Abstract
The activity of residual nuclides dictates the radiation fields in periodic inspections/repairs (maintenance periods) and dismantling operations (decommissioning phase) of accelerator facilities (i.e ., medical, industrial, research) and nuclear reactors. Therefore, the correct prediction of the material activation allows for a more accurate planning of the activities, in line with the ALARA (As Low As Reasonably Achievable) principles. The scope of the present work is to show the results of a comparison between residual total specific activity versus a set of cooling time instants (from zero up to 10 years after irradiation) as obtained by two analytical (FISPACT and ANITA) and two Monte Carlo (FLUKA and PHITS) codes, making use of their default nuclear data libraries. A set of ~40 irradiating scenarios is considered, i.e . neutron and proton particles of different energies, ranging from zero to many hundreds MeV, impinging on pure elements or materials of standard composition typically used in industrial applications (namely, AISI SS316 and Portland concrete). In some cases, experimental results were also available for a more thorough benchmark.
Highlights
Background and ScopeThe evaluation of the residual nuclide activity in irradiated materials is an important issue in radiological analysis
Different geometrical approaches are followed by the computer codes, depending on the selected methodologies, whether purely analytical (i.e., Bateman equations solver in a so called “0-dimensional” approach) or Monte Carlo (i.e., Bateman equations solver integrated in a multi-dimensional radiation transport code)
The scope of the present work is to show the results of a comparison between residual total specific activity versus a set of cooling time instants as obtained by two analytical (FISPACT [2] and ANITA [3]) and two Monte Carlo (FLUKA [4][5] and PHITS [6]) codes, making use of their default nuclear data libraries
Summary
The evaluation of the residual nuclide activity in irradiated materials is an important issue in radiological analysis. Starting from the characterized source and material composition, the time evolution of the nuclide inventory, and the corresponding residual activity, can be predicted by solving the set of Bateman equations [1]. Different geometrical approaches are followed by the computer codes, depending on the selected methodologies, whether purely analytical (i.e., Bateman equations solver in a so called “0-dimensional” approach) or Monte Carlo (i.e., Bateman equations solver integrated in a multi-dimensional radiation transport code). The irradiating flux can be averaged in tallied regions (e.g. through track length estimators), and passed to the Bateman solver routine
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