Material selection for spallation neutron source windows: Application to PDS-XADS and XT-ADS prototypes

High performance neutron sources are being proposed for many scientific and industrial applications, ranging from material studies, hybrid reactors and transmutation of nuclear wastes. In the case of transmutation of nuclear wastes, accelerator driven systems (ADS) are considered as one of the main technical options for such purpose. In ADS a high performance spallation neutron source becomes an essential element for its operation and control. This spallation source must fulfil very challenging nuclear and thermo-mechanical requirements, because of the high neutron rates needed in ADS. The material selection for this key component becomes of paramount importance, particularly the source window that separates the vacuum accelerator tube from the spallation material where the accelerated protons impinge. In this paper, an integral analysis of spallation sources is done, taking as a reference the projects in this field proposal in the framework of European projects. Our analysis and calculations show that titanium and vanadium alloys are more suitable than steel as structural material for an industrial ADS beam window, mostly due to its irradiation damage resistance.