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PERSPECTIVE article

Front. Energy Res.
Sec. Nuclear Energy
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fenrg.2024.1443896
This article is part of the Research Topic Shaping the Future of Nuclear Assets with Digital Twins View all 6 articles

Digital Engineering Implementation in Nuclear Demonstration and Nonproliferation Projects at Idaho National Laboratory

Provisionally accepted
Ashley E. Finan Ashley E. Finan *Christopher S. Ritter Christopher S. Ritter Peter A. Suyderhoud Peter A. Suyderhoud AnnMarie Marshall AnnMarie Marshall
  • Idaho National Laboratory (DOE), Idaho Falls, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Digital engineering and digital twins are increasingly being used in nuclear energy projects with important impacts. At Idaho National Laboratory, these approaches have been applied in a variety of nuclear energy research, development, and demonstration projects, with key lessons and evolutions occurring for each. In this paper, we describe the use of digital engineering and digital twins in the Versatile Test Reactor design, National Reactor Innovation Center test beds, and nonproliferation analysis of the AGN-201 reactor design. We share key lessons learned for these projects related to tool selection, adoption and training, and working with existing assets versus beginning at the design phase. We also share highlights of future potential uses of digital twins and digital engineering, including using artificial intelligence to perform repetitive design tasks and digital twins to move towards semiautonomous nuclear power plant operations.

    Keywords: Digital Twin, Digital engineering, Nuclear Energy, nonproliferation, model-based, Advanced reactors

    Received: 04 Jun 2024; Accepted: 26 Jun 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Finan, Ritter, Suyderhoud and Marshall. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Ashley E. Finan, Idaho National Laboratory (DOE), Idaho Falls, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.