armi.reactor.blocks module

Defines blocks, which are axial chunks of assemblies. They contain most of the state variables, including power, flux, and homogenized number densities.

Assemblies are made of blocks.

Blocks are made of components.

class armi.reactor.blocks.Block(name, height=1.0, location=None)

Bases: armi.reactor.composites.Composite

A homogenized axial slab of material.

Blocks are stacked together to form assemblies.

Builds a new ARMI block

caseSettingsSettings object, optional

The settings object to use to build the block

namestr, optional

The name of this block

heightfloat, optional

The height of the block in cm. Defaults to 1.0 so that getVolume assumes unit height.

uniqID = 0

PITCH_DIMENSION = 'op'

PITCH_COMPONENT_TYPE = None

pDefs = <armi.reactor.parameters.parameterDefinitions.ParameterDefinitionCollection object>

__deepcopy__(memo)

Custom deepcopy behavior to prevent duplication of macros and _lumpedFissionProducts.

We detach the recursive links to the parent and the reactor to prevent blocks carrying large independent copies of stale reactors in memory. If you make a new block, you must add it to an assembly and a reactor.

property core

property r

A block should only have a reactor through a parent assembly.

It may make sense to try to factor out usage of b.r.

For now, this is presumptive of the structure of the composite hierarchy; i.e. the parent of a CORE must be the reactor. Fortunately, we probably don’t ultimately want to return the reactor in the first place. Rather, we probably want the core anyways, since practically all b.r calls are historically b.r.core. It may be prefereable to remove this property, replace with self.core, which can return the core. Then refactor all of the b.r.cores, to b.core.

makeName(assemNum, axialIndex)

Generate a standard block from assembly number.

This also sets the block-level assembly-num param.

Once, we used a axial-character suffix to represent the axial index, but this is inherently limited so we switched to a numerical name. The axial suffix needs can be brought in in plugins that require them.

Examples

>>> makeName(120, 5)
'B0120-005'

makeUnique()

Assign a unique id (integer value) for each block.

This should be called whenever creating a block that is intended to be treated as a unique object. For example, if you were to broadcast or pickle a block it should have the same ID across all nodes. Likewise, if you deepcopy a block for a temporary purpose to it should have the same ID. However, ARMI’s assembly construction also uses deepcopy, and in order to keep that functionality, this method needs to be called after creating a fresh assembly (from deepcopy).

getSmearDensity(cold=True)

Compute the smear density of pins in this block.

Smear density is the area of the fuel divided by the area of the space available for fuel inside the cladding. Other space filled with solid materials is not considered available. If all the area is fuel, it has 100% smear density. Lower smear density allows more room for swelling.

Warning

This requires circular fuel and circular cladding. Designs that vary from this will be wrong. It may make sense in the future to put this somewhere a bit more design specific.

Notes

This only considers circular objects. If you have a cladding that is not a circle, it will be ignored.

Negative areas can exist for void gaps in the fuel pin. A negative area in a gap represents overlap area between two solid components. To account for this additional space within the pin cladding the abs(negativeArea) is added to the inner cladding area.

Parameters

cold (bool, optional) – If false, returns the smear density at hot temperatures

Returns

smearDensity – The smear density as a fraction

Return type

float

autoCreateSpatialGrids()

Creates a spatialGrid for a Block.

Blocks do not always have a spatialGrid from Blueprints, but, some Blocks can have their spatialGrids inferred based on the multiplicty of their components. This would add the ability to create a spatialGrid for a Block and give its children the corresponding spatialLocators if certain conditions are met.

Raises

ValueError – If the multiplicities of the block are not only 1 or N or if generated ringNumber leads to more positions than necessary.

getMgFlux(adjoint=False, average=False, volume=None, gamma=False)

Returns the multigroup neutron flux in [n/cm^2/s]

The first entry is the first energy group (fastest neutrons). Each additional group is the next energy group, as set in the ISOTXS library.

It is stored integrated over volume on self.p.mgFlux

Parameters

• adjoint (bool, optional) – Return adjoint flux instead of real

• average (bool, optional) – If true, will return average flux between latest and previous. Doesn’t work for pin detailed yet

• volume (float, optional) – If average=True, the volume-integrated flux is divided by volume before being returned. The user may specify a volume here, or the function will obtain the block volume directly.

• gamma (bool, optional) – Whether to return the neutron flux or the gamma flux.

