Relation between material configuration and radiation shielding capability - application of radiation shielding characteristic functions

For the purpose of finding a principle for material configuration which an ideal radiation shielding in slab geometry should obey, radiation energy dependence of material configuration is studied. In the course of study, radiation shielding capability for each system of different material configuration is evaluated by using radiation shielding characteristic functions defined as dose rates of transmitted radiations in response to isotropic incidence of radiations to the slab shield with pulse-like narrow energy distributions.In shielding neutrons by steel and water layers, recommendable material configuration depends on energy distribution of incident neutrons; all steel layers should be located in the source side of all water layers, if incident neutron energies are above 5 MeV: either homogeneous array of steel and water layers or above mentioned material configuration is recommendable, if incident neutron energies are between 2 MeV and 5 MeV: all water layers should be located in the source side of all steel layers, if incident neutron energies are below 2 MeV or incident neutrons have energy spectrum of fission neutrons.Above recommendation can be understood well by considering both energy dependence of neutron cross sections of each material and the maximum amount of energy degradation at elastic scattering in each material.In designing a neutron shield, shielding of secondary gamma rays is important as well as neutron shielding. This importance is demonstrated for several types of actual cask walls which are composed of many material layers by using the characteristic functions of neutrons and gamma rays for cask walls.     

Radiation Dosage Due to Neutrons Produced in a Vehicle by Protons in the Trapped Radiation Belt

The rate of production of neutrons by geomagnetically trapped protons incident on a vehicle was measured by a neutron counting system carried into the trapped radiation belt by a pod flow piggy back on an Atlas rocket on December 19, 1961. The flux of neutrons produced by radiation belt protons incident on the pod was determined to be at least 700 neutrons/(cm2 sec); the actual value depends somewhat on the energy spectrum of the neutrons. This flux was estimated to be equivalent to a dose rate in tissue of 0.10 rems/hr. On the basis of proton flux measurements made in the radiation belt by Freden and White, a calculation was made of the tissue dosage which would have been received in the same environment directly from protons. These calculations were made by obtaining a numerical integration of the dE/dx times RBE times flux product over the entire energy spectrum. The total dose calculated amounted to 2.78 rems/ hr. Further calculations were made to estimate the dose rates which would have been received by tissue in the same environment but with varying amounts of shielding around the vehicle. The proton dose is, of course, reduced by the shield but the neutron dose actually increases as the shielding thickness is increased. It is seen that the neutron dose equals the proton dose at .3 rems/hr. when aluminum shielding of 2.6" surrounds the vehicle and it exceeds the proton dose with thicker shielding.     

15 MeV～3 GeV电子加速器90°方向光子源项研究

韧致辐射光子是电子加速器屏蔽设计中的重要源项。为研究90°方向光子源项特征以及靶体半径和厚度对90°方向光子源项的影响,采用蒙特卡罗程序MCNPX27对15 MeV～3 GeV电子束轰击铁靶后的辐射源项进行计算。分析了90°方向光子辐射剂量、光子能谱等源项随靶厚度和半径的变化。通过与0°方向光子源项以及靶体内级联电子沉积能量进行对比,进一步分析了90°方向的光子源项特点。结果表明,90°方向光子能量主要集中在10 MeV以内,光子能谱形状与入射电子能量关系较小。受级联电子在靶内能量沉积程度及靶体对光子自吸收的共同影响,靶体半径和厚度是影响90°方向光子源项的重要因素。在电子加速器的屏蔽设计中应考虑靶体尺寸差异所带来的影响,同时建议针对束流90°方向和0°方向光子源项的差异,对加速器辐射屏蔽和防护进行优化设计。     

Simulation and Design of Biological Shield for the 115 kJ IR-MPF-100 Plasma Focus Device Using MCNP Code

