Breaking frontiers of Eddy Current Testing simulations through Discrete De Rham methods

Objective

Eddy Current Testing (ECT) is an industrial procedure used to assess the reliability of the most critical facilities of nuclear power plants. Prior to practical usage, ECT requires a delicate phase of calibration and validation via numerical simulations. However, in the current state-of-the-art, they are limited by two critical issues: the poor precision of the results, and the limited geometrical modeling flexibility. This project will use the recently introduced Discrete de Rham (DDR) simulation method to overcome at once both these issues, focusing on three specific aims: laying the mathematical foundations of DDR methods for ECT simulation, building the practical computational tools to implement this method in a simulator, and using the simulator on real-life ECT scenarios. The project has a strong multidisciplinary nature, involving a combination of numerical analysis and engineering, and its originality and innovation lie on this interdisciplinary approach. The mathematical analysis of DDR methods for ECT is a complete novelty and represents a mine of mathematical problems in numerical analysis. The development of the EffECT simulation (open-source) will require both the transfer of the candidate’s engineering knowledge to the host institution and the training of the candidate on the very specific DDR mathematical methods. The project will thus make the candidate able to speak to different communities, improving his career prospects as an independent researcher. The planned communication activities of the project will target people both inside and outside academia, helping the latter to appreciate the effectiveness of the interaction between fundamental mathematical research and engineering in solving real-life problems. The arising results have the potential to increase the safety and efficiency of nuclear power plants and open new horizons in fundamental and applied level of numerical analysis of DDR methods, as well as other cutting-edge simulation methods.

Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

• discrete de Rham methods
• finite element methods
• polytopal methods
• eddy currents
• electromagnetism

Coordinator