Building neutron cross-section dependencies for few-group reactor calculations using stepwise regression

As an example, approximation of a set of two-group macro and micro cross-sections as functions of burnup, coolant and fuel temperature, coolant density and boron concentration is considered for a fuel pin cell of a VVER reactor. The constructed five-dimensional polynomial approximating cross-sections within 0.05% tolerance has about 20 terms for fast group cross-sections and 50 terms for thermal group cross-sections. The error of approximation is verified on the two data sets: the initial data used for approximation and the test data being computed on randomly selected points. Mean square and maximum errors are comparable for all the cross-sections for both sets of data. These results show that the initial data can be applied to control the approximation error.