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Cost-accuracy analysis of a variational nodal 2D/1D approach to pin resolved neutron transport   ZHANG Tengfei1, WU Hongchun1, CAO Liangzhi1, LEWIS Elmer-E.2, SMITH Micheal-A.3, and YANG Won-sik4   1. Department of Nuclear Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, No. 28 Xianning West Rd., Xi’an, Shannxi, 710049, China (xfempty@gmail.com, hongchun@mail.xjtu.edu.cn, caolz@mail.xjtu.edu.cn) 2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Northwestern University, 2145 Sheridan Road Tech, Evanston, IL, 60208-3109, U.S. (e-lewis@northwestern.edu) 3. Nuclear Engineering Division, Argonne National Laboratory, 700 South Cass Avenue, Lemont, IL, 60439, U.S. (masmith@anl.gov) 4. School of Nuclear Engineering, Purdue University, 400 Central Drive, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, U.S. (yang494@purdue.edu)   Abstract: A two-dimensional/one-dimensional (2D/1D) variational nodal approach is presented for pressurized water reactor (PWR) core calculations without fuel-moderator homogenization. It employs diffusion theory in the axial direction combined with two-dimensional transport in the x-y plane. In the x-y direction, finite element trial functions are applied to explicitly model the pin resolved geometry. On the axial interfaces, piece-wise constant trial functions are used to eliminate the interface homogenization that has been a challenge for method of characteristics (MOC) based 2D/1D approximations, and resolve the lack of convergence as the axial mesh is refined. In this paper, the method is tested with the un-rodded C5G7 benchmark case, and the cost-accuracy trade-offs between different angular treatments are analyzed. Keyword: variational nodal 2D/1D method; eliminating the interface homogenization
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