Additions to the icsbep and irphep handbooks since NCSD 2013

Innumerable experiments have been performed worldwide to support criticality safety activities. Those experiments represent significant investments in cost, expertise, and infrastructure; as such, they represent valuable assets as the basis for recording, development, and validation of methods and nuclear data vital for modern and future criticality safety needs. Preservation and evaluation of these experimental data as benchmarks serves to provide for the best interest of the nuclear criticality safety community. High-quality integral benchmark experiments have always been a priority. There is ever growing interest in developing integral benchmark data to increasingly quantify and reduce calculational uncertainties to meet the demands of future criticality safety needs supporting next generation reactors and advanced fuel cycle concepts. The importance of drawing upon existing benchmark data is becoming more apparent because of dwindling availability of critical facilities worldwide and the high cost of performing new experiments. Integral benchmark data from the International Handbook of Evaluated Criticality Safety Benchmark Experiments (ICSBEP Handbook) and the International Handbook of Reactor Physics Benchmark Experiments (IRPhEP Handbook) are widely utilized. Significant benchmark data have been added to those two handbooks since the last Nuclear Criticality Safety Division Topical Meeting in Wilmington, North Carolina (September-October 2013). This paper highlights those additions. The 2016 edition of the ICSBEP Handbook now includes data for 570 evaluations containing benchmark specifications for 4,913 critical, subcritical, or near-critical configurations, representing contributions from over 20 countries. There are a total of seven criticality-alarm-placement/shielding evaluations containing a total of 45 benchmark configurations, and eight fundamental physics benchmark evaluations containing a total of 215 measurements relevant to criticality safety applications. The IRPhEP Handbook now includes data from 151 experimental series (representing 50 reactor facilities) and also represents contributions from over 20 countries. Of the 151 benchmarks, five are draft contributions. Both the ICSBEP and IRPhEP are collaborative efforts that involve numerous scientists, engineers, and administrative support personnel worldwide. Continued contribution to these handbooks is expected to further provide the high-quality benchmark data necessary to compliment criticality safety activities going forward.