ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Division Spotlight
Mathematics & Computation
Division members promote the advancement of mathematical and computational methods for solving problems arising in all disciplines encompassed by the Society. They place particular emphasis on numerical techniques for efficient computer applications to aid in the dissemination, integration, and proper use of computer codes, including preparation of computational benchmark and development of standards for computing practices, and to encourage the development on new computer codes and broaden their use.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
Latest Magazine Issues
Apr 2024
Jan 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
May 2024
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Framatome, KHNP to investigate producing Lu-177 in South Korea
Framatome and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding to explore the possibility of producing the medical isotope Lutetium-177 at KHNP’s Wolsong nuclear power plant in South Korea. The companies also will investigate the feasibility of using the plant to support Korean production of medical radioisotopes in the future.
Yaxi Liu, Man-Sung Yim, David McNelis
Nuclear Technology | Volume 165 | Number 1 | January 2009 | Pages 111-123
Technical Paper | Accelerators | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-A4064
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Accelerator-based target design and optimization are presented in this paper as an approach for the analysis of neutron generation and characteristics. Electron-based targets and proton-based targets driven by high-energy accelerator beams are investigated. The target plays an important role in the external neutron sources in which the target was driven by high-energy accelerator beams to generate neutrons. The optimization of target design in this work is to obtain the maximum generation of neutrons out of targets considering target material and geometry, accelerator beam energy, and beam size. A three-dimensional particle detection methodology and a surface matrix arithmetic technique were used to determine the spatial distribution of the source particles (electron and proton) and the total neutron generation from the target outer surfaces. Neutron generation and characteristics were analyzed based on the optimized targets regarding neutron spectrum, average energy, and average flux. Monte Carlo calculations were performed by using MCNPX to estimate the particle interaction inside the target and to calculate the neutrons escaping out of the target surfaces.Results in this work indicated that a high-energy (1-GeV) electron accelerator beam is capable of producing high-intensity neutron flux at the range of 1.60 × 1013 n/cm2s of 1-mA electron. Compared to an electron accelerator beam, a proton beam (1 GeV) generates higher-intensity neutron flux at the level of 4.83 × 1013 n/cm2s of 1-mA proton. The neutron generation ratio (neutron per incident particle escaping from the target) was computed as 0.76 neutrons per electron and 38.8 neutrons per proton for the selected targets. In the electron accelerator-based target, neutron generation was mostly through photonuclear reactions (88%), followed by prompt fission (12%). Neutron production in the target of the proton accelerator-based target was mainly due to spallation reactions (40%) and prompt fissions (48%). The optimized size of the target for the electron accelerator-based target, in terms of the volume, was about 16 times smaller than that for the proton accelerator-based target. The estimated neutron energy distribution was much narrower, with the electron accelerator target ranging from 1.0 × 10-3 to 30 MeV. In the proton accelerator target, the neutron energies ranged between 1.0 × 10-5 MeV and 1 GeV.