ML21183A003
| ML21183A003 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 06/25/2021 |
| From: | Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards |
| To: | |
| Nourbakhsh H, ACRS | |
| References | |
| NRC-1565 | |
| Download: ML21183A003 (253) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards Safety Research Program Subcommittee Docket Number: (n/a)
Location: teleconference Date: Friday, June 25, 2021 Work Order No.: NRC-1565 Pages 1-164 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
1 1
2 3
4 DISCLAIMER 5
6 7 UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSIONS 8 ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS 9
10 11 The contents of this transcript of the 12 proceeding of the United States Nuclear Regulatory 13 Commission Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, 14 as reported herein, is a record of the discussions 15 recorded at the meeting.
16 17 This transcript has not been reviewed, 18 corrected, and edited, and it may contain 19 inaccuracies.
20 21 22 23 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 + + + + +
4 ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS 5 (ACRS) 6 + + + + +
7 SAFETY RESEARCH PROGRAM SUBCOMMITTEE 8 + + + + +
9 FRIDAY 10 JUNE 25, 2021 11 + + + + +
12 The Subcommittee met via Teleconference, 13 at 2:00 p.m. EDT, David A. Petti, Chair, presiding.
14 15 COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
16 DAVID A. PETTI, Chair 17 RONALD G. BALLINGER, Member 18 VICKI M. BIER, Member 19 CHARLES H. BROWN, JR., Member 20 VESNA B. DIMITRIJEVIC, Member 21 GREGORY H. HALNON, Member 22 WALTER L. KIRCHNER, Member 23 JOSE MARCH-LEUBA, Member 24 JOY L. REMPE, Member 25 MATTHEW W. SUNSERI, Member NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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2 1 DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL:
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3 1 T-A-B-L-E O-F C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S 2 PAGE 3 Opening Remarks and Objectives . . . . . . . . . 4 4 Introductory Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 5 Overview of the Division of Systems Analysis . . 8 6 Specific Priority Topics . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 7 Discussion of Technical Research Activities 8 Code and Reactor Analysis Branch . . . . . 58 9 Fuel & Source Term Code Development . . . . 81 10 Accident Analysis Branch . . . . . . . . 112 11 Radiation Protection Branch . . . . . . . 140 12 Adjourn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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4 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 2:00 p.m.
3 MEMBER PETTI: I have 2:00 o'clock 4 Eastern. So I will call the meeting to order. This 5 is a Safety Research Program Subcommittee meeting in 6 preparation for the Advisory Committee on Reactor 7 Safeguards biennial review of the NRC Safety Research 8 Program.
9 I'm David Petti, Chairman of today's 10 subcommittee meeting and the ACRS lead for the review 11 of the activities associated with the Division of 12 Systems Analysis and the Office of Nuclear Regulatory 13 Research. Members in attendance today are Vicki Bier, 14 Greg Halnon, Jose March-Leuba, Walt Kirchner, Joy 15 Rempe, Ron Ballinger, Vesna Dimitrijevic. I'm 16 checking again. I think that is everyone.
17 MEMBER SUNSERI: Hey, Dave. This is Matt 18 Sunseri. I'm on.
19 MEMBER PETTI: Oh, good. Matt's on, Matt 20 Sunseri. We hold this meeting to gather information 21 to support our biennial review of the NRC Safety 22 Research Program. The ACRS section of the U.S. NRC 23 public website provides our charter, bylaws, agendas, 24 letter reports, and full transcripts of all full and 25 subcommittee meetings, including (audio interference).
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5 1 The meeting notice and agenda for this 2 meeting were also posted there. (Audio interference) 3 comments or a request to make an oral statement from 4 the public. The subcommittee will gather information 5 and analyze relevant issues and facts and formulate 6 the proposed positions and actions as appropriate for 7 deliberation by the full committee.
8 The transcript of the meeting is being 9 kept and it'll be made available. Due to the COVID 10 pandemic, today's meeting is being held over Microsoft 11 Teams for ACRS and NRC staff. There's also a 12 telephone bridgeline allowing participation of the 13 public over the phone.
14 When addressing the subcommittee, the 15 participants should first identify themselves and 16 speak with sufficient clarity and volume so that they 17 may be readily heard. When not speaking, we request 18 that participants mute your computer microphone or 19 phone to prevent feedback. So before I turn this over 20 to Ray Furstenau, Director of the Office of Research, 21 other members have a comment, perhaps Joy as our 22 leader for this overall effort?
23 MEMBER REMPE: Sure, Dave. I think you've 24 covered most parts. I just remind members where we 25 are in the process of we previously heard from Ray and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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6 1 gotten his perspective. And in the upcoming months, 2 we'll be hearing from the other two division in his 3 office.
4 And Matt and Vesna will be the leads of 5 those meetings. And we're still hoping to get our 6 letter report out by the end of this calendar year.
7 And I think that's all I wanted to mention.
8 MEMBER PETTI: Okay, great. Ray, you want 9 to --
10 (Simultaneous speaking.)
11 MR. FURSTENAU: Sure.
12 MEMBER PETTI: Thanks.
13 MR. FURSTENAU: Yeah, sure. Thank you, 14 Dr. Petti. And I just wanted to provide a brief 15 introduction like you mentioned earlier. We had our 16 overall introduction. I guess I'd call it an 17 introductory review in April -- early April, April 8th 18 it was.
19 And in that discussion, there was one 20 thing that I wanted to revisit here in my introduction 21 that there's one recommendation you made and that the 22 committee made in the last report from 2020 that ACRS 23 said, we support the systematic approach implemented 24 by the Office of Research to prioritize research, 25 emphasizing enterprise risk in the project selection, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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7 1 evaluation, and termination. And I think that's a 2 very important recommendation and something that we 3 really are keeping in mind as we go through all of the 4 division level presentations. We think it is 5 important that we complete research activities as they 6 were scoped out to do.
7 And even when some aren't providing a 8 value that we then appropriately terminate them if 9 necessary. So it's really completing reviews, 10 providing feedback from our business line partners in 11 NRR, for example, and by doing annual program reviews.
12 And we really want to promote that culture that 13 supports doing the right research at the right time.
14 And that's both in the starts and the stops.
15 So one thing I wanted to mention and 16 you'll see this in all of the division presentations, 17 the directors and their staff will be providing 18 examples of completion of research activities 19 throughout the presentation. So with that, I'd like 20 to turn it over to Kim Webber. She's the director for 21 the Division of Systems Analysis. So Kim, take it 22 away.
23 MS. WEBBER: Great. Thanks so much, Ray.
24 So good afternoon. I'm Kim Webber. I'm the director 25 of the Division of Systems Analysis in the Office of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 1 Nuclear Regulatory Research. In DSA, we're having to 2 use more transformative ways to complete our work 3 given the changes the NRC faces, including the aging 4 operating fleet with more decommissioning plants, 5 strong interest in accident tolerant and high burn-up 6 fuel, as well as advanced non-light water reactor 7 designs and legislation that drives us to work more 8 collaboratively and, in my opinion, beneficially with 9 other federal agencies such as the Department of 10 Energy.
11 From our presentations, you'll see that 12 we're working hard to maintain staff expertise and our 13 analytical tools to support the regulatory offices and 14 the safety mission of the agency. We have completed 15 a substantial amount of work since the last time we 16 met in 2019. And we look forward to the future to be 17 as prepared as we can for what lies ahead. So we have 18 a lot of information to share with you over the next 19 three hours. And I'd to just give you a quick 20 overview of the agenda. Next slide, please.
21 So on the agenda, I'll provide an overview 22 which will include some information about the DSA 23 resources, staffing levels, core competencies, and 24 useful area of focus. We have a few special topics 25 that we'll briefly discuss and those include a short NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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9 1 update on advanced reactor code development 2 activities. And I'll talk briefly about reference 3 plant models.
4 Additionally, Chris Hoxie and Hossein 5 Esmaili will take about reference plant models. So I 6 know you have a lot of questions on those. Also, Teri 7 Lalain, my new deputy director, she'll present an 8 overview of our code investment plan and the data 9 science artificial intelligence readiness strategies.
10 We know that there's a lot of interest in 11 those special topics. And so for this briefing, we've 12 only planned about ten minutes to cover each of those 13 three special topics. But we're happy to schedule 14 longer meetings outside of this meeting today if you 15 feel like you'd like more detail on those topics.
16 Then the branch chiefs, Chris Hoxie, 17 Hossein Esmaili, Luis Betancourt, our newest branch 18 chief to the division, and John Tomon will present on 19 topics in technical areas of interest in the sequence 20 shown on this slide. And then I'll wrap up with a few 21 closing remarks. Next slide, please.
22 So DSA plans, develops, and manages 23 research programs to develop and maintain broad 24 technical expertise, experimental data, numerical 25 simulation analysis and tools, and the knowledge NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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10 1 needed to support reliable and technically sound 2 regulatory decisions. Combined, the technical 3 research areas in DSA are very broad and include fuel 4 performance, reactor physics, reactor systems, source 5 term, accident progression, severe accident, accident 6 consequences, radiation protection, and health physics 7 research. DSA is comprised of four branches which are 8 shown on this chart.
9 The branch names and their chiefs are 10 shown in the bottom boxes. So Chris Hoxie is the 11 chief of the code and reactor analysis branch.
12 Hossein Esmaili is the chief of the fuel and source 13 term code development branch. Luis Betancourt is the 14 chief of the accident analysis branch. And John Tomon 15 is the chief of the radiation protection branch. Next 16 slide, please.
17 In DSA, we have 54 staff on board with a 18 number of vacancies that are actively being filled.
19 We also have contract funding that is used to augment 20 the staff with specialized expertise from the labs and 21 commercial contractors. This slide shows the 22 distribution of resources across the various technical 23 program areas in the left-hand column along with the 24 key computer codes and DSA contacts in the right-hand 25 column.
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11 1 About 50 percent of our resources support 2 fuel, neutronic, and thermohydraulics research. And 3 a fairly significant portion of our resources support 4 advanced reactor readiness activities. DSA staffing 5 and contract levels have been relatively flat over the 6 last few years and are essentially flat into 2023.
7 From a workload management perspective, we 8 finished milestones, many of which are in user need 9 requests and research assistant requests. And the 10 advanced reactor code development plan is on a monthly 11 basis. For example, we have finished a lot of 12 research and code development activities for near term 13 ATF concepts, or Accident Tolerant Fuel concepts, and 14 high burn-up fuel in addition to generic advanced 15 reactor readiness activities.
16 Each of the chiefs will highlight research 17 activities their branches have completed since the 18 last ACRS biennial review meeting. And there are more 19 details on DSA completions in the backup slides.
20 Growth areas for DSA over the next few years include 21 code development activities for plant-specific 22 advanced reactor and small modular reactor licensing 23 support, building organizational capacity for data 24 science and artificial intelligence, source term 25 analysis for high burn-up fuel and advanced reactor NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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12 1 designs, and new regulatory guidance in the radiation 2 protection area. Next slide, please.
3 This slide shows the core positions and 4 key technical competency areas needed to implement the 5 work of the division. Core positions correspond to 6 staffing plan position titles. And most of the 7 positions within the division are reactor systems 8 engineer and health physics. There are a few nuclear 9 engineers additionally.
10 The red color competencies represent our 11 current areas of focus relative to hiring and building 12 new skills. As compared to the list of competencies 13 we presented in 2019, we have filled prior gaps in the 14 area of fuel performance. Based on our anticipated 15 workload over the next few years, we're hiring to fill 16 gaps in neutronics and reactor physics, 17 thermohydraulics code development, severe accident 18 source term, and health physics areas.
19 We recently hired one data science staff 20 and three summer interns and are cross training other 21 staff in Luis Betancourt's branch, anticipating growth 22 in the data science and artificial intelligence areas.
23 We have been experiencing some difficult hiring 24 neutronics code developers and severe accident source 25 term staff and are working with our human resources NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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13 1 office to develop strategies to bring folks with those 2 skills in-house. One of the concerns that I have is 3 that with the growing interest in advanced reactor 4 technologies and the growing industry in that area, 5 we'll be competing with the same or similar skill sets 6 with the national laboratories and industries. Next 7 slide, please.
8 So here's a short list of many of the DSA 9 priorities. I'm not going to talk about each one 10 because either Teri or the branch chiefs will discuss 11 them during their own presentations. But I did put in 12 parentheses the names of the speakers who will discuss 13 the topics in a little bit more detail. Next slide, 14 please.
15 So as you've heard Ray, me, and other RES 16 managers say before, the Office of Research has an 17 important mission which is to develop and maintain 18 staff expertise and analytic capabilities, including 19 computer codes, that enable regulatory readiness 20 through our research excellence. Shown here are some 21 of the strategies DSA is using to achieve that 22 outcome. We continue to anticipate future licensing 23 submittals through our professional relations and 24 frequent dialogues with our NRC partners such as in 25 NRR.
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14 1 We talked to folks from other government 2 agencies and international organizations. And we also 3 learned new information from external stakeholders.
4 Our focus is to be ready to support potentially 5 diverse needs of the regulatory offices.
6 Regarding forward looking research, both 7 Teri and I promote and encourage our staff to share 8 new ideas with us and with each other to optimize the 9 way we work. As an example, our senior IT specialist, 10 Anthony Calvo, and our technical assistant, Ken 11 Armstrong, have been working really hard over the last 12 few years with our IT department to ensure we have the 13 high performance computing capabilities within RES and 14 the NRC and that we have reliable connections with the 15 national laboratories to be able to work from 16 anywhere. We're leveraging the future focused 17 research and integrated university programs to look 18 out farther in time to better understand the 19 technologies the nuclear industries may use.
20 We're hiring and training staff in new 21 areas like artificial intelligence, machine learning, 22 and fusion where we anticipate industry growth areas.
23 Chris Hoxie will talk about our activities in the 24 fusion area. Also DSA optimizes its use of resources 25 and information by completing high quality work on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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15 1 time, such as with the state of the art reactor 2 consequence analysis or SOARCA study. The inputs to 3 the Level 3 PRA study and with the NuScale 4 confirmatory analysis, this allows us to shift our 5 attention to new and higher priority research 6 activities, such as the priority areas I listed on the 7 previous slide.
8 This also includes leveraging 9 international experimental programs which the branch 10 chiefs will discuss and the many memoranda of 11 understanding with the Department of Energy, with the 12 Electric Power Research Institute, and other 13 organizations like the DOE's Nuclear Reactor 14 Innovation Center. We also participate in NRC's 15 transformation activities, including the Be Risk Smart 16 and Innovate NRC 2.0 programs, which will be discussed 17 in more detail by DE and DRA during their division 18 presentations later this summer. You'll hear examples 19 of these strategies in the presentations that follow.
20 Next slide, please.
21 CHAIR BROWN: Kimberly?
22 MS. WEBBER: Yeah?
23 CHAIR BROWN: This is Charlie Brown.
24 (Simultaneous speaking.)
25 MS. WEBBER: Oh, hey, Charlie.
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16 1 CHAIR BROWN: Doing fine. Thank you. Can 2 you go back to the earlier slide for a minute?
3 MS. WEBBER: Which earlier slide?
4 CHAIR BROWN: The one you go.
5 MS. WEBBER: Okay.
6 CHAIR BROWN: That is just fine. It just 7 triggered my thoughts when you -- forward focused 8 research and you talk about artificial 9 intelligence/machine-less learning. Where would you 10 anticipate -- I'm a little nervous about that, if it 11 doesn't sound like that in my voice.
12 What's the application you would think of 13 using that for in terms of your -- I mean, I don't 14 want models to get changed because the machine thinks 15 it's smarter than the people are. I don't want data 16 being analyzed in a manner that it decides it wants to 17 do it some other way. I don't want instrumentation to 18 be built to think it could get smart and analyze all 19 the data and determine whether the -- whatever, as 20 opposed to manmade algorithms.
21 MS. WEBBER: Right.
22 CHAIR BROWN: So that's why I asked the 23 question.
24 MS. WEBBER: Yes, so if I understand your 25 question, your question is, what work are we doing in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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17 1 the AI/machine learning area. Is that your question?
2 CHAIR BROWN: And how does it anticipate 3 to be -- anticipated to be applied is what the real 4 question is.
5 MS. WEBBER: So I think Teri will talk a 6 little bit more about this. But --
7 CHAIR BROWN: Okay.
8 MS. WEBBER: -- we're -- so we're hearing 9 that there are potentially uses of AI and machine 10 language and learning in a couple of areas. The 11 industry is interested in optimizing their maintenance 12 strategies and their outages. And so they may use 13 something called the internet of things which 14 basically puts sensors on pumps and valves and other 15 equipment.
16 And that will help them determine whether 17 maintenance of those components needs to be done 18 sooner or can be delayed a little bit later. That's 19 one particular application. We're also hearing that 20 there may be interest in the industry to use some 21 artificial intelligence algorithms to sort through 22 corrective action program reports and see if there's 23 commonalities so that they can see if there are trends 24 in those data which is kind of an initiative to help 25 them more efficiently evaluate the significant of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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18 1 those reports.
2 So those are some of the areas that we're 3 learning about. And I think Teri will explain in her 4 presentation where we are at this date. But just to 5 provide a one liner on where we are, we're really at 6 the infancy stage of learning about those 7 technologies. And I don't want to preempt Teri, so 8 I'll let her talk --
9 (Simultaneous speaking.)
10 CHAIR BROWN: No, that's fine. Just --
11 I'd just like to -- as soon as you said internet of 12 things and people putting all this information out 13 there, that means it's spread all over the place. So 14 if he can talk about how you would -- if you're going 15 to do something with IoT -- which I've read tons about 16 from the IEEE documents, they love it -- and how you 17 -- with the packing circumstances and the inability to 18 protect it properly.
19 And that's a big threat. And so that's 20 why I'm not -- particularly if it's going to use 21 feedback and, oh, you don't have to do maintenance.
22 But the data, if you were looking at it by a person 23 and it's been modified. And you didn't know that.
24 MS. WEBBER: Yes, yes. So --
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19 1 address those issues, I'd be appreciative.
2 MS. WEBBER: Yeah, I think Luis 3 Betancourt, the branch chief who has the lead for that 4 area, has his hand up. So I'll see if he wants to 5 chime in.
6 CHAIR BROWN: Oh, he can wait. It doesn't 7 have to -- it can wait till you get to him. That's --
8 MS. WEBBER: Okay.
9 CHAIR BROWN: Whatever suits you all.
10 MR. BETANCOURT: I was going to mention 11 that I'll cover that in my presentation shortly.
12 CHAIR BROWN: Pardon?
13 MR. BETANCOURT: I'll cover that in my 14 presentation shortly.
15 CHAIR BROWN: Okay. That works for me.
16 Thank you very much.
17 MS. WEBBER: So Charlie, just so you know, 18 that's Luis Betancourt, one of the branch chiefs.
19 CHAIR BROWN: Yeah, I know him.
20 MS. WEBBER: But Teri Lalain, she's my 21 deputy director and she will address some of that in 22 her presentation as well.
23 CHAIR BROWN: Okay. Thank you --
24 MS. WEBBER: Okay.
25 CHAIR BROWN: -- very much. Yeah, I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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20 1 appreciate it.
2 MS. WEBBER: Okay, sure. Okay. Could we 3 go to the next slide, please? Yeah, all right. I 4 love this slide actually. This is one of my favorite 5 slides in the slide deck.
6 It shows DSA completions by the numbers.
7 As you can see we've completed a substantial amount of 8 work since the last time we met with you for a 9 biennial review. And this chart shows the number of 10 major code releases completed, the number of reference 11 plant models completed to date, the Accident Tolerant 12 Fuel, high burn-up and advanced reactor reports that 13 we completed, the SOARCA study, the NuScale 14 confirmatory analysis, the number of NUREGs and Reg 15 Guides that we've completed, and also the abnormal 16 occurrence and the radiation exposure information and 17 rear system reports, among a number of things that are 18 shown on this slide.
19 I also want to point out that we have a 20 substantial number of international cooperative 21 agreements. And we leverage those significant -- we 22 leverage significant contributions from those 23 agreements through our code sharing program and 24 through other arrangements. So let's go onto the next 25 slide, please.
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21 1 So this is the last slide I have for my 2 overview. But before I move on to one of the special 3 topics, I wanted to highlight some challenges that 4 we're facing. So relative to workload management, DSA 5 is involved in many high visibility research 6 activities, some of which I showed you on the prior 7 slides.
8 For example, in almost all of our 9 technical areas, we're anticipating a lot of user need 10 requests and research assistant requests driven 11 confirmatory analysis needed to evaluate the safety of 12 new small modular reactor and advanced reactor designs 13 while also completing code development activities for 14 the operating fleet. Although we are leveraging our 15 network of professional relations with the Department 16 of Energy, the national laboratories, and the 17 international community, the NRC doesn't have plant 18 and design-specific information for most of the near 19 term ATF and high burn-up fuel concepts and the plant-20 specific advanced reactors. I give my staff all the 21 credit for getting our codes as ready as they possibly 22 can be and for continuing to develop their skills and 23 their expertise.
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22 1 our codes before the licensing submittals come in if, 2 when called upon, we're going to successfully support 3 the shorter deadlines that NRC is anticipating. In 4 the human resources area, we need to have a full 5 complement of highly skilled staff as I previously 6 discussed. Thus, it's critical that we identify and 7 use hiring and retention strategies with the help of 8 our human resources offices. Next slide, please.
9 MEMBER PETTI: Kim --
10 MS. WEBBER: Yeah.
11 MEMBER PETTI: -- just a question.
12 (Simultaneous speaking.)
