Annals of Nuclear Energy 165 (2022) 108659

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Annals of Nuclear Energy

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Analytical nodal method for solution of neutron diffusion equation in

polar coordinates
Manish Raj a, Nadeem Ahmed b, Suneet Singh b,⇑
a
Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd., Mumbai 400094, India
b
Department of Energy Science & Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai 400076, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The well-known analytic nodal method approach as proposed in earlier work for Cartesian coordinates
Received 17 November 2020 with constant transverse leakage approximation is adapted to solve the neutron diffusion equation in
Received in revised form 15 June 2021 2-d polar coordinates. The approach in present work incorporates the recently developed methodology
Accepted 19 August 2021
to overcome the problem involved with the transverse integration in h–direction. Unlike the earlier meth-
Available online 4 September 2021
ods which solve for surface averaged fluxes, the node averaged fluxes are obtained in the present work.
The advantage of using node average flux is that it allows the straightforward coupling with mesh cen-
Keywords:
tered schemes for thermal hydraulics or other physics. Furthermore, the conventional time marching
Analytic Nodal Method (ANM)
Neutron diffusion
schemes can be developed in a simplified manner using this approach. The solutions obtained from
Polar coordinates the current approach are compared with the available analytical and benchmark solutions. The eigenval-
Criticality ues obtained with current methodology is in good agreement with those obtained for analytical and
internationally available benchmark solutions.
Ó 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction FDM are reliable means of generating solutions to the multi-group

Many methods for solving the steady state and/or the time
dependent neutron diffusion equation are presently available in
literature. The various methods such as finite difference method
(FDM), finite element method (FEM), flux synthesis method
(FSM) and Nodal methods (NM) are used to solve the steady state
and/or the time dependent neutron diffusion equation.
In FDM, low order difference approximations are used to repre-
sent the leakage term of neutron diffusion equation. The FDM pos-
sesses several advantages over most of the other methods. One of
these advantages is that FDM are simple to develop and also the
resulting algebraic equations are such that only adjacent nodes
or meshes are coupled by the spatial leakage terms. Another very
important property of FDM is that in the limit of infinitesimal small
mesh or node size these methods can be shown to converge to
nearly exact solution of the multi-group neutron diffusion equa-
tion. The only drawback of FDM is their lower accuracy or in other
words these methods require very fine meshing to achieve accept-
able accuracy which makes the computation very time consuming.
This problem of lower accuracy is more pronounced near reflector
region where thermal flux peaks in thermal reactors. Nonetheless,
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: suneet.singh@iitb.ac.in (S. Singh).
neutron diffusion equation with which to compare the results of
other methods and despite their drawback for use with full core
reactor calculation, the FDMs are still continuing to be the industry
standard.
In FEM, the spatial shapes of the multi-group fluxes are repre-
sented as polynomials over large homogeneous regions. Principles
of variation are generally used to determine the equations which
specify the coefficients of the polynomials. In FEM, it is possible
to achieve a substantial reduction in the number of spatial
unknowns, for a given degree of accuracy, over FDM. The FEM also
converges to the exact solution of the multi-group steady state
neutron diffusion equation in the limit of mesh size approaching
to zero as is the case for FDM. The major disadvantage of FEM is
that the coupling of the FE equations is much more complicated
and extensive than with those in case of FDM. Hence, it is offset
by an increase in computational effort required to solve the result-
ing equations.
In FSM, the pre-computed expansion functions also known as
modes are obtained over large regions of the reactor, normally by
two dimensional FD calculations with full geometrical details.
These expansion functions (or modes) are combined by coefficients
which are determined by solving spatial equations of a lower
dimensionality, such as 1D (z-dependent) equation. The equations
for the unknown ‘mixing coefficients’ are derived by applying the

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anucene.2021.108659
0306-4549/Ó 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
M. Raj, N. Ahmed and S. Singh
Nomenclature
ai Half width of node in r direction
bj Half width (angular) of node in h direction
B2 Material buckling
D Neutron diffusion cross section
Y c ðBrÞ Bessel function of second kind
J c ðBrÞ Bessel function of first kind
keff Effective multiplication factor
Lr Diffusion length
S0ij
h Transverse leakage in h direction
S0ij Transverse leakage in r direction
principle of variation and demanding that the approximate solu-
tion obey the multi-group diffusion equations in a weighted inte-
gral sense. A major reduction in the number of unknowns is
routinely obtained by many synthesis methods and the resulting
equations are difficult to solve. However, the unfortunate draw-
back of FSM is that there is no systematic procedure to choose
the expansion functions and/or weighting functions.
Another class of methods for solving the steady state (as well as
transient) multi-group neutron diffusion equation are known as
nodal methods. The quantities of interest in nodal methods are
the node averaged flux and face-averaged currents. No approxima-
tions to the formally exact neutron transport equation need to be
made in the derivation of nodal balance equation. The difficulty
with the nodal methods is that the relationships between the
node-averaged fluxes and the face-averaged currents must be
obtained. Many different kinds of schemes for determining these
relationships are proposed successfully. Once the relationship is
known, the algebraic equations similar to finite difference equa-
tions are obtained. Most of these methods are discussed nicely
by Smith (Smith, 1979) and Lawrence (Lawrence, 1986).
The nodal methods have been developed mainly in two differ-
ent ways. The first way is in one energy group in which the refine-
ments to the initially developed FLARE (Delp et al., 1964) model
has been addressed. This is the adjustment of the parameters
involved in the analysis which are matched with the actual
observed values or the better estimations. This way it can be con-
sidered as empirical nodal methods. These were mainly used for
training purposes in simulators for earlier reactors (Gupta, 1981).
The other way is rather more consistent and sometimes
referred as modern nodal methods (Dorning, 1979). The use of
empirical parameters is avoided in these methods and the second
or higher order approximations to the multi-group neutron diffu-
sion equation are used to estimate the inter-node coupling rela-
tionships. Therefore these methods can be considered the true
coarse-mesh methods for solving the neutron diffusion equation.
The modern nodal methods developed in this way can be expected
to converge to the exact solution in the limit of zero node size.
Generally, in modern nodal methods, the domain of calculation
is divided into nodes and then the neutron diffusion equation is
integrated over an arbitrary node and both sides are divided by
respective node volume. The cross-sections homogenized over
node are assumed to be known for each node (which are further
assumed to be constant within a node) and the divergence theorem
is applied to the leakage term of neutron diffusion equation and
the integrated equation yields the nodal balance equation. The
relation between the surface-averaged net current on each surface
of the node and the fluxes in nodes of either sides of the surface is
also required to be known for the solution of nodal balance equa-
2
Annals of Nuclear Energy 165 (2022) 108659
Greek
m Average number of neutrons produced per fission
£ðr; hÞ Neutron flux atðr; hÞ
h
£ij ðrÞ Flux averaged overh
r
£ij ðhÞ Flux averaged overr
h
J ij ðrÞ Current averaged overh
r
J ij ðhÞ Current averaged overr
 rh
£ij Flux averaged over r andh
Ra ðr; hÞ Macroscopic neutron absorption cross section atðr; hÞ
Rf ðr; hÞ Macroscopic neutron fission cross sectionatðr; hÞ
tion. It is these additional coupling relationships between surface-
averaged net current and the node averaged fluxes that
characterize the different kinds of nodal schemes developed for
solution of neutron diffusion equation.
In case of FDM (mesh centered) the surface net currents are
approximated by linear flux variation between the node center
point and the midpoint of any surface of the node. Using the con-
tinuity of net current and surface fluxes and eliminating the sur-
face fluxes results into the equations in terms of the node-
averaged fluxes only.
Mainly-two types of modern nodal methods are developed.
These are polynomial nodal methods (Bennewitz et al., 1975;
Bennewitz et al., 1975; Finnemann et al., 1977; Wagner et al.,
1981; Sims, 1977; Maeder, 1978; Lawrence, 1984) and analytic
nodal methods (Shober, 1976; Shober et al., 1977; Greenman
et al., 1979; Lawrence and Dorning, 1980; Shober, 1979). There
are several examples of polynomial methods such as Nodal Expan-
sion Method (NEM), the polynomial scheme developed by Sims
(Sims, 1977), the NODLEG method developed by Maeder(Maeder,
1978) and polynomial nodal method developed for fast reactor
analysis (Lawrence, 1984). On the other hand the examples of ana-
lytic nodal methods are Analytic Nodal Method (ANM) developed
by Shober (Shober, 1976; Shober et al., 1977), Nodal Green’s func-
tion method (Lawrence and Dorning, 1980) and the AN2D method
developed by Shober (Shober, 1979).
The transverse-integrated equations are solved analytically
with different shapes assumed for the leakages in transverse direc-
tion in ANM. Shober retained the analytical form of these equations
by assuming constant transverse leakage in which case the cou-
pling relationships contain the average transverse leakages in adja-
cent nodes as well as the fluxes averaged over these nodes.,
Therefore it is not possible to eliminate the leakages (like the case
of buckling approximation) and the seven point equation for node
averaged flux also includes the terms containing the adjoint node
leakages. The equations for the average leakages are obtained by
subtracting the analytical expressions for the net currents. The
equations containing average leakages as well as node average
fluxes are solved simultaneously as these two are coupled
together.
The nodal methods discussed above are mainly developed in
Cartesian geometry and therefore these methods would be less
suitable for few of the Gen-IV reactors such as Molten Salt Breeder
reactor (MSBR),Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) etc. Several
methods have been developed for complex geometries in other
fields of physics such as fluid flow and heat transfer. The
approaches developed for solving fluid flow problems (Wilson
et al., 1988; Azmy, 1985; Michael and Dorning, 2001; Wang and
Rizwan-uddin, 2003; Kumar et al., 2012) have been extended for
M. Raj, N. Ahmed and S. Singh Annals of Nuclear Energy 165 (2022) 108659