The paper reports on the design of biological neutron shielding for IR-MPF100 plasma focus device which recently has been designed and constructed in plasma physics and nuclear fusion research institute. Plasma focus devices are known as pulsed intense sources of ionizing radiations such as hard X-ray and fast neutrons as a result of the formation of a hot dense plasma column then acceleration of energetic ions and electrons in the opposite directions. Therefore, taking into account a biological shield particularly for the operators of the PF device as radiation workers is crucial. Analytical calculations on the maximum permissible effective dose for radiation workers (for whole-body exposure) allow below 200 shots/year for IR-MPF100 operating at its nominal 115 kJ capacitor bank energy without any shielding wall. In order to decrease the personnel absorbed radiation dose and increase the maximum allowed shot per year the design considerations for a biological shield has been recognized using MCNP4C code. Our calculations was based on the effect of ordinary concrete, polyethylene mixed with 30 % natural boron and solid boric acid on the decrement of the absorbed dose. These calculations represent that using a double layer shield consists of 30 cm width of pure polyethylene as well as 10 cm lead, ends in appropriate decrement of the effective dose per shot from 0.1 mSv to 1.2 µSv, therefore increases the allowed usage of the device up to 15,600 annual shots.     

Estimation of neutron production from accelerator head assembly of 15 MV medical LINAC using FLUKA simulations

For the production of a clinical 15 MeV photon beam, the design of accelerator head assembly has been optimized using Monte Carlo based FLUKA code. The accelerator head assembly consists of e-γ target, flattening filter, primary collimator and an adjustable rectangular secondary collimator. The accelerators used for radiation therapy generate continuous energy gamma rays called Bremsstrahlung (BR) by impinging high energy electrons on high Z materials. The electron accelerators operating above 10 MeV can result in the production of neutrons, mainly due to photo nuclear reaction (γ, n) induced by high energy photons in the accelerator head materials. These neutrons contaminate the therapeutic beam and give a non-negligible contribution to patient dose. The gamma dose and neutron dose equivalent at the patient plane (SSD = 100 cm) were obtained at different field sizes of 0 × 0, 10 × 10, 20 × 20, 30 × 30 and 40 × 40 cm², respectively. The maximum neutron dose equivalent is observed near the central axis of 30 × 30 cm² field size. This is 0.71% of the central axis photon dose rate of 0.34 Gy/min at 1 μA electron beam current.     

Preparation and verification of mixed high-energy neutron crosssection library for ADS

An accelerator-driven subcritical system(ADS)is driven by an external spallation neutron source, which is generated from a heavy metal spallation target to maintain stable operation of the subcritical core, where the energy of the spallation neutrons can reach several hundred megaelectron volts. However, the upper neutron energy limit of nuclear cross-section databases, which are widely used in critical reactor physics calculations, is generally 20 MeV.This is not suitable for simulating the transport of highenergy spallation neutrons in the ADS. We combine the Japanese JENDL-4.0/HE high-energy evaluation database and the ADS-HE and ADS 2.0 libraries from the International Atomic Energy Agency and process all the data files for nuclides with energies greater than 20 MeV. We use the continuous pointwise cross-section program NJOY2016 to generate the ACE-formatted cross-section data library IMPC-ADS at multiple temperature points. Using the IMPC-ADS library, we calculate 10 critical benchmarks of the International Criticality Safety Benchmark Evaluation Project manual, the 14-MeV fixed-source problem of the Godiva sphere, and the neutron flux of the ADS subcritical core by MCNPX. To verify the correctness of the IMPCADS, the results were compared with those calculated using the ENDF/B-VII.0 library. The results showed thatthe IMPC-ADS is reliable in effective multiplication factor and neutron flux calculations, and it can be applied to physical analysis of the ADS subcritical reactor core.     

Shielding study on iron and concrete assemblies of bremsstrahlung photons and photoneutrons from copper target bombarded by 18, 28 and 38 MeV electrons

Following the angular distribution measurements of bremsstrahlung photons and photoneutrons, we measured the distributions of photon and neutron dose rates in the iron and concrete assemblies using a copper target bombarded by 18, 28 and 38 MeV electrons at the electron linear accelerator (linac) of Hokkaido University. In this experiment, seven types of shielding assemblies of iron and concrete layers were used and the photon and neutron dosemeters were inserted into the assemblies to get the depth–dose distribution. The measured results were compared with the results calculated using the Monte Carlo code MCNP5 to verify the calculated results. The calculated results of the ambient dose equivalent rates were in agreement with the measured results within 30% accuracy. Since no work on the radiation behavior in the shielding wall of medical linac room has ever been reported, this work gives valuable benchmark data for the detailed shielding design with high accuracy.     