13 MEMBER PETTI: I really resonated when you 14 talked about the human capital issue and your ability 15 to attract new people. It's happening everywhere. I 16 get emails because I was a member of the advanced 17 reactor community. Hey, Company X says I need 18 somebody with this capability. Where can I get them?
19 I said, get in line. Everybody is 20 competing for the same resource. So I wonder -- I was 21 very intrigued when you talked about the cross 22 training. But you seem to be focused on just a subset 23 of the different groups you've got. Any chance of 24 cross training more broadly as a strategy?
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23 1 always an option that we have, although as you know 2 that some of the skill sets are pretty complex and 3 technical.
4 MEMBER PETTI: Yeah.
5 MS. WEBBER: And so for instance, in the 6 neutronics area, we just don't have enough people on 7 staff to do the amount of work that we need to 8 complete for all the different types of work that we 9 have. So for us, it's a numbers game. It's really 10 hard to train some folks to become neutronics reactor 11 physics people if that's just -- it's such a 12 technically complex area.
13 So it's really hard to cross train that.
14 But we have recently hired Mike Rose and we have 15 another new hire, Alice Chung. And they're learning 16 that areas. So as they learn and work with our more 17 seasoned neutronics experts, they're building those 18 skills to support this larger workload that we're 19 anticipating.
20 MEMBER PETTI: So can you hire non-U.S.
21 citizens? Or is that --
22 MS. WEBBER: No, we cannot.
23 MEMBER PETTI: You cannot?
24 MS. WEBBER: No, the --
25 MEMBER PETTI: Okay.
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24 1 MS. WEBBER: -- NRC cannot, no.
2 MEMBER PETTI: Yeah, okay. Because Europe 3 has a very large group of people, and their budgets 4 are not in good shape. And it's a great talent pool 5 if you could've gotten into it. Okay.
6 (Simultaneous speaking.)
7 MEMBER PETTI: Thanks.
8 MS. WEBBER: Okay.
9 MEMBER REMPE: Kim?
10 MS. WEBBER: Hey, Joy.
11 MEMBER REMPE: I also have a question if 12 you're done, Dave.
13 MEMBER PETTI: Go ahead.
14 MEMBER REMPE: Okay. So you mentioned 15 about the need for data, and you actually mentioned 16 Accident Tolerant Fuel. And as we know, Halden 17 facility is no longer available. And I'm aware of the 18 FIDES program.
19 But during his discussion last time with 20 Ray, he mentioned that some folks are pursuing a risk-21 based approach where they may be able to avoid some of 22 the data. And so I'm just wondering how much data 23 there are for Accident Tolerant Fuel which relies on 24 high assay low enriched uranium. And I know research 25 did a PIRT that I'm sure Hossein Esmaili will talk NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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25 1 about --
2 MS. WEBBER: Yeah.
3 (Simultaneous speaking.)
4 MEMBER REMPE: -- later on with respect to 5 the need for certain data gaps to be filled. And I've 6 just been wondering if we're going to -- I'm wondering 7 how well that is being communicated to the community, 8 that there is --
9 MS. WEBBER: Yes.
10 MEMBER REMPE: -- a need for data.
11 MS. WEBBER: Yeah, I think that's a great 12 question, Joy. And I really appreciate you bringing 13 it up now and every time that we meet with you. So we 14 have regular standing meetings with the Department of 15 Energy, especially with Bill McCaughey in the Accident 16 Tolerant Fuel area and the advanced reactor folks and 17 the NEAMS computer code team.
18 So through those DOE meetings, we get 19 insights on what kind of experimental programs are 20 going on in the national laboratory complex. We also 21 have -- especially some of my staff and NRR staff meet 22 with the vendors who are thinking about Accident 23 Tolerant Fuel and high burn-up fuel. So they are also 24 aware of the kind of approaches that are being used in 25 the context of potentially licensing ATF and high NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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26 1 burn-up fuel.
2 We have some limited information from one 3 of the vendors for Accident Tolerant Fuel. And we're 4 also participating in a number of international 5 experimental programs which I think Hossein will talk 6 about. So as much as we're trying to beat the 7 bandwagon on, hey, letting folks know that we really 8 need certain data and we've communicated the data 9 needs that we have, we're still not being able to yet 10 receive a lot of that data. So that's why I wanted to 11 put a high point on it during my talking points or 12 during my discussion.
13 MEMBER REMPE: Okay. Thank you.
14 MS. WEBBER: You're welcome. Okay.
15 Should we go to the next slide, please? Okay. So let 16 me -- we're starting now into the special topics part 17 of the meeting. And so I want to move to the next 18 slide, please. I'll be talking about advanced reactor 19 readiness. Next slide.
20 So since the last biennial review meeting, 21 we completed and published a set of six documents that 22 describe our co-development plans for advanced 23 reactors. As you know -- as many of you know, Volume 24 1 through 5 identify the computer codes that we plan 25 to use for our independent safety analysis gaps in the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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27 1 co-development capabilities and data, verification of 2 validation needs along with a specific code 3 development tasks and methods. Now in some of those 4 volumes, we do discuss what kind of experimental data 5 are needed.
6 These co-development activities encompass 7 analytical capability in the fuel performance, reactor 8 physics, systems analysis, accident progression, 9 source term, accident consequence, and citing and 10 licensing code areas. Next slide, please. So as I 11 mentioned previously, the ultimate goal of any of the 12 --
13 MEMBER PETTI: Kim, just a question --
14 MS. WEBBER: Yeah, sure.
15 MEMBER PETTI: -- on a previous slide.
16 Are you anticipating some sort of a report on the 17 second bullet, the gaps?
18 MS. WEBBER: Well, so the gaps in the 19 experimental data, some of those are described in, for 20 instance, Volume 1. I noticed when Steve Bajorek 21 wrote that volume, he did dedicate a section to that 22 volume to describing what he thought were some of the 23 experimental gaps in the data. But these volumes took 24 a pretty substantial amount of resources to develop.
25 MEMBER PETTI: Yeah.
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28 1 (Simultaneous speaking.)
2 MS. WEBBER: And so -- they did. And 3 quite frankly, I think when we look towards using the 4 reference plant models more and more as we go on in 5 time, we'll probably identify additional gaps that we 6 have relative to the experimental data.
7 MEMBER PETTI: So it's more of a punch 8 list you guys are keeping than -- going at least to 9 this point to a report?
10 MS. WEBBER: Yeah, yeah.
11 MEMBER PETTI: Great, thanks.
12 MS. WEBBER: Pretty much.
13 MEMBER PETTI: Yeah.
14 MS. WEBBER: Okay, thanks. Could we have 15 the next slide, please. So I just want to take a few 16 minutes to talk about a three-stage approach that's 17 shown on this slide. So Stage 1 involves the 18 development implementation of the plans that are 19 described in those Volumes 1 through 5.
20 This includes the development of reference 21 plant models which I know that you're all interested 22 in for not only the BlueCRAB suite of codes but also 23 MELCOR. And those reference plant models are based on 24 publicly available non-light water reactor designs.
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29 1 during their presentations.
2 But I do want to mention that the primary 3 purpose of those reference plant models is to test the 4 codes, fix the bugs, perform some code validation 5 exercises, and develop the staff expertise with 6 advanced reactor designs. So as you know by 7 developing the codes and running the codes, the staff 8 become familiar with those plant operations and the 9 likely accident scenarios that could happen. And I 10 mentioned that as we -- you'll see that we've done a 11 lot of work with the reference plant models but to 12 build those. But we still have more work to do to 13 exercise those plant models as we go forward.
14 Stage 2 involves developing plant-specific 15 models using plant-specific design information 16 obtained during pre-application meetings and audits 17 with the NRC applicants. So the purpose is to ensure 18 that our codes are even more ready to support 19 licensing by having that plant-specific information.
20 And a key assumption that we're making which could 21 also become a challenge is that the applicants are 22 willing to provide us with that design-specific 23 information prior to their licensing submittals.
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30 1 meetings and audits with these applicants. They will 2 better understand where the key uncertainties are and 3 where small margins lie. And they'll communicate 4 their insights to their counterparts in real time. So 5 the more that we're involved in those pre-application 6 meetings and audits, the better we are equipped to 7 know where we need to focus our attention.
8 Stage 3 involves refinement of the plant-9 specific models using information in the license 10 applications and performing confirmatory analysis as 11 requested by NRR. And we're working with NRR to 12 figure out what that kind of workload will look like.
13 As you may know, the advanced reactor applicants are 14 choosing to use different licensing strategies.
15 Some are using a construction permit 16 operating license approach. Others are using the Part 17 52 design certification combined license approach.
18 And there's only one applicant that we know of to date 19 that is interested in using the license modernization 20 plan.
21 So we're trying to be ready to support 22 whatever the needs are that NRR may request of us. So 23 this strategy is critical to helping focus the 24 technical reviews, including the request for 25 additional information and the safety evaluation NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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31 1 reports on the most safety significant and risk 2 significant topics. So it's my belief that if we can 3 understand the margins, the uncertainties, and use the 4 codes wisely, we'll focus the reviews on the most 5 important things. Next slide, please.
6 MEMBER REMPE: Kim, I have a curiosity 7 question. DOE has put out a budget where they're 8 emphasizing a couple of designs which in a way I was 9 wondering if that would make NRC's life a little 10 easier since there's so much more money, if it gets 11 approved by Congress, that would be going to those 12 designs. And has DOE's decision to focus a bit more 13 helped NRC in their strategy?
14 Or you still need to accommodate 15 everybody, because some of these other designs are 16 getting a lower amount of money. But I would think 17 that their funding limitations might be more a concern 18 and they might not be coming in as soon. Has it 19 helped you at all?
20 MS. WEBBER: So that's a great question.
21 I appreciate you asking it. So in 2020 when DOE 22 identified two vendors for the advanced reactor demo 23 projects and they also provided risk reduction awards 24 to other vendors, that helped us understand where some 25 of the money is going. Now it's really important that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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32 1 we focus on the two advanced reactor demo projects, 2 the Natrium Sodium Fast Reactor and then also the X-3 energy high temperature gas reactor.
4 And so I think we're moving pretty far 5 along with the reference plant models for those 6 designs. We still don't have plant-specific design 7 information. And that's something that through the 8 pre-application activities and the topical reports, 9 that will be submitted to the NRC over the coming 10 months that we'll be looking for that kind of 11 information.
12 When it comes to the risk reduction 13 awards, we're watching to see what happens. And all 14 of that funding is helping us to understand, I guess, 15 from the perspective of DOE priorities relative to 16 funding and their perspectives on where they think the 17 technologies are the most mature. So that is helping 18 us. Okay. Any other --
19 MEMBER REMPE: Thank you.
20 MS. WEBBER: -- questions? You're 21 welcome. Slide 14, please -- or 16. So this is the 22 last slide I want to cover before I transition it over 23 to Teri. So today, we largely concentrated on Stage 24 1.
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33 1 reactor code development volumes, we've also completed 2 a significant number of the reference plant models.
3 For systems analysis and through accident analysis, 4 we've also completed two fuel code assessment reports 5 for both metallic and TRISO fuel. So those are 6 assessed reports for the FAST, our FAST fuel 7 performance code.
8 And our next steps include completion of 9 a few additional reference plant models through this 10 year, completion of public -- the workshops on source 11 term demo projects which Hossein will talk about and 12 the MACCS radionuclides screening analysis and near-13 field atmospheric transport and dispersion modeling 14 and then exercising the MACCS code with some of these 15 source terms. We're also finishing the consolidation 16 of the radiation protection code over the next few 17 years. And we really need to initiate our Volume 5 18 plans to prepare for the nuclear fuel cycle analysis.
19 So at this point, I'd like to turn the presentation 20 over to Teri Lalain.
21 MS. LALAIN: Hi, good afternoon. I'm Teri 22 Lalain, Deputy Director for DSA under Kim Webber.
23 We'll take a moment and briefly introduce myself. So 24 I joined the NRC in March of 2021 coming in from the 25 Department of the Army.
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34 1 During my Army tenure, I served as the 2 capabilities divisions chief at the U.S. Army Test and 3 Evaluation Command Headquarters where I ensured the 4 readiness of the Army's estimated five billion dollars 5 of test instrumentation used across the Army ranges to 6 assess the effectiveness and safety of items that were 7 going to be used by the solider. And we'll talk a 8 little bit more about that during this briefing.
9 I also served as a branch chief at the 10 Edgewood Chemical Biological Center leading a multi-11 disciplinary research team in the mitigation of 12 chemical warfare agent hazards, including methodology, 13 vapor source term, and subsequent scenario analyses 14 for human health-based exposure assessments. And I'm 15 a graduate of the NRC SES CDP. So I appreciate this 16 opportunity to brief you today on the work we've been 17 doing, NRC scientific computer code investment plan.
18 Next slide, please.
19 So for background, in FY21, budget to the 20 Commission SRM asked research to work with the 21 technical offices to review in a holistic way the 22 existing inventory of codes that the NRC uses to 23 develop a long-term investment plan to support future 24 use and research requirements. Next slide, please.
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35 1 assessment and identified 42 scientific computer codes 2 used for confirmatory analysis in support of 3 regulatory decision making.
4 The majority of the codes resided in 5 research DSA, some in DRA and DE, and a few in NMSS.
6 From the assessment, the team further identified the 7 status and investments being made to these codes.
8 Eight codes were identified as not needing to be 9 actively used and are projected to be needed for use 10 in the next five to ten years. So those codes 11 replaced in a long-term archival minimal maintenance 12 status. And typically, these codes are maintained by 13 the Radiation Safety Information Computational Center 14 at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
15 There are 34 codes in active use. And all 16 of the codes in active use require routine maintenance 17 to fix bugs, ensure stability and operability with 18 current operating systems. So this type of 19 maintenance is performed on a consistent basis. And 20 the resources are captured in the budget annually to 21 ensure usability of the code.
22 There are three types of code development 23 activities that have been defined in the code 24 investment plan. The state of the practice, so those 25 are the technological updates that are at a similar NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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36 1 pace with the advancements made by industry. The code 2 owners work with their users to identify the 3 improvements that are needed to stay current.
4 And all of these codes will require that 5 development at some point in time for readiness. Code 6 modernization involves the modification or rewriting 7 of the fundamental code structure to incorporate new 8 capabilities, address obsolescence issues, reduce 9 analysis run times, ensure operability with their 10 codes, and adhere to monitor software development and 11 IT best practices. Currently, there are four codes 12 that are modernization -- FAVOR, MELCOR, RASCAL, and 13 SAPHIRE -- and you'll hear more about these codes in 14 the branch briefings.
15 Code consolidation efforts improve the 16 NRC's efficiency for code management. It reduces the 17 number of codes that are maintained individually into 18 a single code that has the expanded capabilities.
19 Currently, seven radiation protection codes are being 20 consolidated down to three codes to create RAMP:
21 atmosphere, effluent, and habitability.
22 Backup Slide No. 86 in the deck has a 23 summary of the modernization and consolidation efforts 24 that are underway. I want to give the SA team a shout 25 out for the work they did to do this current state NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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37 1 assessment because this assessment is the core 2 foundation onto which we can build the investment 3 plan. Next slide, please. So balancing a portfolio 4 of capabilities, there's never enough resources to do 5 everything.
6 It's important to have a process, though, 7 to ensure that the right capability is ready at the 8 right time. So during my tenure with the Army, I led 9 my team in the review and prioritization of hundreds 10 of requests for capability, maintenance, and 11 modernization. And we had to ensure the best state of 12 readiness for the command considering the resource 13 constraints and also being able to readily adapt to 14 changes in programs and priorities.
15 Just prior to joining the NRC earlier this 16 year, I led the Army team to complete the DoD budget 17 formulation for FY23 to 27, so a five-year planning 18 period. So I mention that because the DSA team helps 19 several brainstorming sessions to look at how we're 20 going to create an investment process for our codes.
21 We looked at NRC past practices, the budget 22 formulation process as well as looking into aspects of 23 the Army investment process.
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38 1 the code investment process. In the interest of time 2 today, I want to be very high level on the aspects of 3 the code investment life cycle. So code maintenance 4 and readiness needs to happen -- back up, yeah, there 5 we go -- to ensure readiness.
6 The annual process starts with the 7 identification and maintenance of development needs 8 for each code. Requests for any code development 9 would be further supported with information as to when 10 is the modified code needed, what analysis or work 11 request would that modified code support, and the 12 impacts if the modifications are not resourced. That 13 will enable prioritization of the needs with the 14 program offices to meet that right capability at the 15 right time.
16 The prioritization will inform the budget 17 formulation process to do the resource planning. And 18 as these are resource, the code development can be 19 performed and the updated codes distributed. But the 20 bulk of the activity that will come out of the co-21 development plan will be in that first cycle to 22 prepare that initial list of requirements and 23 timelines.
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39 1 requirements and the prioritization. Next slide, 2 please. So our next steps, we are working on the 3 completion of the draft code investment plan. As 4 we're doing that, we're going to start coordinating 5 with the other code owners to discuss the approach and 6 work toward the collection of the maintenance and 7 development requirements for each code.
8 In parallel, we'll be socializing the plan 9 with the program offices. Once we have the 10 requirements documented, we'll work with the program 11 offices to prioritize those requirements so that we're 12 ready to inform the budget formulation process. And 13 then each year going forward, we'll do an annual 14 review of the requirements, make the necessary updates 15 to the requirements themselves, and the 16 prioritization.
17 So I do look forward to a future 18 opportunity to have the DSA team discuss the code 19 investment plan in more detail with you and all the 20 great work that's been done to get us established with 21 our code management. Next slide, please. Okay.
22 Next, thanks. All right.
23 MEMBER PETTI: Can I have a question?
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40 1 like it. Were there things missing that weren't in 2 the process before prior to this that you were able to 3 bring the Army piece in, so the best practices that 4 helped NRC move to a better product in the end, if you 5 will?
6 MS. LALAIN: Yeah. So there were several 7 things. The work that the team did to do that 8 holistic current state assessment put all the codes 9 together which is a key piece to be able to actively 10 manage them as a portfolio. From the Army processes, 11 it is that portfolio management that is key so that 12 you're looking at prioritization, not on each code as 13 42 different things.
14 But you're looking at the suite of 15 capability for the agency and being able to make your 16 decisions and priorities considering what is most 17 important when you look across all of the mission 18 activities that those codes need to be able to 19 support. So it broadens the lens to help you with the 20 portfolio of management is the key thing of all the 21 work that's been done to bring this process together.
22 MEMBER PETTI: That helps a lot. Great.
23 Thanks.
24 MS. LALAIN: Yeah.
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41 1 Kirchner. In this -- looking at this investment plan, 2 could you just share with us what kind of a time frame 3 you're thinking of given that sometimes code 4 development is a multi-year process but the budgeting 5 is an annual process. Is your investment plan going 6 to look at a five to ten-year kind of horizon?
7 MS. LALAIN: So that is what I do want to 8 work toward. The template that we are using, the 9 collective requirements looks out over a five to 10 seven-year. We know that will be initially a little 11 bit of a challenge.
12 If it's coming from DoD, I'm used to 13 planning on a five to ten-year. I got to work with 14 everyone to bring that here. I know some of the codes 15 already have looked out several years.
16 But yes, that's going to be key because 17 ask you shift requirements and as resources are there, 18 the last thing you want to do is start something you 19 can't finish or delay something. So that's, again 20 that holistic management. You need to understand the 21 timing. So we are going to work toward that.
22 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Thank you. I think in 23 our past reviews of your division which I led, one of 24 the things that was of concern was as you looked at 25 your portfolio and managing it, perhaps -- and I'll go NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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42 1 back, like, four years -- it was too short term, an 2 outlook, so to speak, like, three years or less. And 3 hence, the kind of decision making and planning you 4 would do is different than if you take a longer 5 holistic approach as you mention. So good, thank you.
6 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: This is Vesna 7 Dimitrijevic. Hi, Teri. I have a question. I'm 8 actually impressed with this illustration of MACCS in 9 different colors. So if you would -- give us -- I'm 10 curious about -- because I'm especially curious of 11 this as it relates to using 103 (phonetic) in 12 regulation. So if you go -- can go in little more 13 details on some of the inputs like regulatory 14 framework or risk and uncertainty. What is actually 15 considered there?
16 MS. LALAIN: I'm going to hold your 17 question till we get to Luis Betancourt's brief. In 18 AAB, we have a whole section the MACCS code in that 19 briefing.
20 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: Okay. He's going to 21 use the same illustration --
22 MS. LALAIN: Yeah.
23 (Simultaneous speaking.)
24 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: All right. Okay.
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43 1 artificial intelligence. So the fields of data 2 science and artificial intelligence provide new 3 opportunities for organizations to improve processes, 4 leverage historical and current data, identify 5 research needs, and even explore autonomous control 6 and operation. So as I mentioned coming from the 7 Department of Army, one of the areas in my portfolio 8 was artificial intelligence applications, and that 9 included the test infrastructure and to assess the 10 performance and the safety of autonomously controlled 11 systems.
12 So coming to the NRC, the NRC and a 13 nuclear industry have similar interests and share some 14 of the same questions regarding the potential of these 15 capabilities. As more AI tools become widely adopted, 16 research is looking into how these tools may be 17 applied and how to be able to be ready to adequately 18 evaluate the use of these AI technologies and NRC 19 regulated activities to ensure public health and 20 safety. And the RES staff is engaged in and already 21 performing some great work in these areas that we'll 22 be highlighting in both my briefing and in Luis 23 Betancourt's briefing today. Next slide, please.
