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In this deck from the 2014 HPC User Forum in Seattle, John A. Turner from Oak Ridge National Laboratory presents: Accelerators at ORNL - Application Readiness, Early Science, and Industry Impact.
Citation preview
http://energy.ornl.gov/
Experiences using
Accelerators at ORNL
Application Readiness, Early Science, and Industry Impact
John A. Turner
Group Leader Computational Engineering and Energy Sciences
Chief Computational Scientist Consortium for Advanced Simulation of
Light-Water Reactors (CASL)
HPC User Forum
Sept 15-17, 2014, Seattle, WA
2 http://energy.ornl.gov/
Overview
• U.S. DOE Leadership Computing Program
• OLCF-3: The Titan Project
• Application Readiness and Early Science on Titan
• The Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light-Water
Reactors (CASL) – a U.S. DOE Innovation Hub
– connection to Titan Application Readiness and Early Science
• Industry Impact
3 http://energy.ornl.gov/
What is the U.S. DOE Leadership
Computing Program?
• Collaborative DOE Office of Science program at ORNL and ANL
• Mission: Provide the computational and data resources required to solve the most challenging problems.
• 2-centers / 2-architectures to address diverse and growing computational needs of the scientific community
• Highly competitive user allocation programs (INCITE, ALCC).
• Projects receive 10x to 100x more resource than at other generally available centers.
• LCF centers partner with users to enable science & engineering breakthroughs (Liaisons, Catalysts).
4 http://energy.ornl.gov/
Three primary ways for access to LCF
Distribution of allocable hours
60% INCITE 5.8 billion core-hours in
CY2014
Up to 30% ASCR Leadership Computing
Challenge
10% Director’s Discretionary
Leadership-class computing
DOE/SC capability
computing
INCITE seeks computationally intensive, large-
scale research and/or development
projects with the potential to
significantly advance key
areas in science and
engineering.
5 http://energy.ornl.gov/
Demand for INCITE resources outstrips
supply with 3x more time requested than
available – Number of projects remains flat
2004 2010 2005 2009 2006 2007
2004
2008 2011 2013 2012
6 http://energy.ornl.gov/
200 cabinets
4,352 ft2 (404 m2)
8.2 MW peak power
SYSTEM SPECIFICATIONS:
• 27.1 PF/s peak performance • 24.5 GPU + 2.6 CPU
• 17.59 PF/s sustained perf. (LINPACK)
• 18,688 compute nodes, each with: – 16-Core 2.2 GHz AMD Opteron 6200 CPU
– NVIDIA Tesla K20x GPU (2688 “cores”)
– 32 GB DDR3 + 6 GB DDR5 memory
• 710 TB total system memory
• 32 PB parallel filesystem (Lustre)
• Cray Gemini 3D Torus Interconnect
• 512 Service and I/O nodes
ORNL’s “Titan” Hybrid System:
Cray XK7 with AMD Opteron + NVIDIA Tesla processors
• Throwing away 90% of available performance if not using GPUs
Throwing away 90% of available performance if not using GPUs
7 http://energy.ornl.gov/
Center for Accelerated Application
Readiness (CAAR)
• We created CAAR as part of the Titan project to help prepare applications for accelerated architectures
• Goals: – Work with code teams to develop and implement strategies for
exposing hierarchical parallelism for our users applications
– Maintain code portability across modern architectures
– Learn from and share our results
• We selected six applications from across different science domains and algorithmic motifs
8 http://energy.ornl.gov/
Early Science Challenges for Titan
WL-LSMS Illuminating the role of material disorder, statistics, and fluctuations in nanoscale materials and systems.
S3D Understanding turbulent combustion through direct numerical simulation with complex chemistry. .
NRDF Radiation transport – important in astrophysics, laser fusion, combustion, atmospheric dynamics, and medical imaging – computed on AMR grids.
CAM-SE Answering questions about specific climate change adaptation and mitigation scenarios; realistically represent features like precipitation patterns / statistics and tropical storms.
Denovo Discrete ordinates radiation transport calculations that can be used in a variety of nuclear energy and technology applications.
