• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 1998.05a
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• pp.79-86
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• 1998

The nonlinear analytic function expansion nodal (AFEN) method is applied to the solution of the time-dependent neutron diffusion equation. Since the AFEN method requires both the particular solution and the homogeneous solution to the transient fixed source problem, the derivation solution method is focused on finding the particular solution efficiently. To avoid complicated particular solutions, the source distribution is approximated by quadratic polynomials and the transient source is constructed such that the error due to the quadratic approximation is minimized. In addition, this paper presents a new two-node solution scheme that is derived by imposing the constraint of current continuity at the interface corner points. The method is verified through a series of applications to the NEACRP PWR rod ejection benchmark problem.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2001.05a
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• pp.90.1-90
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• 2001

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.56-56
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• 2001

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 1999.05a
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• pp.15-15
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• 1999

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 1999.05a
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• pp.19-19
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• 1999

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.64.1-64
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• 2002

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.9
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• pp.3494-3515
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• 2022

This paper presents the development of a nodal diffusion code, RAST-V, and its verification and validation for VVER (vodo-vodyanoi energetichesky reactor) analysis. A VVER analytic solver has been implemented in an in-house nodal diffusion code, RAST-K. The new RAST-K version, RAST-V, uses the triangle-based polynomial expansion nodal method. The RAST-K code provides stand-alone and two-step computation modes for steady-state and transient calculations. An in-house lattice code (STREAM) with updated features for VVER analysis is also utilized in the two-step method for cross-section generation. To assess the calculation capability of the formulated analysis module, various verification and validation studies have been performed with Rostov-II, and X2 multicycles, Novovoronezh-4, and the Atomic Energy Research benchmarks. In comparing the multicycle operation, rod worth, and integrated temperature coefficients, RAST-V is found to agree with measurements with high accuracy which RMS differences of each cycle are within ±47 ppm in multicycle operations, and ±81 pcm of the rod worth of the X2 reactor. Transient calculations were also performed considering two different rod ejection scenarios. The accuracy of RAST-V was observed to be comparable to that of conventional nodal diffusion codes (DYN3D, BIPR8, and PARCS).

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.11
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• pp.2422-2430
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• 2020

In order to improve calculational efficiency of the CAPP code in the analysis of the hexagonal reactor core, we have tried to implement a refined AFEN method with transverse gradient basis functions and interface flux moments in the hexagonal geometry. The numerical scheme for the refined AFEN method adopted here is the response matrix method that uses the interface partial currents as nodal unknowns instead of the interface fluxes used in the original AFEN method. Since the response matrix method is single-node based, it has good properties such as good calculational efficiency and parallel computing affinity. Because a refined AFEN method equivalent nonlinear FDM response matrix method tried first could not provide a numerically stable solution, a direct formulation of the refined AFEN response matrix were developed. To show the numerical performance of this response matrix method against the original AFEN method, the numerical error analyses were performed for several benchmark problems including the VVER-440 LWR benchmark problem and the MHTGR-350 HTGR benchmark problem. The results showed a more than three times speedup in computing time for the LWR and HTGR benchmark problems due to good convergence and excellent calculational efficiency of the refined AFEN response matrix method.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.2
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• pp.258-270
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• 2020

A new task of using the Jacobian-Free-Newton-Krylov (JFNK) method for the PWR core transient simulations involving neutronics, thermal hydraulics and mechanics is conducted. For the transient scenario of PWR, normally the Picard iteration of the coupled coarse-mesh nodal equations and parallel channel TH equations is performed to get the transient solution. In order to solve the coupled equations faster and more stable, the Newton Krylov (NK) method based on the explicit matrix was studied. However, the NK method is hard to be extended to the cases with more physics phenomenon coupled, thus the JFNK based iteration scheme is developed for the nodal method and parallel-channel TH method. The local gap conductance is sensitive to the gap width and will influence the temperature distribution in the fuel rod significantly. To further consider the local gap conductance during the transient scenario, a 1D mechanics model is coupled into the JFNK scheme to account for the fuel thermal expansion effect. To improve the efficiency, the physics-based precondition and scaling technique are developed for the JFNK iteration. Numerical tests show good convergence behavior of the iterations and demonstrate the influence of the fuel thermal expansion effect during the rod ejection problems.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.374-384
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• 1995

The mathematical adjoint solution of the Analytic Function Expansion (AFEN) method is found by solving the transposed matrix equation of AFEN nodal equation with only minor modification to the forward solution code AFEN. The perturbation calculations are then performed to estimate the change of reactivity by using the mathematical adjoint The adjoint calculational scheme in this study does not require the knowledge of the physical adjoint or the eigenvalue of the forward equation. Using the adjoint solutions, the exact and first-order perturbation calculations are peformed for the well-known benchmark problems (i.e., IAEA-2D benchmark problem and EPRI-9R benchmark problem). The results show that the mathematical adjoint flux calculated in the code is the correct adjoint solution of the AFEN method.