Abstract

Minor actinides (MA) present a harmful part of spent nuclear fuel due to their long half-lives and high radio-toxicity. Neutrons produced in spallation targets of Accelerator Driven Systems (ADS) can be used to transmute and burn MA. Non-fissile targets are commonly considered in ADS design. However, additional neutrons from fission reactions can be used in targets made of fissile materials. We developed a Geant4-based code MCADS (Monte Carlo model for Accelerator Driven Systems) for simulating neutron production and transport in different spallation targets. MCADS is suitable for calculating spatial distributions of neutron flux and energy deposition, neutron multiplication factors and other characteristics of produced neutrons and residual nuclei. Several modifications of the Geant4 source code described in this work were made in order to simulate targets containing MA. Results of MCADS simulations are reported for several cylindrical targets made of U+Am, Am or Am2O3 including more complicated design options with a neutron booster and a reflector. Estimations of Am burning rates are given for the considered cases.

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