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Utilization of Regionwise Even-Parity Discontinuity Factor to Reduce Discretization Error of MOC

Akio Yamamoto, Akinori Giho, Tomohiro Endo

Nuclear Science and Engineering / Volume 193 / Number 3 / March 2019 / Pages 253-268

Technical Paper / dx.doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2018.1516961

Received:July 1, 2018
Accepted:August 24, 2018
Published:February 13, 2019

To reduce angular and spatial discretization error of the method of characteristics with a coarse calculation condition, the regionwise even-parity discontinuity factor (EPDF) for transport calculations is evaluated through an iterative procedure using only the regionwise scalar flux, i.e., without the odd-parity angular flux, the partial current, or the net current at the region boundary. The regionwise EPDF is evaluated in a single-assembly geometry with the reflective boundary condition. The evaluated EPDF is applied to a 2 × 2 colorset assembly and core configurations, and the performance is compared to that of the conventional superhomogenization (SPH) method. The calculation results indicate that (1) no convergence issue is observed during the iteration process to estimate the EPDF, (2) the performance of the regionwise EPDF is better than that of the conventional SPH method, and (3) the normalization of the EPDF is necessary to incorporate different surface scalar flux levels among different types of fuel assemblies.