Proceedings of the Oak Ridge Electron Linear Accelerator (ORELA) Workshop

Abstract

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) organized a workshop at ORNL July [14][15] 2005, to highlight the unique measurement capabilities of the Oak Ridge Electron Linear Accelerator (ORELA) facility and to emphasize the important role of ORELA for performing differential cross-section measurements in the low-energy resonance region that is important for nuclear applications such as nuclear criticality safety, nuclear reactor and fuel cycle analysis, stockpile stewardship, weapons research, medical diagnosis, and nuclear astrophysics. The ORELA workshop (hereafter referred to as the Workshop) provided the opportunity to exchange ideas and information pertaining to nuclear crosssection measurements and their importance for nuclear applications from a variety of perspectives throughout the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Approximately 50 people, representing DOE, universities, and seven U.S. national laboratories, attended the Workshop. The objective of the Workshop was to emphasize the technical community endorsement for ORELA in meeting nuclear data challenges in the years to come. The Workshop further emphasized the need for a better understanding of the gaps in basic differential nuclear measurements and identified the efforts needed to return ORELA to a reliable functional measurement facility.To accomplish the Workshop objective, nuclear data experts from national laboratories and universities were invited to provide talks emphasizing the unique and vital role of the ORELA facility for addressing nuclear data needs. The list of invited speakers with information pertaining to the presentation titles is provided in the Workshop Agenda. The first day of the workshop was largely devoted to talks from the invited speakers, and the presentation slides are provided in the Appendix. Nine speakers prepared full papers to complement the presentations in the Appendix, and the contributed papers are compiled in the subsequent sections of the proceedings. At the conclusion of the first day, a dinner meeting was held at the Tennessee Grill in Knoxville, Tennessee, and Jim Rushton, who is director of the ORNL Nuclear Science and Technology Division (NSTD), provided the keynote address, highlighting the "Future of Nuclear Energy in the U.S." The dinner meeting slides are also provided in the Appendix. On the second day, ORNL presented an ORELA facility improvement plan to reestablish reliable ORELA operation for nuclear data measurements. Following the facility improvement discussions, the Workshop participants were given a tour of the ORELA facility by ORNL staff. In order to close out the discussions and draw conclusions from the Workshop, Tim Valentine (NSTD) moderated an expert panel discussion with panelists from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI),

Recent refurbishment of the Oak Ridge Electron Linear Accelerator neutron source

“…A layout of the ORELA facility is shown in figure 1. Over the past 30 years, ORELA measurements have contributed to ∼80% of US Evaluated Nuclear Data File (ENDF/B) evaluations [1].…”

“…The cross-section data are used for modeling of nuclear power reactors, astrophysics, shielding, and other applications [1]. ORELA began operation in 1969 and has been providing high-resolution cross-section data for many nuclides over the energy range from 0.002 eV-60 MeV.…”