Analysis of differences in the ENDL99 and ENDL2009 nuclear data libraries pertaining to 238U

Abstract

A careful analysis is performed on the differences exhibited in the evaluated elastic and inelastic channels between the ENDL99 and ENDL2009 libraries for neutrons incident on 238 U. The two libraries are compared with experimental data as well as results obtained from calculations utilizing a new Hauser-Feshbach reaction code and two modern, high-quality optical potentials. Overall, the ENDL2009 evaluation is found to be more physical, and a better representation of experimental data. The only exception is that the angular distributions for the elastic channel in the ENDL99 library are in better agreement at backward angles for incident neutron energies in the range 0.7-1.3 MeV. Other issues with the inelastic scattering data in ENDL2009 are pointed out.