Nuclear data for fusion materials research

Present problems in materials research for D-T fusion reactors are briefly reviewed. The significance of nuclear data for the determination of 'standard' irradiation parameters is outlined and the status of available data is discussed. The neutron data base is reasonable in the energy range from thermal up to ∝20 MeV for displacement cross sections, gas or solid transmutation production cross sections, and dosimetry reaction cross sections. Some improvements especially in the energy range from ≅ 6-14 and above 15 MeV are, however, still needed. Since materials testing is also performed with light- and heavy-ion simulation methods, a large number of cross sections for various charged-particle-induced reactions is also required. Current comparative investigations of candidate high-intensity neutron sources for materials testing rely on various neutron data in excess of 20 MeV. For the latter two appliclations available results are rather sparce, so that more data are needed. The role of cross section systematics and nuclear model calculations in predicting unknown cross sections is adjointly discussed. (orig.)