International Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Engineering Volume 4 Issue 3, September 2014

doi: 10.14355/ijnese.2014.0403.03

www.ijnese.org

Fission Product Decay Heat Calculations for

Thermal Neutron Fission of 235U
Pham Ngoc Son
Nuclear Research Institute, 01-Nguyen Tu Luc, Dalat, Vietnam
pnson.nri@gmail.com
Abstract
Precise information of the decay heat from fission products
following times after a fission reaction is necessary for safety
designs and operations of nuclear power reactors, fuel
storage, transport flasks, and for spent fuel management and
processing. In this study, an efficient computation procedure
has been applied for exact calculation of the decay heat of
fission products for times following a thermal neutron
fission reaction of 235U.
Keywords
Fission Product Concentrations; Nuclear Decay Heat

Introduction
In a fission reaction, fission products (FPs) are formed
with initial concentration known as independent
fission yield, but this data still change following time
after fission events. This is mainly because of the
natural decay of radioactive fission products. In
nuclear science and technology, the distribution of
concentrations of fission products as functions of
cooling time are the key nuclear data required in
aggregate decay heat calculations for designs and
operations of nuclear power reactors, fuel storage,
transport flasks, and for spent fuel management and
processing (Nichols, 2002; Oyamatsu, 1999). Gamma
and beta decay energies released from natural decay of
the fission products (FP) contributes approximately
7% to 12% of the total energy generated through the
fission process, called Decay Heat. After a reactor is
shutdown, this source of radioactive decay energy still
remains and increase cumulatively that necessary to
apply a heat removal system for maintaining the
safety level of heating in the reactor core.
In this study, the numerical calculation code DHP (Son
and Katakura, 2007) was applied for calculation of
fission products decay heat data for thermal neutron
fission of 235U. The method used in this calculation is
numerical analysis, in which the build-up and decay
of FP nuclides are analysed by exactly analysis of the
general solutions of the Batemans Equations (Tobias,

1980) for every full complex decay chain. Based on the

decay and fission yield data from JENDL 4.0 (Shibata,
et al., 2011), the concentration of each FP nuclidee is
determined as functions of cooling time after a fission
burst. The computational algorithm used in code DHP
has been improved for solving the difficulty of the
solutions for a complex systems of decay-chain.
Analysis of Decay and Build-up Numbers
The number of ith nuclide at cooling time t after a
fission burst can be calculated from the following
equation:
M

=
N
N i (0) exp(i t ) + N j i (t )
i (t )
j i

(1)

in which, Ni(0) is equal to the independent fission

yield of the ith nuclide; the component of Nj->i(t) is the
build-up number of nuclide ith at cooling time t, that
was formed in the system of decay chains originated
from the nuclide jth. This term of build-up number can
be obtained by the general solutions of the Batemans
equation for every particular linear decay chain. In this
work, we developed a numerical algorithm to
calculate the term of Nji(t) in equation (1) directly by
using the decay and fission yield data from JENDL
(Shibata, et al., 2011) and/or ENSDF (Bhat, 1992)
libraries. The calculation procedure is generalized as
the following steps:
For every nuclide jth, the decay net that started from
the nuclide jth is separated to form equivalent subbranchs of linear decay chains.
For each linear decay chain, if nuclide ith is a daughter
nuclide in the decay chain, apply the general solution
of Batemans equation to calculate the build up
number of nuclide ith due to the decay of nuclide jth
through the current linear decay chain, as of the
cooling time t.
The amount of Nji(t) can be obtained by summing all
of the build-up numbers of nuclide ith from all of the

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International Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Engineering Volume 4 Issue 3, September 2014

linear decay chains in which the build-up numbers is

calculated by apply the general solution of Batemans
equation (Tobias, 1980) for every liner decay branch in
a differential period of time t. Let consider to a linear
decay branch of n nuclides:

ENSDF and independent fission yields extracted from

JENDL 4.0.

