Using a SolutionUserObject with the Thermal Hydraulics Module

[TheBEllis]

Hi MOOSE team,
I have encountered a problem that occurs when using a SolutionUserObject in a thermal hydraulics problem. I am using a SolutionUserObject to read in a volumetric heating variable, aptly named vol_heating, that is calculated in another MOOSE app. I then use this term with a HeatSourceFromPowerDensity object in order to apply the heating term on my heat structure. This works perfectly fine when I do not have any flow channels defined, the heat structure heats up as expected. However, when channels are defined, I get an error of the following sort.

The following error occurred in the object "solution_in", of type "SolutionUserObject".

Failed to access the data for variable 'vol_heating' at point (x,y,z)=(       0,        0,       -5) in the 'solution_in' SolutionUserObject

The coordinate 0, 0, -5 are the starting coordinates of one of my flow channels. The SolutionUserObject is looking for the variable value on my flow channels. I understand why, but is there any way to prevent this from happening? I have tried using 'execute_on = INITIAL', but to no success. I have included some input files and a mesh which together constitute a minimum working example. The volumetric_heating input file needs to be run first so that the results can be imported in the thermal hydraulics input files with the SolutionUserObject. Running the th input file will result in the same error I mentioned above. The no_channels_th input file is almost identical, but has the flow channel removed, and runs just fine.

To summarise, I want to read in a variable that only exists on the heat structure, not the flow channels.

Any help is greatly appreciated:)

volumetric_heating.txt
no_th_channels.txt
th.txt
Mesh.zip

[GiudGiud]

I ll take a look

EDIT Ignore my previous reply, wrong post

Guillaume

[GiudGiud]

actually it wasnt that bad

you just need to add a block restriction

[AuxKernels]
  [aux-vol_heating]
    type = SolutionAux
    solution = solution_in
    variable = vol_heating
    from_variable = vol_heating
    scale_factor = 1e-2

    block = 'hs_geom:theblock'
  []
[]

[TheBEllis]

Thanks Guillaume:)