Benchmarking and parallel scalability of MANCINTAP, a Parallel High-Performance Tool For Neutron Activation Analysis in Complex 4D Scenarios

Abstract

MANCINTAP is a parallel computational tool developed by Ansaldo Nucleare to perform 4D neutron transport, activation and time-resolved dose-rate calculations in very complex geometries for CPU-intensive fission and fusion applications. MANCINTAP creates an automated link between the 3D radiation transport code MCNP5—which is used to evaluate both the neutron fluxes for activation calculations and the resulting secondary gamma dose rates—and the zero-dimensional activation code Anita2000 by handling crucial processes such as data exchange, determination of material mixtures and generation of cumulative probability distributions. A brief description of the computational tool is given here, with particular emphasis on the key technical choices underlying the project. Benchmarking of MANCINTAP has been performed in three steps: (i) against a very simplified model, where an analytical solution is available for comparison; (ii) against the well-established deterministic transport and activation code ATTILA and (iii) against experimental data obtained at the Frascati Neutron Generator (FNG) facility. An analysis of MANCINTAP scalability performances is proposed to demonstrate the robustness of its parallel structure, tailored for HPC applications, which makes it—to the best of our knowledge—a novel tool.