High-fidelity coupled Monte Carlo neutron transport and thermal-hydraulic simulations using Serpent 2/SUBCHANFLOW

Miriam Däubler; Aleksandar Ivanov; Bart Sjenitzer; Victor Hugo Sánchez Espinoza; Robert Stieglitz; Rafael Macian-Juan

doi:10.1016/j.anucene.2015.03.040

High-fidelity coupled Monte Carlo neutron transport and thermal-hydraulic simulations using Serpent 2/SUBCHANFLOW

Miriam Däubler, Aleksandar Ivanov, Bart Sjenitzer, Victor Hugo Sánchez Espinoza, Robert Stieglitz, Rafael Macian-Juan

Research output › peer-review

58 Scopus citations

Abstract

Abstract Efforts to develop high-fidelity, in silico or ab initio, high performance multi-physics tools are undertaken by many groups due to the availability of relatively cheap, large-scale parallel computers. To this end, an internal coupling between the Monte Carlo reactor physics code Serpent 2 and the sub-channel code SUBCHANFLOW has been developed. The coupled code system is intended to serve as reference for deterministic reactor dynamics code developments in the future. It exploits the fact that Serpent was conceived as a lattice code for such deterministic tools. The coupling utilizes Serpent's recently introduced universal multi-physics interface. With the multi-physics interface enabled, Serpent treats temperature dependence of nuclear data using the target motion sampling method. Since the target motion sampling methodology cannot be applied to thermal bound-atom scattering or unresolved resonances, a stochastic mixing fall back algorithm to enable the simulation of thermal reactors has been implemented. The developed coupled code is verified by code-to-code comparison with an external coupling of the Monte Carlo tool TRIPOLI4 and SUBCHANFLOW as well as the internally coupled code MCNP5/SUBCHANFLOW. Simulation results of all code systems were found to be in good agreement. Thereafter, the second exercise of the OECD/NEA and U.S. NRC PWR MOX/UO₂ core transient benchmark is studied to demonstrate that Serpent 2/SUBCHANFLOW may be employed to analyze realistic, industry-like cases such as a full PWR core under hot full power conditions in a reasonable amount of time. The obtained simulation results are compared to known benchmark solutions and the numerical performance of Serpent 2/SUBCHANFLOW is analyzed to assess the feasibility of routine application. While Serpent 2/SUBCHANFLOW's performance in terms of physics and numerical efficiency is found to be generally satisfactory, options to further improve the coupled tool concerning both aspects are discussed. Afterwards, first efforts to validate Serpent 2/SUBCHANFLOW using the hot zero power state of the cycle 1 of the BEAVRS benchmark are presented.

Original language	English
Article number	4495
Pages (from-to)	352-375
Number of pages	24
Journal	Annals of nuclear energy
Volume	83
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anucene.2015.03.040
State	Published - 1 Sep 2015

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Nuclear Energy and Engineering

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10.1016/j.anucene.2015.03.040

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306454915001747?pes=vorLicense: Unspecified

Cite this

@article{40f1bf430dc44a3aa9ad5c89134a44d8,

title = "High-fidelity coupled Monte Carlo neutron transport and thermal-hydraulic simulations using Serpent 2/SUBCHANFLOW",

abstract = "Abstract Efforts to develop high-fidelity, in silico or ab initio, high performance multi-physics tools are undertaken by many groups due to the availability of relatively cheap, large-scale parallel computers. To this end, an internal coupling between the Monte Carlo reactor physics code Serpent 2 and the sub-channel code SUBCHANFLOW has been developed. The coupled code system is intended to serve as reference for deterministic reactor dynamics code developments in the future. It exploits the fact that Serpent was conceived as a lattice code for such deterministic tools. The coupling utilizes Serpent's recently introduced universal multi-physics interface. With the multi-physics interface enabled, Serpent treats temperature dependence of nuclear data using the target motion sampling method. Since the target motion sampling methodology cannot be applied to thermal bound-atom scattering or unresolved resonances, a stochastic mixing fall back algorithm to enable the simulation of thermal reactors has been implemented. The developed coupled code is verified by code-to-code comparison with an external coupling of the Monte Carlo tool TRIPOLI4 and SUBCHANFLOW as well as the internally coupled code MCNP5/SUBCHANFLOW. Simulation results of all code systems were found to be in good agreement. Thereafter, the second exercise of the OECD/NEA and U.S. NRC PWR MOX/UO2 core transient benchmark is studied to demonstrate that Serpent 2/SUBCHANFLOW may be employed to analyze realistic, industry-like cases such as a full PWR core under hot full power conditions in a reasonable amount of time. The obtained simulation results are compared to known benchmark solutions and the numerical performance of Serpent 2/SUBCHANFLOW is analyzed to assess the feasibility of routine application. While Serpent 2/SUBCHANFLOW's performance in terms of physics and numerical efficiency is found to be generally satisfactory, options to further improve the coupled tool concerning both aspects are discussed. Afterwards, first efforts to validate Serpent 2/SUBCHANFLOW using the hot zero power state of the cycle 1 of the BEAVRS benchmark are presented.",

keywords = "High-fidelity, Internal coupling, Multi-physics, Serpent, SUBCHANFLOW",

author = "Miriam D{\"a}ubler and Aleksandar Ivanov and Bart Sjenitzer and {S{\'a}nchez Espinoza}, {Victor Hugo} and Robert Stieglitz and Rafael Macian-Juan",

note = "Funding Information: This work has been co-funded by the European Commission and performed as part of the seventh EURATOM Framework Programme for nuclear research and training activities under HPMC-295971. Funding Information: The authors wish to acknowledge the support of the Nuclear Safety Program for the research topic “multi-physics methods for LWR” and the Steinbuch Centre for Computing (SCC) of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Additionally, the authors thank VTT Technical Research Center of Finland for their assistance concerning Serpent and for providing us with their BEAVRS core model. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2015 Elsevier Ltd.",

year = "2015",

month = sep,

day = "1",

doi = "10.1016/j.anucene.2015.03.040",

language = "English",

volume = "83",

pages = "352--375",

journal = "Annals of nuclear energy",

issn = "0306-4549",

publisher = "Elsevier Ltd",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - High-fidelity coupled Monte Carlo neutron transport and thermal-hydraulic simulations using Serpent 2/SUBCHANFLOW

