November 24, 2014 - Innovation is the primary foundation of the work we do at Westinghouse on nuclear products and services. It’s my pleasure to congratulate Westinghouse and our partners from Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL) for being awarded the high-performance computing (HPC) Innovation Excellence Award.
Westinghouse was among seven companies recognized with this noteworthy honor earlier this year at the International Supercomputing Conference in Leipzig, Germany
Members of the Westinghouse-CASL team proudly display their award (from L to R): Jess Gehin, Oak Ridge National Laboratory; Fausto Franceschini, Westinghouse Electric Company; Andrew Godfrey, Oak Ridge National Laboratory; and John Turner, Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
The Westinghouse team received the award for successfully performing core physics simulations of the company’s AP1000® reactor using the CASL Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications (VERA). The calculations, performed on 240,000 computer cores on the Titan Cray XK7 system at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, simulated with extraordinary fidelity the in-reactor conditions and phenomena to occur during the AP1000 reactor core startup.
This project is significant for several reasons. First and foremost, it leveraged some of best talent and tools here at Westinghouse, and allowed us the opportunity to work with an outstanding group of scientists from across the country.
The CASL project is an impressive investment in innovation for Westinghouse and the entire team. The AP1000 plant computer simulations through this project were previously beyond reach. They now have been made possible, thanks to applying advanced simulation techniques that make best use of HPC infrastructures to state-of-the-art commercial PWR technology.
This endeavor has generated important data for the nuclear industry and scientific community, enhancing the understanding of reactor core conditions for the AP1000 plant startup operations, and paving the way for the future of reactor core simulations.
Fausto Franceschini, Westinghouse Research and Technology Fellow Engineer, led this endeavor. The larger team who share the award include Bob Oelrich from Westinghouse; Andrew Godfrey, John Turner, Jess Gehin, and Tom Evans from ORNL; and Dr. Evans’ ORNL development team, composed of Cihangir Celik, Greg Davidson, Steven Hamilton, Seth Johnson and Tara Pandya.
Again, I congratulate everyone involved in this well-deserved achievement. Your dedicated efforts on this project reinforce Westinghouse as a technical leader at the forefront of the nuclear industry.
Cindy Pezze
Vice President, Global Technology Development, and Chief Technology Officer
Westinghouse Electric Company