A General Comparison of the Lottice Codes APOLLO-2 and DRAGON

Abstract

APOLLO-2 and DRAGON are two recent lattice codes, respectively designed at the Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique and at the Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal. They am based on integral transport theory and provides the power to handle complex geometrics which are typical of current nuclear reactors whether the lattice is rectangular or hexagonal. The two codes exhibits a common ancestor, APOLLO-1, many similarities related to their theoretical background, but so many differences related to their computer implementation. This paper will provide a general description of the two codes, trying to expose their peculiarities in term of design specifications. In the full paper, we will examine the possibility of creating a next-generation lattice code retaining the best characteristics of APOLLO-2 and DRAGON.