Newswise — WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $9.25 million for research in the behavior and properties of structural materials under molten salt reactor conditions, via collaborations that enable effective use of DOE’s high performance computers. Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) brings together experts in key areas of science and energy research with experts in software development, applied mathematics, and computer science to take maximum advantage of high-performance computing resources.

This is the second SciDAC partnership with the Office of Nuclear Energy. The previous partnership developed models for how fission gases behave in nuclear fuel that now have been directly adopted into nuclear energy modeling tools. This new partnership will address a different nuclear energy challenge – modeling corrosion behavior in a molten salt reactor – which is a complex problem that involves chemistry, material properties, and the effects of radiation on both of those. Advances under this new partnership will address an important area where current modeling and simulation capabilities are limited.

Applications are open to DOE national laboratories as the lead institution with all accredited U.S. colleges and universities, national laboratories, nonprofits, and private sector companies as collaborators. The lead laboratories are encouraged to engage universities and to implement DOE diversity, equity, and inclusion guidelines. The total planned funding is up to $9.25 million, with $1.85 million in Fiscal Year 2022 dollars and the outyear funding contingent upon congressional appropriations.

The Funding Opportunity Announcement, sponsored by the Advanced Scientific Computing Research program within the Department’s Office of Science, and the Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation Program within the Department’s Office of Nuclear Energy, can be found here.