complex geometries utilizing the quadrilateral elements by using braic equations containing node average flux and face averaged
linear (Nezami et al., 2009; Kumar et al., 2013; Kumar et al., currents are coupled together and using the constant transverse
2013) as well as higher order (Sharma and Kumar, 2018) algebraic leakage approximation, these equations are solved for node aver-
transformation. Many researchers have used the finite-element aged flux. In the present work, the performance as well as the accu-
and hybrid nodal schemes for convection–diffusion physics for racy of this methodology in 2D ðr; hÞpolar geometry is discussed
fluid flow and heat transfer problems (Toreja and Rizwan-uddin, through two kinds of problems, one is the analytical problem
2003; Wang and Rizwan-uddin, 2018). and the other one is a benchmark in 2D ðr; hÞ polar geometry.
The other methods developed for taking into account the complex The present methodology can be extended to 3D cylindrical
geometries can be quite useful in general, however the methods ðr; h; zÞcoordinates including z-direction and since this term does
developed in cylindrical geometries would be more appropriate for not contain the dependence on either coordinates i.e. ðr; hÞ there-
the solution of neutron diffusion equation in some of the above men- fore there would be no problem in transverse integration. How-
tioned Gen-IV reactors. For last few years, the nodal methods in ever, to emphasis the transverse integration in h-direction, it is
cylindrical coordinates have gained interest from their performance presented for 2D polar ðr; hÞ coordinates only.
and accuracy point of view compared to the other methods devel- The discussion of the paper is divided into two parts. In first
oped in coordinates other than cylindrical. There are various recent part, the developed method to solve the time independent neutron
works on nodal methods in cylindrical coordinates, especially in diffusion equation for one energy group of neutrons, in 2D polar
reactors with fuel in molten form such as MSR and PBMR. ðr; hÞcoordinates, has been discussed. In second part, the methodol-
The transverse integration is not straightforward in 0 h0 direction, ogy has been validated against the two kind of problems in which
compared to that in Cartesian coordinates, as the azimuthal term first problem is an analytical problem and the second problem is a


contains the factor of 1=r 2 in r2 representation in cylindrical coor- benchmark in 2d ðr; hÞpolar coordinates suggested by Pedroni
dinates. Actually, it is discontinuous near the center (as it blows at (Pedroni and Pollachini, 1985). In the final part the results as well
r = 0). This restricted the development of nodal methods in cylindri- the future work has been discussed.
cal co-ordinates and hence there has been limited work on nodal
methods in cylindrical coordinates (Azmy, 1987; Singh, 2006; 2. Analytical nodal method for 2D cylindrical (polar) geometry
Ougouag and Terry, 2002; Prinsloo and Tomasevic, 2010; Cho and
Lee, 2008; Dengying Wang et al, 2010; Colameco et al., 2010; The form of two dimensional time independent neutron diffusion
Pedroni and Pollachini, 1985; Raj and Singh, 2017).Singh and equation in one group and in polar co-ordinates ðr; hÞis given as,
Rizwan-uddin (Singh, 2006) suggested the ‘approximation of average r:Dr£ðr; hÞ ¼ Ra £ðr; hÞ  Sðr; hÞ ð1Þ
of products by product of averages’for successful transverse integra-
tion in 0 h0 direction. Another approach developed by Ougouag and WhereSðr; hÞ is in general, sum of external and fission sources.
Terry (Ougouag and Terry, 2002), is found to be difficult to imple- The computation domain is divided into nodes. The node size
ment. On the other hand, Prinsloo and Tomasevic (Prinsloo and for (i,j)th node in ‘r’ and ‘h’ directions are 2ai and 2bj respectively
Tomasevic, 2010) have solved the ‘cylindrisized’ version of IAEA 3D as shown in Fig. 1.
LWR benchmark using the conformal mapping approach. However, Using Fick’s law and the constant properties in a node, which, in
their approach leads to mapping errors. In the approach of Cho and general, is variable in the entire computational domain, the Lapla-
Lee (Cho and Lee, 2008), direct 3D solution for a node is obtained cianðr2 Þis given as (in 2D polar coordinates),
without using the process of transverse integration. The Nodal
expansion method proposed by Wang et al (Dengying Wang et al,
2010) uses the similar kind of approach as used by Singh and
Rizwan-uddin (Singh, 2006). In the present work the development
of analytic nodal method in polar coordinates has been discussed.
The current paper discusses the methodology to solve the one
group, time independent neutron diffusion equation in 2D polar
coordinatesðr; hÞ for one neutron energy group. The transverse
integration in r and h–directions has been applied to the neutron
diffusion equation in similar fashion as in the conventional ANM
in Cartesian coordinates with constant transverse leakages. The


