VARIANCE ESTIMATION IN DOMAIN DECOMPOSED MONTE CARLO EIGENVALUE CALCULATIONS
- ORNL
- University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK)
The number of tallies performed in a given Monte Carlo calculation is limited in most modern Monte Carlo codes by the amount of memory that can be allocated on a single processor. By using domain decomposition, the calculation is now limited by the total amount of memory available on all processors, allowing for significantly more tallies to be performed. However, decomposing the problem geometry introduces significant issues with the way tally statistics are conventionally calculated. In order to deal with the issue of calculating tally variances in domain decomposed environments for the Shift hybrid Monte Carlo code, this paper presents an alternative approach for reactor scenarios in which an assumption is made that once a particle leaves a domain, it does not reenter the domain. Particles that reenter the domain are instead treated as separate independent histories. This assumption introduces a bias that inevitably leads to under-prediction of the calculated variances for tallies within a few mean free paths of the domain boundaries. However, through the use of different decomposition strategies, primarily overlapping domains, the negative effects of such an assumption can be significantly reduced to within reasonable levels.
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC05-00OR22725
- OSTI ID:
- 1039606
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: PHYSOR 2012, Knoxville, TN, USA, 20120415, 20120420
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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