation windows and parameters for deployment of lead-cooled fast reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19924: First-principles free energies by hybrid thermodynamic integration for phase equilibria and fission product solubility in molten salts | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | Researchers will predict phase equilibria and solubility of fission products in molten salts using a novel hybrid framework for thermodynamic integration combining first-principles, molecular dynamics and continuum methods to calculate free energies. They will be benchmarked using Bayesian-targeted calorimetric, in-situ diffraction and spectroscopic experiments. The project will provide microscopic insights and quantitative parameters necessary for reliable thermophysical modeling of molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19939: Gallium Oxide Schottky Diode Detectors for Measurement of Actinide Concentrations from Measured Alpha Activities in Molten Salts | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and test, to high temperatures, a Schottky diode alpha particle detector that is based on the rapidly emerging ultrawide band gap semiconductor material gallium oxide. Ga2O3 Schottky diode detectors offer the potential of detecting alpha particles at high temperatures, with better resolution than SiC Schottky diode detectors, which the team has previously developed for similar purposes. These detectors could be used in pyrochemical processing streams and molten salt reactors with potential application in other reactor concepts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19966: Evaluating hydroxypyridinone-based ligands for actinide and fission products recovery in used fuels | University of California, Berkeley | $600,000 | Researchers will pursue novel chemical separation approaches for advanced reactor used fuels treatments and recycling, by leveraging the unique actinide and lanthanide coordination properties of hydroxypyridinone-based aqueous chelators. These chelators have not been tested in extreme conditions and this work would test potential process performance with a focus on radiation-induced changes and oxidation state distribution. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19545: Femtosecond Laser Ablation Machining & Examination - Center for Active Materials Processing (FLAME-CAMP) | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop, build, and test a femtosecond laser ablation machining & examination tool that can be deployed in a hot cell environment enabling microscopy sample fabrication, isotope and elemental analysis, and thermal analysis. The technology allows for non-contact materials processing, even through glass windows, potentially preventing contamination of surrounding areas and tools. Such a multi-function tool with high throughput material processing will accelerate the research on fuel and cladding tremendously. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19198: Functionalized clay buffer materials for the long-term sequestration of technetium and iodine | University of Florida | $800,000 | Researcherswill develop synthesize, test, and model novel functionalized clay buffer materials for the long-term sequestration of iodine and technetium. The project will also focus on key experimantal parameters and modeling of how the novel clay buffer material will sequester iodine and technetium species. Novel materials will support DOE's efforts to design improved geologic repository barrier systems and optimize repository performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19209: Investigation on multicomponent solubility in LiCl-KCl eutectic chloride salts using combinatorial approach | University of Idaho | $400,000 | Researchers will perform irradiation experiments to understand how gamma radiation changes trivalent metal ion complex coordination structure and extraction characteristics during the ALSEP process. This work will focus on understanding the types of degradation products that are formed during the extraction process and what effects these degradation products have on process performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19713: Multifunctional Laser Processing for Repair and Mitigation of Pitting and Cracks in Welded Stainless Steel Dry Storage Canisters | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a strategic solution that combines laser cleaning and laser peening for removal of surface contamination and mitigation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in welded stainless steels. Laser cleanning will remove surface contamination and reduce pitting caused by corrosion. Laser peening will then be used to mitigate stress corrosion cracking and provide enhanced corrosion resistance. The portability of the laser system means the system will be able to be deployed in the field. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19188: Single- and Polycrystalline Diamond Electrodes for Spectroelectrochemical Characterization of Various Molten Salts | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $600,000 | Researchers will develop optically transparent electrodes for spectroelectrochemical measurements in chloride- and fluoride-based radioactive molten salts. The primary electrode material will be boron-doped diamond. Measurements will elucidate important electrochemical properties of nuclear fuel and fission products such as redox potential, diffusion coefficient, and electron transfer stoichiometry. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19641: Mitigating stress corrosion cracking in austenitic stainless-steel canister welds using peening techniques | University of Nevada, Reno | $799,950 | Researchers seek to understand the mechanisms of pitting/SCC resistance of welds as affected by a) compressive stress b) surface texture modification and c) microstructural change in the substrate surface resulting from laser shock peening, shot peening, ultrasonic impact peening and laser surface texturing. The study will recommend the best peening and surface texturing process conditions for mitigation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in 304L welds. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19704: Multicomponent Thermochemistry of Complex Chloride Salts for Sustain-able Fuel Cycle Technologies | University of Pittsburgh | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive thermodynamic database of multicomponent chloride salts through a collaboration between experts in Gibbs energy modeling and thermochemical experiments. A thermochemical database of the multicomponent chloride system KCl-LiCl-NaCl-UCl3-LnCl3 (Ln: La, Pr, Nd) will be developed using the CALPHAD (Calculation of Phase Diagrams) method with supported ab initio calculations and thermal analysis experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19506: Engineered composite patch with NDE inspection for repair and mitigation of SCC in nuclear spent fuel dry storage canister | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an innovative 'engineered composite patch' that can absorb moisture, neutralize chloride, and prevent stress corrosion cracking from further growth. This 'patch' with have in integrated non-destructive evaluation capability using laser utrasonic characterization methods to montior quality and performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19374: Maintaining and building upon the Halden legacy of In-situ diagnostics | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will develop innovative instrumentation focusing on temperature and strain measurements to fill the void left by the Halden reactor and to enhance the experimental capabilities in the Transient Reactor Test Facility (TREAT) located at Idaho National Laboratory. The team will develop a fiber optic sensor system that offers an inherent resistance to electromagnetic interference unlike currently used sensors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19076: Investigation of Degradation Mechanisms of Cr-coated Zirconium Alloy Cladding in Reactivity Initiated Accidents (RIA) | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $500,000 | Researchers will investigate the thermal, mechanical, and irradiation response of chromium-coated zirconium alloy claddings under RIA conditions, in comparison to uncoated Zr-alloy cladding. The outcome of the project will be used for anticipated licensing applications to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), thereby accelerating use of coated accident tolerant fuel concepts in U.S. commercial power reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19318: Surface Peening and Hybrid Surface Engineering Approaches to Mitigate Initiation and Resurgence of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dry Cask Storage Stainless Steel Canisters | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,838 | Researchers will develop and evaluate a wide range of surface peening treatments, as well as hybrid surface treatments to mitigate initiation and growth of chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) in stainless-steel canisters for used nuclear fuel (UNF) dry cask storage. Canister mock-ups with prototypical fusion welds will be used for this study. Characterization and testing of microstructure, compressive stresses, corrosion and CISCC will be performed. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19614: New Coatings for Nuclear Fuel Waste Canister Storage and Transport | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop novel SiOCN(H) coatings for spent nuclear fuel canisters in order to support sustained nuclear reactor operation and safeguard nuclear waste storage, transport, and disposal, in both terrestrial and marine environments. The novel coating will specifically address pitting corrosion and stress corrosion cracking in spent nuclear fuel canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19382: Separated waste stream immobilization of iodine and offgas caustic scrubber solution | Washington State University | $400,000 | Researchers will produce a set of waste forms from separation of iodine from the caustic offgas scrubber solution. The primary caustic scrub containing iodine, halides, and carbonate will be immobilized in a glass-bonded composite of cancrinite/sodalite. The iodine-loaded silver sorbent will be stripped of iodine, converted to NaI, and immobilized into a separate durable glass-bonded iodosodalite waste form. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19912: Validation of Robustness in TCR Design Strategies | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will perform sensitivity analysis (SA) and uncertainty quantification (UQ) of TCR design parameters and relevant physical phenomena, using open-source time dependent Monte-Carlo code (OpenMC), NQA1 qualified commercial codes (STARCCM+), and ABAQUS for thermal-hydraulics and structural mechanics. The SA/UQ analysis will provide key insights to allow for development of performance metrics of robustness for autonomous operation sensors, by processing signals such as neutron flux, temperature and strains, as wll as inform the needed robustness for AI by enveloping the attainable level of decision making by the software. | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 | |
| NEUP Project 20-19216: Creation of Multiple Effect Evaporator and Combined Cycle Modelica Modules, and Optimization of Potable Water Generation from Saltwater Sources | North Carolina State University | $498,532 | Researchers will develop models of Multiple Effect Evaporators and Combined Cycle Gas Turbine systems to be used within the Modelica framework, with an end goal of creating an energy park that can supply its own energy and water through Small Modular Reactor nuclear systems and/or Combined Cycle Gas Turbine Systems with brackish to brine water sources. These same models will be capable of being implemented into larger models of grid independent and near independent energy parks located about military bases, large manufacturing facilities, and in small communities where freshwater is limited. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19590: Benchmark Evaluation of Transient Multi-Physics Experimental Data for Pellet Cladding Mechanical Interactions | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop an integral benchmark evaluation based on available experimental data from cold ramp tests performed at the Studsvik testing R2 reactor. Transient multiphysics benchmark evaluations are needed to support validation of the NEAMS ToolKit and the VERA suite. This research will focus on pellet cladding interaction and pellet cladding mechanical interaction and their associated events. The benchmark will be prepared for inclusion in the IRPhEP handbook. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19837: Reinforcement Learning Validation Framework for Quality Assurance of AI-guided Additive Manufacturing Digital Platforms | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will address the need to qualify the risk associated with AM fabricated nuclear reactor parts by incorporating a novel rendition of a well-established artificial intelligence learning strategy, the multi-armed bandit reinforcement learning (RL). The RL framework will be developed and demonstrated using TCR data and its associated digital platform. This research will assimilate in-process sensor data and physics-based simulation data to calculate risk measures in the form of failure probabilities for the AM parts. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19363: Integrated Solar & Nuclear Cogeneration of Electricity & Water using the sCO2 Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,427 | Researchers will design and model a renewable, nuclear Integrated Energy System (IES), compatible with the RAVEN/Modelica framework, for co-generation of cost competitive electricity and clean water. The components of the IES to be included are concentrated solar power, the supercritical CO2/sCO2 cyle, multi-effect distillation, and the lead-cooled fast reactor. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19066: Engineering-Informed, Data-Driven Degradation Modeling, Prognostics and Control for Radiation-induced Void Swelling in Reactor Steels | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will advance the capability to model, predict and control void swelling in irradiated structural components through developing engineering-informed, advanced data-driven statistical and machine learning techniques. Excess swelling not only leads to dimensional instability, but also can cause severe embrittlement of internal materials. The proposed efforts will ensure more effective regulation, aging management and license renewal. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19795: A High-Fidelity Novel and Fast Multigroup Cross Section Generation Method for Arbitrary Geometry and Spectrum | Georgia Institute of Technology | $600,000 | Researchers will develop a fast high-fidelity multigroup cross section generation method for arbitrary geometry configurations and energy spectra by developing a response-based high order perturbation method to perform hybrid stochastic-deterministic local transport calculations. The proposed method will be implemented as independent modules that can be easily embedded into any neutron transport or diffusion code and also be used as a standalone cross section generator. The modules will provide data that can interface with the associated NEAMS toolkit and workbench user interfaces to enable advanced neutronics tools that will perform high-fidelity multigroup multiphysics steady-state and transient calculations that capture and represent the complex resonance interactions and core environmental effects which exist in heterogeneous reactors, including advanced reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19968: Experimental Investigations and Numerical Modeling of Near-wall and Core Bypass Flows in Pebble Bed Reactors | Texas A&M University | $600,000 | Researchers will establish a highly coordinated, concurrent experimental and computational effort combining high-resolution turbulence simulations (including Nek5000, Star-CCM+) and experiments to deepen physical understanding and address long standing modeling inaccuracies related to near wall and bypass flow effects in pebble bed reactors. The project's acquired extensive database will be used to derive closure models and correlations needed for porous media code, such as Pronghorn. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19864: Development of innovative overlapping-domain coupling between SAM and NEK5000 | University of Michigan | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a robust, multi-scale coupling scheme between the SAM code and the CFD code, NEK5000, based on a novel overlapping domain approach. The developed coupling will be validated by using experiments specifically designed for the validation of multi-scale coupled codes. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-20074: Characterization of Plenum to Plenum Natural Circulation flows in a High Temperature Gas Reactor (HTGR) | CUNY, City College of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will obtain and provide experimental data on the plenum-to-plenum natural circulation flows in a typical high temperature gas reactor using helium and nitrogen over a wide range of temperatures and pressures to simulate natural circulation under both pressurized and depressurized conduction cooldown scenarios. The results of the project will yield new data and complement other very high temperature related studies. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19042: Flexible Siting Criteria and Staff Minimization for Micro-Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $440,517 | Researchers will develop siting criteria that are tailored to micro-reactors deployable in densely-populated areas by comparing the characteristics of the MIT research reactor with those of leading micro-reactor concepts, and evaluate whether and how the MIT research reactor design basis and associated regulations are applicable to micro-reactors. A model of operations for micro-reactors that would minimize the staffing requirements will also be conceptualized. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-20045: Highly Compact Steam Generators for Improved Economics of Small Modular Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will design and build a compact steam generator (CSG) test section that can be easily modified for different flow paths and geometries, as well as modify an existing loop to accept the test section. The conceptual optimized CSG system design, which could be deployed in small modular reactors, will be informed by CFD simulations to determine critical characteristics of the test section. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19205: Robust bullet-time tagging and tracking system based on computer vision for individual ex-core TRISO-fueled pebble identification | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a novel, validated, robust bullet-time tagging and tracking system, based on computer vision techniques, to tag and track each individual pebble in pebble bed reactors. The effort will utilize Residence Time Distribution and Radioactive Particle Tracking techniques to validate and refine the developed method, using a continuous cold flow pebble bed experimental setup. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19625: Corrosion Sensitivity of Stainless Steels in Pressurized Water Reactor Water Chemistry: Can KOH replace LiOH in PWRs? | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will perform a series of corrosion and stress corrosion tests on unirradiated alloys to determine the possibility of switching from LiOH to KOH to control the pH in nuclear reactors without worsening the corrosion behavior of the structural alloys used in pressurized water reactor core internal components. The impacts of such a change and the consequent water chemistry alterations on the corrosion processes and nucleaer power plant core-internal component service-life will be assessed and better understood. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19735: Experiments for Modeling and Validation of Liquid-Metal Heat Pipe Simulation Tools for Micro-Reactor | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will produce validation data for the heat pipe code, Sockeye, by measuring the internal thermal-hydraulic parameters of a single-heat pipe and the performance of an integrated multi-heat-pipe system in various operation scenarios. The results of this project will generate more liquid metal heat pipe validation data, which is currently lacking and needed to support micro-reactor design and licensing activities. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19367: Investigation of Novel Nickel-Based Alloys for Molten Chloride Fast Reactor Structural Applications | University of Cincinnati | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate and establish the scientific foundations for the development of promising Ni-Mo-W-Cr-Al-X alloys with a superior balance of properties compared to current materials for high temperature structural applications in molten chloride salt fast reactors. The project couples critical experiments with a high-value integrated computational materials engineering approach. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19693: Evaluation of micro-reactor requirements and performance in an existing well-characterized micro-grid | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will evaluate the opportunities and challenges of operating micro-reactors in decentralized power generation applications and the potential for deployment in established micro-grids with diverse power generation sources. By using a well-characterized prototypic environment platform, the Modelica-based Hybrid Energy System, the market potential for deployment of micro-reactors on campuses and other similar existing micro-grids will be quantified. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19195: The effect of LWR primary coolant water chemistry (LiOH vs. KOH) on stainless steel: An integrated experimental and computational study of the corrosion response of stainless steel for different surface microstructures and mechanica | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will study the effect of surface microstructure, mechanical stress factors, and radiation damage on the corrosion response of stainless steel under two different alkaline pressurized water reactor primary water chemistry conditions. The project will involve investigation of mechanical stress factors such as strain rate, residual stress, deformation induced persistent slip bands, dpa damage, and fatigue cracks and modeling to understand the physical phenomena associated with the measured corrosion response and inform the U.S. nuclear industry regarding KOH. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19491: Identifying and prioritizing sources of uncertainty in external hazard probabilistic risk assessments | University of Maryland, College Park | $799,979 | Researchers will develop a method for identifying and prioritizing sources of uncertainty in external hazard probabilistic risk assessment for nuclear power plants, with particular emphasis on uncertainties associated with hazard characterization. External flooding wil be utilized as the demonstration hazard during this project, while a common taxonomy for communicating uncertainties across a broad range of external hazards will be created. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19737: Innovative Enhanced Automation Control Strategies for Multi-unit SMRs | University of Michigan | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an innovative, enhanced automation control framework for small modular reactors (SMRs) that supports control of multiple units operating in a variety of reactor core conditions. Through these enhancements, SMR technology gains improved marketability through potential deployment to a broader range of markets and can also lead to reduced operating and maintenance costs for a SMR site, increasing the overall profitability. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19954: Deployment Pathways of Small Modular Reactors in Electric Power, Industrial, and Other Niche Markets to Achieve Cost Reductions and Widespread Use | University of Michigan | $691,658 | Researchers will explore how to leverage two key value propositions for small modular reactors (SMR) in shifting market conditions, in order to achieve widespread market deployment: (1) participation in small and large power and industrial markets and (2) cost reductions via mass fabrication. The result of this work will be advanced power system modeling, optimized SMR design with thermal storage for power and industry markets, and new SMR deployment pathways. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19752: Development and Demonstration of Scalable Fluoride Salt Pump Seals and Bearings for FHRs | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and demonstrate scalable advanced bearings and seals of fluoride salt pumps for fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactors. The systematic approach to be used will employ both experimental and numerical methods to investigate the static and dynamic performance of fluoride-salt-lubricated bearings and high-temperature seals. The outcomes of this research will directly contribute to the reliability, safety, design, and operation of the fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactor power plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19544: A Holistic Artificial Intelligence Tool to Mitigate Human Factor Uncertainty in Operation and Maintenance | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a holistic artificial intelligence tool to help the detection and mitigation of human factors errors in nuclear power plants. The tool will increase the efficiency of various activities such as testing, inspection, data collection, and interpretation, improve operation and maintenance decision-making, and reduce costs in nuclear power plants by minimizing the impact of human factors errors and providing warnings to mitigate them, when possible. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19524: Non-Intrusive Flow Monitoring for Liquid Metal and Molten Salt Cooled Reactors | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a first-of-its kind flow monitoring system with significantly enhanced capabilities for liquid metal fast reactors and other advanced reactors, such as molten salt reactors. The flow monitoring system will involve a proven and breakthrough fiber optic sensing technology that enables the harmonic-free interrogation of thousands of grating-based distributed interferometers along an optical fiber that is integrated into a sensing pad that can readily be installed at desired locations in the flow loop. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19671: Identifying Needed Fire Input Data to Reduce Modeling Uncertainty | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,393 | Researchers will identify fire parameters that have the largest impact on fire conditions, quantify those parameters contributing to uncertainties in the fire data through Monte Carlo simulation results, and use statistical analysis and machine learning models from the simulation results to assess existing data and recommend appropriate new fire tests to reduce uncertainties that are important to risk. With this information, researchers will develop a framework capable of determining the significant contributors to uncertainty in physical events that are relevant to the risk assessment and, then, determine the need for new experiments that would be of most value to reduce risk. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 21-24394: Computer vision and machine learning for microstructural qualification | Carnegie Mellon University | $497,518 | Quantifying and understanding microstructure is a key driver for performance-based materials qualification. In this proposal, well-curated data sets of microstructural images will be gathered and computer vision and machine learning will be applied to build quantitative deep learning frameworks to accelerate and enable qualification of nuclear materials based on microstructural features. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24156: Experimental thermofluidic validation of TCR fuel elements using distributed temperature and flow sensing | Kansas State University | $798,250 | The overall goal of this project will be to test the performance of 3D printed Transformational Challenge Reactor core geometry parts using existing Helium flow loops and distributed temperature, and velocity sensing systems. Thermal transport capabilities of scaled 3D printed ceramic core will be evaluated experimentally and measurements will be used to qualify computational models. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24636: Risk-informed Consequence-driven Physical Protection System Optimization for Microreactor Sites | Texas A&M University | $400,000 | This proposed project will utilize a risk-informed, consequence-driven analysis to develop an approach for "right-sizing" physical protection systems (PPS) for microreactors. The hypothesis presented for this proposal is that the explicit coupling of consequence modeling to PPS design will provide a similar benefit that can be applied prior to reactor construction. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24131: Total Mass Accounting in Advanced Liquid Fueled Reactors | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | A total mass determination method for nuclear materials accounting (NMA) in liquid-fueled molten salt reactors will be validated with fuel-bearing salt, mixed with a _+ radioisotope of known activity, that will be irradiated to reproduce the practical NMA scenario in a molten salt loop. Irradiated fuel salt will be sampled and measured for its mass and activity. The mass-to-activity ratio will be used to calculate the unknown salt mass in the original container. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24037: Design and intelligent optimization of the thermal storage and energy distribution for the TerraPower Molten Chloride Fast Reactor in an Integrated Energy System (IES) | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to explore the application of advanced reactors within Integrated Energy Systems, use extensive existing data from UIUC for model development and validation, and extend the predictions to larger grids and commercial applications. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24522: Targeted Materials Characterization and Testing of Additively Manufactured Metals and Ceramics to Inform Print/Build Data Analytics | University of Texas at San Antonio | $800,000 | A collaborative program between the University of Texas at San Antonio and Boise State University is proposed to supply materials testing and characterization data sets to be leveraged by the TCR program to inform build/print data analytics. With the data provided by the proposing team, correlations among steam oxidation performance, micromechanical properties, chemical composition, local microstructure, and location specific print/build data will be achieved. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24431: Location-specific material characterization of LPBF SS316L & IN718 TCR core structural materials | Utah State University | $800,000 | In this proposed work, we will experimentally characterize the spatial variability of the quasi-static (tensile), creep (strength and impression), and creep-fatigue properties as well as the underlying structures (microstructure and defect structures) for LPBF SS316L and IN718 components to be used as training data to the TCR program data-driven model. The resulting correlation will be used to drive the design process for an application as TCR core structural materials. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23978: Rapid, Non-Radioactive Methods for Prediction and Quantification of Radiolytic Radical Decomposition Products in Nuclear Separations | Clemson University | $399,999 | High-throughput, non-radioactive, radical assays will be used to determine decomposition of monoamide separations complexants. Radical assay results will be correlated with classic radiolytic damage results to develop predictive models for screening complexant stability. These models will aid in single-stage separations complexant optimization, in the transition from lab- to industrial-scale nuclear waste separations and, ultimately, could yield field tests for radiolytic damage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24350: Phosphate Mineral and Glass Waste Forms for Advanced Immobilization of Chloride and Fluoride-based Waste Streams | Clemson University | $600,000 | This proposal is intended to develop three waste form options for immobilizing the fluoride- and chloride-salt waste stream in highly durable and easily processable phosphate minerals and glasses, including phosphate apatite ceramic waste forms, phosphate glass waste forms, and phosphate glass-ceramic waste forms with apatite phase. Multiple monolithic waste form samples will be provided to DOE national laboratories for further testing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24292: Passive multimodal tomography for dry storage casks imaging using passive neutron and gamma dosimetry and cosmic ray muons | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | A method for multimodal tomography of dry storage casks will be developed to determine fuel relocation and cladding failures using passive neutrons and gamma emissions in combination with cosmic ray muons. The use of multimodal imaging will allow 3-D reconstructions of the dry storage cask that would be unachievable with any single radiation source. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24374: Effects of Radiolysis on Pertechnetate under Solvent Extraction Conditions, including Tri-Butyl Phosphate | CUNY, Hunter College | $399,624 | The overarching objective of the proposed work is to assess the impact of radiolysis on pertechnetate speciation during tri-butylphosphate (TBP) solvent extractions from the molecular level to macroscale. The research in this project is designed to understand the interplay of radiolysis, degradation product formation, other important redox active metals, and oxidation states of technetium on its speciation and distribution coefficients in solvent extraction processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24183: Experimental investigation and development of models and correlations for cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena in transient conditions in support of TREAT and the LWR fleet. | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Thermal-hydraulics transient heat transfer phenomena of relevance for the safety and the operation of the TREAT and light water reactors will be investigated. The performance of accident tolerant fuel materials during a reactivity initiated accident scenario and post-critical heat flux and reflood scenarios will be elucidated, as well as the development of models and correlations to be integrated into computational tools for the design and safety analysis of nuclear systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24666: Wireless Multifunctional Ultrasonic Arrays with Interdigital and Airborne Transducers for Monitoring Leakage and Corrosion Conditions of Welded Dry Storage Canisters | Mississippi State University | $800,000 | This project aims to develop and validate wireless, multifunctional, ultrasonic sensor arrays that enable on-demand, quantitative interrogation and real-time monitoring of both the canister leakage indicators (helium, helium/air mixture, internal pressure, and temperature) and corrosion conditions (free and/or vapor water). The developed arrays will be fully functional, wirelessly powered and communicated, and compact. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24188: Uranium recovery from used nuclear fuel using metal sulfides | Northwestern University | $400,000 | An alternative and original method to recover uranium from spent fuel is proposed. This method will utilize a new type of regenerable sorbent materials with high selectivity in capturing uranium from complex mixtures in acidic solutions, such as those found in used nuclear fuel of high-assay low-enriched uranium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24225: Characterizing Fuel Response and Quantifying Coolable Geometry of High-Burnup Fuel | Oregon State University | $800,000 | This study seeks to objectively determine, through empirical and numerical means, the actual impact of fuel dispersion in-core after fuel failure and whether high burnup dispersed fuel compromises coolable geometry and long-term cooling. The outcome of this study will yield an objective means of assessing two criteria (coolable geometry and long-term cooling) within the existing regulatory process to comprehensively understand whether it is feasible to increase burnup, while satisfying 10 CFR 50.46. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24288: Innovative Methods for Interrogation of DSC Internal Conditions | Oregon State University | $800,000 | The proposed work takes a two-pronged approach. The team will study techniques involving only external sensors and equipment, which could be deployed on existing dry storage canisters. In addition, small sensors located inside the canister that can be externally powered and read through the canister wall will also be investigated. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24439: Development of Novel Corrosion-Responsive Buffer Materials for Long-Term Immobilization of High-Level Nuclear Waste | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to develop a novel cementitious buffer material (CBM) for the safe disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF). The primary aim is to identify and characterize novel Mg-Al-P CBMs, complete with assessments of their repository stability as well as their transport and immobilization of radionuclides. The secondary aim is to use in-situ UT-EIS monitoring to understand the corrosive failure at the canister-CBM interface and provide long-term performance modeling of SNF packages. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24461: Estimation of low temperature cladding failures during an RIA transient | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers aim to create a multiphysics description of cladding response during a RIA, especially at high burnup, coupling reactor physics, thermal hydraulics and mechanics. The creation of a thermomechanical model in Bison will be the result of this project which can be used to evaluate the likelihood of low temperature cladding failures during a postulated RIA on a typical fuel rod (as these can lead to channel blockage), and thus identify the most important conditions to be studied at TREAT. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24460: Multiscale Modeling and Experiments for Investigating High Burnup LWR Fuel Rod Behavior Under Normal and Transient Conditions | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | The main objective of this work is to achieve a mechanistic understanding of and to develop a predictive model for the fuel rod behavior at high burn-up under both normal and transient conditions. Therefore, this study will provide the nuclear industry with validated, physics-based criteria to fuel fragmentation thresholds and rod mechanical integrity limits. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24388: Redox Chemistry of UO2 under Repository Relevant Conditions in the Presence of Zircaloy and Waste Canister Material | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | This project will seek to improve understanding of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) corrosion. Hydrothermal experiments of SNF with cladding and waste canister material will give insights into the redox potential formed due to secondary phase formation as consequence of corrosion in a failed canister. The experimentally derived data about secondary phase formation will be utilized for phase relationship analysis to decipher the redox conditions and thus provide source term for performance assessment models of deep geologic repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24006: High-fidelity modeling of fuel-to-coolant thermomechanical transport behaviors under transient conditions | University of Florida | $800,000 | The objective of the proposal is to develop a high-fidelity modeling tool that can capture some of the important phenomena in high burnup UO2 and ATF fuels during transient conditions. The BlueCRAB tool set will be improved and used to analyze TREAT loss of coolant accident experimental results. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24312: Accelerating the development of reliable and robust machine learning-based interatomic potentials for the prediction of molten salt structure and properties | University of Massachusetts Lowell | $400,000 | Machine learning-based interatomic potentials (MLIPs) used in molecular dynamics (MD) can accurately and efficiently predict molten salt properties. However many machine learning-based methods require large training sets, and can fail unpredictably. This project will overcome these challenges by developing a method for efficiently sampling diverse configurations from MD to train reliable and robust neural network potentials, and develop new models for predicting errors in MLIPs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24697: Dual External Leak Sensing and Monitoring for Dry Storage Canister | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers aim to develop two complementary external sensing methods to evaluate the integrity of DSC through internal pressure monitoring and helium leakage detection. The proposed diffuse ultrasonic wave method will be able to measure biaxial strains in the canister wall with high sensitivity and minimum temperature effects. An innovative capacitance MEMS sensor will be developed for helium concentration measurement in air based on the extremely low permittivity of helium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24449: Multi-modal Surface Acoustic Wave Sensing System for Pressure and Temperature monitoring of Spent Fuel Canisters | University of North Texas | $800,000 | University of North Texas (UNT) will collaborate with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to develop a multi-modal wireless passive SAW (Surface Acoustic Wave) sensor array, which are deployed on the outside surface of the canister, to monitor the strain of the canister and thus determine the inside pressure. In addition, the SAW strain sensor could also measure the surface temperature and potentially monitor helium gas leak. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24265: Fragmentation and Thermal Energy Transport of Cr-doped Fuels under Transient Conditions | University of Pittsburgh | $799,999 | This project will focus on multiple aspects of experimental testing and engineering-scale modeling in understanding thermal energy transport from high burnup, fractured/fragmented accident tolerant fuels, establishing a strong scientific basis to fill a critical knowledge data gap for modeling and simulation of transient fuel performance and safety, such as loss of coolant accident, for future integral testing and fuel licensing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24310: Fusion of Distributed Fiber Optics, Acoustic NDE, and Physics-Based AI for Spent Fuel Monitoring | University of Pittsburgh | $800,000 | The proposal will leverage new concepts in the fusion between fiber optic distributed acoustic sensing and advanced acoustic nondestructive evaluation techniques with artificial intelligence enhanced classification frameworks to quantitatively characterize the state of dry cask storage containers for spent fuel monitoring, externally and non-invasively, without introducing additional risks of failure. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24261: Internal Wireless Sensors for Dry Cask Storage | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | The effort will test the reliability of wireless, internal sensors after exposure to drying and storage conditions. These sensors are used to internally monitor temperature, pressure, and dose. Radiation shielding will also be designed to protect sensors during long-term storage. The effort will develop piezoelectric techniques for miniaturization of optical emission spectroscopy for internal monitoring of gas composition during drying and long-term storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24533: Non-destructive Evaluation of Dry Storage Canisters Using Acoustic Sensing | University of Southern California | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to develop a robust non-destructive evaluation (NDE) technique based on acoustic sensing to detect impurity gases in a sealed (welded) dry storage canister (DSC) using only measurements collected on the external surface of the DSC. The method is based on the time-of-flight analysis of acoustic signals propagating through the fill gas of a DSC, which is influenced by the composition, density and temperature of the propagation medium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23984: Safety Implications of High Burnup Fuel for a 2-Year PWR Fuel Cycle | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to perform safety analysis of high burnup fuel for a Westinghouse 4-Loop Pressurized Water Reactor. The work aims to identify potential opportunities and gaps for high burnup fuel by utilizing both well-established and modern methodologies to model reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, and plant system-level response that ultimately provide feedback to fuel performance analysis. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23985: Fuel-to-Coolant Thermomechanical Behaviors Under Transient Conditions | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This project will enhance the prediction of thermo-mechanical fuel-to-coolant heat transfer under transient conditions by using a coupled analysis and experiment approach. The effort is relevant to both high-burnup (> 62GWd/t) fuel applications and Accident Tolerant Fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24070: Modeling high-burnup LWR fuel behavior under normal operating and transient conditions | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This project aims to develop a high-burnup light water reactor fuel modeling capability to implement in the BISON code that would enable the accurate fuel rod behavior simulation during normal operation and design basis accidents, as wells as the identification of the rod life-limiting factors. Mechanistic engineering models will be developed for key phenomena, in particular, high burnup structure evolution, fuel fragmentation, and fission gas release. Traditional and accident tolerant fuels will be considered. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24033: Redox Chemistry in Nuclear Materials Storage Matrices under Ambient and Accelerated Aging Conditions | University of Washington | $800,000 | Deep geologic repositories must safely contain hazardous, high-activity nuclear wastes at geologic time-scales. However, such capability is centrally dependent on the element-specific redox chemistry within and at the interface of storage vessels. A comprehensive study of redox chemistry in cements used in long-term storage is proposed and emphasizes: 1) the actual consequences of accelerated aging modalities and 2) the novel use of newly available capabilities in advanced x-ray spectroscopies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24063: Post-DNB Thermo-mechanical Behavior of Near-term ATF Designs in Simulated Transient Conditions | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | The goals of the proposed research are to conduct coupled experimental and modeling investigations of thermo-mechanical performance of coated accident tolerant zirconium alloy claddings with simulated burnup doped fuels under thermal transients to predict complex thermal and mass transport phenomena of near-term Accident Tolerant Fuel designs in accident conditions. Experiments and modeling for understanding both cladding-coolant and fuel-coolant interactions will be performed. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24582: Machine-Learning-Accelerated Molecular Dynamics Approaches for Molten Salts | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $399,477 | New machine learning potential (MLP) approaches and new MLPs to enable rapid prediction of molten salt (FLiBe and Nal-MgCl2 with impurities) properties with near ab initio quantum mechanical accuracy will be developed. Uncertainty quantification with active learning and on-the-fly fitting will greatly accelerate MLP training. This work will support dramatically increased simulation speeds and associated data generation and understanding for molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24067: Development of Full Understanding of Mechanical-Chemical Coupling in Bentonite THMC processes | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | The central hypothesis is that mechanical stress in an engineered barrier can lead to pressure solution of solid minerals, leading to significant changes in pore water chemistry, which affects bentonite stability, longevity of the waste pack, and dissolution and migration of nuclides. The overall objective of this project is to develop full understanding of the role of pressure solution on pore water chemistry, the implications to large-scale heterogeneity, and THMC processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23987: Separate and Multi-Physics Effects IRPhEP Benchmark Evaluation using SNAP Experiments | Georgia Institute of Technology | $400,000 | The proposed project will develop an International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) mulitphysics microreactor benchmark evaluation based on data from the Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power (SNAP) program. This work will include systematic assessments of the experimental data with meticulous compilation and documentation, and validation of specific NEAMS tools to model effects that are unique to microreactors technologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24630: Integral Benchmark Evaluation of Zero-Power Tests and Multi-Cycle Depletion Experimental Data of TVA WB1 Cycles 1-3 | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | This project proposes to develop an integral benchmark evaluation of available experimental data for zero-power tests and multi-cycle depletion for consistent and comprehensive validation of both novel high-fidelity and traditional multi-physics tools. The benchmark evaluation will be based on operational and measured data from the Pressurized Water Reactor Watts Bar Unit 1 released by Tennessee Valley Authority. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24186: Regenerating Missing Experimental Parameters with Data-Assimilation Methods for MSRE Transient Benchmark Development and Evaluation | Virginia Commonwealth University | $400,000 | The proposed project will regenerate the undocumented basic data from available experimental data of the MSRE using advanced data-assimilation methods to facilitate the whole-loop modeling of the representative MSRE transients, and perform a thorough MSRE transient benchmark evaluation for the IRPhEP handbook. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24194: Implementation of improved quasi-static, time-dependent, multi-physics methodology in Shift | Georgia Institute of Technology | $600,000 | A practical reference calculation route for time-dependent coupled Monte Carlo calculations, using Shift, will be developed. The proposed framework will be tailored to depletion and slowly varying transients, but with the flexibility to perform thermal-hydraulic time-dependent calculations with minimal computational overheads. This method relies on a hybrid-resolution stochastic approach in conjunction with a substep technique. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24078: Material transport model development and integration in the System Analysis Module (SAM) code | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | This project proposes to develop and implement models for System Analysis Module, which accurately characterize the sink, source, and interaction terms of key material species that are or may be present in various advanced reactor designs. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24195: Enhancing Yellowjacket for Modeling the Impact of Radiation and Stress on the Corrosion of Molten-Salt-Facing Structural Components | University of Florida | $692,088 | The objective of this project is to add the capability to model the impact of radiation and stress on corrosion to the Yellowjacket code, as well as to use Yellowjacket to create surrogate models that will be added to engineering-scale codes like Grizzly. We will also collect new experimental data for validation that quantifies the impact of stress and radiation on corrosion of 316 stainless steel in molten fluoride salts. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24405: Development of a High-fidelity Flow Boiling Database for Validation of High-void-fraction Flow Regime Models | University of Michigan | $800,000 | The primary objective of this proposed research is to develop a comprehensive, high-resolution, multiphase computational fluid dynamics validation-grade flow boiling data from rod bundle geometry simulating current light water reactor fuel designs by taking advantage of the instrumentation and facility developed by the research team. In addition, the applicability of the data through initial evaluations of selected test cases using Nek-2P boiling closure models will be studied and demonstrated for two-phase flow simulations. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24471: Technical Basis of Microstructure Criteria and Accelerated Testing for Qualifying Additively-manufactured 316H Stainless Steel for High-temperature Cyclic Service | Auburn University | $800,000 | This project seeks to reveal the fundamental relationship for AM 316H SS working at 500-750 _C between additively-manufactured microstructures and creep/creep-fatigue properties through a multiscale experimental and modeling approach. The project also seeks to establish the technical basis for the microstructure criteria and accelerated testing method to support near-term nuclear qualification. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24152: Direct heating of chemical catalysts for hydrogen and fertilizer production using Microreactors | Kansas State University | $799,202 | This proposal presents a novel integration approach to deliver process heat from microreactors by directly heating the catalyst particles from the primary heat transfer fluid in a moving packed bed heat exchanger (MPBHX). In this design, the tube side of the MPBHX can be a heat pipe or primary Helium coolant as in several microreactor designs. The shell side will be moving catalyst particles, which will enter the high temperature chemical reactor upon heating. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24287: Investigating heat transfer in horizontally oriented HTGR under normal and PCC conditions | Kansas State University | $799,762 | Experimental research will be conducted to understand heat transfer inside the graphite matrix of horizontal microscale High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors. Existing high temperature test facilities will be used to simulate normal operation and Pressurized Conduction Cooldown. The focus of these experiments is to generate benchmark data under forced and natural convection with coupled multi-mode heat transfer in scaled-down prismatic blocks. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24104: Thermal Hydraulics Investigation of Horizontally Orientated Layout Micro HTGRs Under Normal Operation and PCC Conditions Using Integrated Advanced Measurement Techniques | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000 | The proposed novel work will make a significant pioneering contribution to advance the knowledge and understanding of horizontal micro-high temperature gas cooled reactors. Quantification of metrics will pertain to convective heat transfer coefficients along the channel and gaps, comparative rates of convective and radiative heat transfer, location of peak temperature and its temporal variation, timescales for onset of natural convection, local gas velocity profiles, gas dispersion, crossflows, and temperature profiles over channel diameter and gap thickness. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24004: An Open Source, Parallel, and Distributed Web-Based Probabilistic Risk Assessment Platform to Support Real Time Nuclear Power Plant Risk-Informed Operational Decisions | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | The main objective of the proposed work is to develop, demonstrate, and evaluate a probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) software platform needed to address the major challenges of the current legacy PRA tools. This includes better quantification speed, integration of multi-hazard models into traditional PRAs, and model modification/simplification and documentation automation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24228: Quantifying the Dynamic and Static Porosity/Microstructure Characteristics of Irradiated Graphite through Multi-technique Experiments and Mesoscale Modeling | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | This project proposes a joint experimental-computational approach to probe and quantify the porosity and microstructure characteristics of irradiated nuclear graphite grades and their influence on dimensional changes and turnaround behavior, as well as mechanical properties. The chief focus will be on quantifying both the static and dynamic porosity and crack characteristics in various graphitic phases through several experimental techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24247: Multi-scale Effects of Irradiation Damage on Nuclear Graphite Properties | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Irradiation induces microstructural damage in graphite, causing both dimensional and property (stiffness, strength and creep) changes as a function of the displacement damage and temperature. The biggest gap remains is the fundamental deformation mechanisms behind the property changes. Researchers propose to eliminate this gap in knowledge with a comprehensive, multi-scale experimental framework exploiting in-situ transmission electron and X-ray computed tomography. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23975: Development of Thermal Power Dispatch Simulation Tools for BWR Flexible Plant Operation and Generation | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | In the U.S. domestic light water reactor fleet, about one-third of operational nuclear power reactors are boiling water reactors (BWRs). Thermal power extraction technologies to be designed for BWRs will be different from those for pressurized water reactors due to differences in steam generation. This study proposes to investigate the thermal and electric power dispatch and required control algorithms for dynamic heat dispatch of up to 50% of the thermal energy from a BWR plant to a hydrogen plant. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24111: Experimental Investigations of HTGR Fission Product Transport in Separate-effect Test Facilities Under Prototypical Conditions for Depressurization and Water-ingress Accidents | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Experimental investigations will be performed for fission product (FP) lift-off, washoff, vaporization from plateout surfaces, and transport of FP at prototypical conditions representing depressurization and water-ingress accidents. Measurements will be performed on existing separate-effect facilities using intrusive and non-intrusive techniques to obtain shear stress, deposition velocity, thermal gradient, and gas impurity for advanced correlations. Modeling will be performed using system and computational fluid dynamics codes. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24644: High-Resolution Measurements and Advanced Modeling for Design Optimization of Advanced Small Modular Reactor Steam Generators | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Experiments and simulations will be performed to acquire multi-parameters of pressure drop, heat and mass transfer, and flow-induced vibration (FIV) effect for the design optimization of advanced small modular reactor steam generators (SMR SG). Measurements are performed on existing SMR SG facilities using intrusive/non-intrusive techniques to obtain velocity, temperature, pressure, heat flux, and FIV effects for various geo-dimensions, spacing, pitch angles. Simulations will be performed in StarCCM, Nek5000 and coupling with Diablo_ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24332: A Virtual Reality Environment for Human Reliability Assessment in the Context of Physical Security Attacks | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Recent studies have shown that the physical security workforce accounts for 20% of the entire workforce and, therefore, is responsible for significant operational and maintence costs. To reduce the security staffing, improve performance and reduce threats, modeling and simulation and models of attacker, defender and operator behavior could be employed. This proposal aims to model human behavior using a combination of known human reliability analyses models and experimental evidence from virtual reality experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24389: High Temperature Electromagnetic Acoustic (EMAT) Transducers for Structural Health Monitoring | University of Cincinnati | $800,000 | The aim of this project is to produce an electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT) technology to enable ultrasonic structural health monitoring at the METL facility and similar high temperature assets. Ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation methods can be used for monitoring a range of damage mechanisms including thermal fatigue and corrosion. The project will seek to establish core design solutions that can be used as the basis of a range of EMAT designs for different applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24380: Probabilistic Validation and Risk Importance Ranking Methodology for Automation Trustworthiness and Transparency in Nuclear Power Plants | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | This project develops a methodology to improve trustworthiness and transparency of automation technologies in nuclear power plants. The proposed methodology will monitor risk emerging from automation processes and rank the criticality of automation factors influencing automation output, plant equipment, and system performance. The feasibility and practicality of the proposed methodology will be demonstrated with two case studies focusing on implementation of nuclear power plant automation technologies. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24162: Self-powered wireless sensor system for health monitoring of liquid-sodium cooled fast reactors | University of Notre Dame | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to develop self-powered wireless multimodal sensors and instrumentation for health monitoring and diagnosing early-stage materials degradation for high-risk components in liquid-sodium cooled fast reactors. The synergistic and innovative integrations of the multimodal sensor array, wireless communication, and thermoelectric energy harvester have crosscutting benefit for a wide range of advanced reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24102: High temperature Molten salt reactor pump component development and testing | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | This project will provide relevant key information on the tribology of bearing material and components (such as magnets, couplers, ceramic coated wire, and coatings) in high temperature molten salts that will be required in the design of reactor pumps. Investigation of in-service inspection and monitoring of the pump internals will also be addressed in an effort to reduce down time and operation and maintenance costs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24226: Cost Reduction of Advanced Integration Heat Exchanger Technology for Micro-Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,713 | Heat exchanger technology is a high-cost component of a micro-reactor system that is also critical to the overall reliability and performance. This project will develop the underlying advanced heat exchanger technology necessary to integrate a micro-reactor with any end-user application, as well as providing internal heat exchange. Economic optimization of the heat exchanger and experimental demonstration of the technology will be accomplished. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24382: Advanced High-Fluence Low-Flux RPV Mechanical Property Models for Extended Life | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,717 | This project will further develop accurate models of the mechanical property changes under life-extension conditions in reactor pressure vessel (RPV) steels using reduced order Avrami models, cluster dynamics, and atomistic methods combined with massive comprehensive databases on irradiated steels. The work will provide models critical to extending the life of U.S. pressurized water reactors, as well as new fundamental insights into flux and fluence effects and sink and precipitate evolution in reactor pressure vessels and related steels. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| Integrated Marine Platform for Hydrogen and Ammonia Production | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | This study investigates the economic and environmental value of a floating integrated GW-scale green hydrogen/ammonia production facility powered by an advanced nuclear reactor. Floating Production Storage and Offloading units (FPSOs) are deployed worldwide in the oil and gas industry, and can be used for hydrogen and ammonia processing. Deployment of an advanced reactor on a floating platform offers several advantages, including the efficiencies of shipyard fabrication. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Functionally-graded Cermet Coatings for Molten Salt Technologies by High Throughput Finite Element Modeling and Additive Manufacturing | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $500,000 | This project proposes an integrated approach/methodology to design, manufacture and verify functionally-graded metal-ceramic composite coatings on structural alloys with desired interfacial properties, capabilities of mitigating residual stress and improved corrosion resistance for molten salt reactor applications. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| An Innovative Monitoring Technology for the Reactor Vessel of Micro-HTGR | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | This project seeks to develop an innovative sensor technology for real-time monitoring of the thermo-mechanical stresses in the reactor vessel of micro-HTGR. The technology will be based on a sparse network of outer wall temperature measurements and plant operating conditions. An integrated software-hardware sensing system aimed at monitoring the health of the pressure vessel of gas micro-reactors will be implemented and tested. The proposed work will have a broad impact on sensing in other reactor designs. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| High throughput mechanical testing of additively-manufactured materials | University of California, Berkeley | $500,000 | This project proposes fast and high throughput mechanical testing of AM produced materials. It will include the generation of automated tensile testing, hardness testing and microstructure assessment and data comparison to build data via machine learning. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Accelerated irradiation creep testing coupled with self-adaptive accelerated molecular dynamics simulations for scalability analysis | University of Michigan | $500,000 | The goal of the proposed work is to accelerate traditional irradiation creep using instrumented in-situ ion irradiation creep and long-time molecular dynamics simulations to accelerate traditional neutron irradiation creep testing. This goal will be accomplished by coupling a novel ion beam flux jump test using tapered creep specimens and self-adaptive accelerated molecular dynamics. The outcome is a rapid, low-cost accelerated method to determine the fundamental irradiation creep mechanisms. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Creation of a Pebble Database for Material Control and Accountancy in Pebble Bed Reactors | Virginia Commonwealth University | $399,969 | The primary goal of this proposed project is to develop a database of NDA signatures from a wide variety of used PBR pebbles. This database can be used for facility operations, safety, security, and safeguards (3S) to directly measure fission product content and indirectly 235U and plutonium content of each PBR pebble. This project has significant synergy with current 3S PBR research at ANL, BNL, and ORNL, all of whom are collaborators to this proposed project. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Quantifying Aerosol Deposition Mechanisms in Model Dry Cask Storage Systems | Clemson University | $800,000 | The objective of this work is to measure aerosol deposition and resuspension rates in laboratory models of dry cask storage systems to compare with and validate the DOE deposition model. The project team will conduct experiments to directly measure the deposition/resuspension rates of bulk aerosol in the system and to isolate and quantify individual aerosol deposition mechanisms, with a focus on those sensitive to variable humidity and surface temperature. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Using Amide-Functionalized Electrodes to Elucidate Interfacial Actinide Redox Chemistry for Improved HALEU Supply | Florida International University | $400,000 | The goal is to decrease HALEU fuel cycle costs by examination of the redox behavior of U, Np, and Pu at the water-organic interface using amide functionalized electrodes, and in organic media after extraction with amides. Experiments with redox active interferences including additional actinides in different oxidation states will also be conducted. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advancing the technical readiness of FeCrAl alloys and ODS steels under extreme conditions for fast reactor fuel cladding | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | A key technology gap for advanced high-performance fuel applications is the current unavailability of materials that can withstand extremely high doses without significant degradation of cladding performance. The project team will perform in-situ thermo-mechanical experiments (tension, torsion, creep, and creep-fatigue and nanoindentation) on ion-irradiated (to 400 dpa) cladding materials (up to 700 C) along with microstructures using TEM and mesoscale phase field simulations. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| A molten salt community framework for predictive modeling of critical characteristics | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | This research aims to develop a molten salt community framework to address the needs in advanced fuel cycles, including understanding salts via new theory of liquids, predicting salt characteristics via simulations (DFT, MD, and CALPHAD by implementing advanced models), optimizing inversely molten salts, and verifying simulations by experiments. This project has outstanding value for US taxpayers, educates students, and delivers outreach opportunities for academia, industry, and the public. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Understanding the Interfacial Structure of the Molten Chloride Salts by in-situ Electrocapillarity and Resonant Soft X-ray Scattering (RSoXS) | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | The objective of the proposed research is to investigate the interplay between the interfacial structure of the molten salts and their electrochemical corrosion properties in Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Clay Hydration, Drying, and Cracking in Nuclear Waste Repositories | Princeton University | $800,000 | This project will develop a new multiscale model of the thermal-hydrologic-mechanical-chemical (THMC) evolution of an engineered clay barrier in the near field of a nuclear waste repository, including initial hydration and eventual post-closure criticality. This new model will directly link micro-scale material properties to large-scale barrier performance, thus facilitating future design advances or modifications, and enable robust validation of large-scale simulation predictions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Physics-guided Smart Scaling Methodology for Accelerated Fuel Testing | Purdue University | $800,000 | This project proposes to employ novel informatics algorithms for mapping/scaling uncertainties from experimentally accessible scaled state to application/prototypical state, informed by an equivalent mapping obtained from high-fidelity multi-physics simulations for the fuel thermo-mechanical behavior, specifically, a rate theory-based model for thermal conductivity and fission gas behavior in the BISON code, and employing relevant HALDEN reactor and FAST experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Materials Accountancy During Disposal and Waste Processing of Molten Salt Reactor Fuel Salts | Texas A&M University | $399,997 | The objective of this work is to develop and validate a method for measuring and predicting hold-up to eliminate operational risks and expenses during disposal of salt-wetted MSR components. These objectives will be met by applying robust measurement/detection methods to realistic salt loop environments to validate their use in decommissioning MSRs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advanced Screening Approaches for Accelerating Development of Separations Technologies | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | The goal of this project is to establish a unified selection criterion for chelating molecular structures to more efficiently address ligand applicability to metal ion separation problems, for current and future nuclear fuel cycles. By establishing this criterion, the team will seek to enable the accelerated, cost-effective discovery of new separation workflows, as well as their implementation beyond early radiotracer experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advancing NMA of TRISO-fueled pebbles using fast and accurate gamma-ray spectroscopy | University of Colorado, Boulder | $385,307 | This proposal will provide new Nuclear Materials Analysis (NMA) capabilities for TRISO-fueled pebbles using gamma-ray spectroscopy, through a program of simulations of expected signatures from irradiated pebbles, resulting in a detailed measurement plan to monitor burnup and actinide content throughout the fuel cycle. These simulations will be used to develop requirements for NMA sensor technology and identify opportunities for focused technology development to meet these requirements. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Development of Irradiation and Creep Resistant High-Cr Ferritic/Martensitic Steels via Magnetic Field Heat Treatment | University of Kentucky | $800,000 | The objective of this proposed study is to develop and test new generation of Ferritic/Martensitic (F/M) steels specifically designed for advanced reactors that will exceed the current limitations due to temperature and irradiation dose. To achieve this objective, a systematic study is proposed to employ an innovative tempering heat treatment under high external magnetic field (up to 9T) on F/M steel HT9 to engineer an optimized microstructure composed of refined carbides and martensite laths. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Investigation into the processing parameters of phosphate-based dehalogenation for chloride-based waste salt | University of Nevada, Reno | $399,999 | This proposal will focus on several topics needed to advance the iron phosphate process: 1) Dehalogenation/vitrification processes using salt simulants to generate process flow sheets, 2) Reactions of crucible materials with phosphate products and byproducts, 3) Collection of glass property-composition data to develop models based on the glass-forming regions, 4) Development of a process for reacting recovered NH4Cl with metals that need to be fed into the system (U, Li, etc.). | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| A Validated Framework for Seismic Risk Assessment of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of Nevada, Reno | $799,883 | This is a collaborative research program with a primary objective of developing a validated numerical framework for seismic risk analysis of spent fuel storage facilities from the global cask behavior to the localized behavior of internal spent fuel assemblies. In building and validating this framework, advanced data analysis, data assimilation, and forward and inverse modeling techniques will be utilized. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| International Collaboration to Advance the Technical Readiness of High Uranium Density Fuels and Composites for Small Modular Reactors | University of Texas at San Antonio | $800,000 | An international team of high uranium density fuels (HDFs) experts advised by industry leaders in nuclear reactor innovation propose a US-UK collaboration to advance the technical readiness of UN, UB2, and their composites for fuel forms specific to small modular reactors (SMRs). The project will bridge the critical data gaps in HDF performance specific to the impact of common impurities and microstructural variations that originate at fabrication. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Development of Advanced Control Rod Assembly for Improved Accident Tolerance and High Burnup Fuel Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Research will focus on the development of new materials' designs for control rod sheaths and neutron absorbers, coupled with neutronics analysis and thermo-mechanical modeling to improve accident tolerance and to achieve higher fuel burnup in PWRs. Functionality of the proposed designs consisting of Cr coated control rod sheaths of current and advanced alloys as well as novel neutron absorbers will be evaluated in prototypical reactor conditions and accident scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Optical Basicity Determination of Molten Fluoride Salts and its Influence on Structural Material Corrosion | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | The proposed research is aimed at developing ion probes to determine the optical basicity of molten fluoride salts and studying its influence on structural material corrosion. Combining with the molten salt structure study using X-ray absorption spectroscopy, the salt chemical constitution, the resulting optical basicity, and molten salt structure will be inextricably linked and their connections will be unveiled. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Extending the HMF71 Benchmark Series for Graphite Reflector Thickness up to 18 Inches | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $399,522 | The objective of this proposal is to extend the HEU-MET-FAST-071 (HMF-71) experiment benchmark series in ICSBEP by evaluating the historical (existing) experimental data for critical experiments with graphite reflector thickness from 3 inches up to 18 inches. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2022 |
| Fast and Rigorous Methods for Multiphysics SPn Transport in Advanced Reactors | University of Michigan | $600,000 | This project proposes to perform rigorous theoretical and numerical analysis of the Generalized SPn method and underlying cross section models to enable a fast and robust multiphysics low-order transport capability for advanced reactors. This includes 5 major tasks focused on the efficient discretization and solution of the GSPn equations, numerical analysis of XS models having multiphysics and depletion, analysis of equivalence factors, improved MC estimators, and several V&V applications of the methods. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2022 |
| Development of Hydrogen Transport Models for High Temperature Metal Hydride Moderators | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Understanding the transient behavior of metal hydride moderator materials at high temperatures is a key challenge to the design and deployment of future microreactors. This project will use neutron radiography techniques provide the necessary data for this understanding and demonstrate the development of time and temperature dependent hydrogen transport models using both commercial FEA software coupled to MCNP and coupled models developed in the MOOSE framework. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Characterizing fast reactor fuel failure mode through separate effect and prototypic tests | Oregon State University | $800,000 | The project consists of conducting separate effect fuel pin failure tests with surrogate fluid and prototypic test with sodium. The outcome of this study will generate an experimental database that will be used to develop mechanistic model and validate the CDAP module of the SAS4A/SASSYS-1 code. Ultimately the quality data can be used to benchmark other fuel codes developed for LMFR application, which are seeking validation for licensing purpose. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Science-based development of ASTM standard tests for graphite-based fuel pebbles | University of California, Berkeley | $700,000 | This project proposes the development of mechanical test procedures as well as wear and friction tests on Graphite fuel pebbles | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Role of Heterogeneity in Manganese and Nickel Rich Precipitate Distribution on Hardening of Reactor Pressure Vessel Steels: Integrated Modeling and Experimental Characterization | University of Florida | $799,803 | The hypothesis of this work is that the different nucleation and coarsening kinetics of manganese and nickel rich precipitates (MNPs) compared to copper rich precipitates, and the heterogeneous distribution of manganese and nickel rich precipitates on or near dislocations, both lead to unique hardening behavior at high neutron fluence. The objective of this work is to understand hardening in reactor pressure vessel steels caused by MNPs via integrated multiscale modeling and experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Integrated Thermal-Electric Energy Management of All-Electric Ship with Advanced Nuclear Reactors | University of Texas at Dallas | $400,000 | The overall objective of this research is to comprehensively model, design, and evaluate the use of advanced nuclear reactors in future nuclear-powered ships, to enhance the efficiency, reliability, and resilience of shipboard energy distribution systems. The novelty of the proposed approach lies in (i) integrated thermal-electric modeling of advanced nuclear-powered shipboard energy system, and (ii) novel solutions for total-ship energy management to improve energy efficiency and resiliency. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Open Architecture for Nuclear Cost Reduction | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Open architecture has potential to reduce advanced reactor (AR) costs, through exploiting modular design and construction, with common, openly available interfaces between modules. A comprehensive assessment of the challenges and opportunities of open architecture for ARs will be performed. Supported by a pilot study, actionable recommendations for the implementation or otherwise of open architecture for ARs will be developed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Telescopic Control Rod for Significant Reduction in HTR Height and therefore Cost | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | This project proposes a design for a small modular High Temperature Reactor (HTR) control rod that extends telescopically, consisting of ~5 concentric annuli that nest together above the core when withdrawn. This compact component substantially reduces the length of the depth of the silo. Modelling and experimental testing will be performed to develop the control rod to evaluate feasibility, plus perform a cost-benefit analysis, with a view to its inclusion in both pebble bed and prismatic HTR designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Mechanism Driven Evaluations of Sequential and Simultaneous Irradiation-Creep-Fatigue Testing | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | This project addresses a critical need for irradiation and creep-fatigue testing by carrying out a systematic, mechanistic-driven benchmarking for irradiation creep, irradiation fatigue and creep-fatigue tests under various environments. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Mechanisms-based Acceleration of Materials Qualifications for Creep-Fatigue Performance in Advanced Nuclear Systems | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | The goal of this research is to fully understand, quantify and model creep-fatigue 'damage' as a function of loading patterns, temperature and microstructural evolution. Using this experimental information over a large range of relevant stress levels and temperatures, a mechanisms-based creep-fatigue analysis approach will be demonstrated which will properly qualify high temperature alloys for extended service in advanced nuclear systems where creep-fatigue is currently a major design limitation. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Subwavelength Ultrasonic Imaging for Rapid Qualification of Additively Manufactured Nuclear Structures and Components | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to develop a transformational capability for rapid nondestructive quality assessment of actual nuclear additively manufactured structures and components through advanced ultrasonic imaging with subwavelength resolution. The resolution of conventional ultrasonic systems is limited by diffraction on the order of the wavelength. In this project, the goal is to break the diffraction limits of ultrasonic imaging by implementing a negative-index lens. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| MXene as Sorbent Materials for Off-gas Radioiodine Capture and Immobilization | Clemson University | $1,000,000 | The overarching goal of this project is to develop efficient and stable new sorbent materials, for off-gas radioiodine capture and immobilization, that are based on MXenes with two-dimensional transition metal carbides/nitrides. The exploratory research will focus on three main objectives: 1) Design and synthesis of MXenes as radioiodine sorbent and support materials, 2) Quantification of iodine sorption capacity of MXenes in different forms, 3) Synthesis and characterization of consolidated waste forms. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Fundamental understanding of grain boundary cracking in LWR environments | University of California, Los Angeles | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to understand the details of stress corrosion cracking (SCC) and irradiation assisted stress corrosion cracking (IASCC) by targeted experiments and modeling efforts. A comprehensive model will be produced, which will predict the conditions under which these failure modes occur and when the materials may see onsets of the failure mode. This work will directly impact the nuclear industry by refining predictive models of component lifetime. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Facile manufacturing of fiber-reinforced-SiC/SiC composite using aerodynamic fiber deposition (AFD) and metal assisted polymer impregnation and pyrolysis processes (MAPIP) | University of Pittsburgh | $999,886 | SiC/SiC ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) are promising candidate materials for the cladding of accident tolerant fuels. Superior material properties of SiC/SiC CMC, however, come at a high manufacturing cost. The objective of the proposed research is to apply aerodynamic fiber deposition (AFD) and metal assisted polymer impregnation and pyrolysis (MAPIP) to develop a new facile manufacturing approach of SiC/SiC CMC. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| High Concentration Monoamide Separations: Phase Modifiers and Transuranic Chemistry | Colorado School of Mines | $999,900 | Extraction of actinides from used nuclear fuel with high concentrations of monoamide extractants is a promising strategy to intensify separation processes; however key issues remain to be understood and resolved. This project will examine three questions: 1) Can phase modifiers mitigate issues with organic phase viscosity? 2) Can the chemistry of neptunium be controlled to ensure complete separation? 3) Do high concentrations of monoamides affect the oxidation states of important metals and can that be exploited? | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Multiple Uranium Complexes in Chloride Fast Reactor Molten Salt Properties | University of Connecticut | $1,000,000 | Multivalent transition metal ions in a melt can exhibit multiple coordination states that affect molten salt properties. This project will use a new high-energy resolution fluorescence detection (HERFD) spectroscopy to overcome issues associated with measuring coordination numbers of multiple complexes, along with Raman spectroscopy and advanced simulations to accurately predict properties of molten salts with multiple uranium complexes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Validation of Geochemical Reactive Transport Long-Term predictions Using Natural Cements and Ancient Cements Analogues | Vanderbilt University | $950,000 | This project will validate long-term performance predictions of rock/cement interfaces based on characterization of natural analogues, ancient cements and interfaces with rock formations, and demonstrate applicability of the established testing and simulation workflow with argillite rock (representative of potential U.S. repository systems). This project addresses the research gap of long-term validation and uncertainty assessment associated with cement barrier performance and multi-physics models. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Predicting Pitting and Stress Corrosion Cracking of Dry Cask Storage Canisters via High Throughput Testing, Multiscale Characterization, and 3D Computer Vision based Machine Learning | The Ohio State University | $1,000,000 | This project consists of a US-UK collaborative research program focusing on the nucleation and growth of pits and stress corrosion cracking of stainless steel 304 (a canister material used for dry cask storage of spent nuclear fuels) by leveraging multi-scale characterization techniques, 2D/3D computer vision, and machine learning approaches. The study will enable the understanding and prediction of how and when pitting corrosion can nucleate, grow, and transition into stress corrosion cracking. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Multiscale Residual Stress Tailoring of Spent Fuel Canister CISCC Resistance | Purdue University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to understand the role of residual stress in chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) of austenitic steel, then tailor CISCC initiation and propagation through engineered multiscale residual stress distributions. Microscopic and macroscopic residual stresses will be systematically varied, then a novel sequence of advanced, site-specific, correlative characterization techniques will be applied to directly link residual stress, pitting, and crack propagation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Illuminating Emerging Supply Chain and Waste Management Challenges | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | Regional constraints on domestic fuel supply and greater variation in demand from advanced reactors has led to a shift in the U.S. fuel cycle, and modeling tools must reflect this. In this work, Cyclus will be updated to better reflect new and emergent regional supply constraints, spatial and temporal fluctuations in material needs, and those impacts on the back-end of the fuel cycle will be quantified. This work will allow for flexible, reproducible analysis to inform stakeholder decision-making. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Determination of Local Structure and Phase Stability of Uranium Species in Molten Halide Salts: Linking Microscopic Structure with Macroscopic Thermodynamics | Arizona State University | $1,000,000 | The goal of this project is to determine the local structures (valence state, coordination configuration and medium-range structure) and thermodynamic stability of uranium species in molten chloride and fluoride salts at high temperatures using a combination of experimental and modeling methods. The obtained results will allow for revelation of the structure-stability relations of the studied systems and development of acid-base scales to determine the solubility of uranium in molten halide salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Thermal-Hydraulics Assessment of SiC Compared to Other ATF Cladding Materials and its Performance to Mitigate CRUD | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | This project aims to experimentally investigate the thermal-hydraulics performance of SiC compared to the Cr-coated zircaloys and APMT ATF cladding materials under accident scenarios, including both DNB and dryout conditions. The project is divided into five tasks that will advance the understanding of the operation and optimization of heat pipes for advanced nuclear reactors. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Physics-Informed Artificial Intelligence for Non-Destructive Evaluation of Ceramic Composite Cladding by Creating Digital Fingerprints | University of Florida | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to spatially map the material composition, structure, and defect distribution of SiCf-SiCm composite tubes from ultrasonic wavefields measured from the materials and the defects within them. Specifically, this project will delve into the unique ultrasonic fingerprints (i.e., dispersion relations and mode shapes) of the SiCf-SiCm composites using physics-informed machine learning to assess the quality of the manufactured tubes based on their spatial-spectral ultrasonic characteristics. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Understanding Constituent Redistribution, Thermal Transport, and Fission Gas Behavior in U-Zr Annular Fuel Without a Sodium Bond | University of Florida | $999,462 | This project will investigate the reason for changed constituent redistribution in annular U-Zr fuel without a sodium bond and how it changes the fission gas behavior and thermal conductivity. This will be achieved using a combination of microstructure characterization and thermal conductivity measurements of irradiated U-Zr annular fuel and multiscale modeling and simulation using the MARMOT and BISON fuel performance codes. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Getting AnCers: Metallothermic Molten Salt Synthesis and Reaction Thermodynamics of Actinide Ceramic Fuels | Oregon State University | $1,000,000 | Synthesis of high quality actinide ceramics (AnCers) remains a costly challenge. A low-temperature, high-yield, short-duration reaction that directly synthesizes UN and UC could reduce the cost of these advanced fuels greatly. This proposal aims to demonstrate a method by which the costs of AnCers can be greatly reduced - metallothermic molten salt synthesis. Optimization and thermodynamics data will be obtained. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Integrated Stand-off Optical Sensors for Molten Salt Reactor Monitoring | University of Pittsburgh | $1,000,000 | This project intends to develop robust and stand-off optical sensors to perform real-time molten salt levels, flow, and impurity measurements of molten salts. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Cybersecurity in advanced reactor fleet by cyber-informed design, real-time anomaly detection, dynamic monitoring, and cost-effective mitigation strategies | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The goal of this research is to provide technical solutions to unique cybersecurity challenges in future microreactor fleet through cyber-informed design (C-ID), real-time anomaly detection, dynamic monitoring, and cost-effective mitigation strategies. The efforts will significantly improve the economics and effectiveness of cybersecurity risk management in future microreactor fleets. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Building Cyber-Resilient Architecture for Advanced Reactors via Integrated Operations and Network Digital Twin | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | The research will develop a secure-by-design architecture via integrating plant operation and network digital twins for advanced reactors. Automatic attack path and vulnerability analysis will be developed and used to assess and harden critical digital assets (CDA) against cyber risks prior to and during operation to identify vulnerabilities, attack pathways, and threat vectors. A CDA selection method will also be developed by combining vulnerability scores and assets importance. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Extending PRA and HRA legacy methods and tools with a cause-based model for comprehensive treatment of human error dependency | University of California, Los Angeles | $1,000,000 | This project aims at developing a solution to HRA dependency assessment in PRA from methodological and practical/computational perspectives within legacy PRA tools and methods. The solutions will include procedures for quantifying dependency when using PRA legacy tools, a method for modeling and quantifying dependency in HRA comprising a BN-causal model suitable for use with legacy PRA methods and tools, and the computational tools for its integration. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| An Integrated Elemental and Isotopic Detector for Real-Time Molten Salt Monitoring | North Carolina State University | $1,000,000 | The overarching theme of the proposed research is to develop and demonstrate a real-time elemental and isotopic detector of molten salts for advanced reactors and fuel fabrication and recycling processes. The detector's longevity, limits, and latency will be tested in static uranium chloride salts, in pyroprocessing chloride salt, and on flowing fluoride salt with evolving actinide composition, respectively. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Development of a Thin-Layer Electrochemical Sensor for Molten Salt Reactors and Fuel Cycle Processes | Brigham Young University | $811,755 | A thin-layer electrochemical sensor capable of detecting uranium, plutonium and other species of interest in molten salts, at both high and low concentrations, will be developed for application in molten salt reactors and fuel cycle process units. This will provide a valuable tool for performing material control and accountancy measurements. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Risk-Informed Consequence-Driven Hybrid Cyber-Physical Protection System Security Optimization for Advanced Reactor Sites | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | This project aims to develop an expanded methodology for designing a novel cybersecurity-integrated physical protection system (PPS) framework for advanced reactor concepts that serves to reduce the operational costs for the life of a reactor against that of a traditional light water reactor PPS design, promoting efforts to credit safety features of advanced reactors through proposed amendments to current security regulations, while integrating health and economic consequence analyses. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| A risk analysis framework for evaluating the safety, reliability, and economic implications of electrolysis for hydrogen production at NPPs | University of Maryland, College Park | $1,000,000 | The RAFELHyP project will develop a modular risk analysis framework that enables evaluating the safety, reliability, and economic implications of upcoming deployments of electrolyzers to produce hydrogen at nuclear power plants. The framework will be implemented to conduct an integrated safety, reliability, and economic analysis of multiple plant configurations to provide detailed recommendations for plant protective features and layouts. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Reduced Order Modeling of Heat and Fluid Flow: Multi-Scale Modeling of Advanced Reactors to Enable Faster Deployment | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | Novel multi-scale algorithms for thermal-hydraulics (TH) simulations of advanced reactors will be developed. The methods will leverage recent advances in hardware and reduced order modeling approaches to enable TH simulations of vastly accelerated speed, while maintaining accuracy comparable to high-fidelity methods, such as large-eddy simulation. The methods will allow designers to perform parameter sweeps, develop closures, and enable high fidelity simulation of transients. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Embedded Monte Carlo | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Monte Carlo methods have long been considered the standard in terms of accuracy and have seen increased use in design of small nuclear systems; however, the uncertainty quantification (UQ) of the desired output is often relegated to later stages of the design process. This project seeks to embed nuclear data UQ in a single Monte Carlo simulation, such that each desired quantity will not only provide the mean value and statistical uncertainty, but also the related nuclear data uncertainty. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| A Low Order Transport Method Based on the Dynamic Truncation of the Integral Transport Matrix Method (ITMM) that Converges to the SN Solution with Increasing Cell Optical Thickness | North Carolina State University | $1,000,000 | A novel low-order transport operator capable of approximating Monte Carlo (MC) results within a variance range will be developed. This does not require MC reference solutions to calibrate the low-order model, so repeated solutions of the latter in-transient scenarios does not require repeated MC simulations. Truncation of the low-order operator is done dynamically for evolving configurations to ensure accuracy of the low-order solution. This will involve proof of principle on Cartesian meshes, then implementation in Griffin. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| CFD based Critical Heat Flux predictions for enhanced DNBR margin | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | This project seeks to demonstrate a robust high-fidelity CFD-based methodology to predict CHF behavior at varying quality conditions, enabling the development of advanced DNBR correlations with reduced uncertainty, and in support of upgraded plant economics. The availability of a virtual CHF methodology will allow greatly extending the database for DNBR correlations development and further support advancement in the design of high-performing nuclear fuel. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Immersed Boundary Methods for Modeling of Complex Geometry: A Leap Forward in Multiscale Modeling using NekRS | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | A major challenge to Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling of complex geometries is the need to generate body-fitted meshes, which can occupy 80% of the CFD practitioner's time. Immersed boundary methods will be added in the NekRS CFD code, dramatically simplifying modeling of complex 3-D structures and facilitating a new paradigm for CFD-informed multiscale analysis. This will be demonstrated by informing SAM transient systems-level models with NekRS heat exchanger correlations for advanced reactors. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Uncertainty Quantification of Model Extrapolation in Neural Network-informed Turbulent Closures for Plenum Mixing in HTGRs | Utah State University | $1,000,000 | This project will quantify the uncertainty in prediction of Neural Network-informed Turbulent Closures when they are operating in a model extrapolation state. Once the method is developed for canonical buoyant jets, the protocols will be applied to plenum mixing in HTGRs. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Impact of moisture on corrosion of NiCr alloys in MgCl2-NaCl Salt Systems | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $999,983 | This project aims to gain a fundamental understanding of the impact of moisture and salt chemistry on corrosion of NiCr alloys in molten chloride salts. A novel approach coupling multiscale simulations and experiments will be designed to determine salt acidity, its dependence on salt composition (i.e., the NaCl to MgCl2 ratio), and its effects on the transport of H2O and Cr ions and the corrosion kinetics of NiCr alloys in chloride salt. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Transforming Microreactor Economics Through Hydride Moderator Enabled Neutron Economy | State University of New York, Stony Brook | $1,000,000 | Microreactors will potentially require the cost of electricity to be 10 MWD/kg at >3 kW/kg core specific power. These goals are best achieved through a well-thermalized spectrum. Neutron economy as a core material selection criterion to advance entrained hydride composite moderators will be used with the primary goal of significantly reducing fuel costs through novel microreactor designs. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Integrating Nuclear with ZLD Seawater Desalination and Mining | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | An integrated nuclear system will be developed that would utilize electricity and waste heat to operate a desalination and mining process from adjacent seawater. The desalination approach targets zero-liquid discharge with multiple marketable minerals extracted. The ability of nuclear facilities to load follow is increasingly important, so a cold thermal storage system will be incorporated. The desalination and mineral extraction process will be experimentally validated at lab scale. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Reference Designs of Green Ammonia Plants Powered by Small Modular Reactors | Utah State University | $1,000,000 | The overarching goal of this project is to develop two reference designs for green ammonia plants. One design uses freshwater as the source for hydrogen, while the other design uses seawater (or brackish water) as the source. In both designs, a small modular reactor (SMR) is used as the primary energy source providing both electricity and steam for the plants. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Development of the Technical Bases to Support Flexible Siting of Microreactors based on Right-Sized Emergency Planning Zones | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to provide the technical basis to support the application of a right-sized Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ) size to support the deployment of a microreactor at the Penn State University Park campus. This research study will serve as a template to provide flexible siting in support of future microreactor deployments that may be placed closer to demand centers, thereby making them more economically competitive. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Bayesian Optimization for Automatic Reactor Design Optimization | Arizona State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to develop analytical tools based on Gaussian process modeling and Bayesian Optimization that facilitate reactor design optimization by modeling the responses from the physics simulator. Existing capabilities will be applied in an AI field and they will be adapted to address the key characteristics of nuclear reactor design problem. This project will automate the simulation-based design procedure, reduce the number of iterations, and minimize the design cycle time. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Engaging New Mexican communities in developing an equitable and just approach to siting advanced reactor facilities | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | This project will engage diverse New Mexican communities to develop an equitable approach for advanced reactor siting. The findings of this project will shed light on how technology developers and the DOE can explore and potentially site advanced reactors with the informed consent and engagement of host communities, regions, and states. The findings of this study will also more generally apply to the potential for equitably exploring both brownfield and greenfield sites for nuclear facilities. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Deciphering Irradiation Effects of YHx through In-situ Evaluation and Micromechanics for Microreactor Applications | University of New Mexico | $998,000 | This project addresses a critical gap in accelerated testing of YH evolution coupling multi-length scale mechanical testing with ion irradiation and advanced characterization to establish a baseline understanding of YH evolution under ion irradiation. Our approach will couple ion irradiation and gamma irradiation with small scale mechanical testing to decipher multi-scale impacts on phase stability to advance understanding of YH in a microreactor moderator application. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Active Learning Estimation and Optimization (ALEO) of Irradiation Experimental Design for Efficient Accelerated Fuel Qualification | University of Texas at San Antonio | $997,247 | This collaborative project creates novel AI/ML models and algorithms integrated with physical knowledge and expertise to explore more efficient ways to calculate irradiation temperatures and fuel specimen burnups for new fuel sample configurations of MiniFuel experiments proposed for irradiation in the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Unraveling how mixing vane spacers affect cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena in light water reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $500,000 | Experiments will be conducted to quantify the effect of mixing vane spacers on cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena, namely single-phase forced convection, nucleate boiling, and CHF. The results of the experimental research will allow elucidating the physical phenomena triggered by the presence of mixing vane spacers. They will also allow assessing the performance of M-CFD tools developed within CASL and in use by the nuclear community. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Quantum Computing Algorithms for Deterministic Neutron Transport | University of Michigan | $500,000 | This project will develop algorithms for solving the k-eigenvalue form of the neutron transport equation in a nuclear reactor physics context on a quantum computer. The asymptotic scaling of the algorithms will be analyzed. Investigation into implementation will be made by making resource estimates by synthesizing explicit circuits for the algorithms and be studied by emulation on a classical computer. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Optimizing Application-Dependent Energy Group Structures for Multigroup Neutron Transport Models using Machine Learning | Colorado School of Mines | $500,000 | Machine Learning methods will be developed that will dramatically reduce both the computational run-time and manual effort needed to find multigroup energy structures that accurately capture the underlying physics of neutron reactions, while allowing multigroup simulations to run quickly without overwhelming available memory. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Understanding PM-HIP Interparticle Evolution and its Influence on Fracture Toughness in Alumina-Forming Steels | Purdue University | $1,100,000 | This project aims to understand how interparticle evolution during hot isostatic pressing (HIP) influences fracture toughness of Al-bearing steels. The team will use a series of interrupted HIP experiments with phase field models to understand the formation mechanisms of interparticle defects during HIP of alumina-forming austenitic (AFA) stainless steels and FeCrAl steels, and the influence of these defects on fracture behavior. | Document | Advanced Manufacturing Technologies | FY2024 |
| Multiscale high-throughput experiment/modeling approach to understanding creep behavior in Additively Manufactured reactor steels | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $1,043,271 | This project proposes to develop a predictive capability for processing-microstructure-property correlations in additive manufactured microstructures utilizing a multiscale approach encompassing bulk creep tests, miniaturized tensile testing, and a high-throughput, indentation based, cost-effective method for elevated temperature mechanical mapping of additively manufactured 316H Stainless Steel, Grade 91, and Titanium-Zirconium-Molybdenum (TZM) alloys. | Document | Advanced Manufacturing Technologies | FY2024 |
| Assessing molten salt corrosion resistance of stainless steel 316H in nuclear reactor environments | North Carolina State University | $1,100,000 | The proposed goal is to leverage a blend of innovative molten salt corrosion experiments and cutting-edge characterization techniques to advance our understanding of molten salt corrosion in both commercial and additively manufactured (AM) stainless steel (SS) 316H, particularly under radiation or stress environments. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Polymer-Derived C-SiC Coatings on Kernel Particles for Advanced Nuclear Reactors | University of Alabama at Birmingham | $1,100,000 | This program is to use a polymer-derived ceramic approach to develop C-SiC/ZrC coatings on ZrO2 kernel substitute particles. We aim to create new fuel encapsulation materials in replacement of the coatings on fuel kernel particles, including the TRISO layers, for advanced reactors, conduct ion irradiation testing of the new materials for nuclear performance evaluation, and carry out detailed microstructure and composition characterization to assess the C-SiC/ZrC coated fuel particle behaviors. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Sorbent regeneration, recycling, and transformation: A transformative approach to iodine capture and immobilization | University of Nevada, Reno | $1,000,000 | The project will focus on the development of materials and processes for regeneration and recycling of sorbents, and the transformation of iodine-loaded sorbents into waste forms. A combination of computational and experimental studies will be conducted to understand (a) how the components in a primary off-gas stream interact with the sorbent, (b) how this off-gas stream affects the regeneration lifetime, and (c) low-temperature binders and processing paths that leads to durable waste forms. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Accident Tolerant Fuels to Support Power Uprates in LWRs | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,100,000 | This project will demonstrate that power uprates higher than the current state of operation can be reached using accident tolerant fuels in light water reactors while not exceeding reactor safety margins during normal operation and accidents. We will analyze it considering fuel enriched up to 10% and peak rod average burnup up to 75GWd/tU concerning reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, reactor safety, and economics. Considerations will be made in consultation with the named industry advisory board. | Document | Existing Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Comparative study of three-dimensional microstructural imaging and thermal conductivity evolution of irradiated solid and annular U-Zr fuels | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Uranium-zirconium (U-Zr) annular metallic fuel holds the promise to simultaneously increase sodium fast reactor (SFR) core uranium loading and reduce peak cladding temperatures, thus greatly improving fuel performance. However, key convolved fuel degradation mechanisms during irradiation at temperature threaten to hold back its real-world applicability, requiring more detailed understanding to both predict U-Zr fuel performance and suggest improvements. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Mechanistic study and modeling of fission gas release in UO2 and doped UO2 | Oregon State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to enhance the safety and performance of light water reactors and other advanced reactor designs by gaining a fundamental understanding of fast gas reactor mechanisms and developing mechanistic models for UO2 and doped UO2 fuels under HBU and transient conditions. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Anisotropic Thermal Properties of SiC-SiC Cladding: Method Development & Characterization | University of Pittsburgh | $1,000,000 | We propose to develop a high-temperature nondestructive thermal conductivity (k) measurement system coupled with validated multiscale models to accurately determine the anisotropic thermal conductivity of SiC-SiC composite cladding tubes. The multiscale measurement and modeling results benefit both DOE ATF programs as well as providing a fundamental understanding of how the microstructure of the composite leads to its anisotropic properties. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Understanding the Performance of SiC-SiCf Composite Cladding Architectures with Cr Coating in Normal Operating and Accident Conditions in LWRs and Advanced Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The project will focus on investigating the impact of Cr-coating on the SiC-SiCf composite cladding of various architectures under normal operating and accident conditions in light water reactors and advanced reactors for the safe and economic deployment of SiC cladding. Cr-coating will provide protection from high-temperature corrosion and better hermeticity under accident conditions. The performance of the claddings will be evaluated through the corrosion test, reflood test, burst test, and non-destructive evaluation(NDE). | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Developing critical insights on the effects of Mo on _' precipitation and dislocation loop formation in FeCrAl alloys | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | This project aims at developing a mechanistic understanding on the effects of Mo on _' precipitation and dislocation loop formation in FeCrAl alloys in thermal and irradiation conditions and turns it into a set of design principles guiding further optimization, by integrating atomistic simulations, CALPHAD modeling, thermal aging, proton irradiation, and advanced characterization. The material discoveries will be generalized to other solutes other than Mo. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Inference of flow conditions from in-core detector measurements for accelerating SMR licensing | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Reactor modelling relies on the detailed description of reactor systems but often lacks the true as-built characteristics of a system. This proposal seeks to fill these geometrical data gaps using available detector data, predictive models and machine learning in order to provide better information to analysis tools and thus better prediction of future performance. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Non-Destructive Plutonium Assay in Pyroprocessing Bulk Materials with a 3D Boron-Coated-Straw Detector Array | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,100,000 | The objective of the proposed project is to develop and demonstrate a 3D boron-coated-straw detector array (3D-BCSDA) with high efficiency and spatial resolution. This detection system will be specifically designed to accurately assess the fissile mass in bulk nuclear material during pyroprocessing operations, thereby improving the precision and reliability of accountability measurements during separation. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Improving the computational efficiency and usability of dynamic PRA with reinforcement learning | University of Maryland, College Park | $1,064,400 | The overall objective of the proposed research is to improve the efficiency and usability of dynamic probabilistic risk assessment (PRA). Specifically, the first objective is to develop a new algorithm for dynamic PRA analysis that can significantly increase the computational efficiency. The second objective is to develop a question-answering system to streamline the process of risk-informed decision-making based on results obtained from the dynamic PRA analysis using the new algorithm. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Development of a Benchmark Model for the Near Real-Time Radionuclide Composition Measurement System using Microcalorimetry for Advanced Reactors | Virginia Commonwealth University | $1,100,000 | The primary goal of this proposed project is to develop high fidelity Monte Carlo radiation transport models of a microcalorimetry detector informed by fuel depletion models of a molten salt reactor and a pebble bed reactor to quantify the current and future capabilities of this detector technology to characterize and assay used fuel from these reactors in near real-time. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Development and Validation of a Dual-Purpose Instrument for On-line Monitoring of Molten Salt Composition and Thermal Behavior | Brigham Young University | $1,099,924 | We propose the development of an online monitoring instrument capable of quantifying heat transfer and salt composition for molten salt reactors (MSR). A dual electrochemistry/thermal conductivity probe (DETP) will be developed to measure the thermal properties and impurities within the salt simultaneously. The DETP will make use of a previously developed needle probe and electrodes for square-wave cyclic voltammetry measures of salt composition. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| In Situ Assessment of Molten Salt Transport into Nuclear Graphite Microstructures using Ultrasonic Sensors | Johns Hopkins University | $909,827 | This project focuses on the transport of molten salt into nuclear graphite along with the investigation of ultrasonic methods for sensing graphite material property changes, especially elastic modulus, associated with intrusion of molten salt into the graphite microstructure. Experimental studies coupled with physics-based simulations will be used to assess strategies for in situ sensing of salt intrusion in the reactor environment to enhance long-term viability of molten salt reactors. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| MONITORING CERAMIC FUEL FRACTURE VIA FIBER OPTIC ACOUSTIC EMISSION SENSORS | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $1,000,000 | In the proposed three-year program, the Center for Photonics Technology (CPT) at Virginia Tech will collaborate with Sentek Instrument (Sentek), Prysmian, and Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to develop and demonstrate a distributed acoustic emission (AE) sensing system for in-situ monitoring of ceramic fuel fracture. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| Concurrent Surrogate Model Development with Uncertainty Quantification in the MOOSE Framework Using Physics-Informed Gaussian-Process Machine Learning | University of Florida | $999,999 | The objective of this project is to develop a general capability for concurrent generation and use of physics-informed Gaussian process (GP)-based surrogate models to facilitate multiscale and multiphysics modeling. We will implement this new capability as part of the Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) so that every application based on the MOOSE framework will have access to it. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2024 |
| Unstructured Adaptive Mesh Algorithms for Monte Carlo Transport | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,098,000 | We propose to develop the fundamental methods and techniques for unstructured adaptive mesh refinement with Monte Carlo tallies. This work enables a transformative leap forward in speed, accuracy, and robustness to enhance the contribution of high-fidelity radiation transport to advanced simulation. Adaptive refinement is deployed on a challenging multiphysics simulation, cascading heat pipe failure, to study acceleration and stabilization properties. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2024 |
| Feasibility Study of Micro-Nuclear Reactor Thermal Output for Air Rotary Kilns in the High-Temperature Manufacturing of Portland Cement Clinker | Pennsylvania State University | $998,793 | This project aims to design and test a micro-nuclear reactor for high-temperature portland cement clinker production, a process responsible for 6%-8% of global CO2 emissions. Leveraging advanced reactors' heat output, the project explores TRISO-based nuclear microreactor core modifications and new working fluids for heat pipes. The research addresses uncertainties in micro-nuclear reactor deployment for clinker production and investigates high-efficiency heat exchanger designs. | Document | Non-Traditional and Non-electric Applications | FY2024 |
| Redox potential, ionic speciation, and separation and recovery challenges from molten salts containing actinides and fission products | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $999,999 | Establishing an efficient, safe, secure, and economical Molten-Salt Reactor (MSR) fuel cycle is imperative for MSR implementation. Molten salt fuel recycling technology requires predictive knowledge of the chemical and physical behavior of lanthanide and actinide ions with different oxidation states dissolved in solvent salts. A combination of off-gas and X-ray measurements with machine-learning simulations will be used to produce predictive modeling of separation and recovery conditions. | Document | Nuclear Fuel Recycle Technologies | FY2024 |
| Pre-Treatment and Bulk Separation of Used Fuels with Carbonate-Peroxide Solutions | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | To use carbonate-peroxide chemistries to develop a pre-processing method for used uranium-based fuels that enables the subsequent use and optimization of current solvent extraction reprocessing schemes. Using simple precipitation, this innovative method provides an initial, bulk separation of uranium from fission products and actinides. | Document | Nuclear Fuel Recycle Technologies | FY2024 |
| Optimization of Fueling Strategies and Material Surveillance through Real-time Pebble Tracking in Pebble Bed Reactors | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,100,000 | Flexible operation of the energy grid of the future introduces uncertainty in determining the optimal operating conditions of Pebble Bed Reactors. The proposed work will help to address these challenges and enable more economical operation by providing the tools to determine of optimal fuel reloading strategy through pebble identification and tracking. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Experimental Study and Computational Modeling of P-LOFC and D-LOFC Accidents in the Fast Modular Reactor Consisting of Silicon Carbide Composite Rods | University of Michigan | $1,100,000 | The primary objectives of this proposed research are to better understand NC flow phenomena and heat transfer under both D-LOFC and P-LOFC accidents in the FMR, produce experimental data in a well-scaled integral-effects test facility for the two accidents, and develop and validate predictive CFD models for NC flow phenomena in both accidents. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Sodium heat pipes; design and failure mode assessment for micro-reactor applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The present proposal aims to experimentally investigate the thermal-hydraulics performance of liquid sodium heat pipes applied to microreactors, with a focus on exploring different design parameters, effects of different parameters on operating performance and understanding the evolution and impact of different failure modes. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Interfacial Interactions between Graphite and Molten Fluoride Fuel Salt | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $1,000,000 | NaF-KF-UF4 fuel salt will be selected to study graphite-salt interactions and impact of the existence of fission products (FPs) and corrosion products on the interactions at different temperatures and pressures. Fundamental mechanisms of graphite-salt interaction and degradation will be understood. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Local resonance-based linear and nonlinear NDE techniques for repaired DSC wall structures | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | The proposed work plan will develop nondestructive examination (NDE) methods that develop and evaluate linear and nonlinear resonant ultrasound spectroscopy methods (such as NRUS, NIRAS, etc.) to cold spray (CS) repaired dry shielded canister (DSC) wall structures. With the support of our partners from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), we will perform technology development and validation on plain and cold spray-repaired DSC wall specimens. | Document | Spent Fuel, Waste Science & Technology and Integrated Waste Management System | FY2024 |
| Thermodynamic Models for Multivalent Actinide Solubility and Speciation as a Function of Temperature and Ionic Strength | University of Notre Dame | $1,000,000 | This proposed project will quantify the solubility and speciation of Np and Pu under temperatures, ionic strengths, and pH values that are relevant to the generic repository concept. The major deliverable will be full thermodynamic descriptions of the studied systems, which will lead to improved radionuclide transport models and support the development of a sound technical basis for the geologic disposal of spent nuclear fuel and other actinide-bearing wastes. | Document | Spent Fuel, Waste Science & Technology and Integrated Waste Management System | FY2024 |
| Advancing Fundamental Molten Salt Modeling using Ultrafast Spectroscopy | North Carolina State University | $600,000 | The overarching goal of the proposed research is to advance our fundamental understanding of molten salts by combining ultrafast spectroscopic experiments with high fidelity atomistic simulations. The proposed research will introduce a new experimental technique to the study of molten salts that will directly measure ion kinetics, specifically, terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS), which will further validate AIMD as a predictive modeling tool. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
| Hydrodynamics of Two-Phase Flow Under the Geometric Effects of Pipe Orientation and U-bends | Purdue University | $600,000 | Most two-phase flow analyses have been performed in straight vertical-upward pipes. However, nuclear reactor systems include piping with different geometric components, such as elbows or U-bends, as well as changes in flow orientations. The proposed work performs experiments in a scaled test facility existing at the institution's lab to investigate the effects of flow orientations and geometries relevant to nuclear reactor systems on the hydrodynamics of two-phase flow. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
| Interface-Resolved Experimental and Numerical Studies of Two-Phase Flow for Nuclear Engineering Applications | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $500,000 | The project aims at advancing the interface-resolved simulation capabilities for the two-phase flows found in various nuclear engineering applications. We will develop a comprehensive, high-resolution, interface-resolved database emphasizing bubble dynamics and bubble interaction mechanisms. The data will be used to validate the sub-grid models implemented in an interface-resolved simulation tool to improve simulation accuracy by developing physics-based coalescence models. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
FY 2011 Research and Development Awards
A complete list of R&D projects with their associated abstracts is available below.
