NEA-1307 MARMER

1. NAME OR DESIGNATION OF PROGRAM:  MARMER (a flexbile point-kernel
shielding code.)

3. DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAM OR FUNCTION

MARMER is a point-kernel shielding code which can be used to calculate the dose rate, energy  absorption rate, energy flux or gamma-ray flux due to several sources at any point in a complex geometry. The geometry is described by the MARS geometry system which makes use of Combinatorial Geometry and an array repeating feature. Source spectra may be defined in several ways including an option to read a binary file containing nuclide concentrations, which has been calculated by ORIGEN-S. Therefore, MARMER makes use of a nuclide data library containing half life times, decay energies and gamma yields for over 1000 nuclides. To facilitate the use of ORIGEN-S, a  preprocessor named PREORI is included for simple irradiation and decay problems. The spatial description of the source may be done in cartesian, cylindrical and spherical coordinates and the source strength as a function of the distance along the coordinate axes may be done in many different ways. Several sources with different spectra may be treated simultaneously. As many calculational points  as needed may be defined.

4. METHOD OF SOLUTION

The source volume is divided into volume- elements and the source energy distribution is divided into energy groups. The unscattered gamma-ray flux is calculated by an exponential attenuation kernel, which is integrated over all source  volume-elements and all energy group by use of a Monte Carlo integration method. The flux is then converted to the requested detector response by use of conversion factors, which are read from  a binary file. Scattered gamma-rays are accounted for by buildup factors, which are tabulated in another binary file containing dose  rate equivalent and energy absorption buildup factors. Buildup factors for each shield are calculated by interpolating for the effective atomic number of the shield. For multilayered shields the  buildup factor of one shield or the methods of Kitazume or Broder may be used. Although all necessary data is read from binary files,  attenuation coefficients, detector response functions and buildup factors may be given in the input too.

5. RESTRICTIONS ON THE COMPLEXITY OF THE PROBLEM

MARMER can be subdivided into two parts: the MARS geometry system, where all geometric data is stored and handled, and the real shielding code, which is partly based on the MERCURE-IV shielding code. Both parts make use of flexible array dimensioning, so in principal there is no restriction on the complexity of the problem. There is, however, one exception: no more than 50 materials may be defined.

6. TYPICAL RUNNING TIME

CPU times for MARMER depend very much on the  problem treated, especially on the complexity of the geometry, and can vary from a few seconds to tens of minutes per dose point on a
VAX 8350.

The test case of MARMER executed at NEA-DB on a 66-MHz  PC/80486 in 20.7 seconds of elapsed time. The execution of BINBCD.EXE to produce the binary version of the three libaries MARISO (nuclide data), MARBUP (buildup factor data), and MARGAM (gamma data) takes, respectively, 17.7, 8.2; and 3.0 seconds of elapsed time.

7. UNUSUAL FEATURES OF THE PROGRAM

MARMER has several options not available in other point-kernel shielding codes: the possibility to  use nuclide concentrations calculated by ORIGEN-S to define source spectra, the flexible energy structure by use of "fine" energy groups which can be collapsed to "broad" groups depending on the problem under consideration, anisotropic sources (cos**p or arbritrary defined by points), which can be used to calculate the unscattered component of thes treaming radiation through ducts and gaps.

8. RELATED AND AUXILIARY PROGRAMS

ORIGEN-S with six data libraries can be used to calculate nuclide concentrations, PREORI can be used  as a preprocessor to ORIGEN-S, BINBCD is used to convert the three MARMER libraries from ASCII or BCD to binary form and vice-versa, the MARS geometry package is used to describe the geometry, PICTURE  may be used to print two-dimensional slices of geometry and JUNEBUG  may be used to plot three-dimensional pictures of geometry.

10. REFERENCES

- O.W. Hermann, R.M. Westfall
  ORIGEN-S: SCALE System Module to Calculate Fuel Depletion,
  Actinide Transmutation, Fission Product Buildup and Decay, and
  Associated Radiation Source Termes
  NUREG/CR-200 Volume 2, Section F7, ORNL/NUREG/CSD-2/V2/R2.
- J.C. Ryman
  ORIGEN-S Data Libraries
  NUREG/CR-200 Volume 3, Section M6, ORNL/NUREG/CSD-2/V3/R2.
- M.B. Emmett, L.M. Petrie, J.T. West
  JUNEBUG-II: A Three-Dimensional Geometry Plotting Code
  NUREG/CR-200 Volume 3, Section F12, ORNL/NUREG/CSD-2/V3/R2.
- J.L. Kloosterman:
  On Gamma-ray Shielding and Neutron Streaming through Ducts
  PhD Thesis, IRI, Technical University of Delft (1992).

