Study of reaction cross-sections important for advanced nuclear systems

0504681 - ÚJF 2020 CZ eng D - Dizertace
Chudoba, Petr
Study of reaction cross-sections important for advanced nuclear systems.
Univerzita Karlova, Matematicko-fyzikální fakulta. Obhájeno: Praha. 21. 5. 2018. - Praha: MFF, 2018. 124 s.
Institucionální podpora: RVO:61389005
Klíčová slova: cross-sections * neutron reactions * neutron sources * activation detectors * transmutation systems * gamma spectrometry
Obor OECD: Nuclear physics

The doctoral thesis is focused on measurements of neutron cross-sections mainly cross-sections of (n,xn) threshold reactions. With the dawn of advanced nuclear systems such as fast reactors of GenIV, accelerator driven system or even fusion reactors, monitoring of fast neutron fields will gain on importance. The activation detectors are one of the viable options how to monitor these neutron fields and (n,xn) reactions would be one of the best options how to do such monitoring. There is one condition though. We need to have good cross-section data in high neutron energy region. Unfortunately, the current situation is rather bad. There is only a small amount of reliable data for neutron energies above 20 MeV and with increasing energy, the situation gets only worse. For this reason, we measure the cross-sections of (n,xn) reactions on perspective materials such as yttrium, gold and tantalum with neutron energies from 17.4 up to 94 MeV. In this thesis, the measurements together with motivation and methodology are described. Obtained results are in agreement with existing data. Severe discrepancies were observed between the predictions and experimental data for high order (n,xn) reactions. This problem is discussed and solved. The results in this region are in form of cross-section values and also corresponding excitation functions were determined.
Trvalý link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0296259