Under the Reactor Product Line (RPL) of DOE/NEs Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) program, an SFR System Analysis Module is being developed at Argonne National Laboratory for whole-plant safety analysis. This tool will simulate tightly coupled physical phenomena including nuclear fission, heat transfer, fluid dynamics, and thermal-mechanical response in SFR structures, systems, and components. It is based on the MOOSE (Multi-physics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment) framework, which relies upon open-source libraries such as libMesh and PETSc for mesh generation, finite element analysis, and numerical solutions. The SFR System Analysis Module is aimed to model and simulate SFR systems with higher fidelity and with well-defined and validated prediction capabilities. It will provide fast-running, modest-fidelity, whole-plant transient analyses capability, which is essential for fast turnaround design scoping and engineering analyses. Most effort in FY13 was focused on the development of component models using the conservative variable based (or density-based) formulations in collaboration with the RELAP- 7 effort for the purpose of developing the SFR primary system modeling capability in a shorter time. In FY14, the primitive variable based (or pressure-based) flow model was demonstrated to have superior convergence performance compared to the conservative variable based flow model for incompressible flows. Therefore, the focus was shifted toward developing integrated-physics components using the primitive variable based flow model in FY14.
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