Fundamental concepts in the Cyclus nuclear fuel cycle simulation framework
This provides a more flexible and transparent tool for researchers and analysts in nuclear energy to conduct technical, economic, and environmental assessments of fuel cycles.
The paper introduces the Cyclus nuclear fuel cycle simulation framework, which addresses limitations of existing fleet-based and restrictively licensed tools by offering a discrete, open-source approach to improve modeling fidelity, generality, and transparency, demonstrating its capabilities for open and closed fuel cycles.
As nuclear power expands, technical, economic, political, and environmental analyses of nuclear fuel cycles by simulators increase in importance. To date, however, current tools are often fleet-based rather than discrete and restrictively licensed rather than open source. Each of these choices presents a challenge to modeling fidelity, generality, efficiency, robustness, and scientific transparency. The Cyclus nuclear fuel cycle simulator framework and its modeling ecosystem incorporate modern insights from simulation science and software architecture to solve these problems so that challenges in nuclear fuel cycle analysis can be better addressed. A summary of the Cyclus fuel cycle simulator framework and its modeling ecosystem are presented. Additionally, the implementation of each is discussed in the context of motivating challenges in nuclear fuel cycle simulation. Finally, the current capabilities of Cyclus are demonstrated for both open and closed fuel cycles.