International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Research Applications and Utilization of Accelerators

4-8 May 2009, Vienna

Application of High Intensity Neutron Generator for the Investigations of ADS Neutronics

H. Kiyavitskaya¹, V. Burnos¹, I. Serafimovich¹, S. Mazanik¹, Y. Fokov¹, C. Rutkovskaya¹, Y. Gohar², G. Aliberti², F. Kondev², A. Talamo², and Z. Zhong²

¹Joint Institute for Power & Nuclear Research-Sosny, Minsk, National Academy of Sciences of Belarus Minsk, Belarus
²Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois, USA

Corresponding Author: anna@sosny.bas-net.by

Experimental and theoretical investigations of the neutronics and kinetics for Accelerator Driven Systems have been performed at the Joint Institute for Power & Nuclear Research-Sosny (Minsk, 57 Belarus) in the frame of State Scientific Programs, the ISTC Project B–1341 and the IAEA Coordinated Research Project “Calculation benchmark on neutronics of a booster (cascade) assembly driven by external neutron sources” and “Analytical and Experimental Benchmark Analysis on Accelerator Driven Systems, and Low Enriched Uranium Fuel Utilization in Accelerator Driven Subcritical Assembly Systems” at the YALINA subcritical facility. YALINA facility consists of a deuteron accelerator, a target unit and subcritical booster assembly with thermal and fast neutron spectra. The assembly consists of a central lead zone (fast zone), a polyethylene zone (thermal zone), a radial graphite reflector and a front and back biological shielding of borated polyethylene. The fast-spectrum lead zone and the thermal-spectrum polyethylene zone are separated by a so called thermal neutron filter, or valve zone, consisting of one layer with metallic natural uranium and one layer with boron carbide (B₄C) which is located in the outermost two rows of the fast zone. Thermal neutrons diffusing from the thermal zone to the fast zone will either be absorbed by the boron or by the natural uranium, or transformed into fast neutrons through fission reactions in the natural uranium. In this way, a coupling of mainly fast neutrons between the two zones is maintained. Experimental and calculated results obtained during the start up of YALINA–Booster after replacement the 90% enriched metallic uranium fuel to 36% enriched dioxide uranium will be presented in this paper.

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