A new moving-mesh Finite Volume Method for the efficient solution of two-dimensional neutron diffusion equation using gradient variations of reactor power

Abstract

Abstract A new moving-mesh Finite Volume Method (FVM) for the efficient solution of the two-dimensional neutron diffusion equation is introduced. Many other moving-mesh methods developed to solve the neutron diffusion problems use a relatively large number of sophisticated mathematical equations, and so suffer from a significant complexity of mathematical calculations. In this study, the proposed method is formulated based on simple mathematical algebraic equations that enable an efficient mesh movement and CV deformation for using in practical nuclear reactor applications. Accordingly, a computational framework relying on a new moving-mesh FVM is introduced to efficiently distribute the meshes and deform the CVs in regions with high gradient variations of reactor power. These regions of interest are very important in the neutronic assessment of the nuclear reactors and accordingly, a higher accuracy of the power densities is required to be obtained. The accuracy, execution time and finally visual comparison of the proposed method comprehensively investigated and discussed for three different benchmark problems. The results all indicated a higher accuracy of the proposed method in comparison with the conventional fixed-mesh FVM.