Welcome to the CARPL Home Page

Computation Applied Reactor Physics Laboratory (CARPL) is centralized on developing accurate and efficient computational methods on fission reactor and other nuclear applications. The team also employs various state-of-the-art computer codes to address contingent and challenging problems in nuclear reactor applications by performing multi-scale multi-physics integrated computational modeling and simulations.

Lab Capabilities: CARPL leads substantial computational efforts in nuclear reactor design and analysis. For reactor physics (neutronics) analysis, the team has access to Monte Carlo codes such as MCNP, Serpent, OpenMC, SCALE modules, as well as deterministic codes such as CASMO/CMSLink/SIMULATE, PARCS, PARTISN, Rattlesnake/MAMMOTH and MC²-3/DIF3D/DIF3D-K/REBUS-3.  For thermal-hydraulics and reactor safety analysis, the team has access to system level codes such as RELAP5-3D, PLTEMP4.2/PARET7.5, SAS (SAS4A/SASSYS-1), SAM,  RETRAN,  as well as CFD codes such as OpenFOAM and FLUENT.

Lab Director and Contact:

Professional Experience

• July 2023 ~ Present
  Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA
• Aug. 2017 ~ June 2023
  Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA
• May 2014 ~ Aug. 2017
  Nuclear Engineer, NIST Center for Neutron Research, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD
  Research Associate, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD
• Jan. 2013 ~ April 2014
  Post-doctoral Research Associate, School of Nuclear Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN
• Oct. 2010 ~ Dec. 2012
  Post-doctoral Research Associate, Department of Nuclear Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC

Professional Service

• Jan. 2025 ~ Present
  Associate Editor, Annals of Nuclear Energy, Elsevier
• Jan. 2020 ~ Dec. 2024
  Member, Editorial Advisory Board, Annals of Nuclear Energy, Elsevier
• June 2019 ~ Present
  Member, Editorial Advisory Board, Nuclear Technology, American Nuclear Society, Taylor & Francis
• June 2024 ~ Present
  Chair, Technical Program Committee, Reactor Physics Division, American Nuclear Society
• June 2019 ~ June 2024
  Member, Technical Program Committee, Reactor Physics Division, American Nuclear Society
• June 2022 ~ Present
  Member, Executive Committee, Reactor Physics Division, American Nuclear Society
• June 2021 ~ Present
  Member, Executive Committee, Mathematics & Computation Division (MCD), American Nuclear Society
• June 2018 ~ Present
  Member, Publication Steering Committee, American Nuclear Society

Education

• Ph.D., Nuclear Engineering, Department of Nuclear Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX
  Dissertation: Advances in Inverse Transport Methods and Applications to Neutron Tomography, and defense presentation.
• M.E., Nuclear Engineering, Department of Nuclear Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX
• M.S.E., Engineering Physics, Department of Engineering Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
• B.S., Engineering Physics, Department of Engineering Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China