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Neutronic analysis of deuteron-driven spallation target

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Abstract

Deuteron-driven spallation targets have garnered attention recently because they can provide high-energy neutrons to transmute long-lifetime fission products. In this study, the Geant4 toolkit was used to simulate the interaction between a deuteron beam at 500 MeV and a composite target composed of alternating lead-bismuth eutectic (LBE) and water. The water was used because it may be employed as a target coolant. The energy spectrum, neutron yield, average energy, and total energy of the emitted neutrons were calculated for different thicknesses and thickness ratios between the LBE and water. For a constant target thickness, the neutron yield increases with an increasing thickness ratio of LBE to \(\hbox {H}_2\hbox {O}\), while the average energy of the emitted neutrons decreases with an increasing in the aforementioned thickness ratio . These two aspects support the use of a pure target, either LBE or water. However, with an increasing LBE-to-\(\hbox {H}_2\hbox {O}\) thickness ratio, the total energy of the emitted neutrons increases and then decreases. This result supports the addition of water into the LBE target. The angular distributions of the emitted neutrons show that the rear of the target is suitable for loading nuclear waste containing minor actinides and long-lifetime fission products.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sino-French Institute of Nuclear Engineering and Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai, 519082, China

    Wei-Wei Qiu, Wu Sun & Jun Su

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  1. Wei-Wei Qiu
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  2. Wu Sun
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Wei-Wei Qiu, Wu Sun, and Jun Su. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Wei-Wei Qiu, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jun Su.

Additional information

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 11875328).

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Qiu, WW., Sun, W. & Su, J. Neutronic analysis of deuteron-driven spallation target. NUCL SCI TECH 32, 94 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41365-021-00932-9

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