Nuclear relativistic technologies for energy production and utilization of spent nuclear fuel: Results of first experiments on substantiation of nuclear relativistic technologies

Abstract

A fundamentally new scheme of the electronuclear method based on nuclear relativistic technol ogies is discussed; this scheme includes the formation and utilization of a limiting hard neutron spectrum in the volume of the deep subcritical active core. It is demonstrated that the development and application of nuclear relativistic technologies can be promising for solving the problem of utilizing spent nuclear fuel and global challenges of power production. The results of the first experiments performed at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research indicate the realistic character of the main principles of relativistic nuclear technologies, in particular, the growth of beam power amplification by a factor of 2 for a deuteron beam irradiating a mas sive (315 kg) uranium target with the beam energy increasing from 1 to 4 GeV.

Recent results of the study of ads with 500kg natural uranium target assembly QUINTA irradiated by deuterons with energies from 1 TO 8 GeV at JINR NUCLOTRON

“…According to the authors [8], it was not accounted for 3-4 fission events (per one proton) occurring in the cascade region of the central zone of the target with a diameter of 10 cm due to specific design of the experimental setup. Thus, the beam power gain for this proton energy could be estimated (see [1] for more detail) as ~ 6.0 and ~ 7.4 for depleted and natural uranium, respectively. It is necessary to mention one more result obtained in Ref.…”

“…The main features of new promising ADS project aiming to recycle spent nuclear fuel (SNF) with simultaneous producing energy were presented during the last XX Baldin Seminar [1]. This project is based on so called Relativistic Nuclear Technology (RNT) proposed recently [3] by one of the institutions (CPTP «Atomenergomash», Moscow) participating collaboration.…”

“…The study of basic properties of the ADS presented in the previous Baldin seminar [1] was continued during the 2011-2012. For these experiments, uranium target assembly has been upgraded: the entrance window was created to reduce the albedo of the incident beam and a section was added to keep the effective mass of uranium to the beam axis.…”

“…Total numbers of fissions and produced 239 Pu nuclei were obtained by integration over QUINTA volume and normalized to one incident deuteron and one GeV. Both these numbers were constant within experimental errors of about 15 % for the deuteron energy range (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8) GeV. In measurements with a lead blanket the absolute amount of produced 239 Pu nuclei increased by about 50% but staying constant in studied deuteron energy range, while the numbers of fissions remained virtually unchanged The group analysis of DN time spectra indicates a growth in the average energy of the neutrons initiating fission of target nuclei from 15 to ~ 40 MeV with an increase in energy of the incident deuterons from 1 to 8 GeV.…”

A summary of experimental results on the reactions in uranium samples irradiated with a deuteron beam of energies up to 8 GeV at the QUINTA target

“…The RNT project has been designed by the certain members of the international collaboration "E&T-RAW". Currently, the project is being investigated at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), Dubna, Russia, with the use of Nuclotron accelerator as a basic experimental equipment [7,8].…”