Abstract
A total of 77 experimental values of reaction rates for the ( \(n,2n\) ), ( \(n,p\) ), ( \(n,pn\) ), ( \(n,\alpha\) ), ( \(n,\gamma\) ), and ( \(n,f\) ) channels were obtained in the neutron spectrum generated by 21.5 MeV protons irradiating a beryllium target. The measurements were carried out using both natural and highly enriched samples of the following elements: \({}^{\textrm{nat}}\) Ni, \({}^{\textrm{nat}}\) Zr, \({}^{\textrm{nat}}\) Nb, \({}^{\textrm{nat}}\) Cd, \({}^{\textrm{nat}}\) Ti, \({}^{\textrm{nat}}\) Co, \({}^{63,65,\textrm{nat}}\) Cu, \({}^{64}\) Zn, \({}^{\textrm{nat}}\) In, \({}^{\textrm{nat}}\) Al, \({}^{\textrm{nat}}\) Mg, \({}^{\textrm{nat}}\) Fe, \({}^{\textrm{nat}}\) Au and \({}^{\textrm{nat}}\) Th. The experiments were performed using the activation technique without destructive analysis of the irradiated samples. Reaction products were measured via \(\gamma\) -ray spectrometry employing two coaxial high-purity germanium (HP Ge) detectors and one planar detector. The acquired \(\gamma\) -spectra were processed using the GENIE2000 software suite. Independent and/or cumulative reaction rates were calculated using the SIGMA code. In total, 77 reaction products were identified, with half-lives ranging from 9.458 minutes ( \({}^{27}\) Mg) to 5.27 years ( \({}^{60}\) Co). The resulting dataset was utilized to assess the predictive capabilities of the PHITS-3.31 code coupled with the JENDL-5 nuclear data library, as applied to the modeling of blanket systems in hybrid reactor facilities.
