Performance of the Initial Implementation of the Shift Monte Carlo Code in SCALE 6.3

Conference · Sat Jun 25 04:00:00 EDT 2022 · ANS Proceedings of Topical Meetings

DOI:https://doi.org/10.13182/T126-37432· OSTI ID:1899017

Marshall, William B.J. ^[1]; Greene, Travis M. ^[1]

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1. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

The Shift Monte Carlo code will be introduced in SCALE 6.3 as an alternative to the KENO V.a, KENO-VI, and Monaco codes. Calculations were performed to establish the performance of Shift for criticality safety analyses within the criticality safety analyses sequence (CSAS) based on models in the Verified, Archived Library of Inputs and Data (VALID). This test suite contains over 600 critical experiment models covering a broad range of fissile materials and neutron energy spectra. The comparisons presented include calculated k_eff values and runtime performance for serial calculations and a selection of parallel calculations. Comparisons are presented for multigroup (MG) and continuous-energy (CE) calculations for KENO V.a and KENO-VI models. Results generated with a beta version of SCALE 6.3 indicate excellent agreement in k_eff values between KENO and Shift. The largest differences in the average k_eff value calculated for the 15 categories of KENO V.a models are 0.00020 ± 0.00011 Δk for MG calculations and 0.00011 ± 0.00005 Δk for CE calculations. Similar comparisons in three categories using KENO-VI result in the largest differences for MG calculations: as 0.00004 ± 0.00003 Δk, and -0.00002 ± 0.00003 Δk for CE. The preliminary results also indicate that Shift is faster than KENO on a per particle basis, especially for fast spectrum systems. The uncertainty per history is also higher, however, so the Monte Carlo figure of merit is higher for KENO for thermal and intermediate spectrum systems. As expected, Shift generally has better speedup than KENO for parallel calculations, regardless of neutron energy spectrum.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP); US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Washington, DC (United States). Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1899017
• Conference Information: Journal Name: ANS Proceedings of Topical Meetings
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS
97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING
KENO
Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP)
Shift
analytical methods
eigenvalue
validation
verification