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Monte Carlo N-Particle Simulations for Nuclear Detection and Safeguards: An Examples-Based Guide for Students and Practitioners PDF

316 Pages·2022·14.679 MB·English
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John S. Hendricks Martyn T. Swinhoe Andrea Favalli Monte Carlo N-Particle Simulations for Nuclear Detection and Safeguards An Examples-Based Guide for Students and Practitioners Monte Carlo N-Particle Simulations for Nuclear Detection and Safeguards John S. Hendricks • Martyn T. Swinhoe • Andrea Favalli Monte Carlo N-Particle Simulations for Nuclear Detection and Safeguards An Examples-Based Guide for Students and Practitioners John S. Hendricks Martyn T. Swinhoe Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos, NM, USA Los Alamos, NM, USA Andrea Favalli Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos, NM, USA This book is an open access publication. ISBN 978-3-031-04128-0 ISBN 978-3-031-04129-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04129-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2022 Open Access This book is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this book are included in the book's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the book's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Preface This book is intended as a tool for Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP®) software prac- titioners who use the code to simulate the interaction of radiation with matter in general and safeguards-related detector instrumentation in particular. Most MCNP software-related references are directed toward users who are modeling for other applications. Nuclear safeguards applications require a distinctly different approach to MCNP modeling. This book contains a fundamentals review, followed by exam- ples written by safeguards modeling experts. It also includes an overview of advanced concepts like variance reduction. We hope that this guide will help new modelers learn to use the MCNP software for safeguards applications and save time and effort for the veteran safeguards modeler in working through the MCNP manual to solve problems that have already been solved. This book does not introduce or explain safeguards concepts or techniques. The user is expected to be familiar with the type of instrumentation (both neutron and gamma) that is currently applied. For background information on nondestructive assay methods for safeguards, we refer the reader to other publications such as the “PANDA” manual1 or the book on radiation detection by Knoll.2 This book is not intended to replace the MCNP software manual.3 We will refer to the MCNP User’s Manual Code Version 6.2 extensively. The examples in this book were run using MCNP version 6.2 software, but the general principles described have been applicable for many previous versions of the code and are 1 “Passive Nondestructive Assay of Nuclear Materials” https://www.lanl.gov/org/ddste/aldgs/sst- training/technical-references.php 2 G. F. Knoll “Radiation Detection and Measurement” John Wiley 2000. 3 C. J. Werner, Ed., “MCNP User’s Manual Code Version 6.2,” LA-UR-17-29981 (October 27, 2017). v vi Preface expected to be valid also in future versions. For general information on the code, its history and availability, as well as latest information and news, please see https:// mcnp.lanl.gov/. Los Alamos, NM, USA J. S. Hendricks Los Alamos, NM, USA M. T. Swinhoe Los Alamos, NM, USA A. Favalli November 2021 Acknowledgments The authors acknowledge the Office of International Nuclear Safeguards–Human Capital Development Subprogram for the support and the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) Research Library for the support in publishing the book as an open-access book. An important contribution to the quality of the manuscript was made by mem- bers of the XCP-3 group at Los Alamos National Laboratory, who reviewed the manuscript and made many constructive suggestions. Nevertheless, any errors and omissions remain the responsibility of the authors. The authors would also like to thank Tamara Hawman, LANL Communications and External Affairs-Communication Arts and Services, for editorial and formatting support. vii About This Book The MCNP® software is a general-purpose Monte Carlo N-Particle code that can be used for transport simulations of neutrons, photons, electrons, ions, etc. In the field of nuclear safeguards and nonproliferation, MCNP software simulations are rou- tinely used for many purposes such as the design and calibration of detector systems and the study of nuclear safeguards scenarios, including radiation emission proper- ties of fresh fuel in shipping containers and spent fuel in storage pools. Current lit- erature lacks a reference book or repository material that systematically explains MCNP software usage by example; thus, the purpose of this work is to augment current literature with a reference repository that teaches MCNP software usage through detailed examples, with a focus on nuclear safeguards applications. We explain both MCNP software input and output files and the technical details used in MCNP input file preparation, which are linked to the MCNP manual. Examples have been selected based on the real-world experience of the safeguards group at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the feedback of students trained in MCNP software by LANL safeguards personnel. We expect this text to be of great benefit to students, postdocs, and practitioners who work in the nuclear engineering and nuclear physics fields with an emphasis on the use of MCNP software in nuclear safeguards and nonproliferation. It is a means to transfer the knowledge that the authors have developed through decades of work with the MCNP software—in real safeguards scenarios—to a new generation of subject matter experts. Supplementary files Each chapter comes with downloadable input files for the user to easily reproduce the examples in the text. The files corresponding to each chapter can be located via a link in the footnote on the first page of that chapter. Trademarks MCNP® is a registered trademark owned by Triad National Security, LLC, manager and operator of Los Alamos National Laboratory. Any questions regarding licensing, proper use, and/or proper attribution of Triad National Security, LLC, marks should be directed to [email protected]. Copyright ©2021, J. Hendricks, M. T. Swinhoe, and A. Favalli ix x About This Book Disclaimer Los Alamos National Laboratory strongly supports academic freedom and a researcher’s right to publish; however, as an institution, the Laboratory does not endorse the viewpoint of a publication or guarantee its technical correctness. The submitted manuscript has been authored by an employee or employees of Triad National Security, LLC, operator of Los Alamos National Laboratory under Contract No. 89233218CNA000001 with the U.S.  Department of Energy. Accordingly, the U.S. Government retains an irrevocable, nonexclusive, royalty- free license to publish, translate, reproduce, use, or dispose of the published form of the work and to authorize others to do the same for U.S. Government purposes. Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.1 Nuclear Safeguards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.2 Monte Carlo N-Particle Transport: MCNP Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1.3 Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2 Basic Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2.1 Geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2.1.1 Simplest Possible Input File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2.1.2 Running MCNP: The Simplest Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 2.1.3 Simple Input File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 2.1.4 Running and Plotting MCNP Geometries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 2.1.5 Surfaces and Complicated Cells: Intersections and Unions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 2.1.6 Duplicate Cells, Complements, and Translations: LIKE n BUT and TRCL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 2.1.7 Filled Cells: Universes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 2.1.8 Lattice Geometries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 2.1.9 Fully Specified Lattice Geometries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 2.2 Materials and Cross Sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 2.2.1 Specifying Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 2.2.2 Neutron Cross Sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 2.2.3 Low-Energy Neutron Problems: Thermal Free Gas Treatment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 2.2.4 Low-Energy Neutron Problem Data: S(α,β) Thermal Treatment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 2.2.5 Photon Cross Sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 2.2.6 Electron-Stopping Powers for Coupled Photon and Electron Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 2.2.7 Data and Models for Ions and Charged Particles . . . . . . . . . 48 2.2.8 Additional Data Diagnostics and Recommendations . . . . . 50 xi

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