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DTRA’s advancements in nuclear and radiological detection
A new, more complex nuclear age has begun. Echoing the tensions of the Cold War amid rapidly evolving nuclear and radiological threats, preparedness in the modern age is a contest of scientific innovation. The Research and Development Directorate (RD) at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) is charged with winning this contest.
Anne-Marie Baudron, Jean-Jacques Lautard
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 155 | Number 2 | February 2007 | Pages 250-263
Technical Paper | Mathematics and Computation, Supercomputing, Reactor Physics and Nuclear and Biological Applications | doi.org/10.13182/NSE07-A2660
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper describes a new generation of the neutronic core solver MINOS resulting from developments done in the DESCARTES project. For performance reasons, the numerical method of the existing MINOS solver in the SAPHYR system has been reused in the new system. It is based on the mixed-dual finite element approximation of the simplified transport equation. We have extended the previous method to the treatment of unstructured geometries composed by quadrilaterals, allowing us to treat geometries where fuel pins are exactly represented. For Cartesian geometries, the solver takes into account assembly discontinuity coefficients in the simplified Pn context. The solver has been rewritten in C++ programming language using an object-oriented design. Its general architecture was reconsidered in order to improve its capability of evolution and its maintainability. Moreover, the performance of the previous version has been improved mainly regarding the matrix construction time; this result improves significantly the performance of the solver in the context of industrial application requiring thermal-hydraulic feedback and depletion calculations.