ENEA Contribution to the Design of the Thin Target for the Spes Project

Since some years, ENEA has been supported INFN (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare) in the framework of the R&D of the SPES project (Study for the Production of Exotic Species). This project concerns an accelerator based facility for the production of intense neutron-rich radioactive ion beams, intended to be obtained from 238U fissions. This facility is planned to be constructed at the Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro (Padova, Italy). In this report a target configuration with the proton beam (40 MeV, 0.2 mA) directly impinging on uranium carbide is investigated. The target is split into several thin disks in order to allow the cooling of the system by thermal radiation. The ENEA contribution concerns the analyses of the fission rates (circa 8E12 fissions per second), the fission fragment distribution, the thermal and the thermo-mechanical behaviours of the disks. The obtained results show the promising performances of the proposed target configuration.