Preparation and verification of mixed high-energy neutron cross-section library for ADS

Abstract

An accelerator-driven subcritical system (ADS) is driven by an external spallation neutron source, which is generated from a heavy metal spallation target to maintain stable operation of the subcritical core, where the energy of the spallation neutrons can reach several hundred mega-electron volts. However, the upper neutron energy limit of nuclear cross-section databases, which are widely used in critical reactor physics calculations, is generally 20 MeV. This is not suitable for simulating the transport of high-energy spallation neutrons in the ADS. We combine the Japanese JENDL-4.0/HE high-energy evaluation database and the ADS-HE and ADS 2.0 libraries from the International Atomic Energy Agency and process all the data files for nuclides with energies greater than 20 MeV. We use the continuous pointwise cross-section program NJOY2016 to generate the ACE-formatted cross-section data library IMPC-ADS at multiple temperature points. Using the IMPC-ADS library, we calculate 10 critical benchmarks of the International Criticality Safety Benchmark Evaluation Project manual, the 14-MeV fixed-source problem of the Godiva sphere, and the neutron flux of the ADS subcritical core by MCNPX. To verify the correctness of the IMPC-ADS, the results were compared with those calculated using the ENDF/B-VII.0 library. The results showed that the IMPC-ADS is reliable in effective multiplication factor and neutron flux calculations, and it can be applied to physical analysis of the ADS subcritical reactor core.