Returns

flux

Return type

multigroup neutron flux in [n/cm^2/s]

setPinMgFluxes(fluxes, numPins, adjoint=False, gamma=False)

Store the pin-detailed multi-group neutron flux

The [g][i] indexing is transposed to be a list of lists, one for each pin. This makes it simple to do depletion for each pin, etc.

Parameters

• fluxes (2-D list of floats) – The block-level pin multigroup fluxes. fluxes[g][i] represents the flux in group g for pin i. Flux units are the standard n/cm^2/s. The “ARMI pin ordering” is used, which is counter-clockwise from 3 o’clock.

• numPins (int) – The number of pins in this block.

• adjoint (bool, optional) – Whether to set real or adjoint data.

• gamma (bool, optional) – Whether to set gamma or neutron data.

• Outputs –

• ------- –

• self.p.pinMgFluxes (2-D array of floats) – The block-level pin multigroup fluxes. pinMgFluxes[g][i] represents the flux in group g for pin i. Flux units are the standard n/cm^2/s. The “ARMI pin ordering” is used, which is counter-clockwise from 3 o’clock.

getMicroSuffix()

Returns the microscopic library suffix (e.g. ‘AB’) for this block.

DIF3D and MC2 are limited to 6 character nuclide labels. ARMI by convention uses the first 4 for nuclide name (e.g. U235, PU39, etc.) and then uses the 5th character for cross-section type and the 6th for burnup group. This allows a variety of XS sets to be built modeling substantially different blocks.

Notes

The single-letter use for xsType and buGroup limit users to 26 groups of each. ARMI will allow 2-letter xsType designations if and only if the buGroups setting has length 1 (i.e. no burnup groups are defined). This is useful for high-fidelity XS modeling of V&V models such as the ZPPRs.

getHeight()

Return the block height.

setHeight(modifiedHeight, conserveMass=False, adjustList=None)

Set a new height of the block.

Parameters

• modifiedHeight (float) – The height of the block in cm

• conserveMass (bool, optional) – Conserve mass of nuclides in adjustList.

• adjustList (list, optional) – Nuclides that will be conserved in conserving mass in the block. It is recommended to pass a list of all nuclides in the block.

Notes

There is a coupling between block heights, the parent assembly axial mesh, and the ztop/zbottom/z params of the sibling blocks. When you set a height, all those things are invalidated. Thus, this method has to go through and update them via parent.calculateZCoords. This could be inefficient though it has not been identified as a bottleneck. Possible improvements include deriving z/ztop/zbottom on the fly and invalidating the parent mesh with some kind of flag, signaling it to recompute itself on demand. Developers can get around some of the O(N^2) scaling of this by setting p.height directly but they must know to update the dependent objects after they do that. Use with care.

See also

reactors.Core.updateAxialMesh()

May need to be called after this.

assemblies.Assembly.calculateZCoords()

Recalculates z-coords, automatically called by this.

getWettedPerimeter()

Return wetted perimeter per pin with duct averaged in.

getFlowAreaPerPin()

Return the flowing coolant area in cm^2.

NumPins looks for max number of fuel, clad, control, etc. .. seealso:

:meth:`getNumPins`
    figures out numPins.

getHydraulicDiameter()

Return the hydraulic diameter in this block in cm.

Hydraulic diameter is 4A/P where A is the flow area and P is the wetted perimeter. In a hex assembly, the wetted perimeter includes the cladding, the wire wrap, and the inside of the duct. The flow area is the inner area of the duct minus the area of the pins and the wire.

To convert the inner hex pitch into a perimeter, first convert to side, then multiply by 6.

p=sqrt(3)*s

l = 6*p/sqrt(3)

adjustUEnrich(newEnrich)

Adjust U-235/U-238 mass ratio to a mass enrichment

Parameters

• newEnrich (float) – New U-235 enrichment in mass fraction

• must be run because adjusting the enrichment actually (completeInitialLoading) –

• the mass slightly and you can get negative burnups, which you do not want. (changes) –

getLocation()

Return a string representation of the location.

coords(rotationDegreesCCW=0.0)

setBuLimitInfo(cs)

Sets burnup limit based on igniter, feed, etc. (will implement general grouping later)

getMaxArea()

” The maximum area of this object if it were totally full.

See also

armi.reactor.blocks.HexBlock.getMaxArea()

getMaxVolume()

The maximum volume of this object if it were totally full.

