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An assessment of coupling algorithms for nuclear reactor core physics simulations

2016; Elsevier BV; Volume: 311; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.jcp.2016.02.012

1090-2716

Steven Hamilton, M. Berrill, Kevin Clarno, Roger P. Pawlowski, Alex Toth, C. T. Kelley, Thomas Evans, Bobby Philip,

Matrix Theory and Algorithms

This paper evaluates the performance of multiphysics coupling algorithms applied to a light water nuclear reactor core simulation. The simulation couples the k-eigenvalue form of the neutron transport equation with heat conduction and subchannel flow equations. We compare Picard iteration (block Gauss–Seidel) to Anderson acceleration and multiple variants of preconditioned Jacobian-free Newton–Krylov (JFNK). The performance of the methods are evaluated over a range of energy group structures and core power levels. A novel physics-based approximation to a Jacobian-vector product has been developed to mitigate the impact of expensive on-line cross section processing steps. Numerical simulations demonstrating the efficiency of JFNK and Anderson acceleration relative to standard Picard iteration are performed on a 3D model of a nuclear fuel assembly. Both criticality (k-eigenvalue) and critical boron search problems are considered.