New & Noteworthy: Direct Neutronics Analysis on CAD

As the energy industry works to meet the demands of an energy-hungry planet, while also reducing carbon emissions, nuclear energy is back in the spotlight. Existing companies and startups are developing innovative new solutions that harness nuclear power in safer and more efficient platforms. 

In Coreform Cubit 2023.11, Coreform has released commercial workflows that enable neutronics on CAD for the first time in any software package.

In the past few months and years, investment in both nuclear fusion and fission companies has increased, and these companies have required more efficient, robust workflows to develop and test reactor designs. In this latest release of Coreform Cubit, Coreform has added enhancements to support both finite element analysis and Monte Carlo neutronics workflows.

A favored workflow by leading researchers has been to run neutronics calculations directly on CAD geometry or on a simulation mesh instead of reconstructing the design in the painstaking process of constructive solid geometry (CSG) creation, which has traditionally been the required geometry for neutronics in leading codes such as MCNP or OpenMC.

In Coreform Cubit 2023.11, users will be able to perform neutronics directly on CAD. Based on the DAGMC workflow developed by Dr. Paul Wilson’s team at the University of Wisconsin as a long-time Cubit plugin, the newly integrated functionality enables a seamless workflow to prepare CAD geometry for neutronics in a number of neutronics codes, including MCNP and OpenMC.

Additionally, Cubit’s leading FEA meshing capability can now be used to generate unstructured meshes for multiphysics simulations in OpenMC, MOOSE, MCNP, and other codes.

To see the new nuclear energy capabilities, view the recorded webinar, OpenMC Neutronics Simulations of CAD-based Geometry Using DAGMC and Coreform Cubit.

About Coreform Cubit

Preparing CAD geometry for meshing consumes more time and resources than any other stage of the CAE process. Coreform Cubit provides powerful, user-guided automated tools to make geometry cleanup and simplification fast and satisfying. Coreform Cubit includes everything needed for streamlined progress from CAD to analysis, with full-featured capabilities for geometry preparation and mesh generation, analysis, and fine-tuning.

Coreform Cubit’s pre-processing capabilities and hex-dominant meshing tools minimize the time spent on model preparation for FEA and CFD while maximizing control over mesh quality to get the right mesh for high-quality solutions to demanding problems. Coreform Cubit helps you maximize the benefit of your investment in simulation technology.

Learn More

To find out whether Coreform Cubit is the right solution for your specific nuclear energy simulation challenges, visit the company website or email [email protected].

Learn more about Coreform Cubit for nuclear applications here.

See how nuclear energy startup Radiant Industries is using Coreform Cubit to help create a portable microreactor in this case study.

Learn more about the Coreform Cubit platform on the company website.

Coreform develops next-generation computer-aided engineering software. Coreform’s founders are authorities in isogeometric analysis and are widely cited researchers. Coreform is also the exclusive commercial distributor of the Cubit meshing software. Coreform was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in Utah, USA.