Verification of the Parallel Transport Codes Parafish and AZTRAN with the TAKEDA Benchmarks

With the increase in computational resources, parallel computation in neutron transport codes is inherent since it allows simulations with high spatial-angular resolution. Among the different methodologies available for the solution of the neutron transport equation, spherical harmonics (P$_{N}$) and discrete-ordinates (S$_{N}$) approximations have been widely used, as they are established classical methods for performing nuclear reactor calculations. This work focuses on describing and verifying two parallel deterministic neutron transport codes under development. The first one is the Parafish code that is based on the finite-element method and P$_{N}$ approximation. The second one is the AZTRAN code, based on the RTN-0 nodal method and S$_{N}$ approximation. The capabilities of these two codes have been tested on the TAKEDA benchmarks and the results obtained show good behavior and accuracy compared to the Monte Carlo reference solutions. Additionally, the speedup obtained by each code in the parallel execution is acceptable. In general, the results encourage further improvement in the codes to be comparable to other well-validated deterministic transport codes.