CTF: A modernized, production-level, thermal hydraulic solver for the solution of industry-relevant challenge problems in pressurized water reactors

Robert Salko; Aaron Wysocki; Taylor Blyth; Aysenur Toptan; Jianwei Hu; Vineet Kumar; Chris Dances; William Dawn; Yixing Sung; Vefa Kucukboyaci; William Gurecky; Travis Lange; Xingang Zhao; Jordan Rader; Caleb Jernigan; Benjamin Collins; Maria Avramova; Jeffrey Magedanz; Scott Palmtag; Kevin Clarno; Dave Kropaczek; Belgacem Hizoum; Andrew Godfrey; Dave Pointer; John Turner; Ramanan Sankaran; Rod Schmidt; Russell Hooper; Roscoe Bartlett; Mark Baird; Martin Pilch

doi:10.1016/j.nucengdes.2022.111927

CTF: A modernized, production-level, thermal hydraulic solver for the solution of industry-relevant challenge problems in pressurized water reactors

Robert Salko, Aaron Wysocki, Taylor Blyth, Aysenur Toptan, Jianwei Hu, Vineet Kumar, Chris Dances, William Dawn, Yixing Sung, Vefa Kucukboyaci, William Gurecky, Travis Lange, Xingang Zhao, Jordan Rader, Caleb Jernigan, Benjamin Collins, Maria Avramova, Jeffrey Magedanz, Scott Palmtag, Kevin ClarnoDave Kropaczek, Belgacem Hizoum, Andrew Godfrey, Dave Pointer, John Turner, Ramanan Sankaran, Rod Schmidt, Russell Hooper, Roscoe Bartlett, Mark Baird, Martin Pilch

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

18 Scopus citations

Abstract

CTF is a thermal hydraulic (T/H) subchannel tool that has been extensively developed over the past ten years as part of the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL) program. The code was selected early in the CASL program for support of high-impact challenge problems that were found to be relevant to the nuclear industry and its currently operating fleet of pressurized water reactors (PWRs), including issues such as departure from nucleate boiling (DNB), crud-induced power shifts (CIPSs), and reactivity-insertion accidents (RIAs). By incorporating CTF into the multiphysics Virtual Environment for Reactor Application (VERA) core simulator software developed by CASL, CTF has become the primary means of providing fluid and fuel thermal feedback, as well as T/H figure-of-merits (FOMs) in large-scale reactor simulations. With the goal of solving industry challenge problems, CASL placed great emphasis on developing high-quality, high-performance, validated software tools that offer higher fidelity than what is currently possible with current industry methods. In support of this effort, CTF was developed from a research tool into an nuclear quality assurance (NQA-1)–compliant, production-level software tool that is capable of addressing the stated challenge problems and goals of CASL. This paper presents a review of the major technological achievements that were realized in developing CTF over the past decade of the CASL program and presents an overview of the code solution approach and closure models.

Original language	English
Article number	111927
Journal	Nuclear Engineering and Design
Volume	397
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nucengdes.2022.111927
State	Published - Oct 2022

Funding

This research made use of the resources of the High Performance Computing Center at Idaho National Laboratory, which is supported by the Office of Nuclear Energy, USA of the U.S. Department of Energy and the Nuclear Science User Facilities, USA under Contract No. DE-AC07-05ID14517 . This research is supported by and performed in conjunction with the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors ( http://www.casl.gov ), an Energy Innovation Hub ( http://www.energy.gov/hubs ) for Modeling and Simulation of Nuclear Reactors under US Department of Energy, USA Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 . This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan).This research is supported by and performed in conjunction with the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (http://www.casl.gov), an Energy Innovation Hub (http://www.energy.gov/hubs) for Modeling and Simulation of Nuclear Reactors under US Department of Energy, USA Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725. This research made use of the resources of the High Performance Computing Center at Idaho National Laboratory, which is supported by the Office of Nuclear Energy, USA of the U.S. Department of Energy and the Nuclear Science User Facilities, USA under Contract No. DE-AC07-05ID14517. This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan ( http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan ).

Funders	Funder number
Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors
DOE Public Access Plan
Energy Innovation Hub
Modeling and Simulation of Nuclear Reactors
U.S. Department of Energy	DE-AC05-00OR22725, DE-AC07-05ID14517
Office of Nuclear Energy
UT-Battelle

Keywords

CTF
LWR
Subchannel
VERA

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10.1016/j.nucengdes.2022.111927

Cite this

Salko, R., Wysocki, A., Blyth, T., Toptan, A., Hu, J., Kumar, V., Dances, C., Dawn, W., Sung, Y., Kucukboyaci, V., Gurecky, W., Lange, T., Zhao, X., Rader, J., Jernigan, C., Collins, B., Avramova, M., Magedanz, J., Palmtag, S., ... Pilch, M. (2022). CTF: A modernized, production-level, thermal hydraulic solver for the solution of industry-relevant challenge problems in pressurized water reactors. Nuclear Engineering and Design, 397, Article 111927. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nucengdes.2022.111927

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title = "CTF: A modernized, production-level, thermal hydraulic solver for the solution of industry-relevant challenge problems in pressurized water reactors",

abstract = "CTF is a thermal hydraulic (T/H) subchannel tool that has been extensively developed over the past ten years as part of the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL) program. The code was selected early in the CASL program for support of high-impact challenge problems that were found to be relevant to the nuclear industry and its currently operating fleet of pressurized water reactors (PWRs), including issues such as departure from nucleate boiling (DNB), crud-induced power shifts (CIPSs), and reactivity-insertion accidents (RIAs). By incorporating CTF into the multiphysics Virtual Environment for Reactor Application (VERA) core simulator software developed by CASL, CTF has become the primary means of providing fluid and fuel thermal feedback, as well as T/H figure-of-merits (FOMs) in large-scale reactor simulations. With the goal of solving industry challenge problems, CASL placed great emphasis on developing high-quality, high-performance, validated software tools that offer higher fidelity than what is currently possible with current industry methods. In support of this effort, CTF was developed from a research tool into an nuclear quality assurance (NQA-1)–compliant, production-level software tool that is capable of addressing the stated challenge problems and goals of CASL. This paper presents a review of the major technological achievements that were realized in developing CTF over the past decade of the CASL program and presents an overview of the code solution approach and closure models.",