problem of 1=r2 factor in azimuthal term of r2 representation
in cylindrical coordinatesis circumvented by approximatingthe
average of products by product of averages. It is already shown
that use of this approximation produces the solutions which are
second order accurate and hence is in accordance with the order
of error of the nodal methods (Raj and Singh, 2017; Raj and
Singh, 2021). The recently developed similar approaches were used
to find the surface averaged fluxes while the current approach has
been modified to obtain the node averaged fluxes. The approach
adopted in this work is same as proposed by Shober (Finnemann
et al., 1977; Wagner et al., 1981) for Cartesian geometry. However,
it was not applied or developed for cylindrical geometry earlier.
The advantage of obtaining the node averaged fluxes in this
approach is that the most of the traditional schemes used for ther-
mal hydraulics are mesh cantered and hence the coupling between
the two physics becomes relatively straightforward. Similarly, the
conventional time marching schemes can be developed in a simpli-
fied manner using this approach. In the approach of ANM, the alge- Fig. 1. Details of (i, j)th node and common surface of neighboring nodes (i-1, j) & (i,
j-1).

3
M. Raj, N. Ahmed and S. Singh Annals of Nuclear Energy 165 (2022) 108659

 
1 @ @ 1 @2 Substituting equation (4e) in equation (4d) gives,
r2  r þ 2 2 ð2Þ 0 1
r @r @r r @h h
d @ d£ij ðrÞA h
Therefore equation (1) in a node is given as, r ¼ S0ij ðrÞ ð4fÞ
dr dr
 
1 @ @£ðr; hÞ 1 @ 2 £ðr; hÞ
r þ 2 ¼ SL ðr; hÞ ð3aÞ Similar integration of equation (3c) for over ‘r’ node (i, j) gives,
r @r @r r @h2
Z ri þ2ai  Z ri þ2ai
For simplicity the indices ‘i’ & ‘j’ are removed and are used in 1 @ @£ðr; hÞ 1 1 @ 2 £ðr; hÞ
r dr þ dr
appropriate manner wherever it is required to explain the current 2ai ri @r @r 2ai ri r @h2
approach. The termSL ðr; hÞ includes both the source and absorption Z ri þai
1
terms. ¼ rSL ðr; hÞdr ð5aÞ
2ai ri ai
Sðr; hÞ Ra Sðr; hÞ 1
SL ðr; hÞ ¼  £ðr; hÞ ¼  2 £ðr; hÞ ð3bÞ Second term of equation (5a) is simplified as (approximating
D D D L average of products as products of averages)
The equation (3a) can be written in one more form as: Z ri þ2ai Z ri þ2ai
1 1 @ 2 £ðr; hÞ 1 1
  2 dr  dr
@ @£ðr; hÞ 1 @ £ðr; hÞ 2ai r @h2 2ai r
r þ ¼ rSL ðr; hÞ ð3cÞ ri ri
Z
@r @r r @h2 1 ri þ2ai
@ 2 £ðr; hÞ
 dr
This form leads to relatively simple equation and is used for 2ai ri @h2
development of the methodology in subsequent section. It is also   2
r
1 d £ij ðhÞ
to be noted that during further development of the scheme, the ¼ ð5bÞ
r1=2 2
source and absorption terms are separated from SL ðr; hÞ(see Eq. i dh
(20)). Where
r
Z ri þ2ai
2.1. Transverse integration procedure (TIP) 1
£ij ðhÞ ¼ £ðr; hÞdr ð5cÞ
2ai ri
0 0
The integrating of both sides of equation (3c) over h for node (i,


  and it is defined as surface averaged flux in h-direction. The
j) and division the both sidesby node width ravg i  2bj yields,  
1
Z   Z hj þ2b term r1=2
is given as,
hj þ2bj 2
1 @ @£ðr; hÞ 1 j 1 @ £ðr; hÞ i
r dh þ dh   Z ri þ2ai    
2bj @r @r 2bj hj r @h2 1 1 1 1 ri þ 2ai 1 1
hj ¼ dr ¼ ln or
 ¼ (5d)
Z hj þ2b r1=2 i
2ai ri r 2ai ri ravg i ri þ ai
1 j
¼ rSL ðr; hÞdh ð4aÞ
2bj hj Substituting these in equation (5a) and taking first term to the
right side gives,
The equation (4a) defines the averaging over the node width in
r ( Z ri þ2ai Z ri þ2ai   )
h–direction. 2
d £ij ðhÞ
 1 1 @ @£ðr; hÞ

 ¼ r1=2 i  rSL ðr; hÞdr  r dr
Note that the 0 ravg i 0 in numerator and denominator cancels dh
2 2ai ri 2ai ri @r @r


each other, ravg i is the average radius of (i, j)th node. First term ð5eÞ
on LHS of equation (4a) can be simplified as, 0 0
In general, the RHS of equation (5e) is a function of h and is
0 h 1
Z   writtenas,
1 hj þ2bj
@ @£ðr; hÞ d @ d£ij ðrÞA ( Z ri þ2ai Z ri þ2ai   )
r dh ¼ r ð4bÞ r
 1 1 @ @£ðr; hÞ
2bj hj @r @r dr dr S0ij ðhÞ ¼ r1=2 i  rSL ðr; hÞdr  r dr
2ai ri 2ai ri @r @r
h ð5fÞ
Where£ij ðrÞisdefined as surface averaged flux in r-direction
Substituting equation (5f) in to equation (5e) gives,
and is given as,
r
h
Z hj þ2bj
2
d £ij ðhÞ r
1 ¼ S0ij ðhÞ ð5gÞ
£ij ðrÞ ¼ £ðr; hÞdh ð4cÞ dh
2
2bj hj
The right hand side of equations (4f) and (5g) are defined as the
Substituting equation (4c) in equation (4a) and taking the sec- pseudo source. In the current approach the pseudo source of equations
ond term on right side gives, h r

0 1 (4f) and (5g) are considered to be constantsS0ij and S0ij , respectively. It

h
Z
d @ d£ij ðrÞA 1 hj þ2bj is very well known that the assumption of constant pseudo source
r ¼ rSL ðr; hÞdh will lead to a second order scheme (Wagner et al., 1981).
dr dr 2bj hj
Z hj þ2bj
1 1 @ 2 £ðr; hÞ 2.2. Odes and their solutions
 dh ð4dÞ
2bj hj r @h2
The equations (4f) and (5g) are simple second order ODEs and
In general, the RHS of equation (4d) is a function of ‘r’ and is can be easily solved with the following interface conditions in
written as, terms of surface averaged flux and current (see Fig. 1),
Z hj þ2bj Z hj þ2bj 
h 1 1 1 @ 2 £ðr; hÞ   h h
S0ij ðrÞ ¼  rSL ðr; hÞdh  dh ð4eÞ  h hd£ij  J ij
2bj 2bj r @h2 £ij  ¼ £ij and  ¼ ð6Þ
dr 
hj hj
r¼ri Dij
r¼ri

