Experimental Study of Angular Neutron Flux Spectra on a Slab Surface to Assess Nuclear Data and Calculational Methods for a Fusion Reactor Design

摘要

This paper presents an experimental approach to interpret the results of integral experiments for fusion neutronics research. The measurement is described of the angular neutron flux on a restricted area of slab assemblies with D-T neutron bombardment by using the time-of-flight (TOF) method with an NE213 neutron detector over an energy range from 0.05 to 15 MeV. A two bias scheme was developed to obtain an accurate detection efficiency over a wide energy range. The detector-collimator response function was introduced to define the restricted surface area and to determine the effective measured area. A series of measurements of the angular neutron flux on slabs of fusion blanket materials, i.e., Be, C, and Li/sub 2/O, as functions of neutron leaking angle and slab thickness have been performed to examine neutron transport characteristics in bulk materials. The calculational analyses of the experimental results have been also carried out by using Monte Carlo neutron transport codes, i.e., MORSE-DD and MCNP. The existing nuclear data files, i.e., JENDL-3PR1, -3PR2, ENDF/B-IV and -V were tested by comparing with the experimental results. From the comparisons, the data on C and /sup 7/Li in the present files are fairly sufficient. Those on beryllium, however, is insufficient for the estimation of high threshold reactions such as tritium production in a fusion reactor blanket design. It is also found that the total and elastic cross sections are more important for accurate predictions of neutronic parameters at deep position. The comparisons between the measured and calculated results provide information to understand the results of the previous integral experiments for confirmation of accuracy of fusion reactor designs. (ERA citation 13:055927)