Dr. Mark DeHart
Senior Reactor Physicist
Idaho National Laboratory

Abstract

NASA’s Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) Project is focused on determining the feasibility and affordability of an NTP engine for exploration of Mars and beyond.  NTP has the potential to greatly increase efficiency, thus reducing propellant requirements, relative to current systems.  This project has the goal of assessing the affordability and viability of NTP in which a nuclear reactor superheats hydrogen gas. The superheated hydrogen expands through a diverging/converging nozzle to produce in-space propulsion. The feasibility of this game changing technology was clearly established in the 1960’s during the Rover/NERVA (Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application) Program. However, many questions concerning the development and affordability of nuclear thermal rockets remain unanswered. With support from INL, NASA has begun using MOOSE-based reactor physics, thermal fluids and structural mechanics solvers to be able to simulate the complex and tightly coupled multiphysics occurring with an NTP engine to begin to assess design options and performance impacts in design of a prototype experimental engine. This talk will provide some of the background in NTP design and the status of the current work at INL. He will also briefly introduce INL and work/internship opportunities there.

Biography

Mark DeHart, PhD, is a Senior Reactor Physicist at Idaho National Laboratory (INL). He currently leads a multiphysics analysis team performing simulations of SIRIUS fuel samples for nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) materials characterization and directly supporting NASA staff for full-core NTP transient simulations. He is also the conceptual design lead for development of pre-conceptual designs for extending thermal irradiation capabilities after 2040.  Over the past several years DeHart has led and directed a team of reactor physicists and computational methods staff performing applied multiphysics methods for numerous advanced reactor designs (including pebble bed, high-temperature gas, molten salt designs), support of industrial microreactor design efforts, and modeling/simulation efforts for INL’s Advanced Test Reactor and Transient Test Reactor (TREAT).  Dr. DeHart joined INL in 2010 from ORNL. He is the primary author of the NEWT lattice physics code and the TRITON lattice physics and depletion sequence within the SCALE code system and led development of modern lattice physics methods at ORNL. Dr. DeHart has extensive experience in reactor physics, criticality safety, depletion and spent fuel characterization, cross-section processing, and computer code verification and validation. He holds BS, MS, and Ph.D. degrees in nuclear engineering from Texas A&M University and is a Fellow of the American Nuclear Society (ANS).

Thursday, March 2. 2023
4:00 pm seminar

Hybrid Option  (Speaker is in person)

zoom (link upon request)
or
Room 1202 Burlington Labs