High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactors Multiphysics Simulation Demonstration and Code Validation
- Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
This study presents a comprehensive benchmarking and verification effort of several thermal-hydraulic and multiphysics capabilities for high-temperature gas-cooled reactor applications. The first part of this effort focuses on the running-in verification of Griffin’s multiphysics capabilities, specifically for simulating the evolution of pebble-bed reactor cores from startup to equilibrium. Since Fiscal Year 2024, improvements and enhancements have been implemented in Griffin, including simplifying the process to specify streamlines and developing the online cross-section generation capability. In the absence of validation data, code-to-code comparisons are conducted with kugelpy, showing good agreement for integral quantities like k-eff predictions and predictions for maximum power density. However, accuracy issues are noted for more detailed quantities like the spatial distribution of fission rate densities which will require further work to address. The second part of this report presents an improved System Analysis Module (SAM) core channel model where the effects of cross flow are considered during the pressurized loss of forced cooling transient, resulting in an improved agreement of the predicted pebble temperature with respect to the predictions from the SAM 2D porous media model. Additionally, the wall channeling effect due to variable porosity at the near wall region of the core is also investigated. Furthermore, to demonstrate Griffin’s online cross-section generation capability, a Multiphysics simulation is performed by coupling Griffin to the SAM core channel model. In the third part of the report, as a part of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development/Nuclear Energy Agency (OECD/NEA) thermal-hydraulic code validation benchmark activity for a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor, the High Temperature Test Facility (HTTF) is investigated first using the NekRS computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code to study the flow mixing phenomenon in the lower plenum of the facility. Then, code-to-code and code-to-data comparisons are performed for Test PG27, which is a pressurized conduction cooldown (PCC) test, using five different codes by six organizations from five countries. The different simulations show good agreements in terms of the general trend but there are differences in some results such as the peak temperatures of different regions and heat removal rate.
- 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:
- 2997226
- Report Number(s):
- ANL-NSE--25-64; 199542
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Pebble-Bed Reactors Running In And Transient Modeling Capabilities Demonstration
Multi-Physics System-level Simulations of a Generic Pebble Bed High-Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor with Coupled SAM/Griffin Model
Improvement and Verification of Online Cross Section Generation Capability of Griffin for TRISO-fueled Reactors
Technical Report
·
Fri Sep 13 00:00:00 EDT 2024
·
OSTI ID:2474862
Multi-Physics System-level Simulations of a Generic Pebble Bed High-Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor with Coupled SAM/Griffin Model
Technical Report
·
Sat Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 2023
·
OSTI ID:1994383
Improvement and Verification of Online Cross Section Generation Capability of Griffin for TRISO-fueled Reactors
Technical Report
·
Mon Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 2025
·
OSTI ID:2998013