Irradiation damages in tantalum spallation target

Abstract

Abstract The irradiation by a high intensity proton beam of the spallation target in Accelerator Driven Systems (ADS) gives rise to structural damages that must be considered in the design and handling of such materials. In this work, some of these damages are evaluated in the case of the irradiation of a tantalum target. Tantalum was recently proposed as solid target in the case of low power systems. Unfortunately, not enough experimental data of spallation reactions in this material are available. Therefore, our calculations were made using MCNPX and the stand-alone version of the spallation codes INCL4+ABLA. Results of this work are the concentrations of spallation residues produced in the target after one year of irradiation and calculations of the activity derived. Also displacements per atom in the target material have been evaluated. Different components (elastic scattering and non-elastic reactions) of the displacement cross-sections were calculated with two different methods.