Experimental Neutron-Induced Fission Fragment Mass Yields of 232Th and 238U at Energies from 10 to 33 MeV

TL;DR

This study measures neutron-induced fission fragment mass yields of 232Th and 238U across 10 to 33 MeV, providing new experimental data crucial for nuclear energy applications and comparing results with existing data and models.

Contribution

It presents new measurements of fission fragment mass yields at lower neutron energies, expanding the existing data set for actinides in this energy range.

Findings

Data at 10-33 MeV neutron energies are now available.

Comparison with theoretical models shows good agreement.

Provides insights into fission fragment distributions at low energies.

Abstract

Development of nuclear energy applications requires data for neutron-induced reactions for actinides in a wide neutron energy range. Here we describe measurements of pre-neutron emission fission fragment mass yields of 232Th and 238U at incident neutron energies from 10 to 33 MeV. The measurements were done at the quasi-monoenergetic neutron beam of the Louvain-la-Neuve cyclotron facility CYCLONE; a multi-section twin Frisch-gridded ionization chamber was used to detect fission fragments. For the peak neutron energies at 33, 45 and 60 MeV, the details of the data analysis and the experimental results have been published before and in this work we present data analysis in the low-energy tail of the neutron energy spectra. The preliminary measurement results are compared with available experimental data and theoretical predictions.