The OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) is organising the fourth international workshop on technology and components of accelerator driven systems (TCADS-4). The meeting will be held in Antwerp, Belgium on 14-17 October 2019, and will be hosted by SCK•CEN.

Accelerator Driven Systems (ADS) are promising tools for the efficient transmutation of nuclear waste and are considered as a potential option for partitioning and transmutation strategies in an advanced nuclear fuel cycle. Followed by the success of the workshop series on the utilisation and reliability of the high power proton accelerators (HPPA) in 1998-2007, the scope the TCADS workshop covers sub-critical systems as well as the use of neutron sources. The first three workshops were held in 2010 (Karlsruhe, Germany), 2013 (Nantes, France) and 2016 (Mito, Japan).

This workshop will provide experts a forum to present and discuss state-of-the-art developments in the field of ADS and neutron sources.

The workshop will cover: R&D status on ADS including accelerators, neutron sources and sub-critical systems for current facilities and future experimental and power systems; technology, engineering and research aspects of the above components; system optimisation for reducing capital and operational costs and the role of ADS in advanced fuel cycles.

Proposed topics and subjects to be discussed are:

• ADS accelerators systems
• Continuous mode operation and operational control
• Reliability and availability
• ADS operational challenges (high beam power and low-loss operation, accelerator-target interfaces, etc.)
• Safety systems/shielding of accelerator and beam line
• Neutron sources
• Current and future intense neutron sources
• Spallation and non-spallation targets
• Design concepts and required technologies (e.g. coolant, materials, performance, instrumentation, etc.)
• Operational characteristics and related technical issues (e.g. window/windowless, solid/liquid, interface between accelerator and target, etc.)
• Relevant nuclear cross sections (evaluations, validation and verification)
• Sub-critical systems
• Design concepts and performance parameters (e.g. transmutation, energy production, etc.)
• ADS fuel/target design options
• Sub-critical reactor physics (e.g. reactivity monitoring, etc.)
• Coolant technology and materials, thermal-hydraulics
• Unique ADS auxiliary systems (e.g. target replacement, refuelling machine, etc.)
• Related safety and licensing issues
• Current ADS experiments
• Low power coupling experiments
• Zero power physics simulators