Reports
Our report series is archived below
ARFC Technical Reports
- Turkmen, Mehmet, and Jiaqi Chen. 2021. “Milestone 2.3 Report: SaltProc Sensitivity Analysis, Fuel Processing System Design.” Milestone Report UIUC-ARFC-2021-01. Edited by Kathryn Huff, Caleb S. Brooks, Tomasz Kozlowski, James F. Stubbins, and Brent Heuser. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) is engaged in work to develop a fuel processing system that enables load-following in Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs), an important ability that allows nuclear power plants to ramp electricity production up or down to meet changing electricity demand. Nuclear reactions in MSRs produce unwanted byproducts (such as xenon and krypton) that can adversely affect power production. In steady, baseload operation, these byproducts form and decay at the same rate. When electricity production is ramped down, however, the byproducts start to be produced at a greater rate than they decay, leading to a buildup within the reactor. When power production must be once again increased, the response rate is slowed by the time needed for the byproducts to reach their equilibrium level (determined by the radioactive decay half-life, which is on the order of hours). Thus, buildup of these unwanted byproducts resulting from ramping down inhibit proper load following for molten salt reactors. Fortunately, MSRs transport fuel in a flowing molten salt fuel loop, which means that a section of the reactor, outside the core, can be leveraged for fuel processing and "cleanup." The team will determine the feasibility of removal of these unwanted byproducts and de- sign a fuel reprocessing system, removing a major barrier to commercialization for molten salt reactors. Toward this work, we initiated the Fuel Cycle Simulation task (Task 2) in August 2018 to more realistically model the online reprocessing system of the Transatomic Power (TAP) MSR. A Python toolkit, SaltProc v0.1 [1–3], was developed to represent the simplified online fuel salt processing of a Molten Salt Breeder Reactor (MSBR). More recently, an advanced SaltProc version (SaltProc v0.2) was developed to generically simulate complex molten salt fuel reprocessing systems, including the TAP system, incorporating user-parametrized components into the fuel salt processing design. This report summarizes the progress we have made towards milestone M2.1: Demonstrate SaltProc and the steps toward the subsequent Task 2 objectives.
@techreport{turkmen_milestone_2021, address = {Urbana, IL}, type = {Milestone {Report}}, title = {Milestone 2.3 {Report}: {SaltProc} {Sensitivity} {Analysis}, {Fuel} processing system design}, shorttitle = {Contract {DE}-{AR0000983}, {Enabling} {Load} {Following} {Capability} in the {Transatomic} {MSR}}, language = {english}, number = {UIUC-ARFC-2021-01}, institution = {University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign}, author = {Turkmen, Mehmet and Chen, Jiaqi}, editor = {Huff, Kathryn and Brooks, Caleb S. and Kozlowski, Tomasz and Stubbins, James F. and Heuser, Brent}, collaborator = {Lee, Alvin and Zhen, Li and Rykhlevskii, Andrei}, month = mar, year = {2021}, keywords = {nuclear fuel cycle, nuclear engineering, arfc, report, cyclus, molten salt reactor}, pages = {1--26} } - Dotson, Samuel G., Amanda M. Bachmann, Zoë M. Richter, Nataly R. Panczyk, Nathan S. Ryan, Anna C. Balla, and Erin R. Fanning. 2021. “Economic and Carbon Impacts of Potential Illinois Nuclear Plant Closures: The Cost of Closures.” Technical Report UIUC-ARFC-2021-02. Edited by Kathryn D. Huff and Madicken Munk. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. github.com/arfc/2021-04-nm-illinois.
n August 27, 2020, Exelon Generation announced planned premature clo- sures of two Illinois nuclear plants (4 reactor units) which compete eco- nomically with fossil fueled plants within the Pennsylvania-New Jersey- Maryland (PJM) interconnection [1]. This report quantitatively explores how these closures would undermine economic and decarbonization goals in the state of Illinois, such as an aggressive target to achieve a zero carbon electric grid by 2030. Previous energy systems research has shown that such clean energy goals cannot be reached if nuclear plants prematurely retire [2, 3, 4]. In particular, the February 2021 National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine consensus report, “Accelerating Decarbonization of the U.S. Energy System,” determined unequivocally that US decarbonization will require keeping existing nuclear plants open [2]. Consistent with that liter- ature, our simulations indicate that decarbonization in Illinois will require not only maintenance but expansion of nuclear energy capacity.
