Application of Tone’s and embedded self-shielding methods to pressurized water reactor assemblies

Abstract The Tone’s and embedded self shielding methods are based on a heterogeneous-homogeneous equivalence principle. They both provide a formula for an equivalent dilution parameter that can be used to interpolate pretabulated effective cross sections for the infinite homogeneous medium. These two methods have been traditionally applied to fast reactor analysis with fine or ultrafine group energy mesh. We are investigating the accuracy of these two methods for the generation of self-shielded cross sections for typical pressurized water reactor assemblies.