4
M. Raj, N. Ahmed and S. Singh Annals of Nuclear Energy 165 (2022) 108659

r
 r h h h h h
 r r d£ij  J ij 2ai1 ri J ij þ Di1j ðai1 þ ri ÞS0i1j þ £ij Þ þ ri ð2ai1 þ ri ÞðJ ij þ Di1j S0i1j ÞðLLi1 Þ
 
£ij  ¼ £ij and ¼ ð7Þ
h¼hj dh  Dij Di1j  2ai1
h¼hj  rh
 £i1j ¼ 0
The above approach is in accordance with the approach pro- ð15Þ
posed by Shober(Sims, 1977; Maeder, 1978) for Cartesian coordi-
Where,
nates which finally leads to the algebraic equations in terms of
 rh
Z ri Z hj þ2bj
node average flux and the pseudo sources as discussed below. 1
£i1j ¼ £ðr; hÞdrdh ð16Þ
Using the above interface conditions (6) the solution of equa- 2ai1  2bj ri 2ai1 hj
tion (4f) for node (i, j) that is the surface average flux in r-direction,
h
h h h h h Eliminating the common surface flux £ij from equations (12)
h Dij ðrS0ij  ri S0ij þ £ij Þ þ ri ðJ ij þ Dij S0ij ÞðLog½r þ Log½ri Þ h
£ij ðrÞ ¼ and (15) and solving for J ij we get,
Dij
ð8Þ h Dij Di1j ð2ai 2 ai1  2ai ai1 ri þ 2ai ai1 LLi ri þ ai1 LLi ri 2 ÞS0ij
h

J ij ¼   
Similarly using the interface conditions (7) the solution of equa- ri 2ai ai1 Di1j ð1 þ LLi Þ þ Dij ð1 þ LLi1 Þ  ai1 Di1j LLi ri þ ai Dij LLi1 ri
h
tion (5g) for node (i, j) that is the surface average flux inh- Dij Di1j ð2ai ai1 2 þ 2ai ai1 ri þ 2ai ai1 LLi1 ri  ai LLi1 ri 2 ÞS0i1j
direction, þ   
ri 2ai ai1 Di1j ð1 þ LLi Þ þ Dij ð1 þ LLi1 Þ  ai1 Di1j LLi ri þ ai Dij LLi1 ri
r  rh
r 1 r J ij r 2ai ai1 Dij Di1j £ij
£ij ðhÞ ¼ S0ij ðh  hj Þ2 þ ðhj  hÞ þ £ij ð9Þ þ   
2 Dij ri 2ai ai1 Di1j ð1 þ LLi Þ þ Dij ð1 þ LLi1 Þ  ai1 Di1j LLi ri þ ai Dij LLi1 ri
 rh
2ai ai1 Dij Di1j £i1j
Similar expression of surface average flux for (i-1,j)th node in r-    
ri 2ai ai1 Di1j ð1 þ LLi Þ þ Dij ð1 þ LLi1 Þ  ai1 Di1j LLi ri þ ai Dij LLi1 ri
direction and for (i,j-1)thnode in h-direction can also be obtained at
ð17Þ
the common boundary (with (i,j)th node) of these neighboring
nodes as shown in Fig. 1. Following the similar process in h- direction also and eliminat-
 h r r
The expression of £i1j ðrÞfor (i-1,j) node will be, ing the common surface flux £ij the expression for J ij in terms
r r  rh  rh
h h h h h
h Di1j ðrS0i1j  ri S0i1j þ £ij Þ þ ri ðJ ij þ Di1j S0i1j ÞðLog½r þ Log½ri Þ ofS0ij , S0ij1 , £ij and£ij1 can be obtained and is given as,
£i1j ðrÞ ¼
Di1j r r
2 2
r 2bj Dij Dij1 S0ij 2bj1 Dij Dij1 S0ij1
ð10Þ J ij ¼ 
3ðbj1 Dij þ bj Dij1 Þ 3ðbj1 Dij þ bj Dij1 Þ
r
Similarly the expression of £ij1 ðhÞ for (i, j-1) node will be,  rh  rh
Dij Dij1 £ij Dij Dij1 £ij1
r  þ ð18Þ
r 1 r J ij r bj1 Dij þ bj Dij1 bj1 Dij þ bj Dij1
£ij1 ðhÞ ¼ S0ij1 ðh  hj Þ2 þ ðhj  hÞ þ £ij ð11Þ
2 Dij1 Writing equation (4e) again,
Z hj þ2bj Z hj þ2bj
h 1 1 1 @ 2 £ðr; hÞ
2.3. Final scheme in terms of node average flux and face averaged S0ij ðrÞ ¼  rSL ðr; hÞdh  dh
2bj hj 2bj hj r @h2
currents
Integrating both sides of the above equation over (ri, ri + 2ai)
So far we have obtained the solutions of ODEs (equations (8) and dividing by node width ‘2ai’ in r-direction,
and (9)) for surface or face averaged fluxes of (i, j)th node in terms
of surface averaged currents and fluxes of common surface of con- Z ri þ2ai h Z ri þ2ai Z hj þ2bj
dr 1 dr
secutive or neighboring nodes and the pseudo sources of these S0ij ðrÞ ¼ rSL ðr; hÞdh
nodes. ri 2ai 2bj ri hj 2ai
Z ri þ2ai Z hj þ2bj
Integrating the equation (8) over (ri, ri + 2ai) and dividing by 1 1 @ 2 £ðr; hÞ dr
node width ‘2ai’ in r-direction we get,  2
dh ð19Þ
2bj ri hj r @h 2ai
h h h h h
2ai ri J ij þ Dij ðai þ ri ÞS0ij þ £ij þ ri ð2ai þ ri ÞðJ ij þ Dij S0ij ÞðLLiÞ
R ri þ2ai h h h
Dij  2ai LHS = ri
S0ij ðrÞ 2a
dr
¼ S0ij (as S0ij ðr Þ is assumed to be constant)
i

 rh The 1st term on RHS of equation (19),

 £ij ¼ 0 Z Z
ri þ2ai hj þ2bj
1 dr
ð12Þ  rSL ðr; hÞdh
2bj ri hj 2ai
Where Z Z !
ri þ2ai hj þ2bj
Z Z 1 dr
 rh 1 ri þ2ai hj þ2bj   SL ðr; hÞdh
£ij ¼ £ðr; hÞdrdh ð13Þ 2bj ri hj 2ai
2ai  2bj ri hj Z Z !
ri þ2ai hj þ2bj
1 dr
is the node average flux and   rdh
2bj ri hj 2ai
ri þ 2ai   
LLi ¼ lnð Þ ð14Þ ¼ SL rh ðri þ ai Þ ð20aÞ
ri ij

