An integral experiment on thorium oxide/depleted uranium cylinders with D-T neutrons for 232Th(n, 2n) reaction

In order to verify the evaluated cross sections of 232Th(n, 2n) reaction for the conceptual design of the thorium based subcritical blanket in the fusion-fission hybrid reactor, an integral experiment on thorium oxide/depleted uranium cylinders was carried out with D-T neutrons using the activation technique. 232Th(n, 2n) reaction rate distribution was obtained at the central axis direction in the assemblies with an uncertainty of about 7%. Experiments were analyzed by using MCNP code with ENDF/B-VI.8, ENDF/B-VII.0, JENDL-4.0 and CENDL-3.1 libraries to validate the nuclear data libraries of 232Th(n, 2n) reaction, the calculated results with JENDL-4.0 agree with the measurements the best with discrepancies within the experimental uncertainty. The average values of C/E for the three benchmark assemblies are 1.058, 1.044 and 0.980. Calculations with different evaluated libraries in the benchmark assemblies show a large discrepancy. The experimental results can be used to re-evaluate the cross sections of the 232Th(n, 2n) reaction.