Preliminary Experiments on Accelerator-Driven Subcritical Reactor with Pulsed Neutron Generator in Kyoto University Critical Assembly

Abstract

A series of preliminary experiments on an accelerator-driven subcritical reactor (ADSR) with 14 MeV neutrons were conducted at Kyoto University Critical Assembly (KUCA) with the prospect of establishing a new neutron source for research. A critical assembly of a solid-moderated and -reflected core was combined with a Cockcroft-Walton-type accelerator. A neutron shield and a beam duct were installed in the reflector region for directing as large a number as possible of the high-energy 14MeV neutrons generated by deuteron-tritium (D-T) reactions to the fuel region, since the tritium target is located outside the core. And then, neutrons (14MeV) were injected into a subcritical system through a polyethylene reflector. The objectives of this paper are to investigate the neutron design accuracy of the ADSR with 14MeV neutrons and to examine experimentally the neutronic properties of the ADSR with 14MeV neutrons at KUCA. The reaction rate distribution and the neutron spectrum were measured by the foil activation method for investigating the neutronic properties of the ADSR with 14 MeV neutrons. The eigenvalue and fixed-source calculations were executed using a continuous-energy Monte Carlo calculation code MCNP-4C3 with ENDF/B-VI.2 for the subcriticality and the reaction rate distribution, respectively; the unfolding calculation was done using the SAND-II code coupled with JENDL Activation Cross Section File 96 for the neutron spectrum. The values of the calculated subcriticality and the reaction rate distribution were in good agreement with those of the experiments. The results of the experiments and the calculations demonstrated that the installation of the neutron shield and the beam duct was experimentally valid and that the MCNP-4C3 calculations were accurately carried out for analyzing the neutronic properties of the ADSR with 14MeV neutrons at KUCA.