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Slide deck for presentation during a two-day information exchange among off-gas researchers from the US and the UK, to include INL, PNNL, ORNL, and UK research personnel.
Research for dynamic human reliability analysis (HRA) (a.k.a., simulation-based or computation-based HRA) has been required, as many researchers have emphasized the importance of dynamic approaches to probabilistic safety assessment (PSA). This study proposes the PRocedure-based Investigation Method of EMRALD Risk Assessment – Human Reliability Analysis (PRIMERA-HRA) method, which is an approach to dynamic HRA using the Event Modeling Risk Assessment using Linked Diagram (EMRALD) software developed by Idaho National Laboratory (INL). In this study, how to model human actions using the software and evaluate the error probabilities is suggested. The applicability of this approach will be also investigated through an extended loss of AC power (ELAP) scenario. Then, major insights from this dynamic HRA approach against the static one will be discussed in the paper.
A proper mental model of the concepts of cyber risk and its components of threat and exploitability and consequence is necessary to allocate limited resources to different security activities, especially when considered alongside reliability and regulatory and economic risks. Understanding the consequence and frequency different risks are realized also helps align the right mitigations to the right risks. Cyber-informed engineering (CIE) is an emerging method to “engineer out” cyber risk across product and system lifecycles, and INL has a portfolio of programs operationalizing CIE’s principles for the energy sector.
During their long service in commercial light water reactors, zirconium alloy cladding tubes are subject to oxidation and subsequent hydrogen pickup which can degrade the materials mechanical properties [1]. These degradations can lead to premature cladding ruptures during reactor power transients [2] as well as negatively impact the claddings post quench ductility following high temperature steam oxidation in thermal hydraulic transients [3]. Hydrogen has low solid solubility in zirconium and usually precipitates as brittle zirconium hydride platelets in the cladding metal matrix. Due to temperature driven diffusion (Soret effect) and the grain texture of stress relieved zirconium metal tubes, these hydrides precipitate with a circumferential orientation near the outer surface of the cladding tubes forming a hydride rim which can serve as a site for crack initiation during circumferential ‘hoop’ loading of the cladding [4rim formation][5]. In order to better understand the effect of hydride rims on the fracture behavior of stress relieved zirconium alloy cladding tubes a procedure to produce these rim-like structures is being developed at Idaho National Laboratory (INL).
Resources and tools for the modeling and simulation of low-temperature plasma (LTP) discharges are increasingly vital to progress in the field in order to properly characterize and study complex source designs and plasma chemistries beyond the scope of traditional diagnostics. Open-source software provides powerful platforms for this work and can enable community-driven LTP R&D. Within the Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) open-source framework [1], capabilities have been demonstrated in the areas of plasma fluids (Zapdos [2]), plasma chemistry (CRANE [3]), and general electromagnetic wave theory (Electromagnetic Library for Kinetics & fluids [ELK] [4]). ELK has since been coupled to Zapdos/CRANE to enable fully coupled electromagnetic plasma simulations. This talk will detail the continued validation efforts and discuss Zapdos-ELK-CRANE code coupling with various-low temperature plasma sources. The impact of fully coupled electromagnetics on process parameters (e.g., temperature and electron/ion energy) versus an electrostatic description will also be discussed. [1] Permann et al., SoftwareX, 11 (2020) 100430. [2] Lindsay et al., J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 49 (2016) 235204. [3] Keniley et al., Talk, GEC Session DT3.00002 (2019). [4] Icenhour et al., Talk, GEC Session RR1.00006 (2019). Acknowledgements: INL Graduate Fellowship Program, NSF SI2 Grant 1740300, U.S. Dept. of Energy Office of Science Graduate Student Research Program
INL cyber analysts will present an overview of the current threat landscape for distribution systems. We will begin with examples of known attacks that have occurred recently to motivate the threat analysis and mitigation discussed in the remainder of the presentation. Examples may include the attacks affecting wind plants in Europe in Spring 2022, ransomware attacks on city utilities and commercial distribution systems, and advanced persistent threats (APTs) including the attacks on Ukrainian electric system in 2015 and 2016, as well as more recent evidence of other APT activity. We will present the end-to-end attack paths and discuss the various attacker skills, financing, motivations, and access that contributed to these attacks. In the second part of this presentation, we will discuss mitigating the cyber threats for distribution systems. We will discuss recent publicly disclosed vulnerabilities and explain their relevant context for distribution system security. Likely attacks to affect distribution systems, such as denial-of-service (DoS), ransomware, edge-device compromise, and advanced persistent threats (APTs) will be described. In addition to an overview of these kinds of attacks, we will provide examples of the various ways in which these attacks can start and what systems they can affect. Simple, cost-effective counter-measures to these attacks will be discussed and we will emphasize how these mitigations can reduce threats when properly applied and maintained.