| Title | Institution | Estimated Funding* | Project Description | Abstract | Project Type | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fundamental Understanding of Ambient and High-Temperature Plasticity Phenomena in Structural Materials in Advanced Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Elastic/Inelastic Nuclear Data Development Project | Idaho State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Heterogeneous Recycling in Fast Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Thermodynamic Development of Corrosion Rate Modeling in Iron Phosphate Glasses | Missouri University of Science and Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Subspace-Based Hybrid Monte Carlo-Deterministic Algorithms for Reactor Physics Calculations | North Carolina State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Improvements to Nuclear Data and Its Uncertainties by Theoretical Modeling | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Sharp Interface Tracking in Rotating Microflows of Solvent Extraction | State University of New York at Stony Brook | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Bulk Nanostructured FCC Steels with Enhanced Radiation Tolerance | Texas A&M University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Fuel Performance Experiments and Modeling: Fission Gas Bubble Nucleation and Growth in Alloy Nuclear Fuels | Texas A&M University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| SiC Schottky Diode Detectors for Measurement of Actinide Concentrations from Alpha Activities in Molten Salt Electrolyte | The Ohio State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Computational Design of Advanced Nuclear Fuels | University of California, Davis | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Data Collection Methods For Validation of Advanced Multi-Resolution Fast Reactor Simulations | University of Idaho | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Simulations of the Thermodynamic and Diffusion Properties of Actinide Oxide Fuel Materials | University of Michigan | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Adsorptive Separation and Sequestration of Krypton, I and C14 on Diamond Nanoparticles | University of Missouri, Columbia | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Alternative Technetium Waste Forms | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Quantification of UV-Visible and Laser Spectroscopic Techniques for Materials Accountability and Process Control | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| High-Fidelity Space-Time Adaptive Multiphysics Simulations in Nuclear Engineering | University of Nevada, Reno | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Simulations of Failure via Three-Dimensional Cracking in Fuel Cladding for Advanced Nuclear Fuels | University of Texas, Dallas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Mesh-Enabled Monte Carlo Capability for Multi-Physics Reactor Analysis | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Ab Initio Enhanced Calphad Modeling of Actinide Rich Nuclear Fuels | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Diffusion Barrier Coatings and Deposition Technologies for Mitigating Fuel Cladding Chemical Interactions (FCCI) | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Thermal Properties of LiCl-KCl Molten Salt for Nuclear Waste Separation | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Neutron Damage and MAX Phase Ternary Compounds | Drexel University | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Atomistic Calculations of the Effect of Minor Actinides on Thermodynamic and Kinetic Properties of UO2+x | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Maximum Fuel Utilization in Fast Reactors without Chemical Reprocessing | University of California, Berkeley | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Developing a High Thermal Conductivity Fuel with Silicon Carbide Additives | University of Florida | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Fabrication of Tungsten-Rhenium Cladding Materials via Spark Plasma Sintering for Ultra High Temperature Reactor Applications | University of Idaho | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Ionic Liquid and Supercritical Fluid Hyphenated Techniques for Dissolution and Separation of Lanthanides, Actinides, and Fission Products | University of Idaho | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Improved Fission Neutron Data Base for Active Interrogation of Actinides | University of Michigan | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Utilization of Methacrylates and Polymer Matrices for the Synthesis of Ion Specific Resins | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Improved LWR Cladding Performance by EPD Surface Modification Technique | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Models of LWR Pressure Vessel Embrittlement for Low Flux-High Fluence Conditions | University of California, Santa Barbara | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) | FY2009 | ||
| Irradiation Creep in Graphite | Boise State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Modeling the Stress Strain Relationships and Predicting Failure Probabilities For Graphite Core Components | Cleveland State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| TRISO-Coated Fuel Durability Under Extreme Conditions | Colorado School of Mines | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| An Innovative and Advanced Coupled Neutron Transport and Thermal Hydraulic Method (Tool) for the Design, Analysis and Optimization of VHTR/NGNP Prismatic Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Removal of 14C from Irradiated Graphite for Graphite Recycle and Waste Volume Reduction | Idaho State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Millimeter-Wave Thermal Analysis Development and Application to Gen IV Reactor Materials | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Accurate Development of Thermal Neutron Scattering Cross Section Libraries | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Understanding Creep Mechanisms in Graphite with Experiments, Multiscale Simulations, and Modeling | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Verification & Validation of High-Order Short-Characteristics-Based Deterministic Transport Methodology on Unstructured Grids | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Microscale Heat Conduction Models and Doppler Feedback | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Optimizing Neutron Thermal Scattering Effects in Very High Temperature Reactors | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Multiaxial Creep-Fatigue and CreepRatcheting Failures of Grade 91 and Haynes 230 Alloys Toward Addressing Design Issues of Gen IV Nuclear Power Plants | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Investigation of Countercurrent Helium-air Flows in Air-ingress Accidents for VHTRs | Ohio State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Testing of Performance of Optical Fibers Under Irradiation in Intense Radiation Fields, When Subjected to Very High Temperatures | Ohio State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| A Distributed Fiber Optic Sensor Network for Online 3-D Temperature and Neutron Fluence Mapping in a VHTR Environment | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Investigation on the Core Bypass Flow in a Very High Temperature Reactor | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| CFD Model Development and Validation for High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor Cavity Cooling System (RCCS) Applications | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Study of Air ingress across the duct during the accident conditions | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Verification of the CENTRM Module for Adaptation of the SCALE Code to NGNP Prismatic and PBR Core Designs | University of Arizona | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Integral and Separate Effects Tests for Thermal Hydraulics Code Validation for Liquid-Salt Cooled Nuclear Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Mechanisms Governing the Creep Behavior of High Temperature Alloys for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems | University of Cincinnati | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| ALD Produced B2O3, Al2O3 and TiO2 Coatings on Gd2O3 Burnable Poison Nanoparticles | University of Colorado, Boulder | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Experimental Study and Computational Simulations of Key Pebble Bed Thermomechanics Issues for Design and Safety | University of Idaho | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Prediction and Monitoring Systems of Creep-Fracture Behavior of 9Cr-1Mo Steels for Reactor Pressure Vessels | University of Idaho | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Understanding Fundamental Material Degradation Processes in High Temperature Aggressive Chemomechanical Environments | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Multi-Scale Multi-physics Methods Development for the Calculation of Hot-Spots in the NGNP | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Corrosion and Creep of Candidate Alloys in High Temperature Helium and Steam Environments for the NGNP | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Creation of a Full-Core HTR Benchmark with the Fort St. Vrain Initial Core and Validation of the DHF Method with Helios for NGNP Configurations | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Fission Product Sorptivity in Graphite | University of Missouri, Columbia | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Identifying and Understanding Environment-Induced Crack Propagation Behavior in Ni-Based Superalloy INCONEL 617 | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Graphite Oxidation Simulation in HTR Accident Conditions | University of New Mexico | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Non Destructive Thermal Analysis and In Situ Investigation of Creep Mechanism of Graphite and Ceramic Composites using Phase-sensitive THz Imaging & Nonlinear Resonant Ultrasonic Spectroscopy | University of Rochester | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Tritium Sequestration in Gen IV NGNP Gas Stream via Proton Conducting Ceramic Pumps | University of South Carolina | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Materials, Turbomachinery and Heat Exchangers for Supercritical CO2 Systems | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Experimental Studies of NGNP Reactor Cavity Cooling System with Water | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Assessment of Embrittlement of VHTR Structural Alloys in Impure Helium Environments | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Modeling Fission Product Sorption in Graphite Structures | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Liquid Salt Heat Exchanger Technology for VHTR Based Applications | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Effect of Post-Weld Heat Treatment on Creep Rupture Properties of Grade 91 Steel Heavy Section Welds | Utah State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Alpha Radiolysis of Nuclear Solvent Extraction Ligands used for An(III) and Ln(III) Separations | California State University, Long Beach | $1,390,252 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Predictive Maturity of Multi-Scale Simulation Models for Fuel Performance | Clemson University | $614,690 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Freeze-casting as a Novel Manufacturing Process for Fast Reactor Fuels | Drexel University | $1,149,327 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Fuel Performance Experiments on the Atomistic Level, Studying Fuel Through Engineered Single Crystal UO2 | Idaho State University | $650,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Development of A Self Biased High Efficiency Solid-State Neutron Detector for MPACT Applications | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $810,141 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Development of a Innovative High Thermal Conductivity UO 2 Ceramic Composites Fuel Pellets with Carbon Nano-Tubes Using Spark Plasma Sintering | University of Florida | $894,042 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Exploration and Modeling of Structural Changes in Waste Glass under Corrosion | Pennsylvania State University | $1,377,444 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Evaluation of materials for interim storage of spent fuel for more than 100 years | University of Michigan | $931,603 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Implementation of On-the-Fly Doppler Broadening in MCNP5 for Multiphysics Simulation of Nuclear Reactors | University of Michigan | $406,712 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Methods and tools to allow molecular flow simulations to be coupled to higher level continuum descriptions of flows in porous/fractured media and aerosol/dust dynamics | University of Missouri-Columbi | $541,286 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Characterization and Modeling of Materials for Kr-Xe Separations | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $989,800 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Modeling Solute Thermokinetics in LiCl-KCl Molten Salt for Nuclear Waste Separation | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $616,073 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Advanced Aqueous Separation Systems for Actinide Partitioning: Develop Fundamental Understanding of An(III)/Ln(III) Separation | Washington State University | $1,451,784 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Consistent Multigroup Theory Enabling Accurate Coarse-Group Simulation of GenIV Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,046,277 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Studies of Deteriorated Heat Transfer in Prismatic Cores Stemming from Irradiation-Induced Geometry Distortion | Idaho State University | $1,287,921 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Carbide Coatings for Nickel Alloys, Graphite, and Carbon/Carbon Composites to be Used in Fluoride Salt Valves | Johns Hopkins University | $1,183,239 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Design, Testing, and Modeling of the Direct Reactor Auxiliary Cooling System for AHTRs | Ohio State University | $1,366,627 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Monitoring microstructural evolution of Alloy 617 with nonlinear acoustics for remaining useful life prediction; multiaxial creep-fatigue and creep-ratcheting | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development and Validation of Multidimensional Models of Supercritical CO 2 Energy Conversion Systems for Nuclear Power Reactors | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $475,005 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Microstructure and Property Evolution in Advanced Cladding and Duct Materials Under Long-Term and Elevated Temperature Irradiation: Modeling and Experimental Investigation | University of California-Berkeley | $1,320,667 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of Barrier Layers for the Protection of Candidate Alloys in the VHTR | University of California-Santa Barbara | $995,232 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Investigation of a Novel NDE Method for Monitoring Thermo-Mechanical Damage and Microstructure Evolution in Ferritic-Martensitic Steels for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems | University of Cincinnati | $833,109 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Fission Product Transport in TRISO Particle Layers under Operating and Off-Normal Conditions | University of Michigan | $966,581 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Microstructure and Property Evolution in Advanced Cladding and Duct Materials Under Long-Term Irradiation at Elevated Temperature: Critical Experiments | University of Michigan | $1,181,379 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Three-dimensional NDE of VHTR Core Components via Simulation-based Testing | University of Minnesota | $1,366,163 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Failure Predictions for VHTR Core Components using a Probabilistic Continuum Damage Mechanics Model | University of Minnesota | $854,542 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of a Scanning Microscale Fast Neutron Irradiation Platform for Examining the Correlation Between Local Neutron Damage and Graphite Microstructure | University of Missouri-Columbia | $703,064 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of Thermal Transient Flow Rate Sensors for High Temperature, Irradiation, Corrosive Environment | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $451,269 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Novel Methods of Tritium Sequestration: High Temperature Gettering and Separation Membrane Materials Discovery for Nuclear Energy Systems | University of South Carolina | $1,366,626 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Heat Transfer Salts for Nuclear Reactor Systems - Chemistry Control, Corrosion Mitigation, and Modeling | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,352,040 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Pulsed Magnetic Welding for Advanced Core and Cladding Steels | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $525,206 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Corrosion in Supercritical Carbon Dioxide: Materials, Environmental Purity, Surface Treatments, and Flow Issues | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $651,447 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Multiscale Concrete Modeling for Aging Degradation | Mississippi State University | $345,941 | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability | FY2010 | |
| Development of an advanced computational fluid dynamics technology for the next-generation nuclear reactor system analysis and safety margin characterization code | North Carolina State University | $418,199 | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability | FY2010 | |
| Precursor Derived Nanostructured Si-C-X Materials for Nuclear Applications | University of Washington | $899,518 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Development and Testing of an Open-Loop Oscillator for Small Reactivity Worth Samples | Idaho State University | $597,252 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Understanding the Irradiation Behavior of Zirconium Carbide | Pennsylvania State University | $870,613 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Modeling investigation of the stability and irradiation-induced evolution of nanoscale precipitates in advanced structural materials | University of Tennessee-Knoxville | $380,653 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Investigation of Laser Shock Peening for Enhancing Fatigue and Stress Corrosion Cracking Resistance of Nuclear Energy Materials | University of Cincinnati | $1,242,019 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Irradiation Accelerated Corrosion of Reactor Core Materials | University of Michigan | $798,943 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Study of Interfacial Interactions using Thin Film Surface Modification: Radiation and Oxidation Effects in Materials | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $538,032 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Novel Engineered Refractory Materials for Advanced Reactor Applications | North Carolina State University | $1,129,304 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Quantification of Cation Sorption to Engineered Barrier Materials Under Extreme Conditions | Clemson University | $1,171,380 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| In-Pile Instrumentation Multi-Parameter System Utilizing Photonic Fibers and Nanovision | Idaho State University | $1,199,990 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Development of Plasmonically Cloaked Nanoparticles | Idaho State University | $800,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Fission Product Transmutation in Mixed Radiation Fields | Idaho State University | $800,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Life Prediction of Spent Fuel Storage Canister Material | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $899,826 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Active Interrogation using Photofission Technique for Nuclear Materials Control and Accountability | Oregon State University | $900,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Anisotropic Azimuthal Power and Temperature Distribution on Fuel Rod: Impact of Hydride Distribution | Pennsylvania State University | $631,956 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Sorption Modeling and Verification for Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Microemulsions and Aggregation Formation in Extraction Processes for Used Nuclear Fuel: Thermodynamics and Structural Studies | University of California, Irvine | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Optimized Processing Fabrication Paths for Larger Heats of Nanostructured Ferritic Alloys | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Basic Physics Data: Measurement of Neutron Multiplicity from Induced Fission | University of Michigan | $973,364 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Radionuclide Incorporation and Long Term Performance of Apatite Waste Forms | University of Michigan | $862,500 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Actinide Foil Production for MPACT Research | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $156,897 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Enriched Boron-Doped Amorphous Selenium Based Position-Sensitive Solid-State Thermal Neutron Detector for MPACT Applications | University of South Carolina | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Development of Advanced High Uranium Density Fuels for Light Water Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Developing the User Experience for a Next Generation Nuclear Fuel Cycle Simulator | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,200,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Preparation and Development of Polymer-Supported Extractants | City College of New York, Hunter | $363,716 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| One-Dimensional Nanostructures for Neutron Detection | North Carolina State University | $455,629 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Feasibility and Safety Assessment for Advanced Reactor Concepts Using Vented Fuel | Oregon State University | $600,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| High Temperature Transducers for Online Monitoring of Microstructure Evolution | Pennsylvania State University | $455,628 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Laser-Arc Hybrid Welding of Thick Section Ni-base Alloys- Advanced Modeling and Experiments | Pennsylvania State University | $536,117 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Correlates of Sensitive Technologies | Texas A&M University | $509,467 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Improved Safety Margin Characterization of Risk from Loss of Offsite Power | Texas A&M University | $600,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| A High Temperature-Tolerant and Radiation-Resistant In-Core Neutron Sensor for Advanced Reactors | The Ohio State University | $455,629 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Pathway Aggregation in the Risk Assessment of Proliferation Resistance and Physical Protection (PR&PP) of Nuclear Energy Systems | The Ohio State University | $534,471 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Preparation of High Purity, High Molecular-Weight Chitin from Ionic Liquids for Use as an Adsorbate for the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Alabama | $338,260 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Selectivity in Ligand Binding to Uranyl Compounds: A Synthetic, Structural, Thermodynamic and Computational Study | University of California-Berkeley | $500,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Seismic Isolation Systems Using Periodic Materials | University of Houston | $538,154 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium from Seawater | University of Idaho | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Austenitic ODS Strengthened Alloys for Very High Temperature Applications | University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign | $538,154 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Enhancement of the Extraction of the Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Transient Safety Analysis of Fast Spectrum TRU Burning LWR with Internal Blankets | University of Michigan | $599,475 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Novel Sorbents for Uranium Extraction from Seawater | University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Radiation Behavior of High-Entropy Alloys for Advanced Reactors | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $538,159 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Rapid Computer Aided Ligand Design and Screening of Precious Metal Extractants from TRUEX Raffinate with Experimental Validation | Washington State University | $500,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of an Efficient Meso-Scale Multi-Phase Flow Solver in Nuclear Applications | City College of New York | $505,858 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Multiscale Modeling and Uncertainty Quantification for Nuclear Fuel Performance | Colorado State University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Fundamental Studies of the Role of Grain Boundaries on Uniform Corrosion of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Materials | Drexel University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Phenomena-based Uncertainty Quantification in Predictive Coupled-Physics Reactor Simulations | Texas A&M University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Characterization of Modeling of Grain Boundary Chemistry Evolution in Ferritic Steels Under Irradiation | University of Michigan | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Development of Multiscale Materials Modeling Techniques and Coarse-Graining Strategies for Predicting Materials Degradation in Extreme Irradiation Environments | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $750,000 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Diffusion, Thermal Properties and chemical Compatibilities of Select MAX Phases with Materials for Advanced Nuclear Systems | Drexel University | $535,927 | Document | Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) | FY2011 | |
| A New Light Weight Structural Material for Nuclear Structures | North Carolina State University | $399,490 | Document | Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) | FY2011 | |
| Experimental Investigation of Convection and Heat Transfer in the Reactor Core for a VHTR | City College of New York | $1,118,856 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Graphite Microstructural Characterization Using Time-Domain and Correlation-Based Ultrasonics | Johns Hopkins University | $1,199,997 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Methodology Development for Passive Component Reliability Modeling in a Multi-Physics Simulation Environment | The Ohio State University | $533,457 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Pebble Fuel Handling and Reactivity Control for Salt-Cooled High Temperature Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $612,721 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Self-Sustaining Thorium Boiling Water Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $1,145,932 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| High Fluency Low Flux Embrittlement Models of LWR Reactor Pressure Vessel Embrittlement and a Supporting Database from the UCSB ATR-2 Irradiation Experiment | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,199,607 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| A Research Program for Fission Product/Dust Transport in HTGR's | University of Missouri-Columbia | $1,157,367 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Development and Validation of a Lifecycle-based Prognostics Architecture with Test Bed Validation | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $846,315 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| In-situ Condition Monitoring of Components in Small Modular Reactors Using Process and Electrical Signature Analysis | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $650,000 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Technical Development for S-CO2 Advanced Energy Conversion | University of Wisconsin | $815,000 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Ag Transport Through Non-Irradiated and Irradiated SiC | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,055,456 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Critical Heat Flux Phenomena at High Pressure and Low Mass Fluxes: Tests and Models | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,199,781 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Modeling and Test Validation of a Reactor Cavity Cooling System with Air | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,199,988 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Transient Mixed Convection Validation for NGNP | Utah State University | $635,860 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Alternative High-Performance Ceramic Waste Forms | Alfred University | $840,000 | This project aims to advance fundamental understanding of the kinetics of structural evolution of crystalline ceramic waste forms. The structure/property relationships will be identified and will reveal new formulations, improved processing routes, and strategies for improved performance or ceramic waste forms. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Surface Layer Bulk Glass Interface Evolution with Aqueous Corrosion | Alfred University | $880,000 | This project will investigate the links between the morphology, structure and chemistry of surface layer-bulk glass interface and the long-term corrosion-reaction kinetics using in-situ and ex-situ experiments. The understanding will result in improved models for long-term predictive behavior of high-level-waste (HLW) glasses under repository conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Optimization of Deep Borehole Systems for HLW Disposal | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $850,000 | Researchers aim to carry out a comprehensive evaluation of the deep borehole option for disposal of used nuclear fuel and high livel waste. The models developed will predict potential movement of water through natural and engineered barriers and release of radionuclides to the biosphere which will aide in site selection. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Scholarship for Nuclear Communications and Methods for Evaluation of Nuclear Project Acceptability | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will work to develop a model to characterize the factors affecting social acceptance of nuclear projects with potential stakeholders. The resultant model will strengthen the ability to design and implement large projects more efficiently, leading to higher rates of success of future nuclear projects. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Accurate Holdup Calculations with Predictive Modeling and Data Integration | North Carolina State University | $875,000 | Researchers will develop and use state-of-the-art radiation transport codes to account accurately for the fissile material in a nuclear materials processing facility. An accurate estimation of the materials will allow for ensured radiological safety, security, waste management and efficient plant operation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Testing of Sapphire Optical Fiber and Sensors in Intense Radiation Fields, when Subjected to Very High Temperatures | The Ohio State University | $885,000 | The researchers on this project will investigate the performance of sapphire optical fibers and sensors in reactor environments. The project, if successful, will result in improved instrumentation to understand the behavior and predict performance of nuclear fuel systems at the microstructural level. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Concrete Materials with Ultra-High Damage Resistance and Self-Sensing Capacity for Extended Nuclear Fuel Storage Systems | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | Researchers aim to design a new class of multifunctional concrete materials. This project, if successful, will result in a novel multifunctional concrete material that possesses inherent degradation monitoring capability and is suitable for an extended storage system for the used nuclear fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Probabilistic Multi-Hazard Assessment of Dry Cask Structures | University of Houston | $865,000 | This project aims to investigate the performance of dry cask storage systems under multiple hazard systems (earthquake, tornados, combined with aging effects) using a probabilistic multi-hazard framework. This framework will be validated based on experimental research and will provide improved models for safety and reliability of spent nuclear fuels during storage and transportation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Electrochemical Corrosion Studies for Modeling Metallic Waste Form Release Rates | University of Nevada- Las Vegas | $790,000 | This project aims to use advanced electrochemical methods to investigate the corrosion related degradation of metal alloys used for housing fission products. The data obtained from this study will allow for the prediction of the long-term behavior of the metallic host phase materials over geological time-scales. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Development and Experimental Benchmark of Simulations to Predict Used Nuclear Fuel Cladding Temperatures during Drying and Transfer Operations | University of Nevada- Reno | $745,000 | Researchers will conduct experiments to investigate and develop advanced computational models of heat transfer in post-pool-storage drying operations. This project, if successful, will result in tools that can be used to design efficient drying processes to as to ensure suitability for dry-cask systems for long-term storage and transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Seismic Performance of Dry Casks Storage for Long-Term Exposure | University of Utah | $873,319 | Researchers will evaluate the mechanical performance of dry-cask storage under seismic loading for mid-term operational periods. Simulations will include scenarios for freestanding, anchored, and vaulted casks. The experimental tests will also evaluate the dynamic seismic response of freestanding and anchored dry-cask storage prototypes, providing recommendations for optimal Interim Spent Fuel Storage Installations (ISFSIs) design. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Coupling of Nuclear Waste Form Corrosion and Radionuclide Transport in Presence of Relevant Repository Sediments | Washington State University | $885,000 | Researchers will conduct experiments to understand the mechanisms responsible for the corrosion of nuclear waste forms in realistic chemical environments. The data generated from these experiments will enable increased reliability of the models used to predict the waste form performance in repository environments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| ABR for TRU Transmutation with Breed & Burn Thorium Blanket for Improved Economics and Resource Utilization | University of California- Berkeley | $450,000 | The research team will use detailed neutronic analysis for a new Advanced Burner Reactor concept with low conversion ratio. The concept will use a new core shape to improve the utilization of neutrons to perform breed and burn. | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2012 |
| Atomic-Scale to Meso-Scale Simulation Studies of Thermal Ageing and Irradiation Effects in Fe-Cr Alloys | Boston University | $874,997 | Researchers will develop predictive, multi-scale simulation tools for iron-chromium alloys, which are expected to be key components of advanced steels envisioned as fuel cladding and structural components for Generation IV reactors. Such modeling is necessary to avoid resource intensive and costly thermal and neutron irradiation experiments to obtain required performance data. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Validation Data and Model Development for Fuel Assembly Response to Seismic Loads | George Washington University | $862,435 | Researchers will conduct experiments that will provide comprehensive data characterizing the dynamics of the fluid and the structure in Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR) fuel assemblies under seismic loads (earthquakes and loss of coolant accidents). Completion of their project will greatly benefit the safety of existing and future nuclear reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Uncertainty Quantification and Management for Multiscale Nuclear Materials Modeling | Georgia Institute of Technology | $743,444 | Researchers will address the question of uncertainty propogation and error estimates associated with model prediction of material behavior under irradiation. Their work will facilitate a better understanding of the connection of various unit processes to collective responses in a multiscale model chain enabling the development of high strength and high ductility materials. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Nonlinear Ultrasonic Techniques to Monitor Radiation Damage in RPV and Internal Components | Georgia Institute of Technology | $877,000 | Researchers will explore new nondestructive materials evaluation and monitoring techniques utilizing nonlinear ultrasonic measurements . This technique will allow researchers to assess remaining useful life of select reactor components. Breakthroughs in this area will lead to the ability to characterize radiation damage in reactor pressure vessels and other components-leading to a clearer definition of reactor safety margins. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Intergral Reactor Containment Condensation Model and Experimental Validation | Oregon State University | $871,119 | Researchers will conduct experiments to enhance the safety and efficiency of small modular reactors (SMRs). This project will assess the impact of high-pressure steam condensation on steel containment vessels to be used for SMR deigns. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Irradiation Performance of Fe-Cr Base Alloys | University of Illinois- Urbana Champaign | $876,332 | _Researchers will perform post-radiation analysis and develop tools for future development and application of the Fe-Cr class of alloys. The results of this research will lead to better modeling of performance and development of an alloy designated as the primary choice for reactor fuel cladding and structural applications in advanced systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Experimentally Validated Numerical Models for Effects of Non-Isothermal Turbulent Mixing on Wall Stresses in High Temperature Reactors | University of Pittsburgh | $876,422 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive experimentally validated computational framework for the turbulent mixing in the lower plenum of a very high temperature reactor (VHTR). Through CFD modeling and experimental validation, the results from this project will lay the groundwork for future stress analysis, failure and fatigue studies, and uncertainty quantification for the VHTR system. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Mechanical Behavior of UO2 at Sub-grain Length Scales: Quantification of Elastic, Plastic and Creep Properties via Microscale Testing | Arizona State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop techniques to measure properties at sub-grain scales using depleted Uranium Oxide samples. The project will provide a framework to measure sub-grain scale mechanical properties, as well as provide experimental data to improve the understanding of advanced oxide fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| The Impacts of Pore-Scale Physical and Chemical Heterogeneities on the Transport of Radionuclide-Carrying Colloids | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will identify the dominant transport mechanisms to develop models that predict radionuclide distribution in porous materials. Experimental and computational models will be created that couple pore-scale geometric and interfacial structures. Simulators such as these are a necessary step towards fully predictive models for field-scale applications in the future. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Polymer-Supported Aminophosphinates as Selective Extractants | Hunter College, CUNY | $399,999 | Researchers will prepare a polymer-supported extractant for the recovery of uranium from seawater. The project will focus on primary amines that could provide a 3-fold increase in uranium capture capacity than current methods. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| In-pile Thermal Conductivity Characterization with Single-laser Heating/Time Resolved Raman | Iowa State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a time-resolved Raman-based thermal conductivity measurement system to improve remote in-pile thermal conductivity measurement. These measurements will provide new insights into the behavior of materials exposed to extreme radiation and temperature environments. Understanding the behavior of materials at the microstructural level will support optimized fuel designs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Organic Speciation and Interactions in ALSEP - One Step Partitioning Process of Minor Actinides, Lanthanides, and Fission Products | Oregon State University | $600,000 | Researchers will investigate the Actinide-Lanthanide Separation (ALSEP) process organic phase prior to aqueous phase separation and after aqueous separation phases of bare and metal-loaded acids. Quantifying these effects can be used to determine how an engineering scale process will perform and generate an accurate chemical model for the system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Glass Composition and Solution Speciation Effects on Stage III Dissolution | Pennsylvania State University | $700,000 | Researchers will study the chemical and structural triggers of long-term vitrified nuclear waste form behavior. They will study a range of waste glass compositions in corrosive environments. The study will improve understanding of the long-term residual rate and may provide new options for environmental control of glass dissolution rates. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Correlating Thermal, Mechanical, and Electrical Coupling Based Multiphysics Behavior of Nuclear Materials Through In-Situ Measurements | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will use in-situ experimental techniques to monitor the influence of extreme conditions on fuel cladding. The project will establish an in-situ experimental setup that can predict change in thermal properties and their correlation with mechanical properties and correlate such changes to changes in microstructural and chemical features. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Creation of a Geant4 Muon Tomography Package for Imaging of Nuclear Fuel in Dry Cask Storage | Purdue University | $440,000 | Researchers will develop a simulation and analysis package to aid in the non-destructive assessment of sealed used nuclear fuel dry casks using cosmic ray muons. Cosmic ray muon tomography allows for non-destructive assessment that can independently verify and identify weapons grade material sealed within dense dry casks. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Fuel Cycle Data Packages for Two-stage Fast Reactor Fuel Cycle Options for Optimum Resource Utilization and Waste Management | Purdue University | $400,000 | Researchers will evaluate the two different two-stage fast reactor fuel cycle options that will offer efficient use of uranium resources and the ability to burn actinides and long-live fission products. Evaluation of these fast fuel cycle options will serve as a useful complement to the options currently being considered in the Fuel Cycle Options Campaign. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Mixed Metal Phosphonate-Phosphate Resins for Separation of Lanthanides from Actinides | Texas A&M University | $650,000 | Researchers will use ion exchangers to cleanly separate lanthanides and curium from reusable actinides. The study will assist in the development of an inexpensive, simple way in which to separate lanthanides from actinides found in used nuclear fuel rods and to recover a large portion of the usable fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Safeguards in Pyroprocessing: an Integrated Model Development and Measurement Data Analysis | The Ohio State University | $626,151 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive and effective safeguards approach for a pyroprocessing facility to support safeguards for future fuel cycles in the United States. The new approach and design will focus directly on the special nuclear materials in the electrorefiner where actinides are separated from fission products through electrochemical process. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Using Ionic Liquids for the Development of Renewable Biopolymer-Based Adsorbents for the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater and Testing Under Marine Conditions | University of Alabama | $400,000 | Researchers will explore the fundamental engineering parameters for a renewable high-performance adsorbent for the extraction of uranium from sweater based on a recently proven ionic liquid (IL)-chitin platform. The project will use the platform to develop a versatile, modifiable adsorbent and characterize its performance and degradation in marine conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Developing Ultra-Small Scale Mechanical Testing Methods and Microstructural Investigation Procedures for Irradiated Materials. | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop new small-scale mechanical testing techniques to allow for the estimation or direct measurement of bulk properties. The combined experiments and modeling will significantly enhance the statistics and information that can be obtained on small radioactive archived samples, as well as new ion beam irradiated specimens. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Improved Delayed-Neutron Spectroscopy Using Trapped Ions | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will develop innovative spectroscopy techniques to measure the decay of fission fragments. The resulting data from these new techniques will be used to better understand reactor kinetics under accident conditions and failure scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Thermally and Chemically Responsive Nanoporous Materials for Efficient Capture of Fission Product Gases | University of California, Davis | $750,000 | Researchers will create new nanoporous materials that will be highly effective at capturing fission product gases. These materials would be relevant to both reactor fuels applications and reprocessing operations. Tests will be performed in carbon based and nitride based nanostructures, with the most promising materials from the modeling perspective undergoing further testing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Multiphase Nanocrystalline Ceramic Concept for Nuclear Fuel | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | Researchers will study the use of nanoparticles and nanostructured ceramics to create new materials that can extend the service life and increase efficiency for nuclear fuel. Multiphase nanocrystalline ceramics will be used to design simulated nuclear fuel that can provide added plasticity, better radiation tolerance and improved thermal conductivity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Novel Porous Sorbents for Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Chicago | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a highly porous sorbent for the extraction of uranium from seawater. Previous research has established sorbent performance. This project will use past foundational studies to design and investigate a new nanocomposites that will be processed into tacks or braids for field tests in seawater tests. The technology may also be used for other metals. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Microwave Readout Techniques for Very Large Arrays of Nuclear Sensors | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,937 | Researchers will develop a powerful readout technique based on microwave transmission and reflection. The technique will enable very large arrays of diverse sensor types for nuclear materials quantification and tracking. It will provide more accurate data on material composition and quantity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| BiI3 Gamma-Ray Spectrometers for Reliable Room-Temperature Nuclear Materials Safeguarding | University of Florida | $799,999 | Researchers will develop gamma-ray spectrometers based on BiI3 single crystals for MPACT applications such as burnup validation quantification, improved assay of plutonium, determination of uranium enrichment and overall monitoring spent fuel within the fuel cycle. The project will improve energy resolution, efficiency and environmental performance with this new gamma-ray detector. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Innovative Coating of Nanostructured Vanadium Carbide on the F/M Cladding Tube Inner Surface for Mitigating the Fuel Cladding Chemical Interactions | University of Florida | $760,276 | Researchers will develop barrier coatings on the inner surface of fuel cladding tubes to improve performance of materials at elevated temperatures and high neutron exposures in fast reactors. The project will develop and test a low temperature coating process of nanostructured vanadium carbide that will provide a benchmark for use in future studies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Doubling the Life of Concrete Structures | University of Idaho | $800,000 | Researchers will use nanoscale techniques to develop methods for doubling the service life of concrete structures. They will study the effect of temperature load and temperature cycling (freezing and thawing) on the durability of concrete with nanoscale viscosity modifiers. The project will benefit from non-destructive evaluation of concrete performance through electrochemical techniques. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Off-Gas Treatment: Evaluation of Nano-structured Sorbents for Selective Removal of Contaminants | University of Idaho | $785,910 | Researchers will evaluate nanostructured sorbent materials for their effectiveness in removing and immobilizing radionuclides for the off-gas treatment from used nuclear fuel recycling operations. The project aims at achieving near-zero emissions of radionuclides by capturing them from the off-gas of recycling operations, allowing for the development of advanced fuel cycles. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium and Transition Metals from Amidoxime-Based Sorbents | University of Idaho | $399,864 | Researchers will develop a new two-step elution process to achieve total recovery of uranium and effective recycling of the sorbent. The extraction process would selectively remove uranium from the sorbent with little or no damage. The process would then remove transition metals and regenerate the sorbent for repeated use, making uranium extraction from seawater economically viable. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Performance of a Steel/Oxide Composite Waste Form for Combined Waste Streams from Advanced Electrochemical Processes over Geologic Time Scales | University of Illinois at Chicago | $700,000 | Researchers will develop and validate a mechanistically-based corrosion model for cermet-type waste forms, creating a testing protocol and modeling approach for predicting long-term performance. The study will apply novel electrochemical testing and modeling methods to the behavior of metal/oxide phase boundaries to evaluate waste form performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Enhancement of the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland, College Park | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and optimize novel adsorbents for uranium recovery from seawater. The team will use radiation-induced grafting of organic phosphates onto polymers. The experiments will use ocean water, with mechanistic analysis, to provide a solid basis for large-scale demonstration of the performance of the new adsorbents in ocean environments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Improving the Understanding of the Coupled Thermal-Mechanical-Hydrologic Behavior of Consolidating Granular Salt | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will increase the understanding of granular salt seal materials for shafts, drifts and boreholes. By coupling thermal, mechanical and hydrological responses, the study will result in greater confidence in granular salt consolidation as a principal strategy for closure and isolation of long-term waste repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Fission Fragment Yield Data in Support of Advanced Reactor Technology | University of New Mexico | $399,816 | Researchers will produce a highly accurate data set for thermal fission. These precision data are necessary for high-accuracy simulations of nuclear criticality, transmutation rates, radiation effects and heating as well as for nuclear fuel, material accounting and identification needs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Molecular dynamics-based simulations of bulk/interfacial structures and diffusion behaviors in nuclear waste glasses | University of North Texas | $700,000 | Researchers will generate accurate atomic structural models for use in Monte Carlo simulations of the dissolution of nuclear waste glasses. Large-scale molecular dynamics-based computer simulations will be used to investigate self-diffusion behaviors, interfacial structure, and other structures formed during dissolution of these glasses. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| U3Si2 Fabrication and Testing for Implementation into the BISON Fuel Performance Code | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will fabricate, test and model a high uranium density, advanced nuclear fuel that operates at a much lower temperature and stores less energy. The work will deliver key research data on creep and grain growth, improving economics, through possible power uprates, and advancing accident tolerant fuels research. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Structural Health Monitoring of Nuclear Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of South Carolina | $738,618 | Researchers will develop a nuclear structural health monitoring system based on a sensing technology that monitors material degradation and aging for dry cask storage systems. The low-cost, low-profile sensors will perform on-demand monitoring of the structural integrity of individual components as well as the entire system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| ORIGEN-based Nuclear Fuel Depletion Module for Fuel Cycle Assessment | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $755,181 | Researchers will develop a flexible reactor analysis module for the CYCLUS fuel cycle simulator based on established tools for reactor fuel depletion and decay. They will use ORIGEN, a mature and experimentally validated code, affording greater flexibility and allowing for accurate evaluations of impacts of both present and future fuel cycle options. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Cost and System Analysis of Innovative Fuel Resources Concepts | University of Texas at Austin | $295,960 | This project will develop and test braided polymer fiber adsorbents that surpass the sorption capacity, selectivity and durability of the best existing technology to recover uranium from seawater. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Risk Assessment of Structural Integrity of Transportation Casks | University of Utah | $789,296 | Researchers will assess the loss of structural integrity of transportation casks and fuel cladding after extended storage. This risk assessment will conduct experimental tests and simulations to evaluate the structural performance of fuel, fuel assemblies and cask components when subjected to vibration and impact loads during transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Market-Based and System-Wide Fuel Cycle Optimization | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $612,731 | Researchers will create market and economic optimizers to improve calculations for the CYCLUS fuel cycle simulator. The team will leverage existing optimization software frameworks within the simulator to resolve top level policy questions. The optimizations will allow CYCLUS to move beyond static material compositions, providing a holistic view of the fuel cycle system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Optical Fiber Based System for Multiple Thermophysical Properties for Glove Box, Hot Cell and In-Pile Applications | Utah State University | $799,975 | Researchers will use a small pressure vessel to develop a robust technique for the measurement of multiple thermophysical properties at very high temperatures. The technique will lead to a system design moving toward the eventual measurement of irradiated fuels in a glovebox and/or hot cell with all sensors and electronics outside of the glovebox and/or hot cell. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of a Nano-Modified Concrete for Next Generation of Storage Systems | Vanderbilt University | $796,268 | Researchers will use nano-sized and nano-structured particles based on enhanced reactivity to develop a superior concrete for the long-term storage of used nuclear fuel. The project will use state-of-the-art experimental chemical and mechanical characterizations and computation analysis to assess the performance of nano-modified concretes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Fuel Cycle Data Packages for Thorium Fuel Cycle Options | Vanderbilt University | $797,995 | Researchers will develop six fuel cycle data packages for multi-stage, thermal fuel cycles which incorporate thorium. These new fuel cycle data packages will provide the opportunity to examine fuel cycle options beyond those which have traditionally been considered. A thorium fuel cycle database will also be assembled as a basis for thorium literature for future evaluations of the thorium fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Enhanced Shielding Performance of HLW Storage Packages via Multi-Component Coatings | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $796,947 | Researchers will develop a multi-layer composite that will enhance long-term storage and facilitate safe transport of storage packages. This novel multi-layer, multi-component coating would create an outer shield material that is resistant to the corrosion, radiation, diffusion and thermal cycling processes that affect fuel packages during long term storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Managing Zirconium Chemistry and Phase Compatibility in Combined Process Separations for Minor Actinide Partitioning | Washington State University | $700,000 | Researchers will address unique challenges for combining TRUEX and TALSPEAK processes for partitioning of lanthanides and minor actinides. The project will develop improved information on the thermodynamics of fission product zirconium and develop a framework for an organic phase solvation model. Combined process development could streamline separations processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Advances in the Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Studies Under Real Ocean Conditions | Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution | $398,882 | Researchers will provide infrastructure and expertise for marine testing of currently available adsorbents in real ocean conditions. The team will move adsorbent research from the lab to field testing in order to quantify sorptive properties and uranium uptake. The project will provide valuable field data that will show the potential of large scale applications of these technologies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| NEUP Project 20-19172: Irradiation of Sensors and Adhesive Couplants for Application in LWR Primary Loop Piping and Components | $497,881 | Researchers paln to attach ultrasonic transducers to substrates using various adhesive couplants that will be irradiated at elevated temperature to simulate LWR primary loop conditions at the PULSTAR reactor at North Carolina State University. Ultrasonic data will be taken in-situ. Subsequently, the sensors and couplant interfaces will be characterized using the LAMDA facility at ORNL. The results will be used to benefit a parallel EPRI project on online monitoring of cracks in LWR primary loop piping. | Document | Joint R&D with NSUF Access | FY2013 | |
| Lower Length Scale Characterization and Validation of Formation and Stability of Helium Bubbles in Nano-structured Ferritic Alloys under Irradiation | Clemson University | $399,870 | Researchers will provide a fundamental knowledge about the formation and stability of ultra-fine helium bubbles within 14YWT after neutron/ion irradiation for further design of new advanced structural materials with a characteristic high density nanoparticles feature which can increase the mechanical strength, hardness, irradiation resistance and the operational temperature range of materials. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Three-Dimensional Fuel Pin Model Validation by Prediction of Hydrogen Distribution in Cladding and Comparison with Experiment | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers will validate important three-dimensional aspects of the fuel pin modeling by using specialized numerical modeling techniques coupled with laboratory experiments to validate existing models for predicting fuel performance in light water reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Collocation-Based Surrogate Models for Uncertainty Quantification and Validation of Coupled, Multiphysics Fuel Performance Simulation Tools | University of Michigan | $596,835 | Researchers will provide the necessary high fidelity, coupled, multiphysics fuel performance simulator for computational modeling and develop surrogates which will accelerate and focus the validation of the coupled codes. This will be achieved by utilizing the high fidelity coupled fuel performance, thermal-hydraulics and neutronics codes BISON/STAR-CCM+/MPACT and an innovative collocation-based surrogate methodology. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Multi-Resolution In-Situ Testing and Mutliscale Simulation for Creep Damage Fatigue Damage Analysis of Alloy 617 | Arizona State University | $800,000 | This project will develop novel testing and experimentally validated prediction methodologies for micro-structural damage mechanisms of structural materials for advanced reactor systems. The investigations will focus on the characterization and testing of specific metal alloys, but the proposed testing and life-prediction methodologies are applicable to other structural materials as well. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Novel High Temperature and Radiation Resistant Infrared Glasses and Optical Fibers for Sensing in Advanced Small Modular Reactors | Clemson University | $800,000 | Clemson University, in partnership with the Iowa State University and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, will develop novel optical materials with improved heat and radiation exposure resistance in order to enable in-vessel fiber optic sensing for advanced Small Modular Reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Validation Data Acquisition in HTTF during PCC Events | George Washington University | $800,000 | Researchers at the George Washington University and Oregon State University will collaborate with NASA Langley Research Center to measure flow velocities in a high temperature test facility. This work supports the development of very-high temperature reactors with passive safety systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced High Temperature Inspection Capabilities for Small Modular Reactors | Iowa State University | $790,822 | The objective of this project is to develop non-destructive evaluation techniques for advanced small modular reactors. The research will provide key enabling inspection technologies needed to support the design and the reactor component performance validation process for advanced small modular reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Experimental and Computational Investigations of Plenum-to-Plenum Heat Transfer under Natural Circulation in a Prismatic Very High Temperature Reactor | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,999 | Researchers will perform experimental and computational investigations to study heat transfer and natural circulation phenomena in very-high temperature reactors. The study will assist in the ability to predict and analyze passive safety systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| New Mechanistic Models of Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth Interactions for Advanced High Temperature Reactor Components | Oregon State University | $790,790 | Researchers will create and validate a robust, multi-scale, numerical model to predict material degradation in nickel-based reactor alloys. If successful, this project will provide better numerical tools for reactor designers and greatly improve their capability to design against material failures for reactor alloys in the long term. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Self-Powered Wireless Dual-mode Langasite Sensor for Pressure/Temperature Monitoring of Nuclear Reactors | State University of New York, Stony Brook | $800,000 | This research will develop a novel self-powered wireless hybrid sensor that can accurately monitor both pressure and temperature using a single device without requiring external electricity, even in extreme harsh environments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Compact Heat Exchanger Design and Testing for Advanced Nuclear Reactors and Advanced Power Cycles | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to investigate optimal heat exchanger designs for advanced reactors. The research will study the optimization of printed circuit heat exchangers for specific fluids under a variety of conditions as well as perform numerical modeling. Experiments will focus on thermal performance and heat stress during extreme conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Fundamental Understanding of Creep-Fatigue Interactions in 9Cr-1MoV Steel Welds | The Ohio State University | $798,000 | This project will advance the state of knowledge and fundamental understanding of deforming materials and welds under loading conditions. Specifically, new integrated testing procedures will be evaluated and applied for conditions that are most detrimental to material stability leading to improved predictions of life expectancy for reactor steels and welds. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced Mechanistic 3D Spatial Modeling and Analysis Methods to Accurately Represent Nuclear Facility External Event Scenarios | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop three-dimensional characterization uncertainty analysis for commercial power plants. The project will involve combining experts from the fields of seismic structural modeling and advanced methods of risk assessment. This effort is expected to result in next generation tools that can be used for assessment of seismic risks. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Tritium Mitigation/Control for Advanced Reactor Systems | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a fluoride salt cooled high-temperature reactor featuring a specialized system to control tritium production. If successful, this will result in a significant reduction in size and cost in comparison to other reactor designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| A Pebble-Bed Breed and Burn Reactor | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will assess the feasibility of designing a type of metal cooled reactor able to establish and maintain operation when fueled with depleted uranium. If successful, this reactor will offer at least a 30-fold increase in the uranium ore utilization versus that achieved in contemporary light water reactors without the need for fuel reprocessing and recycling. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Investigation of Thermal Aging Effects on the Evolution of Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Cast Duplex Stainless Steels | University of Maryland, College Park | $799,966 | This research will provide a better understanding of the microstructural evolution and simultaneous change in mechanical response during aging. The results of the research will provide data that can be used to estimate degraded mechanical properties for an 80-year service life of light water reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Model validation using CFD-grade experimental database for NGNP Reactor Cavity Cooling Systems with water and air | University of Michigan | $799,348 | Researchers will use advanced innovative instrumentation to build a high-resolution experimental database and to use the novel experimental data to assess and further develop the predictive capabilities of computer codes for thermal hydraulics and computational fluid dynamics. The improved models developed by this project will also have the direct benefit of improving the predictive capability of the passive systems of third generation light water reactors and small modular reactor systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Long-Term Prediction of Emissivity of Structural Material for High Temperature Reactor Systems | University of Missouri | $799,117 | Researchers will study specific types of emissivity driven cooling from a variety of materials that are relevant to nuclear reactors. The research will provide a basis for numerical modeling to support reactor development. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced I&C for Fault-Tolerant Supervisory Control of Small Modular Reactors | University of Pittsburgh | $800,000 | The purpose of this research is to develop advanced instrumentation and control techniques for supervisory control of advanced small modular reactors. This research supports the operational goals of small modular reactor concepts through the development of improved oversight and surveillance techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Corrosion of Structural Materials for Advanced Supercritical Carbon-Dioxide Brayton Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $798,672 | Researchers will study a variety of materials for corrosion resistance under conditions that improve power conversion. In addition to studying the corrosion resistance of the materials, researchers will study the effect of additives to mitigate corrosion. Development of corrosion theories and modeling aimed at prediction of long-term corrosion will be the underlying theme throughout the project. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Component and Technology Development for Advanced Liquid Metal Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $798,920 | In support of liquid metal cooled reactors, the University of Wisconsin, Madison will evaluate advanced alloys and ceramics that come in contact with liquid metals. Additionally, a robust oxygen sensor and for use in liquid metals will be developed in order to better evaluate corrosion profiles in support of diagnostic testing. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| A New Paradigm for Understanding Multi-phase Ceramic Waste Form Performance | Clemson University | $800,000 | Researchers will use advanced characterization tools to develop 3-D microstructural data that can be incorporated into computer-based simulations in order to predict the performance of waste forms. Materials system modeling will incorporate elemental release and the interconnected microstructural network of phases to better understand performance and degradation, which will accelerate waste form acceptance in repository settings. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Controlling Hexavalent Americium: A Centerpiece to a Compact Nuclear Fuel Cycle | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and exploit the fundamental chemistry of Americium to enable an industrially viable means to co-recover the major and minor actinide elements from used nuclear fuel. The results would be a significant step forward in the development of aqueous separations approaches designed to recover the U-Am actinides based on the availability of the hexavalent oxidation state. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Zeolite Membranes for Krypton/Xenon Separation from Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Off-Gas | Georgia Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a high-performance, lower-cost zeolitic membrane process for Kr/Xe separations during spent nuclear fuel processing. Current separation methods are not considered economical and a membrane process would have relatively lower cost, equipment size, and ambient operating temperature. The process would form a sound basis for further development of this transformative separation technology for the nuclear fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Optimizing Polymer-Grafted Amidoxime-based Adsorbents for Uranium Uptake from Seawater | Georgia Institute of Technology | $399,999 | Researchers will work to increase the adsorbent capacity and selectivity toward uranium by optimizing the adsorbent morphology, synthesis variables, and conditioning parameters and by investigating the rate-limiting variables through transport and reaction modeling. A novel adsorption/partition concept that has the potential to substantially increase the adsorbent capacity will be tested, making uranium from seawater extraction more economically viable. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Extraction of Uranium from Seawater: Design and Testing of a Symbiotic System | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a seawater uranium extraction system that will work symbiotically with an offshore windmill by utilizing the structure, mooring and power of the windmill, while increasing the energy harvested by the installation. Uranium will be extracted by an adsorbent polymer belt, which will be cycled through the seawater and an elution plant located at the base of the windmill tower. Increasing the frequency of harvesting could overcome current economic barriers to seawater uranium extraction. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Imaging a Dry Storage Cask with Cosmic Ray Muons | Oregon State University | $799,871 | Researchers will develop an imaging system to monitor the content of a dry storage cask with cosmic ray muons. A very large amount of plutonium under nuclear safeguards is contained in used fuel assemblies stored in dry storage casks. Muon imaging will allow a cost effective and reliable way to evaluate dry storage cask content and integrity before transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Apatite and sodalite based glass-bonded waste forms for immobilization of 129I and mixed halide radioactive wastes | Rutgers University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop advanced and chemically durable waste forms for immobilizing 129I (aqueous based reprocessing of fuel) and mixed-halide wastes (molten-salt processing of fuel) by low temperature synthesis. Halide-containing sodalite and calcium phosphate-based apatite minerals will be synthesized, consolidated and tested for chemical durability. The project will provide needed baseline data for the development of advanced waste forms for immobilization of iodine and mixed-halide wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Sorption Modeling and Verification for Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $350,000 | Researchers will develop modeling tools supported by experiments for off-gas capture from future nuclear-fuel recycling facilities. Target species include tritium, iodine, krypton, and xenon. The models are intended to provide path forward recommendations to develop off-gas treatment adsorption processes. The project will contribute to the evaluation of options for environmentally acceptable recycle systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development of high performance ODS alloys | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will study swelling, radiation hardening and changes in mechanical properties of ODS alloys to develop two sets of advanced ODS alloys. Two sets of first-round candidate alloys that have already undergone extensive development and testing will evaluate irradiation performance. The study will meet the need for high strength, radiation-tolerant cladding and core components that have enhanced resistance to void swelling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Rare Earth Electrochemical Property Measurements and Phase Diagram Development in a Complex Molten Salt Mixture for Molten Salt Recycle | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate rare earth (RE) properties in complex molten salt mixtures. In a molten salt recycle approach, the RE drawdown by electrolysis is a key step in which REs are separated from salt containing other fission products. Investigation of RE electrolysis must consider the electrochemical properties of the REs. We propose to conduct studies of detailed experiments and corresponding models to provide the physical properties and phase diagrams required to predict the performance of RE drawdown for processing complex molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Computational and Experimental Studies of Microstructure-Scale Porosity in Metallic Fuels for Improved Gas Swelling Behavior | University of Arkansas | $796,823 | Researchers will study the microstructure of metallic uranium alloy fuels, and their resistance to densification, to minimize in-pile irradiation swelling through bimodal pore size distribution. The project will develop a predictive approach to design metallic fuel microstructures for optimal swelling resistance and fission gas retention. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Improved Hybrid Modeling of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of California, Berkeley | $645,393 | Researchers will develop a variance reduction method for computational transport that will improve the ability to design and operate monitoring systems for interim used fuel installations through enhanced modeling and simulation. This new tool will demonstrate that modeling calculations can be done more accurately in less time than with current tools and will perform studies characterizing how changes in material, cask configurations, and number of casks could impact monitoring systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Selective ligands for uranyl via combinatorial peptoid libraries: A synthetic, structural, thermodynamic and computational study | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will study how donor ligands bind to the uranyl ion, UO22+, with the longer-term goal of using this information to tackle selective recognition of uranyl in aqueous solution. The study will impact underlying approaches to controlling the behavior of uranium in these systems. The actinide separation technology could be used in several areas including uranium extraction from seawater, nuclear waste remediation and nuclear materials. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Combining Experiments and Simulations of Extraction Kinetics and Thermodynamics in Advanced Separation Processes for Used Nuclear Fuel | University of California, Irvine | $799,938 | Researchers will study how the kinetics and thermodynamics of metal ion extraction in advanced separation processes for used nuclear fuel can be described by molecular dynamic (MD) simulations and how the simulations can be validated by experimental data. The project would have broad impacts on several separations processes including advanced TALSPEAK, ALSEP and GANEX by increasing the confidence and accuracy of computer modeling of metal ion extraction. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Effect of Metallic Li on the Behavior of Metals in Molten Salts | University of Nevada, Reno | $458,250 | Researchers will identify the effect of metallic lithium on materials that are used in molten salt recycling. The study will try to understand how the presence of Li(0) in molten salts affects the degradation of alloys. Studying these changes will help accurately predict container material behavior and longevity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Assessment of Corrosion Resistance of Promising Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding under Reactor Conditions | University of Notre Dame | $800,000 | Researchers will assess the corrosion behavior of accident tolerant fuel candidate iron-based alloys under normal LWR operating conditions consisting of high temperature, relevant water chemistry and irradiation. The assessment will produce data about possible irradiation-accelerated corrosion rates of iron-based alloys, and the mechanisms by which such corrosion rates are accelerated. The project will advance the selection of appropriate replacements for Zircaloy cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Enhanced Accident-Tolerant Fuel Performance and Reliability for Aggressive iPWR/SMR Operation | University of Tennessee | $799,967 | To develop a process that evaluates operational and safety performance of reactor-and-fuel combinations by integrating whole-core 3D neutronics with MOOSE/BISON fuel performance assessments via explicit time and space dependent fuel rod operational power histories. The project will be valuable in analyzing and evaluating accident tolerant fuel concepts and furthering the understanding of reactor physics and fuel performance aspects of key accident tolerant fuel concepts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Nuclear Technology R&D Strategies in an Era of Energy Price Uncertainty | University of Texas, Austin | $799,112 | Researchers will identify nuclear technology options that are competitive over a wide range of plausible future business environments. No single nuclear technology or business practice will be the best choice across all or even most future conditions. The study will focus on hybrid nuclear-fossil technologies, energy storage and conversion, which will result in an identification of nuclear strategies that can succeed under future market conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development and Optimization of Voltammetric Methods for Real Time Analysis of Electrorefiner Salt with High Concentrations of Actinides and Fission Products | University of Utah | $621,612 | Researchers will develop an advanced voltammetry method to pursue the objective of real time monitoring of actinide concentrations in electrorefiner salt. This will include experimental measurement of key parameters such as activity coefficients and exchange current density. It will also involve simulation of voltammetry processes based on first principles. The project will allow for real time measurements that could support the commercialization of pyroprocessing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development of Self-Healing Zirconium-Silicide Coatings for Improved Performance of Zirconium-Alloy Fuel Cladding | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $798,621 | Researchers will study the deposition of self-healing zirconium-silicide coatings on zirconium-alloy fuel cladding material to improve corrosion resistance under normal and accident conditions. Under these conditions, Zr-Si coating evolves into a highly protective functionally-graded multilayered system. The study will lead to improved performance of zirconium-alloy fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Thermal Conductivity in Metallic Fuels | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,837 | Researchers will calculate the thermal conductivity of metallic uranium and neptunium alloys, including the effects of noble gasses, using density functional theory. The experiments will validate the calculated effective thermal conductivity using the MARMOT code and by helping determine DFT simulation parameters. The study works to improve fuel lifetime by understanding its thermal behavior. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| SiC-ODS Alloy Gradient Nanocomposites as Novel Cladding Materials | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,998 | Researchers will combine nuclear nanomaterial design, processing, testing, and characterization efforts to develop revolutionary materials that can withstand neutron irradiation for long period of time using nanostructured SiC and oxide dispersion strengthened steel. The ultimate objective is to offer new cladding materials with increased corrosion resistance, strength, and creep resistance in both steady state and accident conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Experimental Breeder Reactor II Benchmark Evaluation | Idaho State University | $400,000 | _Researchers will develop a benchmark evaluation of the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II). During nearly 30 years of operation numerous experiments were conducted at EBR-II. The most significant of these experiments were conducted in 1986 demonstrating inherent safety features in loss of flow without reactor scram and loss of heat sink without reactor scram. Benchmark evaluation will be valuable for the reactor design efforts in the United States and South Korea. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| Integral full core multi-physics PWR benchmark with measured data | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | _Researchers will introduce BEAVRS, a new multi-cycle full-core Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) depletion benchmark based on two operational cycles of a commercial nuclear power plant. This project aims at addressing the uncertainty quantification of the measured data and on making this benchmark a true non-proprietary international benchmark for the validation of high-fidelity multi-physics computational tools. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| Benchmark Evaluation of PROTEUS Gas-Cooled Reactor Experiments | University of Florida | $400,000 | _Researchers will create International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) benchmarks using data from 1970s experiments of the neutronics of gas-cooled fast reactor (GCFR) designs investigated in the PROTEUS reactor. The GCFR-PROTEUS experiments fill a gap in current integral benchmark data. These experiments can provide validation of computational models and nuclear data for next generation reactors. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| An Investigation To Establish Multiphysical Property Dataset Of Nuclear Materials Based On In-Situ Observations And Measurements | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will create an in-situ measurement based experimental approach to develop experimental validation dataset for NEAMS based code validation. Particular emphasis is on supplying data set for multiphysics simulations in extreme conditions as a function of material microstructure. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| Experimental Validation of UO2 Microstructural Evolutions for NEAMS tool MARMOT | University of Florida | $798,000 | _Researchers will experimentally validate MARMOT for predicting the microstructural evolutions of UO2 oxide fuel under the driving forces of high temperatures and large temperature gradient in reactors. By performing the experiments and simulations simultaneously using precisely defined initial conditions, the experiment data will provide direct benchmarking of the MARMOT code. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| High-resolution time-resolved experiments on mixing and entrainment of buoyant jets in stratified environments | University of Michigan | $799,983 | _Researchers will study high spatial and time-resolution experimental data of the fluid dynamics phenomena of flow jets interacting with a stratified layer. The issue plays an important role in the safety of several reactor designs, including sodium-cooled reactors. The data addresses the NEAMS needs for the validation of high fidelity computational fluid dynamics methodologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| Fundamental study of key issues related to advanced S-CO2 Brayton Cycle: prototypic HX development and Cavitation | Georgia Institute of Technology | $799,000 | _Researchers will study scientific and operational issues pertinent to compact heat exchanger systems and turbo-machinery. The project will work to resolve issues with the fabrication of diffusion bonded compact heat exchangers, alternate heat exchange technology for recuperators, and resolution of issues with cavitation and fluid instabilities. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Advanced Models for Nondestructive Evaluation of Aging Nuclear Power Plant Cables | Iowa State University | $787,291 | _Researchers will develop advanced models that relate environmentally induced microstructural and chemical changes in cable insulation polymers to their macroscopic electrical parameters. These parameters will be measured and modeled over a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum, covering several potential nondestructive evaluation techniques, enabling identification of the most sensitive techniques for future development. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Development of Novel Functionally Graded Transition Joints for Improving the Creep Strength of Dissimilar Metal Welds in Nuclear Applications | Lehigh University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop graded transition joints and improved creep life models for increasing the life of dissimilar metal welds (DMWs) in nuclear reactors. The research represents the first application of functionally graded material concepts for solving the problem of DMW failures through an integrated approach of additive manufacturing, modeling, microstructural characterization, and advanced strain-sensing techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Feasibility Assessment of a Micro Modular Reactor (MMR) | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | _Researchers will develop an innovative compact reactor concept that integrates power production, power conversion and electricity generation in a single unit: the Micro Modular Reactor (MMR). It is designed to be absolutely melt-down proof (MDP) under all circumstances including complete loss of coolant scenarios with no possible release of radioactive material, to have a cycle length of greater than 10 years, and to be highly proliferation resistant. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Scaling Studies for Advanced Gas Reactor Concepts | Oregon State University | $681,834 | _Researchers will expand the utilization of the Oregon State University High Temperature Test Facility (HTTF) to validate a broader range of advanced high temperature reactors and events. The facility will be revised to add a detailed scaling analysis of additional gas reactor concepts including advanced gas-cooled, molten salt, and sodium cooled reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Fluid Stratification Separate Effects Analysis, Testing and Benchmarking | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will study fluid stratification in high temperature gas reactors. Coolant stratification is the result of incomplete mixing of one or more fluids, leading to a density gradient, which may or may not dissipate under diffusive or convective effects. This combined analytical and experimental project seeks to investigate stratification driven by diffusive and convective mechanisms and is expected to yield insight into this phenomenon. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Probabilistic Economic Valuation of Safety Margin Management Analysis | Oregon State University | $795,364 | _Researchers will use RAVEN and develop a companion software package to facilitate economic analysis of safety margins. The project is a proof of concept that will use techniques to examine the cost of improving safety margins vs. the risk of accidents from not improving safety margins. This analysis can be used to evaluate the economic viability of various plant upgrades. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Novel Dissimilar Joints Between Alloy 800H and 2.25%Cr and 1%Mo Steel | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will fabricate and test dissimilar metal joints between a nickel base alloy and a steel with gradual variations of chemical composition, microstructure and properties in a manner that reduces abrupt thermal expansion mismatch and the resulting residual stresses. Data on structure and properties will serve as valuable inputs for the initiation of an ASME code case. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Multi-Phase Model Development to Assess RCIC System Capabilities under Severe Accident Conditions | Texas A&M University | $564,246 | _Researchers will develop physics-based models of the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) System and incorporating them into a multi-phase code for validation. The project will tackle the current major challenges in RCIC System analysis and enable evaluation of two-phase thermodynamic aspects. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Experimental Investigation and CFD Analysis of Steam Ingress Accidents in HTGRs | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will study the steam ingress scenario for HTGRs. The study will investigate thermal-hydraulic behavior and graphite oxidation of stream ingress phenomena to validate predictive CFD models. This work will resolve concerns about possible steam generator tube ruptures in a HTGR He-Steam Rankine cycle. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Coiled Tube Gas Heaters For Nuclear Gas-Brayton Power Conversion | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop heat exchangers for Brayton-cycle power conversion in reactors using sodium, NaK, or salt as intermediate coolants. The proposed coiled tube gas heaters (CTGHs) are expected to have excellent power density, thermal shock/creep, in-service inspection, and reparability characteristics. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Fundamental Studies of Irradiation-Induced Modifications in Microstructural Evolution and Mechanical Properties of Advanced Alloys | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop and test a mechanism for predicting neutron irradiation performance for optimized Grade 92 and Alloy 709 for applications in advanced reactor systems. The work will employ ion irradiations and available information from neutron irradiations of related alloys to develop a basis for predicting the neutron irradiation performance of the optimized alloys. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Integrated Computational and Experimental Study of Radiation Damage Effects in Grade 92 Steel and Alloy 709 | University of Tennessee | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop a mechanistic understanding and predictive models of irradiation-induced microstructural evolution and resulting mechanical properties in optimized ferritic-martensitic Grade 92 steel and austenitic alloy 709 using multiscale simulations coupled with rigorous experimental validation. The project will provide insights into the correlation between ion irradiation and fast neutron damage. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Meta-Level Design Guidance and Operator Performance Measures for Hybrid Control Rooms | Vanderbilt University | $799,869 | _Researchers will apply human factors engineering methods and relevant expertise from non-nuclear high-risk high-consequence domains toward the measurement of operator performance in analog, digital, and hybrid main control rooms. Performance measures will be developed for evaluating the situation awareness and decision-making proficiencies to support the transition to digital or hybrid control room displays. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| NEUP Project 15-8514: Elucidation of the kinetics of Advanced Separation systems | California State University, Long Beach | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a fundamental understanding of the chemical kinetics relevant to separation processes by measuring ligand complexation rate constants for both lanthanides and actinides in the aqueous and organic phases. These experiments will provide essential kinetic and mechanistic information required for developing a simplified, single-step recovery of transuranic elements. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8119: Kr/Xe separation over Metal Organic Framework Membranes | Colorado School of Mines | $375,000 | Researchers will develop metal organic framework (MOF) membranes that will be capable of effectively separating Kr from Xe with high flux and selectivity. This project may result in the development of membranes that will constitute a viable energy saving approach for the effective removal of Kr during the processing of used nuclear fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8347: Multilayer Composite Fuel Cladding for LWR Performance Enhancement and Severe Accident Tolerance | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop, manufacture, and weld a new multimetallic layered composite (MMLC) for enhanced severe accident tolerance and manufacturability in LWRs. Layers of stainless steel (facing the coolant) and Zircaloy (facing the fuel) will be separated by barrier layers of Cr and Nb. Severe accident testing in 1200C steam, LWR autoclave testing, and ion irradiation studies will demonstrate the MMLC's microstructural stability. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8112: Phase Separation and Crystallization of Complex Borosilicate Melts for Glass-Ceramic Waste Forms | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,806 | Researchers will study the mechanisms for microstructural development and properties of multi-phase, glass-ceramic materials that form when waste-loaded borosilicate glasses are cooled from above their liquidus or consolute temperatures through the glass transition temperature. The project will apply these tools to modified compositions to maximize the formation of the desirable crystalline phases. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8265: Electrically-Assisted Tubing Processes for Enhancing Manufacturability of Oxide Dispersion Strengthened Structural Materials for Nuclear Reactor Applications | Northwestern University | $800,000 | Researchers will enhance the formability of nanostructured ferritic alloys (NFAs) such that high-strength thin-walled claddings can be manufactured successfully and economically to be used in future reactors. The project will study the effects of continuous and pulsed electric currents on the deformation behavior of Fe-14Cr based NFA steel. The findings will be used to establish innovative fabrication processes including electrically-assisted extrusion and rolling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8126: Fundamental Electrochemical Properties of Liquid Metals in LiCl-KCl for Separation of Alkali/Alkaline-Earths (Cs, Sr and Ba) | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate the fundamental properties of novel liquid metal electrodes for separation of alkali/alkaline-earth fission products in LiCl-KCl electrolyte. The project will further the development of pyroprocessing by maximizing salt recycle and providing a method for recovery of alkali/alkaline-earth fission products as oxides (as opposed to chlorides) which will allow them to be encapsulated in a more conventional glass wasteform. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8074: Monitoring of Actinide Concentrations in Molten LiCl-KCl Salt using Alpha Spectroscopy | The Ohio State University | $799,969 | Researchers will develop a novel in-salt sensor that uses electrochemistry to pre-concentrate the actinides onto the sensor to measure the actinides concentration in a high temperature and high radiation field represented by a molten salt environment. The ability to monitor actinides to prevent misuse is critical to enhancing the control of nuclear materials. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8717: Understanding the Interactions of Seawater Ions with Amidoxime through X-Ray Crystallography | University of Alabama | $553,971 | _Researchers will investigate the fundamental interactions of the amidoxime (R-C(NH2)=NOH) functional group with metal ions found in seawater using a combined approach of single crystal X-ray diffraction and spectroscopy to understand the origin of the selectivity of amidoxime resins for uranyl ([UO2]2+] ions and establish structural benchmarks for interpretation of spectroscopic studies on actual sorbents to aid in identifying specific sorbent-metal interactions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8439: Developing a macro-scale SiC-cladding behavior model based on localized mechanical and thermal property evaluation on pre- and post-irradiation SiC-SiC composites | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a fundamental understanding of the macroscopic behavior of SiC-SiC composite structures before and after irradiation based on the microscopic property changes of each individual component (SiC matrix, fiber and interface). SiC-SiC composites will be tested in the as-fabricated condition, after being subjected to neutron and ion irradiation, micro-cracking, and oxidation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8536: Quantitative Prediction of Uranium Speciation and Amidoxime Binding in Seawater from Advanced Simulation Techniques | University of California, Riverside | $450,000 | Researchers will quantitatively predict stability of uranium species and thermochemistry (free energy, entropy, and enthalpy) of uranium binding with amidoxime ligands in seawater conditions. To achieve the goal, advanced simulation techniques including all-atom molecular dynamics, free-energy calculations, and the hybrid quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical approach will be employed to explicitly include water molecules and common seawater ions in the simulation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8286: Used Fuel Storage Monitoring Using Helium-4 Scintillation Fast Neutron Detectors and Neutron Spectral Analysis | University of Florida | $799,765 | Researchers will build and demonstrate a prototype detector device capable of unambiguously verifying the declared content of dry casks in a non-intrusive manner for the safeguarding and monitoring of used fuel storage installations. This will be achieved through a neutron spectroscopy and imaging system using high-efficiency Helium-4 (4He) gas scintillation fast neutron detectors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8663: Enhancement of the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland, College Park | $600,000 | Researchers will produce efficient adsorbents of uranium from seawater in seeking to optimize the functional ligands, the polymeric substrates, the grafting conditions and the adsorption/desorption durations based on sound chemical understanding. The result will be adsorbents that can be used through multiple cycles of uranium adsorption without significant degradation of the adsorbents capacity and selectivity for uranium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8111: Purification of Zirconium cladding using a chloride volatility process | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $798,877 | _Researchers will investigate the thermochemistry of used fuel Zr cladding components chlorides as well as their activation products and residual radionuclide metal chlorides to provide fundamental data that will support the development of a chlorination process for the purification of ZrCl4. Understanding the chemistry of these chloride species will provide process development guidance for the purification of Zr cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8323: Purification of Zirconium Tetrachloride from UNF Cladding | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $793,121 | _Researchers will develop and demonstrate a process to purify zirconium tetrachloride obtained from the direct chlorination of used Zircaloy cladding materials from used nuclear fuel rod assemblies. This study will increase understanding of purification protocols that will allow zirconium chloride to be recycled further. Increased recycling capability would significantly reduce the amount of high level waste associated with light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8752: Radiation Effects on High Thermal Conductivity Fuels | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $400,000 | _Researchers will use scoping ion and neutron irradiations to explore the structural stability and thermal conductivity of model high thermal conductivity fuels consisting of CeO2 and either Al2O3 (BeO surrogate) or SiC. Issues associated with thermal conductivity degradation (including micro cracking effects) and general phase stability of fuel systems will be examined. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8243: Radiation-induced swelling and microcracking in SiC cladding for LWRs | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $797,889 | _Researchers will use state of the art experimental characterization techniques and multi-scale methodology (developed within the MOOSE-MARMOT-BISON framework) to provide scientific basis for predictions of swelling and microcracking in SiC cladding as a function of temperature and irradiation histories. Predicting swelling and microcracking will further the potential for accident tolerant SiC cladding to be used in light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8081: Understanding influence of thermal history and glass chemistry on kinetics of phase separation and crystallization in borosilicate glass-ceramic waste forms for aqueous reprocessed high level waste | Washington State University | $799,911 | _Researchers will develop a fundamental and transformative understanding of the crystallization mechanisms in complex glass-ceramic high level waste (HLW) wasteforms,. This understanding will underpin the maturation of glass ceramic manufacture, by linking process variables to molecular scale mechanisms, enabling reliable production of wasteforms to the desired specification. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8210: A Transient Reactor Physics Experiment with High-Fidelity, 3-D Flux Measurements for Validation and Verification | Kansas State University | $799,198 | _Researchers will instrument the University of Wisconsin Nuclear Reactor with micro-pocket fission detectors (MPFDs) to measure 3-D flux distributions. The measurements will be compared to simulation using PROTEUS from the NEAMS toolkit. MPFDs are small, which leads to low gamma-ray sensitivity and small flux perturbations. A 3-D array of MPFDs and standard reactor instrumentation will be used to capture highly-resolved flux and temperature distributions for several steady-state and transient conditions. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8101: Development of Critical Experiments to Provide Validation Data for Multiphysics Coupling Methods | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $799,993 | Researchers will develop a set of benchmark validation experiments for multiphysics coupling by exploiting the inherent flexibility of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Reactor Critical Facility (RCF). This project will use targeted experiments to validate the coupling between neutronics, thermal hydraulics, and structural mechanics routines present in the NEAMS Reactor Product Line toolkit._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8229: Thermal Transport and Fracture Behavior of Sintered Fuel Pellets: Experimental Validation of NEAMS Tool MARMOT | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | _Researchers will perform experimental validation of the NEAMS tool MARMOT for predicting thermal transport and fuel fracture. By performing extensive thermal transport and fracture experiments on well-controlled microstructures of sintered UO2, the impact of microstructure on thermo-mechanical properties of sintered UO2 and mechanistic understanding will be achieved. The high quality experimental data will directly benchmark the MARMOT code by evaluating the thermal transport and fracture models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8208: Development of a Novel Accelerator for Neutron Transport Solution Using the Galerkin Spectral Element Methods | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $626,176 | _Researchers will develop a novel accelerator for neutron transport calculations based on the spectral element methods, continuous Galerkin (CG) and discontinuous Galerkin (DG) approximations. The CG and DG methods will be used to solve the multi-group neutron diffusion equation on the coarse-mesh structure (e.g., pin-size up to assembly-size), which is then coupled with the high-order neutron transport solution to speed up the neutron transport computation. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8338: Methodology Development for Cybersecurity Robustness and Vulnerability Assessment of University Research Reactors: A Case Study Using the PULSTAR Reactor | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop a methodology for assessing the cybersecurity robustness and vulnerability of university research reactors using an actual university reactor as a test case. While the developed methodology will be specifically tested and applied using this reactor, it will be formulated as a general blueprint and used as the starting point for the assessment of university research reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cyber Security R&D | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8121: Automatic Imagery Data Analysis for Proactive Computer-Based Workflow Management during Nuclear Power Plant Outages | Arizona State University | $799,738 | _Researchers will test the hypothesis that real-time imagery-based object tracking and spatial analysis, as well as human behavior modeling will significantly improve efficiency of outage control while lowering the rates of accidents and incidents. The project will examine computer vision methods and human behavior models for developing a proactive workflow management tool and integrate it into Computer-Based Procedures for supporting an Advanced Outage Control Center. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8308: Creep and creep-fatigue crack growth mechanisms in Alloy 709 | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _A joint US/UK team will study the crack growth mechanism and failure analysis of alloy 709 under creep and creep-fatigue conditions. The study will be done through in situ heating and loading during SEM observation to evaluate the crack growth under plane stress condition and traditional methods to study the crack growth under plane strain condition. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8582: Mechanistic and Validated Creep/Fatigue Predictions for Alloy 709 from Accelerated Experiments and Simulations | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will use mechanistic methods for predicting creep and creep-fatigue deformation rates/strains based on accelerated in-situ and ex-situ tests, and mesoscale dislocation dynamics simulations for Alloy 709. This research will support its qualification in the ASME code for use in advanced nuclear reactor applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8495: Advancement of Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Technology through Round Robin Testing and Fundamental Modeling | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will conduct a round robin test plan for S-CO2 corrosion testing across multiple institutions and the organization of a S-CO2 Materials Group to guide future materials testing directions. Furthermore, this proposal outlines identical tests in supercritical water, testing model alloys with various composition and environmental conditions, accompanied by modeling efforts to study rate controlling mechanisms of corrosion. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8489: Modeling and Validation of Irradiation Damage in Ni-based Alloys for Long-Term LWR Applications | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _A joint US/UK team will study thermal and irradiation-induced transformations mechanisms of Alloys 690 and 625 in order to extend Grizzly to include capabilities for modeling Ni-based alloys. The project will develop modeling tools for materials degradation in light water reactors, allowing for component replacement data and continued safe operation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-7983: Development of Steady-State Thermal-Hydraulic Analysis and Bowing Reactivity Evaluation Methods Based on Neutron and Gamma Transport Calculations | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop steady-state thermal-hydraulic analysis and assembly bowing reactivity evaluation methods based on the latest transport calculation capabilities in order to overcome the limitations and improve the accuracy of current design analysis methods. The outcome of the effort will be computer programs to calculate the steady-state heat source distributions in fuel pins and assembly duct walls and to calculate the reactivity worth of assembly displacements. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8627: Experimental Validation Data and Computational Models for Turbulent Mixing of Bypass and Coolant Jet Flows in Gas-Cooled Reactors | Texas A&M University | $799,613 | _Researchers will establish reliable models of the thermal-hydraulics in Gas-Cooled Reactors with experimental and computational efforts. Specifically, this work will focus on providing the relationship between fluctuating velocities and temperatures in the lower plenum and their dependency on the turbulent upstream mixing in the core and collection chambers leading up to the lower plenum. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8251: Enhanced Performance Fast Reactors with Engineered Passive Safety System | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | _Researchers will study the feasibility of improving the passive safety and economics of sodium cooled fast reactors (SFR) by incorporating within their fuel assemblies a novel Autonomous Reactivity Control (ARC) system. It is expected that the ARC systems will enable to design even low leakage SFR cores, such as breed-and-burn cores, to be passively safe and to improve the neutron economy and economic viability of more conventional SFR. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8258: Physics-Based Probabilistic Model of the Effects of Ionizing Radiation on Polymeric Insulators of Electric Cables used in Nuclear Power Plants | University of California, Los Angeles | $798,846 | _Researchers will develop and experimentally validate a probabilistic physics-based degradation models for polymeric insulators of electric cables to be used in integrated performance and safety codes, which will help reduce the uncertainty associated with the long-term aging of cable insulation. The project will deliver a C++ based simulation code that will be readily compatible with the MOOSE/Grizzly framework developed at the Idaho National Laboratory. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8000: The Influences of Neutron Irradiation on Aggregate Induced Degradation of Concrete | University of California, Los Angeles | $800,000 | _Researchers will quantify the impacts of irradiation on concrete degradation. The research will develop new understanding of the evolutions and manifestations of irradiation assisted aggregate concrete degradation caused by neutron exposure. This assessment will help to mitigate the risk of such degradation within the Grizzly framework, by careful integrations of nanoscale analytics and simulation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8458: Multiple Degradation Mechanisms in Reinforced Concrete Structures, Modeling and Risk Analysis | University of Houston | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a multi-physics framework to characterize the deterioration development in concrete due to environmental and mechanical loading, and the coupling effect among transport processes and the damage of concrete. This project will develop new computational tools that will be implemented in Grizzly, an application built on the MOOSE platform, to address a variety of aging mechanisms in nuclear power plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8623: Characterization of Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth in Alloy 709 and Prediction of Service Lives in Nuclear Reactor Components | University of Idaho | $799,927 | _Researchers will study creep-fatigue crack growth behavior in steel Alloy 709 in accelerated test conditions to predict extended service life of structural components. Extensive testing of Alloy 709 creep-fatigue specimens will be performed at elevated temperatures and applied stresses. Microstructure analysis will be performed to describe the crack propagation mechanisms. Computational models will be used to predict service of steel components. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8432: Multi-scale experimental study of creep-fatigue failure initiation in a 709 Stainless Steel alloy using high resolution digital image correlation | University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign | $800,00 | _Researchers will conduct a detailed experimental investigation of creep-fatigue crack initiation in a 709 alloy, and will also obtain a predictive failure initiation model that includes both thermo-mechanical and aging effects. The experiments will use ultra-high resolution digital image correlation to measure accumulation of plastic with cycling. The model will extend existing slip band-based energy minimization criterion to include thermal effects applicable to 709. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8599: Am-241 Nuclear Safety and Environmental Interactions | University of Missouri | $399,187 | _Researchers will investigate the release and transport mechanisms of Am-241 to understand the interactions it may have with the environment. The project will examine Am-241 through a series of accident scenarios using Am-241 aerosols that will allow researchers to understand the pathways for dose assessment. Methodologies and approaches for nuclear risk assessment for new space radioisotope power system applications will be developed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8667: Experimental Validation of a Compact Double-walled Twisted-Tube Heat Exchanger Concept | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | _Researchers will investigate a novel compact double-walled twisted-tube heat exchanger (DT-HXR) design that utilizes an outer twisted tube configuration in order to enhance shell-side heat transfer and make the overall bundle more compact. Utilizing outer twisted tube geometry improves heat transfer and allows for a tube bundle that does not require support plates or anti-vibration bars. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project: 15-8352: Development and Demonstration of an In-Situ Tritium Scavenger | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,988 | _Researchers will use a graphite moderator to capture and remove tritium from the primary coolant systems of salt- and gas-cooled reactors. The team will develop electrochemical techniques to characterize tritium transport in graphite and liquid fluoride salts (including flibe), demonstrate the in-situ effectiveness of tritium absorption by the fuel elements, and develop a design for a graphite bed tritium filter that can integrate with salt-to-air heat exchangers. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 16-10730: Visualization Tool for Comparing Low-Carbon Energy Options | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a web based visualization tool for comparing current and future nuclear fuel cycle options to other low-carbon and conventional energy technologies in the United States.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10679: Overcoming Kinetic Barriers to Actinide Recovery in ALSEP | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | The ALSEP process for group separations of trivalent actinide/lanthanide ions suffers from slow stripping kinetics. Researchers will perform detailed kinetic studies at different temperatures, supported by spectroscopic and computational studies to establish where the kinetic bottlenecks occur in the ALSEP process. They will then systematically alter the chemistry of the extractants and aqueous ligands to understand how to overcome the kinetic hindrances.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10058: An Integrated Multiscale Experimental-Numerical Analysis on Reconsolidation of Salt-Clay Mixture for Disposal of Heat-Generating Waste | Columbia University in the City of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will improve understanding of the thermal-mechanical-hydrologic-chemical (TMHC) coupling effect on reconsolidated granular (or crushed) salt-clay mixture used for seal systems of shafts and drifts in salt repositories. The project will integrate laboratory experiments and multiscale pore-to-continuum coupling simulations to explore the feasibility of using clay additive and moisture content to enhance performance of crushed salt as a seal material.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10088: Americium Separation By Electrochemical Oxidation | Florida International University | $800,000 | Researchers will separate Am from high-level waste by exploiting the high oxidation states of Am through design, and testing of new materials. This will be accomplished by designing and testing new electrodes, derivatized with surface-stabilized ligands and redox mediators to facilitate oxidation of trivalent Am, and by designing porous sorbent materials functionalized with molecules which selectively coordinate Am(VI) to enable its subsequent separation.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10668: Microstructure Experiments-Enabled MARMOT Simulations of SiC/SiC-Based Accident Tolerant Nuclear Fuel System | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will characterize steam attack, hydrothermal corrosion and radiation swelling of SiC/SiC composites-based accident tolerant fuel (ATF) using a combination of experiments, microstructure evaluation and phase-field simulations using MARMOT. Central to the project is the mapping of the microstructure after steam/hydrothermal/irradiation tests through a unique non-destructive x-ray microscopy technique followed by phase-field simulations of chemical transport in MARMOT.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10221: Alloying Agents to Stabilize Lanthanides Against Fuel Cladding Chemical Interaction: Tellurium and Antimony Studies | Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop alloying agents to stabilize lanthanides against fuel cladding chemical interactions (FCCIs). Based on the available binary phase diagrams for the periodic table, Te and Sb are selected as fuel dopants. The research will focus on Te. The mechanisms of using minor additives to stabilize and immobilize the lanthanide fission products will be investigated. Resulting thermodynamic data obtained by the proposed research will be integrated into MARMOT to enhance its ability to model metallic fuel performance.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10648: Oxidation and Corrosion-Resistant Uranium Silicide Fuels | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | Researchers will develop oxidation/corrosion resistant uranium silicide U3Si2 fuel by chemical doping/fillers to form a continuous borosilicate glass as a protective oxide layer with transformational fuel performance and accident tolerance. The team will use chemical doping/fillers include B or C showing effectiveness in improving high temperature oxidation resistance in transition metal silicides, and boron/silicon-containing compounds that can form a protective borosilicate glass layer.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10229: Mechanistic Understanding of Silver Sorbent Aging Processes in Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $800,000 | This project is focused on understanding the mechanisms of aging processes on silver exchanged mordenite and silver functionalized silica aerogel adsorbents under conditions of long term exposure to off gas streams containing air, I2, H2O, and NOx. The chemical and physical structural changes of the adsorbents under these conditions will be accounted for in equilibrium and kinetic models. Transport models will be developed to predict the performance of engineered off-gas treatment systems.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10394: Integration of Microwave Readout into Nuclear Process Monitoring | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,695 | Researchers will show that gamma-ray spectroscopy based on emerging microcalorimeter sensors can determine elemental and isotopic fractions with accuracy comparable to much slower mass spectrometry and with far better accuracy than germanium sensors. This advance will prevent the diversion of nuclear material by enabling nearly real time process monitoring in large nuclear facilities without loss of measurement accuracy.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10523: A Science Based Approach for Selecting Dopants in FCCI-Resistant Metallic Fuel Systems | University of Idaho | $800,000 | The project aims to use a science-based approach to set guidelines of selecting dopants for developing fuel cladding chemical interaction (FCCI)-resistant metallic fuel systems for fast reactors. Lanthanide fission products migrate to the fuel-cladding gap leading to cladding breaches. The team will perform both theoretical modeling and experiments to arrive at the guidelines that are based on sound science. If successful, this can lead to breakthroughs in minimizing the FCCI effect.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10813: Advanced Electrochemical Separations of Actinide/Fission Products via the Control of Nucleation and Growth of Electrodeposits | University of Idaho | $350,000 | Researchers will use unique capabilities to modulate the electrodeposition of actinides (depleted Uranium) and fission products (Ln) during nucleation and growth stages. The team aims to preclude formation of electrodeposits with dendritic morphology. Morphology of electrodeposits will be controlled by electrolyte composition.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10707: In Situ Spectroscopic Determination of Actinide Speciation and Concentration | University of Nevada, Reno | $369,221 | The research team will address two major issues in the pyroprocess based fuel cycle: low process efficiency and materials accounting for non-proliferation. There are currently no analytical techniques to ascertain the speciation and concentration of the actinides in the electrolyte. This project aims to develop an in-situ analytical method consisting of Raman spectroscopic analysis during electrochemical polarization.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10204: Phase Equilibria and Thermochemistry of Advanced Fuels: Modeling Burnup Behavior | University of South Carolina | $799,946 | Researchers will develop phase equilibria and thermochemical information to model and simulate advanced fuel behavior, including critical phenomena such as the contribution to fuel swelling of dissolved non-noble fission products and secondary phase formation, composite fuel stability, and fuel-clad chemical interactions.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10512: Demand-Driven Cycamore Archetypes | University of South Carolina | $799,956 | Modeling of the nuclear fuel cycle (NFC) is often posed as a set of demands coupled with available technologies. Demands may be singular or multivariate. Additionally, available technologies may have constraints on when they are deployable. This proposal aims to bring demand and deployment decisions into the NFC simulator itself, thereby simulating a more realistic process by which utilities, governments, and other stakeholders actually make facility deployment decisions.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10856: Integrating Data Sources for Improved Safeguards and Accountancy of Electrochemical Fuel Reprocessing Streams | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The SSPM Echem tracks elemental and bulk material flows through batch operations in electrochemical facilities. This project will augment the existing SSPM Echem model with models of DA, NDA, and process monitoring measurements, including appropriate accuracy, noise, and uncertainty characteristics. Diverse measurement and assay results will be fused to improve material accountancy and anomaly detection across the electrochemical process.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10190: Immobilization of High-Level Waste Salt in Dechlorinated Zeolite Waste Forms | University of Utah | $799,315 | The primary objective of the project is the development of a new glass-bonded waste form for the suitable disposal of electrorefiner waste salt. To achieve this goal, the proposed tasks will focus on the 1) dechlorination of the electrorefiner salt and 2) subsequent encapsulation into a sintered waste form. Achieving these goals will result in a compact waste form with higher fission product loading, which is instrumental in economically closing the nuclear fuel cycle.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10240: Molten Salt Reactor Experiment Benchmark Evaluation | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | _The objective of this project is to employ the data archive on the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) and develop a set of high-quality Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) reactor physics benchmarks for inclusion in the IRPhE Handbook that currently does not contain any benchmark set related to MSR technology._ | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10458: Multi-Group Transport Cross Section and Diffusion Coefficient Generation for Deterministic Reactor Models Using Monte Carlo Calculations | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and implement rigorous methods for generating multi-group transport cross section and diffusion coefficients for deterministic reactor models using Monte Carlo calculations. The project will eliminate the numerous approximations that currently contribute to significant mis-prediction of core power distributions when using deterministic core models.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10241: Development of Transient Capabilities for the NEAMS Neutronics Code PROTEUS | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop efficient transient transport methods for the PROTEUS-SN, PROTEUS-MOC and the first-order SN solvers of the NEAMS neutronics code PROTEUS. The team will also perform transient benchmark analyses._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10603: Experimental and Computational Analysis of NEAMS Pebble Bed Reactors | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct a coordinated experimental and computational effort to quantitatively map the full-field 3-D velocity and temperature fields in the interstitial spaces within pebble bed reactor systems. Key outcomes will include advanced correlations to predict flow and thermal transport within the pebble bed over a much wider range operating conditions and reactor types than is currently possible.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10421: Simulation of Fuel Rod Fragmentation, Relocation and Ballooning through Peridynamics in MOOSE Framework | University of Arizona | $675,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology that includes the appropriate governing physical fields within the realm of peridynamics to investigate fuel cracking, fragmentation, relocation, ballooning, pellet-cladding interaction, and cladding rapture and dispersion within the MOOSE framework.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10313: Development of a Comprehensive Two-phase Flow Database for the Validation of NEK-2P | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,817 | _Researchers will develop a comprehensive, high-resolution two-phase flow database by performing experiments in two air-water two-phase flow test facilities and a new heated rod-bundle test facility that will be built under this project. These data will be used to validate the two-phase flow models implemented in the NEK-2P code._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10744: Support for Reactor Operators in Case of Cyber-Security Threats | Ohio State University | $800,000 | This project addresses the need for research informing plant engineers and control room operators faced with cyber-security threats on appropriate responses. The approach taken uses distinguishing features of safety related events versus cyber-security threats; attack modeling, prediction, game theory and PRA knowledge to update operators procedures; and simulation for validation.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cyber Security R&D | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10578: Thermal Hydraulic & Structural Testing and Modeling of Compact Diffusion-Bonded Heat Exchangers for Supercritical CO2 Brayton Cycles | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will utilize both experimental and computational methods to test and model transient behavior of a mock up PCHE, which is a scaled down representation of the sCO2, cycle high temperature recuperator (HTR). In addition, the team will develop a methodology for quantification of the PCHEs production cost. The proposed project will provide valuable experiment data required to develop the Section III, Division 5 and Section VIII evaluation approach for compact heat exchangers.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10579: A Computational-Experimental Study to Simulate Mixing and Thermal Stratification in SFRs | Kansas State University | $799,320 | Researchers will use Thermographic Imaging and Ultrasonic Doppler Velocimetry (UDV) techniques to generate high fidelity thermal stratification and flow field data under various geometric and physical conditions for scaled models of outlet plena in sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs). Data from these experimental studies will be compared with those obtained using 1D codes such as SAS4A/SASSYS-1.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10714: ASME Code Application of the Compact Heat Exchanger for High Temperature Nuclear Service | North Carolina State University | $799,998 | Researchers will develop structural design methodologies for Type 316H stainless steel and Alloy 617 compact heat exchangers (CHX) using elastic-perfectly plastic (EPP) analysis methodology for the assessment of elevated temperature failure modes under sustained and cyclic thermal and pressure loading. The project will develop a technical basis for Section III, Division 5 ASME Code Case for CHX in high temperature nuclear service.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10885: Turbulent MHD Flow Modeling in Annular Linear Induction Pumps with Validation Experiments | North Carolina State University | $564,520 | Researchers seek to advance EMP design efforts for liquid metal reactors by 1.) Improving MHD modeling capability, particularly near the MHD stability criteria, 2.) Advancing simulation accuracy and fidelity in the typical operating range of large electromagnetic pumps for liquid metal cooled reactors, and 3.) Constructing a low barrier EMP test loop for model validation and instruction that can be easily replicated at low cost at other facilities.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10244: Integral System Testing for Prismatic Block Core Design HTGR | Oregon State University | $799,536 | _Researchers will conduct eight new tests be completed at the HTTF investigating a range of gas reactor events including DCC, PCC, and inlet plenum buoyant plume mixing. The data from these tests will be ideal for use in the validation of safety analysis codes used in gas reactor analysis. The data may also provide valuable insight into the validation of CFD codes for gas-reactor applications._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10324: Model Calibration-Based Design Methodologies for Structural Design of Supercritical CO2 Compact Heat Exchangers under Sustained Cyclic Temperature and Pressure Gradients | Oregon State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a design method for rapid structural assessment of diffusion-bonded Hybrid Compact Heat Exchangers, used as secondary heat exchangers in coupling Sodium Fast Reactors (SFRs) with supercritical CO2 (sCO2) Brayton power cycles. The team envisions that the developed method will (1) be usable in creation of an ASME code case for structural assessment of hybrid CHX; and (2) create design tools that ensure CHX code compliance under desired load conditions.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10285: Tribological Damage Mechanisms from Experiments and Validated Simulations of Alloy 800H and Inconel 617 in a Simulated HTGR/VHTR Helium Environment | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a mechanistic understanding of accelerated fretting, wear, and bonding between Alloy 800H and Inconel 617 surfaces. In order to achieve the objectives, a series of tribological experiments will be conducted in helium environments at elevated temperature with controlled concentrations of gaseous specious, attendant microstructure characterization (using electron microscopy, spectroscopy and atom-probe tomography), and validated continuum models.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10245: An Experimental Study of Design and Performance for the Water-Based Reactor Cavity Cooling System | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will extend and enhance the experimental tests using existing water-cooled RCCS facilities. The activity will be conducted in close collaboration with the water-cooled NSTF research team and will produce a unique set of high quality experimental data for support of existing system codes, system codes under development, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10457: Experimentally Validated Computational Modeling of Creep and Creep-Cracking for Nuclear Concrete Structures | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct novel 3D concrete creep tests under controlled environmental conditions to build a 3D constitutive model for concrete typical of existing containment structures. Decades long creep will be extracted via shorter tests (years long). The material model will be used in the Grizzly structural FEM code for simulating the response of real, 3D containment structures to changes in loading. Full-scale, long-term structural tests will enable validation.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10687: Development and Integration of Light Water Reactor (LWR) Materials Corrosion Degradation Codes into Grizzly | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop powerful codes for predicting environmentally-assisted localized corrosion in the primary coolant circuits (PCCs) of Generation II BWRs and PWRs. These codes and resulting models will be embedded into GRIZZLY. This will greatly extend the applicability of GRIZZLY to components in PCCs that are susceptible to pitting corrosion, stress corrosion cracking, and corrosion fatigue and will provide the stress intensity factor solutions for the crack growth rate models._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10083: Earth Abundant High Temperature Materials for Radioisotope Power Conversion System | University of California, Davis | $400,000 | Researchers will develop breakthrough efficiencies in segmented radioisotope thermal generators (RTG) power conversion systems through high temperature materials development. The approach will also reduce reliance on single-purpose supply chains.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10630: Validation of RELAP-7 for Forced Convection and Natural Circulation Reactor Flows | University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign | $799,368 | _Researcher will aid in the development of RELAP-7 through required experimental and computational efforts. The validation of the two-phase modeling capability of RELAP-7 will be accomplished through a series of tasks which include synthesis of existing forced convective data, acquisition of natural circulation data from an existing well-scaled facility, and uncertainty quantification in constitutive modeling._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10402: RELAP-7 Application and Enhancement for FLEX Strategies and ATF Behavior under Extended Loss of AC Power Conditions | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop new thermal hydraulic models that will be implemented into RELAP-7. Simulation studies will be performed for postulated ELAP scenarios in the PB Unit 2 reactor. The overarching goal of the proposed work is to perform a simulation study using RELAP-7, to model BWR ELAP scenarios with various mitigation measures and determine the range of time available for transition to portable FLEX equipment._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10080: Quantifying Properties for a Mechanistic, Predictive Understanding of Aqueous Impact on Ageing of Medium and Low Voltage AC and DC Cabling in Nuclear Power Plants | University of Minnesota, Duluth | $800,000 | _The degradation of medium and low voltage cabling is often associated with aqueous immersion. Electrical and mechanical data will be collected to develop a mechanistic model of the degradation of cabling to dielectric breakdown based on the temperature, oxidation, water conditions, and irradiation dose. The hypothesized model begins with solvent escape paths that expand and advance from the exterior surface toward the current carrying core at a rate dependent on the environment._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10214: Online Monitoring System for Concrete Structures Affected by Alkali-Silica Reaction (ASR) | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an online health monitoring system that integrates active and passive sensor networks and advanced signal processing algorithms to monitor ASR induced degradation in concrete structures. The obtained information will support an ongoing prognostic modeling research for health diagnosis and prognosis of aging concrete structures, in order to support long-term operational and maintenance decision making.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10210: Tribological Behavior of Structural Materials in High Temperature Helium Gas-Cooled Reactor Environments | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will work to understand, quantify, and model the elevated-temperature tribological behavior of alloys 617 and 800H in helium gas in HTGR conditions. Impurities in helium can induce a variety of corrosion mechanisms in structural materials that can profoundly affect tribological behavior. This study will investigate tribological behavior in various impurity concentration regimes and surface treatments to mitigate tribological damage in these environments.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10226: Enhancement of EM Pump Performance Through Modeling and Testing | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,856 | This project is aimed at the improvement of EM pumps for advanced liquid metal cooled reactors specifically the SFR. Initial tests will be conducted in the University of Wisconsin sodium loop on an existing moving magnet pump to help in the development of the models and to look at end effects associated with this pump. Additionally, tests will be conducted at ANL on the CMI ALIP. Ultimately, a small ALIP will be developed to test the principles and models developed to improve commercial scale.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10268: Sodium Cooled Fast Reactor Key Modeling and Analysis for Commercial Deployment | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,076 | This project will look at very low Prandtl number heat transfer from both an experimental and computational approach. Researchers will then establish key models to implement in plant dynamics codes. The team will also evaluate thermal stratification in large volumes making use of novel fiber optic distributed fiber measurements to get CFD quality data. Lastly, the team will evaluate some of the key remaining safety issues associated with the eventual commercialization of the sodium fast reactor.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10647: Experimental and Modeling Investigation of Overcooling Transients that Include Freezing, in Fluoride-Salt Cooled High-Temperature Reactors (FHRs) | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will make recommendations for design features of salt-reactor components that would take advantage of the phenomena characteristic to fluoride salts in order to be resilient to overcooling, and to recover gracefully from over-cooling transients. In support of this task a MOOSE-based computational tool will be developed, capable of modeling liquid-solid phase change, backed by experimental studies with the prototypical (flibe) coolant, and with simulant fluids.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10509: CFD and System Code Benchmark Data for Plenum-to-Plenum Flow Under Natural, Mixed and Forced Circulation Conditions | Utah State University | $800,000 | Researchers will generate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) validation data for forced, mixed, and natural convection through a parallel-path geometry relevant to gas reactor bypass flow. In addition, the team will independently build and validate CFD models based on the experimental results. The team has the experience and existing infrastructure for sharing complete validation datasets.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 17-12628: Effects of Mineral Impurities and Heat on Uranium(VI) Sorption onto Bentonite | California State University, East Bay | $785,714 | Mineral impurities are common in bentonite and clay buffer materials, proposed for many nuclear waste disposal options. Researchers will investigate the effects of calcite impurities on uranium(VI) sorption onto montmorillonite before and after mineral exposure to heat. Based on experimental sorption data and EXAFS analysis we will develop a new surface complexation model to determine under which conditions impurity effects are relevant, and how they can be incorporated in performance assessment models. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12798: Nanostructured Ceramic Membranes for Enhanced Tritium Management | Clemson University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a ceramic membrane technology for tritium separation and recovery to support the nuclear fuel cycle. Low-temperature water adsorption properties of nanoscale structured ceramics, combined with demonstrated hydrogen isotope exchange in their hydrated layers provide a low cost and unique avenue to address tritium management challenges. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12647: Determination of Critical Heat Flux and Leidenfrost Temperature on Candidate Accident Tolerant Fuel Materials | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $799,906 | Researchers will characterize the thermal-hydraulics behavior of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) materials by measuring critical heat flux (CHF) under normal and off-normal light water reactor conditions, and Leidenfrost temperature in post-loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) conditions. This work will yield material-specific models and/or correlations that can be readily implemented in state-of-the-art simulation tools. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13011: Gamma-ray Computed and Emission Tomography for Pool-Side Fuel Characterization | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,317 | Researchers will design, build, test and install a submersible tomography platform for performing pool-side physical, structural, and chemical characterization of irradiated fuel elements for test reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12496: Group Actinide Separation by Crystallization: A Single-Technology Approach to Used Nuclear Fuel Recycle | Texas A&M University | $399,857 | Researchers will explore bulk removal of U, Np, Pu and Am, from used nuclear fuel by studying the mechanisms of removal. A co-crystallization of the hexavalent actinides with U(VI) has already been demonstrated and researchers plan to develop a process based around this approach. Removal of these elements would be advantageous for future nuclear fuel recycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12824: Methods for Process Monitoring to Accurately Detect and Quantify Material Holdup in Advanced Recycle Facilities | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop better modeling methods, detectors, and facility design approaches to enable detection of inadvertent and deliberate hold up of fissile material in reprocessing and other nuclear material bulk handling facilities. The team will integrate results from this research project into a design methodology for future facilities to ensure accurate and reliable process monitoring for sustainable operation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12782: Effects of alpha and gamma radiation on complex and metal loaded solvents for advanced solvent extraction processes | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | This project will investigate the alpha and gamma radiolysis-induced chemical degradation of ligands used for the removal of minor actinides from used nuclear fuel in advanced extraction systems such as ALSEP. Researchers will emphasize organic phase degradation, particularly complex solvents with multiple ligands as well as metal loaded solvents. The project will improve predictive capabilities of extraction processes by elucidating degradation pathways. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12757: Elucidation of Electrochemical Behavior of Technetium, Tellurium, and Iodine in Molten Salt Solutions. | University of Idaho | $796,741 | This project will evaluate the electrochemical speciation behavior of iodide, and telluride in LiCl-KCl eutectic, LiCl, and LiCl + Li2O electrolytes at temperatures relevant to reprocessing conditions. By using rhenium as surrogate for technetium, the electrochemical, and chemical speciation properties of rhenium ions will be investigated in chloride molten salts with the addition of molybdenum and ruthenium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12701: Development and Experimental Benchmark of Computational Models to Predict Cladding Temperature and Vapor Removal from UNF Canisters during Drying Operations | University of Nevada, Reno | $400,000 | Researchers will develop physics-based computational tools to predict used nuclear fuel cladding temperatures within, and water vapor removal rates from, canisters during existing and proposed drying processes. The project will explore a range of gas pressures (including rarefication), and steady and unsteady external gas flows rates. The tools will be used to develop drying processes that minimize drying time while maintaining cladding temperatures. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12688: An Experimental and Analytical Investigation into Critical Heat Flux (CHF) Implications for Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF) Concepts | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a holistic best estimate assessment of the potential impact of different ATF cladding materials with regards to heat transfer characteristics, the boiling curve, critical heat flux, fuel mass/volume/specific power density, and neutronics effects due to changes in the lattice design or parasitic neutron absorption during design basis accident conditions in light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12996: Multipurpose, Radiation- and Temperature-Resistant Semiconductor Radiation Detectors for Advanced Process Monitoring and Nuclear Safeguards | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop detection systems capable of neutron, gamma-ray, x-ray, and alpha monitoring in high-temperature and high radiation environments for extended periods of time. The detectors will be used to strengthen nuclear safeguards by enhancing nuclear material control and accounting in nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13125: The Thermodynamics of Crystallization and Phase-Separation in Melt-Derived Nuclear Waste Forms | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This projects will study the thermodynamics of melt and quench phases of nuclear waste glasses and glass ceramics and link this information to the underlying short-range and medium-range structure. Advanced calorimetric techniques and neutron total scattering with pair distribution function analysis will be applied to obtain these data. Computer simulations will complement the experimental effort. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12886: Identifying, Predicting and Preventing Localized Corrosion in Kr-85 Storage Canisters | University of Virginia | $799,000 | Researchers will determine the root cause of corrosion within Kr-85 storage canisters in order to better understand current corrosion rates. The project will focus on expanding available research on Rb corrosion interactions and other contributing factors to better understand the corrosion phenomenon in current steel canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12463: Extreme Performance High Entropy Alloys (HEAs) Cladding for Fast Reactor Applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will develop extreme performance high entropy alloys (HEAs) as for new metal alloy cladding for fast reactor applications. Two very promising, single solution BCC HEAs will be investigated. The project will deliver an extensive irradiation resistance study of a new promising yet unexplored cladding concept. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12549: Critical Heat Flux Studies for Innovative Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding Surfaces | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will study critical heat flux (CHF) behavior focused on innovative accident tolerant fuel (ATF) cladding. The project includes separate effects screening tests to measure CHF for various ATF clad materials and surface characteristics with measurements of surface wettability. Pressurized flow boiling experiments will simulate prototypical reactor conditions for evaluating the best ATF clad materials coupled with CHF modeling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13019: Evaluation of Accident Tolerant Fuels Surface Characteristics in Critical Heat Flux Performance | Virginia Commonwealth University | $800,000 | Researchers will perform separate-effects and system-wide tests of the AREVA and GE accident tolerant fuel concepts currently under consideration. The project will investigate the impact of cladding surface characteristics in critical heat flux (CHF) under normal and anticipated off-normal conditions. The experimental results will be used to develop and validate enhanced models for the prediction of CHF and will be implemented in various subchannel and system analysis codes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13054: Simulated Used Nuclear Fuel Dissolution as a Function of Fuel Chemistry and Near Field Conditions | Washington State University | $800,000 | Researchers will study the effects of simulated used nuclear fuel (UNF) chemistry and microstructure on its dissolution in geologic repository conditions. The results will advance models for UNF evolution in repository conditions, enabling reliable prediction of degradation and long-term performance of used nuclear fuel for up to one million years. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12506: Development of Reactor Physics Benchmark Evaluations for Power Burst Facility Experiments | University of Florida | $398,265 | Researchers will perform reactor physics benchmark evaluations of Power Burst Facility experiments regarding differential reactivity worth of the control and transient rods, shim rod worth, in-pile-tube reactivity worth, shutdown reactivity, fuel assembly reactivity worth, core void coefficients of reactivity, in-pile-tube void coefficient, and coolant temperature coefficient of reactivity. The results will be incorporated in the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP). | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12748: Combined modeling and experiments to predict corrosion and embrittlement in dual-phase stainless steels within the MARMOT framework | Oregon State University | $800,000 | Researchers will enhance MARMOT to predict mechanical and corrosion properties of dual-phase stainless steels as a function of composition, aging time and temperature by using combined experimental data and lower length scale models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12797: In-Situ Ion Irradiation to Add Irradiation Assisted Grain Growth to the MARMOT Tool | Pennsylvania State University | $500,000 | Researchers will add the capability to model irradiation assisted grain growth to the MARMOT tool by using in-situ ion irradiation of UO2 to quantify the effect of irradiation on grain growth. The team will investigate the hypothesis that irradiation assisted grain growth is caused by thermal spikes resulting from atom collisions. The model added to MARMOT will couple the existing grain growth model to a heat conduction simulation using a stochastic heat source describing the thermal spike. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12555: Integration of high-fidelity Monte Carlo and deterministic transport codes into Workbench | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | Researchers will provide end users an ability to run both MCNP6 and PROTEUS codes from a common user input in Workbench by (1) templating user-provided engineering scale specifications to code-specific input requirements, (2) enabling multi-fidelity analysis of a system from a common input using MCNP6 and PROTEUS and (3) allowing the easy use of high-fidelity simulations to inform lower-order models for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems and experiments. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12939: Expansion of BISON Capabilities to Predict the Dynamic Response of Irradiated Fuel Rods | University of New Hampshire | $800,000 | Researchers will expand the capabilities of BISON and MOOSE to simulate the structural dynamic response of fuel rods and fuel assemblies during handling (wet and dry storage) and transportation. Expanding the capabilities of BISON and MOOSE to facilitate the evaluation of the dynamic response of fuel rods and assemblies is important to conduct a more reliable risk assessment of fuel assemblies, as well as storage and transportation casks. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13179: Implementation and Validation of Advanced Turbulence Modeling Methods for Liquid Metal Flow in Nek5000 | University of Oklahoma | $786,648 | Researchers will implement and validate state-of-the-art turbulence modeling techniques in Nek5000 to improve predition of liquid metal flows. Specific methods to be investigated include: variable PrT and algebraic heat flux models (AHFM) for URANS simulation; partially-averaged Navier-Stokes (PANS) and dynamic hybrid RANS-LES (DHRL) for hybrid RANS-LES simulation; and variable PrT subgrid heat flux modeling for LES. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12848: Development of Information Trustworthiness and Integrity Algorithms for Cybersecurity Defenses of Nuclear Power Reactors | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a first-of-a-kind physics-based defense-in-depth strategy to defend against false data injection attacks which attempt to change the information used by the I/C network to set reactor state. The approach employs a new design philosophy to check for information trustworthiness/integrity in order to determine whether the information is genuinely generated during the actual operation of the nuclear unit under either normal or off-normal conditions. | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cybersecurity | |
