• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.9
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• pp.3181-3204
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• 2022

The variational nodal method for solving the neutron transport equation has evolved over 40 years. Based on a functional form of the Boltzmann neutron transport equation, the method now comprises a complete set of variants that can be employed for different problems. This paper presents an extensive review of the development of the variational nodal method. The emphasis is on summarizing the whole theoretical system rather than validating the methodologies. The paper covers the variational nodal formulation of the Boltzmann neutron transport equation, the Ritz procedure for various application purposes, the derivation of boundary conditions, the extension for adjoint and perturbation calculations, and treatments for anisotropic scattering sources. Acceleration approaches for constructing response matrices and solving the resulting system of algebraic equations are also presented.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.5
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• pp.920-927
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• 2017

With ever-advancing computer technology, the Monte Carlo (MC) neutron transport calculation is expanding its application area to nuclear reactor transient analysis. Dynamic MC (DMC) neutron tracking for transient analysis requires efficient algorithms for delayed neutron generation, neutron population control, and initial condition modeling. In this paper, a new MC steady-state simulation method based on time-dependent MC neutron tracking is proposed for steady-state initial condition modeling; during this process, prompt neutron sources and delayed neutron precursors for the DMC transient simulation can easily be sampled. The DMC method, including the proposed time-dependent DMC steady-state simulation method, has been implemented in McCARD and applied for two-dimensional core kinetics problems in the time-dependent neutron transport benchmark C5G7-TD. The McCARD DMC calculation results show good agreement with results of a deterministic transport analysis code, nTRACER.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.107-112
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• 2014

The Code of Federal Regulations, Title 10, Part 50, Appendix H requires surveillance program for reactor pressure vessel(RPV) that the peak neutron fluence at the end of the design life of the vessel will exceed $1.0E+17n/cm^2$ (E>1.0MeV). 2D/1D Synthesis method based on DORT 3.1 transport calculation code has been widely used to determine fast neutron(E>1.0MeV) fluence exposure to RPV in the beltline region. RAPTOR-M3G(RApid Parallel Transport Of Radiation-Multiple 3D Geometries) performing full 3D transport calculation was developed by Westinghouse and KRIST(Korea Reactor Integrity Surveillance Technology) and applied for the evaluations of In-Vessel and Ex-Vessel neutron dosimetry. The reaction rates from measurement and calculation were compared and the results show good agreements each other.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.681-688
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• 2020

The telegrapher's theory was used to develop a new formulation for the neutron noise equation. Telegrapher's equation is supposed to demonstrate a more realistic approximation for neutron transport phenomena, especially in comparison to the diffusion theory. The physics behind such equation implies that the signal propagation speed is finite, instead of the infinite as in the case of ordinary diffusion. This paper presents the theory and results of the development of a new method for calculation of the neutron noise using the telegrapher's equation as its basis. In order to investigate the differences and strengths of the new method against the diffusion based neutron noise, a comparison was done between the behaviors of two methods. The neutron noise based on SN transport considered as a precision measuring point. The Green's function technique was used to calculate the neutron noise based on telegrapher's and diffusion methods as well as the transport. The amplitude and phase of Green's function associated with the properties of the medium and frequency of the noise source were obtained and their behavior was compared to the results of the transport. It was observed, the differences in some cases might be considerable. The effective speed of propagation for the noise perturbations were evaluated accordingly, resulting in considerable deviations in some cases.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.11
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• pp.4280-4295
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• 2022

In this paper, a new multi-group neutron-gamma transport calculation code system STRAUM-MATXST for complicated geometrical problems is introduced and its development status including numerical tests is presented. In this code system, the MATXST (MATXS-based Cross Section Processor for S_N Transport) code generates multi-group neutron and gamma cross sections by processing MATXS format libraries generated using NJOY and the STRAUM (S_N Transport for Radiation Analysis with Unstructured Meshes) code performs multi-group neutron-gamma coupled transport calculation using tetrahedral meshes. In particular, this work presents the recent implementation and its test results of the Krylov subspace methods (i.e., Bi-CGSTAB and GMRES(m)) with preconditioners using DSA (Diffusion Synthetic Acceleration) and TSA (Transport Synthetic Acceleration). In addition, the Krylov subspace methods for accelerating the energy-group coupling iteration through thermal up-scatterings are implemented with new multi-group block DSA and TSA preconditioners in STRAUM.

• 한국초전도학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.07a
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• pp.105-105
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• 2009

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.7
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• pp.2712-2722
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• 2023

For an accurate and efficient time-dependent Monte Carlo (TDMC) neutron transport analysis, several advanced methods are newly developed and implemented in the Seoul National University Monte Carlo code, McCARD. For an efficient control of the neutron population, a dynamic weight window method is devised to adjust the weight bounds of the implicit capture in the time bin-by-bin TDMC simulations. A moving geometry module is developed to model a continuous insertion or withdrawal of a control rod. Especially, the history-based batch method for the TDMC calculations is developed to predict the unbiased variance of a bin-wise mean estimate. The developed methods are verified for three-dimensional problems in the C5G7-TD benchmark, showing good agreements with results from a deterministic neutron transport analysis code, nTRACER, within the statistical uncertainty bounds. In addition, the TDMC analysis capability implemented in McCARD is demonstrated to search the optimum detector positions for the pulsed-neutron-source experiments in the Kyoto University Critical Assembly and AGN201K.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.16 no.1 s.49
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• pp.46-52
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• 2007

The piecewise constant angular approximation is developed to replace the conventional angular quadrature sets in the solution of the second-order, multi-dimensional $S_{N}$ neutron transport equations. The newly generated quadrature sets by this method substantially mitigate ray effects and can be used in the same manner as the conventional quadrature sets are used. The discrete-ordinates and the piecewise-constant approximations are applied to both the first-order Boltzmann and the second-order form of neutron transport equations in treating angular variables. The result is that the mitigation of ray effects is only achieved by the piecewise-constant method, in which new angular quadratures are generated by integrating angle variables over the specified region. In other sense, the newly generated angular quadratures turn out to decrease the contribution of mixed-derivative terms in the even-parity equation that is one of the second-order neutron transport equation. This result can be interpreted as the entire elimination or substantial mitigation of ray effect are possible in the simplified even-parity equation which has no mixed-derivative terms.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.233-240
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• 2008

Conventionally, the second-order self-adjoint neutron transport equations have been studied using the even parity and the odd parity equations. Recently, however, the SAAF(self-adjoint angular flux) form of neutron transport equation has been introduced as a new option for the second-order self-adjoint equations. In this paper we validated the SAAF equation mathematically and clarified how it relates with the existing even and odd parity equations. We also developed a second-order SAAF differencing formula including DSA(diffusion synthetic acceleration) from the first-order difference equations. Numerical result is attached to show that the proposed methods increases accuracy with effective computational effort.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.168-177
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• 2007

A neural network model to evaluate the neutron exposure on the reactor pressure vessel inner diameter was developed. By using the three dimensional synthesis method described in Regulatory Guide 1.190, a simple linear equation to calculate the neutron spectrum on the reactor pressure vessel was constructed. This model can be used in a quick estimation of fast neutron flux which is the most important parameter in the assessment of embrittlement of reactor pressure vessel. This model also used in the selection of an optimum core loading pattern without the neutron transport calculation. The maximum relative error of this model was less than 3.4% compared to the transport calculation for the calculations from cycle 1 to cycle 23 of Kori unit 1.