Status and Perspective for a Multiscale Approach to Light Water Reactor Thermalhydraulic Simulation

Abstract

Reactor thermalhydraulics is currently simulated by system codes, by component codes, and also by CFD or CMFD simulation tools. Continuous progress of computer performance allows to use more refined nodalization and to use several modeling scales in a multi-scale approach to reactor thermalhydraulic issues. This paper summarizes the state of the art of each type of code and shows how they could benefit from smaller scale simulation tools. Examples of multi-scale analyses are given and perspectives for future are drawn.