Title:

Multiphysics Modeling in Support of NASA Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Designs

Speaker:

Dr. Mark D. DeHart

Affiliation:

Idaho National Laboratory

When:

Thursday, October 13, 2022 at 11:00:00 AM   Add to Calendar

Where:

Boggs Building, Room 347

Host:

Dan Kotlyar
dan.kotlyar@me.gatech.edu

Abstract

NASA’s Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) Project is focused on determining the feasibility and affordability of an NTP engine for exploration of Mars and beyond. NTP has the potential to greatly increase efficiency, thus reducing propellant requirements, relative to current systems. This project has the goal of assessing the affordability and viability of NTP in which a nuclear reactor superheats hydrogen gas. The superheated hydrogen expands through a diverging/converging nozzle to produce in-space propulsion. The feasibility of this game changing technology was clearly established in the 1960’s during the Rover/NERVA (Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application) Program. However, many questions concerning the development and affordability of nuclear thermal rockets remain unanswered. With support from INL, NASA has begun using MOOSE-based reactor physics, thermal fluids and structural mechanics solvers to be able to simulate the complex and tightly coupled multiphysics occurring with an NTP engine to begin to assess design options and performance impacts in design of a prototype experimental engine. This talk will provide some of the background in NTP design and the status of the current work at INL. He will also briefly introduce INL and work/internship opportunities there.

Biography

Mark DeHart is a Directorate Fellow in the Nuclear Science & Technology Directorate at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) where he has worked since March 2010. He holds BS, MS and PhD degrees nuclear engineering from Texas A&M University. Dr. DeHart is the project manager for work supporting the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). He is also the Chair of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation (IRPhE) project and leads a team of engineers evaluating potential thermal irradiation capabilities to expand the mission of the current Advanced Test Reactor. Previously Dr. DeHart was employed at ORNL, working in both methods and analysis related to criticality safety, burnup credit, data validation, and reactor physics. He is the primary author of the NEWT lattice physics code and the TRITON depletion sequence within the SCALE code system and led development of modern lattice physics methods at ORNL. He is a Fellow of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) and a member and past Chair of the local section of ANS. He has more than 200 publications in journals, conference proceedings, and national laboratory reports related to computational methods and applications in reactor physics and multiphysics, radiation transport, criticality safety, depletion methods and spent nuclear fuel characterization.