Investigation of Complex Thick Targets Neutronics for Accelerator Driven Nuclear Power Production

Accelerator Driven Subcritical Systems (ADSS) proposed by outstanding scientists Dr. Bowman and Dr. Rubbia give us an opportunity to design nuclear reactor which would be able to safely operate with only depleted uranium or natural thorium consumption, even it could be possible to incinerate spent nuclear fuel from world’s light water reactor fleet. A “subcore” of the core of these challenging systems is a thick neutron producing target being irradiated by relativistic ions (protons, deuterons, and other light ions). Almost all systems proposed up to now are using spallation neutron source. However, a combination of thick or thin light target and thick heavy target might give an outstanding neutron yields with challenging neutron spectra. Are these hybrid targets really a challenging neutronics advantage which could be an additional strength of ADSS systems? Could be this approach combined with a granular target concept? Are there any weaknesses from radiation point-of-view of such target design proposal? Our project would like to contribute to looking for answers to such questions.