Windowed multipole sensitivity to target accuracy of the optimization procedure

Abstract

This paper compares the accuracy of the windowed multipole direct Doppler broadening method to that of the ENDF-B/VII.1 libraries that come with MCNP6. Various windowed multipole libraries were generated with different maximum allowed relative errors. Then, the libraries were compared to the MCNP6 data via resonance integral and through single assembly Monte Carlo analysis. Since the windowed multipole uses resonance parameters, resonance integrals are only affected by the number of resonances included in the library and not by the order of the background fitting function. The relative performance of each library with varying maximum allowed error was evaluated. It was found that setting a maximum target relative error of 0.1% in the library provided highly accurate data that closely matches the MCNP6 data for all temperatures of interest, while still having suitable computational performance. Additionally, a library with a maximum relative error of 1% also provided reasonable accuracy on eigenvalue and reaction rates with a noticeable improvement on performance, but with a few statistically significant differences with the MCNP6 data.