The method of characteristics (MOC) has been widely used in lattice code for its high precision and easy complement. However, the long characteristics method needs large quantity of PC memory when dealing with large scale problems. The modularity MOC method could significantly reduce the PC memory when calculating the problem which contains lots of repeatedly geometries, like the fuel assembly in the reactor. In this method, only typical geometric cells are selected to trace the rays, and then the geometry information of these cells is stored. So, the modularity MOC method is feasible to perform well in the calculation with large scale. When tracing the rays, the technique of mesh ray generating and the corresponding azimuthal quadrature set are both applied. The techniques make sure that each ray has the reflected ray in the boundary so it is convenient to describe the boundary condition. The optimal polar angle and the Guass quadrature set are selected as the polar quadrature set. Furthermore, the coarse mesh finite difference (CMFD) is employed to accelerate the calculation. A pin cell is chosen as the coarse mesh. The CMFD solution provides the MOC with much faster converged fission and scattering source distributions. The LOTUS code is developed and the numerical results show that the code is precise for engineering application and the CMFD acceleration is effective.
Preliminary study on CAD-based method of characteristics for neutron transport calculation