NURESIM – A European simulation platform for nuclear reactor safety: Multi-scale and multi-physics calculations, sensitivity and uncertainty analysis
Highlights
► A reference simulation platform for nuclear reactor applications. ► Offering capacity for multi-scale and multi-physics computations and for uncertainty quantification. ► Developed and supported by a European united team according to a general roadmap. ► Presentation of the main achievements and future developments.
Section snippets
The objectives of the NURESIM simulation platform
The NURESIM simulation platform intends to be a European reference platform for nuclear reactor applications supported by a united European team of experts (Cacuci et al., 2006, Cacuci et al., 2007, Chauliac et al., 2009).
Main achievements and future developments in core physics (sub-project 1)
In the area of core physics, averaging the cell and nodal neutronics properties remains necessary, but the safety limits are more and more needed at a detailed scale, the pin-by-pin scale for the hottest individual fuel pellet, rod clad and coolant subchannel for whole 3D core realistic operating and transient conditions.
This is an increasingly complex issue, because the fuel assemblies in operating reactors are increasingly heterogeneous, both as fabricated non-uniform lattices, with water
Main achievements and future developments in thermal-hydraulics (sub-project 2)
The objective of the NURESIM thermal-hydraulics subproject was to develop and implement advanced thermal-hydraulics models in the NURESIM platform in order to improve the understanding and the predictive capabilities of the simulation tools for key two-phase flow processes that can occur in nuclear reactors, focussing on two high-priority issues, the Critical Heat Flux (CHF) and the Pressurised Thermal Shock (PTS).
The activity included an analysis of the PTS scenarios, a review of all basic
Main achievements and future developments in multi-physics (sub-project 3)
The numerical simulation and analysis of postulated transient scenarios require multi-physics simulation tools which couple time-dependent core neutron kinetics with core and plant thermal-hydraulics as well as thermo-mechanical models of fuel behaviour, since changes in fuel temperature and moderator density induce important reactivity feedback to the power generation. Originally, such multi-physics simulation tools offered rather approximate modelling capability. With the development of
Main achievements and future developments in sensitivity and uncertainty (sub-project 4)
Sensitivity and uncertainty analyses are of fundamental importance to reactor analysis, design, and safety. Due to imperfect knowledge of physical phenomena and data, sensitivity and uncertainty analyses must be carried out in order to supplement the results produced by computational tools used for the analysis, design and demonstration of the safety of any nuclear power plant.
Sensitivity and uncertainty analysis methods rely either on deterministic or statistical procedures. Various such
Main achievements and future developments in code integration (sub-project 5)
The NURESIM platform integrates thermal-hydraulics and neutronics European codes and solvers in the SALOME simulation framework. The integrated codes and SALOME simulation tools work concurrently within applications specified and developed by the multi-physics sub-project.
SALOME (Fig. 7) is a generic open-source platform (see http://salome-platform.org) presently developed by EDF, CEA and OpenCascade. It provides interoperability between CAD, meshing and computing codes and solvers, and to
Consortium and collaborations
The NURISP consortium consists in 22 partners from 14 European countries: ASCOMP, CEA, CHALMERS, EDF, FZD, KIT/FZK, GRS, IMPERIAL COLLEGE, INRNE, IRSN, JSI, KFKI, KTH, LUT, NRI, PSI, TUDELFT, UCL, KIT/UNIKA, UPISA, UPM, VTT; including the major European nuclear countries operating PWR, VVER and BWR (which are the focus of the Work Program). It represents an opportunity to cross-fertilize the approaches to nuclear reactor simulation from Eastern and Western European countries.
The overall skills
Conclusion
The development of the NURESIM platform has and will have long-term strategic impacts through the main following achievements:
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development of new physical models and numerical solution algorithms of physical phenomena in neutronics (from lattice to core level), thermal-hydraulics (at the four scales represented by DNS, CFD, component and system scales), fuel behaviour under accident conditions,
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multi-physics and multi-scale coupling,
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quantification and reduction of computational uncertainties,
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Acknowledgements
The authors wish to acknowledge the valuable guidance provided by Dr. Michel Hugon of the European Commission throughout the NURESIM Integrated Project and since the beginning of the NURISP Collaborative Project.
All the presentations of the NURESIM General Assemblies held in November 2006 in Paris and in November 2008 in Madrid are available on the NURESIM Open Web Site: www.nuresim.com.
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