N1 N 2 N 3 ...N i ...N n
The build-up number of nuclide Ni due to the decay of
nuclide Ni-1 is calculated by the differential equation:
dN i (t )
i 1 N i 1 (t ) i N i (t )
=
dt

(2)

In case of {Nj(t) 0 and all of the remain nuclides

N1,2,...j-1,j+1,...i,....m(t) = 0 at t = 0}, the solution of build-up
number for Ni(t) contributed from nuclide Nj at t > 0 is
express as:
i

N j i (t ) = Cm e
m= j

m t

(3)

i 1

Cm =

Beta Decay Average Energies Calculations

k= j
i

(k m )

(4)

.N j (0)

k= j
k m

In general case of {Nj(t) 0 ; j= 1, 2, 3, ... n at t = 0}, the

total build-up number of time dependent Ni(t), at t > 0,
contributed from all of other nuclides in a liner decay
branch can be estimated as the following general
expression.

t
i i 1
i

e
N j i (t ) = N l (0) i

j =l 1 =
k =l
m l (q m )
q =l

qm

(5)

A computational procedure for exact calculation of the

time dependent distribution of fission product
concentration, Ni(t), has been developed and
integrated in the DHP code. In this calculations, all of
decay chains and decay modes including - decay to
ground, fist and second isomer states, double - decay,
electron capture decay to ground and isomer states,
alpha decay, delay neutron - decay, and internal
transitions in the fission product system are taken into
consider in this computational procedure. The block
diagram of the DHP computational algorithm and
window interface are shown in Figure 2 and Figure 3,
respectively. The results of distribution calculation for
concentration of several fission product nuclides for
times after thermal neutron fission reaction of 235U are
shown in Figure 1, in which decay characteristics were
extracted from evaluated nuclear structure data file
76

FIGURE 1: CALCULATED CONCENTRATIONS FOR SELECTED

FISSION PRODUCTS, DISTRIBUTION FOLLOWING TIME AFTER
A THERMAL NEUTRON FISSION OF 235U

The average energy information of beta and gamma

rays released from beta decay of individual fission
product are the most important quantities for nuclear
decay heat summation calculations. The expressions
for average beta and gamma ray energies based on the
Gross theory of beta decay (Katakura, 2001; Yoshida,
1986) were applied in these calculations.
E =
0

Eg +1

T1/ 2 S ( E ) mc 2 ( E 1) pE ( Eg + 1 E ) 2 F ( E )dEdEg

(6)
E =
0

Eg +1

T1/ 2 S ( E )mc 2 (Q + Eg )

pE ( Eg + 1 E ) 2 F ( E )dEdEg

(7)
where: F(E) stands for the Fermi function. Eg is related
to the excitation energy Ei as Eg = -(Ei -1); m, p and c
denote for electron rest mass, electron momentum and
light velocity, respectively. The beta strength function
S(E) can be determined from the beta feeding function
I(E) as the following formula:
S ( E ) =

I (E)
f ( Z , Q E ).T1/ 2

(8)

f(Z, Q-E) is the integrated Fermi function. Q, E and

T1/2 are the beta decay energy, excitation energy in the
daughter nuclide and the beta decay half-life,
respectively. The function I(E) can be systematically

International Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Engineering Volume 4 Issue 3, September 2014

normalized based on the beta branching intensities

adopted from the ENSDF data file, or experimentally
derived from measured distributions of beta decay

www.ijnese.org

intensity. The calculated results of average beta and

gamma energies from beta decay for several selected
fission product nuclide are shown in Table 1.

FIGURE 2 THE BLOCK DIAGRAM OF THE COMPUTATIONAL PROCEDURE

FIGURE 3 THE WIMDOW INTERFACE OF DHP PROGRAM

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International Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Engineering Volume 4 Issue 3, September 2014

TABLE 1 THE CALCULATED AVERAGE BETA AND GAMMA ENERGIES FOR SELECTED NUCLIDE
(a) Calculated

Nuclide
Rb-89
Rb-90
Rb-90m
Rb-91
Rb-93
Sr-93
Sr-94
Sr-95
Y-94
Y-95
Cs-138
Cs-138m
Cs-139
Cs-140
Cs-141
Ba-141
Ba-142
Ba-143
Ba-144
Ba-145
La-142
La-143
La-144
La-145
Ce-145
Ce-146
Ce-147
Ce-148
Pr-146
Pr-147
Pr-148
Pr-148m
Pr-149
Pr-151
Nd-149
Nd-151
Nd-153
Nd-154
Nd-155
Pm-152
Pm-153
Pm-154
Pm-155
Pm-156
Pm-157
Sm-157
Sm-158
Eu-158

Q (MeV)

T1/2 (s)

4.496
6.587
6.696
5.891
7.462
4.137
3.508
6.087
4.917
4.453
5.374
5.457
4.213
6.22
5.251
3.213
2.211
4.246
3.119
4.923
4.503
3.426
5.541
4.108
2.535
1.026
3.29
2.06
4.169
2.686
4.932
5.05
3.397
4.102
1.691
2.442
3.336
2.735
4.222
3.505
1.881
4.044
3.224
5.155
4.514
2.734
1.999
3.485

