Systematic Evaluation of Neutron Shielding Effects for Materials

Three types of experiments with a ²⁵²Cf neutron source are proposed to evaluate systematically the neutron shielding effects of a material. The type 1 experiment deals with each shielding material alone, the type 2 experiment combines a shielding material and a structural material, and the type 3 experiment constructs the optimization with the materials used in the type 2 experiment. In the stainless steel (SS) + polyethylene shielding system, because of the location of the SS slabs at the source side, the tenth layer of the polyethylene becomes approximately one-half the value as when the polyethylene is employed alone. This is the enhancement effect of the SS. In the type 3 experiment, the total thickness of the SS + polyethylene shielding system is 40 cm, and the total thicknesses of the SS and the polyethylene slabs are fixed at 25 and 15 cm thick, respectively. The minimum total dose-equivalent rate (neutron + secondary gamma rays) is observed when the polyethylene slabs are located at a 20-cm depth from the source side, with an arrangement of 20-cm-thick SS + 15-cm-thick polyethylene + 5-cm-thick and SS, and with a ratio of the maximum to the minimum dose-equivalent rate of 2.5. The shielding optimization can be constructed by combining the materials having different shielding characteristics. The experimental results of the three types of experiments are reproduced fairly well by using the continuous-energy Monte Carlo code MCNP 4A with a next-event surface crossing estimator.