ACE-FRENDY-CBZ; A New neutronics analysis sequence using multi-group neutron transport calculations

Chiba, Go*; Yamamoto, Akio*; Tada, Kenichi

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 60(2), p.132 - 139, 2023/02

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2022.2087783

A new multi-group neutronics analysis sequence ACE-FRENDY-CBZ is proposed. This sequence is free from uses of any application libraries; with the ACE files as the starting point, multi-group cross section data of media comprising a target system are calculated with the FRENDY code, and multi-group neutron transport calculations are performed with modules of the CBZ code system. The ACE-FRENDY-CBZ sequence was tested against the eight fast neutron systems, and good agreement with the reference Monte Carlo results was obtained within 30 pcm differences in the bare systems and the thorium-reflected system, and approximately 100 pcm differences in the uranium-reflected systems. The use of the current-weighted total cross sections in the multi-group neutron transport calculations had non-negligible impacts over 100 pcm on k-eff, and the calculations with the current-weighted total cross sections systematically underestimated k-eff in the uranium-reflected systems.

Development of nuclear data processing code FRENDY version 2

Tada, Kenichi; Yamamoto, Akio*; Kunieda, Satoshi; Konno, Chikara; Kondo, Ryoichi; Endo, Tomohiro*; Chiba, Go*; Ono, Michitaka*; Tojo, Masayuki*

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 10 Pages, 2023/00

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2023.2278600

Nuclear data processing code is important to connect evaluated nuclear data libraries and radiation transport codes. The nuclear data processing code FRENDY version 1 was released in 2019 to generate ACE formatted cross section files with simple input data. After we released FRENDY version 1, many functions were developed, e.g., neutron multi-group cross section generation, explicit consideration of the resonance interference effect among different nuclides in a material, consideration of the resonance upscattering, ACE file perturbation, and modification of ENDF-6 formatted file. FRENDY version 2 was released including these new functions. It generates GENDF and MATXS formatted neutron multi-group cross section files from an ACE formatted cross section file or an evaluated nuclear data file. This paper explains the features of the new functions implemented in FRENDY version 2 and the verification of the neutron multigroup cross section generation function of this code.

Implementation of resonance upscattering treatment in FRENDY nuclear data processing system

Yamamoto, Akio*; Endo, Tomohiro*; Chiba, Go*; Tada, Kenichi

Nuclear Science and Engineering, 196(11), p.1267 - 1279, 2022/11

https://doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2087833

The resonance upscattering effect (the thermal agitation effect) is incorporated in the generation capability of multi-group neutron cross sections of the FRENDY nuclear data processing system. The resonance upscattering effect is considered by (1) the variation of self-shielding factors (effective cross sections) due to the change in ultra-fine group spectrum and (2) the variation of group-to-group elastic scattering cross sections. In the verification calculations, impacts on the ultra-fine group spectrum, effective cross sections, and neutronics characteristics (the Doppler effect) are confirmed. The effect of energy group structure and the treatments of resonance upscattering on the Doppler effect through the variation of effective cross sections and the elastic scattering matrix are studied. The results indicate that the FRENDY can provide appropriate multi-group cross sections considering the resonance upscattering effect.

Multi-group neutron cross section generation capability for FRENDY nuclear data processing code

Yamamoto, Akio*; Tada, Kenichi; Chiba, Go*; Endo, Tomohiro*

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 58(11), p.1165 - 1183, 2021/11

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2021.1921631

The multi-group cross section generation capability for neutrons is implemented in the FRENDY nuclear data processing code. ACE-formatted files are used as the source of nuclear data instead of ENDF-formatted files since FRENDY already has the capability to generate pointwise cross sections in the ACE format. Verification calculations of the newly implemented capability are carried out through the comparison with the NJOY nuclear data processing code. Cross section generations for all nuclides in JENDL-4.0, -4.0u, -54, ENDF/B-VII.1, -VIII.0, JEFF-3.3, and TENDL-2019 are carried out without unexpected processing issue, except for Pu-238 of TENDL-2019 that includes inconsistent data. The verification results indicate that the multi-group cross sections generated by FRENDY are consistent with those generated by NJOY or the calculation results by MCNP.

Multi-group cross section library generation by FRENDY for fast reactor neutronics calculations

Chiba, Go*; Yamamoto, Akio*; Tada, Kenichi; Endo, Tomohiro*

Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, 124(1), p.556 - 558, 2021/06

The FRENDY nuclear data processing code has been used to generate multi-group cross section libraries for the CBZ reactor physics code system. The newly generated libraries have been applied to neutronics calculations of a fast reactor core MET-1000, and several neutronics parameters are calculated. Calculations with other libraries generated by NJOY2016 have been also conducted, and differences in obtained neutronics parameters between the FRENDY-based library and the NJOY-based library have been quantified. Generally reasonable agreement between them has been obtained, so it has been demonstrated that the multi-group libraries for fast reactor neutronics calculations can be generated successfully by FRENDY. Detailed investigation on the impact of the difference in the processing codes on k-effective has been also carried out with a help of the perturbation theory, and the causes of the differences have been identified.

