COMPUTATIONAL MODELLING FOR ADVANCED NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS

Modern computational methods can be a very valuable tool in assessing the behaviour of nuclear power stations, and ensuring that they present minimal hazard to either the public or the environment. This proposal is to fund research further to develop such methods, and by careful comparison of their predictions with actual measurements, establish predictive tools that are appropriate, robust, efficient and validated. The work proposed seeks to achieve this by developing a basis for the verification and validation of computational tools against well-defined benchmark cases. It also seeks to develop advanced computational methods to address problems in normal operation and fault conditions, as well as to investigate aspects of system behaviour in severe accident situations.

Research outputs of the kind planned are important In view of the central role that nuclear power is expected to play over the next decades. New reactors and reactor types must meet ever higher economic and safety criteria, and assessing their ability to meet these relies more and more on advanced computational modeling. Direct beneficiaries of this will be designers, assessors and operators of nuclear plant,; better analysis tools, properly validated, are essential to realize the continuing benefits of nuclear new build. Society in general will gain too, as it benefits from the economical and carbon-free energy such nuclear plant provide. Adoption within the nuclear industry of new approaches is quite properly cautious, and the impact of the work proposed here will have a range of timescales of application. Better validated CFD models could be employed essentially immediately in (say) licensing assessment (as KNOO-developed methods indeed are as we write), whereas fundamental improvements in (say, just as one example of the research proposed) particulate deposition processes in severe accidents will quite properly take longer to work through. The resurgent nuclear industry (UK, and worldwide, indeed) has an urgent need for trained scientists and engineers, at Doctoral and Postdoctoral level, to undertake these design and assessment activities. Besides the research outputs themselves, programmes like this are valuable in generating such people. The programme proposed is tightly coupled to industry, with significant co-funding, co-location of researchers, and strong industrial collaboration running as a theme through it. This will be effective in ensuring that the research outputs are properly made available to industry, and that their uptake is maximized.