Internal multi-scale multi-physics coupled system for high fidelity simulation of light water reactors

Abstract

In order to increase the accuracy and the degree of spatial and energy resolution of core design studies, coupled 3D neutronic (multi-group deterministic and continuous energy Monte-Carlo) and 3D thermal–hydraulic (CFD and subchannel) codes are being developed worldwide. At KIT, both deterministic and Monte-Carlo codes were coupled with subchannel codes and applied to predict the safety-related design parameters such as minimal critical power ratio (MCPR), maximal cladding and fuel temperature, departure from nuclide boiling ratio (DNBR). These coupling approaches were revised and considerably improved. Innovative method of internal on-the-fly thermal feedback interchange between the codes was implemented. It no longer relies on explicit material definitions and allows the modeling of temperature and density distributions based on the cell coordinates. In contrast to all existing coupled schemes, this method uses only standard MCNP geometry input and requires only proper definition of the geometrical dimensions. The initial material definition is arbitrary and is determined on-the-fly during the neutron transport by the thermal–hydraulic feedback. Another key issue addressed is the optimal application of parallel computing and the implementation of less time consuming tally estimators. Using multi-processor computer architectures and implementing collision density flux estimator, it is possible to reduce the Monte-Carlo running time and obtain converged results within reasonable time limit. The coupled calculation was accelerated further, by implementing stochastic approximation-based relaxation technique. Further, it is shown that large fuel assemblies can be analyzed on subchannel level.