The objective of the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation Nuclear Waste Management Integrated Performance and Safety Codes (NEAMS Nuclear Waste Management IPSC) is to provide an integrated suite of computational modeling and simulation (M&S) capabilities to quantitatively assess the long-term performance of waste forms in the engineered and geologic environments of a radioactive-waste storage facility or disposal repository. These M&S capabilities are to be managed, verified, and validated within the NEAMS Nuclear Waste Management IPSC quality environment. M&S capabilities and the supporting analysis workflow and simulation data management tools will be distributed to end-users from this same quality environment. The same analysis workflow and simulation data management tools that are to be distributed to end-users will be used for verification and validation (V&V) activities within the quality environment. This strategic decision reduces the number of tools to be supported, and increases the quality of tools distributed to end users due to rigorous use by V&V activities. This report documents an evaluation of the needs, options, and tools selected for the NEAMS Nuclear Waste Management IPSC quality environment. The objective of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation Nuclear Waste Management Integrated Performance and Safety Codes (NEAMS Nuclear Waste Management IPSC) program element is to provide an integrated suite of computational modeling and simulation (M&S) capabilities to assess quantitatively the long-term performance of waste forms in the engineered and geologic environments of a radioactive-waste storage facility or disposal repository. This objective will be fulfilled by acquiring and developing M&S capabilities, and establishing a defensible level of confidence in these M&S capabilities. The foundation for assessing the level of confidence is based upon the rigor and results from verification, validation, and uncertainty quantification (V&V and UQ) activities. M&S capabilities are to be managed, verified, and validated within the NEAMS Nuclear Waste Management IPSC quality environment. M&S capabilities and the supporting analysis workflow and simulation data management tools will be distributed to end-users from this same quality environment. The same analysis workflow and simulation data management tools that are to be distributed to end-users will be used for verification and validation (V&V) activities within the quality environment. This strategic decision reduces the number of tools to be supported, and increases the quality of tools distributed to end users due to rigorous use by V&V activities. NEAMS Nuclear Waste Management IPSC V&V and UQ practices and evidence management goals are documented in the V&V Plan. This V&V plan includes a description of the quality environment into which M&S capabilities are imported and V&V and UQ activities are managed. The first phase of implementing the V&V plan is to deploy an initial quality environment through the acquisition and integration of a set of software tools. An evaluation of the needs, options, and tools selected for the quality environment is given in this report.
This report describes the progress in fiscal year 2010 in developing the Waste Integrated Performance and Safety Codes (IPSC) in support of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) Campaign. The goal of the Waste IPSC is to develop an integrated suite of computational modeling and simulation capabilities to quantitatively assess the long-term performance of waste forms in the engineered and geologic environments of a radioactive waste storage or disposal system. The Waste IPSC will provide this simulation capability (1) for a range of disposal concepts, waste form types, engineered repository designs, and geologic settings, (2) for a range of time scales and distances, (3) with appropriate consideration of the inherent uncertainties, and (4) in accordance with robust verification, validation, and software quality requirements. Waste IPSC activities in fiscal year 2010 focused on specifying a challenge problem to demonstrate proof of concept, developing a verification and validation plan, and performing an initial gap analyses to identify candidate codes and tools to support the development and integration of the Waste IPSC. The current Waste IPSC strategy is to acquire and integrate the necessary Waste IPSC capabilities wherever feasible, and develop only those capabilities that cannot be acquired or suitably integrated, verified, or validated. This year-end progress report documents the FY10 status of acquisition, development, and integration of thermal-hydrologic-chemical-mechanical (THCM) code capabilities, frameworks, and enabling tools and infrastructure.
The objective of the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation Waste Integrated Performance and Safety Codes (NEAMS Waste IPSC) is to provide an integrated suite of computational modeling and simulation (M&S) capabilities to quantitatively assess the long-term performance of waste forms in the engineered and geologic environments of a radioactive-waste storage facility or disposal repository. To meet this objective, NEAMS Waste IPSC M&S capabilities will be applied to challenging spatial domains, temporal domains, multiphysics couplings, and multiscale couplings. A strategic verification and validation (V&V) goal is to establish evidence-based metrics for the level of confidence in M&S codes and capabilities. Because it is economically impractical to apply the maximum V&V rigor to each and every M&S capability, M&S capabilities will be ranked for their impact on the performance assessments of various components of the repository systems. Those M&S capabilities with greater impact will require a greater level of confidence and a correspondingly greater investment in V&V. This report includes five major components: (1) a background summary of the NEAMS Waste IPSC to emphasize M&S challenges; (2) the conceptual foundation for verification, validation, and confidence assessment of NEAMS Waste IPSC M&S capabilities; (3) specifications for the planned verification, validation, and confidence-assessment practices; (4) specifications for the planned evidence information management system; and (5) a path forward for the incremental implementation of this V&V plan.