Characterisation of the neutron field for streaming analyses in TT operations at JET

Abstract

Assessing radiation fields in the biological shield penetrations of fusion reactors is a challenging task. At the Joint European Torus (JET) the neutron field at larger distances from the torus has been calculated and measured. JET operated in 2021–22 with a tritium-tritium plasma and neutronics experiments were performed for validating in a real fusion environment the neutronics codes and nuclear data applied in ITER nuclear analyses. In particular, the fluence of neutrons passing through the penetrations of the JET vacuum vessel and the torus hall was measured and compared with calculations in order to assess the capability of state-of-the-art numerical tools to correctly predict the radiation streaming in large and complex geometries. The neutron fluence was monitored at several locations inside the torus hall at larger distances from the tokamak with activation foils and thermo-luminescent detectors. The calculations have been performed in a two-step process using the deterministic code ADVANTG to determine the variance reduction parameters and with MCNP for subsequent calculation of the neutron field with the Monte Carlo method. The paper presents results of calculations and the first comparison to experimentally obtained values.