An approach for coupled-code multiphysics core simulations from a common input. (October 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Schmidt, Rodney; Belcourt, Kenneth; Hooper, Russell; Pawlowski, Roger; Clarno, Kevin; Simunovic, Srdjan; Slattery, Stuart; Turner, John; Palmtag, Scott
• Is Part Of: Annals of nuclear energy. Volume 84(2015:Oct.)
• Page Start: 140
• Page End: 152
• Publication Date: 2015-10
• Subjects: ASCII American Standard Code for Information Interchange -- BWR boiling water reactor -- CASL Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors -- CFD computational fluid dynamics -- CRUD corrosion related unidentified deposit, a term used to describe radioactive scaling that builds up on internal reactor components -- CTF COBRA-TF, coolant-boiling in rod arrays – two fluids -- GUI graphical user interface -- JFNK Jacobian-free Newton–Krylov nonlinear solver -- ORNL Oak Ridge National Laboratory -- PWR pressurized water reactor -- T/H thermal–hydraulic -- TPLs third-party libraries, e.g. BLAS -- TriBITS tribal build, integrate, and test system -- VERAIn VERA common input file -- VERA Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications -- VERA-CS Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications – Core Simulator -- VUQ verification and uncertainty quantification -- XML extensible markup language -- XSLT extensible style sheet language transformation; Couple-code -- Multiphysics -- Reactor core simulations; Nuclear energy -- Periodicals; Nuclear engineering -- Periodicals; 621.4805
• DOI: 10.1016/j.anucene.2014.11.015
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0306-4549

Abstract

Highlights: We describe an approach for coupled-code multiphysics reactor core simulations. The approach can enable tight coupling of distinct physics codes with a common input. Multi-code multiphysics coupling and parallel data transfer issues are explained. The common input approach and how the information is processed is described. Capabilities are demonstrated on an eigenvalue and power distribution calculation. Abstract: This paper describes an approach for coupled-code multiphysics reactor core simulations that is being developed by the Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications (VERA) project in the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light-Water Reactors (CASL). In this approach a user creates a single problem description, called the "VERAIn" common input file, to define and setup the desired coupled-code reactor core simulation. A preprocessing step accepts the VERAIn file and generates a set of fully consistent input files for the different physics codes being coupled. The problem is then solved using a single-executable coupled-code simulation tool applicable to the problem, which is built using VERA infrastructure software tools and the set of physics codes required for the problem of interest. The approach is demonstrated by performing an eigenvalue and power distribution calculation of a typical three-dimensional 17 × 17 assembly with thermal–hydraulic and fuel temperature feedback. All neutronics aspects of the problem (cross-section calculation, neutron transport, power release) are solved using the Insilico code suite and are fully coupled to a thermal–hydraulic analysis calculated by the Cobra-TF (CTF) code. The single-executable coupled-code (Insilico-CTF) simulation tool is created using several VERA tools, including LIME (Lightweight Integrating Multiphysics Environment for coupling codes), DTK (Data Transfer Kit), Trilinos, and TriBITS. Parallel calculations are performed on the Titan supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory using 1156 cores, and a synopsis of the solution results and code performance is presented. Ongoing development of this approach is also briefly described.