- J.L. Kloosterman:
  MARMER - A Flexible Point-Kernel Shielding Code, User Manual
  Version 2.0
  IRI-131-89-03/2 (June 1990).
- J.L. Kloosterman:
  MARMER - A Flexible Point-Kernel Shielding Code, Appendices
    Ch. Devillers and C. Dupont:
    MERCURE-4 - Un Programme de Monte Carlo a Trois Dimensions pour
    l'Integration de Noyaux Ponctuels d'Attenuation en Ligne Droite
    Note CEA-N-1726
    J.T. West and M.B. Emmett:
    MARS - A Multiple Array System Using Combinatorial Geometry
    NUREG/CR-0200 V. 3, Section M9 ORNL/NUREG/CSD-2/V3/R2 (October
    1981) Revised (December 1984).
    M.B. Emmett:
    PICTURE - A Printer Plot Package for Making 2-D Pictures of MARS
    Geometries
    NUREG/CR-0200 V. 3, Section M13 ORNL/NUREG/CSD-2/V3/R2 (December
    1984).
  IRI-131-89-03/2 (June 1990).
- J.L. Kloosterman:
  Gamma Benchmark Calculations on the TN12 Spent Fuel Shipping Cask
  IRI-131-89-11 (November 1989).

11. MACHINE REQUIREMENTS

MARMER runs on VAX computers, but is probably runs on every 32 bits computer without problems.
NEA 1307/02: NEA-DB implemented the program on a PC DELL 466/L (processor 80486, 66 MHz, 16 MB of RAM).The file sizes of the executables are: 1170 Kbytes (MARMER.EXE); 562 Kbytes (BINBCD.EXE);  243 Kbytes (ORMARM.EXE); 352 KBytes (PICTURE.EXE). The file sizes of the BCD versions of the libraries included in this package are: 576 Kbytes (MARISO); 192 Kbytes (MARBUP); 104 Kbytes (MARGAM);

13. OPERATING SYSTEM UNDER WHICH PROGRAM IS EXECUTED:  VAX (VMS).

14. OTHER PROGRAMMING OR OPERATING INFORMATION OR RESTRICTIONS:

15. NAME AND ESTABLISHMENT OF AUTHORS

          J.L. Kloosterman
          Interfaculty Reactor Institute
          Delft University of Technology
          Mekelweg 15, NL-2629 JB Delft, The Netherlands

File name	File description	Records
NEA1307_02.001	MARMER Information File	354
NEA1307_02.002	MARMER Source code file # 1	6039
NEA1307_02.003	MARMER Source code file # 2	3990
NEA1307_02.004	MARMER Source code file # 3	1080
NEA1307_02.005	Source code file of program BINBCD	431
NEA1307_02.006	Source code file of program ORMARM	26
NEA1307_02.007	Source code file of program PICTURE	304
NEA1307_02.008	Batch file to create the exec. MARMER.EXE	23
NEA1307_02.009	Batch file to create the exec. BINBCD.EXE	15
NEA1307_02.010	Batch file to create the exec. ORMARM.EXE	15
NEA1307_02.011	Batch file to create the exec. PICTURE.EXE	23
NEA1307_02.012	Batch file to create the exec. BINBCD.EXE	22
NEA1307_02.013	Aux. file to create binary library MARBUP	2
NEA1307_02.014	Aux. file to create binary library MARGAM	2
NEA1307_02.015	Aux. file to create binary library MARISO	2
NEA1307_02.016	Executable file of program MARMER	0
NEA1307_02.017	Executable file of program ORMARM	0
NEA1307_02.018	Executable file of program BINBCD	0
NEA1307_02.019	Executable file of program PICTURE	0
NEA1307_02.020	MARBUP - Library of buildup factor data	2490
NEA1307_02.021	MARGAM - Library of gamma data	1602
NEA1307_02.022	MARISO - Library of nuclide data	8061
NEA1307_02.023	Binary version of library MARBUP.LIB	0
NEA1307_02.024	Binary version of library MARGAM.LIB	0
NEA1307_02.025	Binary version of library MARISO.LIB	0
NEA1307_02.026	Sample ORIGEN output vector	245
NEA1307_02.027	Nuclide binary data file	0
NEA1307_02.028	Sample input data file for MARMER	63
NEA1307_02.029	Sample output data file (MARMER results)	577
NEA1307_02.030	DOS file-names	29