Abstract
Nuclear data and associated tools are critical elements of the nuclear energy industry and research, playing an essential role in the simulation of nuclear systems, safety and performance calculations and interpretation of the reactor instrumentation. Nuclear data improvement requires a combination of much different know-hows that are distributed over many small- and medium-sized institutions along Europe. The Euratom programs have facilitated the setup of pan European collaborations getting together the required experience inside the projects CHANDA, ERINDA and the JRC action EUFRAT. The paper describes the holistic and inclusive approach of these projects that have also worked together to coordinate the European nuclear data research capabilities to improve the facilities, detectors, models and evaluation, validation and simulation tools. It also shows examples of success histories and summary of results of these projects and of their impact on the EU nuclear safety and industry, together with an outlook to the future.
Highlights
Nuclear data and associated tools are a critical element of the nuclear energy industry and research
The Euratom programs have facilitated the setup of pan European collaborations getting together the required experience inside the projects CHANDA, ERINDA and the JRC action EUFRAT
The most significant effort within CHANDA has been on the new experimental area, n_TOF EAR2, for high flux experiments, which allows increasing a factor 30– 40 the neutron flux at n_TOF, and allowing as demonstration the measurement of the 7Be(n,a) reaction cross section using a sample of just 1 mg of 7Be [4]
Summary
Nuclear data and associated tools are a critical element of the nuclear energy industry and research. From the differences between predictions and integral experiments, we can deduce corrections to the basic nuclear data and develop better evaluated libraries This validation process can reveal a possible need for additional differential measurements or evaluations, repeating the process until the required accuracy is achieved. The EURATOM framework program has been instrumental during the FP7 and before, to nucleate panEuropean collaborations of laboratories that on one side have developed competitive projects to develop the tools and perform measurements, evaluation and validation of new or improved nuclear data like CHANDA It has facilitated the setup of frameworks for easy and efficient transnational access to experimental facilities needed for those activities, like the competitive proposal ERINDA and the direct JRC action EUFRAT
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