LAMMPS A molecular dynamics simulation of organic polymers for applications in organic photovoltaic heterojunctions , de-wetting phenomena and biosensor applications
9 http://energy.ornl.gov/
CAAR Plan
• Comprehensive team assigned to each app – OLCF application lead
– Cray engineer
– NVIDIA developer
– Other application, local tool/library developers, computational scientists
• Single early-science problem targeted for each app – Success on this problem is ultimate metric for success
• Particular plan-of-attack different for each app – WL-LSMS – dependent on accelerated ZGEMM
– CAM-SE– pervasive and widespread custom acceleration required
• Multiple acceleration methods explored – WL-LSMS – CULA, MAGMA, custom ZGEMM
– CAM-SE– CUDA, directives
– Two-fold aim
• Maximum acceleration for model problem
• Determination of reproducible acceleration path for others
10 http://energy.ornl.gov/
Effectiveness of GPU Acceleration?
OLCF-3 Early Science Codes -- Performance on Titan XK7
Titan: Cray XK7 (Kepler GPU plus AMD 16-core Opteron CPU)
Cray XE6: (2x AMD 16-core Opteron CPUs) *Performance depends strongly on specific problem size chosen
Application Cray XK7 vs. Cray XE6
Performance Ratio*
LAMMPS* Molecular dynamics
7.4
S3D Turbulent combustion
2.2
Denovo 3D neutron transport for nuclear reactors
3.8
WL-LSMS Statistical mechanics of magnetic materials
3.8
11 http://energy.ornl.gov/
Application Power Efficiency of the Cray XK7
WL-LSMS for CPU-only and Accelerated Computing
• Runtime Is 8.6X faster for the accelerated code
• Energy consumed Is 7.3X less
o GPU accelerated code consumed 3,500 kW-hr
o CPU only code consumed 25,700 kW-hr
Power consumption traces for identical WL-LSMS runs
with 1024 Fe atoms on 18,561 Titan nodes (99% of Titan)
12 http://energy.ornl.gov/
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
0 3,000 6,000 9,000 12,000 15,000 18,000
Se
con
ds
Nodes
Titan Sweep Performance
CPU
GPU
Denovo SN
Acceleration
• SWEEP kernel re-written in C++ & CUDA, runs on CPU or GPU
• Refactored SWEEP is in mainline code
• Titan: SWEEP speedup of 6-7x, Denovo speedup ~3.8x
• Scaling to over 200K cores with opportunities for increased parallelism on GPUs
• Refactored code 2x faster on Cray XT5 (CPU only)
Full Denovo run, CPU vs. GPU sweeper,
CPU+GPU vs. CPU only
CPU vs. GPU sweeper, Titan, Kepler K20x
13 http://energy.ornl.gov/
Increasing Usage of GPUs
As measured by ALTD against linked libraries
INCITE 2013
INCITE 2014
14 http://energy.ornl.gov/
Results and Impact
• Advanced numerical methods
• Increased coupling of physics
• Increased use of mechanistic models of lower length-scale phenomena
• Large-scale software development – geographically-dispersed, multi-institutional
Computational Science Areas
Objectives and Strategies
Consortium for Advanced Simulation
of Light-Water Reactors (CASL)
• Advance understanding of key reactor phenomena
• Improve performance of today’s commercial power reactors
• Evaluate new fuel designs to further enhance safety margins
• DOE Innovation Hub on Modeling & Simulation for Nuclear Energy Systems
• Develop “Virtual Reactor” to assess fuel design, operation, and safety criteria
• Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications (VERA)
15 http://energy.ornl.gov/
CASL was the first DOE
Innovation Hub
Core partners
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Electric Power Research Institute
Idaho National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
North Carolina State University
Sandia National Laboratories
Tennessee Valley Authority
University of Michigan
Westinghouse Electric Company
Contributing Partners
ASCOMP GmbH
CD-adapco
City College of New York
Florida State University
Imperial College London
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Texas A&M University
Pennsylvania State University
University of Florida
University of Wisconsin
University of Notre Dame
Anatech Corporation
Core Physics Inc.
G S Nuclear Consulting, LLC
University of Texas at Austin
University of Texas at Dallas
University of Tennessee – Knoxville
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
A Different Approach
• “Multi-disciplinary, highly collaborative teams ideally working under one roof to solve priority technology challenges” – Steven Chu
• “Create a research atmosphere with a fierce sense of urgency to deliver solutions.” – Kristina Johnson
• Characteristics – Leadership – Outstanding, independent, scientific
leadership – Management – “Light” federal touch – Focus – Deliver technologies that can change the
U.S. “energy game”
16 http://energy.ornl.gov/
CASL Test Stands provide early
deployment to industry.
