to Improve Computer Simulation for Nuclear Energy
OREM, UT, Sep 22, 2022 – Coreform LLC, the leading developer of commercial spline-based simulation software, recently received a Department of Energy grant to improve nuclear energy simulation.
The Department of Energy has awarded a $1.1M Phase II SBIR grant to Coreform, a three-time Inc. 5000 company, to develop computer simulation processes that will increase the use of simulation in the nuclear industry. “Greater use of predictive simulation analysis with current and future nuclear reactors will improve their safety, reliability, and performance,” notes Coreform CEO Matthew Sederberg. “We anticipate this project will help the nuclear energy industry to contribute significantly to sustainable energy and decarbonization efforts as well as US energy independence.”
As the need for reliable, clean energy continues to grow throughout the world, nuclear energy is seen by many as a crucial addition to the world’s green arsenal. Unfortunately, one barrier to increased development of nuclear energy is the lack of accessible computer simulation for nuclear engineers. Current computer simulation software for nuclear-specific parts and designs requires users to be computational specialists, which limits the number of nuclear engineers who can take advantage of those tools.
The work Coreform is doing will improve the utility of simulation for nuclear engineers by providing improved workflows and methods for building simulation models and by providing better tools to allow engineers to verify simulation results.
“Nearly all verification techniques rely on repeated simulations of the same problem with varying inputs or levels of refinement, so computational cost becomes a primary consideration,” says Andrew Slaughter, Coreform’s director of Nuclear Development. “Coreform’s IGA technology is uniquely able to provide a significant improvement to the adaptivity in nuclear codes such as MOOSE.”
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has determined that accurate and reliable analysis of next-generation nuclear reactor technology will require replacing legacy codes with next-generation modeling and simulation approaches. In no industry are validation and verification activities more critical than nuclear energy, where the extreme restrictions on physical testing due to long time frames and dangerous materials leads to a unique dependence on modeling and simulation.
The continuation of the work proposed here will ultimately lead to robust software that can provide nuclear engineers with the reliable simulation results required to enable the design of next-generation reactors.
About Coreform LLC
Coreform is the leading developer of commercial spline-based simulation software. Founded in 2014, the company’s globally recognized authorities in the field of isogeometric analysis are among the most widely cited authors in engineering sciences. The company’s spline-based simulation software is based on its proprietary spline geometry instead of traditional meshes and provides many significant advantages over traditional FEA simulation software. Coreform is headquartered in Orem, UT, USA.
For more information, visit www.coreform.com.