• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.123-131
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• 2016

Background: With the increase in the number of particle accelerator facilities under either operation or construction, the accurate calculation using Monte Carlo codes become more important in the shielding design and radiation safety evaluation of accelerator facilities. Materials and Methods: The calculations with different physics models were applied in both of cases: using only physics model and using the mix and match method of MCNPX code. The issued conditions were the interactions of 600 MeV proton and $290MeV{\cdot}n^{-1}$ oxygen with a carbon target. Both of cross-section libraries, JENDL High Energy File 2007 (JENDL/HE-2007) and LA150, were tested in this calculation. In the case of oxygen ion interactions, the calculation results using LAQGSM physics model and JENDL/HE-2007 library were compared with D. Satoh's experimental data. Other Monte Carlo calculations using PHITS and FLUKA codes were also carried out for further benchmarking study. Results and Discussion: It was clearly found that the physics models, especially intra-nuclear cascade model, gave a great effect to determine proton-induced secondary neutron spectrum in MCNPX code. The variety of physics models related to heavy ion interactions did not make big difference on the secondary particle productions. Conclusion: The variations of secondary neutron spectra and particle transports depending on various physics models in MCNPX code were studied and the result of this study can be used for the shielding design and radiation safety evaluation.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.44-51
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• 2011

Activation foil-based Bonner sphere spheres are used to obtain neutron energy spectra of nuclear power plants or accelerator-produced neutrons. The position and the foil mass dependence of response functions should be studied carefully before measurement of Bonner spheres. This study showed that the normal incidence to the foil surface made a large shift of responses while parallel and isotropic incidence made no position dependence. The correlation between foil mass and response was not linear. Therefore, the response functions of activation-foil based Bonner spheres should be calculated for every different foil mass and the direction of Bonner spheres for parallel incidence will be preferred for radioactive neutron source or accelerator target produced neutrons.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.12
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• pp.2725-2732
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• 2020

This paper presents the neutronics benchmark analysis of the first core of the Indonesian multipurpose research reactor RSG-GAS (Reaktor Serba Guna G.A. Siwabessy) calculated by the Serpent Monte Carlo code and the newly released ENDF/B-VIII.0 nuclear data library. RSG-GAS is a 30 MWth pool-type material testing research reactor loaded with plate-type low-enriched uranium fuel using light water as a coolant and moderator and beryllium as a reflector. Two groups of critical benchmark problems are derived on the basis of the criticality and control rod calibration experiments of the first core of RSG-GAS. The calculated results, such as the neutron effective multiplication factor (k) value and the control rod worth are compared with the experimental data. Moreover, additional calculated results, including the neutron spectra in the core, fission rate distribution, burnup calculation, sensitivity coefficients, and kinetics parameters of the first core will be compared with the previous nuclear data libraries (interlibrary comparison) such as ENDF/B-VII.1 and JENDL-4.0. The C/E values of ENDF/B-VIII.0 tend to be slightly higher compared with other nuclear data libraries. Furthermore, the neutron reaction cross-sections of ¹⁶O, ⁹Be, ²³⁵U, ²³⁸U, and S(𝛼,𝛽) of ¹H in H₂O from ENDF/B-VIII.0 have substantial updates; hence, the k sensitivities against these cross-section changes are relatively higher than other isotopes in RSG-GAS. Other important neutronics parameters such as kinetics parameters, control rod worth, and fission rate distribution are similar and consistent among the nuclear data libraries.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.155-160
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• 1971

