Mathematical and numerical models to achieve high speed with special-purpose parallel processors

Historically, safety analyses and plant dynamic simulations have been and still are being carried out be means of detailed FORTRAN codes on expensive mainframe computers in time-consuming batch processing mode. These codes have grown to be so expensive to execute that their utilization depends increasingly on the availability of very expensive supercomputers. Thus, advanced technology for high-speed, low-cost, and accurate plant dynamic simulations is very much needed. Ideally, a low-cost facility based on a modern minicomputer can be dedicated to the staff of a power plant, which is easy and convenient to use, and which can simulate realistically plant transients at faster than real-time speeds. Such a simulation capability can enhance safety and plant utilization. One such simulation facility that has been developed is the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) Plant Analyzer, currently set up for boiling water reactor plant simulations at up to seven times faster than real-time process speeds. The principal hardware components of the BNL Plant Analyzer are two units of special-purpose parallel processors, the AD10 of Applied Dynamics International and a PDP-11/34 host computer