Benchmarking and validation activities within JEFF project

Abstract

The challenge for any nuclear data evaluation project is to periodically release a revised, fully consistent and complete library, with all needed data and covariances, and ensure that it is robust and reliable for a variety of applications. Within an evaluation effort, benchmarking activities play an important role in validating proposed libraries. The Joint Evaluated Fission and Fusion (JEFF) Project aims to provide such a nuclear data library, and thus, requires a coherent and efficient benchmarking process. The aim of this paper is to present the activities carried out by the new JEFF Benchmarking and Validation Working Group, and to describe the role of the NEA Data Bank in this context.

Yalina-thermal facility neutron characteristic computational study 129I, 237Np and 243Am transmutation reaction rates calculations

“…Two Monte-Carlo codes were used for that purpose: MCU (Monte-Carlo Universe) of the NRC «Kurchatov Institute» [10] and MCNP (Monte-Carlo Nuclear Particles) of the Argonne national Laboratory [11]. For the purpose of obtaining the relevant results the up-to-date nuclear data libraries (ENDF B/VIII [6], JEFF 3.3 [7] and JENDL 4.0 [8]) were used in calculations. For the comparative analysis the additional calculations with previous versions of data libraries (ENDF B/VII.1 [12] and JEFF 3.1 [13]) were performed as well.…”

“…The analysis of the uncertainty from the initial parameters gives total model uncertainty at δk eff = ±0.003. The calculations for different nuclear libraries [6][7][8]12] were carried out as well. The corresponding data shown on figure 3.…”

“…The computer model registration zones were chosen to match the experimental samples sizes. Calculations were fulfilled for up-to-date nuclear libraries [6][7][8]. All corresponding results are shown figure 6.…”

“…In order to satisfy the nuclear safety criteria and IAEA requirements [5] for sub-critical facilities the k eff calculations and corresponding uncertainty analysis were performed. The most recent available versions of the nuclear data libraries (ENDF B/VIII [6], JEFF 3.3 [7] and JENDL 4.0 [8]) were used in calculations.…”

Monte Carlo simulation of γ and fission transfer reactions using extended ℛ-matrix theory

“…The F A * α ′ (E x , J, π) distribution as input to the LNG code is supplied easily by the TALYS code [18] that triggers an ECIS06 optical model DWBA calculation. The SRMbased reaction probabilities are simply the corresponding neutron reaction cross sections reconstructed from the JEFF-3.3 evaluation [19] divided by the neutron-induced total compound nucleus formation cross section σ CN n (E n ) of the Eq. (1) according to the 240 Pu * excited nucleus.…”