Thermal-hydraulic differential sensitivity theory. [LMFBR]

Differential sensitivity theory is applied to a nonlinear, three-dimensional space- and time-dependent description of the thermal-hydraulic conservation equations. The resulting sensitivity equations, which are derived using adjoint functions, can be readily utilized for input parameter sensitivity analysis of large or long-running thermal-hydraulic computer codes without any prior engineering judgement. The procedure for applying this sensitivity theory is illustrated using several classical analytical problems.