• Early deployment into industrial environment for testing, use, and adoption of VERA to support real-world LWR applications
• Status of initial deployment to core industry partners – WEC: Deployment during June 2013; focus on VERA
simulation of AP1000 first core startup
– EPRI: Deployment Dec 2013; fuel performance
– TVA: Deployment in progress; lower plenum flow anomaly
• Early Test Stand deployment is already producing dividends for CASL and users – Better code installation processes
– Input processing for heterogeneous cores
– Reductions in user problem setup times
– Core tilt analysis
– Analysis of new design features (e.g., tungsten rods)
Westinghouse VERA Test Stand
VERA deployed on Westinghouse computer cluster and
employed for a high-impact industrial application: • AP1000 PWR start-up core physics tests simulation
VERA-CS simulations performed on a dedicated
Westinghouse computer cluster where VERA has
been deployed by a CASL-Westinghouse team.
The graphic below shows the computer arrangement
and communication to automate VERA updates from
the ORNL central repository as new capabilities are
being added.
The Westinghouse VERA build is operational and
exercised by Westinghouse personnel.
Pictorial of the AP1000 plant with the fission rate distribution predicted
by VERA during one of the startup physics tests measurements. It will
be possible to compare the VERA predictions against measured data
when the first AP1000 unit will come on line in 2015 (Sanmen, China).
All the AP1000 units under construction will feature the same startup
core modeled by VERA.
The AP 1000 features an
advanced first core with
several enrichments and fuel
heterogeneities which allows
to quickly achieve
equilibrium cycle after fuel
shuffle and reload.
The advanced first core is a
major economic advantage
since it reduces the number
of transition cycles before
equilibrium but it also poses
challenges to the simulation.
VERA high-fidelity physics
provided an ideal match for
simulating this challenging
core and gain confidence in
the start-up predictions
AP1000 Monte Carlo model shown. Thanks to VERA common input, it has been possible
to generate a complete AP1000 core model within a compact and intuitive input.
AP1000 Advanced First Core Model
19 http://energy.ornl.gov/
Timeline for CASL Westinghouse (WEC)
Test Stand
• early 2013: Test Stand discussion
• April 2013: Scope proposed by WEC
• June 2013: VERA deployment at WEC
• July-Nov 2013: Technical analysis
• Jan 2014: Analysis completed and
documented (Mar 2014)
Enhanced confidence in AP1000 PWR start-up predictions • High-quality benchmarks for code comparison
• Expanded application of VERA to an advanced core
• Feedback from WEC to guide future developments
• Framework for VERA build and update
20 http://energy.ornl.gov/
Approaches to neutronics balance accuracy and
computational requirements. As part of Titan Early
Science, we compared 3 methods.
Method Attributes Code Cross
Sections
Energy Scat-
tering
Lang. Scalability
Simplified PN
(SPN)
Cartesian
mesh, Lin.
Syst.
Insilico pin-
homogen-
ized
multigroup PN C++ linear solver-
dependent
Discrete
Ordinates (SN)
Cartesian
mesh,
Wavefront
Denovo pin-
homogen-
ized
multigroup PN C++ >200,000
Method of
Characteristics
(MOC)
unstruct.
mesh, Ray
tracking
MPACT subgroup multigroup PN Fortran in testing
Monte Carlo CAD,
particle
tracking
Keno-IV exact continuous exact Fortran few hundred
Monte Carlo CAD,
particle
tracking
Shift exact continuous exact C++ >200,000
21 http://energy.ornl.gov/
Execution
Goals
Evaluation of Shift: VERA Continuous-Energy Monte Carlo
Quarter-Core Zero Power Physics Test
• Awarded 60 million core-hours on Titan (worth >$2M) as part of Titan Early Science program
• AP1000 model created and results generated for reactor criticality, rod worth, and reactivity coefficients
• Identical VERA Input models used for Shift, SPN, and SN – dramatically simpler than KENO-VI input model
• Compare fidelity and performance of Shift against Keno, SPN, and SN (Denovo)
• Generate high-fidelity neutronics solution for code comparison of solutions for predicting reactor startup and physics testing
Results • Some of the largest Monte Carlo calculations ever performed
(1 trillion particles) have been completed – runs used 230,000 cores of Titan or more
• Excellent agreement with KENO-VI
• Extremely fine-mesh SN calculations, which leverage Titan’s GPU accelerators, are under way AP1000 pin powers
MB AO AO
MB MA
22 http://energy.ornl.gov/
Acceleration efforts are underway or in
initial phases for other VERA components
• Hydra-TH (CFD, unstructured finite volume) – Performance analysis, code optimization and scaling efforts
have improved performance and scaling for both single phase and multiphase (MPI only)
– Collaboration with NVIDIA has been under way for over a year to exploit hybrid parallelism (MPI + threads) • Incorporating NVIDIA's AMG GPU lib, AmgX, into Hydra
(https://developer.nvidia.com/amgx)
– Thread other parts of the code (OpenMP, OpenACC, CUDA)
• MPACT (neutronics, Method of Characteristics) – Fortran, so OpenACC is most appropriate path forward
– NVIDIA staff stationed full-time at ORNL identified to assist team
• Shift (neutronics, Monte Carlo) – Core Exnihilo kernels, including Shift, have been extracted and
are being released as an open-source mini-app (Profugus)
– NVIDIA staff have been identified to assist in Shift acceleration
– Currently awaiting export control ruling for release
23 http://energy.ornl.gov/
Questions?
