Activation studies around the proton beamline for the MYRRHA ADS design


Activation studies around the proton beamline for the MYRRHA ADS design

Ferrari, A.; Biarrotte, J.-L.; Perrot, L.; Saugnac, H.; VandePlassche, D.

The design of sub-critical accelerator-driven systems requires high energy and high power proton accelerators, of the order of hundreds MeV and some MW for the proposed demonstration experiments. The use of high energy Mega-Watt beams presents many serious challenges for various aspects of accelerator design, radiation shielding and reliable operations, being the induced activation a central problem.
A key issue is the introduction of low-activation materials to improve the accessibility and the long-term treatment of the irradiated elements, maintaining - and sometimes improving - the shielding efficiency with a suitable material configuration. In this work a simulation study based on the FLUKA Monte Carlo transport code is presented: different solutions for the main beam dump of the 600 MeV, 4 mA MYRRHA proton beamline are investigated and discussed. For each proposed solution a complete analysis of the secondary radiation fields and of the residual activation is shown: the inventory of the produced radionuclides and the residual ambient dose equivalent at different distances from the dump are estimated, both for short-term and long-term irradiation conditions and for all the significant cooling times.

Keywords: Accelerator-driven systems; activation; shielding; Monte Carlo

  • Lecture (Conference)
    Accelerator Radiation Induced Activation (ARIA 2011), 15.-19.05.2011, Ma'ale Hachamisha, Israel

Permalink: https://www.hzdr.de/publications/Publ-17428
Publ.-Id: 17428