Overview

Time-dependent fluctuations in neutron population, fluid flow, and heat transfer are essential to understanding the performance and safety of a reactor. Such transients include normal reactor startup and shutdown as well as abnormal scenarios including Beyond Design Basis Events (BDBEs) such as Accident Transients Without Scram (ATWS). However, no open source tool currently exists for reactor transient analysis. To fill this gap, PyRK (Python for Reactor Kinetics) was created. PyRK is the first open source tool capable of:

  • time-dependent,
  • lumped parameter thermal-hydraulics,
  • coupled with neutron kinetics,
  • in 0-dimensions,
  • for nuclear reactor analysis,
  • of any reactor design,
  • in an object-oriented context.

The PRKE

The point reactor kinetics equations are implemented in this software as a suite of pdes. These are solved using the integration tools in the scipy package.

Lumped Parameter TH

TH is represented in 1-D, lumped paramter model, by default. That is, components that make up the reactor system are treated as material lumps and the system is treated as a thermal circuit.

Material Library

A number of materials are represented. Additional materials are a key area where user/developer contributions are desired.

Data Library

Precursor and decay heat data from the ANS/ANSI standards and representative of reactor neutronics for canonical reactors has been provided.

The Future

Soon, a finite volume model will be added to PyRK to represent components that are not well approximated by the lumped capacitance assumption.

Our target audience is anyone interested in conducting analyses of nuclear reactor safety. In the short term, we hope that users will add material classes, contribute data, find bugs, contribute fixes, and share their ideas for the future of PyRK.

In the long term, it is very likely that PyRK will one day be absorbed into or will absorb the wonderful PyNE package.

Warning

PyRK is a relatively new project and is still under heavy development. Although we will make a best effort to maintain compatibility with the current API, inevitably the API will change in future versions as PyRK matures.