Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

6-1985

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Nuclear Engineering

Major Professor

R. B. Perez

Committee Members

Paul M. Stevens, James C. Robinson

Abstract

The application and usefulness of an adjoint-based methodology for performing sensitivity analysis on reactor safety computer codes is investigated. The adjoint-based methodology, referred to as differential sensitivity theory (DST), provides first-order derivatives of the calculated quantities of interest (responses) with respect to the input parameters. The basic theoretical development of DST is presented along with the needed general extensions for consideration of model discontinuities and a variety of useful response definitions. A simple analytic problem is used to highlight the general DST procedures. Finally, DST procedures presented in this work are applied to two highly nonlinear reactor accident analysis codes: (1) FASTGAS, a relatively small code for analysis of a loss-of-decay-heat-removal accident in a gas-cooled fast reactor, and (2) an existing code called VENUS-II which is typically employed for analyzing the core disassembly phase of a hypothetical fast reactor accident. The two codes are different both in terms of complexity and in terms of the facets of DST which can be illustrated. Sensitivity results from the adjoint codes ADJGAS and VENUS-ADJ are verified with direct recalculations using perturbed input parameters. The effectiveness of the DST results for parameter ranking, prediction of response changes, and uncertainty analysis are illustrated. The conclusion drawn from this study is that DST is a viable, cost-effective methodology for accurate sensitivity analysis. In addition, a useful sensitivity tool for use in the fast reactor safety area has been developed in VENUS-ADJ. Future work needs to concentrate on combining the accurate first-order derivatives/results from DST with existing methods (based solely on direct recalculations) for generating higher-order response surfaces.

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