1887

Utilisation and Reliability of High Power Proton Accelerators

Workshop Proceedings, Daejeon, Republic of Korea, 16-19 May 2004

image of Utilisation and Reliability of High Power Proton Accelerators

Accelerator-driven systems (ADS) are being considered for their potential use in the transmutation of radioactive waste. The performance of such hybrid nuclear systems depends to a large extent on the specification and reliability of high power accelerators, as well as the integration of the accelerator with spallation targets and sub-critical systems. At present, much R&D work is still required in order to demonstrate the desired capability of the system as a whole.

Accelerator scientists and reactor physicists from around the world gathered at an NEA workshop to discuss issues of common interest and to present the most recent achievements in their research. Discussions focused on accelerator reliability; target, window and coolant technology; sub-critical system design and ADS simulations; safety and control of ADS; and ADS experiments and test facilities. These proceedings contain the technical papers presented at the workshop as well as summaries of the working group discussions held. They will be of particular interest to scientists working on ADS development as well as on radioactive waste management issues in general.

English

Keff and Ks Burn-up Swing Compensation in MYRRHA

Nuclear Energy Agency

Burn-up for the reference core of MYRRHA over a single cycle of 90 days was estimated with MCNPX and SPECTRUM (an MCNPX postprocessor developed at SCK•CEN). Over this cycle, the source multiplication factor ks dropped from 0.952 to 0.941 (Drs = 1 263 pcm) while the effective multiplication factor keff dropped from 0.946 to 0.933 (Dr = 1 484 pcm). A number of possible techniques have already been proposed and studied to minimise this burn-up swing such as proton current variation, use of burnable poisons, use of negative void coefficients and multi-batch core operation. We propose the concept of a realistic operational cycle in which voided boxes and/or burnable absorbers (with different levels of enrichment) are used to minimise the burn-up swing in the MYRRHA case. In this paper, we also make an initial assessment of the applicability of these operational cycles to the MYRRHA case.

English

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