First nuclear transmutation of Np and Am by accelerator-driven system at Kyoto University Critical Assembly

Pyeon, C. H.*; Yamanaka, Masao*; Oizumi, Akito; Fukushima, Masahiro; Chiba, Go*; Watanabe, Kenichi*; Endo, Tomohiro*; Van Rooijen, W. G.*; Hashimoto, Kengo*; Sakon, Atsushi*; et al.

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 56(8), p.684 - 689, 2019/08

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2019.1618406

This study demonstrates, for the first time, the principle of nuclear transmutation of minor actinide (MA) by the accelerator-driven system (ADS) through the injection of high-energy neutrons into the subcritical core at the Kyoto University Critical Assembly. The main objective of the experiments is to confirm fission reactions of neptunium-237 (Np) and americium-241 (Am), and capture reactions of Np. Subcritical irradiation of Np and Am foils is conducted in a hard spectrum core with the use of the back-to-back fission chamber that obtains simultaneously two signals from specially installed test (Np or Am) and reference (uranium-235) foils. The first nuclear transmutation of Np and Am by ADS soundly implemented by combining the subcritical core and the 100 MeV proton accelerator, and the use of a lead-bismuth target, is conclusively demonstrated through the experimental results of fission and capture reaction events.

Cutting-edge studies on nuclear data for continuous and emerging need, 8; Evolution of the nuclear data library JENDL

Iwamoto, Osamu; Shibata, Keiichi; Iwamoto, Nobuyuki; Chiba, Go*

Nihon Genshiryoku Gakkai-Shi ATOMO, 60(6), p.357 - 361, 2018/06

Nuclear data library consists of the results of related studies on nuclear data. Nuclear data can show worth through utilization of the nuclear data library which is the outcome of the nuclear data study. As the last lecture over 8 serial ones, the Japanese nuclear data library JENDL is explained. Sections of "General purpose file and its history", "recent progress of special purpose file", and "international status of nuclear data library" are introduced and one of "prospect of JENDL and nuclear data study" is shown.

Role of multichance fission in the description of fission-fragment mass distributions at high energies

Hirose, Kentaro; Nishio, Katsuhisa; Tanaka, Shoya*; Lguillon, R.*; Makii, Hiroyuki; Nishinaka, Ichiro*; Orlandi, R.; Tsukada, Kazuaki; Smallcombe, J.*; Vermeulen, M. J.; et al.

Physical Review Letters, 119(22), p.222501_1 - 222501_6, 2017/12

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.222501

Fission-fragment mass distributions were measured for U, Np and Pu populated in the excitation-energy range from 10 to 60 MeV by multi-nucleon transfer channels in the reaction O + U at the JAEA tandem facility. Among them, the data for U and Np were observed for the first time. It was found that the mass distributions for all the studied nuclides maintain a double-humped shape up to the highest measured energy in contrast to expectations of predominantly symmetric fission due to the washing out of nuclear shell effects. From a comparison with the dynamical calculation based on the fluctuation-dissipation model, this behavior of the mass distributions was unambiguously attributed to the effect of multi-chance fission.

Simultaneous measurement of neutron-induced fission and capture cross sections for Am at neutron energies below fission threshold

Hirose, Kentaro; Nishio, Katsuhisa; Makii, Hiroyuki; Nishinaka, Ichiro*; Ota, Shuya*; Nagayama, Tatsuro*; Tamura, Nobuyuki*; Goto, Shinichi*; Andreyev, A. N.; Vermeulen, M. J.; et al.

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A, 856, p.133 - 138, 2017/06

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2016.12.021

Proceedings of the International Conference on Physics of Reactors (PHYSOR 2014); September 28-October 3, 2014, Kyoto, Japan

Suyama, Kenya; Sugawara, Takanori; Tada, Kenichi; Chiba, Go*; Yamamoto, Akio*

JAEA-Conf 2014-003, 76 Pages, 2015/03

JAEA-Conf-2014-003.pdf:5.13MB
JAEA-Conf-2014-003-appendix(CD-ROM).zip:360.78MB

Japan Atomic Energy Agency organized an international conference PHYSOR 2014 on the reactor physics which is one of basic researches in the nuclear engineering, in cooperation with Research Reactor Institute of Kyoto University. PHYSOR is the world's largest scale international conference in the reactor physics field. It originates in the conference held in Marseille, France in 1990, which originally had been organized in the United States as a Physics of Reactors Topical Meeting of the reactor physics division of the American Nuclear Society every two years. More than 500 papers had been submitted and finally 472 papers were presented in the conference after the paper review process. This report contains the presented papers, which the PHYSOR organizing committee has decided to publish in an official JAEA report with the permission by authors, except for several selected papers to be published in the Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology of the Atomic Energy Society of Japan.