| NEUP Project 17-12538: Influence of dissolved salts and impurities in seawater on heat transfer degradation and fluid flow through fuel channels debris bed | Kansas State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate the role of raw water on degraded heat transfer and fluid flow in the reactor core and debris bed. X-ray imaging techniques, optical-fiber high speed temperature sensing systems and radioactive tracer salts will be used to simultaneously measure experimental data on void fraction, temperature and salt deposition rate. This data will be used to obtain correlations for heat transfer and fluid flow in case of raw water injection. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12502: High Resolution Temperature and Flow Measurements in Wire-Wrapped Fuel Assemblies | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will produce high-quality, high spatial and temporal resolution temperature and flow datasets for wire-wrapped rod bundle geometries. Different bundle sizes, configurations (including duct's and pin's deformation) and Low-Prandlt fluids will be investigated. A unique set of data will be produced to support advanced CFD tools validation, including Nek5000. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12723: Integrating Static PRA Information with RISMC Simulation Methods | The Ohio State University | $799,985 | Researchers will develop a computationally feasible and user friendly process to augment the traditional probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) results with improved representation of epistemic uncertainties and process/hardware/software/human interactions at plant level applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12664: Methods to Predict Thermal Radiation and to Design Scaled Separate and Integral Effects Testing For Molten Salt Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology for the design of molten salt reactor (MSR) Separate Effect Test and Integral Effect Test experiments. This methodology will identify and quantify sources of scaling distortion including radiative heat transport. The project would improve code performance and assist FHR/MSR vendors who are making licensing applications based on code results. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12523: Experimental and Computational Studies of Stress Corrosion Cracking of Alloys 308/309 and 82/182 Weldments in Corrosive and Radiation Environment | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will use advanced microanalytical analysis techniques to study SCC and IASCC of stainless steel and Ni-Cr alloy weldments. CERT, autoclave immersion, and ion irradiation will be used to determine synergistic effect of LWR environmental factors. Results from the experimental component of the proposed work scope will be used for enhanced predictive capability of the INL Grizzly code via XFEM. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12614: Systematic Enterprise Risk Management by Integrating the RISMC Toolkit and Cost-Benefit Analysis | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $799,998 | Researchers will develop a systematic Enterprise Risk Management framework, which utilizes Decision Tree (DT) logic to consider high-level production-loss scenarios, and their underlying physical and social causes throughout the lifecycle. In the proposed DT, uncertainty nodes will be quantified by plant-specific risk analysis using the Risk-Informed Safety Margin Characterization (RISMC) Toolkit, and cost-benefit analysis will be conducted for end states reflecting consequences of managerial decision-making. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12972: Design of a Commercial-Scale, Fluoride-Salt-Cooled, High-Temperature Reactor With Novel Refueling and Decay Heat Removal Capabilities | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $400,000 | Researchers will combine fluoride-salt-cooled, high temperature reactors (FHR) with advanced gas reactor (AGR) refueling technology to address several significant challenges that remain in the development of FHR technology. The project will adapt AGR refueling technology by using the new fuel-inside-radial-moderator fuel form, which will also introduce new ways of dealing with decay heat. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13115: Experimental Determination of Helium/air Mixing in Helium Cooled Reactor | University of Michigan | $800,000 | Researchers will examine the effects of coolant leakage and air ingress through three different investigations. The overall objective of this work is to characterize near and far field behavior of Helium/Air mixing in containment, and to determine rates and amounts of air leaked back into the reactor after a depressurization event. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12830: Radioisotope Retention in Graphite and Graphitic Materials | University of Missouri, Columbia | $800,000 | Researchers will use a variety of experimental techniques to acquire data for fission product diffusion, transport and adsorption of fission products in various graphites, relating to nuclear reactors at high temperatures. Measurements will be taken using non-irradiated graphite using fission product surrogates. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13020: Bimetallic Composite (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) Development and Compatibility in Flowing FLiBe as a Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) Structural Material | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a new bimetallic alloy (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) structural material for the MSR, and compare its post-exposure mechanical performance in flowing FLiBe with single alloys SS 316, Hastelloy N, and Incoloy 800H, in the context of ASME codification. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12678: Novel NDE Sensors, Waveforms, Models, and Algorithms for Cable Health Monitoring | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop NDE sensors and probabilistic cable insulation diagnosis and prognosis algorithms (particle filtering), and modeling and experiments to monitor cable insulation health. Two different types of sensor will be deployed to detect insulation damage. The team will also develop cable insulation degradation modeling to further understand defects in cable insulation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13080: Multiscale Investigation of SiC/SiC Composite Degradation in Helium Coolant Operating Environment | University of Virginia | $800,000 | Researchers will study the long-term degradation mechanisms of SiC/SiC composites in helium coolant environments by slow crack growth (SCG). This will be achieved through multiscale testing in hot, O2-contaminated He and evaluation of the effect of SCG on hermeticity during in situ testing. Results will be extended to predictive low-level and component-scale SCG models and integrated into the development of ASME standards for use of SiC/SiC in nuclear reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12481: Supercritical CO2 power cycle for space applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will develop an advanced supercritical Brayton power cycle directly coupled to a fission reactor. The project will carry out a comprehensive optimization of the cycle operating conditions, working fluid, and configuration; develop detailed designs of each subcomponent; and demonstrate/develop critical technologies such as turbomachinery seals and bearings, reactor material corrosion and strength demonstrations, and supercritical heat transfer. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13232: Radiative Heat Transport and Optical Characterization of High Temperature Molten Salts | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | The goal of the proposed research is to experimentally investigate radiation heat transport in molten salts, and to add functionality for radiative heat transport in a thermal-hydraulics system code. This includes obtaining highly resolved measurements of the optical absorption and emissivity of liquid salts. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 18-15345: Multiphysics Degradation Processes, and Their Mitigation, in Engineered and Geological Bariers: Experiments and Simulation | Duke University | $800,000.00 | This project will focus on filling the gaps in understanding of mechanisms of a series of degradation processes (thermal, hydric, geo-chemical, and transport processes phenomena) potentially affecting geo-materials used in repositories. The objectives of the work are to better recognize the conditions leading to preferential paths of radionuclide transport and rock weakening, and to build mathematical models and implement them into existing codes to predict material degradation and develop strategies to reduce the adverse consequences. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15043: Integration of Nuclear Material Accounting Data and Process Monitoring Data for Improvement on Detection Probability in Safeguarding Electrochemical Processing Facilities | Oregon State University | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to further studies on fusion of process monitoring (PM) data and nuclear material accounting (NMA) data. PM data, which includes monitoring by various types of equipment (radiation detectors, cameras, voltage, current sensors), can supplement NMA data to help improve safeguards. For aqueous-based reprocessing facilities, it is reported that PM, integrated with traditional NMA, has a high-detection probability for specific diversions. For electrochemical reprocessing, preliminary studies have shown that PM data can support traditional NMA by providing a basis to estimate some of the in-processing nuclear material inventories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15148: Recovery of Rare-Earth Elements (Nd, Gd, Sm) in Oxide Wasteform Using Liquid Metals (Bi, Sn) | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000.00 | This project investigates a new approach for recovering rare-earth (RE) fission products (Nd, Gd, and Sm) from molten chlorine salts using liquid metal (Bi and Sn) electrodes. The research aids molten salt recycling by converting the RE products into chloride-free RE oxides, which could be incorporated into conventional glass/ceramic waste forms. Successful outcomes of the project include advanced separation of fission products from molten salts with better control of chemical selectivity and high-recovery yield. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15103: Microstructure-Based Benchmarking for Nano/Microscale Tension and Ductility Testing of Irradiated Steels | Purdue University | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to standardize methods for nano/micro-scale tensile and ductility testing of irradiated Fe-Cr steels, through microstructure-based benchmarking. The study will investigate key process parameters for TEM in situ tension and ductility testing. Coupling experimental studies with multiscale models, the research will identify the approaches that provide consistent deformation mechanisms between the nano/micro-scale and macro-scale tests, from which standard practices will be obtained. The primary project outcome will be a set of recommended guidelines for nano/microscale mechanical testing, which will lead to unprecedented reductions in the time and cost for qualifying materials for in-reactor service and to ensure consistency of methods and validity of results. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15559: Cold Spray Repair & Mitigation of Stress Corrosion Cracks in Spent Nuclear Fuel Dry Storage Canisters | Purdue University | $799,982.00 | This goal of this project is to demonstrate cold spray repair and mitigation of chloride-induced stress corrosion cracks (SCC) and pits in stainless steel dry storage canisters. The research will optimize the repair process and gain a scientifically informed understanding of SCC mechanisms. The outcome is to further develop cold spray as an attractive solution for the repair of existing SCC and mitigation of potential SCC necessary to ensure long-term integrity, security, and regulatory compliance of spent nuclear fuel storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15596: Capture of Organic Iodides from Vessel Off-Gas Streams | Syracuse University | $799,548.00 | This project will study the capture of radioactive organoiodides from off-gas streams produced during nuclear fuel reprocessing by conducting adsorption experiments using a selected silver adsorbents. Multifaceted simulation adsorption models will be developed to assist in the design of necessary capture systems for off-gas streams. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15585: Impact of Coupled Gas Migration and Thermo-hydro-mechanical Processes on the Performance of Repositories for High Level Nuclear Waste | Texas A&M University | $608,375.00 | The main goal of this project is to better understand the possible effect of gas migration (particularly through discontinuities) on the performance and long-term behavior of engineered barrier systems (EBS) envisaged for the isolation of high-level radioactive waste (HLW). Specific outcomes of this study will be an improved understanding of the role of gas migration and discontinuities in the performance of HLW disposals, with the underlying aim to improve design of EBS used for HLW. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15531: Repair and Mitigation of Chloride-Induced Pitting and Chloride-Induced Stress Corrosion Cracking in Used Nuclear Fuel Dry Cask Canister Materials | The Ohio State University | $800,000.00 | This project will evaluate and develop a set of tools to repair and mitigate chloride-induced pitting and stress corrosion cracking in stainless steel nuclear fuel canisters. Advanced processes, including low temperature friction stir welding and cold spray deposition, will be evaluated according to various criteria, such as corrosion performance. In addition, technologies that have not yet been evaluated for UNF applications, including vaporizing foil actuator welding and soldering will be assessed. The two most promising technologies will selected for further development and comprehensive study. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14912: Bridging the Length Scales on Mechanical Property Evaluation | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000.00 | This project combines experimental and modeling methods to gain a comprehensive approach for addressing scaling effects on small-scale mechanical testing. Multiscale experiments, together with modeling on reactor-relevant and model alloys, will provide better understanding of appropriate scaling relationships. The study aims to gain fundamental understanding of plasticity interactions with specific strength-determining features, such as precipitates and grain boundaries. The goal of this work is to provide the basis to add small-scale mechanical testing in the toolbox for nuclear materials research. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14911: Understanding of degradation of SiC/SiC materials in nuclear systems and development of mitigation strategies | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000.00 | This project investigates the best possible coatings to prevent SiCf/SiCm corrosion in LWR environments. The research features a computational and experimental rapid screening approach for numerous coating compositions. The work includes autoclave exposure of rapid screening coupons in prototypical environments in combination with thermodynamic modeling (CALPHAD) and Finite Element Methods (FEM). Small-scale mechanical testing, together with thermal cycling and FEM modeling, will provide guidance on the ideal coating system design. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15701: Time-dependent THMC Properties and Microstructural Evolution of Damage Rocks in Excavation Damage Zone | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,978.00 | The proposed project focuses on the geomechanical aspects of modeling by addressing the time-dependent evolution of rock microstructure and its coupling with the THC processes that are of first-order importance to the stability and the isolation performance of repositories. The research will delineate an integrated experimental, theoretical and numerical strategy in assessing the evolution EDZ over time and its implication on the long-term migration of hazardous species. These results will enhance the confidence of the predicted long-term performance of repositories, which helps to move forward the goal of one-million-year isolation of high-level nuclear wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15381: Multiaxial Failure Envelopes and Uncertainty Quantification of Nuclear-Grade SiCf/SiC Woven Ceramic Matrix Tubular Composites | University of Florida | $800,000.00 | This project proposes to develop a comprehensive experimental and computational approach for determining constitutive relations and multiaxial failure envelopes of nuclear-grade continuous silicon fiber (SiCf) and SiC matrix woven tubular composites. The result of this work can be adopted in industry for design refinement, optimization of performance under the desired operating conditions, and reliable prediction of failure under unforeseen accidental scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15496: Formation of Zeolites Responsible for Waste Glass Rate Acceleration: An Experimental and Computational Study for Understanding Thermodynamic and Kinetic Processes | University of Houston | $800,000.00 | Through experimental and computational studies, this project will expose the factors governing zeolite crystallization and their role in Stage III dissolution of radionuclide-containing glass waste forms generated in advanced nuclear fuel cycles. The overall goal of this project is to understand the formation of zeolite phases in order to develop process control methods to suppress Stage III dissolution. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14998: Novel Processes for Capture of Radioactive Iodine Species from Vessel Off-Gas Streams | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the sorption system performance and effectiveness for capture of radioiodine species present in the off-gas streams from the used nuclear fuel (UNF) recycling operations, focusing particularly on the organic iodine species. The dynamic sorption experimentation and theoretical modeling will offer fundamental insights on the mechanism enabling the design and prediction the control system performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15261: Friction Stir Based Repair Welding of Dry Storage Canisters and Mitigation Strategies: Effect of Engineered Barrier Layer on Environmental Degradation | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The project goal is to apply friction stir based repair and mitigation technique for eliminating failure associated with pitting and stress corrosion cracking in dry storage canisters for spent fuels. The goal of these activities is to obtain a fundamental understanding of the processing-structure-properties correlations. This work will contribute to the development of a crack repair/mitigation strategy based on friction stir technology that can be efficiently implemented for spent fuel dry storage casks, which will enhance safety and reliability of these systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15263: X-ray Studies of Interfacial Molecular Complexes in ALSEP Back-Extraction | University of Illinois at Chicago | $800,000.00 | This project will use synchrotron X-rays to characterize the interfacial molecular complexes (of extractants and radiologically derived impurities, complexants, buffers, and metal ions) formed during the Actinide-Lanthanide Separation Process (ALSEP) back-extraction. This work addresses the critical knowledge gap of slow stripping kinetics in ALSEP, as well as the influence of radiolytic degradation products. The outcome of the project will be a molecular-level understanding of the role of different components in the interfacial mechanism of back-extraction in the ALSEP process, therefore leading to development of more efficient and faster metal stripping relevant to the separation of actinides from lanthanides in the nuclear fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15030: Mechanistic Understanding of Radiolytically Assisted Hydrothermal Corrosion of SiC in LWR Coolant Environments | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to develop a mechanistic understanding of the hydrothermal corrosion behavior of monolithic SiC and SiC/SiC composites in LWR environment under the influence of water radiolysis products and radiation damage. Complementary atomistic simulations will be carried out to determine the rate controlling mechanisms for dissolution under different water chemistries and in the presence of radiation. Activation energies and kinetic rates will be calculated directly from these simulations and compared to experimentally fitted values. The dissolution rate constants determined and validated in this integrated experimental and modeling approach will allow predictions of long-term SiC corrosion behavior. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14999: Probabilistic Failure Criterion of SiC/SiC Composites Under Multi-Axial Loading | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $800,000.00 | This project aims to develop a probabilistic failure criterion of SiC/SiC composites under multi-axial loading and to incorporate the criterion into a reliability analysis of the structural integrity of LWR SiC/SiC fuel cladding. This research will be anchored by a seamless integration of novel experimental and analytical tools, which will lead to a robust methodology for dependable analysis of SiC/SiC composite structures for LWR fuel cladding, as well as other nuclear applications. The resulting model will be experimentally validated and applied to analyze the reliability of LWR SiC/SiC fuel cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15502: Reducing Uncertainty in Radionuclide Transport Prediction Using Multiple Environmental Tracers | University of Montana | $724,906.00 | In this project, direct modeling of multiple environmental tracers will be used to improve predictions of radionuclide transport in a shallow alluvial aquifer discharge. The research will take advantage of recent theoretical developments considering the use of environmental tracers, and advances in high-performance reactive flow and transport models, to obtain the maximum information on the transport system. The goal is to develop a new methodology to characterize natural reactive flow and transport systems, reduce predictive uncertainty in radionuclide transport simulations, determine the maximum information content of the tracer suite, and optimize future groundwater characterization efforts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15578: Computational and Experimental Investigation of Thermal-Mechanical- Chemical Mechanisms of High-burnup Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) Processes at Elevated Temperatures and Degradation Behavior in Geologic Repositories | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $800,000.00 | The overarching goal of this project is to use combined computational and experimental research and development activities to enhance understanding of the mechanisms and thermal-mechanical-chemical (TMC) parameters controlling the instant release fraction (IRF) and matrix dissolution of high-burnup (HB; burnup > 45 GWd/MTU) spent nuclear fuels (SNFs) and the subsequent formation, stability, and phase transformations of HB SNF alteration products under long-term storage and geological disposal conditions (e.g., high-temperature storage, _-radiolysis). The results of this research will be used to enhance the mechanistic detail of process models to reduce uncertainty in, and improve the technical bases of, safety cases and performance assessment analyses. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15439: Radiolytic Dissolution Rate of Silicon Carbide | University of Notre Dame | $400,000.00 | This project seeks to develop a matrix of dissolution rates for high-purity SiC material, using intense electron beam irradiation, and to measure the products of dissolution (silicic acid and CO2 (or CO)) in the water downstream of the irradiation zone. The objective is to determine the rate of SiC dissolution and gather sufficient insight about its mechanism in LWRs, so that the use of SiC/SiC composite materials for accident tolerant fuel cladding can proceed with confidence. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15061: Development of an MC&A Toolbox for Liquid-fueled Molten Salt Reactors with Online Reprocessing | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,207.00 | The purpose of this project is to develop a toolbox of swappable mass flow modules for liquid-fueled molten salt reactor (MSR) systems for the purposes of evaluating material control & accountancy measurement techniques. When combined together, these modules enable modeling of the time-dependent mass flows for a variety of MSR variants. The test platform will consist of a toolbox of independent process modules representing discrete physical units, each with its own self-contained physics responsive to the input mass flow, along with appropriate measurement models that can be coupled to key flow points. These dynamic physical signatures would allow testing of the viability and efficacy of potential accountancy techniques under the full range of reactor operating conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15307: A Novel and Flexible Approach for Converting LWR UNF Fuel Into Forms That Can Be Used to Fuel a Variety of Gen-IV Reactors | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $400,000.00 | This project will investigate the chemical decladding and the digestion of whole MOX-based fuel rods, using thionyl chloride and surrogate materials. Digesting entire LWR fuel assemblies results in product streams that include pure decontaminated ZrCl4; pure UCl4; and a stream containing TRU/FPs, as well as alloying metals (as chloride salts). The objectives of this project are to provide a new, highly efficient protocol for the transformation of used nuclear fuel into useful components and to effectively contain a concentrated stream of highly radioactive materials for appropriate handling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15459: Reduced Diffusion and Enhanced Retention of Multiple Radionuclides from Pore Structure Studies of Barrier Materials for Enhanced Repository Performance | University of Texas at Arlington | $567,831.00 | The project seeks to better understand and quantify the pore structure (geometry and topology) and pore connectivity of porous media and its emergent effect on diffusion and retention of various radionuclides in barrier materials. The anticipated outcome of the project will be to more accurately evaluate the performance of geological repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15649: Benchmarking Microscale Ductility Measurements | University of Utah | $776,669.00 | The objectives of this project are to establish best practices for obtaining tensile microscale ductility measurements and to validate methodologies for comparing them to macroscale ductility measurements. Anticipated outcomes of the project are: 1) measurement of grain and sub-grain localization processes micro and macroscales; 2) establishment of best practices for microtensile experimentation; 3) identification of statistically significant relationships between specimen geometry, microstructure variables and mechanical behavior; 4) modified phenomenological elongation-based ductility models to enable direct upscaling of ductility measurements from microscale to macroscopic. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15003: Advanced Coating and Surface Modification Technologies for SiC-SiC Composite for Hydrothermal Corrosion Protection in LWR | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,990.00 | This project focuses on the development of coatings and surface modification approaches for hydrothermal corrosion protection of SiC-SiC composite in normal LWR operation environments. Innovative surface treatment recipes will be explored using processes including, interfacial stitching to improve adhesion, multi-layered structures to improve ductility, and compositions and structures resulting from thermal treatments. The surface treatment concepts involve corrosion resistant metallic and ceramic materials, and are amenable to industrial scalability for the cladding application. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15332: Low-Force Solid-State Technologies for Mitigation of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dry Storage Canisters | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000.00 | This project will focus on evaluating and developing two technologies used for field mitigation and repair of stress corrosion cracking (SCC): 1) additive friction stir welding; and 2) cold spray deposition. The work involves developing low-force, low-heat input solid state technologies to lessen and repair SCC in stainless steel canisters for used nuclear fuel (UNF). This outcome of the study will inform feasibility of using the two technologies to conduct on-site field repairs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14913: The Role of Temperature on Non-Darcian Flows in Engineered Clay Barriers | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000.00 | This project intends to accomplish three tasks: 1) to develop a predictive model to facilitate experimental data interpretation and provide mechanistic insights into the role of temperature on non-Darcian flows in low-permeability engineered clay barriers; 2) conduct experiments to unravel the role of temperature on the threshold gradient of non-Darcian flow in both saturated and unsaturated bentonite; and 3) use molecular dynamics (MD) simulation to improve fundamental understanding. The experimental data, associated with the MD simulation, will provide valuable information to improve fundamental understanding and scientific knowledge with respect to the temperature dependence of threshold gradient in non-Darcian flows, because very limited experimental data for saturated flow and no experimental data for unsaturated flow are available. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14815: C-SiOC-SiC Coated Particle Fuels for Advanced Nuclear Reactors | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $400,000.00 | This project will study a new concept for nuclear fuel encapsulation using an amorphous SiOC plus carbon system as the inner coating and nanocrystalline SiC plus minor carbon as the outer coating for nuclear fuel kernel particles. The outcomes of this work are: 1) new directions and possible replacement guidance for current nuclear fuel materials in operation; 2) new fuel materials for future nuclear reactor material design and development; 3) nuclear composite microstructure evolution and performance degradation understanding; 4) screening tools to guide future nuclear fuel material activities; and 5) mechanisms of nuclear fuel material evolution and degradation and effective strategies to mitigate/reduce undesirable fuel behaviors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15226: An Evaluated, Transient Experiment based on Simultaneous, 3-D Neutron-Flux and Temperature Measurements | Kansas State University | $399,972.00 | This project will evaluate existing and near-term experimental data for inclusion in the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) handbook. The data to be evaluated include compositions from a recent fuel replacement as part of an LEU conversion, a number of critical, fresh-fuel configurations, fuel temperature measurements at fresh-fuel configurations, and records from nearly a decade of operation. The proposed work would lead to a first-of-a-kind evaluation of transient, spatially-dependent reaction rates. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project CFA-18-15773: Evaluation of the Thermal Scattering Law for Advanced Reactor Neutron Moderators and Reflectors | North Carolina State University | $398,821.00 | The objective of this project is to narrow the nuclear data gap for advanced nuclear reactors that are driven by thermal neutrons. This includes concepts such as gas-cooled high-temperature reactors and molten salt or salt-cooled high temperature reactors. The generated data TSL libraries will be provided in EDNF File 7 format to the National Nuclear Data Center (NDDC) to immediately include in beta releases of the ENDF/B libraries and to consider for the future release of ENDF/B-VIII.1. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15602: Modeling and Experimental Verification of Thermal Energy Storage Systems to Enable Load Following Capability for Nuclear Reactors | University of Idaho | $761,640.00 | This project purposes to integrate new thermal energy storage (TES) models, developed in Modelica, with ongoing nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (NRHES) modeling efforts, in order to evaluate economic potential and advantages of new process designs over baseload electricity production. The computational phase of this project includes developing mathematical and physics-based TES models, which could later be translated to Modelica and integrated with existing NRHES components. The testing and optimization would be conducted using RAVEN. A techno-economic analysis will be performed to evaluate the compatibility of the newly formed integration, as well as to quantify its feasibility and economic benefits. The experimental aspect is focused on the development of scaled TES systems, which serve as verification for the Modelica models and allow system testing upon being integrated with DETAIL. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14963: Development of Nuclear Hybrid Energy Systems: Temperature Amplification through Chemical Heat Pumps for Industrial Applications | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The overall goal of this project is to develop and demonstrate, through modeling and experimental investigations, temperature amplification capabilities of a chemical heat pump (CHP) system that can be coupled to a conventional light water reactor or a near-term small modular reactor. The outcomes would include nuclear hybrid energy system architecture containing a CHP, experimental data on the CHP performance, and dynamic model of the system, validated through experimentation, which could be used for scale-up and design. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15008: Development of Thermal Inelastic Scattering Covariance Data Capabilities with Demonstration of Light Water Evaluation | University of Michigan | $400,000.00 | The goal of this project is to produce a format for covariance data for inelastic thermal neutron scattering data for moderators in the ENDF format. To demonstrate the viability of this new format, an evaluation of the covariance data for thermal scattering in light water in this format will be produced, along with the capabilities to generate the files and test their efficacy. A capability for calculating sensitivity coefficients using multigroup methods to the fundamental physics parameters governing light-water scattering will be developed to facilitate identifying nuclear data needs related to thermal scattering. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15056: Model-Based Diagnostics and Mitigation of Cyber Threats | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | This project intends to develop a toolkit for modeling digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems for nuclear power plants so that the consequences of cyber-attacks on I&C systems may conveniently be modeled using nuclear plant simulation software. The results of the toolkit-based models, the corresponding responses, and the performance of the diagnostic schemes will be tested on a virtual control room driven by a plant simulator. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15055: NICSim: Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Simulation for Evaluating Response to Cyber-attacks | University of New Mexico | $799,945.00 | The objective of the project is to develop a Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Simulation (NICSim) platform with a novel emulytics capability to simulate control systems and components in nuclear power plants. The outcome of this work would be a first-in-class emulytics platform with an associated documentation and library of physical models of components that could be used by analysts and designers to assess the resilience and cybersecurity risks of different control system designs for a wide range of power plants. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15324: Validation of Pressure Relaxation Coefficient in RELAP-7 Seven-Equation Model | George Washington University | $800,000.00 | This project aims to validate the Seven-Equation model in RELAP-7 by: 1) measuring velocity and pressure in each phase and the interface as well as return to equilibrium in fast transients with high-speed non-intrusive laser diagnostics in canonical experiments; 2) complementing experimental data with a multiscale computational approach, including a 3D proprietary direct numerical solver; and 3) validating RELAP-7 with a combination of experimental data and first-principle simulations. This combination would provide unique and complete datasets to validate RELAP-7 with high confidence and offer a new class of experimental and numerical tools. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project CFA-18-15104: Demonstration of Utilization of High-fidelity NEAMS Tools to Inform the Improved Use of Conventional Tools within the NEAMS Workbench on the NEA/OECD C5G7-TD Benchmark | North Carolina State University | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to demonstrate the utilization of high-fidelity Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) tools (PROTEUS, Nek5000, and BISON) to inform the improved use of conventional tools (DIF-3D, CTF, and CTFFuel) within the NEAMS Workbench on the NEA/OECD C5G7-TD benchmark. This would result in more accurate predictions of safety parameters and margins, which is important for both safety and performance improvements of the nuclear power plants being currently operated and built. The developed Workbench-based framework will also assist end users to apply high-fidelity simulations to inform lower-order models for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14741: Demonstration of a Methodology for Direct Validation of MARMOT Irradiation-Induced Microstructural Evolution and Physical Property Models Using U-10Zr | Texas A&M University | $500,000.00 | The objective of this project is to demonstrate, for the first time, a methodology that enables the direct validation of microstructural evolution models for fuel in MARMOT, and the direct correlation of changes in physical properties with specific irradiation-induced microstructural features. Properly implementing this methodology will result in rapid development of MARMOT mesoscale models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15520: Accurate and Efficient Parametric Model-Order Reduction for Turbulent Thermal Transport | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000.00 | The project objective is to develop reduced-order models (ROMs) that will improve accuracy of LMR system-level analysis with low overhead. These new models will systematically mine high-fidelity DNS, LES, or uRANS simulations to construct low-order dynamical systems that can couple with a systems analysis code, such as the SAM code being developed under NEAMS. These simulations provide useful data and will be made available to the scientific community, and the overall effort will contribute to more efficient LMR conceptual design studies and licensing. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15484: A Novel High Fidelity Continuous-energy tTansport Tool for Efficient FHR Transient Calculations | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000.00 | The objective of the project is to develop a high-fidelity continuous energy (CE) transport tool for efficient transient calculations in fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactors with prismatic core/fuel assembly design. This will be accomplished by extending the high-fidelity 3-D continuous energy coarse mesh radiation transport (COMET) code with formidable computational speed to solve transient problems in FHRs with accurate thermal hydraulic feedback. The new capability would enable plant system codes to perform analyses necessary to address complex technical design, regulatory, reactor safety, and economic hurdles prior to construction. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15093: Determination of Molecular Structure and Dynamics of Molten Salts by Advanced Neutron and X-ray Scattering Measurements and Computer Modeling | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000.00 | This project will seek detailed knowledge about molecular structure and dynamics of molten salts to inform the design of new molten-salt reactors. A combination of advanced neutron and x-ray scattering and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations will be used to model the ionic-cluster structure of the fluid and solubility of impurities. Machine learning will be applied to regress from simulations and experiments in order to develop the model and predict chemical potentials as a function of composition and temperature. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15171: Oxidation Behavior of Silicon Carbide and Graphitic Materials | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000.00 | The objectives of this project are to determine the oxidation behavior of silicon carbide and graphitic materials in oxygen and/or moisture, to accurately measure the kinetic parameters of oxidation, to ascertain the oxidation mechanisms in relation to the microstructures, to determine the effect of irradiation on oxidation behavior, and to provide data and input to the safety analysis of high-temperature gas reactors under air and moisture ingress accident conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15276: Coping Time and Cost Analysis of Accident Tolerant Plant Design based on Dynamic PRA Methodology | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000.00 | This project will evaluate the failure modes of accident tolerant fuel ATF candidates to understand the different failure characteristics. The research aims to obtain a response surface of coping time by investigating the various uncertainties of accident mitigation in PWR and BWR reactors. These outputs will aid the decision making process on the implementation of ATF and FLEX to existing LWR plants from the perspective of risk reduction and economic feasibility. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15270: Innovative Use of Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) with the RCIC System to Enhance Passive Safety of Commercial LWRs | Texas A&M University | $748,000.00 | The overarching objectives of this project are to: 1) demonstrate new operational strategies with the combined use of Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) and the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) System to increase the passive safety capabilities of current Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs) in delaying or preventing core damage; and 2) pursue the delay of containment venting until after a 72-hour coping period through new BWR Suppression Pool mixing procedures. The research will use both simulation and experimental data to validate the objectives. The work has the potential to increase the ability of existing nuclear power plants to passively respond to beyond design basis events using existing equipment and without changes to the plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15346: Big Data For Operation and Maintenance Cost Reduction | The Ohio State University | $800,000.00 | This project will develop a first-of-a-kind framework for integrating Big Data capability into the daily activities of our current fleet of nuclear power plants. This research will mainly focus on incorporating the wide range of data heterogeneities in nuclear power plants into an integrated Big Data Analytics capability. The primary end product of this work will be a Big Data framework that is capable of dealing with the large volume and heterogeneity of the data found in nuclear power plants to extract timely and valuable information on equipment performance and to enable optimization of plant operation and maintenance based on the extracted information. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15065: in situ Measurement and Validation of Uranium Molten Salt Properties at Operationally Relevant Temperatures | University of Connecticut | $799,979.00 | This project proposes to use advanced spectroscopic and scattering methods to provide information at the atomic and molecular scale. The research will use synchrotron-based x-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy, at operationally relevant temperatures, to measure the local and intermediate structure as well as speciation of chloride fuel salts (NaCl, ZrCl, UCl3) for fast-spectrum applications and fluoride fuel salts ( 7 LiF, UF4) primarily for thermal spectrum applications This approach is expected to generate theories and concepts that would allow models to predict behavior, and develop the means for in situ monitoring. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15058: High-resolution Experiments for Extended LOFC and Steam Ingress Accidents in HTGRs | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to better understand key phenomena in high-temperature gas-cooled reactors relevant to steam ingress and loss of forced circulation (LOFC) accidents. Specifically, the research will: 1) experimentally investigate, using an existing integral-effect test facility with some improvements, the steam-ingress accident caused by a postulated steam generator tube rupture initiating event; 2) carry out integral-effect tests for the extended LOFC accident to study the establishment of global natural circulation flow in the primary loop; 3) design, based on a scaling analysis, and construct a separate-effect test facility to study the complex helium flows in the core and hot plenum during the extended LOFC accident; and 4) perform detailed, high-resolution, separate-effects experiments using the results obtained as boundary/initial conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15471: Integral Experimental Investigation of Radioisotope Retention in Flowing Lead for the Mechanistic Source Term Evaluation of Lead Cooled Fast Reactor | University of New Mexico | $800,000.00 | The purpose of this project is to experimentally investigate the integral effects of radioisotope interactions with liquid lead to support the following technical goals: 1) evaluating the mechanistic source term of the Lead-cooled Fast Reactor (LFR); 2) developing a universal integral effect test methodology for liquid metal source term evaluations; and 3) establishing a basis for the comparison of radioisotope retention between lead and sodium. This aim of the research is to advance the LFR licensing pathway by establishing the phenomenological foundation of the interaction between fission products and liquid lead. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15153: Understanding Molten Salt Chemistry Relevant to Advanced Molten Salt Reactors through Complementary Synthesis, Spectroscopy, and Modeling | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to understand molten salt chemistry relevant to advanced molten salt reactors through complementary synthesis, spectroscopy, and modeling. Through complementary synthetic, spectroscopic, and computational efforts, the aim is to achieve atomistic and molecular-level understanding of liquid structure, coordination geometry, chemical bonding, and reactivity of novel molten salt melts relevant to advanced molten reactor designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15111: Improving Nuclear Power Plant Efficiency Through Data Analytics | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,727.00 | This project aims to develop and provide data analytics solutions to improve nuclear power plan economic efficiency by utilizing empirical models to integrate disparate data sources while providing uncertainty estimates to quantify risk and support decisions. The outcomes will enhance the technical and economic competitiveness by enabling advanced monitoring of critical assets, improving the operating capability of the existing fleet, and helping achieve enhancements in organizational effectiveness. Additionally, the research would provide an agile and modular data analytic framework that would have high commercialization value and supports the industry-wide drive towards digital innovation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14846: Development of Corrosion Resistant Coatings and Liners for Structural Materials for Liquid Fueled Molten Salts Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to develop corrosion-resistant coatings and liners for structural materials for use in fuel dissolved molten salt environment for future Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). Innovative, but industrially scalable, surface cladding approaches are proposed to lead to promising surface and interfacial compositions. The processes themselves are commercial, and have high technology readiness levels, and consequently would facilitate the accelerated developments of MSRs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15280: Advanced Alloy Innovations for Structural Components of Molten Salt Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $796,792.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to develop and evaluate specific advanced metallic alloys for structural components in fluoride salt-cooled molten salt reactors (MSRs). The research will investigate four categories of metallic alloys: advanced Ni-based; radiation damage tolerant high entropy; refractory Mo-based, and compositionally-graded, designed for high-surface corrosion resistance and good bulk strength. Additionally, the propensity for radiation embrittlement, as well as weldability, of the alloys will be evaluated. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14957: Big Data Analytics Solutions to Improve Nuclear Power Plant Efficiency: Online Monitoring, Visualization, Prognosis, and Maintenance Decision Making | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $797,820.00 | The overarching goal of this project is to significantly advance the ability to assess equipment condition and predict the remaining useful life to support optimal maintenance decision making in nuclear power plants. This research will work toward accomplishing and establishing a modern set of data-driven modeling, online monitoring, visualization, prognosis, and operation decision-making methodologies to address the significant opportunities and challenges arising from the emerging data-rich environment in nuclear plants. The potential impact of the work is significant and transformative and could deliver important advances in productivity with reduced unscheduled downtime and improved equipment performance. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15097: Oxidation Study of High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor TRISO Fuels at Accidental Conditions | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000.00 | This project is to study the oxidation behaviors of TRISO fuels during accidental air and water vapor ingress conditions. The work focuses on the oxidation and burn-off of the graphite fuel matrix and oxidation of the TRISO fuel SiC layer at high-temperature accidental states in the presence of air and/or water vapor. It will include both unirradiated and irradiated graphite fuel matrix and simulated fuel particles with the SiC layer. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 19-16987: Novel miniature creep tester for virgin and neutron irradiated clad alloys with benchmarked multiscale modeling and simulations | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | This project will develop a miniature creep machine to collect rapid thermal creep and load relaxation data for two selected ferritic alloys under "as-received" and irradiated conditions. Fast and accurate measurements of creep deformation are essential for qualifying new alloys for long term use in current and next generation reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17150: Speciation and Behavior of Neptunium and Zirconium in Advanced Separation Process | Oregon State University | $800,000 | This project will further develop the understanding of nuclear fuel reprocessing using Co-Decontamination (CoDCon). Radiolytic degradation products of tributylphosphate, nitric acid, redox buffer, masking agent, and water greatly affect the redox speciation, complexation and partitioning of the recycled metals. Fundamental understanding of chemical speciation and partitioning of Neptunium and Zerconium under such conditions is required. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17395: Modeling and Uncertainty Analysis of MSR Nuclear Material Accounting Methods for Nuclear Safeguards | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | This project will model and analyze the limits of detection for the diversion of nuclear materials from a molten salt reactor (MSR) fuel cycle. MSR depletion under a range of uranium and/or plutonium diversion to quantify the resulting differences in salt composition will be evaluated. Sensors will also be investigated to quantify fuel salt contents and correlate the outputs with the reactor models to predict diversion detection. Results will be coupled with robust uncertainty analysis to determine limits of detection. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16583: Neutron Radiation Effect on Diffusion between Zr (and Zircaloy) and Cr for Accurate Lifetime Prediction of ATF | The Ohio State University | $499,997 | This project will perform systematic diffusion studies on both neutron-irradiated and unirradiated accident tolerant fuel samples to obtain precise diffusion coefficients. This will result in a precise evaluation of the pure neutron irradiation effect on diffusion in these systems and enable accurate life prediction of the accident tolerant fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17381: High Throughput Assessment of Creep Behavior of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Structural Alloys by Nano/microindentation | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $800,000 | This project will develop a high throughput assessment of creep behavior of advanced nuclear reactor structural alloys by nano/microindentation. Experimental datasets will inform polycrystalline deformation models to predict material response over a variety of creep conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16549: Thermal Conductivity Measurement of Irradiated Metallic Fuel Using TREAT | University of Pittsburgh | $500,000 | This project intends to provide accurate thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity data with microstructure characterization of metallic (U-Pu-Zr) fuel as a function of burnup and attain fundamental understanding of the thermal conductivity of the irradiated fuel to inform and validate computational models. This will be accomplished using an innovative thermal wave technique in the Transient Reactor Test Facility at the Idaho National Laboratory, with the Minimal Activation Reusable Capsule Holder. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17002: Remote Laser-based Nondestructive Evaluation for Post-Irradiation Examination of ATF Cladding | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | To enable advanced nondestructive characterization techniques for light water reactor fuels that can be applied to the cladding coating, a remote nondestructive evaluation post irradiation inspection approach will be developed. This technique will measure the cladding coating layer thickness and detect defects within the cladding such as corrosion, micro-cracking and delamination. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17276: Radiation-Induced Swelling in Advanced Nuclear Fuel | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,989 | The microstructural evolution of advanced fuel (uranium carbide and uranium nitride) under fission-fragment type radiation has not been studied and remains unclear. This project will utilize advanced synchrotron X-ray characterization using microgram samples to obtain detailed nanoscale information on radiation-induced volumetric swelling and microstrain. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16848: Metal-Functionalized Membranes for Radioiodine Capture | University of Utah | $799,031 | This proposed research will investigate high-surface area (>300 m2/g) metal-functionalized membranes. These novel chemically durable and mechanically robust membranes are formed using an aqueous fabrication process, which results in an interconnected porosity that is highly controllable, providing hierarchical structures ranging from the nano- to micrometer-scales. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17350: Development and Experimental Validation of Pitting and SCC Models for Welded Stainless Steel Dry Storage Containers Exposed to Atmospheric Environments | University of Virginia | $799,027 | The specific goals of this project are to: (a) validate the maximum pit size model for dry storage canister relevant corrosion conditions as well as quantifying the effects of limited cathodic current on stress corrosion cracking (SCC) kinetics, (b) demonstrate a means to quantitatively rank the risk of SCC based on measurable parameters, (c) perform probabilistic predictions of SCC growth, and (d) validate the model predictions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16879: Proactive Hybrid Nuclear with Load Forecasting | Brigham Young University | $799,933 | This project develops new capabilities of design and dispatch optimization of nuclear hybrid energy systems (NHES) in the "Risk Analysis Virtual Environment (RAVEN)" modelling software. Blended (physics-based and data-driven) machine learning will be applied to forecast demand and production of thermal and electrical loads. Two experimental case studies are proposed to test the software developments with a lab-scale thermal energy storage and with a large district energy system. As a final step, the software developments will be generalized to other NHES. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17461: Development and Evaluation of Neutron Thermalization Integral Benchmarks for Advanced Reactor Applications | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | This project will develop integral benchmarks that aim to examine thermal neutron scattering data for graphite (ideal and nuclear), light water, and molten salt. The benchmark evaluations will be contributed to the International Handbook of Evaluated Reactor Physics Benchmark Experiments (IRPhEP) database. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17219: Using Integral Benchmark Experiments to Improve Differential Nuclear Data Evaluations | University of New Mexico | $400,000 | This project will use the results of integral benchmark experiment to inform differential nuclear data evaluations and improve the predictive capability of modeling and simulation (M&S) tools. This goal will be accomplished by developing capabilities to assess the sensitivity of integral benchmark results to evaluated nuclear data parameters, and by using data assimilation tools to directly adjust the evaluated data parameters and improve the accuracy of M&S tools. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16743: Paths Forward for Nuclear Energy: Using a Nationwide Post-Stratified Hierarchical Model to Facilitate Matching of New Nuclear Technologies to Receptive Host Communities | University of Oklahoma | $390,393 | This project will enable deployment of advanced nuclear technologies by developing a model, and an accompanying web-based tool that can be utilized by technology entrepreneurs, that identifies public support for siting new nuclear technologies at very local spatial scales across the US. The model will employ hierarchically structured, post stratified analysis of the largest US pooled-time series dataset on geocoded public support for nuclear technologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16995: A Cyber-Attack Detection Platform for Cyber Security of Digital Instrumentation and Control Systems | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,995 | The proposed research will develop a robust cyber-attack detection system (CADS) for monitoring digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems. The project will develop a robust research tool for evaluating cyber defense of digital I&C systems and provide a framework for a cyber-attack detection system that provides continuous assurance of the security of digital I&C systems in nuclear power plants (NPPs). | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17327: Multi-Timescale Nuclear-Renewable Hybrid Energy Systems Operations to Improve Electricity System Resilience, Reliability, and Economic Efficiency | University of Texas at Dallas | $800,000 | The overarching objective of this project is to develop a multi-timescale nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (N-R HESs) operations framework to provide different types of grid products. The project will model and analyze the capabilities of N-R HESs to provide power grid services at different timescales ranging from seconds to days, such as day-ahead unit commitment, flexible ramping (5-45 minutes), regulation reserves (1-5 minutes), and frequency response (less than seconds). | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17192: The Design and Investigation of Novel Mechanical Filters for Molten Salt Reactors | Abilene Christian University | $762,246 | Researchers will develop a novel mechanical filtration system. The project will include the collection of filter media performance data and filter regeneration performance data for a novel sintered nickel-based filter prototype. The project will also provide a filter design that facilitates remote filter removal, cooling, replacement, and assay of fissile material hold-up in the filter media. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16980: Determining the Effects of Neutron Irradiation on the Structural Integrity of Additively Manufactured Heat Exchangers for Very Small Modular Reactor Applications | Auburn University | $400,000 | Researchers will determine how to best use laser-powder bed fusion additive manufacturing methods for generating radiation-resistant channel/pore-embedded structures from Inconel (alloy 625 or 718) nickel-based superalloys for special purpose reactor (i.e. very small modular reactor) heat exchangers. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17413: Validated, Multi-Scale Molecular Dynamics Simulations to Predict the Thermophysical Properties of Molten Salts Containing Fuel, Fission, and Corrosion Products | Brigham Young University | $798,291 | Researchers will use first principles molecular dynamics (FPMD) simulations on molten salts containing impurities including fuel, fission products, and corrosion products. These will be used to develop a classical molecular dynamics (CMD) potential. CMD will then be used to predict properties for a wide variety of salt compositions and temperatures, and physical property measurements will be performed to validate those predictions. Property correlations will be developed from this data. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17183: Mixing of helium with air in reactor cavities following a pipe break in HTGRs | City College of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct separate effects tests to obtain experimental validation data on mixing of helium and air in reactor building cavities during and after blowdown in HTGRs. Air and helium concentrations, and gas mixture velocity and temperature fields will be measured in simulated reactor cavities. An existing helium flow loop will be used as the source of high pressure/high temperature helium for injection into the cavities and different break configurations will be experimentally investigated. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16391: GuArDIAN: General Active Sensing for conDItion AssessmeNt | Duke University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a dependable, autonomous or semi-autonomous (i.e. low human involvement), and minimally disruptive framework for monitoring equipment and components in nuclear reactors. The project will develop GUARDIAN; a robust active sensing framework through the integration of model-based inference and mobile actuating/sensing robots. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17251: Measuring Mechanical Properties of Select Layers and Layer Interfaces of TRISO Particles via Micromachining and In-Microscope Tensile Testing | Idaho State University | $799,815 | Researchers will characterize the strength of TRISO-coated particle layers and interfaces using FIB micro-machining and in-TEM tensile testing. Tensile test samples from coating layers of (1) unirradiated surrogate (fuel) TRISO particles, (2) unirradiated fueled TRISO particles and (3) irradiated fueled TRISO particles will be studied. Results of this project will both benefit and leverage the AGR Program. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17185: Demonstrating Reactor Autonomous Control Framework using Graphite Exponential Pile | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will demonstrate a detection-prediction-feedback framework for nuclear system autonomous control. It will adopt multiple detector channels to enable control feedback to spatially dependent perturbations. It will also utilize high-fidelity solutions trained surrogate models for real-time prediction and decision-making. In addition to the method development, the proposal will entail a first-of-a-kind engineering demonstration using the MIT Graphite Exponential Pile (MGEP). | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16754: Simultaneous Corrosion/Irradiation Testing in Lead and Lead-Bismuth Eutectic: The Radiation Decelerated Corrosion Hypothesis | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $762,823 | Researchers will test candidate FeCrSi and F/M alloys in a new, simultaneous corrosion/radiation facility to try to identify an alloy that will satisfy all requirements for Lead Fast Reactor structural materials. Microstructural characterization, mechanical property testing, and corrosion tests, both during irradiation and following ion/He pre-conditioning, will assess how irradiation affects corrosion, potentially slowing it. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17173: Ni-based ODS alloys for Molten Salt Reactors | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | The objective of this work is to (i) propose and develop a new Nickel (Ni) based Oxide Dispersion-Strengthened (ODS) alloy that can be used for structural applications in Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) and other nuclear reactor harsh environments, (ii) to demonstrate that its high temperature mechanical properties are adequate for MSR operating temperatures, (iii) to demonstrate its radiation damage resistance through ion irradiation testing and (iv) to demonstrate its improved corrosion resistance in MSR environment. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17037: Investigation of HTGR Reactor Building Response to a Break in Primary Coolant Boundary | Purdue University | $799,832 | Researchers will perform a series of experiments to simulate HTGR reactor building response due to a break in the primary coolant boundary in a well-scaled test facility to obtain spatial distribution of oxygen concentration, perform analysis of the whole system response with 1-D thermal hydraulics codes and use CFD to make detailed localized predictions. The tests will be carried out with different locations and sizes of the breaks to create various vent and flow paths in the reactor cavity. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17093: Integrating Multi-modal Microscopy Techniques and the MOSAIC Simulation Environment to Assess Changes in the Physical Properties and Chemical Durability of Concrete Following Radiation Exposure | University of California, Los Angeles | $800,000 | Researchers will develop unprecedented multi-modal imaging methodologies that integrate multiple microscopy techniques. The team will develop a generalizable protocol for quantifying the changes in physical properties and chemical durability of concrete and concrete constituents (minerals and aggregates) following radiation exposure. The imaging analyses will be input into the MOSAIC framework to reveal the nature and extent of degradation that is expected to result. The outcomes offer insights that are needed to enable and inform second license renewals. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17167: Atomistically Informed and Experimentally Validated Model for Helium Bubble Growth in Welded Irradiated Metals | University of Florida | $797,861 | Researchers will construct a validated computational model for He bubble growth on grain boundaries in irradiated Fe-Ni-Cr microstructures, including intergranular fracture, as a function of material conditions and welding heat input. This model will be based on the phase-field methodology, leveraging numerical solvers in the MOOSE simulation platform, with critical inputs and validation provided by both atomic-level simulations and experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16909: Learning-based Computational Study of the Thermodynamic, Structural, and Dynamic Properties of Molten Salts at the Atomic and Electronic Scale and Experimental Validations | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will obtain the thermophysical, thermochemical, and transport properties, construct the phase diagrams, and build empirical physical models of molten salts that are relevant to Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) with first-principles accuracy using molecular dynamics simulations driven by machine-learned high-dimensional neural network potentials combined with neutron/X-ray scattering and thermodynamic experimental validations. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16298: I-PRA Decision-Making Algorithm and Computational Platform to Develop Safe and Cost-Effective Strategies for the Deployment of New Technologies | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an integrated probabilistic risk assessment decision-making algorithm to support risk-and-cost-informed decision-making related to the deployment of new technologies. The project will enhance the financial analysis module and the challenging interface of social and technical systems to advance the algorithm. The project will conduct a case study for evaluating the safety impact and cost-effectiveness of FLEX strategies to support operational flexibility. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16802: Evaluation of Semi-Autonomous Passive Control Systems for HTGR Type Special Purpose Reactors | University of Michigan | $400,000 | Researchers will investigate the use of variable flow controllers and a variable reflector as passive or semi-autonomous reactivity control mechanisms for multi-module HTGR type special purpose reactors. This applies to the commercially developed special purpose reactor concepts from HolosGen. The incorporation of these systems will reduce the movable parts count and enable more robust load follow capabilities over broader power ranges and local and global reactivity control. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17467: Understanding the Speciation and Molecular Structure of Molten Salts Using Laboratory and Synchrotron based In Situ Experimental Techniques and Predictive Modeling | University of Nevada, Reno | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology to accurately determine the structure and speciation of the molten salt electrolyte using laboratory-based spectroscopic techniques (Raman and UV-Vis-NIR) and synchrotron-based (scattering and absorption) techniques, in combination with computational modeling. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17231: Prevention of Common Fault-Trigger Combinations for Qualification of Digital Instrumentation and Control Technology | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will provide an effective design evaluation approach based on prevention of concurrent triggering conditions to eliminate common-cause failures (CCF) and enable qualification of digital I&C technology for application in nuclear plant modernization. The research involves classifying commonality among digital devices, categorizing faults and triggering conditions, determining fault-trigger relationships, and defining preventive design measures to resolve the potential for CCF. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17087: Economic Risk-Informed Maintenance Planning and Asset Management | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will provide a holistic framework for cost-minimizing risk-informed maintenance planning, including inspection. They will develop a two-tier framework that coarsely minimizes the total maintenance cost during the remaining normal operating cycle and uses the outputs of the first model to maximize the financial impact of these activities in the short term. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16811: Liquid Metal-cooled Fast Reactor Instrumentation Technology Development | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will explore three different areas that will help to improve commercialization of SFRs and to aid in testing for the VTR. These include: 1. Advancement in understanding of low prandtl number heat transfer 2. Testing of compact heat exchangers for use with sodium 3. Development of in pool submersible flow meters. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16954: Innovative In-Situ Analysis and Quantification of Corrosion and Erosion of 316 Stainless Steel in Molten Chloride Salt Flow Loops | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will use a thin-layer activation technique for the first time in molten salts, on 316H samples placed in natural convection and forced flow loops. The individual and synergistic effects of corrosion, irradiation and thermo-mechanical treatments will be evaluated in-situ to predict component service lifetimes and design limits. The effects of molten chloride flow velocity will also be assessed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17168: Fuel Salt Sampling and Enriching System Technology Development | Vanderbilt University | $799,989 | Researchers will combine insights from the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment with decades of advancements in applicable technologies into an enhanced Sampler Enricher (SE) concept to develop and test a flexible, reliable, and workable design. The prototype will then be tested in an existing salt loop. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16739: Improvements of Nuclear Data Evaluations for Lead Isotopes in Support of Next Generation Lead-Cooled Fast Systems | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | The objective of this project is to improve the accuracy of neutronics simulation of lead-based systems by improving the nuclear data of lead isotopes. The nuclear data for lead will be reevaluated with emphasis of the intermediate and fast energy regions that are required by reactor applications currently sought by several industrial entities. The deliverables of this project are new lead isotopes evaluations that will be candidates for inclusion in a future Evaluated Nuclear Data Library (ENDF) release. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 20-19373: Connecting Advanced High-Temperature X-ray and Raman Spectroscopy Structure/Dynamics Insights to High-Throughput Property Measurements | Boston University | $500,000 | Researchers will acquire molten salt structure and dynamics data at high-temperatures using high-energy x-ray techniques and Raman spectroscopy and relate them to their physical and chemical properties. High-throughput techniques will be developed to rapidly measure multiple high-temperature properties at one time. An understanding of the relationship of salt structure and dynamics to its properties will help to select and optimize melt chemistry in molten salt reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19371: Adsorption and Reduction of Uranium in Engineered Barrier Systems: Effects of Iron and Heat | California State University, East Bay | $800,000 | Reseachers will investigate uranium sorption and abiotic reduction processes in iron-rich montmorillonite systems as a function of solution chemistry and temperature. The team will develop a surface complexation model that can account for both uranium adsorption and reduction, and hence reduce the uncertainties associated with uranium mobility in iron-rich environments with engineering barrier systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19831: Optimizing Melt Processed Phosphate Glass Waste Forms via Composition-Property-Structure Correlations | Clemson University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and optimize highly durable and easily processable phosphate-based glass waste forms to immobilize the dehalogenated salt streams by tailoring the composition of the glasses. To complement the work conducted on glass waste forms at the national laboratories sponsored by the DOE-NE program, modified iron phosphate glass waste forms will be prepared and evaluated by the introduction of various glass modifiers (SnF2 and BaO) to the prototype glass compositions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19695: Quantifying radionuclide sorption to engineered barrier materials under elevated temperature and ionic strength conditions | Clemson University | $799,380 | Researchers will characterize actinide sorption to mineral surfaces and examine possible mechanisms of sorption at high temperature/ionic strength through examination of the effects of hydration and hydrolysis on actinide sorption. These data will provide an understanding of radionuclide behavior with engineered barrier materials. A greater understanding of these processes will reduce the uncertainty in strategies for sequestration of radionuclide bearing wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19789: Controlling Neptunium and Zirconium in Advanced Extraction Processes | Colorado School of Mines | $599,763 | Researchers will address continuing issues with separating neptunium and zironium in current separation techniques. They will use coupled optical and x-ray specroscopy, small angle scattering, equilibrium thermodynamics and chemical analysis to understand fundamental molecular-level behaviors of extracted Np and Zr. These techniques, using world-class irradiation facilities, will elucidate the specific chemistries underlying the problematic behavior in Np and Zr in radiation fields. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19660: Linear and nonlinear guided ultrasonic waves to characterize cladding of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researcherses will perform a combination of linear and nonlinear guided ultrasonic waves, integrated with new material behavior models to develop a non-destructive evaluation (NDE) approach for both quality control/quality assurance and in-service NDE characterization of the cladding integrity and bond strength. Current NDE techniques are effective for uncoated designs, but these coated fuels add new challenges, which will be addressed by this new approach. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19678: Flexible Hard Ceramic Coatings by Ultrasonic Spray Mist-CVD for Dry Storage Canisters of Spent Nuclear Fuel and Waste | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop advanced flexible hard ceramic coatings using ultrasonic spray mist-chemical vapor deposition technique manufacturing process to deposit on dry storage canisters. The team will test resistance to corrosion, heat, wear and hydrogen permeation thgourh microstructural characterization and material property evaluation. The ultimate goal is to enhance the long term reliability of spent nuclear fuel dry storage canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19797: High Throughput Computational Platform for Predictive Modeling of Thermochemical and Thermophysical Properties of Fluoride Molten Salts | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | Researchers will (1) develop an open-source high throughput (H-T) computational platform to understand, predict, and evaluate thermochemical and thermophysical properties of molten salts as demonstrated in the F-(K-Li-Na)-(Cr-Fe)-U system and (2) provide H-T approaches (CALPHAD modeling and AIMD simulations) and open-source codes together with thermodynamic models of molten salts and public-accessible databases verified by targeted experiments for the molten salt research community. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19627: Chemical Interaction and Compatibility of Uranium Nitride with Liquid Pb and Alumina-forming Austenitic Alloys | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | Researcherswill address critical issues with the compatibility and chemcial interations of uranium nitride fuel, alumina-forming austenitic alloys and lead coolants/sublayers. They will obtain critical data of fuel-coolant-cladding interactions and compatibility to evaluate key parameters of operation temperature, fuel impurities and coolant chemistry. This data will provide key operation windows and parameters for deployment of lead-cooled fast reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19924: First-principles free energies by hybrid thermodynamic integration for phase equilibria and fission product solubility in molten salts | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | Researchers will predict phase equilibria and solubility of fission products in molten salts using a novel hybrid framework for thermodynamic integration combining first-principles, molecular dynamics and continuum methods to calculate free energies. They will be benchmarked using Bayesian-targeted calorimetric, in-situ diffraction and spectroscopic experiments. The project will provide microscopic insights and quantitative parameters necessary for reliable thermophysical modeling of molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19939: Gallium Oxide Schottky Diode Detectors for Measurement of Actinide Concentrations from Measured Alpha Activities in Molten Salts | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and test, to high temperatures, a Schottky diode alpha particle detector that is based on the rapidly emerging ultrawide band gap semiconductor material gallium oxide. Ga2O3 Schottky diode detectors offer the potential of detecting alpha particles at high temperatures, with better resolution than SiC Schottky diode detectors, which the team has previously developed for similar purposes. These detectors could be used in pyrochemical processing streams and molten salt reactors with potential application in other reactor concepts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19966: Evaluating hydroxypyridinone-based ligands for actinide and fission products recovery in used fuels | University of California, Berkeley | $600,000 | Researchers will pursue novel chemical separation approaches for advanced reactor used fuels treatments and recycling, by leveraging the unique actinide and lanthanide coordination properties of hydroxypyridinone-based aqueous chelators. These chelators have not been tested in extreme conditions and this work would test potential process performance with a focus on radiation-induced changes and oxidation state distribution. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19545: Femtosecond Laser Ablation Machining & Examination - Center for Active Materials Processing (FLAME-CAMP) | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop, build, and test a femtosecond laser ablation machining & examination tool that can be deployed in a hot cell environment enabling microscopy sample fabrication, isotope and elemental analysis, and thermal analysis. The technology allows for non-contact materials processing, even through glass windows, potentially preventing contamination of surrounding areas and tools. Such a multi-function tool with high throughput material processing will accelerate the research on fuel and cladding tremendously. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19198: Functionalized clay buffer materials for the long-term sequestration of technetium and iodine | University of Florida | $800,000 | Researcherswill develop synthesize, test, and model novel functionalized clay buffer materials for the long-term sequestration of iodine and technetium. The project will also focus on key experimantal parameters and modeling of how the novel clay buffer material will sequester iodine and technetium species. Novel materials will support DOE's efforts to design improved geologic repository barrier systems and optimize repository performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19209: Investigation on multicomponent solubility in LiCl-KCl eutectic chloride salts using combinatorial approach | University of Idaho | $400,000 | Researchers will perform irradiation experiments to understand how gamma radiation changes trivalent metal ion complex coordination structure and extraction characteristics during the ALSEP process. This work will focus on understanding the types of degradation products that are formed during the extraction process and what effects these degradation products have on process performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19713: Multifunctional Laser Processing for Repair and Mitigation of Pitting and Cracks in Welded Stainless Steel Dry Storage Canisters | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a strategic solution that combines laser cleaning and laser peening for removal of surface contamination and mitigation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in welded stainless steels. Laser cleanning will remove surface contamination and reduce pitting caused by corrosion. Laser peening will then be used to mitigate stress corrosion cracking and provide enhanced corrosion resistance. The portability of the laser system means the system will be able to be deployed in the field. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19188: Single- and Polycrystalline Diamond Electrodes for Spectroelectrochemical Characterization of Various Molten Salts | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $600,000 | Researchers will develop optically transparent electrodes for spectroelectrochemical measurements in chloride- and fluoride-based radioactive molten salts. The primary electrode material will be boron-doped diamond. Measurements will elucidate important electrochemical properties of nuclear fuel and fission products such as redox potential, diffusion coefficient, and electron transfer stoichiometry. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19641: Mitigating stress corrosion cracking in austenitic stainless-steel canister welds using peening techniques | University of Nevada, Reno | $799,950 | Researchers seek to understand the mechanisms of pitting/SCC resistance of welds as affected by a) compressive stress b) surface texture modification and c) microstructural change in the substrate surface resulting from laser shock peening, shot peening, ultrasonic impact peening and laser surface texturing. The study will recommend the best peening and surface texturing process conditions for mitigation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in 304L welds. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19704: Multicomponent Thermochemistry of Complex Chloride Salts for Sustain-able Fuel Cycle Technologies | University of Pittsburgh | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive thermodynamic database of multicomponent chloride salts through a collaboration between experts in Gibbs energy modeling and thermochemical experiments. A thermochemical database of the multicomponent chloride system KCl-LiCl-NaCl-UCl3-LnCl3 (Ln: La, Pr, Nd) will be developed using the CALPHAD (Calculation of Phase Diagrams) method with supported ab initio calculations and thermal analysis experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19506: Engineered composite patch with NDE inspection for repair and mitigation of SCC in nuclear spent fuel dry storage canister | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an innovative 'engineered composite patch' that can absorb moisture, neutralize chloride, and prevent stress corrosion cracking from further growth. This 'patch' with have in integrated non-destructive evaluation capability using laser utrasonic characterization methods to montior quality and performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19374: Maintaining and building upon the Halden legacy of In-situ diagnostics | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will develop innovative instrumentation focusing on temperature and strain measurements to fill the void left by the Halden reactor and to enhance the experimental capabilities in the Transient Reactor Test Facility (TREAT) located at Idaho National Laboratory. The team will develop a fiber optic sensor system that offers an inherent resistance to electromagnetic interference unlike currently used sensors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19076: Investigation of Degradation Mechanisms of Cr-coated Zirconium Alloy Cladding in Reactivity Initiated Accidents (RIA) | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $500,000 | Researchers will investigate the thermal, mechanical, and irradiation response of chromium-coated zirconium alloy claddings under RIA conditions, in comparison to uncoated Zr-alloy cladding. The outcome of the project will be used for anticipated licensing applications to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), thereby accelerating use of coated accident tolerant fuel concepts in U.S. commercial power reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19318: Surface Peening and Hybrid Surface Engineering Approaches to Mitigate Initiation and Resurgence of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dry Cask Storage Stainless Steel Canisters | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,838 | Researchers will develop and evaluate a wide range of surface peening treatments, as well as hybrid surface treatments to mitigate initiation and growth of chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) in stainless-steel canisters for used nuclear fuel (UNF) dry cask storage. Canister mock-ups with prototypical fusion welds will be used for this study. Characterization and testing of microstructure, compressive stresses, corrosion and CISCC will be performed. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19614: New Coatings for Nuclear Fuel Waste Canister Storage and Transport | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop novel SiOCN(H) coatings for spent nuclear fuel canisters in order to support sustained nuclear reactor operation and safeguard nuclear waste storage, transport, and disposal, in both terrestrial and marine environments. The novel coating will specifically address pitting corrosion and stress corrosion cracking in spent nuclear fuel canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19382: Separated waste stream immobilization of iodine and offgas caustic scrubber solution | Washington State University | $400,000 | Researchers will produce a set of waste forms from separation of iodine from the caustic offgas scrubber solution. The primary caustic scrub containing iodine, halides, and carbonate will be immobilized in a glass-bonded composite of cancrinite/sodalite. The iodine-loaded silver sorbent will be stripped of iodine, converted to NaI, and immobilized into a separate durable glass-bonded iodosodalite waste form. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19912: Validation of Robustness in TCR Design Strategies | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will perform sensitivity analysis (SA) and uncertainty quantification (UQ) of TCR design parameters and relevant physical phenomena, using open-source time dependent Monte-Carlo code (OpenMC), NQA1 qualified commercial codes (STARCCM+), and ABAQUS for thermal-hydraulics and structural mechanics. The SA/UQ analysis will provide key insights to allow for development of performance metrics of robustness for autonomous operation sensors, by processing signals such as neutron flux, temperature and strains, as wll as inform the needed robustness for AI by enveloping the attainable level of decision making by the software. | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 | |
| NEUP Project 20-19216: Creation of Multiple Effect Evaporator and Combined Cycle Modelica Modules, and Optimization of Potable Water Generation from Saltwater Sources | North Carolina State University | $498,532 | Researchers will develop models of Multiple Effect Evaporators and Combined Cycle Gas Turbine systems to be used within the Modelica framework, with an end goal of creating an energy park that can supply its own energy and water through Small Modular Reactor nuclear systems and/or Combined Cycle Gas Turbine Systems with brackish to brine water sources. These same models will be capable of being implemented into larger models of grid independent and near independent energy parks located about military bases, large manufacturing facilities, and in small communities where freshwater is limited. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19590: Benchmark Evaluation of Transient Multi-Physics Experimental Data for Pellet Cladding Mechanical Interactions | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop an integral benchmark evaluation based on available experimental data from cold ramp tests performed at the Studsvik testing R2 reactor. Transient multiphysics benchmark evaluations are needed to support validation of the NEAMS ToolKit and the VERA suite. This research will focus on pellet cladding interaction and pellet cladding mechanical interaction and their associated events. The benchmark will be prepared for inclusion in the IRPhEP handbook. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19837: Reinforcement Learning Validation Framework for Quality Assurance of AI-guided Additive Manufacturing Digital Platforms | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will address the need to qualify the risk associated with AM fabricated nuclear reactor parts by incorporating a novel rendition of a well-established artificial intelligence learning strategy, the multi-armed bandit reinforcement learning (RL). The RL framework will be developed and demonstrated using TCR data and its associated digital platform. This research will assimilate in-process sensor data and physics-based simulation data to calculate risk measures in the form of failure probabilities for the AM parts. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19363: Integrated Solar & Nuclear Cogeneration of Electricity & Water using the sCO2 Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,427 | Researchers will design and model a renewable, nuclear Integrated Energy System (IES), compatible with the RAVEN/Modelica framework, for co-generation of cost competitive electricity and clean water. The components of the IES to be included are concentrated solar power, the supercritical CO2/sCO2 cyle, multi-effect distillation, and the lead-cooled fast reactor. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19066: Engineering-Informed, Data-Driven Degradation Modeling, Prognostics and Control for Radiation-induced Void Swelling in Reactor Steels | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will advance the capability to model, predict and control void swelling in irradiated structural components through developing engineering-informed, advanced data-driven statistical and machine learning techniques. Excess swelling not only leads to dimensional instability, but also can cause severe embrittlement of internal materials. The proposed efforts will ensure more effective regulation, aging management and license renewal. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19795: A High-Fidelity Novel and Fast Multigroup Cross Section Generation Method for Arbitrary Geometry and Spectrum | Georgia Institute of Technology | $600,000 | Researchers will develop a fast high-fidelity multigroup cross section generation method for arbitrary geometry configurations and energy spectra by developing a response-based high order perturbation method to perform hybrid stochastic-deterministic local transport calculations. The proposed method will be implemented as independent modules that can be easily embedded into any neutron transport or diffusion code and also be used as a standalone cross section generator. The modules will provide data that can interface with the associated NEAMS toolkit and workbench user interfaces to enable advanced neutronics tools that will perform high-fidelity multigroup multiphysics steady-state and transient calculations that capture and represent the complex resonance interactions and core environmental effects which exist in heterogeneous reactors, including advanced reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19968: Experimental Investigations and Numerical Modeling of Near-wall and Core Bypass Flows in Pebble Bed Reactors | Texas A&M University | $600,000 | Researchers will establish a highly coordinated, concurrent experimental and computational effort combining high-resolution turbulence simulations (including Nek5000, Star-CCM+) and experiments to deepen physical understanding and address long standing modeling inaccuracies related to near wall and bypass flow effects in pebble bed reactors. The project's acquired extensive database will be used to derive closure models and correlations needed for porous media code, such as Pronghorn. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19864: Development of innovative overlapping-domain coupling between SAM and NEK5000 | University of Michigan | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a robust, multi-scale coupling scheme between the SAM code and the CFD code, NEK5000, based on a novel overlapping domain approach. The developed coupling will be validated by using experiments specifically designed for the validation of multi-scale coupled codes. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-20074: Characterization of Plenum to Plenum Natural Circulation flows in a High Temperature Gas Reactor (HTGR) | CUNY, City College of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will obtain and provide experimental data on the plenum-to-plenum natural circulation flows in a typical high temperature gas reactor using helium and nitrogen over a wide range of temperatures and pressures to simulate natural circulation under both pressurized and depressurized conduction cooldown scenarios. The results of the project will yield new data and complement other very high temperature related studies. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19042: Flexible Siting Criteria and Staff Minimization for Micro-Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $440,517 | Researchers will develop siting criteria that are tailored to micro-reactors deployable in densely-populated areas by comparing the characteristics of the MIT research reactor with those of leading micro-reactor concepts, and evaluate whether and how the MIT research reactor design basis and associated regulations are applicable to micro-reactors. A model of operations for micro-reactors that would minimize the staffing requirements will also be conceptualized. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-20045: Highly Compact Steam Generators for Improved Economics of Small Modular Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will design and build a compact steam generator (CSG) test section that can be easily modified for different flow paths and geometries, as well as modify an existing loop to accept the test section. The conceptual optimized CSG system design, which could be deployed in small modular reactors, will be informed by CFD simulations to determine critical characteristics of the test section. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19205: Robust bullet-time tagging and tracking system based on computer vision for individual ex-core TRISO-fueled pebble identification | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a novel, validated, robust bullet-time tagging and tracking system, based on computer vision techniques, to tag and track each individual pebble in pebble bed reactors. The effort will utilize Residence Time Distribution and Radioactive Particle Tracking techniques to validate and refine the developed method, using a continuous cold flow pebble bed experimental setup. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19625: Corrosion Sensitivity of Stainless Steels in Pressurized Water Reactor Water Chemistry: Can KOH replace LiOH in PWRs? | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will perform a series of corrosion and stress corrosion tests on unirradiated alloys to determine the possibility of switching from LiOH to KOH to control the pH in nuclear reactors without worsening the corrosion behavior of the structural alloys used in pressurized water reactor core internal components. The impacts of such a change and the consequent water chemistry alterations on the corrosion processes and nucleaer power plant core-internal component service-life will be assessed and better understood. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19735: Experiments for Modeling and Validation of Liquid-Metal Heat Pipe Simulation Tools for Micro-Reactor | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will produce validation data for the heat pipe code, Sockeye, by measuring the internal thermal-hydraulic parameters of a single-heat pipe and the performance of an integrated multi-heat-pipe system in various operation scenarios. The results of this project will generate more liquid metal heat pipe validation data, which is currently lacking and needed to support micro-reactor design and licensing activities. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19367: Investigation of Novel Nickel-Based Alloys for Molten Chloride Fast Reactor Structural Applications | University of Cincinnati | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate and establish the scientific foundations for the development of promising Ni-Mo-W-Cr-Al-X alloys with a superior balance of properties compared to current materials for high temperature structural applications in molten chloride salt fast reactors. The project couples critical experiments with a high-value integrated computational materials engineering approach. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19693: Evaluation of micro-reactor requirements and performance in an existing well-characterized micro-grid | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will evaluate the opportunities and challenges of operating micro-reactors in decentralized power generation applications and the potential for deployment in established micro-grids with diverse power generation sources. By using a well-characterized prototypic environment platform, the Modelica-based Hybrid Energy System, the market potential for deployment of micro-reactors on campuses and other similar existing micro-grids will be quantified. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19195: The effect of LWR primary coolant water chemistry (LiOH vs. KOH) on stainless steel: An integrated experimental and computational study of the corrosion response of stainless steel for different surface microstructures and mechanica | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will study the effect of surface microstructure, mechanical stress factors, and radiation damage on the corrosion response of stainless steel under two different alkaline pressurized water reactor primary water chemistry conditions. The project will involve investigation of mechanical stress factors such as strain rate, residual stress, deformation induced persistent slip bands, dpa damage, and fatigue cracks and modeling to understand the physical phenomena associated with the measured corrosion response and inform the U.S. nuclear industry regarding KOH. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19491: Identifying and prioritizing sources of uncertainty in external hazard probabilistic risk assessments | University of Maryland, College Park | $799,979 | Researchers will develop a method for identifying and prioritizing sources of uncertainty in external hazard probabilistic risk assessment for nuclear power plants, with particular emphasis on uncertainties associated with hazard characterization. External flooding wil be utilized as the demonstration hazard during this project, while a common taxonomy for communicating uncertainties across a broad range of external hazards will be created. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19737: Innovative Enhanced Automation Control Strategies for Multi-unit SMRs | University of Michigan | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an innovative, enhanced automation control framework for small modular reactors (SMRs) that supports control of multiple units operating in a variety of reactor core conditions. Through these enhancements, SMR technology gains improved marketability through potential deployment to a broader range of markets and can also lead to reduced operating and maintenance costs for a SMR site, increasing the overall profitability. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19954: Deployment Pathways of Small Modular Reactors in Electric Power, Industrial, and Other Niche Markets to Achieve Cost Reductions and Widespread Use | University of Michigan | $691,658 | Researchers will explore how to leverage two key value propositions for small modular reactors (SMR) in shifting market conditions, in order to achieve widespread market deployment: (1) participation in small and large power and industrial markets and (2) cost reductions via mass fabrication. The result of this work will be advanced power system modeling, optimized SMR design with thermal storage for power and industry markets, and new SMR deployment pathways. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19752: Development and Demonstration of Scalable Fluoride Salt Pump Seals and Bearings for FHRs | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and demonstrate scalable advanced bearings and seals of fluoride salt pumps for fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactors. The systematic approach to be used will employ both experimental and numerical methods to investigate the static and dynamic performance of fluoride-salt-lubricated bearings and high-temperature seals. The outcomes of this research will directly contribute to the reliability, safety, design, and operation of the fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactor power plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19544: A Holistic Artificial Intelligence Tool to Mitigate Human Factor Uncertainty in Operation and Maintenance | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a holistic artificial intelligence tool to help the detection and mitigation of human factors errors in nuclear power plants. The tool will increase the efficiency of various activities such as testing, inspection, data collection, and interpretation, improve operation and maintenance decision-making, and reduce costs in nuclear power plants by minimizing the impact of human factors errors and providing warnings to mitigate them, when possible. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19524: Non-Intrusive Flow Monitoring for Liquid Metal and Molten Salt Cooled Reactors | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a first-of-its kind flow monitoring system with significantly enhanced capabilities for liquid metal fast reactors and other advanced reactors, such as molten salt reactors. The flow monitoring system will involve a proven and breakthrough fiber optic sensing technology that enables the harmonic-free interrogation of thousands of grating-based distributed interferometers along an optical fiber that is integrated into a sensing pad that can readily be installed at desired locations in the flow loop. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19671: Identifying Needed Fire Input Data to Reduce Modeling Uncertainty | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,393 | Researchers will identify fire parameters that have the largest impact on fire conditions, quantify those parameters contributing to uncertainties in the fire data through Monte Carlo simulation results, and use statistical analysis and machine learning models from the simulation results to assess existing data and recommend appropriate new fire tests to reduce uncertainties that are important to risk. With this information, researchers will develop a framework capable of determining the significant contributors to uncertainty in physical events that are relevant to the risk assessment and, then, determine the need for new experiments that would be of most value to reduce risk. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 21-24394: Computer vision and machine learning for microstructural qualification | Carnegie Mellon University | $497,518 | Quantifying and understanding microstructure is a key driver for performance-based materials qualification. In this proposal, well-curated data sets of microstructural images will be gathered and computer vision and machine learning will be applied to build quantitative deep learning frameworks to accelerate and enable qualification of nuclear materials based on microstructural features. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24156: Experimental thermofluidic validation of TCR fuel elements using distributed temperature and flow sensing | Kansas State University | $798,250 | The overall goal of this project will be to test the performance of 3D printed Transformational Challenge Reactor core geometry parts using existing Helium flow loops and distributed temperature, and velocity sensing systems. Thermal transport capabilities of scaled 3D printed ceramic core will be evaluated experimentally and measurements will be used to qualify computational models. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24636: Risk-informed Consequence-driven Physical Protection System Optimization for Microreactor Sites | Texas A&M University | $400,000 | This proposed project will utilize a risk-informed, consequence-driven analysis to develop an approach for "right-sizing" physical protection systems (PPS) for microreactors. The hypothesis presented for this proposal is that the explicit coupling of consequence modeling to PPS design will provide a similar benefit that can be applied prior to reactor construction. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24131: Total Mass Accounting in Advanced Liquid Fueled Reactors | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | A total mass determination method for nuclear materials accounting (NMA) in liquid-fueled molten salt reactors will be validated with fuel-bearing salt, mixed with a _+ radioisotope of known activity, that will be irradiated to reproduce the practical NMA scenario in a molten salt loop. Irradiated fuel salt will be sampled and measured for its mass and activity. The mass-to-activity ratio will be used to calculate the unknown salt mass in the original container. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24037: Design and intelligent optimization of the thermal storage and energy distribution for the TerraPower Molten Chloride Fast Reactor in an Integrated Energy System (IES) | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to explore the application of advanced reactors within Integrated Energy Systems, use extensive existing data from UIUC for model development and validation, and extend the predictions to larger grids and commercial applications. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24522: Targeted Materials Characterization and Testing of Additively Manufactured Metals and Ceramics to Inform Print/Build Data Analytics | University of Texas at San Antonio | $800,000 | A collaborative program between the University of Texas at San Antonio and Boise State University is proposed to supply materials testing and characterization data sets to be leveraged by the TCR program to inform build/print data analytics. With the data provided by the proposing team, correlations among steam oxidation performance, micromechanical properties, chemical composition, local microstructure, and location specific print/build data will be achieved. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24431: Location-specific material characterization of LPBF SS316L & IN718 TCR core structural materials | Utah State University | $800,000 | In this proposed work, we will experimentally characterize the spatial variability of the quasi-static (tensile), creep (strength and impression), and creep-fatigue properties as well as the underlying structures (microstructure and defect structures) for LPBF SS316L and IN718 components to be used as training data to the TCR program data-driven model. The resulting correlation will be used to drive the design process for an application as TCR core structural materials. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23978: Rapid, Non-Radioactive Methods for Prediction and Quantification of Radiolytic Radical Decomposition Products in Nuclear Separations | Clemson University | $399,999 | High-throughput, non-radioactive, radical assays will be used to determine decomposition of monoamide separations complexants. Radical assay results will be correlated with classic radiolytic damage results to develop predictive models for screening complexant stability. These models will aid in single-stage separations complexant optimization, in the transition from lab- to industrial-scale nuclear waste separations and, ultimately, could yield field tests for radiolytic damage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24350: Phosphate Mineral and Glass Waste Forms for Advanced Immobilization of Chloride and Fluoride-based Waste Streams | Clemson University | $600,000 | This proposal is intended to develop three waste form options for immobilizing the fluoride- and chloride-salt waste stream in highly durable and easily processable phosphate minerals and glasses, including phosphate apatite ceramic waste forms, phosphate glass waste forms, and phosphate glass-ceramic waste forms with apatite phase. Multiple monolithic waste form samples will be provided to DOE national laboratories for further testing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24292: Passive multimodal tomography for dry storage casks imaging using passive neutron and gamma dosimetry and cosmic ray muons | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | A method for multimodal tomography of dry storage casks will be developed to determine fuel relocation and cladding failures using passive neutrons and gamma emissions in combination with cosmic ray muons. The use of multimodal imaging will allow 3-D reconstructions of the dry storage cask that would be unachievable with any single radiation source. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24374: Effects of Radiolysis on Pertechnetate under Solvent Extraction Conditions, including Tri-Butyl Phosphate | CUNY, Hunter College | $399,624 | The overarching objective of the proposed work is to assess the impact of radiolysis on pertechnetate speciation during tri-butylphosphate (TBP) solvent extractions from the molecular level to macroscale. The research in this project is designed to understand the interplay of radiolysis, degradation product formation, other important redox active metals, and oxidation states of technetium on its speciation and distribution coefficients in solvent extraction processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24183: Experimental investigation and development of models and correlations for cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena in transient conditions in support of TREAT and the LWR fleet. | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Thermal-hydraulics transient heat transfer phenomena of relevance for the safety and the operation of the TREAT and light water reactors will be investigated. The performance of accident tolerant fuel materials during a reactivity initiated accident scenario and post-critical heat flux and reflood scenarios will be elucidated, as well as the development of models and correlations to be integrated into computational tools for the design and safety analysis of nuclear systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24666: Wireless Multifunctional Ultrasonic Arrays with Interdigital and Airborne Transducers for Monitoring Leakage and Corrosion Conditions of Welded Dry Storage Canisters | Mississippi State University | $800,000 | This project aims to develop and validate wireless, multifunctional, ultrasonic sensor arrays that enable on-demand, quantitative interrogation and real-time monitoring of both the canister leakage indicators (helium, helium/air mixture, internal pressure, and temperature) and corrosion conditions (free and/or vapor water). The developed arrays will be fully functional, wirelessly powered and communicated, and compact. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24188: Uranium recovery from used nuclear fuel using metal sulfides | Northwestern University | $400,000 | An alternative and original method to recover uranium from spent fuel is proposed. This method will utilize a new type of regenerable sorbent materials with high selectivity in capturing uranium from complex mixtures in acidic solutions, such as those found in used nuclear fuel of high-assay low-enriched uranium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24225: Characterizing Fuel Response and Quantifying Coolable Geometry of High-Burnup Fuel | Oregon State University | $800,000 | This study seeks to objectively determine, through empirical and numerical means, the actual impact of fuel dispersion in-core after fuel failure and whether high burnup dispersed fuel compromises coolable geometry and long-term cooling. The outcome of this study will yield an objective means of assessing two criteria (coolable geometry and long-term cooling) within the existing regulatory process to comprehensively understand whether it is feasible to increase burnup, while satisfying 10 CFR 50.46. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24288: Innovative Methods for Interrogation of DSC Internal Conditions | Oregon State University | $800,000 | The proposed work takes a two-pronged approach. The team will study techniques involving only external sensors and equipment, which could be deployed on existing dry storage canisters. In addition, small sensors located inside the canister that can be externally powered and read through the canister wall will also be investigated. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24439: Development of Novel Corrosion-Responsive Buffer Materials for Long-Term Immobilization of High-Level Nuclear Waste | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to develop a novel cementitious buffer material (CBM) for the safe disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF). The primary aim is to identify and characterize novel Mg-Al-P CBMs, complete with assessments of their repository stability as well as their transport and immobilization of radionuclides. The secondary aim is to use in-situ UT-EIS monitoring to understand the corrosive failure at the canister-CBM interface and provide long-term performance modeling of SNF packages. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24461: Estimation of low temperature cladding failures during an RIA transient | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers aim to create a multiphysics description of cladding response during a RIA, especially at high burnup, coupling reactor physics, thermal hydraulics and mechanics. The creation of a thermomechanical model in Bison will be the result of this project which can be used to evaluate the likelihood of low temperature cladding failures during a postulated RIA on a typical fuel rod (as these can lead to channel blockage), and thus identify the most important conditions to be studied at TREAT. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24460: Multiscale Modeling and Experiments for Investigating High Burnup LWR Fuel Rod Behavior Under Normal and Transient Conditions | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | The main objective of this work is to achieve a mechanistic understanding of and to develop a predictive model for the fuel rod behavior at high burn-up under both normal and transient conditions. Therefore, this study will provide the nuclear industry with validated, physics-based criteria to fuel fragmentation thresholds and rod mechanical integrity limits. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24388: Redox Chemistry of UO2 under Repository Relevant Conditions in the Presence of Zircaloy and Waste Canister Material | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | This project will seek to improve understanding of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) corrosion. Hydrothermal experiments of SNF with cladding and waste canister material will give insights into the redox potential formed due to secondary phase formation as consequence of corrosion in a failed canister. The experimentally derived data about secondary phase formation will be utilized for phase relationship analysis to decipher the redox conditions and thus provide source term for performance assessment models of deep geologic repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24006: High-fidelity modeling of fuel-to-coolant thermomechanical transport behaviors under transient conditions | University of Florida | $800,000 | The objective of the proposal is to develop a high-fidelity modeling tool that can capture some of the important phenomena in high burnup UO2 and ATF fuels during transient conditions. The BlueCRAB tool set will be improved and used to analyze TREAT loss of coolant accident experimental results. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24312: Accelerating the development of reliable and robust machine learning-based interatomic potentials for the prediction of molten salt structure and properties | University of Massachusetts Lowell | $400,000 | Machine learning-based interatomic potentials (MLIPs) used in molecular dynamics (MD) can accurately and efficiently predict molten salt properties. However many machine learning-based methods require large training sets, and can fail unpredictably. This project will overcome these challenges by developing a method for efficiently sampling diverse configurations from MD to train reliable and robust neural network potentials, and develop new models for predicting errors in MLIPs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24697: Dual External Leak Sensing and Monitoring for Dry Storage Canister | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers aim to develop two complementary external sensing methods to evaluate the integrity of DSC through internal pressure monitoring and helium leakage detection. The proposed diffuse ultrasonic wave method will be able to measure biaxial strains in the canister wall with high sensitivity and minimum temperature effects. An innovative capacitance MEMS sensor will be developed for helium concentration measurement in air based on the extremely low permittivity of helium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24449: Multi-modal Surface Acoustic Wave Sensing System for Pressure and Temperature monitoring of Spent Fuel Canisters | University of North Texas | $800,000 | University of North Texas (UNT) will collaborate with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to develop a multi-modal wireless passive SAW (Surface Acoustic Wave) sensor array, which are deployed on the outside surface of the canister, to monitor the strain of the canister and thus determine the inside pressure. In addition, the SAW strain sensor could also measure the surface temperature and potentially monitor helium gas leak. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24265: Fragmentation and Thermal Energy Transport of Cr-doped Fuels under Transient Conditions | University of Pittsburgh | $799,999 | This project will focus on multiple aspects of experimental testing and engineering-scale modeling in understanding thermal energy transport from high burnup, fractured/fragmented accident tolerant fuels, establishing a strong scientific basis to fill a critical knowledge data gap for modeling and simulation of transient fuel performance and safety, such as loss of coolant accident, for future integral testing and fuel licensing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24310: Fusion of Distributed Fiber Optics, Acoustic NDE, and Physics-Based AI for Spent Fuel Monitoring | University of Pittsburgh | $800,000 | The proposal will leverage new concepts in the fusion between fiber optic distributed acoustic sensing and advanced acoustic nondestructive evaluation techniques with artificial intelligence enhanced classification frameworks to quantitatively characterize the state of dry cask storage containers for spent fuel monitoring, externally and non-invasively, without introducing additional risks of failure. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24261: Internal Wireless Sensors for Dry Cask Storage | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | The effort will test the reliability of wireless, internal sensors after exposure to drying and storage conditions. These sensors are used to internally monitor temperature, pressure, and dose. Radiation shielding will also be designed to protect sensors during long-term storage. The effort will develop piezoelectric techniques for miniaturization of optical emission spectroscopy for internal monitoring of gas composition during drying and long-term storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24533: Non-destructive Evaluation of Dry Storage Canisters Using Acoustic Sensing | University of Southern California | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to develop a robust non-destructive evaluation (NDE) technique based on acoustic sensing to detect impurity gases in a sealed (welded) dry storage canister (DSC) using only measurements collected on the external surface of the DSC. The method is based on the time-of-flight analysis of acoustic signals propagating through the fill gas of a DSC, which is influenced by the composition, density and temperature of the propagation medium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23984: Safety Implications of High Burnup Fuel for a 2-Year PWR Fuel Cycle | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to perform safety analysis of high burnup fuel for a Westinghouse 4-Loop Pressurized Water Reactor. The work aims to identify potential opportunities and gaps for high burnup fuel by utilizing both well-established and modern methodologies to model reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, and plant system-level response that ultimately provide feedback to fuel performance analysis. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23985: Fuel-to-Coolant Thermomechanical Behaviors Under Transient Conditions | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This project will enhance the prediction of thermo-mechanical fuel-to-coolant heat transfer under transient conditions by using a coupled analysis and experiment approach. The effort is relevant to both high-burnup (> 62GWd/t) fuel applications and Accident Tolerant Fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24070: Modeling high-burnup LWR fuel behavior under normal operating and transient conditions | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This project aims to develop a high-burnup light water reactor fuel modeling capability to implement in the BISON code that would enable the accurate fuel rod behavior simulation during normal operation and design basis accidents, as wells as the identification of the rod life-limiting factors. Mechanistic engineering models will be developed for key phenomena, in particular, high burnup structure evolution, fuel fragmentation, and fission gas release. Traditional and accident tolerant fuels will be considered. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24033: Redox Chemistry in Nuclear Materials Storage Matrices under Ambient and Accelerated Aging Conditions | University of Washington | $800,000 | Deep geologic repositories must safely contain hazardous, high-activity nuclear wastes at geologic time-scales. However, such capability is centrally dependent on the element-specific redox chemistry within and at the interface of storage vessels. A comprehensive study of redox chemistry in cements used in long-term storage is proposed and emphasizes: 1) the actual consequences of accelerated aging modalities and 2) the novel use of newly available capabilities in advanced x-ray spectroscopies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24063: Post-DNB Thermo-mechanical Behavior of Near-term ATF Designs in Simulated Transient Conditions | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | The goals of the proposed research are to conduct coupled experimental and modeling investigations of thermo-mechanical performance of coated accident tolerant zirconium alloy claddings with simulated burnup doped fuels under thermal transients to predict complex thermal and mass transport phenomena of near-term Accident Tolerant Fuel designs in accident conditions. Experiments and modeling for understanding both cladding-coolant and fuel-coolant interactions will be performed. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24582: Machine-Learning-Accelerated Molecular Dynamics Approaches for Molten Salts | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $399,477 | New machine learning potential (MLP) approaches and new MLPs to enable rapid prediction of molten salt (FLiBe and Nal-MgCl2 with impurities) properties with near ab initio quantum mechanical accuracy will be developed. Uncertainty quantification with active learning and on-the-fly fitting will greatly accelerate MLP training. This work will support dramatically increased simulation speeds and associated data generation and understanding for molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24067: Development of Full Understanding of Mechanical-Chemical Coupling in Bentonite THMC processes | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | The central hypothesis is that mechanical stress in an engineered barrier can lead to pressure solution of solid minerals, leading to significant changes in pore water chemistry, which affects bentonite stability, longevity of the waste pack, and dissolution and migration of nuclides. The overall objective of this project is to develop full understanding of the role of pressure solution on pore water chemistry, the implications to large-scale heterogeneity, and THMC processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23987: Separate and Multi-Physics Effects IRPhEP Benchmark Evaluation using SNAP Experiments | Georgia Institute of Technology | $400,000 | The proposed project will develop an International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) mulitphysics microreactor benchmark evaluation based on data from the Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power (SNAP) program. This work will include systematic assessments of the experimental data with meticulous compilation and documentation, and validation of specific NEAMS tools to model effects that are unique to microreactors technologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24630: Integral Benchmark Evaluation of Zero-Power Tests and Multi-Cycle Depletion Experimental Data of TVA WB1 Cycles 1-3 | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | This project proposes to develop an integral benchmark evaluation of available experimental data for zero-power tests and multi-cycle depletion for consistent and comprehensive validation of both novel high-fidelity and traditional multi-physics tools. The benchmark evaluation will be based on operational and measured data from the Pressurized Water Reactor Watts Bar Unit 1 released by Tennessee Valley Authority. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24186: Regenerating Missing Experimental Parameters with Data-Assimilation Methods for MSRE Transient Benchmark Development and Evaluation | Virginia Commonwealth University | $400,000 | The proposed project will regenerate the undocumented basic data from available experimental data of the MSRE using advanced data-assimilation methods to facilitate the whole-loop modeling of the representative MSRE transients, and perform a thorough MSRE transient benchmark evaluation for the IRPhEP handbook. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24194: Implementation of improved quasi-static, time-dependent, multi-physics methodology in Shift | Georgia Institute of Technology | $600,000 | A practical reference calculation route for time-dependent coupled Monte Carlo calculations, using Shift, will be developed. The proposed framework will be tailored to depletion and slowly varying transients, but with the flexibility to perform thermal-hydraulic time-dependent calculations with minimal computational overheads. This method relies on a hybrid-resolution stochastic approach in conjunction with a substep technique. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24078: Material transport model development and integration in the System Analysis Module (SAM) code | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | This project proposes to develop and implement models for System Analysis Module, which accurately characterize the sink, source, and interaction terms of key material species that are or may be present in various advanced reactor designs. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24195: Enhancing Yellowjacket for Modeling the Impact of Radiation and Stress on the Corrosion of Molten-Salt-Facing Structural Components | University of Florida | $692,088 | The objective of this project is to add the capability to model the impact of radiation and stress on corrosion to the Yellowjacket code, as well as to use Yellowjacket to create surrogate models that will be added to engineering-scale codes like Grizzly. We will also collect new experimental data for validation that quantifies the impact of stress and radiation on corrosion of 316 stainless steel in molten fluoride salts. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24405: Development of a High-fidelity Flow Boiling Database for Validation of High-void-fraction Flow Regime Models | University of Michigan | $800,000 | The primary objective of this proposed research is to develop a comprehensive, high-resolution, multiphase computational fluid dynamics validation-grade flow boiling data from rod bundle geometry simulating current light water reactor fuel designs by taking advantage of the instrumentation and facility developed by the research team. In addition, the applicability of the data through initial evaluations of selected test cases using Nek-2P boiling closure models will be studied and demonstrated for two-phase flow simulations. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24471: Technical Basis of Microstructure Criteria and Accelerated Testing for Qualifying Additively-manufactured 316H Stainless Steel for High-temperature Cyclic Service | Auburn University | $800,000 | This project seeks to reveal the fundamental relationship for AM 316H SS working at 500-750 _C between additively-manufactured microstructures and creep/creep-fatigue properties through a multiscale experimental and modeling approach. The project also seeks to establish the technical basis for the microstructure criteria and accelerated testing method to support near-term nuclear qualification. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24152: Direct heating of chemical catalysts for hydrogen and fertilizer production using Microreactors | Kansas State University | $799,202 | This proposal presents a novel integration approach to deliver process heat from microreactors by directly heating the catalyst particles from the primary heat transfer fluid in a moving packed bed heat exchanger (MPBHX). In this design, the tube side of the MPBHX can be a heat pipe or primary Helium coolant as in several microreactor designs. The shell side will be moving catalyst particles, which will enter the high temperature chemical reactor upon heating. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24287: Investigating heat transfer in horizontally oriented HTGR under normal and PCC conditions | Kansas State University | $799,762 | Experimental research will be conducted to understand heat transfer inside the graphite matrix of horizontal microscale High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors. Existing high temperature test facilities will be used to simulate normal operation and Pressurized Conduction Cooldown. The focus of these experiments is to generate benchmark data under forced and natural convection with coupled multi-mode heat transfer in scaled-down prismatic blocks. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24104: Thermal Hydraulics Investigation of Horizontally Orientated Layout Micro HTGRs Under Normal Operation and PCC Conditions Using Integrated Advanced Measurement Techniques | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000 | The proposed novel work will make a significant pioneering contribution to advance the knowledge and understanding of horizontal micro-high temperature gas cooled reactors. Quantification of metrics will pertain to convective heat transfer coefficients along the channel and gaps, comparative rates of convective and radiative heat transfer, location of peak temperature and its temporal variation, timescales for onset of natural convection, local gas velocity profiles, gas dispersion, crossflows, and temperature profiles over channel diameter and gap thickness. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24004: An Open Source, Parallel, and Distributed Web-Based Probabilistic Risk Assessment Platform to Support Real Time Nuclear Power Plant Risk-Informed Operational Decisions | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | The main objective of the proposed work is to develop, demonstrate, and evaluate a probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) software platform needed to address the major challenges of the current legacy PRA tools. This includes better quantification speed, integration of multi-hazard models into traditional PRAs, and model modification/simplification and documentation automation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24228: Quantifying the Dynamic and Static Porosity/Microstructure Characteristics of Irradiated Graphite through Multi-technique Experiments and Mesoscale Modeling | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | This project proposes a joint experimental-computational approach to probe and quantify the porosity and microstructure characteristics of irradiated nuclear graphite grades and their influence on dimensional changes and turnaround behavior, as well as mechanical properties. The chief focus will be on quantifying both the static and dynamic porosity and crack characteristics in various graphitic phases through several experimental techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24247: Multi-scale Effects of Irradiation Damage on Nuclear Graphite Properties | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Irradiation induces microstructural damage in graphite, causing both dimensional and property (stiffness, strength and creep) changes as a function of the displacement damage and temperature. The biggest gap remains is the fundamental deformation mechanisms behind the property changes. Researchers propose to eliminate this gap in knowledge with a comprehensive, multi-scale experimental framework exploiting in-situ transmission electron and X-ray computed tomography. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23975: Development of Thermal Power Dispatch Simulation Tools for BWR Flexible Plant Operation and Generation | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | In the U.S. domestic light water reactor fleet, about one-third of operational nuclear power reactors are boiling water reactors (BWRs). Thermal power extraction technologies to be designed for BWRs will be different from those for pressurized water reactors due to differences in steam generation. This study proposes to investigate the thermal and electric power dispatch and required control algorithms for dynamic heat dispatch of up to 50% of the thermal energy from a BWR plant to a hydrogen plant. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24111: Experimental Investigations of HTGR Fission Product Transport in Separate-effect Test Facilities Under Prototypical Conditions for Depressurization and Water-ingress Accidents | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Experimental investigations will be performed for fission product (FP) lift-off, washoff, vaporization from plateout surfaces, and transport of FP at prototypical conditions representing depressurization and water-ingress accidents. Measurements will be performed on existing separate-effect facilities using intrusive and non-intrusive techniques to obtain shear stress, deposition velocity, thermal gradient, and gas impurity for advanced correlations. Modeling will be performed using system and computational fluid dynamics codes. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24644: High-Resolution Measurements and Advanced Modeling for Design Optimization of Advanced Small Modular Reactor Steam Generators | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Experiments and simulations will be performed to acquire multi-parameters of pressure drop, heat and mass transfer, and flow-induced vibration (FIV) effect for the design optimization of advanced small modular reactor steam generators (SMR SG). Measurements are performed on existing SMR SG facilities using intrusive/non-intrusive techniques to obtain velocity, temperature, pressure, heat flux, and FIV effects for various geo-dimensions, spacing, pitch angles. Simulations will be performed in StarCCM, Nek5000 and coupling with Diablo_ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24332: A Virtual Reality Environment for Human Reliability Assessment in the Context of Physical Security Attacks | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Recent studies have shown that the physical security workforce accounts for 20% of the entire workforce and, therefore, is responsible for significant operational and maintence costs. To reduce the security staffing, improve performance and reduce threats, modeling and simulation and models of attacker, defender and operator behavior could be employed. This proposal aims to model human behavior using a combination of known human reliability analyses models and experimental evidence from virtual reality experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24389: High Temperature Electromagnetic Acoustic (EMAT) Transducers for Structural Health Monitoring | University of Cincinnati | $800,000 | The aim of this project is to produce an electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT) technology to enable ultrasonic structural health monitoring at the METL facility and similar high temperature assets. Ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation methods can be used for monitoring a range of damage mechanisms including thermal fatigue and corrosion. The project will seek to establish core design solutions that can be used as the basis of a range of EMAT designs for different applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24380: Probabilistic Validation and Risk Importance Ranking Methodology for Automation Trustworthiness and Transparency in Nuclear Power Plants | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | This project develops a methodology to improve trustworthiness and transparency of automation technologies in nuclear power plants. The proposed methodology will monitor risk emerging from automation processes and rank the criticality of automation factors influencing automation output, plant equipment, and system performance. The feasibility and practicality of the proposed methodology will be demonstrated with two case studies focusing on implementation of nuclear power plant automation technologies. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24162: Self-powered wireless sensor system for health monitoring of liquid-sodium cooled fast reactors | University of Notre Dame | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to develop self-powered wireless multimodal sensors and instrumentation for health monitoring and diagnosing early-stage materials degradation for high-risk components in liquid-sodium cooled fast reactors. The synergistic and innovative integrations of the multimodal sensor array, wireless communication, and thermoelectric energy harvester have crosscutting benefit for a wide range of advanced reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24102: High temperature Molten salt reactor pump component development and testing | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | This project will provide relevant key information on the tribology of bearing material and components (such as magnets, couplers, ceramic coated wire, and coatings) in high temperature molten salts that will be required in the design of reactor pumps. Investigation of in-service inspection and monitoring of the pump internals will also be addressed in an effort to reduce down time and operation and maintenance costs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24226: Cost Reduction of Advanced Integration Heat Exchanger Technology for Micro-Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,713 | Heat exchanger technology is a high-cost component of a micro-reactor system that is also critical to the overall reliability and performance. This project will develop the underlying advanced heat exchanger technology necessary to integrate a micro-reactor with any end-user application, as well as providing internal heat exchange. Economic optimization of the heat exchanger and experimental demonstration of the technology will be accomplished. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24382: Advanced High-Fluence Low-Flux RPV Mechanical Property Models for Extended Life | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,717 | This project will further develop accurate models of the mechanical property changes under life-extension conditions in reactor pressure vessel (RPV) steels using reduced order Avrami models, cluster dynamics, and atomistic methods combined with massive comprehensive databases on irradiated steels. The work will provide models critical to extending the life of U.S. pressurized water reactors, as well as new fundamental insights into flux and fluence effects and sink and precipitate evolution in reactor pressure vessels and related steels. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| Integrated Marine Platform for Hydrogen and Ammonia Production | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | This study investigates the economic and environmental value of a floating integrated GW-scale green hydrogen/ammonia production facility powered by an advanced nuclear reactor. Floating Production Storage and Offloading units (FPSOs) are deployed worldwide in the oil and gas industry, and can be used for hydrogen and ammonia processing. Deployment of an advanced reactor on a floating platform offers several advantages, including the efficiencies of shipyard fabrication. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Functionally-graded Cermet Coatings for Molten Salt Technologies by High Throughput Finite Element Modeling and Additive Manufacturing | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $500,000 | This project proposes an integrated approach/methodology to design, manufacture and verify functionally-graded metal-ceramic composite coatings on structural alloys with desired interfacial properties, capabilities of mitigating residual stress and improved corrosion resistance for molten salt reactor applications. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| An Innovative Monitoring Technology for the Reactor Vessel of Micro-HTGR | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | This project seeks to develop an innovative sensor technology for real-time monitoring of the thermo-mechanical stresses in the reactor vessel of micro-HTGR. The technology will be based on a sparse network of outer wall temperature measurements and plant operating conditions. An integrated software-hardware sensing system aimed at monitoring the health of the pressure vessel of gas micro-reactors will be implemented and tested. The proposed work will have a broad impact on sensing in other reactor designs. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| High throughput mechanical testing of additively-manufactured materials | University of California, Berkeley | $500,000 | This project proposes fast and high throughput mechanical testing of AM produced materials. It will include the generation of automated tensile testing, hardness testing and microstructure assessment and data comparison to build data via machine learning. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Accelerated irradiation creep testing coupled with self-adaptive accelerated molecular dynamics simulations for scalability analysis | University of Michigan | $500,000 | The goal of the proposed work is to accelerate traditional irradiation creep using instrumented in-situ ion irradiation creep and long-time molecular dynamics simulations to accelerate traditional neutron irradiation creep testing. This goal will be accomplished by coupling a novel ion beam flux jump test using tapered creep specimens and self-adaptive accelerated molecular dynamics. The outcome is a rapid, low-cost accelerated method to determine the fundamental irradiation creep mechanisms. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Creation of a Pebble Database for Material Control and Accountancy in Pebble Bed Reactors | Virginia Commonwealth University | $399,969 | The primary goal of this proposed project is to develop a database of NDA signatures from a wide variety of used PBR pebbles. This database can be used for facility operations, safety, security, and safeguards (3S) to directly measure fission product content and indirectly 235U and plutonium content of each PBR pebble. This project has significant synergy with current 3S PBR research at ANL, BNL, and ORNL, all of whom are collaborators to this proposed project. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Quantifying Aerosol Deposition Mechanisms in Model Dry Cask Storage Systems | Clemson University | $800,000 | The objective of this work is to measure aerosol deposition and resuspension rates in laboratory models of dry cask storage systems to compare with and validate the DOE deposition model. The project team will conduct experiments to directly measure the deposition/resuspension rates of bulk aerosol in the system and to isolate and quantify individual aerosol deposition mechanisms, with a focus on those sensitive to variable humidity and surface temperature. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Using Amide-Functionalized Electrodes to Elucidate Interfacial Actinide Redox Chemistry for Improved HALEU Supply | Florida International University | $400,000 | The goal is to decrease HALEU fuel cycle costs by examination of the redox behavior of U, Np, and Pu at the water-organic interface using amide functionalized electrodes, and in organic media after extraction with amides. Experiments with redox active interferences including additional actinides in different oxidation states will also be conducted. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advancing the technical readiness of FeCrAl alloys and ODS steels under extreme conditions for fast reactor fuel cladding | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | A key technology gap for advanced high-performance fuel applications is the current unavailability of materials that can withstand extremely high doses without significant degradation of cladding performance. The project team will perform in-situ thermo-mechanical experiments (tension, torsion, creep, and creep-fatigue and nanoindentation) on ion-irradiated (to 400 dpa) cladding materials (up to 700 C) along with microstructures using TEM and mesoscale phase field simulations. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| A molten salt community framework for predictive modeling of critical characteristics | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | This research aims to develop a molten salt community framework to address the needs in advanced fuel cycles, including understanding salts via new theory of liquids, predicting salt characteristics via simulations (DFT, MD, and CALPHAD by implementing advanced models), optimizing inversely molten salts, and verifying simulations by experiments. This project has outstanding value for US taxpayers, educates students, and delivers outreach opportunities for academia, industry, and the public. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Understanding the Interfacial Structure of the Molten Chloride Salts by in-situ Electrocapillarity and Resonant Soft X-ray Scattering (RSoXS) | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | The objective of the proposed research is to investigate the interplay between the interfacial structure of the molten salts and their electrochemical corrosion properties in Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Clay Hydration, Drying, and Cracking in Nuclear Waste Repositories | Princeton University | $800,000 | This project will develop a new multiscale model of the thermal-hydrologic-mechanical-chemical (THMC) evolution of an engineered clay barrier in the near field of a nuclear waste repository, including initial hydration and eventual post-closure criticality. This new model will directly link micro-scale material properties to large-scale barrier performance, thus facilitating future design advances or modifications, and enable robust validation of large-scale simulation predictions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Physics-guided Smart Scaling Methodology for Accelerated Fuel Testing | Purdue University | $800,000 | This project proposes to employ novel informatics algorithms for mapping/scaling uncertainties from experimentally accessible scaled state to application/prototypical state, informed by an equivalent mapping obtained from high-fidelity multi-physics simulations for the fuel thermo-mechanical behavior, specifically, a rate theory-based model for thermal conductivity and fission gas behavior in the BISON code, and employing relevant HALDEN reactor and FAST experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Materials Accountancy During Disposal and Waste Processing of Molten Salt Reactor Fuel Salts | Texas A&M University | $399,997 | The objective of this work is to develop and validate a method for measuring and predicting hold-up to eliminate operational risks and expenses during disposal of salt-wetted MSR components. These objectives will be met by applying robust measurement/detection methods to realistic salt loop environments to validate their use in decommissioning MSRs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advanced Screening Approaches for Accelerating Development of Separations Technologies | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | The goal of this project is to establish a unified selection criterion for chelating molecular structures to more efficiently address ligand applicability to metal ion separation problems, for current and future nuclear fuel cycles. By establishing this criterion, the team will seek to enable the accelerated, cost-effective discovery of new separation workflows, as well as their implementation beyond early radiotracer experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advancing NMA of TRISO-fueled pebbles using fast and accurate gamma-ray spectroscopy | University of Colorado, Boulder | $385,307 | This proposal will provide new Nuclear Materials Analysis (NMA) capabilities for TRISO-fueled pebbles using gamma-ray spectroscopy, through a program of simulations of expected signatures from irradiated pebbles, resulting in a detailed measurement plan to monitor burnup and actinide content throughout the fuel cycle. These simulations will be used to develop requirements for NMA sensor technology and identify opportunities for focused technology development to meet these requirements. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Development of Irradiation and Creep Resistant High-Cr Ferritic/Martensitic Steels via Magnetic Field Heat Treatment | University of Kentucky | $800,000 | The objective of this proposed study is to develop and test new generation of Ferritic/Martensitic (F/M) steels specifically designed for advanced reactors that will exceed the current limitations due to temperature and irradiation dose. To achieve this objective, a systematic study is proposed to employ an innovative tempering heat treatment under high external magnetic field (up to 9T) on F/M steel HT9 to engineer an optimized microstructure composed of refined carbides and martensite laths. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Investigation into the processing parameters of phosphate-based dehalogenation for chloride-based waste salt | University of Nevada, Reno | $399,999 | This proposal will focus on several topics needed to advance the iron phosphate process: 1) Dehalogenation/vitrification processes using salt simulants to generate process flow sheets, 2) Reactions of crucible materials with phosphate products and byproducts, 3) Collection of glass property-composition data to develop models based on the glass-forming regions, 4) Development of a process for reacting recovered NH4Cl with metals that need to be fed into the system (U, Li, etc.). | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| A Validated Framework for Seismic Risk Assessment of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of Nevada, Reno | $799,883 | This is a collaborative research program with a primary objective of developing a validated numerical framework for seismic risk analysis of spent fuel storage facilities from the global cask behavior to the localized behavior of internal spent fuel assemblies. In building and validating this framework, advanced data analysis, data assimilation, and forward and inverse modeling techniques will be utilized. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| International Collaboration to Advance the Technical Readiness of High Uranium Density Fuels and Composites for Small Modular Reactors | University of Texas at San Antonio | $800,000 | An international team of high uranium density fuels (HDFs) experts advised by industry leaders in nuclear reactor innovation propose a US-UK collaboration to advance the technical readiness of UN, UB2, and their composites for fuel forms specific to small modular reactors (SMRs). The project will bridge the critical data gaps in HDF performance specific to the impact of common impurities and microstructural variations that originate at fabrication. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Development of Advanced Control Rod Assembly for Improved Accident Tolerance and High Burnup Fuel Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Research will focus on the development of new materials' designs for control rod sheaths and neutron absorbers, coupled with neutronics analysis and thermo-mechanical modeling to improve accident tolerance and to achieve higher fuel burnup in PWRs. Functionality of the proposed designs consisting of Cr coated control rod sheaths of current and advanced alloys as well as novel neutron absorbers will be evaluated in prototypical reactor conditions and accident scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Optical Basicity Determination of Molten Fluoride Salts and its Influence on Structural Material Corrosion | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | The proposed research is aimed at developing ion probes to determine the optical basicity of molten fluoride salts and studying its influence on structural material corrosion. Combining with the molten salt structure study using X-ray absorption spectroscopy, the salt chemical constitution, the resulting optical basicity, and molten salt structure will be inextricably linked and their connections will be unveiled. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Extending the HMF71 Benchmark Series for Graphite Reflector Thickness up to 18 Inches | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $399,522 | The objective of this proposal is to extend the HEU-MET-FAST-071 (HMF-71) experiment benchmark series in ICSBEP by evaluating the historical (existing) experimental data for critical experiments with graphite reflector thickness from 3 inches up to 18 inches. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2022 |
| Fast and Rigorous Methods for Multiphysics SPn Transport in Advanced Reactors | University of Michigan | $600,000 | This project proposes to perform rigorous theoretical and numerical analysis of the Generalized SPn method and underlying cross section models to enable a fast and robust multiphysics low-order transport capability for advanced reactors. This includes 5 major tasks focused on the efficient discretization and solution of the GSPn equations, numerical analysis of XS models having multiphysics and depletion, analysis of equivalence factors, improved MC estimators, and several V&V applications of the methods. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2022 |
| Development of Hydrogen Transport Models for High Temperature Metal Hydride Moderators | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Understanding the transient behavior of metal hydride moderator materials at high temperatures is a key challenge to the design and deployment of future microreactors. This project will use neutron radiography techniques provide the necessary data for this understanding and demonstrate the development of time and temperature dependent hydrogen transport models using both commercial FEA software coupled to MCNP and coupled models developed in the MOOSE framework. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Characterizing fast reactor fuel failure mode through separate effect and prototypic tests | Oregon State University | $800,000 | The project consists of conducting separate effect fuel pin failure tests with surrogate fluid and prototypic test with sodium. The outcome of this study will generate an experimental database that will be used to develop mechanistic model and validate the CDAP module of the SAS4A/SASSYS-1 code. Ultimately the quality data can be used to benchmark other fuel codes developed for LMFR application, which are seeking validation for licensing purpose. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Science-based development of ASTM standard tests for graphite-based fuel pebbles | University of California, Berkeley | $700,000 | This project proposes the development of mechanical test procedures as well as wear and friction tests on Graphite fuel pebbles | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Role of Heterogeneity in Manganese and Nickel Rich Precipitate Distribution on Hardening of Reactor Pressure Vessel Steels: Integrated Modeling and Experimental Characterization | University of Florida | $799,803 | The hypothesis of this work is that the different nucleation and coarsening kinetics of manganese and nickel rich precipitates (MNPs) compared to copper rich precipitates, and the heterogeneous distribution of manganese and nickel rich precipitates on or near dislocations, both lead to unique hardening behavior at high neutron fluence. The objective of this work is to understand hardening in reactor pressure vessel steels caused by MNPs via integrated multiscale modeling and experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Integrated Thermal-Electric Energy Management of All-Electric Ship with Advanced Nuclear Reactors | University of Texas at Dallas | $400,000 | The overall objective of this research is to comprehensively model, design, and evaluate the use of advanced nuclear reactors in future nuclear-powered ships, to enhance the efficiency, reliability, and resilience of shipboard energy distribution systems. The novelty of the proposed approach lies in (i) integrated thermal-electric modeling of advanced nuclear-powered shipboard energy system, and (ii) novel solutions for total-ship energy management to improve energy efficiency and resiliency. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Open Architecture for Nuclear Cost Reduction | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Open architecture has potential to reduce advanced reactor (AR) costs, through exploiting modular design and construction, with common, openly available interfaces between modules. A comprehensive assessment of the challenges and opportunities of open architecture for ARs will be performed. Supported by a pilot study, actionable recommendations for the implementation or otherwise of open architecture for ARs will be developed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Telescopic Control Rod for Significant Reduction in HTR Height and therefore Cost | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | This project proposes a design for a small modular High Temperature Reactor (HTR) control rod that extends telescopically, consisting of ~5 concentric annuli that nest together above the core when withdrawn. This compact component substantially reduces the length of the depth of the silo. Modelling and experimental testing will be performed to develop the control rod to evaluate feasibility, plus perform a cost-benefit analysis, with a view to its inclusion in both pebble bed and prismatic HTR designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Mechanism Driven Evaluations of Sequential and Simultaneous Irradiation-Creep-Fatigue Testing | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | This project addresses a critical need for irradiation and creep-fatigue testing by carrying out a systematic, mechanistic-driven benchmarking for irradiation creep, irradiation fatigue and creep-fatigue tests under various environments. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Mechanisms-based Acceleration of Materials Qualifications for Creep-Fatigue Performance in Advanced Nuclear Systems | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | The goal of this research is to fully understand, quantify and model creep-fatigue 'damage' as a function of loading patterns, temperature and microstructural evolution. Using this experimental information over a large range of relevant stress levels and temperatures, a mechanisms-based creep-fatigue analysis approach will be demonstrated which will properly qualify high temperature alloys for extended service in advanced nuclear systems where creep-fatigue is currently a major design limitation. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Subwavelength Ultrasonic Imaging for Rapid Qualification of Additively Manufactured Nuclear Structures and Components | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to develop a transformational capability for rapid nondestructive quality assessment of actual nuclear additively manufactured structures and components through advanced ultrasonic imaging with subwavelength resolution. The resolution of conventional ultrasonic systems is limited by diffraction on the order of the wavelength. In this project, the goal is to break the diffraction limits of ultrasonic imaging by implementing a negative-index lens. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| MXene as Sorbent Materials for Off-gas Radioiodine Capture and Immobilization | Clemson University | $1,000,000 | The overarching goal of this project is to develop efficient and stable new sorbent materials, for off-gas radioiodine capture and immobilization, that are based on MXenes with two-dimensional transition metal carbides/nitrides. The exploratory research will focus on three main objectives: 1) Design and synthesis of MXenes as radioiodine sorbent and support materials, 2) Quantification of iodine sorption capacity of MXenes in different forms, 3) Synthesis and characterization of consolidated waste forms. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Fundamental understanding of grain boundary cracking in LWR environments | University of California, Los Angeles | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to understand the details of stress corrosion cracking (SCC) and irradiation assisted stress corrosion cracking (IASCC) by targeted experiments and modeling efforts. A comprehensive model will be produced, which will predict the conditions under which these failure modes occur and when the materials may see onsets of the failure mode. This work will directly impact the nuclear industry by refining predictive models of component lifetime. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Facile manufacturing of fiber-reinforced-SiC/SiC composite using aerodynamic fiber deposition (AFD) and metal assisted polymer impregnation and pyrolysis processes (MAPIP) | University of Pittsburgh | $999,886 | SiC/SiC ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) are promising candidate materials for the cladding of accident tolerant fuels. Superior material properties of SiC/SiC CMC, however, come at a high manufacturing cost. The objective of the proposed research is to apply aerodynamic fiber deposition (AFD) and metal assisted polymer impregnation and pyrolysis (MAPIP) to develop a new facile manufacturing approach of SiC/SiC CMC. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| High Concentration Monoamide Separations: Phase Modifiers and Transuranic Chemistry | Colorado School of Mines | $999,900 | Extraction of actinides from used nuclear fuel with high concentrations of monoamide extractants is a promising strategy to intensify separation processes; however key issues remain to be understood and resolved. This project will examine three questions: 1) Can phase modifiers mitigate issues with organic phase viscosity? 2) Can the chemistry of neptunium be controlled to ensure complete separation? 3) Do high concentrations of monoamides affect the oxidation states of important metals and can that be exploited? | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Multiple Uranium Complexes in Chloride Fast Reactor Molten Salt Properties | University of Connecticut | $1,000,000 | Multivalent transition metal ions in a melt can exhibit multiple coordination states that affect molten salt properties. This project will use a new high-energy resolution fluorescence detection (HERFD) spectroscopy to overcome issues associated with measuring coordination numbers of multiple complexes, along with Raman spectroscopy and advanced simulations to accurately predict properties of molten salts with multiple uranium complexes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Validation of Geochemical Reactive Transport Long-Term predictions Using Natural Cements and Ancient Cements Analogues | Vanderbilt University | $950,000 | This project will validate long-term performance predictions of rock/cement interfaces based on characterization of natural analogues, ancient cements and interfaces with rock formations, and demonstrate applicability of the established testing and simulation workflow with argillite rock (representative of potential U.S. repository systems). This project addresses the research gap of long-term validation and uncertainty assessment associated with cement barrier performance and multi-physics models. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Predicting Pitting and Stress Corrosion Cracking of Dry Cask Storage Canisters via High Throughput Testing, Multiscale Characterization, and 3D Computer Vision based Machine Learning | The Ohio State University | $1,000,000 | This project consists of a US-UK collaborative research program focusing on the nucleation and growth of pits and stress corrosion cracking of stainless steel 304 (a canister material used for dry cask storage of spent nuclear fuels) by leveraging multi-scale characterization techniques, 2D/3D computer vision, and machine learning approaches. The study will enable the understanding and prediction of how and when pitting corrosion can nucleate, grow, and transition into stress corrosion cracking. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Multiscale Residual Stress Tailoring of Spent Fuel Canister CISCC Resistance | Purdue University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to understand the role of residual stress in chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) of austenitic steel, then tailor CISCC initiation and propagation through engineered multiscale residual stress distributions. Microscopic and macroscopic residual stresses will be systematically varied, then a novel sequence of advanced, site-specific, correlative characterization techniques will be applied to directly link residual stress, pitting, and crack propagation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Illuminating Emerging Supply Chain and Waste Management Challenges | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | Regional constraints on domestic fuel supply and greater variation in demand from advanced reactors has led to a shift in the U.S. fuel cycle, and modeling tools must reflect this. In this work, Cyclus will be updated to better reflect new and emergent regional supply constraints, spatial and temporal fluctuations in material needs, and those impacts on the back-end of the fuel cycle will be quantified. This work will allow for flexible, reproducible analysis to inform stakeholder decision-making. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Determination of Local Structure and Phase Stability of Uranium Species in Molten Halide Salts: Linking Microscopic Structure with Macroscopic Thermodynamics | Arizona State University | $1,000,000 | The goal of this project is to determine the local structures (valence state, coordination configuration and medium-range structure) and thermodynamic stability of uranium species in molten chloride and fluoride salts at high temperatures using a combination of experimental and modeling methods. The obtained results will allow for revelation of the structure-stability relations of the studied systems and development of acid-base scales to determine the solubility of uranium in molten halide salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Thermal-Hydraulics Assessment of SiC Compared to Other ATF Cladding Materials and its Performance to Mitigate CRUD | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | This project aims to experimentally investigate the thermal-hydraulics performance of SiC compared to the Cr-coated zircaloys and APMT ATF cladding materials under accident scenarios, including both DNB and dryout conditions. The project is divided into five tasks that will advance the understanding of the operation and optimization of heat pipes for advanced nuclear reactors. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Physics-Informed Artificial Intelligence for Non-Destructive Evaluation of Ceramic Composite Cladding by Creating Digital Fingerprints | University of Florida | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to spatially map the material composition, structure, and defect distribution of SiCf-SiCm composite tubes from ultrasonic wavefields measured from the materials and the defects within them. Specifically, this project will delve into the unique ultrasonic fingerprints (i.e., dispersion relations and mode shapes) of the SiCf-SiCm composites using physics-informed machine learning to assess the quality of the manufactured tubes based on their spatial-spectral ultrasonic characteristics. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Understanding Constituent Redistribution, Thermal Transport, and Fission Gas Behavior in U-Zr Annular Fuel Without a Sodium Bond | University of Florida | $999,462 | This project will investigate the reason for changed constituent redistribution in annular U-Zr fuel without a sodium bond and how it changes the fission gas behavior and thermal conductivity. This will be achieved using a combination of microstructure characterization and thermal conductivity measurements of irradiated U-Zr annular fuel and multiscale modeling and simulation using the MARMOT and BISON fuel performance codes. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Getting AnCers: Metallothermic Molten Salt Synthesis and Reaction Thermodynamics of Actinide Ceramic Fuels | Oregon State University | $1,000,000 | Synthesis of high quality actinide ceramics (AnCers) remains a costly challenge. A low-temperature, high-yield, short-duration reaction that directly synthesizes UN and UC could reduce the cost of these advanced fuels greatly. This proposal aims to demonstrate a method by which the costs of AnCers can be greatly reduced - metallothermic molten salt synthesis. Optimization and thermodynamics data will be obtained. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Integrated Stand-off Optical Sensors for Molten Salt Reactor Monitoring | University of Pittsburgh | $1,000,000 | This project intends to develop robust and stand-off optical sensors to perform real-time molten salt levels, flow, and impurity measurements of molten salts. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Cybersecurity in advanced reactor fleet by cyber-informed design, real-time anomaly detection, dynamic monitoring, and cost-effective mitigation strategies | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The goal of this research is to provide technical solutions to unique cybersecurity challenges in future microreactor fleet through cyber-informed design (C-ID), real-time anomaly detection, dynamic monitoring, and cost-effective mitigation strategies. The efforts will significantly improve the economics and effectiveness of cybersecurity risk management in future microreactor fleets. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Building Cyber-Resilient Architecture for Advanced Reactors via Integrated Operations and Network Digital Twin | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | The research will develop a secure-by-design architecture via integrating plant operation and network digital twins for advanced reactors. Automatic attack path and vulnerability analysis will be developed and used to assess and harden critical digital assets (CDA) against cyber risks prior to and during operation to identify vulnerabilities, attack pathways, and threat vectors. A CDA selection method will also be developed by combining vulnerability scores and assets importance. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Extending PRA and HRA legacy methods and tools with a cause-based model for comprehensive treatment of human error dependency | University of California, Los Angeles | $1,000,000 | This project aims at developing a solution to HRA dependency assessment in PRA from methodological and practical/computational perspectives within legacy PRA tools and methods. The solutions will include procedures for quantifying dependency when using PRA legacy tools, a method for modeling and quantifying dependency in HRA comprising a BN-causal model suitable for use with legacy PRA methods and tools, and the computational tools for its integration. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| An Integrated Elemental and Isotopic Detector for Real-Time Molten Salt Monitoring | North Carolina State University | $1,000,000 | The overarching theme of the proposed research is to develop and demonstrate a real-time elemental and isotopic detector of molten salts for advanced reactors and fuel fabrication and recycling processes. The detector's longevity, limits, and latency will be tested in static uranium chloride salts, in pyroprocessing chloride salt, and on flowing fluoride salt with evolving actinide composition, respectively. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Development of a Thin-Layer Electrochemical Sensor for Molten Salt Reactors and Fuel Cycle Processes | Brigham Young University | $811,755 | A thin-layer electrochemical sensor capable of detecting uranium, plutonium and other species of interest in molten salts, at both high and low concentrations, will be developed for application in molten salt reactors and fuel cycle process units. This will provide a valuable tool for performing material control and accountancy measurements. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Risk-Informed Consequence-Driven Hybrid Cyber-Physical Protection System Security Optimization for Advanced Reactor Sites | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | This project aims to develop an expanded methodology for designing a novel cybersecurity-integrated physical protection system (PPS) framework for advanced reactor concepts that serves to reduce the operational costs for the life of a reactor against that of a traditional light water reactor PPS design, promoting efforts to credit safety features of advanced reactors through proposed amendments to current security regulations, while integrating health and economic consequence analyses. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| A risk analysis framework for evaluating the safety, reliability, and economic implications of electrolysis for hydrogen production at NPPs | University of Maryland, College Park | $1,000,000 | The RAFELHyP project will develop a modular risk analysis framework that enables evaluating the safety, reliability, and economic implications of upcoming deployments of electrolyzers to produce hydrogen at nuclear power plants. The framework will be implemented to conduct an integrated safety, reliability, and economic analysis of multiple plant configurations to provide detailed recommendations for plant protective features and layouts. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Reduced Order Modeling of Heat and Fluid Flow: Multi-Scale Modeling of Advanced Reactors to Enable Faster Deployment | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | Novel multi-scale algorithms for thermal-hydraulics (TH) simulations of advanced reactors will be developed. The methods will leverage recent advances in hardware and reduced order modeling approaches to enable TH simulations of vastly accelerated speed, while maintaining accuracy comparable to high-fidelity methods, such as large-eddy simulation. The methods will allow designers to perform parameter sweeps, develop closures, and enable high fidelity simulation of transients. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Embedded Monte Carlo | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Monte Carlo methods have long been considered the standard in terms of accuracy and have seen increased use in design of small nuclear systems; however, the uncertainty quantification (UQ) of the desired output is often relegated to later stages of the design process. This project seeks to embed nuclear data UQ in a single Monte Carlo simulation, such that each desired quantity will not only provide the mean value and statistical uncertainty, but also the related nuclear data uncertainty. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| A Low Order Transport Method Based on the Dynamic Truncation of the Integral Transport Matrix Method (ITMM) that Converges to the SN Solution with Increasing Cell Optical Thickness | North Carolina State University | $1,000,000 | A novel low-order transport operator capable of approximating Monte Carlo (MC) results within a variance range will be developed. This does not require MC reference solutions to calibrate the low-order model, so repeated solutions of the latter in-transient scenarios does not require repeated MC simulations. Truncation of the low-order operator is done dynamically for evolving configurations to ensure accuracy of the low-order solution. This will involve proof of principle on Cartesian meshes, then implementation in Griffin. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| CFD based Critical Heat Flux predictions for enhanced DNBR margin | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | This project seeks to demonstrate a robust high-fidelity CFD-based methodology to predict CHF behavior at varying quality conditions, enabling the development of advanced DNBR correlations with reduced uncertainty, and in support of upgraded plant economics. The availability of a virtual CHF methodology will allow greatly extending the database for DNBR correlations development and further support advancement in the design of high-performing nuclear fuel. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Immersed Boundary Methods for Modeling of Complex Geometry: A Leap Forward in Multiscale Modeling using NekRS | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | A major challenge to Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling of complex geometries is the need to generate body-fitted meshes, which can occupy 80% of the CFD practitioner's time. Immersed boundary methods will be added in the NekRS CFD code, dramatically simplifying modeling of complex 3-D structures and facilitating a new paradigm for CFD-informed multiscale analysis. This will be demonstrated by informing SAM transient systems-level models with NekRS heat exchanger correlations for advanced reactors. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Uncertainty Quantification of Model Extrapolation in Neural Network-informed Turbulent Closures for Plenum Mixing in HTGRs | Utah State University | $1,000,000 | This project will quantify the uncertainty in prediction of Neural Network-informed Turbulent Closures when they are operating in a model extrapolation state. Once the method is developed for canonical buoyant jets, the protocols will be applied to plenum mixing in HTGRs. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Impact of moisture on corrosion of NiCr alloys in MgCl2-NaCl Salt Systems | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $999,983 | This project aims to gain a fundamental understanding of the impact of moisture and salt chemistry on corrosion of NiCr alloys in molten chloride salts. A novel approach coupling multiscale simulations and experiments will be designed to determine salt acidity, its dependence on salt composition (i.e., the NaCl to MgCl2 ratio), and its effects on the transport of H2O and Cr ions and the corrosion kinetics of NiCr alloys in chloride salt. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Transforming Microreactor Economics Through Hydride Moderator Enabled Neutron Economy | State University of New York, Stony Brook | $1,000,000 | Microreactors will potentially require the cost of electricity to be 10 MWD/kg at >3 kW/kg core specific power. These goals are best achieved through a well-thermalized spectrum. Neutron economy as a core material selection criterion to advance entrained hydride composite moderators will be used with the primary goal of significantly reducing fuel costs through novel microreactor designs. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Integrating Nuclear with ZLD Seawater Desalination and Mining | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | An integrated nuclear system will be developed that would utilize electricity and waste heat to operate a desalination and mining process from adjacent seawater. The desalination approach targets zero-liquid discharge with multiple marketable minerals extracted. The ability of nuclear facilities to load follow is increasingly important, so a cold thermal storage system will be incorporated. The desalination and mineral extraction process will be experimentally validated at lab scale. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Reference Designs of Green Ammonia Plants Powered by Small Modular Reactors | Utah State University | $1,000,000 | The overarching goal of this project is to develop two reference designs for green ammonia plants. One design uses freshwater as the source for hydrogen, while the other design uses seawater (or brackish water) as the source. In both designs, a small modular reactor (SMR) is used as the primary energy source providing both electricity and steam for the plants. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Development of the Technical Bases to Support Flexible Siting of Microreactors based on Right-Sized Emergency Planning Zones | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to provide the technical basis to support the application of a right-sized Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ) size to support the deployment of a microreactor at the Penn State University Park campus. This research study will serve as a template to provide flexible siting in support of future microreactor deployments that may be placed closer to demand centers, thereby making them more economically competitive. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Bayesian Optimization for Automatic Reactor Design Optimization | Arizona State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to develop analytical tools based on Gaussian process modeling and Bayesian Optimization that facilitate reactor design optimization by modeling the responses from the physics simulator. Existing capabilities will be applied in an AI field and they will be adapted to address the key characteristics of nuclear reactor design problem. This project will automate the simulation-based design procedure, reduce the number of iterations, and minimize the design cycle time. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Engaging New Mexican communities in developing an equitable and just approach to siting advanced reactor facilities | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | This project will engage diverse New Mexican communities to develop an equitable approach for advanced reactor siting. The findings of this project will shed light on how technology developers and the DOE can explore and potentially site advanced reactors with the informed consent and engagement of host communities, regions, and states. The findings of this study will also more generally apply to the potential for equitably exploring both brownfield and greenfield sites for nuclear facilities. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Deciphering Irradiation Effects of YHx through In-situ Evaluation and Micromechanics for Microreactor Applications | University of New Mexico | $998,000 | This project addresses a critical gap in accelerated testing of YH evolution coupling multi-length scale mechanical testing with ion irradiation and advanced characterization to establish a baseline understanding of YH evolution under ion irradiation. Our approach will couple ion irradiation and gamma irradiation with small scale mechanical testing to decipher multi-scale impacts on phase stability to advance understanding of YH in a microreactor moderator application. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Active Learning Estimation and Optimization (ALEO) of Irradiation Experimental Design for Efficient Accelerated Fuel Qualification | University of Texas at San Antonio | $997,247 | This collaborative project creates novel AI/ML models and algorithms integrated with physical knowledge and expertise to explore more efficient ways to calculate irradiation temperatures and fuel specimen burnups for new fuel sample configurations of MiniFuel experiments proposed for irradiation in the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Unraveling how mixing vane spacers affect cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena in light water reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $500,000 | Experiments will be conducted to quantify the effect of mixing vane spacers on cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena, namely single-phase forced convection, nucleate boiling, and CHF. The results of the experimental research will allow elucidating the physical phenomena triggered by the presence of mixing vane spacers. They will also allow assessing the performance of M-CFD tools developed within CASL and in use by the nuclear community. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Quantum Computing Algorithms for Deterministic Neutron Transport | University of Michigan | $500,000 | This project will develop algorithms for solving the k-eigenvalue form of the neutron transport equation in a nuclear reactor physics context on a quantum computer. The asymptotic scaling of the algorithms will be analyzed. Investigation into implementation will be made by making resource estimates by synthesizing explicit circuits for the algorithms and be studied by emulation on a classical computer. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Optimizing Application-Dependent Energy Group Structures for Multigroup Neutron Transport Models using Machine Learning | Colorado School of Mines | $500,000 | Machine Learning methods will be developed that will dramatically reduce both the computational run-time and manual effort needed to find multigroup energy structures that accurately capture the underlying physics of neutron reactions, while allowing multigroup simulations to run quickly without overwhelming available memory. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Understanding PM-HIP Interparticle Evolution and its Influence on Fracture Toughness in Alumina-Forming Steels | Purdue University | $1,100,000 | This project aims to understand how interparticle evolution during hot isostatic pressing (HIP) influences fracture toughness of Al-bearing steels. The team will use a series of interrupted HIP experiments with phase field models to understand the formation mechanisms of interparticle defects during HIP of alumina-forming austenitic (AFA) stainless steels and FeCrAl steels, and the influence of these defects on fracture behavior. | Document | Advanced Manufacturing Technologies | FY2024 |
| Multiscale high-throughput experiment/modeling approach to understanding creep behavior in Additively Manufactured reactor steels | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $1,043,271 | This project proposes to develop a predictive capability for processing-microstructure-property correlations in additive manufactured microstructures utilizing a multiscale approach encompassing bulk creep tests, miniaturized tensile testing, and a high-throughput, indentation based, cost-effective method for elevated temperature mechanical mapping of additively manufactured 316H Stainless Steel, Grade 91, and Titanium-Zirconium-Molybdenum (TZM) alloys. | Document | Advanced Manufacturing Technologies | FY2024 |
| Assessing molten salt corrosion resistance of stainless steel 316H in nuclear reactor environments | North Carolina State University | $1,100,000 | The proposed goal is to leverage a blend of innovative molten salt corrosion experiments and cutting-edge characterization techniques to advance our understanding of molten salt corrosion in both commercial and additively manufactured (AM) stainless steel (SS) 316H, particularly under radiation or stress environments. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Polymer-Derived C-SiC Coatings on Kernel Particles for Advanced Nuclear Reactors | University of Alabama at Birmingham | $1,100,000 | This program is to use a polymer-derived ceramic approach to develop C-SiC/ZrC coatings on ZrO2 kernel substitute particles. We aim to create new fuel encapsulation materials in replacement of the coatings on fuel kernel particles, including the TRISO layers, for advanced reactors, conduct ion irradiation testing of the new materials for nuclear performance evaluation, and carry out detailed microstructure and composition characterization to assess the C-SiC/ZrC coated fuel particle behaviors. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Sorbent regeneration, recycling, and transformation: A transformative approach to iodine capture and immobilization | University of Nevada, Reno | $1,000,000 | The project will focus on the development of materials and processes for regeneration and recycling of sorbents, and the transformation of iodine-loaded sorbents into waste forms. A combination of computational and experimental studies will be conducted to understand (a) how the components in a primary off-gas stream interact with the sorbent, (b) how this off-gas stream affects the regeneration lifetime, and (c) low-temperature binders and processing paths that leads to durable waste forms. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Accident Tolerant Fuels to Support Power Uprates in LWRs | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,100,000 | This project will demonstrate that power uprates higher than the current state of operation can be reached using accident tolerant fuels in light water reactors while not exceeding reactor safety margins during normal operation and accidents. We will analyze it considering fuel enriched up to 10% and peak rod average burnup up to 75GWd/tU concerning reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, reactor safety, and economics. Considerations will be made in consultation with the named industry advisory board. | Document | Existing Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Comparative study of three-dimensional microstructural imaging and thermal conductivity evolution of irradiated solid and annular U-Zr fuels | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Uranium-zirconium (U-Zr) annular metallic fuel holds the promise to simultaneously increase sodium fast reactor (SFR) core uranium loading and reduce peak cladding temperatures, thus greatly improving fuel performance. However, key convolved fuel degradation mechanisms during irradiation at temperature threaten to hold back its real-world applicability, requiring more detailed understanding to both predict U-Zr fuel performance and suggest improvements. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Mechanistic study and modeling of fission gas release in UO2 and doped UO2 | Oregon State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to enhance the safety and performance of light water reactors and other advanced reactor designs by gaining a fundamental understanding of fast gas reactor mechanisms and developing mechanistic models for UO2 and doped UO2 fuels under HBU and transient conditions. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Anisotropic Thermal Properties of SiC-SiC Cladding: Method Development & Characterization | University of Pittsburgh | $1,000,000 | We propose to develop a high-temperature nondestructive thermal conductivity (k) measurement system coupled with validated multiscale models to accurately determine the anisotropic thermal conductivity of SiC-SiC composite cladding tubes. The multiscale measurement and modeling results benefit both DOE ATF programs as well as providing a fundamental understanding of how the microstructure of the composite leads to its anisotropic properties. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Understanding the Performance of SiC-SiCf Composite Cladding Architectures with Cr Coating in Normal Operating and Accident Conditions in LWRs and Advanced Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The project will focus on investigating the impact of Cr-coating on the SiC-SiCf composite cladding of various architectures under normal operating and accident conditions in light water reactors and advanced reactors for the safe and economic deployment of SiC cladding. Cr-coating will provide protection from high-temperature corrosion and better hermeticity under accident conditions. The performance of the claddings will be evaluated through the corrosion test, reflood test, burst test, and non-destructive evaluation(NDE). | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Developing critical insights on the effects of Mo on _' precipitation and dislocation loop formation in FeCrAl alloys | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | This project aims at developing a mechanistic understanding on the effects of Mo on _' precipitation and dislocation loop formation in FeCrAl alloys in thermal and irradiation conditions and turns it into a set of design principles guiding further optimization, by integrating atomistic simulations, CALPHAD modeling, thermal aging, proton irradiation, and advanced characterization. The material discoveries will be generalized to other solutes other than Mo. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Inference of flow conditions from in-core detector measurements for accelerating SMR licensing | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Reactor modelling relies on the detailed description of reactor systems but often lacks the true as-built characteristics of a system. This proposal seeks to fill these geometrical data gaps using available detector data, predictive models and machine learning in order to provide better information to analysis tools and thus better prediction of future performance. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Non-Destructive Plutonium Assay in Pyroprocessing Bulk Materials with a 3D Boron-Coated-Straw Detector Array | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,100,000 | The objective of the proposed project is to develop and demonstrate a 3D boron-coated-straw detector array (3D-BCSDA) with high efficiency and spatial resolution. This detection system will be specifically designed to accurately assess the fissile mass in bulk nuclear material during pyroprocessing operations, thereby improving the precision and reliability of accountability measurements during separation. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Improving the computational efficiency and usability of dynamic PRA with reinforcement learning | University of Maryland, College Park | $1,064,400 | The overall objective of the proposed research is to improve the efficiency and usability of dynamic probabilistic risk assessment (PRA). Specifically, the first objective is to develop a new algorithm for dynamic PRA analysis that can significantly increase the computational efficiency. The second objective is to develop a question-answering system to streamline the process of risk-informed decision-making based on results obtained from the dynamic PRA analysis using the new algorithm. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Development of a Benchmark Model for the Near Real-Time Radionuclide Composition Measurement System using Microcalorimetry for Advanced Reactors | Virginia Commonwealth University | $1,100,000 | The primary goal of this proposed project is to develop high fidelity Monte Carlo radiation transport models of a microcalorimetry detector informed by fuel depletion models of a molten salt reactor and a pebble bed reactor to quantify the current and future capabilities of this detector technology to characterize and assay used fuel from these reactors in near real-time. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Development and Validation of a Dual-Purpose Instrument for On-line Monitoring of Molten Salt Composition and Thermal Behavior | Brigham Young University | $1,099,924 | We propose the development of an online monitoring instrument capable of quantifying heat transfer and salt composition for molten salt reactors (MSR). A dual electrochemistry/thermal conductivity probe (DETP) will be developed to measure the thermal properties and impurities within the salt simultaneously. The DETP will make use of a previously developed needle probe and electrodes for square-wave cyclic voltammetry measures of salt composition. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| In Situ Assessment of Molten Salt Transport into Nuclear Graphite Microstructures using Ultrasonic Sensors | Johns Hopkins University | $909,827 | This project focuses on the transport of molten salt into nuclear graphite along with the investigation of ultrasonic methods for sensing graphite material property changes, especially elastic modulus, associated with intrusion of molten salt into the graphite microstructure. Experimental studies coupled with physics-based simulations will be used to assess strategies for in situ sensing of salt intrusion in the reactor environment to enhance long-term viability of molten salt reactors. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| MONITORING CERAMIC FUEL FRACTURE VIA FIBER OPTIC ACOUSTIC EMISSION SENSORS | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $1,000,000 | In the proposed three-year program, the Center for Photonics Technology (CPT) at Virginia Tech will collaborate with Sentek Instrument (Sentek), Prysmian, and Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to develop and demonstrate a distributed acoustic emission (AE) sensing system for in-situ monitoring of ceramic fuel fracture. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| Concurrent Surrogate Model Development with Uncertainty Quantification in the MOOSE Framework Using Physics-Informed Gaussian-Process Machine Learning | University of Florida | $999,999 | The objective of this project is to develop a general capability for concurrent generation and use of physics-informed Gaussian process (GP)-based surrogate models to facilitate multiscale and multiphysics modeling. We will implement this new capability as part of the Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) so that every application based on the MOOSE framework will have access to it. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2024 |
| Unstructured Adaptive Mesh Algorithms for Monte Carlo Transport | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,098,000 | We propose to develop the fundamental methods and techniques for unstructured adaptive mesh refinement with Monte Carlo tallies. This work enables a transformative leap forward in speed, accuracy, and robustness to enhance the contribution of high-fidelity radiation transport to advanced simulation. Adaptive refinement is deployed on a challenging multiphysics simulation, cascading heat pipe failure, to study acceleration and stabilization properties. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2024 |
| Feasibility Study of Micro-Nuclear Reactor Thermal Output for Air Rotary Kilns in the High-Temperature Manufacturing of Portland Cement Clinker | Pennsylvania State University | $998,793 | This project aims to design and test a micro-nuclear reactor for high-temperature portland cement clinker production, a process responsible for 6%-8% of global CO2 emissions. Leveraging advanced reactors' heat output, the project explores TRISO-based nuclear microreactor core modifications and new working fluids for heat pipes. The research addresses uncertainties in micro-nuclear reactor deployment for clinker production and investigates high-efficiency heat exchanger designs. | Document | Non-Traditional and Non-electric Applications | FY2024 |
| Redox potential, ionic speciation, and separation and recovery challenges from molten salts containing actinides and fission products | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $999,999 | Establishing an efficient, safe, secure, and economical Molten-Salt Reactor (MSR) fuel cycle is imperative for MSR implementation. Molten salt fuel recycling technology requires predictive knowledge of the chemical and physical behavior of lanthanide and actinide ions with different oxidation states dissolved in solvent salts. A combination of off-gas and X-ray measurements with machine-learning simulations will be used to produce predictive modeling of separation and recovery conditions. | Document | Nuclear Fuel Recycle Technologies | FY2024 |
| Pre-Treatment and Bulk Separation of Used Fuels with Carbonate-Peroxide Solutions | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | To use carbonate-peroxide chemistries to develop a pre-processing method for used uranium-based fuels that enables the subsequent use and optimization of current solvent extraction reprocessing schemes. Using simple precipitation, this innovative method provides an initial, bulk separation of uranium from fission products and actinides. | Document | Nuclear Fuel Recycle Technologies | FY2024 |
| Optimization of Fueling Strategies and Material Surveillance through Real-time Pebble Tracking in Pebble Bed Reactors | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,100,000 | Flexible operation of the energy grid of the future introduces uncertainty in determining the optimal operating conditions of Pebble Bed Reactors. The proposed work will help to address these challenges and enable more economical operation by providing the tools to determine of optimal fuel reloading strategy through pebble identification and tracking. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Experimental Study and Computational Modeling of P-LOFC and D-LOFC Accidents in the Fast Modular Reactor Consisting of Silicon Carbide Composite Rods | University of Michigan | $1,100,000 | The primary objectives of this proposed research are to better understand NC flow phenomena and heat transfer under both D-LOFC and P-LOFC accidents in the FMR, produce experimental data in a well-scaled integral-effects test facility for the two accidents, and develop and validate predictive CFD models for NC flow phenomena in both accidents. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Sodium heat pipes; design and failure mode assessment for micro-reactor applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The present proposal aims to experimentally investigate the thermal-hydraulics performance of liquid sodium heat pipes applied to microreactors, with a focus on exploring different design parameters, effects of different parameters on operating performance and understanding the evolution and impact of different failure modes. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Interfacial Interactions between Graphite and Molten Fluoride Fuel Salt | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $1,000,000 | NaF-KF-UF4 fuel salt will be selected to study graphite-salt interactions and impact of the existence of fission products (FPs) and corrosion products on the interactions at different temperatures and pressures. Fundamental mechanisms of graphite-salt interaction and degradation will be understood. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Local resonance-based linear and nonlinear NDE techniques for repaired DSC wall structures | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | The proposed work plan will develop nondestructive examination (NDE) methods that develop and evaluate linear and nonlinear resonant ultrasound spectroscopy methods (such as NRUS, NIRAS, etc.) to cold spray (CS) repaired dry shielded canister (DSC) wall structures. With the support of our partners from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), we will perform technology development and validation on plain and cold spray-repaired DSC wall specimens. | Document | Spent Fuel, Waste Science & Technology and Integrated Waste Management System | FY2024 |
| Thermodynamic Models for Multivalent Actinide Solubility and Speciation as a Function of Temperature and Ionic Strength | University of Notre Dame | $1,000,000 | This proposed project will quantify the solubility and speciation of Np and Pu under temperatures, ionic strengths, and pH values that are relevant to the generic repository concept. The major deliverable will be full thermodynamic descriptions of the studied systems, which will lead to improved radionuclide transport models and support the development of a sound technical basis for the geologic disposal of spent nuclear fuel and other actinide-bearing wastes. | Document | Spent Fuel, Waste Science & Technology and Integrated Waste Management System | FY2024 |
| Advancing Fundamental Molten Salt Modeling using Ultrafast Spectroscopy | North Carolina State University | $600,000 | The overarching goal of the proposed research is to advance our fundamental understanding of molten salts by combining ultrafast spectroscopic experiments with high fidelity atomistic simulations. The proposed research will introduce a new experimental technique to the study of molten salts that will directly measure ion kinetics, specifically, terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS), which will further validate AIMD as a predictive modeling tool. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
| Hydrodynamics of Two-Phase Flow Under the Geometric Effects of Pipe Orientation and U-bends | Purdue University | $600,000 | Most two-phase flow analyses have been performed in straight vertical-upward pipes. However, nuclear reactor systems include piping with different geometric components, such as elbows or U-bends, as well as changes in flow orientations. The proposed work performs experiments in a scaled test facility existing at the institution's lab to investigate the effects of flow orientations and geometries relevant to nuclear reactor systems on the hydrodynamics of two-phase flow. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
| Interface-Resolved Experimental and Numerical Studies of Two-Phase Flow for Nuclear Engineering Applications | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $500,000 | The project aims at advancing the interface-resolved simulation capabilities for the two-phase flows found in various nuclear engineering applications. We will develop a comprehensive, high-resolution, interface-resolved database emphasizing bubble dynamics and bubble interaction mechanisms. The data will be used to validate the sub-grid models implemented in an interface-resolved simulation tool to improve simulation accuracy by developing physics-based coalescence models. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
FY 2010 Research and Development Awards
A complete list of R&D projects with their associated abstracts is available below.
