Visualization of Heat Transfer and Core Damage With RGUI 1.5

Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) have become an integral and essential part of computer software. In the ever-changing world of computing, they provide the user with a valuable means to learn, understand, and use the application software while also helping applications adapt to and span different computing paradigms, such as different operating systems. For these reasons, GUI development for nuclear plant analysis programs has been ongoing for a decade and a half and much progress has been made. With the development of codes such as RELAP5-3D [1] and SCDAP/RELAP5 that have multi-dimensional modeling capability, it has become necessary to represent three-dimensional, calculated data. The RELAP5-3D Graphical User Interface (RGUI) [4] was designed specifically for this purpose. It reduces the difficulty of analyzing complex three-dimensional models and enhances the analysts’ ability to recognize plant behavior visually. Previous versions of RGUI [5] focused on visualizing reactor coolant behavior during a simulated transient or accident. Recent work has extended RGUI to display two other phenomena, heat transfer and core damage. Heat transfer is depicted through the visualization of RELAP5-3D heat structures. Core damage is visualized by displaying fuel rods and other core structures in a reactor vessel screen. Conditions within the core are displayed via numerical results and color maps. These new features of RGUI 1.5 are described and illustrated.