Title: Time step impact on the results of BWR SBO severe accident simulations using the versions bi7 and bik of RELAP/SCDAPSIM/MOD3.4 executing on AMD and Intel processors

Authors: Javier Ortiz-Villafuerte

Addresses: Departamento de Sistemas Nucleares, Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Nucleares, Ocoyoacac, Estado de México, 52750, México

Abstract: The impact of using different values for the maximum time step allowed in the best estimate code RELAP/SCDAPSIM MOD3.4 is investigated in this study. To this end, the simulation of a BWR SBO severe accident was carried out, using the two different code versions bi7 and bik running on computers having either a processor from the AMD or from Intel families. The two values for the maximum time step allowed were 0.1 s and 0.01 s. Thus, in total eight different combinations of processor/code version/time step were used in this comparison study. The results show that changing the time step yields significant impact on the simulations results, both qualitatively and quantitatively, and particularly on the results from the codes SCDAP and COUPLE.

Keywords: BWR; boiling water reactors; severe accidents; SCDAP; COUPLE; AMD; Intel; comparison; time step impact; simulation; nuclear accidents; nuclear reactors; nuclear energy; nuclear power; nuclear safety.

DOI: 10.1504/IJNEST.2016.078960

International Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Technology, 2016 Vol.10 No.3, pp.245 - 256

Received: 18 May 2016
Accepted: 20 Jul 2016
Published online: 06 Sep 2016 *

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