An assessment of coupling algorithms for nuclear reactor core physics simulations

This paper evaluates the performance of multiphysics coupling algorithms applied to a light water nuclear reactor core simulation. The simulation couples the k-eigenvalue form of the neutron transport equation with heat conduction and subchannel flow equations. We compare Picard iteration (block Gau...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of computational physics 2016-04, Vol.311
Main Authors: Hamilton, Steven, Berrill, Mark, Clarno, Kevin, Pawlowski, Roger, Toth, Alex, Kelley, C.T., Evans, Thomas, Philip, Bobby
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
ALGORITHMS
CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
CRITICALITY
EIGENVALUES
FUEL ASSEMBLIES
NEUTRON TRANSPORT
NEUTRON TRANSPORT THEORY
NUCLEAR FUELS
REACTOR CORES
REACTORS
THERMAL CONDUCTION
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Summary:This paper evaluates the performance of multiphysics coupling algorithms applied to a light water nuclear reactor core simulation. The simulation couples the k-eigenvalue form of the neutron transport equation with heat conduction and subchannel flow equations. We compare Picard iteration (block Gauss–Seidel) to Anderson acceleration and multiple variants of preconditioned Jacobian-free Newton–Krylov (JFNK). The performance of the methods are evaluated over a range of energy group structures and core power levels. A novel physics-based approximation to a Jacobian-vector product has been developed to mitigate the impact of expensive on-line cross section processing steps. Numerical simulations demonstrating the efficiency of JFNK and Anderson acceleration relative to standard Picard iteration are performed on a 3D model of a nuclear fuel assembly. Both criticality (k-eigenvalue) and critical boron search problems are considered.
ISSN:0021-9991
1090-2716