Returns

vol – volume in cm^3.

Return type

float

getArea(cold=False)

Return the area of a block for a full core or a 1/3 core model.

Area is consistent with the area in the model, so if you have a central assembly in a 1/3 symmetric model, this will return 1/3 of the total area of the physical assembly. This way, if you take the sum of the areas in the core (or count the atoms in the core, etc.), you will have the proper number after multiplying by the model symmetry.

Parameters

cold (bool) – flag to indicate that cold (as input) dimensions are required

Notes

This might not work for a 1/6 core model (due to symmetry line issues).

Returns

area

Return type

float (cm^2)

See also

getMaxArea()

return the full area of the physical assembly disregarding model symmetry

getVolume()

Return the volume of a block.

Returns

volume – Block or component volume in cm^3

Return type

float

getSymmetryFactor()

Return a scaling factor due to symmetry on the area of the block or its components.

Takes into account assemblies that are bisected or trisected by symmetry lines

In 1/3 symmetric cases, the central assembly is 1/3 a full area. If edge assemblies are included in a model, the symmetry factor along both edges for overhanging assemblies should be 2.0. However, ARMI runs in most scenarios with those assemblies on the 120-edge removed, so the symmetry factor should generally be just 1.0.

See also

armi.reactor.reactors.Core.addEdgeAssemblies(), terrapower.physics.neutronics.dif3d.dif3dInterface.Dif3dReader.scaleParamsRelatedToSymmetry()

isOnWhichSymmetryLine()

Block symmetry lines are determined by the reactor, not the parent.

adjustDensity(frac, adjustList, returnMass=False)

adjusts the total density of each nuclide in adjustList by frac.

Parameters

• frac (float) – The fraction of the current density that will remain after this operation

• adjustList (list) – List of nuclide names that will be adjusted.

• returnMass (bool) – If true, will return mass difference.

Returns

mass

Return type

float

Mass difference in grams. If you subtract mass, mass will be negative. If returnMass is False (default), this will always be zero.

_updateDetailedNdens(frac, adjustList)

Update detailed number density which is used by hi-fi depleters such as ORIGEN.

Notes

This will perturb all number densities so it is assumed that if one of the active densities is perturbed, all of htem are perturbed.

completeInitialLoading(bolBlock=None)

Does some BOL bookkeeping to track things like BOL HM density for burnup tracking.

This should run after this block is loaded up at BOC (called from Reactor.initialLoading).

The original purpose of this was to get the moles HM at BOC for the moles Pu/moles HM at BOL calculation.

This also must be called after modifying something like the smear density or zr fraction in an optimization case. In ECPT cases, a BOL block must be passed or else the burnup will try to get based on a pre-burned value.

Parameters

bolBlock (Block, optional) – A BOL-state block of this block type, required for perturbed equilibrium cases. Must have the same enrichment as this block!

Returns

hmDens – The heavy metal number density of this block.

Return type

float

See also

Reactor.importGeom(), depletion._updateBlockParametersAfterDepletion()

replaceBlockWithBlock(bReplacement)

Replace the current block with the replacementBlock.

Typically used in the insertion of control rods.

static plotFlux(core, fName=None, bList=None, peak=False, adjoint=False, bList2=[])

_updatePitchComponent(c)

Update the component that defines the pitch.

Given a Component, compare it to the current component that defines the pitch of the Block. If bigger, replace it. We need different implementations of this to support different logic for determining the form of pitch and the concept of “larger”.

See also

CartesianBlock._updatePitchComponent()

add(c)

Add one new child.

removeAll(recomputeAreaFractions=True)

Remove all children.

remove(c, recomputeAreaFractions=True)

Remove a particular child.

getComponentsThatAreLinkedTo(comp, dim)

Determine which dimensions of which components are linked to a specific dimension of a particular component.

Useful for breaking fuel components up into individuals and making sure anything that was linked to the fuel mult (like the cladding mult) stays correct.

Parameters

• comp (Component) – The component that the results are linked to

• dim (str) – The name of the dimension that the results are linked to

Returns

linkedComps – A list of (components,dimName) that are linked to this component, dim.

Return type

list

getComponentsInLinkedOrder(componentList=None)

Return a list of the components in order of their linked-dimension dependencies.

Parameters

components (list, optional) – A list of components to consider. If None, this block’s components will be used.

