Dr Paul Cosgrove

Dr Paul Cosgrove is now a research associate in the Nuclear Energy group in the Department of Engineering.

Sponsor: Frazer Nash

Numerical stability of Monte Carlo neutron transport and isotopic depletion

My PhD investigated non-physical behaviour that occurs during burn-up simulations – or how nuclear reactors evolve over time. On simple, spatially-large problems, spurious oscillations or tilts in reactor power can develop due to the numerical treatments commonly applied in burn-up. Avoiding these instabilities typically requires more computationally expensive or heuristic approaches.

During my PhD I explored why this behaviour is particularly prominent when using Monte Carlo transport solvers, I suggested a slight improvement to one of the common ‘implicit’ burn-up algorithms, and I performed stability analyses to justify why different methods display qualitatively different instability behaviour.

Achievements

I co-developed a neutron transport code which is used by the group for research and teaching.