Organization
Councils
The Science Council and the Industry Council assist the CASL Director and Senior Leadership Team (SLT) with expert advice on high level issues confronting the CASL mission, its approach, performance and impact on the nuclear establishment. Their membership includes well renowned experts from CASL partners as well as from the outside nuclear community.
Science Council
The Science Council provides independent assessment of whether the CASL scientific work planned and executed is of high quality and supports attaining the goals of CASL. In addition, the Science Council may be called upon to complete detailed assessments of specific CASL scientific issues.
The Science Council advises the following CASL Focus Areas (FAs): Radiation Transport Methods (RTM), Thermal Hydraulics Methods (THM), Materials Performance and Optimization (MPO), and Validation and Uncertainty Quantification (VUQ), but may assess due to the importance of multi-physics integration and structural mechanics Virtual Reactor Integration (VRI) and Advanced Modeling Applications (AMA).
The Science Council also identifies supportive scientific activities that are being conducted elsewhere. The Science Council can establish subcommittees for specific activities if necessary. These subcommittees will have well-defined missions and durations specified at their origination and updated as needed.
Industry Council
The purpose of the Industry Council (IC) is to provide critical two-way communications and information exchange between the CASL Project and eventual technology-providers and users of CASL products.
The CASL Project benefits from advice on expected virtual reactor capabilities, validation and test plans, quality assurance plans, priorities and schedules, rollout and commercialization strategies, and computer requirements.
Industrial technology-providers and end-users benefit by influencing the virtual reactor (VR) product and its development process to be compatible with expected applications. They can also prepare their business and technical processes to make use of VR products.
Finally, both CASL and end-users can identify opportunities for access to data and technical information, initial testing, regulatory interface, or other collaborative contributions.
The selection of members and the scope of activities are coordinated with the CASL Extended Leadership (ELT) and the Board of Directors (BOD) to achieve efficient and effective project oversight and advice.
A CASL team member chairs the IC. The IC Chair works with the Product Applications Coordinator and the overall Challenge Problem Product Integrator to:
- Advise the AMA Focus Area Lead on licensing matters and interfaces with the NRC RES or NRR;
- Provide roadmaps and planning for licensing of CASL products by industry;
- Ensure that CASL products are beneficial to the overall nuclear community;
- Pursue applications with CASL industrial members and with the nuclear industry at large;
- Advise the CASL SLT on strategic scope extensions to ensure CASL addresses critical nuclear industry imperatives such as safety and used fuel management;
- Ensure the CASL VERA methodology developed is in a position to be applied to BWRs and integral PWRs (iPWRs);
- Facilitate development of VERA to address fast neutron spectrum reactors and closing the back end of the fuel cycle; and
- Pursue opportunities for international modeling and simulation of LWRs.
Members of the IC represent a spectrum of organization types including: fuel vendors, design engineering companies, engineering service providers, computer technology companies, and owner/operators of nuclear plants. DOE and the CASL BOD may appoint ex-officio members.