从广义自持链式反应观点看加速器驱动系统

用广义自持链式反应的观点探讨了加速器驱动系统 (ADS)的基本内涵。认为次临界反应堆、质子加速器和靶所组合的整体仍可看成一个 (临界的 )自持链式反应堆。这个反应堆不同于通常临界反应堆的特点是每次裂变后的二次中子不仅包含裂变释放的中子而且还包含部分裂变释能 (通过质子加速器及靶 )所转换的中子。正是有了这些附加中子 ,使得加速器驱动系统每次裂变的有效二次中子数增加了。一个ADS系统能够稳定运行的条件是ADS的次临界堆和加速器能够相互匹配使得ADS系统的有效二次中子数达到这样的水平 ,以致在ADS系统内能够形成自持的中子链式反应。因此尽管ADS的反应堆部分是次临界的 ,但从ADS整体来看只要质子加速器与次临界反应堆匹配得当 ,ADS系统是可以像通常临界反应堆那样 ,维持自持的链式反应的 (或临界的 )。给出了ADS系统维持自持链式反应的匹配条件 (广义临界条件 )。最后根据ADS系统的特点探讨了ADS在核废物处理 (嬗变 )、提高核燃料增殖效率及核能开发中的作用。     

The design of “multiple energies from one source” in D-T neutron tube

To obtain multiple monoenergetic neutron sources and realize the on-site calibration of radiation monitoring equipment for nuclear-involved places,the structural characteristics and neutron source features of D-T neutron tube were analyzed;Monte Carlo method was adopted to simulate the effect of interaction between typical materials and different energy neutrons;multilayered shielding materials were combined and optimized to acquire the optimal scheme to shield the neutron sources from the neutron tube.On the base,a tapered alignment filtration construction was designed and Monte Carlo method was employed to simulate the effect of alignment construction.The result showed that the tapered alignment filtration construction can create monoenergetic neutrons including14.1 MeV,0.18 MeV and thermal neutrons and demonstrated good monochrome performance which provides multiple monoenergetic sources for the on-site calibration.     

Calculation of γ radiation converted to thermal energy in nuclear reactor shielding facilities

The heat generation within a shield can be a primary consideration in its design, especially when the shield is for high power reactor in which rather large temperature increases can be expected. The heating up of the shield itself can be utilized via a suitable flow of water on the outside of the said shield or, in the case of thermal shields, using the nuclear reactor coolant leading to energy saving in nuclear power plants. The thermal energy generation rate inside the shielding materials is calculated using the build up factor method for multi-energy photons emitted from disc geometry radiation source and a comparison has been made in order to estimate the percentage of energy captured, and therefore saved, inside the shielding layers. In this paper the use of build up factor is suggested for thermal energy estimation in shielding materials such as Al, Fe and Pb and comparison with the results produced from the application of MCNP-4A computer code. This is a continuation of the work done by Bakos [Bakos, G.C., 1995. Benchmark data for g-rays emitted by an Na-24 source penetrating stratified shielding slabs. IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci. 42 (2), 61–65].     

Shielding data for 100-250 MeV proton accelerators: Double differential neutron distributions and attenuation in concrete

Double differential distributions of neutrons produced by 100, 150, 200 and 250 MeV protons stopped in a thick iron target were simulated with the FLUKA Monte Carlo code at four emission angles: forward, 45°, transverse and 135° backwards. The attenuation in ordinary concrete of the dose equivalent due to secondary neutrons, protons, photons and electrons was calculated. Some of the resulting attenuation curves are best fitted by a double-exponential function rather than a single-exponential. The effect of various approximations introduced in the simulations is thoroughly discussed. The contribution to the total ambient dose equivalent from photons and protons is usually limited to a few percent, except in the backward direction where photons contribute more than 10% and up to 35% to the total dose for a shield thickness of 1-2 m. Source terms and attenuation lengths are given as a function of energy and emission angle, along with fit to the Monte Carlo data. An extensive comparison is made of values obtained in the present work with published experimental and computational data.     

