Verification of multi-scale coupling program for high temperature gas-cooled reactor based on metamorphic testing

IF 2.3 3区工程技术 Q1 NUCLEAR SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Annals of Nuclear Energy Pub Date : 2025-08-31 DOI:10.1016/j.anucene.2025.111846

Yin Zhao , Meng Li , Ke Zhang , Xiaohua Yang , Jie Liu , Shiyu Yan

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

The multi-scale coupling program for high temperature gas-cooled reactors encompasses complex physical phenomena across the microscopic, mesoscopic, and macroscopic level. Owing to the significant development expenses and the complexity of forming precise analytical solutions, making traditional testing methods invalid, verifying multi-scale codes is hindered by the oracle problem. Metamorphic testing is an effective technique to alleviate the oracle problem. This study uses a two-stage verification method grounded in metamorphic relations, following the introduction of code verification in the nuclear domain. Upon identifying 13 metamorphic relations and 1 property based on fundamental physical characteristics, 87 test case pairs successfully revealed two deeply hidden faults undetected by traditional testing methods. The experimental findings indicate that metamorphic testing serves both as a mechanism to evaluate the code correctness and as a technique to increase the number of verification cases. Furthermore, it presents great potential for applications in the verification of nuclear software.

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基于变质试验的高温气冷堆多尺度耦合程序验证

高温气冷堆的多尺度耦合程序包括微观、介观和宏观层面的复杂物理现象。由于大量的开发费用和形成精确解析解的复杂性，使得传统的测试方法无效，多尺度代码的验证受到oracle问题的阻碍。变形测试是一种缓解oracle问题的有效技术。本研究采用了一种基于变质关系的两阶段验证方法，在核域引入了代码验证。在基于基本物理特征识别13种变质关系和1种性质的基础上，87对测试用例成功地揭示了传统测试方法无法检测到的两个深隐故障。实验结果表明，变形测试既是一种评估代码正确性的机制，也是一种增加验证案例数量的技术。此外，它在核软件的验证中具有很大的应用潜力。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Annals of Nuclear Energy 工程技术-核科学技术

CiteScore

4.30

自引率

21.10%

发文量

632

审稿时长

7.3 months

期刊介绍： Annals of Nuclear Energy provides an international medium for the communication of original research, ideas and developments in all areas of the field of nuclear energy science and technology. Its scope embraces nuclear fuel reserves, fuel cycles and cost, materials, processing, system and component technology (fission only), design and optimization, direct conversion of nuclear energy sources, environmental control, reactor physics, heat transfer and fluid dynamics, structural analysis, fuel management, future developments, nuclear fuel and safety, nuclear aerosol, neutron physics, computer technology (both software and hardware), risk assessment, radioactive waste disposal and reactor thermal hydraulics. Papers submitted to Annals need to demonstrate a clear link to nuclear power generation/nuclear engineering. Papers which deal with pure nuclear physics, pure health physics, imaging, or attenuation and shielding properties of concretes and various geological materials are not within the scope of the journal. Also, papers that deal with policy or economics are not within the scope of the journal.