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44 1 improvements to better estimate resources for 2 licensing actions by comparison to prior to licensing 3 actions. We're also looking at AI tools such as 4 natural language processing to search and extract 5 relevant information to make our documents and 6 information more readily available. And Mr. Luis 7 Betancourt will tell you more about the specific DSA 8 activities in his briefing.
9 I also want to acknowledge that there are 10 activities across research, including the RES bot 11 (phonetic) and digital twin efforts in the Division of 12 Engineering who will be meeting with you later this 13 summer. We're taking a strategic look at planning for 14 the workforce needs in the years to come. Kim had 15 covered a few of those earlier in her remarks. So we 16 did hire a full-time data scientist and several 17 interns with data science backgrounds.
18 We also continue to remain focused on 19 ensuring our people have the right training, skills, 20 and abilities to accomplish the work we see coming in, 21 in the future. The staff are building their 22 foundation in these new areas through training and the 23 use cases. And in the future, we anticipate having 24 tailored training plans available based on the 25 particular AI application they may be working. Next NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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45 1 slide, please.
2 So where are we heading? So RES is taking 3 the lead to prepare an NRC AI strategy to look ahead 4 at the areas and skills that would be needed to 5 address AI efforts. The strategy team currently 6 consists of members from DSA, DRA, and DE in research.
7 So as we build the strategy, we need to 8 find the future state of AI. The RES team is working 9 across the program offices to learn about their 10 current activities and needs. And research is hosting 11 a series of workshops this fiscal year.
12 The first one is next week to serve as an 13 introduction to AI. The second workshop is to discuss 14 the current state of AI, getting more into use cases 15 and ongoing projects not only within NRC but at DoD, 16 vendors, and the national laboratories. The third 17 workshop is focused on the identification of those 18 future applications. Where do we see AI being used in 19 the future?
20 And those workshops are a key part of us 21 defining the future state for the AI strategy. Okay.
22 So I've mentioned this AI strategy. We're organizing 23 the strategy based on the potential application 24 because each application would have a different need 25 in the AI tool that's used, the resources, the skill NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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46 1 sets and training for our staff, and the approach for 2 NRC to be ready.
3 So some of the potential applications 4 include the NRC internal business improvements. It 5 could be the use of AI in analyses, as we heard 6 earlier, the use for optimized maintenance 7 applications, and even all the way over to the what 8 ifs of an AI system to autonomously control. As part 9 of the strategic planning and our current use cases, 10 we can start to identify the tools and the training to 11 develop the NRC expertise and the AI.
12 We're working toward a draft strategy 13 coordinated with RES in the next few months. Once 14 that's in place, we're going to expand the strategy 15 team to include our partner offices so we can continue 16 as a team to refine the strategy and what the plan 17 will be towards implementation. We recognize that the 18 AI area is an evolving landscape and that we must 19 continue to look forward to stay aware of the upcoming 20 research challenges so that we can start preparing 21 today to be ready for that tomorrow. Next slide, 22 please.
23 MEMBER REMPE: Teri, this is Joy again.
24 Where is this AI effort? Is it still just a future 25 focused research project? Or has it become a user NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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47 1 need? Or where is it in the NRC research framework?
2 MS. LALAIN: Yeah. So Luis will get more 3 into that in his briefing. We do have a user need 4 with NRR that we're doing some work with. We are 5 looking ahead to some FFRs.
6 The strategy itself is actually bigger 7 than that. It really is looking at what areas and 8 what we need to be ready for so that when work would 9 come in that we're ready. So it's a little bit higher 10 level for the strategy.
11 MEMBER REMPE: Okay. Thank you.
12 MS. LALAIN: Yeah.
13 MEMBER PETTI: And is the strategy across 14 the agency and you guys are taking the lead? Is that 15 --
16 MS. LALAIN: So we are taking the lead.
17 We have collected what the other offices are currently 18 doing in the area. We're getting the framework of the 19 strategy together within research first.
20 So we can look at how as Research we would 21 assess these systems. And we're going to widen as we 22 get the framework of the strategy in place to 23 membership onto the strategy from the other offices.
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48 1 strategy, and then we'll expand the team and refine 2 from there.
3 MEMBER PETTI: Thanks.
4 MEMBER BALLINGER: This is Ron Ballinger.
5 Sometimes these programs precede what can only be 6 described as glacial paces. With respect to AI, is 7 there an effort to take a look at what may be done 8 quickly and get off the ground rather than wait for 9 some future document that identifies things great 10 detail probably but avoids getting out of the blocks 11 a little bit earlier? When you talk with your staff 12 and somebody sits across the table and says, I think 13 we can do this right now. Is there any thought to --
14 MS. LALAIN: Yes.
15 MEMBER BALLINGER: -- some kind of 16 implementation scheme that takes advantage of the 17 staff and something you can do right away? There's 18 lots of databases at the (audio interference) plug in 19 code words, you get an answer. But sometimes with AI, 20 if you just look for patterns, you don't plug in code 21 words. You get different results. And that's my 22 story and I'm sticking to it.
23 MS. LALAIN: No, good question. So within 24 the strategy, those areas I listed you could treat as 25 kind of that capstone case. We eventually want to be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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49 1 able to do X. To do X, though, with a series of 2 smaller use cases -- you can look at it as a series of 3 smaller use cases to do Activity A and Activity B and 4 Activity C, help us start to get that learning in 5 there, give us immediate accomplishments in that area 6 as we work toward what might be that larger use case 7 capstone type case. Luis, was there anything you 8 wanted to add to that?
9 MR. BETANCOURT: Yeah, I think this 10 question is a valuable one. I think what Kim 11 mentioned at the beginning, we're still at the infancy 12 phases. But that doesn't mean that we are building 13 our capabilities or learning about these technologies 14 because as you mentioned, we need to be ready when 15 potential applicants or licensees are going to be 16 coming to us with a license application that uses AI.
17 And what we're doing right now with those 18 -- and Teri is going to cover that in the next slide 19 -- we're learning from other industries like Army, 20 NAYS (phonetic) and so forth. So we can actually ask 21 the right questions. In other words, like, we need to 22 assess the what if scenarios, what is it that we need 23 to be able to take credit in a safety evaluation?
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50 1 they're within the licensing basis. But all of these 2 are questions that we are basically asking ourselves 3 right now. And that will be part of the AI strategy 4 moving forward.
5 MEMBER BALLINGER: But what I'm saying is 6 you have a very (audio interference).
7 MS. LALAIN: I'm sorry, Ron. You were 8 breaking up.
9 MEMBER BALLINGER: Yeah, I got a speaker 10 that's acting up. But what I'm saying is you already 11 have, I'm sure, a very valuable staff that can -- may 12 be able to provide input so that you don't have to 13 wait for things. And my question was, is there some 14 kind of plan that you can take advantage of to get out 15 of the blocks?
16 MS. WEBBER: Yeah. So Ron, this is Kim 17 Webber. So we've actually -- in DSA, we've been 18 working in this area for over a year now. So we have 19 worked with our counterparts in NRR who are also 20 working in the data analytics area.
21 We've been identifying these use cases to 22 learn, for instance, how to do text analytics. One of 23 our staff, Trey Hathaway, is really heavily involved 24 with text analytics. And that work started over a 25 year ago.
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51 1 So really what Teri is describing to you 2 is that while we're doing the use cases in parallel, 3 we also need to strategize. And what Teri is leading 4 in our division is the development of this strategy so 5 that we can encompass a lot of different potential 6 industry use cases. And so we're building the skills 7 through these smaller projects to learn the 8 technologies and capabilities.
9 And again, that started over a year ago.
10 And now what Teri is talking about is to really pull 11 all the pieces together, not only with the Office of 12 Research but potentially across the agency, because 13 there's a lot of growing interest in this area all 14 across the agency. So we're trying to get organized 15 instead of everybody doing their own thing. Does that 16 help?
17 MEMBER BALLINGER: What I'm saying is 18 you're operating in parallel, not in series.
19 MS. WEBBER: Yes.
20 MS. LALAIN: Yes.
21 MR. BETANCOURT: That's correct.
22 MS. WEBBER: Right.
23 MEMBER BALLINGER: Okay. Thank you.
24 Because remember AI is, to some extent, a buzzword.
25 MS. WEBBER: Sure.
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52 1 MEMBER BALLINGER: We all know this. And 2 a lot of -- I think your staff is probably already 3 doing -- been doing what they would call AI. But --
4 MS. WEBBER: Yes.
5 MEMBER BALLINGER: -- now they just didn't 6 realize it.
7 MS. WEBBER: Yeah.
8 MS. LALAIN: Yeah.
9 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: This is Vesna 10 Dimitrijevic. I don't have a question. I just want 11 to make comment that this slide shows certain 12 pessimism in this area because you have a telescope 13 directed to the cloud in the sky. And then you have 14 a total chaos on chessboard. So it seems to me that 15 your expectations in this area are not so optimistic.
16 So it's just a side comment on how I see this slide, 17 so --
18 MS. LALAIN: I appreciate the --
19 MEMBER KIRCHNER: I agree. Vesna, I 20 agree. I'm looking at that chessboard and saying, my 21 goodness. There's a total collapse on the black side 22 of the player's pieces. What the hell is going on?
23 This doesn't look like --
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53 1 right.
2 MEMBER REMPE: So if we're making 3 comments, I have a comment. This is kind of 4 interesting where research is taking the lead across 5 the agency to do a strategy. Is this something that 6 -- I don't recall of something offhand that you guys 7 have done this before. So I kind of think it's a good 8 idea. Is it new as I think it is? Or I just am not 9 thinking of something at this time?
10 MS. WEBBER: It's new. And I think we 11 still need to talk with partners across the agency to 12 figure out what the right model is. So because DSA 13 and the other divisions in the Office of Research 14 started doing different use cases, they did future 15 focused research proposals that were supported with 16 funding behind, research is really looking more into 17 the AI technologies and capabilities.
18 And a lot of other partners across the 19 agency are looking into data analytics, how to 20 represent our data. So this is all evolving. We're 21 sharing this to you at an early stage just to give you 22 an idea of where we're headed.
23 (Simultaneous speaking.)
24 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Kim and Teri, this is 25 Walt again. Just remarking on Ron's comment, AI often NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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54 1 becomes a buzzword, and it means a lot of things to 2 different people. It may help to define your strategy 3 by defining what you mean by AI because now early --
4 there are examples, for example, now in the industry 5 where people are using what I'll call big data and 6 analytics and then developing preventive maintenance 7 strategies that revolve around analyzing that data and 8 such.
9 And this is something that -- without 10 making a plug for any one company or industry, General 11 Electric has taken to great lengths in the jet engine 12 business. And there's a lot to be learned from what 13 they've done. But that's only one aspect of AI.
14 When I was a graduate student and I hate 15 to admit that was 50 years ago, AI was really more 16 about robotics. And when people talked about 17 artificial intelligence, they were talking about 18 replacing the human in the loop. And that gets to 19 Teri, your comment about autonomous operations and 20 such. And that's an entirely different level --
21 MS. LALAIN: Yes.
22 MEMBER KIRCHNER: -- of complexity and 23 regulatory uncertainty than doing data analytics for 24 preventative maintenance or tech spec compliance. So 25 I think it might help up front to kind of define what NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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55 1 AI means to you and the agency and then start 2 assessing things because, as Ron said, it's often a 3 buzzword. And people will claim what they're doing as 4 AI when it's just evolutionary technology whereas the 5 robotics or whatever it was called at MIT, that lab, 6 they had a different thing entirely in mind which was 7 replacing the human. Just an observation.
8 MS. LALAIN: Perfect comment. So I'd like 9 to add a little bit more information too, though. So 10 for the first workshop we have coming on, it is that 11 introduction to AI. And we know in the training and 12 the things that we're going to across the agency, we 13 have to establish that common vocabulary.
14 When we say AI, we mean this. If we say 15 machine learning, we mean that, and all the other 16 terms that go into it because exactly, the definitions 17 have more -- as we're putting definitions in the 18 strategy, we're citing the source, if we took it from 19 somewhere else or if we're defining our own. So 20 absolutely.
21 MEMBER BALLINGER: This is Ron again. You 22 might consider asking the -- the industry what they 23 consider the definition of AI is, also.
24 MS. LALAIN: Great point -- will 25 definitely do that.
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56 1 MEMBER BALLINGER: Because they would 2 probably have a very different definition than some 3 theoretical dictionary kind of thing.
4 MS. LALAIN: Good point. Thank you for 5 that. And then as far as the applications, yes, 6 that's why the AI strategy is broken out by different 7 types of applications because you're exactly right --
8 to do some data mining is very different than one of 9 the programs I was working on as I left Army was an 10 autonomous, self-driving vehicle. So that was taking 11 the human out of the loop for logistics and transport 12 convoy operations. So very different need in what it 13 was going to take to assess the performance and safety 14 of that type of system.
15 So -- and that's why we want to break it 16 out by what these capstone applications of AI would 17 be, because then we can visualize what we would take 18 to get there. Great comments, thank you for that.
19 MEMBER HALNON: This is Greg Halnon and 20 I've got a comment also that I do hear in the industry 21 the word AI being thrown around from everything --
22 mainly around inspections and monitoring. Are you 23 guys tied in with the inspection branch in the regions 24 as well to help educate some of the inspectors who 25 might come up against, you know, a smart, young, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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57 1 engineer saying, we know this because our AI said it 2 and it -- you know, that doesn't compute well with the 3 inspector that may have been around for 25 or 30 4 years.
5 MS. LALAIN: So we're not there yet -- so 6 thank you for that comment. We are still in our --
7 our early part of the AI strategy and the plan. So 8 thank you for that.
9 MEMBER HALNON: Yes, I think they're going 10 to -- they're going to run up against it fairly 11 quickly so some preliminary education might be good 12 when you get to a point where you can, you know, 13 unwind the staff on it.
14 MS. LALAIN: Great. Okay, next slide, 15 please. Okay, so we cannot be successful in our AI 16 strategy without fostering strong working 17 relationships to ensure that we're sharing that 18 experience, the knowledge, and where possible 19 collaborate to enhance our regulatory process and 20 decision making. Establish cooperative partnerships 21 with other organizations are key to leveraging that 22 ongoing research. NIST has recently created a cross-23 government AI standards working group that's going to 24 provide insights into the standards being developed 25 and implemented by other agencies. Some of our NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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58 1 partners will also be participating and presenting in 2 those workshops that I mentioned.
3 So as I opened with the ability to assess 4 the safety of AI systems is a question shared by other 5 organizations, we just started having conversations 6 with the different Army organizations doing AI work, 7 including the group that is doing the internet things, 8 to see what future partnerships that we may be able to 9 establish with the agencies that may be further 10 advanced in looking in how they would assess the 11 performance and safety of some of these types of 12 tools.
13 Finally, we recognize that actively 14 engaging with all stakeholders will bring new ideas 15 and approaches that's going to inform and shape how we 16 undertake our regulatory activities. And all of that 17 is key for success. And thank you so much for your 18 time and questions today. I really appreciate it.
19 There's nothing further for me. I'd like to introduce 20 Dr. Chris Hoxie, Chief of the Code Reactor Analysis 21 branch for his technical presentation.
22 DR. HOXIE: Hello everybody. My name is 23 Chris Hoxie. I am Chief of the Code and Reactor 24 Analysis Branch. I am here today to talk about 25 multi-physics codes for nuclear reactor systems NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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59 1 analysis. And I realize that coming after something 2 fun like AI that you guys are doing -- I'm up against 3 a tough task here.
4 The codes my branch are responsible for is 5 the TRACE code. It's the NRC's flagship 6 thermohydraulics systems analysis code. The PARCS 7 code, which is a widely-used, nodal neutronics code, 8 and the SNAP code, which is our graphical user 9 interface. It helps the end users be more productive.
10 The types of reactors that we conduct 11 analysis on include America's operating fleet, new 12 reactors -- for example, small modular reactors --
13 research and test reactors, and advanced non-LWRs. We 14 also participate in international experimental 15 programs such as ATLAS and ETHARINUS. And we --
16 actually take the lead on some of them, like the 17 ARTHUR-RBHT. I'll talk more about those later. This 18 is just a title slide. So let's get on to slide 2.
19 First one says that code -- computer code 20 development maintenance and V&V and application are 21 one of the things we do. And that is true. But I 22 want to make a couple of points. Computer codes in 23 general, and TRACE in particular, have to be 24 continuously developed. You see, I'm responding to, 25 you've been working on TRACE for 20 years, aren't you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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60 1 done yet? And they've -- what I respond to that is, 2 there are at least two reasons why you do have to 3 continuously develop. The first is the computer 4 hardware and the technology is just mind-blowing. It 5 just continues to evolve and so you have to adjust 6 your methods and your codes so that they develop them, 7 if you will -- so that they work in the new 8 environment.
9 We are working, for example, to paralyze 10 TRACE so that it can better leverage the tens -- or 11 hundreds, or sometimes even thousands of cores that 12 we're seeing on the computers we run. The second 13 reason is that -- people love to say, oh, it's first 14 principled and so, you know, we can quit doing these 15 experiments. I'm here to tell you that TRACE is not 16 a first-principle code and to my knowledge none of the 17 other popular ones in the world are totally first-18 principle either. And therefore, we end up having to 19 utilize empirical correlations and in general these 20 correlations are derived from representative 21 experiments. So that's the answer to that.
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61 1 itself. In other words, you can throw together a code 2 and I could bring it to the ACRS and they'd say, why 3 the heck should you -- we believe you? You haven't 4 verified and validated it.
5 And then -- and the last thing that we do 6 in my branch is we do code applications. What I mean 7 by that is, in generally our CRAB engineers -- that's 8 -- my acronym happens to be CRAB for the Code and 9 Reactor Analysis Branch -- to perform audit or 10 confirmatory calculations are what we usually do.
11 We'll see a little bit more about these in a later 12 slides. Slide three?
13 This was put on, and you'll see the branch 14 chiefs that follow me will have a -- a thing -- and 15 we're just trying to show sort of, like, where our 16 branch plays in the thing. This slide lets you 17 triangulate in on reactor, engineered safety features, 18 and auxiliaries systems transport and storage. As you 19 will see as we go through DSA's capabilities today, 20 the four branches pretty much cover the waterfront.
21 However, if you're just looking at my branch, not so 22 much more -- not so much so.
23 We do almost nothing in auxiliary systems, 24 transport, or storage. However, for reactors and 25 engineered safety features, we cover a lot. The NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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62 1 diagram allows you to draw the nexus between plant 2 systems and features, and regulations that pertain to 3 those features. For example, if you're talking 4 operating fleet of our Bs and Ps, 10 CFR 50-46 is very 5 important. Let's go to slide four.
6 This is a multi-physics reactor systems 7 analysis development and regulatory applications. The 8 slide pretty much speaks for itself. What I am here 9 to tell you is that the NRC-developed codes are used 10 in a wide variety of analyses and types to support the 11 agency's mission. Slide five.
12 These are branch priorities. NRC 13 engineers that work for me are generally driven by the 14 agency's user need process. NRR is RES's customer.
15 RES takes its assignment from the user need requests 16 and from research assistance requests. And NRR sends 17 that they -- NRR sends those over to us and reports --
18 in licensing topical reports, I should have said, and 19 which have been the replies for approval of a 20 technical methodology. That's another area where we 21 do reviews.
22 Research reactors that use HEU, by the way 23 -- there are still a few of those, and so we get tied 24 in on those -- the three that -- and this is public 25 information -- widely known. HEUs that use at NIST at NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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63 1 MURR and at MIT. And they're working, of course, to 2 tune it down, so to speak. Slide six, international 3 test programs.
4 The Code and Reactor Analysis Branch 5 currently supports and participates in three 6 international test programs. The programs are 7 ARTHUR/RBHT -- that's one. ATLAS-3 and ETHARINUS.
8 These experimental programs provide experimental data 9 which are used to validate and verify the NRC's TRACE 10 code. Here's a little bit more about ARTHUR and RBHT.
11 ARTHUR is a $1.5 million , 3-year collaboration 12 between the NRC and OECD/NEA organizations from some 13 12 countries. The scope of ARTHUR includes ten open 14 tests and five blind tests. The RBHT facility --
15 which is the center of all this, it's the -- you know, 16 where they do the work -- provides relative 17 experimental thermohydraulic data for accident 18 analysis of new and conventional LWRs. RBHT provides 19 high-quality data. RBHT results -- demonstrate 20 important effects of spacer grids on bundle thermal 21 hydraulics. RBHT also provides detailed droplet size 22 and velocity information. RBHT supports ARTHUR by 23 performing tests that generate unique post-CHF film 24 boiling heat transfer uncertainties.
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64 1 more-than-$15 million investment by NRC since the year 2 2000. And in passing I'll say that RBHT could be 3 modified to investigate ATF -- just a thought.
4 ETHARINUS and ATLAS are integral test facilities that 5 provide data to help verify tests. The owners of 6 these facilities watch for trends in the nuclear 7 industry, and then they modify the experimental 8 facility to allow simulations to -- be pre-formed that 9 yield new data and many times fill gaps in the 10 experimental database.
11 Recent examples of mods made to be allow 12 modeling and are safe for natural circulation flows --
13 very important for many of the small modular reactors 14 that are coming in. Slide seven. I'm sorry.
15 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Could you just give us 16 the location of each of those experimental facilities?
17 For the record?
18 DR. HOXIE: Yes, you can go back. Sure.
19 And you can just Google these names and you'll find 20 them. The -- I tried to -- that's a world map. The 21 RBHT's at Penn State in the United States. ETHARINUS 22 is Europe-based and they actually have deals over in, 23 I think Netherlands, Germany -- but again, if you just 24 Google ETHARINUS it will tell you all about it. And 25 then ATLAS-3 is run by the Korean folks, and so it's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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65 1 -- that's how come it's over on that side of the -- so 2 I actually tried to pay attention to the map in the 3 background.
