The European scene regarding spallation neutron sources
- Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen (Austria)
In Europe, a short pulse spallation neutron source, ISIS, has been operating for over 10 years, working its way up to a beam power level of 200 kW. A continuous source, SINQ, designed for a beam power of up to 1 MW, is scheduled to start operating at the end of 1996, and a detailed feasibility study has been completed for a 410 kW short pulse source, AUSTRON. Each of these sources seems to have settled for a target concept which is at or near the limits of its feasibility: The ISIS depleted uranium plate targets, heavy water cooled and Zircaloy clad, have so far not shown satisfactory service time and operation is likely to continue with a Ta-plate target, which, in the past has been used successfully for the equivalent of one full-beam-year before it was taken out of service due to degrading thermal properties. SINQ will initially use a rod target, made of Zircaloy only, but plans exist to move on to clad lead rods as quickly as possible. Apart from the not yet explored effect of hydrogen and helium production, there are also concerns about the generation of 7-Be in the cooling water from the spallation of oxygen, which might result in undesirably high radioactivity in the cooling plant room. A Liquid metal target, also under investigation for SINQ, would not only reduce this problem to a level of about 10 %, but would also minimize the risk of radiolytic corrosion in the beam interaction zone. Base on similar arguments, AUSTRON has been designed for edge cooled targets, but thermal and stress analyses show, that this concept is not feasible at higher power levels.
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 381038
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9603171-; ON: DE96014047; TRN: 96:005200-0001
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: International workshop on the technology and thermo hydrolics of heavy liquid metals (Hg,Pb,Bi, and their Eutectics), Schruns (Austria), 25-28 Mar 1996; Other Information: PBD: Jun 1996; Related Information: Is Part Of Proceedings of the international workshop on the technology and thermal hydraulics of heavy liquid metals (Hg, Pb, Bi, and their eutectics); Appleton, B.R.; Bauer, G.S. [comp.]; PB: 500 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
A target development program for beamhole spallation neutron sources in the megawatt range
Thermal-hydraulic performance of a water-cooled tungsten-rod target for a spallation neutron source