A super-real-time three-dimension computing method of digital twins in space nuclear power

Abstract

Digital twins (DTs) have attracted widespread attention in academia and industry in recent years. It can accurately reflect the physical world in real-time, enabling online monitoring, control, and prediction operations. Their foundation is super-real-time computing and high data representation capabilities. However, current DTs do not achieve 3D super-real-time computing. This study proposes a novel 3D computational method for solving fluid–solid coupling problems in a super-real-time. The method is based on a mixed solution framework that combines traditional numerical methods with deep learning operators. Specifically, the method employs multi-core CPU parallel acceleration to solve the solid equations while leveraging the computing power of GPU to solve the fluid equations. The fluid–solid coupling is achieved through information exchange between the GPU and the multi-core CPU. In addition, the proposed method introduces a new deep learning operator framework based on the DeepONET. The framework is accompanied by a database structure that facilitates model training and validation and a loss function that guides the training. The space nuclear reactor, an improved TOPAZ-II system, was selected to demonstrate its feasibility. Four non-training transient conditions were simulated to test the generalization performance. The results show that the proposed method achieves an average error between the calculated results and reference values below 2.5%, with the average error of thermodynamic parameters below 1.5%. The average deviation between system parameter peak values during the transient process and the reference value was less than 5 s. The result meets the acceptable error level and satisfies the super-real-time requirements with a time acceleration ratio of approximately 1.17, which is 60 times faster than traditional numerical methods. The results demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method for DT.