Resumen de Neutron-induced fission cross section of 240,242Pu
Paula Genoveva Salvador Castiñeira
A recent sensitivity analysis done for the new generation of fast reactors [1] has shown the importance of improved cross section data for several actinides. Among them, the neutron-induced fission cross section of 240,242Pu requires a level of accuracy of 1-3% and 3-5%, respectively, from the current status of 6% and 20%. Moreover, nearly all the measurements in the literature have been done relative to 235U(n,f). Therefore, using other references samples such as 237Np or 238U will provide the scientific community with more valuable data. The work was carried out at the Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements (JRC-IRMM). The Van de Graaff accelerator was used for producing a quasi-monoenergetic neutron flux in the energy range of 0.3MeV to 3MeV. Protons were accelerated thanks to a potential difference. A neutron producing target was placed at the end of the beam line: 7Li(p,n)7Be or T(p,n)3He. Then, a twin Frisch-grid ionization chamber (TFGIC) was used as detector. The setup of the detector consists in a common cathode, two anodes and two grids. In the cathode the sample under study and the reference sample are placed in a back-to-back configuration. Each electrode is connected to a preamplifier, and then to a 100MHz 12 bit waveform digitizer. All raw signals are stored for an offline analysis using C++ under the ROOT framework. All the samples used were produced by the target preparation group at JRC-IRMM. The enrichment of the plutonium samples was of 99.89% for 240Pu and of 99.97% for 242Pu. The plutonium masses were chosen to minimize their alpha activity (0.8MBq for 240Pu and 0.1MBq for 242Pu). Three different reference fission cross sections were employed: 235U(n,f), 238U(n,f) and 237Np(n,f). The mass of all the reference samples used was remeasured by means of low geometry alpha counting or/and by a single grid ionization chamber. The mass uncertainty of each sample was lower than 2%. Results were obtained not only for the neutron-induced fission cross section of 240,242Pu in the region from 0.3 MeV up to 3 MeV, but for the 238U(n,f) cross section and the 237Np(n,f) cross section. The neutron flux from the Van de Graaff was characterized by means of MCNP simulations. A clear influence of the different structures between the neutron producing targets and the deposits was found, specially when the ratios measured involved a fissile sample and a threshold sample. The spontaneous fission of 240,242Pu is, as well, an important correction. Thus, this property was measured independently in this work, reaching an uncertainty lower than 1.3% for both isotopes. More corrections were due to the high electronic threshold needed to not trigger on alpha particles, the fission fragment loss due to the sample thickness, neutron emission anisotropy, etc. On average the results of the 240,242Pu(n,f) cross section are in agreement with previous experimental data, even though the trend is slightly lower than present evaluations. In the case of 242Pu(n,f) cross section the resonance-peak structure at 1.1 MeV could not be reproduced in any case. The results of the 237Np(n,f) cross section show an increase at the plateau region with respect to the ENDF/B-VII.1 evaluation in the same way as the data from Paradela (2010) [2]. The results for the 238U(n,f) cross section show a higher cross section than the ENDF evaluation but in agreement with the present JEFF 3.2 evaluation. [1] Uncertainty and target accuracy assessment for innovative systems using recent covariance data evaluations, Volume 26, 2008, OECD-NEA [2] Paradela, C. et al., Neutron-induced fission cross section of U-234 and Np-237 measured at the CERN Neutron Time-of-Flight (n_TOF) facility.,Physical Review C. 82, 3, 034601 (2010)
