Like the rest of the US's nuclear research reactors, Oak Ridge National Lab's (ORNL) high flux isotope reactor (HFIR) is moving from high-enriched uranium (HEU) fuel to low-enriched uranium (LEU). As such, the safety of the system must be assessed to incorporate the changes in fuel properties and the subsequently modified fuel plate.
Due to the recent growth in multiphysics, fluid-structure dynamics calculations can be coupled using a fluid-structure interaction (FSI) solver. The FSI solver is the key to the analysis of the HFIR system. Due to a built-in fully coupled FSI solver, and implicit solution capabilities, ORNL chose COMSOL to obtain their stable and precise solution. Read more here.
