EDF’s approach to the Digital Nuclear Reactor

CASL Industry Council Meeting. Raleigh, NC.April 23-24 2019

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Presentation outline

The EDF Digital Nuclear Reactor- Situation today

New Challenges in terms of Modeling and Simulation

VERA Users Group Training – Feedback

EDF Nuclear Fleet in France• Largest fleet in Europe

•Single technology : PWR (Pressurized Water Reactor)

• Power : 63 GW,

•400 TWh

•3 series in operation; more than 1700 year of Operating Experience

- mean age :

900 MW : 34 units, i.e 31 GWe : 35 years

1300 MW : 20 units, i.e 26 GWe -25years

1500 MW (N4) : 4 units, i.e 6GWe – 20 years

• Fuel assembly suppliers: Framatome/Westinghouse

• R&D approx. 800 researchers in nuclear

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Nuclear R&D Innovation CIVIL ENGINEERING

SG DIGITAL TWIN

DATA ANALYTICS FOR O&M

DIGITAL FUEL

DIGITAL REACTOR

ADVANCED PSA

CYBERSECURITY

SEISMIC RISK

SEVERE ACCIDENTS

E-ATF

PASSIVE SYSTEMS

SCENARIOS FOR FLEXIBILITY NEEEDS BEYOND 2030

FLEXIBLE OPERATION

DE-STANDARDIZATION

POLYMERS

INNOVATIVE MANUFACTURING

ENVIRONMENT

FLEXIBLE FUEL

FIRE SAFETY

HUMAN-AUTOMATION COLLABORATION FOR O&M

DIGITAL DECOMMISSIONING

INNOVATIVE INSTRUMENTATION

REACTOR BUILDING DIGITAL TWINS

CORE CALCULATION INDUSTRIAL SCHEME

UNCERTAINTY QUANTIFICATION

R&D priorities

Manufacturing and construction

Safety

Flexibility:

Digital Transition

Different uses in Modeling and Simulation

Best effortsBest estimate/ Advanced ModelingSimulators

Higher physical representativeness

• Operators training• Operation studies

• Design Studies• Accidents and

safety studies

• Reference calculations• Studies under extreme

situations (accidents…)

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Range of simulators at EDF

Unitary Process( 1 ES )

Whole Process( ~15 ES )

Study Process( ~75 ES )

Virtual Reactor( ~ 120 à 150 ES )

Domaine Formation :commandite DPN

SiPACT

SuLTANE

EPRSimulatorPhases 4-5

Simulateur full-scope

EPRSimulatorPhases 1-3

UFPIUFPI

CNEN

T

SIRENE

EDVANCE

DIPDE

PD: PreliminaryDesign

FEED: Front EndEngineering Design

Design

Operation

ASTER

Europlexus

StructuralMechanics

Tripoli

Coccinelle

Cocagne

Neutronics

MAP

Perform

MaterialSimulation

Saturne/

Neptune

Thyc

Fluid Dynamics

Telemac

Mascaret

Hydrodynamics

Carmel

Electromagn.

Cyrano

Th-mecafuel rod

Cathare

SystemCode

EDF Codes

Non EDF Codes

+ Interoperability (SALOME)+

+ Network of Partners (Nuclear Industry, European Projects, Int’l)

EMTP

EDF Modeling and Simulation policyMajor Codes

Nugenia 2019 April 2018 - 8

Nugenia 2019

Emphasis on codes – Thermal-hydraulicsComponent scale:THYC, EDF In-house code

CFD scale: NEPTUNE_CFD, a EDF, CEA, FRAMATOME and IRSN collaboration

System scale : CATHARE, a CEA, EDF, FRAMATOME and IRSN collaboration

• Multiphase-flows solver : free-surface flows, boiling flows, bubbly flows…

• Dedicated models are available to simulate regime transitions of two-phase flows.

• Single and multiphase flows

• Used for Cores, Steam Generators, Heat exchangers

• Part of the current Multi-physics Core Simulation chain of EDF

Two-phase thermal-hydraulic code used for reactor safety analyses…

R&D in Modeling and Simulation - Challenges from Examples

Steam Line Break Shutdown- Operators training

Need for advanced vizualation tools For operators

Severe accidents

Real need for strongly coupledmulti-physics

UQ – Safety margins.

Coupling between simulators and advanced severe accidents modeling

Résultats Marquants 2018 des Programmes Production d'EDF R&D

Objective: integrate all kinds of modeling tools

Best effortsBest estimate/ Advanced ModelingSimulators

• Operators training• Operations studies

• Accidents and safety studies

• Reference calculations• Studies under extreme

situations (accidents…)• Numerical experiments where

no data are available

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Interoperability / Interchangeability

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Interoperability/ Vizualization

DATA

Operating point

CAD and Geometries calculation

Physical tests and database

validation

Validation of φ modelling

Advanced Modeling of the whole core

Real time modeling of the power plant

Data acquisition

Minimization of experiments tests

Optimization of the number of calculations

Improving physics representativity + Automation of the validation

Physics coupling including Uncertainties Quantification

Models reduction

Validation of theDigital Reactor

Visualization of complex physics phenomena

SOFTWARE INTEROPERABILITY & MODULARITY

UsersNeeds

Scientific and technical challenges ahead

Building a multi-physics (interoperability) and multi-scale (interchangeability) platform where all relevant physics codes should be able to plug in seamlessly.

Being able to come together with a common standard for both new and legacy codes.

Building bridges to allow advanced codes to be used in simulators as well.

Developing the right methodology for propagating uncertainties when doing multi-physics.

Using advanced, ergonomic, visualization techniques (metaphors, AR, VR…) as a helping tool.

Verification &Validation of the whole platform when using strongly coupled physics.

Nugenia 2019

Vera Users Group Training (1/2) - Feedback

VERA Users Group Training Feedback

Modeling and Vizualization Focused on best efforts/high fidelity calculations types Runs fast on ORNL clusters (~1000 cores) Well integrated set of solvers / tools. Interoperability is very efficient.

MPACT (neutronics) Really impressive : direct whole core 3D “transport”, 3D semi- explicit

reflector geometry!

SHIFT (Monte-Carlo, neutron transport) Extremely powerful and flexible for advanced users thanks to its python

interface. Interoperability with MPACT opens doors to new kinds of applications

Vera Users Group Training (2/2) - Feedback

MAMBA (chemistry)Very impressive. Not a major concern for EDF

Some ideas in terms of collaboration- Benchmarks Using different codes and modeling approaches With the same input data : geometry, fuel composition…(to be defined)

• Steam Line Break Analysis • Rod Ejection Accident• ………

Thanks for your attention