Measurements of neutron capture cross-section for nuclides of interest in decommissioning (II); Fe(n,)Fe

Nakamura, Shoji; Shibahara, Yuji*; Endo, Shunsuke; Rovira Leveroni, G.; Kimura, Atsushi

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 62(3), p.300 - 307, 2025/03

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2024.2427244

Measurements of neutron capture cross-sections for nuclides of interest in decommissioning; Sc, Cu, Zn, Ag, and In

Nakamura, Shoji; Shibahara, Yuji*; Endo, Shunsuke; Rovira Leveroni, G.; Kimura, Atsushi

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 61(11), p.1415 - 1430, 2024/11

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2024.2346347

Neutron capture cross-sections of nuclides targeted for decommissioning are necessary to contribute to the evaluation of radioactivity produced. The present study, Sc, Cu, Zn, Ag and In nuclides were selected as target ones, and their thermal-neutron capture cross-sections were measured by an activation method at Kyoto University Research Reactor. The thermal-neutron capture cross-sections were obtained as follows: 27.180.28 barn for Sc(n, )Sc, 4.340.06 barn for Cu(n, )Cu, 0.7190.011 barn for Zn(n, )Zn, 4.050.05 barn for Ag(n, )Ag and 8.530.27 barn for In(n, ) In. The results for Sc and Zn nuclides supported evaluated values within the limits of uncertainties, while those for the other nuclides were slightly different from evaluated ones. The obtained results are useful not only for the evaluation of production amount, but also for the monitor selection other than Au and Co by considering those nuclides as flux monitors.

A Comparative study of efficient sampling techniques for uncertainty quantification due to cross-section covariance data

Fujita, Tatsuya

Proceedings of International Conference on Physics of Reactors (PHYSOR 2024) (Internet), p.718 - 727, 2024/04

https://doi.org/10.13182/PHYSOR24-43640

The convergence process of the k-infinity uncertainty during random-sampling-based uncertainty quantification was compared between several efficient sampling techniques. The k-infinity uncertainty was evaluated by statistically processing several times of SERPENT 2.2.1 calculations using perturbed ACE files based on JENDL-5 cross-section covariance data. The antithetic sampling (AS), the Latin hypercube sampling (LHS), the control variates (CV), and the combination approaches of them were focused on in the present paper. In PWR-UO fuel assembly geometry without the nuclide depletion, as discussed in past studies, AS and LHS showed higher efficient convergence than nominal sampling without any efficient sampling techniques. In terms of CV, though a stand-alone application did not have a large impact on the k-infinity uncertainty convergence, its performance was improved in combination with AS, as discussed in the past study. In addition, a new combined approach of LHS and CV (CV+LHS) was proposed in the present paper. CV+LHS improved the k-infinity uncertainty convergence and was more efficient than CV+AS. The main reason for this improvement was that the convergence for the mean value of alternative parameters in CV was enhanced by applying LHS. Consequently, this study proposed the new combined approach of CV+LHS and confirmed its efficiency performance for the random-sampling-based uncertainty quantification in the PWR-UO fuel assembly geometry. The applicability of CV+LHS for the nuclide-depletion calculations will be confirmed in future studies.

Development of adjusted nuclear data library for fast reactor application

Yokoyama, Kenji

EPJ Web of Conferences, 281, p.00004_1 - 00004_10, 2023/03

https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/202328100004

In Japan, development of adjusted nuclear data library for fast rector application based on the cross-section adjustment method has been conducted since the early 1990s. The adjusted library is called the unified cross-section set. The first version was developed in 1991 and is called ADJ91. Recently, the integral experimental data were further expanded to improve the design prediction accuracy of the core loaded with minor actinoids and/or degraded Pu. Using the additional integral experimental data, development of ADJ2017 was started in 2017. In 2022, the latest unified cross-section set AJD2017R was developed based on JENDL-4.0 by using 619 integral experimental data. An overview of the latest version with a review of previous ones will be shown. On the other hand, JENDL-5 was released in 2021. In the development of JENDL-5, some of the integral experimental data used in ADJ2017R were explicitly utilized in the nuclear data evaluation. However, this is not reflected in the covariance data. This situation needs to be considered when developing a unified cross-section set based on JENDL-5. Preliminary adjustment calculation based on JENDL-5 is performed using C/E (calculation/experiment) values simply evaluated by a sensitivity analysis. The preliminary results will be also discussed.

Measurement of nuclide production cross-sections in high-energy proton-induced spallation reactions at J-PARC

Nakano, Keita; Matsuda, Hiroki*; Meigo, Shinichiro; Iwamoto, Hiroki; Takeshita, Hayato*; Maekawa, Fujio

JAEA-Research 2021-014, 25 Pages, 2022/03

JAEA-Research-2021-014.pdf:2.1MB

For the development of accelerator-driven transmutation system (ADS), measurement of nuclide production cross-sections in proton-induced reactions on Be, C, Al, Sc, and V have been performed. The measured data are compared with the calculations by the latest nuclear reaction models and with the nuclear data library to investigate the reproducibilities.

