Preliminary assessment of Geant4 HP models and cross section libraries by reactor criticality benchmark calculations

Geant4 is an open source general purpose simulation toolkit for particle transportation in matter. Since the extension of the thermal scattering model in Geant4.9.5 and the availability of the IAEA HP model cross section libraries, it is now possible to extend the application area of Geant4 to reactor modelling. Before version 9.5, Geant4 HP thermal scattering model (i.e. the S(α; β) model ) supports only three bounded isotopes, namely, H in water and polyethylene, and C in graphite. Newly supported materials include D in heavy water, O and Be in beryllium oxide, H and Zr in zirconium hydride, U and O in uranium dioxide, Al metal, Be metal, and Fe metal. The native HP cross section library G4NDL does not include data for elements with atomic number larger than 92. Therefore, transuranic elements, which have impacts for a realistic reactor, can not be simulated by the combination of the HP models and the G4NDL library. However, cross sections of those missing isotopes were made available recently through the IAEA project “new evaluated neutron cross section libraries for Geant4”.