Comparison of Matrix Exponential Methods for Fuel Burnup Calculations

Series expansion methods to compute the exponential of a matrix have been compared by applying them to fuel depletion calculations. Specifically, Taylor, Pade, Chebyshev, and rational Chebyshev approximations have been investigated by approximating the exponentials of bum matrices by truncated series of each method with the scaling and squaring algorithm. The accuracy and efficiency of these methods have been tested by performing various numerical tests using one thermal reactor and two fast reactor depletion problems. The results indicate that all the four series methods are accurate enough to be used for fuel depletion calculations although the rational Chebyshev approximation is relatively less accurate. They also show that the rational approximations are more efficient than the polynomial approximations. Considering the computational accuracy and efficiency, the Pade approximation appears to be better than the other methods. Its accuracy is better than the rational Chebyshev approximation, while being comparable to the polynomial approximations. On the other hand, its efficiency is better than the polynomial approximations and is similar to the rational Chebyshev approximation. In particular, for fast reactor depletion calculations, it is faster than the polynomial approximations by a factor of ∼ 1.7.