A SIMPLIFIED TWO-NODE COARSE-MESH FINITE DIFFERENCE METHOD FOR PIN-WISE CALCULATION WITH SP3

Abstract

For accurate and efficient pin-by-pin core calculation of SP3 equations, a simplified two-node Coarse Mesh Finite Difference (CMFD) method with the nonlinear iterative strategy is proposed. In this study, the two-node method is only used for discretization of Laplace operator of the 0th moment in the first equation, while the fine mesh finite difference (FMFD) is used for the 2nd moment flux and the second equation. In the two-node problem, transverse flux is expanded to second-order Legendre polynomials. In addition, the associated transverse leakage is approximated with flat distribution. Then the current coupling coefficients are updated in nonlinear iterations. The generalized eigenvalue problem from CMFD is solved using Jacobi-Davidson method. A protype code CORCA-PIN is developed. FMFD scheme is implemented in CORCA-PIN as well. The 2D KAIST 3A benchmark problem and extended 3D problem, which are cell homogenized problems with strong absorber, are tested. Numerical results show that the solution of the simplified two-node method with 1×1 mesh per cell has comparable accuracy of FMFD with 4×4 meshes per cell, but cost less time. The method is suitable for whole core pin-wise calculation.