4 MEMBER KIRCHNER: No, I just wanted you to 5 put it on the record. Thank you -- thank you.
6 DR. HOXIE: Sure. Okay, I'll -- this is 7 the author RBHT slide. And I think I've actually 8 sufficiently covered in a previous slide, but I do 9 want to say a few more things. I include this one on 10 RBHT -- to celebrate the people. These are just some 11 of the international group that we get the pleasure of 12 collaborating with -- led by Dr. Steve Bajorek and Dr.
13 Kirk Tien of my staff, we enjoy and benefit from the 14 collaboration with some of the best minds in the 15 world. The work that they've been doing recently I 16 consider to be seminal work, sometimes called pivotal, 17 or of landmark studies. To back that up, I cite the 18 Best Paper Award bestowed on the NRC PSU team. It --
19 the paper was mostly written by a grad student, Grant 20 Garrett, who was the lead author -- by the ANS's 21 Thermal Hydraulic Division for the American Nuclear 22 Society. And this was the award for 2020. It was 23 delayed in being -- you know, we've been in a pandemic 24 so they only recently made the award. Slide eight.
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66 1 current ones that are active. This is one that we had 2 at one time and we did some experiments and so we 3 don't -- we are not doing more work there right now, 4 but let me give you a status of what happened to the 5 things that we did. We did put out one NUREG. It's 6 listed there -- NUREG CR-72-72. And so here -- here 7 we go. After NRC performed the KATHY anticipated 8 transients without scram instability tests, the staff 9 concluded a preliminary -- concluded a preliminary 10 analysis of the data and this analysis informed both 11 NRR's review of MELA Plus LARA (phonetic) 12 applications, that were present at the time, and RES's 13 execution of confirmatory analysis. The preliminary 14 analysis of the data indicated that the failure to 15 rewet could occur at lower surface temperatures than 16 previously thought. And this prompted licensees and 17 the staff to begin performing ATWS-I (phonetic) 18 analysis using more conservative -- a more 19 conservative model of the minimum stable film boiling 20 temperature. This approach has been used in many 21 recent licensing actions.
22 The preliminary analysis however is just 23 that, and a more detailed and thorough analysis is 24 still ongoing. Resources have been prioritized to 25 support the licensing actions, but now RES is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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67 1 performing a detailed assessment of TRACE against the 2 KATHY data. We expect this effort will be completed 3 during the late summer of 2021 and will quantify the 4 conservatism associated with the preliminary analysis 5 approach.
6 In the fall of 2021 we will complete a 7 statistical analysis that will allow us to develop a 8 list of candidate trace consecutive models for changes 9 to improve agreement between TRACE and data. At this 10 point the RES staff will take a -- take stock of the 11 results and a decision will be made about a final 12 rather than an interim analysis approach for any 13 future ATWS-I analyses. Slide nine --
14 (Simultaneous speaking.)
15 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Could you take a 16 technical question on this? Can we -- afford the 17 time? Just a quick diversion. If you -- if you're 18 using TRACE --
19 DR. HOXIE: Sure.
20 MEMBER KIRCHNER: -- and adjusting -- this 21 is Walt Kirchner. And yet you're adjusting the Tmin 22 to try and match the data, like in oscillations and 23 instability tests, that's a -- that's a backhanded way 24 of going about determining Tmin. You may get 25 agreement and not have the right -- necessarily the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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68 1 right phenomena and Tmin and -- and just get an 2 agreement at a systems level. So it begs the question 3 to me, are -- are you going to look at doing -- or are 4 you proposing a new research program on Tmin 5 phenomena? Would that come as a logical conclusion if 6 you are concerned that the Tmin is actually lower than 7 you thought it was? So you -- so that you're not 8 using a systems test to try and backup your -- your 9 conclusions, but you're using a -- a more targeted 10 phenomenological test to examine the issue?
11 DR. HOXIE: I think those are excellent 12 points. I -- I would -- that -- at some point you're 13 going to ask us, how could we help? I want you to 14 know that, if you -- one of the things you suggested 15 there was, hey, you might have to look a little bit 16 more carefully. Maybe a separate effects, or -- or do 17 something more detailed about the Tmin. And I can 18 just tell you with resources being what they are right 19 now, that would be very hard to swing. But I agree 20 that it is something that's -- that's important. But 21 we're learning as we're going along and I think we 22 could discuss more. I have other folks, like Steve 23 Bajorek and Staudenmeier -- do you guys want to add 24 anything?
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69 1 is Steve Bajorek. I think one of the -- the benefits 2 and good characteristics of KATHY is it could be 3 operated at high system pressure. I think it was full 4 system pressure. I mean, it's -- you know, ten -- ten 5 bar, something like that.
6 (Simultaneous speaking.)
7 DR. HOXIE: That's right.
8 MR. BAJOREK: And that is very difficult 9 to find. Other studies on Tmin have shown that as you 10 go to higher pressures, your minimum film boiling 11 temperature gets closer to a homogenous nucleation 12 temperature. Things that have been done at only low 13 pressure have resulted in several correlations that 14 don't have that correct pressure effect. If you want 15 to get Tmin correct, okay, you -- you need to not only 16 look at some of the local parameters -- the flow, the 17 rewetting, the surface conditions on here, but also 18 the pressure in order to get it right.
19 We've considered developing a smaller, 20 shorter bundle like RBHT to do it. But as Dr. Hoxie 21 pointed out getting the -- the funding for something 22 like that is -- is extremely difficult. So we're 23 going to try to maximize what we can get out of -- of 24 KATHY, and hopefully at least come up with a -- a 25 model for Tmin that is conservative for these types of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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70 1 conditions.
2 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Yes, thank you Steve.
3 This is Walt. I -- I was just thinking, this might be 4 a candidate for a university research grant kind of 5 follow-on kind of activity.
6 MR. BAJOREK: It would be good. I think 7 it's great. When I was at Kansas State we had a high 8 -- we had a very small, high-pressure facility and 9 that helped show that this Tmin turned around. But 10 the -- the picture is incomplete. That was a pool 11 boiling study. We really need some of the flow 12 characteristics and to change some of the surface --
13 surface characteristics. And I'd almost like to --
14 like to, you know, almost thank Ivan Catton who 15 recently passed away. He was a -- ACRS chair for a 16 number of years and boy, he drilled that into me that 17 you have to look at numerous parameters in order to 18 get a phenomena like that correct. But thank you, 19 good question.
20 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Thank you.
21 MR. STAUDENMEIER: Yes, I've -- this is 22 Joe Staudenmeier. I have one additional comment on 23 it. If you look in a code like TRACE, there's 24 apparent Tmin and real Tmin. And the apparent Tmin in 25 the experiment in matching that -- like, inverted NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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71 1 annular film boiling correlations, and transition 2 boiling correlations, and -- and Tmin itself 3 correlations all come into play into what -- getting 4 quenches right like that. And you can adjust any one 5 of those three parameters and change quenches in the 6 code. And getting everything right together can be 7 difficult so you really have to make sure that all of 8 those things are behaving in the right way in the code 9 because they all combine together to give what the 10 apparent Tmin is in quenching inside the code 11 calculations.
12 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: Hey, this is Jose 13 March-Leuba. Unfortunately almost everything I know 14 about this test and mechanism is all proprietary, so 15 we cannot talk about it in here. But on a related 16 question, great, the NUREG 72-72 has been issued.
17 Last time we talked, the data itself was still 18 proprietary. And see, the biggest value for our money 19 here will be to be provide the data to the other 20 vendors so they could tune -- at a minimum, fudge 21 their codes so they reproduce the results.
22 So what is the status of the proprietary 23 review of the raw data? Chris?
24 DR. HOXIE: Yes, we're working towards, 25 you know, helping in that area. We -- we do want to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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72 1 release as much information as we can. And, you know, 2 that's the goal. We're not there yet.
3 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: Yes, at a minimum, we 4 know we have a recommendation to use the homogeneous 5 nucleation correlation, and we require it. When they 6 do the calculation (indiscernible) they tune their 7 codes to this data. So keep -- keep -- keep hitting 8 them -- those lawyers -- and see if we can get the 9 data published. Thank you.
10 DR. HOXIE: Yes, I will mention that some 11 of the data -- and that is -- in that NUREG, and I 12 would have thought that -- I'll have to check on that.
13 I'm not the key. But I thought at least those data 14 sets that were, you know, graphed and everything else 15 in the NUREG probably are available. But I'll have to 16 look.
17 MEMBER PETTI: Hey, Chris --
18 DR. HOXIE: Yes?
19 MEMBER PETTI: -- just a -- a point of 20 order. I was looking at the agenda. Are each of you 21 four going to take the same amount of time?
22 DR. HOXIE: That was the idea, and I'm --
23 I'm about up, aren't I?
24 MEMBER PETTI: You are imposing on the 25 others and it would be nice for us to take a break at NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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73 1 some point. I was thinking after yours was done. You 2 still have a number of slides. So just see if we can 3 turn up the RPM a little.
4 DR. HOXIE: I will do so. Okay, this is 5 the BlueCRAB suite and it -- we use it for analyzing 6 advanced non-LWRs. All the blue is DOE codes. Like 7 I said, it costs too much. I could write the code to 8 have TRACE do that. But it would cost me a fortune to 9 V&V it. And so DOE has already done the work, so why 10 not use it? So that's where we are with that. Next 11 slide.
12 This is the status -- the -- of the plant 13 models. I think you guys beat on that pretty well 14 before, but what this shows is that there are seven 15 models available of the reference plants. And -- it's 16 -- I'm just going to go real quick, okay? We have 17 closed a modeling gaps in that we have developed a 18 simple model of heat pipe for use with the micromodel.
19 We have identified data needs for microreactors and 20 have been working with INL providing suggestions on 21 design of test articles and test matrixes.
22 Gaps in modeling in molten salt reactors 23 are being addressed often based on PIRTs that NRC 24 developed a couple of years ago. Significant work is 25 in progress at the labs to address salt properties and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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74 1 unique modeling issues, such as delayed neutron 2 precursors circulating in your primary system. We are 3 concerned about the need to run our codes on HPCS 4 systems. Like I said, it's always changing. We've 5 overcome those very nicely and we have the computing 6 resources we need.
7 And last point, validation is proceeding.
8 DOE is doing much of it, but we have done some of our 9 own validation using FFTF and CEFR. So -- and in the 10 future, when we obtain the actual designs, we will 11 then look at gaps based on Reg Guide 1.203 by looking 12 at scaling and the range of conditions for the 13 database. So those are all coming out. Let's go to 14 the next slide, fusion reactors.
15 I'm just going to declare that this is 16 self-explanatory. All I want you to know is that 17 there are -- vendors, or people who want to build 18 fusion reactors in the United States, and we're trying 19 to be ready for them. Next slide.
20 MEMBER PETTI: So, Chris, let me just say 21 that I think you should focus on tritium technology 22 and tritium behavior because anything that's coming in 23 near term is not going to be a true reactor that has 24 what I call fusion nuclear -- you know, the blanket 25 and all that. It's going to be about, I've got some NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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75 1 tritium, I'm going to puff it into the plasma chamber, 2 make sure it's safe, make sure the workers don't get 3 dosed. So that, in my opinion, would be where the 4 focus should be nearer term.
5 DR. HOXIE: Yes, you see the third bullet 6 there -- evaluate accident progressions --
7 MEMBER PETTI: Yes.
8 DR. HOXIE: -- releases and potential 9 doses, yes.
10 MEMBER PETTI: Yes, yes.
11 DR. HOXIE: I agree completely, Dave.
12 MEMBER PETTI: Great, thank you.
13 DR. HOXIE: Next slide. Just real quick, 14 yes we do computational fluid dynamics. I'll just say 15 in -- to abbreviate it. CFD validation and 16 benchmarking in anticipation of future work is 17 ongoing. The Himeris-2 (phonetic) project work that 18 we're doing is benchmark is such an example. And the 19 second point is CFD is used to support fuel storage 20 and transport -- transportation issues. And we have 21 three user needs from NMSS in this area. And so that 22 will do for that. Next slide?
23 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Before you go on, Chris, 24 I know you've been -- this is Walt again. In your CFD 25 analyses, I've seen some of the work you've done in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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76 1 the past -- as you mentioned -- can you do -- can you 2 trace boron concentrations?
3 That's a leading question.
4 DR. HOXIE: I don't know, and I'm looking 5 to -- to the -- is Chris Boyd or Ghani (phonetic) or 6 Steve -- I think -- we'll have to get back to you on 7 it.
8 MR. BAJOREK: Well you can -- in TRACE you 9 can do it in a global sense. You know, in a large 10 region you can tell how much boron is there. But if 11 you're going to try to get it into details and natural 12 circulation -- TRACE, you kind of have to hold your --
13 hold your nose and look at the results. CFD does a 14 much better job of tracking things in -- in local 15 regions. But when you start to get two phased 16 conditions, that's where it has trouble. So it's a --
17 it's an area that's difficult for both of -- both --
18 both areas to really deal with right now and it's 19 going to need more work.
20 MEMBER REMPE: Has there ever been any 21 sort of experimental validation of boron circulation?
22 MR. BAJOREK: There's -- there's been some 23 in PKL, which is -- now has that name --
24 DR. HOXIE: ETHARINUS, yes.
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77 1 of a global-type of a distribution. ETHARINUS and PKL 2 is kind of a large, one-dimensional type system. So 3 you can see where it's at in the system. But if 4 you're looking at internal recirculation as is what's 5 important in some of the small modular reactions --
6 reactors, excuse me -- we really don't have the 7 experimental database for that.
8 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Steve, do you -- this is 9 Walt again. Sorry for the interruption. Do you -- do 10 you deal with the CASL folks at all? I don't see that 11 on your list of DOE codes, but and obviously that's 12 for a PWR, but --
13 (Simultaneous speaking.)
14 MEMBER KIRCHNER: -- any connections with 15 them? Because this is an issue they've looked at.
16 MR. BAJOREK: Yes, we -- we do talk to 17 them and I think they have done a -- a study for us a 18 number of years ago when we were looking at GSI-191.
19 I think at the time they had a difficult time with 20 that, again, because when you start to apply some of 21 the CFD types of methods that they were using, when 22 you get boiling and two-phase flow, that's where it 23 started to have trouble. But yes, they're -- that's 24 -- that's the type of direction that we would want to 25 go to put into TRACE, like a sub-channel capability NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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78 1 much like they're doing with -- with COBRA-TF now in 2 CASL.
3 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Okay, I can pursue this 4 with you offline. Thank you very much.
5 MR. BAJOREK: Thank you.
6 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: This is Jose. So 7 Steve, would you say that TRACE does a pretty good job 8 with one-dimensional boron propagation -- boron 9 transport?
10 (Simultaneous speaking.)
11 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: -- have problems with 12 numerical diffusion and all this good stuff, but --
13 MR. BAJOREK: Yes, I think --
14 (Simultaneous speaking.)
15 MEMBER MARCH-LEUBA: As long as you're 16 one-dimensional, you're good. If you're three-17 dimensional you start getting problems.
18 MR. BAJOREK: I agree. You said it very 19 well. One-dimensional in more of a global sense, 20 TRACE doesn't do too bad. It will tell you when 21 you're very close to precipitation. But if you're 22 looking at smaller concentrations where numerical 23 diffusions can take over in a 3-D geometry, sorry.
24 It's -- it's not going to -- it's not going to give 25 you trustier results. But thank you.
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79 1 DR. HOXIE: Okay, and last slide please.
2 I'll abbreviate. If the slide is fairly self-3 explanatory. We have accomplished a lot and I am very 4 proud of my engineers. We look forward to executing 5 the future plans that are on the slide. And with 6 that, I've reached the end of the presentation? Any 7 questions, or -- I think you've been asking as we go.
8 MEMBER REMPE: Chris -- Chris, this is 9 Joy, just to make sure -- is it true that so far all 10 the reference plant evaluations have been accomplished 11 using SCALE and MELCOR? Has anything else been used 12 in the BlueCRAB suite?
13 DR. HOXIE: The answer is yes.
14 (Laughter.)
15 MEMBER REMPE: What else has been used for 16 the reference plant evaluations that we search -- in 17 presenting?
18 MR. BAJOREK: This is Steve again. We 19 started off by developing a microreactor model. It 20 was based on the INL special purpose reactor A. We 21 developed that and then we modified it to look much 22 more like the Applicant. Same fuel product. Geometry 23 was very similar. And we used that to address a user 24 need request -- to look at some specific issues and 25 concerns that they had regarding that type of a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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80 1 reactor.
2 We used those results and we've given 3 those back to NRR. And they've used those for a 4 number of RIAs and they're working with the Applicant 5 to -- to resolve those. The things that we also 6 found, we have been working with INL experimentalists 7 in order to give them suggestions and recommendations 8 for their experimental work in order to close some of 9 the gaps that we foresee. We've also developed a 10 model for the PB-FHR, which is similar to another 11 applicant.
12 However, again we've taken that model and 13 we've added other features in to give it the right 14 bypass and natural circulation and are at the point 15 very soon that we'll be able to start doing some 16 simulations. In anticipation of that application 17 coming in, we also have four or five other models that 18 we've completed and we're -- we're testing them out 19 right now. That -- that's just more of a examining 20 the codes and making sure it's doing what it should be 21 doing. But at least two of models we're -- we're 22 pursuing more with the applicant it has in mind.
23 MEMBER REMPE: So again, what codes are 24 you using besides SCALE and MELCOR? Could you -- I 25 mean, it sounds like -- are you using a CFD code?
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81 1 What are the other codes you're using so far?
2 MR. BAJOREK: For the microreactor model 3 we've used MOOSE for the thermomechanical expansion, 4 which is very important for that type of a reactor, 5 SAM to model the heat pipes. And we used a very -- we 6 developed a simplified components. We heard you when 7 you said, keep it simple. And we've been using 8 GRIFFIN to give us the neutronic feedback.
9 MEMBER REMPE: Okay, thank you.
10 DR. HOXIE: Okay, I'm done.
11 MEMBER PETTI: Okay. Well, why don't we 12 take a 15-minute break and we will then firstly --
13 unless we speed up -- go beyond the agenda, but 14 hopefully not more than 30 minutes at this point. So 15 let's recess until the top of the hour.
16 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 17 off the record at 3:46 p.m. and resumed at 4:00 p.m.)
18 MEMBER PETTI: Okay, good.
19 MR. ESMAILI: Okay, good afternoon.
20 MEMBER PETTI: Go ahead.
21 MR. ESMAILI: Sorry. So, good afternoon.
22 My name is Hossein Esmaili. I am the fuel and source 23 term code development branch chief.
24 As of last September, many of you know 25 Richard Lee, but he retired last December, so I am new NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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82 1 in this position. He had already done a great job of 2 building the branch with highly skilled staff who 3 continue to do amazing work.
4 And I actually have some of the staff, 5 FSCB Staff here in case there are some specific 6 questions as I'm trying to, my best to learn the other 7 areas because my background has been in severe 8 accident analysis.
9 Next slide please. So one of our main 10 function is the continued development of the state of 11 practice computer codes in these three areas.
12 For neutronics, for us, it's SCALE, for 13 fuel it's FAST, and for severe accident it's MELCOR.
14 So to be successful in the validation of our 15 computational tools, we leverage domestic 16 international resources participating experimental 17 programs.
18 In the international area, we not only 19 obtained access to data of the reduce cost, we also 20 shared the codes with our partners through various 21 programs. It just helps us in the code improvements.
22 And of course, in the end what we want to 23 do is to maintain staff technical expertise. And this 24 is very important, actually, because one way to do 25 this is by exercising the code to see how different NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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83 1 systems work.
2 So having a code and seeing how different 3 technologies work is a great learning experience.
4 It's been for me, and I think it's been for a number 5 of people in the branch.
6 And finally, we engage with internal and 7 external stakeholders to support agency risk-informed 8 regulatory decision making.
9 Next slide please. I really like this 10 slide. I saw this the first time a few years ago back 11 in 2019. This is when John Monninger was presenting 12 in terms of, you know, what we do in terms of 13 confirmatory analysis.
14 So the main reason we develop and maintain 15 these computer codes is to support our regulations and 16 licensing reviews.
17 This is a convenient picture. It tries to 18 link the role of the codes with specific regulations.
19 The codes cover a wide range of areas. Fuel 20 performance, reactor systems analysis, containment 21 analysis and source term analysis.
22 This is the same slide that Chris Hoxie 23 was using, but since we have SCALE and FAST and 24 MELCOR, we cover larger areas.
25 We use the codes for normal operation, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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84 1 design basis accidents and severe accidents. They're 2 used for confirmatory analysis and audit calculations 3 to support decision making.
4 And one area where the burden of the proof 5 is on us, is potential rulemaking. For example, we 6 use the code extensively in post-Fukushima work, such 7 as the spent fuel pool study or containment protection 8 and release reduction.
9 In the next three slides I just want to 10 give a brief overview of these three codes, and what 11 they are, how they are used, how they are assessed and 12 how they support our regulations.
13 Next slide please. So I'm going very 14 fast. By this time I was expecting to be interrupted, 15 but that's okay.
16 (Simultaneous speaking.)
17 MR. ESMAILI: So this is, sorry, was there 18 a question? Okay.
19 So this is a theme for all the codes.
20 This picture shows, what we see here is in the middle, 21 is the code. In this case it's FAST.
22 The input to the code is the programs and 23 phenomena. These are what we have in the left boxes 24 in the columns. And what you see on the right is a 25 support for the program office.