Similarly integrating equation (10) over (ri-2ai-1, ri) and dividing Where
by node width ‘2a0i1 in r-direction we get,

5
M. Raj, N. Ahmed and S. Singh Annals of Nuclear Energy 165 (2022) 108659

  Z ri þ2ai Z hj þ2b r rh h h h  rh  rh

1 j dr S0ij ¼ x1 Sij þ x2 S0ij þ x3 S0i1j þ x4 S0iþ1j þ x5 £0ij þ x6 £0i1j
SL rh ¼ SL ðr; hÞdh
ij 2bj ri hj 2ai
 rh
Z ri þ2ai Z hj þ2b   þ x7 £0iþ1j ð25Þ
j 1 S dh dr
¼  2 £ðr; hÞ þ ð20bÞ
ri hj L D 2bj 2ai h r
Using the expressions of S0ij and S0ij in equation (23) and solving
The 2nd term on RHS of equation (19),  rh

R ri þ2ai R hj þ2bj 1 @ 2 £ðr;hÞ   R h þ2b r for £0ij we get,

1 dr 1 j j d2 £ij ðhÞ dh
2b ri hj r @h2
dh 2a = r1=2 hj dh2 2bj
which can rh r r r h h
j i i  rh
further be simplified as, £0ij ¼ E1 Sij þ E2 S0ij þ E3 S0ij1 þ E4 S0ijþ1 þ E5 S0ij þ E6 S0i1j
8   9 h  rh  rh  rh
  Z r   >  r   r > þ E7 S0iþ1j þ E8 £0ij1 þ E9 £0ijþ1 þ E10 £0i1j
1 <d£ij  =
2
1 hj þ2bj d £ij ðhÞ dh 1 d£ij 
¼  
r1=2 2 2bj r1=2 2bj >  dh  >  rh
i hj dh i : dh  ; þ E11 £0iþ1j ð26Þ
h¼hj þ2bj h¼hj
r r

   J ijþ1  J ij The above three algebraic equations can be (two for pseudo
1 1 h r  rh
¼ ð20cÞ sources S0ij &S0ij and one for £0ij are coupled) solved
r1=2 i
2bj Dij
computationally.
Substituting these values from equations (20) in equation (19) The expressions for x’s, y’s and E’s are given in Appendix-1. In
we get, general, these are geometry dependent and also depend upon dif-
r r

fusion coefficients of the nodes in which the region of interest is
       J ijþ1  J ij
h 1 1 divided. For simplicity the indices ‘i’ & ‘j’ are removed in the
S0ij ¼ SL rh ðri þ ai Þ þ ð21Þ coefficients.
ij r1=2 i 2bj Dij
It is also to be noted that boundary nodes has to be treated dif-
Similarly using equation (5f) and integrating both sides over ‘h’ ferently than the nodes which are well within the region of inter-
and following similar manner as done above we get, est. The Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions can be applied
2  h h 3
 at these boundary nodes (Raj and Singh, 2017; Raj and Singh, 2021)
    r J  r J according to the problem of interest.
r
6  1 iþ1 iþ1j i ij 7
S0ij ¼ r1=2 i 6
4 SL ij ðri þ ai Þ þ 2ai
rh 7
5 ð22Þ
Dij
3. Problems used for validation of methodology


Integrating equation (3c) over node volume i.e. ravg i drdh and To validate the current approach, three types of problems are


dividing with node width in each direction 2ai and ravg i 2bj (keep- solved in this paper. The first problem is a source problem for


ing in mind that ravg i will cancel from numerator and which a semi-analytical solution is developed for error analysis
denominator), of the present methodology. Second problem is a 2D-criticality
problem in one energy group and homogeneous region with ana-
Z ri þ2ai Z hj þ2bj   Z ri þ2ai Z hj þ2bj lytical solution. The third problem is the Pedroni’s 2D-benchmark
@ @£ðr; hÞ dr dh 1 @ 2 £ðr; hÞ
r þ in polar coordinates (Pedroni and Pollachini, 1985).
@r @r 2ai 2bj r @h2
ri hj ri hj
3.1. Source problem used for error analysis
dr dh

2ai 2bj
Z ri þ2ai Z The steady state neutron diffusion equation [Eq. (1)] without
hj þ2bj
dr dh fission source and constant properties is solved in a region defined
¼ frSL ðr; hÞg
2ai 2bj by ð1  r  2; 0  h  pÞ. The neutron flux is assumed to be zero at
ri hj
all the boundaries.

h 3.1.1. Semi-Analytical solution

After using equations (4e) and (5f) and knowing that S0ij ðrÞ and The steady state neutron diffusion equation (1) is reduced into
r h h
modified Bessel equation if separation of variable is used for flux
S0ij ðhÞ are constant pseudo sources i.e. S0ij ðrÞ ¼ S0ij and
r r £ðr; hÞ. The solution of homogeneous part would be modified Bes-
S0ij ðhÞ ¼ S0ij the above expression can be easily simplified as, sel functions of first and second kind i.e. Im andK m . The complete
h
  r    solution is discussed in detail in [39]. However, to avoid the com-
1
S0ij þ S0ij ¼ SL rh ðri þ ai Þ ð23Þ plexity a simpler approach has been adopted and is discussed
r1=2 ij
i below.
r r Let
Now substituting the values of J ij andJ ijþ1 in equation (21) we X
get, Sðr; hÞ ¼ Sm ðrÞSinðmhÞ ð27Þ
m
h rh r r r  rh  rh
S0ij ¼ y1 Sij þ y2 S0ij þ y3 S0ij1 þ y4 S0ijþ1 þ y5 £0ij þ y6 £0ij1 where
 rh  Z h2 ¼ p
þ y7 £0ijþ1 ð24Þ 2
Sm ð r Þ ¼ Sðr; hÞSinðmhÞdh ð28Þ
p h1 ¼0
h h
Similarly substituting the values of J ij andJ iþ1j in equation (22) ‘m’ would be decided by boundary condition in 0 h0 direction.
we get, The solution for flux would be,

6
M. Raj, N. Ahmed and S. Singh Annals of Nuclear Energy 165 (2022) 108659

X 2 Equation (37) is the well-known Bessel equation which have

£ðr; hÞ ¼ T m ðrÞSinðmhÞ ð29Þ
m
p Jc ðBrÞ and/orYc ðBrÞ and/or their linear combinations as the general
solution. Thus the general solution can be given as,
Substituting the above expressions in equation (1) the following
ODE in T m ðr Þ can be obtained, Uðr; hÞ ¼ ½aJc ðBrÞ þ bYc ðBrÞ½c sin ðchÞ þ d cos ðchÞ ð38Þ

