Simulation of the dispersion of nuclear contamination using an adaptive Eulerian grid model

Abstract

Application of an Eulerian model using layered adaptive unstructured grids coupled to a meso-scale meteorological model is presented for modelling the dispersion of nuclear contamination following the accidental release from a single but strong source to the atmosphere. The model automatically places a finer resolution grid, adaptively in time, in regions were high spatial numerical error is expected. The high-resolution grid region follows the movement of the contaminated air over time. Using this method, grid resolutions of the order of 6 km can be achieved in a computationally effective way. The concept is illustrated by the simulation of hypothetical nuclear accidents at the Paks NPP, in Central Hungary. The paper demonstrates that the adaptive model can achieve accuracy comparable to that of a high-resolution Eulerian model using significantly less grid points and computer simulation time.