@techreport{dotson_economic_2021, address = {Urbana, IL}, type = {Technical {Report}}, title = {Economic and {Carbon} {Impacts} of {Potential} {Illinois} {Nuclear} {Plant} {Closures}: {The} {Cost} of {Closures}}, shorttitle = {Comissioned by {Nuclear} {Matters}}, url = {github.com/arfc/2021-04-nm-illinois}, language = {english}, number = {UIUC-ARFC-2021-02}, institution = {University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign}, author = {Dotson, Samuel G. and Bachmann, Amanda M. and Richter, Zoë M. and Panczyk, Nataly R. and Ryan, Nathan S. and Balla, Anna C. and Fanning, Erin R.}, editor = {Huff, Kathryn D. and Munk, Madicken}, month = may, year = {2021}, keywords = {nuclear fuel cycle, arfc, report, cyclus}, pages = {1--20} } - Chee, Gwendolyn, Roberto Fairhurst, and Kathryn Huff. 2019. “Transition Scenario Demonstrations of CYCAMORE Demand Driven Deployment Capabilities.” Technical Report UIUC-ARFC-2019-03. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. https://zenodo.org/record/3354507.
In many fuel cycle simulators, the user must define a deployment scheme for all supporting facilities to avoid supply chain gaps. To ease setting up nuclear fuel cycle simulations, Nuclear Fuel Cycle (NFC) simulators should bring demand-responsive deployment decisions into the dynamics of the simulation logic. Thus, a next-generation NFC simulator should predictively and automatically deploy fuel cycle facilities to meet a user-defined power demand. CYCLUS is an agent-based nuclear fuel cycle simulation framework [4]. In CYCLUS, each entity (i.e. Region, Institution, or Facility) in the fuel cycle is an agent. Region agents represent geographical or political areas that institution and facility agents can be grouped into. Institution agents control the deployment and decommission of facility agents and represents legal operating organizations such as a utility, government, etc. Facility agents represent nuclear fuel cycle facilities. CYCAMORE provides agents to represent process physics of various components in the nuclear fuel cycle (e.g. mine, fuel enrichment facility, reactor). The Demand-Driven CYCAMORE Archetypes project (NEUP-FY16-10512) aims to develop CYCLUS’ demand-driven deployment capabilities. This capability is added as a CYCLUS Institution agent that deploys facilities to meet the front-end and back-end fuel cycle demands based on a user-defined commodity demand. This demand-driven deployment capability is called d3ploy. In this paper, we explain the capabilities of d3ploy and demonstrate how d3ploy minimizes undersupply of all commodities in a few simulations while meeting key simulation constraints. Constant, linearly increasing, and sinusoidal power demand transition scenarios are demonstrated. Insights are discussed to inform parameter input decisions for future work in setting up larger transition scenarios that include many facilities. And finally, the more complex transition scenarios are demonstrated.
@techreport{chee_transition_2019, address = {Urbana, IL}, type = {Technical {Report}}, title = {Transition {Scenario} {Demonstrations} of {CYCAMORE} {Demand} {Driven} {Deployment} {Capabilities}}, shorttitle = {Contract {DE}-{NE0008567}}, url = {https://zenodo.org/record/3354507}, language = {english}, number = {UIUC-ARFC-2019-03}, urldate = {2019-07-29}, institution = {University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign}, author = {Chee, Gwendolyn and Fairhurst, Roberto and Huff, Kathryn}, month = jun, year = {2019}, note = {https://zenodo.org/record/3354507}, keywords = {nuclear fuel cycle, arfc, report, cyclus}, pages = {1--23}, annote = {This research is being performed using funding received from the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy's Nuclear Energy University Program (Project 16-10512, DE-NE0008567) 'Demand-Driven Cycamore Archetypes'.} } - Chaube, Anshuman, Kathryn D. Huff, and James Stubbins. 2019. “Dynamic Transition Analysis With The Integrated Markal-EFOM System (TIMES): International Institute for Carbon-Neutral Energy Research (I2CNER) Project Report.” Technical Report UIUC-ARFC-2019-02. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3354538.
We initiated a project in January 2018 to simulate dynamic transition scenarios for the energy industry in Japan to suggest pathways for minimizing carbon emissions. This report is a summary of the progress we have made so far, the challenges we currently face, and the future direction of this research.
