Extension and benchmarking of the OpenMC code for accelerator-based neutron source applications

Abstract

OpenMC is a community developed Monte Carlo (MC) code for neutron and photon transport calculations. In this work, the OpenMC code has been extended and benchmarked for accelerator-based neutron source applications, such as the IFMIF-DONES (International Fusion Material Irradiation Facility- DEMO Oriented NEutron Source) with neutron energies up to 55 MeV. A spherical computational benchmark and the TIARA high energy neutron shielding experiment has been employed for the benchmarking including also comparisons to the results of the well-validated MC code MCNP as reference. The neutron fluxes computed for spherical benchmarks of selected elements show good agreement between OpenMC and MCNP. A problem has been identified and fixed in the secondary photon transport of the OpenMC code. For the TIARA experiment on iron and concrete shielding, the results of OpenMC are in good agreement with MCNP, and the discrepancies between the experiment results and OpenMC simulated results are considered acceptable. In summary, these benchmarks provide good evidence of the suitability of OpenMC for accelerator-based neutron source applications in the energy range up to 55 MeV, with possibility of further extensions depending on the used nuclear data.