Notes

This means that components other components are linked to come first.

getSortedComponentsInsideOfComponent(component)

Returns a list of components inside of the given component sorted from innermost to outermost.

Parameters

component (object) – Component to look inside of.

Notes

If you just want sorted components in this block, use sorted(self). This will never include any DerivedShape objects. Since they have a derived area they don’t have a well-defined dimension. For now we just ignore them. If they are desired in the future some knowledge of their dimension will be required while they are being derived.

getNumPins()

Return the number of pins in this block.

mergeWithBlock(otherBlock, fraction)

Turns this block into a mixture of this block and some other block

Parameters

• otherBlock (Block) – The block to mix this block with. The other block will not be modified.

• fraction (float) – Fraction of the other block to mix in with this block. If 0.1 is passed in, this block will become 90% what it originally was and 10% what the other block is.

Notes

This merges on a high level (using number densities). Components will not be merged.

This is used e.g. for inserting a control block partially to get a very tight criticality control. In this case, a control block would be merged with a duct block. It is also used when a control rod is specified as a certain length but that length does not fit exactly into a full block.

getComponentAreaFrac(typeSpec, exact=True)

Returns the area fraction of the specified component(s) among all components in the block.

Parameters

• typeSpec (Flags or list of Flags) – Component types to look up

• exact (bool, optional) – Match exact names only

Examples

>>> b.getComponentAreaFrac(Flags.CLAD)
0.15

Returns

The area fraction of the component.

Return type

float

verifyBlockDims()

Optional dimension checking.

getDim(typeSpec, dimName)

Search through blocks in this assembly and find the first component of compName. Then, look on that component for dimName.

Parameters

• typeSpec (Flags or list of Flags) – Component name, e.g. Flags.FUEL, Flags.CLAD, Flags.COOLANT, …

• dimName (str) – Dimension name, e.g. ‘od’, …

Returns

dimVal – The dimension in cm.

Return type

float

Examples

>>> getDim(Flags.WIRE,'od')
0.01

getPinCenterFlatToFlat(cold=False)

Return the flat-to-flat distance between the centers of opposing pins in the outermost ring.

getWireWrapCladGap(cold=False)

Return the gap betwen the wire wrap and the clad.

getPlenumPin()

Return the plenum pin if it exists.

isPlenumPin(c)

Return True if the specified component is a plenum pin.

getPitch(returnComp=False)

Return the center-to-center hex pitch of this block.

Parameters

returnComp (bool, optional) – If true, will return the component that has the maximum pitch as well

Returns

• pitch (float or None) – Hex pitch in cm, if well-defined. If there is no clear component for determining pitch, returns None

• component (Component or None) – Component that has the max pitch, if returnComp == True. If no component is found to define the pitch, returns None

Notes

The block stores a reference to the component that defines the pitch, making the assumption that while the dimensions can change, the component containing the largest dimension will not. This lets us skip the search for largest component. We still need to ask the largest component for its current dimension in case its temperature changed, or was otherwise modified.

See also

setPitch()

sets pitch

hasPinPitch()

Return True if the block has enough information to calculate pin pitch.

getPinPitch(cold=False)

Return sub-block pitch in blocks.

This assumes the spatial grid is defined by unit steps

getDimensions(dimension)

Return dimensional values of the specified dimension.

getLargestComponent(dimension)

Find the component with the largest dimension of the specified type.

Parameters

dimension (str) – The name of the dimension to find the largest component of.

Returns

largestComponent – The component with the largest dimension of the specified type.

Return type

armi.reactor.components.Component

setPitch(val, updateBolParams=False)

Sets outer pitch to some new value.

This sets the settingPitch and actually sets the dimension of the outer hexagon.

During a load (importGeom), the setDimension doesn’t usually do anything except set the setting See Issue 034

But during a actual case modification (e.g. in an optimization sweep, then the dimension has to be set as well.

See also

getPitch()

gets the pitch

getMfp(gamma=False)

Calculate the mean free path for neutron or gammas in this block.

\[<\Sigma> = \frac{\sum_E(\phi_e*\Sigma_e*dE)}{\sum_E (\phi_e*dE)} = \sum_E(\phi_e*N*\sum_{\text{type}}(\sigma_e) dE}{\sum_E (\phi_e*dE))}\]

Block macro is the sum of macros of all nuclides.

phi_g = flux*dE already in multigroup method.

