Nuclear Engineering ETDs

Publication Date

Fall 12-13-2025

Abstract

Nuclear reactor multiphysics modeling and simulation (M&S) enable advanced reactor design by analyzing how systems will react over time to various configurations, scenarios, and perturbations. However, high-fidelity coupled transient M&S for reactor cores are computationally expensive, making robust analyses challenging. This work develops a Coupled Adjoint-based Perturbation Theory for dynAmIcs and heat traNsfer (CAPTAIN) framework to rapidly quantify the impact of uncertainty to overall transient responses by generating sensitivity coefficients for temperature, power, and delayed neutron precursor concentrations using forward and adjoint solutions. This work presents an initial proof of principle, verified with direct perturbations to several inputs. Furthermore, this work extends the similarity coefficient framework to steady-state kinetic parameters and transient dynamic parameters to analyze how experiments capture relevant nuclear data and thermal property uncertainties. This framework will enable leveraging existing criticality benchmark experiment data for kinetic/dynamic parameter validation and will provide new similarity metrics to improve experiment design.

Keywords

uncertainty quantification, adjoint, nuclear transients, multiphysics

Document Type

Dissertation

Language

English

Degree Name

Nuclear Engineering

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Nuclear Engineering

First Committee Member (Chair)

Christopher Perfetti

Second Committee Member

Forrest Brown

Third Committee Member

Holly Trellue

Fourth Committee Member

Brendan Kochunas

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