The main function of this team is perform design and analysis for a variety of systems and applications, including energy research (solar cells, reactors, transportation, and buildings), experimental installations of all types, centrifuge cascades for uranium enrichment and separation of stable isotopes, and industrial facilities. The analysis leads to improvement in performance and assessing risks from accidents or terrorist attacks.
Dispersion models provided by the ARQA team support the processing and quality assurance of meteorological data for use in environmental compliance modeling. In addition, climate data processing is a key contributor to national and international research efforts related to global climate change.
The CSFM team performs independent integrity assessments of engineering structures using computational methods. They specialize in probabilistic risk assessments, as well as in defect assessments and predictions of probability of failure of engineering structures due to the presence of defects. The team has extensive experience in the analysis of ferritic and austenitic steels, including welds and weld heat-affected zones for domestic and international nuclear power plants and performs independent reviews of probabilistic leak-before-break for piping systems of different materials in nuclear power plants. Since the late 1960’s, the CSFM team at ORNL has provided the technical bases and computational tools to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s office of Nuclear Regulatory Research (USA NRC-RES) and are positioned to offer a wide and varied suite of software tools and analysis services, backed by strong and credible research products that are well documented in technical publications.