AB-BNCT中子靶物理设计分析

质子加速器适用于为硼中子俘获治疗提供中子源,其中子源强及能谱较反应堆中子源更具可调性。中子靶物理计算分析是加速器中子源设计的基础,为其提供粒子能量、流强等参数需求分析,并为靶体结构尺寸设计、中子慢化和屏蔽分析等提供前端参数。本文利用MCNPX蒙特卡罗程序,通过对质子打靶的中子产额和能谱、靶体能量沉积、打靶后靶材放射性活度和中子出射空间角分布等进行研究,提出能量2.5 MeV质子轰击100～200 μm锂靶的设计,并用模拟计算数据论证其合理性。该设计中子源在1 mA流强质子轰击下,源强可达9.74×10¹¹ s^-1;拟设计15 mA、2.5 MeV质子束产生的中子源,在治疗过程中靶材放射性活度累积最大值约为1.44×10¹³ Bq。     

Formation of secondary radiation fields at NICA

The crucial points of a radiation shielding design for a relativistic heavy ion accelerator are the source term problem, neutron fluence and dose attenuation characteristics of the shielding. Simulations of the radiation shielding for JINR’s Nuclotron-Based Ion Facility (NICA) project were carried out using the GEANT4 code. Some regularities in the secondary neutron field generation at the 4.5 GeV/n uranium beam interaction with thick targets are discussed. Neutron attenuation by the ordinary concrete shielding of NICA was considered as well.     

Boiling Detection by Acoustic Analysis Applying Linear Discriminant Function

A new inventive radiation dose monitor, designated as DARWIN (Dose monitoring system Applicable to various Radiations with WIde energy raNges), has been developed for monitoring doses in workspaces and surrounding environments of high energy accelerator facilities. DARWIN is composed of a phoswitch-type scintillation detector, which consists of liquid organic scintillator BC501A coupled with ZnS(Ag) scintillation sheets doped with ⁶Li, and a data acquisition system based on a Digital-Storage-Oscilloscope. Scintillations from the detector induced by thermal and fast neutrons, photons and muons were discriminated by analyzing their waveforms, and their light outputs were directly converted into the corresponding doses by applying the G-function method. Characteristics of DARWIN were studied by both calculation and experiment. The calculated results indicate that DARWIN gives reasonable estimations of doses in most radiation fields. It was found from the experiment that DARWIN has an excellent property of measuring doses from all particles that significantly contribute to the doses in surrounding environments of accelerator facilities—neutron, photon and muon with wide energy ranges. The experimental results also suggested that DARWIN enables us to monitor small fluctuation of neutron dose rates near the background-level owing to its high sensitivity.     

Development of an high resolution neutron spectroscopy system using a diamond detector and a remote digital acquisition methodology

The need of performing high resolution fast neutron spectroscopy in a very harsh environment like that of the Radial Neutron Camera (RNC) of ITER, requires to develop new detectors and methodologies. Diamond detectors have been proved to be excellent candidates but the electronics needs a substantial improvement. Because of the high radiation level and the temperatures expected near the detector positions in the RNC, the electronics must be placed several meters away. A novel Fast Charge Amplifier (FCA) was developed that, connected to a diamond detector using several tens of meters of low capacitance coaxial cable, is able to produce fast output signals suitable to be processed by digital electronics. These fast output signals allow to operate at high count rates avoiding pile-up problems. This novel amplifier connected to a digitizer is here tested in the neutron energy range from 5 to 20.5 MeV using the mono-energetic neutrons produced by the Van de Graaff (VdG) accelerator of the EC-JRC-IRMM and by the PTB cyclotron. From the measurements the experimental response functions of the diamond detector at different neutron energies were obtained. The shape of the response functions have been compared with that predicted with a routine which was implemented for the Monte Carlo code MCNPX with the scope to validate the calculations versus the experimental data. The goal is to develop a tool which allows to calculate the diamond detector response functions also in term of absolute efficiency. This methodology along with the ability to measure at high reaction rates and the insensitivity to radiation damage launches the system described in this paper as a promising method for neutron spectrometry in the RNC of ITER.     

