WSC, Inc. has been awarded a third Department of Energy (DOE) Grant for Phase IIA titled: "Accuracy Enhancement of Nuclear Power Plant Simulators Utilizing High-accuracy Simulation Predictions." The Phase II DOE Grant resulted in developing two products that utilize the VERA code to improve fidelity of Nodal solution for the two products: a real-time simulator and an Engineering Simulator. The first uses the RELAP5-3D-NESTLE integrated code, while the second uses a fully integrated NESTLE-RELAP5-3D-CTF new code. The research was done in collaboration with a team of Light Water Reactors (LWR) experts from Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL), and Dr. Paul Turinsky, the former head of the Nuclear Engineering Department at North Carolina State University (NCSU).

The Phase IIA DOE Grant, in collaboration with the same team, will work on enhancing the usability and accuracy of the engineering simulator. This will be achieved by, among other things, reducing the run time, automating the execution of the VERA state point branch cases, automating the establishment of the CTF coarse mesh model, enabling RELAP treatment of more core components, including core channels, and improving the treatment of rodded core configurations effect on unrodded nodes with regard to the nodal solution and pin power reconstruction, using the information provided by VERA. In addition, the team will design and implement and engineering workstation environment utilizing several touch sensitive displays employing man-machine interface principles as guided by design and analysis engineers from industry.