| Title | Institution | Estimated Funding* | Project Description | Abstract | Project Type | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fundamental Understanding of Ambient and High-Temperature Plasticity Phenomena in Structural Materials in Advanced Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Elastic/Inelastic Nuclear Data Development Project | Idaho State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Heterogeneous Recycling in Fast Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Thermodynamic Development of Corrosion Rate Modeling in Iron Phosphate Glasses | Missouri University of Science and Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Subspace-Based Hybrid Monte Carlo-Deterministic Algorithms for Reactor Physics Calculations | North Carolina State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Improvements to Nuclear Data and Its Uncertainties by Theoretical Modeling | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Sharp Interface Tracking in Rotating Microflows of Solvent Extraction | State University of New York at Stony Brook | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Bulk Nanostructured FCC Steels with Enhanced Radiation Tolerance | Texas A&M University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Fuel Performance Experiments and Modeling: Fission Gas Bubble Nucleation and Growth in Alloy Nuclear Fuels | Texas A&M University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| SiC Schottky Diode Detectors for Measurement of Actinide Concentrations from Alpha Activities in Molten Salt Electrolyte | The Ohio State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Computational Design of Advanced Nuclear Fuels | University of California, Davis | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Data Collection Methods For Validation of Advanced Multi-Resolution Fast Reactor Simulations | University of Idaho | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Simulations of the Thermodynamic and Diffusion Properties of Actinide Oxide Fuel Materials | University of Michigan | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Adsorptive Separation and Sequestration of Krypton, I and C14 on Diamond Nanoparticles | University of Missouri, Columbia | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Alternative Technetium Waste Forms | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Quantification of UV-Visible and Laser Spectroscopic Techniques for Materials Accountability and Process Control | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| High-Fidelity Space-Time Adaptive Multiphysics Simulations in Nuclear Engineering | University of Nevada, Reno | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Simulations of Failure via Three-Dimensional Cracking in Fuel Cladding for Advanced Nuclear Fuels | University of Texas, Dallas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Mesh-Enabled Monte Carlo Capability for Multi-Physics Reactor Analysis | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Ab Initio Enhanced Calphad Modeling of Actinide Rich Nuclear Fuels | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Diffusion Barrier Coatings and Deposition Technologies for Mitigating Fuel Cladding Chemical Interactions (FCCI) | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Thermal Properties of LiCl-KCl Molten Salt for Nuclear Waste Separation | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Neutron Damage and MAX Phase Ternary Compounds | Drexel University | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Atomistic Calculations of the Effect of Minor Actinides on Thermodynamic and Kinetic Properties of UO2+x | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Maximum Fuel Utilization in Fast Reactors without Chemical Reprocessing | University of California, Berkeley | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Developing a High Thermal Conductivity Fuel with Silicon Carbide Additives | University of Florida | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Fabrication of Tungsten-Rhenium Cladding Materials via Spark Plasma Sintering for Ultra High Temperature Reactor Applications | University of Idaho | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Ionic Liquid and Supercritical Fluid Hyphenated Techniques for Dissolution and Separation of Lanthanides, Actinides, and Fission Products | University of Idaho | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Improved Fission Neutron Data Base for Active Interrogation of Actinides | University of Michigan | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Utilization of Methacrylates and Polymer Matrices for the Synthesis of Ion Specific Resins | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Improved LWR Cladding Performance by EPD Surface Modification Technique | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Models of LWR Pressure Vessel Embrittlement for Low Flux-High Fluence Conditions | University of California, Santa Barbara | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) | FY2009 | ||
| Irradiation Creep in Graphite | Boise State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Modeling the Stress Strain Relationships and Predicting Failure Probabilities For Graphite Core Components | Cleveland State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| TRISO-Coated Fuel Durability Under Extreme Conditions | Colorado School of Mines | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| An Innovative and Advanced Coupled Neutron Transport and Thermal Hydraulic Method (Tool) for the Design, Analysis and Optimization of VHTR/NGNP Prismatic Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Removal of 14C from Irradiated Graphite for Graphite Recycle and Waste Volume Reduction | Idaho State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Millimeter-Wave Thermal Analysis Development and Application to Gen IV Reactor Materials | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Accurate Development of Thermal Neutron Scattering Cross Section Libraries | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Understanding Creep Mechanisms in Graphite with Experiments, Multiscale Simulations, and Modeling | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Verification & Validation of High-Order Short-Characteristics-Based Deterministic Transport Methodology on Unstructured Grids | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Microscale Heat Conduction Models and Doppler Feedback | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Optimizing Neutron Thermal Scattering Effects in Very High Temperature Reactors | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Multiaxial Creep-Fatigue and CreepRatcheting Failures of Grade 91 and Haynes 230 Alloys Toward Addressing Design Issues of Gen IV Nuclear Power Plants | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Investigation of Countercurrent Helium-air Flows in Air-ingress Accidents for VHTRs | Ohio State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Testing of Performance of Optical Fibers Under Irradiation in Intense Radiation Fields, When Subjected to Very High Temperatures | Ohio State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| A Distributed Fiber Optic Sensor Network for Online 3-D Temperature and Neutron Fluence Mapping in a VHTR Environment | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Investigation on the Core Bypass Flow in a Very High Temperature Reactor | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| CFD Model Development and Validation for High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor Cavity Cooling System (RCCS) Applications | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Study of Air ingress across the duct during the accident conditions | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Verification of the CENTRM Module for Adaptation of the SCALE Code to NGNP Prismatic and PBR Core Designs | University of Arizona | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Integral and Separate Effects Tests for Thermal Hydraulics Code Validation for Liquid-Salt Cooled Nuclear Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Mechanisms Governing the Creep Behavior of High Temperature Alloys for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems | University of Cincinnati | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| ALD Produced B2O3, Al2O3 and TiO2 Coatings on Gd2O3 Burnable Poison Nanoparticles | University of Colorado, Boulder | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Experimental Study and Computational Simulations of Key Pebble Bed Thermomechanics Issues for Design and Safety | University of Idaho | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Prediction and Monitoring Systems of Creep-Fracture Behavior of 9Cr-1Mo Steels for Reactor Pressure Vessels | University of Idaho | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Understanding Fundamental Material Degradation Processes in High Temperature Aggressive Chemomechanical Environments | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Multi-Scale Multi-physics Methods Development for the Calculation of Hot-Spots in the NGNP | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Corrosion and Creep of Candidate Alloys in High Temperature Helium and Steam Environments for the NGNP | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Creation of a Full-Core HTR Benchmark with the Fort St. Vrain Initial Core and Validation of the DHF Method with Helios for NGNP Configurations | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Fission Product Sorptivity in Graphite | University of Missouri, Columbia | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Identifying and Understanding Environment-Induced Crack Propagation Behavior in Ni-Based Superalloy INCONEL 617 | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Graphite Oxidation Simulation in HTR Accident Conditions | University of New Mexico | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Non Destructive Thermal Analysis and In Situ Investigation of Creep Mechanism of Graphite and Ceramic Composites using Phase-sensitive THz Imaging & Nonlinear Resonant Ultrasonic Spectroscopy | University of Rochester | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Tritium Sequestration in Gen IV NGNP Gas Stream via Proton Conducting Ceramic Pumps | University of South Carolina | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Materials, Turbomachinery and Heat Exchangers for Supercritical CO2 Systems | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Experimental Studies of NGNP Reactor Cavity Cooling System with Water | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Assessment of Embrittlement of VHTR Structural Alloys in Impure Helium Environments | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Modeling Fission Product Sorption in Graphite Structures | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Liquid Salt Heat Exchanger Technology for VHTR Based Applications | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Effect of Post-Weld Heat Treatment on Creep Rupture Properties of Grade 91 Steel Heavy Section Welds | Utah State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Alpha Radiolysis of Nuclear Solvent Extraction Ligands used for An(III) and Ln(III) Separations | California State University, Long Beach | $1,390,252 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Predictive Maturity of Multi-Scale Simulation Models for Fuel Performance | Clemson University | $614,690 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Freeze-casting as a Novel Manufacturing Process for Fast Reactor Fuels | Drexel University | $1,149,327 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Fuel Performance Experiments on the Atomistic Level, Studying Fuel Through Engineered Single Crystal UO2 | Idaho State University | $650,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Development of A Self Biased High Efficiency Solid-State Neutron Detector for MPACT Applications | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $810,141 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Development of a Innovative High Thermal Conductivity UO 2 Ceramic Composites Fuel Pellets with Carbon Nano-Tubes Using Spark Plasma Sintering | University of Florida | $894,042 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Exploration and Modeling of Structural Changes in Waste Glass under Corrosion | Pennsylvania State University | $1,377,444 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Evaluation of materials for interim storage of spent fuel for more than 100 years | University of Michigan | $931,603 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Implementation of On-the-Fly Doppler Broadening in MCNP5 for Multiphysics Simulation of Nuclear Reactors | University of Michigan | $406,712 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Methods and tools to allow molecular flow simulations to be coupled to higher level continuum descriptions of flows in porous/fractured media and aerosol/dust dynamics | University of Missouri-Columbi | $541,286 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Characterization and Modeling of Materials for Kr-Xe Separations | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $989,800 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Modeling Solute Thermokinetics in LiCl-KCl Molten Salt for Nuclear Waste Separation | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $616,073 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Advanced Aqueous Separation Systems for Actinide Partitioning: Develop Fundamental Understanding of An(III)/Ln(III) Separation | Washington State University | $1,451,784 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Consistent Multigroup Theory Enabling Accurate Coarse-Group Simulation of GenIV Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,046,277 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Studies of Deteriorated Heat Transfer in Prismatic Cores Stemming from Irradiation-Induced Geometry Distortion | Idaho State University | $1,287,921 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Carbide Coatings for Nickel Alloys, Graphite, and Carbon/Carbon Composites to be Used in Fluoride Salt Valves | Johns Hopkins University | $1,183,239 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Design, Testing, and Modeling of the Direct Reactor Auxiliary Cooling System for AHTRs | Ohio State University | $1,366,627 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Monitoring microstructural evolution of Alloy 617 with nonlinear acoustics for remaining useful life prediction; multiaxial creep-fatigue and creep-ratcheting | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development and Validation of Multidimensional Models of Supercritical CO 2 Energy Conversion Systems for Nuclear Power Reactors | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $475,005 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Microstructure and Property Evolution in Advanced Cladding and Duct Materials Under Long-Term and Elevated Temperature Irradiation: Modeling and Experimental Investigation | University of California-Berkeley | $1,320,667 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of Barrier Layers for the Protection of Candidate Alloys in the VHTR | University of California-Santa Barbara | $995,232 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Investigation of a Novel NDE Method for Monitoring Thermo-Mechanical Damage and Microstructure Evolution in Ferritic-Martensitic Steels for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems | University of Cincinnati | $833,109 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Fission Product Transport in TRISO Particle Layers under Operating and Off-Normal Conditions | University of Michigan | $966,581 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Microstructure and Property Evolution in Advanced Cladding and Duct Materials Under Long-Term Irradiation at Elevated Temperature: Critical Experiments | University of Michigan | $1,181,379 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Three-dimensional NDE of VHTR Core Components via Simulation-based Testing | University of Minnesota | $1,366,163 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Failure Predictions for VHTR Core Components using a Probabilistic Continuum Damage Mechanics Model | University of Minnesota | $854,542 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of a Scanning Microscale Fast Neutron Irradiation Platform for Examining the Correlation Between Local Neutron Damage and Graphite Microstructure | University of Missouri-Columbia | $703,064 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of Thermal Transient Flow Rate Sensors for High Temperature, Irradiation, Corrosive Environment | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $451,269 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Novel Methods of Tritium Sequestration: High Temperature Gettering and Separation Membrane Materials Discovery for Nuclear Energy Systems | University of South Carolina | $1,366,626 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Heat Transfer Salts for Nuclear Reactor Systems - Chemistry Control, Corrosion Mitigation, and Modeling | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,352,040 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Pulsed Magnetic Welding for Advanced Core and Cladding Steels | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $525,206 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Corrosion in Supercritical Carbon Dioxide: Materials, Environmental Purity, Surface Treatments, and Flow Issues | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $651,447 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Multiscale Concrete Modeling for Aging Degradation | Mississippi State University | $345,941 | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability | FY2010 | |
| Development of an advanced computational fluid dynamics technology for the next-generation nuclear reactor system analysis and safety margin characterization code | North Carolina State University | $418,199 | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability | FY2010 | |
| Precursor Derived Nanostructured Si-C-X Materials for Nuclear Applications | University of Washington | $899,518 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Development and Testing of an Open-Loop Oscillator for Small Reactivity Worth Samples | Idaho State University | $597,252 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Understanding the Irradiation Behavior of Zirconium Carbide | Pennsylvania State University | $870,613 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Modeling investigation of the stability and irradiation-induced evolution of nanoscale precipitates in advanced structural materials | University of Tennessee-Knoxville | $380,653 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Investigation of Laser Shock Peening for Enhancing Fatigue and Stress Corrosion Cracking Resistance of Nuclear Energy Materials | University of Cincinnati | $1,242,019 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Irradiation Accelerated Corrosion of Reactor Core Materials | University of Michigan | $798,943 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Study of Interfacial Interactions using Thin Film Surface Modification: Radiation and Oxidation Effects in Materials | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $538,032 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Novel Engineered Refractory Materials for Advanced Reactor Applications | North Carolina State University | $1,129,304 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Quantification of Cation Sorption to Engineered Barrier Materials Under Extreme Conditions | Clemson University | $1,171,380 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| In-Pile Instrumentation Multi-Parameter System Utilizing Photonic Fibers and Nanovision | Idaho State University | $1,199,990 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Development of Plasmonically Cloaked Nanoparticles | Idaho State University | $800,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Fission Product Transmutation in Mixed Radiation Fields | Idaho State University | $800,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Life Prediction of Spent Fuel Storage Canister Material | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $899,826 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Active Interrogation using Photofission Technique for Nuclear Materials Control and Accountability | Oregon State University | $900,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Anisotropic Azimuthal Power and Temperature Distribution on Fuel Rod: Impact of Hydride Distribution | Pennsylvania State University | $631,956 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Sorption Modeling and Verification for Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Microemulsions and Aggregation Formation in Extraction Processes for Used Nuclear Fuel: Thermodynamics and Structural Studies | University of California, Irvine | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Optimized Processing Fabrication Paths for Larger Heats of Nanostructured Ferritic Alloys | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Basic Physics Data: Measurement of Neutron Multiplicity from Induced Fission | University of Michigan | $973,364 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Radionuclide Incorporation and Long Term Performance of Apatite Waste Forms | University of Michigan | $862,500 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Actinide Foil Production for MPACT Research | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $156,897 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Enriched Boron-Doped Amorphous Selenium Based Position-Sensitive Solid-State Thermal Neutron Detector for MPACT Applications | University of South Carolina | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Development of Advanced High Uranium Density Fuels for Light Water Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Developing the User Experience for a Next Generation Nuclear Fuel Cycle Simulator | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,200,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Preparation and Development of Polymer-Supported Extractants | City College of New York, Hunter | $363,716 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| One-Dimensional Nanostructures for Neutron Detection | North Carolina State University | $455,629 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Feasibility and Safety Assessment for Advanced Reactor Concepts Using Vented Fuel | Oregon State University | $600,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| High Temperature Transducers for Online Monitoring of Microstructure Evolution | Pennsylvania State University | $455,628 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Laser-Arc Hybrid Welding of Thick Section Ni-base Alloys- Advanced Modeling and Experiments | Pennsylvania State University | $536,117 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Correlates of Sensitive Technologies | Texas A&M University | $509,467 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Improved Safety Margin Characterization of Risk from Loss of Offsite Power | Texas A&M University | $600,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| A High Temperature-Tolerant and Radiation-Resistant In-Core Neutron Sensor for Advanced Reactors | The Ohio State University | $455,629 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Pathway Aggregation in the Risk Assessment of Proliferation Resistance and Physical Protection (PR&PP) of Nuclear Energy Systems | The Ohio State University | $534,471 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Preparation of High Purity, High Molecular-Weight Chitin from Ionic Liquids for Use as an Adsorbate for the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Alabama | $338,260 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Selectivity in Ligand Binding to Uranyl Compounds: A Synthetic, Structural, Thermodynamic and Computational Study | University of California-Berkeley | $500,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Seismic Isolation Systems Using Periodic Materials | University of Houston | $538,154 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium from Seawater | University of Idaho | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Austenitic ODS Strengthened Alloys for Very High Temperature Applications | University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign | $538,154 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Enhancement of the Extraction of the Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Transient Safety Analysis of Fast Spectrum TRU Burning LWR with Internal Blankets | University of Michigan | $599,475 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Novel Sorbents for Uranium Extraction from Seawater | University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Radiation Behavior of High-Entropy Alloys for Advanced Reactors | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $538,159 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Rapid Computer Aided Ligand Design and Screening of Precious Metal Extractants from TRUEX Raffinate with Experimental Validation | Washington State University | $500,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of an Efficient Meso-Scale Multi-Phase Flow Solver in Nuclear Applications | City College of New York | $505,858 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Multiscale Modeling and Uncertainty Quantification for Nuclear Fuel Performance | Colorado State University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Fundamental Studies of the Role of Grain Boundaries on Uniform Corrosion of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Materials | Drexel University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Phenomena-based Uncertainty Quantification in Predictive Coupled-Physics Reactor Simulations | Texas A&M University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Characterization of Modeling of Grain Boundary Chemistry Evolution in Ferritic Steels Under Irradiation | University of Michigan | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Development of Multiscale Materials Modeling Techniques and Coarse-Graining Strategies for Predicting Materials Degradation in Extreme Irradiation Environments | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $750,000 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Diffusion, Thermal Properties and chemical Compatibilities of Select MAX Phases with Materials for Advanced Nuclear Systems | Drexel University | $535,927 | Document | Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) | FY2011 | |
| A New Light Weight Structural Material for Nuclear Structures | North Carolina State University | $399,490 | Document | Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) | FY2011 | |
| Experimental Investigation of Convection and Heat Transfer in the Reactor Core for a VHTR | City College of New York | $1,118,856 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Graphite Microstructural Characterization Using Time-Domain and Correlation-Based Ultrasonics | Johns Hopkins University | $1,199,997 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Methodology Development for Passive Component Reliability Modeling in a Multi-Physics Simulation Environment | The Ohio State University | $533,457 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Pebble Fuel Handling and Reactivity Control for Salt-Cooled High Temperature Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $612,721 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Self-Sustaining Thorium Boiling Water Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $1,145,932 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| High Fluency Low Flux Embrittlement Models of LWR Reactor Pressure Vessel Embrittlement and a Supporting Database from the UCSB ATR-2 Irradiation Experiment | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,199,607 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| A Research Program for Fission Product/Dust Transport in HTGR's | University of Missouri-Columbia | $1,157,367 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Development and Validation of a Lifecycle-based Prognostics Architecture with Test Bed Validation | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $846,315 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| In-situ Condition Monitoring of Components in Small Modular Reactors Using Process and Electrical Signature Analysis | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $650,000 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Technical Development for S-CO2 Advanced Energy Conversion | University of Wisconsin | $815,000 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Ag Transport Through Non-Irradiated and Irradiated SiC | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,055,456 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Critical Heat Flux Phenomena at High Pressure and Low Mass Fluxes: Tests and Models | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,199,781 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Modeling and Test Validation of a Reactor Cavity Cooling System with Air | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,199,988 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Transient Mixed Convection Validation for NGNP | Utah State University | $635,860 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Alternative High-Performance Ceramic Waste Forms | Alfred University | $840,000 | This project aims to advance fundamental understanding of the kinetics of structural evolution of crystalline ceramic waste forms. The structure/property relationships will be identified and will reveal new formulations, improved processing routes, and strategies for improved performance or ceramic waste forms. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Surface Layer Bulk Glass Interface Evolution with Aqueous Corrosion | Alfred University | $880,000 | This project will investigate the links between the morphology, structure and chemistry of surface layer-bulk glass interface and the long-term corrosion-reaction kinetics using in-situ and ex-situ experiments. The understanding will result in improved models for long-term predictive behavior of high-level-waste (HLW) glasses under repository conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Optimization of Deep Borehole Systems for HLW Disposal | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $850,000 | Researchers aim to carry out a comprehensive evaluation of the deep borehole option for disposal of used nuclear fuel and high livel waste. The models developed will predict potential movement of water through natural and engineered barriers and release of radionuclides to the biosphere which will aide in site selection. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Scholarship for Nuclear Communications and Methods for Evaluation of Nuclear Project Acceptability | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will work to develop a model to characterize the factors affecting social acceptance of nuclear projects with potential stakeholders. The resultant model will strengthen the ability to design and implement large projects more efficiently, leading to higher rates of success of future nuclear projects. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Accurate Holdup Calculations with Predictive Modeling and Data Integration | North Carolina State University | $875,000 | Researchers will develop and use state-of-the-art radiation transport codes to account accurately for the fissile material in a nuclear materials processing facility. An accurate estimation of the materials will allow for ensured radiological safety, security, waste management and efficient plant operation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Testing of Sapphire Optical Fiber and Sensors in Intense Radiation Fields, when Subjected to Very High Temperatures | The Ohio State University | $885,000 | The researchers on this project will investigate the performance of sapphire optical fibers and sensors in reactor environments. The project, if successful, will result in improved instrumentation to understand the behavior and predict performance of nuclear fuel systems at the microstructural level. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Concrete Materials with Ultra-High Damage Resistance and Self-Sensing Capacity for Extended Nuclear Fuel Storage Systems | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | Researchers aim to design a new class of multifunctional concrete materials. This project, if successful, will result in a novel multifunctional concrete material that possesses inherent degradation monitoring capability and is suitable for an extended storage system for the used nuclear fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Probabilistic Multi-Hazard Assessment of Dry Cask Structures | University of Houston | $865,000 | This project aims to investigate the performance of dry cask storage systems under multiple hazard systems (earthquake, tornados, combined with aging effects) using a probabilistic multi-hazard framework. This framework will be validated based on experimental research and will provide improved models for safety and reliability of spent nuclear fuels during storage and transportation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Electrochemical Corrosion Studies for Modeling Metallic Waste Form Release Rates | University of Nevada- Las Vegas | $790,000 | This project aims to use advanced electrochemical methods to investigate the corrosion related degradation of metal alloys used for housing fission products. The data obtained from this study will allow for the prediction of the long-term behavior of the metallic host phase materials over geological time-scales. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Development and Experimental Benchmark of Simulations to Predict Used Nuclear Fuel Cladding Temperatures during Drying and Transfer Operations | University of Nevada- Reno | $745,000 | Researchers will conduct experiments to investigate and develop advanced computational models of heat transfer in post-pool-storage drying operations. This project, if successful, will result in tools that can be used to design efficient drying processes to as to ensure suitability for dry-cask systems for long-term storage and transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Seismic Performance of Dry Casks Storage for Long-Term Exposure | University of Utah | $873,319 | Researchers will evaluate the mechanical performance of dry-cask storage under seismic loading for mid-term operational periods. Simulations will include scenarios for freestanding, anchored, and vaulted casks. The experimental tests will also evaluate the dynamic seismic response of freestanding and anchored dry-cask storage prototypes, providing recommendations for optimal Interim Spent Fuel Storage Installations (ISFSIs) design. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Coupling of Nuclear Waste Form Corrosion and Radionuclide Transport in Presence of Relevant Repository Sediments | Washington State University | $885,000 | Researchers will conduct experiments to understand the mechanisms responsible for the corrosion of nuclear waste forms in realistic chemical environments. The data generated from these experiments will enable increased reliability of the models used to predict the waste form performance in repository environments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| ABR for TRU Transmutation with Breed & Burn Thorium Blanket for Improved Economics and Resource Utilization | University of California- Berkeley | $450,000 | The research team will use detailed neutronic analysis for a new Advanced Burner Reactor concept with low conversion ratio. The concept will use a new core shape to improve the utilization of neutrons to perform breed and burn. | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2012 |
| Atomic-Scale to Meso-Scale Simulation Studies of Thermal Ageing and Irradiation Effects in Fe-Cr Alloys | Boston University | $874,997 | Researchers will develop predictive, multi-scale simulation tools for iron-chromium alloys, which are expected to be key components of advanced steels envisioned as fuel cladding and structural components for Generation IV reactors. Such modeling is necessary to avoid resource intensive and costly thermal and neutron irradiation experiments to obtain required performance data. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Validation Data and Model Development for Fuel Assembly Response to Seismic Loads | George Washington University | $862,435 | Researchers will conduct experiments that will provide comprehensive data characterizing the dynamics of the fluid and the structure in Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR) fuel assemblies under seismic loads (earthquakes and loss of coolant accidents). Completion of their project will greatly benefit the safety of existing and future nuclear reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Uncertainty Quantification and Management for Multiscale Nuclear Materials Modeling | Georgia Institute of Technology | $743,444 | Researchers will address the question of uncertainty propogation and error estimates associated with model prediction of material behavior under irradiation. Their work will facilitate a better understanding of the connection of various unit processes to collective responses in a multiscale model chain enabling the development of high strength and high ductility materials. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Nonlinear Ultrasonic Techniques to Monitor Radiation Damage in RPV and Internal Components | Georgia Institute of Technology | $877,000 | Researchers will explore new nondestructive materials evaluation and monitoring techniques utilizing nonlinear ultrasonic measurements . This technique will allow researchers to assess remaining useful life of select reactor components. Breakthroughs in this area will lead to the ability to characterize radiation damage in reactor pressure vessels and other components-leading to a clearer definition of reactor safety margins. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Intergral Reactor Containment Condensation Model and Experimental Validation | Oregon State University | $871,119 | Researchers will conduct experiments to enhance the safety and efficiency of small modular reactors (SMRs). This project will assess the impact of high-pressure steam condensation on steel containment vessels to be used for SMR deigns. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Irradiation Performance of Fe-Cr Base Alloys | University of Illinois- Urbana Champaign | $876,332 | _Researchers will perform post-radiation analysis and develop tools for future development and application of the Fe-Cr class of alloys. The results of this research will lead to better modeling of performance and development of an alloy designated as the primary choice for reactor fuel cladding and structural applications in advanced systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Experimentally Validated Numerical Models for Effects of Non-Isothermal Turbulent Mixing on Wall Stresses in High Temperature Reactors | University of Pittsburgh | $876,422 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive experimentally validated computational framework for the turbulent mixing in the lower plenum of a very high temperature reactor (VHTR). Through CFD modeling and experimental validation, the results from this project will lay the groundwork for future stress analysis, failure and fatigue studies, and uncertainty quantification for the VHTR system. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Mechanical Behavior of UO2 at Sub-grain Length Scales: Quantification of Elastic, Plastic and Creep Properties via Microscale Testing | Arizona State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop techniques to measure properties at sub-grain scales using depleted Uranium Oxide samples. The project will provide a framework to measure sub-grain scale mechanical properties, as well as provide experimental data to improve the understanding of advanced oxide fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| The Impacts of Pore-Scale Physical and Chemical Heterogeneities on the Transport of Radionuclide-Carrying Colloids | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will identify the dominant transport mechanisms to develop models that predict radionuclide distribution in porous materials. Experimental and computational models will be created that couple pore-scale geometric and interfacial structures. Simulators such as these are a necessary step towards fully predictive models for field-scale applications in the future. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Polymer-Supported Aminophosphinates as Selective Extractants | Hunter College, CUNY | $399,999 | Researchers will prepare a polymer-supported extractant for the recovery of uranium from seawater. The project will focus on primary amines that could provide a 3-fold increase in uranium capture capacity than current methods. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| In-pile Thermal Conductivity Characterization with Single-laser Heating/Time Resolved Raman | Iowa State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a time-resolved Raman-based thermal conductivity measurement system to improve remote in-pile thermal conductivity measurement. These measurements will provide new insights into the behavior of materials exposed to extreme radiation and temperature environments. Understanding the behavior of materials at the microstructural level will support optimized fuel designs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Organic Speciation and Interactions in ALSEP - One Step Partitioning Process of Minor Actinides, Lanthanides, and Fission Products | Oregon State University | $600,000 | Researchers will investigate the Actinide-Lanthanide Separation (ALSEP) process organic phase prior to aqueous phase separation and after aqueous separation phases of bare and metal-loaded acids. Quantifying these effects can be used to determine how an engineering scale process will perform and generate an accurate chemical model for the system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Glass Composition and Solution Speciation Effects on Stage III Dissolution | Pennsylvania State University | $700,000 | Researchers will study the chemical and structural triggers of long-term vitrified nuclear waste form behavior. They will study a range of waste glass compositions in corrosive environments. The study will improve understanding of the long-term residual rate and may provide new options for environmental control of glass dissolution rates. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Correlating Thermal, Mechanical, and Electrical Coupling Based Multiphysics Behavior of Nuclear Materials Through In-Situ Measurements | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will use in-situ experimental techniques to monitor the influence of extreme conditions on fuel cladding. The project will establish an in-situ experimental setup that can predict change in thermal properties and their correlation with mechanical properties and correlate such changes to changes in microstructural and chemical features. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Creation of a Geant4 Muon Tomography Package for Imaging of Nuclear Fuel in Dry Cask Storage | Purdue University | $440,000 | Researchers will develop a simulation and analysis package to aid in the non-destructive assessment of sealed used nuclear fuel dry casks using cosmic ray muons. Cosmic ray muon tomography allows for non-destructive assessment that can independently verify and identify weapons grade material sealed within dense dry casks. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Fuel Cycle Data Packages for Two-stage Fast Reactor Fuel Cycle Options for Optimum Resource Utilization and Waste Management | Purdue University | $400,000 | Researchers will evaluate the two different two-stage fast reactor fuel cycle options that will offer efficient use of uranium resources and the ability to burn actinides and long-live fission products. Evaluation of these fast fuel cycle options will serve as a useful complement to the options currently being considered in the Fuel Cycle Options Campaign. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Mixed Metal Phosphonate-Phosphate Resins for Separation of Lanthanides from Actinides | Texas A&M University | $650,000 | Researchers will use ion exchangers to cleanly separate lanthanides and curium from reusable actinides. The study will assist in the development of an inexpensive, simple way in which to separate lanthanides from actinides found in used nuclear fuel rods and to recover a large portion of the usable fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Safeguards in Pyroprocessing: an Integrated Model Development and Measurement Data Analysis | The Ohio State University | $626,151 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive and effective safeguards approach for a pyroprocessing facility to support safeguards for future fuel cycles in the United States. The new approach and design will focus directly on the special nuclear materials in the electrorefiner where actinides are separated from fission products through electrochemical process. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Using Ionic Liquids for the Development of Renewable Biopolymer-Based Adsorbents for the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater and Testing Under Marine Conditions | University of Alabama | $400,000 | Researchers will explore the fundamental engineering parameters for a renewable high-performance adsorbent for the extraction of uranium from sweater based on a recently proven ionic liquid (IL)-chitin platform. The project will use the platform to develop a versatile, modifiable adsorbent and characterize its performance and degradation in marine conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Developing Ultra-Small Scale Mechanical Testing Methods and Microstructural Investigation Procedures for Irradiated Materials. | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop new small-scale mechanical testing techniques to allow for the estimation or direct measurement of bulk properties. The combined experiments and modeling will significantly enhance the statistics and information that can be obtained on small radioactive archived samples, as well as new ion beam irradiated specimens. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Improved Delayed-Neutron Spectroscopy Using Trapped Ions | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will develop innovative spectroscopy techniques to measure the decay of fission fragments. The resulting data from these new techniques will be used to better understand reactor kinetics under accident conditions and failure scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Thermally and Chemically Responsive Nanoporous Materials for Efficient Capture of Fission Product Gases | University of California, Davis | $750,000 | Researchers will create new nanoporous materials that will be highly effective at capturing fission product gases. These materials would be relevant to both reactor fuels applications and reprocessing operations. Tests will be performed in carbon based and nitride based nanostructures, with the most promising materials from the modeling perspective undergoing further testing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Multiphase Nanocrystalline Ceramic Concept for Nuclear Fuel | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | Researchers will study the use of nanoparticles and nanostructured ceramics to create new materials that can extend the service life and increase efficiency for nuclear fuel. Multiphase nanocrystalline ceramics will be used to design simulated nuclear fuel that can provide added plasticity, better radiation tolerance and improved thermal conductivity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Novel Porous Sorbents for Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Chicago | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a highly porous sorbent for the extraction of uranium from seawater. Previous research has established sorbent performance. This project will use past foundational studies to design and investigate a new nanocomposites that will be processed into tacks or braids for field tests in seawater tests. The technology may also be used for other metals. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Microwave Readout Techniques for Very Large Arrays of Nuclear Sensors | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,937 | Researchers will develop a powerful readout technique based on microwave transmission and reflection. The technique will enable very large arrays of diverse sensor types for nuclear materials quantification and tracking. It will provide more accurate data on material composition and quantity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| BiI3 Gamma-Ray Spectrometers for Reliable Room-Temperature Nuclear Materials Safeguarding | University of Florida | $799,999 | Researchers will develop gamma-ray spectrometers based on BiI3 single crystals for MPACT applications such as burnup validation quantification, improved assay of plutonium, determination of uranium enrichment and overall monitoring spent fuel within the fuel cycle. The project will improve energy resolution, efficiency and environmental performance with this new gamma-ray detector. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Innovative Coating of Nanostructured Vanadium Carbide on the F/M Cladding Tube Inner Surface for Mitigating the Fuel Cladding Chemical Interactions | University of Florida | $760,276 | Researchers will develop barrier coatings on the inner surface of fuel cladding tubes to improve performance of materials at elevated temperatures and high neutron exposures in fast reactors. The project will develop and test a low temperature coating process of nanostructured vanadium carbide that will provide a benchmark for use in future studies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Doubling the Life of Concrete Structures | University of Idaho | $800,000 | Researchers will use nanoscale techniques to develop methods for doubling the service life of concrete structures. They will study the effect of temperature load and temperature cycling (freezing and thawing) on the durability of concrete with nanoscale viscosity modifiers. The project will benefit from non-destructive evaluation of concrete performance through electrochemical techniques. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Off-Gas Treatment: Evaluation of Nano-structured Sorbents for Selective Removal of Contaminants | University of Idaho | $785,910 | Researchers will evaluate nanostructured sorbent materials for their effectiveness in removing and immobilizing radionuclides for the off-gas treatment from used nuclear fuel recycling operations. The project aims at achieving near-zero emissions of radionuclides by capturing them from the off-gas of recycling operations, allowing for the development of advanced fuel cycles. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium and Transition Metals from Amidoxime-Based Sorbents | University of Idaho | $399,864 | Researchers will develop a new two-step elution process to achieve total recovery of uranium and effective recycling of the sorbent. The extraction process would selectively remove uranium from the sorbent with little or no damage. The process would then remove transition metals and regenerate the sorbent for repeated use, making uranium extraction from seawater economically viable. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Performance of a Steel/Oxide Composite Waste Form for Combined Waste Streams from Advanced Electrochemical Processes over Geologic Time Scales | University of Illinois at Chicago | $700,000 | Researchers will develop and validate a mechanistically-based corrosion model for cermet-type waste forms, creating a testing protocol and modeling approach for predicting long-term performance. The study will apply novel electrochemical testing and modeling methods to the behavior of metal/oxide phase boundaries to evaluate waste form performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Enhancement of the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland, College Park | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and optimize novel adsorbents for uranium recovery from seawater. The team will use radiation-induced grafting of organic phosphates onto polymers. The experiments will use ocean water, with mechanistic analysis, to provide a solid basis for large-scale demonstration of the performance of the new adsorbents in ocean environments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Improving the Understanding of the Coupled Thermal-Mechanical-Hydrologic Behavior of Consolidating Granular Salt | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will increase the understanding of granular salt seal materials for shafts, drifts and boreholes. By coupling thermal, mechanical and hydrological responses, the study will result in greater confidence in granular salt consolidation as a principal strategy for closure and isolation of long-term waste repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Fission Fragment Yield Data in Support of Advanced Reactor Technology | University of New Mexico | $399,816 | Researchers will produce a highly accurate data set for thermal fission. These precision data are necessary for high-accuracy simulations of nuclear criticality, transmutation rates, radiation effects and heating as well as for nuclear fuel, material accounting and identification needs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Molecular dynamics-based simulations of bulk/interfacial structures and diffusion behaviors in nuclear waste glasses | University of North Texas | $700,000 | Researchers will generate accurate atomic structural models for use in Monte Carlo simulations of the dissolution of nuclear waste glasses. Large-scale molecular dynamics-based computer simulations will be used to investigate self-diffusion behaviors, interfacial structure, and other structures formed during dissolution of these glasses. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| U3Si2 Fabrication and Testing for Implementation into the BISON Fuel Performance Code | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will fabricate, test and model a high uranium density, advanced nuclear fuel that operates at a much lower temperature and stores less energy. The work will deliver key research data on creep and grain growth, improving economics, through possible power uprates, and advancing accident tolerant fuels research. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Structural Health Monitoring of Nuclear Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of South Carolina | $738,618 | Researchers will develop a nuclear structural health monitoring system based on a sensing technology that monitors material degradation and aging for dry cask storage systems. The low-cost, low-profile sensors will perform on-demand monitoring of the structural integrity of individual components as well as the entire system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| ORIGEN-based Nuclear Fuel Depletion Module for Fuel Cycle Assessment | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $755,181 | Researchers will develop a flexible reactor analysis module for the CYCLUS fuel cycle simulator based on established tools for reactor fuel depletion and decay. They will use ORIGEN, a mature and experimentally validated code, affording greater flexibility and allowing for accurate evaluations of impacts of both present and future fuel cycle options. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Cost and System Analysis of Innovative Fuel Resources Concepts | University of Texas at Austin | $295,960 | This project will develop and test braided polymer fiber adsorbents that surpass the sorption capacity, selectivity and durability of the best existing technology to recover uranium from seawater. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Risk Assessment of Structural Integrity of Transportation Casks | University of Utah | $789,296 | Researchers will assess the loss of structural integrity of transportation casks and fuel cladding after extended storage. This risk assessment will conduct experimental tests and simulations to evaluate the structural performance of fuel, fuel assemblies and cask components when subjected to vibration and impact loads during transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Market-Based and System-Wide Fuel Cycle Optimization | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $612,731 | Researchers will create market and economic optimizers to improve calculations for the CYCLUS fuel cycle simulator. The team will leverage existing optimization software frameworks within the simulator to resolve top level policy questions. The optimizations will allow CYCLUS to move beyond static material compositions, providing a holistic view of the fuel cycle system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Optical Fiber Based System for Multiple Thermophysical Properties for Glove Box, Hot Cell and In-Pile Applications | Utah State University | $799,975 | Researchers will use a small pressure vessel to develop a robust technique for the measurement of multiple thermophysical properties at very high temperatures. The technique will lead to a system design moving toward the eventual measurement of irradiated fuels in a glovebox and/or hot cell with all sensors and electronics outside of the glovebox and/or hot cell. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of a Nano-Modified Concrete for Next Generation of Storage Systems | Vanderbilt University | $796,268 | Researchers will use nano-sized and nano-structured particles based on enhanced reactivity to develop a superior concrete for the long-term storage of used nuclear fuel. The project will use state-of-the-art experimental chemical and mechanical characterizations and computation analysis to assess the performance of nano-modified concretes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Fuel Cycle Data Packages for Thorium Fuel Cycle Options | Vanderbilt University | $797,995 | Researchers will develop six fuel cycle data packages for multi-stage, thermal fuel cycles which incorporate thorium. These new fuel cycle data packages will provide the opportunity to examine fuel cycle options beyond those which have traditionally been considered. A thorium fuel cycle database will also be assembled as a basis for thorium literature for future evaluations of the thorium fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Enhanced Shielding Performance of HLW Storage Packages via Multi-Component Coatings | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $796,947 | Researchers will develop a multi-layer composite that will enhance long-term storage and facilitate safe transport of storage packages. This novel multi-layer, multi-component coating would create an outer shield material that is resistant to the corrosion, radiation, diffusion and thermal cycling processes that affect fuel packages during long term storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Managing Zirconium Chemistry and Phase Compatibility in Combined Process Separations for Minor Actinide Partitioning | Washington State University | $700,000 | Researchers will address unique challenges for combining TRUEX and TALSPEAK processes for partitioning of lanthanides and minor actinides. The project will develop improved information on the thermodynamics of fission product zirconium and develop a framework for an organic phase solvation model. Combined process development could streamline separations processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Advances in the Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Studies Under Real Ocean Conditions | Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution | $398,882 | Researchers will provide infrastructure and expertise for marine testing of currently available adsorbents in real ocean conditions. The team will move adsorbent research from the lab to field testing in order to quantify sorptive properties and uranium uptake. The project will provide valuable field data that will show the potential of large scale applications of these technologies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| NEUP Project 20-19172: Irradiation of Sensors and Adhesive Couplants for Application in LWR Primary Loop Piping and Components | $497,881 | Researchers paln to attach ultrasonic transducers to substrates using various adhesive couplants that will be irradiated at elevated temperature to simulate LWR primary loop conditions at the PULSTAR reactor at North Carolina State University. Ultrasonic data will be taken in-situ. Subsequently, the sensors and couplant interfaces will be characterized using the LAMDA facility at ORNL. The results will be used to benefit a parallel EPRI project on online monitoring of cracks in LWR primary loop piping. | Document | Joint R&D with NSUF Access | FY2013 | |
| Lower Length Scale Characterization and Validation of Formation and Stability of Helium Bubbles in Nano-structured Ferritic Alloys under Irradiation | Clemson University | $399,870 | Researchers will provide a fundamental knowledge about the formation and stability of ultra-fine helium bubbles within 14YWT after neutron/ion irradiation for further design of new advanced structural materials with a characteristic high density nanoparticles feature which can increase the mechanical strength, hardness, irradiation resistance and the operational temperature range of materials. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Three-Dimensional Fuel Pin Model Validation by Prediction of Hydrogen Distribution in Cladding and Comparison with Experiment | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers will validate important three-dimensional aspects of the fuel pin modeling by using specialized numerical modeling techniques coupled with laboratory experiments to validate existing models for predicting fuel performance in light water reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Collocation-Based Surrogate Models for Uncertainty Quantification and Validation of Coupled, Multiphysics Fuel Performance Simulation Tools | University of Michigan | $596,835 | Researchers will provide the necessary high fidelity, coupled, multiphysics fuel performance simulator for computational modeling and develop surrogates which will accelerate and focus the validation of the coupled codes. This will be achieved by utilizing the high fidelity coupled fuel performance, thermal-hydraulics and neutronics codes BISON/STAR-CCM+/MPACT and an innovative collocation-based surrogate methodology. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Multi-Resolution In-Situ Testing and Mutliscale Simulation for Creep Damage Fatigue Damage Analysis of Alloy 617 | Arizona State University | $800,000 | This project will develop novel testing and experimentally validated prediction methodologies for micro-structural damage mechanisms of structural materials for advanced reactor systems. The investigations will focus on the characterization and testing of specific metal alloys, but the proposed testing and life-prediction methodologies are applicable to other structural materials as well. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Novel High Temperature and Radiation Resistant Infrared Glasses and Optical Fibers for Sensing in Advanced Small Modular Reactors | Clemson University | $800,000 | Clemson University, in partnership with the Iowa State University and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, will develop novel optical materials with improved heat and radiation exposure resistance in order to enable in-vessel fiber optic sensing for advanced Small Modular Reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Validation Data Acquisition in HTTF during PCC Events | George Washington University | $800,000 | Researchers at the George Washington University and Oregon State University will collaborate with NASA Langley Research Center to measure flow velocities in a high temperature test facility. This work supports the development of very-high temperature reactors with passive safety systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced High Temperature Inspection Capabilities for Small Modular Reactors | Iowa State University | $790,822 | The objective of this project is to develop non-destructive evaluation techniques for advanced small modular reactors. The research will provide key enabling inspection technologies needed to support the design and the reactor component performance validation process for advanced small modular reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Experimental and Computational Investigations of Plenum-to-Plenum Heat Transfer under Natural Circulation in a Prismatic Very High Temperature Reactor | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,999 | Researchers will perform experimental and computational investigations to study heat transfer and natural circulation phenomena in very-high temperature reactors. The study will assist in the ability to predict and analyze passive safety systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| New Mechanistic Models of Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth Interactions for Advanced High Temperature Reactor Components | Oregon State University | $790,790 | Researchers will create and validate a robust, multi-scale, numerical model to predict material degradation in nickel-based reactor alloys. If successful, this project will provide better numerical tools for reactor designers and greatly improve their capability to design against material failures for reactor alloys in the long term. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Self-Powered Wireless Dual-mode Langasite Sensor for Pressure/Temperature Monitoring of Nuclear Reactors | State University of New York, Stony Brook | $800,000 | This research will develop a novel self-powered wireless hybrid sensor that can accurately monitor both pressure and temperature using a single device without requiring external electricity, even in extreme harsh environments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Compact Heat Exchanger Design and Testing for Advanced Nuclear Reactors and Advanced Power Cycles | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to investigate optimal heat exchanger designs for advanced reactors. The research will study the optimization of printed circuit heat exchangers for specific fluids under a variety of conditions as well as perform numerical modeling. Experiments will focus on thermal performance and heat stress during extreme conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Fundamental Understanding of Creep-Fatigue Interactions in 9Cr-1MoV Steel Welds | The Ohio State University | $798,000 | This project will advance the state of knowledge and fundamental understanding of deforming materials and welds under loading conditions. Specifically, new integrated testing procedures will be evaluated and applied for conditions that are most detrimental to material stability leading to improved predictions of life expectancy for reactor steels and welds. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced Mechanistic 3D Spatial Modeling and Analysis Methods to Accurately Represent Nuclear Facility External Event Scenarios | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop three-dimensional characterization uncertainty analysis for commercial power plants. The project will involve combining experts from the fields of seismic structural modeling and advanced methods of risk assessment. This effort is expected to result in next generation tools that can be used for assessment of seismic risks. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Tritium Mitigation/Control for Advanced Reactor Systems | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a fluoride salt cooled high-temperature reactor featuring a specialized system to control tritium production. If successful, this will result in a significant reduction in size and cost in comparison to other reactor designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| A Pebble-Bed Breed and Burn Reactor | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will assess the feasibility of designing a type of metal cooled reactor able to establish and maintain operation when fueled with depleted uranium. If successful, this reactor will offer at least a 30-fold increase in the uranium ore utilization versus that achieved in contemporary light water reactors without the need for fuel reprocessing and recycling. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Investigation of Thermal Aging Effects on the Evolution of Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Cast Duplex Stainless Steels | University of Maryland, College Park | $799,966 | This research will provide a better understanding of the microstructural evolution and simultaneous change in mechanical response during aging. The results of the research will provide data that can be used to estimate degraded mechanical properties for an 80-year service life of light water reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Model validation using CFD-grade experimental database for NGNP Reactor Cavity Cooling Systems with water and air | University of Michigan | $799,348 | Researchers will use advanced innovative instrumentation to build a high-resolution experimental database and to use the novel experimental data to assess and further develop the predictive capabilities of computer codes for thermal hydraulics and computational fluid dynamics. The improved models developed by this project will also have the direct benefit of improving the predictive capability of the passive systems of third generation light water reactors and small modular reactor systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Long-Term Prediction of Emissivity of Structural Material for High Temperature Reactor Systems | University of Missouri | $799,117 | Researchers will study specific types of emissivity driven cooling from a variety of materials that are relevant to nuclear reactors. The research will provide a basis for numerical modeling to support reactor development. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced I&C for Fault-Tolerant Supervisory Control of Small Modular Reactors | University of Pittsburgh | $800,000 | The purpose of this research is to develop advanced instrumentation and control techniques for supervisory control of advanced small modular reactors. This research supports the operational goals of small modular reactor concepts through the development of improved oversight and surveillance techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Corrosion of Structural Materials for Advanced Supercritical Carbon-Dioxide Brayton Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $798,672 | Researchers will study a variety of materials for corrosion resistance under conditions that improve power conversion. In addition to studying the corrosion resistance of the materials, researchers will study the effect of additives to mitigate corrosion. Development of corrosion theories and modeling aimed at prediction of long-term corrosion will be the underlying theme throughout the project. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Component and Technology Development for Advanced Liquid Metal Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $798,920 | In support of liquid metal cooled reactors, the University of Wisconsin, Madison will evaluate advanced alloys and ceramics that come in contact with liquid metals. Additionally, a robust oxygen sensor and for use in liquid metals will be developed in order to better evaluate corrosion profiles in support of diagnostic testing. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| A New Paradigm for Understanding Multi-phase Ceramic Waste Form Performance | Clemson University | $800,000 | Researchers will use advanced characterization tools to develop 3-D microstructural data that can be incorporated into computer-based simulations in order to predict the performance of waste forms. Materials system modeling will incorporate elemental release and the interconnected microstructural network of phases to better understand performance and degradation, which will accelerate waste form acceptance in repository settings. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Controlling Hexavalent Americium: A Centerpiece to a Compact Nuclear Fuel Cycle | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and exploit the fundamental chemistry of Americium to enable an industrially viable means to co-recover the major and minor actinide elements from used nuclear fuel. The results would be a significant step forward in the development of aqueous separations approaches designed to recover the U-Am actinides based on the availability of the hexavalent oxidation state. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Zeolite Membranes for Krypton/Xenon Separation from Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Off-Gas | Georgia Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a high-performance, lower-cost zeolitic membrane process for Kr/Xe separations during spent nuclear fuel processing. Current separation methods are not considered economical and a membrane process would have relatively lower cost, equipment size, and ambient operating temperature. The process would form a sound basis for further development of this transformative separation technology for the nuclear fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Optimizing Polymer-Grafted Amidoxime-based Adsorbents for Uranium Uptake from Seawater | Georgia Institute of Technology | $399,999 | Researchers will work to increase the adsorbent capacity and selectivity toward uranium by optimizing the adsorbent morphology, synthesis variables, and conditioning parameters and by investigating the rate-limiting variables through transport and reaction modeling. A novel adsorption/partition concept that has the potential to substantially increase the adsorbent capacity will be tested, making uranium from seawater extraction more economically viable. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Extraction of Uranium from Seawater: Design and Testing of a Symbiotic System | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a seawater uranium extraction system that will work symbiotically with an offshore windmill by utilizing the structure, mooring and power of the windmill, while increasing the energy harvested by the installation. Uranium will be extracted by an adsorbent polymer belt, which will be cycled through the seawater and an elution plant located at the base of the windmill tower. Increasing the frequency of harvesting could overcome current economic barriers to seawater uranium extraction. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Imaging a Dry Storage Cask with Cosmic Ray Muons | Oregon State University | $799,871 | Researchers will develop an imaging system to monitor the content of a dry storage cask with cosmic ray muons. A very large amount of plutonium under nuclear safeguards is contained in used fuel assemblies stored in dry storage casks. Muon imaging will allow a cost effective and reliable way to evaluate dry storage cask content and integrity before transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Apatite and sodalite based glass-bonded waste forms for immobilization of 129I and mixed halide radioactive wastes | Rutgers University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop advanced and chemically durable waste forms for immobilizing 129I (aqueous based reprocessing of fuel) and mixed-halide wastes (molten-salt processing of fuel) by low temperature synthesis. Halide-containing sodalite and calcium phosphate-based apatite minerals will be synthesized, consolidated and tested for chemical durability. The project will provide needed baseline data for the development of advanced waste forms for immobilization of iodine and mixed-halide wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Sorption Modeling and Verification for Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $350,000 | Researchers will develop modeling tools supported by experiments for off-gas capture from future nuclear-fuel recycling facilities. Target species include tritium, iodine, krypton, and xenon. The models are intended to provide path forward recommendations to develop off-gas treatment adsorption processes. The project will contribute to the evaluation of options for environmentally acceptable recycle systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development of high performance ODS alloys | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will study swelling, radiation hardening and changes in mechanical properties of ODS alloys to develop two sets of advanced ODS alloys. Two sets of first-round candidate alloys that have already undergone extensive development and testing will evaluate irradiation performance. The study will meet the need for high strength, radiation-tolerant cladding and core components that have enhanced resistance to void swelling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Rare Earth Electrochemical Property Measurements and Phase Diagram Development in a Complex Molten Salt Mixture for Molten Salt Recycle | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate rare earth (RE) properties in complex molten salt mixtures. In a molten salt recycle approach, the RE drawdown by electrolysis is a key step in which REs are separated from salt containing other fission products. Investigation of RE electrolysis must consider the electrochemical properties of the REs. We propose to conduct studies of detailed experiments and corresponding models to provide the physical properties and phase diagrams required to predict the performance of RE drawdown for processing complex molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Computational and Experimental Studies of Microstructure-Scale Porosity in Metallic Fuels for Improved Gas Swelling Behavior | University of Arkansas | $796,823 | Researchers will study the microstructure of metallic uranium alloy fuels, and their resistance to densification, to minimize in-pile irradiation swelling through bimodal pore size distribution. The project will develop a predictive approach to design metallic fuel microstructures for optimal swelling resistance and fission gas retention. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Improved Hybrid Modeling of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of California, Berkeley | $645,393 | Researchers will develop a variance reduction method for computational transport that will improve the ability to design and operate monitoring systems for interim used fuel installations through enhanced modeling and simulation. This new tool will demonstrate that modeling calculations can be done more accurately in less time than with current tools and will perform studies characterizing how changes in material, cask configurations, and number of casks could impact monitoring systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Selective ligands for uranyl via combinatorial peptoid libraries: A synthetic, structural, thermodynamic and computational study | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will study how donor ligands bind to the uranyl ion, UO22+, with the longer-term goal of using this information to tackle selective recognition of uranyl in aqueous solution. The study will impact underlying approaches to controlling the behavior of uranium in these systems. The actinide separation technology could be used in several areas including uranium extraction from seawater, nuclear waste remediation and nuclear materials. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Combining Experiments and Simulations of Extraction Kinetics and Thermodynamics in Advanced Separation Processes for Used Nuclear Fuel | University of California, Irvine | $799,938 | Researchers will study how the kinetics and thermodynamics of metal ion extraction in advanced separation processes for used nuclear fuel can be described by molecular dynamic (MD) simulations and how the simulations can be validated by experimental data. The project would have broad impacts on several separations processes including advanced TALSPEAK, ALSEP and GANEX by increasing the confidence and accuracy of computer modeling of metal ion extraction. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Effect of Metallic Li on the Behavior of Metals in Molten Salts | University of Nevada, Reno | $458,250 | Researchers will identify the effect of metallic lithium on materials that are used in molten salt recycling. The study will try to understand how the presence of Li(0) in molten salts affects the degradation of alloys. Studying these changes will help accurately predict container material behavior and longevity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Assessment of Corrosion Resistance of Promising Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding under Reactor Conditions | University of Notre Dame | $800,000 | Researchers will assess the corrosion behavior of accident tolerant fuel candidate iron-based alloys under normal LWR operating conditions consisting of high temperature, relevant water chemistry and irradiation. The assessment will produce data about possible irradiation-accelerated corrosion rates of iron-based alloys, and the mechanisms by which such corrosion rates are accelerated. The project will advance the selection of appropriate replacements for Zircaloy cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Enhanced Accident-Tolerant Fuel Performance and Reliability for Aggressive iPWR/SMR Operation | University of Tennessee | $799,967 | To develop a process that evaluates operational and safety performance of reactor-and-fuel combinations by integrating whole-core 3D neutronics with MOOSE/BISON fuel performance assessments via explicit time and space dependent fuel rod operational power histories. The project will be valuable in analyzing and evaluating accident tolerant fuel concepts and furthering the understanding of reactor physics and fuel performance aspects of key accident tolerant fuel concepts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Nuclear Technology R&D Strategies in an Era of Energy Price Uncertainty | University of Texas, Austin | $799,112 | Researchers will identify nuclear technology options that are competitive over a wide range of plausible future business environments. No single nuclear technology or business practice will be the best choice across all or even most future conditions. The study will focus on hybrid nuclear-fossil technologies, energy storage and conversion, which will result in an identification of nuclear strategies that can succeed under future market conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development and Optimization of Voltammetric Methods for Real Time Analysis of Electrorefiner Salt with High Concentrations of Actinides and Fission Products | University of Utah | $621,612 | Researchers will develop an advanced voltammetry method to pursue the objective of real time monitoring of actinide concentrations in electrorefiner salt. This will include experimental measurement of key parameters such as activity coefficients and exchange current density. It will also involve simulation of voltammetry processes based on first principles. The project will allow for real time measurements that could support the commercialization of pyroprocessing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development of Self-Healing Zirconium-Silicide Coatings for Improved Performance of Zirconium-Alloy Fuel Cladding | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $798,621 | Researchers will study the deposition of self-healing zirconium-silicide coatings on zirconium-alloy fuel cladding material to improve corrosion resistance under normal and accident conditions. Under these conditions, Zr-Si coating evolves into a highly protective functionally-graded multilayered system. The study will lead to improved performance of zirconium-alloy fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Thermal Conductivity in Metallic Fuels | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,837 | Researchers will calculate the thermal conductivity of metallic uranium and neptunium alloys, including the effects of noble gasses, using density functional theory. The experiments will validate the calculated effective thermal conductivity using the MARMOT code and by helping determine DFT simulation parameters. The study works to improve fuel lifetime by understanding its thermal behavior. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| SiC-ODS Alloy Gradient Nanocomposites as Novel Cladding Materials | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,998 | Researchers will combine nuclear nanomaterial design, processing, testing, and characterization efforts to develop revolutionary materials that can withstand neutron irradiation for long period of time using nanostructured SiC and oxide dispersion strengthened steel. The ultimate objective is to offer new cladding materials with increased corrosion resistance, strength, and creep resistance in both steady state and accident conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Experimental Breeder Reactor II Benchmark Evaluation | Idaho State University | $400,000 | _Researchers will develop a benchmark evaluation of the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II). During nearly 30 years of operation numerous experiments were conducted at EBR-II. The most significant of these experiments were conducted in 1986 demonstrating inherent safety features in loss of flow without reactor scram and loss of heat sink without reactor scram. Benchmark evaluation will be valuable for the reactor design efforts in the United States and South Korea. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| Integral full core multi-physics PWR benchmark with measured data | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | _Researchers will introduce BEAVRS, a new multi-cycle full-core Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) depletion benchmark based on two operational cycles of a commercial nuclear power plant. This project aims at addressing the uncertainty quantification of the measured data and on making this benchmark a true non-proprietary international benchmark for the validation of high-fidelity multi-physics computational tools. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| Benchmark Evaluation of PROTEUS Gas-Cooled Reactor Experiments | University of Florida | $400,000 | _Researchers will create International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) benchmarks using data from 1970s experiments of the neutronics of gas-cooled fast reactor (GCFR) designs investigated in the PROTEUS reactor. The GCFR-PROTEUS experiments fill a gap in current integral benchmark data. These experiments can provide validation of computational models and nuclear data for next generation reactors. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| An Investigation To Establish Multiphysical Property Dataset Of Nuclear Materials Based On In-Situ Observations And Measurements | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will create an in-situ measurement based experimental approach to develop experimental validation dataset for NEAMS based code validation. Particular emphasis is on supplying data set for multiphysics simulations in extreme conditions as a function of material microstructure. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| Experimental Validation of UO2 Microstructural Evolutions for NEAMS tool MARMOT | University of Florida | $798,000 | _Researchers will experimentally validate MARMOT for predicting the microstructural evolutions of UO2 oxide fuel under the driving forces of high temperatures and large temperature gradient in reactors. By performing the experiments and simulations simultaneously using precisely defined initial conditions, the experiment data will provide direct benchmarking of the MARMOT code. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| High-resolution time-resolved experiments on mixing and entrainment of buoyant jets in stratified environments | University of Michigan | $799,983 | _Researchers will study high spatial and time-resolution experimental data of the fluid dynamics phenomena of flow jets interacting with a stratified layer. The issue plays an important role in the safety of several reactor designs, including sodium-cooled reactors. The data addresses the NEAMS needs for the validation of high fidelity computational fluid dynamics methodologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| Fundamental study of key issues related to advanced S-CO2 Brayton Cycle: prototypic HX development and Cavitation | Georgia Institute of Technology | $799,000 | _Researchers will study scientific and operational issues pertinent to compact heat exchanger systems and turbo-machinery. The project will work to resolve issues with the fabrication of diffusion bonded compact heat exchangers, alternate heat exchange technology for recuperators, and resolution of issues with cavitation and fluid instabilities. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Advanced Models for Nondestructive Evaluation of Aging Nuclear Power Plant Cables | Iowa State University | $787,291 | _Researchers will develop advanced models that relate environmentally induced microstructural and chemical changes in cable insulation polymers to their macroscopic electrical parameters. These parameters will be measured and modeled over a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum, covering several potential nondestructive evaluation techniques, enabling identification of the most sensitive techniques for future development. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Development of Novel Functionally Graded Transition Joints for Improving the Creep Strength of Dissimilar Metal Welds in Nuclear Applications | Lehigh University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop graded transition joints and improved creep life models for increasing the life of dissimilar metal welds (DMWs) in nuclear reactors. The research represents the first application of functionally graded material concepts for solving the problem of DMW failures through an integrated approach of additive manufacturing, modeling, microstructural characterization, and advanced strain-sensing techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Feasibility Assessment of a Micro Modular Reactor (MMR) | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | _Researchers will develop an innovative compact reactor concept that integrates power production, power conversion and electricity generation in a single unit: the Micro Modular Reactor (MMR). It is designed to be absolutely melt-down proof (MDP) under all circumstances including complete loss of coolant scenarios with no possible release of radioactive material, to have a cycle length of greater than 10 years, and to be highly proliferation resistant. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Scaling Studies for Advanced Gas Reactor Concepts | Oregon State University | $681,834 | _Researchers will expand the utilization of the Oregon State University High Temperature Test Facility (HTTF) to validate a broader range of advanced high temperature reactors and events. The facility will be revised to add a detailed scaling analysis of additional gas reactor concepts including advanced gas-cooled, molten salt, and sodium cooled reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Fluid Stratification Separate Effects Analysis, Testing and Benchmarking | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will study fluid stratification in high temperature gas reactors. Coolant stratification is the result of incomplete mixing of one or more fluids, leading to a density gradient, which may or may not dissipate under diffusive or convective effects. This combined analytical and experimental project seeks to investigate stratification driven by diffusive and convective mechanisms and is expected to yield insight into this phenomenon. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Probabilistic Economic Valuation of Safety Margin Management Analysis | Oregon State University | $795,364 | _Researchers will use RAVEN and develop a companion software package to facilitate economic analysis of safety margins. The project is a proof of concept that will use techniques to examine the cost of improving safety margins vs. the risk of accidents from not improving safety margins. This analysis can be used to evaluate the economic viability of various plant upgrades. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Novel Dissimilar Joints Between Alloy 800H and 2.25%Cr and 1%Mo Steel | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will fabricate and test dissimilar metal joints between a nickel base alloy and a steel with gradual variations of chemical composition, microstructure and properties in a manner that reduces abrupt thermal expansion mismatch and the resulting residual stresses. Data on structure and properties will serve as valuable inputs for the initiation of an ASME code case. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Multi-Phase Model Development to Assess RCIC System Capabilities under Severe Accident Conditions | Texas A&M University | $564,246 | _Researchers will develop physics-based models of the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) System and incorporating them into a multi-phase code for validation. The project will tackle the current major challenges in RCIC System analysis and enable evaluation of two-phase thermodynamic aspects. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Experimental Investigation and CFD Analysis of Steam Ingress Accidents in HTGRs | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will study the steam ingress scenario for HTGRs. The study will investigate thermal-hydraulic behavior and graphite oxidation of stream ingress phenomena to validate predictive CFD models. This work will resolve concerns about possible steam generator tube ruptures in a HTGR He-Steam Rankine cycle. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Coiled Tube Gas Heaters For Nuclear Gas-Brayton Power Conversion | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop heat exchangers for Brayton-cycle power conversion in reactors using sodium, NaK, or salt as intermediate coolants. The proposed coiled tube gas heaters (CTGHs) are expected to have excellent power density, thermal shock/creep, in-service inspection, and reparability characteristics. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Fundamental Studies of Irradiation-Induced Modifications in Microstructural Evolution and Mechanical Properties of Advanced Alloys | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop and test a mechanism for predicting neutron irradiation performance for optimized Grade 92 and Alloy 709 for applications in advanced reactor systems. The work will employ ion irradiations and available information from neutron irradiations of related alloys to develop a basis for predicting the neutron irradiation performance of the optimized alloys. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Integrated Computational and Experimental Study of Radiation Damage Effects in Grade 92 Steel and Alloy 709 | University of Tennessee | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop a mechanistic understanding and predictive models of irradiation-induced microstructural evolution and resulting mechanical properties in optimized ferritic-martensitic Grade 92 steel and austenitic alloy 709 using multiscale simulations coupled with rigorous experimental validation. The project will provide insights into the correlation between ion irradiation and fast neutron damage. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Meta-Level Design Guidance and Operator Performance Measures for Hybrid Control Rooms | Vanderbilt University | $799,869 | _Researchers will apply human factors engineering methods and relevant expertise from non-nuclear high-risk high-consequence domains toward the measurement of operator performance in analog, digital, and hybrid main control rooms. Performance measures will be developed for evaluating the situation awareness and decision-making proficiencies to support the transition to digital or hybrid control room displays. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| NEUP Project 15-8514: Elucidation of the kinetics of Advanced Separation systems | California State University, Long Beach | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a fundamental understanding of the chemical kinetics relevant to separation processes by measuring ligand complexation rate constants for both lanthanides and actinides in the aqueous and organic phases. These experiments will provide essential kinetic and mechanistic information required for developing a simplified, single-step recovery of transuranic elements. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8119: Kr/Xe separation over Metal Organic Framework Membranes | Colorado School of Mines | $375,000 | Researchers will develop metal organic framework (MOF) membranes that will be capable of effectively separating Kr from Xe with high flux and selectivity. This project may result in the development of membranes that will constitute a viable energy saving approach for the effective removal of Kr during the processing of used nuclear fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8347: Multilayer Composite Fuel Cladding for LWR Performance Enhancement and Severe Accident Tolerance | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop, manufacture, and weld a new multimetallic layered composite (MMLC) for enhanced severe accident tolerance and manufacturability in LWRs. Layers of stainless steel (facing the coolant) and Zircaloy (facing the fuel) will be separated by barrier layers of Cr and Nb. Severe accident testing in 1200C steam, LWR autoclave testing, and ion irradiation studies will demonstrate the MMLC's microstructural stability. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8112: Phase Separation and Crystallization of Complex Borosilicate Melts for Glass-Ceramic Waste Forms | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,806 | Researchers will study the mechanisms for microstructural development and properties of multi-phase, glass-ceramic materials that form when waste-loaded borosilicate glasses are cooled from above their liquidus or consolute temperatures through the glass transition temperature. The project will apply these tools to modified compositions to maximize the formation of the desirable crystalline phases. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8265: Electrically-Assisted Tubing Processes for Enhancing Manufacturability of Oxide Dispersion Strengthened Structural Materials for Nuclear Reactor Applications | Northwestern University | $800,000 | Researchers will enhance the formability of nanostructured ferritic alloys (NFAs) such that high-strength thin-walled claddings can be manufactured successfully and economically to be used in future reactors. The project will study the effects of continuous and pulsed electric currents on the deformation behavior of Fe-14Cr based NFA steel. The findings will be used to establish innovative fabrication processes including electrically-assisted extrusion and rolling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8126: Fundamental Electrochemical Properties of Liquid Metals in LiCl-KCl for Separation of Alkali/Alkaline-Earths (Cs, Sr and Ba) | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate the fundamental properties of novel liquid metal electrodes for separation of alkali/alkaline-earth fission products in LiCl-KCl electrolyte. The project will further the development of pyroprocessing by maximizing salt recycle and providing a method for recovery of alkali/alkaline-earth fission products as oxides (as opposed to chlorides) which will allow them to be encapsulated in a more conventional glass wasteform. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8074: Monitoring of Actinide Concentrations in Molten LiCl-KCl Salt using Alpha Spectroscopy | The Ohio State University | $799,969 | Researchers will develop a novel in-salt sensor that uses electrochemistry to pre-concentrate the actinides onto the sensor to measure the actinides concentration in a high temperature and high radiation field represented by a molten salt environment. The ability to monitor actinides to prevent misuse is critical to enhancing the control of nuclear materials. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8717: Understanding the Interactions of Seawater Ions with Amidoxime through X-Ray Crystallography | University of Alabama | $553,971 | _Researchers will investigate the fundamental interactions of the amidoxime (R-C(NH2)=NOH) functional group with metal ions found in seawater using a combined approach of single crystal X-ray diffraction and spectroscopy to understand the origin of the selectivity of amidoxime resins for uranyl ([UO2]2+] ions and establish structural benchmarks for interpretation of spectroscopic studies on actual sorbents to aid in identifying specific sorbent-metal interactions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8439: Developing a macro-scale SiC-cladding behavior model based on localized mechanical and thermal property evaluation on pre- and post-irradiation SiC-SiC composites | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a fundamental understanding of the macroscopic behavior of SiC-SiC composite structures before and after irradiation based on the microscopic property changes of each individual component (SiC matrix, fiber and interface). SiC-SiC composites will be tested in the as-fabricated condition, after being subjected to neutron and ion irradiation, micro-cracking, and oxidation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8536: Quantitative Prediction of Uranium Speciation and Amidoxime Binding in Seawater from Advanced Simulation Techniques | University of California, Riverside | $450,000 | Researchers will quantitatively predict stability of uranium species and thermochemistry (free energy, entropy, and enthalpy) of uranium binding with amidoxime ligands in seawater conditions. To achieve the goal, advanced simulation techniques including all-atom molecular dynamics, free-energy calculations, and the hybrid quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical approach will be employed to explicitly include water molecules and common seawater ions in the simulation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8286: Used Fuel Storage Monitoring Using Helium-4 Scintillation Fast Neutron Detectors and Neutron Spectral Analysis | University of Florida | $799,765 | Researchers will build and demonstrate a prototype detector device capable of unambiguously verifying the declared content of dry casks in a non-intrusive manner for the safeguarding and monitoring of used fuel storage installations. This will be achieved through a neutron spectroscopy and imaging system using high-efficiency Helium-4 (4He) gas scintillation fast neutron detectors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8663: Enhancement of the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland, College Park | $600,000 | Researchers will produce efficient adsorbents of uranium from seawater in seeking to optimize the functional ligands, the polymeric substrates, the grafting conditions and the adsorption/desorption durations based on sound chemical understanding. The result will be adsorbents that can be used through multiple cycles of uranium adsorption without significant degradation of the adsorbents capacity and selectivity for uranium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8111: Purification of Zirconium cladding using a chloride volatility process | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $798,877 | _Researchers will investigate the thermochemistry of used fuel Zr cladding components chlorides as well as their activation products and residual radionuclide metal chlorides to provide fundamental data that will support the development of a chlorination process for the purification of ZrCl4. Understanding the chemistry of these chloride species will provide process development guidance for the purification of Zr cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8323: Purification of Zirconium Tetrachloride from UNF Cladding | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $793,121 | _Researchers will develop and demonstrate a process to purify zirconium tetrachloride obtained from the direct chlorination of used Zircaloy cladding materials from used nuclear fuel rod assemblies. This study will increase understanding of purification protocols that will allow zirconium chloride to be recycled further. Increased recycling capability would significantly reduce the amount of high level waste associated with light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8752: Radiation Effects on High Thermal Conductivity Fuels | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $400,000 | _Researchers will use scoping ion and neutron irradiations to explore the structural stability and thermal conductivity of model high thermal conductivity fuels consisting of CeO2 and either Al2O3 (BeO surrogate) or SiC. Issues associated with thermal conductivity degradation (including micro cracking effects) and general phase stability of fuel systems will be examined. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8243: Radiation-induced swelling and microcracking in SiC cladding for LWRs | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $797,889 | _Researchers will use state of the art experimental characterization techniques and multi-scale methodology (developed within the MOOSE-MARMOT-BISON framework) to provide scientific basis for predictions of swelling and microcracking in SiC cladding as a function of temperature and irradiation histories. Predicting swelling and microcracking will further the potential for accident tolerant SiC cladding to be used in light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8081: Understanding influence of thermal history and glass chemistry on kinetics of phase separation and crystallization in borosilicate glass-ceramic waste forms for aqueous reprocessed high level waste | Washington State University | $799,911 | _Researchers will develop a fundamental and transformative understanding of the crystallization mechanisms in complex glass-ceramic high level waste (HLW) wasteforms,. This understanding will underpin the maturation of glass ceramic manufacture, by linking process variables to molecular scale mechanisms, enabling reliable production of wasteforms to the desired specification. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8210: A Transient Reactor Physics Experiment with High-Fidelity, 3-D Flux Measurements for Validation and Verification | Kansas State University | $799,198 | _Researchers will instrument the University of Wisconsin Nuclear Reactor with micro-pocket fission detectors (MPFDs) to measure 3-D flux distributions. The measurements will be compared to simulation using PROTEUS from the NEAMS toolkit. MPFDs are small, which leads to low gamma-ray sensitivity and small flux perturbations. A 3-D array of MPFDs and standard reactor instrumentation will be used to capture highly-resolved flux and temperature distributions for several steady-state and transient conditions. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8101: Development of Critical Experiments to Provide Validation Data for Multiphysics Coupling Methods | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $799,993 | Researchers will develop a set of benchmark validation experiments for multiphysics coupling by exploiting the inherent flexibility of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Reactor Critical Facility (RCF). This project will use targeted experiments to validate the coupling between neutronics, thermal hydraulics, and structural mechanics routines present in the NEAMS Reactor Product Line toolkit._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8229: Thermal Transport and Fracture Behavior of Sintered Fuel Pellets: Experimental Validation of NEAMS Tool MARMOT | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | _Researchers will perform experimental validation of the NEAMS tool MARMOT for predicting thermal transport and fuel fracture. By performing extensive thermal transport and fracture experiments on well-controlled microstructures of sintered UO2, the impact of microstructure on thermo-mechanical properties of sintered UO2 and mechanistic understanding will be achieved. The high quality experimental data will directly benchmark the MARMOT code by evaluating the thermal transport and fracture models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8208: Development of a Novel Accelerator for Neutron Transport Solution Using the Galerkin Spectral Element Methods | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $626,176 | _Researchers will develop a novel accelerator for neutron transport calculations based on the spectral element methods, continuous Galerkin (CG) and discontinuous Galerkin (DG) approximations. The CG and DG methods will be used to solve the multi-group neutron diffusion equation on the coarse-mesh structure (e.g., pin-size up to assembly-size), which is then coupled with the high-order neutron transport solution to speed up the neutron transport computation. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8338: Methodology Development for Cybersecurity Robustness and Vulnerability Assessment of University Research Reactors: A Case Study Using the PULSTAR Reactor | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop a methodology for assessing the cybersecurity robustness and vulnerability of university research reactors using an actual university reactor as a test case. While the developed methodology will be specifically tested and applied using this reactor, it will be formulated as a general blueprint and used as the starting point for the assessment of university research reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cyber Security R&D | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8121: Automatic Imagery Data Analysis for Proactive Computer-Based Workflow Management during Nuclear Power Plant Outages | Arizona State University | $799,738 | _Researchers will test the hypothesis that real-time imagery-based object tracking and spatial analysis, as well as human behavior modeling will significantly improve efficiency of outage control while lowering the rates of accidents and incidents. The project will examine computer vision methods and human behavior models for developing a proactive workflow management tool and integrate it into Computer-Based Procedures for supporting an Advanced Outage Control Center. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8308: Creep and creep-fatigue crack growth mechanisms in Alloy 709 | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _A joint US/UK team will study the crack growth mechanism and failure analysis of alloy 709 under creep and creep-fatigue conditions. The study will be done through in situ heating and loading during SEM observation to evaluate the crack growth under plane stress condition and traditional methods to study the crack growth under plane strain condition. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8582: Mechanistic and Validated Creep/Fatigue Predictions for Alloy 709 from Accelerated Experiments and Simulations | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will use mechanistic methods for predicting creep and creep-fatigue deformation rates/strains based on accelerated in-situ and ex-situ tests, and mesoscale dislocation dynamics simulations for Alloy 709. This research will support its qualification in the ASME code for use in advanced nuclear reactor applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8495: Advancement of Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Technology through Round Robin Testing and Fundamental Modeling | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will conduct a round robin test plan for S-CO2 corrosion testing across multiple institutions and the organization of a S-CO2 Materials Group to guide future materials testing directions. Furthermore, this proposal outlines identical tests in supercritical water, testing model alloys with various composition and environmental conditions, accompanied by modeling efforts to study rate controlling mechanisms of corrosion. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8489: Modeling and Validation of Irradiation Damage in Ni-based Alloys for Long-Term LWR Applications | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _A joint US/UK team will study thermal and irradiation-induced transformations mechanisms of Alloys 690 and 625 in order to extend Grizzly to include capabilities for modeling Ni-based alloys. The project will develop modeling tools for materials degradation in light water reactors, allowing for component replacement data and continued safe operation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-7983: Development of Steady-State Thermal-Hydraulic Analysis and Bowing Reactivity Evaluation Methods Based on Neutron and Gamma Transport Calculations | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop steady-state thermal-hydraulic analysis and assembly bowing reactivity evaluation methods based on the latest transport calculation capabilities in order to overcome the limitations and improve the accuracy of current design analysis methods. The outcome of the effort will be computer programs to calculate the steady-state heat source distributions in fuel pins and assembly duct walls and to calculate the reactivity worth of assembly displacements. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8627: Experimental Validation Data and Computational Models for Turbulent Mixing of Bypass and Coolant Jet Flows in Gas-Cooled Reactors | Texas A&M University | $799,613 | _Researchers will establish reliable models of the thermal-hydraulics in Gas-Cooled Reactors with experimental and computational efforts. Specifically, this work will focus on providing the relationship between fluctuating velocities and temperatures in the lower plenum and their dependency on the turbulent upstream mixing in the core and collection chambers leading up to the lower plenum. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8251: Enhanced Performance Fast Reactors with Engineered Passive Safety System | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | _Researchers will study the feasibility of improving the passive safety and economics of sodium cooled fast reactors (SFR) by incorporating within their fuel assemblies a novel Autonomous Reactivity Control (ARC) system. It is expected that the ARC systems will enable to design even low leakage SFR cores, such as breed-and-burn cores, to be passively safe and to improve the neutron economy and economic viability of more conventional SFR. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8258: Physics-Based Probabilistic Model of the Effects of Ionizing Radiation on Polymeric Insulators of Electric Cables used in Nuclear Power Plants | University of California, Los Angeles | $798,846 | _Researchers will develop and experimentally validate a probabilistic physics-based degradation models for polymeric insulators of electric cables to be used in integrated performance and safety codes, which will help reduce the uncertainty associated with the long-term aging of cable insulation. The project will deliver a C++ based simulation code that will be readily compatible with the MOOSE/Grizzly framework developed at the Idaho National Laboratory. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8000: The Influences of Neutron Irradiation on Aggregate Induced Degradation of Concrete | University of California, Los Angeles | $800,000 | _Researchers will quantify the impacts of irradiation on concrete degradation. The research will develop new understanding of the evolutions and manifestations of irradiation assisted aggregate concrete degradation caused by neutron exposure. This assessment will help to mitigate the risk of such degradation within the Grizzly framework, by careful integrations of nanoscale analytics and simulation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8458: Multiple Degradation Mechanisms in Reinforced Concrete Structures, Modeling and Risk Analysis | University of Houston | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a multi-physics framework to characterize the deterioration development in concrete due to environmental and mechanical loading, and the coupling effect among transport processes and the damage of concrete. This project will develop new computational tools that will be implemented in Grizzly, an application built on the MOOSE platform, to address a variety of aging mechanisms in nuclear power plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8623: Characterization of Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth in Alloy 709 and Prediction of Service Lives in Nuclear Reactor Components | University of Idaho | $799,927 | _Researchers will study creep-fatigue crack growth behavior in steel Alloy 709 in accelerated test conditions to predict extended service life of structural components. Extensive testing of Alloy 709 creep-fatigue specimens will be performed at elevated temperatures and applied stresses. Microstructure analysis will be performed to describe the crack propagation mechanisms. Computational models will be used to predict service of steel components. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8432: Multi-scale experimental study of creep-fatigue failure initiation in a 709 Stainless Steel alloy using high resolution digital image correlation | University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign | $800,00 | _Researchers will conduct a detailed experimental investigation of creep-fatigue crack initiation in a 709 alloy, and will also obtain a predictive failure initiation model that includes both thermo-mechanical and aging effects. The experiments will use ultra-high resolution digital image correlation to measure accumulation of plastic with cycling. The model will extend existing slip band-based energy minimization criterion to include thermal effects applicable to 709. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8599: Am-241 Nuclear Safety and Environmental Interactions | University of Missouri | $399,187 | _Researchers will investigate the release and transport mechanisms of Am-241 to understand the interactions it may have with the environment. The project will examine Am-241 through a series of accident scenarios using Am-241 aerosols that will allow researchers to understand the pathways for dose assessment. Methodologies and approaches for nuclear risk assessment for new space radioisotope power system applications will be developed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8667: Experimental Validation of a Compact Double-walled Twisted-Tube Heat Exchanger Concept | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | _Researchers will investigate a novel compact double-walled twisted-tube heat exchanger (DT-HXR) design that utilizes an outer twisted tube configuration in order to enhance shell-side heat transfer and make the overall bundle more compact. Utilizing outer twisted tube geometry improves heat transfer and allows for a tube bundle that does not require support plates or anti-vibration bars. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project: 15-8352: Development and Demonstration of an In-Situ Tritium Scavenger | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,988 | _Researchers will use a graphite moderator to capture and remove tritium from the primary coolant systems of salt- and gas-cooled reactors. The team will develop electrochemical techniques to characterize tritium transport in graphite and liquid fluoride salts (including flibe), demonstrate the in-situ effectiveness of tritium absorption by the fuel elements, and develop a design for a graphite bed tritium filter that can integrate with salt-to-air heat exchangers. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 16-10730: Visualization Tool for Comparing Low-Carbon Energy Options | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a web based visualization tool for comparing current and future nuclear fuel cycle options to other low-carbon and conventional energy technologies in the United States.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10679: Overcoming Kinetic Barriers to Actinide Recovery in ALSEP | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | The ALSEP process for group separations of trivalent actinide/lanthanide ions suffers from slow stripping kinetics. Researchers will perform detailed kinetic studies at different temperatures, supported by spectroscopic and computational studies to establish where the kinetic bottlenecks occur in the ALSEP process. They will then systematically alter the chemistry of the extractants and aqueous ligands to understand how to overcome the kinetic hindrances.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10058: An Integrated Multiscale Experimental-Numerical Analysis on Reconsolidation of Salt-Clay Mixture for Disposal of Heat-Generating Waste | Columbia University in the City of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will improve understanding of the thermal-mechanical-hydrologic-chemical (TMHC) coupling effect on reconsolidated granular (or crushed) salt-clay mixture used for seal systems of shafts and drifts in salt repositories. The project will integrate laboratory experiments and multiscale pore-to-continuum coupling simulations to explore the feasibility of using clay additive and moisture content to enhance performance of crushed salt as a seal material.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10088: Americium Separation By Electrochemical Oxidation | Florida International University | $800,000 | Researchers will separate Am from high-level waste by exploiting the high oxidation states of Am through design, and testing of new materials. This will be accomplished by designing and testing new electrodes, derivatized with surface-stabilized ligands and redox mediators to facilitate oxidation of trivalent Am, and by designing porous sorbent materials functionalized with molecules which selectively coordinate Am(VI) to enable its subsequent separation.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10668: Microstructure Experiments-Enabled MARMOT Simulations of SiC/SiC-Based Accident Tolerant Nuclear Fuel System | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will characterize steam attack, hydrothermal corrosion and radiation swelling of SiC/SiC composites-based accident tolerant fuel (ATF) using a combination of experiments, microstructure evaluation and phase-field simulations using MARMOT. Central to the project is the mapping of the microstructure after steam/hydrothermal/irradiation tests through a unique non-destructive x-ray microscopy technique followed by phase-field simulations of chemical transport in MARMOT.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10221: Alloying Agents to Stabilize Lanthanides Against Fuel Cladding Chemical Interaction: Tellurium and Antimony Studies | Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop alloying agents to stabilize lanthanides against fuel cladding chemical interactions (FCCIs). Based on the available binary phase diagrams for the periodic table, Te and Sb are selected as fuel dopants. The research will focus on Te. The mechanisms of using minor additives to stabilize and immobilize the lanthanide fission products will be investigated. Resulting thermodynamic data obtained by the proposed research will be integrated into MARMOT to enhance its ability to model metallic fuel performance.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10648: Oxidation and Corrosion-Resistant Uranium Silicide Fuels | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | Researchers will develop oxidation/corrosion resistant uranium silicide U3Si2 fuel by chemical doping/fillers to form a continuous borosilicate glass as a protective oxide layer with transformational fuel performance and accident tolerance. The team will use chemical doping/fillers include B or C showing effectiveness in improving high temperature oxidation resistance in transition metal silicides, and boron/silicon-containing compounds that can form a protective borosilicate glass layer.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10229: Mechanistic Understanding of Silver Sorbent Aging Processes in Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $800,000 | This project is focused on understanding the mechanisms of aging processes on silver exchanged mordenite and silver functionalized silica aerogel adsorbents under conditions of long term exposure to off gas streams containing air, I2, H2O, and NOx. The chemical and physical structural changes of the adsorbents under these conditions will be accounted for in equilibrium and kinetic models. Transport models will be developed to predict the performance of engineered off-gas treatment systems.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10394: Integration of Microwave Readout into Nuclear Process Monitoring | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,695 | Researchers will show that gamma-ray spectroscopy based on emerging microcalorimeter sensors can determine elemental and isotopic fractions with accuracy comparable to much slower mass spectrometry and with far better accuracy than germanium sensors. This advance will prevent the diversion of nuclear material by enabling nearly real time process monitoring in large nuclear facilities without loss of measurement accuracy.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10523: A Science Based Approach for Selecting Dopants in FCCI-Resistant Metallic Fuel Systems | University of Idaho | $800,000 | The project aims to use a science-based approach to set guidelines of selecting dopants for developing fuel cladding chemical interaction (FCCI)-resistant metallic fuel systems for fast reactors. Lanthanide fission products migrate to the fuel-cladding gap leading to cladding breaches. The team will perform both theoretical modeling and experiments to arrive at the guidelines that are based on sound science. If successful, this can lead to breakthroughs in minimizing the FCCI effect.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10813: Advanced Electrochemical Separations of Actinide/Fission Products via the Control of Nucleation and Growth of Electrodeposits | University of Idaho | $350,000 | Researchers will use unique capabilities to modulate the electrodeposition of actinides (depleted Uranium) and fission products (Ln) during nucleation and growth stages. The team aims to preclude formation of electrodeposits with dendritic morphology. Morphology of electrodeposits will be controlled by electrolyte composition.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10707: In Situ Spectroscopic Determination of Actinide Speciation and Concentration | University of Nevada, Reno | $369,221 | The research team will address two major issues in the pyroprocess based fuel cycle: low process efficiency and materials accounting for non-proliferation. There are currently no analytical techniques to ascertain the speciation and concentration of the actinides in the electrolyte. This project aims to develop an in-situ analytical method consisting of Raman spectroscopic analysis during electrochemical polarization.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10204: Phase Equilibria and Thermochemistry of Advanced Fuels: Modeling Burnup Behavior | University of South Carolina | $799,946 | Researchers will develop phase equilibria and thermochemical information to model and simulate advanced fuel behavior, including critical phenomena such as the contribution to fuel swelling of dissolved non-noble fission products and secondary phase formation, composite fuel stability, and fuel-clad chemical interactions.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10512: Demand-Driven Cycamore Archetypes | University of South Carolina | $799,956 | Modeling of the nuclear fuel cycle (NFC) is often posed as a set of demands coupled with available technologies. Demands may be singular or multivariate. Additionally, available technologies may have constraints on when they are deployable. This proposal aims to bring demand and deployment decisions into the NFC simulator itself, thereby simulating a more realistic process by which utilities, governments, and other stakeholders actually make facility deployment decisions.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10856: Integrating Data Sources for Improved Safeguards and Accountancy of Electrochemical Fuel Reprocessing Streams | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The SSPM Echem tracks elemental and bulk material flows through batch operations in electrochemical facilities. This project will augment the existing SSPM Echem model with models of DA, NDA, and process monitoring measurements, including appropriate accuracy, noise, and uncertainty characteristics. Diverse measurement and assay results will be fused to improve material accountancy and anomaly detection across the electrochemical process.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10190: Immobilization of High-Level Waste Salt in Dechlorinated Zeolite Waste Forms | University of Utah | $799,315 | The primary objective of the project is the development of a new glass-bonded waste form for the suitable disposal of electrorefiner waste salt. To achieve this goal, the proposed tasks will focus on the 1) dechlorination of the electrorefiner salt and 2) subsequent encapsulation into a sintered waste form. Achieving these goals will result in a compact waste form with higher fission product loading, which is instrumental in economically closing the nuclear fuel cycle.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10240: Molten Salt Reactor Experiment Benchmark Evaluation | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | _The objective of this project is to employ the data archive on the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) and develop a set of high-quality Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) reactor physics benchmarks for inclusion in the IRPhE Handbook that currently does not contain any benchmark set related to MSR technology._ | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10458: Multi-Group Transport Cross Section and Diffusion Coefficient Generation for Deterministic Reactor Models Using Monte Carlo Calculations | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and implement rigorous methods for generating multi-group transport cross section and diffusion coefficients for deterministic reactor models using Monte Carlo calculations. The project will eliminate the numerous approximations that currently contribute to significant mis-prediction of core power distributions when using deterministic core models.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10241: Development of Transient Capabilities for the NEAMS Neutronics Code PROTEUS | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop efficient transient transport methods for the PROTEUS-SN, PROTEUS-MOC and the first-order SN solvers of the NEAMS neutronics code PROTEUS. The team will also perform transient benchmark analyses._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10603: Experimental and Computational Analysis of NEAMS Pebble Bed Reactors | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct a coordinated experimental and computational effort to quantitatively map the full-field 3-D velocity and temperature fields in the interstitial spaces within pebble bed reactor systems. Key outcomes will include advanced correlations to predict flow and thermal transport within the pebble bed over a much wider range operating conditions and reactor types than is currently possible.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10421: Simulation of Fuel Rod Fragmentation, Relocation and Ballooning through Peridynamics in MOOSE Framework | University of Arizona | $675,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology that includes the appropriate governing physical fields within the realm of peridynamics to investigate fuel cracking, fragmentation, relocation, ballooning, pellet-cladding interaction, and cladding rapture and dispersion within the MOOSE framework.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10313: Development of a Comprehensive Two-phase Flow Database for the Validation of NEK-2P | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,817 | _Researchers will develop a comprehensive, high-resolution two-phase flow database by performing experiments in two air-water two-phase flow test facilities and a new heated rod-bundle test facility that will be built under this project. These data will be used to validate the two-phase flow models implemented in the NEK-2P code._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10744: Support for Reactor Operators in Case of Cyber-Security Threats | Ohio State University | $800,000 | This project addresses the need for research informing plant engineers and control room operators faced with cyber-security threats on appropriate responses. The approach taken uses distinguishing features of safety related events versus cyber-security threats; attack modeling, prediction, game theory and PRA knowledge to update operators procedures; and simulation for validation.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cyber Security R&D | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10578: Thermal Hydraulic & Structural Testing and Modeling of Compact Diffusion-Bonded Heat Exchangers for Supercritical CO2 Brayton Cycles | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will utilize both experimental and computational methods to test and model transient behavior of a mock up PCHE, which is a scaled down representation of the sCO2, cycle high temperature recuperator (HTR). In addition, the team will develop a methodology for quantification of the PCHEs production cost. The proposed project will provide valuable experiment data required to develop the Section III, Division 5 and Section VIII evaluation approach for compact heat exchangers.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10579: A Computational-Experimental Study to Simulate Mixing and Thermal Stratification in SFRs | Kansas State University | $799,320 | Researchers will use Thermographic Imaging and Ultrasonic Doppler Velocimetry (UDV) techniques to generate high fidelity thermal stratification and flow field data under various geometric and physical conditions for scaled models of outlet plena in sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs). Data from these experimental studies will be compared with those obtained using 1D codes such as SAS4A/SASSYS-1.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10714: ASME Code Application of the Compact Heat Exchanger for High Temperature Nuclear Service | North Carolina State University | $799,998 | Researchers will develop structural design methodologies for Type 316H stainless steel and Alloy 617 compact heat exchangers (CHX) using elastic-perfectly plastic (EPP) analysis methodology for the assessment of elevated temperature failure modes under sustained and cyclic thermal and pressure loading. The project will develop a technical basis for Section III, Division 5 ASME Code Case for CHX in high temperature nuclear service.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10885: Turbulent MHD Flow Modeling in Annular Linear Induction Pumps with Validation Experiments | North Carolina State University | $564,520 | Researchers seek to advance EMP design efforts for liquid metal reactors by 1.) Improving MHD modeling capability, particularly near the MHD stability criteria, 2.) Advancing simulation accuracy and fidelity in the typical operating range of large electromagnetic pumps for liquid metal cooled reactors, and 3.) Constructing a low barrier EMP test loop for model validation and instruction that can be easily replicated at low cost at other facilities.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10244: Integral System Testing for Prismatic Block Core Design HTGR | Oregon State University | $799,536 | _Researchers will conduct eight new tests be completed at the HTTF investigating a range of gas reactor events including DCC, PCC, and inlet plenum buoyant plume mixing. The data from these tests will be ideal for use in the validation of safety analysis codes used in gas reactor analysis. The data may also provide valuable insight into the validation of CFD codes for gas-reactor applications._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10324: Model Calibration-Based Design Methodologies for Structural Design of Supercritical CO2 Compact Heat Exchangers under Sustained Cyclic Temperature and Pressure Gradients | Oregon State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a design method for rapid structural assessment of diffusion-bonded Hybrid Compact Heat Exchangers, used as secondary heat exchangers in coupling Sodium Fast Reactors (SFRs) with supercritical CO2 (sCO2) Brayton power cycles. The team envisions that the developed method will (1) be usable in creation of an ASME code case for structural assessment of hybrid CHX; and (2) create design tools that ensure CHX code compliance under desired load conditions.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10285: Tribological Damage Mechanisms from Experiments and Validated Simulations of Alloy 800H and Inconel 617 in a Simulated HTGR/VHTR Helium Environment | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a mechanistic understanding of accelerated fretting, wear, and bonding between Alloy 800H and Inconel 617 surfaces. In order to achieve the objectives, a series of tribological experiments will be conducted in helium environments at elevated temperature with controlled concentrations of gaseous specious, attendant microstructure characterization (using electron microscopy, spectroscopy and atom-probe tomography), and validated continuum models.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10245: An Experimental Study of Design and Performance for the Water-Based Reactor Cavity Cooling System | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will extend and enhance the experimental tests using existing water-cooled RCCS facilities. The activity will be conducted in close collaboration with the water-cooled NSTF research team and will produce a unique set of high quality experimental data for support of existing system codes, system codes under development, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10457: Experimentally Validated Computational Modeling of Creep and Creep-Cracking for Nuclear Concrete Structures | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct novel 3D concrete creep tests under controlled environmental conditions to build a 3D constitutive model for concrete typical of existing containment structures. Decades long creep will be extracted via shorter tests (years long). The material model will be used in the Grizzly structural FEM code for simulating the response of real, 3D containment structures to changes in loading. Full-scale, long-term structural tests will enable validation.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10687: Development and Integration of Light Water Reactor (LWR) Materials Corrosion Degradation Codes into Grizzly | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop powerful codes for predicting environmentally-assisted localized corrosion in the primary coolant circuits (PCCs) of Generation II BWRs and PWRs. These codes and resulting models will be embedded into GRIZZLY. This will greatly extend the applicability of GRIZZLY to components in PCCs that are susceptible to pitting corrosion, stress corrosion cracking, and corrosion fatigue and will provide the stress intensity factor solutions for the crack growth rate models._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10083: Earth Abundant High Temperature Materials for Radioisotope Power Conversion System | University of California, Davis | $400,000 | Researchers will develop breakthrough efficiencies in segmented radioisotope thermal generators (RTG) power conversion systems through high temperature materials development. The approach will also reduce reliance on single-purpose supply chains.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10630: Validation of RELAP-7 for Forced Convection and Natural Circulation Reactor Flows | University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign | $799,368 | _Researcher will aid in the development of RELAP-7 through required experimental and computational efforts. The validation of the two-phase modeling capability of RELAP-7 will be accomplished through a series of tasks which include synthesis of existing forced convective data, acquisition of natural circulation data from an existing well-scaled facility, and uncertainty quantification in constitutive modeling._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10402: RELAP-7 Application and Enhancement for FLEX Strategies and ATF Behavior under Extended Loss of AC Power Conditions | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop new thermal hydraulic models that will be implemented into RELAP-7. Simulation studies will be performed for postulated ELAP scenarios in the PB Unit 2 reactor. The overarching goal of the proposed work is to perform a simulation study using RELAP-7, to model BWR ELAP scenarios with various mitigation measures and determine the range of time available for transition to portable FLEX equipment._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10080: Quantifying Properties for a Mechanistic, Predictive Understanding of Aqueous Impact on Ageing of Medium and Low Voltage AC and DC Cabling in Nuclear Power Plants | University of Minnesota, Duluth | $800,000 | _The degradation of medium and low voltage cabling is often associated with aqueous immersion. Electrical and mechanical data will be collected to develop a mechanistic model of the degradation of cabling to dielectric breakdown based on the temperature, oxidation, water conditions, and irradiation dose. The hypothesized model begins with solvent escape paths that expand and advance from the exterior surface toward the current carrying core at a rate dependent on the environment._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10214: Online Monitoring System for Concrete Structures Affected by Alkali-Silica Reaction (ASR) | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an online health monitoring system that integrates active and passive sensor networks and advanced signal processing algorithms to monitor ASR induced degradation in concrete structures. The obtained information will support an ongoing prognostic modeling research for health diagnosis and prognosis of aging concrete structures, in order to support long-term operational and maintenance decision making.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10210: Tribological Behavior of Structural Materials in High Temperature Helium Gas-Cooled Reactor Environments | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will work to understand, quantify, and model the elevated-temperature tribological behavior of alloys 617 and 800H in helium gas in HTGR conditions. Impurities in helium can induce a variety of corrosion mechanisms in structural materials that can profoundly affect tribological behavior. This study will investigate tribological behavior in various impurity concentration regimes and surface treatments to mitigate tribological damage in these environments.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10226: Enhancement of EM Pump Performance Through Modeling and Testing | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,856 | This project is aimed at the improvement of EM pumps for advanced liquid metal cooled reactors specifically the SFR. Initial tests will be conducted in the University of Wisconsin sodium loop on an existing moving magnet pump to help in the development of the models and to look at end effects associated with this pump. Additionally, tests will be conducted at ANL on the CMI ALIP. Ultimately, a small ALIP will be developed to test the principles and models developed to improve commercial scale.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10268: Sodium Cooled Fast Reactor Key Modeling and Analysis for Commercial Deployment | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,076 | This project will look at very low Prandtl number heat transfer from both an experimental and computational approach. Researchers will then establish key models to implement in plant dynamics codes. The team will also evaluate thermal stratification in large volumes making use of novel fiber optic distributed fiber measurements to get CFD quality data. Lastly, the team will evaluate some of the key remaining safety issues associated with the eventual commercialization of the sodium fast reactor.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10647: Experimental and Modeling Investigation of Overcooling Transients that Include Freezing, in Fluoride-Salt Cooled High-Temperature Reactors (FHRs) | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will make recommendations for design features of salt-reactor components that would take advantage of the phenomena characteristic to fluoride salts in order to be resilient to overcooling, and to recover gracefully from over-cooling transients. In support of this task a MOOSE-based computational tool will be developed, capable of modeling liquid-solid phase change, backed by experimental studies with the prototypical (flibe) coolant, and with simulant fluids.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10509: CFD and System Code Benchmark Data for Plenum-to-Plenum Flow Under Natural, Mixed and Forced Circulation Conditions | Utah State University | $800,000 | Researchers will generate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) validation data for forced, mixed, and natural convection through a parallel-path geometry relevant to gas reactor bypass flow. In addition, the team will independently build and validate CFD models based on the experimental results. The team has the experience and existing infrastructure for sharing complete validation datasets.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 17-12628: Effects of Mineral Impurities and Heat on Uranium(VI) Sorption onto Bentonite | California State University, East Bay | $785,714 | Mineral impurities are common in bentonite and clay buffer materials, proposed for many nuclear waste disposal options. Researchers will investigate the effects of calcite impurities on uranium(VI) sorption onto montmorillonite before and after mineral exposure to heat. Based on experimental sorption data and EXAFS analysis we will develop a new surface complexation model to determine under which conditions impurity effects are relevant, and how they can be incorporated in performance assessment models. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12798: Nanostructured Ceramic Membranes for Enhanced Tritium Management | Clemson University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a ceramic membrane technology for tritium separation and recovery to support the nuclear fuel cycle. Low-temperature water adsorption properties of nanoscale structured ceramics, combined with demonstrated hydrogen isotope exchange in their hydrated layers provide a low cost and unique avenue to address tritium management challenges. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12647: Determination of Critical Heat Flux and Leidenfrost Temperature on Candidate Accident Tolerant Fuel Materials | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $799,906 | Researchers will characterize the thermal-hydraulics behavior of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) materials by measuring critical heat flux (CHF) under normal and off-normal light water reactor conditions, and Leidenfrost temperature in post-loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) conditions. This work will yield material-specific models and/or correlations that can be readily implemented in state-of-the-art simulation tools. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13011: Gamma-ray Computed and Emission Tomography for Pool-Side Fuel Characterization | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,317 | Researchers will design, build, test and install a submersible tomography platform for performing pool-side physical, structural, and chemical characterization of irradiated fuel elements for test reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12496: Group Actinide Separation by Crystallization: A Single-Technology Approach to Used Nuclear Fuel Recycle | Texas A&M University | $399,857 | Researchers will explore bulk removal of U, Np, Pu and Am, from used nuclear fuel by studying the mechanisms of removal. A co-crystallization of the hexavalent actinides with U(VI) has already been demonstrated and researchers plan to develop a process based around this approach. Removal of these elements would be advantageous for future nuclear fuel recycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12824: Methods for Process Monitoring to Accurately Detect and Quantify Material Holdup in Advanced Recycle Facilities | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop better modeling methods, detectors, and facility design approaches to enable detection of inadvertent and deliberate hold up of fissile material in reprocessing and other nuclear material bulk handling facilities. The team will integrate results from this research project into a design methodology for future facilities to ensure accurate and reliable process monitoring for sustainable operation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12782: Effects of alpha and gamma radiation on complex and metal loaded solvents for advanced solvent extraction processes | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | This project will investigate the alpha and gamma radiolysis-induced chemical degradation of ligands used for the removal of minor actinides from used nuclear fuel in advanced extraction systems such as ALSEP. Researchers will emphasize organic phase degradation, particularly complex solvents with multiple ligands as well as metal loaded solvents. The project will improve predictive capabilities of extraction processes by elucidating degradation pathways. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12757: Elucidation of Electrochemical Behavior of Technetium, Tellurium, and Iodine in Molten Salt Solutions. | University of Idaho | $796,741 | This project will evaluate the electrochemical speciation behavior of iodide, and telluride in LiCl-KCl eutectic, LiCl, and LiCl + Li2O electrolytes at temperatures relevant to reprocessing conditions. By using rhenium as surrogate for technetium, the electrochemical, and chemical speciation properties of rhenium ions will be investigated in chloride molten salts with the addition of molybdenum and ruthenium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12701: Development and Experimental Benchmark of Computational Models to Predict Cladding Temperature and Vapor Removal from UNF Canisters during Drying Operations | University of Nevada, Reno | $400,000 | Researchers will develop physics-based computational tools to predict used nuclear fuel cladding temperatures within, and water vapor removal rates from, canisters during existing and proposed drying processes. The project will explore a range of gas pressures (including rarefication), and steady and unsteady external gas flows rates. The tools will be used to develop drying processes that minimize drying time while maintaining cladding temperatures. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12688: An Experimental and Analytical Investigation into Critical Heat Flux (CHF) Implications for Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF) Concepts | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a holistic best estimate assessment of the potential impact of different ATF cladding materials with regards to heat transfer characteristics, the boiling curve, critical heat flux, fuel mass/volume/specific power density, and neutronics effects due to changes in the lattice design or parasitic neutron absorption during design basis accident conditions in light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12996: Multipurpose, Radiation- and Temperature-Resistant Semiconductor Radiation Detectors for Advanced Process Monitoring and Nuclear Safeguards | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop detection systems capable of neutron, gamma-ray, x-ray, and alpha monitoring in high-temperature and high radiation environments for extended periods of time. The detectors will be used to strengthen nuclear safeguards by enhancing nuclear material control and accounting in nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13125: The Thermodynamics of Crystallization and Phase-Separation in Melt-Derived Nuclear Waste Forms | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This projects will study the thermodynamics of melt and quench phases of nuclear waste glasses and glass ceramics and link this information to the underlying short-range and medium-range structure. Advanced calorimetric techniques and neutron total scattering with pair distribution function analysis will be applied to obtain these data. Computer simulations will complement the experimental effort. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12886: Identifying, Predicting and Preventing Localized Corrosion in Kr-85 Storage Canisters | University of Virginia | $799,000 | Researchers will determine the root cause of corrosion within Kr-85 storage canisters in order to better understand current corrosion rates. The project will focus on expanding available research on Rb corrosion interactions and other contributing factors to better understand the corrosion phenomenon in current steel canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12463: Extreme Performance High Entropy Alloys (HEAs) Cladding for Fast Reactor Applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will develop extreme performance high entropy alloys (HEAs) as for new metal alloy cladding for fast reactor applications. Two very promising, single solution BCC HEAs will be investigated. The project will deliver an extensive irradiation resistance study of a new promising yet unexplored cladding concept. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12549: Critical Heat Flux Studies for Innovative Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding Surfaces | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will study critical heat flux (CHF) behavior focused on innovative accident tolerant fuel (ATF) cladding. The project includes separate effects screening tests to measure CHF for various ATF clad materials and surface characteristics with measurements of surface wettability. Pressurized flow boiling experiments will simulate prototypical reactor conditions for evaluating the best ATF clad materials coupled with CHF modeling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13019: Evaluation of Accident Tolerant Fuels Surface Characteristics in Critical Heat Flux Performance | Virginia Commonwealth University | $800,000 | Researchers will perform separate-effects and system-wide tests of the AREVA and GE accident tolerant fuel concepts currently under consideration. The project will investigate the impact of cladding surface characteristics in critical heat flux (CHF) under normal and anticipated off-normal conditions. The experimental results will be used to develop and validate enhanced models for the prediction of CHF and will be implemented in various subchannel and system analysis codes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13054: Simulated Used Nuclear Fuel Dissolution as a Function of Fuel Chemistry and Near Field Conditions | Washington State University | $800,000 | Researchers will study the effects of simulated used nuclear fuel (UNF) chemistry and microstructure on its dissolution in geologic repository conditions. The results will advance models for UNF evolution in repository conditions, enabling reliable prediction of degradation and long-term performance of used nuclear fuel for up to one million years. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12506: Development of Reactor Physics Benchmark Evaluations for Power Burst Facility Experiments | University of Florida | $398,265 | Researchers will perform reactor physics benchmark evaluations of Power Burst Facility experiments regarding differential reactivity worth of the control and transient rods, shim rod worth, in-pile-tube reactivity worth, shutdown reactivity, fuel assembly reactivity worth, core void coefficients of reactivity, in-pile-tube void coefficient, and coolant temperature coefficient of reactivity. The results will be incorporated in the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP). | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12748: Combined modeling and experiments to predict corrosion and embrittlement in dual-phase stainless steels within the MARMOT framework | Oregon State University | $800,000 | Researchers will enhance MARMOT to predict mechanical and corrosion properties of dual-phase stainless steels as a function of composition, aging time and temperature by using combined experimental data and lower length scale models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12797: In-Situ Ion Irradiation to Add Irradiation Assisted Grain Growth to the MARMOT Tool | Pennsylvania State University | $500,000 | Researchers will add the capability to model irradiation assisted grain growth to the MARMOT tool by using in-situ ion irradiation of UO2 to quantify the effect of irradiation on grain growth. The team will investigate the hypothesis that irradiation assisted grain growth is caused by thermal spikes resulting from atom collisions. The model added to MARMOT will couple the existing grain growth model to a heat conduction simulation using a stochastic heat source describing the thermal spike. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12555: Integration of high-fidelity Monte Carlo and deterministic transport codes into Workbench | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | Researchers will provide end users an ability to run both MCNP6 and PROTEUS codes from a common user input in Workbench by (1) templating user-provided engineering scale specifications to code-specific input requirements, (2) enabling multi-fidelity analysis of a system from a common input using MCNP6 and PROTEUS and (3) allowing the easy use of high-fidelity simulations to inform lower-order models for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems and experiments. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12939: Expansion of BISON Capabilities to Predict the Dynamic Response of Irradiated Fuel Rods | University of New Hampshire | $800,000 | Researchers will expand the capabilities of BISON and MOOSE to simulate the structural dynamic response of fuel rods and fuel assemblies during handling (wet and dry storage) and transportation. Expanding the capabilities of BISON and MOOSE to facilitate the evaluation of the dynamic response of fuel rods and assemblies is important to conduct a more reliable risk assessment of fuel assemblies, as well as storage and transportation casks. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13179: Implementation and Validation of Advanced Turbulence Modeling Methods for Liquid Metal Flow in Nek5000 | University of Oklahoma | $786,648 | Researchers will implement and validate state-of-the-art turbulence modeling techniques in Nek5000 to improve predition of liquid metal flows. Specific methods to be investigated include: variable PrT and algebraic heat flux models (AHFM) for URANS simulation; partially-averaged Navier-Stokes (PANS) and dynamic hybrid RANS-LES (DHRL) for hybrid RANS-LES simulation; and variable PrT subgrid heat flux modeling for LES. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12848: Development of Information Trustworthiness and Integrity Algorithms for Cybersecurity Defenses of Nuclear Power Reactors | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a first-of-a-kind physics-based defense-in-depth strategy to defend against false data injection attacks which attempt to change the information used by the I/C network to set reactor state. The approach employs a new design philosophy to check for information trustworthiness/integrity in order to determine whether the information is genuinely generated during the actual operation of the nuclear unit under either normal or off-normal conditions. | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cybersecurity | |
