We hope the world never needs us – but we’re ready if it does
We hope the world never needs us – but we’re ready if it does
While most nonproliferation research and development is intended to prevent damage, the Incident Modeling and Computational Sciences team exists to support response efforts if damage does occur, through computational research and software development.
We build models and computational tools to predict, understand, and respond to nuclear and radiological incidents such as nuclear weapon detonation, reactor accidents, or cask leaks. These models and tools support forensic discovery, consequence management, and medical responses to minimize damage, loss of life, and time to recovery.
We’re a collaborative, multidisciplinary team
Our mission requires rigorous software development practices to ensure quality codes that work every time. It also requires extensive multidisciplinary efforts, spanning physics, chemistry, nuclear engineering, meteorology, computer sciences, mathematics, data science, and machine learning.
To achieve this, we leverage ORNL’s high-performance computing resources and broad scientific capabilities, teaming with other groups to provide additional support as necessary.
Delivering life-saving solutions
If a nuclear weapon were to detonate, a rapid forensic reconstruction of the event could significantly improve response and recover events – ultimately saving lives. With expertise in computational modeling and analytics, we develop models and software solutions to support recovery efforts following a nuclear or radiological incident:
- We perform basic research to develop computational models of events and we deliver production-level software to sponsors for response teams.
- We provide mission planning software for interagency teams to plan their collections while minimizing dose to personnel, supporting rapid and effective collection of debris (“fallout”) from an event.
- We also provide subject matter expertise to other research projects in the lab, such as for assessing the dose and health effects following a leak from a spent fuel dry cask.
