Prototype code development

Our activities on development of the coupled T-H-M-C code and further demonstration analysis are presented by Neyama et al. in GeoProc 2003 conference, entitled Prototype Code Development for Numerical Experiments on the Coupled Thermo-Hydro-Mechanical and Chemical Processes in the Near-field of a High-level Radioactive Waste Repository . The prototype code is based on the coupled T-H-M code, mass transport code and geochemical code which have been well verified and validated through benchmark tests and various experiments, and... 

PROTOTYPE CODE DEVELOPMENT FOR NUMERICAL EXPERIMENTS ON THE COUPLED THERMO-HYDRO-MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL PROCESSES IN THE NEAR-FIELD OF A HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTE REPOSITORY... 

PROTOTYPE CODE DEVELOPMENT 3.1 Coupling of existing analysis code... 

The 2" phase (2006-2009) R D activities undertake a SI process optimization and the performance tests of various chemical reactors selected for the SI cycle. The 2" phase research covers a dynamic code development for the SI process, a construction of a lab. scale( l 000 NL/h) SI process, and integrated operations of the process at prototypical pressures. On the other hand, conceptual and basic designs of a pilot scale( 100 Nm /li) SI process and its equipment will also be carried out according to the optimized process established from the theoretical evaluation using a commercial-base computer code and the experiences of the lab. scale construction and operations. Preliminary performance tests of the equipment, mechanical devices, and accessories for the pilot scale SI process should be carried out to obtain the design basis. Not only the several catalysts based on non-noble metals required for section II in the SI cycle but also a membrane for the separation of the hydrogen required for section III will be developed during the 2" phase research period. 

Design Implication Only visualize essential information. The CodeSaw prototype used a large portion of the available information in the visualization number of hues added, number of lines subtracted, recency of changes, etc. Initially, we hypothesized that code developers would want such a high level of detail. However, users told us that it exposed too much information. If they wanted such high levels of detail, users could more easily go back to the CVS archives and the code itself. Only the information items indicated as very useful by users made their way into CodeSaw. 

Typically, prototypes are discarded once the functional requirements and user interface requirements have been fully defined. The final system is then developed through a prospective fife cycle of design, coding, configuration and build, development testing, and user qualification. QA need not be involved with the development of prototype software since it is destined to be discarded and does not have to have any sigrfificant level of irmate quality. 

This has pushed the evolution of chemical reactivity computer codes towards approaches better allowing multiscale treatments based on loosely coupled algorithms building complexity out of a large number of simpler computational tasks. This has led to the development of Grid based molecular- simulations (GMS). A first prototype GMS has been developed within METACHEM for an a priori simulation of molecular beam experiments SIMBEX [13]). 

The R D activities for the process and equipment developments will be performed at prototypical conditions based on a high pressure and temperature and metallic-based equipment. On the other hand, a dynamic simulation computer code to analyse the transient state of an advanced SI process will be developed by 2009. This computer code will be applied for the dynamic analysis of the pilot and demo scale SI facilities. 

The applicability of the prototype coupling system COUPLYS by DDL and semaphore to develop the coupled T-H-M-C code was shown by verification and demonstration analysis. The use of the prototype coupling system like COUPLYS ... 

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