• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제53권10호
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• pp.3164-3170
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• 2021

The increasing interest that GEANT4 is gaining nowadays, because of its special capabilities, prompted us to address its reliability in neutronic calculation for the realistic and complex spallation target MEGAPIE of the Paul Scherrer Institute of Switzerland. In this paper we have specifically addressed the neutronic characterization of the active zone of this target. Three physical quantities are evaluated: neutron flux spectra and total neutron fluxes on target's z-axis, and the neutron yield as a function of the target's altitude and radius. Comparison of the obtained results with those of the MCNPX reference code and some experimental measurements have confirmed the impact of the geometrical and proton beam models on the neutron fluxes. It has also allowed to reveal the intrinsic influence of the code type. The resulting differences reach a factor of ~2 for the beam model and 4-18% for the other parameters cumulated. The analysis of the neutron yield has led us to conclude that: 1) Increasing the productivity of the MEGAPIE target cannot be achieved simply by increasing the thickness of the target, if the irradiation parameters are not modified. 2) The size of the spallation area needs to be redefined more precisely.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제51권1호
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• pp.275-283
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• 2019

Rare isotope beam facilities require shielding data in early stage of their design. There is much less shielding data on neutrons from the reactions between heavy ion beams and matter than the data on neutrons produced by protons. The purpose of the present work is to produce and thus increase the amount of shielding data on neutrons generated by high-energy heavy ion beams based on the RAON in-flight fragment facility. Calculations were performed with the computational Monte Carlo codes PHITS and MCNPX. The secondary neutron source terms were evaluated at 550 MeV/u for Ca, Kr, and Sn and at 400 MeV/u for U ions on a graphite target. Source terms and attenuation lengths were obtained by fitting the ambient dose equivalent inside an ordinary concrete shield.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제50권7호
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• pp.1037-1042
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• 2018

The present study aims to assess the excess induced reactivity in a Miniature Neutron Source Reactor (MNSR) for a Beyond Design Basis Accident (BDBA) scenario. The BDBA scenario as defined in the Safety Analysis Report (SAR) of the reactor involves sticking of the control rod and filling of the inner and outer irradiation sites with water. At the end of the MNSR core life, 10.95 cm of Beryllium is added to the top of the core as a reflector which affects some neutronic parameters such as effective delayed neutrons fraction (${\beta}_{eff}$), the reactivity worth of inner and outer irradiation sites that are filled with water and the reactivity worth of the control rod. Given those influences and changes, new neutronic calculations are required to be able to demonstrate the reactor safety. Therefore, a validated MCNPX model is used to calculate all neutronic parameters at the end of the reactor core life. The calculations show that the induced reactivity in the BDBA scenario increases at the end of core life to $7.90{\pm}0.01mk$ which is significantly higher than the induced reactivity of 6.80 mk given in the SAR of MNSR for the same scenario but at the beginning of the core's life. Also this value is 3.90 mk higher than the maximum allowable operational limit (i.e. 4.00 mk).

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제51권1호
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• pp.293-302
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• 2019

Many researches have been done to develop and improve the performance of personal (individual) dosimeter response to cover a wide of neutron energy range (from thermal to fast). Depending on the individual category of the dosimeter, the semiconductor sensor has been used to simplify and lightweight. In this plan, it's very important to have a fairly accurate counting of doses rate in different energies. With a general design and single-sensor simulations, all optimal thicknesses have been extracted. The performance of the simulation scheme has been compared with the commercial and laboratory samples in the world. Due to the deviation of all dosimeters with a flat energy response, in this paper, has been used an idea of one semi-conductor sensor to have the flat energy-response in the entire neutron energy range. Finally, by analyzing of the sensors data as arrays for the first time, we have reached a nearly flat and acceptable energy-response. Also a comparison has been made between Lucite-PMMA ($H_5C_5O_2$) and polyethylene-PE ($CH_2$) as a radiator and $B_4C$ has been studied as absorbent. Moreover, in this paper, the effect of gamma dose in the dosimeter has been investigated and shown around the standard has not been exceeded.

• 대한방사선기술학회지:방사선기술과학
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• 제45권5호
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• pp.433-438
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• 2022

Targeted radionuclides treatment (TRT) requires the establishment of treatment plans that consider various factors, such as the type of radionuclides, target organs, and administration methods. For this reason, in this study, the absorption dose of a single cell was analyzed according to the type of radioisotope used to treat target radionuclides. In this study, a simulation was performed on beta rays used in the treatment of target radionuclides at the cell level using MCNPX (ver. 2.5.0). First, according to the calculation formula, the beam path according to the type of radioisotope for treatment was calculated. Second, the amount of self-radiation by beta rays emitted from cell diameters of 5 ㎛ and 10 ㎛ cell nuclei was evaluated. As a result, it showed a high range proportional to the maximum energy of the beta-ray, and the highest self-dose distribution from 177 Lu radiation sources among therapeutic radioisotopes. This was analyzed as a result that is inversely proportional to the maximum energy of the beta-ray, and it suggests that the selection of a nuclide considering the range of the beta-ray is necessary in the treatment of target radionuclides in the future.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제55권9호
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• pp.3229-3240
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• 2023

