Construction and testing of a neutron and gamma spectrometry system using pulse shape discrimination with an organic scintillator. Master's thesis
The goal of this thesis was to construct and test a neutron detector to measure the energy spectrum of 1 to 14-MeV neutrons in the presence of gammas. A spectrometer based on the process of pulse shape discrimination (PSD) was constructed, in which the scintillator NE-213 was used. The primary neutron/gamma sources used were 78-mCi and 4.7-Ci (239)PuBe sources, while 4.7-micro-Ci and 97.6-micro-Ci (22)Na gamma sources were used for energy calibration and additional testing of the detector. Proton recoil spectra and Compton electron spectra were unfolded with the neutron and gamma unfolding code FORIST to generate the incident neutron and gamma spectra, respectively. FORIST, which was written for a CDC computer, was modified to run on a VAX 6420. The experimental spectra were compared to those in the literature. The locations of the peaks in the (239)PuBe spectrum agreed with the literature to within 8.3%, the (239)PuBe gamma spectrum agreed to within 0.7%, while the (22)Na gamma spectrum agreed exactly. Uncertainties in the detection system and unfolding procedure are on the order of 5-10%. This thesis is intended to be a summary of the relevant literature and a user's guide to the PSD spectrometer.... Neutron unfolding code, Gamma spectrometry, Neutron spectrometry, Pulse shape discrimination.
- Research Organization:
- Air Force Inst. of Tech., Wright-Patterson AFB, OH (United States). School of Engineering
- OSTI ID:
- 6393233
- Report Number(s):
- AD-A-262550/7/XAB; AFIT/GNE/ENP-93M-6
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: Master's thesis
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
GAMMA SPECTROMETERS
PERFORMANCE TESTING
NEUTRON DETECTORS
PULSE DISCRIMINATORS
F CODES
BENCH-SCALE EXPERIMENTS
BERYLLIUM
CALIBRATION
CDC COMPUTERS
DATA COVARIANCES
DEC COMPUTERS
ELECTRON SPECTRA
GAMMA SOURCES
GAMMA SPECTRA
MEV RANGE 01-10
NEUTRON SOURCES
NEUTRON SPECTROMETERS
PLUTONIUM 239
SODIUM 22
ACTINIDE ISOTOPES
ACTINIDE NUCLEI
ALKALI METAL ISOTOPES
ALKALINE EARTH METALS
ALPHA DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
BETA DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
BETA-PLUS DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
COMPUTER CODES
COMPUTERS
DISCRIMINATORS
ELECTRONIC CIRCUITS
ELEMENTS
ENERGY RANGE
EVEN-ODD NUCLEI
HEAVY NUCLEI
ISOMERIC TRANSITION ISOTOPES
ISOTOPES
LIGHT NUCLEI
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
METALS
MEV RANGE
NANOSEC LIVING RADIOISOTOPES
NUCLEI
ODD-ODD NUCLEI
PARTICLE SOURCES
PLUTONIUM ISOTOPES
PULSE CIRCUITS
RADIATION DETECTORS
RADIATION SOURCES
RADIOISOTOPES
SODIUM ISOTOPES
SPECTRA
SPECTROMETERS
SPONTANEOUS FISSION RADIOISOTOPES
TESTING
YEARS LIVING RADIOISOTOPES
440103* - Radiation Instrumentation- Nuclear Spectroscopic Instrumentation