Nuclear Engineering and Technology

Korean Nuclear Society (한국원자력학회)
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Study on the shielding performance of bismuth oxide as a spent fuel dry storage container based on Monte Carlo simulation

  • Guo-Qiang Zeng (College of Nuclear Technology and Automation Engineering, Chengdu University of Technology) ;
  • Shuang Qi (College of Nuclear Technology and Automation Engineering, Chengdu University of Technology) ;
  • Peng Cheng (College of Nuclear Technology and Automation Engineering, Chengdu University of Technology) ;
  • Sheng Lv (College of Nuclear Technology and Automation Engineering, Chengdu University of Technology) ;
  • Fei Li (College of Nuclear Technology and Automation Engineering, Chengdu University of Technology) ;
  • Xiao-Bo Wang (College of Nuclear Technology and Automation Engineering, Chengdu University of Technology) ;
  • Bing-Hai Li (Airborne Survey and Remote Sensing Center of Nuclear Industry) ;
  • Qing-Ao Qin (College of Nuclear Technology and Automation Engineering, Chengdu University of Technology)
  • Received : 2024.01.31
  • Accepted : 2024.03.21
  • Published : 2024.08.25
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Abstract

For traditional spent fuel shielding materials, due to physical and chemical defects and cost constraints, they have been unable to meet the needs. Therefore, this paper carries out the first discussion on the application and performance of bismuth in neutron shielding by establishing Monte Carlo simulation on the neutron flux model of shielded spent fuel. Firstly, functional fillers such as bismuth oxide, lead oxide, boron oxide, gadolinium oxide and tungsten oxide are added to the matrices to compare the shielding rates of aluminum alloy matrix and silicone rubber matrix. The shielding rate of silicone rubber mixture is higher than aluminum alloy mixture, reaching more than 56%. The optimal addition proportion of bismuth oxide and lead oxide is 30%, and the neutron radiation protection efficiency reaches 60%. Then, the mass attenuation coefficients of bismuth oxide, lead oxide, boron oxide, gadolinium oxide and tungsten oxide in silicone rubber matrix are simulated with the change of functional fillers proportion and neutron energy. This simulation result shows that the mixture with functional fillers has good shielding performance for low energy neutrons, but poor shielding effect for high energy neutrons. Finally, in order to further evaluate the possibility of replacing lead oxide with bismuth oxide as shielding material, the half-value layers and various properties of bismuth oxide and lead oxide are compared. The results show that the shielding properties of bismuth oxide and lead oxide are basically the same, and the mechanical properties, heat resistance, radiation resistance and environmental protection of bismuth oxide are better than that of lead oxide. Therefore, in the case of neutron source strengths in the range of 0.01-6 MeV and secondary gamma rays produced below 2.5 MeV, bismuth can replace lead in neutron shielding applications.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Sichuan Province (No. 24NSFSC2220, 23NSFSCC0116 and 2021JDTD0018), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 42127807), and the Nuclear Energy Development Project (No. [2021]-88). We thank the CDUT Team 203 for their English language review.

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