Search

The simulation of the emission of beta-delayed gamma rays following nuclear fission and the calculation of time-dependent energy spectra is a computational challenge. The widely used radiation transport code MCNPX includes a delayed gamma-ray routine that is inefficient and not suitable for simulating complex problems. This paper describes the code “MMAPDNG” (Memory-Mapped Delayed Neutron and Gamma), an optimized delayed gamma module written in C, discusses usage and merits of the code, and presents results. The approach is based on storing required Fission Product Yield (FPY) data, decay data, and delayed particle data in a memory-mapped file. When compared to the original delayed gamma-ray code in MCNPX, memory utilization is reduced by two orders of magnitude and the ray sampling is sped up by three orders of magnitude. Other delayed particles such as neutrons and electrons can be implemented in future versions of MMAPDNG code using its existing framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The effective delayed neutron fraction plays an important role in kinetics and static analysis of the reactor physics experiments. It is used as reactivity unit referred to as “dollar”. Usually, it is obtained by computer simulation due to the difficulty in measuring it experimentally. In 1965, Keepin proposed a method, widely used in the literature, for the calculation of the effective delayed neutron fraction . This method requires calculation of the adjoint neutron flux as a weighting function of the phase space inner products and is easy to implement by deterministic codes. With Monte Carlo codes, the solution of the adjoint neutron transport equation is much more difficult because of the continuous-energy treatment of nuclear data. Consequently, alternative methods, which do not require the explicit calculation of the adjoint neutron flux, have been proposed. In 1997, Bretscher introduced the -ratio method for calculating the effective delayed neutron fraction; this method is based on calculating the multiplication factor of a nuclear reactor core with and without the contribution of delayed neutrons. The multiplication factor set by the delayed neutrons (the delayed multiplication factor) is obtained as the difference between the total and the prompt multiplication factors. Using Monte Carlo calculation Bretscher evaluated the as the ratio between the delayed and total multiplication factors (therefore the method is often referred to as the -ratio method). In the present work, the -ratio method is applied by Monte Carlo (MCNPX) and deterministic (PARTISN) codes. In the latter case, the ENDF/B nuclear data library of the fuel isotopes (235U and 238U) has been processed by the NJOY code with and without the delayed neutron data to prepare multi-group WIMSD neutron libraries for the lattice physics code DRAGON, which was used to generate the PARTISN macroscopic cross sections. In recent years Meulekamp and van der Marck in 2006 and Nauchi and Kameyama in 2005 proposed new methods for the effective delayed neutron fraction calculation with only one Monte Carlo computer simulation, compared with the -ratio method which require two criticality calculations. In this paper, the Meulekamp/Marck and Nauchi/Kameyama methods are applied for the first time by the MCNPX computer code and the results obtained by all different methods are compared. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]