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85 1 FAST, is the fuel analysis under city, 2 state and transients. This calculates the term of 3 mechanical response of the nuclear fuel under city, 4 state and accident conditions.
5 It is used to support licensing reviews in 6 NRR by assessing specific specified acceptable fuel 7 design limits, evaluating render fuel codes and 8 methods and providing initial conditions for design 9 basis analysis. It's also used to perform spent fuel 10 cooling analysis to support NMSS reviews.
11 So I don't intend to, if there are no 12 questions, I don't intend to go over this slide in 13 great details. I will just talk about the priority 14 items in the later slide.
15 Okay, so next slide. So one of our top 16 fuel priority is the development of the research 17 information letter.
18 This was summarized experimental research, 19 experimental research program.
20 (Simultaneous speaking.)
21 MR. ESMAILI: Is there a question? I'm 22 sorry, I --
23 A summarized experimental research 24 programs and data on this topic. It will introduce, 25 this will introduce limits for FFRD, fuel NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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86 1 fragmentation and relocation.
2 A related phenomena becomes significant.
3 For example, when the burn-up, when the fragmentation 4 is significant that can lead to a dispersal if the 5 cladding fails. And once that fails, the best 6 fraction of dispersible fuel, as a function of the 7 burn-up.
8 So, it's currently undergoing internal 9 review. We will be happy to present information in 10 this area at a future ACRS meeting and dive deeper.
11 So this is, I wanted to socialize this 12 with, you know, take this opportunity to socialize 13 this review and see if there is an interest on the 14 part of ACRS. We can come back and give a more, dive 15 deeper into it.
16 So, of course, when it comes to new fuel 17 designs and technologies we work very closely with 18 other program offices participating in meetings with 19 fuel vendors. And also, we basically have like 20 monthly meetings, et cetera, that we talk about our 21 progress and what the industry is doing, et cetera.
22 This will help us focus our research and to keep up 23 with industry priorities.
24 Second bullet, FAST. In FAST Version 1.0 25 was released in April of 2020. We anticipate the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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87 1 release of the later version of the FAST 1.1 this 2 year.
3 And work is ongoing to couple FAST and 4 TRACE to the MOOSE framework. We will streamline the 5 coupled codes analysis.
6 Actually, this was very good for me. I 7 participated in my first meeting yesterday on this 8 FAST/TRACE coupling. And so it's a very interesting 9 work.
10 Data generated in SCIP III and SCIP IV 11 will support FFRD data and insight development.
12 NRC is still part of the Halden Reactor 13 project till 2023. But you have been briefed on the 14 Halden project and the upcoming FIDES project.
15 FIDES was launched in this year, in 2021, 16 with four Joint Experimental Projects, or JEEPs. This 17 covered CODEX cladding creep, high burn-up fuel 18 performance through power ramps and high burn-up fuel 19 performance during reactivity initiated accidents.
20 Other programs that we are involved in, in 21 terms of a fuel, is EPRI and NSRR. This is the work 22 that's don't in JAA in Japan, and SPARE.
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88 1 validation for new fuel design.
2 SPARE really focuses on saving materials 3 from the Halden project. From the final disposals.
4 Halden has been shutdown as of 2018, as you were told 5 back in February. And the goal is to transport the 6 selected fuels from the Halden facility.
7 So the last point, when it comes to codes 8 familiarity by the Staff, and I think this is when we 9 briefed ACRS some time ago on what we were doing with 10 non-LWR. One of the points that you all made was that 11 we continue with our tools, but we should be aware of 12 other tools and understand them.
13 And so, in the spirit of what you 14 suggested after that briefing, on non-LWR plans, the 15 FAST team is actually using BISON. They have gone to 16 some workshops so they're learning what's in the code.
17 And it's become, from what I sense, becoming very, 18 very useful for us.
19 Next slide please.
20 MEMBER REMPE: Hossein, this is Joy.
21 MR. ESMAILI: Yes, ma'am.
22 MEMBER REMPE: On that slide, I was just 23 kind of waiting until you were done. I'm going to ask 24 you sort of the question I was asking Kim earlier, 25 since you mentioned this NRC meetings with fuel NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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89 1 vendors and DOEs.
2 One, has the Staff emphasized that they do 3 need some data, and how receptive are the vendors and 4 DOE to such comments?
5 I know you have done this PIRT and it 6 seemed to me that, because it's publicly available, 7 that ERI did, that that sure came out in the PIRT.
8 And are they taking note of this saying, yes, we'll 9 get that data. Because I am not quite sure whether 10 we'll get some of the integral test data that, during 11 the radiation testing since we don't have Halden.
12 MR. ESMAILI: So, Joy, that severe 13 accident, that PIRT that you're talking about falls 14 under the severe accident area, so I'm just going to 15 get to that a little bit later.
16 MEMBER REMPE: Sure. Whenever.
17 MR. ESMAILI: But you are right.
18 MEMBER REMPE: That's fine.
19 MR. ESMAILI: But you are right. And I 20 will tell you what we are doing actually.
21 But you are right. We are, we do have 22 these periodic meetings and every chance we get we 23 emphasize the need for data.
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90 1 know when I get to some other ones, and then they're 2 like QUENCH-ATF for example.
3 We are looking at chromium-coated. This 4 is something that we are interested in and the 5 industry is interested in, EPRI is interested in. And 6 they're participating in these programs.
7 And so, yes, we are emphasizing the need 8 for data, but at least in some of the areas we are not 9 waiting back for those data. So when it comes to our 10 codes, we are building the infrastructures so when 11 data becomes available we can actually use this data 12 in our tools.
13 Hopefully that answers your question.
14 MEMBER REMPE: It does. Thank you. I 15 will have a question later on, on this same topic, 16 when you get to the codes because I had a question on 17 how you're doing the updates to MELCOR, but I'll wait.
18 MR. ESMAILI: Sure. Thanks. All right, 19 next slide please.
20 So, in terms of neutronics the Staff has 21 been developing, assessing and using SCALE for about 22 40 years now. SCALE, it was a consolidation of 23 separate computer codes that were difficult to 24 maintain.
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91 1 MELCOR. MELCOR was also a collection of different 2 computer codes that we kind of integrated together.
3 So the code now supports Staff and nuclear 4 data evaluations and hybrid regenerations, 5 criticality, radiation transport, decay heat and 6 sensitivity and certainty analysis. It's used by NRC 7 and in 61 countries. About more than 10,000 users and 8 33 regulatory bodies. So it has a very wide user 9 base.
10 It's used to support licensing activities 11 in NRR and analysis of spent fuel criticality 12 generating nuclear physics, decay heat parameters for 13 design basis accident analysis. And also, extensively 14 by NMSS. The review of consolidated interim storage 15 facilities, burn-up credit, et cetera.
16 And you know, it does, the data that's 17 generated by SCALE is of course, we have something 18 down there that we do use that for MELCOR. And once 19 I get into this non-LWR project I will explain how we 20 are doing that.
21 When it comes to parts, this is actually 22 under Chris, we put it here, this is under Chris 23 Hawk's branch. It's our core simulator. It provides 24 problem specific nodal data, so I don't want to 25 discuss that too much here.
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92 1 Next slide please. So in terms of 2 neutronic priorities, this summer we plan to issue a 3 production version of SCALE 6.3. This will include 4 updates to the code, which will be useful for both 5 light water reactors and non-light water reactors.
6 And we will also make available a better 7 release of SCALE 7. That's coming soon. And SCALE 8 will focus on enhancing existing capabilities for non-9 LWRs.
10 For ATF, HALEU, and high burn-up. We have 11 developed a detailed plan that is divided into two 12 phases.
13 In Phase one we looked at the impact of 14 HALEU, evaluated currently certified transportation 15 packages for transportation on irradiated, extended 16 enrichment uranium in various fuel forms, impact of 17 HALEU and high burn-up and ATF. This includes 18 chromium-doped and chromium-coated FeCrAl and lattice 19 physics phenomena.
20 And in Phase 2 we start to look at entire 21 analysis and back-end. And so, these are the type of 22 things that we have been doing in SCALE.
23 And most of you know that when you are 24 using SCALE, we used that extensively also, if you're 25 interested, Joy, in our MELCOR analysis. This is for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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93 1 SOARCA and we're doing this for non-LWR.
2 And to that point, for Volume 3, SCALE is 3 supporting MELCOR and source term demos.
4 And with Volume 5 we just brief you, I 5 think this was some time ago, I forgot. Yes, it was 6 April or February, that we briefed you on Volume 5.
7 And we just received some resources. And 8 our initial effort will be to develop the reasonable 9 scenarios that could support us in each of those ten 10 reports that we expect to develop.
11 So we're starting to do some work on 12 Volume 5. But right now our focus is on Volume 3 and 13 the demo calculations.
14 We also plan to have the next SCALE 15 workshop in August or September time frame. So that's 16 coming up.
17 This is a major workshop involving users 18 from around the world. And as I showed you, there are 19 many users around the world.
20 In terms of PARCs, again, this is in Chris 21 Hawk's branch, but Staff in FSCB are supporting Chris 22 in the CRAB branch. And specifically, Kim mentioned 23 Mike Rowe. And I have two staff, Mike Rowe and Andy 24 Billing, who are doing this plant input text.
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94 1 by staff. We are focusing on BlueCRAB. So Andy and 2 some of the folks, they attend the BlueCRAB meetings.
3 And Andy is specifically looking at the GRIFFIN code.
4 Next slide please. All right. So, this 5 is our severe accident code. MELCOR is our severe 6 accident code.
7 It's a system level code simulating the 8 entire spectrum of accidents and phenomena from 9 initiation of the accident to core fuel degradation 10 and fission product release from the fuel and 11 transport, to the containment and to the environment.
12 Because a large user base, both domestic and 13 international, I have it at the bottom. This was some 14 time ago. There were about 1,000 code users. One-15 third of them are in the U.S.
16 Internationally the code is distributed as 17 part of NRC's cooperative severe accident research 18 programs. And as you can see here, the code requires 19 SCALE input for decay heat and fission product 20 inventories.
21 And the output would be in the form of 22 source that can be directly read by MACCS. And what 23 I have shown here is some of the programs that we are 24 currently involved in on the left-hand side.
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95 1 the FIDES, the ROSAU project that's there. And what 2 type of phenomena we looked at because when we are 3 looking at MELCOR it's a repository of our knowledge.
4 Okay, so next slide please, if there's no 5 questions. All right. So, in terms of severe action 6 source and priorities, one area that we are focusing 7 right now is code modernization.
8 This is a multi-year program. The basic 9 idea is to separate numerics from the physics. And to 10 work on major code packages on each here.
11 As some of you may know, that MELCOR is a 12 modular code, it's divided into different packages.
13 And so, this year we are focusing on the term of 14 hydraulic package and trying to modernize that 15 package. And in the later years we are getting into 16 core package, radionuclide package, et cetera.
17 Is that where you wanted to ask a 18 question, Joy, or, okay.
19 MEMBER REMPE: Actually, yes. Thank you.
20 Many years ago, I know we were engaged in a meeting, 21 and we talked about when you analyze a severe accident 22 with ATF that there was some difficulties in the way 23 MELCOR was configured because it could not look at the 24 channel boxes and other zircaloy or stainless steel 25 components separately from the fuel.
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96 1 And it was, it needed to have some major 2 reconfiguration done so you could more accurately 3 assess the effect of the ATF but still allow oxidation 4 of these other components that could produce hydrogen 5 and other combustible gases. Has that been done yet 6 or where are you guys on that?
7 MR. ESMAILI: Not in the modernized code, 8 Joy. As I said, this year we are just focusing on the 9 thermal hydraulic parts of the code.
10 And in the next two years, in 2022 and 11 '23, the major emphasis would be on the core package.
12 And that is where we are going to make those changes.
13 This is something that Sandia and co-14 developers have been asking for a long time. They 15 wanted to make basic changes so it would be easier to 16 introduce new components and materials.
17 For example, one of the things that we 18 saw, this is not ATF, but when we were looking at 19 nitrite and effects, like the code can calculate, for 20 example, the oxidations, et cetera. And we can 21 simulate the effect of air ingress and oxidations, but 22 for us to actually produce a ZrN layer, for example, 23 a zirconium nitride layer, it would have involved a 24 lot of work.
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97 1 are going to do that is that it's going to be much 2 easier for us to introduce new components, et cetera.
3 However, because of the work on ATF, we 4 are continuing, for example, we are doing assessments 5 of MELCOR against the FeCrAl test. This is the QUENCH 6 19. QUENCH 19. This is the test that was done at 7 Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.
8 We are doing some comparisons. We did a 9 current version of MELCOR, we think we can do that 10 with QUENCH 15.
11 So for in the near time we are relying on 12 the current version of MELCOR, which is our workhorse.
13 In the coming years we are just trying to make that 14 easier to introduce components, et cetera.
15 MEMBER REMPE: So for right now, when 16 someone presents a MELCOR calculation to me and claims 17 that, look, I get a couple more hours because I use 18 ATF, I'm going to look at it a little suspiciously and 19 say, did you consider the other components that can 20 oxidize? Is that a fair thing for me to be saying 21 back to them?
22 MR. ESMAILI: I don't think so because we 23 are, we are actually, even in this current version of 24 the code, we are actually producing some generalized 25 oxidation model. So it would be easy for us to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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98 1 oxidate other, you know, oxidations of other materials 2 also.
3 And in most cases, Joy, like, let's say 4 chromium-coating, right, we just have a thin chromium-5 coated layer, right. And what QUENCH-ATF is going to 6 give us is that it's going to give us data on the 7 oxidation kinetics of this chromium-coating.
8 And what the severe accident PIRT, this 9 was concluded, and I think I'm going to get into that 10 on the next slide, but what the severe accident PIRT, 11 the panelist discussed is that where we need to put 12 our priorities. You know, how important is a chromium 13 layer on top of the, is it going to significantly 14 affect the melt progressions.
15 And so far, based on what we have seen, 16 and again, the report is public, is that we can handle 17 a lot of those things. A lot of this problems that, 18 or issues that they raise, to sensitivity calculations 19 because right now we are actually looking at the high 20 burn-up. And they have said, you know, look at this, 21 this is important, this phenomena is, for example, 22 from physical properties, et cetera, is important.
23 But we can handle that right now, true 24 sensitivity. The code has the capability for us to do 25 some of those analysis right now.
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99 1 MEMBER REMPE: So I should ask then how 2 they approximated it --
3 MR. ESMAILI: Yes. Yes. And --
4 MEMBER REMPE: -- better understand that 5 --
6 MR. ESMAILI: Yes.
7 MEMBER REMPE: -- because they can't quite 8 do it. In addition, there is no data for a lot of 9 these other things too, but anyway, thank you. I 10 think I have explored this enough.
11 MR. ESMAILI: Yes, okay. All right. So, 12 this year we are also --
13 Okay. So actually you, I'm back at my 14 talking point. So we are looking at the code 15 improvements for ATF, high burn-up. These are based 16 on the insights from severe accident PIRTs, as I just 17 explained to you.
18 We are, of course, leveraging 19 international research. This is through our 20 participation in the CSARP, MELCOR code assessment 21 programs.
22 And we have two international programs, 23 other international programs. One is the European 24 MELCOR user group and the other one is the Asian 25 MELCOR user group.
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100 1 So we do participate in these programs.
2 There are 27 countries that we actually have bilateral 3 agreements with. And we share a lot of information.
4 A lot of them are code users. And so, we benefit from 5 these users doing the code-to-code comparisons.
6 And I think you know that it has been 7 code, crosswalk comparisons between MELCOR and ASTEC.
8 ASTEC is the French code. And there has been actually 9 crosswalks for, between MELCOR and MAAP, MAAP is the 10 U.S. industry code. And so we benefit from our 11 understanding of how accidents progresses.
12 So, in terms of OECD/NEA projects, we are 13 involved in a number of them. I have listed some of 14 them here.
15 There are two projects that are Fukushima 16 related. This is PreADES and ARC-F. These are coming 17 to an end this calendar year, but there are plans for 18 a follow-on work. This is something that the, our 19 Japanese colleagues are very interested in continuing 20 this work.
21 And we are looking at, we are 22 participating in these programs. We are leveraging, 23 sometimes we are participating just to understand what 24 type of information is available.
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101 1 the information becomes available, do we need to make 2 any changes in our code or does it improve the code 3 capabilities. So, it's important for us to 4 participate, to some extent.
5 So, ESTER is a program that we just 6 started. This studies long-term regulatory releases 7 mechanisms that focus on re-degradation of surface 8 deposit inside the RCS and the containment and on 9 iodine chemistry.
10 We think it's very important for us to 11 understand this. Especially when we are dealing with 12 some of these long-term accident conditions.
13 ROSAU, this is a very big project. This 14 is another OECD project. It's conducting experiments.
15 This is at Argonne National Lab on effects of molten 16 core-concrete interaction using particular materials.
17 These are relatively large scale. This 18 project has benefits for the U.S. NRC and the Nuclear 19 Industry. Some of them are participating in this 20 program.
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102 1 containment protection, release reduction. And this 2 would be additional data to have confidence in our 3 code capabilities.
4 DENOPI is an IRSN project. This is 5 investigating spent fuel pool fuel coolability. This 6 is something that we discuss in SECY-160100.
7 At the time there was, after the Fukushima 8 and there was a review by the National Academia of 9 Sciences, that they wanted us to look at the MELCOR 10 and how it does things and the validation basis. So 11 as part of that, we are participating in this DENOPI 12 project.
13 And this is mainly one aspect of it that 14 we are very interested in is spray cooling of fuel 15 assemblies.
16 Finally, there is MUSA. This is 17 management uncertainty of severe accidents. We focus 18 on uncertainty analysis methods that are used to 19 quantify it. So as part of our contribution we 20 provide specific insights from SOARCA for reactor 21 spent fuel pool study and for the spent fuel pool 22 evaluations.
23 And we are not doing, so we are relying 24 mostly on the studies that we had done before. As I 25 mentioned, SOARCA, spent fuel pool. And this is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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103 1 something that Mike Salay and Tina Ghosh are involved 2 in. And I am also, to some extent, because I was 3 involved in the spent fuel pool evaluation.
4 For light water reactors, for the small 5 modular reactors, the water-based NuScale FSAR is 6 completed. We are currently working on the GE-BWRX-7 300 containment analysis using MELCOR. And we are 8 also exploring the need to do a severe accident 9 analysis. And the same is true for the Holtec.
10 We are a little bit further along with the 11 GE-BWRX-300. Shawn Campbell, from my Staff, he has 12 already built a MELCOR input deck and we are 13 exercising this currently as we are going through this 14 audit.
15 Next slide please. So, in terms of MELCOR 16 we are using it extensively in Site Level 3 PRA, 17 reactor and spent fuel pool.
18 MELCOR analysis have been, for the 19 reactor, spent fuel has been completed and we are in 20 the process of, I think, the MACCS folks are trying to 21 use that to do the consequence analysis.
22 Three people from my branch, Mike Salay, 23 James Corson and Shawn Campbell, have been very, very 24 instrumental in providing support to NRR because they 25 are currently going to a revision for Reg Guide 1.183.
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104 1 They have been providing information on fuel handling 2 accident analysis, reevaluation of settling velocity 3 distribution on multi-group methods.
4 This actually has to do with the size 5 distribution, settling velocity and MSIV. You know, 6 what type of aerosols do you find in the containment 7 versus in the main steam line.
8 And just recently, the impact of FFRD on 9 source term. This is the work that we just completed.
10 We are trying to wrap that up. And this is going to 11 be another input to this Reg Guide 1.183 revision.
12 In terms of non-LWR plant reactor designs, 13 Kim already discussed this. We are focusing on Volume 14 3 and 4 when it comes to MELCOR.
15 Source term demonstration calculation 16 using SCALE and MELCOR. We have already done two 17 staff only meetings, and we are getting ready to do 18 the public meetings in the coming months.
19 We are focusing on three reactor designs.
20 I think Chris Hawk's, he mentioned heat pipe reactor, 21 INL design aid. And for a high temperature gas cooled 22 reactors we are using PBMR-400. And we are doing 23 PBFHR for a pebble bed molten salt cooled reactor.
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105 1 is that we are trying to migrate old MELCOR fusion 2 version to MELCOR 2.2. I think this is, Dr. Petti was 3 discussing this.
4 The older version of MELCOR has been used 5 extensively by the, by our international partners.
6 Especially some of the European partners, they are 7 looking at either.
8 But these are the old cold versions. What 9 we are trying to do right now, we are trying to get 10 some resources, in the coming years, to migrate all 11 those models that was developed by Brad Merrill of INL 12 into the newest version of the code.
13 Accident tolerant fuels, the severe 14 accident PIRT that has been significantly, so we 15 looked at significant human logical issues to improve 16 MELCOR. This work was completed recently in April of, 17 I mean, two months ago. And the report has been made 18 public.
19 We are in the process of issuing, there is 20 a NUREG CR. This actually was a good piece of work 21 because not only did they look at ATF and high burn-up 22 and other stuff, but they could baseline it against 23 conventional fuel and understand where, okay, Joy, I 24 think you have, yes, this is where you were asking.
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106 1 interrupt you while you were talking, but with respect 2 to this PIRT, I think it is a good document. And 3 could you send the link to Hossein so he'll make it 4 available to all the members because it is --
5 MR. ESMAILI: Absolutely.
6 MEMBER REMPE: -- publicly available.
7 Sorry to interrupt you.
8 MR. ESMAILI: No, no, no, absolutely. I 9 am actually hoping that you would interrupt. All 10 right. And so I will send you the link to that.
