Measurements and Monte-Carlo simulations of the particle self-shielding effect of B4C grains in neutron shielding concrete
- Resource Type
- Working Paper
- Authors
- DiJulio, D. D.; Cooper-Jensen, C. P.; Llamas-Jansa, I.; Kazi, S.; Bentley, P. M.
- Source
- Radiation Physics and Chemistry Volume 147, June 2018, Pages 40-44
- Subject
- Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors
Nuclear Experiment
- Language
A combined measurement and Monte-Carlo simulation study was carried out in order to characterize the particle self-shielding effect of B4C grains in neutron shielding concrete. Several batches of a specialized neutron shielding concrete, with varying B4C grain sizes, were exposed to a 2 {\AA} neutron beam at the R2D2 test beamline at the Institute for Energy Technology located in Kjeller, Norway. The direct and scattered neutrons were detected with a neutron detector placed behind the concrete blocks and the results were compared to Geant4 simulations. The particle self-shielding effect was included in the Geant4 simulations by calculating effective neutron cross-sections during the Monte-Carlo simulation process. It is shown that this method well reproduces the measured results. Our results show that shielding calculations for low-energy neutrons using such materials would lead to an underestimate of the shielding required for a certain design scenario if the particle self-shielding effect is not included in the calculations.
Comment: This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/