A Pseudo-material method for graphite with arbitrary porosities in Monte Carlo criticality calculations

Okita, Shoichiro; Nagaya, Yasunobu; Fukaya, Yuji

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 58(9), p.992 - 998, 2021/09

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2021.1899997

Measurement of nuclide production cross-sections of Fe for 0.4-3.0 GeV protons in J-PARC

Matsuda, Hiroki; Takeshita, Hayato*; Meigo, Shinichiro; Maekawa, Fujio; Iwamoto, Hiroki

JPS Conference Proceedings (Internet), 33, p.011047_1 - 011047_6, 2021/03

https://doi.org/10.7566/JPSCP.33.011047

Accurate nuclide production cross-section data are required for the design of Accelerator-Driven nuclear transmutation System (ADS) such as the design of radioactive waste disposal, design of remote-handling procedure of highly activated components, and evaluation of exposure doses of rad-workers. Although much efforts have been devoted to nuclide production cross-section measurements so far, uncertainties of the measured data are sometimes large as several tens percentage, and there is no experimental data in the GeV energy region even for some of important nuclides. In this study, proton induced nuclide production cross-section of iron, which is the most important constituent element of steel, was measured. The present experiment was compared with calculations by the PHITS code with several physics models including Bertini and INCL4.6 and evaluated nuclear data JENDL-HE/2007. The most significant discrepancy found in this study was the production cross sections via the (p,xn) reaction. It was suggested that further improvements, such as the in-medium effect on the nucleon-nucleon scattering and the Pauli blocking, were required in the intra-nuclear cascade models used in this study.

Measurements of thermal-neutron capture cross-section of cesium-135 by applying mass spectrometry

Nakamura, Shoji; Shibahara, Yuji*; Kimura, Atsushi; Iwamoto, Osamu; Uehara, Akihiro*; Fujii, Toshiyuki*

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 57(4), p.388 - 400, 2020/04

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2019.1691077

The thermal-neutron capture cross-section () and resonance integral(I) were measured for the Cs(n,)Cs reaction by an activation method and mass spectrometry. We used Cs contained as an impurity in a normally available Cs standard solution. An isotope ratio of Cs and Cs in a standard Cs solution was measured by mass spectrometry to quantify Cs. The analyzed Cs samples were irradiated at the hydraulic conveyer of the research reactor in Institute for Integral Radiation and Nuclear Science, Kyoto University. Wires of Co/Al and Au/Al alloys were used as neutron monitors to measure thermal-neutron fluxes and epi-thermal Westcott's indices at an irradiation position. A gadolinium filter was used to measure the , and a value of 0.133 eV was taken as the cut-off energy. Gamma-ray spectroscopy was used to measure induced activities of Cs, Cs and monitor wires. On the basis of Westcott's convention, the and I values were derived as 8.570.25 barn, and 45.33.2 barn, respectively. The obtained in the present study agreed within the limits of uncertainties with the past reported value of 8.30.3 barn.

Measurements of thermal-neutron capture cross-section and resonance integral of neptunium-237

Nakamura, Shoji; Kitatani, Fumito; Kimura, Atsushi; Uehara, Akihiro*; Fujii, Toshiyuki*

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 56(6), p.493 - 502, 2019/06

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2019.1598304

The thermal-neutron capture cross-section()and resonance integral(I) were measured for the Np(n,)Np reaction by an activation method. A method with a Gadolinium filter, which is similar to the Cadmium difference method, was used to measure the with paying attention to the first resonance at 0.489 eV of Np, and a value of 0.133 eV was taken as a cut-off energy. Neptunium-237 samples were irradiated at the pneumatic tube of the Kyoto University Research Reactor in Institute for Integral Radiation and Nuclear Science, Kyoto University. Wires of Co/Al and Au/Al alloys were used as monitors to determine thermal-neutron fluxes and epi-thermal Westcott's indices at an irradiation position. A -ray spectroscopy was used to measure activities of Np, Np and neutron monitors. On the basis of Westcott's convention, the and I values were derived as 186.96.2 barn, and 100990 barn, respectively.

Dimension-reduced cross-section adjustment method based on minimum variance unbiased estimation

Yokoyama, Kenji; Yamamoto, Akio*; Kitada, Takanori*

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 55(3), p.319 - 334, 2018/03

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2017.1397563

A new formulation of the cross-section adjustment methodology with the dimensionality reduction technique has been derived. This new formulation is proposed as the dimension reduced cross-section adjustment method (DRCA). Since the derivation of DRCA is based on the minimum variance unbiased estimation (MVUE), an assumption of normal distribution is not required. The result of DRCA depends on a user-defined matrix that determines the dimension reduced feature subspace. We have examine three variations of DRCA, namely DRCA1, DRCA2, and DRCA3. Mathematical investigation and numerical verification have revealed that DRCA2 is equivalent to the currently widely used cross-section adjustment method. Moreover, DRCA3 is found to be identical to the cross-section adjustment method based on MVUE, which has been proposed in the previous study.