00 1 0 1 m2 p Where a, b, c, and d are the constant and their values will be
T m ðr Þ þ T m ðr Þ  2 T m ðr Þ þ 2 T m ðrÞ ¼  Sm ðr Þ ð30Þ decided by the boundary conditions (BCs).
r L r 2D
The solution for various boundary conditions in h direction are
The above equation can be easily solved using conventional given as,
FDM to find T m ðr Þ. Hence the complete solution is known. The sur-
h
face flux £ij ðrÞ would be given as ½aJc ðBrÞ þ bYc ðBrÞ sin ðchÞ; if Uðr; h ¼ 0Þ ¼ 0 and Uðr; h ¼ h2 Þ ¼ 0
      ð39Þ
h 1 X 2 1
£ij ðrÞ ¼ T m ðr Þ ðcosh1  cosh2 Þ ð31Þ
2bj m p m
dU
In the present paper the error analysis is done using the above ½aJc ðBrÞ þ bYc ðBrÞ sin ðchÞ; if Uðr; h ¼ 0Þ ¼ 0 and ðr; h ¼ h2 Þ ¼ 0
dh
discussed formulation. The estimation of surface flux averaged ð40Þ
over 0 h0 using equations (30) and (31) can be treated to be accurate
provided the estimation of T m ðr Þ is carried out for very fine mesh Since only fundamental mode exists, therefore,c ¼ p=h2 for
dimensions. In the present paper the region in 0 r0 direction is equation (39) and c ¼ p=ð2h2 Þfor equation (40).
divided into 1600 meshes and about 151 terms are chosen in Similarly the B.C. in r- direction will give the equations in terms
expansion for source and flux. Thus T m ðrÞ can be assumed to be of Bessel functions as,
h
almost exact. This value of £ij ðrÞ is compared with the estimated ½aJc ðBR1 Þ þ bYc ðBR1 Þ½c sin ðchÞ þ d cos ðchÞ ¼ 0; if Uðr ¼ R1 ; hÞ ¼ 0
result obtained using the present ANM methodology. However, it
ð41Þ
is to be noted that the ANM gives node averaged flux at node cen-
tre. Therefore, the value of T m ðr Þ at node centre is taken for finding
the RMS error. ½aJc ðBR2 Þ þ bYc ðBR2 Þ½c sin ðchÞ þ d cos ðchÞ ¼ 0; if Uðr ¼ R2 ; hÞ ¼ 0
ð42Þ
3.2. Criticality problem in 2D-polar co-ordinates Which finally can be solved for non-trivial solution and the
value of 0 B0 can be found by solving the determinant as given below
The one group time independent neutron diffusion equation in (first root for fundamental solution)
2D-polar co-ordinates in homogeneous region (with constant
 
properties) bounded by R1  r  R2 > 0in 0 r0 direction and  J ðBR1 Þ Yc ðBR1 Þ 
 c 
h1 ¼ 0  h  h2 in 0 h0 direction is solved. The flux vanishes at all  ¼0 ð43Þ
 Jc ðBR2 Þ Yc ðBR2 Þ 
the boundaries.
Using equation (32) and (33),the effective fundamental multi-
3.2.1. Analytical solution plication factor can be obtained as,
The steady state one group neutron diffusion equation (1) for
 
homogeneous region in 2D-polar co-ordinates ðr; hÞwith fission mRf  1

keff ¼ ð44Þ
source is given as, Ra 1 þ B2 L2
mRf £ðr; hÞ
r:Dr£ðr; hÞ ¼ Ra £ðr; hÞ  ð32Þ
keff

The LHS is equal to Dr2 £ðr; hÞ for constant properties in the 3.3. Benchmark in 2D-polarðr; hÞ co-ordinates
given region. Using the buckling relation the flux shape can be
obtained as, The second problem considered for the validation of present
methodology is based on the 2d benchmark in ðr; hÞ co-ordinates
r2 £ðr; hÞ ¼ B2 £ðr; hÞ ð33Þ given by Pedroni (Pedroni and Pollachini, 1985). The various
regions with different type of materials are shown in Fig. 2. The
Using the separation of variables,
details of the benchmark can found in (Prinsloo and Tomasevic,
£ðr; hÞ ¼ RðrÞHðhÞ ð34Þ 2010; Raj and Singh, 2017).
The above mentioned benchmark is solved using the current
Substituting the above into equation (33),
approach. The basic arrangement of node is shown in Fig. 2. For
2 2
r d R ð rÞ
2
r dRðrÞ 1 d HðhÞ the present analysis the nodes in radial and angular directions
þ þ ¼ B2 r2 ð35Þ
RðrÞ dr2 RðrÞ dr HðhÞ dh2 are divided as64 nodes and 128 nodes for computations.

The last term on LHS is dependent on ‘h’ only and hence the
solution would be as, 4. Results and discussions
2
1 d HðhÞ
¼ c2 ð36Þ The results of the problems considered for validation of the pro-
HðhÞ dh2 posed methodology is discussed in this section. Section 4.1 dis-
The solution in r-direction would be given as, cusses the results of criticality problem as mentioned in section
3.1 and are compared with corresponding semi-analytical solution.
dRðrÞ  2 2 
2
d RðrÞ
r2 2
þr þ B r  c2 RðrÞ ¼ 0 ð37Þ Similarly, section 4.2 and 4.3 discusses the results of analytical and
dr dr benchmark problems in 2d ðr; hÞ co-ordinates, respectively.
7
M. Raj, N. Ahmed and S. Singh Annals of Nuclear Energy 165 (2022) 108659

these cases have and are mentioned in first row of Table 2a. The
cases with different boundary conditions are considered to verify
the successful implementation in the present methodology. The
cross sections taken for the estimations are as:

D ¼ 1:50cm; mRf ¼ 0:0263cm1 andRa ¼ 0:0250cm1

The convergence criteria for flux (inner iteration) and keff (outer
iteration) are considered to be 10-5 and 10-6respectively. The
results of criticality problem are given in Table 2a.
Table 2a shows that the values of keff matches well with the ana-
lytical values. It is also to be noted that errors are small even with
coarse grids. The correctness of the implementation of different
types of BCs in the present methodology is also verified. Table 2b
shows the comparison of estimated flux shapes with the analytical
shape for 128 node structure and with zero flux at boundaries.
The estimated flux shapes are also compared with the solution
of analytical problem in two groups (Raj and Singh, 2021) and the
results are given in Table 2c for 128 node structure and with zero
flux at boundaries. The analytical value of k-eff is 1.141264 and the
estimated value using the above mentioned mesh structure is
about 1.140972. Hence it can be seen that the error is about
0.026 %. The analytical problem given in reference (Raj and
Singh, 2021) is converted into two dimensions by using the infinite
length in z-direction.

