Fusion Science and Technology / Volume 78 / Number 6 / August 2022 / Pages 475-489
Technical Paper / dx.doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2022.2049121
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
With the development of magnetic confinement fusion (MCF), it has become feasible for fusion energy to solve the future energy crisis. High-energy neutrons are produced during the fusion reaction. Neutron shielding and the tritium breeding ratio in MCF require a neutron source of high precision. In traditional methods, the neutron source is supposed to be isotropic. However, the double-differential cross sections for nuclear fusion given in the ENDF/B-VI database make it possible to calculate the neutron direction distribution in deuterium-tritium (D-T) plasma. In this study, a Maxwellian reactivity rate database is obtained by extracting double-differential cross-section data from the ENDF/B-VI database and then revising it. Monte Carlo and discrete ordinate methods are used to simulate transportation and fusion in D-T plasma and obtain the angular distribution of the neutron generation rate. The results of a preliminary numerical simulation in a simple model tell us that the difference between anisotropy and isotropy can reach an average of 4.6%. A temperature-corrected double-differential cross-section database and a numerical simulation method are developed to calculate the angular distribution of the neutron generation rate.