11 And so, for accident tolerate fuels, the 12 other thing that we are actually starting on is the 13 QUENCH-ATF, I described that a little bit earlier.
14 The focus on that one, these are the experiments 15 that's done in the QUENCH facility at KRG in Germany.
16 We are going to look at chromium-coated 17 cladding under both design basis and beyond design 18 basis conditions. You know, under design basis you're 19 just looking at clad ballooning, et cetera. And in 20 beyond design basis severe accident we are just going 21 to look at the hydrogen production, et cetera.
22 It's my understanding that the, I think we 23 are at the end, almost, on signing the agreement. But 24 KIT has been actually getting ready to have actually, 25 I think they're trying to get some samples from NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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107 1 Westinghouse to start as soon as possible.
2 Next slide please.
3 MEMBER PETTI: Hossein, just a question.
4 MR. ESMAILI: Yes, sir.
5 MEMBER PETTI: These bulleted lists, 6 they're not in any priority?
7 MR. ESMAILI: No, not at all. We are 8 working on --
9 MEMBER PETTI: Okay.
10 MR. ESMAILI: -- all of them because, you 11 know, I forgot what the bullets were, can you go back.
12 (Laughter.)
13 MEMBER PETTI: So yes, I mean, the 14 accident tolerant fuel is the last thing, that doesn't 15 mean it's the lowest priority?
16 MR. ESMAILI: No. We are all high 17 priority for us. Non-LWR is high priority, that Reg 18 Guide 1.183 is high priority, the ATF. Every single 19 one of them is high priority.
20 But we are managing all the work. We have 21 a combination of in-house staff. And also we are 22 leveraging DOE, industry at Sandia to do the work for 23 us.
24 MEMBER PETTI: Okay.
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108 1 priority for us right now.
2 Next slide please. So, some selected 3 accomplishments, future plans. We had three major 4 code releases, FAST, MELCOR and SCALE.
5 As I mentioned, FAST, that was done in 6 April. MELCOR was done in December of last year. But 7 since that time we have made substantial and 8 significant changes into MELCOR actually, as we are 9 doing this source and demonstration calculations.
10 Severe accident PIRT, that one is done.
11 But we are checking that insights because right now we 12 are in the process of actually generating source, the 13 high burn-up source, they're using MELCOR for the 14 higher burn-up fuel. We are looking at burn-ups of up 15 to 80 gigawatt days per metric ton of uranium.
16 And so those calculations are going to be, 17 are going on. These are going to be, look like Tables 18 1, 2 and 4 in Reg Guide 1.183. So we have to have 19 the, we are hoping to have that by this fall.
20 MEMBER REMPE: So, aren't there some 21 uncertainties in these source terms because of the 22 lack of high burn-up data to characterize how 23 interactions with fission gas release affect the 24 cladding or the, it just seems like, I mean, are you 25 putting caveats saying, of course, we don't have data NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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109 1 for all of this?
2 MR. ESMAILI: So, in terms of fission 3 product release, you know, we are relying on the 4 (indiscernible) experiments, you know, were done, were 5 core right. They were done all the way to up to about 6 72 a gigawatt day. So this is actually the release 7 models that we are using for our current.
8 In terms of, so what the PIRT panel has 9 identified was, for example, some physical properties, 10 right. Or the porosity of the debris, ex cetera.
11 We are trying to handle those two 12 sensitivity calculations. We don't think there is a 13 need to go to experiments because we cannot resolve at 14 that level.
15 And it is common thread with what we have 16 done before. We have done the high burn-up source 17 calculation back in 2011. Right.
18 This is the work that was done at Sandia.
19 At the time, actually, Dr. Powers and everybody was 20 involved in. This is just a redo of what we have done 21 before, with insights from this PIRT.
22 MEMBER REMPE: So I'm going to push it 23 further. There is actually, are there are data for 24 the high burn-up fuel in conjunction with the 25 claddings proposed for ATF, for all of the different NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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110 1 designs?
2 MR. ESMAILI: I am not aware, Joy. Here 3 we are just looking at the high burn-up. This is --
4 MEMBER REMPE: Okay, so you're not using 5 ATF --
6 (Simultaneous speaking.)
7 MEMBER REMPE: -- just doing the high 8 burn-up fuel.
9 MR. ESMAILI: No, no, no.
10 MEMBER REMPE: Okay. That's where I'm 11 kind of going.
12 MR. ESMAILI: That's correct. That's 13 correct.
14 MEMBER REMPE: I don't think there is data 15 and there is going to be --
16 MR. ESMAILI: No, no, there is not.
17 MEMBER REMPE: -- interactions.
18 MR. ESMAILI: Absolutely not. Right. And 19 again, we are trying to absorb what the panels have 20 told us. The high burn-up is a redo of the 2011.
21 We are focusing on the chromium-coating 22 for next year. And we are just trying to see what we 23 can do. And the other ones are going to come later.
24 If they come.
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111 1 answer your question, I'm sorry? Yes.
2 MEMBER REMPE: Yes, you did. I'm sorry, 3 I was on mute.
4 MR. ESMAILI: Sure. So, we have multiple 5 international agreements, FIDES, QUENCH-ATF. These 6 are, you know, we actually, actually getting everybody 7 to sign off on these international agreements takes a 8 long time, so we have started on all of those.
9 Just recently back in the beginning of 10 June we have conducted CSARP/MCAP. We did European 11 medical user group meeting two months ago. This was 12 supported by Hungary.
13 And we have an upcoming Asian MELCOR User 14 Group. This is being coordinated by Singapore. As I 15 said, we have a SCALE MELCOR, SCALE user workshop 16 that's coming up.
17 So I have a little bit of advertisement 18 here for the, we have completed the input decks for 19 the non-LWRs. And we are going to have public 20 meetings, that you can see at the bottom here.
21 Actually, next Tuesday, if you have 22 nothing to do, we have, on June 29th, we have the heat 23 pipe reactor. This is a public meeting from 1:00 to 24 4:00.
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112 1 click on this and it gives you all the information on 2 how to join that meeting.
3 The gas cooled reactor is coming up on 4 June 20th. This is where, in all these cases, where 5 the Oak Ridge team and the Sandia team and NRR, we get 6 together and discuss what we had done and what to 7 expect. So it's very informative.
8 Pebble bed, we have not done the staff 9 only workshop yet. It's going to come up in August, 10 followed by the public workshop on September 14th of 11 2:00 and 3:00 2021.
12 So we are on track to finish all of these 13 reference calculations. I think that's the last 14 slide. Thank you.
15 MR. BETANCOURT: Okay. So I guess this 16 means, thank you, Hossein. So, good afternoon, 17 Members. My name is Luis Betancourt, I am the chief 18 of the accident analysis branch.
19 As Hossein mentioned, I recently started 20 in this position around three months ago. And I have 21 been very impressed by the work that the branch has 22 done in the last two years, which I hope to highlight 23 today.
24 So I think it has been a couple of years 25 since I had the pleasure to be in the front, in the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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113 1 hot seat in front of you, so I am very happy to see 2 many familiar faces again. And I look forward to your 3 questions.
4 So today what I plan to cover in my 5 presentation is what are we doing to ensure readiness 6 in the area of consequence analysis for both the 7 assisting fleet as well as the integrated 8 terminologies and how are we planning to prepare some 9 agency to adequately evaluate the use of data science 10 and artificial intelligence in our regulatory 11 activities and how we do plan to leverage these 12 technologies to enhance our business processes as well 13 as identify future research needs.
14 Next slide please. So, pictured on this 15 slide is four train, or four major areas for the 16 branch. So from a historical perspective, one of our 17 primary focus areas has been the analytical, as well 18 as experimental research projects in the areas of 19 progression, response and offsite consequences of 20 postulated severe analyses, as you know.
21 Consequence analyses is an essential tool 22 that is used to inform determinations of reasonable 23 assurance of adequate protection, understand that 24 there are power hazards, measured development 25 regulations, as well as help us appreciate the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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114 1 importance of nuclear safety.
2 In the area that our branch is actually 3 developing expertise in capabilities, at least in the 4 area of data science and AI, one of the main reasons 5 that we are focusing the expertise in our branch is 6 because our staff gained valuable experience in data 7 science, one that we're generating and working with 8 these large data sets in the uncertainty analysis, as 9 well as the Level 3 PRA story.
10 So even though some of that workload 11 associated with those two PIRTs are going to be coming 12 to completion in the next two years, we do expect an 13 increase in the workload in these areas for future 14 plant designs.
15 We're also leveraging resources to develop 16 and regulate some of the analytical tools that we 17 have, such as the MACCS code, in order to be able to 18 advance the scientific and technical knowledge base 19 and consequence analysis.
20 And finally we do maintain a broad 21 expertise in this area. So we do have provide 22 consultation to support the program offices in the 23 recent forum regulatory decision making.
24 Next slide please. So as you heard from 25 Hossein's presentation, we're planning to use this NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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115 1 slide to convey, at a high level, where do we fit in 2 the picture of supplying the program offices.
3 So, in our case we fit in the area of 4 under protection against radiological release where we 5 primarily used the MACCS computer code, which is a 6 sequence consequence coexistent to be able to simulate 7 the impacts of severe accidents at nuclear power 8 plants under surrounded environment for a variety of 9 applications.
10 And that would include the evaluation of 11 SAMES and SANDES (phonetic), the regulatory cost 12 benefit analysis, consequent studies like SOARCA, the 13 Level 3 PRA studies, as well as evaluations for 14 emergency planning. And our branch also helps in the 15 development of the code and consistent standards 16 relating to consequence analysis for the non-light 17 water reactor PRA standard.
18 Next slide please. I do believe that we 19 have some new members since the last biannual meeting, 20 so I thought this would be a good opportunity to give 21 a high level overview of MACCS and its capabilities.
22 So MACCS at a high level is a severe 23 accident consequence computer code that is used to 24 develop, to analyze the offsite consequences of a high 25 radiological release of radioactive materials. MACCS NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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116 1 was developed by Sandia under the sponsorship of the 2 NRC.
3 And to answer Vesna's question about the 4 diagram. So, basically from a given release of a 5 radioactive material into the atmosphere, so what see 6 on the diagram are, what are the things that a MACCS 7 model, which is basically the extent of a magnitude 8 and radiological contamination of site doses, 9 protected actions of severe economic impacts and costs 10 as well as health effects.
11 And one thing that I want to mention, that 12 in order for BMS part of the MACCS code, as well as to 13 have a direct influence in the development of the 14 MACCS code, our branch has to also maintain sufficient 15 subject matters participating in a lot of diverse 16 areas of modeling. And that will include atmospheric 17 transfer phenomena, economic impact evaluation, public 18 response to specific action recommendations, as well 19 as uncertainty analysis.
20 If you look at the bottom, we do have a 21 broad use of base of around 100, 600 domestic 22 international users, as well as domestic, leading up 23 to 124 organizations. That includes the NRC, the 24 Department of Energy, several research organizations 25 within the Nuclear Industry, as well as Academia.
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117 1 And usually the MACCS code is distributed 2 through the Caesar (phonetic) program, to the members.
3 Both to the domestic as well as international 4 organizations. Next slide please.
5 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: Actually, Luis. So 6 my specific questions were related to two pieces of 7 this pie. One was the regulatory framework.
8 You know, if this, how you said sort of 9 described what MACCS do. But obviously regulatory 10 framework doesn't explain what MACCS do, explain how 11 MACCS is used, right?
12 I assume, right. How is MACCS used in 13 regulatory framework.
14 So what does it, what is in this piece of 15 pie?
16 MR. BETANCOURT: Right. And I do plan to 17 cover that in two slides from now, Vesna, but yes, 18 that's a very good question.
19 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: My other question is 20 related to another piece of pie I'm interested. This 21 is risk uncertainty, right?
22 That also doesn't explain what MACCS does.
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118 1 quantity is used.
2 So this is also my other question. What 3 does this piece of pie actually describe as appointed 4 here.
5 MR. BETANCOURT: Yes. So the -- basically 6 at a high level, like you mentioned. It talks about 7 the models, basically the model in the MACCS.
8 But as I mentioned in the previous slide, 9 so MACCS has a lot of regulatory applications, like 10 you mentioned. Uncertainty analysis, that's a big 11 area of how MACCS is actually being used. We also use 12 it for the Level 3 PRA area studies.
13 A big area of MACCS that is being used by 14 the program office is in the area of evaluation for 15 emergency planning. And this will be a big area once 16 we receive new applications for small light-water 17 reactors, as well as non-light-water reactors that are 18 going to be having scalable EPCs or MACCS. That plays 19 a key role in that part of the evaluation.
20 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: One of the things 21 that I'm especially interested in, and I have been 22 pointed, I've been trying to discuss this in the sum 23 of things which we do, is that uncertainty associated 24 MACCS results can be huge, in my opinion, but I have 25 never seen these analyzed.
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119 1 I mean, for that part, if we considered 2 transfer these, you know, dispersions, and things like 3 that, there is so many assumptions to date that we 4 should track the uncertainty results. So I never 5 really saw any study done with that.
6 So, if you say MACCS is used in the 7 uncertainty study, I mean, there obviously should be 8 some studies show uncertainties related to the MACCS 9 results.
10 MR. BETANCOURT: Yes. And one of the 11 things that we are planning to do is in the area of, 12 on the first Fukushima regulatory analysis where there 13 is regard for offsite impacts, and one of the things 14 that Tina is actually working on right now, which I 15 was planning to talk in a later slide, and, Tina, feel 16 free to join in on any given time, we are planning to 17 complete a summary report of this uncertainty analysis 18 of the three model plans that we use for the SOARCA.
19 And we're planning to finalize the draft 20 in this industry fiscal year. The idea is to complete 21 the final report in Fiscal Year 2022.
22 So, Tina, I know you're going to mention 23 something else regarding this topic.
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120 1 get more into this in a couple of slides, when we talk 2 about the applications, but if I understood the 3 question I think maybe you were, the question was, how 4 does the MACCS work fit into where we use it for 5 regulatory applications.
6 So, one of the key areas we've had to use 7 MACCS for were when we did the regulatory analyses for 8 any potential rulemakings following the Fukushima 9 accident. Any time you need to quantify the offsite 10 impacts in terms of dose to people, risk to people, 11 economic impacts, we always use the MACCS code for 12 that.
13 And so that's basically where we have done 14 some Level 3 type PRA analyses. And for those we also 15 attempted to quantify the uncertainties associated 16 with those inputs for the regulatory analyses. So 17 that's just one example.
18 Another area we're continuing to work in 19 is updating the cost benefit analysis guidance. So 20 basically that would inform future regulatory 21 analysis.
22 The ones that we had picked up post-23 Fukushima were actually done. But certainly, we're 24 also improving the guidance for the future.
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121 1 PRA to do regulatory work, we're using the MACCS code 2 to generate that work. And a lot of the research 3 we've done kind of informs what we say about the 4 potential uncertainty and those quantities that we 5 use.
6 So, we're building towards kind of 7 improved methods in these areas. I hope that helps.
8 And I think Luis is going to get into the more 9 specific applications.
10 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: All right. Okay, 11 you said you had made attempt to calculate the 12 uncertainties associated with that. Does that mean 13 you have succeeded or you have some results in those?
14 MS. GHOSH: Yes. So one example is, we 15 spent quite some years doing a few very detailed 16 uncertainty analysis for the three SOARCA plants that 17 we did the state of the art reactor consequence 18 analyses.
19 So there for the accident sequences that 20 we looked at, we actually quantified the uncertainty 21 in both the MELCOR portion of the analysis, as well as 22 the MACCS portion of the analyses. So we've actually 23 done quite a few detailed studies in terms of the 24 consequence modeling portion of Level 3 PRA.
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122 1 published and we're working on making a shorter 2 summary document, which would be easier for a rough, 3 more of casual interest I would say. But we have 4 looked into that a lot over the last several years.
5 And I think we will continue to look into 6 that a little bit too as part of the Level 3 PRA 7 project.
8 MEMBER DIMITRIJEVIC: All right. That 9 will be very interesting as I already expressed in our 10 CFR 53 meetings to see those results. Because if we 11 consider using quantitative -- objectives as, you 12 know, the safety measurements, that's very relevant.
13 All right, thanks.
14 MR. BETANCOURT: Thank you, Vesna, that's 15 a really good question.
16 So, Lee, can you go to the nest slide?
17 Thank you. So pictured on this slide at a high level 18 are some of the capabilities of MACCS. If you start 19 from the top left and then going clockwise.
20 So MACCS is the consequence analysis 21 scope, which models offsite consequences from 22 radiological release of materials into the 23 environment. Next to it you have MelMACCS, which is 24 a precursor code that is used to, as an interface 25 between MELCOR and MACCS to extract the source term NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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123 1 data from MELCOR and convert it into a format that is 2 useable for MACCS.
3 Next, to the right, is WinMACCS, which is 4 a graphical user interface that facilitates the use of 5 MACCS.
6 At the bottom you have SecPop, which is a 7 population and economic data precursor code that can 8 create probability for out of sight data file for any 9 of the sites within the continental U.S.
10 And finally, AniMACCS, which is a new 11 animation post-processor that takes the output from 12 MACCS calculations and creates a time-dependent 13 animation of atmospheric transport. Basically plots 14 un-resulting error and grand consultations.
15 Next slide please. So, as part of MACCS 16 development, in June of 2020 we released a major 17 upgrade to MACCS. And some of them major 18 enhancements.
19 In Version 4.0 it included the option to 20 couple consequence analysis with nuance history 21 atmospheric plant support in this version model. And 22 an option on economic model to calculate the EDP 23 losses in place of the expected rate of return of 24 regulatory (phonetic) investments.
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124 1 including review of non-light water reactor designs.
2 In July 2021 we do plan to reduce MACCS Version 4.1 to 3 include the newer ATF models.
4 We identified these as a development need 5 in one and three of the non-light water reactor code.
6 And in close coordination with the staff, Sandia just 7 recently completed implementation of these models into 8 MACCS, and that's going to be released in Version 4.1.
9 They also finalized a report on this effort, which we 10 plan to put in the public domain.
11 And we do plan to show this to the MACCS 12 user in the upcoming workshop in September 2021. And 13 one of the things that we're also planning to do is to 14 feature this during an advance reactor stakeholder 15 meeting.
16 Providing MACCS documentation, we are in 17 the process of preparing three major reports 18 supporting the MACCS code to keep up with the current 19 set of practice activities, which are listed on this 20 slide. Which are the implemental plan report, the 21 MACCS User Guide and the MACCS Theory Manual.
22 Of note, the MACCS Theory Manual hasn't 23 been updated since 1990. That basically describes the 24 models within the MACCS code.
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125 1 complete overhaul so AJ, in conjunction with Sandia, 2 he did a fantastic job in updating the MACCS Theory 3 Manual. And the idea is to provide a draft of the 4 Theory Manual to the MACCS users before the annual 5 meeting in September 2021.
6 Finally, we also, MACCS requires ongoing 7 maintenance being viewed, distribution and so forth to 8 ensure that the code is best properly functioning.
9 Some of the activities include fission block 10 operability issues as well as distribution of the 11 code. And these activities and reasons are captured 12 in the (audio interference) annually to be able to 13 ensure their usability of the code.
14 Next slide please. And I do apologize, 15 since I'm going fast since I know that we're running 16 out of time, so feel free to stop me along the way.
17 Some of the high level priorities that we 18 have in the branch, like you heard from previously 19 before, we support the product offices through the 20 research work request by performing confirmatory 21 reviews. So SMRs, as well as advance reactors design.
22 In the area of non-light water reactors, 23 as I mentioned in my previous slide, the release of 24 MACCS Version 4.1 is a big priority for the branch at 25 this point.
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126 1 Another priority in this area is the area 2 of the radionuclide screening analysis where Sandia is 3 named in the completion of a task to supplement the 4 release of radionuclides that are typically considered 5 in MACCS to address several non-water reactor 6 technologies. So the next step will be to address 7 some of those unique properties from the non-light 8 water reactor assemblies.
9 This including the impacts on atmospheric 10 transporting dispersion on dosimetry. And we do plan 11 to keep the stakeholders informed through the public 12 website. And I see that there is a question.
13 MEMBER PETTI: Yes. Luis, this is Dave.
14 At one of the earliest meetings I can remember asking 15 Kim about tritium and how good a job does MACCS do for 16 tritium given both the fusion application but also 17 some of these molten salt applications where lithium 18 as a component you're going to get tritium releases 19 from the plant.
20 You know, in the past the accuracy 21 probably didn't need to be all that great because it 22 wasn't a big issue in light water reactors, but these 23 other systems it could become the dominant 24 radionuclide.
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127 1 I don't know if Keith is on the phone line. And I 2 think that's actually part of the work that he is 3 doing on the radionuclide analysis. So, Keith, are 4 you there?
5 MR. COMPTON: Yes, I'm here. This is 6 Keith Compton from AAB.
7 So, yes. Just a few observations. One 8 thing I would note is that MACCS has been used in the 9 past to model tritium releases from DOE facilities.
10 You have to be a little bit careful about it because 11 you have to model the skin absorption aspects of it 12 properly. But it has been used.
13 But as you noted, that's one of the things 14 that I think we identified that on the new reactor 15 technology code plan that we're going to be assessing 16 what additional changes need to be done.
17 We know that tritium is going to be 18 something we're going to have to deal with much more 19 explicitly, so I think that there is work planned for 20 that.