909.0
158.0
265.0
58.4
5.84
445.0
75.2
23.9
1120
618.0
2010.0
916.0
556.0
63.7
24.9
1100
636
14.3
11.5
4.31
5470.0
848.0
40.8
24.8
181.0
811.0
56.4
56.0
1450.0
804.0
136.0
121.0
136.0
18.9
6220.0
746.0
32.0
25.9
8.9
246.0
324.0
104.0
48.0
61.9
27.69
482.0
331.0
2750.0

(b) Calculation

with I(E) from experimental

intensities (TAGS)

E (MeV)

E (MeV)

E (MeV)

E (MeV)

0.9970
2.0512
1.4047
1.6930
2.5226
0.8197
0.8388
2.2151
1.8072
1.4465
1.2428
0.2700
1.6567
1.9708
2.0171
0.9224
0.3740
1.2924
0.9837
1.4714
0.8682
2.9339
1.3639
1.5014
0.6366
0.2543
1.4929
0.5635
1.3294
0.7493
1.6738
1.6659
0.9161
1.8861
0.5097
0.5926
1.1675
0.8878
1.5925
1.3034
0.6669
0.8482
2.7903
1.3029
1.4396
0.908
0.5167
0.8503

2.2981
1.9996
3.2281
2.6675
2.225
2.2709
1.4503
1.1534
0.7987
1.1285
2.3646
0.4122
0.3406
1.7946
0.8087
0.8679
1.0852
1.207
0.6239
0.3368
2.2952
0.3468
2.3128
0.6509
0.8047
0.3647
0.2469
0.3416
0.9969
0.6836
0.9697
0.9128
1.0003
1.5435
0.4342
0.8546
0.3636
0.4842
1.4987
0.3387
0.1311
1.7520
0.5935
1.7765
0.7605
0.5180
0.5947
1.2892

0.9303
1.9060
1.0811
1.3739
2.1544
0.7860
0.8309
1.8928
1.8111
1.3793
1.2223
0.2565
1.6487
1.8399
1.5002
0.9125
0.4032
1.1835
0.9253
1.2999
0.8184
1.2238
0.9867
0.7752
0.6268
0.2164
0.6905
0.5908
1.2839
0.6715
1.3111
1.1289
0.8588
1.1181
0.4585
0.5763
1.1348
0.8573
1.0859
1.2696
0.6582
0.8527
1.0710
1.2024
1.5430
0.8549
0.5155
0.8241

2.2313
2.2712
3.9332
2.6876
2.5402
2.1724
1.4380
1.7990
0.7875
1.2471
2.4047
0.4211
0.3451
1.9520
1.7041
0.9108
1.0736
1.3595
0.7921
1.7954
2.4434
0.4618
3.0789
2.1097
0.8665
0.3520
1.4939
0.4598
1.0685
0.9207
1.7841
2.2984
1.3145
1.3521
0.4109
0.8939
0.5452
0.5466
1.5365
0.4149
0.1329
1.8657
0.5639
2.2048
0.8389
0.5558
0.5936
1.3656

The average energies shown in Table 1 are calculate in

two cases: (a) calculated based on the input data of
branching intensities extracted from the ENSDF data
files. (b) calculated from the experimental beta decay
intensities measured by Greenwood et al. (1997) in

78

with I(E) from ENSDF

which a total absorption gamma-rays spectrometer

(TAGS) was used; TAGS is an efficient experimental
method for average energies determinations, that
overcome the problem of pandemonium effects
(Hardy, 1977).

International Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Engineering Volume 4 Issue 3, September 2014

Results of Calculations
The summation model for decay heat calculations is as
the following function:
M

f (t ) = Ei i N i (t ) ,
i =1

(9)

where: M denotes the maximum number of FP

nuclides; Ei = Ei + Ei stands for the mean energy per
decay of the ith nuclide, i the decay constant, Ni(t) the
corresponding concentration function for cooling time
t. f(t) is the burst function of decay heat
(MeV/Fission/s). The physical quantity equal to t*f(t) is
called decay heat power function (MeV/Fission).
In this work, the JENDL FP Decay Data File 2011
(Katakura, 2011) and fission yield data file from
JENDL 4.0 have been applied for calculations of fission
product concentrations as functions of cooling time
after thermal neutron fission reactions of 235U.
Accordingly, the distribution functions of fission
product concentrations are adopted in decay heat
calculations for thermal neutron fission reaction of
235U. The results of calculations for t*f(t) as a function
of times after fission burst are shown in Table 2 and
Figure 4 in comparison with measured values (Dicken
et al., 1982; Akizama et al., 1980).

