Development of continuous-energy eigenvalue sensitivity coefficient calculation methods in the shift Monte Carlo Code

Abstract

Three methods for calculating continuous-energy eigenvalue sensitivity coefficients were developed and implemented into the Shift Monte Carlo code within the SCALE code package. The methods were used for two small-scale test problems and were evaluated in terms of speed, accuracy, efficiency, and memory requirements. A promising new method for calculating eigenvalue sensitivity coefficients, known as the CLUTCH method, was developed and produced accurate sensitivity coefficients with figures of merit that were several orders of magnitude larger than those from existing methods. (authors)