Space, energy and anisotropy effects on 238U effective capture cross sections in the resonance region

Agreement between calculations and measurements within prescribed limits of error is always the test of engineering design analysis. Large and puzzling discrepancies do exist between several measured and calculated important integral reactor parameters. A thorough and exhaustive investigation of the methods used in reactor analysis revealed that in the generation of effective resonance cross sections no anisotropy effects are considered in the resonances. This is true in the integral transport and fundamental-mode codes. The neglect of anisotropy introduces errors at two levels: (1) the effective group cross sections such as σsub(c), σsub(f) and σsub(s); and (2) the diffusion coefficients and P1 and higher components of the scattering cross sections. The study showed that the inclusion of linear scattering anisotropy increases, in general, the cell effective capture cross section of 238U in both ZPR-6/5 and TRX-3 reactors. The increase was up to 2% in TRX-3 and 0.5% in ZPR-6/5. The effect on the multiplication factor was -0.003% Δk/k for ZPR-6/5 and -0.05% Δk/k for TRX-3. (author)