This report documents the measured post irradiation dimensional change in the AGC-1 samples. The AGC-1 capsule is the first in six planned irradiation capsules comprising the Advanced Graphite Creep (AGC) test series. AGC-1 irradiation began September 5, 2009 in the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) and was completed on January 8, 2011. The capsule was cooled for 3 months in the ATR Canal, and then shipped to MFC in April 2011 for disassembly and sample extraction. After extraction the samples were shipped to the INL Research Center (IRC) for initial post-irradiation examination (PIE) and storage in the irradiated graphite vault. The AGC-1 capsule design contained “matched pair” samples to ascertain the irradiation-induced dimensional changes and levels of creep experienced in different graphite types. The irradiation-induced dimensional changes and creep levels are determined by comparing the total dimensional change for stressed and unstressed samples of the same type of graphite exposed to the same dose levels and at similar temperatures. Under irradiation creep (i.e. permanent strain due to irradiation, stress, and temperature) the stressed samples should demonstrate more dimensional change than the unstressed samples. This additional dimensional change in the stressed samples is designated as “irradiation-induced creep” in graphite. The data are further presented using the parameters influencing dimensional change in graphite; levels of induced stress, temperature, graphite type, and dose. However, the AGC-1 post-irradiation examination is a significant endeavor and this data report serves to provide irradiation-induced dimensional change data for AGC capsule design refinement as well as a status on the progress of the PIE activities. The dimensional changes of both the samples and graphite body are very important to the design of the future AGC capsules (AGC-3 through AGC-6) and are provided as soon as the data are available in order to determine whether design changes to the next capsule are required. A complete evaluation of the irradiation-induced dimensional change data will be performed for a final AGC-1 PIE report that will include full analysis of pre- and post-irradiation data, with verified AGC-1 irradiation conditions of temperature and dose.
This document demonstrates completion of the goals described in the technical narrative of the FOA project titled: ”Modeling and Simulation Development Pathways to Accelerating KP-FHR Licensing” regarding fission product transport in the Kairos-proposed fuel pebble by INL and Kairos Power. Showcased in this report are code developments and simulations in BISON that extend the state of the art in computation and understanding of fission product transport in a TRISO fuel particle and pebble. These enhancements lay the foundation for making predictions of fission product transport that can be used as input in the fuel licensing process. This was achieved by installing existing fuel material models originally used in PARFUME, developing a new failure probability method that is efficient and multi-dimensional, employing material homogenization, and expanding verification and validation simulations to demonstrate the efficacy of the work. All this work is leveraged to spotlight the main deliverable; a three-dimensional model and corresponding demonstration simulation of a pebble, which will serve as the starting point for models used to predict fission product release.
This presentation is intended for the DOE Better Buildings Sustainable Corrections Infrastructure Partnership (SCIP) program webinar series. It will explain the INL Resilience Framework, discuss how to apply it for building managers, and give examples of the ways batteries can aid in resilience by walking through a case study conducted for Iowa Lakes Electric Cooperative.
This presentation is to update DOE at the Molten Salt Program review in May on the work at INL and Argonne National Laboratory on surveillance specimen development. This includes thermal-mechanical testing and test article designs.
This presentation will discuss the purpose and scope of the Department of Energy - Research Reactor Infrastructure (RRI) Program. Personnel involved in the program will be introduced and contact information will be provided for team member. Information will be provided to conference attendees as to the status of the core activities of the program. These activities include fresh fuel element fabrication and spent nuclear fuel shipment returns to the DOE. Current and future issues pertinent to the RRI program will also be presented. The RRI program maintains fuels support contracts and provides nuclear reactor fuel at no or low cost to 24 U.S. universities operating a total of 25 reactor facilities. These facilities include: - Twelve TRIGA facilities - Eight plate fueled facilities - Three AGN facilities - One Pulstar fueled facility - One Critical facility The title for the fuel remains with the United States government and when the universities are finished with the fuel, the fuel is returned to the United States government for long-term storage. Mission of the Research Reactor Infrastructure Program: The Research Reactor Infrastructure Program is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy and is managed by the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) in Idaho Falls, Idaho. The program goals are: - Keep all U.S. operating university reactor programs supplied with nuclear fuel. - Provide assistance for movement of irradiated nuclear fuel from U.S. universities, after the DOE receipt facility authorizes the fuel receipt.
