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Title: Shielding design and analyses of the cold neutron guide hall for the KIPT neutron source facility

Journal Article · · Nuclear Engineering and Technology

Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) of the United States and Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology (KIPT) of Ukraine have cooperated on the development, design, and construction of a neutron source facility. The facility was constructed at Kharkov, Ukraine and its commissioning process is underway. The facility will be utilized for researches, producing medical isotopes, and training young nuclear specialists. The neutron source facility is designed with a provision to include a cryogenically cooled moderator system – a cold neutron source (CNS). This cold neutron source provides low energy neutrons, which will be utilized in scattering experiment and material structures analysis. Cold neutron guides, coated with reflective material for the low energy neutrons, will be used to transport the cold neutrons to the experimental site. The cold neutron guides would keep the cold neutrons within certain energy and angular space concentrated inside, while most of the gamma rays and high-energy neutrons are not affected by the cold neutron guides. For the KIPT design, the cold neutron guides need to extend several meters outside the main shield of the facility, and curved guides will also be used to remove the gamma and high energy neutron. The neutron guides should be installed inside a shield structure to insure an acceptable biological dose in the facility hall. Heavy concrete is the selected shielding material because of its acceptable performance and cost. Shield design analysis was carried out for the CNS guide hall. MCNPX was utilized as the major computation tools for the design analysis, with neutron and gamma dose calculated separately. Weight windows variance reduction technique was also used in the shield design. The goal of the shield design is to keep the total radiation dose below the 0.5 mrem/hr guideline outside the shield boundary. After a series of iterative MCNPX calculations, the shield configuration and parameters of CNS guide hall were determined and presented in this paper.

Research Organization:
Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-06CH11357
OSTI ID:
1437858
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1465739
Journal Information:
Nuclear Engineering and Technology, Journal Name: Nuclear Engineering and Technology Vol. 50 Journal Issue: 6; ISSN 1738-5733
Publisher:
ElsevierCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
Korea, Republic of
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 4 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

Cited By (1)

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