SMITHERS: An object-oriented modular mapping methodology for MCNP-based neutronic–thermal hydraulic multiphysics

•A modular mapping methodogy for neutronic-thermal hydraulic nuclear reactor multiphysics, SMITHERS, has been developed.•Written in Python, SMITHERS takes a novel object-oriented approach for facilitating data transitions between solvers.This approach enables near-instant compatibility with existing MCNP/MONTEBURNS input decks.•It also allows for coupling with thermal-hydraulic solvers of various levels of fidelity.•Two BWR and PWR test problems are presented for verifying correct functionality of the SMITHERS code routines. A novel object-oriented modular mapping methodology for externally coupled neutronics–thermal hydraulics multiphysics simulations was developed. The Simulator using MCNP with Integrated Thermal-Hydraulics for Exploratory Reactor Studies (SMITHERS) code performs on-the-fly mapping of material-wise power distribution tallies implemented by MCNP-based neutron transport/depletion solvers for use in estimating coolant temperature and density distributions with a separate thermal-hydraulic solver. The key development of SMITHERS is that it reconstructs the hierarchical geometry structure of the material-wise power generation tallies from the depletion solver automatically, with only a modicum of additional information required from the user. Additionally, it performs the basis mapping from the combinatorial geometry of the depletion solver to the required geometry of the thermal-hydraulic solver in a generalizable manner, such that it can transparently accommodate varying levels of thermal-hydraulic solver geometric fidelity, from the nodal geometry of multi-channel analysis solvers to the pin-cell level of discretization for sub-channel analysis solvers. The mapping methodology was specifically developed to be flexible enough such that it could successfully integrate preexisting depletion solver case files with different thermal-hydraulic solvers. This approach allows the user to tailor the selection of a thermal-hydraulic solver to the requirements and limitations of the specific problem under consideration, without needing to modify their existing depletion code input files. To enable support of a wide range of existing depletion solver input decks, SMITHERS can accommodate arbitrarily detailed geometry segmentation for the depletion calculation with a minimum of additional information required from the user. This new implementation was motivated by the desire to enable easier multiphysics modeling of a wide range of reactor types, from p