Physics
Modeling and simulation for Physics include applications in radiation transport and detection, energy generation and transport, environmental materials transport, molecular scale dynamics, physical interactions, wave propagation and interaction, nondestructive materials characterization, and fluid dynamics. Examples of physics modeling and simulation include
- Monte Carlo and deterministic radiation transport for detection of terrorist threats, health effects, and remote monitoring
- simulation of the weathering of radioactive waste forms in subsurface disposal facilities
- characterization of the three-dimensional reflective and emissive spectral properties of weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities in the visible through long-wave infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum for monitoring purposes
- tritium target designs
- biogeochemical processes, including mineral precipitation and biofilm growth
- comprehensive numerical modeling studies to support decision-makers in all aspects of the water hydrologic cycle, ranging from rainfall and runoff from watersheds, to flows in small streams, to distributed flows in larger river systems, to circulation in wetlands, estuaries, and coastal waters
- the use of density functional theory to determine defect energetics in solids and to refine interatomic potentials
- ray-tracing analysis of optics, enclosure radiation, and lighting
- modeling of solid oxide fuel cell performance using finite volume and finite element codes
- models to design ultrasonic phased arrays for varied applications.
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is the simulation of the conservation of mass, energy, and momentum in single or multiphase fluid systems. Traditional approaches used finite volume or finite element discretization of the equations and domain decomposition to spread the workload in parallel across multiple processors. More recently, highly parallel techniques such as Lattice-Boltzman are being used on large multi-processor systems. Other applications of computational fluid dynamics include
- groundwater flow modeling
- river/dam interaction investigations, such as Columbia river salmon issues
- radioactive waste mixing with equilibrium and non-equilibrium chemistry
- modeling of retrieval techniques for sludges in tanks
- weather prediction
- plume dispersion modeling above ground (consequence modeling) and under water (deep ocean releases)
- reactor core modeling for performance predictions and safety scenarios
- biological processes such as breathing and blood flows and their roles in disease processes and responses to environmental, chemical or radiological challenges
- toxicology predictions, which could reduce the number of live animal experiments
- thermal performance modeling of nuclear spent fuel storage and transportation systems
- diesel filter modeling to improve effectiveness
- prediction of macro-scale properties using micro-scale models: predicting permeability values for a porous media using a pore scale model
- design of micro-scale heat exchangers for portable devices
- aerodynamic design to reduce drag on objects
- solid oxide fuel cell performance modeling.