Most current efforts have modified and applied existing human reliability analysis (HRA) methods to treat human actions related to beyond-design-basis external events in which diverse and flexible coping strategies (FLEX) equipment would be deployed. However, many questions remain regarding the suitability of legacy HRA methods to address FLEX human actions, sparking the need for a new method of reasonably evaluating them. In this context, Idaho National Laboratory (INL) researched a relatively new approach to treating FLEX human actions via Event Modeling Risk Assessment Using Linked Diagrams (EMRALD) software. EMRALD was developed to support the increasing need for dynamic probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) models that can respond to evolving plant conditions during simulations. A couple benefits were identified when analyzing FLEX human actions through this software. In general, it is especially useful for evaluating a strategy’s feasibility, including FLEX human actions that require a relatively long time to perform. In this paper, we suggest how FLEX human actions can be modeled using the EMRALD software. Two different HRA modeling approaches using EMRALD are introduced: (1) procedure-based modeling and (2) PRA/HRA-based modeling. The former approach was introduced in the authors’ previous paper, whereas this paper mainly discusses how the latter approach works for an extended loss of AC power (ELAP) scenario with relevant procedures and PRA models. A hybrid method combining the two modeling approaches is introduced at the paper’s conclusion.
Idaho National Laboratory (INL) has developed a process for adding value in the biomass feedstock supply chain. The key aspects of this process include: (1) anaerobic and chemical treatment of biomass during storage, (2) fractionation of biomass into conversion-ready feedstock and high-value coproducts, and (3) high-moisture pelleting to increase the bulk density and stabilize the feedstock. The purpose of the chemical treatment is to overcome the recalcitrant nature of the feedstock to improve the biochemical conversion process of breaking down the biomass into sugars. To maximize the utilization of the biomass, the feedstock can be fractionated into hemicellulose and lignin rich fractions. Finally, to increase the materials overall energy density, produce a shelf-stable material, and to facilitate transport, the feedstock is densified in a pelleting process. The first two steps of the processes have been verified at bench scale showing an improvement in theoretical glucose yield from 23.1% to 44.5% and an improvement in theoretical xylose yield from 8.9% to 23.1% from ground corn stover. It is hypothesized that densification will further increase the carbohydrate yield in the sample. The goal of this project was to evaluate the technical feasibility and process economics of the above process and to provide preliminary data to Golden Leaf Energy, Inc to access its potential commercialization for converting biomass to ethanol and renewable chemicals. Corn stover (CS), the largest available agricultural residue, and Chinese tallow (CT), an invasive wood species with no current commercial value, were chosen as feedstocks for this project.
The MCNP-ORIGEN Activation Automation (MOAA) tool couples MCNP and ORIGEN-S, allowing to support ATR and TREAT experiments by predicting their composition and activity before their irradiation takes place. MOAA is developed and maintained by the Irradiation Experiment Neutronics Analysis group (C-150) at INL. This poster presents the motivation behind the development of MOAA, its main workflow, as well as the software quality assurance (SQA) efforts required by LWP-13620, "Managing Information Technology Assets."
