The optimization on neutronic performance of the granular spallation target by using low-density porous tungsten

Abstract The concept of gravity-driven Dense Granular Target (DGT) has been proposed and tungsten granule is one of the candidate target materials. With the increase of DGT diameter, the source efficiency is significantly reduced, which is not conducive to the design of high-power. Low density porous tungsten particles are proposed as the target material of DGT instead of the natural tungsten. First, the neutronics of the bare target have been studied with porous tungsten granule density using Monte Carlo code. An ADS model was then set up to evaluate the neutron sources performance caused by density variation of porous tungsten granule. The results show that there is an optimal combination of tungsten granular density and target diameter to make the utmost of leakage neutrons. In the ADS driven by tungsten DGT, an appropriate density porous tungsten as the target material can effectively increase the source efficiency, reduce the beam requirement and the thermal deposition on the target.