| NEUP Project 17-12538: Influence of dissolved salts and impurities in seawater on heat transfer degradation and fluid flow through fuel channels debris bed | Kansas State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate the role of raw water on degraded heat transfer and fluid flow in the reactor core and debris bed. X-ray imaging techniques, optical-fiber high speed temperature sensing systems and radioactive tracer salts will be used to simultaneously measure experimental data on void fraction, temperature and salt deposition rate. This data will be used to obtain correlations for heat transfer and fluid flow in case of raw water injection. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12502: High Resolution Temperature and Flow Measurements in Wire-Wrapped Fuel Assemblies | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will produce high-quality, high spatial and temporal resolution temperature and flow datasets for wire-wrapped rod bundle geometries. Different bundle sizes, configurations (including duct's and pin's deformation) and Low-Prandlt fluids will be investigated. A unique set of data will be produced to support advanced CFD tools validation, including Nek5000. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12723: Integrating Static PRA Information with RISMC Simulation Methods | The Ohio State University | $799,985 | Researchers will develop a computationally feasible and user friendly process to augment the traditional probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) results with improved representation of epistemic uncertainties and process/hardware/software/human interactions at plant level applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12664: Methods to Predict Thermal Radiation and to Design Scaled Separate and Integral Effects Testing For Molten Salt Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology for the design of molten salt reactor (MSR) Separate Effect Test and Integral Effect Test experiments. This methodology will identify and quantify sources of scaling distortion including radiative heat transport. The project would improve code performance and assist FHR/MSR vendors who are making licensing applications based on code results. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12523: Experimental and Computational Studies of Stress Corrosion Cracking of Alloys 308/309 and 82/182 Weldments in Corrosive and Radiation Environment | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will use advanced microanalytical analysis techniques to study SCC and IASCC of stainless steel and Ni-Cr alloy weldments. CERT, autoclave immersion, and ion irradiation will be used to determine synergistic effect of LWR environmental factors. Results from the experimental component of the proposed work scope will be used for enhanced predictive capability of the INL Grizzly code via XFEM. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12614: Systematic Enterprise Risk Management by Integrating the RISMC Toolkit and Cost-Benefit Analysis | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $799,998 | Researchers will develop a systematic Enterprise Risk Management framework, which utilizes Decision Tree (DT) logic to consider high-level production-loss scenarios, and their underlying physical and social causes throughout the lifecycle. In the proposed DT, uncertainty nodes will be quantified by plant-specific risk analysis using the Risk-Informed Safety Margin Characterization (RISMC) Toolkit, and cost-benefit analysis will be conducted for end states reflecting consequences of managerial decision-making. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12972: Design of a Commercial-Scale, Fluoride-Salt-Cooled, High-Temperature Reactor With Novel Refueling and Decay Heat Removal Capabilities | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $400,000 | Researchers will combine fluoride-salt-cooled, high temperature reactors (FHR) with advanced gas reactor (AGR) refueling technology to address several significant challenges that remain in the development of FHR technology. The project will adapt AGR refueling technology by using the new fuel-inside-radial-moderator fuel form, which will also introduce new ways of dealing with decay heat. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13115: Experimental Determination of Helium/air Mixing in Helium Cooled Reactor | University of Michigan | $800,000 | Researchers will examine the effects of coolant leakage and air ingress through three different investigations. The overall objective of this work is to characterize near and far field behavior of Helium/Air mixing in containment, and to determine rates and amounts of air leaked back into the reactor after a depressurization event. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12830: Radioisotope Retention in Graphite and Graphitic Materials | University of Missouri, Columbia | $800,000 | Researchers will use a variety of experimental techniques to acquire data for fission product diffusion, transport and adsorption of fission products in various graphites, relating to nuclear reactors at high temperatures. Measurements will be taken using non-irradiated graphite using fission product surrogates. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13020: Bimetallic Composite (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) Development and Compatibility in Flowing FLiBe as a Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) Structural Material | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a new bimetallic alloy (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) structural material for the MSR, and compare its post-exposure mechanical performance in flowing FLiBe with single alloys SS 316, Hastelloy N, and Incoloy 800H, in the context of ASME codification. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12678: Novel NDE Sensors, Waveforms, Models, and Algorithms for Cable Health Monitoring | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop NDE sensors and probabilistic cable insulation diagnosis and prognosis algorithms (particle filtering), and modeling and experiments to monitor cable insulation health. Two different types of sensor will be deployed to detect insulation damage. The team will also develop cable insulation degradation modeling to further understand defects in cable insulation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13080: Multiscale Investigation of SiC/SiC Composite Degradation in Helium Coolant Operating Environment | University of Virginia | $800,000 | Researchers will study the long-term degradation mechanisms of SiC/SiC composites in helium coolant environments by slow crack growth (SCG). This will be achieved through multiscale testing in hot, O2-contaminated He and evaluation of the effect of SCG on hermeticity during in situ testing. Results will be extended to predictive low-level and component-scale SCG models and integrated into the development of ASME standards for use of SiC/SiC in nuclear reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12481: Supercritical CO2 power cycle for space applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will develop an advanced supercritical Brayton power cycle directly coupled to a fission reactor. The project will carry out a comprehensive optimization of the cycle operating conditions, working fluid, and configuration; develop detailed designs of each subcomponent; and demonstrate/develop critical technologies such as turbomachinery seals and bearings, reactor material corrosion and strength demonstrations, and supercritical heat transfer. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13232: Radiative Heat Transport and Optical Characterization of High Temperature Molten Salts | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | The goal of the proposed research is to experimentally investigate radiation heat transport in molten salts, and to add functionality for radiative heat transport in a thermal-hydraulics system code. This includes obtaining highly resolved measurements of the optical absorption and emissivity of liquid salts. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 18-15345: Multiphysics Degradation Processes, and Their Mitigation, in Engineered and Geological Bariers: Experiments and Simulation | Duke University | $800,000.00 | This project will focus on filling the gaps in understanding of mechanisms of a series of degradation processes (thermal, hydric, geo-chemical, and transport processes phenomena) potentially affecting geo-materials used in repositories. The objectives of the work are to better recognize the conditions leading to preferential paths of radionuclide transport and rock weakening, and to build mathematical models and implement them into existing codes to predict material degradation and develop strategies to reduce the adverse consequences. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15043: Integration of Nuclear Material Accounting Data and Process Monitoring Data for Improvement on Detection Probability in Safeguarding Electrochemical Processing Facilities | Oregon State University | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to further studies on fusion of process monitoring (PM) data and nuclear material accounting (NMA) data. PM data, which includes monitoring by various types of equipment (radiation detectors, cameras, voltage, current sensors), can supplement NMA data to help improve safeguards. For aqueous-based reprocessing facilities, it is reported that PM, integrated with traditional NMA, has a high-detection probability for specific diversions. For electrochemical reprocessing, preliminary studies have shown that PM data can support traditional NMA by providing a basis to estimate some of the in-processing nuclear material inventories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15148: Recovery of Rare-Earth Elements (Nd, Gd, Sm) in Oxide Wasteform Using Liquid Metals (Bi, Sn) | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000.00 | This project investigates a new approach for recovering rare-earth (RE) fission products (Nd, Gd, and Sm) from molten chlorine salts using liquid metal (Bi and Sn) electrodes. The research aids molten salt recycling by converting the RE products into chloride-free RE oxides, which could be incorporated into conventional glass/ceramic waste forms. Successful outcomes of the project include advanced separation of fission products from molten salts with better control of chemical selectivity and high-recovery yield. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15103: Microstructure-Based Benchmarking for Nano/Microscale Tension and Ductility Testing of Irradiated Steels | Purdue University | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to standardize methods for nano/micro-scale tensile and ductility testing of irradiated Fe-Cr steels, through microstructure-based benchmarking. The study will investigate key process parameters for TEM in situ tension and ductility testing. Coupling experimental studies with multiscale models, the research will identify the approaches that provide consistent deformation mechanisms between the nano/micro-scale and macro-scale tests, from which standard practices will be obtained. The primary project outcome will be a set of recommended guidelines for nano/microscale mechanical testing, which will lead to unprecedented reductions in the time and cost for qualifying materials for in-reactor service and to ensure consistency of methods and validity of results. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15559: Cold Spray Repair & Mitigation of Stress Corrosion Cracks in Spent Nuclear Fuel Dry Storage Canisters | Purdue University | $799,982.00 | This goal of this project is to demonstrate cold spray repair and mitigation of chloride-induced stress corrosion cracks (SCC) and pits in stainless steel dry storage canisters. The research will optimize the repair process and gain a scientifically informed understanding of SCC mechanisms. The outcome is to further develop cold spray as an attractive solution for the repair of existing SCC and mitigation of potential SCC necessary to ensure long-term integrity, security, and regulatory compliance of spent nuclear fuel storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15596: Capture of Organic Iodides from Vessel Off-Gas Streams | Syracuse University | $799,548.00 | This project will study the capture of radioactive organoiodides from off-gas streams produced during nuclear fuel reprocessing by conducting adsorption experiments using a selected silver adsorbents. Multifaceted simulation adsorption models will be developed to assist in the design of necessary capture systems for off-gas streams. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15585: Impact of Coupled Gas Migration and Thermo-hydro-mechanical Processes on the Performance of Repositories for High Level Nuclear Waste | Texas A&M University | $608,375.00 | The main goal of this project is to better understand the possible effect of gas migration (particularly through discontinuities) on the performance and long-term behavior of engineered barrier systems (EBS) envisaged for the isolation of high-level radioactive waste (HLW). Specific outcomes of this study will be an improved understanding of the role of gas migration and discontinuities in the performance of HLW disposals, with the underlying aim to improve design of EBS used for HLW. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15531: Repair and Mitigation of Chloride-Induced Pitting and Chloride-Induced Stress Corrosion Cracking in Used Nuclear Fuel Dry Cask Canister Materials | The Ohio State University | $800,000.00 | This project will evaluate and develop a set of tools to repair and mitigate chloride-induced pitting and stress corrosion cracking in stainless steel nuclear fuel canisters. Advanced processes, including low temperature friction stir welding and cold spray deposition, will be evaluated according to various criteria, such as corrosion performance. In addition, technologies that have not yet been evaluated for UNF applications, including vaporizing foil actuator welding and soldering will be assessed. The two most promising technologies will selected for further development and comprehensive study. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14912: Bridging the Length Scales on Mechanical Property Evaluation | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000.00 | This project combines experimental and modeling methods to gain a comprehensive approach for addressing scaling effects on small-scale mechanical testing. Multiscale experiments, together with modeling on reactor-relevant and model alloys, will provide better understanding of appropriate scaling relationships. The study aims to gain fundamental understanding of plasticity interactions with specific strength-determining features, such as precipitates and grain boundaries. The goal of this work is to provide the basis to add small-scale mechanical testing in the toolbox for nuclear materials research. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14911: Understanding of degradation of SiC/SiC materials in nuclear systems and development of mitigation strategies | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000.00 | This project investigates the best possible coatings to prevent SiCf/SiCm corrosion in LWR environments. The research features a computational and experimental rapid screening approach for numerous coating compositions. The work includes autoclave exposure of rapid screening coupons in prototypical environments in combination with thermodynamic modeling (CALPHAD) and Finite Element Methods (FEM). Small-scale mechanical testing, together with thermal cycling and FEM modeling, will provide guidance on the ideal coating system design. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15701: Time-dependent THMC Properties and Microstructural Evolution of Damage Rocks in Excavation Damage Zone | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,978.00 | The proposed project focuses on the geomechanical aspects of modeling by addressing the time-dependent evolution of rock microstructure and its coupling with the THC processes that are of first-order importance to the stability and the isolation performance of repositories. The research will delineate an integrated experimental, theoretical and numerical strategy in assessing the evolution EDZ over time and its implication on the long-term migration of hazardous species. These results will enhance the confidence of the predicted long-term performance of repositories, which helps to move forward the goal of one-million-year isolation of high-level nuclear wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15381: Multiaxial Failure Envelopes and Uncertainty Quantification of Nuclear-Grade SiCf/SiC Woven Ceramic Matrix Tubular Composites | University of Florida | $800,000.00 | This project proposes to develop a comprehensive experimental and computational approach for determining constitutive relations and multiaxial failure envelopes of nuclear-grade continuous silicon fiber (SiCf) and SiC matrix woven tubular composites. The result of this work can be adopted in industry for design refinement, optimization of performance under the desired operating conditions, and reliable prediction of failure under unforeseen accidental scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15496: Formation of Zeolites Responsible for Waste Glass Rate Acceleration: An Experimental and Computational Study for Understanding Thermodynamic and Kinetic Processes | University of Houston | $800,000.00 | Through experimental and computational studies, this project will expose the factors governing zeolite crystallization and their role in Stage III dissolution of radionuclide-containing glass waste forms generated in advanced nuclear fuel cycles. The overall goal of this project is to understand the formation of zeolite phases in order to develop process control methods to suppress Stage III dissolution. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14998: Novel Processes for Capture of Radioactive Iodine Species from Vessel Off-Gas Streams | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the sorption system performance and effectiveness for capture of radioiodine species present in the off-gas streams from the used nuclear fuel (UNF) recycling operations, focusing particularly on the organic iodine species. The dynamic sorption experimentation and theoretical modeling will offer fundamental insights on the mechanism enabling the design and prediction the control system performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15261: Friction Stir Based Repair Welding of Dry Storage Canisters and Mitigation Strategies: Effect of Engineered Barrier Layer on Environmental Degradation | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The project goal is to apply friction stir based repair and mitigation technique for eliminating failure associated with pitting and stress corrosion cracking in dry storage canisters for spent fuels. The goal of these activities is to obtain a fundamental understanding of the processing-structure-properties correlations. This work will contribute to the development of a crack repair/mitigation strategy based on friction stir technology that can be efficiently implemented for spent fuel dry storage casks, which will enhance safety and reliability of these systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15263: X-ray Studies of Interfacial Molecular Complexes in ALSEP Back-Extraction | University of Illinois at Chicago | $800,000.00 | This project will use synchrotron X-rays to characterize the interfacial molecular complexes (of extractants and radiologically derived impurities, complexants, buffers, and metal ions) formed during the Actinide-Lanthanide Separation Process (ALSEP) back-extraction. This work addresses the critical knowledge gap of slow stripping kinetics in ALSEP, as well as the influence of radiolytic degradation products. The outcome of the project will be a molecular-level understanding of the role of different components in the interfacial mechanism of back-extraction in the ALSEP process, therefore leading to development of more efficient and faster metal stripping relevant to the separation of actinides from lanthanides in the nuclear fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15030: Mechanistic Understanding of Radiolytically Assisted Hydrothermal Corrosion of SiC in LWR Coolant Environments | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to develop a mechanistic understanding of the hydrothermal corrosion behavior of monolithic SiC and SiC/SiC composites in LWR environment under the influence of water radiolysis products and radiation damage. Complementary atomistic simulations will be carried out to determine the rate controlling mechanisms for dissolution under different water chemistries and in the presence of radiation. Activation energies and kinetic rates will be calculated directly from these simulations and compared to experimentally fitted values. The dissolution rate constants determined and validated in this integrated experimental and modeling approach will allow predictions of long-term SiC corrosion behavior. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14999: Probabilistic Failure Criterion of SiC/SiC Composites Under Multi-Axial Loading | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $800,000.00 | This project aims to develop a probabilistic failure criterion of SiC/SiC composites under multi-axial loading and to incorporate the criterion into a reliability analysis of the structural integrity of LWR SiC/SiC fuel cladding. This research will be anchored by a seamless integration of novel experimental and analytical tools, which will lead to a robust methodology for dependable analysis of SiC/SiC composite structures for LWR fuel cladding, as well as other nuclear applications. The resulting model will be experimentally validated and applied to analyze the reliability of LWR SiC/SiC fuel cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15502: Reducing Uncertainty in Radionuclide Transport Prediction Using Multiple Environmental Tracers | University of Montana | $724,906.00 | In this project, direct modeling of multiple environmental tracers will be used to improve predictions of radionuclide transport in a shallow alluvial aquifer discharge. The research will take advantage of recent theoretical developments considering the use of environmental tracers, and advances in high-performance reactive flow and transport models, to obtain the maximum information on the transport system. The goal is to develop a new methodology to characterize natural reactive flow and transport systems, reduce predictive uncertainty in radionuclide transport simulations, determine the maximum information content of the tracer suite, and optimize future groundwater characterization efforts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15578: Computational and Experimental Investigation of Thermal-Mechanical- Chemical Mechanisms of High-burnup Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) Processes at Elevated Temperatures and Degradation Behavior in Geologic Repositories | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $800,000.00 | The overarching goal of this project is to use combined computational and experimental research and development activities to enhance understanding of the mechanisms and thermal-mechanical-chemical (TMC) parameters controlling the instant release fraction (IRF) and matrix dissolution of high-burnup (HB; burnup > 45 GWd/MTU) spent nuclear fuels (SNFs) and the subsequent formation, stability, and phase transformations of HB SNF alteration products under long-term storage and geological disposal conditions (e.g., high-temperature storage, _-radiolysis). The results of this research will be used to enhance the mechanistic detail of process models to reduce uncertainty in, and improve the technical bases of, safety cases and performance assessment analyses. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15439: Radiolytic Dissolution Rate of Silicon Carbide | University of Notre Dame | $400,000.00 | This project seeks to develop a matrix of dissolution rates for high-purity SiC material, using intense electron beam irradiation, and to measure the products of dissolution (silicic acid and CO2 (or CO)) in the water downstream of the irradiation zone. The objective is to determine the rate of SiC dissolution and gather sufficient insight about its mechanism in LWRs, so that the use of SiC/SiC composite materials for accident tolerant fuel cladding can proceed with confidence. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15061: Development of an MC&A Toolbox for Liquid-fueled Molten Salt Reactors with Online Reprocessing | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,207.00 | The purpose of this project is to develop a toolbox of swappable mass flow modules for liquid-fueled molten salt reactor (MSR) systems for the purposes of evaluating material control & accountancy measurement techniques. When combined together, these modules enable modeling of the time-dependent mass flows for a variety of MSR variants. The test platform will consist of a toolbox of independent process modules representing discrete physical units, each with its own self-contained physics responsive to the input mass flow, along with appropriate measurement models that can be coupled to key flow points. These dynamic physical signatures would allow testing of the viability and efficacy of potential accountancy techniques under the full range of reactor operating conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15307: A Novel and Flexible Approach for Converting LWR UNF Fuel Into Forms That Can Be Used to Fuel a Variety of Gen-IV Reactors | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $400,000.00 | This project will investigate the chemical decladding and the digestion of whole MOX-based fuel rods, using thionyl chloride and surrogate materials. Digesting entire LWR fuel assemblies results in product streams that include pure decontaminated ZrCl4; pure UCl4; and a stream containing TRU/FPs, as well as alloying metals (as chloride salts). The objectives of this project are to provide a new, highly efficient protocol for the transformation of used nuclear fuel into useful components and to effectively contain a concentrated stream of highly radioactive materials for appropriate handling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15459: Reduced Diffusion and Enhanced Retention of Multiple Radionuclides from Pore Structure Studies of Barrier Materials for Enhanced Repository Performance | University of Texas at Arlington | $567,831.00 | The project seeks to better understand and quantify the pore structure (geometry and topology) and pore connectivity of porous media and its emergent effect on diffusion and retention of various radionuclides in barrier materials. The anticipated outcome of the project will be to more accurately evaluate the performance of geological repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15649: Benchmarking Microscale Ductility Measurements | University of Utah | $776,669.00 | The objectives of this project are to establish best practices for obtaining tensile microscale ductility measurements and to validate methodologies for comparing them to macroscale ductility measurements. Anticipated outcomes of the project are: 1) measurement of grain and sub-grain localization processes micro and macroscales; 2) establishment of best practices for microtensile experimentation; 3) identification of statistically significant relationships between specimen geometry, microstructure variables and mechanical behavior; 4) modified phenomenological elongation-based ductility models to enable direct upscaling of ductility measurements from microscale to macroscopic. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15003: Advanced Coating and Surface Modification Technologies for SiC-SiC Composite for Hydrothermal Corrosion Protection in LWR | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,990.00 | This project focuses on the development of coatings and surface modification approaches for hydrothermal corrosion protection of SiC-SiC composite in normal LWR operation environments. Innovative surface treatment recipes will be explored using processes including, interfacial stitching to improve adhesion, multi-layered structures to improve ductility, and compositions and structures resulting from thermal treatments. The surface treatment concepts involve corrosion resistant metallic and ceramic materials, and are amenable to industrial scalability for the cladding application. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15332: Low-Force Solid-State Technologies for Mitigation of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dry Storage Canisters | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000.00 | This project will focus on evaluating and developing two technologies used for field mitigation and repair of stress corrosion cracking (SCC): 1) additive friction stir welding; and 2) cold spray deposition. The work involves developing low-force, low-heat input solid state technologies to lessen and repair SCC in stainless steel canisters for used nuclear fuel (UNF). This outcome of the study will inform feasibility of using the two technologies to conduct on-site field repairs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14913: The Role of Temperature on Non-Darcian Flows in Engineered Clay Barriers | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000.00 | This project intends to accomplish three tasks: 1) to develop a predictive model to facilitate experimental data interpretation and provide mechanistic insights into the role of temperature on non-Darcian flows in low-permeability engineered clay barriers; 2) conduct experiments to unravel the role of temperature on the threshold gradient of non-Darcian flow in both saturated and unsaturated bentonite; and 3) use molecular dynamics (MD) simulation to improve fundamental understanding. The experimental data, associated with the MD simulation, will provide valuable information to improve fundamental understanding and scientific knowledge with respect to the temperature dependence of threshold gradient in non-Darcian flows, because very limited experimental data for saturated flow and no experimental data for unsaturated flow are available. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14815: C-SiOC-SiC Coated Particle Fuels for Advanced Nuclear Reactors | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $400,000.00 | This project will study a new concept for nuclear fuel encapsulation using an amorphous SiOC plus carbon system as the inner coating and nanocrystalline SiC plus minor carbon as the outer coating for nuclear fuel kernel particles. The outcomes of this work are: 1) new directions and possible replacement guidance for current nuclear fuel materials in operation; 2) new fuel materials for future nuclear reactor material design and development; 3) nuclear composite microstructure evolution and performance degradation understanding; 4) screening tools to guide future nuclear fuel material activities; and 5) mechanisms of nuclear fuel material evolution and degradation and effective strategies to mitigate/reduce undesirable fuel behaviors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15226: An Evaluated, Transient Experiment based on Simultaneous, 3-D Neutron-Flux and Temperature Measurements | Kansas State University | $399,972.00 | This project will evaluate existing and near-term experimental data for inclusion in the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) handbook. The data to be evaluated include compositions from a recent fuel replacement as part of an LEU conversion, a number of critical, fresh-fuel configurations, fuel temperature measurements at fresh-fuel configurations, and records from nearly a decade of operation. The proposed work would lead to a first-of-a-kind evaluation of transient, spatially-dependent reaction rates. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project CFA-18-15773: Evaluation of the Thermal Scattering Law for Advanced Reactor Neutron Moderators and Reflectors | North Carolina State University | $398,821.00 | The objective of this project is to narrow the nuclear data gap for advanced nuclear reactors that are driven by thermal neutrons. This includes concepts such as gas-cooled high-temperature reactors and molten salt or salt-cooled high temperature reactors. The generated data TSL libraries will be provided in EDNF File 7 format to the National Nuclear Data Center (NDDC) to immediately include in beta releases of the ENDF/B libraries and to consider for the future release of ENDF/B-VIII.1. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15602: Modeling and Experimental Verification of Thermal Energy Storage Systems to Enable Load Following Capability for Nuclear Reactors | University of Idaho | $761,640.00 | This project purposes to integrate new thermal energy storage (TES) models, developed in Modelica, with ongoing nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (NRHES) modeling efforts, in order to evaluate economic potential and advantages of new process designs over baseload electricity production. The computational phase of this project includes developing mathematical and physics-based TES models, which could later be translated to Modelica and integrated with existing NRHES components. The testing and optimization would be conducted using RAVEN. A techno-economic analysis will be performed to evaluate the compatibility of the newly formed integration, as well as to quantify its feasibility and economic benefits. The experimental aspect is focused on the development of scaled TES systems, which serve as verification for the Modelica models and allow system testing upon being integrated with DETAIL. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14963: Development of Nuclear Hybrid Energy Systems: Temperature Amplification through Chemical Heat Pumps for Industrial Applications | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The overall goal of this project is to develop and demonstrate, through modeling and experimental investigations, temperature amplification capabilities of a chemical heat pump (CHP) system that can be coupled to a conventional light water reactor or a near-term small modular reactor. The outcomes would include nuclear hybrid energy system architecture containing a CHP, experimental data on the CHP performance, and dynamic model of the system, validated through experimentation, which could be used for scale-up and design. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15008: Development of Thermal Inelastic Scattering Covariance Data Capabilities with Demonstration of Light Water Evaluation | University of Michigan | $400,000.00 | The goal of this project is to produce a format for covariance data for inelastic thermal neutron scattering data for moderators in the ENDF format. To demonstrate the viability of this new format, an evaluation of the covariance data for thermal scattering in light water in this format will be produced, along with the capabilities to generate the files and test their efficacy. A capability for calculating sensitivity coefficients using multigroup methods to the fundamental physics parameters governing light-water scattering will be developed to facilitate identifying nuclear data needs related to thermal scattering. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15056: Model-Based Diagnostics and Mitigation of Cyber Threats | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | This project intends to develop a toolkit for modeling digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems for nuclear power plants so that the consequences of cyber-attacks on I&C systems may conveniently be modeled using nuclear plant simulation software. The results of the toolkit-based models, the corresponding responses, and the performance of the diagnostic schemes will be tested on a virtual control room driven by a plant simulator. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15055: NICSim: Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Simulation for Evaluating Response to Cyber-attacks | University of New Mexico | $799,945.00 | The objective of the project is to develop a Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Simulation (NICSim) platform with a novel emulytics capability to simulate control systems and components in nuclear power plants. The outcome of this work would be a first-in-class emulytics platform with an associated documentation and library of physical models of components that could be used by analysts and designers to assess the resilience and cybersecurity risks of different control system designs for a wide range of power plants. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15324: Validation of Pressure Relaxation Coefficient in RELAP-7 Seven-Equation Model | George Washington University | $800,000.00 | This project aims to validate the Seven-Equation model in RELAP-7 by: 1) measuring velocity and pressure in each phase and the interface as well as return to equilibrium in fast transients with high-speed non-intrusive laser diagnostics in canonical experiments; 2) complementing experimental data with a multiscale computational approach, including a 3D proprietary direct numerical solver; and 3) validating RELAP-7 with a combination of experimental data and first-principle simulations. This combination would provide unique and complete datasets to validate RELAP-7 with high confidence and offer a new class of experimental and numerical tools. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project CFA-18-15104: Demonstration of Utilization of High-fidelity NEAMS Tools to Inform the Improved Use of Conventional Tools within the NEAMS Workbench on the NEA/OECD C5G7-TD Benchmark | North Carolina State University | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to demonstrate the utilization of high-fidelity Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) tools (PROTEUS, Nek5000, and BISON) to inform the improved use of conventional tools (DIF-3D, CTF, and CTFFuel) within the NEAMS Workbench on the NEA/OECD C5G7-TD benchmark. This would result in more accurate predictions of safety parameters and margins, which is important for both safety and performance improvements of the nuclear power plants being currently operated and built. The developed Workbench-based framework will also assist end users to apply high-fidelity simulations to inform lower-order models for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14741: Demonstration of a Methodology for Direct Validation of MARMOT Irradiation-Induced Microstructural Evolution and Physical Property Models Using U-10Zr | Texas A&M University | $500,000.00 | The objective of this project is to demonstrate, for the first time, a methodology that enables the direct validation of microstructural evolution models for fuel in MARMOT, and the direct correlation of changes in physical properties with specific irradiation-induced microstructural features. Properly implementing this methodology will result in rapid development of MARMOT mesoscale models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15520: Accurate and Efficient Parametric Model-Order Reduction for Turbulent Thermal Transport | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000.00 | The project objective is to develop reduced-order models (ROMs) that will improve accuracy of LMR system-level analysis with low overhead. These new models will systematically mine high-fidelity DNS, LES, or uRANS simulations to construct low-order dynamical systems that can couple with a systems analysis code, such as the SAM code being developed under NEAMS. These simulations provide useful data and will be made available to the scientific community, and the overall effort will contribute to more efficient LMR conceptual design studies and licensing. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15484: A Novel High Fidelity Continuous-energy tTansport Tool for Efficient FHR Transient Calculations | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000.00 | The objective of the project is to develop a high-fidelity continuous energy (CE) transport tool for efficient transient calculations in fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactors with prismatic core/fuel assembly design. This will be accomplished by extending the high-fidelity 3-D continuous energy coarse mesh radiation transport (COMET) code with formidable computational speed to solve transient problems in FHRs with accurate thermal hydraulic feedback. The new capability would enable plant system codes to perform analyses necessary to address complex technical design, regulatory, reactor safety, and economic hurdles prior to construction. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15093: Determination of Molecular Structure and Dynamics of Molten Salts by Advanced Neutron and X-ray Scattering Measurements and Computer Modeling | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000.00 | This project will seek detailed knowledge about molecular structure and dynamics of molten salts to inform the design of new molten-salt reactors. A combination of advanced neutron and x-ray scattering and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations will be used to model the ionic-cluster structure of the fluid and solubility of impurities. Machine learning will be applied to regress from simulations and experiments in order to develop the model and predict chemical potentials as a function of composition and temperature. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15171: Oxidation Behavior of Silicon Carbide and Graphitic Materials | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000.00 | The objectives of this project are to determine the oxidation behavior of silicon carbide and graphitic materials in oxygen and/or moisture, to accurately measure the kinetic parameters of oxidation, to ascertain the oxidation mechanisms in relation to the microstructures, to determine the effect of irradiation on oxidation behavior, and to provide data and input to the safety analysis of high-temperature gas reactors under air and moisture ingress accident conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15276: Coping Time and Cost Analysis of Accident Tolerant Plant Design based on Dynamic PRA Methodology | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000.00 | This project will evaluate the failure modes of accident tolerant fuel ATF candidates to understand the different failure characteristics. The research aims to obtain a response surface of coping time by investigating the various uncertainties of accident mitigation in PWR and BWR reactors. These outputs will aid the decision making process on the implementation of ATF and FLEX to existing LWR plants from the perspective of risk reduction and economic feasibility. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15270: Innovative Use of Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) with the RCIC System to Enhance Passive Safety of Commercial LWRs | Texas A&M University | $748,000.00 | The overarching objectives of this project are to: 1) demonstrate new operational strategies with the combined use of Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) and the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) System to increase the passive safety capabilities of current Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs) in delaying or preventing core damage; and 2) pursue the delay of containment venting until after a 72-hour coping period through new BWR Suppression Pool mixing procedures. The research will use both simulation and experimental data to validate the objectives. The work has the potential to increase the ability of existing nuclear power plants to passively respond to beyond design basis events using existing equipment and without changes to the plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15346: Big Data For Operation and Maintenance Cost Reduction | The Ohio State University | $800,000.00 | This project will develop a first-of-a-kind framework for integrating Big Data capability into the daily activities of our current fleet of nuclear power plants. This research will mainly focus on incorporating the wide range of data heterogeneities in nuclear power plants into an integrated Big Data Analytics capability. The primary end product of this work will be a Big Data framework that is capable of dealing with the large volume and heterogeneity of the data found in nuclear power plants to extract timely and valuable information on equipment performance and to enable optimization of plant operation and maintenance based on the extracted information. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15065: in situ Measurement and Validation of Uranium Molten Salt Properties at Operationally Relevant Temperatures | University of Connecticut | $799,979.00 | This project proposes to use advanced spectroscopic and scattering methods to provide information at the atomic and molecular scale. The research will use synchrotron-based x-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy, at operationally relevant temperatures, to measure the local and intermediate structure as well as speciation of chloride fuel salts (NaCl, ZrCl, UCl3) for fast-spectrum applications and fluoride fuel salts ( 7 LiF, UF4) primarily for thermal spectrum applications This approach is expected to generate theories and concepts that would allow models to predict behavior, and develop the means for in situ monitoring. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15058: High-resolution Experiments for Extended LOFC and Steam Ingress Accidents in HTGRs | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to better understand key phenomena in high-temperature gas-cooled reactors relevant to steam ingress and loss of forced circulation (LOFC) accidents. Specifically, the research will: 1) experimentally investigate, using an existing integral-effect test facility with some improvements, the steam-ingress accident caused by a postulated steam generator tube rupture initiating event; 2) carry out integral-effect tests for the extended LOFC accident to study the establishment of global natural circulation flow in the primary loop; 3) design, based on a scaling analysis, and construct a separate-effect test facility to study the complex helium flows in the core and hot plenum during the extended LOFC accident; and 4) perform detailed, high-resolution, separate-effects experiments using the results obtained as boundary/initial conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15471: Integral Experimental Investigation of Radioisotope Retention in Flowing Lead for the Mechanistic Source Term Evaluation of Lead Cooled Fast Reactor | University of New Mexico | $800,000.00 | The purpose of this project is to experimentally investigate the integral effects of radioisotope interactions with liquid lead to support the following technical goals: 1) evaluating the mechanistic source term of the Lead-cooled Fast Reactor (LFR); 2) developing a universal integral effect test methodology for liquid metal source term evaluations; and 3) establishing a basis for the comparison of radioisotope retention between lead and sodium. This aim of the research is to advance the LFR licensing pathway by establishing the phenomenological foundation of the interaction between fission products and liquid lead. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15153: Understanding Molten Salt Chemistry Relevant to Advanced Molten Salt Reactors through Complementary Synthesis, Spectroscopy, and Modeling | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to understand molten salt chemistry relevant to advanced molten salt reactors through complementary synthesis, spectroscopy, and modeling. Through complementary synthetic, spectroscopic, and computational efforts, the aim is to achieve atomistic and molecular-level understanding of liquid structure, coordination geometry, chemical bonding, and reactivity of novel molten salt melts relevant to advanced molten reactor designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15111: Improving Nuclear Power Plant Efficiency Through Data Analytics | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,727.00 | This project aims to develop and provide data analytics solutions to improve nuclear power plan economic efficiency by utilizing empirical models to integrate disparate data sources while providing uncertainty estimates to quantify risk and support decisions. The outcomes will enhance the technical and economic competitiveness by enabling advanced monitoring of critical assets, improving the operating capability of the existing fleet, and helping achieve enhancements in organizational effectiveness. Additionally, the research would provide an agile and modular data analytic framework that would have high commercialization value and supports the industry-wide drive towards digital innovation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14846: Development of Corrosion Resistant Coatings and Liners for Structural Materials for Liquid Fueled Molten Salts Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to develop corrosion-resistant coatings and liners for structural materials for use in fuel dissolved molten salt environment for future Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). Innovative, but industrially scalable, surface cladding approaches are proposed to lead to promising surface and interfacial compositions. The processes themselves are commercial, and have high technology readiness levels, and consequently would facilitate the accelerated developments of MSRs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15280: Advanced Alloy Innovations for Structural Components of Molten Salt Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $796,792.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to develop and evaluate specific advanced metallic alloys for structural components in fluoride salt-cooled molten salt reactors (MSRs). The research will investigate four categories of metallic alloys: advanced Ni-based; radiation damage tolerant high entropy; refractory Mo-based, and compositionally-graded, designed for high-surface corrosion resistance and good bulk strength. Additionally, the propensity for radiation embrittlement, as well as weldability, of the alloys will be evaluated. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14957: Big Data Analytics Solutions to Improve Nuclear Power Plant Efficiency: Online Monitoring, Visualization, Prognosis, and Maintenance Decision Making | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $797,820.00 | The overarching goal of this project is to significantly advance the ability to assess equipment condition and predict the remaining useful life to support optimal maintenance decision making in nuclear power plants. This research will work toward accomplishing and establishing a modern set of data-driven modeling, online monitoring, visualization, prognosis, and operation decision-making methodologies to address the significant opportunities and challenges arising from the emerging data-rich environment in nuclear plants. The potential impact of the work is significant and transformative and could deliver important advances in productivity with reduced unscheduled downtime and improved equipment performance. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15097: Oxidation Study of High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor TRISO Fuels at Accidental Conditions | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000.00 | This project is to study the oxidation behaviors of TRISO fuels during accidental air and water vapor ingress conditions. The work focuses on the oxidation and burn-off of the graphite fuel matrix and oxidation of the TRISO fuel SiC layer at high-temperature accidental states in the presence of air and/or water vapor. It will include both unirradiated and irradiated graphite fuel matrix and simulated fuel particles with the SiC layer. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 19-16987: Novel miniature creep tester for virgin and neutron irradiated clad alloys with benchmarked multiscale modeling and simulations | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | This project will develop a miniature creep machine to collect rapid thermal creep and load relaxation data for two selected ferritic alloys under "as-received" and irradiated conditions. Fast and accurate measurements of creep deformation are essential for qualifying new alloys for long term use in current and next generation reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17150: Speciation and Behavior of Neptunium and Zirconium in Advanced Separation Process | Oregon State University | $800,000 | This project will further develop the understanding of nuclear fuel reprocessing using Co-Decontamination (CoDCon). Radiolytic degradation products of tributylphosphate, nitric acid, redox buffer, masking agent, and water greatly affect the redox speciation, complexation and partitioning of the recycled metals. Fundamental understanding of chemical speciation and partitioning of Neptunium and Zerconium under such conditions is required. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17395: Modeling and Uncertainty Analysis of MSR Nuclear Material Accounting Methods for Nuclear Safeguards | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | This project will model and analyze the limits of detection for the diversion of nuclear materials from a molten salt reactor (MSR) fuel cycle. MSR depletion under a range of uranium and/or plutonium diversion to quantify the resulting differences in salt composition will be evaluated. Sensors will also be investigated to quantify fuel salt contents and correlate the outputs with the reactor models to predict diversion detection. Results will be coupled with robust uncertainty analysis to determine limits of detection. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16583: Neutron Radiation Effect on Diffusion between Zr (and Zircaloy) and Cr for Accurate Lifetime Prediction of ATF | The Ohio State University | $499,997 | This project will perform systematic diffusion studies on both neutron-irradiated and unirradiated accident tolerant fuel samples to obtain precise diffusion coefficients. This will result in a precise evaluation of the pure neutron irradiation effect on diffusion in these systems and enable accurate life prediction of the accident tolerant fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17381: High Throughput Assessment of Creep Behavior of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Structural Alloys by Nano/microindentation | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $800,000 | This project will develop a high throughput assessment of creep behavior of advanced nuclear reactor structural alloys by nano/microindentation. Experimental datasets will inform polycrystalline deformation models to predict material response over a variety of creep conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16549: Thermal Conductivity Measurement of Irradiated Metallic Fuel Using TREAT | University of Pittsburgh | $500,000 | This project intends to provide accurate thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity data with microstructure characterization of metallic (U-Pu-Zr) fuel as a function of burnup and attain fundamental understanding of the thermal conductivity of the irradiated fuel to inform and validate computational models. This will be accomplished using an innovative thermal wave technique in the Transient Reactor Test Facility at the Idaho National Laboratory, with the Minimal Activation Reusable Capsule Holder. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17002: Remote Laser-based Nondestructive Evaluation for Post-Irradiation Examination of ATF Cladding | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | To enable advanced nondestructive characterization techniques for light water reactor fuels that can be applied to the cladding coating, a remote nondestructive evaluation post irradiation inspection approach will be developed. This technique will measure the cladding coating layer thickness and detect defects within the cladding such as corrosion, micro-cracking and delamination. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17276: Radiation-Induced Swelling in Advanced Nuclear Fuel | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,989 | The microstructural evolution of advanced fuel (uranium carbide and uranium nitride) under fission-fragment type radiation has not been studied and remains unclear. This project will utilize advanced synchrotron X-ray characterization using microgram samples to obtain detailed nanoscale information on radiation-induced volumetric swelling and microstrain. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16848: Metal-Functionalized Membranes for Radioiodine Capture | University of Utah | $799,031 | This proposed research will investigate high-surface area (>300 m2/g) metal-functionalized membranes. These novel chemically durable and mechanically robust membranes are formed using an aqueous fabrication process, which results in an interconnected porosity that is highly controllable, providing hierarchical structures ranging from the nano- to micrometer-scales. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17350: Development and Experimental Validation of Pitting and SCC Models for Welded Stainless Steel Dry Storage Containers Exposed to Atmospheric Environments | University of Virginia | $799,027 | The specific goals of this project are to: (a) validate the maximum pit size model for dry storage canister relevant corrosion conditions as well as quantifying the effects of limited cathodic current on stress corrosion cracking (SCC) kinetics, (b) demonstrate a means to quantitatively rank the risk of SCC based on measurable parameters, (c) perform probabilistic predictions of SCC growth, and (d) validate the model predictions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16879: Proactive Hybrid Nuclear with Load Forecasting | Brigham Young University | $799,933 | This project develops new capabilities of design and dispatch optimization of nuclear hybrid energy systems (NHES) in the "Risk Analysis Virtual Environment (RAVEN)" modelling software. Blended (physics-based and data-driven) machine learning will be applied to forecast demand and production of thermal and electrical loads. Two experimental case studies are proposed to test the software developments with a lab-scale thermal energy storage and with a large district energy system. As a final step, the software developments will be generalized to other NHES. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17461: Development and Evaluation of Neutron Thermalization Integral Benchmarks for Advanced Reactor Applications | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | This project will develop integral benchmarks that aim to examine thermal neutron scattering data for graphite (ideal and nuclear), light water, and molten salt. The benchmark evaluations will be contributed to the International Handbook of Evaluated Reactor Physics Benchmark Experiments (IRPhEP) database. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17219: Using Integral Benchmark Experiments to Improve Differential Nuclear Data Evaluations | University of New Mexico | $400,000 | This project will use the results of integral benchmark experiment to inform differential nuclear data evaluations and improve the predictive capability of modeling and simulation (M&S) tools. This goal will be accomplished by developing capabilities to assess the sensitivity of integral benchmark results to evaluated nuclear data parameters, and by using data assimilation tools to directly adjust the evaluated data parameters and improve the accuracy of M&S tools. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16743: Paths Forward for Nuclear Energy: Using a Nationwide Post-Stratified Hierarchical Model to Facilitate Matching of New Nuclear Technologies to Receptive Host Communities | University of Oklahoma | $390,393 | This project will enable deployment of advanced nuclear technologies by developing a model, and an accompanying web-based tool that can be utilized by technology entrepreneurs, that identifies public support for siting new nuclear technologies at very local spatial scales across the US. The model will employ hierarchically structured, post stratified analysis of the largest US pooled-time series dataset on geocoded public support for nuclear technologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16995: A Cyber-Attack Detection Platform for Cyber Security of Digital Instrumentation and Control Systems | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,995 | The proposed research will develop a robust cyber-attack detection system (CADS) for monitoring digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems. The project will develop a robust research tool for evaluating cyber defense of digital I&C systems and provide a framework for a cyber-attack detection system that provides continuous assurance of the security of digital I&C systems in nuclear power plants (NPPs). | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17327: Multi-Timescale Nuclear-Renewable Hybrid Energy Systems Operations to Improve Electricity System Resilience, Reliability, and Economic Efficiency | University of Texas at Dallas | $800,000 | The overarching objective of this project is to develop a multi-timescale nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (N-R HESs) operations framework to provide different types of grid products. The project will model and analyze the capabilities of N-R HESs to provide power grid services at different timescales ranging from seconds to days, such as day-ahead unit commitment, flexible ramping (5-45 minutes), regulation reserves (1-5 minutes), and frequency response (less than seconds). | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17192: The Design and Investigation of Novel Mechanical Filters for Molten Salt Reactors | Abilene Christian University | $762,246 | Researchers will develop a novel mechanical filtration system. The project will include the collection of filter media performance data and filter regeneration performance data for a novel sintered nickel-based filter prototype. The project will also provide a filter design that facilitates remote filter removal, cooling, replacement, and assay of fissile material hold-up in the filter media. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16980: Determining the Effects of Neutron Irradiation on the Structural Integrity of Additively Manufactured Heat Exchangers for Very Small Modular Reactor Applications | Auburn University | $400,000 | Researchers will determine how to best use laser-powder bed fusion additive manufacturing methods for generating radiation-resistant channel/pore-embedded structures from Inconel (alloy 625 or 718) nickel-based superalloys for special purpose reactor (i.e. very small modular reactor) heat exchangers. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17413: Validated, Multi-Scale Molecular Dynamics Simulations to Predict the Thermophysical Properties of Molten Salts Containing Fuel, Fission, and Corrosion Products | Brigham Young University | $798,291 | Researchers will use first principles molecular dynamics (FPMD) simulations on molten salts containing impurities including fuel, fission products, and corrosion products. These will be used to develop a classical molecular dynamics (CMD) potential. CMD will then be used to predict properties for a wide variety of salt compositions and temperatures, and physical property measurements will be performed to validate those predictions. Property correlations will be developed from this data. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17183: Mixing of helium with air in reactor cavities following a pipe break in HTGRs | City College of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct separate effects tests to obtain experimental validation data on mixing of helium and air in reactor building cavities during and after blowdown in HTGRs. Air and helium concentrations, and gas mixture velocity and temperature fields will be measured in simulated reactor cavities. An existing helium flow loop will be used as the source of high pressure/high temperature helium for injection into the cavities and different break configurations will be experimentally investigated. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16391: GuArDIAN: General Active Sensing for conDItion AssessmeNt | Duke University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a dependable, autonomous or semi-autonomous (i.e. low human involvement), and minimally disruptive framework for monitoring equipment and components in nuclear reactors. The project will develop GUARDIAN; a robust active sensing framework through the integration of model-based inference and mobile actuating/sensing robots. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17251: Measuring Mechanical Properties of Select Layers and Layer Interfaces of TRISO Particles via Micromachining and In-Microscope Tensile Testing | Idaho State University | $799,815 | Researchers will characterize the strength of TRISO-coated particle layers and interfaces using FIB micro-machining and in-TEM tensile testing. Tensile test samples from coating layers of (1) unirradiated surrogate (fuel) TRISO particles, (2) unirradiated fueled TRISO particles and (3) irradiated fueled TRISO particles will be studied. Results of this project will both benefit and leverage the AGR Program. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17185: Demonstrating Reactor Autonomous Control Framework using Graphite Exponential Pile | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will demonstrate a detection-prediction-feedback framework for nuclear system autonomous control. It will adopt multiple detector channels to enable control feedback to spatially dependent perturbations. It will also utilize high-fidelity solutions trained surrogate models for real-time prediction and decision-making. In addition to the method development, the proposal will entail a first-of-a-kind engineering demonstration using the MIT Graphite Exponential Pile (MGEP). | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16754: Simultaneous Corrosion/Irradiation Testing in Lead and Lead-Bismuth Eutectic: The Radiation Decelerated Corrosion Hypothesis | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $762,823 | Researchers will test candidate FeCrSi and F/M alloys in a new, simultaneous corrosion/radiation facility to try to identify an alloy that will satisfy all requirements for Lead Fast Reactor structural materials. Microstructural characterization, mechanical property testing, and corrosion tests, both during irradiation and following ion/He pre-conditioning, will assess how irradiation affects corrosion, potentially slowing it. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17173: Ni-based ODS alloys for Molten Salt Reactors | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | The objective of this work is to (i) propose and develop a new Nickel (Ni) based Oxide Dispersion-Strengthened (ODS) alloy that can be used for structural applications in Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) and other nuclear reactor harsh environments, (ii) to demonstrate that its high temperature mechanical properties are adequate for MSR operating temperatures, (iii) to demonstrate its radiation damage resistance through ion irradiation testing and (iv) to demonstrate its improved corrosion resistance in MSR environment. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17037: Investigation of HTGR Reactor Building Response to a Break in Primary Coolant Boundary | Purdue University | $799,832 | Researchers will perform a series of experiments to simulate HTGR reactor building response due to a break in the primary coolant boundary in a well-scaled test facility to obtain spatial distribution of oxygen concentration, perform analysis of the whole system response with 1-D thermal hydraulics codes and use CFD to make detailed localized predictions. The tests will be carried out with different locations and sizes of the breaks to create various vent and flow paths in the reactor cavity. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17093: Integrating Multi-modal Microscopy Techniques and the MOSAIC Simulation Environment to Assess Changes in the Physical Properties and Chemical Durability of Concrete Following Radiation Exposure | University of California, Los Angeles | $800,000 | Researchers will develop unprecedented multi-modal imaging methodologies that integrate multiple microscopy techniques. The team will develop a generalizable protocol for quantifying the changes in physical properties and chemical durability of concrete and concrete constituents (minerals and aggregates) following radiation exposure. The imaging analyses will be input into the MOSAIC framework to reveal the nature and extent of degradation that is expected to result. The outcomes offer insights that are needed to enable and inform second license renewals. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17167: Atomistically Informed and Experimentally Validated Model for Helium Bubble Growth in Welded Irradiated Metals | University of Florida | $797,861 | Researchers will construct a validated computational model for He bubble growth on grain boundaries in irradiated Fe-Ni-Cr microstructures, including intergranular fracture, as a function of material conditions and welding heat input. This model will be based on the phase-field methodology, leveraging numerical solvers in the MOOSE simulation platform, with critical inputs and validation provided by both atomic-level simulations and experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16909: Learning-based Computational Study of the Thermodynamic, Structural, and Dynamic Properties of Molten Salts at the Atomic and Electronic Scale and Experimental Validations | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will obtain the thermophysical, thermochemical, and transport properties, construct the phase diagrams, and build empirical physical models of molten salts that are relevant to Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) with first-principles accuracy using molecular dynamics simulations driven by machine-learned high-dimensional neural network potentials combined with neutron/X-ray scattering and thermodynamic experimental validations. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16298: I-PRA Decision-Making Algorithm and Computational Platform to Develop Safe and Cost-Effective Strategies for the Deployment of New Technologies | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an integrated probabilistic risk assessment decision-making algorithm to support risk-and-cost-informed decision-making related to the deployment of new technologies. The project will enhance the financial analysis module and the challenging interface of social and technical systems to advance the algorithm. The project will conduct a case study for evaluating the safety impact and cost-effectiveness of FLEX strategies to support operational flexibility. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16802: Evaluation of Semi-Autonomous Passive Control Systems for HTGR Type Special Purpose Reactors | University of Michigan | $400,000 | Researchers will investigate the use of variable flow controllers and a variable reflector as passive or semi-autonomous reactivity control mechanisms for multi-module HTGR type special purpose reactors. This applies to the commercially developed special purpose reactor concepts from HolosGen. The incorporation of these systems will reduce the movable parts count and enable more robust load follow capabilities over broader power ranges and local and global reactivity control. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17467: Understanding the Speciation and Molecular Structure of Molten Salts Using Laboratory and Synchrotron based In Situ Experimental Techniques and Predictive Modeling | University of Nevada, Reno | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology to accurately determine the structure and speciation of the molten salt electrolyte using laboratory-based spectroscopic techniques (Raman and UV-Vis-NIR) and synchrotron-based (scattering and absorption) techniques, in combination with computational modeling. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17231: Prevention of Common Fault-Trigger Combinations for Qualification of Digital Instrumentation and Control Technology | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will provide an effective design evaluation approach based on prevention of concurrent triggering conditions to eliminate common-cause failures (CCF) and enable qualification of digital I&C technology for application in nuclear plant modernization. The research involves classifying commonality among digital devices, categorizing faults and triggering conditions, determining fault-trigger relationships, and defining preventive design measures to resolve the potential for CCF. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17087: Economic Risk-Informed Maintenance Planning and Asset Management | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will provide a holistic framework for cost-minimizing risk-informed maintenance planning, including inspection. They will develop a two-tier framework that coarsely minimizes the total maintenance cost during the remaining normal operating cycle and uses the outputs of the first model to maximize the financial impact of these activities in the short term. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16811: Liquid Metal-cooled Fast Reactor Instrumentation Technology Development | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will explore three different areas that will help to improve commercialization of SFRs and to aid in testing for the VTR. These include: 1. Advancement in understanding of low prandtl number heat transfer 2. Testing of compact heat exchangers for use with sodium 3. Development of in pool submersible flow meters. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16954: Innovative In-Situ Analysis and Quantification of Corrosion and Erosion of 316 Stainless Steel in Molten Chloride Salt Flow Loops | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will use a thin-layer activation technique for the first time in molten salts, on 316H samples placed in natural convection and forced flow loops. The individual and synergistic effects of corrosion, irradiation and thermo-mechanical treatments will be evaluated in-situ to predict component service lifetimes and design limits. The effects of molten chloride flow velocity will also be assessed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17168: Fuel Salt Sampling and Enriching System Technology Development | Vanderbilt University | $799,989 | Researchers will combine insights from the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment with decades of advancements in applicable technologies into an enhanced Sampler Enricher (SE) concept to develop and test a flexible, reliable, and workable design. The prototype will then be tested in an existing salt loop. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16739: Improvements of Nuclear Data Evaluations for Lead Isotopes in Support of Next Generation Lead-Cooled Fast Systems | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | The objective of this project is to improve the accuracy of neutronics simulation of lead-based systems by improving the nuclear data of lead isotopes. The nuclear data for lead will be reevaluated with emphasis of the intermediate and fast energy regions that are required by reactor applications currently sought by several industrial entities. The deliverables of this project are new lead isotopes evaluations that will be candidates for inclusion in a future Evaluated Nuclear Data Library (ENDF) release. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 20-19373: Connecting Advanced High-Temperature X-ray and Raman Spectroscopy Structure/Dynamics Insights to High-Throughput Property Measurements | Boston University | $500,000 | Researchers will acquire molten salt structure and dynamics data at high-temperatures using high-energy x-ray techniques and Raman spectroscopy and relate them to their physical and chemical properties. High-throughput techniques will be developed to rapidly measure multiple high-temperature properties at one time. An understanding of the relationship of salt structure and dynamics to its properties will help to select and optimize melt chemistry in molten salt reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19371: Adsorption and Reduction of Uranium in Engineered Barrier Systems: Effects of Iron and Heat | California State University, East Bay | $800,000 | Reseachers will investigate uranium sorption and abiotic reduction processes in iron-rich montmorillonite systems as a function of solution chemistry and temperature. The team will develop a surface complexation model that can account for both uranium adsorption and reduction, and hence reduce the uncertainties associated with uranium mobility in iron-rich environments with engineering barrier systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19831: Optimizing Melt Processed Phosphate Glass Waste Forms via Composition-Property-Structure Correlations | Clemson University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and optimize highly durable and easily processable phosphate-based glass waste forms to immobilize the dehalogenated salt streams by tailoring the composition of the glasses. To complement the work conducted on glass waste forms at the national laboratories sponsored by the DOE-NE program, modified iron phosphate glass waste forms will be prepared and evaluated by the introduction of various glass modifiers (SnF2 and BaO) to the prototype glass compositions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19695: Quantifying radionuclide sorption to engineered barrier materials under elevated temperature and ionic strength conditions | Clemson University | $799,380 | Researchers will characterize actinide sorption to mineral surfaces and examine possible mechanisms of sorption at high temperature/ionic strength through examination of the effects of hydration and hydrolysis on actinide sorption. These data will provide an understanding of radionuclide behavior with engineered barrier materials. A greater understanding of these processes will reduce the uncertainty in strategies for sequestration of radionuclide bearing wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19789: Controlling Neptunium and Zirconium in Advanced Extraction Processes | Colorado School of Mines | $599,763 | Researchers will address continuing issues with separating neptunium and zironium in current separation techniques. They will use coupled optical and x-ray specroscopy, small angle scattering, equilibrium thermodynamics and chemical analysis to understand fundamental molecular-level behaviors of extracted Np and Zr. These techniques, using world-class irradiation facilities, will elucidate the specific chemistries underlying the problematic behavior in Np and Zr in radiation fields. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19660: Linear and nonlinear guided ultrasonic waves to characterize cladding of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researcherses will perform a combination of linear and nonlinear guided ultrasonic waves, integrated with new material behavior models to develop a non-destructive evaluation (NDE) approach for both quality control/quality assurance and in-service NDE characterization of the cladding integrity and bond strength. Current NDE techniques are effective for uncoated designs, but these coated fuels add new challenges, which will be addressed by this new approach. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19678: Flexible Hard Ceramic Coatings by Ultrasonic Spray Mist-CVD for Dry Storage Canisters of Spent Nuclear Fuel and Waste | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop advanced flexible hard ceramic coatings using ultrasonic spray mist-chemical vapor deposition technique manufacturing process to deposit on dry storage canisters. The team will test resistance to corrosion, heat, wear and hydrogen permeation thgourh microstructural characterization and material property evaluation. The ultimate goal is to enhance the long term reliability of spent nuclear fuel dry storage canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19797: High Throughput Computational Platform for Predictive Modeling of Thermochemical and Thermophysical Properties of Fluoride Molten Salts | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | Researchers will (1) develop an open-source high throughput (H-T) computational platform to understand, predict, and evaluate thermochemical and thermophysical properties of molten salts as demonstrated in the F-(K-Li-Na)-(Cr-Fe)-U system and (2) provide H-T approaches (CALPHAD modeling and AIMD simulations) and open-source codes together with thermodynamic models of molten salts and public-accessible databases verified by targeted experiments for the molten salt research community. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19627: Chemical Interaction and Compatibility of Uranium Nitride with Liquid Pb and Alumina-forming Austenitic Alloys | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | Researcherswill address critical issues with the compatibility and chemcial interations of uranium nitride fuel, alumina-forming austenitic alloys and lead coolants/sublayers. They will obtain critical data of fuel-coolant-cladding interactions and compatibility to evaluate key parameters of operation temperature, fuel impurities and coolant chemistry. This data will provide key operation windows and parameters for deployment of lead-cooled fast reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19924: First-principles free energies by hybrid thermodynamic integration for phase equilibria and fission product solubility in molten salts | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | Researchers will predict phase equilibria and solubility of fission products in molten salts using a novel hybrid framework for thermodynamic integration combining first-principles, molecular dynamics and continuum methods to calculate free energies. They will be benchmarked using Bayesian-targeted calorimetric, in-situ diffraction and spectroscopic experiments. The project will provide microscopic insights and quantitative parameters necessary for reliable thermophysical modeling of molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19939: Gallium Oxide Schottky Diode Detectors for Measurement of Actinide Concentrations from Measured Alpha Activities in Molten Salts | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and test, to high temperatures, a Schottky diode alpha particle detector that is based on the rapidly emerging ultrawide band gap semiconductor material gallium oxide. Ga2O3 Schottky diode detectors offer the potential of detecting alpha particles at high temperatures, with better resolution than SiC Schottky diode detectors, which the team has previously developed for similar purposes. These detectors could be used in pyrochemical processing streams and molten salt reactors with potential application in other reactor concepts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19966: Evaluating hydroxypyridinone-based ligands for actinide and fission products recovery in used fuels | University of California, Berkeley | $600,000 | Researchers will pursue novel chemical separation approaches for advanced reactor used fuels treatments and recycling, by leveraging the unique actinide and lanthanide coordination properties of hydroxypyridinone-based aqueous chelators. These chelators have not been tested in extreme conditions and this work would test potential process performance with a focus on radiation-induced changes and oxidation state distribution. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19545: Femtosecond Laser Ablation Machining & Examination - Center for Active Materials Processing (FLAME-CAMP) | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop, build, and test a femtosecond laser ablation machining & examination tool that can be deployed in a hot cell environment enabling microscopy sample fabrication, isotope and elemental analysis, and thermal analysis. The technology allows for non-contact materials processing, even through glass windows, potentially preventing contamination of surrounding areas and tools. Such a multi-function tool with high throughput material processing will accelerate the research on fuel and cladding tremendously. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19198: Functionalized clay buffer materials for the long-term sequestration of technetium and iodine | University of Florida | $800,000 | Researcherswill develop synthesize, test, and model novel functionalized clay buffer materials for the long-term sequestration of iodine and technetium. The project will also focus on key experimantal parameters and modeling of how the novel clay buffer material will sequester iodine and technetium species. Novel materials will support DOE's efforts to design improved geologic repository barrier systems and optimize repository performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19209: Investigation on multicomponent solubility in LiCl-KCl eutectic chloride salts using combinatorial approach | University of Idaho | $400,000 | Researchers will perform irradiation experiments to understand how gamma radiation changes trivalent metal ion complex coordination structure and extraction characteristics during the ALSEP process. This work will focus on understanding the types of degradation products that are formed during the extraction process and what effects these degradation products have on process performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19713: Multifunctional Laser Processing for Repair and Mitigation of Pitting and Cracks in Welded Stainless Steel Dry Storage Canisters | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a strategic solution that combines laser cleaning and laser peening for removal of surface contamination and mitigation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in welded stainless steels. Laser cleanning will remove surface contamination and reduce pitting caused by corrosion. Laser peening will then be used to mitigate stress corrosion cracking and provide enhanced corrosion resistance. The portability of the laser system means the system will be able to be deployed in the field. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19188: Single- and Polycrystalline Diamond Electrodes for Spectroelectrochemical Characterization of Various Molten Salts | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $600,000 | Researchers will develop optically transparent electrodes for spectroelectrochemical measurements in chloride- and fluoride-based radioactive molten salts. The primary electrode material will be boron-doped diamond. Measurements will elucidate important electrochemical properties of nuclear fuel and fission products such as redox potential, diffusion coefficient, and electron transfer stoichiometry. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19641: Mitigating stress corrosion cracking in austenitic stainless-steel canister welds using peening techniques | University of Nevada, Reno | $799,950 | Researchers seek to understand the mechanisms of pitting/SCC resistance of welds as affected by a) compressive stress b) surface texture modification and c) microstructural change in the substrate surface resulting from laser shock peening, shot peening, ultrasonic impact peening and laser surface texturing. The study will recommend the best peening and surface texturing process conditions for mitigation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in 304L welds. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19704: Multicomponent Thermochemistry of Complex Chloride Salts for Sustain-able Fuel Cycle Technologies | University of Pittsburgh | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive thermodynamic database of multicomponent chloride salts through a collaboration between experts in Gibbs energy modeling and thermochemical experiments. A thermochemical database of the multicomponent chloride system KCl-LiCl-NaCl-UCl3-LnCl3 (Ln: La, Pr, Nd) will be developed using the CALPHAD (Calculation of Phase Diagrams) method with supported ab initio calculations and thermal analysis experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19506: Engineered composite patch with NDE inspection for repair and mitigation of SCC in nuclear spent fuel dry storage canister | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an innovative 'engineered composite patch' that can absorb moisture, neutralize chloride, and prevent stress corrosion cracking from further growth. This 'patch' with have in integrated non-destructive evaluation capability using laser utrasonic characterization methods to montior quality and performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19374: Maintaining and building upon the Halden legacy of In-situ diagnostics | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will develop innovative instrumentation focusing on temperature and strain measurements to fill the void left by the Halden reactor and to enhance the experimental capabilities in the Transient Reactor Test Facility (TREAT) located at Idaho National Laboratory. The team will develop a fiber optic sensor system that offers an inherent resistance to electromagnetic interference unlike currently used sensors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19076: Investigation of Degradation Mechanisms of Cr-coated Zirconium Alloy Cladding in Reactivity Initiated Accidents (RIA) | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $500,000 | Researchers will investigate the thermal, mechanical, and irradiation response of chromium-coated zirconium alloy claddings under RIA conditions, in comparison to uncoated Zr-alloy cladding. The outcome of the project will be used for anticipated licensing applications to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), thereby accelerating use of coated accident tolerant fuel concepts in U.S. commercial power reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19318: Surface Peening and Hybrid Surface Engineering Approaches to Mitigate Initiation and Resurgence of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dry Cask Storage Stainless Steel Canisters | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,838 | Researchers will develop and evaluate a wide range of surface peening treatments, as well as hybrid surface treatments to mitigate initiation and growth of chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) in stainless-steel canisters for used nuclear fuel (UNF) dry cask storage. Canister mock-ups with prototypical fusion welds will be used for this study. Characterization and testing of microstructure, compressive stresses, corrosion and CISCC will be performed. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19614: New Coatings for Nuclear Fuel Waste Canister Storage and Transport | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop novel SiOCN(H) coatings for spent nuclear fuel canisters in order to support sustained nuclear reactor operation and safeguard nuclear waste storage, transport, and disposal, in both terrestrial and marine environments. The novel coating will specifically address pitting corrosion and stress corrosion cracking in spent nuclear fuel canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19382: Separated waste stream immobilization of iodine and offgas caustic scrubber solution | Washington State University | $400,000 | Researchers will produce a set of waste forms from separation of iodine from the caustic offgas scrubber solution. The primary caustic scrub containing iodine, halides, and carbonate will be immobilized in a glass-bonded composite of cancrinite/sodalite. The iodine-loaded silver sorbent will be stripped of iodine, converted to NaI, and immobilized into a separate durable glass-bonded iodosodalite waste form. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19912: Validation of Robustness in TCR Design Strategies | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will perform sensitivity analysis (SA) and uncertainty quantification (UQ) of TCR design parameters and relevant physical phenomena, using open-source time dependent Monte-Carlo code (OpenMC), NQA1 qualified commercial codes (STARCCM+), and ABAQUS for thermal-hydraulics and structural mechanics. The SA/UQ analysis will provide key insights to allow for development of performance metrics of robustness for autonomous operation sensors, by processing signals such as neutron flux, temperature and strains, as wll as inform the needed robustness for AI by enveloping the attainable level of decision making by the software. | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 | |
| NEUP Project 20-19216: Creation of Multiple Effect Evaporator and Combined Cycle Modelica Modules, and Optimization of Potable Water Generation from Saltwater Sources | North Carolina State University | $498,532 | Researchers will develop models of Multiple Effect Evaporators and Combined Cycle Gas Turbine systems to be used within the Modelica framework, with an end goal of creating an energy park that can supply its own energy and water through Small Modular Reactor nuclear systems and/or Combined Cycle Gas Turbine Systems with brackish to brine water sources. These same models will be capable of being implemented into larger models of grid independent and near independent energy parks located about military bases, large manufacturing facilities, and in small communities where freshwater is limited. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19590: Benchmark Evaluation of Transient Multi-Physics Experimental Data for Pellet Cladding Mechanical Interactions | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop an integral benchmark evaluation based on available experimental data from cold ramp tests performed at the Studsvik testing R2 reactor. Transient multiphysics benchmark evaluations are needed to support validation of the NEAMS ToolKit and the VERA suite. This research will focus on pellet cladding interaction and pellet cladding mechanical interaction and their associated events. The benchmark will be prepared for inclusion in the IRPhEP handbook. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19837: Reinforcement Learning Validation Framework for Quality Assurance of AI-guided Additive Manufacturing Digital Platforms | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will address the need to qualify the risk associated with AM fabricated nuclear reactor parts by incorporating a novel rendition of a well-established artificial intelligence learning strategy, the multi-armed bandit reinforcement learning (RL). The RL framework will be developed and demonstrated using TCR data and its associated digital platform. This research will assimilate in-process sensor data and physics-based simulation data to calculate risk measures in the form of failure probabilities for the AM parts. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19363: Integrated Solar & Nuclear Cogeneration of Electricity & Water using the sCO2 Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,427 | Researchers will design and model a renewable, nuclear Integrated Energy System (IES), compatible with the RAVEN/Modelica framework, for co-generation of cost competitive electricity and clean water. The components of the IES to be included are concentrated solar power, the supercritical CO2/sCO2 cyle, multi-effect distillation, and the lead-cooled fast reactor. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19066: Engineering-Informed, Data-Driven Degradation Modeling, Prognostics and Control for Radiation-induced Void Swelling in Reactor Steels | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will advance the capability to model, predict and control void swelling in irradiated structural components through developing engineering-informed, advanced data-driven statistical and machine learning techniques. Excess swelling not only leads to dimensional instability, but also can cause severe embrittlement of internal materials. The proposed efforts will ensure more effective regulation, aging management and license renewal. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19795: A High-Fidelity Novel and Fast Multigroup Cross Section Generation Method for Arbitrary Geometry and Spectrum | Georgia Institute of Technology | $600,000 | Researchers will develop a fast high-fidelity multigroup cross section generation method for arbitrary geometry configurations and energy spectra by developing a response-based high order perturbation method to perform hybrid stochastic-deterministic local transport calculations. The proposed method will be implemented as independent modules that can be easily embedded into any neutron transport or diffusion code and also be used as a standalone cross section generator. The modules will provide data that can interface with the associated NEAMS toolkit and workbench user interfaces to enable advanced neutronics tools that will perform high-fidelity multigroup multiphysics steady-state and transient calculations that capture and represent the complex resonance interactions and core environmental effects which exist in heterogeneous reactors, including advanced reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19968: Experimental Investigations and Numerical Modeling of Near-wall and Core Bypass Flows in Pebble Bed Reactors | Texas A&M University | $600,000 | Researchers will establish a highly coordinated, concurrent experimental and computational effort combining high-resolution turbulence simulations (including Nek5000, Star-CCM+) and experiments to deepen physical understanding and address long standing modeling inaccuracies related to near wall and bypass flow effects in pebble bed reactors. The project's acquired extensive database will be used to derive closure models and correlations needed for porous media code, such as Pronghorn. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19864: Development of innovative overlapping-domain coupling between SAM and NEK5000 | University of Michigan | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a robust, multi-scale coupling scheme between the SAM code and the CFD code, NEK5000, based on a novel overlapping domain approach. The developed coupling will be validated by using experiments specifically designed for the validation of multi-scale coupled codes. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-20074: Characterization of Plenum to Plenum Natural Circulation flows in a High Temperature Gas Reactor (HTGR) | CUNY, City College of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will obtain and provide experimental data on the plenum-to-plenum natural circulation flows in a typical high temperature gas reactor using helium and nitrogen over a wide range of temperatures and pressures to simulate natural circulation under both pressurized and depressurized conduction cooldown scenarios. The results of the project will yield new data and complement other very high temperature related studies. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19042: Flexible Siting Criteria and Staff Minimization for Micro-Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $440,517 | Researchers will develop siting criteria that are tailored to micro-reactors deployable in densely-populated areas by comparing the characteristics of the MIT research reactor with those of leading micro-reactor concepts, and evaluate whether and how the MIT research reactor design basis and associated regulations are applicable to micro-reactors. A model of operations for micro-reactors that would minimize the staffing requirements will also be conceptualized. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-20045: Highly Compact Steam Generators for Improved Economics of Small Modular Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will design and build a compact steam generator (CSG) test section that can be easily modified for different flow paths and geometries, as well as modify an existing loop to accept the test section. The conceptual optimized CSG system design, which could be deployed in small modular reactors, will be informed by CFD simulations to determine critical characteristics of the test section. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19205: Robust bullet-time tagging and tracking system based on computer vision for individual ex-core TRISO-fueled pebble identification | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a novel, validated, robust bullet-time tagging and tracking system, based on computer vision techniques, to tag and track each individual pebble in pebble bed reactors. The effort will utilize Residence Time Distribution and Radioactive Particle Tracking techniques to validate and refine the developed method, using a continuous cold flow pebble bed experimental setup. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19625: Corrosion Sensitivity of Stainless Steels in Pressurized Water Reactor Water Chemistry: Can KOH replace LiOH in PWRs? | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will perform a series of corrosion and stress corrosion tests on unirradiated alloys to determine the possibility of switching from LiOH to KOH to control the pH in nuclear reactors without worsening the corrosion behavior of the structural alloys used in pressurized water reactor core internal components. The impacts of such a change and the consequent water chemistry alterations on the corrosion processes and nucleaer power plant core-internal component service-life will be assessed and better understood. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19735: Experiments for Modeling and Validation of Liquid-Metal Heat Pipe Simulation Tools for Micro-Reactor | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will produce validation data for the heat pipe code, Sockeye, by measuring the internal thermal-hydraulic parameters of a single-heat pipe and the performance of an integrated multi-heat-pipe system in various operation scenarios. The results of this project will generate more liquid metal heat pipe validation data, which is currently lacking and needed to support micro-reactor design and licensing activities. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19367: Investigation of Novel Nickel-Based Alloys for Molten Chloride Fast Reactor Structural Applications | University of Cincinnati | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate and establish the scientific foundations for the development of promising Ni-Mo-W-Cr-Al-X alloys with a superior balance of properties compared to current materials for high temperature structural applications in molten chloride salt fast reactors. The project couples critical experiments with a high-value integrated computational materials engineering approach. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19693: Evaluation of micro-reactor requirements and performance in an existing well-characterized micro-grid | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will evaluate the opportunities and challenges of operating micro-reactors in decentralized power generation applications and the potential for deployment in established micro-grids with diverse power generation sources. By using a well-characterized prototypic environment platform, the Modelica-based Hybrid Energy System, the market potential for deployment of micro-reactors on campuses and other similar existing micro-grids will be quantified. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19195: The effect of LWR primary coolant water chemistry (LiOH vs. KOH) on stainless steel: An integrated experimental and computational study of the corrosion response of stainless steel for different surface microstructures and mechanica | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will study the effect of surface microstructure, mechanical stress factors, and radiation damage on the corrosion response of stainless steel under two different alkaline pressurized water reactor primary water chemistry conditions. The project will involve investigation of mechanical stress factors such as strain rate, residual stress, deformation induced persistent slip bands, dpa damage, and fatigue cracks and modeling to understand the physical phenomena associated with the measured corrosion response and inform the U.S. nuclear industry regarding KOH. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19491: Identifying and prioritizing sources of uncertainty in external hazard probabilistic risk assessments | University of Maryland, College Park | $799,979 | Researchers will develop a method for identifying and prioritizing sources of uncertainty in external hazard probabilistic risk assessment for nuclear power plants, with particular emphasis on uncertainties associated with hazard characterization. External flooding wil be utilized as the demonstration hazard during this project, while a common taxonomy for communicating uncertainties across a broad range of external hazards will be created. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19737: Innovative Enhanced Automation Control Strategies for Multi-unit SMRs | University of Michigan | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an innovative, enhanced automation control framework for small modular reactors (SMRs) that supports control of multiple units operating in a variety of reactor core conditions. Through these enhancements, SMR technology gains improved marketability through potential deployment to a broader range of markets and can also lead to reduced operating and maintenance costs for a SMR site, increasing the overall profitability. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19954: Deployment Pathways of Small Modular Reactors in Electric Power, Industrial, and Other Niche Markets to Achieve Cost Reductions and Widespread Use | University of Michigan | $691,658 | Researchers will explore how to leverage two key value propositions for small modular reactors (SMR) in shifting market conditions, in order to achieve widespread market deployment: (1) participation in small and large power and industrial markets and (2) cost reductions via mass fabrication. The result of this work will be advanced power system modeling, optimized SMR design with thermal storage for power and industry markets, and new SMR deployment pathways. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19752: Development and Demonstration of Scalable Fluoride Salt Pump Seals and Bearings for FHRs | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and demonstrate scalable advanced bearings and seals of fluoride salt pumps for fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactors. The systematic approach to be used will employ both experimental and numerical methods to investigate the static and dynamic performance of fluoride-salt-lubricated bearings and high-temperature seals. The outcomes of this research will directly contribute to the reliability, safety, design, and operation of the fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactor power plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19544: A Holistic Artificial Intelligence Tool to Mitigate Human Factor Uncertainty in Operation and Maintenance | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a holistic artificial intelligence tool to help the detection and mitigation of human factors errors in nuclear power plants. The tool will increase the efficiency of various activities such as testing, inspection, data collection, and interpretation, improve operation and maintenance decision-making, and reduce costs in nuclear power plants by minimizing the impact of human factors errors and providing warnings to mitigate them, when possible. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19524: Non-Intrusive Flow Monitoring for Liquid Metal and Molten Salt Cooled Reactors | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a first-of-its kind flow monitoring system with significantly enhanced capabilities for liquid metal fast reactors and other advanced reactors, such as molten salt reactors. The flow monitoring system will involve a proven and breakthrough fiber optic sensing technology that enables the harmonic-free interrogation of thousands of grating-based distributed interferometers along an optical fiber that is integrated into a sensing pad that can readily be installed at desired locations in the flow loop. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19671: Identifying Needed Fire Input Data to Reduce Modeling Uncertainty | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,393 | Researchers will identify fire parameters that have the largest impact on fire conditions, quantify those parameters contributing to uncertainties in the fire data through Monte Carlo simulation results, and use statistical analysis and machine learning models from the simulation results to assess existing data and recommend appropriate new fire tests to reduce uncertainties that are important to risk. With this information, researchers will develop a framework capable of determining the significant contributors to uncertainty in physical events that are relevant to the risk assessment and, then, determine the need for new experiments that would be of most value to reduce risk. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 21-24394: Computer vision and machine learning for microstructural qualification | Carnegie Mellon University | $497,518 | Quantifying and understanding microstructure is a key driver for performance-based materials qualification. In this proposal, well-curated data sets of microstructural images will be gathered and computer vision and machine learning will be applied to build quantitative deep learning frameworks to accelerate and enable qualification of nuclear materials based on microstructural features. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24156: Experimental thermofluidic validation of TCR fuel elements using distributed temperature and flow sensing | Kansas State University | $798,250 | The overall goal of this project will be to test the performance of 3D printed Transformational Challenge Reactor core geometry parts using existing Helium flow loops and distributed temperature, and velocity sensing systems. Thermal transport capabilities of scaled 3D printed ceramic core will be evaluated experimentally and measurements will be used to qualify computational models. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24636: Risk-informed Consequence-driven Physical Protection System Optimization for Microreactor Sites | Texas A&M University | $400,000 | This proposed project will utilize a risk-informed, consequence-driven analysis to develop an approach for "right-sizing" physical protection systems (PPS) for microreactors. The hypothesis presented for this proposal is that the explicit coupling of consequence modeling to PPS design will provide a similar benefit that can be applied prior to reactor construction. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24131: Total Mass Accounting in Advanced Liquid Fueled Reactors | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | A total mass determination method for nuclear materials accounting (NMA) in liquid-fueled molten salt reactors will be validated with fuel-bearing salt, mixed with a _+ radioisotope of known activity, that will be irradiated to reproduce the practical NMA scenario in a molten salt loop. Irradiated fuel salt will be sampled and measured for its mass and activity. The mass-to-activity ratio will be used to calculate the unknown salt mass in the original container. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24037: Design and intelligent optimization of the thermal storage and energy distribution for the TerraPower Molten Chloride Fast Reactor in an Integrated Energy System (IES) | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to explore the application of advanced reactors within Integrated Energy Systems, use extensive existing data from UIUC for model development and validation, and extend the predictions to larger grids and commercial applications. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24522: Targeted Materials Characterization and Testing of Additively Manufactured Metals and Ceramics to Inform Print/Build Data Analytics | University of Texas at San Antonio | $800,000 | A collaborative program between the University of Texas at San Antonio and Boise State University is proposed to supply materials testing and characterization data sets to be leveraged by the TCR program to inform build/print data analytics. With the data provided by the proposing team, correlations among steam oxidation performance, micromechanical properties, chemical composition, local microstructure, and location specific print/build data will be achieved. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24431: Location-specific material characterization of LPBF SS316L & IN718 TCR core structural materials | Utah State University | $800,000 | In this proposed work, we will experimentally characterize the spatial variability of the quasi-static (tensile), creep (strength and impression), and creep-fatigue properties as well as the underlying structures (microstructure and defect structures) for LPBF SS316L and IN718 components to be used as training data to the TCR program data-driven model. The resulting correlation will be used to drive the design process for an application as TCR core structural materials. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23978: Rapid, Non-Radioactive Methods for Prediction and Quantification of Radiolytic Radical Decomposition Products in Nuclear Separations | Clemson University | $399,999 | High-throughput, non-radioactive, radical assays will be used to determine decomposition of monoamide separations complexants. Radical assay results will be correlated with classic radiolytic damage results to develop predictive models for screening complexant stability. These models will aid in single-stage separations complexant optimization, in the transition from lab- to industrial-scale nuclear waste separations and, ultimately, could yield field tests for radiolytic damage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24350: Phosphate Mineral and Glass Waste Forms for Advanced Immobilization of Chloride and Fluoride-based Waste Streams | Clemson University | $600,000 | This proposal is intended to develop three waste form options for immobilizing the fluoride- and chloride-salt waste stream in highly durable and easily processable phosphate minerals and glasses, including phosphate apatite ceramic waste forms, phosphate glass waste forms, and phosphate glass-ceramic waste forms with apatite phase. Multiple monolithic waste form samples will be provided to DOE national laboratories for further testing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24292: Passive multimodal tomography for dry storage casks imaging using passive neutron and gamma dosimetry and cosmic ray muons | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | A method for multimodal tomography of dry storage casks will be developed to determine fuel relocation and cladding failures using passive neutrons and gamma emissions in combination with cosmic ray muons. The use of multimodal imaging will allow 3-D reconstructions of the dry storage cask that would be unachievable with any single radiation source. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24374: Effects of Radiolysis on Pertechnetate under Solvent Extraction Conditions, including Tri-Butyl Phosphate | CUNY, Hunter College | $399,624 | The overarching objective of the proposed work is to assess the impact of radiolysis on pertechnetate speciation during tri-butylphosphate (TBP) solvent extractions from the molecular level to macroscale. The research in this project is designed to understand the interplay of radiolysis, degradation product formation, other important redox active metals, and oxidation states of technetium on its speciation and distribution coefficients in solvent extraction processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24183: Experimental investigation and development of models and correlations for cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena in transient conditions in support of TREAT and the LWR fleet. | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Thermal-hydraulics transient heat transfer phenomena of relevance for the safety and the operation of the TREAT and light water reactors will be investigated. The performance of accident tolerant fuel materials during a reactivity initiated accident scenario and post-critical heat flux and reflood scenarios will be elucidated, as well as the development of models and correlations to be integrated into computational tools for the design and safety analysis of nuclear systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24666: Wireless Multifunctional Ultrasonic Arrays with Interdigital and Airborne Transducers for Monitoring Leakage and Corrosion Conditions of Welded Dry Storage Canisters | Mississippi State University | $800,000 | This project aims to develop and validate wireless, multifunctional, ultrasonic sensor arrays that enable on-demand, quantitative interrogation and real-time monitoring of both the canister leakage indicators (helium, helium/air mixture, internal pressure, and temperature) and corrosion conditions (free and/or vapor water). The developed arrays will be fully functional, wirelessly powered and communicated, and compact. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24188: Uranium recovery from used nuclear fuel using metal sulfides | Northwestern University | $400,000 | An alternative and original method to recover uranium from spent fuel is proposed. This method will utilize a new type of regenerable sorbent materials with high selectivity in capturing uranium from complex mixtures in acidic solutions, such as those found in used nuclear fuel of high-assay low-enriched uranium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24225: Characterizing Fuel Response and Quantifying Coolable Geometry of High-Burnup Fuel | Oregon State University | $800,000 | This study seeks to objectively determine, through empirical and numerical means, the actual impact of fuel dispersion in-core after fuel failure and whether high burnup dispersed fuel compromises coolable geometry and long-term cooling. The outcome of this study will yield an objective means of assessing two criteria (coolable geometry and long-term cooling) within the existing regulatory process to comprehensively understand whether it is feasible to increase burnup, while satisfying 10 CFR 50.46. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24288: Innovative Methods for Interrogation of DSC Internal Conditions | Oregon State University | $800,000 | The proposed work takes a two-pronged approach. The team will study techniques involving only external sensors and equipment, which could be deployed on existing dry storage canisters. In addition, small sensors located inside the canister that can be externally powered and read through the canister wall will also be investigated. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24439: Development of Novel Corrosion-Responsive Buffer Materials for Long-Term Immobilization of High-Level Nuclear Waste | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to develop a novel cementitious buffer material (CBM) for the safe disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF). The primary aim is to identify and characterize novel Mg-Al-P CBMs, complete with assessments of their repository stability as well as their transport and immobilization of radionuclides. The secondary aim is to use in-situ UT-EIS monitoring to understand the corrosive failure at the canister-CBM interface and provide long-term performance modeling of SNF packages. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24461: Estimation of low temperature cladding failures during an RIA transient | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers aim to create a multiphysics description of cladding response during a RIA, especially at high burnup, coupling reactor physics, thermal hydraulics and mechanics. The creation of a thermomechanical model in Bison will be the result of this project which can be used to evaluate the likelihood of low temperature cladding failures during a postulated RIA on a typical fuel rod (as these can lead to channel blockage), and thus identify the most important conditions to be studied at TREAT. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24460: Multiscale Modeling and Experiments for Investigating High Burnup LWR Fuel Rod Behavior Under Normal and Transient Conditions | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | The main objective of this work is to achieve a mechanistic understanding of and to develop a predictive model for the fuel rod behavior at high burn-up under both normal and transient conditions. Therefore, this study will provide the nuclear industry with validated, physics-based criteria to fuel fragmentation thresholds and rod mechanical integrity limits. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24388: Redox Chemistry of UO2 under Repository Relevant Conditions in the Presence of Zircaloy and Waste Canister Material | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | This project will seek to improve understanding of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) corrosion. Hydrothermal experiments of SNF with cladding and waste canister material will give insights into the redox potential formed due to secondary phase formation as consequence of corrosion in a failed canister. The experimentally derived data about secondary phase formation will be utilized for phase relationship analysis to decipher the redox conditions and thus provide source term for performance assessment models of deep geologic repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24006: High-fidelity modeling of fuel-to-coolant thermomechanical transport behaviors under transient conditions | University of Florida | $800,000 | The objective of the proposal is to develop a high-fidelity modeling tool that can capture some of the important phenomena in high burnup UO2 and ATF fuels during transient conditions. The BlueCRAB tool set will be improved and used to analyze TREAT loss of coolant accident experimental results. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24312: Accelerating the development of reliable and robust machine learning-based interatomic potentials for the prediction of molten salt structure and properties | University of Massachusetts Lowell | $400,000 | Machine learning-based interatomic potentials (MLIPs) used in molecular dynamics (MD) can accurately and efficiently predict molten salt properties. However many machine learning-based methods require large training sets, and can fail unpredictably. This project will overcome these challenges by developing a method for efficiently sampling diverse configurations from MD to train reliable and robust neural network potentials, and develop new models for predicting errors in MLIPs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24697: Dual External Leak Sensing and Monitoring for Dry Storage Canister | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers aim to develop two complementary external sensing methods to evaluate the integrity of DSC through internal pressure monitoring and helium leakage detection. The proposed diffuse ultrasonic wave method will be able to measure biaxial strains in the canister wall with high sensitivity and minimum temperature effects. An innovative capacitance MEMS sensor will be developed for helium concentration measurement in air based on the extremely low permittivity of helium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24449: Multi-modal Surface Acoustic Wave Sensing System for Pressure and Temperature monitoring of Spent Fuel Canisters | University of North Texas | $800,000 | University of North Texas (UNT) will collaborate with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to develop a multi-modal wireless passive SAW (Surface Acoustic Wave) sensor array, which are deployed on the outside surface of the canister, to monitor the strain of the canister and thus determine the inside pressure. In addition, the SAW strain sensor could also measure the surface temperature and potentially monitor helium gas leak. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24265: Fragmentation and Thermal Energy Transport of Cr-doped Fuels under Transient Conditions | University of Pittsburgh | $799,999 | This project will focus on multiple aspects of experimental testing and engineering-scale modeling in understanding thermal energy transport from high burnup, fractured/fragmented accident tolerant fuels, establishing a strong scientific basis to fill a critical knowledge data gap for modeling and simulation of transient fuel performance and safety, such as loss of coolant accident, for future integral testing and fuel licensing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24310: Fusion of Distributed Fiber Optics, Acoustic NDE, and Physics-Based AI for Spent Fuel Monitoring | University of Pittsburgh | $800,000 | The proposal will leverage new concepts in the fusion between fiber optic distributed acoustic sensing and advanced acoustic nondestructive evaluation techniques with artificial intelligence enhanced classification frameworks to quantitatively characterize the state of dry cask storage containers for spent fuel monitoring, externally and non-invasively, without introducing additional risks of failure. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24261: Internal Wireless Sensors for Dry Cask Storage | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | The effort will test the reliability of wireless, internal sensors after exposure to drying and storage conditions. These sensors are used to internally monitor temperature, pressure, and dose. Radiation shielding will also be designed to protect sensors during long-term storage. The effort will develop piezoelectric techniques for miniaturization of optical emission spectroscopy for internal monitoring of gas composition during drying and long-term storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24533: Non-destructive Evaluation of Dry Storage Canisters Using Acoustic Sensing | University of Southern California | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to develop a robust non-destructive evaluation (NDE) technique based on acoustic sensing to detect impurity gases in a sealed (welded) dry storage canister (DSC) using only measurements collected on the external surface of the DSC. The method is based on the time-of-flight analysis of acoustic signals propagating through the fill gas of a DSC, which is influenced by the composition, density and temperature of the propagation medium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23984: Safety Implications of High Burnup Fuel for a 2-Year PWR Fuel Cycle | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to perform safety analysis of high burnup fuel for a Westinghouse 4-Loop Pressurized Water Reactor. The work aims to identify potential opportunities and gaps for high burnup fuel by utilizing both well-established and modern methodologies to model reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, and plant system-level response that ultimately provide feedback to fuel performance analysis. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23985: Fuel-to-Coolant Thermomechanical Behaviors Under Transient Conditions | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This project will enhance the prediction of thermo-mechanical fuel-to-coolant heat transfer under transient conditions by using a coupled analysis and experiment approach. The effort is relevant to both high-burnup (> 62GWd/t) fuel applications and Accident Tolerant Fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24070: Modeling high-burnup LWR fuel behavior under normal operating and transient conditions | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This project aims to develop a high-burnup light water reactor fuel modeling capability to implement in the BISON code that would enable the accurate fuel rod behavior simulation during normal operation and design basis accidents, as wells as the identification of the rod life-limiting factors. Mechanistic engineering models will be developed for key phenomena, in particular, high burnup structure evolution, fuel fragmentation, and fission gas release. Traditional and accident tolerant fuels will be considered. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24033: Redox Chemistry in Nuclear Materials Storage Matrices under Ambient and Accelerated Aging Conditions | University of Washington | $800,000 | Deep geologic repositories must safely contain hazardous, high-activity nuclear wastes at geologic time-scales. However, such capability is centrally dependent on the element-specific redox chemistry within and at the interface of storage vessels. A comprehensive study of redox chemistry in cements used in long-term storage is proposed and emphasizes: 1) the actual consequences of accelerated aging modalities and 2) the novel use of newly available capabilities in advanced x-ray spectroscopies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24063: Post-DNB Thermo-mechanical Behavior of Near-term ATF Designs in Simulated Transient Conditions | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | The goals of the proposed research are to conduct coupled experimental and modeling investigations of thermo-mechanical performance of coated accident tolerant zirconium alloy claddings with simulated burnup doped fuels under thermal transients to predict complex thermal and mass transport phenomena of near-term Accident Tolerant Fuel designs in accident conditions. Experiments and modeling for understanding both cladding-coolant and fuel-coolant interactions will be performed. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24582: Machine-Learning-Accelerated Molecular Dynamics Approaches for Molten Salts | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $399,477 | New machine learning potential (MLP) approaches and new MLPs to enable rapid prediction of molten salt (FLiBe and Nal-MgCl2 with impurities) properties with near ab initio quantum mechanical accuracy will be developed. Uncertainty quantification with active learning and on-the-fly fitting will greatly accelerate MLP training. This work will support dramatically increased simulation speeds and associated data generation and understanding for molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24067: Development of Full Understanding of Mechanical-Chemical Coupling in Bentonite THMC processes | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | The central hypothesis is that mechanical stress in an engineered barrier can lead to pressure solution of solid minerals, leading to significant changes in pore water chemistry, which affects bentonite stability, longevity of the waste pack, and dissolution and migration of nuclides. The overall objective of this project is to develop full understanding of the role of pressure solution on pore water chemistry, the implications to large-scale heterogeneity, and THMC processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23987: Separate and Multi-Physics Effects IRPhEP Benchmark Evaluation using SNAP Experiments | Georgia Institute of Technology | $400,000 | The proposed project will develop an International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) mulitphysics microreactor benchmark evaluation based on data from the Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power (SNAP) program. This work will include systematic assessments of the experimental data with meticulous compilation and documentation, and validation of specific NEAMS tools to model effects that are unique to microreactors technologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24630: Integral Benchmark Evaluation of Zero-Power Tests and Multi-Cycle Depletion Experimental Data of TVA WB1 Cycles 1-3 | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | This project proposes to develop an integral benchmark evaluation of available experimental data for zero-power tests and multi-cycle depletion for consistent and comprehensive validation of both novel high-fidelity and traditional multi-physics tools. The benchmark evaluation will be based on operational and measured data from the Pressurized Water Reactor Watts Bar Unit 1 released by Tennessee Valley Authority. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24186: Regenerating Missing Experimental Parameters with Data-Assimilation Methods for MSRE Transient Benchmark Development and Evaluation | Virginia Commonwealth University | $400,000 | The proposed project will regenerate the undocumented basic data from available experimental data of the MSRE using advanced data-assimilation methods to facilitate the whole-loop modeling of the representative MSRE transients, and perform a thorough MSRE transient benchmark evaluation for the IRPhEP handbook. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24194: Implementation of improved quasi-static, time-dependent, multi-physics methodology in Shift | Georgia Institute of Technology | $600,000 | A practical reference calculation route for time-dependent coupled Monte Carlo calculations, using Shift, will be developed. The proposed framework will be tailored to depletion and slowly varying transients, but with the flexibility to perform thermal-hydraulic time-dependent calculations with minimal computational overheads. This method relies on a hybrid-resolution stochastic approach in conjunction with a substep technique. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24078: Material transport model development and integration in the System Analysis Module (SAM) code | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | This project proposes to develop and implement models for System Analysis Module, which accurately characterize the sink, source, and interaction terms of key material species that are or may be present in various advanced reactor designs. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24195: Enhancing Yellowjacket for Modeling the Impact of Radiation and Stress on the Corrosion of Molten-Salt-Facing Structural Components | University of Florida | $692,088 | The objective of this project is to add the capability to model the impact of radiation and stress on corrosion to the Yellowjacket code, as well as to use Yellowjacket to create surrogate models that will be added to engineering-scale codes like Grizzly. We will also collect new experimental data for validation that quantifies the impact of stress and radiation on corrosion of 316 stainless steel in molten fluoride salts. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24405: Development of a High-fidelity Flow Boiling Database for Validation of High-void-fraction Flow Regime Models | University of Michigan | $800,000 | The primary objective of this proposed research is to develop a comprehensive, high-resolution, multiphase computational fluid dynamics validation-grade flow boiling data from rod bundle geometry simulating current light water reactor fuel designs by taking advantage of the instrumentation and facility developed by the research team. In addition, the applicability of the data through initial evaluations of selected test cases using Nek-2P boiling closure models will be studied and demonstrated for two-phase flow simulations. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24471: Technical Basis of Microstructure Criteria and Accelerated Testing for Qualifying Additively-manufactured 316H Stainless Steel for High-temperature Cyclic Service | Auburn University | $800,000 | This project seeks to reveal the fundamental relationship for AM 316H SS working at 500-750 _C between additively-manufactured microstructures and creep/creep-fatigue properties through a multiscale experimental and modeling approach. The project also seeks to establish the technical basis for the microstructure criteria and accelerated testing method to support near-term nuclear qualification. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24152: Direct heating of chemical catalysts for hydrogen and fertilizer production using Microreactors | Kansas State University | $799,202 | This proposal presents a novel integration approach to deliver process heat from microreactors by directly heating the catalyst particles from the primary heat transfer fluid in a moving packed bed heat exchanger (MPBHX). In this design, the tube side of the MPBHX can be a heat pipe or primary Helium coolant as in several microreactor designs. The shell side will be moving catalyst particles, which will enter the high temperature chemical reactor upon heating. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24287: Investigating heat transfer in horizontally oriented HTGR under normal and PCC conditions | Kansas State University | $799,762 | Experimental research will be conducted to understand heat transfer inside the graphite matrix of horizontal microscale High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors. Existing high temperature test facilities will be used to simulate normal operation and Pressurized Conduction Cooldown. The focus of these experiments is to generate benchmark data under forced and natural convection with coupled multi-mode heat transfer in scaled-down prismatic blocks. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24104: Thermal Hydraulics Investigation of Horizontally Orientated Layout Micro HTGRs Under Normal Operation and PCC Conditions Using Integrated Advanced Measurement Techniques | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000 | The proposed novel work will make a significant pioneering contribution to advance the knowledge and understanding of horizontal micro-high temperature gas cooled reactors. Quantification of metrics will pertain to convective heat transfer coefficients along the channel and gaps, comparative rates of convective and radiative heat transfer, location of peak temperature and its temporal variation, timescales for onset of natural convection, local gas velocity profiles, gas dispersion, crossflows, and temperature profiles over channel diameter and gap thickness. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24004: An Open Source, Parallel, and Distributed Web-Based Probabilistic Risk Assessment Platform to Support Real Time Nuclear Power Plant Risk-Informed Operational Decisions | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | The main objective of the proposed work is to develop, demonstrate, and evaluate a probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) software platform needed to address the major challenges of the current legacy PRA tools. This includes better quantification speed, integration of multi-hazard models into traditional PRAs, and model modification/simplification and documentation automation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24228: Quantifying the Dynamic and Static Porosity/Microstructure Characteristics of Irradiated Graphite through Multi-technique Experiments and Mesoscale Modeling | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | This project proposes a joint experimental-computational approach to probe and quantify the porosity and microstructure characteristics of irradiated nuclear graphite grades and their influence on dimensional changes and turnaround behavior, as well as mechanical properties. The chief focus will be on quantifying both the static and dynamic porosity and crack characteristics in various graphitic phases through several experimental techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24247: Multi-scale Effects of Irradiation Damage on Nuclear Graphite Properties | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Irradiation induces microstructural damage in graphite, causing both dimensional and property (stiffness, strength and creep) changes as a function of the displacement damage and temperature. The biggest gap remains is the fundamental deformation mechanisms behind the property changes. Researchers propose to eliminate this gap in knowledge with a comprehensive, multi-scale experimental framework exploiting in-situ transmission electron and X-ray computed tomography. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23975: Development of Thermal Power Dispatch Simulation Tools for BWR Flexible Plant Operation and Generation | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | In the U.S. domestic light water reactor fleet, about one-third of operational nuclear power reactors are boiling water reactors (BWRs). Thermal power extraction technologies to be designed for BWRs will be different from those for pressurized water reactors due to differences in steam generation. This study proposes to investigate the thermal and electric power dispatch and required control algorithms for dynamic heat dispatch of up to 50% of the thermal energy from a BWR plant to a hydrogen plant. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24111: Experimental Investigations of HTGR Fission Product Transport in Separate-effect Test Facilities Under Prototypical Conditions for Depressurization and Water-ingress Accidents | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Experimental investigations will be performed for fission product (FP) lift-off, washoff, vaporization from plateout surfaces, and transport of FP at prototypical conditions representing depressurization and water-ingress accidents. Measurements will be performed on existing separate-effect facilities using intrusive and non-intrusive techniques to obtain shear stress, deposition velocity, thermal gradient, and gas impurity for advanced correlations. Modeling will be performed using system and computational fluid dynamics codes. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24644: High-Resolution Measurements and Advanced Modeling for Design Optimization of Advanced Small Modular Reactor Steam Generators | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Experiments and simulations will be performed to acquire multi-parameters of pressure drop, heat and mass transfer, and flow-induced vibration (FIV) effect for the design optimization of advanced small modular reactor steam generators (SMR SG). Measurements are performed on existing SMR SG facilities using intrusive/non-intrusive techniques to obtain velocity, temperature, pressure, heat flux, and FIV effects for various geo-dimensions, spacing, pitch angles. Simulations will be performed in StarCCM, Nek5000 and coupling with Diablo_ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24332: A Virtual Reality Environment for Human Reliability Assessment in the Context of Physical Security Attacks | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Recent studies have shown that the physical security workforce accounts for 20% of the entire workforce and, therefore, is responsible for significant operational and maintence costs. To reduce the security staffing, improve performance and reduce threats, modeling and simulation and models of attacker, defender and operator behavior could be employed. This proposal aims to model human behavior using a combination of known human reliability analyses models and experimental evidence from virtual reality experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24389: High Temperature Electromagnetic Acoustic (EMAT) Transducers for Structural Health Monitoring | University of Cincinnati | $800,000 | The aim of this project is to produce an electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT) technology to enable ultrasonic structural health monitoring at the METL facility and similar high temperature assets. Ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation methods can be used for monitoring a range of damage mechanisms including thermal fatigue and corrosion. The project will seek to establish core design solutions that can be used as the basis of a range of EMAT designs for different applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24380: Probabilistic Validation and Risk Importance Ranking Methodology for Automation Trustworthiness and Transparency in Nuclear Power Plants | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | This project develops a methodology to improve trustworthiness and transparency of automation technologies in nuclear power plants. The proposed methodology will monitor risk emerging from automation processes and rank the criticality of automation factors influencing automation output, plant equipment, and system performance. The feasibility and practicality of the proposed methodology will be demonstrated with two case studies focusing on implementation of nuclear power plant automation technologies. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24162: Self-powered wireless sensor system for health monitoring of liquid-sodium cooled fast reactors | University of Notre Dame | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to develop self-powered wireless multimodal sensors and instrumentation for health monitoring and diagnosing early-stage materials degradation for high-risk components in liquid-sodium cooled fast reactors. The synergistic and innovative integrations of the multimodal sensor array, wireless communication, and thermoelectric energy harvester have crosscutting benefit for a wide range of advanced reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24102: High temperature Molten salt reactor pump component development and testing | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | This project will provide relevant key information on the tribology of bearing material and components (such as magnets, couplers, ceramic coated wire, and coatings) in high temperature molten salts that will be required in the design of reactor pumps. Investigation of in-service inspection and monitoring of the pump internals will also be addressed in an effort to reduce down time and operation and maintenance costs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24226: Cost Reduction of Advanced Integration Heat Exchanger Technology for Micro-Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,713 | Heat exchanger technology is a high-cost component of a micro-reactor system that is also critical to the overall reliability and performance. This project will develop the underlying advanced heat exchanger technology necessary to integrate a micro-reactor with any end-user application, as well as providing internal heat exchange. Economic optimization of the heat exchanger and experimental demonstration of the technology will be accomplished. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24382: Advanced High-Fluence Low-Flux RPV Mechanical Property Models for Extended Life | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,717 | This project will further develop accurate models of the mechanical property changes under life-extension conditions in reactor pressure vessel (RPV) steels using reduced order Avrami models, cluster dynamics, and atomistic methods combined with massive comprehensive databases on irradiated steels. The work will provide models critical to extending the life of U.S. pressurized water reactors, as well as new fundamental insights into flux and fluence effects and sink and precipitate evolution in reactor pressure vessels and related steels. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| Integrated Marine Platform for Hydrogen and Ammonia Production | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | This study investigates the economic and environmental value of a floating integrated GW-scale green hydrogen/ammonia production facility powered by an advanced nuclear reactor. Floating Production Storage and Offloading units (FPSOs) are deployed worldwide in the oil and gas industry, and can be used for hydrogen and ammonia processing. Deployment of an advanced reactor on a floating platform offers several advantages, including the efficiencies of shipyard fabrication. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Functionally-graded Cermet Coatings for Molten Salt Technologies by High Throughput Finite Element Modeling and Additive Manufacturing | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $500,000 | This project proposes an integrated approach/methodology to design, manufacture and verify functionally-graded metal-ceramic composite coatings on structural alloys with desired interfacial properties, capabilities of mitigating residual stress and improved corrosion resistance for molten salt reactor applications. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| An Innovative Monitoring Technology for the Reactor Vessel of Micro-HTGR | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | This project seeks to develop an innovative sensor technology for real-time monitoring of the thermo-mechanical stresses in the reactor vessel of micro-HTGR. The technology will be based on a sparse network of outer wall temperature measurements and plant operating conditions. An integrated software-hardware sensing system aimed at monitoring the health of the pressure vessel of gas micro-reactors will be implemented and tested. The proposed work will have a broad impact on sensing in other reactor designs. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| High throughput mechanical testing of additively-manufactured materials | University of California, Berkeley | $500,000 | This project proposes fast and high throughput mechanical testing of AM produced materials. It will include the generation of automated tensile testing, hardness testing and microstructure assessment and data comparison to build data via machine learning. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Accelerated irradiation creep testing coupled with self-adaptive accelerated molecular dynamics simulations for scalability analysis | University of Michigan | $500,000 | The goal of the proposed work is to accelerate traditional irradiation creep using instrumented in-situ ion irradiation creep and long-time molecular dynamics simulations to accelerate traditional neutron irradiation creep testing. This goal will be accomplished by coupling a novel ion beam flux jump test using tapered creep specimens and self-adaptive accelerated molecular dynamics. The outcome is a rapid, low-cost accelerated method to determine the fundamental irradiation creep mechanisms. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Creation of a Pebble Database for Material Control and Accountancy in Pebble Bed Reactors | Virginia Commonwealth University | $399,969 | The primary goal of this proposed project is to develop a database of NDA signatures from a wide variety of used PBR pebbles. This database can be used for facility operations, safety, security, and safeguards (3S) to directly measure fission product content and indirectly 235U and plutonium content of each PBR pebble. This project has significant synergy with current 3S PBR research at ANL, BNL, and ORNL, all of whom are collaborators to this proposed project. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Quantifying Aerosol Deposition Mechanisms in Model Dry Cask Storage Systems | Clemson University | $800,000 | The objective of this work is to measure aerosol deposition and resuspension rates in laboratory models of dry cask storage systems to compare with and validate the DOE deposition model. The project team will conduct experiments to directly measure the deposition/resuspension rates of bulk aerosol in the system and to isolate and quantify individual aerosol deposition mechanisms, with a focus on those sensitive to variable humidity and surface temperature. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Using Amide-Functionalized Electrodes to Elucidate Interfacial Actinide Redox Chemistry for Improved HALEU Supply | Florida International University | $400,000 | The goal is to decrease HALEU fuel cycle costs by examination of the redox behavior of U, Np, and Pu at the water-organic interface using amide functionalized electrodes, and in organic media after extraction with amides. Experiments with redox active interferences including additional actinides in different oxidation states will also be conducted. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advancing the technical readiness of FeCrAl alloys and ODS steels under extreme conditions for fast reactor fuel cladding | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | A key technology gap for advanced high-performance fuel applications is the current unavailability of materials that can withstand extremely high doses without significant degradation of cladding performance. The project team will perform in-situ thermo-mechanical experiments (tension, torsion, creep, and creep-fatigue and nanoindentation) on ion-irradiated (to 400 dpa) cladding materials (up to 700 C) along with microstructures using TEM and mesoscale phase field simulations. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| A molten salt community framework for predictive modeling of critical characteristics | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | This research aims to develop a molten salt community framework to address the needs in advanced fuel cycles, including understanding salts via new theory of liquids, predicting salt characteristics via simulations (DFT, MD, and CALPHAD by implementing advanced models), optimizing inversely molten salts, and verifying simulations by experiments. This project has outstanding value for US taxpayers, educates students, and delivers outreach opportunities for academia, industry, and the public. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Understanding the Interfacial Structure of the Molten Chloride Salts by in-situ Electrocapillarity and Resonant Soft X-ray Scattering (RSoXS) | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | The objective of the proposed research is to investigate the interplay between the interfacial structure of the molten salts and their electrochemical corrosion properties in Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Clay Hydration, Drying, and Cracking in Nuclear Waste Repositories | Princeton University | $800,000 | This project will develop a new multiscale model of the thermal-hydrologic-mechanical-chemical (THMC) evolution of an engineered clay barrier in the near field of a nuclear waste repository, including initial hydration and eventual post-closure criticality. This new model will directly link micro-scale material properties to large-scale barrier performance, thus facilitating future design advances or modifications, and enable robust validation of large-scale simulation predictions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Physics-guided Smart Scaling Methodology for Accelerated Fuel Testing | Purdue University | $800,000 | This project proposes to employ novel informatics algorithms for mapping/scaling uncertainties from experimentally accessible scaled state to application/prototypical state, informed by an equivalent mapping obtained from high-fidelity multi-physics simulations for the fuel thermo-mechanical behavior, specifically, a rate theory-based model for thermal conductivity and fission gas behavior in the BISON code, and employing relevant HALDEN reactor and FAST experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Materials Accountancy During Disposal and Waste Processing of Molten Salt Reactor Fuel Salts | Texas A&M University | $399,997 | The objective of this work is to develop and validate a method for measuring and predicting hold-up to eliminate operational risks and expenses during disposal of salt-wetted MSR components. These objectives will be met by applying robust measurement/detection methods to realistic salt loop environments to validate their use in decommissioning MSRs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advanced Screening Approaches for Accelerating Development of Separations Technologies | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | The goal of this project is to establish a unified selection criterion for chelating molecular structures to more efficiently address ligand applicability to metal ion separation problems, for current and future nuclear fuel cycles. By establishing this criterion, the team will seek to enable the accelerated, cost-effective discovery of new separation workflows, as well as their implementation beyond early radiotracer experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advancing NMA of TRISO-fueled pebbles using fast and accurate gamma-ray spectroscopy | University of Colorado, Boulder | $385,307 | This proposal will provide new Nuclear Materials Analysis (NMA) capabilities for TRISO-fueled pebbles using gamma-ray spectroscopy, through a program of simulations of expected signatures from irradiated pebbles, resulting in a detailed measurement plan to monitor burnup and actinide content throughout the fuel cycle. These simulations will be used to develop requirements for NMA sensor technology and identify opportunities for focused technology development to meet these requirements. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Development of Irradiation and Creep Resistant High-Cr Ferritic/Martensitic Steels via Magnetic Field Heat Treatment | University of Kentucky | $800,000 | The objective of this proposed study is to develop and test new generation of Ferritic/Martensitic (F/M) steels specifically designed for advanced reactors that will exceed the current limitations due to temperature and irradiation dose. To achieve this objective, a systematic study is proposed to employ an innovative tempering heat treatment under high external magnetic field (up to 9T) on F/M steel HT9 to engineer an optimized microstructure composed of refined carbides and martensite laths. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Investigation into the processing parameters of phosphate-based dehalogenation for chloride-based waste salt | University of Nevada, Reno | $399,999 | This proposal will focus on several topics needed to advance the iron phosphate process: 1) Dehalogenation/vitrification processes using salt simulants to generate process flow sheets, 2) Reactions of crucible materials with phosphate products and byproducts, 3) Collection of glass property-composition data to develop models based on the glass-forming regions, 4) Development of a process for reacting recovered NH4Cl with metals that need to be fed into the system (U, Li, etc.). | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| A Validated Framework for Seismic Risk Assessment of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of Nevada, Reno | $799,883 | This is a collaborative research program with a primary objective of developing a validated numerical framework for seismic risk analysis of spent fuel storage facilities from the global cask behavior to the localized behavior of internal spent fuel assemblies. In building and validating this framework, advanced data analysis, data assimilation, and forward and inverse modeling techniques will be utilized. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| International Collaboration to Advance the Technical Readiness of High Uranium Density Fuels and Composites for Small Modular Reactors | University of Texas at San Antonio | $800,000 | An international team of high uranium density fuels (HDFs) experts advised by industry leaders in nuclear reactor innovation propose a US-UK collaboration to advance the technical readiness of UN, UB2, and their composites for fuel forms specific to small modular reactors (SMRs). The project will bridge the critical data gaps in HDF performance specific to the impact of common impurities and microstructural variations that originate at fabrication. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Development of Advanced Control Rod Assembly for Improved Accident Tolerance and High Burnup Fuel Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Research will focus on the development of new materials' designs for control rod sheaths and neutron absorbers, coupled with neutronics analysis and thermo-mechanical modeling to improve accident tolerance and to achieve higher fuel burnup in PWRs. Functionality of the proposed designs consisting of Cr coated control rod sheaths of current and advanced alloys as well as novel neutron absorbers will be evaluated in prototypical reactor conditions and accident scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Optical Basicity Determination of Molten Fluoride Salts and its Influence on Structural Material Corrosion | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | The proposed research is aimed at developing ion probes to determine the optical basicity of molten fluoride salts and studying its influence on structural material corrosion. Combining with the molten salt structure study using X-ray absorption spectroscopy, the salt chemical constitution, the resulting optical basicity, and molten salt structure will be inextricably linked and their connections will be unveiled. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Extending the HMF71 Benchmark Series for Graphite Reflector Thickness up to 18 Inches | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $399,522 | The objective of this proposal is to extend the HEU-MET-FAST-071 (HMF-71) experiment benchmark series in ICSBEP by evaluating the historical (existing) experimental data for critical experiments with graphite reflector thickness from 3 inches up to 18 inches. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2022 |
