PyRK: A Python Package For Nuclear Reactor

Abstract—In this work, a new python package, PyRK (Python for Reactor Kinetics), is introduced. PyRK has been designed to simulate, in zero di-mensions, the transient, coupled, thermal-hydraulics and neutronics of time-dependent behavior in nuclear reactors. PyRK is intended for analysis of many commonly studied transient scenarios including normal reactor startup and shutdown as well as abnormal scenarios including Beyond Design Basis Events (BDBEs) such as Accident Transients Without Scram (ATWS). For robustness, this package employs various tools within the scientific python ecosystem. For additional ease of use, it employs a reactor-agnostic, object-oriented data model, allowing nuclear engineers to rapidly prototype nuclear reactor control and safety systems in the context of their novel nuclear reactor designs. Index Terms—engineering, nuclear reactor, packag