Publications by Alessandro Scolaro

Preliminary Sensitivity Analysis of Time-Dependent Code Outputs in Fuel Performance Models Using OFFBEAT for Future Calibration

Alessandro Scolaro, Mathieu Hursin, Edoardo Luciano Brunetto

Fuel performance codes are essential for predicting fuel rod behavior in nuclear reactors. These codes comprise a complex system of models with empirical constants that require calibration against experimental data. To support this calibration, this study ...

American Nuclear Society2025

Cell-Wise Temperature and Deformation Reactivity Feedback Modeling in Heat Pipe-Cooled Microreactors

Alessandro Scolaro

The compact design of microreactors can potentially lead to a strong interdependence between neutronics and thermo-mechanics, making the development of coupling methodologies essential to quantify the importance of such effects. This study introduces a hig ...

American Nuclear Society2025

Development of a dynamic-mesh porosity transport model for multi-dimensional fuel performance codes

Andreas Pautz, Alessandro Scolaro, Edoardo Luciano Brunetto

The porosity redistribution within nuclear fuel pellets exposed to high power ratings plays a critical role in the thermo-mechanical behavior of fast reactor fuel. Traditional fuel performance codes predict porosity migration through advection-dominated tr ...

2025

PuMMA blind benchmark: Performance of high plutonium content MOX fuel under irradiation

Alessandro Scolaro, Carlo Fiorina, Edoardo Luciano Brunetto

This paper presents the results of the first phase of the benchmark exercise in the PuMMA project, aimed at extending the reliability of fuel performance codes for Mixed Oxide (MOX) fuels with high plutonium content. The exercise involved the simulation of ...

2025

Analysing hydrogen behaviour in liner claddings using OFFBEAT fuel performance code

Alessandro Scolaro

Hydrogen generated during the waterside corrosion of zirconium claddings can diffuse within the material, forming hydrides that alter the mechanical properties of the claddings. These hydrides may lead to detrimental effects such as delayed hydride crackin ...

2025

Advances in the modeling and simulation of NTPs using OpenFOAM and OpenModelica

Alessandro Scolaro, Thomas Arthur Louis Joseph Guilbaud

American Nuclear Society2025

In-Memory, Fully-Parallel Coupling of GeN-Foam and OFFBEAT: Towards a New Milestone in High-Fidelity, Finite-Volume Nuclear Reactor Simulation

Alessandro Scolaro, Mathieu Hursin, Thomas Arthur Louis Joseph Guilbaud

The design and safety analysis of advanced fuel materials and innovative Gen-IV reactor concepts, with their distinct physical and engineering requirements compared to conventional reactors, has often been the main drive behind the development of modern mu ...

American Nuclear Society2025

Full core study of the KIWI-B-4E Nuclear Thermal Propulsion system using OpenMC and GeN-Foam

Alessandro Scolaro, Thomas Arthur Louis Joseph Guilbaud

Nuclear Thermal Propulsion systems are one of the technologies to unlock interplanetary travel in the solar system and there is currently an increasing demand for accurately simulating such systems. The present paper investigates the KIWI-B-4E reactor, the ...

2024

Comparison of Bayesian Model Calibration Techniques for Future Application to Fuel Performance Behavior Models

Alessandro Scolaro, Mathieu Hursin

This paper explores data assimilation methods in the context of Bayesian Calibration for fuel performance models. It compares deterministic and stochastic approaches, concentrating on the Generalized Linear Least Squares (GLLS) method and stochastic techni ...

American Nuclear Society2024

OFFBEAT V&V studies for REBEKA tests on cladding ballooning and burst during LOCA conditions

Alessandro Scolaro

The OpenFOAM Fuel Behaviour Analysis Tool (OFFBEAT), developed jointly by EPFL and PSI in Switzerland, is rapidly gaining recognition as a comprehensive code for multi-dimensional thermo-mechanical fuel behaviour analysis. Like for any novel code, verifica ...

2024

Generative AI tools in the nuclear engineering community: A survey-based evaluation of the current adoption and impacts

Alessandro Scolaro, Oskari Ville Pakari

Generative AI tools (often abbreviated genAI or GAI), such as chatGPT, have arguably great potential to induce a paradigm shift in knowledge work.Herein, we present the results of a survey conducted within the nuclear engineering professional community to ...

American Nuclear Society2024

Investigation of the PCMI failure of pre-hydrided Zy-4 cladding during Reactivity Initiated Accidents with ALCYONE and OFFBEAT fuel performance codes

Alessandro Scolaro

This paper presents simulations of Reactivity Initiated Accident on PWR fuel rods performed with two fuel performance codes: ALCYONE and OFFBEAT. These simulations were carried out in the framework of the first phase of the High-Burnup Experiments of React ...

2024

FMI-based multi-fidelity and multi-scale simulations of a nuclear reactor

Andreas Pautz, Alessandro Scolaro, Thomas Arthur Louis Joseph Guilbaud

American Nuclear Society2024

International fuel performance study of fresh fuel experiments for PCMI effects during RIA experiments

Alessandro Scolaro

This paper presents the results of High-burnup Experiments for Reactivity-initiated Accident (HERA) Modeling & Simulation (M&S) exercise. The HERA project under the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) Second Framework for Irradiation Experiments (FIDES-II) program ...

ELSEVIER SCIENCE SA2024

Investigating the Accuracy of Porous-Medium Treatments in the Analysis of Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Systems

Alessandro Scolaro, Thomas Arthur Louis Joseph Guilbaud

Porous-medium thermal-hydraulic modeling has become more popular in recent years for reactor analysis due to its flexibility and the ease of its implementation within multi-physics, PDE-oriented libraries like OpenFOAM and MOOSE.A porous-medium approach of ...

American Nuclear Society2024

Two-phase modelling for fission gas sweeping in restructuring nuclear oxide fuel

Alessandro Scolaro

In this work, we propose a modelling approach for the intra-granular fission gas behaviour in UO2 under restructuring process. Leveraging the definition of restructured volume fraction, we consider the fuel matrix transition from the non-restructured to th ...

ELSEVIER SCIENCE SA2024

Integral-scale validation of the SCIANTIX code for Light Water Reactor fuel rods

Alessandro Scolaro

Mechanistic multi-scale modelling holds the potential to inform fuel performance codes by incorporating high-fidelity models, algorithms, parameters, and material properties. In this context, meso-scale codes emerge as valuable tools for developing detaile ...

Elsevier2024

Fuel performance code to code comparative analysis for the OECD/NEA MPCMIV benchmark

Alessandro Scolaro

The recently developed Multi-Physics Pellet Cladding Mechanical Interaction Validation (MPCMIV) benchmark includes dedicated transient fuel performance exercises. In this work, three fuel performance codes (BISON, OFFBEAT, FAST) are used to perform support ...

2024

Modeling of Sodium Fast Reactors Thermal Expansion Reactivity Feedback using GeN-Foam and Serpent

Alessandro Scolaro, Mathieu Hursin

Sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs) offer a promising alternative to conventional light-water technologies but present unique safety and design challenges. Among others, reactivity feedback effects associated to core deformations are significantly larger th ...

American Nuclear Society2024

Investigating the Functional Mock-up Interface as a Coupling Framework for the multi-fidelity analysis of nuclear reactors

Andreas Pautz, Alessandro Scolaro, Thomas Arthur Louis Joseph Guilbaud

The FMI is a standard that defines a container and an interface to exchange dynamic simulation models. It has been developed and refined by several actors over the past two decades. This coupling standard allows seamless integrations of independent objects ...

2024