Thermal hydraulics
Simulation of heat transfer, flow behavior, and coupled transport phenomena in nuclear and high-energy systems.
Thermal Hydraulics / Multiphysics CFD
Modeling energy systems where fluids, heat, and nuclear physics meet.
Dr. Ibrahim A. Jarrah is an associate R&D staff member at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, focused on advanced modeling and simulation for fusion, fission, and energy systems.
Profile
Computational research for nuclear and high-energy systems.
Dr. Jarrah works in thermal hydraulics within ORNL's Multiphysics CFD Applications group. His research centers on high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics, high-order numerical methods, parallel scientific code development, and nuclear system simulations for complex energy applications.
Before joining ORNL, he was a postdoctoral appointee in the Multiphysics Computation Section at Argonne National Laboratory. His technical background includes CFD code development, coarse-mesh and high-order methods, and Monte Carlo simulations for radiation transport and shielding.
Research
Themes across simulation, numerical methods, and reactor systems.
Multiphysics CFD
High-fidelity CFD workflows for fusion, fission, gas turbine, and broader energy applications.
Numerical methods
High-order, coarse-mesh, and nodal integral methods for complex geometries and transport equations.
Nuclear systems
Monte Carlo simulation, radiation transport, shielding, criticality, and spent fuel analysis.
Technical Toolkit
- NEK5000
- NekRS
- PETSc
- MPI / OpenMP
- CUDA / OCCA
- STAR-CCM+
- OpenFOAM
- MCNP
- Cubit
- ParaView
Project Background
Applied simulation contexts from the CV
- Hydrogen combustion and low-carbon fuel studies for industrial burners, rail engines, and internal combustion applications.
- Wall-resolved and multi-fidelity CFD for gas turbine film cooling under manufacturing uncertainty.
- High-order lattice Boltzmann and PRATHAM development for exascale thermal-fluid applications.
- Spent fuel cask misload risk analysis and nuclear-system Monte Carlo modeling.
Publications
Selected research outputs
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A hybrid parallel framework to solve convection-diffusion equation using finite element method with variational multiscale stabilization
Distributed-memory numerical framework for convection-diffusion problems.
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Development of an integrated modeling framework for fusion reactor design and assessment
FY25 theory and simulation performance target report for fusion reactor modeling.
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Nodal integral method for two-dimensional, time-dependent incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in curvilinear coordinates
Numerical method development for time-dependent incompressible flow problems.
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Wall-resolved LES study of shaped-hole film cooling flow for varying in-hole surface roughness
High-fidelity CFD study of surface roughness effects in film cooling flow.
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A comparison of two approaches to extend nodal integral methods to arbitrary geometries
Extension of nodal integral methods to arbitrary geometries for convection-diffusion analysis.
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Nodal integral methods in general 2D curvilinear coordinates applied to convection-diffusion equations
Curvilinear-coordinate nodal integral methods for quadrilateral-element domains.
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Nodal integral method for 3D time-dependent anisotropic convection-diffusion equation
Time-dependent anisotropic transport modeling using nodal integral methods.
Recognition
Awards, training, and academic foundation.
Awards
- HPCwire Readers' Choice for Best Use of HPC in Industry for HPC and CFD modeling.
- Argonne Impact Award for Innovation for hydrogen mixing model development.
- American Nuclear Society Mark Mills Award, 2022.
- Best paper presentation award at CHT-21.
- Best Poster Award, ANS Student Poster Session, 2020.
Education
- 2019-2022 Ph.D., Nuclear Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- 2016-2019 M.Sc., Nuclear Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- 2010-2015 B.Sc., Nuclear Engineering, Jordan University of Science and Technology
Contact
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