e-mail: [email protected]
23 Managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy
The research and activities described in this
presentation were performed using the
resources of the Oak Ridge Leadership
Computing Facility at the at Oak Ridge National
Laboratory, which is supported by the Office of
Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under
Contract No. DE-AC0500OR22725.
24 http://energy.ornl.gov/
Supplemental
25 http://energy.ornl.gov/
Problem 7: VERA Analysis of Watts
Bar 1 Hot Full Power Simulation
Purpose • First large-scale coupled multi-physics model of operating PWR reactor using
Components of VERA
• Features resolved based on dimensions and state conditions of Watts Bar Unit 1 Cycle 1 geometry for fuel, burnable absorbers, spacer grids, nozzles, core baffle
Common to both approaches: • Common input used to drive all physics codes
• Subchannel thermal-hydraulics in coolant (COBRA-TF)
• Rod-by-rod heat conduction in fuel (COBRA-TF)
• Temperature and density dependent multigroup neutron cross sections
Insilico/Denovo SPN ,SCALE/XSProc cross sections • >1M unique material (fuel/coolant/internals) regions resolved
• 17.5 hours on Titan using 18,769 cores (330,000 core-hours)
MPACT 2-D (MOC) / 1-D (nodal diffusion), subgroup cross sections • >2.8B unknowns for multi-group scalar flux
• 12 hours on Eos using 2,784 cores (33k core-hrs)
• now <4 hours on Eos using 2,784 cores (11k core-hrs)
30x reduction in core-hr requirement >3x reduction in memory
need another factor of 5-10x for overnight cycle
Fission Density Profile
in Reactor Core
26 http://energy.ornl.gov/
Computational resources
are unprecedented.
• Compute cycles and total memory will continue to increase – Core counts will continue to double every 1.5-2 yrs.
– Next OLCF system will have 5-8x more memory than Titan
• Cost is difficult to generalize, but cost for 1 TF/s has steadily dropped... – 1997: $55M (ASCI Red)
– 2002: <$1M
– 2012: <$5k (~200 TF/s for $1M)
– 2020: $100? (~10 PF/s for $1M)
• As we discuss challenges, also consider opportunities...
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/171678-intel-unveils-72-core-
x86-knights-landing-cpu-for-exascale-supercomputing
http://www.enterprisetech.com/2013/11/18/
ibm-embraces-nvidia-gpus-acceleration/
27 http://energy.ornl.gov/
Let’s enjoy a bit of optimism...
• Compute cycles and total memory will continue to increase
– Core counts will continue to double every 1.5-2 yrs.
– Next OLCF system will have 5-8x more memory than Titan
• Cost is difficult to generalize, but 1 TF/s has steadily dropped
– 1997: $55M (ASCI Red)
– 2002: <$1M
– 2012: <$5k (~200 TF/s for $1M)
– 2020: $100? (~10 PF/s for $1M)
• As we discuss challenges, also think about opportunities for CASL codes
– CE Monte Carlo with 8T particles
– multiphase CFD for ¼-core
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/171678-intel-unveils-72-core-
x86-knights-landing-cpu-for-exascale-supercomputing
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ch.c
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/2013/1
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ibm
-em
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ration/
28 http://energy.ornl.gov/
Similarly for coming NERSC systems...
