Isogeometric analysis for the multigroup neutron diffusion equation with applications in reactor physics

Isogeometric Analysis (IGA) has been applied to heterogeneous reactor physics problems using the multigroup neutron diffusion equation. IGA uses a computer-aided design (CAD) description of the geometry commonly built from Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines (NURBS), which can exactly represent complicated curved shapes such as circles and cylinders, common features in reactor design. This work has focused on comparing IGA to finite element analysis (FEA) for heterogeneous reactor physics problems, including the OECD/NEA C5G7 LWR benchmark. The exact geometry and increased basis function continuity contribute to the accuracy of IGA and an improvement over comparable FEA calculations has been observed.