Pre-Processing of Cross-Sections Using Dimensionality Reduction Techniques

Abstract

Reactor physics codes rely on cross-section data to determine, for example, flux profiles or burn-up calculations. This data contains cross section values for different neutron-atom interactions (e.g., absorption, fission and scattering) for a large number of isotopes as function of energy and it is tabulated for a specific set of parameters (e.g., moderator temperature, fuel temperature, moderator density). In order to perform such neutronic calculations, the amount of this data that needs to be stored is very large due to the high number of isotopes and many tabulation points are needed. This data needs to be retrieved at each time iteration of the code from the machine memory which negatively affects the computational time of the code itself.