Jain Earns National Award for Nuclear Reactor Modeling Work

Prashant Jain, a May 2010 PhD graduate in nuclear, plasma, and radiological engineering (NPRE), has earned a national honor for his modeling and simulation work on understanding two-phase dynamics to help improve operations of boiling water nuclear reactors (BWRs).

The American Nuclear Society Mark Mills Award recognizes the graduate student author who submits the best original technical paper that advances science and engineering related to the atomic nucleus. Jain’s paper, based on his PhD research work, was titled “Simulation of Two-Phase Dynamics Using Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM).”

The work focused on the development and application of LBM for boiling and two phase flows such as those that occur in BWRs. Issues related to heterogeneous boiling (wall effects), large density gradients; and the modeling difficulties facing the interfacial dynamics have challenged researchers for a long time. All of the challenges were addressed in the new LBM model, called the artificial interface lattice Boltzmann (AILB) model that Jain developed to simulate two-phase dynamics. The model is based on the principle of free energy minimization, and invokes the Gibbs-Duhem equation in formulating non-ideal forcing function.

One of the most significant advantages of Jain’s AILB model is that it can easily simulate large density and viscosity ratios of the two phases — ratios that earlier models failed to handle. His model is able to quantitatively capture the coexistence curve for the van der Waals equation of state for different temperatures. Moreover, spatially varying viscosities can be simulated by choosing the relaxation time as a function of local density.

NPRE Professor Rizwan Uddin advised Jain, who is now a postdoctoral research associate in Thermal Hydraulics and Irradiation Engineering group in the Nuclear Science and Technology Division at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). At ORNL, Jain is extending his PhD work on LBM for the simulation of turbulent flows in existing and future nuclear reactor designs.

Jain first became an NPRE student in Fall 2004, after earning a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Bombay. He completed his master’s degree research in Summer 2006 where he focusedin the area of next generation nuclear power plant design and safety analysis, particularly on stability analysis of the super critical water reactor design.

ANS established the Mills Award in 1958 as a memorial to Mark Mills, recognizing his significant contribution to nuclear science and engineering. Mills, an American nuclear physicist and developer of atomic bombs, made contributions to atomic energy research at North American Aviation, the University of California and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
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