| Fast and Rigorous Methods for Multiphysics SPn Transport in Advanced Reactors | University of Michigan | $600,000 | This project proposes to perform rigorous theoretical and numerical analysis of the Generalized SPn method and underlying cross section models to enable a fast and robust multiphysics low-order transport capability for advanced reactors. This includes 5 major tasks focused on the efficient discretization and solution of the GSPn equations, numerical analysis of XS models having multiphysics and depletion, analysis of equivalence factors, improved MC estimators, and several V&V applications of the methods. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2022 |
| Development of Hydrogen Transport Models for High Temperature Metal Hydride Moderators | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Understanding the transient behavior of metal hydride moderator materials at high temperatures is a key challenge to the design and deployment of future microreactors. This project will use neutron radiography techniques provide the necessary data for this understanding and demonstrate the development of time and temperature dependent hydrogen transport models using both commercial FEA software coupled to MCNP and coupled models developed in the MOOSE framework. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Characterizing fast reactor fuel failure mode through separate effect and prototypic tests | Oregon State University | $800,000 | The project consists of conducting separate effect fuel pin failure tests with surrogate fluid and prototypic test with sodium. The outcome of this study will generate an experimental database that will be used to develop mechanistic model and validate the CDAP module of the SAS4A/SASSYS-1 code. Ultimately the quality data can be used to benchmark other fuel codes developed for LMFR application, which are seeking validation for licensing purpose. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Science-based development of ASTM standard tests for graphite-based fuel pebbles | University of California, Berkeley | $700,000 | This project proposes the development of mechanical test procedures as well as wear and friction tests on Graphite fuel pebbles | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Role of Heterogeneity in Manganese and Nickel Rich Precipitate Distribution on Hardening of Reactor Pressure Vessel Steels: Integrated Modeling and Experimental Characterization | University of Florida | $799,803 | The hypothesis of this work is that the different nucleation and coarsening kinetics of manganese and nickel rich precipitates (MNPs) compared to copper rich precipitates, and the heterogeneous distribution of manganese and nickel rich precipitates on or near dislocations, both lead to unique hardening behavior at high neutron fluence. The objective of this work is to understand hardening in reactor pressure vessel steels caused by MNPs via integrated multiscale modeling and experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Integrated Thermal-Electric Energy Management of All-Electric Ship with Advanced Nuclear Reactors | University of Texas at Dallas | $400,000 | The overall objective of this research is to comprehensively model, design, and evaluate the use of advanced nuclear reactors in future nuclear-powered ships, to enhance the efficiency, reliability, and resilience of shipboard energy distribution systems. The novelty of the proposed approach lies in (i) integrated thermal-electric modeling of advanced nuclear-powered shipboard energy system, and (ii) novel solutions for total-ship energy management to improve energy efficiency and resiliency. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Open Architecture for Nuclear Cost Reduction | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Open architecture has potential to reduce advanced reactor (AR) costs, through exploiting modular design and construction, with common, openly available interfaces between modules. A comprehensive assessment of the challenges and opportunities of open architecture for ARs will be performed. Supported by a pilot study, actionable recommendations for the implementation or otherwise of open architecture for ARs will be developed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Telescopic Control Rod for Significant Reduction in HTR Height and therefore Cost | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | This project proposes a design for a small modular High Temperature Reactor (HTR) control rod that extends telescopically, consisting of ~5 concentric annuli that nest together above the core when withdrawn. This compact component substantially reduces the length of the depth of the silo. Modelling and experimental testing will be performed to develop the control rod to evaluate feasibility, plus perform a cost-benefit analysis, with a view to its inclusion in both pebble bed and prismatic HTR designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Mechanism Driven Evaluations of Sequential and Simultaneous Irradiation-Creep-Fatigue Testing | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | This project addresses a critical need for irradiation and creep-fatigue testing by carrying out a systematic, mechanistic-driven benchmarking for irradiation creep, irradiation fatigue and creep-fatigue tests under various environments. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Mechanisms-based Acceleration of Materials Qualifications for Creep-Fatigue Performance in Advanced Nuclear Systems | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | The goal of this research is to fully understand, quantify and model creep-fatigue 'damage' as a function of loading patterns, temperature and microstructural evolution. Using this experimental information over a large range of relevant stress levels and temperatures, a mechanisms-based creep-fatigue analysis approach will be demonstrated which will properly qualify high temperature alloys for extended service in advanced nuclear systems where creep-fatigue is currently a major design limitation. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Subwavelength Ultrasonic Imaging for Rapid Qualification of Additively Manufactured Nuclear Structures and Components | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to develop a transformational capability for rapid nondestructive quality assessment of actual nuclear additively manufactured structures and components through advanced ultrasonic imaging with subwavelength resolution. The resolution of conventional ultrasonic systems is limited by diffraction on the order of the wavelength. In this project, the goal is to break the diffraction limits of ultrasonic imaging by implementing a negative-index lens. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| MXene as Sorbent Materials for Off-gas Radioiodine Capture and Immobilization | Clemson University | $1,000,000 | The overarching goal of this project is to develop efficient and stable new sorbent materials, for off-gas radioiodine capture and immobilization, that are based on MXenes with two-dimensional transition metal carbides/nitrides. The exploratory research will focus on three main objectives: 1) Design and synthesis of MXenes as radioiodine sorbent and support materials, 2) Quantification of iodine sorption capacity of MXenes in different forms, 3) Synthesis and characterization of consolidated waste forms. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Fundamental understanding of grain boundary cracking in LWR environments | University of California, Los Angeles | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to understand the details of stress corrosion cracking (SCC) and irradiation assisted stress corrosion cracking (IASCC) by targeted experiments and modeling efforts. A comprehensive model will be produced, which will predict the conditions under which these failure modes occur and when the materials may see onsets of the failure mode. This work will directly impact the nuclear industry by refining predictive models of component lifetime. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Facile manufacturing of fiber-reinforced-SiC/SiC composite using aerodynamic fiber deposition (AFD) and metal assisted polymer impregnation and pyrolysis processes (MAPIP) | University of Pittsburgh | $999,886 | SiC/SiC ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) are promising candidate materials for the cladding of accident tolerant fuels. Superior material properties of SiC/SiC CMC, however, come at a high manufacturing cost. The objective of the proposed research is to apply aerodynamic fiber deposition (AFD) and metal assisted polymer impregnation and pyrolysis (MAPIP) to develop a new facile manufacturing approach of SiC/SiC CMC. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| High Concentration Monoamide Separations: Phase Modifiers and Transuranic Chemistry | Colorado School of Mines | $999,900 | Extraction of actinides from used nuclear fuel with high concentrations of monoamide extractants is a promising strategy to intensify separation processes; however key issues remain to be understood and resolved. This project will examine three questions: 1) Can phase modifiers mitigate issues with organic phase viscosity? 2) Can the chemistry of neptunium be controlled to ensure complete separation? 3) Do high concentrations of monoamides affect the oxidation states of important metals and can that be exploited? | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Multiple Uranium Complexes in Chloride Fast Reactor Molten Salt Properties | University of Connecticut | $1,000,000 | Multivalent transition metal ions in a melt can exhibit multiple coordination states that affect molten salt properties. This project will use a new high-energy resolution fluorescence detection (HERFD) spectroscopy to overcome issues associated with measuring coordination numbers of multiple complexes, along with Raman spectroscopy and advanced simulations to accurately predict properties of molten salts with multiple uranium complexes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Validation of Geochemical Reactive Transport Long-Term predictions Using Natural Cements and Ancient Cements Analogues | Vanderbilt University | $950,000 | This project will validate long-term performance predictions of rock/cement interfaces based on characterization of natural analogues, ancient cements and interfaces with rock formations, and demonstrate applicability of the established testing and simulation workflow with argillite rock (representative of potential U.S. repository systems). This project addresses the research gap of long-term validation and uncertainty assessment associated with cement barrier performance and multi-physics models. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Predicting Pitting and Stress Corrosion Cracking of Dry Cask Storage Canisters via High Throughput Testing, Multiscale Characterization, and 3D Computer Vision based Machine Learning | The Ohio State University | $1,000,000 | This project consists of a US-UK collaborative research program focusing on the nucleation and growth of pits and stress corrosion cracking of stainless steel 304 (a canister material used for dry cask storage of spent nuclear fuels) by leveraging multi-scale characterization techniques, 2D/3D computer vision, and machine learning approaches. The study will enable the understanding and prediction of how and when pitting corrosion can nucleate, grow, and transition into stress corrosion cracking. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Multiscale Residual Stress Tailoring of Spent Fuel Canister CISCC Resistance | Purdue University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to understand the role of residual stress in chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) of austenitic steel, then tailor CISCC initiation and propagation through engineered multiscale residual stress distributions. Microscopic and macroscopic residual stresses will be systematically varied, then a novel sequence of advanced, site-specific, correlative characterization techniques will be applied to directly link residual stress, pitting, and crack propagation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Illuminating Emerging Supply Chain and Waste Management Challenges | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | Regional constraints on domestic fuel supply and greater variation in demand from advanced reactors has led to a shift in the U.S. fuel cycle, and modeling tools must reflect this. In this work, Cyclus will be updated to better reflect new and emergent regional supply constraints, spatial and temporal fluctuations in material needs, and those impacts on the back-end of the fuel cycle will be quantified. This work will allow for flexible, reproducible analysis to inform stakeholder decision-making. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Determination of Local Structure and Phase Stability of Uranium Species in Molten Halide Salts: Linking Microscopic Structure with Macroscopic Thermodynamics | Arizona State University | $1,000,000 | The goal of this project is to determine the local structures (valence state, coordination configuration and medium-range structure) and thermodynamic stability of uranium species in molten chloride and fluoride salts at high temperatures using a combination of experimental and modeling methods. The obtained results will allow for revelation of the structure-stability relations of the studied systems and development of acid-base scales to determine the solubility of uranium in molten halide salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Thermal-Hydraulics Assessment of SiC Compared to Other ATF Cladding Materials and its Performance to Mitigate CRUD | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | This project aims to experimentally investigate the thermal-hydraulics performance of SiC compared to the Cr-coated zircaloys and APMT ATF cladding materials under accident scenarios, including both DNB and dryout conditions. The project is divided into five tasks that will advance the understanding of the operation and optimization of heat pipes for advanced nuclear reactors. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Physics-Informed Artificial Intelligence for Non-Destructive Evaluation of Ceramic Composite Cladding by Creating Digital Fingerprints | University of Florida | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to spatially map the material composition, structure, and defect distribution of SiCf-SiCm composite tubes from ultrasonic wavefields measured from the materials and the defects within them. Specifically, this project will delve into the unique ultrasonic fingerprints (i.e., dispersion relations and mode shapes) of the SiCf-SiCm composites using physics-informed machine learning to assess the quality of the manufactured tubes based on their spatial-spectral ultrasonic characteristics. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Understanding Constituent Redistribution, Thermal Transport, and Fission Gas Behavior in U-Zr Annular Fuel Without a Sodium Bond | University of Florida | $999,462 | This project will investigate the reason for changed constituent redistribution in annular U-Zr fuel without a sodium bond and how it changes the fission gas behavior and thermal conductivity. This will be achieved using a combination of microstructure characterization and thermal conductivity measurements of irradiated U-Zr annular fuel and multiscale modeling and simulation using the MARMOT and BISON fuel performance codes. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Getting AnCers: Metallothermic Molten Salt Synthesis and Reaction Thermodynamics of Actinide Ceramic Fuels | Oregon State University | $1,000,000 | Synthesis of high quality actinide ceramics (AnCers) remains a costly challenge. A low-temperature, high-yield, short-duration reaction that directly synthesizes UN and UC could reduce the cost of these advanced fuels greatly. This proposal aims to demonstrate a method by which the costs of AnCers can be greatly reduced - metallothermic molten salt synthesis. Optimization and thermodynamics data will be obtained. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Integrated Stand-off Optical Sensors for Molten Salt Reactor Monitoring | University of Pittsburgh | $1,000,000 | This project intends to develop robust and stand-off optical sensors to perform real-time molten salt levels, flow, and impurity measurements of molten salts. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Cybersecurity in advanced reactor fleet by cyber-informed design, real-time anomaly detection, dynamic monitoring, and cost-effective mitigation strategies | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The goal of this research is to provide technical solutions to unique cybersecurity challenges in future microreactor fleet through cyber-informed design (C-ID), real-time anomaly detection, dynamic monitoring, and cost-effective mitigation strategies. The efforts will significantly improve the economics and effectiveness of cybersecurity risk management in future microreactor fleets. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Building Cyber-Resilient Architecture for Advanced Reactors via Integrated Operations and Network Digital Twin | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | The research will develop a secure-by-design architecture via integrating plant operation and network digital twins for advanced reactors. Automatic attack path and vulnerability analysis will be developed and used to assess and harden critical digital assets (CDA) against cyber risks prior to and during operation to identify vulnerabilities, attack pathways, and threat vectors. A CDA selection method will also be developed by combining vulnerability scores and assets importance. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Extending PRA and HRA legacy methods and tools with a cause-based model for comprehensive treatment of human error dependency | University of California, Los Angeles | $1,000,000 | This project aims at developing a solution to HRA dependency assessment in PRA from methodological and practical/computational perspectives within legacy PRA tools and methods. The solutions will include procedures for quantifying dependency when using PRA legacy tools, a method for modeling and quantifying dependency in HRA comprising a BN-causal model suitable for use with legacy PRA methods and tools, and the computational tools for its integration. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| An Integrated Elemental and Isotopic Detector for Real-Time Molten Salt Monitoring | North Carolina State University | $1,000,000 | The overarching theme of the proposed research is to develop and demonstrate a real-time elemental and isotopic detector of molten salts for advanced reactors and fuel fabrication and recycling processes. The detector's longevity, limits, and latency will be tested in static uranium chloride salts, in pyroprocessing chloride salt, and on flowing fluoride salt with evolving actinide composition, respectively. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Development of a Thin-Layer Electrochemical Sensor for Molten Salt Reactors and Fuel Cycle Processes | Brigham Young University | $811,755 | A thin-layer electrochemical sensor capable of detecting uranium, plutonium and other species of interest in molten salts, at both high and low concentrations, will be developed for application in molten salt reactors and fuel cycle process units. This will provide a valuable tool for performing material control and accountancy measurements. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Risk-Informed Consequence-Driven Hybrid Cyber-Physical Protection System Security Optimization for Advanced Reactor Sites | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | This project aims to develop an expanded methodology for designing a novel cybersecurity-integrated physical protection system (PPS) framework for advanced reactor concepts that serves to reduce the operational costs for the life of a reactor against that of a traditional light water reactor PPS design, promoting efforts to credit safety features of advanced reactors through proposed amendments to current security regulations, while integrating health and economic consequence analyses. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| A risk analysis framework for evaluating the safety, reliability, and economic implications of electrolysis for hydrogen production at NPPs | University of Maryland, College Park | $1,000,000 | The RAFELHyP project will develop a modular risk analysis framework that enables evaluating the safety, reliability, and economic implications of upcoming deployments of electrolyzers to produce hydrogen at nuclear power plants. The framework will be implemented to conduct an integrated safety, reliability, and economic analysis of multiple plant configurations to provide detailed recommendations for plant protective features and layouts. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Reduced Order Modeling of Heat and Fluid Flow: Multi-Scale Modeling of Advanced Reactors to Enable Faster Deployment | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | Novel multi-scale algorithms for thermal-hydraulics (TH) simulations of advanced reactors will be developed. The methods will leverage recent advances in hardware and reduced order modeling approaches to enable TH simulations of vastly accelerated speed, while maintaining accuracy comparable to high-fidelity methods, such as large-eddy simulation. The methods will allow designers to perform parameter sweeps, develop closures, and enable high fidelity simulation of transients. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Embedded Monte Carlo | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Monte Carlo methods have long been considered the standard in terms of accuracy and have seen increased use in design of small nuclear systems; however, the uncertainty quantification (UQ) of the desired output is often relegated to later stages of the design process. This project seeks to embed nuclear data UQ in a single Monte Carlo simulation, such that each desired quantity will not only provide the mean value and statistical uncertainty, but also the related nuclear data uncertainty. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| A Low Order Transport Method Based on the Dynamic Truncation of the Integral Transport Matrix Method (ITMM) that Converges to the SN Solution with Increasing Cell Optical Thickness | North Carolina State University | $1,000,000 | A novel low-order transport operator capable of approximating Monte Carlo (MC) results within a variance range will be developed. This does not require MC reference solutions to calibrate the low-order model, so repeated solutions of the latter in-transient scenarios does not require repeated MC simulations. Truncation of the low-order operator is done dynamically for evolving configurations to ensure accuracy of the low-order solution. This will involve proof of principle on Cartesian meshes, then implementation in Griffin. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| CFD based Critical Heat Flux predictions for enhanced DNBR margin | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | This project seeks to demonstrate a robust high-fidelity CFD-based methodology to predict CHF behavior at varying quality conditions, enabling the development of advanced DNBR correlations with reduced uncertainty, and in support of upgraded plant economics. The availability of a virtual CHF methodology will allow greatly extending the database for DNBR correlations development and further support advancement in the design of high-performing nuclear fuel. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Immersed Boundary Methods for Modeling of Complex Geometry: A Leap Forward in Multiscale Modeling using NekRS | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | A major challenge to Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling of complex geometries is the need to generate body-fitted meshes, which can occupy 80% of the CFD practitioner's time. Immersed boundary methods will be added in the NekRS CFD code, dramatically simplifying modeling of complex 3-D structures and facilitating a new paradigm for CFD-informed multiscale analysis. This will be demonstrated by informing SAM transient systems-level models with NekRS heat exchanger correlations for advanced reactors. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Uncertainty Quantification of Model Extrapolation in Neural Network-informed Turbulent Closures for Plenum Mixing in HTGRs | Utah State University | $1,000,000 | This project will quantify the uncertainty in prediction of Neural Network-informed Turbulent Closures when they are operating in a model extrapolation state. Once the method is developed for canonical buoyant jets, the protocols will be applied to plenum mixing in HTGRs. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Impact of moisture on corrosion of NiCr alloys in MgCl2-NaCl Salt Systems | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $999,983 | This project aims to gain a fundamental understanding of the impact of moisture and salt chemistry on corrosion of NiCr alloys in molten chloride salts. A novel approach coupling multiscale simulations and experiments will be designed to determine salt acidity, its dependence on salt composition (i.e., the NaCl to MgCl2 ratio), and its effects on the transport of H2O and Cr ions and the corrosion kinetics of NiCr alloys in chloride salt. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Transforming Microreactor Economics Through Hydride Moderator Enabled Neutron Economy | State University of New York, Stony Brook | $1,000,000 | Microreactors will potentially require the cost of electricity to be 10 MWD/kg at >3 kW/kg core specific power. These goals are best achieved through a well-thermalized spectrum. Neutron economy as a core material selection criterion to advance entrained hydride composite moderators will be used with the primary goal of significantly reducing fuel costs through novel microreactor designs. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Integrating Nuclear with ZLD Seawater Desalination and Mining | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | An integrated nuclear system will be developed that would utilize electricity and waste heat to operate a desalination and mining process from adjacent seawater. The desalination approach targets zero-liquid discharge with multiple marketable minerals extracted. The ability of nuclear facilities to load follow is increasingly important, so a cold thermal storage system will be incorporated. The desalination and mineral extraction process will be experimentally validated at lab scale. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Reference Designs of Green Ammonia Plants Powered by Small Modular Reactors | Utah State University | $1,000,000 | The overarching goal of this project is to develop two reference designs for green ammonia plants. One design uses freshwater as the source for hydrogen, while the other design uses seawater (or brackish water) as the source. In both designs, a small modular reactor (SMR) is used as the primary energy source providing both electricity and steam for the plants. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Development of the Technical Bases to Support Flexible Siting of Microreactors based on Right-Sized Emergency Planning Zones | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to provide the technical basis to support the application of a right-sized Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ) size to support the deployment of a microreactor at the Penn State University Park campus. This research study will serve as a template to provide flexible siting in support of future microreactor deployments that may be placed closer to demand centers, thereby making them more economically competitive. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Bayesian Optimization for Automatic Reactor Design Optimization | Arizona State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to develop analytical tools based on Gaussian process modeling and Bayesian Optimization that facilitate reactor design optimization by modeling the responses from the physics simulator. Existing capabilities will be applied in an AI field and they will be adapted to address the key characteristics of nuclear reactor design problem. This project will automate the simulation-based design procedure, reduce the number of iterations, and minimize the design cycle time. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Engaging New Mexican communities in developing an equitable and just approach to siting advanced reactor facilities | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | This project will engage diverse New Mexican communities to develop an equitable approach for advanced reactor siting. The findings of this project will shed light on how technology developers and the DOE can explore and potentially site advanced reactors with the informed consent and engagement of host communities, regions, and states. The findings of this study will also more generally apply to the potential for equitably exploring both brownfield and greenfield sites for nuclear facilities. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Deciphering Irradiation Effects of YHx through In-situ Evaluation and Micromechanics for Microreactor Applications | University of New Mexico | $998,000 | This project addresses a critical gap in accelerated testing of YH evolution coupling multi-length scale mechanical testing with ion irradiation and advanced characterization to establish a baseline understanding of YH evolution under ion irradiation. Our approach will couple ion irradiation and gamma irradiation with small scale mechanical testing to decipher multi-scale impacts on phase stability to advance understanding of YH in a microreactor moderator application. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Active Learning Estimation and Optimization (ALEO) of Irradiation Experimental Design for Efficient Accelerated Fuel Qualification | University of Texas at San Antonio | $997,247 | This collaborative project creates novel AI/ML models and algorithms integrated with physical knowledge and expertise to explore more efficient ways to calculate irradiation temperatures and fuel specimen burnups for new fuel sample configurations of MiniFuel experiments proposed for irradiation in the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Unraveling how mixing vane spacers affect cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena in light water reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $500,000 | Experiments will be conducted to quantify the effect of mixing vane spacers on cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena, namely single-phase forced convection, nucleate boiling, and CHF. The results of the experimental research will allow elucidating the physical phenomena triggered by the presence of mixing vane spacers. They will also allow assessing the performance of M-CFD tools developed within CASL and in use by the nuclear community. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Quantum Computing Algorithms for Deterministic Neutron Transport | University of Michigan | $500,000 | This project will develop algorithms for solving the k-eigenvalue form of the neutron transport equation in a nuclear reactor physics context on a quantum computer. The asymptotic scaling of the algorithms will be analyzed. Investigation into implementation will be made by making resource estimates by synthesizing explicit circuits for the algorithms and be studied by emulation on a classical computer. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Optimizing Application-Dependent Energy Group Structures for Multigroup Neutron Transport Models using Machine Learning | Colorado School of Mines | $500,000 | Machine Learning methods will be developed that will dramatically reduce both the computational run-time and manual effort needed to find multigroup energy structures that accurately capture the underlying physics of neutron reactions, while allowing multigroup simulations to run quickly without overwhelming available memory. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Understanding PM-HIP Interparticle Evolution and its Influence on Fracture Toughness in Alumina-Forming Steels | Purdue University | $1,100,000 | This project aims to understand how interparticle evolution during hot isostatic pressing (HIP) influences fracture toughness of Al-bearing steels. The team will use a series of interrupted HIP experiments with phase field models to understand the formation mechanisms of interparticle defects during HIP of alumina-forming austenitic (AFA) stainless steels and FeCrAl steels, and the influence of these defects on fracture behavior. | Document | Advanced Manufacturing Technologies | FY2024 |
| Multiscale high-throughput experiment/modeling approach to understanding creep behavior in Additively Manufactured reactor steels | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $1,043,271 | This project proposes to develop a predictive capability for processing-microstructure-property correlations in additive manufactured microstructures utilizing a multiscale approach encompassing bulk creep tests, miniaturized tensile testing, and a high-throughput, indentation based, cost-effective method for elevated temperature mechanical mapping of additively manufactured 316H Stainless Steel, Grade 91, and Titanium-Zirconium-Molybdenum (TZM) alloys. | Document | Advanced Manufacturing Technologies | FY2024 |
| Assessing molten salt corrosion resistance of stainless steel 316H in nuclear reactor environments | North Carolina State University | $1,100,000 | The proposed goal is to leverage a blend of innovative molten salt corrosion experiments and cutting-edge characterization techniques to advance our understanding of molten salt corrosion in both commercial and additively manufactured (AM) stainless steel (SS) 316H, particularly under radiation or stress environments. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Polymer-Derived C-SiC Coatings on Kernel Particles for Advanced Nuclear Reactors | University of Alabama at Birmingham | $1,100,000 | This program is to use a polymer-derived ceramic approach to develop C-SiC/ZrC coatings on ZrO2 kernel substitute particles. We aim to create new fuel encapsulation materials in replacement of the coatings on fuel kernel particles, including the TRISO layers, for advanced reactors, conduct ion irradiation testing of the new materials for nuclear performance evaluation, and carry out detailed microstructure and composition characterization to assess the C-SiC/ZrC coated fuel particle behaviors. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Sorbent regeneration, recycling, and transformation: A transformative approach to iodine capture and immobilization | University of Nevada, Reno | $1,000,000 | The project will focus on the development of materials and processes for regeneration and recycling of sorbents, and the transformation of iodine-loaded sorbents into waste forms. A combination of computational and experimental studies will be conducted to understand (a) how the components in a primary off-gas stream interact with the sorbent, (b) how this off-gas stream affects the regeneration lifetime, and (c) low-temperature binders and processing paths that leads to durable waste forms. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Accident Tolerant Fuels to Support Power Uprates in LWRs | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,100,000 | This project will demonstrate that power uprates higher than the current state of operation can be reached using accident tolerant fuels in light water reactors while not exceeding reactor safety margins during normal operation and accidents. We will analyze it considering fuel enriched up to 10% and peak rod average burnup up to 75GWd/tU concerning reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, reactor safety, and economics. Considerations will be made in consultation with the named industry advisory board. | Document | Existing Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Comparative study of three-dimensional microstructural imaging and thermal conductivity evolution of irradiated solid and annular U-Zr fuels | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Uranium-zirconium (U-Zr) annular metallic fuel holds the promise to simultaneously increase sodium fast reactor (SFR) core uranium loading and reduce peak cladding temperatures, thus greatly improving fuel performance. However, key convolved fuel degradation mechanisms during irradiation at temperature threaten to hold back its real-world applicability, requiring more detailed understanding to both predict U-Zr fuel performance and suggest improvements. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Mechanistic study and modeling of fission gas release in UO2 and doped UO2 | Oregon State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to enhance the safety and performance of light water reactors and other advanced reactor designs by gaining a fundamental understanding of fast gas reactor mechanisms and developing mechanistic models for UO2 and doped UO2 fuels under HBU and transient conditions. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Anisotropic Thermal Properties of SiC-SiC Cladding: Method Development & Characterization | University of Pittsburgh | $1,000,000 | We propose to develop a high-temperature nondestructive thermal conductivity (k) measurement system coupled with validated multiscale models to accurately determine the anisotropic thermal conductivity of SiC-SiC composite cladding tubes. The multiscale measurement and modeling results benefit both DOE ATF programs as well as providing a fundamental understanding of how the microstructure of the composite leads to its anisotropic properties. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Understanding the Performance of SiC-SiCf Composite Cladding Architectures with Cr Coating in Normal Operating and Accident Conditions in LWRs and Advanced Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The project will focus on investigating the impact of Cr-coating on the SiC-SiCf composite cladding of various architectures under normal operating and accident conditions in light water reactors and advanced reactors for the safe and economic deployment of SiC cladding. Cr-coating will provide protection from high-temperature corrosion and better hermeticity under accident conditions. The performance of the claddings will be evaluated through the corrosion test, reflood test, burst test, and non-destructive evaluation(NDE). | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Developing critical insights on the effects of Mo on _' precipitation and dislocation loop formation in FeCrAl alloys | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | This project aims at developing a mechanistic understanding on the effects of Mo on _' precipitation and dislocation loop formation in FeCrAl alloys in thermal and irradiation conditions and turns it into a set of design principles guiding further optimization, by integrating atomistic simulations, CALPHAD modeling, thermal aging, proton irradiation, and advanced characterization. The material discoveries will be generalized to other solutes other than Mo. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Inference of flow conditions from in-core detector measurements for accelerating SMR licensing | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Reactor modelling relies on the detailed description of reactor systems but often lacks the true as-built characteristics of a system. This proposal seeks to fill these geometrical data gaps using available detector data, predictive models and machine learning in order to provide better information to analysis tools and thus better prediction of future performance. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Non-Destructive Plutonium Assay in Pyroprocessing Bulk Materials with a 3D Boron-Coated-Straw Detector Array | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,100,000 | The objective of the proposed project is to develop and demonstrate a 3D boron-coated-straw detector array (3D-BCSDA) with high efficiency and spatial resolution. This detection system will be specifically designed to accurately assess the fissile mass in bulk nuclear material during pyroprocessing operations, thereby improving the precision and reliability of accountability measurements during separation. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Improving the computational efficiency and usability of dynamic PRA with reinforcement learning | University of Maryland, College Park | $1,064,400 | The overall objective of the proposed research is to improve the efficiency and usability of dynamic probabilistic risk assessment (PRA). Specifically, the first objective is to develop a new algorithm for dynamic PRA analysis that can significantly increase the computational efficiency. The second objective is to develop a question-answering system to streamline the process of risk-informed decision-making based on results obtained from the dynamic PRA analysis using the new algorithm. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Development of a Benchmark Model for the Near Real-Time Radionuclide Composition Measurement System using Microcalorimetry for Advanced Reactors | Virginia Commonwealth University | $1,100,000 | The primary goal of this proposed project is to develop high fidelity Monte Carlo radiation transport models of a microcalorimetry detector informed by fuel depletion models of a molten salt reactor and a pebble bed reactor to quantify the current and future capabilities of this detector technology to characterize and assay used fuel from these reactors in near real-time. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Development and Validation of a Dual-Purpose Instrument for On-line Monitoring of Molten Salt Composition and Thermal Behavior | Brigham Young University | $1,099,924 | We propose the development of an online monitoring instrument capable of quantifying heat transfer and salt composition for molten salt reactors (MSR). A dual electrochemistry/thermal conductivity probe (DETP) will be developed to measure the thermal properties and impurities within the salt simultaneously. The DETP will make use of a previously developed needle probe and electrodes for square-wave cyclic voltammetry measures of salt composition. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| In Situ Assessment of Molten Salt Transport into Nuclear Graphite Microstructures using Ultrasonic Sensors | Johns Hopkins University | $909,827 | This project focuses on the transport of molten salt into nuclear graphite along with the investigation of ultrasonic methods for sensing graphite material property changes, especially elastic modulus, associated with intrusion of molten salt into the graphite microstructure. Experimental studies coupled with physics-based simulations will be used to assess strategies for in situ sensing of salt intrusion in the reactor environment to enhance long-term viability of molten salt reactors. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| MONITORING CERAMIC FUEL FRACTURE VIA FIBER OPTIC ACOUSTIC EMISSION SENSORS | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $1,000,000 | In the proposed three-year program, the Center for Photonics Technology (CPT) at Virginia Tech will collaborate with Sentek Instrument (Sentek), Prysmian, and Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to develop and demonstrate a distributed acoustic emission (AE) sensing system for in-situ monitoring of ceramic fuel fracture. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| Concurrent Surrogate Model Development with Uncertainty Quantification in the MOOSE Framework Using Physics-Informed Gaussian-Process Machine Learning | University of Florida | $999,999 | The objective of this project is to develop a general capability for concurrent generation and use of physics-informed Gaussian process (GP)-based surrogate models to facilitate multiscale and multiphysics modeling. We will implement this new capability as part of the Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) so that every application based on the MOOSE framework will have access to it. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2024 |
| Unstructured Adaptive Mesh Algorithms for Monte Carlo Transport | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,098,000 | We propose to develop the fundamental methods and techniques for unstructured adaptive mesh refinement with Monte Carlo tallies. This work enables a transformative leap forward in speed, accuracy, and robustness to enhance the contribution of high-fidelity radiation transport to advanced simulation. Adaptive refinement is deployed on a challenging multiphysics simulation, cascading heat pipe failure, to study acceleration and stabilization properties. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2024 |
| Feasibility Study of Micro-Nuclear Reactor Thermal Output for Air Rotary Kilns in the High-Temperature Manufacturing of Portland Cement Clinker | Pennsylvania State University | $998,793 | This project aims to design and test a micro-nuclear reactor for high-temperature portland cement clinker production, a process responsible for 6%-8% of global CO2 emissions. Leveraging advanced reactors' heat output, the project explores TRISO-based nuclear microreactor core modifications and new working fluids for heat pipes. The research addresses uncertainties in micro-nuclear reactor deployment for clinker production and investigates high-efficiency heat exchanger designs. | Document | Non-Traditional and Non-electric Applications | FY2024 |
| Redox potential, ionic speciation, and separation and recovery challenges from molten salts containing actinides and fission products | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $999,999 | Establishing an efficient, safe, secure, and economical Molten-Salt Reactor (MSR) fuel cycle is imperative for MSR implementation. Molten salt fuel recycling technology requires predictive knowledge of the chemical and physical behavior of lanthanide and actinide ions with different oxidation states dissolved in solvent salts. A combination of off-gas and X-ray measurements with machine-learning simulations will be used to produce predictive modeling of separation and recovery conditions. | Document | Nuclear Fuel Recycle Technologies | FY2024 |
| Pre-Treatment and Bulk Separation of Used Fuels with Carbonate-Peroxide Solutions | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | To use carbonate-peroxide chemistries to develop a pre-processing method for used uranium-based fuels that enables the subsequent use and optimization of current solvent extraction reprocessing schemes. Using simple precipitation, this innovative method provides an initial, bulk separation of uranium from fission products and actinides. | Document | Nuclear Fuel Recycle Technologies | FY2024 |
| Optimization of Fueling Strategies and Material Surveillance through Real-time Pebble Tracking in Pebble Bed Reactors | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,100,000 | Flexible operation of the energy grid of the future introduces uncertainty in determining the optimal operating conditions of Pebble Bed Reactors. The proposed work will help to address these challenges and enable more economical operation by providing the tools to determine of optimal fuel reloading strategy through pebble identification and tracking. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Experimental Study and Computational Modeling of P-LOFC and D-LOFC Accidents in the Fast Modular Reactor Consisting of Silicon Carbide Composite Rods | University of Michigan | $1,100,000 | The primary objectives of this proposed research are to better understand NC flow phenomena and heat transfer under both D-LOFC and P-LOFC accidents in the FMR, produce experimental data in a well-scaled integral-effects test facility for the two accidents, and develop and validate predictive CFD models for NC flow phenomena in both accidents. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Sodium heat pipes; design and failure mode assessment for micro-reactor applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The present proposal aims to experimentally investigate the thermal-hydraulics performance of liquid sodium heat pipes applied to microreactors, with a focus on exploring different design parameters, effects of different parameters on operating performance and understanding the evolution and impact of different failure modes. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Interfacial Interactions between Graphite and Molten Fluoride Fuel Salt | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $1,000,000 | NaF-KF-UF4 fuel salt will be selected to study graphite-salt interactions and impact of the existence of fission products (FPs) and corrosion products on the interactions at different temperatures and pressures. Fundamental mechanisms of graphite-salt interaction and degradation will be understood. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Local resonance-based linear and nonlinear NDE techniques for repaired DSC wall structures | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | The proposed work plan will develop nondestructive examination (NDE) methods that develop and evaluate linear and nonlinear resonant ultrasound spectroscopy methods (such as NRUS, NIRAS, etc.) to cold spray (CS) repaired dry shielded canister (DSC) wall structures. With the support of our partners from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), we will perform technology development and validation on plain and cold spray-repaired DSC wall specimens. | Document | Spent Fuel, Waste Science & Technology and Integrated Waste Management System | FY2024 |
| Thermodynamic Models for Multivalent Actinide Solubility and Speciation as a Function of Temperature and Ionic Strength | University of Notre Dame | $1,000,000 | This proposed project will quantify the solubility and speciation of Np and Pu under temperatures, ionic strengths, and pH values that are relevant to the generic repository concept. The major deliverable will be full thermodynamic descriptions of the studied systems, which will lead to improved radionuclide transport models and support the development of a sound technical basis for the geologic disposal of spent nuclear fuel and other actinide-bearing wastes. | Document | Spent Fuel, Waste Science & Technology and Integrated Waste Management System | FY2024 |
| Advancing Fundamental Molten Salt Modeling using Ultrafast Spectroscopy | North Carolina State University | $600,000 | The overarching goal of the proposed research is to advance our fundamental understanding of molten salts by combining ultrafast spectroscopic experiments with high fidelity atomistic simulations. The proposed research will introduce a new experimental technique to the study of molten salts that will directly measure ion kinetics, specifically, terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS), which will further validate AIMD as a predictive modeling tool. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
| Hydrodynamics of Two-Phase Flow Under the Geometric Effects of Pipe Orientation and U-bends | Purdue University | $600,000 | Most two-phase flow analyses have been performed in straight vertical-upward pipes. However, nuclear reactor systems include piping with different geometric components, such as elbows or U-bends, as well as changes in flow orientations. The proposed work performs experiments in a scaled test facility existing at the institution's lab to investigate the effects of flow orientations and geometries relevant to nuclear reactor systems on the hydrodynamics of two-phase flow. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
| Interface-Resolved Experimental and Numerical Studies of Two-Phase Flow for Nuclear Engineering Applications | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $500,000 | The project aims at advancing the interface-resolved simulation capabilities for the two-phase flows found in various nuclear engineering applications. We will develop a comprehensive, high-resolution, interface-resolved database emphasizing bubble dynamics and bubble interaction mechanisms. The data will be used to validate the sub-grid models implemented in an interface-resolved simulation tool to improve simulation accuracy by developing physics-based coalescence models. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
FY 2009 Research and Development Awards
A complete list of R&D projects with their associated abstracts is available below.
| Title | Institution | Estimated Funding* | Project Description | Abstract | Project Type | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fundamental Understanding of Ambient and High-Temperature Plasticity Phenomena in Structural Materials in Advanced Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Elastic/Inelastic Nuclear Data Development Project | Idaho State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Heterogeneous Recycling in Fast Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Thermodynamic Development of Corrosion Rate Modeling in Iron Phosphate Glasses | Missouri University of Science and Technology | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Subspace-Based Hybrid Monte Carlo-Deterministic Algorithms for Reactor Physics Calculations | North Carolina State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Improvements to Nuclear Data and Its Uncertainties by Theoretical Modeling | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Sharp Interface Tracking in Rotating Microflows of Solvent Extraction | State University of New York at Stony Brook | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Bulk Nanostructured FCC Steels with Enhanced Radiation Tolerance | Texas A&M University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Fuel Performance Experiments and Modeling: Fission Gas Bubble Nucleation and Growth in Alloy Nuclear Fuels | Texas A&M University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| SiC Schottky Diode Detectors for Measurement of Actinide Concentrations from Alpha Activities in Molten Salt Electrolyte | The Ohio State University | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Computational Design of Advanced Nuclear Fuels | University of California, Davis | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Data Collection Methods For Validation of Advanced Multi-Resolution Fast Reactor Simulations | University of Idaho | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Simulations of the Thermodynamic and Diffusion Properties of Actinide Oxide Fuel Materials | University of Michigan | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Adsorptive Separation and Sequestration of Krypton, I and C14 on Diamond Nanoparticles | University of Missouri, Columbia | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Alternative Technetium Waste Forms | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Quantification of UV-Visible and Laser Spectroscopic Techniques for Materials Accountability and Process Control | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| High-Fidelity Space-Time Adaptive Multiphysics Simulations in Nuclear Engineering | University of Nevada, Reno | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Simulations of Failure via Three-Dimensional Cracking in Fuel Cladding for Advanced Nuclear Fuels | University of Texas, Dallas | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Mesh-Enabled Monte Carlo Capability for Multi-Physics Reactor Analysis | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Ab Initio Enhanced Calphad Modeling of Actinide Rich Nuclear Fuels | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Development of Diffusion Barrier Coatings and Deposition Technologies for Mitigating Fuel Cladding Chemical Interactions (FCCI) | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Thermal Properties of LiCl-KCl Molten Salt for Nuclear Waste Separation | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) | FY2009 | ||
| Neutron Damage and MAX Phase Ternary Compounds | Drexel University | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Atomistic Calculations of the Effect of Minor Actinides on Thermodynamic and Kinetic Properties of UO2+x | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Maximum Fuel Utilization in Fast Reactors without Chemical Reprocessing | University of California, Berkeley | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Developing a High Thermal Conductivity Fuel with Silicon Carbide Additives | University of Florida | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Fabrication of Tungsten-Rhenium Cladding Materials via Spark Plasma Sintering for Ultra High Temperature Reactor Applications | University of Idaho | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Ionic Liquid and Supercritical Fluid Hyphenated Techniques for Dissolution and Separation of Lanthanides, Actinides, and Fission Products | University of Idaho | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Improved Fission Neutron Data Base for Active Interrogation of Actinides | University of Michigan | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Utilization of Methacrylates and Polymer Matrices for the Synthesis of Ion Specific Resins | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Improved LWR Cladding Performance by EPD Surface Modification Technique | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) | FY2009 | ||
| Advanced Models of LWR Pressure Vessel Embrittlement for Low Flux-High Fluence Conditions | University of California, Santa Barbara | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) | FY2009 | ||
| Irradiation Creep in Graphite | Boise State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Modeling the Stress Strain Relationships and Predicting Failure Probabilities For Graphite Core Components | Cleveland State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| TRISO-Coated Fuel Durability Under Extreme Conditions | Colorado School of Mines | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| An Innovative and Advanced Coupled Neutron Transport and Thermal Hydraulic Method (Tool) for the Design, Analysis and Optimization of VHTR/NGNP Prismatic Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Removal of 14C from Irradiated Graphite for Graphite Recycle and Waste Volume Reduction | Idaho State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Millimeter-Wave Thermal Analysis Development and Application to Gen IV Reactor Materials | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Accurate Development of Thermal Neutron Scattering Cross Section Libraries | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Understanding Creep Mechanisms in Graphite with Experiments, Multiscale Simulations, and Modeling | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Verification & Validation of High-Order Short-Characteristics-Based Deterministic Transport Methodology on Unstructured Grids | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Microscale Heat Conduction Models and Doppler Feedback | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Optimizing Neutron Thermal Scattering Effects in Very High Temperature Reactors | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Multiaxial Creep-Fatigue and CreepRatcheting Failures of Grade 91 and Haynes 230 Alloys Toward Addressing Design Issues of Gen IV Nuclear Power Plants | North Carolina State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Investigation of Countercurrent Helium-air Flows in Air-ingress Accidents for VHTRs | Ohio State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Testing of Performance of Optical Fibers Under Irradiation in Intense Radiation Fields, When Subjected to Very High Temperatures | Ohio State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| A Distributed Fiber Optic Sensor Network for Online 3-D Temperature and Neutron Fluence Mapping in a VHTR Environment | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Investigation on the Core Bypass Flow in a Very High Temperature Reactor | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| CFD Model Development and Validation for High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor Cavity Cooling System (RCCS) Applications | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Study of Air ingress across the duct during the accident conditions | Texas A&M University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Verification of the CENTRM Module for Adaptation of the SCALE Code to NGNP Prismatic and PBR Core Designs | University of Arizona | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Integral and Separate Effects Tests for Thermal Hydraulics Code Validation for Liquid-Salt Cooled Nuclear Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Mechanisms Governing the Creep Behavior of High Temperature Alloys for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems | University of Cincinnati | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| ALD Produced B2O3, Al2O3 and TiO2 Coatings on Gd2O3 Burnable Poison Nanoparticles | University of Colorado, Boulder | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Experimental Study and Computational Simulations of Key Pebble Bed Thermomechanics Issues for Design and Safety | University of Idaho | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Prediction and Monitoring Systems of Creep-Fracture Behavior of 9Cr-1Mo Steels for Reactor Pressure Vessels | University of Idaho | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Understanding Fundamental Material Degradation Processes in High Temperature Aggressive Chemomechanical Environments | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Multi-Scale Multi-physics Methods Development for the Calculation of Hot-Spots in the NGNP | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Corrosion and Creep of Candidate Alloys in High Temperature Helium and Steam Environments for the NGNP | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Creation of a Full-Core HTR Benchmark with the Fort St. Vrain Initial Core and Validation of the DHF Method with Helios for NGNP Configurations | University of Michigan | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Fission Product Sorptivity in Graphite | University of Missouri, Columbia | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Identifying and Understanding Environment-Induced Crack Propagation Behavior in Ni-Based Superalloy INCONEL 617 | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Graphite Oxidation Simulation in HTR Accident Conditions | University of New Mexico | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Non Destructive Thermal Analysis and In Situ Investigation of Creep Mechanism of Graphite and Ceramic Composites using Phase-sensitive THz Imaging & Nonlinear Resonant Ultrasonic Spectroscopy | University of Rochester | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Tritium Sequestration in Gen IV NGNP Gas Stream via Proton Conducting Ceramic Pumps | University of South Carolina | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Materials, Turbomachinery and Heat Exchangers for Supercritical CO2 Systems | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Experimental Studies of NGNP Reactor Cavity Cooling System with Water | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Assessment of Embrittlement of VHTR Structural Alloys in Impure Helium Environments | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Modeling Fission Product Sorption in Graphite Structures | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Liquid Salt Heat Exchanger Technology for VHTR Based Applications | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Effect of Post-Weld Heat Treatment on Creep Rupture Properties of Grade 91 Steel Heavy Section Welds | Utah State University | Document | Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)/Generation IV Nuclear Systems | FY2009 | ||
| Alpha Radiolysis of Nuclear Solvent Extraction Ligands used for An(III) and Ln(III) Separations | California State University, Long Beach | $1,390,252 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Predictive Maturity of Multi-Scale Simulation Models for Fuel Performance | Clemson University | $614,690 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Freeze-casting as a Novel Manufacturing Process for Fast Reactor Fuels | Drexel University | $1,149,327 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Fuel Performance Experiments on the Atomistic Level, Studying Fuel Through Engineered Single Crystal UO2 | Idaho State University | $650,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Development of A Self Biased High Efficiency Solid-State Neutron Detector for MPACT Applications | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $810,141 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Development of a Innovative High Thermal Conductivity UO 2 Ceramic Composites Fuel Pellets with Carbon Nano-Tubes Using Spark Plasma Sintering | University of Florida | $894,042 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Exploration and Modeling of Structural Changes in Waste Glass under Corrosion | Pennsylvania State University | $1,377,444 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Evaluation of materials for interim storage of spent fuel for more than 100 years | University of Michigan | $931,603 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Implementation of On-the-Fly Doppler Broadening in MCNP5 for Multiphysics Simulation of Nuclear Reactors | University of Michigan | $406,712 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Methods and tools to allow molecular flow simulations to be coupled to higher level continuum descriptions of flows in porous/fractured media and aerosol/dust dynamics | University of Missouri-Columbi | $541,286 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Characterization and Modeling of Materials for Kr-Xe Separations | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $989,800 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Modeling Solute Thermokinetics in LiCl-KCl Molten Salt for Nuclear Waste Separation | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $616,073 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Advanced Aqueous Separation Systems for Actinide Partitioning: Develop Fundamental Understanding of An(III)/Ln(III) Separation | Washington State University | $1,451,784 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2010 | |
| Consistent Multigroup Theory Enabling Accurate Coarse-Group Simulation of GenIV Reactors | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,046,277 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Studies of Deteriorated Heat Transfer in Prismatic Cores Stemming from Irradiation-Induced Geometry Distortion | Idaho State University | $1,287,921 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Carbide Coatings for Nickel Alloys, Graphite, and Carbon/Carbon Composites to be Used in Fluoride Salt Valves | Johns Hopkins University | $1,183,239 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Design, Testing, and Modeling of the Direct Reactor Auxiliary Cooling System for AHTRs | Ohio State University | $1,366,627 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Monitoring microstructural evolution of Alloy 617 with nonlinear acoustics for remaining useful life prediction; multiaxial creep-fatigue and creep-ratcheting | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development and Validation of Multidimensional Models of Supercritical CO 2 Energy Conversion Systems for Nuclear Power Reactors | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $475,005 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Microstructure and Property Evolution in Advanced Cladding and Duct Materials Under Long-Term and Elevated Temperature Irradiation: Modeling and Experimental Investigation | University of California-Berkeley | $1,320,667 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of Barrier Layers for the Protection of Candidate Alloys in the VHTR | University of California-Santa Barbara | $995,232 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Investigation of a Novel NDE Method for Monitoring Thermo-Mechanical Damage and Microstructure Evolution in Ferritic-Martensitic Steels for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems | University of Cincinnati | $833,109 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Fission Product Transport in TRISO Particle Layers under Operating and Off-Normal Conditions | University of Michigan | $966,581 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Microstructure and Property Evolution in Advanced Cladding and Duct Materials Under Long-Term Irradiation at Elevated Temperature: Critical Experiments | University of Michigan | $1,181,379 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Three-dimensional NDE of VHTR Core Components via Simulation-based Testing | University of Minnesota | $1,366,163 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Failure Predictions for VHTR Core Components using a Probabilistic Continuum Damage Mechanics Model | University of Minnesota | $854,542 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of a Scanning Microscale Fast Neutron Irradiation Platform for Examining the Correlation Between Local Neutron Damage and Graphite Microstructure | University of Missouri-Columbia | $703,064 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Development of Thermal Transient Flow Rate Sensors for High Temperature, Irradiation, Corrosive Environment | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $451,269 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Novel Methods of Tritium Sequestration: High Temperature Gettering and Separation Membrane Materials Discovery for Nuclear Energy Systems | University of South Carolina | $1,366,626 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Heat Transfer Salts for Nuclear Reactor Systems - Chemistry Control, Corrosion Mitigation, and Modeling | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,352,040 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Pulsed Magnetic Welding for Advanced Core and Cladding Steels | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $525,206 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Corrosion in Supercritical Carbon Dioxide: Materials, Environmental Purity, Surface Treatments, and Flow Issues | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $651,447 | Document | Generation IV | FY2010 | |
| Multiscale Concrete Modeling for Aging Degradation | Mississippi State University | $345,941 | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability | FY2010 | |
| Development of an advanced computational fluid dynamics technology for the next-generation nuclear reactor system analysis and safety margin characterization code | North Carolina State University | $418,199 | Document | Light Water Reactor Sustainability | FY2010 | |
| Precursor Derived Nanostructured Si-C-X Materials for Nuclear Applications | University of Washington | $899,518 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Development and Testing of an Open-Loop Oscillator for Small Reactivity Worth Samples | Idaho State University | $597,252 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Understanding the Irradiation Behavior of Zirconium Carbide | Pennsylvania State University | $870,613 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Modeling investigation of the stability and irradiation-induced evolution of nanoscale precipitates in advanced structural materials | University of Tennessee-Knoxville | $380,653 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Investigation of Laser Shock Peening for Enhancing Fatigue and Stress Corrosion Cracking Resistance of Nuclear Energy Materials | University of Cincinnati | $1,242,019 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Irradiation Accelerated Corrosion of Reactor Core Materials | University of Michigan | $798,943 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Study of Interfacial Interactions using Thin Film Surface Modification: Radiation and Oxidation Effects in Materials | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $538,032 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Novel Engineered Refractory Materials for Advanced Reactor Applications | North Carolina State University | $1,129,304 | Document | Mission Relevant Investigator Initiated Research | FY2010 | |
| Quantification of Cation Sorption to Engineered Barrier Materials Under Extreme Conditions | Clemson University | $1,171,380 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| In-Pile Instrumentation Multi-Parameter System Utilizing Photonic Fibers and Nanovision | Idaho State University | $1,199,990 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Development of Plasmonically Cloaked Nanoparticles | Idaho State University | $800,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Fission Product Transmutation in Mixed Radiation Fields | Idaho State University | $800,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Life Prediction of Spent Fuel Storage Canister Material | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $899,826 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Active Interrogation using Photofission Technique for Nuclear Materials Control and Accountability | Oregon State University | $900,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Anisotropic Azimuthal Power and Temperature Distribution on Fuel Rod: Impact of Hydride Distribution | Pennsylvania State University | $631,956 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Sorption Modeling and Verification for Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Microemulsions and Aggregation Formation in Extraction Processes for Used Nuclear Fuel: Thermodynamics and Structural Studies | University of California, Irvine | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Optimized Processing Fabrication Paths for Larger Heats of Nanostructured Ferritic Alloys | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Basic Physics Data: Measurement of Neutron Multiplicity from Induced Fission | University of Michigan | $973,364 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Radionuclide Incorporation and Long Term Performance of Apatite Waste Forms | University of Michigan | $862,500 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Actinide Foil Production for MPACT Research | University of Nevada-Las Vegas | $156,897 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Enriched Boron-Doped Amorphous Selenium Based Position-Sensitive Solid-State Thermal Neutron Detector for MPACT Applications | University of South Carolina | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Development of Advanced High Uranium Density Fuels for Light Water Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Developing the User Experience for a Next Generation Nuclear Fuel Cycle Simulator | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,200,000 | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2011 | |
| Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Preparation and Development of Polymer-Supported Extractants | City College of New York, Hunter | $363,716 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| One-Dimensional Nanostructures for Neutron Detection | North Carolina State University | $455,629 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Feasibility and Safety Assessment for Advanced Reactor Concepts Using Vented Fuel | Oregon State University | $600,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| High Temperature Transducers for Online Monitoring of Microstructure Evolution | Pennsylvania State University | $455,628 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Laser-Arc Hybrid Welding of Thick Section Ni-base Alloys- Advanced Modeling and Experiments | Pennsylvania State University | $536,117 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Correlates of Sensitive Technologies | Texas A&M University | $509,467 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Improved Safety Margin Characterization of Risk from Loss of Offsite Power | Texas A&M University | $600,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| A High Temperature-Tolerant and Radiation-Resistant In-Core Neutron Sensor for Advanced Reactors | The Ohio State University | $455,629 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Pathway Aggregation in the Risk Assessment of Proliferation Resistance and Physical Protection (PR&PP) of Nuclear Energy Systems | The Ohio State University | $534,471 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Preparation of High Purity, High Molecular-Weight Chitin from Ionic Liquids for Use as an Adsorbate for the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Alabama | $338,260 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Selectivity in Ligand Binding to Uranyl Compounds: A Synthetic, Structural, Thermodynamic and Computational Study | University of California-Berkeley | $500,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Seismic Isolation Systems Using Periodic Materials | University of Houston | $538,154 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium from Seawater | University of Idaho | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Austenitic ODS Strengthened Alloys for Very High Temperature Applications | University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign | $538,154 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Enhancement of the Extraction of the Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Transient Safety Analysis of Fast Spectrum TRU Burning LWR with Internal Blankets | University of Michigan | $599,475 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of Novel Sorbents for Uranium Extraction from Seawater | University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill | $400,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Radiation Behavior of High-Entropy Alloys for Advanced Reactors | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $538,159 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Rapid Computer Aided Ligand Design and Screening of Precious Metal Extractants from TRUEX Raffinate with Experimental Validation | Washington State University | $500,000 | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2011 | |
| Development of an Efficient Meso-Scale Multi-Phase Flow Solver in Nuclear Applications | City College of New York | $505,858 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Multiscale Modeling and Uncertainty Quantification for Nuclear Fuel Performance | Colorado State University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Fundamental Studies of the Role of Grain Boundaries on Uniform Corrosion of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Materials | Drexel University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Phenomena-based Uncertainty Quantification in Predictive Coupled-Physics Reactor Simulations | Texas A&M University | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Characterization of Modeling of Grain Boundary Chemistry Evolution in Ferritic Steels Under Irradiation | University of Michigan | $1,098,250 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Development of Multiscale Materials Modeling Techniques and Coarse-Graining Strategies for Predicting Materials Degradation in Extreme Irradiation Environments | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $750,000 | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2011 | |
| Diffusion, Thermal Properties and chemical Compatibilities of Select MAX Phases with Materials for Advanced Nuclear Systems | Drexel University | $535,927 | Document | Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) | FY2011 | |
| A New Light Weight Structural Material for Nuclear Structures | North Carolina State University | $399,490 | Document | Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) | FY2011 | |
| Experimental Investigation of Convection and Heat Transfer in the Reactor Core for a VHTR | City College of New York | $1,118,856 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Graphite Microstructural Characterization Using Time-Domain and Correlation-Based Ultrasonics | Johns Hopkins University | $1,199,997 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Methodology Development for Passive Component Reliability Modeling in a Multi-Physics Simulation Environment | The Ohio State University | $533,457 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Pebble Fuel Handling and Reactivity Control for Salt-Cooled High Temperature Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $612,721 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Self-Sustaining Thorium Boiling Water Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $1,145,932 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| High Fluency Low Flux Embrittlement Models of LWR Reactor Pressure Vessel Embrittlement and a Supporting Database from the UCSB ATR-2 Irradiation Experiment | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,199,607 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| A Research Program for Fission Product/Dust Transport in HTGR's | University of Missouri-Columbia | $1,157,367 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Development and Validation of a Lifecycle-based Prognostics Architecture with Test Bed Validation | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $846,315 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| In-situ Condition Monitoring of Components in Small Modular Reactors Using Process and Electrical Signature Analysis | University of Tennessee, Knoxville | $650,000 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Technical Development for S-CO2 Advanced Energy Conversion | University of Wisconsin | $815,000 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Ag Transport Through Non-Irradiated and Irradiated SiC | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,055,456 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Critical Heat Flux Phenomena at High Pressure and Low Mass Fluxes: Tests and Models | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,199,781 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Modeling and Test Validation of a Reactor Cavity Cooling System with Air | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,199,988 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Transient Mixed Convection Validation for NGNP | Utah State University | $635,860 | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2011 | |
| Alternative High-Performance Ceramic Waste Forms | Alfred University | $840,000 | This project aims to advance fundamental understanding of the kinetics of structural evolution of crystalline ceramic waste forms. The structure/property relationships will be identified and will reveal new formulations, improved processing routes, and strategies for improved performance or ceramic waste forms. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Surface Layer Bulk Glass Interface Evolution with Aqueous Corrosion | Alfred University | $880,000 | This project will investigate the links between the morphology, structure and chemistry of surface layer-bulk glass interface and the long-term corrosion-reaction kinetics using in-situ and ex-situ experiments. The understanding will result in improved models for long-term predictive behavior of high-level-waste (HLW) glasses under repository conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Optimization of Deep Borehole Systems for HLW Disposal | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $850,000 | Researchers aim to carry out a comprehensive evaluation of the deep borehole option for disposal of used nuclear fuel and high livel waste. The models developed will predict potential movement of water through natural and engineered barriers and release of radionuclides to the biosphere which will aide in site selection. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Scholarship for Nuclear Communications and Methods for Evaluation of Nuclear Project Acceptability | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will work to develop a model to characterize the factors affecting social acceptance of nuclear projects with potential stakeholders. The resultant model will strengthen the ability to design and implement large projects more efficiently, leading to higher rates of success of future nuclear projects. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Accurate Holdup Calculations with Predictive Modeling and Data Integration | North Carolina State University | $875,000 | Researchers will develop and use state-of-the-art radiation transport codes to account accurately for the fissile material in a nuclear materials processing facility. An accurate estimation of the materials will allow for ensured radiological safety, security, waste management and efficient plant operation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Testing of Sapphire Optical Fiber and Sensors in Intense Radiation Fields, when Subjected to Very High Temperatures | The Ohio State University | $885,000 | The researchers on this project will investigate the performance of sapphire optical fibers and sensors in reactor environments. The project, if successful, will result in improved instrumentation to understand the behavior and predict performance of nuclear fuel systems at the microstructural level. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Concrete Materials with Ultra-High Damage Resistance and Self-Sensing Capacity for Extended Nuclear Fuel Storage Systems | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | Researchers aim to design a new class of multifunctional concrete materials. This project, if successful, will result in a novel multifunctional concrete material that possesses inherent degradation monitoring capability and is suitable for an extended storage system for the used nuclear fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Probabilistic Multi-Hazard Assessment of Dry Cask Structures | University of Houston | $865,000 | This project aims to investigate the performance of dry cask storage systems under multiple hazard systems (earthquake, tornados, combined with aging effects) using a probabilistic multi-hazard framework. This framework will be validated based on experimental research and will provide improved models for safety and reliability of spent nuclear fuels during storage and transportation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Electrochemical Corrosion Studies for Modeling Metallic Waste Form Release Rates | University of Nevada- Las Vegas | $790,000 | This project aims to use advanced electrochemical methods to investigate the corrosion related degradation of metal alloys used for housing fission products. The data obtained from this study will allow for the prediction of the long-term behavior of the metallic host phase materials over geological time-scales. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Development and Experimental Benchmark of Simulations to Predict Used Nuclear Fuel Cladding Temperatures during Drying and Transfer Operations | University of Nevada- Reno | $745,000 | Researchers will conduct experiments to investigate and develop advanced computational models of heat transfer in post-pool-storage drying operations. This project, if successful, will result in tools that can be used to design efficient drying processes to as to ensure suitability for dry-cask systems for long-term storage and transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Seismic Performance of Dry Casks Storage for Long-Term Exposure | University of Utah | $873,319 | Researchers will evaluate the mechanical performance of dry-cask storage under seismic loading for mid-term operational periods. Simulations will include scenarios for freestanding, anchored, and vaulted casks. The experimental tests will also evaluate the dynamic seismic response of freestanding and anchored dry-cask storage prototypes, providing recommendations for optimal Interim Spent Fuel Storage Installations (ISFSIs) design. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| Coupling of Nuclear Waste Form Corrosion and Radionuclide Transport in Presence of Relevant Repository Sediments | Washington State University | $885,000 | Researchers will conduct experiments to understand the mechanisms responsible for the corrosion of nuclear waste forms in realistic chemical environments. The data generated from these experiments will enable increased reliability of the models used to predict the waste form performance in repository environments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2012 |
| ABR for TRU Transmutation with Breed & Burn Thorium Blanket for Improved Economics and Resource Utilization | University of California- Berkeley | $450,000 | The research team will use detailed neutronic analysis for a new Advanced Burner Reactor concept with low conversion ratio. The concept will use a new core shape to improve the utilization of neutrons to perform breed and burn. | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research | FY2012 |
| Atomic-Scale to Meso-Scale Simulation Studies of Thermal Ageing and Irradiation Effects in Fe-Cr Alloys | Boston University | $874,997 | Researchers will develop predictive, multi-scale simulation tools for iron-chromium alloys, which are expected to be key components of advanced steels envisioned as fuel cladding and structural components for Generation IV reactors. Such modeling is necessary to avoid resource intensive and costly thermal and neutron irradiation experiments to obtain required performance data. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Validation Data and Model Development for Fuel Assembly Response to Seismic Loads | George Washington University | $862,435 | Researchers will conduct experiments that will provide comprehensive data characterizing the dynamics of the fluid and the structure in Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR) fuel assemblies under seismic loads (earthquakes and loss of coolant accidents). Completion of their project will greatly benefit the safety of existing and future nuclear reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Uncertainty Quantification and Management for Multiscale Nuclear Materials Modeling | Georgia Institute of Technology | $743,444 | Researchers will address the question of uncertainty propogation and error estimates associated with model prediction of material behavior under irradiation. Their work will facilitate a better understanding of the connection of various unit processes to collective responses in a multiscale model chain enabling the development of high strength and high ductility materials. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2012 |
| Nonlinear Ultrasonic Techniques to Monitor Radiation Damage in RPV and Internal Components | Georgia Institute of Technology | $877,000 | Researchers will explore new nondestructive materials evaluation and monitoring techniques utilizing nonlinear ultrasonic measurements . This technique will allow researchers to assess remaining useful life of select reactor components. Breakthroughs in this area will lead to the ability to characterize radiation damage in reactor pressure vessels and other components-leading to a clearer definition of reactor safety margins. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Intergral Reactor Containment Condensation Model and Experimental Validation | Oregon State University | $871,119 | Researchers will conduct experiments to enhance the safety and efficiency of small modular reactors (SMRs). This project will assess the impact of high-pressure steam condensation on steel containment vessels to be used for SMR deigns. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Irradiation Performance of Fe-Cr Base Alloys | University of Illinois- Urbana Champaign | $876,332 | _Researchers will perform post-radiation analysis and develop tools for future development and application of the Fe-Cr class of alloys. The results of this research will lead to better modeling of performance and development of an alloy designated as the primary choice for reactor fuel cladding and structural applications in advanced systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Experimentally Validated Numerical Models for Effects of Non-Isothermal Turbulent Mixing on Wall Stresses in High Temperature Reactors | University of Pittsburgh | $876,422 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive experimentally validated computational framework for the turbulent mixing in the lower plenum of a very high temperature reactor (VHTR). Through CFD modeling and experimental validation, the results from this project will lay the groundwork for future stress analysis, failure and fatigue studies, and uncertainty quantification for the VHTR system. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2012 |
| Mechanical Behavior of UO2 at Sub-grain Length Scales: Quantification of Elastic, Plastic and Creep Properties via Microscale Testing | Arizona State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop techniques to measure properties at sub-grain scales using depleted Uranium Oxide samples. The project will provide a framework to measure sub-grain scale mechanical properties, as well as provide experimental data to improve the understanding of advanced oxide fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| The Impacts of Pore-Scale Physical and Chemical Heterogeneities on the Transport of Radionuclide-Carrying Colloids | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will identify the dominant transport mechanisms to develop models that predict radionuclide distribution in porous materials. Experimental and computational models will be created that couple pore-scale geometric and interfacial structures. Simulators such as these are a necessary step towards fully predictive models for field-scale applications in the future. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Polymer-Supported Aminophosphinates as Selective Extractants | Hunter College, CUNY | $399,999 | Researchers will prepare a polymer-supported extractant for the recovery of uranium from seawater. The project will focus on primary amines that could provide a 3-fold increase in uranium capture capacity than current methods. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| In-pile Thermal Conductivity Characterization with Single-laser Heating/Time Resolved Raman | Iowa State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a time-resolved Raman-based thermal conductivity measurement system to improve remote in-pile thermal conductivity measurement. These measurements will provide new insights into the behavior of materials exposed to extreme radiation and temperature environments. Understanding the behavior of materials at the microstructural level will support optimized fuel designs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Organic Speciation and Interactions in ALSEP - One Step Partitioning Process of Minor Actinides, Lanthanides, and Fission Products | Oregon State University | $600,000 | Researchers will investigate the Actinide-Lanthanide Separation (ALSEP) process organic phase prior to aqueous phase separation and after aqueous separation phases of bare and metal-loaded acids. Quantifying these effects can be used to determine how an engineering scale process will perform and generate an accurate chemical model for the system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Glass Composition and Solution Speciation Effects on Stage III Dissolution | Pennsylvania State University | $700,000 | Researchers will study the chemical and structural triggers of long-term vitrified nuclear waste form behavior. They will study a range of waste glass compositions in corrosive environments. The study will improve understanding of the long-term residual rate and may provide new options for environmental control of glass dissolution rates. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Correlating Thermal, Mechanical, and Electrical Coupling Based Multiphysics Behavior of Nuclear Materials Through In-Situ Measurements | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will use in-situ experimental techniques to monitor the influence of extreme conditions on fuel cladding. The project will establish an in-situ experimental setup that can predict change in thermal properties and their correlation with mechanical properties and correlate such changes to changes in microstructural and chemical features. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Creation of a Geant4 Muon Tomography Package for Imaging of Nuclear Fuel in Dry Cask Storage | Purdue University | $440,000 | Researchers will develop a simulation and analysis package to aid in the non-destructive assessment of sealed used nuclear fuel dry casks using cosmic ray muons. Cosmic ray muon tomography allows for non-destructive assessment that can independently verify and identify weapons grade material sealed within dense dry casks. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Fuel Cycle Data Packages for Two-stage Fast Reactor Fuel Cycle Options for Optimum Resource Utilization and Waste Management | Purdue University | $400,000 | Researchers will evaluate the two different two-stage fast reactor fuel cycle options that will offer efficient use of uranium resources and the ability to burn actinides and long-live fission products. Evaluation of these fast fuel cycle options will serve as a useful complement to the options currently being considered in the Fuel Cycle Options Campaign. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Mixed Metal Phosphonate-Phosphate Resins for Separation of Lanthanides from Actinides | Texas A&M University | $650,000 | Researchers will use ion exchangers to cleanly separate lanthanides and curium from reusable actinides. The study will assist in the development of an inexpensive, simple way in which to separate lanthanides from actinides found in used nuclear fuel rods and to recover a large portion of the usable fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Safeguards in Pyroprocessing: an Integrated Model Development and Measurement Data Analysis | The Ohio State University | $626,151 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive and effective safeguards approach for a pyroprocessing facility to support safeguards for future fuel cycles in the United States. The new approach and design will focus directly on the special nuclear materials in the electrorefiner where actinides are separated from fission products through electrochemical process. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Using Ionic Liquids for the Development of Renewable Biopolymer-Based Adsorbents for the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater and Testing Under Marine Conditions | University of Alabama | $400,000 | Researchers will explore the fundamental engineering parameters for a renewable high-performance adsorbent for the extraction of uranium from sweater based on a recently proven ionic liquid (IL)-chitin platform. The project will use the platform to develop a versatile, modifiable adsorbent and characterize its performance and degradation in marine conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Developing Ultra-Small Scale Mechanical Testing Methods and Microstructural Investigation Procedures for Irradiated Materials. | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop new small-scale mechanical testing techniques to allow for the estimation or direct measurement of bulk properties. The combined experiments and modeling will significantly enhance the statistics and information that can be obtained on small radioactive archived samples, as well as new ion beam irradiated specimens. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Improved Delayed-Neutron Spectroscopy Using Trapped Ions | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will develop innovative spectroscopy techniques to measure the decay of fission fragments. The resulting data from these new techniques will be used to better understand reactor kinetics under accident conditions and failure scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Thermally and Chemically Responsive Nanoporous Materials for Efficient Capture of Fission Product Gases | University of California, Davis | $750,000 | Researchers will create new nanoporous materials that will be highly effective at capturing fission product gases. These materials would be relevant to both reactor fuels applications and reprocessing operations. Tests will be performed in carbon based and nitride based nanostructures, with the most promising materials from the modeling perspective undergoing further testing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Multiphase Nanocrystalline Ceramic Concept for Nuclear Fuel | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | Researchers will study the use of nanoparticles and nanostructured ceramics to create new materials that can extend the service life and increase efficiency for nuclear fuel. Multiphase nanocrystalline ceramics will be used to design simulated nuclear fuel that can provide added plasticity, better radiation tolerance and improved thermal conductivity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Novel Porous Sorbents for Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Chicago | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a highly porous sorbent for the extraction of uranium from seawater. Previous research has established sorbent performance. This project will use past foundational studies to design and investigate a new nanocomposites that will be processed into tacks or braids for field tests in seawater tests. The technology may also be used for other metals. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Microwave Readout Techniques for Very Large Arrays of Nuclear Sensors | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,937 | Researchers will develop a powerful readout technique based on microwave transmission and reflection. The technique will enable very large arrays of diverse sensor types for nuclear materials quantification and tracking. It will provide more accurate data on material composition and quantity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| BiI3 Gamma-Ray Spectrometers for Reliable Room-Temperature Nuclear Materials Safeguarding | University of Florida | $799,999 | Researchers will develop gamma-ray spectrometers based on BiI3 single crystals for MPACT applications such as burnup validation quantification, improved assay of plutonium, determination of uranium enrichment and overall monitoring spent fuel within the fuel cycle. The project will improve energy resolution, efficiency and environmental performance with this new gamma-ray detector. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Innovative Coating of Nanostructured Vanadium Carbide on the F/M Cladding Tube Inner Surface for Mitigating the Fuel Cladding Chemical Interactions | University of Florida | $760,276 | Researchers will develop barrier coatings on the inner surface of fuel cladding tubes to improve performance of materials at elevated temperatures and high neutron exposures in fast reactors. The project will develop and test a low temperature coating process of nanostructured vanadium carbide that will provide a benchmark for use in future studies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Doubling the Life of Concrete Structures | University of Idaho | $800,000 | Researchers will use nanoscale techniques to develop methods for doubling the service life of concrete structures. They will study the effect of temperature load and temperature cycling (freezing and thawing) on the durability of concrete with nanoscale viscosity modifiers. The project will benefit from non-destructive evaluation of concrete performance through electrochemical techniques. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Off-Gas Treatment: Evaluation of Nano-structured Sorbents for Selective Removal of Contaminants | University of Idaho | $785,910 | Researchers will evaluate nanostructured sorbent materials for their effectiveness in removing and immobilizing radionuclides for the off-gas treatment from used nuclear fuel recycling operations. The project aims at achieving near-zero emissions of radionuclides by capturing them from the off-gas of recycling operations, allowing for the development of advanced fuel cycles. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium and Transition Metals from Amidoxime-Based Sorbents | University of Idaho | $399,864 | Researchers will develop a new two-step elution process to achieve total recovery of uranium and effective recycling of the sorbent. The extraction process would selectively remove uranium from the sorbent with little or no damage. The process would then remove transition metals and regenerate the sorbent for repeated use, making uranium extraction from seawater economically viable. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Performance of a Steel/Oxide Composite Waste Form for Combined Waste Streams from Advanced Electrochemical Processes over Geologic Time Scales | University of Illinois at Chicago | $700,000 | Researchers will develop and validate a mechanistically-based corrosion model for cermet-type waste forms, creating a testing protocol and modeling approach for predicting long-term performance. The study will apply novel electrochemical testing and modeling methods to the behavior of metal/oxide phase boundaries to evaluate waste form performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Enhancement of the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland, College Park | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and optimize novel adsorbents for uranium recovery from seawater. The team will use radiation-induced grafting of organic phosphates onto polymers. The experiments will use ocean water, with mechanistic analysis, to provide a solid basis for large-scale demonstration of the performance of the new adsorbents in ocean environments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Improving the Understanding of the Coupled Thermal-Mechanical-Hydrologic Behavior of Consolidating Granular Salt | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will increase the understanding of granular salt seal materials for shafts, drifts and boreholes. By coupling thermal, mechanical and hydrological responses, the study will result in greater confidence in granular salt consolidation as a principal strategy for closure and isolation of long-term waste repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Fission Fragment Yield Data in Support of Advanced Reactor Technology | University of New Mexico | $399,816 | Researchers will produce a highly accurate data set for thermal fission. These precision data are necessary for high-accuracy simulations of nuclear criticality, transmutation rates, radiation effects and heating as well as for nuclear fuel, material accounting and identification needs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Molecular dynamics-based simulations of bulk/interfacial structures and diffusion behaviors in nuclear waste glasses | University of North Texas | $700,000 | Researchers will generate accurate atomic structural models for use in Monte Carlo simulations of the dissolution of nuclear waste glasses. Large-scale molecular dynamics-based computer simulations will be used to investigate self-diffusion behaviors, interfacial structure, and other structures formed during dissolution of these glasses. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| U3Si2 Fabrication and Testing for Implementation into the BISON Fuel Performance Code | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will fabricate, test and model a high uranium density, advanced nuclear fuel that operates at a much lower temperature and stores less energy. The work will deliver key research data on creep and grain growth, improving economics, through possible power uprates, and advancing accident tolerant fuels research. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Structural Health Monitoring of Nuclear Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of South Carolina | $738,618 | Researchers will develop a nuclear structural health monitoring system based on a sensing technology that monitors material degradation and aging for dry cask storage systems. The low-cost, low-profile sensors will perform on-demand monitoring of the structural integrity of individual components as well as the entire system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| ORIGEN-based Nuclear Fuel Depletion Module for Fuel Cycle Assessment | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $755,181 | Researchers will develop a flexible reactor analysis module for the CYCLUS fuel cycle simulator based on established tools for reactor fuel depletion and decay. They will use ORIGEN, a mature and experimentally validated code, affording greater flexibility and allowing for accurate evaluations of impacts of both present and future fuel cycle options. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Cost and System Analysis of Innovative Fuel Resources Concepts | University of Texas at Austin | $295,960 | This project will develop and test braided polymer fiber adsorbents that surpass the sorption capacity, selectivity and durability of the best existing technology to recover uranium from seawater. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Risk Assessment of Structural Integrity of Transportation Casks | University of Utah | $789,296 | Researchers will assess the loss of structural integrity of transportation casks and fuel cladding after extended storage. This risk assessment will conduct experimental tests and simulations to evaluate the structural performance of fuel, fuel assemblies and cask components when subjected to vibration and impact loads during transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Market-Based and System-Wide Fuel Cycle Optimization | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $612,731 | Researchers will create market and economic optimizers to improve calculations for the CYCLUS fuel cycle simulator. The team will leverage existing optimization software frameworks within the simulator to resolve top level policy questions. The optimizations will allow CYCLUS to move beyond static material compositions, providing a holistic view of the fuel cycle system. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Optical Fiber Based System for Multiple Thermophysical Properties for Glove Box, Hot Cell and In-Pile Applications | Utah State University | $799,975 | Researchers will use a small pressure vessel to develop a robust technique for the measurement of multiple thermophysical properties at very high temperatures. The technique will lead to a system design moving toward the eventual measurement of irradiated fuels in a glovebox and/or hot cell with all sensors and electronics outside of the glovebox and/or hot cell. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of a Nano-Modified Concrete for Next Generation of Storage Systems | Vanderbilt University | $796,268 | Researchers will use nano-sized and nano-structured particles based on enhanced reactivity to develop a superior concrete for the long-term storage of used nuclear fuel. The project will use state-of-the-art experimental chemical and mechanical characterizations and computation analysis to assess the performance of nano-modified concretes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Development of Fuel Cycle Data Packages for Thorium Fuel Cycle Options | Vanderbilt University | $797,995 | Researchers will develop six fuel cycle data packages for multi-stage, thermal fuel cycles which incorporate thorium. These new fuel cycle data packages will provide the opportunity to examine fuel cycle options beyond those which have traditionally been considered. A thorium fuel cycle database will also be assembled as a basis for thorium literature for future evaluations of the thorium fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Enhanced Shielding Performance of HLW Storage Packages via Multi-Component Coatings | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $796,947 | Researchers will develop a multi-layer composite that will enhance long-term storage and facilitate safe transport of storage packages. This novel multi-layer, multi-component coating would create an outer shield material that is resistant to the corrosion, radiation, diffusion and thermal cycling processes that affect fuel packages during long term storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Managing Zirconium Chemistry and Phase Compatibility in Combined Process Separations for Minor Actinide Partitioning | Washington State University | $700,000 | Researchers will address unique challenges for combining TRUEX and TALSPEAK processes for partitioning of lanthanides and minor actinides. The project will develop improved information on the thermodynamics of fission product zirconium and develop a framework for an organic phase solvation model. Combined process development could streamline separations processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| Advances in the Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Studies Under Real Ocean Conditions | Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution | $398,882 | Researchers will provide infrastructure and expertise for marine testing of currently available adsorbents in real ocean conditions. The team will move adsorbent research from the lab to field testing in order to quantify sorptive properties and uranium uptake. The project will provide valuable field data that will show the potential of large scale applications of these technologies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2013 |
| NEUP Project 20-19172: Irradiation of Sensors and Adhesive Couplants for Application in LWR Primary Loop Piping and Components | $497,881 | Researchers paln to attach ultrasonic transducers to substrates using various adhesive couplants that will be irradiated at elevated temperature to simulate LWR primary loop conditions at the PULSTAR reactor at North Carolina State University. Ultrasonic data will be taken in-situ. Subsequently, the sensors and couplant interfaces will be characterized using the LAMDA facility at ORNL. The results will be used to benefit a parallel EPRI project on online monitoring of cracks in LWR primary loop piping. | Document | Joint R&D with NSUF Access | FY2013 | |
| Lower Length Scale Characterization and Validation of Formation and Stability of Helium Bubbles in Nano-structured Ferritic Alloys under Irradiation | Clemson University | $399,870 | Researchers will provide a fundamental knowledge about the formation and stability of ultra-fine helium bubbles within 14YWT after neutron/ion irradiation for further design of new advanced structural materials with a characteristic high density nanoparticles feature which can increase the mechanical strength, hardness, irradiation resistance and the operational temperature range of materials. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Three-Dimensional Fuel Pin Model Validation by Prediction of Hydrogen Distribution in Cladding and Comparison with Experiment | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers will validate important three-dimensional aspects of the fuel pin modeling by using specialized numerical modeling techniques coupled with laboratory experiments to validate existing models for predicting fuel performance in light water reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Collocation-Based Surrogate Models for Uncertainty Quantification and Validation of Coupled, Multiphysics Fuel Performance Simulation Tools | University of Michigan | $596,835 | Researchers will provide the necessary high fidelity, coupled, multiphysics fuel performance simulator for computational modeling and develop surrogates which will accelerate and focus the validation of the coupled codes. This will be achieved by utilizing the high fidelity coupled fuel performance, thermal-hydraulics and neutronics codes BISON/STAR-CCM+/MPACT and an innovative collocation-based surrogate methodology. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2013 |
| Multi-Resolution In-Situ Testing and Mutliscale Simulation for Creep Damage Fatigue Damage Analysis of Alloy 617 | Arizona State University | $800,000 | This project will develop novel testing and experimentally validated prediction methodologies for micro-structural damage mechanisms of structural materials for advanced reactor systems. The investigations will focus on the characterization and testing of specific metal alloys, but the proposed testing and life-prediction methodologies are applicable to other structural materials as well. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Novel High Temperature and Radiation Resistant Infrared Glasses and Optical Fibers for Sensing in Advanced Small Modular Reactors | Clemson University | $800,000 | Clemson University, in partnership with the Iowa State University and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, will develop novel optical materials with improved heat and radiation exposure resistance in order to enable in-vessel fiber optic sensing for advanced Small Modular Reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Validation Data Acquisition in HTTF during PCC Events | George Washington University | $800,000 | Researchers at the George Washington University and Oregon State University will collaborate with NASA Langley Research Center to measure flow velocities in a high temperature test facility. This work supports the development of very-high temperature reactors with passive safety systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced High Temperature Inspection Capabilities for Small Modular Reactors | Iowa State University | $790,822 | The objective of this project is to develop non-destructive evaluation techniques for advanced small modular reactors. The research will provide key enabling inspection technologies needed to support the design and the reactor component performance validation process for advanced small modular reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Experimental and Computational Investigations of Plenum-to-Plenum Heat Transfer under Natural Circulation in a Prismatic Very High Temperature Reactor | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,999 | Researchers will perform experimental and computational investigations to study heat transfer and natural circulation phenomena in very-high temperature reactors. The study will assist in the ability to predict and analyze passive safety systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| New Mechanistic Models of Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth Interactions for Advanced High Temperature Reactor Components | Oregon State University | $790,790 | Researchers will create and validate a robust, multi-scale, numerical model to predict material degradation in nickel-based reactor alloys. If successful, this project will provide better numerical tools for reactor designers and greatly improve their capability to design against material failures for reactor alloys in the long term. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Self-Powered Wireless Dual-mode Langasite Sensor for Pressure/Temperature Monitoring of Nuclear Reactors | State University of New York, Stony Brook | $800,000 | This research will develop a novel self-powered wireless hybrid sensor that can accurately monitor both pressure and temperature using a single device without requiring external electricity, even in extreme harsh environments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Compact Heat Exchanger Design and Testing for Advanced Nuclear Reactors and Advanced Power Cycles | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to investigate optimal heat exchanger designs for advanced reactors. The research will study the optimization of printed circuit heat exchangers for specific fluids under a variety of conditions as well as perform numerical modeling. Experiments will focus on thermal performance and heat stress during extreme conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Fundamental Understanding of Creep-Fatigue Interactions in 9Cr-1MoV Steel Welds | The Ohio State University | $798,000 | This project will advance the state of knowledge and fundamental understanding of deforming materials and welds under loading conditions. Specifically, new integrated testing procedures will be evaluated and applied for conditions that are most detrimental to material stability leading to improved predictions of life expectancy for reactor steels and welds. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced Mechanistic 3D Spatial Modeling and Analysis Methods to Accurately Represent Nuclear Facility External Event Scenarios | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop three-dimensional characterization uncertainty analysis for commercial power plants. The project will involve combining experts from the fields of seismic structural modeling and advanced methods of risk assessment. This effort is expected to result in next generation tools that can be used for assessment of seismic risks. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Tritium Mitigation/Control for Advanced Reactor Systems | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a fluoride salt cooled high-temperature reactor featuring a specialized system to control tritium production. If successful, this will result in a significant reduction in size and cost in comparison to other reactor designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| A Pebble-Bed Breed and Burn Reactor | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will assess the feasibility of designing a type of metal cooled reactor able to establish and maintain operation when fueled with depleted uranium. If successful, this reactor will offer at least a 30-fold increase in the uranium ore utilization versus that achieved in contemporary light water reactors without the need for fuel reprocessing and recycling. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Investigation of Thermal Aging Effects on the Evolution of Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Cast Duplex Stainless Steels | University of Maryland, College Park | $799,966 | This research will provide a better understanding of the microstructural evolution and simultaneous change in mechanical response during aging. The results of the research will provide data that can be used to estimate degraded mechanical properties for an 80-year service life of light water reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Model validation using CFD-grade experimental database for NGNP Reactor Cavity Cooling Systems with water and air | University of Michigan | $799,348 | Researchers will use advanced innovative instrumentation to build a high-resolution experimental database and to use the novel experimental data to assess and further develop the predictive capabilities of computer codes for thermal hydraulics and computational fluid dynamics. The improved models developed by this project will also have the direct benefit of improving the predictive capability of the passive systems of third generation light water reactors and small modular reactor systems. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Long-Term Prediction of Emissivity of Structural Material for High Temperature Reactor Systems | University of Missouri | $799,117 | Researchers will study specific types of emissivity driven cooling from a variety of materials that are relevant to nuclear reactors. The research will provide a basis for numerical modeling to support reactor development. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Advanced I&C for Fault-Tolerant Supervisory Control of Small Modular Reactors | University of Pittsburgh | $800,000 | The purpose of this research is to develop advanced instrumentation and control techniques for supervisory control of advanced small modular reactors. This research supports the operational goals of small modular reactor concepts through the development of improved oversight and surveillance techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Corrosion of Structural Materials for Advanced Supercritical Carbon-Dioxide Brayton Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $798,672 | Researchers will study a variety of materials for corrosion resistance under conditions that improve power conversion. In addition to studying the corrosion resistance of the materials, researchers will study the effect of additives to mitigate corrosion. Development of corrosion theories and modeling aimed at prediction of long-term corrosion will be the underlying theme throughout the project. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| Component and Technology Development for Advanced Liquid Metal Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $798,920 | In support of liquid metal cooled reactors, the University of Wisconsin, Madison will evaluate advanced alloys and ceramics that come in contact with liquid metals. Additionally, a robust oxygen sensor and for use in liquid metals will be developed in order to better evaluate corrosion profiles in support of diagnostic testing. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2013 |