Returns

mfp, mfpAbs, diffusionLength

Return type

tuple(float, float float)

setAreaFractionsReport()

getBurnupPeakingFactor()

Get the radial peaking factor to be applied to burnup and DPA

This may be informed by previous runs which used detailed pin reconstruction and rotation. In that case, it should be set on the cs setting burnupPeakingFactor.

Otherwise, it just takes the current flux peaking, which is typically conservatively high.

Returns

burnupPeakingFactor – The peak/avg factor for burnup and DPA.

Return type

float

See also

armi.physics.neutronics.globalFlux.globalFluxInterface.GlobalFluxInterface.updateFluenceAndDPA()

uses this

terrapower.physics.neutronics.depletion.depletion.DepletionInterface._updateBlockParametersAfterDepletion()

also uses this

getBlocks()

This method returns all the block(s) included in this block its implemented so that methods could iterate over reactors, assemblies or single blocks without checking to see what the type of the reactor-family object is.

updateComponentDims()

This method updates all the dimensions of the components

Notes

This is VERY useful for defining a ThRZ core out of differentialRadialSegements whose dimensions are connected together some of these dimensions are derivative and can be updated by changing dimensions in a Parameter Component or other linked components

See also

armi.reactor.components.DifferentialRadialSegment.updateDims(), armi.reactor.components.Parameters(), armi.physics.optimize.OptimizationInterface.modifyCase()

getDpaXs()

Determine which cross sections should be used to compute dpa for this block.

breakFuelComponentsIntoIndividuals()

Split block-level components (in fuel blocks) into pin-level components.

The fuel component will be broken up according to its multiplicity.

Order matters! The first pin component will be located at a particular (x, y), which will be used in the fluxRecon module to determine the interpolated flux.

The fuel will become fuel001 through fuel169 if there are 169 pins.

getIntegratedMgFlux(adjoint=False, gamma=False)

Return the volume integrated multigroup neutron tracklength in [n-cm/s].

The first entry is the first energy group (fastest neutrons). Each additional group is the next energy group, as set in the ISOTXS library.

Parameters

• adjoint (bool, optional) – Return adjoint flux instead of real

• gamma (bool, optional) – Whether to return the neutron flux or the gamma flux.

Returns

integratedFlux – multigroup neutron tracklength in [n-cm/s]

Return type

numpy.array

getLumpedFissionProductCollection()

Get collection of LFP objects. Will work for global or block-level LFP models.

Returns

lfps – lfpName keys , lfp object values

Return type

LumpedFissionProduct

See also

armi.physics.neutronics.fissionProductModel.lumpedFissionProduct.LumpedFissionProduct()

LFP object

getReactionRates(nucName, nDensity=None)

Parameters

• - str (nucName) – nuclide name – e.g. ‘U235’

• - float (nDensity) – number Density

Returns

rxnRates – dictionary of reaction rates (rxn/s) for nG, nF, n2n, nA and nP

Return type

dict

Note

If you set nDensity to 1/CM2_PER_BARN this makes 1 group cross section generation easier

paramCollectionType

alias of armi.reactor.parameters.parameterCollections.BlockParameterCollection

class armi.reactor.blocks.HexBlock(name, height=1.0, location=None)

Bases: armi.reactor.blocks.Block

Builds a new ARMI block

caseSettingsSettings object, optional

The settings object to use to build the block

namestr, optional

The name of this block

heightfloat, optional

The height of the block in cm. Defaults to 1.0 so that getVolume assumes unit height.

PITCH_COMPONENT_TYPE = (<class 'armi.reactor.components.basicShapes.Hexagon'>,)

coords(rotationDegreesCCW=0.0)

getMaxArea()

Compute the max area of this block if it was totally full.

getDuctIP()

getDuctOP()

initializePinLocations()

setPinPowers(powers, numPins, imax, jmax, gamma=False, removeSixCornerPins=False, powerKeySuffix='')

Updates the pin powers of this block for the current rotation.

Parameters

powers (list of floats) – The block-level pin linear power densities. pinPowers[i] represents the average linear power density of pin i. Power units are Watts/cm (Watts produced per cm of pin length). The “ARMI pin ordering” is used, which is counter-clockwise from 3 o’clock.

Notes

This handles rotations using the pinLocation parameters.

