Comparison of ENDF/B-VII.1 and ENDF/B-VII.0 Results for the Expanded Criticality Validation Suite for MCNP and for Selected Additional Criticality Benchmarks

Abstract

Results obtained with the MCNP5 Monte Carlo code and the ENDF/B-VII.1 and ENDF/B-VII.0 nuclear data libraries have been compared for the 119 benchmarks in the expanded criticality validation suite for MCNP and for 23 additional benchmarks. ENDF/B-VII.1 was found to produce improvements relative to ENDF/B-VII.0 for benchmarks that contain significant amounts of tungsten, zirconium, cadmium, or beryllium, although the results for the benchmarks with beryllium suggest that further improvement still may be needed. In addition, a number of deficiencies previously identified for ENDF/B-VII.0 still remain in ENDF/B-VII.1.