Benchmarking of HEU mental annuli critical assemblies with internally reflected graphite cylinder

¹ Institute of Nuclear Physics and Chemistry, CAEP, PO Box 919–210, Mianyang, Sichuan 621900, China
² Idaho National Laboratory, PO Box 1625, MS 3855, Idaho Falls, Idaho 83415, USA

^a e-mail: liu_express11@yahoo.com

Published online: 13 September 2017

Abstract

Three experimental configurations of critical assemblies, performed in 1963 at the Oak Ridge Critical Experiment Facility, which are assembled using three different diameter HEU annuli (15-9 inches, 15-7 inches and 13-7 inches) metal annuli with internally reflected graphite cylinder are evaluated and benchmarked. The experimental uncertainties which are 0.00057, 0.00058 and 0.00057 respectively, and biases to the benchmark models which are − 0.00286, − 0.00242 and − 0.00168 respectively, were determined, and the experimental benchmark k_eff results were obtained for both detailed and simplified models. The calculation results for both detailed and simplified models using MCNP6-1.0 and ENDF/B-VII.1 agree well to the benchmark experimental results within difference less than 0.2%. The benchmarking results were accepted for the inclusion of ICSBEP Handbook.