Parallelisation of MONK with Coupling to Thermal Hydraulics and Gamma Heating Calculations for Reactor Physics Applications

¹ AMEC Clean Energy - Europe, Kimmeridge House, Dorset Green Technology Park, Winfrith Newburgh, Dorset, DT2 8ZB, United Kingdom
² Retired; formerly AMEC Clean Energy - Europe

Abstract

Monte Carlo methods are increasingly being used for whole core reactor physics modelling. We describe a number of recent developments to the MONK nuclear criticality and reactor physics code to implement parallel processing, mesh-dependent burn-up and coupling to both thermal hydraulics and gamma transport codes. Results are presented which demonstrate the e_ects of gamma heating in a MONK calculation coupled to the MCBEND Monte Carlo shielding code. Experimental validation of the mesh-dependent tracking and gamma coupling methods is provided by comparison with the results of the NESSUS experiment. The gamma heating calculated by coupled MONK-MCBEND, and the neutron heating calculated by MONK, both compare well against measurement. Finally results are presented from a parallel MONK calculation of a highly detailed PWR benchmark model, which show encouraging speed-up factors on a small development cluster.