Validations of the radiation transport module NEUTRO: A deterministic solver for the neutron transport equation

Highlights: • A radiation transport solver describing neutronic transport is introduced. • The model is used to reproduce shielding benchmarks included in SINBAD database. • The solver is included as a module into the high-performance computational mechanics code ALYA. • The results obtained achieved good accuracy over extended domains. • This implementation in Alya will allow coupling of radiation transport with thermo-mechanical solutions in large domains. We present significant improvements and validations of a deterministic neutron transport code (NEUTRO) dedicated to solving the Boltzmann Transport Equation. The code is integrated as a module in the Alya software package developed by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center which uses the Discrete Ordinates Method on angular coordinates, multi-group for energy discretization and FEM on unstructured meshes to treat special complex domains. The anisotropy of the scattering medium is introduced into the scattering kernel using real base expressions for spherical harmonics. In order to build the total cross-section and the respective group matrix for the elastic cross-section, we use the NJOY code. We test the solver using different geometries, orders of integration for the angular discretization and number of energy groups. Finally, we compare our results against benchmarks obtained from an NEA database that reported measurements of leakage spectra of several materials.