Hello, A new project on the LCRC cluster has been requested. Please forward the information on to the LCRC Allocation sub-committee. Applicant's name: Gerardo Aliberti Applicant's institution: ANL Applicant's division: NE Project Name: PROTEUS_APP Project title: PROTEUS applications to the analysis of AmBB performances in the ASTRID reactor Associated funding: DOE-NE Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling & Simulation (NEAMS) Other Systems: NE Division clusters Science: The Evaluation and Screening study performed by the Fuel Cycle Technology Office of the U.S. Department of Energy identified continuous recycling of uranium together with plutonium and/or transuranic elements in fast reactors, either alone or with supporting thermal reactors, as the most promising options for improving resource utilization and reducing high-level waste (HLW) generation. One potential path investigated in France considers Am-only recycle in Americium Bearing Blankets (AmBB) and direct disposal of Np and Cm. This allows recycling Am in a few specific radial blanket assemblies of a fast reactor, minimizing the repository impacts by transmuting Am, minimizing fuel handling impacts from Cm, and minimizing impacts on reactor performance and safety. In this context, reactor physics and fuel cycle analyses are conducted to assess different minor actinide (MA) transmutation strategies and to identify the irradiation experiments needed. Particularly, the AmBB transmutation performances are being evaluated in the 1500 MWth ASTRID and the 1000 MWth Advanced Burner Reactor (ABR). For this type of analysis, it is crucial to get detailed information on the neutronic performances of the Americium Bearing Blankets (AmBB). The current suite of deterministic neutronic codes traditionally used (namely REBUS-3) is poorly suited for performing such analysis, especially for pin-wise depletion calculations. On the other hand, Monte Carlo codes have the potential for providing invaluable information but at the price of large computational cost in order to reduce the statistical uncertainty in a fine-mesh pin-wise model that makes this type of simulations very unpractical o perform. Advanced code systems developed in the framework of the NEAMS project such as PROTEUS appear very promising since they allow detailed modeling while taking advantage of the features of a deterministic approach. Based on applications to simplified reactor models, it has been demonstrated that the PROTEUS code has the capabilities to perform neutronic calculations for detailed geometry models with explicit pin by pin representation, similarly to Monte Carlo codes. Particularly, PROTEUS is able to compute pin by pin neutronic features, such as pin-wise power/flux and neutron spectra. Thus, it is considered of great interest to benefit of the PROTEUS capabilities for the evaluation of the neutronic performances of the Americium Bearing Blankets (AmBB) in the ASTRID reactor. Unfortunately, pin by pin simulations for reactors of the ASTRID size with the PROTEUS code are computationally very demanding in terms of memory and require the use of a significant number of processors. It is a practically impossible to run such simulations on the machines currently available at the NE division. Thus, the accomplishment of the discussed analysis would be possible only through the use of high perfor mant machines, such as the blues supercomputer at Laboratory Computing Resource Center. Project description: The planned studies focus primarily on customer-oriented applications of the high fidelity PROTEUS neutron transport code. Such applications would be also used as further validation of the performances of the code that currently is in the final development stage. Simulations will be first performed using low transport approximation orders (angular flux expansion, anisotropic scattering, energy groups, etc.) for a reactor model where the explicit pin by pin modeling will be limited to a single target blanket assembly. The impact of tighter calculation options (both for mesh refinement and transport approximation orders) will be gradually investigated in a successive phase. The requested allocation is essential for the discussed applications. PROTEUS is regularly compiled on Blues. This project will be performed by 1-2 analysts in the NE Division. Industry partnership: Project URL: Requested allocation: 500000 Q1: 0 Q2: 0 Q3: 250000 Q4: 250000 Justification: Current applications of PROTEUS code are highly focused on solving challenge problems for customers and code validation. Past efforts were mostly focused on code development, as there was a major release, and so computational requirements were lower than presently needed. Storage requirements: The requester has used undetermined amount hours of their initial startup project. In addition to approving an initial amount, please specify a Category and Subcategory for this project. For a list of the current selection of approved categories, please see: https://wiki.lcrc.anl.gov/wiki/Processes/Categories Once the Allocation committee has approved the project, please go to the Project Management page to create it: https://accounts.lcrc.anl.gov/projects.php Thank You, The LCRC Accounts System