NEA-1486 ICSBEP2024-HANDBOOK.

ICSBEP2024-HANDBOOK.

The ICSBEP Handbook is available on Online. To obtain the access to the online version, you must submit your request using the following link: https://www.oecd-nea.org/jcms/pl_20291/international-criticality-safety-benchmark-evaluation-project-icsbep-handbook

The Criticality Safety Benchmark Evaluation Project (CSBEP) was initiated in 1992 by the United States Department of Energy (DOE). The project quickly became an international effort as scientists from other interested countries became involved. The International Criticality Safety Benchmark Evaluation Project (ICSBEP) became an official activity of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) in 1995.

This handbook contains criticality safety benchmark specifications that have been derived from experiments performed at nuclear critical facilities around the world.  The benchmark specifications are intended for use by criticality safety engineers to validate calculation techniques used to establish minimum subcritical margins for operations with fissile material and to determine criticality alarm requirement and placement. Many of the specifications are also useful for nuclear data testing. Example calculations are presented; however, these calculations do not constitute a validation of the codes or cross-section data.

The evaluated criticality safety benchmark data are presented in nine volumes. These volumes span over approximately 81 000 pages and contain 598 evaluations with benchmark specifications for 5 168 critical, near-critical or subcritical configurations, 51 criticality alarm placement/shielding configurations with multiple dose points for each, and 246 configurations which have been categorised as fundamental physics measurements that are relevant to criticality safety applications.

New to the handbook are one benchmark for fundamental physics, FUND-LLNL-DT-PE-PNDA-001, a pulsed-neutron die-away (PNDA) measurement of polyethylene and polymethyl methacrylate targets, and one critical benchmark, HEU-MET-INTER-013, a highly enriched uranium (HEU) benchmark with seven configurations that features hafnium.  This edition also includes a major update and revision to HEU-MET-FAST-028, the evaluation of the critical measurement of the HEU core for Flattop.  The cover art is from the PNDA measurement, a first of a kind benchmark for the ICSBEP handbook, completed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the United States.

Experiments that are found unacceptable for use as criticality safety benchmark experiments are discussed in these evaluations; however, benchmark specifications are not derived from such experiments (in some cases, models are provided in an appendix). Approximately 838 experimental configurations are categorised as unacceptable for use as criticality safety benchmark experiments. Additional evaluations are in progress and will be added to this handbook periodically. The handbook is organised in a manner that allows easy inclusion of additional evaluations as they become available.

Catherine Percher

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Livermore CA 94550

USA

percher1 (at) llnl.gov

William J. Marshall

Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Oak Ridge TN 37831-6170

USA

Marshallwj (at) ornl.gov

Tatiana Ivanova

OECD Nuclear Energy Agency

Division of Nuclear Science and Education

46, quai Alphonse Le Gallo

92100 Boulogne-Billancourt

France

cps-icsbep (at) oecd-nea.org

This handbook was prepared by a technical review group that benefited from the input of experienced criticality safety personnel from various countries, which have included over the years Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Czechia, France, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Poland, the Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. The handbook includes the project organisation and a list of participants by order in which countries joined the ICSBEP.