Strategy for Multi-Scale Single-Phase Flow Coupling

Technical Report · Sun Mar 31 00:00:00 EDT 2013

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1079137· OSTI ID:1079137

Hu, R. ^[1]; Thomas, J. W. ^[1]; Fanning, T. H. ^[1]

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1. Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)

For practical nuclear engineering applications, multi-scale analysis by adopting the combined use of different scale computational tools, such as system thermal-hydraulics and CFD codes is vital when three-dimensional effects play an important role in the evolution of a given transient or accident scenario. The feasibility of coupling low-fidelity systems codes with higher fidelity CFD tools was demonstrated previously under NEAMS by coupling SAS4A/SASSYS-1 with the commercial CFD code STAR-CD and STAR-CCM+. An “adhoc” coupling strategy was implemented. With the advances in numerical techniques and software engineering, such as the availability of PETSc and MOOSE, modernization of existing systems codes or the development of new system code becomes more compelling. MOOSE (Multi-physics Object Oriented Simulation Environment) is a parallel computational framework developed at INL for enabling the solution of complex, fully-implicit multiphysics systems. It has been utilized in many nuclear applications including the system analysis codes RELAP-7 and the SFR module under current NEAMS Reactor Product Line (RPL). This motivates the development of a coupled scheme for MOOSE-based system analysis code and the commercial CFD code STAR-CCM+. STAR-CCM+ is a generalpurpose commercial CFD code using finite volume formulation for the analysis of compressible and incompressible flows and heat transfer, and it is being included in the toolkit of the NEAMS RPL. This investigation is important for the integration between the MOOSE-based system codes and the high-fidelity advanced simulation capabilities developed under the NEAMS RPL.

• Research Organization: Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE), Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS)
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-06CH11357
• OSTI ID: 1079137
• Report Number(s): ANL/NE--13/4
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: ENGLISH