(589f) Towards a Scalable, Strongly Coupled Core Simulator for Light Water Nuclear Reactors | AIChE

(589f) Towards a Scalable, Strongly Coupled Core Simulator for Light Water Nuclear Reactors

Authors 

Pawlowski, R. P. - Presenter, Sandia National Laboratories
Hooper, R. W., Sandia National Laboratories



This presentation will discuss progress on a large-scale simulation capability for light water nuclear reactors (LWRs).  Numerical simultation plays a critical role in the design, certification, and operation of LWRs.  The Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors is a U. S.  Department of Energy Innovation Hub that is developing a virtual reactor toolkit that will incorporate science-based models, state-of-the-art numerical methods, modern computational science and engineering practices, and uncertainty quantification (UQ) and validation against operating pressurized water reactors. It will couple state-of-the-art fuel performance, neutronics, thermal-hydraulics (T-H), and structural models with existing tools for systems and safety analysis and will be designed for implementation on both today's leadership-class computers and next-generation advanced architecture platforms.

This work will describe activities in developing scalable coupling tools for leadership class machines and their application to a particular 3-code coupled steady-state core simulator capability.  Neutronics, thermo-hydraulics and fuels performance codes being developed at the national laboaratories and in acadamia will be strongly coupled to provide a unique capability for industrial partners.  The physics discretizations, solution algorithms and convergence requirements will be shown.  We will discuss issues on code integration.  Initial scalability results of the individual codes, the coupled codes and the data transfer tools on leadership class platforms will be assessed.