Research and development activities for accelerator-driven system in JAEA

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

The Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) has investigated an accelerator-driven system (ADS) to transmute minor actinides which will be partitioned from the high level waste. There are various inherent issues for the research and development on the ADS. The recent two activities to realize a feasible and reliable ADS concept are introduced in this paper. For the feasibility, the design of a beam window which is a boundary of the accelerator and the subcritical core, is one of the most important issues. To mitigate the design condition of the beam window, namely to reduce the proton beam current, the subcritical core concept with subcriticality adjustment rods were investigated. For the reliability, the beam-trip is the inherent and serious issue for the ADS design because it induces rapid temperature change to coolant and structures in the subcritical core. To improve the beam-trip frequencies, a double-accelerator concept was proposed and its beam-trip frequency was estimated.