• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.170-175
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• 2019

Displacement cross-sections for an advanced assessment of radiation damage rates were obtained for a number of materials using the arc-dpa model at neutron incident energies from $10^{-5}eV$ to 10 GeV. Evaluated data files, CEM03 and ECIS codes, and an approximate approach were applied for the calculation of recoil energy distributions in neutron induced reactions. Three sets of displacement cross-sections based on the use of low-energy data from JEFF-3.3, ENDF/B-VIII.0, and JENDL-4.0u were prepared. Files contain also cross-sections calculated using the standard NRT model. Special efforts were made to estimate the uncertainty of obtained displacement cross-sections.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.791-796
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• 2020

Nuclear fusion seems to be a good choice of energy source in the future. Nickel is one of the crucial structural materials for fusion devices. In this work, the cross section data of ⁵⁸Ni(n,p)⁵⁸Co, ⁶⁰Ni(n,p)⁶⁰Co, ⁶¹Ni(n,p)⁶¹Co, ⁶²Ni(n,p)⁶²Co and ⁶⁴Ni(n,p)⁶⁴Co reactions were calculated using the nuclear codes ALICE/ASH, EMPIRE 3.2 and TALYS 1.8. In addition, the cross sections were calculated with the empirical formulas obtained in our previous paper at 14-15 MeV. The obtained results were compared with the measured values in the literature, and with the evaluated data files (JEFF-3.3, TENDL-2017, ENDF/B-VIII.0).

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.12
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• pp.2717-2724
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• 2020

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.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.10
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• pp.3888-3896
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• 2022

Nuclear data is the basis of reactor physics analysis. This paper aim at studying the influence of major evaluated nuclear data libraries, CENDL-3.2, ENDF/B-VIII.0, JEFF-3.3, and JENDL-4.0u, on the neutronics modelling of CEFR start-up tests. Results show these four libraries have a good performance and consistency in the modelling CEFR start-up tests. The JEFF-3.3 results exhibit only an 8 pcm k_eff difference with the measurement. The difference in criticality is decomposed by nuclide, which shows the large overestimation of CENDL-3.2 is mainly from the cross-section of ⁵²Cr. Except for few cases, the calculation results are within 1σ of measurement uncertainty in control rod worth, sodium void reactivity, temperature reactivity, and subassembly swap reactivity. In the evaluation of axial and radial reaction distribution, there are about 65% of relative errors that are less than 5% and 82% of relative errors that are less than 10%.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.304-309
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• 2023

In the last decade, nuclear medicine appears to be a good choice of medicine. ⁵⁸Co, ⁹⁹Mo, ⁹⁹Tc, ⁹⁹Re, ¹³³Xe and ¹⁸⁶Re are very important radionuclides for nuclear medicine. In this study, the excitation functions of ⁵⁸Ni (n, p) ⁵⁸Co, ⁹⁹Tc (n, p) ⁹⁹Mo, ⁹⁹Ru (n, p) ⁹⁹Tc, ¹³¹Xe (n, p) ¹³¹I, ¹³³Cs (n, p) ¹³³Xe and ¹⁸⁶Os (n, p) ¹⁸⁶Re nuclear reactions were calculated at neutron energies between 1 and 20 MeV using TALYS 1.95 and EMPIRE 3.2 nuclear codes. Furthermore, the cross sections were calculated with the empirical formula derived in our past study at 14-15 MeV. The obtained results were compared with the measured values in EXFOR library, and with the evaluated data of (JENDL-4.0/HE, JEFF-3.3, TENDL-2019, ENDF/B-VIII.0, IRDFF-II, JENDL/ImPACT-18). The results are in good agreement with those of the evaluated data libraries and experimental results and indicates that these radioisotopes can be produced by smaller cyclotrons.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.5
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• pp.1775-1782
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• 2023

Several reactor physics commissioning experiments were conducted to obtain the neutronic parameters at the beginning of the G.A. Siwabessy Multi-purpose Reactor (RSG-GAS) operation. These parameters are essential for the reactor to safety operate. Leveraging the experimental data, this study evaluated the calculated core reactivity, control rod reactivity worth, integral control rod reactivity curve, and fuel reactivity. Calculations were carried out with Serpent 2 code using the latest neutron cross-section data ENDF/B-VIII.0. The criticality calculations were carried out for the RSG-GAS first core up to the third core configuration, which has been done experimentally during these commissioning periods. The excess reactivity for the second and third cores showed a difference of 510.97 pcm and 253.23 pcm to the experiment data. The calculated integral reactivity of the control rod has an error of less than 1.0% compared to the experimental data. The calculated fuel reactivity value is consistent with the measured data, with a maximum error of 2.12%. Therefore, it can be concluded that the RSG-GAS reactor core model is in good agreement to reproduce excess reactivity, control rod worth, and fuel element reactivity.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.5
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• pp.1593-1603
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• 2023

In deterministic and Monte Carlo transport codes, b-delayed emission is included using a group structure where all of the precursors are grouped together in 6 groups or families, but given the increase in computational power, nowadays there is no reason to keep this structure. Furthermore, there have been recent efforts to compile and evaluate all the available b-delayed neutron emission data and to measure new and improved data on individual precursors. In order to be able to perform a transient Monte Carlo simulation, data from individual precursors needs to be implemented in a transport code. This work is the first step towards the development of a tool to explore the effect of individual precursors in a fissile system. In concrete, individual precursor data is included by expanding the capabilities of the open source Monte Carlo code OpenMC. In the modified code - named Time Dependent OpenMC or OpenMC(TD)- time dependency related to β-delayed neutron emission was handled by using forced decay of precursors and combing of the particle population. The data for continuous energy neutron cross-sections was taken from JEFF-3.1.1 library. Regarding the data needed to include the individual precursors, cumulative yields were taken from JEFF-3.1.1 and delayed neutron emission probabilities and delayed neutron spectra were taken from ENDF-B/VIII.0. OpenMC(TD) was tested in a monoenergetic system, an energy dependent unmoderated system where the precursors were taken individually or in a group structure, and in a light-water moderated energy dependent system, using 6-groups, 50 and 40 individual precursors. Neutron flux as a function of time was obtained for each of the systems studied. These results show the potential of OpenMC(TD) as a tool to study the impact of individual precursor data on fissile systems, thus motivating further research to simulate more complex fissile systems.