ADRANOS (short for Advanced Divertor paRametric Analysis for coolaNt Operating Scenarios) is a specialized MATLAB based simulation tool, developer by researchers at the Department of Engineering of the University of Palermo, to assess steady-state performance diverter cooling circuits in fusion reactor applications.
The specialized tool was developed as full scale 3D Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation have shown not to be feasible, as a large number of parametric configurations and simulations are required to be performed in order to analyze and optimize diverter performance and design.
The ADRANOS simulation framework consists of two modules that work together:
Lumped-Parameter Module - This module looks at the steady-state of the entire cooling circuit, breaking it down into major sections or volumes to quickly figure out overall flow rates, average coolant temperatures, and pressure drops across the sections.
2D FEM Thermal Analyses Module - This module employs the FEATool Multiphysics toolbox to perform thermal simulations of the most crucial parts of the divertor, specifically the Plasma Facing Unit (PFU) monoblocks.
The 2D FEM module is a crucial part of ADRANOS and works in conjunction with the lumped-parameters module. The integration of the FEM solver allows ADRANOS to assess detailed temperature distributions and check for compliance with material temperature limits, especially for critical PFU materials like tungsten, copper interlayer, and alloys in the pipes.
In particular, as FEATool Multiphysics features a native MATLAB Application Programming Interface (API) making it easy to program and set up custom parametric simulations runs varying geometry, mesh, and physics definitions to programmatically generate parallel sets of simulation data. Moreover, the easy to use API also allowed for integrating and embedding the FEATool FEM simulations in the overarching ADRANOS framework.
The ADRANOS code was developed in the MATLAB programming language with an object-oriented (OOP) approach, to make it highly flexible in evaluating different cooling system topologies. Moreover, it is also optimized for parallel High Performance Computing (HPC), in order to greatly reduce overall time required to perform complex simulations, and enable quick and automatic execution of thousands of simulations under various coolant operating conditions.
See the linked references for more detailed information about this research with data available from the authors upon request.
References
- Quartararo A., Di Maio P.A., Vallone E. ADRANOS: A numerical tool developed to analyse coolant operating conditions of the EU-DEMO divertor, Fusion Engineering and Design 197, 114055, 2023, doi: 0.1016/j.fusengdes.2023.114055.