Nuclear Engineering and Technology

Korean Nuclear Society (한국원자력학회)
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Comprehensive validation of silicon cross sections

  • Received : 2019.12.19
  • Accepted : 2020.05.18
  • Published : 2020.12.25
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Abstract

Silicon, especially silicon in the form of SiO2, is a major component of rocks. Final spent fuel storages, which are being designed, are located in suitable rock formations in the Earth's crust. Reduction of the uncertainty of silicon neutron scattering and capture is needed; improved silicon evaluations have been recently produced by the ORNL/IAEA collaboration within the INDEN project. This paper deals with the nuclear data validation of that evaluation performed at the LR-0 reactor by means of critical experiments and measurement of reaction rates. Large amounts of silicon were used both as pure crystalline silicon and SiO2 sand. The critical moderator level was measured for various core configurations. Reaction rates were determined in the largest core configuration. Simulations of the experimental setup were performed using the MCNP6.2 code. The obtained results show the improvement in silicon cross-sections in the INDEN evaluations compared to existing evaluations in major libraries. The new Thermal Scattering Law for SiO2 published in ENDF/B-VIII.0 additionally reduces the discrepancy between calculation and experiments. However, an unphysical peak is visible in the neutron spectrum in SiO2 obtained by calculation with the new Thermal Scattering Law.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

Presented results were obtained with the use of the infrastructure Reactors LVR-15 and LR-0, which is financially supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports - project LM2015074 and also financially supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports Czech Republic - project LQ1603 Research for SUSEN. This work has been realized within the SUSEN Project (established in the framework of the European Regional Development Fund in project CZ.1.05/2.1.00/03.0108 and of the European Structural Funds and Investment Funds (ESIF) in the project CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/15_008/0000293), which is financially supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports - project LM2015093 Infrastructure SUSEN.

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