Development of Multidimensional Multiphase Flow Simulation Capabilities For Next Generation Reactors

S.P. Antal¹, M.Z. Podowski¹, L-Y Cheng², H. Ludewig², D. Stampf², M. Todosow²

¹ Center for Multiphase Research Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
² Brookhaven National Laboratory

This presentation outlines a plan to utilize high performance computing facilities at RPI and BNL for reactor simulation. Both BNL and RPI have secured funding from the state and industry to acquire new supercomputers capable of 100 teraflops. The presentation provides an overview of the results of recent development of mechanistic multi-dimensional models of multiphase flow for application in nuclear reactor design and safety analysis. The discussion includes the development of mechanistic closure laws for the multifield model of multiphase/multicomponent flows, the modeling of interface tracking in gas/liquid two-phase flows, and the coupling between transient multi-dimensional thermal-hydraulic and space-dependent neutronic models. The various models have been implemented in the computational multiphase fluid dynamics (CMFD) code, NPHASE. Examples illustrating the results of NPHASE-based computer simulations will be presented. Further development and potential applications of NPHASE to the Advanced Burner Reactor (ABR) will be suggested. An approach to achieve integrated simulation encompassing neutronic, thermal-hydraulic, and mechnical analyses will be illustrated. The computer science aspects of the initiative will also be outlined, including discussions on the parallelization of NPHASE, the porting of the code to the Blue Gene architecture, and the high speed link between RPI and BNL.

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