@techreport{chaube_dynamic_2019-2, address = {Urbana, IL}, type = {Technical {Report}}, title = {Dynamic {Transition} {Analysis} {With} {The} {Integrated} {Markal}-{EFOM} {System} ({TIMES}): {International} {Institute} for {Carbon}-{Neutral} {Energy} {Research} ({I2CNER}) {Project} {Report}}, url = {https://zenodo.org/record/3354538#.XT9WlpNKirw}, language = {eng}, number = {UIUC-ARFC-2019-02}, institution = {University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign}, author = {Chaube, Anshuman and Huff, Kathryn D. and Stubbins, James}, collaborator = {Itaoka, Kenshi and Chapman, Andrew and Faradi, Hadi}, month = may, year = {2019}, doi = {10.5281/zenodo.3354538}, keywords = {arfc, report, i2cner, energy analysis, japan}, pages = {0--17}, annote = {The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the International Institute for Carbon Neutral Energy Research (WPI-I2CNER), sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.} } - Rykhlevskii, Andrei, and Kathryn Huff. 2019. “Milestone 2.1 Report: Demonstration of SaltProc.” Milestone Report UIUC-ARFC-2019-04 DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.3355649. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3355649.
The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) is engaged in work to develop a fuel processing system that enables load-following in Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs), an important ability that allows nuclear power plants to ramp electricity production up or down to meet changing electricity demand. Nuclear reactions in MSRs produce unwanted byproducts (such as xenon and krypton) that can adversely affect power production. In steady, baseload operation, these byproducts form and decay at the same rate. When electricity production is ramped down, however, the byproducts start to be produced at a greater rate than they decay, leading to a buildup within the reactor. When power production must be once again increased, the response rate is slowed by the time needed for the byproducts to reach their equilibrium level (determined by the radioactive decay half-life, which is on the order of hours). Thus, buildup of these unwanted byproducts resulting from ramping down inhibit proper load following for molten salt reactors. Fortunately, MSRs transport fuel in a flowing molten salt fuel loop, which means that a section of the reactor, outside the core, can be leveraged for fuel processing and "cleanup." The team will determine the feasibility of removal of these unwanted byproducts and de- sign a fuel reprocessing system, removing a major barrier to commercialization for molten salt reactors. Toward this work, we initiated the Fuel Cycle Simulation task (Task 2) in August 2018 to more realistically model the online reprocessing system of the Transatomic Power (TAP) MSR. A Python toolkit, SaltProc v0.1 [1–3], was developed to represent the simplified online fuel salt processing of a Molten Salt Breeder Reactor (MSBR). More recently, an advanced SaltProc version (SaltProc v0.2) was developed to generically simulate complex molten salt fuel reprocessing systems, including the TAP system, incorporating user-parametrized components into the fuel salt processing design. This report summarizes the progress we have made towards milestone M2.1: Demonstrate SaltProc and the steps toward the subsequent Task 2 objectives.
@techreport{rykhlevskii_milestone_2019, address = {Urbana, IL}, type = {Milestone {Report}}, title = {Milestone 2.1 {Report}: {Demonstration} of {SaltProc}}, shorttitle = {Contract {DE}-{AR0000983}, {Enabling} {Load} {Following} {Capability} in the {Transatomic} {MSR}}, language = {english}, number = {UIUC-ARFC-2019-04 DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.3355649}, institution = {University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign}, author = {Rykhlevskii, Andrei and Huff, Kathryn}, month = jun, year = {2019}, doi = {10.5281/zenodo.3355649}, keywords = {nuclear fuel cycle, nuclear engineering, arfc, report, cyclus, molten salt reactor}, pages = {1--23}, annote = {This research is being performed using funding received from the Department of Energy ARPA-E MEITNER Program (award DE-AR0000983) and the Blue Waters sustained-petascale computing project, which is supported by the National Science Foundation (awards OCI-0725070 and ACI-1238993) and the state of Illinois. Blue Waters is a joint effort of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and its National Center for Supercomputing Applications.} } - Huff, Kathryn D. 2019. “Identifying MSR Multiphysics Modeling Challenges.” Technical Report UIUC-ARFC-2019-01. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3354563.
Solid fueled nuclear reactors differ from liquid fueled reactors with re- spect to many physical domains including neutronics, thermal hydraulics, and materials performance. Accordingly, liquid fueled reactors challenge the capabilities of conventional computational tools designed for modeling and simulating the physics of solid fueled reactors.
