Numerical design of a 20 MW lead–bismuth spallation target for an accelerator-driven system

A spallation target system is a key component to be developed for an accelerator-driven system (ADS). It is known that a 15–25 MW spallation target is required for the practical size of an ADS. Although there have been some design studies for small power spallation targets, that is, less than 10 MW, designs of high power target systems for ADS are relatively rare. The design of a 20 MW spallation target is very challenging because more than 60% of the beam power is deposited as heat in a small volume of the target system. In the present work, a numerical design study was performed to get optimal design parameters for a 20 MW spallation target for a 1000 MW ADS. The cylindrical beam tube and the hemispherical beam window were adopted in the basic target design concept with 1 GeV proton energy, and the thermal-hydraulic and the structural analyses were performed with the CFX and ANSYS codes. The beam window diameter and thickness were varied to find the optimal parameter set based on the design criteria: maximum lead–bismuth eutectic (LBE) temperature <500 °C, maximum beam window temperature <600 °C, maximum LBE velocity <2 m/s, and the maximum beam window stress <160 MPa. The results of the present study show that a 40 cm wide proton beam with a uniform beam profile should be adopted for the spallation target of 20 MW power. It was found that a 2.5 mm thick beam window is needed to sustain the mechanical load.