Study of thorium fast neutron reactions

The growing population on earth increases the world energy consumption. The need of energyand ecological care increased the researches on clean natural energy sources like sun, windand wave power. Instead these sources are far away to respond the need; nuclear power withsafer constructions becomes a leading research field. The proposal of ?energy amplifier? of C.Rubbia increases the attention on Thorium and makes it the fuel of future generation nuclearreactors. The design of such reactors needs detailed and precise data on fission products.In this work, cumulative fission product yields in the fission of 232Th by 14 MeV neutronshave been measured and 52 nuclides are reported. Experiments are taken on SAMES T-400neutron generator which produces ~14 MeV neutrons by D-T reaction. The neutron flux ofthe generator has been determined by neutron activation analysis of 27Al(n,p)27Mg reaction.A HpGe GAMMAX detector has been used with CAMAC system to ensure fast and accurateelectronic response and all the calibrations of the experimental system was taken by thesample itself. For the identification of the nuclides consecutive counting strategy has beenintroduced and the half lives of the nuclides under interest have also been measured. By thisconsecutive counting strategy it became possible to give different cooling times by which theadditive effect of other photo peaks have been eliminated. With the experimental setup theuncertainties of the data reported by other authors have been lowered and 10 unreportedcumulative yields are reported.Keywords : Thorium, Fission, 14 MeV Neutrons, Cumulative Yield, CAMACJURY:1. Prof. Dr. Metin SUBAŞI (Supervisor) Date: 10.03.20062. Prof. Dr. Nizamettin ERDURAN Page: 1433. Prof. Dr. Mehmet ŞİRİN4. Prof. Dr. Melih BOSTAN5. Doç. Dr. Cenap Özben