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Shaver, Mark W.

Publications and source records attributed to Shaver, Mark W..

6 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2013

Evaluation and Testing of the ADVANTG Code on SNM Detection

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has been tasked with evaluating the effectiveness of ORNL’s new hybrid transport code, ADVANTG, on scenarios of interest to our NA-22 sponsor, specifically of detection of diversion of special nuclear material (SNM). PNNL staff have determined that acquisition and installation of ADVANTG was relatively straightforward for a code in its phase of development, but probably not yet sufficient for mass distribution to the general user. PNNL staff also determined that with little effort, ADVANTG generated weight windows that typically worked for the problems and generated results consistent with MCNP. With slightly greater effort of choosing a finer mesh around detectors or sample reaction tally regions, the figure of merit (FOM) could be further improved in most cases. This does take some limited knowledge of deterministic transport methods. The FOM could also be increased by limiting the energy range for a tally to the energy region of greatest interest. It was then found that an MCNP run with the full energy range for the tally showed improved statistics in the region used for the ADVANTG run. The specific case of interest chosen by the sponsor is the CIPN project from Las Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), which is an active interrogation, non-destructive assay (NDA) technique to quantify the fissile content in a spent fuel assembly and is also sensitive to cases of material diversion. Unfortunately, weight windows for the CIPN problem cannot currently be properly generated with ADVANTG due to inadequate accommodations for source definition. ADVANTG requires that a fixed neutron source be defined within the problem and cannot account for neutron multiplication. As such, it is rendered useless in active interrogation scenarios. It is also interesting to note that this is a difficult problem to solve and that the automated weight windows generator in MCNP actually slowed down the problem. Therefore, PNNL had determined that there is not an effective tool available for speeding up MCNP for problems such as the CIPN scenario. With regard to the Benchmark scenarios, ADVANTG performed very well for most of the difficult, long-running, standard radiation detection scenarios. Specifically, run time speedups were observed for spatially large scenarios, or those having significant shielding or scattering geometries. ADVANTG performed on par with existing codes for moderate sized scenarios, or those with little to moderate shielding, or multiple paths to the detectors. ADVANTG ran slower than MCNP for very simply, spatially small cases with little to no shielding that run very quickly anyway. Lastly, ADVANTG could not solve problems that did not consist of fixed source to detector geometries. For example, it could not solve scenarios with multiple detectors or secondary particles, such as active interrogation, neutron induced gamma, or fission neutrons.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Radiation Detection Computational Benchmark Scenarios

Modeling forms an important component of radiation detection development, allowing for testing of new detector designs, evaluation of existing equipment against a wide variety of potential threat sources, and assessing operation performance of radiation detection systems. This can, however, result in large and complex scenarios which are time consuming to model. A variety of approaches to radiation transport modeling exist with complementary strengths and weaknesses for different problems. This variety of approaches, and the development of promising new tools (such as ORNL’s ADVANTG) which combine benefits of multiple approaches, illustrates the need for a means of evaluating or comparing different techniques for radiation detection problems. This report presents a set of 9 benchmark problems for comparing different types of radiation transport calculations, identifying appropriate tools for classes of problems, and testing and guiding the development of new methods. The benchmarks were drawn primarily from existing or previous calculations with a preference for scenarios which include experimental data, or otherwise have results with a high level of confidence, are non-sensitive, and represent problem sets of interest to NA-22. From a technical perspective, the benchmarks were chosen to span a range of difficulty and to include gamma transport, neutron transport, or both and represent different important physical processes and a range of sensitivity to angular or energy fidelity. Following benchmark identification, existing information about geometry, measurements, and previous calculations were assembled. Monte Carlo results (MCNP decks) were reviewed or created and re-run in order to attain accurate computational times and to verify agreement with experimental data, when present. Benchmark information was then conveyed to ORNL in order to guide testing and development of hybrid calculations. The results of those ADVANTG calculations were then sent to PNNL for compilation. This is a report describing the details of the selected Benchmarks and results from various transport codes.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2012

Transport Test Problems for Radiation Detection Scenarios

Modeling forms an important component of radiation detection development, allowing for testing of new detector designs, evaluation of existing equipment against a wide variety of potential threat sources, and assessing operation performance of radiation detection systems. This can, however, result in large and complex scenarios which are time consuming to model. A variety of approaches to radiation transport modeling exist with complementary strengths and weaknesses for different problems. This variety of approaches, and the development of promising new tools (such as ORNL’s ADVANTG) which combine benefits of multiple approaches, illustrates the need for a means of evaluating or comparing different techniques for radiation detection problems. This report presents a set of 9 test problems for comparing different types of radiation transport calculations, identifying appropriate tools for classes of problems, and testing and guiding the development of new methods. Cases are drawn primarily from existing or previous calculations with a preference for cases which include experimental data, or otherwise have results with a high level of confidence, are non-sensitive, and represent problem sets of interest to NA-22. From a technical perspective, cases are chosen to span a range of difficulty and to include gamma transport, neutron transport, or both and represent different important physical processes and a range of sensitivity to angular or energy fidelity. Following test case identification, existing information about geometry, measurements, and previous calculations were assembled. Monte Carlo results (MCNP decks) were reviewed or created and re-run in order to attain accurate computational times and to verify agreement with experimental data, when present. Test case information was then conveyed to ORNL in order to guide testing and development of hybrid calculations. The results of those ADVANTG calculations were then sent to PNNL for compilation. This is a report describing the details of the selected test cases and results from available transport codes. Additional results from other transport codes will be added during the next year, along with additional cases if needed for software testing. Future work will extend the test problems to include more extensive cross-code comparisons as well as more refined metrics for evaluating the tradeoffs between operator time, computational time, and solution accuracy, to assemble a formalized benchmark set.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2012

Technical Cross-Cutting Issues for the Next Generation Safeguards Initiative's Spent Fuel Nondestructive Assay Project

Ever since there has been spent fuel (SF), researchers have made nondestructive assay (NDA) measurements of that fuel to learn about its content. In general these measurements have focused on the simplest signatures (passive photon and total neutron emission) and the analysis has often focused on diversion detection and on determining properties such as burnup (BU) and cooling time (CT). Because of shortcomings in current analysis methods, inspectorates and policy makers are interested in improving the state-of-the-art in SF NDA. For this reason the U.S. Department of Energy, through the Next Generation Safeguards Initiative (NGSI), targeted the determination of elemental Pu mass in SF as a technical goal. As part of this research effort, 14 nondestructive assay techniques were studied . This wide range of techniques was selected to allow flexibility for the various needs of the safeguards inspectorates and to prepare for the likely integration of one or more techniques having complementary features. In the course of researching this broad range of NDA techniques, several cross-cutting issues were. This paper will describe some common issues and insights. In particular we will describe the following: (1) the role of neutron absorbers with emphasis on how these absorbers vary in SF as a function of initial enrichment, BU and CT; (2) the need to partition the measured signal among different isotopic sources; and (3) the importance of the “first generation” concept which indicates the spatial location from which the signal originates as well as the isotopic origins.

Next Generation Safeguards Initiative↗
DOE OSTI2011

Transport Test Problems for Hybrid Methods Development

This report presents 9 test problems to guide testing and development of hybrid calculations for the ADVANTG code at ORNL. These test cases can be used for comparing different types of radiation transport calculations, as well as for guiding the development of variance reduction methods. Cases are drawn primarily from existing or previous calculations with a preference for cases which include experimental data, or otherwise have results with a high level of confidence, are non-sensitive, and represent problem sets of interest to NA-22.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