@techreport{huff_identifying_2019, address = {Urbana, IL}, type = {Technical {Report}}, title = {Identifying {MSR} {Multiphysics} {Modeling} {Challenges}}, shorttitle = {Contract {DE}-{AC07}-{05ID14517}}, url = {https://zenodo.org/record/335456}, language = {english}, number = {UIUC-ARFC-2019-01}, institution = {University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign}, author = {Huff, Kathryn D.}, collaborator = {Sabharwall, Piyush}, month = feb, year = {2019}, doi = {10.5281/zenodo.3354563}, keywords = {nuclear, molten salt reactor, multiphysics}, pages = {1--12}, annote = {This research was performed using funding received from Battelle Energy Alliance LLC, Idaho National Laboratory Standard Research Contract 214196.} } - Bae, Jin Whan, Gwendolyn Chee, and Kathryn Huff. 2018. “Numerical Experiments for Verifying Demand Driven Deployment Algorithms.” Graduate Report UIUC-ARFC-2018-01. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. https://github.com/arfc/ddca_numerical_exp.
For many fuel cycle simulations, it is currently up to the user to define a deployment scheme, or facility parameters, to make sure that there’s no gap in the supply chain. Or, the same goal is achieved by setting the facility capacity to infinity, which does not reflect real-world conditions. The Demand-Driven Cycamore Archetype project (NEUP-FY16-10512) aims to develop Cycamore demand-driven deployment capabilities. The developed algorithm, in the form of Cyclus Institution agent, deploys Facilities to meet the front-end and back-end demands of the fuel cycle. This report describes numerical tests for non-optimizing, deterministic- optimizing and stochastic-optimizing prediction algorithms. These prediction models are being developed by the University of South Carolina. In this report, we discuss numerical experiments for testing the non-optimizing, deterministic optimizing and stochastic optimizing meth- ods. The numerical experiments will be designed for both the once through nuclear fuel cycle and advanced fuel cycles.
@techreport{bae_numerical_2018, address = {Urbana, IL}, type = {Graduate {Report}}, title = {Numerical {Experiments} for {Verifying} {Demand} {Driven} {Deployment} {Algorithms}}, url = {https://github.com/arfc/ddca_numerical_exp}, number = {UIUC-ARFC-2018-01}, institution = {University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign}, author = {Bae, Jin Whan and Chee, Gwendolyn and Huff, Kathryn}, month = apr, year = {2018}, keywords = {arfc, report}, pages = {0--21} } - Ridley, Gavin, Alexander Lindsay, Matthew Turk, and Kathryn Huff. 2017. “Multiphysics Analysis of Molten Salt Reactor Transients.” Undergraduate Report UIUC-ARFC-2017-01. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. https://github.com/arfc/publications/tree/2017-ridley-msrTransients.
Molten salt nuclear reactor technology has not yet been constructed for industrial scale. High fidelity simulation capability of both transients and steady-state behavior must be developed for reactor licensing. The simulations should make use of high performance computing (HPC) in order to come to realistic results while minimizing assumptions. High resolution simulation of limiting reactor transients using open-source software can inform reproducible results suitable for preliminary licensing activity. We present example results of the new code.
@techreport{ridley_multiphysics_2017, address = {Urbana, IL}, type = {Undergraduate {Report}}, title = {Multiphysics {Analysis} of {Molten} {Salt} {Reactor} {Transients}}, url = {https://github.com/arfc/publications/tree/2017-ridley-msrTransients}, number = {UIUC-ARFC-2017-01}, institution = {University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign}, author = {Ridley, Gavin and Lindsay, Alexander and Turk, Matthew and Huff, Kathryn}, month = aug, year = {2017}, note = {DOI 10.5281/zenodo.1145437}, keywords = {arfc, report}, pages = {0--12} } - Bae, Jin Whan, and Kathryn D. Huff. 2017. “Non-Algorithmic Capability Gaps for Cyclus and Cycamore Transition Analyses.” Graduate Report UIUC-ARFC-2017-02. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1145439.
As part of NEUP-FY16-10512, fuel cycle transition scenarios were simulated using Cyclus and existing Cycamore archetypes. The purpose of this study is to identify current non-algorithmic gaps in the capabilities necessary for key transition scenarios. The gaps identified through this exercise mainly pertain to the greedy exchange model, and the manual, static parameter of fuel cycle facilities. The scenarios are from the Idaho National Laboratory Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation and Screening Report. The transition scenarios begin with EG01 and transition to EG23, EG24, EG29, EG30, separately.
@techreport{bae_non-algorithmic_2017, address = {Urbana, IL}, type = {Graduate {Report}}, title = {Non-algorithmic {Capability} {Gaps} for {Cyclus} and {Cycamore} transition analyses}, url = {https://github.com/arfc/transition-scenarios}, number = {UIUC-ARFC-2017-02}, institution = {University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign}, author = {Bae, Jin Whan and Huff, Kathryn D.}, month = nov, year = {2017}, doi = {10.5281/zenodo.1145439}, keywords = {arfc, report}, pages = {0--12} }