Neutronics analysis of uranium compounds spallation target using Monte Carlo simulation

• DOI: 10.1016/j.nucengdes.2017.08.033
• Publication Date: 2017-09-15T20:18:29Z
• Authors: Jian-Yang Li; Ya-Ling Zhang; Xun-Chao Zhang; Liang-Wen Chen; Xue-Song Yan; Han-Jie Cai; Fen Fu; Lin Yu; Ping Lin; Xiao-Fei Gao; Zhi-Lei Zhang; Lei Yang
• Keywords: 0103 physical sciences; 7. Clean energy; 01 natural sciences

Abstract In this paper, we investigated the neutronics performance of uranium carbide (UC), uranium nitride (UN) and uranium dioxide (UO2) monolith targets and granular targets by using GPU-based Monte Carlo particle transport program (GMT). Effects of the target thickness and diameter on leaked neutron yield of monolith targets irradiated by 1 GeV protons were studied; the leaked neutron yield and neutron spectra for the dense granular uranium compounds and UC-kernel TRISO type targets were presented. Results show that, with an optimal dimension ϕ 25 × 50 cm , uranium compounds target can produce 40% more leaked neutron yield than the tungsten target. Results also show that by 1 GeV protons incident on, our designed carbon and SiC layers coated UC-kernel TRISO type pellets target with about 70% kernel volume fraction can produce about 30% more leaked neutron yield than the granular tungsten target in their optimal diameters.