A Preliminary Study on Neutronic Performance of the Spallation Target With the Proton Beam Variation

Abstract

Abstract Spallation particles can be utilized in different fields such as neutron scattering studies, external source for burning spent fuel as well as running subcritical reactors. Accelerator driven subcritical system (ADS) has been considered as an advanced nuclear waste transmutation facility with inherent safety feature. In this paper, the neutronic performance of the spallation target with the proton beam variation was investigated. Monte Carlo code FLUKA has been used to calculate neutronic parameters including: spallation neutron flux and energy deposition. As the beam position is shifted towards the positive direction of the Y-axis, the neutron flux and energy deposition increased significantly along the positive direction of the Y-axis, while the flux and energy deposition in the opposite direction decreased. Such a change may lead to a sharp increase of the neutron flux of fuel components near the beam target in subcritical reactor. But as the beam shifts further and further, the neutron flux in the positive direction declines compared to the previous data. The calculation and analyzing the data obtained from proton beam variation shows that it has a great influence on the physical properties of the neutron spallation target.