Extracted from 10/8/2013 presentation by Jack Deslippe, NERSC User
Services titled “Preparing Your Applications for Future NERSC Systems”
29 http://energy.ornl.gov/
NERSC-8 will use Knights Landing
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8217/intels-knights-landing-coprocessor-detailed
30 http://energy.ornl.gov/
Effective node-level parallelism is essential.
• Future performance is mainly from node improvements. – Number of nodes is not increasing dramatically.
• 70-80% of developer time spent restructuring code – 1-2 person-years for codes to make Jaguar to Titan
transition
– required regardless of the type of processors – work is in exposing additional parallelism on the node and minimizing data movement
– tools/compilers can help, but cannot do this type of refactoring automatically
– also largely independent of threading model
– however, it pays off for other systems —refactored codes often run significantly faster even on CPU-only (Denovo 2x, CAM-SE >1.7x, S3D 2x)
• Each code team must make its own choice of threading model (see next slide)
• Abundance of flops can make previously infeasible or inefficient models and implementations viable
CPU Accelerator (GPU,Phi)
Optimized for sequential multitasking • Optimized for many
simultaneous tasks
• 10 performance per socket
• 5 more energy-efficient systems
Distilled from 2014 presentation to AASTCS2: Exascale Radio Astronomy
Jack Wells, OLCF Director of Science, ORNL
31 http://energy.ornl.gov/
Programming models for node-level parallelism
Must design for MPI+X, where X is one of the thread options (OpenMP, OpenCL, CUDA, OpenACC, pthreads, TBB, etc.)
CUDA
TBB OpenMP
CAPS
PGI
OpenCL
pthreads
CUDA
TBB
OpenMP
CAPS OpenCL
pthreads
OpenACC X
2010 Today homogeneous
multicore
hybrid / accelerators
(GPUs, PHI, FPGA)
MPI
PGAS
PGI MPI
PGAS
32 http://energy.ornl.gov/
Some VERA components are being
modified for multicore / hybrid
systems.
VERA
Hydra-TH COBRA-TF
Thermal-Hydraulics
Fuel Performance
Peregrine
Shift
Neutronics
Insilico
Chemistry
MAMBA Common
Input / Output
front-end & back-end
(workflow / analysis)
Trilinos
DAKOTA
MOOSE
PETSc
Solvers / Coupling /
SA / UQ
libMesh
STK
DTK
Geometry / Mesh /
Solution Transfer
ANC
Interoperability
with External
Components
Star-CCM+
RELAP5
RELAP7
MPACT
Others TBD (e.g. ANSYS)
33 http://energy.ornl.gov/
Of the two primary solver libraries used
by VERA, Trilinos is more aggressive
about preparing for multicore / hybrid.
• In Trilinos, distributed linear algebra objects are implemented in the Epetra and Tpetra packages
– Epetra was the original implementation and is production stable (MPI only)
– Tpetra is the new implementation – templated, namespaces, STL, and builds on Kokkos (MPI + threads/vectors)
• Kokkos implements node-level threaded and vector kernels
– both sparse and dense
– interoperable with vendor-optimized libraries
– working closely with NVIDIA on CUDA-based implementations
• VERA components using Tpetra will benefit with no modifications
– however, this will be difficult to leverage in Fortran
• less familiar with multicore/hybrid efforts in PETSc
– some operator and solver-specific CUDA and OpenMP implementations have been published
Trilinos info from June 2013 Intel Software Tools Spring Technical Webinar by Mike Heroux, SNL (https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-software-tools-spring-technical-webinar-series)
VERA has been used to gain
unique insights in the AP1000
core behavior and advanced
operational features
3D core VERA Monte-Carlo
simulations tracking 1 trillion particle
histories performed on 240,000 cores
of the OLCF Titan
• A 1-year per simulation for a typical
Monte-Carlo code vs. 3-hr per
simulation thanks to VERA massively
parallel Monte-Carlo
• Simulations performed as part of a 60
Million Core hours Early Science Award
– arguably the largest computational
effort in the history of commercial
nuclear energy
MB AO AO
MB MA
Predicted power distribution for an AP1000 Monte Carlo simulation
with multiple control rod banks inserted (AO, MA, and MB in the
picture). This simulation emulates the bank configuration occurring as part
of the AP1000 MSHIM™ operational strategy, where control rod banks are
used in synergy to provide flexible load following capabilities and reactor
operation while minimizing soluble boron variations and related effluents.
