Measurements of U doppler effect in the soft neutron spectra using FCA (Joint research)

Ando, Masaki  ; Kawasaki, Kenji*; Okajima, Shigeaki  ; Fukushima, Masahiro   ; Matsuura, Yutaka*; Kaneko, Yuji*

U Doppler effect measurements in moderated neutron spectra (uranium fuel and MOX simulated fuel) were carried out using FCA for the purpose of contributing to the improvement in prediction accuracy for Doppler coefficient in LWR. In the mockup cores for MOX fuel, the measurements were performed in different neutron spectra, where the voidage of moderator material was varied systematically. The experimental data were obtained using cylindrical uranium samples with different outer diameter up to 800C. Analyses were performed using a standard code system designed to analyze fast reactor mock-up experiments at FCA with the use of the JENDL-3.2 library. The results of the analyses showed that the calculation accuracy did not depend on the types of the core fuel or the Doppler samples. The calculated values agreed with the experimental ones within the experimental error. Any dependency of the prediction accuracy on the neutron spectra was not observed in the MOX simulated fuel cores.