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Research Projects Supported by HKU's High Performance Computing Facilities |
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| Researcher: |
| Dr John K C Leung, Department of Physics |
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Project Title: |
| Data Assimilation Analysis and the Optimization of Radiation Protection Countermeasures in the Event of Offsite Accidents from Nuclear Power Plants in the Daya Bay Area |
| Project Description: |
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The Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant
was commissioned in 1994, and followed by the Lingao Nuclear Power Plant
earlier this year. It is planned to have the third power plant to be built
in the near future. With this cluster of nuclear power plants at about 50 km
from the city of Hong Kong, it is important that a detailed computer program
be developed that could rapidly assess the radiological situation in the
event of an accident in any one of the nuclear power plants in the Daya Bay
region. This model would be capable of real-time on-site assessment through
input of monitoring data and meteorological data, so that a precise picture
of the spread of radioactive contaminants and predicted radiation doses to
the general public can be estimated. Because of the complexity in the geology of the 80 km area surrounding the Daya Bay area, a high-resolution grid system will be used in connection with a puff model for calculation of plume dispersion. A four-dimensional data assimilation method will be used to determine the best iteration values that match the measured radiological data and meteorological data. At the same time, the spread of contamination in marine system would be simulated by the alternating direction implicit method. Finally the optimization of countermeasures would be done by using various statistical analysis and the optimized countermeasure could then be recommended by the Hong Kong SAR government. |
| Project Duration: |
| About 3 years |
| Project Significance: |
| The researcher is a member of the Radiological Protection Advisory Group, which plays a role under the Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant Contingency Plan of the HKSAR. This computer program could form part of the emergency preparedness program, which no doubt is an important issue to the whole Hong Kong population. |
| Results Achieved: |
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The various computer models have in fact been successfully implemented in stand alone computers. We are in the process of converting the existing programs to the parallel programming environment, so that both the geographical resolution and assimilation accuracy could be elevated. The aim is to develop a portable program that could be run in any supercomputer so that it could be adopted and implemented by any organizations or institutions that have interest in using it. |
| Remarks on the Use of High Performance Computing Cluster: |
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It helps in speeding up the data assimilation and other simulation processes, thus enabling us to use a higher resolution grid system and much rapid on-line data management resulting in a much faster and accurate decision making during the event of an accident, where time is vitally important. |