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NCSD provides communication among nuclear criticality safety professionals through the development of standards, the evolution of training methods and materials, the presentation of technical data and procedures, and the creation of specialty publications. In these ways, the division furthers the exchange of technical information on nuclear criticality safety with the ultimate goal of promoting the safe handling of fissionable materials outside reactors.
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A more open future for nuclear research
A growing number of institutional, national, and funder mandates are requiring researchers to make their published work immediately publicly accessible, through either open repositories or open access (OA) publications. In addition, both private and public funders are developing policies, such as those from the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the European Commission, that ask researchers to make publicly available at the time of publication as much of their underlying data and other materials as possible. These, combined with movement in the scientific community toward embracing open science principles (seen, for example, in the dramatic rise of preprint servers like arXiv), demonstrate a need for a different kind of publishing outlet.
Itacil C. Gomes, Donald L. Smith, Edward T. Cheng
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 34 | Number 3 | November 1998 | Pages 706-713
Neutronics Experiments and Analysis | doi.org/10.13182/FST98-A11963697
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Current designs of fusion-reactor systems seek to use radiation-resistant, low-activation materials that support long service lifetimes and minimize radioactive-waste problems after decommissioning. Reliable assessment of fusion materials performance requires accurate neutron-reaction cross sections and radioactive-decay constants. The problem areas usually involve cross sections since decay parameters tend to be better known. The present study was motivated by two specific questions: i) Why are the 51V(n,np)50Ti cross section values in the ENDF/B-VI library so large (a gas production issue)? ii) How well known are the cross sections associated with producing 7.4times105 y 26Al in silicon carbide by the process 28Si(n,np+d)27Al(n,2n)26Al (a long-lived radioactivity issue)? The energy range 14–15 MeV of the D-T fusion neutrons is emphasized. Cross-section error bars are needed so that uncertainties in the gas and radioactivity generated over the lifetime of a reactor can be estimated. We address this issue by comparing values obtained from prominent evaluated cross-section libraries. Small differences between independent evaluations indicate that a physical quantity is well known while the opposite signals a problem. Hydrogen from 51V(n,p)51Ti and helium from 51V(n,α)48Sc are also important sources of gas in vanadium, so they too were examined. We conclude that 51V(n,p)51Ti is adequately known but 51V(n,np+d)50Ti is not. The status for helium generation data is quite good. Due to recent experimental work, 27Al(n,2n)26Al seems to be fairly well known. However, the situation for 28Si(n,np+d)27Al remains unsatisfactory.
