On the 20th and 21st of May 2025, the GO-VIKING Progress Meeting gathered consortium partners at NRG PALLAS’s office in the Netherlands. Partners reviewed achievements, discussed technical challenges, and planned the next steps in the project’s Flow-Induced Vibrations (FIV) research for current and next-generation nuclear power plants.
Day 1: Project Updates and Technical Presentations
The meeting opened with welcome by the coordinators Angel Papukchiev (GRS) and Kevin Zwijsen (NRG PALLAS) and Dr. Ronald Schram, Director Strategic Alliances at NRG PALLAS, followed by an overview on milestones and deliverables presented by Marianne Gros (LGI) and Gisela Niedermeyer (GRS).
Key discussion points included:
- Progress on education, training, and dissemination activities, including ongoing initiatives to share knowledge and build expertise.
- Advances in fast-running simulation methods, uncertainty quantification, and best practice guidelines for FIV analyses.
- Updates on fuel assembly FIV research, including benchmark simulations to refine predictions of flow-induced vibrations in reactor cores.
- Modeling developments of cantilever rod experiments, improving understanding of fluid-structure interactions.
- Operational status of the GOKSTAD experimental facility, including initial Time Resolved-PIV measurements for data validation.
- Updates on medium- and high-resolution simulations of the GOKSTAD and AMOVI experiments, enhancing predictive accuracy for reactor components affected by cross-flows.
Day 2: Simulation Advancements and Challenges
The second day began in the morning with two technical tours. Participants first visited the NRG PALLAS’s Hot Cell Laboratory, where they were introduced to its facilities, ongoing research activities, and key areas of innovation. Following this, they received an update on the design and construction progress of the new PALLAS reactor, and got the opportunity to view the site in person.
The afternoon session focused on deeper technical discussions, exploring simulation methods, modeling challenges, and strategies to improve predictive capabilities for FIV in nuclear systems. Highlights included:
- Progress in synthetic turbulence modeling and surrogate/Bayesian frameworks to accelerate simulations and quantify uncertainties.
- Updates on two-phase flow simulations, addressing FIV in such environment, being of particular relevance for the steam generators and boiling water reactors (BWR).
- Technical discussions on simulation challenges, best practices, and coordination of ongoing and upcoming activities, concluded by a PMB meeting to align project progress and future research directions.
Conclusion
The 6th GO-VIKING Progress Meeting highlighted strong progress in FIV research, combining experiments, analyses, and cross-partner collaboration. These advancements strengthen the predictive capabilities of the developed and validated numerical tools and contribute to the design and operation of safer, more reliable nuclear power plants.
