3D whole-core neutron transport simulation using 2D/1D method via multi-level generalized equivalence theory based CMFD acceleration

Abstract

A new 2D/1D method with multi-level generalized equivalence theory (GET) based coarse mesh finite difference (CMFD) acceleration was proposed for the whole core transport calculation in this paper. Fouressential features of this new 2D/1D methods are as follows: (1) Two new defined factors, nodal discontinuity factor (NDF) and modified diffusion coefficient factor (MDF), were defined in this new GET based CMFD method to achieve equivalence between CMFD and the transport solutions and especially insure that only positive coupling coefficients would occur in the CMFD linear system; (2) For accelerating the convergence of the CMFD, a multi-level acceleration scheme was implemented and an innovative self-developed RSILU preconditioned GMRES solver was developed to solve the CMFD linear system; (3) Within the new CMFD framework, 2D MOC and 1D two-node nodal expansion solvers were developed for 3D whole core transport calculation and the sub-plane technique was applied to minimize the nodal error successfully while maintain a reasonable computing time; (4) For implementation, transverse leakage splitting technique was applied to avoid the total source to become negative, and domain decomposition method based on MPI was implemented to take advantages of high performance clusters. The accuracy of this 2D/1D method via multi-level GET based CMFD and the effectiveness and acceleration performance of the multi-level CMFD method were examined for the well-known C5G7 benchmarks problems. The numerical results demonstrate that superior accuracy is achievable and the multi-level acceleration schemeis efficient and enhances the converge speed of both the GET based CMFD acceleration and the MOC calculation.