Release on the Virtual Test Bed of an MSRE thermal hydraulics model
The nuclear industry is taking leaps in innovations with companies seeking a sustainable energy future through advanced nuclear reactors. The \gls{DOE}’s \gls{neams} program seeks to substantiate and bolster the deployment of advanced reactors through flexible multifidelity, multiphysics simulations of advanced nuclear reactors. Applications like SAM for one-dimensional systems thermal-hydraulics, and Pronghorn for multidimensional coarse mesh thermal-hydraulics, are geared to support innovations in industry by facilitating design, optimization, and licensing of advanced nuclear reactors. Coupling systems thermal-hydraulics and computational fluid dynamics codes can be difficult as the pressure coupling converges slowly; however, it is important to obtain the desired accuracy in each part of the primary loop. The authors of this model created an \gls{odc}~\cite{Mau23} approach to coupling SAM and Pronghorn. Leveraging this coupling technique, a \gls{msre} model was developed and released to the \gls{neams}/\gls{nric} \gls{vtb}. The \gls{msre} was chosen to be modeled because of the wealth of experimental data available and because of the strong physics coupling between the core and primary circuit \cite{doi:10.13182/NT8-2-118}. This document contextualizes the history of the \gls{msre}, describes the thermal hydraulics models used, and detail the implementation of multidimensional thermal-hydraulics and system codes based on the \gls{odc} method~\cite{Penn} for the \gls{msre} model. Finally, this document presents how other modelers could apply the SAM-Pronghorn \gls{odc} for other advanced reactor models. Current item is the set of slides for ANS Winter 23. The release of the model and the ANS summary have already been approved