A 1D analysis of two high order MOC methods

The work presented here provides two different methods for evaluating angular fluxes along long characteristics. One is based off a projection of the 1D transport equation onto a complete set of Legendre polynomials, while the other uses the 1D integral transport equation to evaluate the angular flux values at specific points along each track passing through a cell. The Moment Long Characteristic (M-LC) method is shown to provide 2(P+1) spatial convergence and significant gains in accuracy with the addition of only a few spatial degrees of freedom. The M-LC method, though, is shown to be ill-conditioned at very high order and for optically thin geometries. The Point Long Characteristic (P-LC) method, while less accurate, significantly improves stability to problems with optically thin cells. The P-LC method is also more flexible, allowing for extra angular flux evaluations along a given track to give a more accurate representation of the shape along each track. This is at the expense of increasing the degrees of freedom of the system, though, and requires an increase in memory storage. This work concludes that both may be used simultaneously within the same geometry to provide the best mix of accuracy and stability possible. (authors)