Testing of cross section libraries on zirconium benchmarks

In this paper we investigate the influence of various up-to-date nuclear data libraries, such as ENDF/B-VI.6, ENDF/B-VII.0 and JEFF 3.1, on the multiplication factor of the TRIGA benchmark with fuel made of enriched uranium and zirconium hydride and SB light-water reactor benchmarks with fuel made of fissile material in zirconium matrix. The calculations are performed with the Monte Carlo computer code MCNP. Differences of similar to 600 pcm in k(eff) are observed for the benchmark model of the TRIGA reactor, while there are practically no differences in the k(inf) of the fuel. Therefore, an investigation is performed also for hypothetical homogeneous and heterogeneous systems with different leakage. The uncertainty analysis shows that the most important contributors to the difference in k(eff) are the Zr isotopes (especially Zr-90 and Zr-91) and thermal scattering data for H and Zr in ZrH. As the differences in k(eff) due to the use of different cross section libraries are relatively large, there is certainly a need for a review of the evaluated cross section data of the zirconium isotopes. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.