NCRC

INL’s Nuclear Computational Resource Center

Code Descriptions

Open Source

This software is available free of charge for all users via GitHub.

MOOSE

MOOSE, the Multiphysics Object Oriented Simulation Environment, is a finite-element multiphysics framework largely developed by Idaho National Laboratory. It offers a high level interface to sophisticated nonlinear solver technology, such as BISON for nuclear fuel, Griffin for radiation transport and reactor multiphysics, and more. MOOSE has a straightforward API well suited to how scientists and engineers tackle real-world problems. It is a fully coupled and fully implicit multiphysics solver that is automatically parallel, making it possible to run large simulations and tackle complicated models.

BLACKBEAR

BlackBear models degradation in concrete, steel, and other structural materials over time and under specified environmental conditions. It also models the response of those materials to loading conditions that they are safely expected to withstand, with these simulations done accounting for the modeled degradation.

DIAMOND

Data Integration Aggregated Model and Ontology for Nuclear Deployment – DIAMOND for short – is a data model. It interfaces with various data sources and functionalities associated with nuclear power plants and facilities to ensure a seamless flow of data and of the related data handling methods. DIAMOND can be used to standardize data storage and exchange formats, automating data searches. It also can allow the sharing and comparing of data in a single or between multiple nuclear power plants, as well as revealing cost-saving opportunities.

DEEP LYNX

Deep Lynx is a megaproject manager, an integrated platform for the design and operation of large projects. Such projects are prone to cost and schedule overruns, in part, because engineering teams in design, procurement and construction often exchange data manually. This practice increases the risk of error. Deep Lynx is a data warehouse that stores information in a graph like format following a structure of concept and category properties and relationships that users define. As such, Deep Lynx makes it easier to avoid communication errors and improve performance with regard to meeting megaproject cost and schedule targets.

FALCON

Falcon models fluid flow, heat transfer, rock mechanics and chemical reactions in geological porous material. It is primarily used to study geothermal reservoirs, thermal energy storage, carbon sequestration, and groundwater flow and transport.

FENIX

FENIX is an application for performing system-level, engineering scale (i.e., at the scale of centimeters and meters), and microstructure-scale (i.e., at the scale of microns) multiphysics calculations related to fusion energy systems. These models often include highly coupled systems of equations related to plasma physics, electromagnetics, heat conduction, scalar transport, thermal hydraulics, computational fluid dynamics, and thermomechanics, amongst others. FENIX will enable high-fidelity modeling of irradiation levels and plasma exposure conditions of plasma facing components and their impact on heat and tritium distributions, as well as the resulting mechanical constraints experienced by the plasma facing components.

HERON

Heron is a modeling toolset and plugin for RAVEN that aids in the evaluation of the economic viability of electrical grids, integrated energy systems, and other grid-energy system configurations. It does this by assessing the impact of random events occurring within a probability distribution envelope that is specific to a particular project, such as a light-water reactor operating in a deregulated market. Heron can also be used to construct workflows that solve complex resource allocation problems to meet target economic goals.

MAGPIE

Magpie links various atomistic codes that analyze distinct, separable and independent elementary components to MOOSE applications. Magpie currently provides coupling modules for SPPARKS (a kinetic onte Carlo solver from Sandia National Laboratories that simulates particle motion) and MyTRIM (a binary collision Monte Carlo solver for ion transport in materials).

MALAMUTE

The MOOSE Application Library for Advanced Manufacturing UTilitiEs, or MALAMUTE, is a simulation code for a variety of advanced manufacturing processes designed to connect the microscale characteristics and evolution of materials with their engineering scale, post-manufacture performance. MALAMUTE currently models electric field assisted sintering (EFAS, also known as spark plasma sintering) and laser surface heating (deformation, melting, and welding). Additive manufacturing capabilities are also under development. MALAMUTE leverages and builds on the MOOSE modules to provide a wide range of multiphysics capability up to three dimensions utilizing the finite element and finite volume methods.

MASTODON

Mastodon is used for seismic analysis and risk assessment. It can simulate source-to-site wave propagation and analyze risk over time during a simulated event for 1D, 2D and 3D soil structures. Mastodon’s risk assessment is probabilistic meaning it can estimate the likelihood of an outcome as well as provide a deterministic analysis of risk.

RAVEN

Risk Analysis Virtual ENvironment, or RAVEN, is a flexible, multi-purpose framework for risk analysis, calculating uncertainty, optimizing parameters and more of complex system codes. RAVEN can investigate the response of such codes and their input space using Monte Carlo, Grid or Latin Hyper Cube sampling schemes. It is particularly strong at finding input space regions that lead to system failure, finding limit surfaces, and other aspects of system feature discovery. RAVEN runs on MAC, Linux and Windows operating systems with multi-core and multi-thread parallel computing.

Available for License

These INL-licensed software tools require a license in order to be used by researchers. Additional codes may be available. To license a code, click the Request Licenses Software button.

BISON

Bison is a nuclear fuel performance code that can model light water reactor fuel rods, TRISO particle fuel, metallic rod and plate fuel, and other fuel forms.