This sets:

self.p.pinPowers1-D numpy array

The block-level pin linear power densities. pinPowers[i] represents the average linear power density of pin i. Power units are Watts/cm (Watts produced per cm of pin length). The “ARMI pin ordering” is used, which is counter-clockwise from 3 o’clock.

rotatePins(rotNum, justCompute=False)

Rotate an assembly, which means rotating the indexing of pins.

Notes

Changing (x,y) positions of pins does NOT constitute rotation, because the indexing of pin atom densities must be re-ordered. Re-order indexing of pin-level quantities, NOT (x,y) locations of pins. Otherwise, subchannel input will be in wrong order.

How rotations works is like this. There are pins with unique pin numbers in each block. These pin numbers will not change no matter what happens to a block, so if you have pin 1, you always have pin 1. However, these pins are all in pinLocations, and these are what change with rotations. At BOL, a pin’s pinLocation is equal to its pin number, but after a rotation, this will no longer be so.

So, all params that don’t care about exactly where in space the pin is (such as depletion) can just use the pin number, but anything that needs to know the spatial location (such as fluxRecon, which interpolates the flux spatially, or subchannel codes, which needs to know where the power is) need to map through the pinLocation parameters.

This method rotates the pins by changing the pinLocations.

Parameters

• rotNum (int) – An integer from 0 to 5, indicating the number of counterclockwise 60-degree rotations from the CURRENT orientation. Degrees of counter-clockwise rotation = 60*rot

• justCompute (Boolean, optional) – If True, rotateIndexLookup will be returned but NOT assigned to the object variable self.rotateIndexLookup. If False, rotateIndexLookup will be returned AND assigned to the object variable self.rotateIndexLookup. Useful for figuring out which rotation is best to minimize burnup, etc.

Returns

rotateIndexLookup – This is an index lookup (or mapping) between pin ids and pin locations The pin indexing is 1-D (not ring,pos or GEODST). The “ARMI pin ordering” is used for location, which is counter-clockwise from 3 o’clock. Pin numbers start at 1, pin locations also start at 1.

Return type

dict of ints

Examples

rotateIndexLookup[i_after_rotation-1] = i_before_rotation-1

verifyBlockDims()

Perform some checks on this type of block before it is assembled.

getPinToDuctGap(cold=False)

Returns the distance in cm between the outer most pin and the duct in a block.

Parameters

cold (boolean) – Determines whether the results should be cold or hot dimensions.

Returns

pinToDuctGap – Returns the diameteral gap between the outer most pins in a hex pack to the duct inner face to face in cm.

Return type

float

getRotationNum()

Get index 0 through 5 indicating number of rotations counterclockwise around the z-axis.

setRotationNum(rotNum)

Set orientation based on a number 0 through 5 indicating number of rotations counterclockwise around the z-axis.

getSymmetryFactor()

Return a factor between 1 and N where 1/N is how much cut-off by symmetry lines this mesh cell is.

Reactor-level meshes have symmetry information so we have a reactor for this to work. That’s why it’s not implemented on the grid/locator level.

When edge-assemblies are included on both edges (i.e. MCNP or DIF3D-FD 1/3-symmetric cases), the edge assemblies have symmetry factors of 2.0. Otherwise (DIF3D-nodal) there’s a full assembly on the bottom edge (overhanging) and no assembly at the top edge so the ones at the bottom are considered full (symmetryFactor=1).

If this block is not in any grid at all, then there can be no symmetry so return 1.

getPinCoordinates()

Compute the centroid coordinates of any pins in this block.

Returns

localCoordinates – list of (x,y,z) pairs representing each pin in the order they are listed as children

Return type

list

Notes

This assumes hexagonal pin lattice and needs to be upgraded once more generic geometry options are needed.

A block with fully-defined pins could just use their individual spatialLocators in a block-level 2-D grid. However most cases do not have this to minimize overhead and maximize speed. Thus we want to just come up with a uniform mesh of pins if they’re not explicitly placed in the grid.

_getPinCoordinatesHex()

autoCreateSpatialGrids()

Given a block without a spatialGrid, create a spatialGrid and give its children the corresponding spatialLocators (if it is a simple block).

In this case, a simple block would be one that has either multiplicity of components equal to 1 or N but no other multiplicities. Also, this should only happen when N fits exactly into a given number of hex rings. Otherwise, do not create a grid for this block.

Notes

If the block meets all the conditions, we gather all components to either be a multiIndexLocation containing all of the pin positions, otherwise, locator is the center (0,0).

