The DOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) has created an extensive set of advanced modeling and simulation tools for nuclear engineering analysis. The advanced capabilities of these newer analysis codes require more in-depth training, skills, and knowledge in order to effectively utilize them for the design, analysis, and licensing of advanced nuclear systems and experiments. A high learning curve for inexperienced users may deter organizations from incorporating these tools into their internal processes. This project involves development of a plug-in to the Symbolic Nuclear Analysis Package (SNAP) for the System Analysis Module (SAM) tool. SAM is an advanced system analysis tool for reactor transient analyses being developed at Argonne National Laboratory under the U.S. DOE Office of Nuclear Energy?s Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) program. SAM utilizes an object-oriented application framework (MOOSE), and its underlying meshing and finite-element library (libMesh) and linear and non-linear solvers (PETSc), to leverage modern advanced software environments and numerical methods. SNAP provides a highly flexible framework for creating, modifying and documenting input for engineering analysis codes such as SAM as well as extensive functionality for submitting, monitoring, and interacting with the codes through an intuitive graphical user interface (GUI). SNAP is currently used throughout the nuclear industry, supporting a wide range of analysis codes. A partial list of SNAP analysis code plug-ins includes RELAP5, RELAP5-3D, TRACE, PARCS, COBRA-IE, FRAPCON/FRAPTRAN, FAST, SCALE, MELCOR and RADTRAD. Development of a SAM Plug-in to SNAP will greatly reduce the effort required to gain proficiency with SAM and can be expected to increase the number of organizations using SAM. The common user interface provided by SNAP minimizes the learning curve for engineers starting with a new analysis code and provides an intuitive framework for transitioning between different analysis codes. Several online training videos have been and are currently being recorded which cover much of the basic operation of the user interface. SNAP provides a powerful but intuitive interface to facilitate access to advanced modeling and simulation tools for inexperienced users. Unlike many ?form based? GUI?s, SNAP maps each engineering code?s component input to an internal database which manages all component input parameters along with component interconnections. This level of abstraction permits SNAP to support several advanced capabilities such as renodalization, model validation and consistency checks, embedded documentation, model notebook generation, data ownership and reviewer tracking, and variable assignment for inputs to name a few. SNAP includes a built-in Python interpreter and is interfaced to several commercial and open source packages including CPython, MATLAB/OCTAVE, Microsoft Office, Open Office, and SANDIA?s DAKOTA package which provides Uncertainty Quantification analysis through the SNAP plug-ins.Phase I of this project involves development a fully functional basic SAM plug-in to SNAP. This will provide the ability to import existing models, graphically construct, edit and submit models using SNAP?s extensive functionality. Phase II will add more advanced capabilities to this plug-in such as Model Notebook generation ownership/reviewer tracking, and the ability to run SAM as an interactive simulator. Phase II may also include development of SNAP Plug-ins for additional NE Tools such as SAS4A/SASSYS-1.
