ENHANCING THE PERFORMANCE OF FISSION SOURCE CONVERGENCE WITH FUNCTIONAL EXPANSION TALLIES IN SERPENT 2 MONTE CARLO CODE

This paper presents an upgrade to the built-in response matrix based solver implemented in Serpent 2 Monte Carlo code aiming to improve the fission source convergence when obtaining the forward solution to the k-eigenvalue criticality source problems. The functional expansion tallies are introduced...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Jambrina Ana, Leppänen Jaakko, Suikkanen Heikki
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: EDP Sciences 2021-01-01
Series:EPJ Web of Conferences
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.epj-conferences.org/articles/epjconf/pdf/2021/01/epjconf_physor2020_04001.pdf
Description
Summary:This paper presents an upgrade to the built-in response matrix based solver implemented in Serpent 2 Monte Carlo code aiming to improve the fission source convergence when obtaining the forward solution to the k-eigenvalue criticality source problems. The functional expansion tallies are introduced in an attempt to improve the accuracy of the cell-wise form factors that feed the response matrix solver, replacing the current mesh-based approach. The functional expansion tallies reconstruct the binning surface and collision tallies, by using high-order series expansion to represent the original and continuous spatial distributions. This new feature is implemented to Serpent 2 and tested by single-assembly and full-core PWR calculations (BEAVRS benchmark). The results show enhanced performance of the convergence acceleration methodology based on an improved initial guess of the fission source.
ISSN:2100-014X