Presently, models for the parameterization of cross sections for nodal diffusion nuclear reactor calculations at different conditions using histories and branches are developed from reactor physics expertise and by trial and error. In this paper we describe the development and application of a novel graph theoretic approach (GTA) to develop the expressions for evaluating the cross sections in a nodal diffusion code. The GTA generalizes existing nodal cross section models into a "non-orthogonal" and extensible dimensional parameter space. Furthermore, it utilizes a rigorous calculus on graphs to formulate partial derivatives. The GTA cross section models can be generated in a number of ways. In our current work we explore a step-wise regression and a complete Taylor series expansion of the parameterized cross sections to develop expressions to evaluate them. To establish proof-of-principle of the GTA, we compare numerical results of GTA generated cross section evaluations with traditional models for canonical PWR case matrices and the AP1000 lattice designs.

In the two-step method for nuclear reactor simulation, lattice physics calculations are performed to compute homogenized cross-sections for a variety of burnups and lattice configurations. A nodal code is then used to perform full-core analysis using the pre-calculated homogenized cross-sections. One source of uncertainty introduced in this method is that the lattice configuration or depletion conditions typically do not match a pre-calculated one from the lattice physics simulations. Therefore, some interpolation model must be used to estimate the homogenized cross-sections in the nodal code. This current study provides a methodology for sensitivity analysis to quantify the impact of state variables on the homogenized cross-sections. This methodology also allows for analyses of the historical effect that the state variables have on homogenized cross-sections. An application of this methodology on a lattice for the Westinghouse AP1000® reactor is presented where coolant density, fuel temperature, soluble boron concentration, and control rod insertion are the state variables of interest. The effects of considering the instantaneous values of the state variables, historical values of the state variables, and burnup-averaged values of the state variables are analyzed. Using these methods, it was found that a linear model that only considers the instantaneous and burnup-averaged values of state variables can fail to capture some variations in the homogenized cross-sections.

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We present an approach to reduced-order modelling that builds off recent graph-theoretic work for representation, exploration, and analysis of computed states of physical systems (Banerjee et al. , Comp. Meth. App. Mech. Eng., 351, 501-530, 2019). We extend a non-local calculus on finite weighted graphs to build such models by exploiting polynomial expansions and Taylor series. In the general framework for non-local calculus on graphs, the graph edge weights are intricately linked to the embedding of the graph, and consequently to the definition of the derivatives. In a previous communication (Duschenes and Garikipati, arXiv:2105.01740), we have shown that radially symmetric, continuous edge weights derived from, for example Gaussian functions, yield inconsistent results in the resulting non-local derivatives when compared against the corresponding local, differential derivative definitions. Taking inspiration from finite difference methods, we algorithmically compute edge weights, considering the embedding of the local neighborhood of each graph vertex. Given this procedure, we ensure the consistency of the non-local derivatives in this setting, a crucial requirement for numerical applications. We show that we can achieve any desired orders of accuracy of derivatives, in a chosen number of dimensions without symmetry assumptions in the underlying data. Finally, we present two example applications of extracting reduced-order models using this non-local calculus, in the form of ordinary differential equations from parabolic partial differential equations of progressively greater complexity.