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Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
A. J. Koning, M. C. Duijvestijn, S. C. van der Marck, R. Klein Meulekamp, A. Hogenbirk
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 156 | Number 3 | July 2007 | Pages 357-390
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE156-357
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
New ENDF-6 formatted nuclear data libraries are presented for 204,206,207,208Pb and 209Bi, for incident neutrons and protons. Apart from the resonance range, which we have adopted from the best available source in existing libraries, the nuclear data evaluations are completely revised in the 0 to 20 MeV energy range and moreover extend up to 200 MeV. This collection of isotopic evaluations is created by using the nuclear model code TALYS with a consistent set of input parameters for all isotopes. The most important nuclear reaction models and parameters needed for our data files are described. We have intended to make these evaluations complete in their description of reaction channels, and use a consistent method to store the data in ENDF-6 format, which includes cross sections, angular distributions, double-differential spectra, discrete and continuum photon production cross sections, and residual production (activation) cross sections including isomers. It is shown that the data present in our libraries give an improved agreement with existing basic experimental data. Moreover, we have validated the new libraries with criticality and shielding benchmarks, where available. We present the results of neutronics calculations on subcritical accelerator-driven systems to show the impact of our new nuclear data on critical reactor parameters, such as keff, when compared with the existing ENDF/B-VI, JENDL, and JEFF libraries.