Fast solution of neutron diffusion problem by reduced basis finite element method

For the important applications which need carry out many times of neutron diffusion calculations such as the fuel depletion analysis and the neutronics-thermohydraulics coupling analysis, fast and accurate solutions of the neutron diffusion equation are demanding but necessary. In the present work, the certified reduced basis finite element method is proposed and implemented to solve the generalized eigenvalue problems of neutron diffusion with variable cross sections. The order reduced model is built upon high-fidelity finite element approximations during the offline stage. During the online stage, both the k(eff) and the spatical distribution of neutron flux can be obtained very efficiently for any given set of cross sections. Numerical tests show that a speedup of around 1100 is achieved for the IAEA two-dimensional PWR benchmark problem and a speedup of around 3400 is achieved for the three-dimensional counterpart with the fission cross-sections, the absorption cross-sections and the scattering cross-sections treated as parameters. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.