IER - 551: Experiment for Unresolved Resonance of Plutonium Actinides (EUROPA): CED-1 for True Intermediate Pu Benchmark
IER-551 or the Experiment for Unresolved Resonance Of Plutonium Actinides (EUROPA), is an experiment campaign to design and execute a series of true intermediate energy plutonium critical configurations. EUROPA is a collaboration between Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and the French Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire (IRSN) to validate current and future evaluations of 239,240Pu isotopes. Preliminary designs were optimized using Particle Swarm Optimization to save on computation time and the configuration with highest percentage of intermediate neutrons causing fission found was BeO-Cd. This combination has over 70% of fissions occurring from intermediate energy neutrons. Secondary considerations regarding end benchmark uncertainties and quality of nuclear data resulted in a beryllium metal only experiment proposed as the final system. This final preliminary design achieves 68% intermediate fissions, sensitivities of fission and capture cross sections of 239Pu of 0.3021 and -0.1610 respectively.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
- DOE Contract Number:
- 89233218CNA000001
- OSTI ID:
- 1972166
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-23-24625; TRN: US2403488
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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