Home Page for John Mahaffy
jhm@psu.edu
OK This is a very old picture, but
it's nice to remember that I was young once.
I have retired from Penn State and am now a Consultant to the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Courses Taught before 2009
Research
My main research areas are :
- Computational fluid mechanics,
- Two-phase flow and heat transfer,
- Nuclear reactor safety analysis,
- Systems Simulation,
- Parallel computational techniques.
The
largest amount of my time since 1997 has been spent developing the U.S.
Nuclear
Regulatory Commission’s TRAC/RELAP Advanced Computational Engine
(TRACE). This program performs computational simulations of
transients in nuclear power plant or any other system involving
two-phase flow and heat transfer. Specific research tasks under
this project include:
- Advanced Numerical Methods (Higher Order and Implicit);
- Multi-field modeling of droplets (dynamic flow regime);
- Improved modeling of two-phase choked flow;
- Improved code architecture;
- Interface for distributed parallel computing;
- Code verification and validation.
This software has been applied by the USNRC in licensing decisions on
new nuclear reactor designs (AP1000, ESBWR), and on existing plants.
I have also done some work for the
Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Nuclear
Energy Agency (NEA). This work has focused on insuring reliable
CFD
analysis for Nuclear Reactor Safety (NRS) applications.
Activities include:
- Best Practice Guidelines for NRS single phase applications;
- Development of an NRS CFD assessment matrix;
- Recommendations on development needs for full two-phase CFD.