• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.381-390
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• 2009

This article provides selects of outstanding problems in computational neutron transport, with some suggested approaches thereto, as follows: i) ray effect in discrete ordinates method, ii) diffusion synthetic acceleration in strongly heterogeneous problems, iii) method of characteristics extension to three-dimensional geometry, iv) fission source and $k_{eff}$ convergence in Monte Carlo, v) depletion in Monte Carlo, vi) nuclear data evaluation, and vii) uncertainty estimation, including covariance data.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.7
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• pp.2670-2689
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• 2022

STREAM - a lattice transport calculation code with method of characteristics for the purpose of light water reactor analysis - has been developed by the Computational Reactor Physics and Experiment laboratory (CORE) of the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST). Recently, efforts have been taken to develop a photon module in STREAM to assess photon heating and the influence of gamma photon transport on power distributions, as only neutron transport was considered in previous STREAM versions. A multi-group photon library is produced for STREAM based on the ENDF/B-VII.1 library with the use of the library-processing code NJOY. The developed photon solver for the computation of 2D and 3D distributions of photon flux and energy deposition is based on the method of characteristics like the neutron solver. The photon library and photon module produced and implemented for STREAM are verified on VERA pin and assembly problems by comparison with the Monte Carlo code MCS - also developed at UNIST. A short analysis of the impact of photon transport during depletion and thermal hydraulics feedback is presented for a 2D core also from the VERA benchmark.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.734-748
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• 2023

A comprehensive investigation of the Ronen method is performed in homogeneous and heterogeneous slab problems from the Sood benchmark, considering isotropic and linearly-anisotropic problems. Three finite differences implementations are exercised and compared. The results are compared to reference solutions using one and two energy groups. The validation is performed for the criticality eigenvalue and the fundamental neutron flux distribution. The results demonstrate the significantly improved accuracy achievable by the Ronen method using a broad set of problems. For standard convergence tolerances, the maximal deviation in criticality eigenvalue is less than ten pcm, and the maximal deviation in the spatial distribution of the flux is less than 2%, always located near sharp interfaces or vacuum boundaries.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.1
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• pp.30-43
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• 2021

In the 2D/1D method, a global adjoint CMFD based on the generalized equivalence theory is built to synthesize the 2D radial MOC adjoint and 1D axial NEM adjoint calculation and also to accelerate the iteration convergence of 3D whole-core adjoint transport calculation. Even more important, an advanced yet accurate two-level (TL) CMFD acceleration technique is proposed, in which an equivalent one-group adjoint CMFD is established to accelerate the multi-group adjoint CMFD and then to accelerate the 3D whole-core adjoint transport calculation efficiently. Based on these method, a new code is developed to perform 3D adjoint neutron flux calculation. Then a set of VERA and C5G7 benchmark problems are chosen to verify the capability of the 3D adjoint calculations and the effectiveness of TL CMFD acceleration. The numerical results demonstrate that acceptable accuracy of 2D/1D adjoint calculations and superior acceleration of TL CMFD are achievable.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.243-256
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• 2011

This paper considers the concept of analog computing based on a cellular neural network (CNN) paradigm to simulate nuclear reactor dynamics using a time-dependent second order form of the neutron transport equation. Instead of solving nuclear reactor dynamic equations numerically, which is time-consuming and suffers from such weaknesses as vulnerability to transient phenomena, accumulation of round-off errors and floating-point overflows, use is made of a new method based on a cellular neural network. The state-of-the-art shows the CNN as being an alternative solution to the conventional numerical computation method. Indeed CNN is an analog computing paradigm that performs ultra-fast calculations and provides accurate results. In this study use is made of the CNN model to simulate the space-time response of scalar flux distribution in steady state and transient conditions. The CNN model also is used to simulate step perturbation in the core. The accuracy and capability of the CNN model are examined in 2D Cartesian geometry for two fixed source problems, a mini-BWR assembly, and a TWIGL Seed/Blanket problem. We also use the CNN model concurrently for a typical small PWR assembly to simulate the effect of temperature feedback, poisons, and control rods on the scalar flux distribution.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.756-768
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• 2023

Neutron transport calculations are extremely challenging due to the high computational cost of large and complex problems. A multilevel octree grid algorithm (MLTG) of discrete ordinates method was developed to improve the modeling accuracy and simulation efficiency on 3-D Cartesian grids. The Balakovo-3 VVER-1000 neutron dosimetry benchmark is calculated to verify and validate this numerical technique. A simplified S₂ synthetic acceleration is used in the MLTG calculation method to improve the convergence of the source iterations. For the triangularly arranged fuel pins, we adopt a source projection algorithm to generate pin-by-pin source distributions of hexagonal assemblies. MLTG provides accurate geometric modeling and flexible fixed source description at a lower cost than traditional Cartesian grids. The total number of meshes is reduced to 1.9 million from the initial 9.5 million for the Balakovo-3 model. The numerical comparisons show that the MLTG results are in satisfactory agreement with the conventional S_N method and experimental data, within the root-mean-square errors of about 4% and 10%, respectively. Compared to uniform fine meshing, approximately 70% of the computational cost can be saved using the MLTG algorithm for the Balakovo-3 computational model.