Studies of D-Li neutron source: An overview

The construction of a neutron source facility able to reproduce the radiation environment predicted for a fusion reactor can be considered a very important milestone for the fusion program. Such a neutron source should allow materials testing over a wide range of neutron flux and neutron fluence. To date, none of the existing facilities reproduce the neutron flux with the energy spectrum of a fusion reactor. As a result, the major part of the required material database is obtained by extrapolations which may not be as reliable as needed to predict the real performance of those materials under fusion reactor conditions. As an example, the effect of the gas production, transmutation, atomic displacement, and other nuclear responses on the ductility and swelling and perhaps other properties as well, must be analyzed in samples which have undergone reactor conditions environment. This study is focused on the neutronics analysis of a D-Li neutron source. Neutron induced nuclear responses and neutron transport are calculated with the aim at defining the expected performance of a D-Li neutron source. The first section describes the differences in the magnitude of the neutron flux when material is present or not inside the test cell The second section deals with nuclear responses such as DPA, helium production, and nuclear heating. In the third section, calculations of the available volume above a threshold DPA value are presented. Section four presents results for the gamma-ray flux distribution. A brief discussion about tritium generation in the lithium jet is given in section live, and the conclusions are summarized in section six.