Feasibility of a small accelerator driven subcritical reactor for BNCT applications

Abstract

A feasibility study for an epithermal neutron source constituted by an accelerator-driven subcritical core coupled with an epithermal column is presented. With a core multiplication constant k≤0.985, the proposed facility, equipped with two Li-target, 2.5 MeV, 10 mA accelerator units, appears to be able to fulfil, still keeping a high degree of nuclear safety, the main requirements for BNCT applications as regards the flux level at beam port as well as the neutron spectrum purity. © 2014 Atomic Energy Society of Japan. All rights reserved.