Multiphysics Simulation of the NASA SIRIUS-CAL Fuel Experiment in the Transient Test Reactor Using Griffin

Tian Jing, Sebastian Schunert, Vincent M. Labouré, Mark D. DeHart (), Ching-Sheng Lin and Javier Ortensi
Additional contact information
Tian Jing: Nuclear Design Discipline, TerraPower, Bellevue, WA 98005, USA
Sebastian Schunert: Reactor Physics Methods and Analysis, Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho Falls, ID 83415, USA
Vincent M. Labouré: Reactor Physics Methods and Analysis, Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho Falls, ID 83415, USA
Mark D. DeHart: Reactor Physics Methods and Analysis, Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho Falls, ID 83415, USA
Ching-Sheng Lin: Nuclear Design Discipline, TerraPower, Bellevue, WA 98005, USA
Javier Ortensi: Reactor Physics Methods and Analysis, Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho Falls, ID 83415, USA

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 17, 1-28

Abstract: After approximately 50 years, NASA is restarting efforts to develop nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) for interplanetary missions. Building upon nuclear engine tests performed from the late 1950s to the early 1970s, the present research and testing focuses on advanced materials and fabrication methods. A number of transient tests have been performed to evaluate materials performance under high-temperature, high-flux conditions, with several more experiments in the pipeline for future testing. The measured data obtained from those tests are being used to validate the Griffin reactor multiphysics code for this particular type of application. Griffin was developed at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) using the MOOSE framework. This article describes the simulation results of the SIRIUS-CAL calibration experiment in the Transient Reactor Test Facility (TREAT). SIRIUS-CAL was the first transient test conducted on NASA fuels, and although the test was performed with a relatively low core peak power, the test specimen survived a temperature exceeding 900 K. Griffin simulations of the experiment successfully matched the reactor’s power transient after calibrating the initial control rod position to match the initial reactor period. The thermal-hydraulics model largely matches the time-dependent response of a thermocouple located within the experiment specimen to within the uncertainty estimate. However, the uncertainty range is significant and must be reduced in the future.

Keywords: griffin; multiphysics; transient; TREAT; SIRIUS; NASA; validation; MOOSE (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/17/6181/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/17/6181/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:15:y:2022:i:17:p:6181-:d:897744

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().