4.3. Benchmarkin 2D-polarðr; hÞ co-ordinates

Table 3 gives the details of cross sections of various regions of

the benchmark. Total number of cases analyzed is five, with vari-
Fig. 2. Benchmark in 2d polarðr; hÞ geometry.
ous numbers of nodes in 0 r0 and 0 h0 directions. Since there is 1/8th-
symmetry, therefore, the reflective boundary conditions are
0
4.1. Source problem used for error analysis applied in 0 h0 direction i.e.H ðhÞ ¼ 0ath1 andh2 . The sector is
bounded by R1 ¼ 0:0  r  R2 ¼ 187:5cm. It is to be noted that a
The results for RMS error are given in Table 1a. ‘Nr’ and ‘Nh’ rep- very small hole near the center (R1 ¼ 1012 cmÞ considered avoid-
resent the number of nodes in ‘r’ and 0 h0 directions respectively. To ing some of the coefficients becoming zero or infinity as noted in
carry out error analysis the RMS error as a function of number of several earlier works (Prinsloo and Tomasevic, 2010; Cho and
nodes is plotted and shown in Fig. 3. Lee, 2008; Dengying Wang et al, 2010; Colameco et al., 2010;
It is also important to study error in each direction indepen- Pedroni and Pollachini, 1985). The results of the above mentioned
dently. In order to do that, the errors are first obtained with very 2D benchmark are given in Table 4. The number of nodes in 0 r0 and
fine mesh in 0 h0 direction to see the effect of variation of number 0 0
h directionsare Nr andNh , respectively. Similar to the case of ana-
of nodes in ‘r’ direction. As mesh is very fine in the 0 h0 direction, lytical problem, the error criteria for convergence of flux (inner
the error is only function of node size in ‘r’ direction. Same exercise iteration) and keff (outer iteration) have been takenas10-5 and 10-
6
is then repeated with very fine mesh in ‘r’ direction. The results are , respectively.
given in Table 1b. To carry out the error analysis the RMS error, as
given the Table 1b, is plotted as a function of number of nodes in 5. Conclusions
log–log plot for the both the above mentioned cases. The men-
tioned plots are shown in Fig. 4. Both the plots are found to be lin- The Analytical Nodal Method is developed for solving the neu-
ear with a slope of 2. This shows that that ANM adopted here is tron diffusion equation in polar co-ordinates. The approach is
second order accurate in ‘r’ direction as well as in ‘0 h0 direction. developed for estimating node averaged flux in the present work
assuming the transverse leakage to be constant as used by Shober
(Finnemann et al., 1977; Wagner et al., 1981) in Cartesian coordi-
4.2. Criticality problem in 2D-polar co-ordinates

nate. This methodology is able to overcome the problem of 1=r2
For analytical problem, three cases have been considered. The in the derivation in 0 h0 -direction by approximating average of prod-
region of problem is taken to be h1 ¼ 0and h2 ¼ pandR1 = 0.1 cm ucts by product of averages in a manner similar to the recent work
andR2 = 187.5 cm. Different boundary conditions are used for all (Raj and Singh, 2017). The source problem used for error analysis
shows that the methodology developed is second order accurate.
The criticality problem with homogeneous medium is solved and
Table 1a compared with the available analytical solution to show the effi-
Root mean Square error vs number of nodes. cacy of the method. The comparison shows that the eigenvalues
Nr Nh Nodes RMSE obtained by the developed method match very well with the ana-
4 4 16 4.33E-03
lytical solution. Furthermore the benchmark problem consisting of
8 8 64 1.62E-03 different types of fissile materials is solved and results are com-
16 16 256 5.10E-04 pared with those available in the literature. From the solution of
32 32 1024 1.41E-04 the above mentioned problem it is noted that the method is quite
64 64 4096 7.87E-05
accurate even with coarse mesh structure. In future this method
8
M. Raj, N. Ahmed and S. Singh Annals of Nuclear Energy 165 (2022) 108659

Fig. 3. Log-log plot of RMS error w.r.t. number of nodes.

Table 1b
Root mean Square error vs number of nodes in individual direction.

Nh = 64 Nr = 40
Nr RMSE (Nr) Nh RMSE (Nh)
8 1.52E-03 8 1.69E-03
16 3.70E-04 16 5.19E-04
32 8.81E-05 32 1.36E-04
40 5.86E-05 40 9.21E-05
64 5.86E-05

Fig. 4. Log-log plot of RMS error w.r.t. number of nodes in ‘r’ or ‘h’ direction.

9
M. Raj, N. Ahmed and S. Singh Annals of Nuclear Energy 165 (2022) 108659

Table 2a
Results for analytical problem.keff

Number of Nodes(Nr  Nh ) HðhÞ ¼ 0ath1 andh2 H0 ðhÞ ¼ 0ath1 andh2 0

H ðhÞ ¼ 0ath2 andHðhÞ ¼ 0ath1
64 1.02433 1.03958 1.03161
128 1.02577 1.03969 1.03332
Analytical 1.02628 1.03971 1.03457

Table 2b CRediT authorship contribution statement

Comparison of flux shape for analytical problem (1 group and 2D) (1-group,
r = 23.525 cm i.e. midpoint of 2nd node in r-direction).
Manish Raj: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software,
Increment in angular direction(degree) Flux Shape Error (%) Writing- Original draft preparation, Formal analysis. Nadeem
Analytical Estimation Ahmed: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software. Suneet Singh:
11.25 0.3045 0.3046 0.025
Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing- Reviewing and Editing.
33.75 0.8671 0.8672 0.014
56.25 1.2977 1.2977 0.001 Declaration of Competing Interest
78.75 1.5307 1.5305 0.012
101.25 1.5307 1.5305 0.012
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
123.75 1.2977 1.2977 0.001
146.25 0.8671 0.8672 0.014 cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
168.75 0.3045 0.3046 0.025 to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgement
Table 2c
Comparison of fast flux shape for analytical problem (2 group and 2D) (2-group,
r = 42.5 cm i.e. midpoint of 2nd node in r-direction).
The first author is thankful to Shri A.S. Pradhan and Smt. Sherly
Ray at Nuclear Power Corporation India Ltd. for their support and
Increment in angular direction(degree) Flux Shape Error (%) motivation.
Analytical Estimation
11.25 0.3045 0.3066 0.694 Appendix-1
33.75 0.8671 0.8705 0.393
56.25 1.2977 1.2973 0.033
2ai ðai þ ri Þ
78.75 1.5307 1.5256 0.333 x1 ¼ 
101.25 1.5307 1.5256 0.333 Dij LLi
123.75 1.2977 1.2973 0.032
146.25 0.8671 0.8705 0.393 Di1j ð2ai 2 ai1  2ai ai1 ri þ 2ai ai1 LLi ri þ ai1 LLi ri 2 Þ
168.75 0.3045 0.3066 0.695 x21 ¼ 
LLi ð2ai ai1 ðDi1j ð1 þ LLi Þ þ Dij ð1 þ LLi1 ÞÞ  ai1 Di1j LLi ri þ ai Dij LLi1 ri Þ

Table 3 Diþ1j ð2ai 2 aiþ1  2ai aiþ1 riþ1  2ai aiþ1 LLi riþ1 þ aiþ1 LLi riþ1 2 Þ
x22 ¼
Cross-sections used in 2D benchmark. LLi ð2ai aiþ1 ðDiþ1j ð1 þ LLi Þ þ Dij ð1 þ LLiþ1 ÞÞ  aiþ1 Diþ1j LLi riþ1 þ ai Dij LLiþ1 riþ1 Þ