AU - Däubler, Miriam

AU - Ivanov, Aleksandar

AU - Sjenitzer, Bart

AU - Sánchez Espinoza, Victor Hugo

AU - Stieglitz, Robert

AU - Macian-Juan, Rafael

N1 - Funding Information: This work has been co-funded by the European Commission and performed as part of the seventh EURATOM Framework Programme for nuclear research and training activities under HPMC-295971. Funding Information: The authors wish to acknowledge the support of the Nuclear Safety Program for the research topic “multi-physics methods for LWR” and the Steinbuch Centre for Computing (SCC) of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Additionally, the authors thank VTT Technical Research Center of Finland for their assistance concerning Serpent and for providing us with their BEAVRS core model. Publisher Copyright: © 2015 Elsevier Ltd.

PY - 2015/9/1

Y1 - 2015/9/1

N2 - Abstract Efforts to develop high-fidelity, in silico or ab initio, high performance multi-physics tools are undertaken by many groups due to the availability of relatively cheap, large-scale parallel computers. To this end, an internal coupling between the Monte Carlo reactor physics code Serpent 2 and the sub-channel code SUBCHANFLOW has been developed. The coupled code system is intended to serve as reference for deterministic reactor dynamics code developments in the future. It exploits the fact that Serpent was conceived as a lattice code for such deterministic tools. The coupling utilizes Serpent's recently introduced universal multi-physics interface. With the multi-physics interface enabled, Serpent treats temperature dependence of nuclear data using the target motion sampling method. Since the target motion sampling methodology cannot be applied to thermal bound-atom scattering or unresolved resonances, a stochastic mixing fall back algorithm to enable the simulation of thermal reactors has been implemented. The developed coupled code is verified by code-to-code comparison with an external coupling of the Monte Carlo tool TRIPOLI4 and SUBCHANFLOW as well as the internally coupled code MCNP5/SUBCHANFLOW. Simulation results of all code systems were found to be in good agreement. Thereafter, the second exercise of the OECD/NEA and U.S. NRC PWR MOX/UO2 core transient benchmark is studied to demonstrate that Serpent 2/SUBCHANFLOW may be employed to analyze realistic, industry-like cases such as a full PWR core under hot full power conditions in a reasonable amount of time. The obtained simulation results are compared to known benchmark solutions and the numerical performance of Serpent 2/SUBCHANFLOW is analyzed to assess the feasibility of routine application. While Serpent 2/SUBCHANFLOW's performance in terms of physics and numerical efficiency is found to be generally satisfactory, options to further improve the coupled tool concerning both aspects are discussed. Afterwards, first efforts to validate Serpent 2/SUBCHANFLOW using the hot zero power state of the cycle 1 of the BEAVRS benchmark are presented.

AB - Abstract Efforts to develop high-fidelity, in silico or ab initio, high performance multi-physics tools are undertaken by many groups due to the availability of relatively cheap, large-scale parallel computers. To this end, an internal coupling between the Monte Carlo reactor physics code Serpent 2 and the sub-channel code SUBCHANFLOW has been developed. The coupled code system is intended to serve as reference for deterministic reactor dynamics code developments in the future. It exploits the fact that Serpent was conceived as a lattice code for such deterministic tools. The coupling utilizes Serpent's recently introduced universal multi-physics interface. With the multi-physics interface enabled, Serpent treats temperature dependence of nuclear data using the target motion sampling method. Since the target motion sampling methodology cannot be applied to thermal bound-atom scattering or unresolved resonances, a stochastic mixing fall back algorithm to enable the simulation of thermal reactors has been implemented. The developed coupled code is verified by code-to-code comparison with an external coupling of the Monte Carlo tool TRIPOLI4 and SUBCHANFLOW as well as the internally coupled code MCNP5/SUBCHANFLOW. Simulation results of all code systems were found to be in good agreement. Thereafter, the second exercise of the OECD/NEA and U.S. NRC PWR MOX/UO2 core transient benchmark is studied to demonstrate that Serpent 2/SUBCHANFLOW may be employed to analyze realistic, industry-like cases such as a full PWR core under hot full power conditions in a reasonable amount of time. The obtained simulation results are compared to known benchmark solutions and the numerical performance of Serpent 2/SUBCHANFLOW is analyzed to assess the feasibility of routine application. While Serpent 2/SUBCHANFLOW's performance in terms of physics and numerical efficiency is found to be generally satisfactory, options to further improve the coupled tool concerning both aspects are discussed. Afterwards, first efforts to validate Serpent 2/SUBCHANFLOW using the hot zero power state of the cycle 1 of the BEAVRS benchmark are presented.

KW - High-fidelity

KW - Internal coupling

KW - Multi-physics

KW - Serpent

KW - SUBCHANFLOW

U2 - 10.1016/j.anucene.2015.03.040

DO - 10.1016/j.anucene.2015.03.040

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:84937760622

SN - 0306-4549

VL - 83

SP - 352

EP - 375

JO - Annals of nuclear energy

JF - Annals of nuclear energy

M1 - 4495

ER -