Issue |
EPJ Nuclear Sci. Technol.
Volume 4, 2018
Special Issue on 4th International Workshop on Nuclear Data Covariances, October 2–6, 2017, Aix en Provence, France – CW2017
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | 41 | |
Number of page(s) | 9 | |
Section | Applied Covariances | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/epjn/2018035 | |
Published online | 14 November 2018 |
https://doi.org/10.1051/epjn/2018035
Regular Article
Use of integral data assimilation and differential measurements as a contribution to improve 235U and 238U cross sections evaluations in the fast and epithermal energy range
1
CEA, DEN, DER, SPRC Cadarache,
13108
St Paul-Lez-Durance, France
2
ED352 Doctoral School, AMU, Luminy Campus,
13288
Marseille, France
* e-mail: virginie.huy@cea.fr
Received:
7
December
2017
Received in final form:
1
March
2018
Accepted:
22
May
2018
Published online: 14 November 2018
Critical mass calculations of various HEU-fueled fast reactors result in large discrepancies in C/E values, depending on the nuclear data library used and the configuration modeled. Thus, it seems relevant to use integral experiments to try to reassess cross sections that might be responsible for such a dispersion in critical mass results. This work makes use of the Generalized Least Square method to solve Bayes equation, as implemented in the CONRAD code. Experimental database used includes ICSBEP Uranium based critical experiments and benefits from recent re-analyses of MASURCA and FCA-IX criticality experiments (with Monte-Carlo calculations) and of PROFIL irradiation experiments. These last ones provide very specific information on 235U and 238U capture cross sections. Due to high experimental uncertainties associated to fission spectra, we chose to consider either fitting these data or set them to JEFF-3.1.1 evaluations. The work focused on JEFF-3.1.1 235U and 238U evaluations and results presented in this paper for 235U capture and 238U capture, and inelastic cross sections are compared to recent differential experiment or recent evaluations. Our integral experiment assimilation work notably suggests a 30% decrease for 235U capture around 1–2.25 keV, a 10% increase in the unresolved resonance range when using JEFF-3.1.1 as “a priori” data. These results are in agreement with recent microscopic measurements from Danon et al. [Nucl. Sci. Eng. 187, 291 (2017)] and Jandel et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 202506 (2012)]. For 238U cross sections, results are highly dependent on fission spectra.
© V. Huy et al., published by EDP Sciences, 2018
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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