China ADS sub-critical experimental assembly—Venus-1 and preliminary experiment

Abstract

China ADS sub-critical experimental assembly-Venus-1 and preliminary experiment © Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag 2007 presented the basic idea, called "energy amplifier". A subcritical nuclear system based on U-Th cycle and fed by a high intensity proton accelerator can be used for energy production and for the transmutation of MAs and LLFP. Later on, the technical feasibility and verification of the principle of energy amplification were investigated [1][2][3][4]. An accelerator-driven sub-critical system (ADS) includes a proton accelerator, an external neutron source generator and a sub-critical system. When an accelerated proton collides with a heavy metal target nucleus, such as lead nucleus, spallation reaction takes place and plenty of neutrons are produced. The subcritical system is driven by spallation neutrons. A fission chain reaction is sustained and the sub-critical system is kept at a certain power level. Besides the virtue of avoiding nuclear criticality safety problems, ADS has been recognized worldwide [2-4] as a potential highly relevant tool in view of transmuting very large amounts of radioactive wastes and, consequently, contributing to the solution to the problem of deep geological disposal.In 1995, a research group was established in China, focusing on the topic of "Accelerator Driven System" and its conceptual studies [5]. In 2000, a project of the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) in the energy domain started to investigate the physics of ADS and the related technologies. At the present, the design, construction and preliminary experiments of China's ADS sub-critical assembly (Venus-1) have been completed.The Venus-1 sub-critical assembly is different from the MASURCA facility (France) and the YALINA assemblies (Belarus). The MASURCA is a fast neutron sub-critical assembly and the YALINA is a thermal neutron sub-critical assembly. The Venus-1 sub-critical core is a coupled one of a fast neutron zone and a thermal neutron zone. The fast neutron zone is at the centre of the core and natural uranium fuel is used. The fast zone is surrounded by the thermal neutron zone which uses UO 2 fuel with 3% enriched U-235 fuel. The fast neutron zone produces a fast neutron spectrum and is used to study the MA transmutation. This zone is called driven zone. The thermal neutron zone is a fission zone, which is called active zone. An epithermal neutron zone between the Abstract China's accelerator-driven sub-critical system (ADS) sub-critical experimental assembly-Venus-1 and the preliminary experiment is presented. The core of Venus-1 is a coupled one of a fast neutron zone and a thermal neutron zone. The fast neutron zone is at the centre of the core and formed by natural uranium fuel. A fast neutron spectrum field can be produced in the fast neutron zone and used for the transmutation of minor actinides (MAs). The thermal neutron zone surrounds the fast neutron zone and is formed by low-enriched uranium fuel. It is a fission zone. An epithermal neutron zone between th...

Evaluation of reactivity monitoring techniques at the Yalina – Booster subcritical facility

“…Research into ADSs has also been performed at the Chinese Institute of Atomic Energy (CIAE) since 1995. A research program was established in 2000 that resulted in the building of the subcritical assembly Venus-I [316,317,384], which is operating since 2005. It is intended for ADS neutronic studies, but also for measuring minor actinide and ssion products transmutation rates.…”