Neutronics Design of Accelerator-Driven System for Power Flattening and Beam Current Reduction

In the present neutronics design of the Accelerator-Driven System (ADS) cooled by lead-bismuth eu-tectic (LBE), we investigated several methods to reduce the power peak and beam current, and estimated the temperature reductions of the cladding tube and beam window from the conventional design. The methods are adjustment of inert matrix ratio in fuel in each burn-up cycle, multiregion design in terms of pin radius or inert matrix content, and modification of the level of the beam window position and the height of the central fuel assemblies. As a result, we optimized the ADS combined with the adjustment of the inert matrix ratio in each burn-up cycle, multiregion design in terms of inert matrix content and deepened window level. The maximum temperatures of the optimized ADS at the surface of the cladding tube and the beam window were reduced by 91 and 38°C, respectively. The maximum beam current was improved from 20.3 to 15.6 mA.