Initial Demonstration of Peregrine in VERA-CS

Technical Report · Wed Jul 31 00:00:00 EDT 2013

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/3013440· OSTI ID:3013440

Pawlowski, Roger ^[1]; Turner, John E. ^[2]; Palmtag, Scott ^[3]; Montgomery, Robert ^[4]

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1. Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
2. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL)
3. Core Physics, Inc., Cary, NC (United States)
4. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)

This milestone demonstrates integration of the MOOSE-based Peregrine fuel performance code into the CASL Virtual Environment for Reactor Analysis (VERA). Specifically targeted at VERA’s core simulator functionality (VERA-CS), the existing VERA subchannel-neutronics capability based on COBRA-TF (CTF) and Insilico was extended to use the axisymmetric 2D R-Z fuel rod modeling functionality of PEREGINE to replace the simple fuel rod model in CTF. This three-way coupling involved defining and implementing data interfaces, software infrastructure development to support the requirements of each code, and numerical methods to implement the coupled physics. The result is a new VERA capability known as Tiamat. Development of Tiamat required extensions to the VERA build system to support a “meta build” that uses the MOOSE/libMesh/Peregrine native build system, development of a new driver layer designed to support long-term CASL code integration requirements, and implementation of data transfers for the coupled applications using the DataTransferKit (DTK). Peregrine is now compiled and tested under the VERA continuous integration server. Tiamat, a new advanced simulation tool consisting of three coupled codes - CTF for multiphase subchannel flow, Insilico for neutronics and Peregrine for fuels performance - has been developed. Tiamat was used to simulate a 17x17 assembly model for Watts Bar Unit 1 Cycle 1, which exceeds the goals of this milestone.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 3013440
• Report Number(s): CASL-U--2013-0165-000
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING