SUMMARY

Accurate transient reactor analysis methods are vital for the safe design of nuclear power cores. The direct solution of the time-dependent neutron transport equation has historically been computationally prohibitive, forcing most transient analysis methods to rely on the diffusion approximation. As computing power has increased and mathematical methods have become more sophisticated, however, transport theory based transient solution methodologies have become increasingly feasible. The objective of the current proposal is the development of an efficient high-order methodology for solving the time-dependent neutron transport problem based on the innovative Coarse Mesh Transport (COMET) discretization in space and angle. The COMET method has been shown to provide highly accurate solutions to 3D reactor problems in steady state, and its extension to transient problems will further enable its use as a robust reactor design tool. To accomplish this goal, a coupling bewteen the time variable and the current COMET discretization of the space-angle-energy phase space will be developed mathematically and implemented numerically. The resulting methodology will be benchmarked to show the efficiency and accuracy of the method relative to other modern transport methodologies.