Nuclide production in spallation reactions: How useful are the simulations?

INCL (Liège IntraNuclear Cascade model) combined with a deexcitation code has been used a lot for numerous simulations of spallation reactions during the last two decades. We go back over some of those simulations to address the capabilities of such codes and to show some improvements. The four examples of simultation are: the EURISOL project, the MEGAPIE target, the ESS facility, and the cosmogenic nuclide production. The goal is to discuss respectively designing and optimisation, predictive power and reliability, feasibility and uncertainty estimate, and the use of modeling to mitigate lack of experimental data. (paper)