Investigation for subcriticality adjustment mechanism of LBE-cooled Accelerator-Driven System

Oizumi, Akito   ; Sugawara, Takanori  ; Iwamoto, Hiroki   ; Nishihara, Kenji  ; Tsujimoto, Kazufumi 

The JAEA has investigated 800-MWth Accelerator-Driven System (ADS) to transmute minor actinides. One of the most important issues for the ADS development is the design of a beam window which is a boundary of the accelerator and the sub-critical reactor. Since the past shape of the beam window is difficult to fabricate, a hemispherical shape one is considered as a new concept. To realize the hemispherical shape beam window, it is required to decrease the maximum proton beam current. For this purpose, a new concept of sub-criticality adjustment mechanism using control rod (CR) or burnable poison (BP) is investigated. The results of neutronics calculation show that the concepts with boron carbide and tantalum CRs have good property to adjust the sub-criticality. They have a possibility to maintain the proton beam current at 10 mA during the operation, which is a great benefit for the beam window design since the proton beam current becomes half of the previous design. However, it is required to consider CR drive mechanism to keep out of the beam window and related apparatus. For the concept with BP, it is observed that the maximum proton beam current is 17 mA. This value is better than the reference case. Moreover, the BP concept is achieved by just introducing BP without driver mechanism. These concepts are useful to adjust the sub-criticality and mitigate the design condition of the beam window.