Benchmark analysis of KRITZ-2 critical experiments

Okumura, Keisuke ; Kawasaki, Kenji*; Mori, Takamasa

In the KRITZ-2 critical experiments, criticality and pin power distributions were measured at room temperature and high temperature (about 245 degree C) for three different cores loading slightly enriched UO or MOX fuels. For nuclear data testing, benchmark analysis was carried out with a continuous-energy Monte Carlo code MVP and its four nuclear data libraries based on JENDL-3.2, JENDL-3.3, JEF-2.2 and ENDF/B-VI.8. As a result, fairly good agreements with the experimental data were obtained with any libraries for the pin power distributions. However, the JENDL-3.3 and ENDF/B-VI.8 give under-prediction of criticality and too negative isothermal temperature coefficients for slightly enriched UO cores, while the older nuclear data JENDL-3.2 and JEF-2.2 give rather good agreements with the experimental data. From the detailed study with an infinite unit cell model, it was found that the differences among the libraries are mainly due to the different fission cross section of U-235 in the energy rage below 1.0 eV.