A coupled neutronic and thermal-hydraulic model for ALFRED

A new method of Serpent–OpenFOAM coupling is developed as a multi-physics model for Advanced Lead Fast Reactor Demonstrator. The reactor core is simulated in Serpent, a continuous-energy Monte Carlo reactor physics code for neutronic analysis. A three-dimensional geometry is modeled for the calculation of neutronic parameters of the reactor initial core operation. The calculated parameters are evaluated with a good agreement compared to the available reference. The fuel assembly with the maximum power is pinpointed in order to be used for thermal-hydraulic analysis. A thermal-hydraulic model is developed to perform computational fluid dynamics calculation using OpenFOAM software, with an application of a heat conjugate transfer solver written in C++ language. A symmetric one-six of the fuel assembly with the highest power is considered in order to reduce the time of calculation. A multi-physics approach is adopted to map Serpent and OpenFOAM coupling for neutronic and thermal-hydraulic analysis. Moreover, a procedure is implemented in order to evaluate the convergence while coupling Serpent and OpenFOAM. With the implementation of multi-physics model, the maximum temperature of the fuel and coolant is investigated in order to observe any malfunctions. The results show that the coolant and the fuel temperature limits for the ALFRED’s initial core are well preserved for the fuel assembly with the highest power.