Very High Flux Steady State Reactor and Accelerator Based Sources Available to Purchase

With the number of steady state neutron sources in the US declining (including the demise of the BNL HFBR) the remaining intense sources are now in Europe (i.e. reactors - ILL and FMR, accelerator - PSI). The intensity of the undisturbed thermal flux for sources currently in operation ranges from10¹⁴ n/cm²-s to 10¹⁵ n/cm²-s. The proposed Advanced Neutron Source (ANS) was to be a high power reactor (∼ 350 MW) with a projected undisturbed thermal flux of 7×10¹⁵ n/cm²-s but never materialized. The objective of the current study is to explore the requirements and implications of two source concepts with an undisturbed flux of 10¹⁶ n/cm²-s. The first is a reactor based concept operating at high power density (10 MW/l–15 MW/l) and a total power of 100 MW–250 MW, depending on fissile enrichment. The second is an accelerator based concept relying on a 1 GeV–1.5 GeV proton LINAC with a total beam power of 40 MW and a liquid lead-bismuth eutectic target. In the reactor source study the effects of fissile material enrichment, coolant temperature and pressure drop, and estimates of pressure vessel stress levels will be investigated. The fuel form for the reactor will be different from all other operating source reactors in that it is proposed to use an infiltrated graphitic structure, which has been developed for nuclear thermal propulsion reactor applications. In the accelerator based source the generation of spallation products and their activation levels, and the material damage sustained by the beam window will be investigated.