This report documents the plus-up activities performed by Idaho National Laboratory (INL) during Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) Program, Risk Informed Systems Analysis (RISA) Pathway, digital instrumentation and control (DI&C) risk assessment project. In FY 2019, the RISA Pathway initiated a project to develop a risk assessment strategy for delivering a strong technical basis to support effective, licensable, and secure DI&C technologies for digital upgrades/designs. An integrated risk assessment technology for the DI&C systems was proposed for this strategy, which aims to (1) provide a best-estimate, risk-informed capability to quantitatively and accurately estimate the safety margin obtained from plant modernization, especially for the high safety-significant safety-related (HSSSR) DI&C systems, (2) support and supplement existing advanced risk-informed DI&C design guides by providing quantitative risk information and evidence, (3) offer a capability of design architecture evaluation of various DI&C systems to support system design decisions and diversity and redundancy applications, (4) assure the long-term safety and reliability of HSSSR DI&C systems, and (5) reduce uncertainty in costs and support integration of DI&C systems in the plant. To achieve these technical goals and deal with the expensive licensing justifications from regulatory insights, the LWRS-developed framework instructs nuclear vendors and utilities on how to effectively lower the costs associated with digital compliance and speed industry advances by: (1) defining an integrated risk-informed analysis process for DI&C upgrade, including hazard analysis, reliability analysis, and consequence analysis, (2) applying systematic and risk-informed tools to address common cause failures (CCFs) and quantify corresponding failure probabilities for DI&C technologies, particularly software CCFs, (3) evaluating the impact of digital failures at the component level, system level, and plant level, and (4) providing insights and suggestions on designs to manage the risks, thus to support the development, licensing, and deployment of advanced DI&C technologies on nuclear power plant (NPPs). Adding diversity within system or components is the main means to eliminate and mitigate CCFs, but diversity also increases plant complexity and errors and may not address all sources of systematic failures. How to optimize the diversity and redundancy applications for the safety-critical DI&C systems remains a challenge. To deal with the technical issues in addressing potential software CCFs in HSSSR DI&C systems of NPPs and supporting relevant design optimization, the framework provides: ? An integrated best-estimate, risk-informed capability to address new technical digital issues quantitatively, accurately, and efficiently in plan modernization progress, such as software CCFs in HSSSR DI&C systems of NPPs ? A common and a modularized platform for DI&C designers, software developers, cybersecurity analysts, and plant engineers to efficiently predict and prevent risk in the early design stage of DI&C systems ? Technical bases and risk-informed insights to assist U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and industry to address and fulfill the risk-informed alternatives for evaluation of CCFs in HSSSR DI&C systems of NPPs ? An integrated risk-informed tool that offers a capability of design architecture evaluation of various DI&C systems to support system design decisions in diversity and redundancy applications. The plus-up research and development efforts of this project in FY 2022 are focused on methodology improvement of software CCF modeling and estimation, prevention analysis, importance analysis and risk analysis of various design architectures of HSSSR DI&C systems. This work greatly enhances the capability of the LWRS-developed framework for the risk assessment and design optimization of safety-critical DI&C systems. It should be noted that all the analyses are performed for the demonstration of the LWRS-developed framework, not for the evaluation of relevant systems. Results are obtained based on very limited design information and testing data.
INL, PNNL, and NREL, with support from our academic and industry partners, hosted a 2-day webinar to learn more about the benefits of hybrid energy systems, considerations for designing the right system for communities, and practical tools that can help with the design and development process. In Day 1 of this webinar, the focus was on why users might want to consider hybrid energy systems, and frameworks that could help inform design decisions for hybrid systems, including a valuation framework, resilience framework, and hybrid system design optimization framework.
INL, PNNL, and NREL, with support from our academic and industry partners, hosted a 2-day webinar to learn more about the benefits of hybrid energy systems, considerations for designing the right system for communities, and practical tools that can help with the design and development process. In Day 2 of this webinar, the focus was on tools that can be used to help inform design decisions for hybrid systems, including resource analysis, siting, resilience, valuation, and resource optimization. Day 2 also highlighted funding opportunities for hybrid systems.
A gamma-ray scanning system was designed to perform post-irradiation measurements of nuclear fuel at Idaho National Laboratory (INL). The system is composed of a coaxial high-purity germanium (HPGe) detector, a collimator, and mechanical positioning stages that translate the fuel sample across the front of the collimator. A Monte Carlo N-Particle code simulation of the system and the fuel were created with vendor-supplied design specifications, dimensional measurements, and x-ray radiographs of the HPGe detector as well as all available fuel specifications. Benchmark measurements were performed by scanning an irradiated fuel rodlet containing eight pellets of 0.74% enriched UO2 in zirconium alloy. This fuel rodlet was part of the Static Environment Rodlet Transient Test Apparatus (SERTTA) testing campaign in the Transient Reactor Test Facility (TREAT). These results were compared to simulated spectra to help characterize the detector model and establish fidelity. A goal of the system is to determine the number of fissions per gram of UO2 in the fuel. This paper documents the modeling of the system and the calculation of the number of fissions per gram along the axial length of the SERTTA-C rodlet.