One-step coupled calculations (Serpent-OpenFOAM) for a fuel rod of the IPR-R1 triga reactor

Abstract

In this work, a single step of coupled calculations for a fuel rod of IPR-R1 TRIGA was performed. The used me-thodology allowed to simulate the fuel pin behavior in steady-state mode for different power levels. The aim of this paper is to present a practical approach to perform coupled calculations between neutronic (Monte Carlo) and thermal-hydraulic (CFD) codes. For this purpose, is necessary to evaluate the influence of the water thermal-physical properties temperature variations on keff parameter. Besides that, Serpent Nuclear Code was used for the neutronics evaluation, while OpenFOAM was used for thermal-hydraulics. OpenFOAM si- mula-tions were made by using a modified chtMultiRegionFoam solver, developed to read Serpent output correctly. The neutronic code was used without any modifications. The results shows that this coupled calculations were consistent and that leads to encouraging further methodology development and its use for full core simulation. Also, the results shows good agreement with calculations performed using other version of OpenFOAM and Milonga as neutronic code.