Whole Core Pin-by-Pin Coupled Neutronic-Thermal-hydraulic Steady state and Transient Calculations using COBAYA3 code

Abstract

Nowadays, coupled 3D neutron-kinetics and thermal-hydraulic core calculations are performed by applying a radial average channel approach using a meshing of one quarter of assembly in the best case. This approach does not take into account the subchannels effects due to the averaging of the physical fields and the loose of heterogeneity in the thermal-hydraulic modelization. Therefore the models do not have enough resolution to predict those subchannels effects which are important for the fuel design safety margins, because it is in the local scale, where we can search the hottest pellet or the maximum heat flux. The UPM advanced multi-scale neutron-kinetics and thermal-hydraulics methodologies being implemented in COBAYA3 include domain decomposition by alternate core dissections for the local 3D fine-mesh scale problems (pin cells/subchannels) and an analytical nodal diffusion solver for the coarse mesh scale coupled with the thermal-hydraulic using a modelization of one channel per assembly or per quarter of assembly. In this work, we address the domain decomposition by the alternate core dissections methodology applied to solve coupled 3D neutronic/thermal-hydraulic (N-TH) problems at the fine-mesh scale. The N-TH coupling at the cell-subchannel scale allows the treatment of the effects of the detailed TH feedbacks on cross-sections, thus resulting in better estimates of the local safety margins at the pin level.