Study on BC decoupler with burn-up reduction aiming at 1-MW pulsed neutron source

Oi, Motoki; Teshigawara, Makoto; Harada, Masahide; Ikeda, Yujiro

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 56(7), p.573 - 579, 2019/07

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2019.1604273

In pulsed neutron sources, a neutron absorber called decoupler is attached to the moderator to sharpen the neutron pulses for achieving good neutron energy resolutions. Cadmium and boron carbide (BC) are widely used as the decoupler materials. However, it is difficult to use BC in MW-class spallation neutron sources owing to high burn-up, which decreases cut-off energy and increase of helium gas swelling. To solve these issues, we introduce the concept of pre-decoupler to reduce neutron absorption in the BC decoupler, which is sandwiched by appropriate neutron absorption materials. Then, we study impacts of the pre-decouplers on BC decoupler in terms of burn-up by performing simplified model calculations. It is shown that neutron absorption in BC is reduced by 60% by using a Cd pre-decoupler without neutron intensity penalty. Moreover, helium gas swelling in BC is restrained to be one-third of the value when not using the pre-decoupler.