Study of ray effects in discrete ordinates calculations

Ray effects, an Inherent problem in the formulation of the discrete ordinates approximation to the transport equation, is studied in this research. In particular, the effectiveness of using Monte Carlo procedures to generate a first collision source or a second collision source is investigated. Monte Carlo procedures provide a general methodology that can be applied to the discrete ordinates solution of complex problems in either two- or three-dimensional geometries, for which ray effects are likely to occur. The Monte Carlo method, which is intrinsically free from ray effects, performs the transport of the source particle to the first collision site. The Monte Carlo estimated uncollided fluxes or first collided fluxes are used to compute the scattering sources in a format suitable for input into the DORT two-dimensional and the TORT three-dimensional discrete ordinates codes. The computational time and precision requirements of the Monte Carlo calculation are analyzed. Also, three procedures for estimating the second collision source with the modified version of MORSE are investigated. The results show that significant improvements are achieved in the solution of the test problems when using the first collision source and that virtual elimination of ray effects is realized when using the second collision source.