Trend in criticality calculation results of borated-water-moderation experimental cores relating to 10B(n, α) cross section

Abstract

ABSTRACT In connection with the accuracy of the 10B(n, α) cross section in the thermal- and epithermal-neutron energy regions, criticality calculation results were examined for six benchmark sets of light-water-moderation critical experiments of UO2 and MOX fuel lattice cores with un-borated and borated water. Two of the benchmark sets were those implemented in the Tank-Type Critical Assembly (TCA). The others were taken from the International Handbook of Evaluated Criticality Safety Benchmark Experiments (ICSBEP), and the International Handbook of Evaluated Reactor Physics Benchmark Experiments (IRPhEP). The enrichments of the UO2 fuel range from 1.9 wt% to 2.6 wt%, and the Pu contents of the MOX fuel do from 2.0 to 6.6 wt%. The boron concentrations in water are up to 1511 ppm. The effective neutron multiplication factors (keff ) were taken from the published documents. They were calculated with continuous-energy Monte Carlo calculation codes in combination with JENDL-4.0, and other evaluated nuclear data libraries. It was confirmed that the keff values of the critical cores increased with the boron concentrations, which indicates that the 10B(n, α) cross section in the thermal- and epithermal-neutron energy regions should be larger than those in JENDL-4.0 and other libraries.