Computational fluid dynamics as a virtual facility for R and D in the IRIS project: an overview

The pressurized light water cooled, medium power (1000 MWt) IRIS (International Reactor Innovative and Secure) has been under development for four years by an international consortium of over 21 organizations from ten countries. The plant conceptual design was completed in 2001 and the preliminary design is nearing completion. The pre-application licensing process with NRC started in October, 2002 and IRIS is one of the designs considered by US utilities as part of the ESP (Early Site Permit) process. The development of a new nuclear plant concept presents the opportunity and potential for a significant usage of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) in the design process, as it is in many conventional applications related to power generation. A CFD-Group of international scientists has been given the mission of investigating the many application opportunities for CFD related to the IRIS project and to verify the support that the IRIS design process may gain from CFD in terms of time, costs, resource saving, and visibility. The key objective identified is the use of CFD as a design tool for virtual tests in order to simplify the optimization effort for the nuclear plant's components and support the IRIS testing program. In this paper, the CFD-Group is described in terms of their resources and capabilities. A program of activities with identified goals and a possible schedule is also presented.(author)