As part of the Combined Materials and Experiment Toolkit (CoMET) project, the Nuclear Science User Facilities (NSUF) developed the Reactor Activation and Damage (RAD) Calculator to be used as a general scoping tool to estimate radiation damage in terms of displacements per atom (DPA) and the resulting radioactivity of materials post-neutron irradiation. The calculator is intended to estimate experimental feasibility and be a helpful tool to scope out irradiation proposals. The damage component of the calculator estimates the DPA produced in a reactor irradiation for a limited set of known materials and guides researchers to potential irradiation facilities from the available NSUF research and test reactors. The calculator is not intended as a replacement for in-depth experimental design and dose calculations represented in the physics Engineering Calculations and Analysis Reports (ECAR). Internal validation studies were performed to compare the damage component of the calculator and a series of INL "as-run" physics ECARs for existing Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) experiments. The accuracy of the calculator was within ±50% of the DPA values in the ECARs with more than 85% of the tests being within ±20%. Based on these results, the damage component of the RAD Calculator can be deployed and expected to competently perform. Future modifications to improve the RAD calculator are recommended:• It is recommended that, prior to the calculator being launched, a cautionary statement be created to make users aware of materials with known challenges that the calculator will not handle (e.g., fissile and fertile material are not considered). • It is recommended for a displacement threshold energy (Ed) correction bias to be considered. (FY 2021) • It is recommended to include aspects of thermal transmutations (e.g., Ni transmutation and the production of helium and hydrogen from the 58 Ni (n,α) and (n,p) reactions).
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