Innovative Approach to the Problem of Nuclear Reactor Safety: Imitation Radiation Effects in Reactor Structural Materials by Accelerated Charged Particles.

Problem of nuclear power safety is one of the most important engineering challenges of our time. One of the most important aspects of this problem is the assessment of the state of reactor structural materials. Direct measurements are associated with work under conditions of strong radiation here and are therefore complex, time consuming, do not allow for greater accuracy and are often just impossible. The full correspondence of the results of computer simulation to the real state of things raises doubts, too.

We propose a method that is used for choice of the first wall materials of International Experimental Thermonuclear Reactor (ITER) may be apply to solve of the problem considered here. This method is simulation of radiation damage in reactors structural materials by a combination of experiments “on-beam“ on accelerators charged particles. At the first stage, the criteria for simulating radiation damage in the reactor are formulate and the necessary types and energies accelerated charged particles are selected for this. Then, a change in the properties of materials on a charged particle accelerator during irradiation is measured, and not after irradiation, as usual. This allows us to get results that are more real.

Criteria for simulating radiation damage by neutrons of the reactor spectrum and their annealing upon irradiation of various charged particles at different target temperatures are formulated. The results of pioneering experiments on the radiation relaxation of materials during irradiation by high-energy heavy ions at the U-300 accelerator of the Nuclear Reactions Laboratory of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna (Russia) and electron beam are given.

It is concluded that the proposed approach for the analysis of radiation effects in the structural materials of nuclear reactors is useful and promising.