1. OAK RIDGE NATIONAL LABORATORY FACT SHEET
MANAGED BY UT-BATTELLE FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light
Water Reactors
• Award: The U.S. Department of Energy’s first energy innovation hub— Modeling
and Simulation for Nuclear Reactors—to the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of
Light Water Reactors (CASL). The consortium will be headquartered at Oak Ridge
National Laboratory.
• Amount: $122 million over five years
• Members: The CASL core consortium includes Oak Ridge National Laboratory,
Idaho National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Labora-
tories, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Michigan, North Carolina
State University, the Electric Power Research Institute, Tennessee Valley Authority,
and the Westinghouse Electric Company. Additional CASL partners include the City
University of New York, University of Florida, Florida State University, Imperial
College London, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, University of Tennessee, Texas
A&M University, University of Wisconsin, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, ASCOMP
GmbH, CD-adapco, Inc., and the Southern States Energy Board.
• Director: Dr. Douglas B. Kothe, a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from Purdue Univer-
sity. Kothe is currently the Director of Science at the National Center for Computa-
tional Sciences, a part of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Leadership Comput-
ing Facility.
• Task 1: Develop computer models that simulate nuclear power plant operations,
forming a “virtual reactor” for the predictive simulation of light water reactors.
• Task 2: Use computer models to reduce capital and operating costs per unit of energy,
extend the lifetime of the existing U.S. reactor fleet, and reduce nuclear waste volume
generated by enabling higher fuel burnups. The CASL virtual reactor will also be used
to accelerate the deployment of next-generation reactor designs, particularly advanced
nuclear fuel technologies and structural materials within the reactor core.
• Computer Assets: The consortium will utilize the world’s three most powerful com-
puters: Jaguar—a 2,331-trillion operations per second Cray computer at Oak Ridge;
Roadrunner—a 1,375-trillion operations per second IBM computer at Los Alamos;
and Kraken—a 1,029-trillion operations per second Cray computer, also at Oak Ridge.
• Applications: Validation against existing reactors at TVA, which will make available
data for reactor design and model development, reactor operational parameters, reac-
tor startup, and post-irradiation examination of spent fuel.
• Legacy: A preeminent computational science institute for nuclear energy that will
produce an advanced modeling and simulation environment (the “virtual reactor”) for
predictive simulation of Light Water Reactors. The new technologies will be used to
strengthen the American nuclear industry.
• Contacts: Doug Kothe, CASL Director, 865-241-9392, kothe@ornl.gov
Thom Mason, Director, ORNL, 865-576-2900, masont@ornl.gov
Billy Stair, Director of Communications, ORNL, 865-574-4160,
stairb@ornl.gov
www.ornl.gov
ORNL 2010-G00830/aas