Average and effective energies for 239Pu-Be, 241Am-Li and 241Am-F neutron sources have been calculated from a number of published data for the neutron spectra and for the dose equivalent as a function of neutron energies by a numerical method. Also a calculation of the dose equivalent conversion factors, i. e., the first collision dose equivalent and the surface (or multicollision) dose equivalent that equals the product of surface-absorbed dose and a corresponding quality factor, per unit fluence of neutrons from these sources has been carried out in the same way as before. The results are as follows : 1. for average energies 4.07$\pm$0.33, 0.42 and 1.41 MeV； 2. for effective energies based on the concept of the first collision process in the human body 4.45$\pm$0.344, 0.51 and 1.47 MeV; 3. for effective energies based on the concept of the multi-collision process in the human body 4.50$\pm$0.36, 0.50 and 1.45 MeV； 4. for fluence-first collision dose equivalent conversion factors (2.74$\pm$0.07)10$^{-8}$ , 1.58$\times$ 10$^{-8}$ and 2.34$\times$10$^{-8}$ rems/(n/$\textrm{cm}^2$); and 5. for fluence-surface dose equivalent conversion factors (3.55$\pm$0.09)10$^{-8}$ , 2.19$\times$10$^{-8}$ and 2.82$\times$10$^{-8}$ rems/(n/$\textrm{cm}^2$) : respectively.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.44 no.8
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• pp.971-976
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• 2012

Silica-coated Au with Ag, Co, Cu, and Ir bimetallic radioisotope nanoparticles were synthesized by neutron irradiation, after coating $SiO_2$ onto the bimetallic particles by the sol-gel St$\ddot{o}$ber process. Bimetallic nanoparticles were synthesized by irradiating aqueous bimetallic ions at room temperature. Their shell and core diameters were recorded by TEM to be 100 - 112 nm and 20 - 50 nm, respectively. The bimetallic radioisotope nanoparticles' gamma spectra showed that they each contained two gamma-emitting nuclides. The nanoparticles could be used as radiotracers in petrochemical and refinery processes that involve temperatures that would decompose conventional organic radioactive labels.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 1997.10a
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• pp.85-90
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• 1997

Previous our numerical results in computing point kinetics equations show a possibility in developing approximations to estimate sensitivity responses of nuclear reactor We recalculate sensitivity responses by maintaining the corrections with first order of sensitivity parameter. We present a method for computing sensitivity responses of nuclear reactor based on an approximation derived from point kinetics equations. Exploiting this approximation, we found that the first order approximation works to estimate variations in the time to reach peak power because of their linear dependence on a sensitivity parameter, and that there are errors in estimating the peak power in the first order approximation for larger sensitivity parameters. To confirm legitimacy of our approximation, these approximate results are compared with exact results obtained from our previous numerical study.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.382-388
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• 2004

The sizes and structures of micelles formed in aqueous solutions of cationic octadecyl trimethyl ammonium chloride (OTAC) and anionic ammonium dodecyl sulfate (ADS) surfactants were investigated using smallangle neutron scattering (SANS), self-diffusion coefficients by pulsed-gradient spin-echo (PGSE) NMR, and dynamic light scattering (DLS) methods. SANS and DLS data indicate that their structures are spherical at concentrations as high as 300 mM. As the total surfactant concentration increases, the peaks of SANS spectra shift to higher scattering vector and become sharper, indicating that the intermicellar distance decreases and its distribution becomes narrower. This is due to more compact packing of surfactant molecules at high concentrations. The intermicellar distance of around 100 ${\AA}$ above 200 mM corresponds approximately to the diameter of one micelle. The sizes of spherical micelles are 61 ${\AA}$ and 41 ${\AA}$ for 9 mM OTAC and 10 mM ADS, respectively. Also the self-diffusion coefficients by PGSE-NMR yield the apparent sizes 96 ${\AA}$ and 31 ${\AA}$ for micelles of 1 mM OTAC and 10 mM ADS, respectively. For ADS solutions of high concentrations (100-300 mM), DLS data show that the micelle size remains constant at $25{\pm}2{\AA}$. This indicates that the transition in micellar shape does not take place up to 300 mM, which is consistent with the SANS results.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.8
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• pp.2767-2773
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• 2021

