A new formulation for the Doppler broadening function relaxing the approximations of Beth-Plackzec

In all nuclear reactors some neutrons can be absorbed in the resonance region and, in the design of these reactors, an accurate treatment of the resonant absorptions is essential. Apart from that, the resonant absorption varies with fuel temperature due to the Doppler broadening of the resonances. The thermal agitation movement in the reactor core is adequately represented in the microscopic cross-section of the neutron-core interaction through the Doppler broadening function. This function is calculated numerically in modern systems for the calculation of macro-group constants, necessary to determine the power distribution of a nuclear reactor. It can also be applied to the calculation of self-shielding factors to correct the measurements of the microscopic cross-sections through the activation technique and used for the approximate calculations of the resonance integrals in heterogeneous fuel cells. In these types of application we can point at the need to develop precise analytical approximations for the Doppler broadening function to be used in the calculation codes that calculate the values of this function. However, the Doppler broadening function is based on a series of approximations proposed by Beth-Plackzec. In this work a relaxation of these approximations is proposed, generating an additional term in the form of an integral. Analytical solutions of this additional term are discussed. The results obtained show that the new term is important for high temperatures. (c) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.