Abstract
Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been actively developing subchannel thermal hydraulic codes in support of higher-fidelity, multiphysics modeling of light-water reactor designs. These activities were performed in two thrusts: one for pressurized water reactors (PWRs) and one for boiling water reactors (BWRs). The PWR activities were performed during the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL) program, with the intention of improving modeling and simulation techniques for specific industry-relevant challenge problems such as departure from nucleate boiling and crud. This led to the implementation of a nuclear quality assurance (NQA) level software development and maintenance plan, development of a verification and validation testing system to support intended applications, performance improvements allowing for deployment on high-performance computing systems, and implementation of new closure models for improved accuracy in the CTF subchannel code. The BWR activities were primarily performed under an industry-led funding opportunity announcement and the Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) program; they focused on adding new features to support modeling the unique geometry, such as part-length rods, channel boxes, and the bypass region, as well as the two-phase flow conditions of BWR systems. This required performing a review and implementing some modeling improvements in the CTF subchannel code and also led to the development of a new subchannel code called Alternative Nonlinear Two-phase Subchannel solver (ANTS), which implements a four-equation steady-state two-fluid method to meet the more demanding computational performance requirements for this class of problems.
| Original language | English |
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| Title of host publication | Proceedings of the 20th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics, NURETH 2023 |
| Publisher | American Nuclear Society |
| Pages | 22-36 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9780894487934 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2023 |
| Event | 20th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics, NURETH 2023 - Washington, United States Duration: Aug 20 2023 → Aug 25 2023 |
Publication series
| Name | Proceedings of the 20th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics, NURETH 2023 |
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Conference
| Conference | 20th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics, NURETH 2023 |
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| Country/Territory | United States |
| City | Washington |
| Period | 08/20/23 → 08/25/23 |
Funding
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 Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725. This research was also supported by the Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation program for Modeling and Simulation of Nuclear Reactors under DOE contract no. DE-AC05-00OR22725 for work performed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and contract DE-AC02-06CH11357 for work performed at Argonne National Laboratory.
Keywords
- ANTS
- BWR
- CTF
- PWR
- subchannel