Galerkin partial least-square SN (GpLS-SN) method for fixed source problems in the neutron transport theory

The neutron transport equation in the integral form is of difficult solution and therefore, schemes for obtaining an equivalent differential formulation are used. In this paper is used the discrete ordinates method (SN method) in order to obtain the equivalent differential formulation. Inspired in the GLS method (Galerkin least square method) a variant of the GLS (Brooks and Hughes, 1982; Ern and Guermond, 2004; Johnson, 1990) method denoted GpLS (Galerkin partial least-square) is proposed for solving this equivalent differential formulation. The convergence rates as well as the robustness of GLS method are preserved by the GpLS method that possesses computational lower cost. Simulations comparing the convergence rates of GpLS method with other methods are presented, confirming the best performance of GpLS method. The numerical experiments were made using fixed source in multiplying medium, with the objective to test the robustness of GpLS method. All the numerical experiments presented confirm the good properties of approximation of GpLS method.