Transmission probability method based on triangle meshes for solving the unstructured geometry neutron transport problem

Abstract

The fuel assembly or core with unstructured geometry is frequently used in the advanced reactor. To calculate the fuel assembly, the transmission probability method (TPM) is widely used. However, the rectangular or hexagonal meshes are mainly used in the TPM codes for the normal core structure. The triangle meshes are most useful for expressing the complicated unstructured geometry. Even though the finite element method and Monte-Carlo method are well suited for solving the unstructured geometry problem, they are very time-consuming. Therefore, a TPM code based on the triangle meshes is developed here. This code was applied to the hybrid fuel geometry, and compared with the results of the MCNP code and other codes. The results of the comparison were consistent with each other. The TPM with triangle meshes can thus be applied to the two-dimensional arbitrary fuel assembly.

Keywords

transmission probability method, triangle mesh, neutron integral transport equation, unstructured fuel geometry, MCNP code