Recent developments in radionuclide neutron source emission rate measurements at the National Physical Laboratory

THE NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL OF CANADA MANGANESE BATH SYSTEM

The manganese salt bath is considered a primary standard for determining the absolute emission rate of radionuclide neutron sources. The National Research Council of Canada has recently revived its manganese salt bath and a full description of the system is given here. The physical characteristics of the bath, as well as the methods for determining the efficiency of the bath system and the induced activity in the bath, are described. An in-depth analysis of the fraction of neutrons captured in the manganese and the correction factor for neutron losses is also provided. Finally, the results of emission rate measurements of four different sources, complete with an uncertainty budget, are given. The emission rates of three americium-beryllium neutron sources and one californium-252 neutron source were found to agree with the known values, within a standard uncertainty of 1.7%.

Improvement in the practical implementation of neutron source strength calibration using prompt gamma rays

In this study, the neutron emission rate from neutron sources using prompt gamma rays in hydrogen was determined, and several improvements were applied. Using Monte Carlo calculations, the best positions for the source, moderator and detector relative to each other were selected. For (241)Am-Be and (252)Cf sources, the sizes for polyethylene spheres with the highest efficiency were 12- and 10-inch, respectively. In addition, a new shielding cone was designed to account for scattered neutrons and gamma rays. The newly designed shielding cone, which is 45 cm in length, provided suitable attenuation for the source radiation.

An evaluation of a manganese bath system having a new geometry through MCNP modelling

In this study, an approximate symmetric cylindrical manganese bath system with equal diameter and height was appraised using a Monte Carlo simulation. For nine sizes of the tank filled with MnSO(4).H(2)O solution of three different concentrations, the necessary correction factors involved in the absolute measurement of neutron emission rate were determined by a detailed modelling of the MCNP4C code with the ENDF/B-VII.0 neutron cross section data library. The results obtained were also used to determine the optimum dimensions of the bath for each concentration of solution in the calibration of (241)Am-Be and (252)Cf sources. Also, the amount of gamma radiation produced as a result of (n,γ) the reaction with the nuclei of the manganese sulphate solution that escaped from the boundary of each tank was evaluated. This gamma can be important for the background in NaI(Tl) detectors and issues concerned with radiation protection.

Improvement in the calibration time of absolute emission rate of radioisotopic neutron sources using vanadyl sulfate bath

In this study, for calibration of emission rate of radioisotopic neutron sources, a suitable vanadium salt was proposed instead manganese sulfate because the shorter half-life of (52)V would facilitate faster neutron yield measurements to be made with a shorter delay time between subsequent measurements. Using Monte Carlo method, different correction factors of manganese and vanadyl sulfate baths were calculated and compared with each other. The results showed that for having an appropriate efficiency of VBS, high concentrations of solution must be used.