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An Atomic Mix Closure for Stochastic Media Transport Problems

Journal Article · · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society
OSTI ID:22991907
;  [1]
  1. Sandia National Laboratories: Albuquerque, NM, 87185-1179 (United States)

The accurate modeling of stochastic media in radiation transport calculations remains on ongoing research challenge. The Levermore-Pomraning (LP) closure for the statistical transport equation is simple and inexpensive, but it is often inaccurate. More accurate closures have been proposed, but they can be prohibitively expensive. In this work we present a relatively inexpensive closure that we have observed to be more accurate than LP in almost all cases studied. Obtaining solutions to stochastic transport problems can be quite difficult. Transport calculations on an ensemble of explicit realizations generated by Monte Carlo sampling can be prohibitively expensive. Atomic mix or LP calculations are relatively inexpensive, but they can be inaccurate. The present work illustrates an approach that is less expensive than Monte Carlo sampling yet more accurate than atomic mix or LP approximations. We still need to analyze the reasons why the atomic mix closures derived for thicker problems lead to source iteration instabilities. It is not clear if the closure itself induces an ill-posed problem or if it is merely the iterative process that is problematic. We hope to examine alternative source terms to drive the subsidiary calculations. We also want to extend the work to multigroup and multidimensional problems. (authors)

OSTI ID:
22991907
Journal Information:
Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, Journal Name: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 114; ISSN 0003-018X
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English