Two-phase flow simulations of turbulent nuclear reactor flows

by Prof. Igor A. Bolotnov (North Carolina State University)

Thursday 31 Oct 2019, 14:00 → 15:00 Europe/Zurich

OHSA/E13 (Paul Scherrer Institut)

The presented talk outlines the progress in the recent years of the high-resolution single and two-phase flow simulations of reactor-relevant flows. Rapid development of high-performance computing capabilities creates exciting opportunities to study complex reactor thermal hydraulic phenomena in future years. Today’s advances in thermal hydraulic analysis, machine learning techniques and interface resolved simulations will help pave the way to the next level of understanding of two-phase flow behavior in complex geometries. This discussion includes two major parts: (i) history and review of interface tracking simulations for nuclear thermal hydraulics in recent years and (ii) several opportunities to apply those advanced tools in the future. First part will discuss typical computational methods used for those simulations, provide some examples of the past work, as well as computational cost estimates and affordability of such simulations for research and industrial applications. In the second part some specific examples are discussed which could be analyzed using exascale supercomputers being designed and projected to be online in the next several years. New generation methodologies are required in order to take full advantage of those capabilities to greatly enhance the scientific understanding of complex two-phase flow phenomena in nuclear reactors under normal operation and postulated accident conditions.

Bio: Dr. Bolotnov is an Associate Professor of Nuclear Engineering at North Carolina State University. In the Fall of 2019 Dr. Bolotnov is working at HZDR (Dresden, Germany) during his sabbatical supported by the Humboldt fellowship for experienced researchers. He is a member of CASL, the DOE-funded energy innovation hub. His research had been funded through DOE, NSF and NRC. Dr. Bolotnov is a Program Chair for Thermal Hydraulics Division of ANS and past-president of NCSU Chapter of Sigma Xi. Dr. Bolotnov has over 100 refereed publications, including 25 journal papers. Five Ph.D. and 15 Master’s students have graduated under his supervision and he currently advises 8 graduate students. His research focuses on single and two-phase flow turbulent flows, in particular to nuclear reactor applications, and utilization of high-performance computing for direct numerical simulation in complex geometries. Turbulence model development, including advanced machine learning techniques is another area of research.