Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Conformal mapping and hexagonal nodal methods. 1: Mathematical foundation

Journal Article · · Nuclear Science and Engineering
OSTI ID:131666
 [1];  [2]
  1. Westinghouse Electric Corp., Pittsburgh, PA (United States). Commercial Nuclear Fuel Div.
  2. Univ. of Missouri, Rolla, MO (United States). Dept. of Nuclear Engineering

The conventional transverse integration method of deriving nodal diffusion equations does not satisfactorily apply to hexagonal nodes. The transversely integrated nodal diffusion equation contains nonphysical singular terms, and the features that appear in the nodal equations for rectangular nodes cannot be retained for hexagonal ones. A method is presented that conformally maps a hexagonal node to a rectangular node before the transverse integration is applied so that the resulting nodal equations are formally analogous to the ones for rectangular nodes without the appearance of additional singular terms. Utilizing the invariance of the Laplacian diffusion operator under conformal mappings, it is shown that the diffusion equation for a homogeneous hexagonal node can be transformed to the diffusion equation for an inhomogeneous rectangular node. The inhomogeneity comes in through a smoothly varying mapping scale function, which depends only on the geometry. The steps of conformal mapping from a hexagonal node to a rectangular node are given, and the mapping scale function is derived, evaluated, and applied to nodal equation derivations.

OSTI ID:
131666
Journal Information:
Nuclear Science and Engineering, Journal Name: Nuclear Science and Engineering Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 121; ISSN NSENAO; ISSN 0029-5639
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

Similar Records

A nodal expansion method using conformal mapping for hexagonal geometry
Conference · Thu Dec 31 23:00:00 EST 1992 · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (United States) · OSTI ID:6959987

A new diffusion nodal method based on analytic basis function expansion
Conference · Thu Dec 31 23:00:00 EST 1992 · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (United States) · OSTI ID:6959597

The AFEN method for hexagonal nodal calculation and reconstruction
Journal Article · Fri Dec 30 23:00:00 EST 1994 · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society · OSTI ID:89276