热中子照相装置屏蔽的蒙特卡罗模拟

中子照相装置的屏蔽对降低反应堆大厅本底及提高中子照相质量具有重要意义。使用蒙特卡罗模拟方法,对热中子照相装置各组成部分的屏蔽进行模拟计算。结果表明：在照相装置的准直器部分使用厚130cm、密度4.6t/m3的重混凝土,飞行管部分使用厚75cm、密度3.6t/m3的重混凝土可保证屏蔽外的辐射当量剂量达到反应堆大厅的监督区要求。     

Shielding data for 100-250 MeV proton accelerators: Attenuation of secondary radiation in thick iron and concrete/iron shields

Double differential distributions of neutrons produced by 100, 150, 200 and 250 MeV protons stopped in a thick iron target were calculated with the FLUKA Monte Carlo code at four emission angles: forward, 45°, transverse and 135° backwards. The attenuation in thick iron shields of the dose equivalent due to neutrons, protons, photons and electrons was also calculated. The contribution to the total ambient dose equivalent from photons and protons is limited to a few percent at maximum. Source terms and attenuation lengths are given as a function of energy and emission angle, along with fits to the Monte Carlo data, for shallow depth and deep penetration in the shield. A brief discussion of simulations performed with composite iron/concrete shields is also given, showing the need for further investigations.     

Computational characteristics of a neutron source based on the CERN colliding-beams accelerator

The computational characteristics of a pulsed source of thermal neutrons, which can be implented on the basis of the collidng-beams accelerator under construction at CERN, are presented. The calculations were performed at the All-Russia Reserach Institute of Experimental Physics (Sarov) using two Monte Carlo programs: the GEANT-3 program developed at CERN and our own program S-95. The neutron source is assumed to be a cylindrical tungsten target with an internal neutron moderator made of zirconium hydride bombarded by protons from a colliding-beam accelerator. The maximum power of the source is estimated on the basis of the results of calculations of the dynamical stresses in tungsten. To decrease the negative impact of mechanical stresses, recommendations are formulated dividing the target efficiently into individual elements. __________ Translated from Atomnaya énergiya, Vol. 100, No. 2, pp. 117–125, February, 2006.     

Direct heat generation and corresponding energy saving in nuclear reactors due to optimum synthesis of shielding materials

In this paper the calculation of direct heat generation and energy savings due to the penetration of 1.37 and 2.75 MeV energy photons, emitted from a Na-24 radiation facility, through double layer shielding slabs of aluminium, steel and lead is described. A comparison is being made among six different shielding material combinations in order to assess the optimum shield related to the maximum energy captured due to γ-rays penetration through the combined shielding materials.     

Synthesis and Characterization of a Soft-tissue Substitute for Neutron Dosimetry

To develop a physical phantom for neutron dosimetry, a solid soft-tissue substitute was synthesized. The synthesized tissue substitute, NAN-JAERI, is improved in both hydrogen and oxygen elemental composition in comparison with existing tissue substitutes. To examine the radiation characteristics of the new soft-tissue substitute, absorbed dose distributions in NAN-JAERI were measured using a ²⁵²Cf neutron source. The measured absorbed dose distributions of neutrons and photons agree with those calculated by a Monte Carlo simulation code MCNP. The agreement between the experiment and the simulation verifies this method of evaluating the soft-tissue equivalence of NAN-JAERI for ²⁵²Cf neutrons. Similar simulations for some mono-energetic neutron sources showed that the newly developed tissue substitute has soft-tissue equivalent characteristics in the neutron energy range from 1 MeV up to 14 MeV, in terms of the absorbed dose distributions in a slab phantom.