Congratulations to Dr. Yousry Azmy, Duke Energy Distinguished Professor of Nuclear Engineering, recipient of a three-year, $1M award from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Research and Development, under Modeling and Simulation. Dr. Azmy’s Co-PIs are Dr. Scott Palmtag, Research Professor of Nuclear Engineering at NC State University, and Dr. Changho Lee, Methods Development Group Lead, Argonne National Laboratory. The research project is entitled, “A Low Order Transport Method Based on the Dynamic Truncation of the Integral Transport Matrix Method (ITMM) that Converges to the SN Solution with Increasing Cell Optical Thickness”.
A novel low-order transport operator capable of approximating Monte Carlo (MC) results within the variance range will be developed. This does not require MC reference solutions to calibrate the low-order model, so repeated solutions of the latter in-transient scenarios do not require repeated MC simulations. Truncation of the low-order operator is done dynamically for evolving configurations to ensure accuracy of the low-order solution. This will involve proof of principle on Cartesian meshes, then implementation in Griffin.
Dr. Azmy’s research is focused on the development, implementation, and analysis of advanced methods and solution techniques for particle transport problems. This defines an area within the broader field of nuclear computational science whose ultimate purpose is to provide the community of nuclear scientists and engineers with advanced computational tools that comprise an enabling technology for addressing a multitude of problems involving particle and radiation transport phenomena. In this regard he contributed to Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s DOORS code package that includes, among others, the renowned DORT and TORT codes, serving as lead developer of the latter in the late nineties.
The U.S. DOE awarded more than $41.2 million through the Nuclear Engineering University Program (NEUP) to support 43 university-led nuclear energy research and development projects in 22 states. NC State’s Department of Nuclear Engineering received two of these awards. NEUP seeks to maintain U.S. leadership in nuclear engineering research across the country by providing top science and engineering faculty and their students with funding to develop innovative technologies and solutions for civil nuclear power capabilities.