Bison solves thermomechanics and species diffusion equations for 1D, 2D and 3D geometries, with fuel models that describe temperature properties, fission product swelling and other material aspects.

BLUECRAB

BlueCRAB is a generic reactor simulator that can be used to analyze proposed advanced reactor designs like molten salt reactors, fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactors, and microreactors. Additionally, BlueCRAB can be used to model lightwater reactors and links to current U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission tools.

DIREWOLF

DireWolf is a code suite developed to analyze heat-pipe-cooled nuclear microreactors. It pulls together several applications for this purpose including Griffin, Bison and Sockeye to study nuclear microreactor physics, reactor physics, radiation transport, nuclear fuel performance, heat pipe thermal hydraulics, power generation, and structural mechanics.

GRIFFIN

Griffin is a reactor multiphysics application. It is suitable for steady state and time-dependent coupled neutronics calculations leveraging the multiple MOOSEbased thermal-fluids applications (Pronghorn, RELAP-7, Sockeye, etc.) and fuel performance application (Bison). Griffin has been used to analyze pebble bed reactors, prismatic reactors, molten-salt reactors, fast sodium-cooled reactors, microreactors, nuclear thermal propulsion and several experimental facilities.

GRIZZLY

Grizzly models the degradation of nuclear power plant systems, structures and components. The code also simulates the ability of degraded components to safely perform under a variety of conditions. It can be applied to a variety of components with development initially focused on the embrittlement of reactor pressure vessels and concrete structures.

MARMOT

Marmot is a mesoscale fuel performance code. As such, it can predict the evolution of the microstructure and material properties of fuels and claddings due to stress, temperature, and irradiation damage. MARMOT can supply microstructure-based materials models to other codes that work on a larger scale, e.g., Bison. MARMOT solves equations involving solid mechanics and heat conduction using the finite element method.

RELAP5-3D

RELAP5-3D is the latest released code in the RELAP5 series. Developed at Idaho National Laboratory, the RELAP5 family aids the analysis of transients and accidents in water-cooled nuclear power plants and related systems. The software can also analyze advanced reactor designs. RELAP5-3D differs from earlier code in the series because it offers fully integrated and multi-dimensional thermal-hydraulic and kinetic modeling. It runs on both Linux and Windows operating systems, with training and users group available.

RELAP-7

A next generation nuclear systems safety code, RELAP-7 takes advantage of advances in computer architecture, software design, numerical methods, and physical models for use in the Risk Informed Safety argin Characterization methodology and in nuclear power plant safety analysis.

SOCKEYE

Sockeye is a heat pipe simulator and analysis tool. It accurately predicts heat transfer for heat-pipe-cooled microreactors and other heat pipe applications. Importantly, Sockeye models heat conduction transients in 1D and 2D as well as offering tools to analyze the operating envelope of heat pipes. It provides insight into operational limits in transient conditions, something not readily possible with steady-state analysis. Using Sockeye, users can spot operational limits and adjust designs accordingly.

PRONGHORN

Pronghorn is a multi-dimensional, coarse-mesh, thermal-hydraulics code for advanced reactors and is particularly well-suited to model gas-cooled pebble bed and prismatic reactors. It serves the intermediate fidelity realm situated between detailed computational fluid dynamics analysis and lumped system models.

Other Available Codes (Non-INL Licensed)

INL maintains a large number of commercial analysis codes, open-source packages, and codes owned/licensed by other entities. Below is a small sampling of some available codes. In order to use codes licensed by others, you will need to contact the code developers for a license.

MCNP®

MCNP® is a software created and maintained by Los Alamos National laboratory. It is a general purpose Monte Carlo n-particle code that can be used for neutron, photon, electron, or coupled neutron/photon/electron transport. This tool can be used in a variety of applications including radiation protection and dosimetry, radiation shielding, radiography, medical physics, and nuclear criticality safety.

SCALE

SCALE is a software created and maintained by Oak Ridge National Laboratory used for analysis of nuclear safety and design. It is a comprehensive tool for criticality safety, reactor physics, radiation shielding, radioactive source term characterization and sensitivity and uncertainty analysis.

SAM

System Analysis Module (SAM) is a fast-running, whole-plant transient analysis code with improved-fidelity capability for fast turnaround design scoping and safety analyses of advanced non-light-water reactors.

SERPENT

SERPENT is a three-dimensional continuous-energy Monte Carlo reactor physics burnup calculation code, specifically designed for lattice physics applications. The code uses built-in calculation outlines for generating homogenized multi-group constants for deterministic reactor simulator calculations. The standard output includes effective and infinite multiplication factors, homogenized reaction cross sections, scattering matrices, diffusion coefficients, assembly discontinuity factors, point-kinetic parameters, effective delayed neutron fractions and precursor group decay constants. User-defined tallies can be set up for calculating various integral reaction rates and spectral quantities.

CUBIT

Cubit is a flexible and powerful toolkit for generation of 2D and 3D meshes and geometries for finite element analysis. The main goal of the tool is to reduce the time required to generate meshes, particularly large hex meshes of complicated, interlocking assemblies.

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