A supercomputing application for reactors core design and optimization

Advanced nuclear reactor designs are often intuition-driven processes where designers first develop or use simplified simulation tools for each physical phenomenon involved. Through the project development, complexity in each discipline increases and implementation of chaining/coupling capabilities adapted to supercomputing optimization process are often postponed to a further step so that task gets increasingly challenging. In the context of renewal in reactor designs, project of first realization are often run in parallel with advanced design although very dependant on final options. As a consequence, the development of tools to globally assess/optimize reactor core features, with the on-going design methods accuracy, is needed. This should be possible within reasonable simulation time and without advanced computer skills needed at project management scale. Also, these tools should be ready to easily cope with modeling progresses in each discipline through project life-time. An early stage development of multi-physics package adapted to supercomputing is presented. The URANIE platform, developed at CEA and based on the Data Analysis Framework ROOT, is very well adapted to this approach. It allows diversified sampling techniques (SRS, LHS, qMC), fitting tools (neuronal networks...) and optimization techniques (genetic algorithm). Also data-base management and visualization are made very easy. In this paper, we'll present the various implementing steps of this core physics tool where neutronics, thermo-hydraulics, and fuel mechanics codes are run simultaneously. A relevant example of optimization of nuclear reactor safety characteristics will be presented. Also, flexibility of URANIE tool will be illustrated with the presentation of several approaches to improve Pareto front quality. (author)