Introduction

This plugin uses data contained in the ARMI reactor model to write DRAGON input files and execute DRAGON on them, thereby producing microscopic cross sections in the form of ISOTXS files.

Capabilities

DRAGON is a lattice physics tool developed and owned by École Polytechnique de Montréal. It primarily supports thermal reactors but some success has been had with it as tool for fast reactor analysis.

The DRAGON interface produces an microscopic cross sections in the form of an ISOTXS file. The default execution produces a 0D model of the block with a critical buckling calculation.

The DRAGON interface send various settings (such as if critical buckling is requested) and ARMI (objects such as block) to a template, and the template is filled out to create the input file

DRAGON can also model more complex geometry, but users are responsible for creating their own template and associated code that extracts the required template information from the ARMI data model for the desired geometry.

Use

  • To turn DRAGON on as the lattice physics tool the setting xsKernel must be set to DRAGON.

  • For DRAGON to run, the location of your DRAGON executable must be known. The location of your DRAGON executable can either be added to your path, or you can put the full path of your executable in the setting dragonExePath.

  • The setting dragonDataPath must point to the full path of your nuclear data file for your run. It is important to leave the file with the detail names, so ARMI can determine which nuclides must be expanded from elementals to isotopics. E.G., expanding elemental Iron into the 4 naturally occurring isotopes.

  • The setting dragonTemplateHelper can be used to point to your own template helper class. This template helper class should inherit from DragonTemplateHelper, but will allow you to point to your own template, and perform any needed calculations to send into the template. This is the primary way the DRAGON interface supports custom geometry.

  • After DRAGON runs, all ISOTXS files created will be merged into one ISOTXS file called ISOTXS.

Limitations

  • The DRAGON interface currently only supports ENDF/B-VII.0/1 and ENDF/B-VIII.0. The libraries must remain their default name.

  • The DRAGON interface was initially developed to serve as an example for how to develop a plugin, and to provide a rudimentary interface to DRAGON. As such, it has many limitations and numerous simplifying assumption. The reader is encouraged to improve these as they wish.

Structure

The DRAGON interface is composed of:

  • An interface class responsible for triggering a workflow that creates new cross sections at the beginning of each cycle.

  • A writer class which is responsible for building data structures required in a DRAGON input file.

  • A template which renders the inputs data structures the input file format.

  • An executor class, which is responsible for executing DRAGON.