VERA Release
The Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications (VERA) components included in this distribution include selected computational tools and supporting infrastructure that solve neutronics, thermal-hydraulics, fuel performance, excore radiation transport, and CRUD/chemistry problems for commercial pressurized water reactors (PWRs). In many cases, these tools can be executed stand-alone or coupled to other VERA components. VERA also provides a simplified common user input and output capability, and the infrastructure components support the physics integration with data transfer and coupled-physics iterative solution algorithms.
Quality Assurance
The VERA Quality Assurance program is compliant with NQA-1, as confirmed by an independent audit of the VERA SQA program conducted by Westinghouse Electric Company in August 2019. Questions, issues, bugs, and suggestions should be reported to vera-support@ornl.gov. Every effort will be made to respond to requests within a reasonable period.
Training Materials
- MPACT – 3D Pin-Resolved Neutron Transport – Shane Stimpson (ORNL/CASL)
- CTF – Whole-Core Sub-Channel T/H – Bob Salko (ORNL/CASL)
- ORIGEN – Isotopic Depletion and Decay – Will Wieselquist (ORNL/SCALE)
- Bison – Advanced Fuel Performance – Russell Gardner (INL/CASL)
- MAMBA – 3D Pin-Wise CRUD Growth – Ben Collins (ORNL/CASL)
- Shift – Hybrid Monte Carlo Particle Transport – Kat Royston (ORNL/CASL)
- VERAView – VERA Data Visualization Tool – Ron Lee (ORNL/CASL)
- VERA Quality Control and Releases – Ben Collins (ORNL/CASL)
- CASL Applications and Validation – Andrew Godfrey (ORNL/CASL)
Session 1 – Scott Palmtag (NCSU/CASL)
- Introduction to VERA Input
- Connecting to HPC and submitting jobs
- Single 2D fuel lattice exercise
- 2D lattice depletion exercise
Session 2 – Andrew Godfrey (ORNL/CASL)
- Input for 3D problems
- 3D assembly exercise
- Input and running with T/H feedback
- 3D assembly at operating conditions exercise
Session 3 – Scott Palmtag (NCSU/CASL)
- Additional Input for core models
- Quarter-core Watts Bar demonstration
- Input for multiple statepoints and restart files
- Fuel shuffling and outage decay
Session 4 – Andrew Godfrey (ORNL/CASL)
- Performing jump-ins
- Fuel Temperatures
- SMR Fuel cycle depletion exercise
Session 5 – Travis Lange (INL/CASL)
- CRUD/Chemistry input overview
- CIPS exercise with SMR cycle
- CRUD shuffling and cleaning
- CRUD capabilities in VERAView
Session 6 – Ben Collins (ORNL/CASL)
- Source term initialization
- Additional input for CILC analysis
- Whole-CILC screening exercise
- Single assembly high-resolution CILC exercise
Session 7 – Eva Davidson (ORNL/CASL)
- Excore Transport input overview
- Vessel fluence exercise with standard input
- Vessel fluence capabilities in VERAView
Session 8 – Eva Davidson (ORNL/CASL)
- Overview of Omnibus capability for customized excore geometry
- Excore detector response exercise
- Visualization of radiation transport results
Session 9 – Bob Salko (ORNL/CASL)
- Overview of stand-alone CTF capability
- Single BWR bundle T/H example
- Full core DNB analysis with CTF
Session 10 – Shane Stimpson (ORNL/CASL)
- Overview of Bison interoperability
- Fuel temperature table generation exercise
- Creation of Bison inputs from VERA
- File-Based One-Way BISON Coupling Through VERA: User’s Manual
Account Information and VERA Usage Request
High Performance Computing (HPC) access through Idaho National Laboratory is available to all VERA users. Please visit the link below to request an account and begin using VERA. For any issues regarding your HPC account or access please contact Idaho National Laboratory.
System Requirements
Linux platforms with functioning gcc, g++, and gfortran compilers and X11 libraries are supported. For quarter-core simulations of commercial reactor problems, with fidelity consistent with CASL analyses, a minimum of approximately 500 compute cores are needed with approximately 4 GB memory available per core. 1000 cores are recommended for these problems. When running VERA with VERAShift excore calculations, another 100-400 cores are recommended.
This distribution has been tested and verified to install and execute on the following OS distributions:
- CentOS 7
- CentOS 7.4
- RedHat 7.4
- SUSE 3.0.101
- SUSE 3.0.76
- CRAY OS
- Ubuntu 16.04.2
User Support Links
Questions, issues, bugs, and suggestions should be reported to vera-support@ornl.gov. Every effort will be made to respond to any requests within a reasonable period. Due to active development efforts, users may experience some delays.