Due to neutron radiation, atomic displacement has a significant effect on material in nuclear reactors. A range of secondary displacement models, including the Kinchin-Pease (K-P), Lindhard, Norgett-Robinson-Torrens (NRT), and athermal recombination-corrected displacement per atom (arc-dpa) have been suggested to calculate the number of displacement per atom (dpa). As neutron elastic interaction is the main cause of displacement damage, the focus of the current study is to calculate the atomic displacement caused by the neutron elastic interaction in order to estimate the exact amount of yield strength in a WWER-1000 reactor pressure vessel. To achieve this purpose, the reactor core is simulated by MCNPX code. In addition, a program is developed to calculate the elastic radiation damage induced by the incident neutron flux (RADIX) based on different models using Fortran programming language. Also, due to non-elastic interaction, the displacement damage is calculated by the HEATR module of the NJOY code. ASME E-693-01 standard, SPECTER, NJOY codes, and other pervious findings have been used to validate RADIX results. The results showed that the RADIX(arc-dpa)/HEATR outputs have appropriate accuracy. The relative error of the calculated dpa resulting from RADIX(arc-dpa)/HEATR is about 8% and 46% less than NJOY code, respectively in the ¼ and ¾ vessel wall.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제55권5호
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• pp.1863-1870
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• 2023

Molybdenum-99 (⁹⁹Mo) is used for preparing Technetium-99 m (^99mTc), which is the most widely used isotope in nuclear medicine. In this work, a study for ⁹⁹Mo production based on a high-power electron accelerator has been performed as an alternative approach to produce ^99mTc. In this study, Monte Carlo MCNPX2.6 code has been used to examine a novel idea of simultaneous hybrid production of ⁹⁹Mo via both photoneutron and neutron capture reactions using an electron accelerator in heavy water tank. It is expected that this conceptual design including an arrangement of metallic plates of ¹⁰⁰Mo and ⁹⁸Mo produces total activity of 97.5 Ci at the end of 20-h continuous e-beam irradiation (30 MeV, 10 mA).

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제55권11호
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• pp.4246-4251
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• 2023

The optimized design of a Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) system, including Delayed Gamma NAA (DGNAA) and Prompt Gamma NAA (PGNAA), has been proposed in this research based on Mevex Linac with 5 MeV electron energy and 50 kW power as a neutron source. Based on the MCNPX 2.6 simulation, the optimized configuration contains; tungsten as an electron-photon converter, BeO as a photoneutron target, BeD₂ and plexiglass as moderators, and graphite as a reflector and collimator, as well as lead as a gamma shield. The obtained thermal neutron flux at the beam port is equal to 2.06 × 10⁹ (# /cm².s). In addition, using the optimized neutron beam, the detection limit has been calculated for some elements such as H-1, B-10, Na-23, Al-27, and Ti-48. The HPGe Coaxial detector has been used to measure gamma rays emitted by nuclides in the sample. By the results, the proposed system can be an appropriate solution to measure the concentration and toxicity of elements in different samples such as food, soil, and plant samples.

• 한국콘텐츠학회논문지
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• 제14권4호
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• pp.249-255
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• 2014

전신방사선조사(Total Body Irradiation; TBI)는 백혈병의 치료방법 중의 하나인 조혈모세포 이식법의 전처치로 쓰인다. 2013년 장기이식관리센터 자료에 의하면 조혈모세포이식법의 건수는 계속 늘어나고 있다고 보고되었다. 하지만 현재 TBI 시행하기에 앞서 선량에 대한 평가는 미미한 실정이다. 특히 소아의 경우 방사선감수성이 민감하기 때문에 TBI 시행 전 정확한 선량평가가 시행되어야 할 것으로 판단된다. 이에 본 연구는 TBI 시행 시 사용되는 조직보상체의 두께의 변화에 따라 표면선량과 심부장기선량에 대하여 선량평가를 한 후 가장 이상적인 조건을 찾고자 하였다. 그 결과, 표면선량은 에너지 4 MV, SSD 280 cm, 조직보상체의 두께가 0.5 cm일 때 5.84 mGy/min 으로 가장 높은 수치를 나타내었다. 또한 조직보상체의 두께가 1 cm 이하였을 때 TBI에서 가장 이상적인 선량분포를 나타냄을 알 수 있었다.

• 한국의학물리학회지:의학물리
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• 제28권3호
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• pp.77-82
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• 2017

We proposed the objective ROC analysis method based on the setting of threshold value for evaluation of single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) image. This proposed ROC analysis method uses the quantification computational threshold value to each signal on the SPECT image. The SPECT images for this study were acquired by using Monte Carlo n-particle extended simulation code (MCNPX, Ver. 2.6.0, Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA). The basic SPECT detectors and specific water phantom were realized in the simulation, and we could get the simulation results by the simulation operation. We tried to analyze the reconstructed images using threshold value application based objective ROC method. We can get the accuracy information of reconstructed region in the image. This proposed ROC technique can be helpful when we have to evaluate the weak signal for the NM image. In this study, the proposed threshold value based computational ROC analysis method can provide better objectivity than the conventional ROC analysis method.