Primer for criticality calculations with DANTSYS

Journal Article · Tue Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1996 · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society

OSTI ID:436912

Busch, R D ^[1]

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1. Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM (United States)

With the closure of many experimental facilities, the nuclear criticality safety analyst is increasingly required to rely on computer calculations to identify safe limits for the handling and storage of fissile materials. However, in many cases, the analyst has little experience with the specific codes available at his or her facility. Typically, two types of codes are available: deterministic codes such as ANISN or DANTSYS that solve an approximate model exactly and Monte Carlo Codes such as KENO or MCNP that solve an exact model approximately. Often, the analyst feels that the deterministic codes are too simple and will not provide the necessary information, so most modeling uses Monte Carlo methods. This sometimes means that hours of effort are expended to produce results available in minutes from deterministic codes. A substantial amount of reliable information on nuclear systems can be obtained using deterministic methods if the user understands their limitations. To guide criticality specialists in this area, the Nuclear Criticality Safety Group at the University of New Mexico in cooperation with the Radiation Transport Group at Los Alamos National Laboratory has designed a primer to help the analyst understand and use the DANTSYS deterministic transport code for nuclear criticality safety analyses. (DANTSYS is the name of a suite of codes that users more commonly know as ONEDANT, TWODANT, TWOHEX, and THREEDANT.) It assumes a college education in a technical field, but there is no assumption of familiarity with neutronics codes in general or with DANTSYS in particular. The primer is designed to teach by example, with each example illustrating two or three DANTSYS features useful in criticality analyses.

• OSTI ID: 436912
• Report Number(s): CONF-9606116--
• Journal Information: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, Journal Name: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society Vol. 74; ISSN 0003-018X; ISSN TANSAO
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

05 NUCLEAR FUELS
42 ENGINEERING
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
COMPUTER CALCULATIONS
CRITICALITY
D CODES
FISSILE MATERIALS
RADIATION TRANSPORT
SAFETY