Assessment of the Predictive Capabilities of Two-Way Multi-Physics Coupling to Model High Power RbCl Isotope Production Targets
Ellen O’Brien, Joseph Doster, Meiring Nortier, Eric Olivas, Matthew Stokely
Los Alamos National Laboratory; North Carolina State University; BTI Targetry, LLC
Oral Presentation
The authors have no conflicts of interest.
A three-stacked target configuration is utilized for radioisotope production at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) Isotope Production Facility (IPF). As in-beam monitoring of the molten targets in this configuration is not possible, high-fidelity simulation has been utilized to gain insight into target thermal behavior. A two-way multi-physics coupling methodology, employing the computer codes ANSYS and MCNP, was developed to capture the highly coupled physics of this target stack. The results of this multi-physics model with two upstream RbCl targets were compared to experimental data obtained with the same target configuration. This was done by observing the production of Co-56 and Co-57 in a series of Ni-58 foils in the low-energy (C) slot of the target stack in two separate experiments and comparing model predictions to actual large-scale Sr-82 production batch yields in the molten RbCl targets. Recreation of the experimental conditions and geometry with this multi-physics model provides a means to quantify the model’s predictive power and highlights potential weaknesses in the modeling physics.