Abstract
The Monte Carlo method has been widely used as a standard method to perform neutron transport simulations in reactor physics. In conventional Monte Carlo codes corresponding to the neutron transport tracking with ray-tracing method, the distances to material boundaries must be computed frequently when the neutron changes its kinetic energy or moving into new material regions to determine the neutron transport length. However, if the neutron’s mean free path length, to some extent, is greater than the macro size of the model, a huge amount of distances need to be computed. As a result, the computational efficiency of the neutron transport tracking will be degraded. An improved multi-regional delta-tracking method based on domain decomposition was introduced to solve this problem, in which the original heterogeneous model would be decomposed into many sub-regions and each sub-region was tracked using a local delta-tracking method. Consequently, the computational efficiency of the neutron transport tracking can be improved theoretically without the unnecessary distance calculations. The improved multi-regional delta-tracking method was incorporated into the MOSRT system, which is a multi-objective modeling and simulation platform for radiation transport system. Finally, the method was validated using the criticality benchmarks and its accuracy and efficiency were demonstrated in Monte Carlo criticality calculation. The results indicated that the new method was consistent with the conventional methods, but with a more competitive run-time performance.
Highlights
The Monte Carlo method has been widely used as a standard method to perform neutron transport simulations in reactor physics for its distinct features
The various neutron transport tracking methods, that is, conventional ray-tracing tracking (CRTT), Single-Regional Delta-Tracking (SRDT), and Multi-Regional Delta-Tracking (MRDT), are incorporated into the MOSRT system, which is a multi-objective modeling and simulation platform for radiation transport system developed by the NEAL (Nuclear Engineering and Application Laboratory) team in the University of South China [9]
Forty simple criticality benchmarks introduced from the ICSBEP
Summary
The Monte Carlo method has been widely used as a standard method to perform neutron transport simulations in reactor physics for its distinct features. The biggest advantages of the Monte Carlo method to simulate neutron transport in criticality calculation include essentially exact representation of geometrical configurations and physical phenomena that are important for reactor physics analysis. This means that the Monte Carlo method can perform complicated neutron transport problems in whole-core criticality calculation with arbitrary geometrical complexities and arbitrary physical complexities. These key features and advantages indicate that the Monte Carlo method is a very high-resolution and high-fidelity method for neutron transport simulations, which makes it a potential candidate for the next-generation advanced reactor physics methods [1,2]. A large proportion of the runtime, typically accounting for 30–80% [3,4] of the total runtime, is consumed on the neutron
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