Activation of the IFMIF lithium loop corrosion products

Abstract

The assessment of the activation of steel corrosion products generated in 1 year of International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility (IFMIF) lithium loop operation due to the interaction between lithium and Stainless Steel SS-304 has been performed. The paper considers both the neutron and the deuteron activation and it describes the approach used for and presents the results obtained. ANITA-IEAF and ANITA-DEUT activation code packages have been used, respectively, for neutrons and deuterons contribution to the inventories calculations and decay gamma sources production. The activation due to deuterons is about 40 times that due to neutrons. Dose rate evaluations via Vitenea-IEF/SCALENEA-1 external to a pipe of the lithium loop have been performed. The deuterons contribution results to be about two orders of magnitude higher of the corresponding ones due to neutrons. For QA purposes, MCNP-4C2 system has been also used to calculate the neutron contribution to the dose rate. Discrepancies between the two approach results are within 1%. A sensitivity analysis aiming to evaluate the impact of the choice of different neutron source models on the dose rates is presented, with reference to the neutron contribution.