Resonance parameter measurements and analysis of gadolinium

Conference · Sat Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 2006

OSTI ID:22039611

Leinweber, G; Barry, D P; Trbovich, M J; Burke, J A; Drindak, N J; Knox, H D; Ballad, R V ^[1]; Block, R C; Danon, Y; Severnyak, L I ^[2]

---

1. KAPL Inc., Lockheed Martin Corp., P.O. Box 1072, Schenectady, NY 12301-1072 (United States)
2. Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., Dept. of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering, Troy, NY 12180-3590 (United States)

The purpose of the present work is to measure the neutron cross sections of gadolinium accurately. Gd has the highest thermal absorption cross section of any natural element. Therefore it is an important element for thermal reactor applications Neutron capture and transmission measurements were performed by the time-of-flight technique at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst. (RPI) LINAC facility using metallic and liquid Gd samples. The liquid samples were isotopically-enriched in either {sup 155}Gd or {sup 157}Gd. The capture measurements were made at the 25-m flight station with a sodium iodide detector, and the transmission measurements were performed at 15- and 25-m flight stations with {sup 6}Li glass scintillation detectors. The multilevel R-matrix Bayesian code SAMMY was used to extract resonance parameters. The results of the thermal region analysis are significant. Resonance parameters for the low energy doublet, at 0.025 and 0.032 eV, are presented. The thermal (2200 m/s) capture cross section of {sup 157}Gd has been measured to be 11% smaller than that calculated from ENDF/B-VI updated through release 8. Thermal capture cross sections and capture resonance integrals for each isotope as well as elemental gadolinium are presented. In the epithermal region, natural metal samples were measured in capture and transmission. Neutron interaction data up to 300 eV have been analyzed. Substantial improvement to the understanding of gadolinium cross sections is presented, particularly above 180 eV where the ENDF resolved region for {sup 155}Gd ends. (authors)

• Research Organization: American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
• OSTI ID: 22039611
• Resource Relation: Conference: PHYSOR-2006: American Nuclear Society's Topical Meeting on Reactor Physics - Advances in Nuclear Analysis and Simulation, Vancouver, BC (Canada), 10-14 Sep 2006; Other Information: Country of input: France; 18 refs.
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS
46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
CAPTURE
CROSS SECTIONS
EV RANGE
GADOLINIUM
GADOLINIUM 155
GADOLINIUM 157
LI-DRIFTED SI DETECTORS
LINEAR ACCELERATORS
LITHIUM 6
NAI DETECTORS
NEUTRON REACTIONS
NUCLEAR DATA COLLECTIONS
R MATRIX
RESONANCE
RESONANCE INTEGRALS
TIME-OF-FLIGHT METHOD