Overview of the Consortium for the Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL)

Abstract

Abstract. The Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL) was established in July 2010 for the purpose of providing advanced modeling and simulation solutions for commercial nuclear reactors. The primary goal is to provide coupled, higherfidelity, usable modeling and simulation capabilities than are currently available. These are needed to address light water reactor (LWR) operational and safety performance-defining phenomena that are not yet able to be fully modeled taking a first-principles approach. In order to pursue these goals, CASL has participation from laboratory, academic, and industry partners. These partners are pursuing the solution of ten major "Challenge Problems" in order to advance the state-of-the-art in reactor design and analysis to permit power uprates, higher burnup, life extension, and increased safety. At present, the problems being addressed by CASL are primarily reactor physics-oriented; however, this paper is intended to introduce CASL to the reactor dosimetry community because of the importance of reactor physics modelling and nuclear data to define the source term for that community and the applicability and extensibility of the transport methods being developed.

DYN3D and CTF Coupling within a Multiscale and Multiphysics Software Development (Part I)

“…Finally, fuel performance codes such as DRACCAR [42] and SCANAIR (Systems of Codes for Analysing Reactivity Initiated Accidents) [43] provide full thermo mechanics at the fuel pin level and the boundary conditions used in other codes. CASL is a development by the USDE (United States Department of Energy), that aimed to provide improved coupled reactor physics at the fuel pin level, although solution requirements led to a new development known as CASL-Advanced [44], which has the aim of providing full coupled reactor physics at the fuel pin level by using spectral codes such as ORIGEN [45] and SCALE [46] to provide the fuel pin cross sections required in neutron transport codes. Neutron transport codes such as MPACT [47], INSILICO [48], and SHIFT [49] provide full neutronics at the fuel pin level and the boundary conditions used in other codes.…”

Multi-physics coupling simulation in virtual reactors

“…The major achievement of CASL is VERA, which is a software application environment 47 for nuclear reactor core behavior simulation. [48][49][50] VERA consists of two main components 47 : (1) physics components, such as mechanics, thermal hydraulic, and neutronics simulating programs; (2) infrastructure components, such as LIME, MOOSE, and PIKE (Physics Integration KErnels) 51,52 programs used for coupling simulation. The NEAMS workbench is organized into three product lines [53][54][55] : the Fuel Product Line (FPL), Reactor Product Line (RPL), and Integration Product Line (IPL).…”