| A New Paradigm for Understanding Multi-phase Ceramic Waste Form Performance | Clemson University | $800,000 | Researchers will use advanced characterization tools to develop 3-D microstructural data that can be incorporated into computer-based simulations in order to predict the performance of waste forms. Materials system modeling will incorporate elemental release and the interconnected microstructural network of phases to better understand performance and degradation, which will accelerate waste form acceptance in repository settings. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Controlling Hexavalent Americium: A Centerpiece to a Compact Nuclear Fuel Cycle | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and exploit the fundamental chemistry of Americium to enable an industrially viable means to co-recover the major and minor actinide elements from used nuclear fuel. The results would be a significant step forward in the development of aqueous separations approaches designed to recover the U-Am actinides based on the availability of the hexavalent oxidation state. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Zeolite Membranes for Krypton/Xenon Separation from Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Off-Gas | Georgia Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a high-performance, lower-cost zeolitic membrane process for Kr/Xe separations during spent nuclear fuel processing. Current separation methods are not considered economical and a membrane process would have relatively lower cost, equipment size, and ambient operating temperature. The process would form a sound basis for further development of this transformative separation technology for the nuclear fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Optimizing Polymer-Grafted Amidoxime-based Adsorbents for Uranium Uptake from Seawater | Georgia Institute of Technology | $399,999 | Researchers will work to increase the adsorbent capacity and selectivity toward uranium by optimizing the adsorbent morphology, synthesis variables, and conditioning parameters and by investigating the rate-limiting variables through transport and reaction modeling. A novel adsorption/partition concept that has the potential to substantially increase the adsorbent capacity will be tested, making uranium from seawater extraction more economically viable. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Extraction of Uranium from Seawater: Design and Testing of a Symbiotic System | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a seawater uranium extraction system that will work symbiotically with an offshore windmill by utilizing the structure, mooring and power of the windmill, while increasing the energy harvested by the installation. Uranium will be extracted by an adsorbent polymer belt, which will be cycled through the seawater and an elution plant located at the base of the windmill tower. Increasing the frequency of harvesting could overcome current economic barriers to seawater uranium extraction. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Imaging a Dry Storage Cask with Cosmic Ray Muons | Oregon State University | $799,871 | Researchers will develop an imaging system to monitor the content of a dry storage cask with cosmic ray muons. A very large amount of plutonium under nuclear safeguards is contained in used fuel assemblies stored in dry storage casks. Muon imaging will allow a cost effective and reliable way to evaluate dry storage cask content and integrity before transport. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Apatite and sodalite based glass-bonded waste forms for immobilization of 129I and mixed halide radioactive wastes | Rutgers University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop advanced and chemically durable waste forms for immobilizing 129I (aqueous based reprocessing of fuel) and mixed-halide wastes (molten-salt processing of fuel) by low temperature synthesis. Halide-containing sodalite and calcium phosphate-based apatite minerals will be synthesized, consolidated and tested for chemical durability. The project will provide needed baseline data for the development of advanced waste forms for immobilization of iodine and mixed-halide wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Sorption Modeling and Verification for Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $350,000 | Researchers will develop modeling tools supported by experiments for off-gas capture from future nuclear-fuel recycling facilities. Target species include tritium, iodine, krypton, and xenon. The models are intended to provide path forward recommendations to develop off-gas treatment adsorption processes. The project will contribute to the evaluation of options for environmentally acceptable recycle systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development of high performance ODS alloys | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will study swelling, radiation hardening and changes in mechanical properties of ODS alloys to develop two sets of advanced ODS alloys. Two sets of first-round candidate alloys that have already undergone extensive development and testing will evaluate irradiation performance. The study will meet the need for high strength, radiation-tolerant cladding and core components that have enhanced resistance to void swelling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Rare Earth Electrochemical Property Measurements and Phase Diagram Development in a Complex Molten Salt Mixture for Molten Salt Recycle | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate rare earth (RE) properties in complex molten salt mixtures. In a molten salt recycle approach, the RE drawdown by electrolysis is a key step in which REs are separated from salt containing other fission products. Investigation of RE electrolysis must consider the electrochemical properties of the REs. We propose to conduct studies of detailed experiments and corresponding models to provide the physical properties and phase diagrams required to predict the performance of RE drawdown for processing complex molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Computational and Experimental Studies of Microstructure-Scale Porosity in Metallic Fuels for Improved Gas Swelling Behavior | University of Arkansas | $796,823 | Researchers will study the microstructure of metallic uranium alloy fuels, and their resistance to densification, to minimize in-pile irradiation swelling through bimodal pore size distribution. The project will develop a predictive approach to design metallic fuel microstructures for optimal swelling resistance and fission gas retention. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Improved Hybrid Modeling of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of California, Berkeley | $645,393 | Researchers will develop a variance reduction method for computational transport that will improve the ability to design and operate monitoring systems for interim used fuel installations through enhanced modeling and simulation. This new tool will demonstrate that modeling calculations can be done more accurately in less time than with current tools and will perform studies characterizing how changes in material, cask configurations, and number of casks could impact monitoring systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Selective ligands for uranyl via combinatorial peptoid libraries: A synthetic, structural, thermodynamic and computational study | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | Researchers will study how donor ligands bind to the uranyl ion, UO22+, with the longer-term goal of using this information to tackle selective recognition of uranyl in aqueous solution. The study will impact underlying approaches to controlling the behavior of uranium in these systems. The actinide separation technology could be used in several areas including uranium extraction from seawater, nuclear waste remediation and nuclear materials. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Combining Experiments and Simulations of Extraction Kinetics and Thermodynamics in Advanced Separation Processes for Used Nuclear Fuel | University of California, Irvine | $799,938 | Researchers will study how the kinetics and thermodynamics of metal ion extraction in advanced separation processes for used nuclear fuel can be described by molecular dynamic (MD) simulations and how the simulations can be validated by experimental data. The project would have broad impacts on several separations processes including advanced TALSPEAK, ALSEP and GANEX by increasing the confidence and accuracy of computer modeling of metal ion extraction. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Effect of Metallic Li on the Behavior of Metals in Molten Salts | University of Nevada, Reno | $458,250 | Researchers will identify the effect of metallic lithium on materials that are used in molten salt recycling. The study will try to understand how the presence of Li(0) in molten salts affects the degradation of alloys. Studying these changes will help accurately predict container material behavior and longevity. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Assessment of Corrosion Resistance of Promising Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding under Reactor Conditions | University of Notre Dame | $800,000 | Researchers will assess the corrosion behavior of accident tolerant fuel candidate iron-based alloys under normal LWR operating conditions consisting of high temperature, relevant water chemistry and irradiation. The assessment will produce data about possible irradiation-accelerated corrosion rates of iron-based alloys, and the mechanisms by which such corrosion rates are accelerated. The project will advance the selection of appropriate replacements for Zircaloy cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Enhanced Accident-Tolerant Fuel Performance and Reliability for Aggressive iPWR/SMR Operation | University of Tennessee | $799,967 | To develop a process that evaluates operational and safety performance of reactor-and-fuel combinations by integrating whole-core 3D neutronics with MOOSE/BISON fuel performance assessments via explicit time and space dependent fuel rod operational power histories. The project will be valuable in analyzing and evaluating accident tolerant fuel concepts and furthering the understanding of reactor physics and fuel performance aspects of key accident tolerant fuel concepts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Nuclear Technology R&D Strategies in an Era of Energy Price Uncertainty | University of Texas, Austin | $799,112 | Researchers will identify nuclear technology options that are competitive over a wide range of plausible future business environments. No single nuclear technology or business practice will be the best choice across all or even most future conditions. The study will focus on hybrid nuclear-fossil technologies, energy storage and conversion, which will result in an identification of nuclear strategies that can succeed under future market conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development and Optimization of Voltammetric Methods for Real Time Analysis of Electrorefiner Salt with High Concentrations of Actinides and Fission Products | University of Utah | $621,612 | Researchers will develop an advanced voltammetry method to pursue the objective of real time monitoring of actinide concentrations in electrorefiner salt. This will include experimental measurement of key parameters such as activity coefficients and exchange current density. It will also involve simulation of voltammetry processes based on first principles. The project will allow for real time measurements that could support the commercialization of pyroprocessing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Development of Self-Healing Zirconium-Silicide Coatings for Improved Performance of Zirconium-Alloy Fuel Cladding | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $798,621 | Researchers will study the deposition of self-healing zirconium-silicide coatings on zirconium-alloy fuel cladding material to improve corrosion resistance under normal and accident conditions. Under these conditions, Zr-Si coating evolves into a highly protective functionally-graded multilayered system. The study will lead to improved performance of zirconium-alloy fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Thermal Conductivity in Metallic Fuels | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,837 | Researchers will calculate the thermal conductivity of metallic uranium and neptunium alloys, including the effects of noble gasses, using density functional theory. The experiments will validate the calculated effective thermal conductivity using the MARMOT code and by helping determine DFT simulation parameters. The study works to improve fuel lifetime by understanding its thermal behavior. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| SiC-ODS Alloy Gradient Nanocomposites as Novel Cladding Materials | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,998 | Researchers will combine nuclear nanomaterial design, processing, testing, and characterization efforts to develop revolutionary materials that can withstand neutron irradiation for long period of time using nanostructured SiC and oxide dispersion strengthened steel. The ultimate objective is to offer new cladding materials with increased corrosion resistance, strength, and creep resistance in both steady state and accident conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2014 |
| Experimental Breeder Reactor II Benchmark Evaluation | Idaho State University | $400,000 | _Researchers will develop a benchmark evaluation of the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II). During nearly 30 years of operation numerous experiments were conducted at EBR-II. The most significant of these experiments were conducted in 1986 demonstrating inherent safety features in loss of flow without reactor scram and loss of heat sink without reactor scram. Benchmark evaluation will be valuable for the reactor design efforts in the United States and South Korea. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| Integral full core multi-physics PWR benchmark with measured data | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | _Researchers will introduce BEAVRS, a new multi-cycle full-core Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) depletion benchmark based on two operational cycles of a commercial nuclear power plant. This project aims at addressing the uncertainty quantification of the measured data and on making this benchmark a true non-proprietary international benchmark for the validation of high-fidelity multi-physics computational tools. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| Benchmark Evaluation of PROTEUS Gas-Cooled Reactor Experiments | University of Florida | $400,000 | _Researchers will create International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) benchmarks using data from 1970s experiments of the neutronics of gas-cooled fast reactor (GCFR) designs investigated in the PROTEUS reactor. The GCFR-PROTEUS experiments fill a gap in current integral benchmark data. These experiments can provide validation of computational models and nuclear data for next generation reactors. | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2014 |
| An Investigation To Establish Multiphysical Property Dataset Of Nuclear Materials Based On In-Situ Observations And Measurements | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will create an in-situ measurement based experimental approach to develop experimental validation dataset for NEAMS based code validation. Particular emphasis is on supplying data set for multiphysics simulations in extreme conditions as a function of material microstructure. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| Experimental Validation of UO2 Microstructural Evolutions for NEAMS tool MARMOT | University of Florida | $798,000 | _Researchers will experimentally validate MARMOT for predicting the microstructural evolutions of UO2 oxide fuel under the driving forces of high temperatures and large temperature gradient in reactors. By performing the experiments and simulations simultaneously using precisely defined initial conditions, the experiment data will provide direct benchmarking of the MARMOT code. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| High-resolution time-resolved experiments on mixing and entrainment of buoyant jets in stratified environments | University of Michigan | $799,983 | _Researchers will study high spatial and time-resolution experimental data of the fluid dynamics phenomena of flow jets interacting with a stratified layer. The issue plays an important role in the safety of several reactor designs, including sodium-cooled reactors. The data addresses the NEAMS needs for the validation of high fidelity computational fluid dynamics methodologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2014 |
| Fundamental study of key issues related to advanced S-CO2 Brayton Cycle: prototypic HX development and Cavitation | Georgia Institute of Technology | $799,000 | _Researchers will study scientific and operational issues pertinent to compact heat exchanger systems and turbo-machinery. The project will work to resolve issues with the fabrication of diffusion bonded compact heat exchangers, alternate heat exchange technology for recuperators, and resolution of issues with cavitation and fluid instabilities. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Advanced Models for Nondestructive Evaluation of Aging Nuclear Power Plant Cables | Iowa State University | $787,291 | _Researchers will develop advanced models that relate environmentally induced microstructural and chemical changes in cable insulation polymers to their macroscopic electrical parameters. These parameters will be measured and modeled over a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum, covering several potential nondestructive evaluation techniques, enabling identification of the most sensitive techniques for future development. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Development of Novel Functionally Graded Transition Joints for Improving the Creep Strength of Dissimilar Metal Welds in Nuclear Applications | Lehigh University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop graded transition joints and improved creep life models for increasing the life of dissimilar metal welds (DMWs) in nuclear reactors. The research represents the first application of functionally graded material concepts for solving the problem of DMW failures through an integrated approach of additive manufacturing, modeling, microstructural characterization, and advanced strain-sensing techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Feasibility Assessment of a Micro Modular Reactor (MMR) | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | _Researchers will develop an innovative compact reactor concept that integrates power production, power conversion and electricity generation in a single unit: the Micro Modular Reactor (MMR). It is designed to be absolutely melt-down proof (MDP) under all circumstances including complete loss of coolant scenarios with no possible release of radioactive material, to have a cycle length of greater than 10 years, and to be highly proliferation resistant. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Scaling Studies for Advanced Gas Reactor Concepts | Oregon State University | $681,834 | _Researchers will expand the utilization of the Oregon State University High Temperature Test Facility (HTTF) to validate a broader range of advanced high temperature reactors and events. The facility will be revised to add a detailed scaling analysis of additional gas reactor concepts including advanced gas-cooled, molten salt, and sodium cooled reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Fluid Stratification Separate Effects Analysis, Testing and Benchmarking | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will study fluid stratification in high temperature gas reactors. Coolant stratification is the result of incomplete mixing of one or more fluids, leading to a density gradient, which may or may not dissipate under diffusive or convective effects. This combined analytical and experimental project seeks to investigate stratification driven by diffusive and convective mechanisms and is expected to yield insight into this phenomenon. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Probabilistic Economic Valuation of Safety Margin Management Analysis | Oregon State University | $795,364 | _Researchers will use RAVEN and develop a companion software package to facilitate economic analysis of safety margins. The project is a proof of concept that will use techniques to examine the cost of improving safety margins vs. the risk of accidents from not improving safety margins. This analysis can be used to evaluate the economic viability of various plant upgrades. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Novel Dissimilar Joints Between Alloy 800H and 2.25%Cr and 1%Mo Steel | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will fabricate and test dissimilar metal joints between a nickel base alloy and a steel with gradual variations of chemical composition, microstructure and properties in a manner that reduces abrupt thermal expansion mismatch and the resulting residual stresses. Data on structure and properties will serve as valuable inputs for the initiation of an ASME code case. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Multi-Phase Model Development to Assess RCIC System Capabilities under Severe Accident Conditions | Texas A&M University | $564,246 | _Researchers will develop physics-based models of the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) System and incorporating them into a multi-phase code for validation. The project will tackle the current major challenges in RCIC System analysis and enable evaluation of two-phase thermodynamic aspects. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Experimental Investigation and CFD Analysis of Steam Ingress Accidents in HTGRs | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will study the steam ingress scenario for HTGRs. The study will investigate thermal-hydraulic behavior and graphite oxidation of stream ingress phenomena to validate predictive CFD models. This work will resolve concerns about possible steam generator tube ruptures in a HTGR He-Steam Rankine cycle. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Coiled Tube Gas Heaters For Nuclear Gas-Brayton Power Conversion | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop heat exchangers for Brayton-cycle power conversion in reactors using sodium, NaK, or salt as intermediate coolants. The proposed coiled tube gas heaters (CTGHs) are expected to have excellent power density, thermal shock/creep, in-service inspection, and reparability characteristics. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Fundamental Studies of Irradiation-Induced Modifications in Microstructural Evolution and Mechanical Properties of Advanced Alloys | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop and test a mechanism for predicting neutron irradiation performance for optimized Grade 92 and Alloy 709 for applications in advanced reactor systems. The work will employ ion irradiations and available information from neutron irradiations of related alloys to develop a basis for predicting the neutron irradiation performance of the optimized alloys. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Integrated Computational and Experimental Study of Radiation Damage Effects in Grade 92 Steel and Alloy 709 | University of Tennessee | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop a mechanistic understanding and predictive models of irradiation-induced microstructural evolution and resulting mechanical properties in optimized ferritic-martensitic Grade 92 steel and austenitic alloy 709 using multiscale simulations coupled with rigorous experimental validation. The project will provide insights into the correlation between ion irradiation and fast neutron damage. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| Meta-Level Design Guidance and Operator Performance Measures for Hybrid Control Rooms | Vanderbilt University | $799,869 | _Researchers will apply human factors engineering methods and relevant expertise from non-nuclear high-risk high-consequence domains toward the measurement of operator performance in analog, digital, and hybrid main control rooms. Performance measures will be developed for evaluating the situation awareness and decision-making proficiencies to support the transition to digital or hybrid control room displays. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2014 |
| NEUP Project 15-8514: Elucidation of the kinetics of Advanced Separation systems | California State University, Long Beach | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a fundamental understanding of the chemical kinetics relevant to separation processes by measuring ligand complexation rate constants for both lanthanides and actinides in the aqueous and organic phases. These experiments will provide essential kinetic and mechanistic information required for developing a simplified, single-step recovery of transuranic elements. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8119: Kr/Xe separation over Metal Organic Framework Membranes | Colorado School of Mines | $375,000 | Researchers will develop metal organic framework (MOF) membranes that will be capable of effectively separating Kr from Xe with high flux and selectivity. This project may result in the development of membranes that will constitute a viable energy saving approach for the effective removal of Kr during the processing of used nuclear fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8347: Multilayer Composite Fuel Cladding for LWR Performance Enhancement and Severe Accident Tolerance | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop, manufacture, and weld a new multimetallic layered composite (MMLC) for enhanced severe accident tolerance and manufacturability in LWRs. Layers of stainless steel (facing the coolant) and Zircaloy (facing the fuel) will be separated by barrier layers of Cr and Nb. Severe accident testing in 1200C steam, LWR autoclave testing, and ion irradiation studies will demonstrate the MMLC's microstructural stability. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8112: Phase Separation and Crystallization of Complex Borosilicate Melts for Glass-Ceramic Waste Forms | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,806 | Researchers will study the mechanisms for microstructural development and properties of multi-phase, glass-ceramic materials that form when waste-loaded borosilicate glasses are cooled from above their liquidus or consolute temperatures through the glass transition temperature. The project will apply these tools to modified compositions to maximize the formation of the desirable crystalline phases. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8265: Electrically-Assisted Tubing Processes for Enhancing Manufacturability of Oxide Dispersion Strengthened Structural Materials for Nuclear Reactor Applications | Northwestern University | $800,000 | Researchers will enhance the formability of nanostructured ferritic alloys (NFAs) such that high-strength thin-walled claddings can be manufactured successfully and economically to be used in future reactors. The project will study the effects of continuous and pulsed electric currents on the deformation behavior of Fe-14Cr based NFA steel. The findings will be used to establish innovative fabrication processes including electrically-assisted extrusion and rolling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8126: Fundamental Electrochemical Properties of Liquid Metals in LiCl-KCl for Separation of Alkali/Alkaline-Earths (Cs, Sr and Ba) | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate the fundamental properties of novel liquid metal electrodes for separation of alkali/alkaline-earth fission products in LiCl-KCl electrolyte. The project will further the development of pyroprocessing by maximizing salt recycle and providing a method for recovery of alkali/alkaline-earth fission products as oxides (as opposed to chlorides) which will allow them to be encapsulated in a more conventional glass wasteform. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8074: Monitoring of Actinide Concentrations in Molten LiCl-KCl Salt using Alpha Spectroscopy | The Ohio State University | $799,969 | Researchers will develop a novel in-salt sensor that uses electrochemistry to pre-concentrate the actinides onto the sensor to measure the actinides concentration in a high temperature and high radiation field represented by a molten salt environment. The ability to monitor actinides to prevent misuse is critical to enhancing the control of nuclear materials. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8717: Understanding the Interactions of Seawater Ions with Amidoxime through X-Ray Crystallography | University of Alabama | $553,971 | _Researchers will investigate the fundamental interactions of the amidoxime (R-C(NH2)=NOH) functional group with metal ions found in seawater using a combined approach of single crystal X-ray diffraction and spectroscopy to understand the origin of the selectivity of amidoxime resins for uranyl ([UO2]2+] ions and establish structural benchmarks for interpretation of spectroscopic studies on actual sorbents to aid in identifying specific sorbent-metal interactions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8439: Developing a macro-scale SiC-cladding behavior model based on localized mechanical and thermal property evaluation on pre- and post-irradiation SiC-SiC composites | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a fundamental understanding of the macroscopic behavior of SiC-SiC composite structures before and after irradiation based on the microscopic property changes of each individual component (SiC matrix, fiber and interface). SiC-SiC composites will be tested in the as-fabricated condition, after being subjected to neutron and ion irradiation, micro-cracking, and oxidation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8536: Quantitative Prediction of Uranium Speciation and Amidoxime Binding in Seawater from Advanced Simulation Techniques | University of California, Riverside | $450,000 | Researchers will quantitatively predict stability of uranium species and thermochemistry (free energy, entropy, and enthalpy) of uranium binding with amidoxime ligands in seawater conditions. To achieve the goal, advanced simulation techniques including all-atom molecular dynamics, free-energy calculations, and the hybrid quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical approach will be employed to explicitly include water molecules and common seawater ions in the simulation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8286: Used Fuel Storage Monitoring Using Helium-4 Scintillation Fast Neutron Detectors and Neutron Spectral Analysis | University of Florida | $799,765 | Researchers will build and demonstrate a prototype detector device capable of unambiguously verifying the declared content of dry casks in a non-intrusive manner for the safeguarding and monitoring of used fuel storage installations. This will be achieved through a neutron spectroscopy and imaging system using high-efficiency Helium-4 (4He) gas scintillation fast neutron detectors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8663: Enhancement of the Extraction of Uranium from Seawater | University of Maryland, College Park | $600,000 | Researchers will produce efficient adsorbents of uranium from seawater in seeking to optimize the functional ligands, the polymeric substrates, the grafting conditions and the adsorption/desorption durations based on sound chemical understanding. The result will be adsorbents that can be used through multiple cycles of uranium adsorption without significant degradation of the adsorbents capacity and selectivity for uranium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8111: Purification of Zirconium cladding using a chloride volatility process | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $798,877 | _Researchers will investigate the thermochemistry of used fuel Zr cladding components chlorides as well as their activation products and residual radionuclide metal chlorides to provide fundamental data that will support the development of a chlorination process for the purification of ZrCl4. Understanding the chemistry of these chloride species will provide process development guidance for the purification of Zr cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8323: Purification of Zirconium Tetrachloride from UNF Cladding | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $793,121 | _Researchers will develop and demonstrate a process to purify zirconium tetrachloride obtained from the direct chlorination of used Zircaloy cladding materials from used nuclear fuel rod assemblies. This study will increase understanding of purification protocols that will allow zirconium chloride to be recycled further. Increased recycling capability would significantly reduce the amount of high level waste associated with light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8752: Radiation Effects on High Thermal Conductivity Fuels | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $400,000 | _Researchers will use scoping ion and neutron irradiations to explore the structural stability and thermal conductivity of model high thermal conductivity fuels consisting of CeO2 and either Al2O3 (BeO surrogate) or SiC. Issues associated with thermal conductivity degradation (including micro cracking effects) and general phase stability of fuel systems will be examined. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8243: Radiation-induced swelling and microcracking in SiC cladding for LWRs | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $797,889 | _Researchers will use state of the art experimental characterization techniques and multi-scale methodology (developed within the MOOSE-MARMOT-BISON framework) to provide scientific basis for predictions of swelling and microcracking in SiC cladding as a function of temperature and irradiation histories. Predicting swelling and microcracking will further the potential for accident tolerant SiC cladding to be used in light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8081: Understanding influence of thermal history and glass chemistry on kinetics of phase separation and crystallization in borosilicate glass-ceramic waste forms for aqueous reprocessed high level waste | Washington State University | $799,911 | _Researchers will develop a fundamental and transformative understanding of the crystallization mechanisms in complex glass-ceramic high level waste (HLW) wasteforms,. This understanding will underpin the maturation of glass ceramic manufacture, by linking process variables to molecular scale mechanisms, enabling reliable production of wasteforms to the desired specification. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8210: A Transient Reactor Physics Experiment with High-Fidelity, 3-D Flux Measurements for Validation and Verification | Kansas State University | $799,198 | _Researchers will instrument the University of Wisconsin Nuclear Reactor with micro-pocket fission detectors (MPFDs) to measure 3-D flux distributions. The measurements will be compared to simulation using PROTEUS from the NEAMS toolkit. MPFDs are small, which leads to low gamma-ray sensitivity and small flux perturbations. A 3-D array of MPFDs and standard reactor instrumentation will be used to capture highly-resolved flux and temperature distributions for several steady-state and transient conditions. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8101: Development of Critical Experiments to Provide Validation Data for Multiphysics Coupling Methods | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $799,993 | Researchers will develop a set of benchmark validation experiments for multiphysics coupling by exploiting the inherent flexibility of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Reactor Critical Facility (RCF). This project will use targeted experiments to validate the coupling between neutronics, thermal hydraulics, and structural mechanics routines present in the NEAMS Reactor Product Line toolkit._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8229: Thermal Transport and Fracture Behavior of Sintered Fuel Pellets: Experimental Validation of NEAMS Tool MARMOT | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | _Researchers will perform experimental validation of the NEAMS tool MARMOT for predicting thermal transport and fuel fracture. By performing extensive thermal transport and fracture experiments on well-controlled microstructures of sintered UO2, the impact of microstructure on thermo-mechanical properties of sintered UO2 and mechanistic understanding will be achieved. The high quality experimental data will directly benchmark the MARMOT code by evaluating the thermal transport and fracture models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8208: Development of a Novel Accelerator for Neutron Transport Solution Using the Galerkin Spectral Element Methods | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $626,176 | _Researchers will develop a novel accelerator for neutron transport calculations based on the spectral element methods, continuous Galerkin (CG) and discontinuous Galerkin (DG) approximations. The CG and DG methods will be used to solve the multi-group neutron diffusion equation on the coarse-mesh structure (e.g., pin-size up to assembly-size), which is then coupled with the high-order neutron transport solution to speed up the neutron transport computation. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8338: Methodology Development for Cybersecurity Robustness and Vulnerability Assessment of University Research Reactors: A Case Study Using the PULSTAR Reactor | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop a methodology for assessing the cybersecurity robustness and vulnerability of university research reactors using an actual university reactor as a test case. While the developed methodology will be specifically tested and applied using this reactor, it will be formulated as a general blueprint and used as the starting point for the assessment of university research reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cyber Security R&D | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8121: Automatic Imagery Data Analysis for Proactive Computer-Based Workflow Management during Nuclear Power Plant Outages | Arizona State University | $799,738 | _Researchers will test the hypothesis that real-time imagery-based object tracking and spatial analysis, as well as human behavior modeling will significantly improve efficiency of outage control while lowering the rates of accidents and incidents. The project will examine computer vision methods and human behavior models for developing a proactive workflow management tool and integrate it into Computer-Based Procedures for supporting an Advanced Outage Control Center. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8308: Creep and creep-fatigue crack growth mechanisms in Alloy 709 | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _A joint US/UK team will study the crack growth mechanism and failure analysis of alloy 709 under creep and creep-fatigue conditions. The study will be done through in situ heating and loading during SEM observation to evaluate the crack growth under plane stress condition and traditional methods to study the crack growth under plane strain condition. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8582: Mechanistic and Validated Creep/Fatigue Predictions for Alloy 709 from Accelerated Experiments and Simulations | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will use mechanistic methods for predicting creep and creep-fatigue deformation rates/strains based on accelerated in-situ and ex-situ tests, and mesoscale dislocation dynamics simulations for Alloy 709. This research will support its qualification in the ASME code for use in advanced nuclear reactor applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8495: Advancement of Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Technology through Round Robin Testing and Fundamental Modeling | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _Researchers will conduct a round robin test plan for S-CO2 corrosion testing across multiple institutions and the organization of a S-CO2 Materials Group to guide future materials testing directions. Furthermore, this proposal outlines identical tests in supercritical water, testing model alloys with various composition and environmental conditions, accompanied by modeling efforts to study rate controlling mechanisms of corrosion. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8489: Modeling and Validation of Irradiation Damage in Ni-based Alloys for Long-Term LWR Applications | Oregon State University | $800,000 | _A joint US/UK team will study thermal and irradiation-induced transformations mechanisms of Alloys 690 and 625 in order to extend Grizzly to include capabilities for modeling Ni-based alloys. The project will develop modeling tools for materials degradation in light water reactors, allowing for component replacement data and continued safe operation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-7983: Development of Steady-State Thermal-Hydraulic Analysis and Bowing Reactivity Evaluation Methods Based on Neutron and Gamma Transport Calculations | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop steady-state thermal-hydraulic analysis and assembly bowing reactivity evaluation methods based on the latest transport calculation capabilities in order to overcome the limitations and improve the accuracy of current design analysis methods. The outcome of the effort will be computer programs to calculate the steady-state heat source distributions in fuel pins and assembly duct walls and to calculate the reactivity worth of assembly displacements. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8627: Experimental Validation Data and Computational Models for Turbulent Mixing of Bypass and Coolant Jet Flows in Gas-Cooled Reactors | Texas A&M University | $799,613 | _Researchers will establish reliable models of the thermal-hydraulics in Gas-Cooled Reactors with experimental and computational efforts. Specifically, this work will focus on providing the relationship between fluctuating velocities and temperatures in the lower plenum and their dependency on the turbulent upstream mixing in the core and collection chambers leading up to the lower plenum. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8251: Enhanced Performance Fast Reactors with Engineered Passive Safety System | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | _Researchers will study the feasibility of improving the passive safety and economics of sodium cooled fast reactors (SFR) by incorporating within their fuel assemblies a novel Autonomous Reactivity Control (ARC) system. It is expected that the ARC systems will enable to design even low leakage SFR cores, such as breed-and-burn cores, to be passively safe and to improve the neutron economy and economic viability of more conventional SFR. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8258: Physics-Based Probabilistic Model of the Effects of Ionizing Radiation on Polymeric Insulators of Electric Cables used in Nuclear Power Plants | University of California, Los Angeles | $798,846 | _Researchers will develop and experimentally validate a probabilistic physics-based degradation models for polymeric insulators of electric cables to be used in integrated performance and safety codes, which will help reduce the uncertainty associated with the long-term aging of cable insulation. The project will deliver a C++ based simulation code that will be readily compatible with the MOOSE/Grizzly framework developed at the Idaho National Laboratory. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8000: The Influences of Neutron Irradiation on Aggregate Induced Degradation of Concrete | University of California, Los Angeles | $800,000 | _Researchers will quantify the impacts of irradiation on concrete degradation. The research will develop new understanding of the evolutions and manifestations of irradiation assisted aggregate concrete degradation caused by neutron exposure. This assessment will help to mitigate the risk of such degradation within the Grizzly framework, by careful integrations of nanoscale analytics and simulation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8458: Multiple Degradation Mechanisms in Reinforced Concrete Structures, Modeling and Risk Analysis | University of Houston | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a multi-physics framework to characterize the deterioration development in concrete due to environmental and mechanical loading, and the coupling effect among transport processes and the damage of concrete. This project will develop new computational tools that will be implemented in Grizzly, an application built on the MOOSE platform, to address a variety of aging mechanisms in nuclear power plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8623: Characterization of Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth in Alloy 709 and Prediction of Service Lives in Nuclear Reactor Components | University of Idaho | $799,927 | _Researchers will study creep-fatigue crack growth behavior in steel Alloy 709 in accelerated test conditions to predict extended service life of structural components. Extensive testing of Alloy 709 creep-fatigue specimens will be performed at elevated temperatures and applied stresses. Microstructure analysis will be performed to describe the crack propagation mechanisms. Computational models will be used to predict service of steel components. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8432: Multi-scale experimental study of creep-fatigue failure initiation in a 709 Stainless Steel alloy using high resolution digital image correlation | University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign | $800,00 | _Researchers will conduct a detailed experimental investigation of creep-fatigue crack initiation in a 709 alloy, and will also obtain a predictive failure initiation model that includes both thermo-mechanical and aging effects. The experiments will use ultra-high resolution digital image correlation to measure accumulation of plastic with cycling. The model will extend existing slip band-based energy minimization criterion to include thermal effects applicable to 709. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8599: Am-241 Nuclear Safety and Environmental Interactions | University of Missouri | $399,187 | _Researchers will investigate the release and transport mechanisms of Am-241 to understand the interactions it may have with the environment. The project will examine Am-241 through a series of accident scenarios using Am-241 aerosols that will allow researchers to understand the pathways for dose assessment. Methodologies and approaches for nuclear risk assessment for new space radioisotope power system applications will be developed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 15-8667: Experimental Validation of a Compact Double-walled Twisted-Tube Heat Exchanger Concept | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | _Researchers will investigate a novel compact double-walled twisted-tube heat exchanger (DT-HXR) design that utilizes an outer twisted tube configuration in order to enhance shell-side heat transfer and make the overall bundle more compact. Utilizing outer twisted tube geometry improves heat transfer and allows for a tube bundle that does not require support plates or anti-vibration bars. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project: 15-8352: Development and Demonstration of an In-Situ Tritium Scavenger | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,988 | _Researchers will use a graphite moderator to capture and remove tritium from the primary coolant systems of salt- and gas-cooled reactors. The team will develop electrochemical techniques to characterize tritium transport in graphite and liquid fluoride salts (including flibe), demonstrate the in-situ effectiveness of tritium absorption by the fuel elements, and develop a design for a graphite bed tritium filter that can integrate with salt-to-air heat exchangers. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2015 |
| NEUP Project 16-10730: Visualization Tool for Comparing Low-Carbon Energy Options | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a web based visualization tool for comparing current and future nuclear fuel cycle options to other low-carbon and conventional energy technologies in the United States.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10679: Overcoming Kinetic Barriers to Actinide Recovery in ALSEP | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | The ALSEP process for group separations of trivalent actinide/lanthanide ions suffers from slow stripping kinetics. Researchers will perform detailed kinetic studies at different temperatures, supported by spectroscopic and computational studies to establish where the kinetic bottlenecks occur in the ALSEP process. They will then systematically alter the chemistry of the extractants and aqueous ligands to understand how to overcome the kinetic hindrances.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10058: An Integrated Multiscale Experimental-Numerical Analysis on Reconsolidation of Salt-Clay Mixture for Disposal of Heat-Generating Waste | Columbia University in the City of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will improve understanding of the thermal-mechanical-hydrologic-chemical (TMHC) coupling effect on reconsolidated granular (or crushed) salt-clay mixture used for seal systems of shafts and drifts in salt repositories. The project will integrate laboratory experiments and multiscale pore-to-continuum coupling simulations to explore the feasibility of using clay additive and moisture content to enhance performance of crushed salt as a seal material.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10088: Americium Separation By Electrochemical Oxidation | Florida International University | $800,000 | Researchers will separate Am from high-level waste by exploiting the high oxidation states of Am through design, and testing of new materials. This will be accomplished by designing and testing new electrodes, derivatized with surface-stabilized ligands and redox mediators to facilitate oxidation of trivalent Am, and by designing porous sorbent materials functionalized with molecules which selectively coordinate Am(VI) to enable its subsequent separation.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10668: Microstructure Experiments-Enabled MARMOT Simulations of SiC/SiC-Based Accident Tolerant Nuclear Fuel System | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will characterize steam attack, hydrothermal corrosion and radiation swelling of SiC/SiC composites-based accident tolerant fuel (ATF) using a combination of experiments, microstructure evaluation and phase-field simulations using MARMOT. Central to the project is the mapping of the microstructure after steam/hydrothermal/irradiation tests through a unique non-destructive x-ray microscopy technique followed by phase-field simulations of chemical transport in MARMOT.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10221: Alloying Agents to Stabilize Lanthanides Against Fuel Cladding Chemical Interaction: Tellurium and Antimony Studies | Ohio State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop alloying agents to stabilize lanthanides against fuel cladding chemical interactions (FCCIs). Based on the available binary phase diagrams for the periodic table, Te and Sb are selected as fuel dopants. The research will focus on Te. The mechanisms of using minor additives to stabilize and immobilize the lanthanide fission products will be investigated. Resulting thermodynamic data obtained by the proposed research will be integrated into MARMOT to enhance its ability to model metallic fuel performance.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10648: Oxidation and Corrosion-Resistant Uranium Silicide Fuels | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | Researchers will develop oxidation/corrosion resistant uranium silicide U3Si2 fuel by chemical doping/fillers to form a continuous borosilicate glass as a protective oxide layer with transformational fuel performance and accident tolerance. The team will use chemical doping/fillers include B or C showing effectiveness in improving high temperature oxidation resistance in transition metal silicides, and boron/silicon-containing compounds that can form a protective borosilicate glass layer.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10229: Mechanistic Understanding of Silver Sorbent Aging Processes in Off-Gas Treatment | Syracuse University | $800,000 | This project is focused on understanding the mechanisms of aging processes on silver exchanged mordenite and silver functionalized silica aerogel adsorbents under conditions of long term exposure to off gas streams containing air, I2, H2O, and NOx. The chemical and physical structural changes of the adsorbents under these conditions will be accounted for in equilibrium and kinetic models. Transport models will be developed to predict the performance of engineered off-gas treatment systems.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10394: Integration of Microwave Readout into Nuclear Process Monitoring | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,695 | Researchers will show that gamma-ray spectroscopy based on emerging microcalorimeter sensors can determine elemental and isotopic fractions with accuracy comparable to much slower mass spectrometry and with far better accuracy than germanium sensors. This advance will prevent the diversion of nuclear material by enabling nearly real time process monitoring in large nuclear facilities without loss of measurement accuracy.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10523: A Science Based Approach for Selecting Dopants in FCCI-Resistant Metallic Fuel Systems | University of Idaho | $800,000 | The project aims to use a science-based approach to set guidelines of selecting dopants for developing fuel cladding chemical interaction (FCCI)-resistant metallic fuel systems for fast reactors. Lanthanide fission products migrate to the fuel-cladding gap leading to cladding breaches. The team will perform both theoretical modeling and experiments to arrive at the guidelines that are based on sound science. If successful, this can lead to breakthroughs in minimizing the FCCI effect.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10813: Advanced Electrochemical Separations of Actinide/Fission Products via the Control of Nucleation and Growth of Electrodeposits | University of Idaho | $350,000 | Researchers will use unique capabilities to modulate the electrodeposition of actinides (depleted Uranium) and fission products (Ln) during nucleation and growth stages. The team aims to preclude formation of electrodeposits with dendritic morphology. Morphology of electrodeposits will be controlled by electrolyte composition.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10707: In Situ Spectroscopic Determination of Actinide Speciation and Concentration | University of Nevada, Reno | $369,221 | The research team will address two major issues in the pyroprocess based fuel cycle: low process efficiency and materials accounting for non-proliferation. There are currently no analytical techniques to ascertain the speciation and concentration of the actinides in the electrolyte. This project aims to develop an in-situ analytical method consisting of Raman spectroscopic analysis during electrochemical polarization.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10204: Phase Equilibria and Thermochemistry of Advanced Fuels: Modeling Burnup Behavior | University of South Carolina | $799,946 | Researchers will develop phase equilibria and thermochemical information to model and simulate advanced fuel behavior, including critical phenomena such as the contribution to fuel swelling of dissolved non-noble fission products and secondary phase formation, composite fuel stability, and fuel-clad chemical interactions.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10512: Demand-Driven Cycamore Archetypes | University of South Carolina | $799,956 | Modeling of the nuclear fuel cycle (NFC) is often posed as a set of demands coupled with available technologies. Demands may be singular or multivariate. Additionally, available technologies may have constraints on when they are deployable. This proposal aims to bring demand and deployment decisions into the NFC simulator itself, thereby simulating a more realistic process by which utilities, governments, and other stakeholders actually make facility deployment decisions.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10856: Integrating Data Sources for Improved Safeguards and Accountancy of Electrochemical Fuel Reprocessing Streams | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The SSPM Echem tracks elemental and bulk material flows through batch operations in electrochemical facilities. This project will augment the existing SSPM Echem model with models of DA, NDA, and process monitoring measurements, including appropriate accuracy, noise, and uncertainty characteristics. Diverse measurement and assay results will be fused to improve material accountancy and anomaly detection across the electrochemical process.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10190: Immobilization of High-Level Waste Salt in Dechlorinated Zeolite Waste Forms | University of Utah | $799,315 | The primary objective of the project is the development of a new glass-bonded waste form for the suitable disposal of electrorefiner waste salt. To achieve this goal, the proposed tasks will focus on the 1) dechlorination of the electrorefiner salt and 2) subsequent encapsulation into a sintered waste form. Achieving these goals will result in a compact waste form with higher fission product loading, which is instrumental in economically closing the nuclear fuel cycle.__ | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10240: Molten Salt Reactor Experiment Benchmark Evaluation | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | _The objective of this project is to employ the data archive on the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) and develop a set of high-quality Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) reactor physics benchmarks for inclusion in the IRPhE Handbook that currently does not contain any benchmark set related to MSR technology._ | Document | Mission Supporting Transformative Research: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10458: Multi-Group Transport Cross Section and Diffusion Coefficient Generation for Deterministic Reactor Models Using Monte Carlo Calculations | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and implement rigorous methods for generating multi-group transport cross section and diffusion coefficients for deterministic reactor models using Monte Carlo calculations. The project will eliminate the numerous approximations that currently contribute to significant mis-prediction of core power distributions when using deterministic core models.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10241: Development of Transient Capabilities for the NEAMS Neutronics Code PROTEUS | Purdue University | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop efficient transient transport methods for the PROTEUS-SN, PROTEUS-MOC and the first-order SN solvers of the NEAMS neutronics code PROTEUS. The team will also perform transient benchmark analyses._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10603: Experimental and Computational Analysis of NEAMS Pebble Bed Reactors | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct a coordinated experimental and computational effort to quantitatively map the full-field 3-D velocity and temperature fields in the interstitial spaces within pebble bed reactor systems. Key outcomes will include advanced correlations to predict flow and thermal transport within the pebble bed over a much wider range operating conditions and reactor types than is currently possible.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10421: Simulation of Fuel Rod Fragmentation, Relocation and Ballooning through Peridynamics in MOOSE Framework | University of Arizona | $675,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology that includes the appropriate governing physical fields within the realm of peridynamics to investigate fuel cracking, fragmentation, relocation, ballooning, pellet-cladding interaction, and cladding rapture and dispersion within the MOOSE framework.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10313: Development of a Comprehensive Two-phase Flow Database for the Validation of NEK-2P | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,817 | _Researchers will develop a comprehensive, high-resolution two-phase flow database by performing experiments in two air-water two-phase flow test facilities and a new heated rod-bundle test facility that will be built under this project. These data will be used to validate the two-phase flow models implemented in the NEK-2P code._ | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10744: Support for Reactor Operators in Case of Cyber-Security Threats | Ohio State University | $800,000 | This project addresses the need for research informing plant engineers and control room operators faced with cyber-security threats on appropriate responses. The approach taken uses distinguishing features of safety related events versus cyber-security threats; attack modeling, prediction, game theory and PRA knowledge to update operators procedures; and simulation for validation.__ | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cyber Security R&D | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10578: Thermal Hydraulic & Structural Testing and Modeling of Compact Diffusion-Bonded Heat Exchangers for Supercritical CO2 Brayton Cycles | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will utilize both experimental and computational methods to test and model transient behavior of a mock up PCHE, which is a scaled down representation of the sCO2, cycle high temperature recuperator (HTR). In addition, the team will develop a methodology for quantification of the PCHEs production cost. The proposed project will provide valuable experiment data required to develop the Section III, Division 5 and Section VIII evaluation approach for compact heat exchangers.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10579: A Computational-Experimental Study to Simulate Mixing and Thermal Stratification in SFRs | Kansas State University | $799,320 | Researchers will use Thermographic Imaging and Ultrasonic Doppler Velocimetry (UDV) techniques to generate high fidelity thermal stratification and flow field data under various geometric and physical conditions for scaled models of outlet plena in sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs). Data from these experimental studies will be compared with those obtained using 1D codes such as SAS4A/SASSYS-1.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10714: ASME Code Application of the Compact Heat Exchanger for High Temperature Nuclear Service | North Carolina State University | $799,998 | Researchers will develop structural design methodologies for Type 316H stainless steel and Alloy 617 compact heat exchangers (CHX) using elastic-perfectly plastic (EPP) analysis methodology for the assessment of elevated temperature failure modes under sustained and cyclic thermal and pressure loading. The project will develop a technical basis for Section III, Division 5 ASME Code Case for CHX in high temperature nuclear service.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10885: Turbulent MHD Flow Modeling in Annular Linear Induction Pumps with Validation Experiments | North Carolina State University | $564,520 | Researchers seek to advance EMP design efforts for liquid metal reactors by 1.) Improving MHD modeling capability, particularly near the MHD stability criteria, 2.) Advancing simulation accuracy and fidelity in the typical operating range of large electromagnetic pumps for liquid metal cooled reactors, and 3.) Constructing a low barrier EMP test loop for model validation and instruction that can be easily replicated at low cost at other facilities.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10244: Integral System Testing for Prismatic Block Core Design HTGR | Oregon State University | $799,536 | _Researchers will conduct eight new tests be completed at the HTTF investigating a range of gas reactor events including DCC, PCC, and inlet plenum buoyant plume mixing. The data from these tests will be ideal for use in the validation of safety analysis codes used in gas reactor analysis. The data may also provide valuable insight into the validation of CFD codes for gas-reactor applications._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10324: Model Calibration-Based Design Methodologies for Structural Design of Supercritical CO2 Compact Heat Exchangers under Sustained Cyclic Temperature and Pressure Gradients | Oregon State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a design method for rapid structural assessment of diffusion-bonded Hybrid Compact Heat Exchangers, used as secondary heat exchangers in coupling Sodium Fast Reactors (SFRs) with supercritical CO2 (sCO2) Brayton power cycles. The team envisions that the developed method will (1) be usable in creation of an ASME code case for structural assessment of hybrid CHX; and (2) create design tools that ensure CHX code compliance under desired load conditions.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10285: Tribological Damage Mechanisms from Experiments and Validated Simulations of Alloy 800H and Inconel 617 in a Simulated HTGR/VHTR Helium Environment | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a mechanistic understanding of accelerated fretting, wear, and bonding between Alloy 800H and Inconel 617 surfaces. In order to achieve the objectives, a series of tribological experiments will be conducted in helium environments at elevated temperature with controlled concentrations of gaseous specious, attendant microstructure characterization (using electron microscopy, spectroscopy and atom-probe tomography), and validated continuum models.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10245: An Experimental Study of Design and Performance for the Water-Based Reactor Cavity Cooling System | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will extend and enhance the experimental tests using existing water-cooled RCCS facilities. The activity will be conducted in close collaboration with the water-cooled NSTF research team and will produce a unique set of high quality experimental data for support of existing system codes, system codes under development, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10457: Experimentally Validated Computational Modeling of Creep and Creep-Cracking for Nuclear Concrete Structures | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct novel 3D concrete creep tests under controlled environmental conditions to build a 3D constitutive model for concrete typical of existing containment structures. Decades long creep will be extracted via shorter tests (years long). The material model will be used in the Grizzly structural FEM code for simulating the response of real, 3D containment structures to changes in loading. Full-scale, long-term structural tests will enable validation.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10687: Development and Integration of Light Water Reactor (LWR) Materials Corrosion Degradation Codes into Grizzly | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop powerful codes for predicting environmentally-assisted localized corrosion in the primary coolant circuits (PCCs) of Generation II BWRs and PWRs. These codes and resulting models will be embedded into GRIZZLY. This will greatly extend the applicability of GRIZZLY to components in PCCs that are susceptible to pitting corrosion, stress corrosion cracking, and corrosion fatigue and will provide the stress intensity factor solutions for the crack growth rate models._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10083: Earth Abundant High Temperature Materials for Radioisotope Power Conversion System | University of California, Davis | $400,000 | Researchers will develop breakthrough efficiencies in segmented radioisotope thermal generators (RTG) power conversion systems through high temperature materials development. The approach will also reduce reliance on single-purpose supply chains.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10630: Validation of RELAP-7 for Forced Convection and Natural Circulation Reactor Flows | University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign | $799,368 | _Researcher will aid in the development of RELAP-7 through required experimental and computational efforts. The validation of the two-phase modeling capability of RELAP-7 will be accomplished through a series of tasks which include synthesis of existing forced convective data, acquisition of natural circulation data from an existing well-scaled facility, and uncertainty quantification in constitutive modeling._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10402: RELAP-7 Application and Enhancement for FLEX Strategies and ATF Behavior under Extended Loss of AC Power Conditions | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $800,000 | _Researchers will develop new thermal hydraulic models that will be implemented into RELAP-7. Simulation studies will be performed for postulated ELAP scenarios in the PB Unit 2 reactor. The overarching goal of the proposed work is to perform a simulation study using RELAP-7, to model BWR ELAP scenarios with various mitigation measures and determine the range of time available for transition to portable FLEX equipment._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10080: Quantifying Properties for a Mechanistic, Predictive Understanding of Aqueous Impact on Ageing of Medium and Low Voltage AC and DC Cabling in Nuclear Power Plants | University of Minnesota, Duluth | $800,000 | _The degradation of medium and low voltage cabling is often associated with aqueous immersion. Electrical and mechanical data will be collected to develop a mechanistic model of the degradation of cabling to dielectric breakdown based on the temperature, oxidation, water conditions, and irradiation dose. The hypothesized model begins with solvent escape paths that expand and advance from the exterior surface toward the current carrying core at a rate dependent on the environment._ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10214: Online Monitoring System for Concrete Structures Affected by Alkali-Silica Reaction (ASR) | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an online health monitoring system that integrates active and passive sensor networks and advanced signal processing algorithms to monitor ASR induced degradation in concrete structures. The obtained information will support an ongoing prognostic modeling research for health diagnosis and prognosis of aging concrete structures, in order to support long-term operational and maintenance decision making.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10210: Tribological Behavior of Structural Materials in High Temperature Helium Gas-Cooled Reactor Environments | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will work to understand, quantify, and model the elevated-temperature tribological behavior of alloys 617 and 800H in helium gas in HTGR conditions. Impurities in helium can induce a variety of corrosion mechanisms in structural materials that can profoundly affect tribological behavior. This study will investigate tribological behavior in various impurity concentration regimes and surface treatments to mitigate tribological damage in these environments.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10226: Enhancement of EM Pump Performance Through Modeling and Testing | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,856 | This project is aimed at the improvement of EM pumps for advanced liquid metal cooled reactors specifically the SFR. Initial tests will be conducted in the University of Wisconsin sodium loop on an existing moving magnet pump to help in the development of the models and to look at end effects associated with this pump. Additionally, tests will be conducted at ANL on the CMI ALIP. Ultimately, a small ALIP will be developed to test the principles and models developed to improve commercial scale.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10268: Sodium Cooled Fast Reactor Key Modeling and Analysis for Commercial Deployment | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $799,076 | This project will look at very low Prandtl number heat transfer from both an experimental and computational approach. Researchers will then establish key models to implement in plant dynamics codes. The team will also evaluate thermal stratification in large volumes making use of novel fiber optic distributed fiber measurements to get CFD quality data. Lastly, the team will evaluate some of the key remaining safety issues associated with the eventual commercialization of the sodium fast reactor.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10647: Experimental and Modeling Investigation of Overcooling Transients that Include Freezing, in Fluoride-Salt Cooled High-Temperature Reactors (FHRs) | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will make recommendations for design features of salt-reactor components that would take advantage of the phenomena characteristic to fluoride salts in order to be resilient to overcooling, and to recover gracefully from over-cooling transients. In support of this task a MOOSE-based computational tool will be developed, capable of modeling liquid-solid phase change, backed by experimental studies with the prototypical (flibe) coolant, and with simulant fluids.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 16-10509: CFD and System Code Benchmark Data for Plenum-to-Plenum Flow Under Natural, Mixed and Forced Circulation Conditions | Utah State University | $800,000 | Researchers will generate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) validation data for forced, mixed, and natural convection through a parallel-path geometry relevant to gas reactor bypass flow. In addition, the team will independently build and validate CFD models based on the experimental results. The team has the experience and existing infrastructure for sharing complete validation datasets.__ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2016 |
| NEUP Project 17-12628: Effects of Mineral Impurities and Heat on Uranium(VI) Sorption onto Bentonite | California State University, East Bay | $785,714 | Mineral impurities are common in bentonite and clay buffer materials, proposed for many nuclear waste disposal options. Researchers will investigate the effects of calcite impurities on uranium(VI) sorption onto montmorillonite before and after mineral exposure to heat. Based on experimental sorption data and EXAFS analysis we will develop a new surface complexation model to determine under which conditions impurity effects are relevant, and how they can be incorporated in performance assessment models. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12798: Nanostructured Ceramic Membranes for Enhanced Tritium Management | Clemson University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a ceramic membrane technology for tritium separation and recovery to support the nuclear fuel cycle. Low-temperature water adsorption properties of nanoscale structured ceramics, combined with demonstrated hydrogen isotope exchange in their hydrated layers provide a low cost and unique avenue to address tritium management challenges. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12647: Determination of Critical Heat Flux and Leidenfrost Temperature on Candidate Accident Tolerant Fuel Materials | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $799,906 | Researchers will characterize the thermal-hydraulics behavior of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) materials by measuring critical heat flux (CHF) under normal and off-normal light water reactor conditions, and Leidenfrost temperature in post-loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) conditions. This work will yield material-specific models and/or correlations that can be readily implemented in state-of-the-art simulation tools. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13011: Gamma-ray Computed and Emission Tomography for Pool-Side Fuel Characterization | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $799,317 | Researchers will design, build, test and install a submersible tomography platform for performing pool-side physical, structural, and chemical characterization of irradiated fuel elements for test reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12496: Group Actinide Separation by Crystallization: A Single-Technology Approach to Used Nuclear Fuel Recycle | Texas A&M University | $399,857 | Researchers will explore bulk removal of U, Np, Pu and Am, from used nuclear fuel by studying the mechanisms of removal. A co-crystallization of the hexavalent actinides with U(VI) has already been demonstrated and researchers plan to develop a process based around this approach. Removal of these elements would be advantageous for future nuclear fuel recycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12824: Methods for Process Monitoring to Accurately Detect and Quantify Material Holdup in Advanced Recycle Facilities | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop better modeling methods, detectors, and facility design approaches to enable detection of inadvertent and deliberate hold up of fissile material in reprocessing and other nuclear material bulk handling facilities. The team will integrate results from this research project into a design methodology for future facilities to ensure accurate and reliable process monitoring for sustainable operation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12782: Effects of alpha and gamma radiation on complex and metal loaded solvents for advanced solvent extraction processes | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | This project will investigate the alpha and gamma radiolysis-induced chemical degradation of ligands used for the removal of minor actinides from used nuclear fuel in advanced extraction systems such as ALSEP. Researchers will emphasize organic phase degradation, particularly complex solvents with multiple ligands as well as metal loaded solvents. The project will improve predictive capabilities of extraction processes by elucidating degradation pathways. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12757: Elucidation of Electrochemical Behavior of Technetium, Tellurium, and Iodine in Molten Salt Solutions. | University of Idaho | $796,741 | This project will evaluate the electrochemical speciation behavior of iodide, and telluride in LiCl-KCl eutectic, LiCl, and LiCl + Li2O electrolytes at temperatures relevant to reprocessing conditions. By using rhenium as surrogate for technetium, the electrochemical, and chemical speciation properties of rhenium ions will be investigated in chloride molten salts with the addition of molybdenum and ruthenium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12701: Development and Experimental Benchmark of Computational Models to Predict Cladding Temperature and Vapor Removal from UNF Canisters during Drying Operations | University of Nevada, Reno | $400,000 | Researchers will develop physics-based computational tools to predict used nuclear fuel cladding temperatures within, and water vapor removal rates from, canisters during existing and proposed drying processes. The project will explore a range of gas pressures (including rarefication), and steady and unsteady external gas flows rates. The tools will be used to develop drying processes that minimize drying time while maintaining cladding temperatures. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12688: An Experimental and Analytical Investigation into Critical Heat Flux (CHF) Implications for Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF) Concepts | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a holistic best estimate assessment of the potential impact of different ATF cladding materials with regards to heat transfer characteristics, the boiling curve, critical heat flux, fuel mass/volume/specific power density, and neutronics effects due to changes in the lattice design or parasitic neutron absorption during design basis accident conditions in light water reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12996: Multipurpose, Radiation- and Temperature-Resistant Semiconductor Radiation Detectors for Advanced Process Monitoring and Nuclear Safeguards | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop detection systems capable of neutron, gamma-ray, x-ray, and alpha monitoring in high-temperature and high radiation environments for extended periods of time. The detectors will be used to strengthen nuclear safeguards by enhancing nuclear material control and accounting in nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13125: The Thermodynamics of Crystallization and Phase-Separation in Melt-Derived Nuclear Waste Forms | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This projects will study the thermodynamics of melt and quench phases of nuclear waste glasses and glass ceramics and link this information to the underlying short-range and medium-range structure. Advanced calorimetric techniques and neutron total scattering with pair distribution function analysis will be applied to obtain these data. Computer simulations will complement the experimental effort. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12886: Identifying, Predicting and Preventing Localized Corrosion in Kr-85 Storage Canisters | University of Virginia | $799,000 | Researchers will determine the root cause of corrosion within Kr-85 storage canisters in order to better understand current corrosion rates. The project will focus on expanding available research on Rb corrosion interactions and other contributing factors to better understand the corrosion phenomenon in current steel canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12463: Extreme Performance High Entropy Alloys (HEAs) Cladding for Fast Reactor Applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will develop extreme performance high entropy alloys (HEAs) as for new metal alloy cladding for fast reactor applications. Two very promising, single solution BCC HEAs will be investigated. The project will deliver an extensive irradiation resistance study of a new promising yet unexplored cladding concept. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12549: Critical Heat Flux Studies for Innovative Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding Surfaces | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will study critical heat flux (CHF) behavior focused on innovative accident tolerant fuel (ATF) cladding. The project includes separate effects screening tests to measure CHF for various ATF clad materials and surface characteristics with measurements of surface wettability. Pressurized flow boiling experiments will simulate prototypical reactor conditions for evaluating the best ATF clad materials coupled with CHF modeling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13019: Evaluation of Accident Tolerant Fuels Surface Characteristics in Critical Heat Flux Performance | Virginia Commonwealth University | $800,000 | Researchers will perform separate-effects and system-wide tests of the AREVA and GE accident tolerant fuel concepts currently under consideration. The project will investigate the impact of cladding surface characteristics in critical heat flux (CHF) under normal and anticipated off-normal conditions. The experimental results will be used to develop and validate enhanced models for the prediction of CHF and will be implemented in various subchannel and system analysis codes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13054: Simulated Used Nuclear Fuel Dissolution as a Function of Fuel Chemistry and Near Field Conditions | Washington State University | $800,000 | Researchers will study the effects of simulated used nuclear fuel (UNF) chemistry and microstructure on its dissolution in geologic repository conditions. The results will advance models for UNF evolution in repository conditions, enabling reliable prediction of degradation and long-term performance of used nuclear fuel for up to one million years. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12506: Development of Reactor Physics Benchmark Evaluations for Power Burst Facility Experiments | University of Florida | $398,265 | Researchers will perform reactor physics benchmark evaluations of Power Burst Facility experiments regarding differential reactivity worth of the control and transient rods, shim rod worth, in-pile-tube reactivity worth, shutdown reactivity, fuel assembly reactivity worth, core void coefficients of reactivity, in-pile-tube void coefficient, and coolant temperature coefficient of reactivity. The results will be incorporated in the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP). | Document | Mission Supporting Nuclear Energy: Integral Benchmark Evaluations | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12748: Combined modeling and experiments to predict corrosion and embrittlement in dual-phase stainless steels within the MARMOT framework | Oregon State University | $800,000 | Researchers will enhance MARMOT to predict mechanical and corrosion properties of dual-phase stainless steels as a function of composition, aging time and temperature by using combined experimental data and lower length scale models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12797: In-Situ Ion Irradiation to Add Irradiation Assisted Grain Growth to the MARMOT Tool | Pennsylvania State University | $500,000 | Researchers will add the capability to model irradiation assisted grain growth to the MARMOT tool by using in-situ ion irradiation of UO2 to quantify the effect of irradiation on grain growth. The team will investigate the hypothesis that irradiation assisted grain growth is caused by thermal spikes resulting from atom collisions. The model added to MARMOT will couple the existing grain growth model to a heat conduction simulation using a stochastic heat source describing the thermal spike. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12555: Integration of high-fidelity Monte Carlo and deterministic transport codes into Workbench | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | Researchers will provide end users an ability to run both MCNP6 and PROTEUS codes from a common user input in Workbench by (1) templating user-provided engineering scale specifications to code-specific input requirements, (2) enabling multi-fidelity analysis of a system from a common input using MCNP6 and PROTEUS and (3) allowing the easy use of high-fidelity simulations to inform lower-order models for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems and experiments. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12939: Expansion of BISON Capabilities to Predict the Dynamic Response of Irradiated Fuel Rods | University of New Hampshire | $800,000 | Researchers will expand the capabilities of BISON and MOOSE to simulate the structural dynamic response of fuel rods and fuel assemblies during handling (wet and dry storage) and transportation. Expanding the capabilities of BISON and MOOSE to facilitate the evaluation of the dynamic response of fuel rods and assemblies is important to conduct a more reliable risk assessment of fuel assemblies, as well as storage and transportation casks. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13179: Implementation and Validation of Advanced Turbulence Modeling Methods for Liquid Metal Flow in Nek5000 | University of Oklahoma | $786,648 | Researchers will implement and validate state-of-the-art turbulence modeling techniques in Nek5000 to improve predition of liquid metal flows. Specific methods to be investigated include: variable PrT and algebraic heat flux models (AHFM) for URANS simulation; partially-averaged Navier-Stokes (PANS) and dynamic hybrid RANS-LES (DHRL) for hybrid RANS-LES simulation; and variable PrT subgrid heat flux modeling for LES. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12848: Development of Information Trustworthiness and Integrity Algorithms for Cybersecurity Defenses of Nuclear Power Reactors | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a first-of-a-kind physics-based defense-in-depth strategy to defend against false data injection attacks which attempt to change the information used by the I/C network to set reactor state. The approach employs a new design philosophy to check for information trustworthiness/integrity in order to determine whether the information is genuinely generated during the actual operation of the nuclear unit under either normal or off-normal conditions. | Document | Nuclear Energy: Cybersecurity | |
| NEUP Project 17-12538: Influence of dissolved salts and impurities in seawater on heat transfer degradation and fluid flow through fuel channels debris bed | Kansas State University | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate the role of raw water on degraded heat transfer and fluid flow in the reactor core and debris bed. X-ray imaging techniques, optical-fiber high speed temperature sensing systems and radioactive tracer salts will be used to simultaneously measure experimental data on void fraction, temperature and salt deposition rate. This data will be used to obtain correlations for heat transfer and fluid flow in case of raw water injection. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12502: High Resolution Temperature and Flow Measurements in Wire-Wrapped Fuel Assemblies | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will produce high-quality, high spatial and temporal resolution temperature and flow datasets for wire-wrapped rod bundle geometries. Different bundle sizes, configurations (including duct's and pin's deformation) and Low-Prandlt fluids will be investigated. A unique set of data will be produced to support advanced CFD tools validation, including Nek5000. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12723: Integrating Static PRA Information with RISMC Simulation Methods | The Ohio State University | $799,985 | Researchers will develop a computationally feasible and user friendly process to augment the traditional probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) results with improved representation of epistemic uncertainties and process/hardware/software/human interactions at plant level applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12664: Methods to Predict Thermal Radiation and to Design Scaled Separate and Integral Effects Testing For Molten Salt Reactors | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology for the design of molten salt reactor (MSR) Separate Effect Test and Integral Effect Test experiments. This methodology will identify and quantify sources of scaling distortion including radiative heat transport. The project would improve code performance and assist FHR/MSR vendors who are making licensing applications based on code results. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12523: Experimental and Computational Studies of Stress Corrosion Cracking of Alloys 308/309 and 82/182 Weldments in Corrosive and Radiation Environment | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will use advanced microanalytical analysis techniques to study SCC and IASCC of stainless steel and Ni-Cr alloy weldments. CERT, autoclave immersion, and ion irradiation will be used to determine synergistic effect of LWR environmental factors. Results from the experimental component of the proposed work scope will be used for enhanced predictive capability of the INL Grizzly code via XFEM. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12614: Systematic Enterprise Risk Management by Integrating the RISMC Toolkit and Cost-Benefit Analysis | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $799,998 | Researchers will develop a systematic Enterprise Risk Management framework, which utilizes Decision Tree (DT) logic to consider high-level production-loss scenarios, and their underlying physical and social causes throughout the lifecycle. In the proposed DT, uncertainty nodes will be quantified by plant-specific risk analysis using the Risk-Informed Safety Margin Characterization (RISMC) Toolkit, and cost-benefit analysis will be conducted for end states reflecting consequences of managerial decision-making. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12972: Design of a Commercial-Scale, Fluoride-Salt-Cooled, High-Temperature Reactor With Novel Refueling and Decay Heat Removal Capabilities | University of Massachusetts, Lowell | $400,000 | Researchers will combine fluoride-salt-cooled, high temperature reactors (FHR) with advanced gas reactor (AGR) refueling technology to address several significant challenges that remain in the development of FHR technology. The project will adapt AGR refueling technology by using the new fuel-inside-radial-moderator fuel form, which will also introduce new ways of dealing with decay heat. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13115: Experimental Determination of Helium/air Mixing in Helium Cooled Reactor | University of Michigan | $800,000 | Researchers will examine the effects of coolant leakage and air ingress through three different investigations. The overall objective of this work is to characterize near and far field behavior of Helium/Air mixing in containment, and to determine rates and amounts of air leaked back into the reactor after a depressurization event. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12830: Radioisotope Retention in Graphite and Graphitic Materials | University of Missouri, Columbia | $800,000 | Researchers will use a variety of experimental techniques to acquire data for fission product diffusion, transport and adsorption of fission products in various graphites, relating to nuclear reactors at high temperatures. Measurements will be taken using non-irradiated graphite using fission product surrogates. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13020: Bimetallic Composite (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) Development and Compatibility in Flowing FLiBe as a Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) Structural Material | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a new bimetallic alloy (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) structural material for the MSR, and compare its post-exposure mechanical performance in flowing FLiBe with single alloys SS 316, Hastelloy N, and Incoloy 800H, in the context of ASME codification. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12678: Novel NDE Sensors, Waveforms, Models, and Algorithms for Cable Health Monitoring | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop NDE sensors and probabilistic cable insulation diagnosis and prognosis algorithms (particle filtering), and modeling and experiments to monitor cable insulation health. Two different types of sensor will be deployed to detect insulation damage. The team will also develop cable insulation degradation modeling to further understand defects in cable insulation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13080: Multiscale Investigation of SiC/SiC Composite Degradation in Helium Coolant Operating Environment | University of Virginia | $800,000 | Researchers will study the long-term degradation mechanisms of SiC/SiC composites in helium coolant environments by slow crack growth (SCG). This will be achieved through multiscale testing in hot, O2-contaminated He and evaluation of the effect of SCG on hermeticity during in situ testing. Results will be extended to predictive low-level and component-scale SCG models and integrated into the development of ASME standards for use of SiC/SiC in nuclear reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-12481: Supercritical CO2 power cycle for space applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will develop an advanced supercritical Brayton power cycle directly coupled to a fission reactor. The project will carry out a comprehensive optimization of the cycle operating conditions, working fluid, and configuration; develop detailed designs of each subcomponent; and demonstrate/develop critical technologies such as turbomachinery seals and bearings, reactor material corrosion and strength demonstrations, and supercritical heat transfer. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 17-13232: Radiative Heat Transport and Optical Characterization of High Temperature Molten Salts | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | The goal of the proposed research is to experimentally investigate radiation heat transport in molten salts, and to add functionality for radiative heat transport in a thermal-hydraulics system code. This includes obtaining highly resolved measurements of the optical absorption and emissivity of liquid salts. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2017 |
| NEUP Project 18-15345: Multiphysics Degradation Processes, and Their Mitigation, in Engineered and Geological Bariers: Experiments and Simulation | Duke University | $800,000.00 | This project will focus on filling the gaps in understanding of mechanisms of a series of degradation processes (thermal, hydric, geo-chemical, and transport processes phenomena) potentially affecting geo-materials used in repositories. The objectives of the work are to better recognize the conditions leading to preferential paths of radionuclide transport and rock weakening, and to build mathematical models and implement them into existing codes to predict material degradation and develop strategies to reduce the adverse consequences. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15043: Integration of Nuclear Material Accounting Data and Process Monitoring Data for Improvement on Detection Probability in Safeguarding Electrochemical Processing Facilities | Oregon State University | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to further studies on fusion of process monitoring (PM) data and nuclear material accounting (NMA) data. PM data, which includes monitoring by various types of equipment (radiation detectors, cameras, voltage, current sensors), can supplement NMA data to help improve safeguards. For aqueous-based reprocessing facilities, it is reported that PM, integrated with traditional NMA, has a high-detection probability for specific diversions. For electrochemical reprocessing, preliminary studies have shown that PM data can support traditional NMA by providing a basis to estimate some of the in-processing nuclear material inventories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15148: Recovery of Rare-Earth Elements (Nd, Gd, Sm) in Oxide Wasteform Using Liquid Metals (Bi, Sn) | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000.00 | This project investigates a new approach for recovering rare-earth (RE) fission products (Nd, Gd, and Sm) from molten chlorine salts using liquid metal (Bi and Sn) electrodes. The research aids molten salt recycling by converting the RE products into chloride-free RE oxides, which could be incorporated into conventional glass/ceramic waste forms. Successful outcomes of the project include advanced separation of fission products from molten salts with better control of chemical selectivity and high-recovery yield. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15103: Microstructure-Based Benchmarking for Nano/Microscale Tension and Ductility Testing of Irradiated Steels | Purdue University | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to standardize methods for nano/micro-scale tensile and ductility testing of irradiated Fe-Cr steels, through microstructure-based benchmarking. The study will investigate key process parameters for TEM in situ tension and ductility testing. Coupling experimental studies with multiscale models, the research will identify the approaches that provide consistent deformation mechanisms between the nano/micro-scale and macro-scale tests, from which standard practices will be obtained. The primary project outcome will be a set of recommended guidelines for nano/microscale mechanical testing, which will lead to unprecedented reductions in the time and cost for qualifying materials for in-reactor service and to ensure consistency of methods and validity of results. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15559: Cold Spray Repair & Mitigation of Stress Corrosion Cracks in Spent Nuclear Fuel Dry Storage Canisters | Purdue University | $799,982.00 | This goal of this project is to demonstrate cold spray repair and mitigation of chloride-induced stress corrosion cracks (SCC) and pits in stainless steel dry storage canisters. The research will optimize the repair process and gain a scientifically informed understanding of SCC mechanisms. The outcome is to further develop cold spray as an attractive solution for the repair of existing SCC and mitigation of potential SCC necessary to ensure long-term integrity, security, and regulatory compliance of spent nuclear fuel storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15596: Capture of Organic Iodides from Vessel Off-Gas Streams | Syracuse University | $799,548.00 | This project will study the capture of radioactive organoiodides from off-gas streams produced during nuclear fuel reprocessing by conducting adsorption experiments using a selected silver adsorbents. Multifaceted simulation adsorption models will be developed to assist in the design of necessary capture systems for off-gas streams. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15585: Impact of Coupled Gas Migration and Thermo-hydro-mechanical Processes on the Performance of Repositories for High Level Nuclear Waste | Texas A&M University | $608,375.00 | The main goal of this project is to better understand the possible effect of gas migration (particularly through discontinuities) on the performance and long-term behavior of engineered barrier systems (EBS) envisaged for the isolation of high-level radioactive waste (HLW). Specific outcomes of this study will be an improved understanding of the role of gas migration and discontinuities in the performance of HLW disposals, with the underlying aim to improve design of EBS used for HLW. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15531: Repair and Mitigation of Chloride-Induced Pitting and Chloride-Induced Stress Corrosion Cracking in Used Nuclear Fuel Dry Cask Canister Materials | The Ohio State University | $800,000.00 | This project will evaluate and develop a set of tools to repair and mitigate chloride-induced pitting and stress corrosion cracking in stainless steel nuclear fuel canisters. Advanced processes, including low temperature friction stir welding and cold spray deposition, will be evaluated according to various criteria, such as corrosion performance. In addition, technologies that have not yet been evaluated for UNF applications, including vaporizing foil actuator welding and soldering will be assessed. The two most promising technologies will selected for further development and comprehensive study. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14912: Bridging the Length Scales on Mechanical Property Evaluation | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000.00 | This project combines experimental and modeling methods to gain a comprehensive approach for addressing scaling effects on small-scale mechanical testing. Multiscale experiments, together with modeling on reactor-relevant and model alloys, will provide better understanding of appropriate scaling relationships. The study aims to gain fundamental understanding of plasticity interactions with specific strength-determining features, such as precipitates and grain boundaries. The goal of this work is to provide the basis to add small-scale mechanical testing in the toolbox for nuclear materials research. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14911: Understanding of degradation of SiC/SiC materials in nuclear systems and development of mitigation strategies | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000.00 | This project investigates the best possible coatings to prevent SiCf/SiCm corrosion in LWR environments. The research features a computational and experimental rapid screening approach for numerous coating compositions. The work includes autoclave exposure of rapid screening coupons in prototypical environments in combination with thermodynamic modeling (CALPHAD) and Finite Element Methods (FEM). Small-scale mechanical testing, together with thermal cycling and FEM modeling, will provide guidance on the ideal coating system design. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15701: Time-dependent THMC Properties and Microstructural Evolution of Damage Rocks in Excavation Damage Zone | University of Colorado, Boulder | $799,978.00 | The proposed project focuses on the geomechanical aspects of modeling by addressing the time-dependent evolution of rock microstructure and its coupling with the THC processes that are of first-order importance to the stability and the isolation performance of repositories. The research will delineate an integrated experimental, theoretical and numerical strategy in assessing the evolution EDZ over time and its implication on the long-term migration of hazardous species. These results will enhance the confidence of the predicted long-term performance of repositories, which helps to move forward the goal of one-million-year isolation of high-level nuclear wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15381: Multiaxial Failure Envelopes and Uncertainty Quantification of Nuclear-Grade SiCf/SiC Woven Ceramic Matrix Tubular Composites | University of Florida | $800,000.00 | This project proposes to develop a comprehensive experimental and computational approach for determining constitutive relations and multiaxial failure envelopes of nuclear-grade continuous silicon fiber (SiCf) and SiC matrix woven tubular composites. The result of this work can be adopted in industry for design refinement, optimization of performance under the desired operating conditions, and reliable prediction of failure under unforeseen accidental scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15496: Formation of Zeolites Responsible for Waste Glass Rate Acceleration: An Experimental and Computational Study for Understanding Thermodynamic and Kinetic Processes | University of Houston | $800,000.00 | Through experimental and computational studies, this project will expose the factors governing zeolite crystallization and their role in Stage III dissolution of radionuclide-containing glass waste forms generated in advanced nuclear fuel cycles. The overall goal of this project is to understand the formation of zeolite phases in order to develop process control methods to suppress Stage III dissolution. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14998: Novel Processes for Capture of Radioactive Iodine Species from Vessel Off-Gas Streams | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the sorption system performance and effectiveness for capture of radioiodine species present in the off-gas streams from the used nuclear fuel (UNF) recycling operations, focusing particularly on the organic iodine species. The dynamic sorption experimentation and theoretical modeling will offer fundamental insights on the mechanism enabling the design and prediction the control system performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15261: Friction Stir Based Repair Welding of Dry Storage Canisters and Mitigation Strategies: Effect of Engineered Barrier Layer on Environmental Degradation | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The project goal is to apply friction stir based repair and mitigation technique for eliminating failure associated with pitting and stress corrosion cracking in dry storage canisters for spent fuels. The goal of these activities is to obtain a fundamental understanding of the processing-structure-properties correlations. This work will contribute to the development of a crack repair/mitigation strategy based on friction stir technology that can be efficiently implemented for spent fuel dry storage casks, which will enhance safety and reliability of these systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15263: X-ray Studies of Interfacial Molecular Complexes in ALSEP Back-Extraction | University of Illinois at Chicago | $800,000.00 | This project will use synchrotron X-rays to characterize the interfacial molecular complexes (of extractants and radiologically derived impurities, complexants, buffers, and metal ions) formed during the Actinide-Lanthanide Separation Process (ALSEP) back-extraction. This work addresses the critical knowledge gap of slow stripping kinetics in ALSEP, as well as the influence of radiolytic degradation products. The outcome of the project will be a molecular-level understanding of the role of different components in the interfacial mechanism of back-extraction in the ALSEP process, therefore leading to development of more efficient and faster metal stripping relevant to the separation of actinides from lanthanides in the nuclear fuel cycle. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15030: Mechanistic Understanding of Radiolytically Assisted Hydrothermal Corrosion of SiC in LWR Coolant Environments | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to develop a mechanistic understanding of the hydrothermal corrosion behavior of monolithic SiC and SiC/SiC composites in LWR environment under the influence of water radiolysis products and radiation damage. Complementary atomistic simulations will be carried out to determine the rate controlling mechanisms for dissolution under different water chemistries and in the presence of radiation. Activation energies and kinetic rates will be calculated directly from these simulations and compared to experimentally fitted values. The dissolution rate constants determined and validated in this integrated experimental and modeling approach will allow predictions of long-term SiC corrosion behavior. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14999: Probabilistic Failure Criterion of SiC/SiC Composites Under Multi-Axial Loading | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $800,000.00 | This project aims to develop a probabilistic failure criterion of SiC/SiC composites under multi-axial loading and to incorporate the criterion into a reliability analysis of the structural integrity of LWR SiC/SiC fuel cladding. This research will be anchored by a seamless integration of novel experimental and analytical tools, which will lead to a robust methodology for dependable analysis of SiC/SiC composite structures for LWR fuel cladding, as well as other nuclear applications. The resulting model will be experimentally validated and applied to analyze the reliability of LWR SiC/SiC fuel cladding. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15502: Reducing Uncertainty in Radionuclide Transport Prediction Using Multiple Environmental Tracers | University of Montana | $724,906.00 | In this project, direct modeling of multiple environmental tracers will be used to improve predictions of radionuclide transport in a shallow alluvial aquifer discharge. The research will take advantage of recent theoretical developments considering the use of environmental tracers, and advances in high-performance reactive flow and transport models, to obtain the maximum information on the transport system. The goal is to develop a new methodology to characterize natural reactive flow and transport systems, reduce predictive uncertainty in radionuclide transport simulations, determine the maximum information content of the tracer suite, and optimize future groundwater characterization efforts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15578: Computational and Experimental Investigation of Thermal-Mechanical- Chemical Mechanisms of High-burnup Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) Processes at Elevated Temperatures and Degradation Behavior in Geologic Repositories | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $800,000.00 | The overarching goal of this project is to use combined computational and experimental research and development activities to enhance understanding of the mechanisms and thermal-mechanical-chemical (TMC) parameters controlling the instant release fraction (IRF) and matrix dissolution of high-burnup (HB; burnup > 45 GWd/MTU) spent nuclear fuels (SNFs) and the subsequent formation, stability, and phase transformations of HB SNF alteration products under long-term storage and geological disposal conditions (e.g., high-temperature storage, _-radiolysis). The results of this research will be used to enhance the mechanistic detail of process models to reduce uncertainty in, and improve the technical bases of, safety cases and performance assessment analyses. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15439: Radiolytic Dissolution Rate of Silicon Carbide | University of Notre Dame | $400,000.00 | This project seeks to develop a matrix of dissolution rates for high-purity SiC material, using intense electron beam irradiation, and to measure the products of dissolution (silicic acid and CO2 (or CO)) in the water downstream of the irradiation zone. The objective is to determine the rate of SiC dissolution and gather sufficient insight about its mechanism in LWRs, so that the use of SiC/SiC composite materials for accident tolerant fuel cladding can proceed with confidence. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15061: Development of an MC&A Toolbox for Liquid-fueled Molten Salt Reactors with Online Reprocessing | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,207.00 | The purpose of this project is to develop a toolbox of swappable mass flow modules for liquid-fueled molten salt reactor (MSR) systems for the purposes of evaluating material control & accountancy measurement techniques. When combined together, these modules enable modeling of the time-dependent mass flows for a variety of MSR variants. The test platform will consist of a toolbox of independent process modules representing discrete physical units, each with its own self-contained physics responsive to the input mass flow, along with appropriate measurement models that can be coupled to key flow points. These dynamic physical signatures would allow testing of the viability and efficacy of potential accountancy techniques under the full range of reactor operating conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15307: A Novel and Flexible Approach for Converting LWR UNF Fuel Into Forms That Can Be Used to Fuel a Variety of Gen-IV Reactors | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $400,000.00 | This project will investigate the chemical decladding and the digestion of whole MOX-based fuel rods, using thionyl chloride and surrogate materials. Digesting entire LWR fuel assemblies results in product streams that include pure decontaminated ZrCl4; pure UCl4; and a stream containing TRU/FPs, as well as alloying metals (as chloride salts). The objectives of this project are to provide a new, highly efficient protocol for the transformation of used nuclear fuel into useful components and to effectively contain a concentrated stream of highly radioactive materials for appropriate handling. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15459: Reduced Diffusion and Enhanced Retention of Multiple Radionuclides from Pore Structure Studies of Barrier Materials for Enhanced Repository Performance | University of Texas at Arlington | $567,831.00 | The project seeks to better understand and quantify the pore structure (geometry and topology) and pore connectivity of porous media and its emergent effect on diffusion and retention of various radionuclides in barrier materials. The anticipated outcome of the project will be to more accurately evaluate the performance of geological repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15649: Benchmarking Microscale Ductility Measurements | University of Utah | $776,669.00 | The objectives of this project are to establish best practices for obtaining tensile microscale ductility measurements and to validate methodologies for comparing them to macroscale ductility measurements. Anticipated outcomes of the project are: 1) measurement of grain and sub-grain localization processes micro and macroscales; 2) establishment of best practices for microtensile experimentation; 3) identification of statistically significant relationships between specimen geometry, microstructure variables and mechanical behavior; 4) modified phenomenological elongation-based ductility models to enable direct upscaling of ductility measurements from microscale to macroscopic. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15003: Advanced Coating and Surface Modification Technologies for SiC-SiC Composite for Hydrothermal Corrosion Protection in LWR | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,990.00 | This project focuses on the development of coatings and surface modification approaches for hydrothermal corrosion protection of SiC-SiC composite in normal LWR operation environments. Innovative surface treatment recipes will be explored using processes including, interfacial stitching to improve adhesion, multi-layered structures to improve ductility, and compositions and structures resulting from thermal treatments. The surface treatment concepts involve corrosion resistant metallic and ceramic materials, and are amenable to industrial scalability for the cladding application. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15332: Low-Force Solid-State Technologies for Mitigation of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dry Storage Canisters | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000.00 | This project will focus on evaluating and developing two technologies used for field mitigation and repair of stress corrosion cracking (SCC): 1) additive friction stir welding; and 2) cold spray deposition. The work involves developing low-force, low-heat input solid state technologies to lessen and repair SCC in stainless steel canisters for used nuclear fuel (UNF). This outcome of the study will inform feasibility of using the two technologies to conduct on-site field repairs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14913: The Role of Temperature on Non-Darcian Flows in Engineered Clay Barriers | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000.00 | This project intends to accomplish three tasks: 1) to develop a predictive model to facilitate experimental data interpretation and provide mechanistic insights into the role of temperature on non-Darcian flows in low-permeability engineered clay barriers; 2) conduct experiments to unravel the role of temperature on the threshold gradient of non-Darcian flow in both saturated and unsaturated bentonite; and 3) use molecular dynamics (MD) simulation to improve fundamental understanding. The experimental data, associated with the MD simulation, will provide valuable information to improve fundamental understanding and scientific knowledge with respect to the temperature dependence of threshold gradient in non-Darcian flows, because very limited experimental data for saturated flow and no experimental data for unsaturated flow are available. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14815: C-SiOC-SiC Coated Particle Fuels for Advanced Nuclear Reactors | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $400,000.00 | This project will study a new concept for nuclear fuel encapsulation using an amorphous SiOC plus carbon system as the inner coating and nanocrystalline SiC plus minor carbon as the outer coating for nuclear fuel kernel particles. The outcomes of this work are: 1) new directions and possible replacement guidance for current nuclear fuel materials in operation; 2) new fuel materials for future nuclear reactor material design and development; 3) nuclear composite microstructure evolution and performance degradation understanding; 4) screening tools to guide future nuclear fuel material activities; and 5) mechanisms of nuclear fuel material evolution and degradation and effective strategies to mitigate/reduce undesirable fuel behaviors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15226: An Evaluated, Transient Experiment based on Simultaneous, 3-D Neutron-Flux and Temperature Measurements | Kansas State University | $399,972.00 | This project will evaluate existing and near-term experimental data for inclusion in the International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) handbook. The data to be evaluated include compositions from a recent fuel replacement as part of an LEU conversion, a number of critical, fresh-fuel configurations, fuel temperature measurements at fresh-fuel configurations, and records from nearly a decade of operation. The proposed work would lead to a first-of-a-kind evaluation of transient, spatially-dependent reaction rates. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project CFA-18-15773: Evaluation of the Thermal Scattering Law for Advanced Reactor Neutron Moderators and Reflectors | North Carolina State University | $398,821.00 | The objective of this project is to narrow the nuclear data gap for advanced nuclear reactors that are driven by thermal neutrons. This includes concepts such as gas-cooled high-temperature reactors and molten salt or salt-cooled high temperature reactors. The generated data TSL libraries will be provided in EDNF File 7 format to the National Nuclear Data Center (NDDC) to immediately include in beta releases of the ENDF/B libraries and to consider for the future release of ENDF/B-VIII.1. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15602: Modeling and Experimental Verification of Thermal Energy Storage Systems to Enable Load Following Capability for Nuclear Reactors | University of Idaho | $761,640.00 | This project purposes to integrate new thermal energy storage (TES) models, developed in Modelica, with ongoing nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (NRHES) modeling efforts, in order to evaluate economic potential and advantages of new process designs over baseload electricity production. The computational phase of this project includes developing mathematical and physics-based TES models, which could later be translated to Modelica and integrated with existing NRHES components. The testing and optimization would be conducted using RAVEN. A techno-economic analysis will be performed to evaluate the compatibility of the newly formed integration, as well as to quantify its feasibility and economic benefits. The experimental aspect is focused on the development of scaled TES systems, which serve as verification for the Modelica models and allow system testing upon being integrated with DETAIL. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14963: Development of Nuclear Hybrid Energy Systems: Temperature Amplification through Chemical Heat Pumps for Industrial Applications | University of Idaho | $800,000.00 | The overall goal of this project is to develop and demonstrate, through modeling and experimental investigations, temperature amplification capabilities of a chemical heat pump (CHP) system that can be coupled to a conventional light water reactor or a near-term small modular reactor. The outcomes would include nuclear hybrid energy system architecture containing a CHP, experimental data on the CHP performance, and dynamic model of the system, validated through experimentation, which could be used for scale-up and design. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15008: Development of Thermal Inelastic Scattering Covariance Data Capabilities with Demonstration of Light Water Evaluation | University of Michigan | $400,000.00 | The goal of this project is to produce a format for covariance data for inelastic thermal neutron scattering data for moderators in the ENDF format. To demonstrate the viability of this new format, an evaluation of the covariance data for thermal scattering in light water in this format will be produced, along with the capabilities to generate the files and test their efficacy. A capability for calculating sensitivity coefficients using multigroup methods to the fundamental physics parameters governing light-water scattering will be developed to facilitate identifying nuclear data needs related to thermal scattering. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15056: Model-Based Diagnostics and Mitigation of Cyber Threats | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | This project intends to develop a toolkit for modeling digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems for nuclear power plants so that the consequences of cyber-attacks on I&C systems may conveniently be modeled using nuclear plant simulation software. The results of the toolkit-based models, the corresponding responses, and the performance of the diagnostic schemes will be tested on a virtual control room driven by a plant simulator. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15055: NICSim: Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Simulation for Evaluating Response to Cyber-attacks | University of New Mexico | $799,945.00 | The objective of the project is to develop a Nuclear Instrumentation and Control Simulation (NICSim) platform with a novel emulytics capability to simulate control systems and components in nuclear power plants. The outcome of this work would be a first-in-class emulytics platform with an associated documentation and library of physical models of components that could be used by analysts and designers to assess the resilience and cybersecurity risks of different control system designs for a wide range of power plants. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15324: Validation of Pressure Relaxation Coefficient in RELAP-7 Seven-Equation Model | George Washington University | $800,000.00 | This project aims to validate the Seven-Equation model in RELAP-7 by: 1) measuring velocity and pressure in each phase and the interface as well as return to equilibrium in fast transients with high-speed non-intrusive laser diagnostics in canonical experiments; 2) complementing experimental data with a multiscale computational approach, including a 3D proprietary direct numerical solver; and 3) validating RELAP-7 with a combination of experimental data and first-principle simulations. This combination would provide unique and complete datasets to validate RELAP-7 with high confidence and offer a new class of experimental and numerical tools. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project CFA-18-15104: Demonstration of Utilization of High-fidelity NEAMS Tools to Inform the Improved Use of Conventional Tools within the NEAMS Workbench on the NEA/OECD C5G7-TD Benchmark | North Carolina State University | $800,000.00 | The goal of this project is to demonstrate the utilization of high-fidelity Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) tools (PROTEUS, Nek5000, and BISON) to inform the improved use of conventional tools (DIF-3D, CTF, and CTFFuel) within the NEAMS Workbench on the NEA/OECD C5G7-TD benchmark. This would result in more accurate predictions of safety parameters and margins, which is important for both safety and performance improvements of the nuclear power plants being currently operated and built. The developed Workbench-based framework will also assist end users to apply high-fidelity simulations to inform lower-order models for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14741: Demonstration of a Methodology for Direct Validation of MARMOT Irradiation-Induced Microstructural Evolution and Physical Property Models Using U-10Zr | Texas A&M University | $500,000.00 | The objective of this project is to demonstrate, for the first time, a methodology that enables the direct validation of microstructural evolution models for fuel in MARMOT, and the direct correlation of changes in physical properties with specific irradiation-induced microstructural features. Properly implementing this methodology will result in rapid development of MARMOT mesoscale models. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15520: Accurate and Efficient Parametric Model-Order Reduction for Turbulent Thermal Transport | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000.00 | The project objective is to develop reduced-order models (ROMs) that will improve accuracy of LMR system-level analysis with low overhead. These new models will systematically mine high-fidelity DNS, LES, or uRANS simulations to construct low-order dynamical systems that can couple with a systems analysis code, such as the SAM code being developed under NEAMS. These simulations provide useful data and will be made available to the scientific community, and the overall effort will contribute to more efficient LMR conceptual design studies and licensing. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15484: A Novel High Fidelity Continuous-energy tTansport Tool for Efficient FHR Transient Calculations | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000.00 | The objective of the project is to develop a high-fidelity continuous energy (CE) transport tool for efficient transient calculations in fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactors with prismatic core/fuel assembly design. This will be accomplished by extending the high-fidelity 3-D continuous energy coarse mesh radiation transport (COMET) code with formidable computational speed to solve transient problems in FHRs with accurate thermal hydraulic feedback. The new capability would enable plant system codes to perform analyses necessary to address complex technical design, regulatory, reactor safety, and economic hurdles prior to construction. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15093: Determination of Molecular Structure and Dynamics of Molten Salts by Advanced Neutron and X-ray Scattering Measurements and Computer Modeling | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000.00 | This project will seek detailed knowledge about molecular structure and dynamics of molten salts to inform the design of new molten-salt reactors. A combination of advanced neutron and x-ray scattering and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations will be used to model the ionic-cluster structure of the fluid and solubility of impurities. Machine learning will be applied to regress from simulations and experiments in order to develop the model and predict chemical potentials as a function of composition and temperature. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15171: Oxidation Behavior of Silicon Carbide and Graphitic Materials | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000.00 | The objectives of this project are to determine the oxidation behavior of silicon carbide and graphitic materials in oxygen and/or moisture, to accurately measure the kinetic parameters of oxidation, to ascertain the oxidation mechanisms in relation to the microstructures, to determine the effect of irradiation on oxidation behavior, and to provide data and input to the safety analysis of high-temperature gas reactors under air and moisture ingress accident conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15276: Coping Time and Cost Analysis of Accident Tolerant Plant Design based on Dynamic PRA Methodology | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000.00 | This project will evaluate the failure modes of accident tolerant fuel ATF candidates to understand the different failure characteristics. The research aims to obtain a response surface of coping time by investigating the various uncertainties of accident mitigation in PWR and BWR reactors. These outputs will aid the decision making process on the implementation of ATF and FLEX to existing LWR plants from the perspective of risk reduction and economic feasibility. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15270: Innovative Use of Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) with the RCIC System to Enhance Passive Safety of Commercial LWRs | Texas A&M University | $748,000.00 | The overarching objectives of this project are to: 1) demonstrate new operational strategies with the combined use of Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) and the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) System to increase the passive safety capabilities of current Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs) in delaying or preventing core damage; and 2) pursue the delay of containment venting until after a 72-hour coping period through new BWR Suppression Pool mixing procedures. The research will use both simulation and experimental data to validate the objectives. The work has the potential to increase the ability of existing nuclear power plants to passively respond to beyond design basis events using existing equipment and without changes to the plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15346: Big Data For Operation and Maintenance Cost Reduction | The Ohio State University | $800,000.00 | This project will develop a first-of-a-kind framework for integrating Big Data capability into the daily activities of our current fleet of nuclear power plants. This research will mainly focus on incorporating the wide range of data heterogeneities in nuclear power plants into an integrated Big Data Analytics capability. The primary end product of this work will be a Big Data framework that is capable of dealing with the large volume and heterogeneity of the data found in nuclear power plants to extract timely and valuable information on equipment performance and to enable optimization of plant operation and maintenance based on the extracted information. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15065: in situ Measurement and Validation of Uranium Molten Salt Properties at Operationally Relevant Temperatures | University of Connecticut | $799,979.00 | This project proposes to use advanced spectroscopic and scattering methods to provide information at the atomic and molecular scale. The research will use synchrotron-based x-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy, at operationally relevant temperatures, to measure the local and intermediate structure as well as speciation of chloride fuel salts (NaCl, ZrCl, UCl3) for fast-spectrum applications and fluoride fuel salts ( 7 LiF, UF4) primarily for thermal spectrum applications This approach is expected to generate theories and concepts that would allow models to predict behavior, and develop the means for in situ monitoring. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15058: High-resolution Experiments for Extended LOFC and Steam Ingress Accidents in HTGRs | University of Michigan | $800,000.00 | The objective of this project is to better understand key phenomena in high-temperature gas-cooled reactors relevant to steam ingress and loss of forced circulation (LOFC) accidents. Specifically, the research will: 1) experimentally investigate, using an existing integral-effect test facility with some improvements, the steam-ingress accident caused by a postulated steam generator tube rupture initiating event; 2) carry out integral-effect tests for the extended LOFC accident to study the establishment of global natural circulation flow in the primary loop; 3) design, based on a scaling analysis, and construct a separate-effect test facility to study the complex helium flows in the core and hot plenum during the extended LOFC accident; and 4) perform detailed, high-resolution, separate-effects experiments using the results obtained as boundary/initial conditions. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15471: Integral Experimental Investigation of Radioisotope Retention in Flowing Lead for the Mechanistic Source Term Evaluation of Lead Cooled Fast Reactor | University of New Mexico | $800,000.00 | The purpose of this project is to experimentally investigate the integral effects of radioisotope interactions with liquid lead to support the following technical goals: 1) evaluating the mechanistic source term of the Lead-cooled Fast Reactor (LFR); 2) developing a universal integral effect test methodology for liquid metal source term evaluations; and 3) establishing a basis for the comparison of radioisotope retention between lead and sodium. This aim of the research is to advance the LFR licensing pathway by establishing the phenomenological foundation of the interaction between fission products and liquid lead. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15153: Understanding Molten Salt Chemistry Relevant to Advanced Molten Salt Reactors through Complementary Synthesis, Spectroscopy, and Modeling | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to understand molten salt chemistry relevant to advanced molten salt reactors through complementary synthesis, spectroscopy, and modeling. Through complementary synthetic, spectroscopic, and computational efforts, the aim is to achieve atomistic and molecular-level understanding of liquid structure, coordination geometry, chemical bonding, and reactivity of novel molten salt melts relevant to advanced molten reactor designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15111: Improving Nuclear Power Plant Efficiency Through Data Analytics | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,727.00 | This project aims to develop and provide data analytics solutions to improve nuclear power plan economic efficiency by utilizing empirical models to integrate disparate data sources while providing uncertainty estimates to quantify risk and support decisions. The outcomes will enhance the technical and economic competitiveness by enabling advanced monitoring of critical assets, improving the operating capability of the existing fleet, and helping achieve enhancements in organizational effectiveness. Additionally, the research would provide an agile and modular data analytic framework that would have high commercialization value and supports the industry-wide drive towards digital innovation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14846: Development of Corrosion Resistant Coatings and Liners for Structural Materials for Liquid Fueled Molten Salts Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to develop corrosion-resistant coatings and liners for structural materials for use in fuel dissolved molten salt environment for future Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). Innovative, but industrially scalable, surface cladding approaches are proposed to lead to promising surface and interfacial compositions. The processes themselves are commercial, and have high technology readiness levels, and consequently would facilitate the accelerated developments of MSRs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15280: Advanced Alloy Innovations for Structural Components of Molten Salt Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $796,792.00 | The goal of the proposed research is to develop and evaluate specific advanced metallic alloys for structural components in fluoride salt-cooled molten salt reactors (MSRs). The research will investigate four categories of metallic alloys: advanced Ni-based; radiation damage tolerant high entropy; refractory Mo-based, and compositionally-graded, designed for high-surface corrosion resistance and good bulk strength. Additionally, the propensity for radiation embrittlement, as well as weldability, of the alloys will be evaluated. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-14957: Big Data Analytics Solutions to Improve Nuclear Power Plant Efficiency: Online Monitoring, Visualization, Prognosis, and Maintenance Decision Making | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $797,820.00 | The overarching goal of this project is to significantly advance the ability to assess equipment condition and predict the remaining useful life to support optimal maintenance decision making in nuclear power plants. This research will work toward accomplishing and establishing a modern set of data-driven modeling, online monitoring, visualization, prognosis, and operation decision-making methodologies to address the significant opportunities and challenges arising from the emerging data-rich environment in nuclear plants. The potential impact of the work is significant and transformative and could deliver important advances in productivity with reduced unscheduled downtime and improved equipment performance. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 18-15097: Oxidation Study of High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor TRISO Fuels at Accidental Conditions | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000.00 | This project is to study the oxidation behaviors of TRISO fuels during accidental air and water vapor ingress conditions. The work focuses on the oxidation and burn-off of the graphite fuel matrix and oxidation of the TRISO fuel SiC layer at high-temperature accidental states in the presence of air and/or water vapor. It will include both unirradiated and irradiated graphite fuel matrix and simulated fuel particles with the SiC layer. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2018 |
| NEUP Project 19-16987: Novel miniature creep tester for virgin and neutron irradiated clad alloys with benchmarked multiscale modeling and simulations | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | This project will develop a miniature creep machine to collect rapid thermal creep and load relaxation data for two selected ferritic alloys under "as-received" and irradiated conditions. Fast and accurate measurements of creep deformation are essential for qualifying new alloys for long term use in current and next generation reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17150: Speciation and Behavior of Neptunium and Zirconium in Advanced Separation Process | Oregon State University | $800,000 | This project will further develop the understanding of nuclear fuel reprocessing using Co-Decontamination (CoDCon). Radiolytic degradation products of tributylphosphate, nitric acid, redox buffer, masking agent, and water greatly affect the redox speciation, complexation and partitioning of the recycled metals. Fundamental understanding of chemical speciation and partitioning of Neptunium and Zerconium under such conditions is required. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17395: Modeling and Uncertainty Analysis of MSR Nuclear Material Accounting Methods for Nuclear Safeguards | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | This project will model and analyze the limits of detection for the diversion of nuclear materials from a molten salt reactor (MSR) fuel cycle. MSR depletion under a range of uranium and/or plutonium diversion to quantify the resulting differences in salt composition will be evaluated. Sensors will also be investigated to quantify fuel salt contents and correlate the outputs with the reactor models to predict diversion detection. Results will be coupled with robust uncertainty analysis to determine limits of detection. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16583: Neutron Radiation Effect on Diffusion between Zr (and Zircaloy) and Cr for Accurate Lifetime Prediction of ATF | The Ohio State University | $499,997 | This project will perform systematic diffusion studies on both neutron-irradiated and unirradiated accident tolerant fuel samples to obtain precise diffusion coefficients. This will result in a precise evaluation of the pure neutron irradiation effect on diffusion in these systems and enable accurate life prediction of the accident tolerant fuels. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17381: High Throughput Assessment of Creep Behavior of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Structural Alloys by Nano/microindentation | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $800,000 | This project will develop a high throughput assessment of creep behavior of advanced nuclear reactor structural alloys by nano/microindentation. Experimental datasets will inform polycrystalline deformation models to predict material response over a variety of creep conditions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16549: Thermal Conductivity Measurement of Irradiated Metallic Fuel Using TREAT | University of Pittsburgh | $500,000 | This project intends to provide accurate thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity data with microstructure characterization of metallic (U-Pu-Zr) fuel as a function of burnup and attain fundamental understanding of the thermal conductivity of the irradiated fuel to inform and validate computational models. This will be accomplished using an innovative thermal wave technique in the Transient Reactor Test Facility at the Idaho National Laboratory, with the Minimal Activation Reusable Capsule Holder. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17002: Remote Laser-based Nondestructive Evaluation for Post-Irradiation Examination of ATF Cladding | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | To enable advanced nondestructive characterization techniques for light water reactor fuels that can be applied to the cladding coating, a remote nondestructive evaluation post irradiation inspection approach will be developed. This technique will measure the cladding coating layer thickness and detect defects within the cladding such as corrosion, micro-cracking and delamination. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17276: Radiation-Induced Swelling in Advanced Nuclear Fuel | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,989 | The microstructural evolution of advanced fuel (uranium carbide and uranium nitride) under fission-fragment type radiation has not been studied and remains unclear. This project will utilize advanced synchrotron X-ray characterization using microgram samples to obtain detailed nanoscale information on radiation-induced volumetric swelling and microstrain. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16848: Metal-Functionalized Membranes for Radioiodine Capture | University of Utah | $799,031 | This proposed research will investigate high-surface area (>300 m2/g) metal-functionalized membranes. These novel chemically durable and mechanically robust membranes are formed using an aqueous fabrication process, which results in an interconnected porosity that is highly controllable, providing hierarchical structures ranging from the nano- to micrometer-scales. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17350: Development and Experimental Validation of Pitting and SCC Models for Welded Stainless Steel Dry Storage Containers Exposed to Atmospheric Environments | University of Virginia | $799,027 | The specific goals of this project are to: (a) validate the maximum pit size model for dry storage canister relevant corrosion conditions as well as quantifying the effects of limited cathodic current on stress corrosion cracking (SCC) kinetics, (b) demonstrate a means to quantitatively rank the risk of SCC based on measurable parameters, (c) perform probabilistic predictions of SCC growth, and (d) validate the model predictions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16879: Proactive Hybrid Nuclear with Load Forecasting | Brigham Young University | $799,933 | This project develops new capabilities of design and dispatch optimization of nuclear hybrid energy systems (NHES) in the "Risk Analysis Virtual Environment (RAVEN)" modelling software. Blended (physics-based and data-driven) machine learning will be applied to forecast demand and production of thermal and electrical loads. Two experimental case studies are proposed to test the software developments with a lab-scale thermal energy storage and with a large district energy system. As a final step, the software developments will be generalized to other NHES. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17461: Development and Evaluation of Neutron Thermalization Integral Benchmarks for Advanced Reactor Applications | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | This project will develop integral benchmarks that aim to examine thermal neutron scattering data for graphite (ideal and nuclear), light water, and molten salt. The benchmark evaluations will be contributed to the International Handbook of Evaluated Reactor Physics Benchmark Experiments (IRPhEP) database. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17219: Using Integral Benchmark Experiments to Improve Differential Nuclear Data Evaluations | University of New Mexico | $400,000 | This project will use the results of integral benchmark experiment to inform differential nuclear data evaluations and improve the predictive capability of modeling and simulation (M&S) tools. This goal will be accomplished by developing capabilities to assess the sensitivity of integral benchmark results to evaluated nuclear data parameters, and by using data assimilation tools to directly adjust the evaluated data parameters and improve the accuracy of M&S tools. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16743: Paths Forward for Nuclear Energy: Using a Nationwide Post-Stratified Hierarchical Model to Facilitate Matching of New Nuclear Technologies to Receptive Host Communities | University of Oklahoma | $390,393 | This project will enable deployment of advanced nuclear technologies by developing a model, and an accompanying web-based tool that can be utilized by technology entrepreneurs, that identifies public support for siting new nuclear technologies at very local spatial scales across the US. The model will employ hierarchically structured, post stratified analysis of the largest US pooled-time series dataset on geocoded public support for nuclear technologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16995: A Cyber-Attack Detection Platform for Cyber Security of Digital Instrumentation and Control Systems | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $799,995 | The proposed research will develop a robust cyber-attack detection system (CADS) for monitoring digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems. The project will develop a robust research tool for evaluating cyber defense of digital I&C systems and provide a framework for a cyber-attack detection system that provides continuous assurance of the security of digital I&C systems in nuclear power plants (NPPs). | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17327: Multi-Timescale Nuclear-Renewable Hybrid Energy Systems Operations to Improve Electricity System Resilience, Reliability, and Economic Efficiency | University of Texas at Dallas | $800,000 | The overarching objective of this project is to develop a multi-timescale nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems (N-R HESs) operations framework to provide different types of grid products. The project will model and analyze the capabilities of N-R HESs to provide power grid services at different timescales ranging from seconds to days, such as day-ahead unit commitment, flexible ramping (5-45 minutes), regulation reserves (1-5 minutes), and frequency response (less than seconds). | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17192: The Design and Investigation of Novel Mechanical Filters for Molten Salt Reactors | Abilene Christian University | $762,246 | Researchers will develop a novel mechanical filtration system. The project will include the collection of filter media performance data and filter regeneration performance data for a novel sintered nickel-based filter prototype. The project will also provide a filter design that facilitates remote filter removal, cooling, replacement, and assay of fissile material hold-up in the filter media. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16980: Determining the Effects of Neutron Irradiation on the Structural Integrity of Additively Manufactured Heat Exchangers for Very Small Modular Reactor Applications | Auburn University | $400,000 | Researchers will determine how to best use laser-powder bed fusion additive manufacturing methods for generating radiation-resistant channel/pore-embedded structures from Inconel (alloy 625 or 718) nickel-based superalloys for special purpose reactor (i.e. very small modular reactor) heat exchangers. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17413: Validated, Multi-Scale Molecular Dynamics Simulations to Predict the Thermophysical Properties of Molten Salts Containing Fuel, Fission, and Corrosion Products | Brigham Young University | $798,291 | Researchers will use first principles molecular dynamics (FPMD) simulations on molten salts containing impurities including fuel, fission products, and corrosion products. These will be used to develop a classical molecular dynamics (CMD) potential. CMD will then be used to predict properties for a wide variety of salt compositions and temperatures, and physical property measurements will be performed to validate those predictions. Property correlations will be developed from this data. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17183: Mixing of helium with air in reactor cavities following a pipe break in HTGRs | City College of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will conduct separate effects tests to obtain experimental validation data on mixing of helium and air in reactor building cavities during and after blowdown in HTGRs. Air and helium concentrations, and gas mixture velocity and temperature fields will be measured in simulated reactor cavities. An existing helium flow loop will be used as the source of high pressure/high temperature helium for injection into the cavities and different break configurations will be experimentally investigated. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16391: GuArDIAN: General Active Sensing for conDItion AssessmeNt | Duke University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a dependable, autonomous or semi-autonomous (i.e. low human involvement), and minimally disruptive framework for monitoring equipment and components in nuclear reactors. The project will develop GUARDIAN; a robust active sensing framework through the integration of model-based inference and mobile actuating/sensing robots. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17251: Measuring Mechanical Properties of Select Layers and Layer Interfaces of TRISO Particles via Micromachining and In-Microscope Tensile Testing | Idaho State University | $799,815 | Researchers will characterize the strength of TRISO-coated particle layers and interfaces using FIB micro-machining and in-TEM tensile testing. Tensile test samples from coating layers of (1) unirradiated surrogate (fuel) TRISO particles, (2) unirradiated fueled TRISO particles and (3) irradiated fueled TRISO particles will be studied. Results of this project will both benefit and leverage the AGR Program. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17185: Demonstrating Reactor Autonomous Control Framework using Graphite Exponential Pile | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $400,000 | Researchers will demonstrate a detection-prediction-feedback framework for nuclear system autonomous control. It will adopt multiple detector channels to enable control feedback to spatially dependent perturbations. It will also utilize high-fidelity solutions trained surrogate models for real-time prediction and decision-making. In addition to the method development, the proposal will entail a first-of-a-kind engineering demonstration using the MIT Graphite Exponential Pile (MGEP). | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16754: Simultaneous Corrosion/Irradiation Testing in Lead and Lead-Bismuth Eutectic: The Radiation Decelerated Corrosion Hypothesis | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $762,823 | Researchers will test candidate FeCrSi and F/M alloys in a new, simultaneous corrosion/radiation facility to try to identify an alloy that will satisfy all requirements for Lead Fast Reactor structural materials. Microstructural characterization, mechanical property testing, and corrosion tests, both during irradiation and following ion/He pre-conditioning, will assess how irradiation affects corrosion, potentially slowing it. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17173: Ni-based ODS alloys for Molten Salt Reactors | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | The objective of this work is to (i) propose and develop a new Nickel (Ni) based Oxide Dispersion-Strengthened (ODS) alloy that can be used for structural applications in Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) and other nuclear reactor harsh environments, (ii) to demonstrate that its high temperature mechanical properties are adequate for MSR operating temperatures, (iii) to demonstrate its radiation damage resistance through ion irradiation testing and (iv) to demonstrate its improved corrosion resistance in MSR environment. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17037: Investigation of HTGR Reactor Building Response to a Break in Primary Coolant Boundary | Purdue University | $799,832 | Researchers will perform a series of experiments to simulate HTGR reactor building response due to a break in the primary coolant boundary in a well-scaled test facility to obtain spatial distribution of oxygen concentration, perform analysis of the whole system response with 1-D thermal hydraulics codes and use CFD to make detailed localized predictions. The tests will be carried out with different locations and sizes of the breaks to create various vent and flow paths in the reactor cavity. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17093: Integrating Multi-modal Microscopy Techniques and the MOSAIC Simulation Environment to Assess Changes in the Physical Properties and Chemical Durability of Concrete Following Radiation Exposure | University of California, Los Angeles | $800,000 | Researchers will develop unprecedented multi-modal imaging methodologies that integrate multiple microscopy techniques. The team will develop a generalizable protocol for quantifying the changes in physical properties and chemical durability of concrete and concrete constituents (minerals and aggregates) following radiation exposure. The imaging analyses will be input into the MOSAIC framework to reveal the nature and extent of degradation that is expected to result. The outcomes offer insights that are needed to enable and inform second license renewals. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17167: Atomistically Informed and Experimentally Validated Model for Helium Bubble Growth in Welded Irradiated Metals | University of Florida | $797,861 | Researchers will construct a validated computational model for He bubble growth on grain boundaries in irradiated Fe-Ni-Cr microstructures, including intergranular fracture, as a function of material conditions and welding heat input. This model will be based on the phase-field methodology, leveraging numerical solvers in the MOOSE simulation platform, with critical inputs and validation provided by both atomic-level simulations and experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16909: Learning-based Computational Study of the Thermodynamic, Structural, and Dynamic Properties of Molten Salts at the Atomic and Electronic Scale and Experimental Validations | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will obtain the thermophysical, thermochemical, and transport properties, construct the phase diagrams, and build empirical physical models of molten salts that are relevant to Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) with first-principles accuracy using molecular dynamics simulations driven by machine-learned high-dimensional neural network potentials combined with neutron/X-ray scattering and thermodynamic experimental validations. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16298: I-PRA Decision-Making Algorithm and Computational Platform to Develop Safe and Cost-Effective Strategies for the Deployment of New Technologies | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an integrated probabilistic risk assessment decision-making algorithm to support risk-and-cost-informed decision-making related to the deployment of new technologies. The project will enhance the financial analysis module and the challenging interface of social and technical systems to advance the algorithm. The project will conduct a case study for evaluating the safety impact and cost-effectiveness of FLEX strategies to support operational flexibility. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16802: Evaluation of Semi-Autonomous Passive Control Systems for HTGR Type Special Purpose Reactors | University of Michigan | $400,000 | Researchers will investigate the use of variable flow controllers and a variable reflector as passive or semi-autonomous reactivity control mechanisms for multi-module HTGR type special purpose reactors. This applies to the commercially developed special purpose reactor concepts from HolosGen. The incorporation of these systems will reduce the movable parts count and enable more robust load follow capabilities over broader power ranges and local and global reactivity control. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17467: Understanding the Speciation and Molecular Structure of Molten Salts Using Laboratory and Synchrotron based In Situ Experimental Techniques and Predictive Modeling | University of Nevada, Reno | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a methodology to accurately determine the structure and speciation of the molten salt electrolyte using laboratory-based spectroscopic techniques (Raman and UV-Vis-NIR) and synchrotron-based (scattering and absorption) techniques, in combination with computational modeling. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17231: Prevention of Common Fault-Trigger Combinations for Qualification of Digital Instrumentation and Control Technology | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will provide an effective design evaluation approach based on prevention of concurrent triggering conditions to eliminate common-cause failures (CCF) and enable qualification of digital I&C technology for application in nuclear plant modernization. The research involves classifying commonality among digital devices, categorizing faults and triggering conditions, determining fault-trigger relationships, and defining preventive design measures to resolve the potential for CCF. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17087: Economic Risk-Informed Maintenance Planning and Asset Management | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will provide a holistic framework for cost-minimizing risk-informed maintenance planning, including inspection. They will develop a two-tier framework that coarsely minimizes the total maintenance cost during the remaining normal operating cycle and uses the outputs of the first model to maximize the financial impact of these activities in the short term. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16811: Liquid Metal-cooled Fast Reactor Instrumentation Technology Development | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will explore three different areas that will help to improve commercialization of SFRs and to aid in testing for the VTR. These include: 1. Advancement in understanding of low prandtl number heat transfer 2. Testing of compact heat exchangers for use with sodium 3. Development of in pool submersible flow meters. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16954: Innovative In-Situ Analysis and Quantification of Corrosion and Erosion of 316 Stainless Steel in Molten Chloride Salt Flow Loops | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will use a thin-layer activation technique for the first time in molten salts, on 316H samples placed in natural convection and forced flow loops. The individual and synergistic effects of corrosion, irradiation and thermo-mechanical treatments will be evaluated in-situ to predict component service lifetimes and design limits. The effects of molten chloride flow velocity will also be assessed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-17168: Fuel Salt Sampling and Enriching System Technology Development | Vanderbilt University | $799,989 | Researchers will combine insights from the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment with decades of advancements in applicable technologies into an enhanced Sampler Enricher (SE) concept to develop and test a flexible, reliable, and workable design. The prototype will then be tested in an existing salt loop. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 19-16739: Improvements of Nuclear Data Evaluations for Lead Isotopes in Support of Next Generation Lead-Cooled Fast Systems | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | The objective of this project is to improve the accuracy of neutronics simulation of lead-based systems by improving the nuclear data of lead isotopes. The nuclear data for lead will be reevaluated with emphasis of the intermediate and fast energy regions that are required by reactor applications currently sought by several industrial entities. The deliverables of this project are new lead isotopes evaluations that will be candidates for inclusion in a future Evaluated Nuclear Data Library (ENDF) release. | Document | Nuclear Energy Research and Development | FY2019 |