21 I am not aware of the current status. I 22 don't think that we have started that work quite yet, 23 but it's on our plan for us to get to it.
24 MEMBER PETTI: So early in my old fusion 25 days there was a German code that's now, I think, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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128 1 become more international called UFOTRI.
2 MR. COMPTON: Right.
3 MEMBER PETTI: And it was considered the 4 best. So there is stuff out there. There is some 5 good stuff to compare to.
6 MR. COMPTON: There absolutely is.
7 MEMBER PETTI: Yes.
8 MR. COMPTON: And I think that's one of 9 the things that, and that's kind of going to be a 10 theme, at least for me, going through a number of 11 these new reactor technologies is look at see what has 12 already been developed and used and accepted and re-13 purpose that before charging off and trying to solve 14 problems from scrap.
15 So, yes, we're aware of UFOTRI. I'm not 16 very familiar with it, but we know it exists and so --
17 MEMBER PETTI: Great.
18 MR. BETANCOURT: I don't know if you guys 19 can see the slides up, I think they went away.
20 PARTICIPANT: Yes, I just want to mention, 21 Luis, we have a Teams issue so I am getting it back up 22 as we speak.
23 MR. BETANCOURT: Okay. Well, I can 24 continue talking while, I will email the members a 25 copy of the slide so you can follow them on, or should NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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129 1 we wait?
2 MEMBER PETTI: I have them in front of me 3 so --
4 MEMBER REMPE: Just tell us what page.
5 MEMBER PETTI: Yes.
6 MR. BETANCOURT: Okay. I believe that we 7 were on Slide 58. I'm going to wait until you guys 8 tell me once you get to that slide.
9 MEMBER REMPE: I have it. Go ahead.
10 MR. BETANCOURT: Yes, that's fine. So let 11 me bring up on my end. Oh, I think, oh, it's back.
12 Okay, thank you, Lee.
13 PARTICIPANT: No problem.
14 MR. BETANCOURT: So, the next area that 15 we're focusing upon is completing the SOARCA summary 16 report, which we hope that is going to be providing 17 useful insights in the uncertainty analysis of the 18 three power plants, including Peach Bottom, Surry and 19 Sequoyah.
20 Our plan is to complete travel, do summary 21 reporting this fiscal year with a final report in 22 Fiscal Year 2022, as Hossein mentioned.
23 In the area of Level 3 PRA, we continue to 24 conduct those consequence analysis to support this 25 study, including the consequences initiated by NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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130 1 internal and external events of power during low power 2 and shutdown operations, as well as spent fuel store 3 involved pools of dry cask.
4 The staff is also participating in some of 5 the internal reviews of the Level 3 PRA pinnacle 6 advisory group. We'll continue to support the 7 research PRA timeline to complete this study in Fiscal 8 Year 2023 as a key milestone.
9 Regarding MACCS modernization, I think co-10 modernization is important for the MACCS tool to 11 ensure long-term visibility. And as you heard from 12 Teri's presentation, the MACCS modernization code has 13 been around in the code investment plan, which is a 14 vison to be a multi-year effort. So once it's 15 completed, issue won't require another large 16 modernization for many years.
17 Currently, the state of MACCS is that it 18 is currently reflecting legacy program and practices 19 that are several decades old and several parts of the 20 code are written in better programming languages.
21 For example, when MACCS is written in 22 Visual Basic 6, which right now the vendor is no 23 longer supporting, so one of the things that we're 24 doing is that we just finished the relevant revision 25 of MACCS where we are looking ahead and, and we're NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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131 1 trying to figure out, okay, from a literal point of 2 sense, where do we see MACCS being used in the future, 3 in the next coming years.
4 I do remember when I was preparing for the 5 advance reactor commission briefing, we are planning 6 to expect, between now to 2027, 13 applications for 7 advance reactors. So we are looking, okay, given this 8 environment and looking ahead, what are the things 9 that we need to do for MACCS to be able to properly 10 ensure its readiness for when these applications are 11 going to come in.
12 So we just developed the operation 13 statement, and our next plan is to start doing a 14 modernization. But however, like Teri mentioned, 15 that's going to become part of the code investment 16 plan. There is also a lot of competing priorities to 17 put in the revision, so that's going to be one of our 18 primary areas in the next fiscal year.
19 The last, but not least, on the last, I 20 think this is on a certain area, in my personal 21 opinion. Space fission reactors is a, one area that 22 we're supporting where the Department of Energy, DoT 23 and NASA currently engaged in the development of 24 fission reactors to support a variety of proposed 25 missions, including to the moon and mars where, and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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132 1 the NRC plays an important role that we need to 2 support that these nuclear launches are safe and in 3 conformance with international obligations.
4 So, our branch is supporting the newly 5 established interagency nuclear safety board review 6 where, as part of that effort would, varying the 7 development of a draft play book where it's going to 8 be providing the high level description of how the 9 boron is going to operate, as well as some guidelines 10 for some perspective applicants using space nuclear 11 launches.
12 We are also engaged with NASA in the area 13 of development standards for space nuclear reactors.
14 Even though there's a long and successful history of 15 using nuclear systems in space, NASA feels standards 16 and regulations currently in place, specifically in 17 the area of space fission reactor.
18 So one of our main goals is also 19 participating in an interagency working group that, at 20 the moment, they're trying to assess whether or not 21 there is a need for fission consistent standards. So 22 if the study concludes that consistent standard 23 activities are essentially warranted, then NASA is 24 going to be coordinated, their findings would be 25 consistent standards in the U.S. at large.
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133 1 Next slide please. Also, as we continue 2 to our research we are continually exploring elevation 3 (phonetic) opportunities. As you can see here, this 4 slide captures the extent of international activities 5 that we currently have in place.
6 In the area of CSARP, we continue to 7 support these meetings to happen annually to be able 8 to share the progress of severe accidents, as well as 9 to report code development assessment status.
10 IMARK (phonetic), which is an area that we 11 used as a forum to exchange information and research 12 among MACCS users and accident consequence calls.
13 These meetings usually happens in the summer, but due 14 to the COVID-19 pandemic the meetings is going to be 15 now taking place in September of 2021. The members 16 are welcome to attend if they're interested.
17 Registration is essentially open.
18 Because of the use of the CSARP program, 19 it's spread more across the world. There are also 20 yearly meetings taking place in Europe through the 21 EMUG, as well as Asia, on AMUG.
22 The EMUG actually just recently happened 23 back in April and finally on our list in general the 24 NRC allows the contribution of the MACCS code to our 25 domestic and international organizations for those NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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134 1 countries that have participated in the CSARP program.
2 Sandia plays a key role in providing user 3 support of the code, distributing the codes, supplying 4 licenses, as well as responding to questions from the 5 broad community on MACCS. Next slide, please.
6 Okay. On the area of AI I think this is 7 an area that we see that there has been a lot of 8 advancements in technologies across multiple 9 disciplines involving the public and private sector, 10 so both the nuclear industry as well as the NRC has a 11 potential gain for potential processing improvements 12 as well as safety using AI.
13 So to improve operational performance the 14 nuclear industry has already began to assess how AI 15 can not only can be utilized. We, the NRC, we need to 16 be ready, that we are capable to adequately evaluate 17 these technologies in the regulatory activities as 18 well as how can we leverage them to enhance our 19 internal processes as well as identify future needs.
20 So while there is an interest of the NRC 21 for doing that, in the long term what we are concerned 22 about is whether regulations of nuclear systems which 23 may use AI to either design or operating their 24 facilities, so, therefore, like while the industry is 25 focusing right now, like what you heard from Kim and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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135 1 Teri on using AI for improving operational 2 performance, the NRC needs to consider in the long 3 term how do we plan to regulate AI.
4 We need to consider how we are planning to 5 assess the what if scenarios, how do we plan to credit 6 that in the safety evaluations as well as how do we 7 plan to confirm the AIs behave and make predictions 8 that are within the licensing basis of that plan.
9 That is one of the reasons that we started 10 developing this strategy that right now the, we are 11 planning that strategy to become Agency wide.
12 Initially we are in the process of 13 developing that strategy internally where we form a 14 working group with representatives from all of the 15 regional divisions and our plan is to have a draft 16 strategy to be completed within maybe another fiscal 17 year that represents a coordinated strategy for the 18 office and then in Fiscal Year 2022 our plan is to 19 include appointed (phonetic) offices as well as to 20 assess the implementation across multiple business 21 plans.
22 So we are welcome to ACRS once we have 23 that AI strategy developed to provide comments when 24 that time comes.
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136 1 was a lot of comments mentioned regarding we need to 2 be able to define what AI is as well as we need to 3 hear about the industry.
4 So next week Research and NRR, we are 5 basically jointly hosting the first of a three series 6 of public workshops that is going to be providing that 7 for us and opportunity for both the industry and the 8 NRC and relevant stakeholders to discuss the state of 9 knowledge as well as research activities related to 10 AI.
11 And one of the things that we are planning 12 to do as part of that first workshop is, like some of 13 the Members mentioned, AI can mean something different 14 to different people, so we're trying to have 15 commentary knowledge between us and the industry.
16 In the next slide I have a link for the 17 invitation. The workshop is going to be taking place 18 on Wednesday.
19 One thing that we have seen, a recent use 20 case that is serving as a proof of concept to be the 21 attendant capabilities in our branch is the resource 22 tool predictor and the goal of this activity is at a 23 high level to develop a tool that utilizes data as 24 well as test analytics that it will assist in other 25 operating modules in estimating the resources with NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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137 1 regard to review in the common licensing application.
2 So the tool by itself acts as a present --
3 as analysis where it will look at a library that is 4 already analyzed, it will compare any common licensing 5 action, which is on the PDF, against a large data cell 6 that contains thousands of historical licensing 7 actions that are also in PDFs, and they will return 8 back to the program manager, okay, this is how we, the 9 tool predicts how much time it's going to take to 10 perform this review based upon historical data.
11 This use case is actually coming to an end 12 and it's actually showing some exciting promises for 13 NRR as well as the other, our appointed offices.
14 So as we look up to the future we are 15 planning to continue then to find more use cases to 16 serve as a proof of concept for better understanding 17 the capabilities, not only with our branch but for the 18 rest of the Agency.
19 So even though right now the majority of 20 the focus has been on internal process automation 21 activities, like I mentioned on the resource 22 prediction tool. In the future, and hopefully 23 starting in the next fiscal year, we plan to shape our 24 resources to use these technologies in the area of 25 consequence analysis.
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138 1 An example that we are currently looking 2 at now is actually we're trying to attempt to 3 systematically cluster the sites based on population 4 surrounding the site, so there will be a tool to try 5 to obtain similarities in the population surrounding 6 the site.
7 That could be large population close to 8 the site versus farther away. So that's an area that 9 we are starting this summer and we hope to continue in 10 the near future. Next slide, please.
11 And, finally, this is like a self-evident 12 slide which is a select of self accomplishments in the 13 last two years and some of the plans that we have 14 looking forward.
15 The Staff had done an incredible job in 16 supporting these technologies, and like Hossein 17 mentioned like I want to also put out a plug at the 18 bottom which is like a link to the data science and AI 19 workshop that is going to be taking place next week, 20 so you guys are more than welcome to attend that.
21 We are going to be having presentations 22 from members of the Staff, EPRI, as well as the 23 industry. With that being said that concludes my 24 presentation unless any of the Members have any 25 questions before I turn over the presentation to John NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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139 1 Tomon.
2 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Luis, this is Walt 3 Kirchner. On this AI topic, I think one of the things 4 you really have to, and maybe Research is the right 5 place, I don't want to use the word, I'll use the word 6 but it creates bureaucratic problems, cybersecurity, 7 rather, or maybe a different terminology is AI opens 8 up a potential for huge vulnerabilities in a plant and 9 that is an area that I think from a regulatory and for 10 adequate protection standpoint has to be very 11 prominent in your thinking and plans as you get into 12 the world of AI.
13 So that's one Member's observation, but I 14 am sure you appreciate the vulnerabilities that this 15 -- Just having things like online -- It's one thing to 16 take data that's recorded and go analyze it somewhere 17 else.
18 It's a different thing when you get to 19 sophisticated systems that are collecting the data 20 online, as an example, and that's a simple example of 21 where vulnerabilities can be introduced.
22 MR. BETANCOURT: I agree with you, Walt.
23 That's an area that we need to keep a close attention 24 to and that is one of the things that we are going to 25 be coordinating with answer.
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140 1 I know that our contact person and the 2 division engineer are looking at that as well. One 3 thing that I want to mention that I forgot to mention 4 during my presentation, there was some conversation 5 before regarding how AIs plan to be used in the 6 industry.
7 I don't know if the Members are aware that 8 we recently -- our counterparts in the Division of 9 Risk Analysis, they issued a Federal Register Notice 10 asking the industry how are you planning to, how are 11 you using AI at this point as well as future 12 applications.
13 Members who are interested we're more than 14 welcome to share the responses from that FRN and those 15 responses are available in the public domain.
16 MEMBER BALLINGER: This is Ron Ballinger.
17 I certainly would be interested.
18 MR. BETANCOURT: Yes. We'll take an 19 action to provide that to you guys. Anymore 20 questions?
21 Seeing none, John, you are in the hot seat 22 now.
23 MR. TOMON: Okay. Well good afternoon, 24 everybody. My name is John Tomon. I am the Chief of 25 the Radiation Protection Branch in the Division of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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141 1 System Analysis and I am going to discuss functions, 2 activities and accomplishments of the Radiation 3 Protection Branch. Next slide, please.
4 The Radiation Protection Branch supports 5 the program and regional offices in risk-informed 6 regulatory decision making and radiation protection 7 for nuclear power plants, material users, 8 decommissioning sites, and fuel cycle facilities.
9 We serve as an agency-wide resource by 10 providing technical support in all aspects of 11 radiation protection to the program offices as well as 12 our regional offices.
13 Finally, the Branch develops and maintains 14 the radiation protection and dose assessment computer 15 codes to the Radiation Protection Code Analysis and 16 Maintenance Program, referred to as RAMP. Next slide, 17 please.
18 As shown in this slide the Radiation 19 Protection Branch provides regulatory support through 20 congressional mandates and regulations. Specifically 21 these include the Annual Abnormal Occurrence Report to 22 Congress, the Radiation Exposure Information and 23 Reporting System, REIRS, and the Occupational Health 24 Division 8 Regulatory Guides.
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142 1 domestic and international radiation protection 2 organizations as depicted on this slide. Next slide, 3 please.
4 As I stated in the Branch description 5 slide the Branch develops and maintains many of the 6 radiation protection and dose assessment computer 7 codes. This figure displays four general areas of 8 licensing review, which the radiation protection and 9 dose assessment computer codes fall under.
10 These general areas are severe accidents 11 or emergency response, design basis accidents, normal 12 effluent releases, and decommissioning. The Branch 13 works with our counterparts in the program offices 14 through user need requests and research assistance 15 requests to ensure that these computer codes continue 16 to meet the regulations in the various parts of Title 17 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations and the NRC 18 regulatory guides. Next slide, please.
19 The Radiation Protection Code Analysis 20 Maintenance Program, RAMP, is a cooperative research 21 program which promotes the development and maintenance 22 and distribution of the radiation dose assessment 23 codes as delineated in SECY Paper 2014-001.
24 RAMP provides our user community with a 25 public facing website that provides access to the 17 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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143 1 RAMP codes, technical documentation, help resources, 2 and user group meetings. This slide and the next one 3 show some of the RAMP computer codes and their areas 4 of application.
5 The RAMP codes depicted on this slide 6 include those for nuclear power plant licensing 7 reviews, such as the Symbolic Nuclear Analysis 8 Package, Radionuclide Transport Removal and Dose 9 Estimation code, referred to as the SNAP/RADTRAD code, 10 the Control Room Habitability code, referred to as the 11 HABIT code, the Normal Effluent Dose Assessment and 12 Siting code, referred to as the NRCDose3 code, the 13 Atmospheric Relative Concentrations and Support of 14 Control Room Habitability code, referred to as the 15 ARCON code, the Radioactive Material Transport and 16 Dose Assessment Code, referred to as the NRC-RADTRAN 17 code, and, finally, the Gaseous and Liquid Effluent 18 code, referred to as the GALE code.
19 This slide also depicts RAMP emergency 20 response codes, such as the Radiological System for 21 Consequence Analysis code, referred to as the RASCAL 22 code, and the Federal Radiological Monitoring and 23 Assessment Center code, referred to as the TURBO FRMAC 24 code.
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144 1 respect to the TURBO FRMAC code the NRC signed a 2 Memorandum of Understanding with the Department of 3 Energy in May of 2020 which provides RAMP members 4 access to the TURBO FRMAC code and training at the 5 RAMP user meetings. Next slide, please.
6 This slide continues with some of the 7 other RAMP computer codes and their applications in 8 the various licensing reviews. The RAMP codes 9 depicted on this slide include those used for 10 decommissioning, such as the Visual Sample Plan code, 11 referred to as VSP, the Residual Radioactivity code, 12 referred to as the RESRAD code, which was also 13 included in that Department of Energy Memorandum of 14 Understanding that I mentioned on the previous slide.
15 With that Memorandum of Understanding the 16 RAMP members now have access to the RESRAD code and 17 training at RAMP user meetings as well. This slide 18 also depicts environmental and uranium mining and 19 milling codes, such as the Second Generation 20 Environmental Dosimetry code, referred to as the GENII 21 code, and the radiological impacts of airborne 22 emissions from uranium mining and milling facilities, 23 referred to as the MILDOS code.
24 Additionally, RAMP contains several other 25 dose assessment and radiation protection codes which NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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145 1 do not fit in particular licensing applications but 2 are used by several of the program and regional 3 offices.
4 Some of these codes include the Phantom 5 with Moveable Arm and Legs, the PIMAL code, the 6 Radiological Toolbox code, and the VARSKIN computer 7 code. The VARSKIN code is of particular note as it 8 was originally designed to calculate doses from the 9 deposition of hard particles but has evolved over the 10 years to include several other dosimetry models 11 requested by the program offices.
12 These other dosimetry models include the 13 lens of the eye dose model and a wound model, which 14 was incorporated into the latest version of the code 15 referred to as VARSKIN plus. Next slide, please.
16 In the next five slides I will discuss 17 some of the higher priority work items for the Branch.
18 These items include updates to the Abnormal Occurrence 19 reporting criteria, the Evidence Act, and the REIRS 20 report, updates to Regulatory Guide 8.39, computer 21 code consolidation, and the Branch's forward focus 22 research projects.
23 For the abnormal occurrence criteria as I 24 stated in one of my beginning slides the Abnormal 25 Occurrence Report to Congress is an annual report that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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146 1 complies with Section 208 of the Energy Reorganization 2 Act of 1974.
3 It reports unscheduled incidents or events 4 that the NRC determines to be of significance from a 5 standpoint of public health and safety. In the Staff 6 Requirements Memorandum for SECY Paper 2019-0088 the 7 Commission directed the Staff to develop and propose 8 a limited revision to the abnormal occurrence criteria 9 in the medical event and source security areas to 10 better align these criteria with events that are 11 significant from the standpoint of public health and 12 safety.
13 RES formed a targeted working group 14 composed of the program offices, specifically the 15 Office of Nuclear Materials Safety and Safeguards and 16 the Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response, 17 and several of the regional offices, in November of 18 2020 to evaluate the medical event and source security 19 abnormal occurrence criteria.
20 This working group developed and proposed 21 revised criteria for the medical event and source 22 security area. Currently the Staff's proposed revised 23 abnormal occurrence criteria have been reviewed and 24 commented upon by several stakeholders, including the 25 Organization of Agreement States and the Advisory NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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147 1 Committee for the Medical Use of Isotopes.
2 The working group is incorporating the 3 comments from these stakeholders and is anticipating 4 having the notation vote paper to the Commission in 5 November of 2021.
6 The Evidence Act and the REIRS data. The 7 Radiation Exposure Information and Reporting System, 8 REIRS, collects and analyzes licensee occupational 9 radiation exposure records with the objective of 10 valuating trends in licensee performance in radiation 11 protection and for research in epidemiological 12 studies.
13 This data is reported annually in NUREG 14 Report 0713. In SECY Paper 2020-0067, the Foundations 15 for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018, the NRC 16 developed its annual evaluation plan, Enclosure 3, 17 which included an evaluation for the Radiation 18 Protection Program.
19 The Radiation Protection Program was 20 determined to be of high priority to the Agency and 21 was selected for evaluation under the Evidence Act.
22 The objective of this evaluation is to assess the 23 long-term effectiveness of the regulatory programs for 24 radiation protection across a range of NRC licensee 25 categories.
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148 1 The evaluation will draw on the data 2 compiled from the annual occupational radiation 3 exposures at the NRC license facilities, the REIRS 4 data, and be published in NUREG Report 0713 Volume 41.
5 The Branch anticipates publishes this 6 volume of the REIRS Report with the radiation 7 valuation plan by the end of September 2021. Next 8 slide, please.
9 Regulatory Guide 8.39 development. The 10 Commission directed the Staff to revise Regulatory 11 Guide 8.39, Release of Patients Administered 12 Radioactive Material, to update the guidelines for 13 patient information and instructional guidance.
14 In SECY Paper 2018-0015 the NRC Staff 15 concluded that current patient release regulations are 16 protective of public health and safety and that 17 rulemaking to change the release criteria is not 18 warranted.
19 However, the Staff determined that a 20 comprehensive update to the NRC's Patient Release 21 Guidelines, including incorporation of guidance 22 currently provided in generic communications as well 23 as updates to the equations, methodologies described 24 in NRC guidance for calculating dose to members of the 25 public from release patients is warranted.
