Functional or operator representation of numerical heat and mass transport models

A numerical-computational procedure is described to determine a multidimensional functional or air operator for the representation of the computational results of a numerical transport code. The procedure is called numerical transport code functionalization (NTCF). Numerical transport codes represent a family of engineering software to solve, for example, heat conduction problems in solids using ANSYS (a multiphysics software package by ANSYS, Inc.), heat and moisture transport problems in porous media using NUFT (Non-equilibrium, Unsaturated-saturated Flows and Transport-porous-media transport code, developed by John Nitao at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), or laminar or turbulent flow and transport problems using FLUENT (a software package by Fluent, Inc.), a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) model. The NTCF procedure is developed to determine a model for the representation of the code for a variety of time-dependent input functions. Coupled solution of multiphysics problems often require repeated, iterative calculations for the same model domain and with the same code, but with different boundary condition functions. The NTCF technique allows for reducing the number of runs with the original numerical code to the number of runs necessary for NTCF model identification. The NTCF procedure is applied for the solution of coupled heat and moisture transport problems at Yucca Mountain, NV The NTCF method and the supporting software is a key element of MULTIFLUX (by University of Nevada, Reno), a coupled thermohydrologic-ventilation model and software. Numerical tests as well as applications for Yucca Mountain, NV are presented using both linear and nonlinear NTCF models. The performance of the NTCF method is demonstrated both in accuracy and modeling acceleration.