LANS Informal Seminar: Charles Yu and Shih-Yew Chen

Seminar Title: Development of RESRAD Series of Models for Environmental Cleanup
Speaker: Charles Yu and Shih-Yew Chen, EVS

Date/Time: 2010-07-28 15:00
Location: Bldg 240, Conference Center (1406-1407)

Description:
The Environmental Science Division (EVS) has been assisting the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (DOE/EM) over the past few decades in cleaning up its nuclear complex. While tremendous progresses have been made on reducing DOE’s footprint in contaminated lands over time, progressive technical challenges continue to pose as a threat to its cleanup schedule for the long term. Such challenges include the very complex migration of radioactive contamination in the environment and particularly through the subsurface formations over a widespread area such as DOE’s Hanford Site. At the center of the issues lies an important question: How Clean Is Clean? The Environmental Science Division has developed the RESRAD Family of Codes to address such an issue. It is developed to derive the allowable residual radioactivity for meeting the regulatory limits and demonstrating compliance. Over time, RESRAD continues to evolve with increasing complexity and an equal demand for computing performance. In a recent effort, DOE/EM launched a multiple-lab, multiple-year initiative on the Advanced Simulation Capability for Environmental Management (ASCEM) aimed to introduce the modern day high-performance computing technology into simulating the environmental system and discovering better solutions to the complex subsurface contamination issues. Being the developer of the RESRAD series of codes and also a collaborator to the ASCEM program, we will highlight the RESRAD program and discuss future needs.