Eur. Phys. J. Plus (2015) 130: 99
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/i2015-15099-y

Regular Article

Design and parameter optimization of a small-scale electron-based ADS for radioactive waste transmutation

Faculty of Physics, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, Iran

^* e-mail: Hamed.Feizi@gmail.com

Received: 9 March 2015
Revised: 28 April 2015
Accepted: 15 May 2015
Published online: 29 May 2015

Abstract

This paper presents the design and feasibility of an electron-LINAC-based small-scale system (ADS) for nuclear waste transmutation. FLUKA simulations have been performed to evaluate the photoneutron yield in high-Z metallic targets such as silver, tungsten, lead, tantalum and uranium irradiated by electron beams of 20–200MeV. The parameters involved in the photoneutron production mechanism including electron beam energy, target material and target shape have been investigated in order to obtain maximum photoneutron production. The neutron reflectors of the ADS, in particular, beryllium, lead and beryllium oxide (BeO) with various thicknesses have been studied. The results show that a combination of an internal reflector of Pb with a thickness of 3cm and an external reflector of BeO with a thickness of 10cm improves the fluence rate. The photoneutron energy spectrum, photoneutron fluence distribution and heat deposition in the electron target have also been presented. At incident electron beam energy of 155MeV, a neutron source of ∼ 4.6 × 10¹⁰ (n/cm²/s/mA) has been achieved, which is highly applicable for using in nuclear waste transmutation. The designed ADS has the ability to transmute ∼ 1.5 × 10²² (atoms/y/mA). The obtained results are promising and could lead to the development of a small-scale ADS based on electron LINAC for radioactive waste transmutation and for numerous applications when employed as a photoneutron source.