Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Gert, Godfree.
LLNL implemented infrastructure to include treatment of URR in GNDS. There are two options to store URR probabilities: cross-sections pdf and ACE-like probability tables. Issues were found with both options during verification with criticality benchmarks. Projected future steps include resolving issues in the next year and adding criticality benchmarks sensitive to URR.
The cross sections of neutron-induced reactions can be divided into three energy ranges: the resolved resonance region (RRR), the unresolved resonance region (URR), and the fast region. In general, the cross sections in the URR show significant fluctuations that cannot be predicted and cannot be experimentally resolved, thus, it is commonly assumed that the cross section at a specific energy is given by a probability distribution function (PDF) over a range of values that can span several orders of magnitude. The current methodology used to describe such behavior is to construct the PDF by stochastically generating resonance ladders and numerically measuring the PDF. The resonance ladders are sampled using known resonance statistical properties and average resonance widths and spacings extrapolated from the RRR. Although this is a standard and widely used technique, it is computationally very expensive, therefore, an alternative, analytical, approach would be preferable due to the considerable speed up of the computational time in real life applications. Moreover, the current methodology does not take into account existing experimental data, such for total and capture cross sections, that are available for many nuclei. Finally, this approach was developed to be used in reactor-scale applications and it is not suited for use in single-event applications. In this work we will rethink the entire approach to the PDF construction using a Bayesian mindset. This will allow us to provide a different definition of the PDF that allows a much faster calculation of the higher-temperature PDFs and a proper combination of theoretical and experimental PDFs following the probability theory. We will also show that our definition is well suited for single-event applications and we will make an explicit connection between our method and the standard approach. We do this by showing that the central limit theorem applies and our method leads to the same PDF obtained with the standard methodology, for a large number of events per history.
This milestone reports on the culmination of several years of effort by multiple PEM support software development teams to provide capabilities for use in LLNL-developed integrated codes on next-gen ASC platforms, including GPU support. We will provide a survey of relevant Application Program Interfaces (API) that are required to support LLNL IC code capability on relevant architectures, with a focus on Sierra and El Capitan. We will identify and summarize all dependencies between PEM supported libraries and IC supported physics codes. We will provide an assessment of algorithmic improvements that have been deployed, as well as future developments that are required to complete the GPU porting efforts. This assessment will include a description of programming models adopted by each of the PEM projects, distinct algorithmic challenges for each of the capabilities, and information about sharing GPU memory between the APIs and host codes. We will develop targeted test problems to assess computational performance. Finally, this milestone will result in identification of gaps in our effort to assist the LLNL ASC program in prioritization of effort for porting software to El Capitan.