Piecewise linear discretization of symbolic implicit Monte Carlo radiation transport in the difference formulation (Q860320)

The paper addresses the problem of solving the equations for photon transport in the presence of interactions with a material in local thermodynamic equilibrium. In the difference formulation the field that is evolved is the difference between the specific intensity of the photon beam and the black body distribution at the material temperature. The piecewise linear treatment of the material state variable for the Symbolic Implicit Monte Carlo (SIMC) method is extended to the case of non-linear time dependent equations of photon transport. The method employs a Galerkin solution for the material energy equation while using SIMC to solve the photon transport equation. In constructing the scheme, one has the freedom to choose between expanding the material temperature, or the equivalent black body radiation energy density at the given temperature, in terms of finite element basis functions. The former provides a linear treatment of the material energy, while the latter offers the same for the radiative coupling between zones. Subject to the conditional use of a lumped material energy in the vicinity of strong gradients, possible with a linear treatment of the material energy, the proposed approach provides a robust solution for time dependent transport of thermally emitted radiation. The use of the difference formulation removes the difficulty of sampling a transport source term that depends upon the material opacity at the location sampled and lowers the Monte Carlo noise corresponding to the case of thick media. The piecewise linear treatment of the difference formulation is capable of producing accurate solutions in the diffusion limit.