RSICC DATA PACKAGE DLC-211

1. NAME AND TITLE OF DATA LIBRARY

UTXS6: MCNP Continuous-Energy Neutron Cross Section Libraries for Temperatures from 300 to 1365 K.

2. NAME AND TITLE OF DATA RETRIEVAL PROGRAMS

None included.

3. CONTRIBUTOR

The University of Texas, Austin, Texas.

4. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND AND INFORMATION

The need for cross section libraries for various materials at different temperatures arose during the benchmark activities related to mixed oxide fuel (MOX) utilization in existing light water reactors, which is one of the options being considered for weapons graded plutonium disposition. UTXS was developed to address this need. The current version, UTXS6, is based on ENDF/B-VI except for Zinc and Erbium for which the Russian (BROND-2) and the Chinese (CENDL-2) libraries were used.

The UTXS6 library went through preliminary testing and validation. The validation process consisted of three steps: checking the library structure, plotting comparison with standard cross sections from Los Alamos National Laboratory, and benchmarking against ENDF60 and experimental data.

The UTXS6 library was benchmarked against ENDF60 and experimental data for some nuclides. Experiments from the "International Handbook of Evaluated Criticality Safety Benchmark Experiments" (NEA/NSC/DOC(95) 1997) were used along with MCNP input files supplied with the electronic copy. Benchmark calculations were done with MCNP4B on SUN workstation.

5. APPLICATION OF THE DATA

UTXS is a project whereby continuous-energy cross section libraries in ACE format suitable for the MCNP code were generated using the NJOY94.105 processing code. Libraries for various materials were generated at typical operating temperatures of the US Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR), Boiling Water Reactor (BWR), and the Russian PWR (VVER) as well as libraries for other non-reactor applications such as nuclear medicine.

6. SOURCE AND SCOPE OF DATA

The library contains isotopes/natural elements, including fission products, processed for up to nineteen temperatures: 300 K, 450K, 479K, 500 K, 558K, 560 K, 570K, 579K, 600K, 620K, 755K, 833K, 900K, 920K, 1027K, 1100 K, 1145K, 1154K, and 1365K.

7. DISCUSSION OF THE DATA RETRIEVAL PROGRAM

MAKSF, which is distributed with CCC-700/MCNP4C, can be used to convert MCNP Type 1 data to Type 2 (binary).

8. DATA FORMAT AND COMPUTER

ASCII card images; Unix workstation (D00211MNYCP00).

The UTXS library distribution was prepared on a Unix system. On a Windows-based PC, one may use utilities such as WinZip(R) to unzip and extract the library files.

9. TYPICAL RUNNING TIME

The ASCII-to-binary conversion can generally be accomplished within a few seconds, even for the large data files.

10. REFERENCES

a. Documentation available with library

Readme.txt.

M. S. Abdelrahman and N. M. Abdurrahman, "Cross Section Libraries for Studies of Plutonium Disposition in Light Water Reactors," ANRCP-1999-28 (October 1999).

b. Other useful documentation

J. F. Briesmeister, Ed., "MCNP - A General Monte Carlo N-Particle Transport Code, Version 4C," LA-13709-M (April 2000).

11. CONTENTS OF LIBRARY

Included are the referenced documents in 10.a and a 610MB tar file which includes the data libraries in GNU compressed files and xsdir, which is transmitted on either a CD-ROM or cartridge tape. The uncompressed ASCII files are about 1.6 GB.

12. DATE OF ABSTRACT

April 2001.

KEYWORDS: REACTION CROSS SECTIONS; DOSIMETRY CROSS SECTIONS; MCNP FORMAT; FISSION PRODUCT CROSS SECTIONS