Coupling of the CFD code ANSYS CFX with the 3D neutron kinetic core model DYN3D

The CFD code ANSYS CFX has been coupled with the neutron-kinetic core model DYN3D. ANSYS CFX calculates the fluid dynamics and related transport phenomena in the reactor’s coolant and provides the corresponding data to DYN3D. In the fluid flow simulation of the coolant, the core itself is modeled within the porous body approach. DYN3D calculates the neutron kinetics and the fuel behavior including the heat transfer to the coolant. The physical data interface between the codes is the volumetric heat release rate into the coolant. In the prototype that is currently available, the coupling is restricted to single-phase flow problems. In the time domain an explicit coupling of the codes has been implemented so far.
Steady-state and transient verification calculations for two small-size test problems confirm the correctness of the implementation of the prototype coupling. The first test problem was a mini-core consisting of nine real-size fuel assemblies with quadratic cross section. Comparison was performed with the DYN3D stand-alone code. In the steady state, the effective multiplication factor obtained by the DYN3D/ANSYS CFX codes shows a deviation of 9.8 pcm from the DYN3D stand-alone solution. This difference can be attributed to the use of different water property packages in the two codes. The transient test case simulated the withdrawal of the control rod from the central fuel assembly at hot zero power in the same mini-core. Power increase during the introduction of positive reactivity and power reduction due to fuel temperature increase are calculated in the same manner by the coupled and the stand-alone codes. The maximum values reached during the power rise differ by about 1 MW at a power level of 50 MW. Beside the different water property packages, these differences are caused by the use of different flow solvers.
The same calculations were carried for a mini-core with seven real-size fuel assemblies with hexagonal cross section in order to prove the applicability of the coupled code to cores with hexagonal fuel assemblies. The differences between the results of coupled calculations and those of the stand-alone DYN3D code are in the same range as for the quadratic mini-core.