Nuclear Engineering and Technology

Korean Nuclear Society (한국원자력학회)
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GEANT4 characterization of the neutronic behavior of the active zone of the MEGAPIE spallation target

  • Lamrabet, Abdesslam (Department of Physics, Faculty of Sciences Dhar El Mahraz, University Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah) ;
  • Maghnouj, Abdelmajid (Department of Physics, Faculty of Sciences Dhar El Mahraz, University Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah) ;
  • Tajmouati, Jaouad (Department of Physics, Faculty of Sciences Dhar El Mahraz, University Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah) ;
  • Bencheikh, Mohamed (Department of Physics, Faculty of Sciences and Technology Mohammedia, Hassan II University of Casablanca)
  • Received : 2020.06.26
  • Accepted : 2021.05.03
  • Published : 2021.10.25
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Abstract

The increasing interest that GEANT4 is gaining nowadays, because of its special capabilities, prompted us to address its reliability in neutronic calculation for the realistic and complex spallation target MEGAPIE of the Paul Scherrer Institute of Switzerland. In this paper we have specifically addressed the neutronic characterization of the active zone of this target. Three physical quantities are evaluated: neutron flux spectra and total neutron fluxes on target's z-axis, and the neutron yield as a function of the target's altitude and radius. Comparison of the obtained results with those of the MCNPX reference code and some experimental measurements have confirmed the impact of the geometrical and proton beam models on the neutron fluxes. It has also allowed to reveal the intrinsic influence of the code type. The resulting differences reach a factor of ~2 for the beam model and 4-18% for the other parameters cumulated. The analysis of the neutron yield has led us to conclude that: 1) Increasing the productivity of the MEGAPIE target cannot be achieved simply by increasing the thickness of the target, if the irradiation parameters are not modified. 2) The size of the spallation area needs to be redefined more precisely.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

All calculations are performed on the high-performance cluster "HPC-MARWAN" of the National Center for Scientific and Technical Research (CNRST) in Morocco. The authors would like to thank all the staff of HPC-MARWAN.

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