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Argonne study evaluates impact of tropical cyclones on nuclear power plants
Scientists at Argonne National Laboratory have published a study evaluating the risk of flooding caused by tropical cyclones on coastal infrastructure, including nuclear power plants. The study, published in npj Natural Hazards, used advanced computer simulations of thousands of cyclone scenarios to make projections of potential damage of extreme storm tides in coastal areas—a threat that is expected to increase as a result of climate change. The researchers stated that their projections could be used to make siting decisions and design more resilient systems for nuclear power plants, hospitals, and other crucial infrastructure.
Egemen M. Aras, Arjun Earthperson, Mihai A. Diaconeasa
Nuclear Technology | Volume 212 | Number 2 | February 2026 | Pages 365-382
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2025.2511510
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) tools have been in use for over six decades, providing essential data to support risk-informed decision making. However, like all tools, PRA tools must keep pace with advances in computing technology. Here, we propose a systematic methodology to diagnose and enhance PRA tools. The diagnostics phase of this methodology consists of model generation, benchmarking, standard profiling, and deeper profiling. This phase results in representative PRA models, tool performance assessments, identification of code hot spots needing improvement, and a verification platform for comparing PRA tools. The diagnostics findings guide an improvement strategy that may involve optimization, parallel computing, or a combination of both. Demonstration results show speedups of up to five times for a single model, underscoring the significant impact of utilizing available resources for large PRA models. Although the demonstration focuses on the open-source quantification engine SCRAM-CPP, the methodology can be adapted to other PRA tools with minimal effort.