Measurements of the ²³⁸U capture cross section and self-indication ratio for incident neutron energies from 5 eV to 10 keV

The Oak Ridge Electron Linear Accelerator (ORELA) was utilized as the pulsed neutron source for measurements of the ²³⁸U neutron capture cross section and self-indication ratio by the time-of-flight technique. Capture gamma rays were detected by four non-hydrogenous (C₆F₆) scintillation detectors. The incident neutron flux was monitored by a ¹⁰BF₃ ionization chamber. The cross section was normalized by the saturated resonance technique.

Extensive tests of the pulse-height weighting technique for total energy detector (TED) were performed to validate the experimental results.

The experimental results were compared with theoretical computations of the capture yield and self-indication ratio based on the neutron resonance parameters prescribed by the ENDF/B-V evaluation. It was found that the neutron capture yield and self-indication ratio measurements performed in this work validate the results of the ENDF/B-V evaluation within the bounds of the experimental uncertainties.