Grant: Alliance Grants

The objective of this proposal is to develop an integrated software tool set for nuclear safety assessment that combines a physics-based computer modelling and simulation of advanced small modular reactors (SMRs) with a comprehensive quantification of all uncertainties that arise in the modelling. This will enable an end-to-end uncertainty quantification (UQ) and principled safety (accident) analysis, prediction, and decision-making framework for SMRs (and, more broadly, for the next-generation advanced nuclear reactor technologies based on non-light water coolants such as molten salt, liquid metal and gas that will need to be assessed, monitored and controlled throughout their life cycle). Incorporation of UQ in the large-scale scientific simulator developed in this proposal, consisting of the coupling of a computational fluid dynamics model with a systems code, is the key-enabling technology that will provide the reliability, resilience, and trust for safety/mission-critical assessments in those settings that can potentially involve catastrophic consequences. Inclusion of information with respect to whether various figures of merit used in the safety evaluation of SMRs are confident or uncertain will permit more informed (science-based) decisions to be made by decision makers concerning the certification and licensing of advanced SMRs in Canada. As a consequence, this is especially beneficial for Canada's clean energy future as SMRs can produce a large amount of clean energy so this potentially disruptive technology must be one of the solutions to a carbon-free future path for Canada. Moreover, the small footprint of SMRs implies that they can be sited at remote locations and can be installed into the existing grid system or remotely off grid (e.g., in remotely indigenous communities) and, as a result, is an enabling technology for a clean energy future in Canada.