An assessment of coupling algorithms for nuclear reactor core physics simulations

Journal Article · Fri Apr 15 04:00:00 EDT 2016 · Journal of Computational Physics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/J.JCP.2016.02.012· OSTI ID:22570242

Hamilton, Steven ^[1]; Berrill, Mark ^[1]; Clarno, Kevin ^[1]; Pawlowski, Roger ^[2]; Toth, Alex ^[3]; Evans, Thomas ^[1]; Philip, Bobby ^[1]

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1. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 1 Bethel Valley Rd., Oak Ridge, TN 37831 (United States)
2. Sandia National Laboratories, MS 0316, P.O. Box 5800, Albuquerque, NM 87185 (United States)
3. North Carolina State University, Department of Mathematics, Box 8205, Raleigh, NC 27695 (United States)

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.

• OSTI ID: 22570242
• Journal Information: Journal of Computational Physics, Journal Name: Journal of Computational Physics Vol. 311; ISSN 0021-9991; ISSN JCTPAH
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ALGORITHMS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
CRITICALITY
EIGENVALUES
FUEL ASSEMBLIES
NEUTRON TRANSPORT
NEUTRON TRANSPORT THEORY
NUCLEAR FUELS
REACTOR CORES
REACTORS
THERMAL CONDUCTION