Engineering Simulation for Nuclear Power: Ensuring Safety, Efficiency, and Compliance

Simulation empowers nuclear engineers to optimize reactor performance, ensure safety, and meet strict regulatory standards. SimuTech Group provides expert simulation and consulting to support nuclear facility design, compliance, and efficiency.

Nuclear Energy Systems Simulation

Since its inception in the early 1970’s, Ansys FEA and CFD software has been the preferred engineering simulation software in the nuclear power industry, as it provides the FEA and CFD tools required to meet the rigorous design, engineering and regulatory challenges of the nuclear industry as well as standards such as ASME NQA-1, Quality Assurance Requirements for Nuclear Facility Applications, ASME Boiler & Pressure Vessel Code Section III, Subsection NF and ISO-9001.

With its long-term association with Ansys software, SimuTech Group has been providing FEA and CFD software and consulting services to the nuclear power industry for decades. SimuTech Group has an internal QA program developed to the standards of ASME NQA-1. This QA plan was developed in preparation for a large Div1/Div2 stress analysis project for a 1st tier designer/supplier of nuclear pressure vessel equipment:

  • Fuel Assemblies
  • Waste Storage
  • Accident Analysis
  • Multiphase Flow
  • Steam Generators

With a proven track record in nuclear energy simulation, SimuTech Group continues to support the industry with advanced FEA and CFD solutions. Our expertise ensures engineers can confidently design, analyze, and optimize critical nuclear systems while maintaining compliance with the highest safety and quality standards.

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Consulting Projects in the Nuclear Power Industry | Ansys Energy Simulation

  • Crash test of nuclear waste containers falling from a moving rail car
  • Plutonium & uranium (PUREX) waste sludge extraction device structural analysis: Remote attach assembly mechanism for slip fit
  • ASME Section III, Subsection NB structural/thermal evaluation: Evaluation of steam generator primary head for all plant operating conditions plus seismic
  • Heavy lift load evaluation per ANSI 14.6 standard
  • Turbine blade dynamic evaluation of fundamental frequencies
  • Steam generator drop evaluation: Determination of potential damage due to lifting equipment failure
Design Elements Challenges Simulation Benefits
Containment
  • Determining accurate seismic loads and responses
  • Providing accurate safety analyses to regulators
  • Estimating hydrogen release hazards
  • Avoid over-designing by performing accurate seismic analyses
  • Detailed simulation when 1-D tools are insufficient
  • Impact of accidents on structural integrity
  • Predicting fracture mechanics
  • Emergency core cooling system behavior
  • Showing jet-strike survivability
  • Hydrogen dispersion within containment
Coolant Pumps
  • Cavitation
  • Installation effects not taken into account by original design
  • Understanding performance in off-design (start-up and accident) conditions
  • Understand the impact of installation effects before deployment
  • Optimize performance by determining inlet and outlet flow angles and separation patterns
  • Reduce the number of hardware prototypes needed in the pump design and installation process
  • Allows parametric investigation of scale-up effects for these extremely large pumps, which is not possible through testing.
Reactor Pressure Vessels
  • Safety analysis for complex stratified flow
  • Code-checking for stress analysis in a timely fashion
  • Supply regulators with thermal hydraulic predictions for a wide range of LOCA scenarios
  • Visualize stratification caused by thermal variations across cold legs
  • Use a pressure vessel design tool with built-in code checks
Fuel Assemblies
  • Designing for seismic safety without over-designing
  • Optimizing for thermal transfer in operating and LOCA conditions
  • Designing for flow-induced vibration
  • Limiting cladding fretting and wear
  • Reduce design time and physical prototypes through simulation
  • Optimize spring design
  • Assembly seismic vibration analysis
  • Mixing vane design improvement
  • Fluid-structure interaction simulation
Pressurizers
  • Designing steam generation and spray cooling system for optimal responsiveness to pressure changes
  • Design time for code checks
  • Cost savings through virtual prototyping of new designs and troubleshooting for existing units
  • Heat transfer and phase change due to heating
  • Simulate natural circulation
  • Visualize pray distribution patterns
  • Predict local condensation rates
  • Accelerate vessel design
Steam Generators
  • Tube vibration
  • Accident analysis under natural convection conditions
  • Design for optimal heat transfer
  • Reduce expensive and time-consuming scaled test loop experiments
  • Investigate and optimize tube vibration sensitivity to flow conditions
  • Extend test results from experimental to full scale conditions
  • Confirm results from system level tools
  • Investigate installation effects
Passive Safety Systems
  • Inaccuracy of system-level tool safety analyses when natural circulation and mixing are fundamental to the process
  • Scale-up of parametric relationships from lab to full size
  • Gain physical insight about flow structures to guide safety system design
  • Generate new parametric relationships to embed in system-level tools
  • Extend behavior prediction from experimental to full scale conditions
Generation IV Reactors
  • Modeling high temperature gaseous flows (sometimes involving chemical reactions) with codes designed for water and steam
  • Modeling natural circulation and mixing in 1-D
  • Scale-up of parametric relationships from lab to full size
  • Model the full flow physics of gas-cooled reactors
  • Gain physical insight about flow structures to guide safety system design
  • Generate new parametric relationships to embed in system-level tools
  • Extend behavior prediction from experimental to full scale conditions
Waste Storage and Handling
  • Meeting regulatory requirements for repositories and transport and storage devices
  • Thermal management
  • Structural impacts
  • Cost-efficient design and troubleshooting of storage devices and repositories to comply with regulatory requirements
  • Ensure/confirm/establish structural integrity during container impact
  • Cooling efficiency from forced or natural convection and conduction
  • Pool fire thermal predictions

Other Energy Industry Applications

Coal

Improve efficiency, reduce emissions, and optimize coal power plant performance with SimuTech Group expert consulting & simulation software.

Natural Gas

Enhance natural gas power plant performance with simulation. Optimize compressors, turbines, combustors, and cooling systems for efficiency, stability, and emissions control.

Ensure Nuclear Safety and Efficiency with Expert Simulation

From optimizing reactor performance to meeting stringent regulatory standards, SimuTech Group’s simulation solutions provide the confidence you need in nuclear engineering. Leverage decades of experience and advanced simulation technology to enhance safety, efficiency, and compliance.

Request a Nuclear Energy Systems Consultation Today!

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