University of Kentucky Accelerator Laboratory Neutron Scattering Cross Section Measurements Incorporating Recent Laboratory Upgrades

The University of Kentucky Accelerator Laboratory (UKAL) houses a 7-MV Van de Graaff accelerator capable of delivering a pulsed proton or deuteron beam that is impinged on gas (tritium or deuterium) targets to deliver roughly monoenergetic neutrons per second. Using time-of-flight techniques coupled with neutron and gamma-ray detection capabilities, UKAL supports a nuclear data program aimed at updating and affirming the accuracy of neutron elastic and inelastic differential cross sections for a wide variety of isotopes of interest for nuclear energy applications. A brief overview of UKAL, its capabilities, and updates to its data acquisition system and analysis pipeline will be presented along with recent results on elastic and inelastic neutron scattering cross sections at incident neutron energies from 0.5 to 8.0 MeV.