Evaluation of Thermal Neutron Scattering Cross Sections for CaH₂

Conference · Tue Jun 15 04:00:00 EDT 2021 · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society

DOI:https://doi.org/10.13182/T124-35630· OSTI ID:1902128

Laramee, B. K. ^[1]; Hawari, A. I. ^[1]

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1. North Carolina State Univ., Raleigh, NC (United States)

Solid metal hydrides have long been considered viable moderators for nuclear reactor designs due to their moderating ratios, hydrogen densities, high dissociation temperatures, and mechanical properties. CaH₂ is an orthorhombic saline-hydride that has recently been investigated and shows promise for use as a moderator in microreactors. At present, there is no Thermal Scatting Law (TSL) evaluation for CaH₂ in the ENDF/B-VIII.0 database. An evaluation does exist in the JEFF-3.3 database, performed by Serot, however it was limited by the implemented methods and thus both drastically over-predicts the incoherent elastic contribution and completely ignores the coherent elastic contribution to scattering from the metal ions. The thermal neutron scattering cross sections of CaH₂ are evaluated in this work to establish accurate data for use in reactor design. The present evaluation corrects the inaccuracies of the JEFF-3.3 data, and yields three distinct libraries: Ca in CaH₂, H₁ in CaH₂, and H₂ in CaH₂.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP)
• DOE Contract Number: AC52-07NA27344
• OSTI ID: 1902128
• Conference Information: Journal Name: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society Journal Issue: 1 Journal Volume: 124
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS
Ca in CaH2
H1 in CaH2
H2 in CaH2
Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP)
Nuclear Data
Thermal Scatting Law (TSL)