We used the GEANT4 Monte Carlo MC Toolkit to simulate carbon ion beams incident on water, tissue, and bone, taking into account nuclear fragmentation reactions. Upon increasing the energy of the primary beam, the position of the Bragg-Peak transfers to a location deeper inside the phantom. For different materials, the peak is located at a shallower depth along the beam direction and becomes sharper with increasing electron density NZ. Subsequently, the generated depth dose of the Bragg curve is then benchmarked with experimental data from GSI in Germany. The results exhibit a reasonable correlation with GSI experimental data with an accuracy of between 0.02 and 0.08 cm, thus establishing the basis to adopt MC in heavy-ion treatment planning. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov K-S test further ascertained from a statistical point of view that the simulation data matched the experimentally measured data very well. The two-dimensional isodose contours at the entrance were compared to those around the peak position and in the tail region beyond the peak, showing that bone produces more dose, in comparison to both water and tissue, due to secondary doses. In the water, the results show that the maximum energy deposited per fragment is mainly attributed to secondary carbon ions, followed by secondary boron and beryllium. Furthermore, the number of protons produced is the highest, thus making the maximum contribution to the total dose deposition in the tail region. Finally, the associated spectra of neutrons and photons were analyzed. The mean neutron energy value was found to be 16.29 MeV, and 1.03 MeV for the secondary gamma. However, the neutron dose was found to be negligible as compared to the total dose due to their longer range.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.204-212
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• 2021

Background: Identification of radioisotopes for plastic scintillation detectors is challenging because their spectra have poor energy resolutions and lack photo peaks. To overcome this weakness, many researchers have conducted radioisotope identification studies using machine learning algorithms; however, the effect of data normalization on radioisotope identification has not been addressed yet. Furthermore, studies on machine learning-based radioisotope identifiers for plastic scintillation detectors are limited. Materials and Methods: In this study, machine learning-based radioisotope identifiers were implemented, and their performances according to data normalization methods were compared. Eight classes of radioisotopes consisting of combinations of ²²Na, ⁶⁰Co, and ¹³⁷Cs, and the background, were defined. The training set was generated by the random sampling technique based on probabilistic density functions acquired by experiments and simulations, and test set was acquired by experiments. Support vector machine (SVM), artificial neural network (ANN), and convolutional neural network (CNN) were implemented as radioisotope identifiers with six data normalization methods, and trained using the generated training set. Results and Discussion: The implemented identifiers were evaluated by test sets acquired by experiments with and without gain shifts to confirm the robustness of the identifiers against the gain shift effect. Among the three machine learning-based radioisotope identifiers, prediction accuracy followed the order SVM > ANN > CNN, while the training time followed the order SVM > ANN > CNN. Conclusion: The prediction accuracy for the combined test sets was highest with the SVM. The CNN exhibited a minimum variation in prediction accuracy for each class, even though it had the lowest prediction accuracy for the combined test sets among three identifiers. The SVM exhibited the highest prediction accuracy for the combined test sets, and its training time was the shortest among three identifiers.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.145-152
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• 2021

Purpose: During the treatments of cancer patients with a linear accelerator (LINAC) using photon beams with energies ≥8 MV, the components inside the LINAC head get activated through the interaction of photonuclear reaction (γ, n) and neutron capture (n, γ). We used spectroscopy and measured the dose rate for the LINAC in operation after the treatment ended. Methods: We performed spectroscopy and dose rate measurements for three units of LINACs with a portable high-purity Germanium (HPGe) detector and a survey meter. The spectra were obtained after the beams were turned off. Spectroscopy was conducted for 3,600 seconds, and the dose rate was measured three times. We identified the radionuclides for each LINAC. Results: According to gamma spectroscopy results, most of the nuclides were short-lived radionuclides with half-lives of 100 days, except for ⁶⁰Co, ⁶⁵Zn, and ¹⁸¹W nuclides. The dose rate for three LINACs obtained immediately in front of the crosshair was in the range of 0.113 to 0.129 µSv/h. The maximum and minimum dose rates measured on weekends were 0.097 µSv/h and 0.092 µSv/h, respectively. Compared with the differences in weekday data, there was no significant difference between the data measured on Saturday and Sunday. Conclusions: Most of the detected radionuclides had half-lives <100 days, and the dose rate decreased rapidly. For equipment that primarily used energies ≤10 MV, when the equipment was transferred after at least 10 minutes after shutting it down, it is expected that there will be little effect on the workers' exposure.