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Fusion Energy
This division promotes the development and timely introduction of fusion energy as a sustainable energy source with favorable economic, environmental, and safety attributes. The division cooperates with other organizations on common issues of multidisciplinary fusion science and technology, conducts professional meetings, and disseminates technical information in support of these goals. Members focus on the assessment and resolution of critical developmental issues for practical fusion energy applications.
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2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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The Nuclear Family: Empowering parents and caregivers
The Diversity and Inclusion in ANS Committee is hosting a webinar today to celebrate the contributions of parents in the nuclear industry while fostering diversity and inclusion within the community.
Register now: The webinar, from 1:00-2:00 pm ET, will highlight how the nuclear industry supports caregivers, new parents, and new mothers, and will focus on life transitions and parental responsibilities.
Qicang Shen, Sooyoung Choi, Brendan Kochunas
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 195 | Number 11 | November 2021 | Pages 1202-1235
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2021.1906586
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In a companion paper, we present the theoretical development of a new robust, relaxation-free iteration scheme for multiphysics -eigenvalue problems. These types of problems are essential to the study of computational reactor physics and in particular whole-core, high-fidelity simulation codes. The deterministic whole-core simulation tools invariably rely on the coarse mesh finite difference (CMFD) acceleration for fast convergence. However, the use of CMFD-accelerated transport in multiphysics problems coupled via Picard iteration is not robust and is frequently treated with relaxation. In this paper, we build on our previous theoretical work that uses Fourier analysis to prove how stability and efficient convergence can be achieved in the multiphysics problem by appropriately loosening the convergence criteria of the low-order diffusion acceleration equations. Specifically, we develop a methodology for estimating a key problem-dependent parameter, the feedback intensity, required by the nearly optimally partially converged coarse mesh finite difference (NOPC-CMFD) method. We then describe the implementation of NOPC-CMFD in the Michigan Parallel Characteristics Transport (MPACT) code and perform several numerical calculations. Problems ranging from a single pressurized water reactor (PWR) fuel rod to a full-core PWR cycle depletion are analyzed to assess the performance and robustness of NOPC-CMFD over a wide range of conditions that consider multiple forms of multiphysics feedback. The results verify the theoretical predictions of our companion paper, illustrating that the NOPC-CMFD is superior to current CMFD or nonlinear diffusion acceleration schemes that use relaxation. Overall, the method is able to recover the performance of traditional CMFD in problems without feedback for a wide range of conditions. This was observed to result in a substantial reduction, up to 40%, of the run time in whole-core cycle depletion problems.