5.00E+03
7.00E+03
9.00E+03
1.50E+04
2.50E+04
4.00E+04
6.00E+04
8.00E+04
1.00E+05
2.00E+05
3.00E+05
5.00E+05
7.00E+05
9.00E+05
1.50E+06
2.50E+06
4.00E+06
6.00E+06

0.2812
0.2467
0.23
0.2122
0.2006
0.1829
0.1544
0.1308
0.1141
0.0768
0.0636
0.0574
0.0571
0.0575
0.0583
0.0578
0.0541
0.0499

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0.4176
0.3801
0.349
0.2731
0.2035
0.1694
0.1517
0.1403
0.1313
0.1048
0.0965
0.0967
0.0993
0.0998
0.0954
0.0855
0.0704
0.0579

0.6988
0.6268
0.579
0.4853
0.4041
0.3523
0.3062
0.271
0.2454
0.1816
0.16
0.1541
0.1564
0.1573
0.1536
0.1432
0.1246
0.1078

TABLE 2 CALCULATED FISSION PRODUCT DECAY HEAT FOR TIMES AFTER

THERMAL NEUTRON FISSION OF U-235

Time after
fission burst (s)
1.10E-01
2.10E-01
3.10E-01
5.10E-01
7.10E-01
9.10E-01
1.51E+00
2.51E+00
4.01E+00
6.01E+00
8.01E+00
1.00E+01
2.00E+01
3.00E+01
5.00E+01
7.00E+01
9.00E+01
1.50E+02
2.50E+02
4.00E+02
6.00E+02
8.00E+02
1.00E+03
2.00E+03
3.00E+03

Decay Heat t*f(t) (MeV/Fission)

Beta
Gamma
Total
0.09
0.0701
0.1601
0.1502
0.1159
0.2661
0.2007
0.1537
0.3543
0.2845
0.2151
0.4996
0.3525
0.2634
0.6159
0.4086
0.3022
0.7108
0.5296
0.3821
0.9118
0.6469
0.4561
1.1029
0.7365
0.5151
1.2516
0.7867
0.5568
1.3435
0.8003
0.5783
1.3786
0.7971
0.5892
1.3863
0.7265
0.6026
1.3291
0.6724
0.6158
1.2882
0.6278
0.6455
1.2733
0.6036
0.6562
1.2598
0.5792
0.6512
1.2304
0.5157
0.6056
1.1213
0.462
0.5377
0.9997
0.4368
0.4937
0.9305
0.4309
0.4834
0.9143
0.4302
0.4863
0.9165
0.4289
0.4907
0.9196
0.3994
0.4906
0.8901
0.3517
0.4667
0.8185

FIGURE 4 CALCULATED FISSION FRODUCT DECAY HEAT

AFTER THERMAL NEUTRON FISSION OF 235U, IN
COMPARISON WITH EXPERIMENTAL DATA

Conclusions
In the present work, the computer code DHP has been
improved for calculation procedure and updated for
new available nuclear databases. Calculations have
been carried out for the decay and growth
distributions of concentrations for fission products
from thermal neutron fission of 235U. The calculated
data of fission product concentrations were then
introduced into summation calculations of total and
partial decay heat following times after fission burst.
The decay and fission yield data used in this work is
extracted from JENDL FP Decay Data File and fission
yield data file 2011. The present calculated results, as
shown in Table 2 and Figures 3, are high agreement
with the experimental values measured by Dicken et
al., (1982) and Akizama et al., (1980). It could be
estimated that the updated DHP code can be used for
calculations
of
fission
product
inventory
concentrations and decay heat data exactly with out

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International Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Engineering Volume 4 Issue 3, September 2014

any approximation parameters.

essential decay of pandemonium: a demonstration of

errors in complex beta-decay schemes, Phys. Letts.,

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Author is immensely grateful to Prof. Jun-ichi

Katakura from the Nuclear Data Center of JAEA for
his great support in calculation procedures and
providing of reference data under the MEXT program.

71B(2), (1977): 307-310.

Katakura, J., JENDL FP Decay Data File 2011 and Fission
Yields Data File 2011. JAEA-Data/Code 2011-025, 2011.
Katakura, J., Yoshida T., Oyamatsu K., and Tachibana T.,
JENDL FP Decay Data File 2000. JAERI-1343 (2001).

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