New JEFF-3.2 sodium neutron induced cross-sections evaluation for neutron fast reactors applications: from 0 to 20 MeV

Abstract

In the framework of the ASTRID project, a new 23Na evaluation, containing re-evaluated nuclear data and associated covariances, has been prepared to be submitted for the future JEFF-3.2 library. This work has been motivated mainly because the current JEFF-3.1.1 sodium evaluation showed large differences with microscopic measurements and does not have covariances data. Recent experimental data from IRMM and high resolution measurements from Larson have been simultaneously analyzed with the data assimilation code CONRAD and a good agreement with the evaluated cross-sections has been achieved. Experimental systematic uncertainties have been propagated to the nuclear reaction model parameters in order to produce a coherent set of covariance data. Several figures are provided in this paper to illustrate the new features of this evaluation.