This is the title of a three year and $3 million research project on advanced nuclear reactors being funded by the Department of Energy and headed by Professor Michael Podowski. The project aims to gain a better understanding of the sodium-cooled nuclear reactors, with a focus on looking at methods of ensuring safety.

The set of specific reactors that Podowski is looking at in his research are four generation sodium-cooled fast reactors. SFRs have not yet been built in prototype form, but are expected to be one of the most technologically advanced nuclear reactors once constructed. The SFR design has several advantages over current nuclear reactors, such as the ability to consume both weapons-grade radioactive material and low-grade nuclear waste with high efficiency, and relatively low waste production.

When the DoE organized a conference and called on proposals for energy research projects, “we decided to submit [a proposal], because we had a good idea and a great team,” stated Podowski. “This team involves both a [good group of people here at RPI] and great partners,” continued Podowski, reiterating later that “we have a great team.”

According to the project description, the goals are “to develop and deploy high-performance computing tools for coupled thermal-hydraulic, neutronic, and materials multi-scale simulations of the sodium fast reactor” and to “apply the new computational methodology to study reactor fuel and core transient response under beyond-design and accident conditions.”

Podowski explained these goals in simpler terms. “We looked at this as a multi-staged project. We want to develop tools and interfaces to run individual models.” Podowski stated that they will be putting together a collection of computer codes, each for a different part of the reactor model, into a “suite, or platform, to simulate the [system of the reactor].” This platform will then be used to further understand the SFR system.

The platform will make use of RPI’s new Computational Center for Nanotechnology Innovations and New York Blue—both Blue Gene computers that are the seventh and fifth most powerful computers in the world, respectively. The large computational power of these computers will be used to model and predict what the condition within these advanced nuclear reactors will be like. Podowski and others, in modeling SFRs, hope to improve the understanding, expectations, and safety of these designed models.

“Nuclear reactors are safe, but nothing is perfectly safe,” explained Podowski, “we need to make the next step, to further safety. We anticipate hypothetical accidents … [the largest point of which is] making sure the radioactive materials do not get spread outside the environment,” said Podowski.

Many aspects of this research model that Podowski details are being closely watched. In general, “[predicting what will happen to] materials, when exposed to radiation,” and “what would happen if the sodium was exposed to radioactive material,” as well as “what would be the consequences of failure … and then we would want to know what would be released,” were explained to be large concerns.

Podowski also listed things they hope to observe and understand better: “at the molecular dynamic level, thermo-stresses and melting; microscale, stress; other things dealing with solid mechanics; fluid mechanics; heat transfer in parts of the reactor; neutronic aspects; and how small things throughout the reactor will propagate. Small things happen everywhere, if you lose control, safety becomes an issue,” he said.

More than 10 researchers will be involved in the project. In addition to Podowski, other co-principal investigators from within the Department of Mechanical, Aeronautical, and Nuclear Engineering, graduate students and researchers from within RPI, people from Stony Brook University, Columbia University, and Brookhaven National Laboratory will all be participating in this research project.