Testing actinide fission yield treatment in CINDER90 for use in MCNP6 burnup calculations

Fensin, Michael Lorne; Umbel, Marissa

doi:10.1016/j.pnucene.2015.09.001

Title: Testing actinide fission yield treatment in CINDER90 for use in MCNP6 burnup calculations

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Abstract

Most of the development of the MCNPX/6 burnup capability focused on features that were applied to the Boltzman transport or used to prepare coefficients for use in CINDER90, with little change to CINDER90 or the CINDER90 data. Though a scheme exists for best solving the coupled Boltzman and Bateman equations, the most significant approximation is that the employed nuclear data are correct and complete. Thus, the CINDER90 library file contains 60 different actinide fission yields encompassing 36 fissionable actinides (thermal, fast, high energy and spontaneous fission). Fission reaction data exists for more than 60 actinides and as a result, fission yield data must be approximated for actinides that do not possess fission yield information. Several types of approximations are used for estimating fission yields for actinides which do not possess explicit fission yield data. The objective of this study is to test whether or not certain approximations of fission yield selection have any impact on predictability of major actinides and fission products. Further we assess which other fission products, available in MCNP6 Tier 3, result in the largest difference in production. Because the CINDER90 library file is in ASCII format and therefore easily amendable, we assess reasons for choosing, asmore »« less

Authors:

Fensin, Michael Lorne ^[1]; Umbel, Marissa ^[1]

Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Publication Date:: Fri Sep 18 00:00:00 EDT 2015

Research Org.:: Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Sponsoring Org.:: USDOE

OSTI Identifier:: 1227718

Report Number(s):: LA-UR-15-21831
Journal ID: ISSN 0149-1970; PII: S0149197015300664; TRN: US1600474

Grant/Contract Number:: AC52-06NA25396

Resource Type:: Accepted Manuscript

Journal Name:: Progress in Nuclear Energy

Additional Journal Information:: Journal Volume: 85; Journal Issue: C; Journal ID: ISSN 0149-1970

Publisher:: Elsevier

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

Subject:: 11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS; 73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS; MCNP6; CINDER90; fission yield; burnup

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                    Fensin, Michael Lorne, and Umbel, Marissa. Testing actinide fission yield treatment in CINDER90 for use in MCNP6 burnup calculations.  United States: N. p., 2015. 
Web.  doi:10.1016/j.pnucene.2015.09.001.

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                    Fensin, Michael Lorne, & Umbel, Marissa. Testing actinide fission yield treatment in CINDER90 for use in MCNP6 burnup calculations.  United States.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pnucene.2015.09.001

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                    Fensin, Michael Lorne, and Umbel, Marissa. Fri .  
"Testing actinide fission yield treatment in CINDER90 for use in MCNP6 burnup calculations".  United States.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pnucene.2015.09.001.  https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1227718.

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@article{osti_1227718,

  title        = {Testing actinide fission yield treatment in CINDER90 for use in MCNP6 burnup calculations},

  author       = {Fensin, Michael Lorne and Umbel, Marissa},

  abstractNote = {Most of the development of the MCNPX/6 burnup capability focused on features that were applied to the Boltzman transport or used to prepare coefficients for use in CINDER90, with little change to CINDER90 or the CINDER90 data. Though a scheme exists for best solving the coupled Boltzman and Bateman equations, the most significant approximation is that the employed nuclear data are correct and complete. Thus, the CINDER90 library file contains 60 different actinide fission yields encompassing 36 fissionable actinides (thermal, fast, high energy and spontaneous fission). Fission reaction data exists for more than 60 actinides and as a result, fission yield data must be approximated for actinides that do not possess fission yield information. Several types of approximations are used for estimating fission yields for actinides which do not possess explicit fission yield data. The objective of this study is to test whether or not certain approximations of fission yield selection have any impact on predictability of major actinides and fission products. Further we assess which other fission products, available in MCNP6 Tier 3, result in the largest difference in production. Because the CINDER90 library file is in ASCII format and therefore easily amendable, we assess reasons for choosing, as well as compare actinide and major fission product prediction for the H. B. Robinson benchmark for, three separate fission yield selection methods: (1) the current CINDER90 library file method (Base); (2) the element method (Element); and (3) the isobar method (Isobar). Results show that the three methods tested result in similar prediction of major actinides, Tc-99 and Cs-137; however, certain fission products resulted in significantly different production depending on the method of choice.},

  doi          = {10.1016/j.pnucene.2015.09.001},

  journal      = {Progress in Nuclear Energy},

  number       = C,

  volume       = 85,

  place        = {United States},

  year         = {Fri Sep 18 00:00:00 EDT 2015},

  month        = {Fri Sep 18 00:00:00 EDT 2015}

}

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