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149 1 The update to Regulatory Guide 8.39 is 2 being conducted in two phases with the first phase 3 being completed in April of 2020 with the publication 4 of Revision 1 to this regulatory guide.
5 Revision 1 provided more updated and 6 detailed sets of instructions to providers regarding 7 patient release as well as updated breastfeeding 8 instructions and an entirely new section providing 9 guidance on the handling of a deceased patient that 10 was recently administered a radiopharmaceutical.
11 The second phase of the update to this 12 regulatory Guide, Revision 2, is currently underway 13 and is and is targeted at updating the equations, 14 methodologies, and calculations for thresholds for 15 administered activity follow radiopharmaceutical 16 treatment.
17 The additional calculation methodologies 18 will provide flexibility to accommodate patient-19 specific factors for biokinetics, occupancy, geometry, 20 and attenuation based on patient-specific information 21 while also allowing for emerging radiopharmaceuticals 22 and new treatment protocols.
23 The updates for Revision 2 of Regulatory 24 Guide 8.39 have been presented to the Advisory 25 Committee for the Medical Uses of Isotopes and their NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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150 1 comments are being incorporated by the contractor and 2 the Staff.
3 The Staff anticipates issuing Revision 2 4 of Regulatory Guide 8.39 for public comment in 5 December of 2021. Next slide, please.
6 Code consolidation. As you may recall we 7 all met with the Full Committee back in February of 8 this year to discuss Volume 4, the Strategy for 9 Readiness of Non-Light-Water Reactor Designs for 10 Licensing and Siting Dose Assessment Codes.
11 As outlined in Volume 4 one of the first 12 tasks was to consolidate several of the licensing and 13 siting dose assessment codes into a consolidated code 14 that is modular, flexible, efficient, and user 15 friendly.
16 As shown on the graphic on this slide, 17 consolidation task has begun in Fiscal Year 2021. The 18 Staff, with the help of our contractor, have initiated 19 the code consolidation process with the prototype 20 development of the atmospheric transport module.
21 Additionally, as depicted on this slide, 22 other key aspects of the code consolidation process 23 have also started in Fiscal Year 2021, such as the 24 user interface development, the extensive markup 25 language data transfer system, the quality assurance NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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151 1 and verification, and documentation.
2 In Fiscal Year 2022 we will start the 3 development of the normal source term module that will 4 incorporate the existing light-water reactor normal 5 source term, i.e. the GALE code, as well as developing 6 simple, normal source terms for the various non-light-7 water reactor designs.
8 Other tasks, such as environmental 9 transport module, human and biotic exposure, and, 10 finally, the dose assessment modules, will follow into 11 Fiscal Year 2023 with the final product projected for 12 the end of Fiscal Year 2023 or the beginning of Fiscal 13 Year 2024, depending on funding. Next slide, please.
14 In the next two slides I will briefly 15 touch on the Radiation Protection Branch's forward 16 focus research projects which were approved for Fiscal 17 Year 2021.
18 The first forward focus research project 19 is titled "Drones and Virtual Reality Tools to Analyze 20 Radiological Surveys in Decommissioning."
21 This forward focus research project is to 22 transform and innovate decommissioning with the state-23 of-the-art processes and practices with the use of 24 autonomous systems, i.e. drones, for the purpose of 25 improving the NRC's capability and applications of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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152 1 drones in meeting regulatory limits, improving the 2 foundation, knowledge, and the usage of drones on site 3 radiological characterization surveys and remediation, 4 improving knowledge of scanning systems to update 5 guidance documents, gaining efficiencies in release of 6 large survey areas for unrestricted use, and, finally, 7 including drone processes and computer codes and tools 8 for confirmatory analysis.
9 The kickoff for this project was in March 10 of this year with the expected deliverable of a 11 Technical Letter Report and several presentations 12 anticipated for January of 2022. Next slide, please.
13 MEMBER PETTI: I have a question.
14 MR. TOMON: Sure. Yes?
15 MEMBER PETTI: Do you see this potentially 16 evolving so that in the event of a nuclear accident 17 the drones could help, you know, characterize plumes 18 and the like?
19 MR. TOMON: Yes.
20 MEMBER PETTI: Does this help all the 21 agencies involved?
22 MR. TOMON: Yes. That has come up in 23 these discussions. Right now, this preliminary work, 24 what we are hoping to learn in a lot of the background 25 that we hope to get from this is things like, first of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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153 1 all, you have to get a drone that is approved for 2 flying in the United States, so making sure those 3 drones meet those requirements.
4 You need pilot certification for the drone 5 operators as well as figuring out things like the 6 capacity of the drone for the scanning equipment, so 7 how much of a weight load can it hold and maintain 8 with the battery.
9 MEMBER PETTI: Right. Yes. Yes.
10 MR. TOMON: So we are hoping for this to 11 -- And, also, you know, some of these drones I found 12 out in some of the meetings we've had is they have 13 pre-timed return to base plans based upon the battery 14 usage.
15 So, you know, considering all of those 16 weight distributions in the drone for both the 17 radiation detection equipment and the actual computer 18 and the battery for the drone, that's all that -- We 19 hope to gain some initial knowledge from this so that 20 we will have it in the Letter Report so that we can go 21 on and use it in other applications based on some of 22 the information we gain from these analyses.
23 MEMBER PETTI: Thanks.
24 MR. TOMON: Yes.
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154 1 Japan they have been dealing with not just what's on 2 the site but also in the surrounding areas and they 3 have used helicopters as well as drones and 4 complimented it with handheld surveys because of the 5 need to have an accurate assessment of the 6 contamination and the effects of remediation and 7 decontamination activities and they have issued 8 several reports.
9 The EPA has been following it because of 10 anticipated use for other reasons in the U.S. How 11 much interaction are you having with the reports that 12 have been released from Japan on this effort?
13 MR. TOMON: So our contractors on this 14 particular effort have been reviewing all that data 15 that has been coming in trying, you know, because what 16 you said is a key important aspect of it because the 17 scan rate of the drone, especially for this particular 18 application in decommissioning, you know, that has to 19 compare to what we base our DCGLs on.
20 And so, you know, we already know and do 21 that based upon the rate of a human moving over a 22 surface at a certain distance and at a certain rate.
23 So we are trying to make sure that, you know, that we 24 can use the drones in that particular, in the 25 decommissioning space to meet these DCGLs based upon NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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155 1 those scanning rates.
2 So we are still, we are looking at the 3 information, our contractor is, from the work that is 4 being done in Fukushima as well as looking at what we 5 know for the handheld methods of doing these 6 decommissioning surveys to make sure that the drones 7 can meet those DCGLs for the scanning rate and the 8 distances as well.
9 MEMBER REMPE: Okay. And they have also 10 been developing some pretty nice software to display 11 the results from various sources. So, okay, as long 12 as they are aware of it and they are following it 13 that's all I wanted to inquire about.
14 MR. TOMON: Yes, ma'am, they are.
15 MEMBER HALNON: This is Greg Halnon. Are 16 you tied into what they are doing with the TMI-2 17 containment and drone surveys?
18 MR. TOMON: I am not 100 percent positive 19 if the contractor has looked into that, but I know 20 there was talk about that when we did the kickoff 21 meeting in the -- When we did the kickoff meeting for 22 this forward focus research we invited our partners 23 over and NMSS DWP to attend and they were very 24 interested in this, of course, because it's in their 25 area of decommissioning.
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156 1 They did mention that, so I think that's 2 been brought to our contractor's attention, so they 3 are going to go look into that as well. I don't know 4 how much it's going to be used in this particular 5 forward focus research project, but I am hoping that 6 if it's at least reviewed in part of the data review 7 that we do for it that it's at least mentioned in the 8 Letter Report as well.
9 MEMBER HALNON: Okay. Because I think 10 that it's really fresh data right now that they have 11 probably gotten real close to either doing it or will 12 be doing it soon.
13 MR. TOMON: Yes, sir. Okay. So if there 14 not anymore questions on this slide we can go to the 15 next slide, please.
16 This other slide, this other slide focuses 17 on the other forward focus research project awarded to 18 the Radiation Protection Branch, which is titled "Can 19 I Pet My Pets, a Dosimetry Risk Analysis for the 20 Veterinarian Use of Radiopharmaceuticals."
21 This research developed out of a need to 22 address a regulatory gap related to the emergent 23 veterinary treatments of pets from veterinary-24 administered radiopharmaceuticals.
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157 1 basis to reduce the regulatory uncertainties with 2 respect to licensing and medical administration of 3 radiopharmaceuticals to animals under Title 10, Part 4 20, of the Code of Federal Regulations.
5 The project kickoff occurred in March of 6 2021. The contractor is completing the technical 7 literature review and gathering information to support 8 the dosimetry analysis for dogs, cats, and horses.
9 The goal of this research is technical 10 reports that can serve as initiators for regulatory 11 guidance development, Staff publications, and/or 12 presentations. The expected project completion is 13 January of 2022. Next slide, please.
14 Since the last Advisory Committee on 15 Reactor Safeguards Review in 2019 the Radiation 16 Protection Branch has had the following specific 17 accomplishments.
18 The Branch has released ten major updates 19 to the various RAMP computer codes and in the sake of 20 timesaving I am not going to go through and list all 21 of the different codes that we have updated, but we 22 have had ten major releases to the 17 different codes 23 we've had in RAMP.
24 Additionally, the Branch has published 25 eight new NUREG reports in support of the various NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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158 1 computer codes, two abnormal occurrence NUREG reports, 2 and two Radiation Exposure Information Reporting 3 System, REIRS, NUREG reports.
4 Several of the NUREG reports for the 5 computer codes include NUREG user guides, technical 6 basis manuals, and default parameter values and 7 distribution manuals.
8 Also, the RAMP program continues to grow 9 through the annual domestic international user 10 meetings and the addition of several new international 11 RAMP bilateral agreements.
12 Since the last meeting with the Committee 13 RAMP has signed four new international bilateral 14 agreements with the Ukraine, Poland, Mexico, and 15 Nigeria.
16 The RAMP team has continued to provide 17 virtual user group meetings both domestically and 18 internationally during the pandemic.
19 And, finally, as discussed in one of the 20 previous slides, the Branch's future plans continue to 21 focus on code consolidation of the RAMP computer 22 codes. Next slide, please.
23 This is my final slide and it's just going 24 to briefly go over some of the international 25 activities we do in the Branch. Since 2014 the RAMP NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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159 1 international community has steadily grown to include 2 14 countries with formal bilateral agreements with the 3 NRC and over 40 international users of the RAMP free 4 codes.
5 Additionally, the Branch is also directly 6 involved in activities for the Committee on Radiation 7 Protection and Public Health, CRPPH. We serve on the 8 Committee's bureau providing inputs on emerging 9 issues, including recommendations on the CRPPH's 10 program of work.
11 The Branch also supports the Information 12 System on Occupational Exposure North American 13 Technical Center which provides nuclear power plants 14 worldwide with an electronic network for the exchange 15 of occupational experience in the area of occupational 16 exposure management and the implementation of ALARA.
17 And, finally, the Branch reviews and 18 provides comments on International Commission on 19 Radiological Protection Reports and the International 20 Atomic Energy Agency safety documents for the NRC.
21 With that, I thank you for allowing me to 22 present on the Radiation Protection Branch's 23 activities and will answer any additional questions 24 the Committee Members have at this time.
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160 1 does the longstanding linear dose argument, I guess 2 that would be under ICRP, is there any activity there 3 or has that kind of gone in limbo post-Fukushima?
4 MR. TOMON: Yes and no. There have been 5 some petitions for rulemaking that have come in that 6 we have worked on, but that's as far as really like I 7 can talk about it because we haven't, there hasn't 8 been any official release from the Commission on that 9 rulemaking, but we have looked at that.
10 There have been some petitions for 11 rulemaking in that regard and we do actively 12 participate in those petitions for rulemaking, but 13 there has been some talk of that, yes, sir.
14 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Does that naturally come 15 to you or does it go to one of the other, our fellow 16 committees working for the Commission?
17 MR. TOMON: It usually it comes to us.
18 Usually when the -- Most of them come in through a 19 petition for rulemaking and usually because of our 20 position, our unique position in the Office of 21 Research, we are recognized pretty much throughout the 22 Agency, when one of that type of rulemaking petitions 23 comes in the members of my staff are particularly 24 sought out.
25 People like Dr. Terry Brock and Dr.
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161 1 Stephanie Busch-Goddard are routinely sought out to 2 sit on that petition for rulemaking panel to give 3 their expert opinion on it.
4 So, yes, the Agency recognizes when that 5 comes in and usually when that petition for rulemaking 6 comes in through NMSS it gets, eventually we get asked 7 to sit on that because they realize what we bring to 8 the table there.
9 MEMBER KIRCHNER: Thank you.
10 MR. TOMON: Yes, sir.
11 MS. WEBBER: Okay. And then I think I 12 have one last slide, it's a closing remark slide.
13 Yes. Go to the next one, Lee, if you could.
14 So, you know, in closing I hope through 15 our presentations this afternoon you have been able to 16 see that DSA is completing our research in co-17 development activities, that we are continuing to 18 focus on filling gaps in many of our technical skill 19 areas through hiring new staff, augmenting skills 20 through training, and cross training staff when 21 necessary.
22 I also hope you have been able to see that 23 DSA anticipates and pivots to new research activities 24 to ensure that we are ready to support regulatory 25 needs on the horizon and we do that through a variety NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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162 1 of means as you have seen throughout the 2 presentations.
3 We really appreciate your active 4 engagement and all of your questions. We are always 5 open to feedback and suggestions and these 6 interactions with you really help us excel when it 7 comes to producing relevant high quality research 8 products and activities.
9 I know that our Technical Assistant, Ken 10 Armstrong, has captured about a half dozen action 11 items and I just wanted to see if you would like him 12 to coordinate with Hossein.
13 And with that I would like to close at 14 least the Staff's portion of the meeting.
15 MEMBER PETTI: I think that's fine to 16 coordinate with Hossein at this point.
17 MS. WEBBER: Great.
18 MEMBER PETTI: Before we open it up for 19 public comment and any other comments from the 20 Members, I want to personally thank you, Kim, and all 21 of the presenters. You had a tough job. This is a 22 fairly broad division.
23 MS. WEBBER: Yes.
24 MEMBER PETTI: And I will say you set the 25 bar pretty high I think for the other two divisions.
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163 1 We'll see how well they do. It was a tough job to do 2 and only being 15 minutes over is really quite good.
3 I know I --
4 MS. WEBBER: I am sure they'll do equally 5 well.
6 MEMBER PETTI: I know I have plenty of 7 information to write what we need to write for the 8 letter, at least in the first draft. There is plenty 9 of good information here. Now, any other Members?
10 MEMBER REMPE: So this is Joy. I wanted 11 to add my thanks, too. I actually think these 12 interactions are very helpful in helping us keep 13 abreast of what's happening.
14 I was particularly interested in the AI 15 initiative you guys have started and I think that's an 16 interesting avenue for RES to lead up.
17 MEMBER PETTI: Well, I don't hear anything 18 from other Members, so, Thomas, can we open the public 19 line?
20 MR. DASHIELL: The public line is open for 21 comments.
22 MEMBER PETTI: Any comments from the 23 public?
24 Well, it is late on a Friday, I guess not.
25 Okay, Thomas, you can close the public line.
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164 1 MR. DASHIELL: The public line is closed.
2 MEMBER PETTI: Unless anybody else has any 3 comments I, again, want to thank everyone. I think 4 it's been very productive and we will adjourn the 5 meeting. Have a good weekend.
6 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 7 off the record at 5:45 p.m.)
8 9
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4 5
6 7
8 9
10 2019 ACRS meeting was in September
11 12 Advanced Reactor Readiness 13
Advanced Reactor Code Development Reports
- These Volumes outline the specific analytical tools to enable independent analysis of non-LWRs, technical gaps in capabilities, V&V needs.
- Gaps in experimental data are currently being identified.
14
Advanced Reactors Three-Phased Approach for Confirmatory Models Code infrastructure development, reference plant Stage 1 - Generic Readiness for model/source term demonstration, generic a Reactor Technology models that benefit all non-LWR designs (IAP Strategy 2 Volumes)
Stage 2 - Readiness for a Specific Model build of a preapplication based design)
Application Stage 3 - Model build, Analysis, and Conduct confirmatory analysis, generation of Review of a specific application under RAIs, and input to SER licensing review 15
Advanced Reactors Progress and Next Steps Completed
- Code Development Reports
- 7 Reference Plant Models for Systems Analysis
- 3 Reference Plant Models for Severe Accident Analysis
- Fuels (FAST) code assessment reports for metallic and TRISO Under Development
- Ref. Plant Models for Systems Analysis - PBMR (est. 6/22)
- Ref. Plant Models for Severe Accident Analysis - MSR (est. 11/21) and SCFR (est. 6/22)
- Source Term Demonstration Project (est. 9/21)
- MACCS radionuclide screening analysis (est. 9/21)
- MACCS near-field atmospheric transport and dispersion model improvement (est. 9/21)
- Development/consolidation of Radiation Protection Codes for non-LWR analysis (Vol. 4)
- Initiation of Plan for Nuclear Fuel Cycle (Vol. 5) 16
NRC Scientific Computer Code Investment Plan 17
Office of Nuclear Regulatory NRC Scientific Computer Research (RES) was asked to:
work with the technical Code Investment Plan offices to review in a holistic way the existing inventory of codes that the NRC uses to develop a long-term investment plan to support future use and resource requirements.
COMKLS-19-0002 18
Code Development Owner NRC Scientific Computer Code Current State Assessment RES/DSA (28) RES/DE (4) Code Investment Areas (42 Codes)
RES/DRA (2) NMSS (8)
- Archival (minimal readiness) - 8 codes Primary Business Line Sponsor
- Active Codes - 34 codes
- Maintenance - All
- State-of-Practice Development - All
- Modernization - 4 codes (3 more identified)
- Consolidation - 7 into 3 codes (R/P codes)
Operating, New, and Advanced Reactors (29)
Spent Fuel Storage and Transportation (9) 19 Decommissioning and Low Level Waste (4)
The Scientific Computer Code Investment Process 20
The Scientific Computer Code Investment Process Next Steps
- Complete draft plan
- Coordinate with code owners and program offices
- Document code requirements
- Inform budget formulation 21
23 24 25 26 27
29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51
53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61
63 64 65
67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74
76
78 79 80 81 82 DSA Completions (1 of 3)
Fuels and Neutronics Analysis
- Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) literature reviews and core neutronics evaluations
- FIDES and QUENCH-ATF participation and sharing of data
- Updates to SCALE, FAST, and PARCS computer codes Multiphysics Nuclear Reactor System Analysis
- NuScale Research Plan
- NuScale Riser Hole Licensing and ACRS Support
- Updates to TRACE and SNAP computer codes Accident Progression and Source Term Analysis
- Update to MELCOR computer code 83
DSA Completions (2 of 3)
Consequence Analysis
- State-of-the-art Reactor Consequence Analysis (SOARCA)
- Update to MACCS computer code
- Supported the update of cost-benefit considerations in regulatory analysis
- Issued draft Appendix H, Severe Accident Risk Analysis to NUREG/BR-0058 for public comment
- Completed draft Appendix K, Morbidity Valuation to NUREG/BR-0058
- Completed draft and final NUREG-2242 for replacement energy costs for nuclear power plants Radiation Protection Analysis
- Updates to ARCON, GALE, GENII, HABIT, MILDOS, RADTRAN, SNAP/RADTRAD, NRCDose3, RASCAL, RESRAD, VARSKIN, and VSP computer codes
- 8 NUREGs supporting various computer codes (e.g., user guides and technical basis manuals)
- RG 8.39, Revsion 1, Release of Patients Administered Radioactive Material 84
DSA Completions (3 of 3)
Advanced Reactors
- Code Development Reports
- 7 Reference Plant Models for Systems Analysis
- 3 Reference Plant Models for Severe Accident Analysis
- Fuels (FAST) code assessment reports for metallic and TRISO
- Preliminary Assessment of Oklo Heat Pipe Performance 85
NRC Scientific Computer Code Investment Plan Ongoing Major Investments Activity Brief Description of the Activity Start Completion Code Consolidation: RAMP - Atmospheric Consolidation of ARCON, PAVAN, and XOQDOQ into a single code FY21 FY22 Code Consolidation: RAMP - Effluent Consolidation of GALE and NRCDose into a single code FY22 FY23 Code Consolidation: RAMP - Habitability Consolidation of SNAP/RADTRAD and HABIT into a single code FY23 FY24 Modernization of FAVOR to transition to state-of-practice software development practices; conversion to object-oriented, parallel, Fortran 2018 Code Modernization: FAVOR FY20 FY22 source code; consolidation of 3 subprograms into 1; major upgrades to QA and V&V program and pedigree Modernization of MELCOR to transition to state-of-practice software Code Modernization: MELCOR development practices to incorporate a more flexible code maintenance FY18 FY24 approach and enhance modeling of advanced technologies Modernization of RASCAL to transition to state-of-practice software Code Modernization: RASCAL development practices to incorporate a more flexible code maintenance FY17 FY23 approach and enhance modeling of advanced technologies Modernization of SAPHIRE to transition to state-of-practice software Code Modernization: SAPHIRE development practices to incorporate modern software development tools to FY20 FY24 support long-term maintenance and more complex models Code Modernization: PARCS Being evaluated TBD TBD Code Modernization: TRACE Being evaluated TBD TBD Code Modernization: MACCS Being evaluated TBD TBD 86
87