Scalable parallel solution coupling for multiphysics reactor simulation

Abstract

Reactor simulation depends on the coupled solution of various physics types, including neutronics, thermal/hydraulics, and structural mechanics. This paper describes the formulation and implementation of a parallel solution coupling capability being developed for reactor simulation. The coupling process consists of mesh and coupler initialization, point location, field interpolation, and field normalization. We report here our test of this capability on an example problem, namely, a reflector assembly from an advanced burner test reactor. Performance of this coupler in parallel is reasonable for the chosen problem size and range of processor counts. The runtime is dominated by startup costs, which amortize over the entire coupled simulation. Future efforts will include adding more sophisticated interpolation and normalization methods, to accommodate different numerical solvers used in various physics modules and to obtain better conservation properties for certain field types.