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 MATIX_P simulation platform

 

 

MATIX_P is a multi-scale materials modeling and simulation platform that integrates various numerical codes, which are based on validated physical models, to study the microstructure and mechanical evolution of nuclear materials. This platform integrates codes and models for different size scales, ranging from atomic to macroscopic. It facilitates data exchange and chaining/coupling between the codes and provides a user-friendly environment for scientists to promote and develop new tools.


The MATIX_P platform has been already used to study a variety of important topics, including: hardening kinetics of ferritic steels under irradiation, irradiation creep of austenitic steels, and stress corrosion mechanisms. Other research studies concern the implementation of codes to compare ions damage and neutron damage in conjunction with the JANNuS Saclay irradiation facility. The codes are currently being developed under the pre/post processing and coupling SALOME platform along with the CAST3M finite element sofware. The MATIX_P platform includs:

 

  • DART, a binary collision approximation (BCA) code used to assess a material's primary irradiation damage when submitted to neutron flux or ion beams;
  • CMDC, a new molecular dynamics code developed to simulate displacement cascades in materials induced by high energy ions (> 1 MeV). The simulation box discriminates between active and frozen cells according to temperature and kinetic energy criteria. This approach allows the calculation time to be accelerated by a factor of up to 100 000 compared to standard molecular dynamics simulations;
  • CRESCENDO, a code that uses chemical rate equations to compute the evolution of nanostructures induced by irradiation over extended periods of time (EDF collaboration);
  • NUMODIS, a dislocation dynamics code used to study the plastic deformation of materials based on the collective behavior of dislocations (Grenoble INP, Paris XII University, INRIA Bordeaux collaborations);
  • EKINOX, a code dedicated to the computation of oxidation kinetics of nickel-based alloys (AREVA NP, CIRIMAT Toulouse collaborations);
  • AMITEX_FFTP, a new FFT code, highly parallelized, used to simulate the mechanical behavior of unit-cells representative of heterogeneous materials. For metallic alloys, it corresponds to crystalline aggregates for which the behavior of each grain is based on dislocation dynamics modeling and has been experimentally validated. The method links the behavior of one grain (≈ 10µm) to that of a representative elementary volume, REV (≈ mm);
  • MICROGEN, a tool-box used to generate numerical microstructures (artificial or experimental) to perform dislocation dynamics or crystal plasticity calculations.

In addition, PLEIADES is a specific multi-scale simulation platform devoted to fuel and cladding behavior studies, which was co-developed with EDF and supported by AREVA.

 
 
 

 

MATIX_P multiscale simulation platform architecture

 

 
#123 - Last update : 07/12 2017

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