Plutonium oxide benchmark problems for the SOURCES code

Shores, Erik F.

doi:10.1016/j.apradiso.2004.12.002

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Results of neutron yields are presented in Table 2. References about measurements are available in [10]. Table 2 shows an acceptable agreement between CHARS and the measurements with a discrepancy between -12% and 6.41% for the total yield.…”

Section: Benchmark With Cesar 533mentioning

confidence: 94%

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A new spent fuel source characterization code CHARS and its application to the shielding of the thorium cycle

Leniau¹,

Wilson

2014

Progress in Nuclear Science and Technology

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Radioprotection measures needed in the nuclear fuel cycle require accurate knowledge of the radioactive sources involved. For innovative nuclear reactors such as Generation IV designs radiation sources (alpha, beta, gamma and neutron) in the spent fuel need to be calculated in order to understand the radioprotection needed in all aspects of the fuel cycle (transport, reprocessing, fuel fabrication, waste storage, etc.). For this purpose we have developed CHARS a set of source characterization tools coupled to our code MURE (MCNP Utilities for Reactors Evolution) which is a precision research code for fuel evolution. MURE determines inventories of around 800 nuclei during irradiation and cooling via a series of MCNP5 calculations and numerical integration of Bateman's equations. With the CHARS package using the ENSDF libraries, it's possible to generate alpha, beta and gamma spectra of the nuclear fuel at the end of cycle from any given reactor design. These complex source definitions are then used to generate automatic MCNP5 inputs for radioprotection calculations, allowing us to undertake a wide range of radioprotection studies. The first use of these tools was to estimate additional shielding in the French fuel cycle in case of switching from the current uranium (U/Pu) cycle to the thorium (Th/U) cycle. Irradiated thorium-based fuels produce small quantities of 232 U, which has a relatively short half-life (69 years) and emits a hard gamma of 2.6 MeV at the end of its decay chain. 232U is synthesized in mainly two ways: 233 U(n,2n) and 232 Th(n,2n) followed by 231 Pa(n,γ). From the results of radioprotection calculations we estimate additional thickness of shielding required for the back end of the fuel cycle and show that the greatest constraints occur for the fuel manufacturing. On the other hand the neutron yield for some thorium-based fuels will be lower in Th/U than in U/Pu cycle and as a result necessary neutronic shielding will be reduced.

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Section: Benchmark With Cesar 533mentioning

confidence: 94%

“…This leads to the peaks in energy range 2-2.1 MeV, 2.2-2.3 MeV and 2.6-2.7 MeV. In the work of E.F. Shores [10] a benchmark of the SOURCES code was performed using neutron spectra measurements of several plutonium oxides of various compositions. This benchmark was also used to validate CHARS.…”

Section: Benchmark With Cesar 533mentioning

confidence: 99%

A new spent fuel source characterization code CHARS and its application to the shielding of the thorium cycle

Leniau¹,

Wilson

2014

Progress in Nuclear Science and Technology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Measured total neutron yields from five plutonium oxide samples were collected in paper [23]. Two samples were measured at the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI) with using neutron coincidence counter and others at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Savannah River Plant (SRP), and at Pacific Northwest Laboratories (PNL).…”

Section: Plutonium Oxidementioning

confidence: 99%