Neutron production evaluation from a ADS target utilizing the MCNPX 2.6.0 code

Abstract

Accelerators Driven Systems (ADS) are an innovative type of nuclear system, which is useful for long-lived fission product transmutation and fuel regeneration. The ADS consist of a coupling of a sub-critical nuclear core reactor and a proton beam produced by particle accelerator. These particles are injected into a target for the neutrons production by spallation reactions. This target is of utmost importance for an ADS, representing the coupling of the accelerator and the sub-critical core. The determination of optimal materials for these targets is fundamental for the design of an ADS. The main characteristic of an ideal target is the high production of neutrons per incident proton. In this work are shown results for the neutron production of various types of targets using the MCNPX 2.6.0 code. Furthermore, it is performed a comparative study of transport models to describe the spallation reactions available in this code.