Comparison of MAVRIC/Monaco and TRIPOLI-4 Simulations of the LLNL Pulsed Spheres Benchmark Experiments

T. M. Miller (1) , E. Le Menedeu (2) , D. Mancusi (2) , A. Zoia (2)

1 ORNL - Oak Ridge National Laboratory [Oak Ridge]
2 CEA-DES (ex-DEN) - CEA-Direction des Energies (ex-Direction de l'Energie Nucléaire)

Simulations of the Lawrence Livermore Pulsed Spheres with MAVRIC/Monaco and TRIPOLI-4® are presented. Both codes use ENDF/B-VII.1 cross section data, but TRIPOLI-4® also uses cross section data based on JEFF-3.1.1. The MAVRIC/Monaco simulations were performed with the SCALE 6.2.2 release while the TRIPOLI-4® simulations used an internal development version of the code. For the most part, the simulated and measured neutron counts agree within 30%. Simulated gamma flux data is compared, as well. There are no measured gamma data. The agreement between the simulated gamma flux spectra is often within 10% or less, but there some notable differences, especially when comparing simulations using ENDF/B-VII.1 and JEFF 3.1.1 based cross section data. The comparison of photon simulations suggests that improvements are needed in the cross-section data, cross section processing codes, and/or transport codes and gamma measurement data is needed for experimental validation.

Domains: Nuclear Experiment [nucl-ex]; Nuclear Theory [nucl-th]

T. M. Miller, E. Le Menedeu, D. Mancusi, A. Zoia. Comparison of MAVRIC/Monaco and TRIPOLI-4 Simulations of the LLNL Pulsed Spheres Benchmark Experiments. RPSD 2018 - 20th Topical Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division, Aug 2018, Santa Fe, United States. ⟨cea-02339097v2⟩