D(cm) Ra (cm1) mRf (cm1) Fuel

x2 ¼ x21 þ x22
1.5 0.025 0.0263 1
1.5 0.0278 0.0250 2
Di1j ð2ai ai1 2 þ 2ai ai1 ri þ 2ai ai1 LLi1 ri  ai LLi1 ri 2 Þ
1.5 0.025 0.0275 3 x3 ¼ 
1.5 0.025 0.0300 4 LLi ð2ai ai1 ðDi1j ð1 þ LLi Þ þ Dij ð1 þ LLi1 ÞÞ  ai1 Di1j LLi ri þ ai Dij LLi1 ri Þ
1.57 0.0212 0 reflector
Diþ1j ð2ai aiþ1 2 þ 2ai aiþ1 riþ1  2ai aiþ1 LLiþ1 riþ1  ai LLiþ1 riþ1 2 Þ
x4 ¼
LLi ð2ai aiþ1 ðDiþ1j ð1 þ LLi Þ þ Dij ð1 þ LLiþ1 ÞÞ  aiþ1 Diþ1j LLi riþ1 þ ai Dij LLiþ1 riþ1 Þ
Table 4
keff for 2D benchmark.
2ai ðai þ ri Þ
x51 ¼
Case Nr Nh keff CPU time (s) LLi L2ij
1 6 4 1.045171 <0.1
2 12 4 1.043883 <0.1 2ai ai1 Di1j
3 24 4 1.043572 <0.1 x52 ¼ 
LLi ð2ai ai1 ðDi1j ð1 þ LLi Þ þ Dij ð1 þ LLi1 ÞÞ  ai1 Di1j LLi ri þ ai Dij LLi1 ri Þ
4 24 8 1.043353 <0.2
5 48 8 1.043307 <0.2
2ai aiþ1 Diþ1j
The reference value is 1.043383 (Nr ¼ 187andNh ¼ 80inFDMÞ. x53 ¼
LLi ð2ai aiþ1 ðDiþ1j ð1 þ LLi Þ þ Dij ð1 þ LLiþ1 ÞÞ  aiþ1 Diþ1j LLi riþ1 þ ai Dij LLiþ1 riþ1 Þ
The keff approaches to fix value with increase in number of nodes.

x5 ¼ x51 þ x52 þ x53

x6 ¼ x52
would be further developed for 3D and would be validated by solv-
ing the 3Dbenchmark. The results would be compared with the x7 ¼ x53
available literature. Furthermore the method can be easily
extended to solve the time dependent neutron diffusion equation ðai þ ri Þ
in cylindrical coordinates in a manner similar to the method used y1 ¼ 
Dij
by Shober in Cartesian coordinates.

10
M. Raj, N. Ahmed and S. Singh Annals of Nuclear Energy 165 (2022) 108659

bj Dij1 LLi Bennewitz, F., Finnemann, H., Wagner, M.R., 1975. Higher-order corrections in
y21 ¼ 
6ai ðbj1 Dij þ bj Dij1 Þ nodal reactor calculations. Trans. Am. Nucl. Soc. 22, 250.
Finnemann, H., Bennewitz, F., Wagner, M.R., 1977. Interface current techniques for
bj Dijþ1 LLi multidimensional reactor calculations. Atomkernenergie 30, 123.
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6ai ðbjþ1 Dij þ bj Dijþ1 Þ expansion method 27–29 April. In: Proc. Conf. Advances in Mathematical
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2 Nuclear Society, Munich, p. 43.
bj1 Dij1 LLi
y3 ¼ Sims, R., 1977. A coarse-mesh nodal diffusion method based on response matrix
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2 Maeder, C., 1978. A nodal diffusion method with Legendre polynomials. Proc. Topical
bjþ1 Dijþ1 LLi
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analysis of fast-reactor critical experiments 1984 American Nuclear Society 814
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Dijþ1 LLi American Nuclear Society
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y7 ¼ y53 Michael, E.P.E., Dorning, J.J., Rizwan-uddin, 2001. Studies on nodal integral methods
for the convection–diffusion heat equation. Nucl. Sci. Engrg. 137, 380–399.
E1 ¼ y1 =zz Wang, F., Rizwan-uddin, Rizwan-uddin, 2003. A modified nodal scheme for the
time-dependent, incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. Journal of
Computational Physics 187 (1), 168–196.
E2 ¼ y2 =zz Kumar, N., Singh, S., Doshi, J.B., 2012. Pressure Correction-Based Iterative
Scheme for Navier-Stokes Equations using Nodal Integral Method. Numerical
E3 ¼ y3 =zz Heat Transfer, Part B: Fundamentals” 62 (4), 264–288.
Nezami, E.G., Singh, S., Sobh, N., Rizwan-uddin, 2009. A nodal integral method for
quadrilateral elements. Int. J. Numerical Methods Fluids 61 (2), 144–164.
E4 ¼ y4 =zz Kumar, N., Singh, S., Doshi, J.B., 2013. Nodal Integral Method Using Quadrilateral
Elements for Transport Equations: Part 1—Convection-diffusion Equation.
E5 ¼ x2 =zz Numerical Heat Transfer, Part B: Fundamentals 64 (1), 1–21.
Kumar, N., Singh, S., Doshi, J.B., 2013. Nodal Integral Method Using Quadrilateral
Elements for Transport Equations: Part 2-Navier-stokes Equations. Numerical
E6 ¼ x3 =zz Heat Transfer, Part B: Fundamentals 64 (1), 22–47.
Sharma, R.P., Kumar, N., 2018. Nodal integral method for convection-diffusion
E7 ¼ x4 =zz transport using linear and higher order quadrilateral elements. Numerical Heat
Transfer, Part B: Fundamentals 74 (3), 623–645.
Toreja, A.J., Rizwan-uddin, 2003. Rizwan-uddin, ‘‘Hybrid numerical methods for
E8 ¼ y6 =zz convection-diffusion problems in arbitrary geometries,‘‘. Computational &
Fluids 32 (6), 835–872.
Wang, P., Rizwan-uddin, Rizwan-uddin, 2018. A modified, hybrid nodal-integral/
E9 ¼ y7 =zz finite-element method for 3d convection-diffusion problems in arbitrary
geometries. Int. J. Heat Mass Transf. 122, 99–116.
E10 ¼ x6 =zz Azmy Y. Y., ‘‘A nodal Integral Method for the neutron diffusion equation in
cylindrical geometry”, Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge, Tennessee
37831, 1987.
E11 ¼ x7 =zz Suneet Singh, Rizwan-uddin, ‘A Nodal Integral Method for Neutron Diffusion
Equation in Polar Coordinates.’, Transactions of the American Nuclear Society,
zz ¼ y5 þ x52 þ x53 Albuquerque NM, Nov. 12-16, Vol. 95, pp 817-819, 2006.
A. M. Ougouag, W. K. Terry, ‘‘Development of a Nodal Method for the Solution of the
Neutron Diffusion Equation in General Cylindrical Geometry”, INEEL/EXT-02-
00489, 2002.
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