The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) (Washington, D.C., USA) announced the selection of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) (Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA) to lead a $9.25 million collaborative project in nuclear energy research through the Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) program. SciDAC brings together exerts in science and energy research with those in software development, applied mathematics, and computer science to take full advantage of high-performance computer resources.
Through advance modeling of the behavior and properties of structure materials under molten salt conditions, the project aims to understand and anticipate the couplings between corrosion and irradiation effects at the at the atomistic scale in a variety of metal exposed to molten salt in a reactor. From there, researchers can connect those effects to engineering-scale material performance to inform design decisions and safety analyses.
“The U.S. needs projects like this one to advance nuclear technologies and help us achieve the Biden-Harris administration’s goals of clean energy by 2035 and a net-zero economy by 2050,” says Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, director of the Office of Science. “These collaborations bring together cutting-edge scientific techniques with real world applications and enable the deployment of new reactor designs in timeframes not otherwise possible.”
“This program powerfully brings together experts from basic and applied sciences with multiple world-class research facilities to enable discovery,” says Kathryn Huff, assistant secretary for the Office of Nuclear Energy. “These partnerships promise to advance our understanding of material phenomena essential to designing and demonstrating safe and efficient advanced nuclear reactors.”
The research team is comprised of experts from LANL, Idaho National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, and Carnegie Mellon University. Total funding for the five-year partnership is $9.25 million, with $1,85 million in fiscal year 2022 dollars and outyear funding contingent on congressional appropriations.
Source: Office of Science, www.energy.gov.