Particle tracking acceleration via signed distance fields in direct-accelerated geometry Monte Carlo

• Main Authors: Patrick C. Shriwise, Andrew Davis, Lucas J. Jacobson, Paul P.H. Wilson
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2017-09-01
• Series: Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• Subjects: Monte Carlo; Radiation Transport; CAD; DAGMC
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1738573317303145

Computer-aided design (CAD)-based Monte Carlo radiation transport is of value to the nuclear engineering community for its ability to conduct transport on high-fidelity models of nuclear systems, but it is more computationally expensive than native geometry representations. This work describes the adaptation of a rendering data structure, the signed distance field, as a geometric query tool for accelerating CAD-based transport in the direct-accelerated geometry Monte Carlo toolkit. Demonstrations of its effectiveness are shown for several problems. The beginnings of a predictive model for the data structure's utilization based on various problem parameters is also introduced.