Dr. Rodolfo Vaghetto
Research Assistant Professor
Department of Nuclear Engineering
Texas A&M University

Abstract

Advanced reactors employ innovative fuel designs to achieve higher safety margins and efficiency, and to reduce operational costs. High-fidelity experimental data is extremely important to assess the behavior of fuel assemblies under normal operations and during hypothetical accident scenarios. Furthermore, experimental data is paramount to the validation and improvement of the predicting capabilities of advanced computational tools and specialized correlations. This presentation will provide an overview of the measurement techniques that have been employed to characterize the thermal-hydraulic behavior of advanced reactor components, and how the recent experimental data generated helped assessing their performance under normal and off-normal conditions.

Biography

Dr. Rodolfo Vaghetto is a research assistant professor at the Department of Nuclear Engineering of Texas A&M University. He is a member of the thermal-hydraulic research laboratory where he is leading the experimental and computational research to accelerate the development and deployment of advanced reactor technologies, including liquid metal fast reactors, high-temperature gas-cooled reactors, and molten salt reactors.

In 2015, Dr. Vaghetto established a multi-institutional project sponsored by the DOE to design, construct, and operate a large replica of a liquid metal fast reactor wire wrapped fuel assembly that has produced unique sets of high-fidelity experimental data of pressure and flow fields, used nationwide and worldwide for benchmark exercises and to support the improvements of predicting capabilities of specialized correlations. With the operation of this facility, Dr Vaghetto has explored and developed innovative methods and measurement techniques for local pressure distributions and flow fields under a wide range of operating conditions.

Dr. Vaghetto was part of a challenge project that led to the resolution of one of the most complex generic safety issues for LWR in history, the GSI-191, resulting to an innovative methodology that has been accepted by the regulator and referenced by several utilities nationwide.

Dr. Vaghetto received his PhD in Nuclear Engineering from Texas A&M University where he scaled, designed, constructed, and operated a natural circulation experimental facility to evaluate the performance of passive systems for advanced reactors.

Thursday, November 18. 2021
4:00 pm seminar

Hybrid Option (Speaker is remote)

Zoom (link upon request)
or
Room 1202 Burlington Labs
(Refreshments)