Development of an expert system for automatic mesh generation for S(N) particle transport method in parallel environment

This dissertation develops an expert system for generating an effective spatial mesh distribution for the discrete ordinates particle transport method in a parallel environment. This expert system consists of two main parts: (1) an algorithm for generating an effective mesh distribution in a serial environment, and (2) an algorithm for inference of an effective domain decomposition strategy for parallel computing.; The mesh generation algorithm consists of four steps: creation of a geometric model as partitioned into coarse meshes, determination of an approximate flux shape, selection of appropriate differencing schemes, and generation of an effective fine mesh distribution. A geometric model was created using AutoCAD. A parallel code PENFC (Parallel Environment Neutral-Particle First Collision) has been developed to calculate an uncollided flux in a 3-D Cartesian geometry. The appropriate differencing schemes were selected based on the uncollided flux distribution using a least squares methodology. A menu-driven serial code PENXMSH has been developed to generate an effective spatial mesh distribution that preserves problem geometry and physics.; The domain decomposition selection process involves evaluation of the four factors that affect parallel performance, which include number of processors and memory available per processor, load balance, granularity, and degree-of-coupling among processors. These factors are used to derive a parallel-performance-index that provides expected performance of a parallel algorithm depending on computing environment and resources. A large index indicates a high granularity algorithm with relatively low coupling among processors. This expert system has been successfully tested within the PENTRAN (Parallel Environment Neutral-Particle Transport) code system for simulating real-life shielding problems: the VENUS-3 experimental facility and the BWR core shroud.