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author = "Robert Salko and Aaron Wysocki and Taylor Blyth and Aysenur Toptan and Jianwei Hu and Vineet Kumar and Chris Dances and William Dawn and Yixing Sung and Vefa Kucukboyaci and William Gurecky and Travis Lange and Xingang Zhao and Jordan Rader and Caleb Jernigan and Benjamin Collins and Maria Avramova and Jeffrey Magedanz and Scott Palmtag and Kevin Clarno and Dave Kropaczek and Belgacem Hizoum and Andrew Godfrey and Dave Pointer and John Turner and Ramanan Sankaran and Rod Schmidt and Russell Hooper and Roscoe Bartlett and Mark Baird and Martin Pilch",

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doi = "10.1016/j.nucengdes.2022.111927",

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Salko, R , Wysocki, A, Blyth, T, Toptan, A, Hu, J , Kumar, V, Dances, C, Dawn, W, Sung, Y, Kucukboyaci, V, Gurecky, W, Lange, T, Zhao, X, Rader, J, Jernigan, C, Collins, B, Avramova, M, Magedanz, J, Palmtag, S, Clarno, K, Kropaczek, D, Hizoum, B, Godfrey, A, Pointer, D, Turner, J, Sankaran, R, Schmidt, R, Hooper, R, Bartlett, R, Baird, M & Pilch, M 2022, 'CTF: A modernized, production-level, thermal hydraulic solver for the solution of industry-relevant challenge problems in pressurized water reactors', Nuclear Engineering and Design, vol. 397, 111927. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nucengdes.2022.111927

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AU - Salko, Robert

AU - Wysocki, Aaron

AU - Blyth, Taylor

AU - Toptan, Aysenur

AU - Hu, Jianwei

AU - Kumar, Vineet

AU - Dances, Chris

AU - Dawn, William

AU - Sung, Yixing

AU - Kucukboyaci, Vefa

AU - Gurecky, William

AU - Lange, Travis

AU - Zhao, Xingang

AU - Rader, Jordan

AU - Jernigan, Caleb

AU - Collins, Benjamin

AU - Avramova, Maria

AU - Magedanz, Jeffrey

AU - Palmtag, Scott

AU - Clarno, Kevin

AU - Kropaczek, Dave

AU - Hizoum, Belgacem

AU - Godfrey, Andrew

AU - Pointer, Dave

AU - Turner, John

AU - Sankaran, Ramanan

AU - Schmidt, Rod

AU - Hooper, Russell

AU - Bartlett, Roscoe

AU - Baird, Mark

AU - Pilch, Martin

PY - 2022/10

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N2 - CTF is a thermal hydraulic (T/H) subchannel tool that has been extensively developed over the past ten years as part of the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL) program. The code was selected early in the CASL program for support of high-impact challenge problems that were found to be relevant to the nuclear industry and its currently operating fleet of pressurized water reactors (PWRs), including issues such as departure from nucleate boiling (DNB), crud-induced power shifts (CIPSs), and reactivity-insertion accidents (RIAs). By incorporating CTF into the multiphysics Virtual Environment for Reactor Application (VERA) core simulator software developed by CASL, CTF has become the primary means of providing fluid and fuel thermal feedback, as well as T/H figure-of-merits (FOMs) in large-scale reactor simulations. With the goal of solving industry challenge problems, CASL placed great emphasis on developing high-quality, high-performance, validated software tools that offer higher fidelity than what is currently possible with current industry methods. In support of this effort, CTF was developed from a research tool into an nuclear quality assurance (NQA-1)–compliant, production-level software tool that is capable of addressing the stated challenge problems and goals of CASL. This paper presents a review of the major technological achievements that were realized in developing CTF over the past decade of the CASL program and presents an overview of the code solution approach and closure models.

AB - CTF is a thermal hydraulic (T/H) subchannel tool that has been extensively developed over the past ten years as part of the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL) program. The code was selected early in the CASL program for support of high-impact challenge problems that were found to be relevant to the nuclear industry and its currently operating fleet of pressurized water reactors (PWRs), including issues such as departure from nucleate boiling (DNB), crud-induced power shifts (CIPSs), and reactivity-insertion accidents (RIAs). By incorporating CTF into the multiphysics Virtual Environment for Reactor Application (VERA) core simulator software developed by CASL, CTF has become the primary means of providing fluid and fuel thermal feedback, as well as T/H figure-of-merits (FOMs) in large-scale reactor simulations. With the goal of solving industry challenge problems, CASL placed great emphasis on developing high-quality, high-performance, validated software tools that offer higher fidelity than what is currently possible with current industry methods. In support of this effort, CTF was developed from a research tool into an nuclear quality assurance (NQA-1)–compliant, production-level software tool that is capable of addressing the stated challenge problems and goals of CASL. This paper presents a review of the major technological achievements that were realized in developing CTF over the past decade of the CASL program and presents an overview of the code solution approach and closure models.

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ER -

CTF: A modernized, production-level, thermal hydraulic solver for the solution of industry-relevant challenge problems in pressurized water reactors

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