Abstract
The SCALE code system is a widely used modeling and simulation suite for nuclear safety analysis and design that is developed, maintained, tested, and managed by the Reactor and Nuclear Systems Division (RNSD) of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). SCALE provides a comprehensive, verified and validated, user-friendly tool set for criticality safety, reactor physics, radiation shielding, radioactive source term characterization, and sensitivity and uncertainty analysis. Since 1980, regulators, licensees, and research institutions around the world have used SCALE for safety analysis and design. SCALE provides an integrated framework with dozens of computational modules, including three deterministic solvers and three Monte Carlo radiation transport solvers selected based on the user’s desired solution strategy. SCALE includes current nuclear data libraries and problem-dependent processing tools for continuous energy (CE) and multigroup (MG) neutronics and coupled neutron-gamma calculations, as well as activation, depletion, and decay calculations. SCALE includes unique capabilities for automated variance reduction for shielding calculations, as well as sensitivity and uncertainty analysis. SCALE’s GUIs assist with accurate system modeling and convenient access to desired results.
This report summarizes the capabilities of SCALE 6.2, as well as the maintenance and development activities performed during fiscal year 2016 (FY16). The current public version of SCALE is 6.2.1, which was released in July 2016, following the release of SCALE 6.2 in April 2016.
