Targetry at the LANL 100 MeV isotope production facility: lessons learned from facility commissioning
- Francois M.
- Michael E.
- Virginia T.
- Richard C.
- Jason J.
- Lisa M.
- Eugene J.
- Lawrence R.
- Dennis R.
- Louie L.
- Paul A.
The new Isotope Production Facility (IPF) at Los Alamos National Laboratory has been commissioned during the spring of 2004. Commissioning activities focused on the establishment of a radionuclide database, the review and approval of two specific target stack designs, and four trial runs with subsequent chemical processing and data analyses. This paper highlights some aspects of the facility and the targetry of the two approved target stacks used during the commissioning process. Since one niobium encapsulated gallium target developed a blister after the extended irradiation of 4 days, a further evaluation of the gallium targets is required. Beside this gallium target, no other target showed any sign of thermal failure. Considering the uncertainties involved, the production yields obtained for targets irradiated in the same energy slot are consistent for all three 'Prototype' stacks. A careful analysis of the temperature profile in the RbCl targets shows that energy shifts occur in the RbCl and Ga targets. Energy shifts are a result of density variations in the RbCl disk under bombardment. Thickness adjustments of targets in the prototype stack are required to ensure maximum production yields of {sup 82}Sr and {sup 68}Ge in the design energy windows. The {sup 68}Ge yields obtained are still consistently lower than the predicted yield value, which requires further investigation. After recalculation of the energy windows for the RbCl and Ga targets, the measured {sup 82}Sr production yields compare rather well with values predicted on the basis of evaluated experimental excitation function data.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- OSTI ID:
- 977852
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-04-6421; TRN: US201012%%770
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Submitted to: Americas Nuclear Energy Symposium, 2004, October 3-6, 2004, Miami Beach, Florida
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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