Global variance reduction for Monte Carlo reactor physics calculations
- Department of Nuclear Engineering, North Carolina State University, P.O. Box 7909, Raleigh, NC 27695-7909 (United States)
Over the past few decades, hybrid Monte-Carlo-Deterministic (MC-DT) techniques have been mostly focusing on the development of techniques primarily with shielding applications in mind, i.e. problems featuring a limited number of responses. This paper focuses on the application of a new hybrid MC-DT technique: the SUBSPACE method, for reactor analysis calculation. The SUBSPACE method is designed to overcome the lack of efficiency that hampers the application of MC methods in routine analysis calculations on the assembly level where typically one needs to execute the flux solver in the order of 10{sup 3}-10{sup 5} times. It places high premium on attaining high computational efficiency for reactor analysis application by identifying and capitalizing on the existing correlations between responses of interest. This paper places particular emphasis on using the SUBSPACE method for preparing homogenized few-group cross section sets on the assembly level for subsequent use in full-core diffusion calculations. A BWR assembly model is employed to calculate homogenized few-group cross sections for different burn-up steps. It is found that using the SUBSPACE method significant speedup can be achieved over the state of the art FW-CADIS method. While the presented speed-up alone is not sufficient to render the MC method competitive with the DT method, we believe this work will become a major step on the way of leveraging the accuracy of MC calculations for assembly calculations. (authors)
- Research Organization:
- American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 22212738
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: M and C 2013: 2013 International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering, Sun Valley, ID (United States), 5-9 May 2013; Other Information: Country of input: France; 12 refs.; Related Information: In: Proceedings of the 2013 International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering - M and C 2013| 3016 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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