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At least 37 records · Page 2

Multigroup Scattering in Monte Carlo Radiation Transport Codes [Slides]

Legendre truncations to multigroup scattering distributions are not amenable to Monte Carlo sampling due to negative values. We have implemented two moment-preserving methods in MGMC that capture the shape of the truncation, are non-negative over [-1, 1], and can be efficiently sampled on CPUs and GPUs. MGMC can now simulate neutrons with anisotropic scattering mechanics and MGMC shows good agreement with LANL production codes PARTISN.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

The Influence of Demographic Variables on the Pooled Rideshare Acceptance Model Multigroup Analyses (PRAMMA)

Building on our prior research with a national survey sample of 5385 US participants, the Pooled Rideshare Acceptance Model (PRAM) was built upon two factor analyses. This exploratory study extends the PRAM framework using the Pooled Rideshare Acceptance Model Multigroup Analyses (PRAMMA) to examine how 16 demographic variables influence and interact with the acceptance of Pooled Rideshare (PR), filling a gap in understanding user segmentation and personalization. Using a national sample of 5385 US participants, this methodological approach allowed for the evaluation of how PRAM variables such as safety, privacy, service experience, and environmental impact vary across diverse groups, including gender, generation, driver’s license, rideshare experience, education level, employment status, household size, number of children, income, vehicle ownership, and typical commuting practices. Factors such as convenience, comfort, and passenger safety did not show significant differences across the moderators, suggesting their universal importance across all demographics. Furthermore, geographical differences did not significantly impact the relationships within the model, suggesting consistent relationships across different regions. The findings highlight the need to move beyond a “one size fits all” approach, demonstrating that tailored strategies may be crucial for enhancing the adoption and satisfaction of PR services among various demographic groups. The analyses provide valuable insight for policymakers and rideshare companies looking to optimize their services and increase user engagement in PR.

moderator↗

Feasibility of a multigroup Boltzmann–Fokker–Planck solution for electron beam dose calculations

Legacy nuclear-reactor Boltzmann solvers start clinical deployment as an alternative to Monte Carlo (MC) codes and Fermi–Eyges semiemprical models in radiation oncology treatment planning. Today’s certified clinical solvers are limited to photon beams. In this paper, ELECTR, a state-of-the-art multigroup electron cross sections generation module in NJOY is presented and validated against Lockwood’s calorimetric measurements, EGS-nrc and GEANT-4 for 1–20 MeV unidirectional electron beams. The nuclear-reactor DRAGON-5 solver is upgraded to access the library and solve the Boltzmann–Fokker–Planck (BFP) equation. A variety of heterogeneous radiotherapy and radiosurgery phantom configurations were used for validation purpose. Case studies include a thorax benchmark, that of a typical breast Intra-Operative Radiotherapy and a high-heterogeneity patient-like benchmark. For all beams, 100% of the water voxels satisfied the American Association of Physicists in Medicine accuracy criterion for a BFP-MC dose error below 2%. At least, 97.0% of adipose, muscle, bone, lung, tumor and breast voxels satisfied the 2% criterion. The average BFP-MC relative error was about 0.56% for all voxels, beams and materials combined. By irradiating homogeneous slabs from Z = 1 (hydrogen) to Z = 99 (einsteinium), we reported performance and defects of the CEPXS mode [US. Sandia National Lab., SAND-89-1685] in ELECTR for the entire periodic table. For all Lockwood’s benchmarks, NJOY-DRAGON dose predictions are within the experimental data precision for 98% of voxels.

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The Random Ray Method Versus Multigroup Monte Carlo: The Method of Characteristics in OpenMC and SCONE

The Random Ray Method (TRRM) is a recently developed approach to solving neutral particle transport problems based on the Method of Characteristics. While the method previously has been implemented only in closed-source or limited-functionality codes, this work describes its implementation in two open-source Monte Carlo codes: OpenMC and SCONE. The random ray implementations required small modifications to the existing Multigroup Monte Carlo (MGMC) solvers, offering a rare venue for redundant, fine-grained, "apples-to-apples" speed and accuracy comparisons between transport methods. To this end, TRRM and MGMC solvers are evaluated against each other using each code's native capabilities on reactor eigenvalue problems with different degrees of energy discretization. On the C5G7 benchmark (featuring only seven energy groups), TRRM achieves a maximum pin power error comparable to or lower than that of MGMC for a given run time. On a problem with 69 energy groups, MGMC is found to scale more efficiently, obtaining a lower pin power error for a given run time. However, the defining difference between the two transport methods is found to be their vastly different uncertainty distributions. Specifically, TRRM is found to maintain similar levels of accuracy and uncertainty throughout the simulation domain whereas MGMC can exhibit orders-of-magnitude greater errors in areas of the problem that feature low neutron flux. For instance, TRRM provided an up to 373 times speed advantage compared with MGMC for computing the flux in low-flux regions in the moderator surrounding the C5G7 core.

