Core neutronics analysis by finite volume method

In this thesis, a code that can be used to perform 3 dimensional neutronics analysis of nuclear reactor cores is developed. The code discretizes two group neutron diffusion equations using finite volume method for the geometry and diffusion parameters defined in the input file. The large sparse linear system obtained after discretization is solved effectively by using Krylov Subspace Methods. In order to verify the code developed, BEAVRS benchmark problem was modelled in the code. In order to model the problem, two group neutron diffusion parameters were generated for 165 different regions. The reaction rates, flux and current distributions obtained from the Serpent code, a genetic algorithm and the code developed were used to generate the diffusion parameters. Task of the genetic algorithm used is to estimate the two group diffusion coefficients and the scattering matrix. The results obtained after modelling full core were compared with the results of Serpent code and BEAVRS benchmark. The results obtained are found to be in complete agreement with Serpent code results and satisfactorily consistent with the measured data provided by BEAVRS.