GiudGiud
commented
2 years ago There's two ideas there:
- generate the geometry for Monte Carlo codes (we should narrow it down to 1, Shift or OpenMC most likely) from the Mesh
- write down all the tally inputs (xml syntax for example for OpenMC) from the Mesh and the desired cross section discretization.
The first task would likely have to live in the mesh generator system, because information such as "this is a cylinder" is lost of that system. The second task I would hope we can fit in a UserObject that works off of the extra integer IDs saved during the mesh generation
Let's get input from @miaoyinb, @shikhar413 and @eshemon on this feature request. Maybe we want to set up a meeting here though
Reason
Monte Carlo codes in reactor analysis takes a geometry description and generates tallies for multigroup cross sections based on a set of tally descriptions. Reactor mesh generators can generate a mesh based on a geometry description. Ideally we want the only geometry description in reactor mesh generators, and they can generate the geometry description in the format Monte Carlo codes need. For now, a more desired and less ideal feature is that the reactor mesh generators generate the tally descriptions that can be plugged into Monte Carlo inputs, which has the duplicated geometry description, for generating the cross sections. Currently, users have to create the tally descriptions manually.
Design
Mesh generators have all the geometry information. Because mesh generators generate those tally descriptions, we know the material assignment and equivalence zone assignment. This can make the work flow simpler for our users. The tally descriptions will be MC code specific even though the information there are the same across MC codes. We will have to communicate with analysists such as @jortensi to see their needs with a concrete reactor model.
Impact
Better support reactor modeling that requires both mesh generation and data preparation.