Nuclear power stations involve a range of complex and interacting multi-physical processes. With the rapid development of high-performance computing technology, accurate multi-physics simulation in virtual reactors has drawn more and more attention in industry and academia. Great efforts have been made toward the simulation of multi-physics coupling processes in reactors. The interpretations of many terms that describe multi-physics simulation vary in different literatures. We organize and discuss some important terms relevant to the multi-physics coupling simulation. We compare the three most frequently used multi-physics coupling strategies: the operator splitting, Picard iteration, and Jacobian-Free Newton–Krylov methods. We summarize three main viewpoints on the degree of coupling of the three strategies (loose, tight, or full coupling). Then we review the coupling software and corresponding coupling strategies in some representative virtual reactor projects. We present the research focuses of Spider coupling platform. The Spider is developed in the China Virtual Reactor (CVR) project. The multi-physics phenomena are considered in the CVR project from three scales: fuel scale, reactor core scale, and system scale. Both loose and tight coupling strategies are supported in the Spider platform.
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