Raises

ValueError – If the multiplicities of the block are not only 1 or N or if generated ringNumber leads to more positions than necessary.

getPinCenterFlatToFlat(cold=False)

Return the flat-to-flat distance between the centers of opposing pins in the outermost ring.

hasPinPitch()

Return True if the block has enough information to calculate pin pitch.

getPinPitch(cold=False)

Get the pin pitch in cm.

Assumes that the pin pitch is defined entirely by contacting cladding tubes and wire wraps. Grid spacers not yet supported.

Parameters

cold (boolean) – Determines whether the dimensions should be cold or hot

Returns

pinPitch – pin pitch in cm

Return type

float

paramCollectionType

alias of armi.reactor.parameters.parameterCollections.BlockParameterCollection

uniqID = 1802

class armi.reactor.blocks.CartesianBlock(name, height=1.0, location=None)

Bases: armi.reactor.blocks.Block

Builds a new ARMI block

caseSettingsSettings object, optional

The settings object to use to build the block

namestr, optional

The name of this block

heightfloat, optional

The height of the block in cm. Defaults to 1.0 so that getVolume assumes unit height.

PITCH_DIMENSION = 'widthOuter'

PITCH_COMPONENT_TYPE

alias of armi.reactor.components.basicShapes.Rectangle

getMaxArea()

Get area of this block if it were totally full.

setPitch(val, updateBolParams=False)

Sets outer pitch to some new value.

This sets the settingPitch and actually sets the dimension of the outer hexagon.

During a load (importGeom), the setDimension doesn’t usually do anything except set the setting See Issue 034

But during a actual case modification (e.g. in an optimization sweep, then the dimension has to be set as well.

See also

getPitch()

gets the pitch

getSymmetryFactor()

Return a factor between 1 and N where 1/N is how much cut-off by symmetry lines this mesh cell is.

getPinCenterFlatToFlat(cold=False)

Return the flat-to-flat distance between the centers of opposing pins in the outermost ring.

paramCollectionType

alias of armi.reactor.parameters.parameterCollections.BlockParameterCollection

uniqID = 920

class armi.reactor.blocks.ThRZBlock(name, height=1.0, location=None)

Bases: armi.reactor.blocks.Block

Builds a new ARMI block

caseSettingsSettings object, optional

The settings object to use to build the block

namestr, optional

The name of this block

heightfloat, optional

The height of the block in cm. Defaults to 1.0 so that getVolume assumes unit height.

getMaxArea()

Return the area of the Theta-R-Z block if it was totally full.

radialInner()

Return a smallest radius of all the components.

radialOuter()

Return a largest radius of all the components.

thetaInner()

Return a smallest theta of all the components.

thetaOuter()

Return a largest theta of all the components.

axialInner()

Return the lower z-coordinate.

axialOuter()

Return the upper z-coordinate.

verifyBlockDims()

Perform dimension checks related to ThetaRZ blocks.

paramCollectionType

alias of armi.reactor.parameters.parameterCollections.BlockParameterCollection

uniqID = 57

class armi.reactor.blocks.Point(name=None)

Bases: armi.reactor.blocks.Block

Points quack like blocks. This Point object represents a single point in space within a Block. The Point object masquerades as a Block so that any Block parameter (such as DPA) can be assigned to it with the same functionality.

Builds a new ARMI block

caseSettingsSettings object, optional

The settings object to use to build the block

namestr, optional

The name of this block

heightfloat, optional

The height of the block in cm. Defaults to 1.0 so that getVolume assumes unit height.

getVolume()

Return the volume of a block.

Returns

volume – Block or component volume in cm^3

Return type

float

getBurnupPeakingFactor()

Get the radial peaking factor to be applied to burnup and DPA

This may be informed by previous runs which used detailed pin reconstruction and rotation. In that case, it should be set on the cs setting burnupPeakingFactor.

Otherwise, it just takes the current flux peaking, which is typically conservatively high.

Returns

burnupPeakingFactor – The peak/avg factor for burnup and DPA.

Return type

float

See also

armi.physics.neutronics.globalFlux.globalFluxInterface.GlobalFluxInterface.updateFluenceAndDPA()

uses this

terrapower.physics.neutronics.depletion.depletion.DepletionInterface._updateBlockParametersAfterDepletion()

also uses this

paramCollectionType

alias of armi.reactor.parameters.parameterCollections.BlockParameterCollection