Publications Details

Creation of a Benchmark Suite for SNL Nuclear Criticality Safety Code Validation (Volume 1 - MCNP)

Depriest, Kendall D.; Miller, John A.

The Nuclear Criticality Safety Program at Sandia National Laboratories has developed a suite of benchmark problems to be utilized for validation of MCNP6 Version 1.0 with ENDF/B-VII Release 1 cross sections. The benchmark suite covers a broad range of fissile material types, material forms, moderators, reflectors, and neutron energy spectra. It is anticipated that this benchmark suite will cover the vast majority of critical safety applications at SNL. The benchmark suite establishes a Bias and Bias Uncertainty for use in criticality safety analyses. In addition, the Bias and Bias Uncertainty value derived from the benchmark suite using the traditional SNL NCS methodology is demonstrated to be equivalent to the more robust statistical techniques used at many DOE sites.