ABSTRACT
Here we present an investigation of a plutonium-beryllium neutron source available at the Horia Hulubei National Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering, Romania, to be used for detector characterization during the implementation of the Extreme Light Infrastructure - Nuclear Physics project. Using several different techniques and instruments, we have measured the isotopic composition for plutonium to be 75% 239Pu and 24% 240Pu, with a minor contribution from other isotopes. Furthermore, we have measured the source activity as of November 20th 2019 to be 2.220(5)×105 neutrons per second with a mean energy of 3.25(17) MeV. We have also measured both the γ-tagged and full neutron energy spectra, and discuss the origin of the observed structure in the neutron energies based on these. All these parameters are of importance both for traceability of nuclear material, radioprotection, and accurate detector characterization.
ABSTRACT
High field quantum electrodynamics experiments will be conducted in the E6 experimental area of the Extreme Light Infrastructure-Nuclear Physics building. Here electrons and protons will be accelerated up to relativistic energies by multi-petawatt laser beam-target interactions. In this respect, the requirements for radiological safety measures are similar to those associated with the operation of conventional high energy accelerators. The paper presents a FLUKA simulation approach to the shielding assessment of the individual experiments. Updated source terms were used in order to compute ambient dose equivalent rates throughout E6 and neighbouring areas and check the compliance of the results with legal dose constraints. We investigated the effectiveness of an 'all-purpose' beam dump at E6 and the practicality of local muon shielding.
Subject(s)
Occupational Exposure/analysis , Particle Accelerators , Radiation Protection/methods , Computer Simulation , Facility Design and Construction , Humans , Lasers , Monte Carlo Method , Radiation Dosage , Radiometry/methods , RomaniaABSTRACT
Low energy heavy charged particle accelerators are generators of ionizing radiation, due to the ion beam interactions into the machine components, targets and surrounding materials. Nowadays there are available computational tools allowing realistic estimates of radiation doses and residual activity of the activated components. These evaluations are further used to design the radiological safety system required by licensing and operation of the equipment.This paper presents results of measurements and numerical simulations of the radiation doses and residual activity, at the recently commissioned Bucharest 3 MV Cockcroft-Walton type Tandetron accelerator presently used mainly for Ion Beam Analysis (IBA) research.
