Experimental and MCNP studies of Paraffin and Polyethylene in Neutron Moderation and BF3 Detector Efficiency

The Nuclear and Energy Research Institute - IPEN, offers post-graduate programs, namely: Nuclear Technology - Applications (TNA), Nuclear Technology - Materials (TNM), Nuclear Technology - Reactors (TNR). The Institute programs mission is to form expert technicians and engineers with a strong knowledge in their discipline to work in the nuclear area. The course: “Theoretical Fundaments and Practices of the Instrumentation used in Nuclear Data Acquisition” covers the use of laboratory nuclear instrumentation and the accomplishment of experiments to obtain nuclear parameters. One of these experiments is object of this work: “Experimental and MCNP Studies of Paraffin and Polyethylene Neutron Moderation and BF₃ Detector Efficiency”. Neutrons are uncharged particles and, therefore, cannot be detected by Coulomb interactions. Thus, the detector assembly used must contain some kind of material with high cross section for interaction with neutrons, called converters. A boron trifluoride (BF₃) detector was used in this experiment to detect neutron in real time. However, the response of this arrangement varies according to the energy range of incident neutrons. Their efficiency for thermal neutrons is above 90%, but, this result decreases, significantly, for neutrons of energy greater than 0.5 eV. The neutron moderation and, consequently, its energy variation were obtained by interposing different thicknesses of moderator material (Paraffin or Polyethylene) between the source and the detector. The detector efficiency and the optimal thickness of the moderators were determined experimentally and through computer simulations using the MCNP code. This code uses the Monte Carlo method to simulate radiation transport in matter.