High-Fidelity 3D Core
Power Prediction
Recognitions for the Westinghouse VERA
Test Stand
• Mission-oriented team
effort received IDC’s HPC
Innovation Excellence
Award for “innovative HPC
applications with
significant benefits to
industry and general
public”
– Early Science Award 60-
Million core hour allocation on
OLCF Titan
– Nuclear Engineering
International invited article,
May 2014 Issue
Several members of the
Westinghouse-CASL team proudly
display the HPC award (from L to
R): Jess Gehin, Oak Ridge National
Laboratory; Fausto Franceschini,
Westinghouse Electric Company;
Andrew Godfrey, Oak Ridge
National Laboratory; and John
Turner, Oak Ridge National
Laboratory. The team receiving the
award also includes Tom Evans
(ORNL) and the SHIFT development
team
• Gained unique
insights in the
AP1000 first core and
operational features
• Reinforced
confidence in
Westinghouse in-
house predictions
• Performed
breakthrough
simulations
supporting advanced
plant operation
Other VERA Applications at Westinghouse
After successful application to the AP1000 PWR, VERA is currently being
applied for the analysis of other challenging cores by Westinghouse
Reg. # - # of Pyrex Rods
R3 00 R3 00 R3 00
R3 00 R3 00 R2 00 R2 08 R2 00 R3 00 R3 00
R3 00 R3 08 R1 00 R2 12 R1 00 R2 12 R1 00 R3 08 R3 00
R3 00 R3 08 R1 00 R2 12 R1 00 R2 16 R1 00 R2 12 R1 00 R3 08 R3 00
R3 00 R1 00 R2 12 R1 00 R2 16 R1 00 R2 16 R1 00 R2 12 R1 00 R3 00
R3 00 R2 00 R2 12 R1 00 R2 16 R1 00 R1 08 R1 00 R2 16 R1 00 R2 12 R2 00 R3 00
R3 00 R2 08 R1 00 R2 16 R1 00 R1 08 R1 00 R1 08 R1 00 R2 16 R1 00 R2 08 R3 00
R3 00 R2 00 R2 12 R1 00 R2 16 R1 00 R1 08 R1 00 R2 16 R1 00 R2 12 R2 00 R3 00
R3 00 R1 00 R2 12 R1 00 R2 16 R1 00 R2 16 R1 00 R2 12 R1 00 R3 00
R3 00 R3 08 R1 00 R2 12 R1 00 R2 16 R1 00 R2 12 R1 00 R3 08 R3 00
R3 00 R3 08 R1 00 R2 12 R1 00 R2 12 R1 00 R3 08 R3 00
R3 00 R3 00 R2 00 R2 08 R2 00 R3 00 R3 00
R3 00 R3 00 R3 00
P P P P
GT GT GT GT GT GT
P GT GT P P P P P
IT GT IT GT
GT GT
P GT GT P P P P P
GT GT GT GT GT GT
P P P P
P P
P GT P
P P P P
IT GT
GT
P P P P
P GT P
P P
The example shows the application of VERA to the 2-loop Krsko reactor. The core loading pattern is shown on the left, the
16x16 fuel lattice is shown in the middle with the detailed (sub-pin) fuel representation from VERA-CS shown in the blown up
views. This level of detail in the core physics characterization is not available in the current industrial core simulators
3D Power Distribution for Krsko Core
VERA Monte Carlo
(Shift)
VERA Deterministic
(VERA-CS)
k ∆k RMS ∆P Max ∆P Hot Spot
3D Core All-
Rods-Out 1.00051 -72 0.5% 1.9% -0.1%
Delta power
(VERA-CS vs.
Shift) Showing
excellent
agreement
between
VERA-CS and
reference Shift
Monte-Carlo
results
3D Power
Distribution
(Shift) Showing well-
behaved low-
power peaks
core power
profile and the
effect of
burnable
poisons
Exceptionally Low 3D-Core Power
Uncertainty (Shift) Uncertainty, inherent in the stochastic approach
to neutron transport, can be reduced by
increasing the number of particle histories. Shift
calculations with up to 2x1012 particle histories
have been performed on 240,000 cores of Titan.
3D core results from VERA-CS showing outstanding agreement with the
Monte-Carlo prediction. The Root-Mean-Square (RMS) delta power
between the two codes calculated on a 1.5 million cells geometry is 0.5%,
with a 0.1% difference at the “hot spot” (largest power location). The hot-
spot calculation uncertainty in current simulators is 5%.