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Division Spotlight
Accelerator Applications
The division was organized to promote the advancement of knowledge of the use of particle accelerator technologies for nuclear and other applications. It focuses on production of neutrons and other particles, utilization of these particles for scientific or industrial purposes, such as the production or destruction of radionuclides significant to energy, medicine, defense or other endeavors, as well as imaging and diagnostics.
Meeting Spotlight
Conference on Nuclear Training and Education: A Biennial International Forum (CONTE 2025)
February 3–6, 2025
Amelia Island, FL|Omni Amelia Island Resort
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Christmas Night
Twas the night before Christmas when all through the houseNo electrons were flowing through even my mouse.
All devices were plugged in by the chimney with careWith the hope that St. Nikola Tesla would share.
Qicang Shen, Nickolas Adamowicz, Sooyoung Choi, Yuxuan Liu, Brendan Kochunas
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 198 | Number 9 | September 2024 | Pages 1776-1805
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2023.2270740
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper presents an innovative approach to efficiently perform deterministic direct whole-core transport calculations with multiphysics feedback for steady-state problems. Traditionally, Picard iteration combined with coarse mesh finite difference (CMFD) acceleration has been used, but it can suffer from instability and inefficiency in certain scenarios. In this work, we introduce the X-CMFD method, supported by Fourier analysis, to enhance the stability of the multiphysics iteration scheme. A new and efficient variation of the X-CMFD method for practical simulations is also present. Additionally, we explore the theoretical convergence rates of nonlinear fully coupled diffusion acceleration (NFCDA), a class of diffusion acceleration methods that formalizes similar ideas of previous research. NFCDA uses a low-order diffusion problem that is fully coupled with equivalent nonlinear multiphysics feedback to accelerate the high-order transport problem with feedback. The theoretical analysis shows that NFCDA offers similar convergence rates to nonlinear diffusion acceleration (NDA) in problems without feedback. This provides theoretical support for numerical experiments conducted by other researchers. X-CMFD, which is a discretized form of NFCDA, leverages typical coarse mesh concepts and operators from CMFD while applying feedback to cross sections in the low-order diffusion problem at each power iteration of the low-order problem. To reduce computational costs, we optimize the implementation of X-CMFD in MPACT by introducing an equivalent low-order approximation to the cross-section updates in the nonlinear low-order problem. Numerical results from pressurized water reactor problems demonstrate that X-CMFD, along with its practical implementation, outperforms current relaxed Picard iteration methods in terms of robustness and efficiency, irrespective of the presence of multiphysics feedback.