Implementation and assessment of high-resolution numerical methods in TRACE

Abstract The 1st-order upwind differencing numerical scheme is widely employed to discretize the convective terms of the two-phase flow transport equations in reactor systems analysis codes such as TRACE and RELAP. While very robust and efficient, 1st-order upwinding leads to excessive numerical diffusion. Standard 2nd-order numerical methods (e.g., Lax–Wendroff and Beam–Warming) can effectively reduce numerical diffusion but often produce spurious oscillations for steep gradients. To overcome the difficulties with the standard higher-order schemes, high-resolution schemes such as nonlinear flux limiters have been developed and successfully applied in numerical simulation of fluid-flow problems in recent years. The present work contains a detailed study on the implementation and assessment of six nonlinear flux limiters in TRACE. These flux limiters selected are MUSCL, Van Leer (VL), OSPRE, Van Albada (VA), ENO, and Van Albada 2 (VA2). The assessment is focused on numerical stability, convergence, and accuracy of the flux limiters and their applicability for boiling water reactor (BWR) stability analysis. It is found that VA and MUSCL work best among of the six flux limiters. Both of them not only have better numerical accuracy than the 1st-order upwind scheme but also preserve great robustness and efficiency.