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Stretched and Filtered Multigroup Pn Transport for Improved Positivity and Accuracy

One of the common methods for solving the radiation transport equation is to use a polynomial expansion for the angle variable(s). Recent research that reduces the oscillations and improves the positivity of the gray transport equation solutions is here applied to the multigroup transport equations. Constant scale factors that stretch the time axis and constant scattering opacities that filter the solution greatly increase the accuracy of the solution with no added nonlinearities. No new solution techniques are required. Test problems are presented in one and two dimensions.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Adapting CLUTCH methodology to multigroup TSUNAMI-3D for eigenvalue sensitivity calculations

The sensitivity of the eigenvalue to uncertainties in nuclear data and its evaluation are important for nuclear criticality safety. TSUNAMI-3D sequences within the SCALE code system offer several options to the user community for calculating eigenvalue sensitivity coefficients with multigroup (MG) and continuous energy (CE) 3D transport capabilities. TSUNAMI-3D sequences implement the adjoint-based perturbation theory with MG KENO code, the Contributon Linked eigenvalue sensitivity/Uncertainty estimation via Track length importance CHaracterization (CLUTCH) method with CE KENO code, and the Iterated Fission Probability (IFP) method with CE KENO and Shift codes. Each method has benefits and limitations depending on the problem that is run. The work presented here aims to adapt the CLUTCH method, which enables the Contributon method's mesh-free, memory-efficient approach for calculating adjoint-weighted tallies for sensitivity calculations, to the MG TSUNAMI-3D sequence. This application would eliminate the explicit adjoint KENO calculation, as well as the memory-consuming mesh flux moment tallies required by the conventional MG TSUNAMI-3D. Smaller memory footprints in the CLUTCH methodology and relatively shorter runtimes in MG KENO transport can make MG TSUNAMI-3D a viable method for some complex problems. Moreover, this adaptation allows MG sensitivity calculations with Shift, ORNL's next-generation high-performance Monte Carlo transport code, which currently does not offer any sensitivity capabilities with MG particle transport simulations. Initial implementation of the new MG TSUNAMI-3D sequence and its preliminary results with a selected critical benchmark experiment in the Verified, Archived Library of Inputs and Data (VALID) are presented in this study.

KENO↗

A Multigroup Method for the Calculation of Neutron Fluence with a Source Term

Current research on the Grant involves the development of a multigroup method for the calculation of low energy evaporation neutron fluences associated with the Boltzmann equation. This research will enable one to predict radiation exposure under a variety of circumstances. Knowledge of radiation exposure in a free-space environment is a necessity for space travel, high altitude space planes and satellite design. This is because certain radiation environments can cause damage to biological and electronic systems involving both short term and long term effects. By having apriori knowledge of the environment one can use prediction techniques to estimate radiation damage to such systems. Appropriate shielding can be designed to protect both humans and electronic systems that are exposed to a known radiation environment. This is the goal of the current research efforts involving the multi-group method and the Green's function approach.

Heinbockel, J. H.↗

Improvement of SCALE-XSPROC Multigroup Cross Section Processing Based on the CENTRM Pointwise Slowing Down Calculation

The SCALE-XSProc multigroup (MG) cross section processing procedure based on the CENTRM pointwise slowing down calculation is the primary procedure to process problem-dependent self-shielded MG cross sections and scattering matrices for neutron transport calculations.This procedure supports various cell-based geometries including slab, 1-D cylindrical, 1-D spherical and 2-D rectangular configurations and doubly heterogeneous particulate fuels. Recently, this procedure has been significantly improved to be applied to any advanced reactor analysis covering thermal and fast reactor systems, and to be comparable to continuous energy (CE) Monte Carlo calculations. Some reactivity bias and reaction rate differences have been observed compared with CE Monte Carlo calculations, and several areas for improvement have been identified in the SCALE-XSProc MG cross section processing: (1) resonance self-shielding calculations within the unresolved resonance range, (2) 10 eV thermal cut-off energy for the free gas model, (3) on-the-fly adjustments to the thermal scattering matrix, (4) normalization of the pointwise neutron flux, and (5) fine MG energy structure. This procedure ensures very accurate MG cross section processing for high-fidelity deterministic reactor physics analysis for various advanced reactor systems.

Kim, Kang Seog↗

Reduce-Order Modeling of Multigroup Neutron Cross Sections for High-Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors

Deterministic neutronics calculations rely on multigroup neutron cross section libraries, which usually consists of a database of tabulated values, used to calculate the cross sections through multivariate linear interpolation. However, interpolation of the multidimensional cross section data becomes memory inefficient and time consuming as the number of tabulations increases, significantly slowing down the neutronics calculation, especially in the case of micro cross section libraries where every isotope (on the order of hundreds) has its own set of specific reactions and cross sections. To address this challenge, this work constructs efficient and robust reduced-order models (ROMs) of the multi-group cross sections to support the Griffin simulation of high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs). The first part of the study investigates the linearity of the multi-group cross section data across isotopes, reaction types and energy groups on pre-generated datasets for the purpose of dimensionality reduction. Secondly, a down-selection of ROM techniques is presented on representative classical machine learning (ML) techniques, including variants of linear regression, kernel-based methods, tree-based algorithms, and artificial neural networks. The selection criteria jointly consider the memory efficiency, predictive accuracy, prediction speed, and scalability in comparison to the multidimensional interpolation. Among all the ML techniques, deep neural networks (DNNs) have proven to be the best selection with sufficient accuracy, high robustness, good memory efficiency, great scalability, and superior flexibility. DNNs for have been trained for all isotopes in this work and systematic Griffin testing is ongoing at this moment to ensure the feasibility of this ROM technique for cross section predictions.

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