Electron Target Cooling Analyses of the KIPT ADS Using MCNP and Ansys Fluent

Abstract

This study presents multiphysics analyses of the electron target cooling system of the accelerator-driven system (ADS) of the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology (KIPT) using MCNP and Fluent computer programs. MCNP has been used to transport electrons, gammas, and neutrons, and to calculate the energy deposition in the target materials. The MCNP mesh-tally data have been imported into Fluent by a C subroutine that has been compiled and linked to Fluent as a user-defined function.

The KIPT ADS is located in Ukraine and was in operation until February 2022. The Fluent model is based on the computer-aided design files from the manufacturing process of the target assembly. The Fluent results for the reference case match very well the literature results obtained by STAR-CCM+ during the design phase. Other cases that differ from the reference one have been analyzed; in these cases, it is assumed a malfunction of the electron accelerator or of the water cooling system. The target cooling system operates normally for all the analyzed cases except when the inlet water mass flow rate is decreased. The transient analysis showed that the target cooling system can operate for 180 s with full power when the inlet water mass flow rate is decreased down by 75%.

Keywords:

• Fluent
• MCNP
• STAR-CCM +
• accelerator-driven system
• KIPT

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge and thank the SimuTech Group engineers for their invaluable help in cleaning up the target CAD model, meshing the geometry, and preparing the Fluent model.

The submitted paper has been created by UChicago Argonne LLC, operator of Argonne. Argonne, a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science laboratory, is operated under contract no. DE-AC02-06CH11357. The U.S. government retains for itself, and others acting on its behalf, a paid-up nonexclusive, irrevocable worldwide license in said paper to reproduce, prepare derivative works, distribute copies to the public, and perform publicly and display publicly, by or on behalf of the U.S. government.

Data Set

A data set is available at https://osf.io/5zca8/?view_only=511f99f96818406faac76207549a9ae6.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Material Management and Minimization, National Nuclear Security Administration.