| NEUP Project 20-19373: Connecting Advanced High-Temperature X-ray and Raman Spectroscopy Structure/Dynamics Insights to High-Throughput Property Measurements | Boston University | $500,000 | Researchers will acquire molten salt structure and dynamics data at high-temperatures using high-energy x-ray techniques and Raman spectroscopy and relate them to their physical and chemical properties. High-throughput techniques will be developed to rapidly measure multiple high-temperature properties at one time. An understanding of the relationship of salt structure and dynamics to its properties will help to select and optimize melt chemistry in molten salt reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19371: Adsorption and Reduction of Uranium in Engineered Barrier Systems: Effects of Iron and Heat | California State University, East Bay | $800,000 | Reseachers will investigate uranium sorption and abiotic reduction processes in iron-rich montmorillonite systems as a function of solution chemistry and temperature. The team will develop a surface complexation model that can account for both uranium adsorption and reduction, and hence reduce the uncertainties associated with uranium mobility in iron-rich environments with engineering barrier systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19831: Optimizing Melt Processed Phosphate Glass Waste Forms via Composition-Property-Structure Correlations | Clemson University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and optimize highly durable and easily processable phosphate-based glass waste forms to immobilize the dehalogenated salt streams by tailoring the composition of the glasses. To complement the work conducted on glass waste forms at the national laboratories sponsored by the DOE-NE program, modified iron phosphate glass waste forms will be prepared and evaluated by the introduction of various glass modifiers (SnF2 and BaO) to the prototype glass compositions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19695: Quantifying radionuclide sorption to engineered barrier materials under elevated temperature and ionic strength conditions | Clemson University | $799,380 | Researchers will characterize actinide sorption to mineral surfaces and examine possible mechanisms of sorption at high temperature/ionic strength through examination of the effects of hydration and hydrolysis on actinide sorption. These data will provide an understanding of radionuclide behavior with engineered barrier materials. A greater understanding of these processes will reduce the uncertainty in strategies for sequestration of radionuclide bearing wastes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19789: Controlling Neptunium and Zirconium in Advanced Extraction Processes | Colorado School of Mines | $599,763 | Researchers will address continuing issues with separating neptunium and zironium in current separation techniques. They will use coupled optical and x-ray specroscopy, small angle scattering, equilibrium thermodynamics and chemical analysis to understand fundamental molecular-level behaviors of extracted Np and Zr. These techniques, using world-class irradiation facilities, will elucidate the specific chemistries underlying the problematic behavior in Np and Zr in radiation fields. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19660: Linear and nonlinear guided ultrasonic waves to characterize cladding of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) | Georgia Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researcherses will perform a combination of linear and nonlinear guided ultrasonic waves, integrated with new material behavior models to develop a non-destructive evaluation (NDE) approach for both quality control/quality assurance and in-service NDE characterization of the cladding integrity and bond strength. Current NDE techniques are effective for uncoated designs, but these coated fuels add new challenges, which will be addressed by this new approach. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19678: Flexible Hard Ceramic Coatings by Ultrasonic Spray Mist-CVD for Dry Storage Canisters of Spent Nuclear Fuel and Waste | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop advanced flexible hard ceramic coatings using ultrasonic spray mist-chemical vapor deposition technique manufacturing process to deposit on dry storage canisters. The team will test resistance to corrosion, heat, wear and hydrogen permeation thgourh microstructural characterization and material property evaluation. The ultimate goal is to enhance the long term reliability of spent nuclear fuel dry storage canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19797: High Throughput Computational Platform for Predictive Modeling of Thermochemical and Thermophysical Properties of Fluoride Molten Salts | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | Researchers will (1) develop an open-source high throughput (H-T) computational platform to understand, predict, and evaluate thermochemical and thermophysical properties of molten salts as demonstrated in the F-(K-Li-Na)-(Cr-Fe)-U system and (2) provide H-T approaches (CALPHAD modeling and AIMD simulations) and open-source codes together with thermodynamic models of molten salts and public-accessible databases verified by targeted experiments for the molten salt research community. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19627: Chemical Interaction and Compatibility of Uranium Nitride with Liquid Pb and Alumina-forming Austenitic Alloys | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | Researcherswill address critical issues with the compatibility and chemcial interations of uranium nitride fuel, alumina-forming austenitic alloys and lead coolants/sublayers. They will obtain critical data of fuel-coolant-cladding interactions and compatibility to evaluate key parameters of operation temperature, fuel impurities and coolant chemistry. This data will provide key operation windows and parameters for deployment of lead-cooled fast reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19924: First-principles free energies by hybrid thermodynamic integration for phase equilibria and fission product solubility in molten salts | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | Researchers will predict phase equilibria and solubility of fission products in molten salts using a novel hybrid framework for thermodynamic integration combining first-principles, molecular dynamics and continuum methods to calculate free energies. They will be benchmarked using Bayesian-targeted calorimetric, in-situ diffraction and spectroscopic experiments. The project will provide microscopic insights and quantitative parameters necessary for reliable thermophysical modeling of molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19939: Gallium Oxide Schottky Diode Detectors for Measurement of Actinide Concentrations from Measured Alpha Activities in Molten Salts | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop and test, to high temperatures, a Schottky diode alpha particle detector that is based on the rapidly emerging ultrawide band gap semiconductor material gallium oxide. Ga2O3 Schottky diode detectors offer the potential of detecting alpha particles at high temperatures, with better resolution than SiC Schottky diode detectors, which the team has previously developed for similar purposes. These detectors could be used in pyrochemical processing streams and molten salt reactors with potential application in other reactor concepts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19966: Evaluating hydroxypyridinone-based ligands for actinide and fission products recovery in used fuels | University of California, Berkeley | $600,000 | Researchers will pursue novel chemical separation approaches for advanced reactor used fuels treatments and recycling, by leveraging the unique actinide and lanthanide coordination properties of hydroxypyridinone-based aqueous chelators. These chelators have not been tested in extreme conditions and this work would test potential process performance with a focus on radiation-induced changes and oxidation state distribution. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19545: Femtosecond Laser Ablation Machining & Examination - Center for Active Materials Processing (FLAME-CAMP) | University of California, Berkeley | $800,000 | Researchers will develop, build, and test a femtosecond laser ablation machining & examination tool that can be deployed in a hot cell environment enabling microscopy sample fabrication, isotope and elemental analysis, and thermal analysis. The technology allows for non-contact materials processing, even through glass windows, potentially preventing contamination of surrounding areas and tools. Such a multi-function tool with high throughput material processing will accelerate the research on fuel and cladding tremendously. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19198: Functionalized clay buffer materials for the long-term sequestration of technetium and iodine | University of Florida | $800,000 | Researcherswill develop synthesize, test, and model novel functionalized clay buffer materials for the long-term sequestration of iodine and technetium. The project will also focus on key experimantal parameters and modeling of how the novel clay buffer material will sequester iodine and technetium species. Novel materials will support DOE's efforts to design improved geologic repository barrier systems and optimize repository performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19209: Investigation on multicomponent solubility in LiCl-KCl eutectic chloride salts using combinatorial approach | University of Idaho | $400,000 | Researchers will perform irradiation experiments to understand how gamma radiation changes trivalent metal ion complex coordination structure and extraction characteristics during the ALSEP process. This work will focus on understanding the types of degradation products that are formed during the extraction process and what effects these degradation products have on process performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19713: Multifunctional Laser Processing for Repair and Mitigation of Pitting and Cracks in Welded Stainless Steel Dry Storage Canisters | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a strategic solution that combines laser cleaning and laser peening for removal of surface contamination and mitigation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in welded stainless steels. Laser cleanning will remove surface contamination and reduce pitting caused by corrosion. Laser peening will then be used to mitigate stress corrosion cracking and provide enhanced corrosion resistance. The portability of the laser system means the system will be able to be deployed in the field. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19188: Single- and Polycrystalline Diamond Electrodes for Spectroelectrochemical Characterization of Various Molten Salts | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | $600,000 | Researchers will develop optically transparent electrodes for spectroelectrochemical measurements in chloride- and fluoride-based radioactive molten salts. The primary electrode material will be boron-doped diamond. Measurements will elucidate important electrochemical properties of nuclear fuel and fission products such as redox potential, diffusion coefficient, and electron transfer stoichiometry. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19641: Mitigating stress corrosion cracking in austenitic stainless-steel canister welds using peening techniques | University of Nevada, Reno | $799,950 | Researchers seek to understand the mechanisms of pitting/SCC resistance of welds as affected by a) compressive stress b) surface texture modification and c) microstructural change in the substrate surface resulting from laser shock peening, shot peening, ultrasonic impact peening and laser surface texturing. The study will recommend the best peening and surface texturing process conditions for mitigation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in 304L welds. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19704: Multicomponent Thermochemistry of Complex Chloride Salts for Sustain-able Fuel Cycle Technologies | University of Pittsburgh | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a comprehensive thermodynamic database of multicomponent chloride salts through a collaboration between experts in Gibbs energy modeling and thermochemical experiments. A thermochemical database of the multicomponent chloride system KCl-LiCl-NaCl-UCl3-LnCl3 (Ln: La, Pr, Nd) will be developed using the CALPHAD (Calculation of Phase Diagrams) method with supported ab initio calculations and thermal analysis experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19506: Engineered composite patch with NDE inspection for repair and mitigation of SCC in nuclear spent fuel dry storage canister | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an innovative 'engineered composite patch' that can absorb moisture, neutralize chloride, and prevent stress corrosion cracking from further growth. This 'patch' with have in integrated non-destructive evaluation capability using laser utrasonic characterization methods to montior quality and performance. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19374: Maintaining and building upon the Halden legacy of In-situ diagnostics | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Researchers will develop innovative instrumentation focusing on temperature and strain measurements to fill the void left by the Halden reactor and to enhance the experimental capabilities in the Transient Reactor Test Facility (TREAT) located at Idaho National Laboratory. The team will develop a fiber optic sensor system that offers an inherent resistance to electromagnetic interference unlike currently used sensors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19076: Investigation of Degradation Mechanisms of Cr-coated Zirconium Alloy Cladding in Reactivity Initiated Accidents (RIA) | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $500,000 | Researchers will investigate the thermal, mechanical, and irradiation response of chromium-coated zirconium alloy claddings under RIA conditions, in comparison to uncoated Zr-alloy cladding. The outcome of the project will be used for anticipated licensing applications to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), thereby accelerating use of coated accident tolerant fuel concepts in U.S. commercial power reactors. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19318: Surface Peening and Hybrid Surface Engineering Approaches to Mitigate Initiation and Resurgence of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Dry Cask Storage Stainless Steel Canisters | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,838 | Researchers will develop and evaluate a wide range of surface peening treatments, as well as hybrid surface treatments to mitigate initiation and growth of chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) in stainless-steel canisters for used nuclear fuel (UNF) dry cask storage. Canister mock-ups with prototypical fusion welds will be used for this study. Characterization and testing of microstructure, compressive stresses, corrosion and CISCC will be performed. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19614: New Coatings for Nuclear Fuel Waste Canister Storage and Transport | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop novel SiOCN(H) coatings for spent nuclear fuel canisters in order to support sustained nuclear reactor operation and safeguard nuclear waste storage, transport, and disposal, in both terrestrial and marine environments. The novel coating will specifically address pitting corrosion and stress corrosion cracking in spent nuclear fuel canisters. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19382: Separated waste stream immobilization of iodine and offgas caustic scrubber solution | Washington State University | $400,000 | Researchers will produce a set of waste forms from separation of iodine from the caustic offgas scrubber solution. The primary caustic scrub containing iodine, halides, and carbonate will be immobilized in a glass-bonded composite of cancrinite/sodalite. The iodine-loaded silver sorbent will be stripped of iodine, converted to NaI, and immobilized into a separate durable glass-bonded iodosodalite waste form. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19912: Validation of Robustness in TCR Design Strategies | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will perform sensitivity analysis (SA) and uncertainty quantification (UQ) of TCR design parameters and relevant physical phenomena, using open-source time dependent Monte-Carlo code (OpenMC), NQA1 qualified commercial codes (STARCCM+), and ABAQUS for thermal-hydraulics and structural mechanics. The SA/UQ analysis will provide key insights to allow for development of performance metrics of robustness for autonomous operation sensors, by processing signals such as neutron flux, temperature and strains, as wll as inform the needed robustness for AI by enveloping the attainable level of decision making by the software. | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 | |
| NEUP Project 20-19216: Creation of Multiple Effect Evaporator and Combined Cycle Modelica Modules, and Optimization of Potable Water Generation from Saltwater Sources | North Carolina State University | $498,532 | Researchers will develop models of Multiple Effect Evaporators and Combined Cycle Gas Turbine systems to be used within the Modelica framework, with an end goal of creating an energy park that can supply its own energy and water through Small Modular Reactor nuclear systems and/or Combined Cycle Gas Turbine Systems with brackish to brine water sources. These same models will be capable of being implemented into larger models of grid independent and near independent energy parks located about military bases, large manufacturing facilities, and in small communities where freshwater is limited. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19590: Benchmark Evaluation of Transient Multi-Physics Experimental Data for Pellet Cladding Mechanical Interactions | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | Researchers will develop an integral benchmark evaluation based on available experimental data from cold ramp tests performed at the Studsvik testing R2 reactor. Transient multiphysics benchmark evaluations are needed to support validation of the NEAMS ToolKit and the VERA suite. This research will focus on pellet cladding interaction and pellet cladding mechanical interaction and their associated events. The benchmark will be prepared for inclusion in the IRPhEP handbook. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19837: Reinforcement Learning Validation Framework for Quality Assurance of AI-guided Additive Manufacturing Digital Platforms | Purdue University | $800,000 | Researchers will address the need to qualify the risk associated with AM fabricated nuclear reactor parts by incorporating a novel rendition of a well-established artificial intelligence learning strategy, the multi-armed bandit reinforcement learning (RL). The RL framework will be developed and demonstrated using TCR data and its associated digital platform. This research will assimilate in-process sensor data and physics-based simulation data to calculate risk measures in the form of failure probabilities for the AM parts. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19363: Integrated Solar & Nuclear Cogeneration of Electricity & Water using the sCO2 Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,427 | Researchers will design and model a renewable, nuclear Integrated Energy System (IES), compatible with the RAVEN/Modelica framework, for co-generation of cost competitive electricity and clean water. The components of the IES to be included are concentrated solar power, the supercritical CO2/sCO2 cyle, multi-effect distillation, and the lead-cooled fast reactor. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19066: Engineering-Informed, Data-Driven Degradation Modeling, Prognostics and Control for Radiation-induced Void Swelling in Reactor Steels | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | Researchers will advance the capability to model, predict and control void swelling in irradiated structural components through developing engineering-informed, advanced data-driven statistical and machine learning techniques. Excess swelling not only leads to dimensional instability, but also can cause severe embrittlement of internal materials. The proposed efforts will ensure more effective regulation, aging management and license renewal. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19795: A High-Fidelity Novel and Fast Multigroup Cross Section Generation Method for Arbitrary Geometry and Spectrum | Georgia Institute of Technology | $600,000 | Researchers will develop a fast high-fidelity multigroup cross section generation method for arbitrary geometry configurations and energy spectra by developing a response-based high order perturbation method to perform hybrid stochastic-deterministic local transport calculations. The proposed method will be implemented as independent modules that can be easily embedded into any neutron transport or diffusion code and also be used as a standalone cross section generator. The modules will provide data that can interface with the associated NEAMS toolkit and workbench user interfaces to enable advanced neutronics tools that will perform high-fidelity multigroup multiphysics steady-state and transient calculations that capture and represent the complex resonance interactions and core environmental effects which exist in heterogeneous reactors, including advanced reactors. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19968: Experimental Investigations and Numerical Modeling of Near-wall and Core Bypass Flows in Pebble Bed Reactors | Texas A&M University | $600,000 | Researchers will establish a highly coordinated, concurrent experimental and computational effort combining high-resolution turbulence simulations (including Nek5000, Star-CCM+) and experiments to deepen physical understanding and address long standing modeling inaccuracies related to near wall and bypass flow effects in pebble bed reactors. The project's acquired extensive database will be used to derive closure models and correlations needed for porous media code, such as Pronghorn. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19864: Development of innovative overlapping-domain coupling between SAM and NEK5000 | University of Michigan | $400,000 | Researchers will develop a robust, multi-scale coupling scheme between the SAM code and the CFD code, NEK5000, based on a novel overlapping domain approach. The developed coupling will be validated by using experiments specifically designed for the validation of multi-scale coupled codes. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-20074: Characterization of Plenum to Plenum Natural Circulation flows in a High Temperature Gas Reactor (HTGR) | CUNY, City College of New York | $800,000 | Researchers will obtain and provide experimental data on the plenum-to-plenum natural circulation flows in a typical high temperature gas reactor using helium and nitrogen over a wide range of temperatures and pressures to simulate natural circulation under both pressurized and depressurized conduction cooldown scenarios. The results of the project will yield new data and complement other very high temperature related studies. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19042: Flexible Siting Criteria and Staff Minimization for Micro-Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $440,517 | Researchers will develop siting criteria that are tailored to micro-reactors deployable in densely-populated areas by comparing the characteristics of the MIT research reactor with those of leading micro-reactor concepts, and evaluate whether and how the MIT research reactor design basis and associated regulations are applicable to micro-reactors. A model of operations for micro-reactors that would minimize the staffing requirements will also be conceptualized. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-20045: Highly Compact Steam Generators for Improved Economics of Small Modular Reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will design and build a compact steam generator (CSG) test section that can be easily modified for different flow paths and geometries, as well as modify an existing loop to accept the test section. The conceptual optimized CSG system design, which could be deployed in small modular reactors, will be informed by CFD simulations to determine critical characteristics of the test section. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19205: Robust bullet-time tagging and tracking system based on computer vision for individual ex-core TRISO-fueled pebble identification | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a novel, validated, robust bullet-time tagging and tracking system, based on computer vision techniques, to tag and track each individual pebble in pebble bed reactors. The effort will utilize Residence Time Distribution and Radioactive Particle Tracking techniques to validate and refine the developed method, using a continuous cold flow pebble bed experimental setup. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19625: Corrosion Sensitivity of Stainless Steels in Pressurized Water Reactor Water Chemistry: Can KOH replace LiOH in PWRs? | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | Researchers will perform a series of corrosion and stress corrosion tests on unirradiated alloys to determine the possibility of switching from LiOH to KOH to control the pH in nuclear reactors without worsening the corrosion behavior of the structural alloys used in pressurized water reactor core internal components. The impacts of such a change and the consequent water chemistry alterations on the corrosion processes and nucleaer power plant core-internal component service-life will be assessed and better understood. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19735: Experiments for Modeling and Validation of Liquid-Metal Heat Pipe Simulation Tools for Micro-Reactor | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Researchers will produce validation data for the heat pipe code, Sockeye, by measuring the internal thermal-hydraulic parameters of a single-heat pipe and the performance of an integrated multi-heat-pipe system in various operation scenarios. The results of this project will generate more liquid metal heat pipe validation data, which is currently lacking and needed to support micro-reactor design and licensing activities. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19367: Investigation of Novel Nickel-Based Alloys for Molten Chloride Fast Reactor Structural Applications | University of Cincinnati | $800,000 | Researchers will investigate and establish the scientific foundations for the development of promising Ni-Mo-W-Cr-Al-X alloys with a superior balance of properties compared to current materials for high temperature structural applications in molten chloride salt fast reactors. The project couples critical experiments with a high-value integrated computational materials engineering approach. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19693: Evaluation of micro-reactor requirements and performance in an existing well-characterized micro-grid | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will evaluate the opportunities and challenges of operating micro-reactors in decentralized power generation applications and the potential for deployment in established micro-grids with diverse power generation sources. By using a well-characterized prototypic environment platform, the Modelica-based Hybrid Energy System, the market potential for deployment of micro-reactors on campuses and other similar existing micro-grids will be quantified. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19195: The effect of LWR primary coolant water chemistry (LiOH vs. KOH) on stainless steel: An integrated experimental and computational study of the corrosion response of stainless steel for different surface microstructures and mechanica | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | Researchers will study the effect of surface microstructure, mechanical stress factors, and radiation damage on the corrosion response of stainless steel under two different alkaline pressurized water reactor primary water chemistry conditions. The project will involve investigation of mechanical stress factors such as strain rate, residual stress, deformation induced persistent slip bands, dpa damage, and fatigue cracks and modeling to understand the physical phenomena associated with the measured corrosion response and inform the U.S. nuclear industry regarding KOH. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19491: Identifying and prioritizing sources of uncertainty in external hazard probabilistic risk assessments | University of Maryland, College Park | $799,979 | Researchers will develop a method for identifying and prioritizing sources of uncertainty in external hazard probabilistic risk assessment for nuclear power plants, with particular emphasis on uncertainties associated with hazard characterization. External flooding wil be utilized as the demonstration hazard during this project, while a common taxonomy for communicating uncertainties across a broad range of external hazards will be created. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19737: Innovative Enhanced Automation Control Strategies for Multi-unit SMRs | University of Michigan | $800,000 | Researchers will develop an innovative, enhanced automation control framework for small modular reactors (SMRs) that supports control of multiple units operating in a variety of reactor core conditions. Through these enhancements, SMR technology gains improved marketability through potential deployment to a broader range of markets and can also lead to reduced operating and maintenance costs for a SMR site, increasing the overall profitability. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19954: Deployment Pathways of Small Modular Reactors in Electric Power, Industrial, and Other Niche Markets to Achieve Cost Reductions and Widespread Use | University of Michigan | $691,658 | Researchers will explore how to leverage two key value propositions for small modular reactors (SMR) in shifting market conditions, in order to achieve widespread market deployment: (1) participation in small and large power and industrial markets and (2) cost reductions via mass fabrication. The result of this work will be advanced power system modeling, optimized SMR design with thermal storage for power and industry markets, and new SMR deployment pathways. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19752: Development and Demonstration of Scalable Fluoride Salt Pump Seals and Bearings for FHRs | University of New Mexico | $800,000 | Researchers will develop and demonstrate scalable advanced bearings and seals of fluoride salt pumps for fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactors. The systematic approach to be used will employ both experimental and numerical methods to investigate the static and dynamic performance of fluoride-salt-lubricated bearings and high-temperature seals. The outcomes of this research will directly contribute to the reliability, safety, design, and operation of the fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactor power plants. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19544: A Holistic Artificial Intelligence Tool to Mitigate Human Factor Uncertainty in Operation and Maintenance | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a holistic artificial intelligence tool to help the detection and mitigation of human factors errors in nuclear power plants. The tool will increase the efficiency of various activities such as testing, inspection, data collection, and interpretation, improve operation and maintenance decision-making, and reduce costs in nuclear power plants by minimizing the impact of human factors errors and providing warnings to mitigate them, when possible. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19524: Non-Intrusive Flow Monitoring for Liquid Metal and Molten Salt Cooled Reactors | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | Researchers will develop a first-of-its kind flow monitoring system with significantly enhanced capabilities for liquid metal fast reactors and other advanced reactors, such as molten salt reactors. The flow monitoring system will involve a proven and breakthrough fiber optic sensing technology that enables the harmonic-free interrogation of thousands of grating-based distributed interferometers along an optical fiber that is integrated into a sensing pad that can readily be installed at desired locations in the flow loop. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 20-19671: Identifying Needed Fire Input Data to Reduce Modeling Uncertainty | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $799,393 | Researchers will identify fire parameters that have the largest impact on fire conditions, quantify those parameters contributing to uncertainties in the fire data through Monte Carlo simulation results, and use statistical analysis and machine learning models from the simulation results to assess existing data and recommend appropriate new fire tests to reduce uncertainties that are important to risk. With this information, researchers will develop a framework capable of determining the significant contributors to uncertainty in physical events that are relevant to the risk assessment and, then, determine the need for new experiments that would be of most value to reduce risk. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2020 |
| NEUP Project 21-24394: Computer vision and machine learning for microstructural qualification | Carnegie Mellon University | $497,518 | Quantifying and understanding microstructure is a key driver for performance-based materials qualification. In this proposal, well-curated data sets of microstructural images will be gathered and computer vision and machine learning will be applied to build quantitative deep learning frameworks to accelerate and enable qualification of nuclear materials based on microstructural features. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24156: Experimental thermofluidic validation of TCR fuel elements using distributed temperature and flow sensing | Kansas State University | $798,250 | The overall goal of this project will be to test the performance of 3D printed Transformational Challenge Reactor core geometry parts using existing Helium flow loops and distributed temperature, and velocity sensing systems. Thermal transport capabilities of scaled 3D printed ceramic core will be evaluated experimentally and measurements will be used to qualify computational models. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24636: Risk-informed Consequence-driven Physical Protection System Optimization for Microreactor Sites | Texas A&M University | $400,000 | This proposed project will utilize a risk-informed, consequence-driven analysis to develop an approach for "right-sizing" physical protection systems (PPS) for microreactors. The hypothesis presented for this proposal is that the explicit coupling of consequence modeling to PPS design will provide a similar benefit that can be applied prior to reactor construction. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24131: Total Mass Accounting in Advanced Liquid Fueled Reactors | The Ohio State University | $400,000 | A total mass determination method for nuclear materials accounting (NMA) in liquid-fueled molten salt reactors will be validated with fuel-bearing salt, mixed with a _+ radioisotope of known activity, that will be irradiated to reproduce the practical NMA scenario in a molten salt loop. Irradiated fuel salt will be sampled and measured for its mass and activity. The mass-to-activity ratio will be used to calculate the unknown salt mass in the original container. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24037: Design and intelligent optimization of the thermal storage and energy distribution for the TerraPower Molten Chloride Fast Reactor in an Integrated Energy System (IES) | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to explore the application of advanced reactors within Integrated Energy Systems, use extensive existing data from UIUC for model development and validation, and extend the predictions to larger grids and commercial applications. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24522: Targeted Materials Characterization and Testing of Additively Manufactured Metals and Ceramics to Inform Print/Build Data Analytics | University of Texas at San Antonio | $800,000 | A collaborative program between the University of Texas at San Antonio and Boise State University is proposed to supply materials testing and characterization data sets to be leveraged by the TCR program to inform build/print data analytics. With the data provided by the proposing team, correlations among steam oxidation performance, micromechanical properties, chemical composition, local microstructure, and location specific print/build data will be achieved. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24431: Location-specific material characterization of LPBF SS316L & IN718 TCR core structural materials | Utah State University | $800,000 | In this proposed work, we will experimentally characterize the spatial variability of the quasi-static (tensile), creep (strength and impression), and creep-fatigue properties as well as the underlying structures (microstructure and defect structures) for LPBF SS316L and IN718 components to be used as training data to the TCR program data-driven model. The resulting correlation will be used to drive the design process for an application as TCR core structural materials. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23978: Rapid, Non-Radioactive Methods for Prediction and Quantification of Radiolytic Radical Decomposition Products in Nuclear Separations | Clemson University | $399,999 | High-throughput, non-radioactive, radical assays will be used to determine decomposition of monoamide separations complexants. Radical assay results will be correlated with classic radiolytic damage results to develop predictive models for screening complexant stability. These models will aid in single-stage separations complexant optimization, in the transition from lab- to industrial-scale nuclear waste separations and, ultimately, could yield field tests for radiolytic damage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24350: Phosphate Mineral and Glass Waste Forms for Advanced Immobilization of Chloride and Fluoride-based Waste Streams | Clemson University | $600,000 | This proposal is intended to develop three waste form options for immobilizing the fluoride- and chloride-salt waste stream in highly durable and easily processable phosphate minerals and glasses, including phosphate apatite ceramic waste forms, phosphate glass waste forms, and phosphate glass-ceramic waste forms with apatite phase. Multiple monolithic waste form samples will be provided to DOE national laboratories for further testing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24292: Passive multimodal tomography for dry storage casks imaging using passive neutron and gamma dosimetry and cosmic ray muons | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | A method for multimodal tomography of dry storage casks will be developed to determine fuel relocation and cladding failures using passive neutrons and gamma emissions in combination with cosmic ray muons. The use of multimodal imaging will allow 3-D reconstructions of the dry storage cask that would be unachievable with any single radiation source. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24374: Effects of Radiolysis on Pertechnetate under Solvent Extraction Conditions, including Tri-Butyl Phosphate | CUNY, Hunter College | $399,624 | The overarching objective of the proposed work is to assess the impact of radiolysis on pertechnetate speciation during tri-butylphosphate (TBP) solvent extractions from the molecular level to macroscale. The research in this project is designed to understand the interplay of radiolysis, degradation product formation, other important redox active metals, and oxidation states of technetium on its speciation and distribution coefficients in solvent extraction processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24183: Experimental investigation and development of models and correlations for cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena in transient conditions in support of TREAT and the LWR fleet. | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | Thermal-hydraulics transient heat transfer phenomena of relevance for the safety and the operation of the TREAT and light water reactors will be investigated. The performance of accident tolerant fuel materials during a reactivity initiated accident scenario and post-critical heat flux and reflood scenarios will be elucidated, as well as the development of models and correlations to be integrated into computational tools for the design and safety analysis of nuclear systems. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24666: Wireless Multifunctional Ultrasonic Arrays with Interdigital and Airborne Transducers for Monitoring Leakage and Corrosion Conditions of Welded Dry Storage Canisters | Mississippi State University | $800,000 | This project aims to develop and validate wireless, multifunctional, ultrasonic sensor arrays that enable on-demand, quantitative interrogation and real-time monitoring of both the canister leakage indicators (helium, helium/air mixture, internal pressure, and temperature) and corrosion conditions (free and/or vapor water). The developed arrays will be fully functional, wirelessly powered and communicated, and compact. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24188: Uranium recovery from used nuclear fuel using metal sulfides | Northwestern University | $400,000 | An alternative and original method to recover uranium from spent fuel is proposed. This method will utilize a new type of regenerable sorbent materials with high selectivity in capturing uranium from complex mixtures in acidic solutions, such as those found in used nuclear fuel of high-assay low-enriched uranium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24225: Characterizing Fuel Response and Quantifying Coolable Geometry of High-Burnup Fuel | Oregon State University | $800,000 | This study seeks to objectively determine, through empirical and numerical means, the actual impact of fuel dispersion in-core after fuel failure and whether high burnup dispersed fuel compromises coolable geometry and long-term cooling. The outcome of this study will yield an objective means of assessing two criteria (coolable geometry and long-term cooling) within the existing regulatory process to comprehensively understand whether it is feasible to increase burnup, while satisfying 10 CFR 50.46. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24288: Innovative Methods for Interrogation of DSC Internal Conditions | Oregon State University | $800,000 | The proposed work takes a two-pronged approach. The team will study techniques involving only external sensors and equipment, which could be deployed on existing dry storage canisters. In addition, small sensors located inside the canister that can be externally powered and read through the canister wall will also be investigated. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24439: Development of Novel Corrosion-Responsive Buffer Materials for Long-Term Immobilization of High-Level Nuclear Waste | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to develop a novel cementitious buffer material (CBM) for the safe disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF). The primary aim is to identify and characterize novel Mg-Al-P CBMs, complete with assessments of their repository stability as well as their transport and immobilization of radionuclides. The secondary aim is to use in-situ UT-EIS monitoring to understand the corrosive failure at the canister-CBM interface and provide long-term performance modeling of SNF packages. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24461: Estimation of low temperature cladding failures during an RIA transient | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Researchers aim to create a multiphysics description of cladding response during a RIA, especially at high burnup, coupling reactor physics, thermal hydraulics and mechanics. The creation of a thermomechanical model in Bison will be the result of this project which can be used to evaluate the likelihood of low temperature cladding failures during a postulated RIA on a typical fuel rod (as these can lead to channel blockage), and thus identify the most important conditions to be studied at TREAT. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24460: Multiscale Modeling and Experiments for Investigating High Burnup LWR Fuel Rod Behavior Under Normal and Transient Conditions | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | The main objective of this work is to achieve a mechanistic understanding of and to develop a predictive model for the fuel rod behavior at high burn-up under both normal and transient conditions. Therefore, this study will provide the nuclear industry with validated, physics-based criteria to fuel fragmentation thresholds and rod mechanical integrity limits. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24388: Redox Chemistry of UO2 under Repository Relevant Conditions in the Presence of Zircaloy and Waste Canister Material | University of California, Irvine | $800,000 | This project will seek to improve understanding of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) corrosion. Hydrothermal experiments of SNF with cladding and waste canister material will give insights into the redox potential formed due to secondary phase formation as consequence of corrosion in a failed canister. The experimentally derived data about secondary phase formation will be utilized for phase relationship analysis to decipher the redox conditions and thus provide source term for performance assessment models of deep geologic repositories. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24006: High-fidelity modeling of fuel-to-coolant thermomechanical transport behaviors under transient conditions | University of Florida | $800,000 | The objective of the proposal is to develop a high-fidelity modeling tool that can capture some of the important phenomena in high burnup UO2 and ATF fuels during transient conditions. The BlueCRAB tool set will be improved and used to analyze TREAT loss of coolant accident experimental results. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24312: Accelerating the development of reliable and robust machine learning-based interatomic potentials for the prediction of molten salt structure and properties | University of Massachusetts Lowell | $400,000 | Machine learning-based interatomic potentials (MLIPs) used in molecular dynamics (MD) can accurately and efficiently predict molten salt properties. However many machine learning-based methods require large training sets, and can fail unpredictably. This project will overcome these challenges by developing a method for efficiently sampling diverse configurations from MD to train reliable and robust neural network potentials, and develop new models for predicting errors in MLIPs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24697: Dual External Leak Sensing and Monitoring for Dry Storage Canister | University of Nebraska, Lincoln | $800,000 | Researchers aim to develop two complementary external sensing methods to evaluate the integrity of DSC through internal pressure monitoring and helium leakage detection. The proposed diffuse ultrasonic wave method will be able to measure biaxial strains in the canister wall with high sensitivity and minimum temperature effects. An innovative capacitance MEMS sensor will be developed for helium concentration measurement in air based on the extremely low permittivity of helium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24449: Multi-modal Surface Acoustic Wave Sensing System for Pressure and Temperature monitoring of Spent Fuel Canisters | University of North Texas | $800,000 | University of North Texas (UNT) will collaborate with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to develop a multi-modal wireless passive SAW (Surface Acoustic Wave) sensor array, which are deployed on the outside surface of the canister, to monitor the strain of the canister and thus determine the inside pressure. In addition, the SAW strain sensor could also measure the surface temperature and potentially monitor helium gas leak. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24265: Fragmentation and Thermal Energy Transport of Cr-doped Fuels under Transient Conditions | University of Pittsburgh | $799,999 | This project will focus on multiple aspects of experimental testing and engineering-scale modeling in understanding thermal energy transport from high burnup, fractured/fragmented accident tolerant fuels, establishing a strong scientific basis to fill a critical knowledge data gap for modeling and simulation of transient fuel performance and safety, such as loss of coolant accident, for future integral testing and fuel licensing. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24310: Fusion of Distributed Fiber Optics, Acoustic NDE, and Physics-Based AI for Spent Fuel Monitoring | University of Pittsburgh | $800,000 | The proposal will leverage new concepts in the fusion between fiber optic distributed acoustic sensing and advanced acoustic nondestructive evaluation techniques with artificial intelligence enhanced classification frameworks to quantitatively characterize the state of dry cask storage containers for spent fuel monitoring, externally and non-invasively, without introducing additional risks of failure. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24261: Internal Wireless Sensors for Dry Cask Storage | University of South Carolina | $800,000 | The effort will test the reliability of wireless, internal sensors after exposure to drying and storage conditions. These sensors are used to internally monitor temperature, pressure, and dose. Radiation shielding will also be designed to protect sensors during long-term storage. The effort will develop piezoelectric techniques for miniaturization of optical emission spectroscopy for internal monitoring of gas composition during drying and long-term storage. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24533: Non-destructive Evaluation of Dry Storage Canisters Using Acoustic Sensing | University of Southern California | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to develop a robust non-destructive evaluation (NDE) technique based on acoustic sensing to detect impurity gases in a sealed (welded) dry storage canister (DSC) using only measurements collected on the external surface of the DSC. The method is based on the time-of-flight analysis of acoustic signals propagating through the fill gas of a DSC, which is influenced by the composition, density and temperature of the propagation medium. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23984: Safety Implications of High Burnup Fuel for a 2-Year PWR Fuel Cycle | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | The objective of this project is to perform safety analysis of high burnup fuel for a Westinghouse 4-Loop Pressurized Water Reactor. The work aims to identify potential opportunities and gaps for high burnup fuel by utilizing both well-established and modern methodologies to model reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, and plant system-level response that ultimately provide feedback to fuel performance analysis. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23985: Fuel-to-Coolant Thermomechanical Behaviors Under Transient Conditions | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This project will enhance the prediction of thermo-mechanical fuel-to-coolant heat transfer under transient conditions by using a coupled analysis and experiment approach. The effort is relevant to both high-burnup (> 62GWd/t) fuel applications and Accident Tolerant Fuel. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24070: Modeling high-burnup LWR fuel behavior under normal operating and transient conditions | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $800,000 | This project aims to develop a high-burnup light water reactor fuel modeling capability to implement in the BISON code that would enable the accurate fuel rod behavior simulation during normal operation and design basis accidents, as wells as the identification of the rod life-limiting factors. Mechanistic engineering models will be developed for key phenomena, in particular, high burnup structure evolution, fuel fragmentation, and fission gas release. Traditional and accident tolerant fuels will be considered. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24033: Redox Chemistry in Nuclear Materials Storage Matrices under Ambient and Accelerated Aging Conditions | University of Washington | $800,000 | Deep geologic repositories must safely contain hazardous, high-activity nuclear wastes at geologic time-scales. However, such capability is centrally dependent on the element-specific redox chemistry within and at the interface of storage vessels. A comprehensive study of redox chemistry in cements used in long-term storage is proposed and emphasizes: 1) the actual consequences of accelerated aging modalities and 2) the novel use of newly available capabilities in advanced x-ray spectroscopies. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24063: Post-DNB Thermo-mechanical Behavior of Near-term ATF Designs in Simulated Transient Conditions | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | The goals of the proposed research are to conduct coupled experimental and modeling investigations of thermo-mechanical performance of coated accident tolerant zirconium alloy claddings with simulated burnup doped fuels under thermal transients to predict complex thermal and mass transport phenomena of near-term Accident Tolerant Fuel designs in accident conditions. Experiments and modeling for understanding both cladding-coolant and fuel-coolant interactions will be performed. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24582: Machine-Learning-Accelerated Molecular Dynamics Approaches for Molten Salts | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $399,477 | New machine learning potential (MLP) approaches and new MLPs to enable rapid prediction of molten salt (FLiBe and Nal-MgCl2 with impurities) properties with near ab initio quantum mechanical accuracy will be developed. Uncertainty quantification with active learning and on-the-fly fitting will greatly accelerate MLP training. This work will support dramatically increased simulation speeds and associated data generation and understanding for molten salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24067: Development of Full Understanding of Mechanical-Chemical Coupling in Bentonite THMC processes | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $800,000 | The central hypothesis is that mechanical stress in an engineered barrier can lead to pressure solution of solid minerals, leading to significant changes in pore water chemistry, which affects bentonite stability, longevity of the waste pack, and dissolution and migration of nuclides. The overall objective of this project is to develop full understanding of the role of pressure solution on pore water chemistry, the implications to large-scale heterogeneity, and THMC processes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23987: Separate and Multi-Physics Effects IRPhEP Benchmark Evaluation using SNAP Experiments | Georgia Institute of Technology | $400,000 | The proposed project will develop an International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) mulitphysics microreactor benchmark evaluation based on data from the Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power (SNAP) program. This work will include systematic assessments of the experimental data with meticulous compilation and documentation, and validation of specific NEAMS tools to model effects that are unique to microreactors technologies. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24630: Integral Benchmark Evaluation of Zero-Power Tests and Multi-Cycle Depletion Experimental Data of TVA WB1 Cycles 1-3 | North Carolina State University | $400,000 | This project proposes to develop an integral benchmark evaluation of available experimental data for zero-power tests and multi-cycle depletion for consistent and comprehensive validation of both novel high-fidelity and traditional multi-physics tools. The benchmark evaluation will be based on operational and measured data from the Pressurized Water Reactor Watts Bar Unit 1 released by Tennessee Valley Authority. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24186: Regenerating Missing Experimental Parameters with Data-Assimilation Methods for MSRE Transient Benchmark Development and Evaluation | Virginia Commonwealth University | $400,000 | The proposed project will regenerate the undocumented basic data from available experimental data of the MSRE using advanced data-assimilation methods to facilitate the whole-loop modeling of the representative MSRE transients, and perform a thorough MSRE transient benchmark evaluation for the IRPhEP handbook. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24194: Implementation of improved quasi-static, time-dependent, multi-physics methodology in Shift | Georgia Institute of Technology | $600,000 | A practical reference calculation route for time-dependent coupled Monte Carlo calculations, using Shift, will be developed. The proposed framework will be tailored to depletion and slowly varying transients, but with the flexibility to perform thermal-hydraulic time-dependent calculations with minimal computational overheads. This method relies on a hybrid-resolution stochastic approach in conjunction with a substep technique. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24078: Material transport model development and integration in the System Analysis Module (SAM) code | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $400,000 | This project proposes to develop and implement models for System Analysis Module, which accurately characterize the sink, source, and interaction terms of key material species that are or may be present in various advanced reactor designs. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24195: Enhancing Yellowjacket for Modeling the Impact of Radiation and Stress on the Corrosion of Molten-Salt-Facing Structural Components | University of Florida | $692,088 | The objective of this project is to add the capability to model the impact of radiation and stress on corrosion to the Yellowjacket code, as well as to use Yellowjacket to create surrogate models that will be added to engineering-scale codes like Grizzly. We will also collect new experimental data for validation that quantifies the impact of stress and radiation on corrosion of 316 stainless steel in molten fluoride salts. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24405: Development of a High-fidelity Flow Boiling Database for Validation of High-void-fraction Flow Regime Models | University of Michigan | $800,000 | The primary objective of this proposed research is to develop a comprehensive, high-resolution, multiphase computational fluid dynamics validation-grade flow boiling data from rod bundle geometry simulating current light water reactor fuel designs by taking advantage of the instrumentation and facility developed by the research team. In addition, the applicability of the data through initial evaluations of selected test cases using Nek-2P boiling closure models will be studied and demonstrated for two-phase flow simulations. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24471: Technical Basis of Microstructure Criteria and Accelerated Testing for Qualifying Additively-manufactured 316H Stainless Steel for High-temperature Cyclic Service | Auburn University | $800,000 | This project seeks to reveal the fundamental relationship for AM 316H SS working at 500-750 _C between additively-manufactured microstructures and creep/creep-fatigue properties through a multiscale experimental and modeling approach. The project also seeks to establish the technical basis for the microstructure criteria and accelerated testing method to support near-term nuclear qualification. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24152: Direct heating of chemical catalysts for hydrogen and fertilizer production using Microreactors | Kansas State University | $799,202 | This proposal presents a novel integration approach to deliver process heat from microreactors by directly heating the catalyst particles from the primary heat transfer fluid in a moving packed bed heat exchanger (MPBHX). In this design, the tube side of the MPBHX can be a heat pipe or primary Helium coolant as in several microreactor designs. The shell side will be moving catalyst particles, which will enter the high temperature chemical reactor upon heating. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24287: Investigating heat transfer in horizontally oriented HTGR under normal and PCC conditions | Kansas State University | $799,762 | Experimental research will be conducted to understand heat transfer inside the graphite matrix of horizontal microscale High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors. Existing high temperature test facilities will be used to simulate normal operation and Pressurized Conduction Cooldown. The focus of these experiments is to generate benchmark data under forced and natural convection with coupled multi-mode heat transfer in scaled-down prismatic blocks. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24104: Thermal Hydraulics Investigation of Horizontally Orientated Layout Micro HTGRs Under Normal Operation and PCC Conditions Using Integrated Advanced Measurement Techniques | Missouri University of Science and Technology | $800,000 | The proposed novel work will make a significant pioneering contribution to advance the knowledge and understanding of horizontal micro-high temperature gas cooled reactors. Quantification of metrics will pertain to convective heat transfer coefficients along the channel and gaps, comparative rates of convective and radiative heat transfer, location of peak temperature and its temporal variation, timescales for onset of natural convection, local gas velocity profiles, gas dispersion, crossflows, and temperature profiles over channel diameter and gap thickness. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24004: An Open Source, Parallel, and Distributed Web-Based Probabilistic Risk Assessment Platform to Support Real Time Nuclear Power Plant Risk-Informed Operational Decisions | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | The main objective of the proposed work is to develop, demonstrate, and evaluate a probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) software platform needed to address the major challenges of the current legacy PRA tools. This includes better quantification speed, integration of multi-hazard models into traditional PRAs, and model modification/simplification and documentation automation. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24228: Quantifying the Dynamic and Static Porosity/Microstructure Characteristics of Irradiated Graphite through Multi-technique Experiments and Mesoscale Modeling | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | This project proposes a joint experimental-computational approach to probe and quantify the porosity and microstructure characteristics of irradiated nuclear graphite grades and their influence on dimensional changes and turnaround behavior, as well as mechanical properties. The chief focus will be on quantifying both the static and dynamic porosity and crack characteristics in various graphitic phases through several experimental techniques. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24247: Multi-scale Effects of Irradiation Damage on Nuclear Graphite Properties | Pennsylvania State University | $800,000 | Irradiation induces microstructural damage in graphite, causing both dimensional and property (stiffness, strength and creep) changes as a function of the displacement damage and temperature. The biggest gap remains is the fundamental deformation mechanisms behind the property changes. Researchers propose to eliminate this gap in knowledge with a comprehensive, multi-scale experimental framework exploiting in-situ transmission electron and X-ray computed tomography. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-23975: Development of Thermal Power Dispatch Simulation Tools for BWR Flexible Plant Operation and Generation | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $800,000 | In the U.S. domestic light water reactor fleet, about one-third of operational nuclear power reactors are boiling water reactors (BWRs). Thermal power extraction technologies to be designed for BWRs will be different from those for pressurized water reactors due to differences in steam generation. This study proposes to investigate the thermal and electric power dispatch and required control algorithms for dynamic heat dispatch of up to 50% of the thermal energy from a BWR plant to a hydrogen plant. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24111: Experimental Investigations of HTGR Fission Product Transport in Separate-effect Test Facilities Under Prototypical Conditions for Depressurization and Water-ingress Accidents | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Experimental investigations will be performed for fission product (FP) lift-off, washoff, vaporization from plateout surfaces, and transport of FP at prototypical conditions representing depressurization and water-ingress accidents. Measurements will be performed on existing separate-effect facilities using intrusive and non-intrusive techniques to obtain shear stress, deposition velocity, thermal gradient, and gas impurity for advanced correlations. Modeling will be performed using system and computational fluid dynamics codes. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24644: High-Resolution Measurements and Advanced Modeling for Design Optimization of Advanced Small Modular Reactor Steam Generators | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | Experiments and simulations will be performed to acquire multi-parameters of pressure drop, heat and mass transfer, and flow-induced vibration (FIV) effect for the design optimization of advanced small modular reactor steam generators (SMR SG). Measurements are performed on existing SMR SG facilities using intrusive/non-intrusive techniques to obtain velocity, temperature, pressure, heat flux, and FIV effects for various geo-dimensions, spacing, pitch angles. Simulations will be performed in StarCCM, Nek5000 and coupling with Diablo_ | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24332: A Virtual Reality Environment for Human Reliability Assessment in the Context of Physical Security Attacks | The Ohio State University | $800,000 | Recent studies have shown that the physical security workforce accounts for 20% of the entire workforce and, therefore, is responsible for significant operational and maintence costs. To reduce the security staffing, improve performance and reduce threats, modeling and simulation and models of attacker, defender and operator behavior could be employed. This proposal aims to model human behavior using a combination of known human reliability analyses models and experimental evidence from virtual reality experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24389: High Temperature Electromagnetic Acoustic (EMAT) Transducers for Structural Health Monitoring | University of Cincinnati | $800,000 | The aim of this project is to produce an electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT) technology to enable ultrasonic structural health monitoring at the METL facility and similar high temperature assets. Ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation methods can be used for monitoring a range of damage mechanisms including thermal fatigue and corrosion. The project will seek to establish core design solutions that can be used as the basis of a range of EMAT designs for different applications. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24380: Probabilistic Validation and Risk Importance Ranking Methodology for Automation Trustworthiness and Transparency in Nuclear Power Plants | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $800,000 | This project develops a methodology to improve trustworthiness and transparency of automation technologies in nuclear power plants. The proposed methodology will monitor risk emerging from automation processes and rank the criticality of automation factors influencing automation output, plant equipment, and system performance. The feasibility and practicality of the proposed methodology will be demonstrated with two case studies focusing on implementation of nuclear power plant automation technologies. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24162: Self-powered wireless sensor system for health monitoring of liquid-sodium cooled fast reactors | University of Notre Dame | $800,000 | The goal of this project is to develop self-powered wireless multimodal sensors and instrumentation for health monitoring and diagnosing early-stage materials degradation for high-risk components in liquid-sodium cooled fast reactors. The synergistic and innovative integrations of the multimodal sensor array, wireless communication, and thermoelectric energy harvester have crosscutting benefit for a wide range of advanced reactors. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24102: High temperature Molten salt reactor pump component development and testing | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | This project will provide relevant key information on the tribology of bearing material and components (such as magnets, couplers, ceramic coated wire, and coatings) in high temperature molten salts that will be required in the design of reactor pumps. Investigation of in-service inspection and monitoring of the pump internals will also be addressed in an effort to reduce down time and operation and maintenance costs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24226: Cost Reduction of Advanced Integration Heat Exchanger Technology for Micro-Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,713 | Heat exchanger technology is a high-cost component of a micro-reactor system that is also critical to the overall reliability and performance. This project will develop the underlying advanced heat exchanger technology necessary to integrate a micro-reactor with any end-user application, as well as providing internal heat exchange. Economic optimization of the heat exchanger and experimental demonstration of the technology will be accomplished. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| NEUP Project 21-24382: Advanced High-Fluence Low-Flux RPV Mechanical Property Models for Extended Life | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $799,717 | This project will further develop accurate models of the mechanical property changes under life-extension conditions in reactor pressure vessel (RPV) steels using reduced order Avrami models, cluster dynamics, and atomistic methods combined with massive comprehensive databases on irradiated steels. The work will provide models critical to extending the life of U.S. pressurized water reactors, as well as new fundamental insights into flux and fluence effects and sink and precipitate evolution in reactor pressure vessels and related steels. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2021 |
| Integrated Marine Platform for Hydrogen and Ammonia Production | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $800,000 | This study investigates the economic and environmental value of a floating integrated GW-scale green hydrogen/ammonia production facility powered by an advanced nuclear reactor. Floating Production Storage and Offloading units (FPSOs) are deployed worldwide in the oil and gas industry, and can be used for hydrogen and ammonia processing. Deployment of an advanced reactor on a floating platform offers several advantages, including the efficiencies of shipyard fabrication. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Functionally-graded Cermet Coatings for Molten Salt Technologies by High Throughput Finite Element Modeling and Additive Manufacturing | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $500,000 | This project proposes an integrated approach/methodology to design, manufacture and verify functionally-graded metal-ceramic composite coatings on structural alloys with desired interfacial properties, capabilities of mitigating residual stress and improved corrosion resistance for molten salt reactor applications. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| An Innovative Monitoring Technology for the Reactor Vessel of Micro-HTGR | Texas A&M University | $800,000 | This project seeks to develop an innovative sensor technology for real-time monitoring of the thermo-mechanical stresses in the reactor vessel of micro-HTGR. The technology will be based on a sparse network of outer wall temperature measurements and plant operating conditions. An integrated software-hardware sensing system aimed at monitoring the health of the pressure vessel of gas micro-reactors will be implemented and tested. The proposed work will have a broad impact on sensing in other reactor designs. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| High throughput mechanical testing of additively-manufactured materials | University of California, Berkeley | $500,000 | This project proposes fast and high throughput mechanical testing of AM produced materials. It will include the generation of automated tensile testing, hardness testing and microstructure assessment and data comparison to build data via machine learning. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Accelerated irradiation creep testing coupled with self-adaptive accelerated molecular dynamics simulations for scalability analysis | University of Michigan | $500,000 | The goal of the proposed work is to accelerate traditional irradiation creep using instrumented in-situ ion irradiation creep and long-time molecular dynamics simulations to accelerate traditional neutron irradiation creep testing. This goal will be accomplished by coupling a novel ion beam flux jump test using tapered creep specimens and self-adaptive accelerated molecular dynamics. The outcome is a rapid, low-cost accelerated method to determine the fundamental irradiation creep mechanisms. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Creation of a Pebble Database for Material Control and Accountancy in Pebble Bed Reactors | Virginia Commonwealth University | $399,969 | The primary goal of this proposed project is to develop a database of NDA signatures from a wide variety of used PBR pebbles. This database can be used for facility operations, safety, security, and safeguards (3S) to directly measure fission product content and indirectly 235U and plutonium content of each PBR pebble. This project has significant synergy with current 3S PBR research at ANL, BNL, and ORNL, all of whom are collaborators to this proposed project. | Document | Crosscutting Technologies | FY2022 |
| Quantifying Aerosol Deposition Mechanisms in Model Dry Cask Storage Systems | Clemson University | $800,000 | The objective of this work is to measure aerosol deposition and resuspension rates in laboratory models of dry cask storage systems to compare with and validate the DOE deposition model. The project team will conduct experiments to directly measure the deposition/resuspension rates of bulk aerosol in the system and to isolate and quantify individual aerosol deposition mechanisms, with a focus on those sensitive to variable humidity and surface temperature. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Using Amide-Functionalized Electrodes to Elucidate Interfacial Actinide Redox Chemistry for Improved HALEU Supply | Florida International University | $400,000 | The goal is to decrease HALEU fuel cycle costs by examination of the redox behavior of U, Np, and Pu at the water-organic interface using amide functionalized electrodes, and in organic media after extraction with amides. Experiments with redox active interferences including additional actinides in different oxidation states will also be conducted. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advancing the technical readiness of FeCrAl alloys and ODS steels under extreme conditions for fast reactor fuel cladding | North Carolina State University | $800,000 | A key technology gap for advanced high-performance fuel applications is the current unavailability of materials that can withstand extremely high doses without significant degradation of cladding performance. The project team will perform in-situ thermo-mechanical experiments (tension, torsion, creep, and creep-fatigue and nanoindentation) on ion-irradiated (to 400 dpa) cladding materials (up to 700 C) along with microstructures using TEM and mesoscale phase field simulations. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| A molten salt community framework for predictive modeling of critical characteristics | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | This research aims to develop a molten salt community framework to address the needs in advanced fuel cycles, including understanding salts via new theory of liquids, predicting salt characteristics via simulations (DFT, MD, and CALPHAD by implementing advanced models), optimizing inversely molten salts, and verifying simulations by experiments. This project has outstanding value for US taxpayers, educates students, and delivers outreach opportunities for academia, industry, and the public. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Understanding the Interfacial Structure of the Molten Chloride Salts by in-situ Electrocapillarity and Resonant Soft X-ray Scattering (RSoXS) | Pennsylvania State University | $400,000 | The objective of the proposed research is to investigate the interplay between the interfacial structure of the molten salts and their electrochemical corrosion properties in Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs). | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Clay Hydration, Drying, and Cracking in Nuclear Waste Repositories | Princeton University | $800,000 | This project will develop a new multiscale model of the thermal-hydrologic-mechanical-chemical (THMC) evolution of an engineered clay barrier in the near field of a nuclear waste repository, including initial hydration and eventual post-closure criticality. This new model will directly link micro-scale material properties to large-scale barrier performance, thus facilitating future design advances or modifications, and enable robust validation of large-scale simulation predictions. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Physics-guided Smart Scaling Methodology for Accelerated Fuel Testing | Purdue University | $800,000 | This project proposes to employ novel informatics algorithms for mapping/scaling uncertainties from experimentally accessible scaled state to application/prototypical state, informed by an equivalent mapping obtained from high-fidelity multi-physics simulations for the fuel thermo-mechanical behavior, specifically, a rate theory-based model for thermal conductivity and fission gas behavior in the BISON code, and employing relevant HALDEN reactor and FAST experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Materials Accountancy During Disposal and Waste Processing of Molten Salt Reactor Fuel Salts | Texas A&M University | $399,997 | The objective of this work is to develop and validate a method for measuring and predicting hold-up to eliminate operational risks and expenses during disposal of salt-wetted MSR components. These objectives will be met by applying robust measurement/detection methods to realistic salt loop environments to validate their use in decommissioning MSRs. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advanced Screening Approaches for Accelerating Development of Separations Technologies | University of California, Berkeley | $400,000 | The goal of this project is to establish a unified selection criterion for chelating molecular structures to more efficiently address ligand applicability to metal ion separation problems, for current and future nuclear fuel cycles. By establishing this criterion, the team will seek to enable the accelerated, cost-effective discovery of new separation workflows, as well as their implementation beyond early radiotracer experiments. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Advancing NMA of TRISO-fueled pebbles using fast and accurate gamma-ray spectroscopy | University of Colorado, Boulder | $385,307 | This proposal will provide new Nuclear Materials Analysis (NMA) capabilities for TRISO-fueled pebbles using gamma-ray spectroscopy, through a program of simulations of expected signatures from irradiated pebbles, resulting in a detailed measurement plan to monitor burnup and actinide content throughout the fuel cycle. These simulations will be used to develop requirements for NMA sensor technology and identify opportunities for focused technology development to meet these requirements. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Development of Irradiation and Creep Resistant High-Cr Ferritic/Martensitic Steels via Magnetic Field Heat Treatment | University of Kentucky | $800,000 | The objective of this proposed study is to develop and test new generation of Ferritic/Martensitic (F/M) steels specifically designed for advanced reactors that will exceed the current limitations due to temperature and irradiation dose. To achieve this objective, a systematic study is proposed to employ an innovative tempering heat treatment under high external magnetic field (up to 9T) on F/M steel HT9 to engineer an optimized microstructure composed of refined carbides and martensite laths. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Investigation into the processing parameters of phosphate-based dehalogenation for chloride-based waste salt | University of Nevada, Reno | $399,999 | This proposal will focus on several topics needed to advance the iron phosphate process: 1) Dehalogenation/vitrification processes using salt simulants to generate process flow sheets, 2) Reactions of crucible materials with phosphate products and byproducts, 3) Collection of glass property-composition data to develop models based on the glass-forming regions, 4) Development of a process for reacting recovered NH4Cl with metals that need to be fed into the system (U, Li, etc.). | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| A Validated Framework for Seismic Risk Assessment of Spent Fuel Storage Facilities | University of Nevada, Reno | $799,883 | This is a collaborative research program with a primary objective of developing a validated numerical framework for seismic risk analysis of spent fuel storage facilities from the global cask behavior to the localized behavior of internal spent fuel assemblies. In building and validating this framework, advanced data analysis, data assimilation, and forward and inverse modeling techniques will be utilized. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| International Collaboration to Advance the Technical Readiness of High Uranium Density Fuels and Composites for Small Modular Reactors | University of Texas at San Antonio | $800,000 | An international team of high uranium density fuels (HDFs) experts advised by industry leaders in nuclear reactor innovation propose a US-UK collaboration to advance the technical readiness of UN, UB2, and their composites for fuel forms specific to small modular reactors (SMRs). The project will bridge the critical data gaps in HDF performance specific to the impact of common impurities and microstructural variations that originate at fabrication. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Development of Advanced Control Rod Assembly for Improved Accident Tolerance and High Burnup Fuel Cycle | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Research will focus on the development of new materials' designs for control rod sheaths and neutron absorbers, coupled with neutronics analysis and thermo-mechanical modeling to improve accident tolerance and to achieve higher fuel burnup in PWRs. Functionality of the proposed designs consisting of Cr coated control rod sheaths of current and advanced alloys as well as novel neutron absorbers will be evaluated in prototypical reactor conditions and accident scenarios. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Optical Basicity Determination of Molten Fluoride Salts and its Influence on Structural Material Corrosion | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $400,000 | The proposed research is aimed at developing ion probes to determine the optical basicity of molten fluoride salts and studying its influence on structural material corrosion. Combining with the molten salt structure study using X-ray absorption spectroscopy, the salt chemical constitution, the resulting optical basicity, and molten salt structure will be inextricably linked and their connections will be unveiled. | Document | Fuel Cycle Research and Development | FY2022 |
| Extending the HMF71 Benchmark Series for Graphite Reflector Thickness up to 18 Inches | University of Tennessee at Knoxville | $399,522 | The objective of this proposal is to extend the HEU-MET-FAST-071 (HMF-71) experiment benchmark series in ICSBEP by evaluating the historical (existing) experimental data for critical experiments with graphite reflector thickness from 3 inches up to 18 inches. | Document | Nuclear Energy | FY2022 |
| Fast and Rigorous Methods for Multiphysics SPn Transport in Advanced Reactors | University of Michigan | $600,000 | This project proposes to perform rigorous theoretical and numerical analysis of the Generalized SPn method and underlying cross section models to enable a fast and robust multiphysics low-order transport capability for advanced reactors. This includes 5 major tasks focused on the efficient discretization and solution of the GSPn equations, numerical analysis of XS models having multiphysics and depletion, analysis of equivalence factors, improved MC estimators, and several V&V applications of the methods. | Document | Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) | FY2022 |
| Development of Hydrogen Transport Models for High Temperature Metal Hydride Moderators | Colorado School of Mines | $800,000 | Understanding the transient behavior of metal hydride moderator materials at high temperatures is a key challenge to the design and deployment of future microreactors. This project will use neutron radiography techniques provide the necessary data for this understanding and demonstrate the development of time and temperature dependent hydrogen transport models using both commercial FEA software coupled to MCNP and coupled models developed in the MOOSE framework. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Characterizing fast reactor fuel failure mode through separate effect and prototypic tests | Oregon State University | $800,000 | The project consists of conducting separate effect fuel pin failure tests with surrogate fluid and prototypic test with sodium. The outcome of this study will generate an experimental database that will be used to develop mechanistic model and validate the CDAP module of the SAS4A/SASSYS-1 code. Ultimately the quality data can be used to benchmark other fuel codes developed for LMFR application, which are seeking validation for licensing purpose. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Science-based development of ASTM standard tests for graphite-based fuel pebbles | University of California, Berkeley | $700,000 | This project proposes the development of mechanical test procedures as well as wear and friction tests on Graphite fuel pebbles | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Role of Heterogeneity in Manganese and Nickel Rich Precipitate Distribution on Hardening of Reactor Pressure Vessel Steels: Integrated Modeling and Experimental Characterization | University of Florida | $799,803 | The hypothesis of this work is that the different nucleation and coarsening kinetics of manganese and nickel rich precipitates (MNPs) compared to copper rich precipitates, and the heterogeneous distribution of manganese and nickel rich precipitates on or near dislocations, both lead to unique hardening behavior at high neutron fluence. The objective of this work is to understand hardening in reactor pressure vessel steels caused by MNPs via integrated multiscale modeling and experiments. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Integrated Thermal-Electric Energy Management of All-Electric Ship with Advanced Nuclear Reactors | University of Texas at Dallas | $400,000 | The overall objective of this research is to comprehensively model, design, and evaluate the use of advanced nuclear reactors in future nuclear-powered ships, to enhance the efficiency, reliability, and resilience of shipboard energy distribution systems. The novelty of the proposed approach lies in (i) integrated thermal-electric modeling of advanced nuclear-powered shipboard energy system, and (ii) novel solutions for total-ship energy management to improve energy efficiency and resiliency. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Open Architecture for Nuclear Cost Reduction | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | Open architecture has potential to reduce advanced reactor (AR) costs, through exploiting modular design and construction, with common, openly available interfaces between modules. A comprehensive assessment of the challenges and opportunities of open architecture for ARs will be performed. Supported by a pilot study, actionable recommendations for the implementation or otherwise of open architecture for ARs will be developed. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Telescopic Control Rod for Significant Reduction in HTR Height and therefore Cost | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $800,000 | This project proposes a design for a small modular High Temperature Reactor (HTR) control rod that extends telescopically, consisting of ~5 concentric annuli that nest together above the core when withdrawn. This compact component substantially reduces the length of the depth of the silo. Modelling and experimental testing will be performed to develop the control rod to evaluate feasibility, plus perform a cost-benefit analysis, with a view to its inclusion in both pebble bed and prismatic HTR designs. | Document | Reactor Concepts Research and Development and Demonstration (RCRD&D) | FY2022 |
| Mechanism Driven Evaluations of Sequential and Simultaneous Irradiation-Creep-Fatigue Testing | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | This project addresses a critical need for irradiation and creep-fatigue testing by carrying out a systematic, mechanistic-driven benchmarking for irradiation creep, irradiation fatigue and creep-fatigue tests under various environments. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Mechanisms-based Acceleration of Materials Qualifications for Creep-Fatigue Performance in Advanced Nuclear Systems | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | The goal of this research is to fully understand, quantify and model creep-fatigue 'damage' as a function of loading patterns, temperature and microstructural evolution. Using this experimental information over a large range of relevant stress levels and temperatures, a mechanisms-based creep-fatigue analysis approach will be demonstrated which will properly qualify high temperature alloys for extended service in advanced nuclear systems where creep-fatigue is currently a major design limitation. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Subwavelength Ultrasonic Imaging for Rapid Qualification of Additively Manufactured Nuclear Structures and Components | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to develop a transformational capability for rapid nondestructive quality assessment of actual nuclear additively manufactured structures and components through advanced ultrasonic imaging with subwavelength resolution. The resolution of conventional ultrasonic systems is limited by diffraction on the order of the wavelength. In this project, the goal is to break the diffraction limits of ultrasonic imaging by implementing a negative-index lens. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| MXene as Sorbent Materials for Off-gas Radioiodine Capture and Immobilization | Clemson University | $1,000,000 | The overarching goal of this project is to develop efficient and stable new sorbent materials, for off-gas radioiodine capture and immobilization, that are based on MXenes with two-dimensional transition metal carbides/nitrides. The exploratory research will focus on three main objectives: 1) Design and synthesis of MXenes as radioiodine sorbent and support materials, 2) Quantification of iodine sorption capacity of MXenes in different forms, 3) Synthesis and characterization of consolidated waste forms. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Fundamental understanding of grain boundary cracking in LWR environments | University of California, Los Angeles | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to understand the details of stress corrosion cracking (SCC) and irradiation assisted stress corrosion cracking (IASCC) by targeted experiments and modeling efforts. A comprehensive model will be produced, which will predict the conditions under which these failure modes occur and when the materials may see onsets of the failure mode. This work will directly impact the nuclear industry by refining predictive models of component lifetime. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| Facile manufacturing of fiber-reinforced-SiC/SiC composite using aerodynamic fiber deposition (AFD) and metal assisted polymer impregnation and pyrolysis processes (MAPIP) | University of Pittsburgh | $999,886 | SiC/SiC ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) are promising candidate materials for the cladding of accident tolerant fuels. Superior material properties of SiC/SiC CMC, however, come at a high manufacturing cost. The objective of the proposed research is to apply aerodynamic fiber deposition (AFD) and metal assisted polymer impregnation and pyrolysis (MAPIP) to develop a new facile manufacturing approach of SiC/SiC CMC. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2023 |
| High Concentration Monoamide Separations: Phase Modifiers and Transuranic Chemistry | Colorado School of Mines | $999,900 | Extraction of actinides from used nuclear fuel with high concentrations of monoamide extractants is a promising strategy to intensify separation processes; however key issues remain to be understood and resolved. This project will examine three questions: 1) Can phase modifiers mitigate issues with organic phase viscosity? 2) Can the chemistry of neptunium be controlled to ensure complete separation? 3) Do high concentrations of monoamides affect the oxidation states of important metals and can that be exploited? | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Multiple Uranium Complexes in Chloride Fast Reactor Molten Salt Properties | University of Connecticut | $1,000,000 | Multivalent transition metal ions in a melt can exhibit multiple coordination states that affect molten salt properties. This project will use a new high-energy resolution fluorescence detection (HERFD) spectroscopy to overcome issues associated with measuring coordination numbers of multiple complexes, along with Raman spectroscopy and advanced simulations to accurately predict properties of molten salts with multiple uranium complexes. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Validation of Geochemical Reactive Transport Long-Term predictions Using Natural Cements and Ancient Cements Analogues | Vanderbilt University | $950,000 | This project will validate long-term performance predictions of rock/cement interfaces based on characterization of natural analogues, ancient cements and interfaces with rock formations, and demonstrate applicability of the established testing and simulation workflow with argillite rock (representative of potential U.S. repository systems). This project addresses the research gap of long-term validation and uncertainty assessment associated with cement barrier performance and multi-physics models. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Predicting Pitting and Stress Corrosion Cracking of Dry Cask Storage Canisters via High Throughput Testing, Multiscale Characterization, and 3D Computer Vision based Machine Learning | The Ohio State University | $1,000,000 | This project consists of a US-UK collaborative research program focusing on the nucleation and growth of pits and stress corrosion cracking of stainless steel 304 (a canister material used for dry cask storage of spent nuclear fuels) by leveraging multi-scale characterization techniques, 2D/3D computer vision, and machine learning approaches. The study will enable the understanding and prediction of how and when pitting corrosion can nucleate, grow, and transition into stress corrosion cracking. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Multiscale Residual Stress Tailoring of Spent Fuel Canister CISCC Resistance | Purdue University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to understand the role of residual stress in chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) of austenitic steel, then tailor CISCC initiation and propagation through engineered multiscale residual stress distributions. Microscopic and macroscopic residual stresses will be systematically varied, then a novel sequence of advanced, site-specific, correlative characterization techniques will be applied to directly link residual stress, pitting, and crack propagation. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Illuminating Emerging Supply Chain and Waste Management Challenges | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | Regional constraints on domestic fuel supply and greater variation in demand from advanced reactors has led to a shift in the U.S. fuel cycle, and modeling tools must reflect this. In this work, Cyclus will be updated to better reflect new and emergent regional supply constraints, spatial and temporal fluctuations in material needs, and those impacts on the back-end of the fuel cycle will be quantified. This work will allow for flexible, reproducible analysis to inform stakeholder decision-making. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Determination of Local Structure and Phase Stability of Uranium Species in Molten Halide Salts: Linking Microscopic Structure with Macroscopic Thermodynamics | Arizona State University | $1,000,000 | The goal of this project is to determine the local structures (valence state, coordination configuration and medium-range structure) and thermodynamic stability of uranium species in molten chloride and fluoride salts at high temperatures using a combination of experimental and modeling methods. The obtained results will allow for revelation of the structure-stability relations of the studied systems and development of acid-base scales to determine the solubility of uranium in molten halide salts. | Document | Fuel Cycle Technologies | FY2023 |
| Thermal-Hydraulics Assessment of SiC Compared to Other ATF Cladding Materials and its Performance to Mitigate CRUD | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | This project aims to experimentally investigate the thermal-hydraulics performance of SiC compared to the Cr-coated zircaloys and APMT ATF cladding materials under accident scenarios, including both DNB and dryout conditions. The project is divided into five tasks that will advance the understanding of the operation and optimization of heat pipes for advanced nuclear reactors. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Physics-Informed Artificial Intelligence for Non-Destructive Evaluation of Ceramic Composite Cladding by Creating Digital Fingerprints | University of Florida | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to spatially map the material composition, structure, and defect distribution of SiCf-SiCm composite tubes from ultrasonic wavefields measured from the materials and the defects within them. Specifically, this project will delve into the unique ultrasonic fingerprints (i.e., dispersion relations and mode shapes) of the SiCf-SiCm composites using physics-informed machine learning to assess the quality of the manufactured tubes based on their spatial-spectral ultrasonic characteristics. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Understanding Constituent Redistribution, Thermal Transport, and Fission Gas Behavior in U-Zr Annular Fuel Without a Sodium Bond | University of Florida | $999,462 | This project will investigate the reason for changed constituent redistribution in annular U-Zr fuel without a sodium bond and how it changes the fission gas behavior and thermal conductivity. This will be achieved using a combination of microstructure characterization and thermal conductivity measurements of irradiated U-Zr annular fuel and multiscale modeling and simulation using the MARMOT and BISON fuel performance codes. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Getting AnCers: Metallothermic Molten Salt Synthesis and Reaction Thermodynamics of Actinide Ceramic Fuels | Oregon State University | $1,000,000 | Synthesis of high quality actinide ceramics (AnCers) remains a costly challenge. A low-temperature, high-yield, short-duration reaction that directly synthesizes UN and UC could reduce the cost of these advanced fuels greatly. This proposal aims to demonstrate a method by which the costs of AnCers can be greatly reduced - metallothermic molten salt synthesis. Optimization and thermodynamics data will be obtained. | Document | Fuels | FY2023 |
| Integrated Stand-off Optical Sensors for Molten Salt Reactor Monitoring | University of Pittsburgh | $1,000,000 | This project intends to develop robust and stand-off optical sensors to perform real-time molten salt levels, flow, and impurity measurements of molten salts. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Cybersecurity in advanced reactor fleet by cyber-informed design, real-time anomaly detection, dynamic monitoring, and cost-effective mitigation strategies | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The goal of this research is to provide technical solutions to unique cybersecurity challenges in future microreactor fleet through cyber-informed design (C-ID), real-time anomaly detection, dynamic monitoring, and cost-effective mitigation strategies. The efforts will significantly improve the economics and effectiveness of cybersecurity risk management in future microreactor fleets. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Building Cyber-Resilient Architecture for Advanced Reactors via Integrated Operations and Network Digital Twin | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | The research will develop a secure-by-design architecture via integrating plant operation and network digital twins for advanced reactors. Automatic attack path and vulnerability analysis will be developed and used to assess and harden critical digital assets (CDA) against cyber risks prior to and during operation to identify vulnerabilities, attack pathways, and threat vectors. A CDA selection method will also be developed by combining vulnerability scores and assets importance. | Document | Instrumentation and Controls | FY2023 |
| Extending PRA and HRA legacy methods and tools with a cause-based model for comprehensive treatment of human error dependency | University of California, Los Angeles | $1,000,000 | This project aims at developing a solution to HRA dependency assessment in PRA from methodological and practical/computational perspectives within legacy PRA tools and methods. The solutions will include procedures for quantifying dependency when using PRA legacy tools, a method for modeling and quantifying dependency in HRA comprising a BN-causal model suitable for use with legacy PRA methods and tools, and the computational tools for its integration. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| An Integrated Elemental and Isotopic Detector for Real-Time Molten Salt Monitoring | North Carolina State University | $1,000,000 | The overarching theme of the proposed research is to develop and demonstrate a real-time elemental and isotopic detector of molten salts for advanced reactors and fuel fabrication and recycling processes. The detector's longevity, limits, and latency will be tested in static uranium chloride salts, in pyroprocessing chloride salt, and on flowing fluoride salt with evolving actinide composition, respectively. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Development of a Thin-Layer Electrochemical Sensor for Molten Salt Reactors and Fuel Cycle Processes | Brigham Young University | $811,755 | A thin-layer electrochemical sensor capable of detecting uranium, plutonium and other species of interest in molten salts, at both high and low concentrations, will be developed for application in molten salt reactors and fuel cycle process units. This will provide a valuable tool for performing material control and accountancy measurements. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Risk-Informed Consequence-Driven Hybrid Cyber-Physical Protection System Security Optimization for Advanced Reactor Sites | Georgia Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | This project aims to develop an expanded methodology for designing a novel cybersecurity-integrated physical protection system (PPS) framework for advanced reactor concepts that serves to reduce the operational costs for the life of a reactor against that of a traditional light water reactor PPS design, promoting efforts to credit safety features of advanced reactors through proposed amendments to current security regulations, while integrating health and economic consequence analyses. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| A risk analysis framework for evaluating the safety, reliability, and economic implications of electrolysis for hydrogen production at NPPs | University of Maryland, College Park | $1,000,000 | The RAFELHyP project will develop a modular risk analysis framework that enables evaluating the safety, reliability, and economic implications of upcoming deployments of electrolyzers to produce hydrogen at nuclear power plants. The framework will be implemented to conduct an integrated safety, reliability, and economic analysis of multiple plant configurations to provide detailed recommendations for plant protective features and layouts. | Document | Licensing and Safety | FY2023 |
| Reduced Order Modeling of Heat and Fluid Flow: Multi-Scale Modeling of Advanced Reactors to Enable Faster Deployment | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | Novel multi-scale algorithms for thermal-hydraulics (TH) simulations of advanced reactors will be developed. The methods will leverage recent advances in hardware and reduced order modeling approaches to enable TH simulations of vastly accelerated speed, while maintaining accuracy comparable to high-fidelity methods, such as large-eddy simulation. The methods will allow designers to perform parameter sweeps, develop closures, and enable high fidelity simulation of transients. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Embedded Monte Carlo | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Monte Carlo methods have long been considered the standard in terms of accuracy and have seen increased use in design of small nuclear systems; however, the uncertainty quantification (UQ) of the desired output is often relegated to later stages of the design process. This project seeks to embed nuclear data UQ in a single Monte Carlo simulation, such that each desired quantity will not only provide the mean value and statistical uncertainty, but also the related nuclear data uncertainty. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| A Low Order Transport Method Based on the Dynamic Truncation of the Integral Transport Matrix Method (ITMM) that Converges to the SN Solution with Increasing Cell Optical Thickness | North Carolina State University | $1,000,000 | A novel low-order transport operator capable of approximating Monte Carlo (MC) results within a variance range will be developed. This does not require MC reference solutions to calibrate the low-order model, so repeated solutions of the latter in-transient scenarios does not require repeated MC simulations. Truncation of the low-order operator is done dynamically for evolving configurations to ensure accuracy of the low-order solution. This will involve proof of principle on Cartesian meshes, then implementation in Griffin. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| CFD based Critical Heat Flux predictions for enhanced DNBR margin | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | This project seeks to demonstrate a robust high-fidelity CFD-based methodology to predict CHF behavior at varying quality conditions, enabling the development of advanced DNBR correlations with reduced uncertainty, and in support of upgraded plant economics. The availability of a virtual CHF methodology will allow greatly extending the database for DNBR correlations development and further support advancement in the design of high-performing nuclear fuel. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Immersed Boundary Methods for Modeling of Complex Geometry: A Leap Forward in Multiscale Modeling using NekRS | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | A major challenge to Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling of complex geometries is the need to generate body-fitted meshes, which can occupy 80% of the CFD practitioner's time. Immersed boundary methods will be added in the NekRS CFD code, dramatically simplifying modeling of complex 3-D structures and facilitating a new paradigm for CFD-informed multiscale analysis. This will be demonstrated by informing SAM transient systems-level models with NekRS heat exchanger correlations for advanced reactors. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Uncertainty Quantification of Model Extrapolation in Neural Network-informed Turbulent Closures for Plenum Mixing in HTGRs | Utah State University | $1,000,000 | This project will quantify the uncertainty in prediction of Neural Network-informed Turbulent Closures when they are operating in a model extrapolation state. Once the method is developed for canonical buoyant jets, the protocols will be applied to plenum mixing in HTGRs. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2023 |
| Impact of moisture on corrosion of NiCr alloys in MgCl2-NaCl Salt Systems | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $999,983 | This project aims to gain a fundamental understanding of the impact of moisture and salt chemistry on corrosion of NiCr alloys in molten chloride salts. A novel approach coupling multiscale simulations and experiments will be designed to determine salt acidity, its dependence on salt composition (i.e., the NaCl to MgCl2 ratio), and its effects on the transport of H2O and Cr ions and the corrosion kinetics of NiCr alloys in chloride salt. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Transforming Microreactor Economics Through Hydride Moderator Enabled Neutron Economy | State University of New York, Stony Brook | $1,000,000 | Microreactors will potentially require the cost of electricity to be 10 MWD/kg at >3 kW/kg core specific power. These goals are best achieved through a well-thermalized spectrum. Neutron economy as a core material selection criterion to advance entrained hydride composite moderators will be used with the primary goal of significantly reducing fuel costs through novel microreactor designs. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Integrating Nuclear with ZLD Seawater Desalination and Mining | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | An integrated nuclear system will be developed that would utilize electricity and waste heat to operate a desalination and mining process from adjacent seawater. The desalination approach targets zero-liquid discharge with multiple marketable minerals extracted. The ability of nuclear facilities to load follow is increasingly important, so a cold thermal storage system will be incorporated. The desalination and mineral extraction process will be experimentally validated at lab scale. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Reference Designs of Green Ammonia Plants Powered by Small Modular Reactors | Utah State University | $1,000,000 | The overarching goal of this project is to develop two reference designs for green ammonia plants. One design uses freshwater as the source for hydrogen, while the other design uses seawater (or brackish water) as the source. In both designs, a small modular reactor (SMR) is used as the primary energy source providing both electricity and steam for the plants. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Development of the Technical Bases to Support Flexible Siting of Microreactors based on Right-Sized Emergency Planning Zones | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to provide the technical basis to support the application of a right-sized Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ) size to support the deployment of a microreactor at the Penn State University Park campus. This research study will serve as a template to provide flexible siting in support of future microreactor deployments that may be placed closer to demand centers, thereby making them more economically competitive. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Bayesian Optimization for Automatic Reactor Design Optimization | Arizona State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to develop analytical tools based on Gaussian process modeling and Bayesian Optimization that facilitate reactor design optimization by modeling the responses from the physics simulator. Existing capabilities will be applied in an AI field and they will be adapted to address the key characteristics of nuclear reactor design problem. This project will automate the simulation-based design procedure, reduce the number of iterations, and minimize the design cycle time. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Engaging New Mexican communities in developing an equitable and just approach to siting advanced reactor facilities | University of Michigan | $1,000,000 | This project will engage diverse New Mexican communities to develop an equitable approach for advanced reactor siting. The findings of this project will shed light on how technology developers and the DOE can explore and potentially site advanced reactors with the informed consent and engagement of host communities, regions, and states. The findings of this study will also more generally apply to the potential for equitably exploring both brownfield and greenfield sites for nuclear facilities. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Deciphering Irradiation Effects of YHx through In-situ Evaluation and Micromechanics for Microreactor Applications | University of New Mexico | $998,000 | This project addresses a critical gap in accelerated testing of YH evolution coupling multi-length scale mechanical testing with ion irradiation and advanced characterization to establish a baseline understanding of YH evolution under ion irradiation. Our approach will couple ion irradiation and gamma irradiation with small scale mechanical testing to decipher multi-scale impacts on phase stability to advance understanding of YH in a microreactor moderator application. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Active Learning Estimation and Optimization (ALEO) of Irradiation Experimental Design for Efficient Accelerated Fuel Qualification | University of Texas at San Antonio | $997,247 | This collaborative project creates novel AI/ML models and algorithms integrated with physical knowledge and expertise to explore more efficient ways to calculate irradiation temperatures and fuel specimen burnups for new fuel sample configurations of MiniFuel experiments proposed for irradiation in the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2023 |
| Unraveling how mixing vane spacers affect cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena in light water reactors | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $500,000 | Experiments will be conducted to quantify the effect of mixing vane spacers on cladding-to-coolant heat transfer phenomena, namely single-phase forced convection, nucleate boiling, and CHF. The results of the experimental research will allow elucidating the physical phenomena triggered by the presence of mixing vane spacers. They will also allow assessing the performance of M-CFD tools developed within CASL and in use by the nuclear community. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Quantum Computing Algorithms for Deterministic Neutron Transport | University of Michigan | $500,000 | This project will develop algorithms for solving the k-eigenvalue form of the neutron transport equation in a nuclear reactor physics context on a quantum computer. The asymptotic scaling of the algorithms will be analyzed. Investigation into implementation will be made by making resource estimates by synthesizing explicit circuits for the algorithms and be studied by emulation on a classical computer. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Optimizing Application-Dependent Energy Group Structures for Multigroup Neutron Transport Models using Machine Learning | Colorado School of Mines | $500,000 | Machine Learning methods will be developed that will dramatically reduce both the computational run-time and manual effort needed to find multigroup energy structures that accurately capture the underlying physics of neutron reactions, while allowing multigroup simulations to run quickly without overwhelming available memory. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2023 |
| Understanding PM-HIP Interparticle Evolution and its Influence on Fracture Toughness in Alumina-Forming Steels | Purdue University | $1,100,000 | This project aims to understand how interparticle evolution during hot isostatic pressing (HIP) influences fracture toughness of Al-bearing steels. The team will use a series of interrupted HIP experiments with phase field models to understand the formation mechanisms of interparticle defects during HIP of alumina-forming austenitic (AFA) stainless steels and FeCrAl steels, and the influence of these defects on fracture behavior. | Document | Advanced Manufacturing Technologies | FY2024 |
| Multiscale high-throughput experiment/modeling approach to understanding creep behavior in Additively Manufactured reactor steels | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | $1,043,271 | This project proposes to develop a predictive capability for processing-microstructure-property correlations in additive manufactured microstructures utilizing a multiscale approach encompassing bulk creep tests, miniaturized tensile testing, and a high-throughput, indentation based, cost-effective method for elevated temperature mechanical mapping of additively manufactured 316H Stainless Steel, Grade 91, and Titanium-Zirconium-Molybdenum (TZM) alloys. | Document | Advanced Manufacturing Technologies | FY2024 |
| Assessing molten salt corrosion resistance of stainless steel 316H in nuclear reactor environments | North Carolina State University | $1,100,000 | The proposed goal is to leverage a blend of innovative molten salt corrosion experiments and cutting-edge characterization techniques to advance our understanding of molten salt corrosion in both commercial and additively manufactured (AM) stainless steel (SS) 316H, particularly under radiation or stress environments. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Polymer-Derived C-SiC Coatings on Kernel Particles for Advanced Nuclear Reactors | University of Alabama at Birmingham | $1,100,000 | This program is to use a polymer-derived ceramic approach to develop C-SiC/ZrC coatings on ZrO2 kernel substitute particles. We aim to create new fuel encapsulation materials in replacement of the coatings on fuel kernel particles, including the TRISO layers, for advanced reactors, conduct ion irradiation testing of the new materials for nuclear performance evaluation, and carry out detailed microstructure and composition characterization to assess the C-SiC/ZrC coated fuel particle behaviors. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Sorbent regeneration, recycling, and transformation: A transformative approach to iodine capture and immobilization | University of Nevada, Reno | $1,000,000 | The project will focus on the development of materials and processes for regeneration and recycling of sorbents, and the transformation of iodine-loaded sorbents into waste forms. A combination of computational and experimental studies will be conducted to understand (a) how the components in a primary off-gas stream interact with the sorbent, (b) how this off-gas stream affects the regeneration lifetime, and (c) low-temperature binders and processing paths that leads to durable waste forms. | Document | Advanced Nuclear Materials | FY2024 |
| Accident Tolerant Fuels to Support Power Uprates in LWRs | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,100,000 | This project will demonstrate that power uprates higher than the current state of operation can be reached using accident tolerant fuels in light water reactors while not exceeding reactor safety margins during normal operation and accidents. We will analyze it considering fuel enriched up to 10% and peak rod average burnup up to 75GWd/tU concerning reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, reactor safety, and economics. Considerations will be made in consultation with the named industry advisory board. | Document | Existing Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Comparative study of three-dimensional microstructural imaging and thermal conductivity evolution of irradiated solid and annular U-Zr fuels | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Uranium-zirconium (U-Zr) annular metallic fuel holds the promise to simultaneously increase sodium fast reactor (SFR) core uranium loading and reduce peak cladding temperatures, thus greatly improving fuel performance. However, key convolved fuel degradation mechanisms during irradiation at temperature threaten to hold back its real-world applicability, requiring more detailed understanding to both predict U-Zr fuel performance and suggest improvements. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Mechanistic study and modeling of fission gas release in UO2 and doped UO2 | Oregon State University | $1,000,000 | The objective of this project is to enhance the safety and performance of light water reactors and other advanced reactor designs by gaining a fundamental understanding of fast gas reactor mechanisms and developing mechanistic models for UO2 and doped UO2 fuels under HBU and transient conditions. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Anisotropic Thermal Properties of SiC-SiC Cladding: Method Development & Characterization | University of Pittsburgh | $1,000,000 | We propose to develop a high-temperature nondestructive thermal conductivity (k) measurement system coupled with validated multiscale models to accurately determine the anisotropic thermal conductivity of SiC-SiC composite cladding tubes. The multiscale measurement and modeling results benefit both DOE ATF programs as well as providing a fundamental understanding of how the microstructure of the composite leads to its anisotropic properties. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Understanding the Performance of SiC-SiCf Composite Cladding Architectures with Cr Coating in Normal Operating and Accident Conditions in LWRs and Advanced Reactors | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The project will focus on investigating the impact of Cr-coating on the SiC-SiCf composite cladding of various architectures under normal operating and accident conditions in light water reactors and advanced reactors for the safe and economic deployment of SiC cladding. Cr-coating will provide protection from high-temperature corrosion and better hermeticity under accident conditions. The performance of the claddings will be evaluated through the corrosion test, reflood test, burst test, and non-destructive evaluation(NDE). | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Developing critical insights on the effects of Mo on _' precipitation and dislocation loop formation in FeCrAl alloys | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | This project aims at developing a mechanistic understanding on the effects of Mo on _' precipitation and dislocation loop formation in FeCrAl alloys in thermal and irradiation conditions and turns it into a set of design principles guiding further optimization, by integrating atomistic simulations, CALPHAD modeling, thermal aging, proton irradiation, and advanced characterization. The material discoveries will be generalized to other solutes other than Mo. | Document | Fuels | FY2024 |
| Inference of flow conditions from in-core detector measurements for accelerating SMR licensing | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $1,000,000 | Reactor modelling relies on the detailed description of reactor systems but often lacks the true as-built characteristics of a system. This proposal seeks to fill these geometrical data gaps using available detector data, predictive models and machine learning in order to provide better information to analysis tools and thus better prediction of future performance. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Non-Destructive Plutonium Assay in Pyroprocessing Bulk Materials with a 3D Boron-Coated-Straw Detector Array | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,100,000 | The objective of the proposed project is to develop and demonstrate a 3D boron-coated-straw detector array (3D-BCSDA) with high efficiency and spatial resolution. This detection system will be specifically designed to accurately assess the fissile mass in bulk nuclear material during pyroprocessing operations, thereby improving the precision and reliability of accountability measurements during separation. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Improving the computational efficiency and usability of dynamic PRA with reinforcement learning | University of Maryland, College Park | $1,064,400 | The overall objective of the proposed research is to improve the efficiency and usability of dynamic probabilistic risk assessment (PRA). Specifically, the first objective is to develop a new algorithm for dynamic PRA analysis that can significantly increase the computational efficiency. The second objective is to develop a question-answering system to streamline the process of risk-informed decision-making based on results obtained from the dynamic PRA analysis using the new algorithm. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Development of a Benchmark Model for the Near Real-Time Radionuclide Composition Measurement System using Microcalorimetry for Advanced Reactors | Virginia Commonwealth University | $1,100,000 | The primary goal of this proposed project is to develop high fidelity Monte Carlo radiation transport models of a microcalorimetry detector informed by fuel depletion models of a molten salt reactor and a pebble bed reactor to quantify the current and future capabilities of this detector technology to characterize and assay used fuel from these reactors in near real-time. | Document | Licensing, Safety, and Security | FY2024 |
| Development and Validation of a Dual-Purpose Instrument for On-line Monitoring of Molten Salt Composition and Thermal Behavior | Brigham Young University | $1,099,924 | We propose the development of an online monitoring instrument capable of quantifying heat transfer and salt composition for molten salt reactors (MSR). A dual electrochemistry/thermal conductivity probe (DETP) will be developed to measure the thermal properties and impurities within the salt simultaneously. The DETP will make use of a previously developed needle probe and electrodes for square-wave cyclic voltammetry measures of salt composition. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| In Situ Assessment of Molten Salt Transport into Nuclear Graphite Microstructures using Ultrasonic Sensors | Johns Hopkins University | $909,827 | This project focuses on the transport of molten salt into nuclear graphite along with the investigation of ultrasonic methods for sensing graphite material property changes, especially elastic modulus, associated with intrusion of molten salt into the graphite microstructure. Experimental studies coupled with physics-based simulations will be used to assess strategies for in situ sensing of salt intrusion in the reactor environment to enhance long-term viability of molten salt reactors. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| MONITORING CERAMIC FUEL FRACTURE VIA FIBER OPTIC ACOUSTIC EMISSION SENSORS | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $1,000,000 | In the proposed three-year program, the Center for Photonics Technology (CPT) at Virginia Tech will collaborate with Sentek Instrument (Sentek), Prysmian, and Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to develop and demonstrate a distributed acoustic emission (AE) sensing system for in-situ monitoring of ceramic fuel fracture. | Document | Measuring, Monitoring, and Controls | FY2024 |
| Concurrent Surrogate Model Development with Uncertainty Quantification in the MOOSE Framework Using Physics-Informed Gaussian-Process Machine Learning | University of Florida | $999,999 | The objective of this project is to develop a general capability for concurrent generation and use of physics-informed Gaussian process (GP)-based surrogate models to facilitate multiscale and multiphysics modeling. We will implement this new capability as part of the Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) so that every application based on the MOOSE framework will have access to it. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2024 |
| Unstructured Adaptive Mesh Algorithms for Monte Carlo Transport | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,098,000 | We propose to develop the fundamental methods and techniques for unstructured adaptive mesh refinement with Monte Carlo tallies. This work enables a transformative leap forward in speed, accuracy, and robustness to enhance the contribution of high-fidelity radiation transport to advanced simulation. Adaptive refinement is deployed on a challenging multiphysics simulation, cascading heat pipe failure, to study acceleration and stabilization properties. | Document | Modeling and Simulation | FY2024 |
| Feasibility Study of Micro-Nuclear Reactor Thermal Output for Air Rotary Kilns in the High-Temperature Manufacturing of Portland Cement Clinker | Pennsylvania State University | $998,793 | This project aims to design and test a micro-nuclear reactor for high-temperature portland cement clinker production, a process responsible for 6%-8% of global CO2 emissions. Leveraging advanced reactors' heat output, the project explores TRISO-based nuclear microreactor core modifications and new working fluids for heat pipes. The research addresses uncertainties in micro-nuclear reactor deployment for clinker production and investigates high-efficiency heat exchanger designs. | Document | Non-Traditional and Non-electric Applications | FY2024 |
| Redox potential, ionic speciation, and separation and recovery challenges from molten salts containing actinides and fission products | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $999,999 | Establishing an efficient, safe, secure, and economical Molten-Salt Reactor (MSR) fuel cycle is imperative for MSR implementation. Molten salt fuel recycling technology requires predictive knowledge of the chemical and physical behavior of lanthanide and actinide ions with different oxidation states dissolved in solvent salts. A combination of off-gas and X-ray measurements with machine-learning simulations will be used to produce predictive modeling of separation and recovery conditions. | Document | Nuclear Fuel Recycle Technologies | FY2024 |
| Pre-Treatment and Bulk Separation of Used Fuels with Carbonate-Peroxide Solutions | Pennsylvania State University | $1,000,000 | To use carbonate-peroxide chemistries to develop a pre-processing method for used uranium-based fuels that enables the subsequent use and optimization of current solvent extraction reprocessing schemes. Using simple precipitation, this innovative method provides an initial, bulk separation of uranium from fission products and actinides. | Document | Nuclear Fuel Recycle Technologies | FY2024 |
| Optimization of Fueling Strategies and Material Surveillance through Real-time Pebble Tracking in Pebble Bed Reactors | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,100,000 | Flexible operation of the energy grid of the future introduces uncertainty in determining the optimal operating conditions of Pebble Bed Reactors. The proposed work will help to address these challenges and enable more economical operation by providing the tools to determine of optimal fuel reloading strategy through pebble identification and tracking. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Experimental Study and Computational Modeling of P-LOFC and D-LOFC Accidents in the Fast Modular Reactor Consisting of Silicon Carbide Composite Rods | University of Michigan | $1,100,000 | The primary objectives of this proposed research are to better understand NC flow phenomena and heat transfer under both D-LOFC and P-LOFC accidents in the FMR, produce experimental data in a well-scaled integral-effects test facility for the two accidents, and develop and validate predictive CFD models for NC flow phenomena in both accidents. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Sodium heat pipes; design and failure mode assessment for micro-reactor applications | University of Wisconsin-Madison | $1,000,000 | The present proposal aims to experimentally investigate the thermal-hydraulics performance of liquid sodium heat pipes applied to microreactors, with a focus on exploring different design parameters, effects of different parameters on operating performance and understanding the evolution and impact of different failure modes. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Interfacial Interactions between Graphite and Molten Fluoride Fuel Salt | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $1,000,000 | NaF-KF-UF4 fuel salt will be selected to study graphite-salt interactions and impact of the existence of fission products (FPs) and corrosion products on the interactions at different temperatures and pressures. Fundamental mechanisms of graphite-salt interaction and degradation will be understood. | Document | Reactor Development and Plant Optimization | FY2024 |
| Local resonance-based linear and nonlinear NDE techniques for repaired DSC wall structures | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | $1,000,000 | The proposed work plan will develop nondestructive examination (NDE) methods that develop and evaluate linear and nonlinear resonant ultrasound spectroscopy methods (such as NRUS, NIRAS, etc.) to cold spray (CS) repaired dry shielded canister (DSC) wall structures. With the support of our partners from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), we will perform technology development and validation on plain and cold spray-repaired DSC wall specimens. | Document | Spent Fuel, Waste Science & Technology and Integrated Waste Management System | FY2024 |
| Thermodynamic Models for Multivalent Actinide Solubility and Speciation as a Function of Temperature and Ionic Strength | University of Notre Dame | $1,000,000 | This proposed project will quantify the solubility and speciation of Np and Pu under temperatures, ionic strengths, and pH values that are relevant to the generic repository concept. The major deliverable will be full thermodynamic descriptions of the studied systems, which will lead to improved radionuclide transport models and support the development of a sound technical basis for the geologic disposal of spent nuclear fuel and other actinide-bearing wastes. | Document | Spent Fuel, Waste Science & Technology and Integrated Waste Management System | FY2024 |
| Advancing Fundamental Molten Salt Modeling using Ultrafast Spectroscopy | North Carolina State University | $600,000 | The overarching goal of the proposed research is to advance our fundamental understanding of molten salts by combining ultrafast spectroscopic experiments with high fidelity atomistic simulations. The proposed research will introduce a new experimental technique to the study of molten salts that will directly measure ion kinetics, specifically, terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS), which will further validate AIMD as a predictive modeling tool. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
| Hydrodynamics of Two-Phase Flow Under the Geometric Effects of Pipe Orientation and U-bends | Purdue University | $600,000 | Most two-phase flow analyses have been performed in straight vertical-upward pipes. However, nuclear reactor systems include piping with different geometric components, such as elbows or U-bends, as well as changes in flow orientations. The proposed work performs experiments in a scaled test facility existing at the institution's lab to investigate the effects of flow orientations and geometries relevant to nuclear reactor systems on the hydrodynamics of two-phase flow. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
| Interface-Resolved Experimental and Numerical Studies of Two-Phase Flow for Nuclear Engineering Applications | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $500,000 | The project aims at advancing the interface-resolved simulation capabilities for the two-phase flows found in various nuclear engineering applications. We will develop a comprehensive, high-resolution, interface-resolved database emphasizing bubble dynamics and bubble interaction mechanisms. The data will be used to validate the sub-grid models implemented in an interface-resolved simulation tool to improve simulation accuracy by developing physics-based coalescence models. | Document | Strategic Needs Blue Sky | FY2024 |
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