• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• 제39권6호
• /
• pp.717-724
• /
• 2007

A measurement-based time-domain noise simulation of radiation detector-preamplifier (front-end) noise in nuclear spectroscopy is described. The time-domain noise simulation was performed by generating "noise random numbers" using Monte Carlo's inverse method. The probability of unpredictable noise was derived from the empirical cumulative distribution function via the sampled noise, which was measured from a preamplifier output. Results of the simulated noise were investigated as functions of time, frequency, and statistical domains. Noise behavior was evaluated using the signal wave-shaping function, and was compared with the actual noise. Similarities between the response characteristics of the simulated and the actual preamplifier output noises were found. The simulated noise and the computed nuclear pulse signal were also combined to generate a simulated preamplifier output signal. Such simulated output signals could be used in nuclear spectroscopy to determine energy resolution degradation from front-end noise effect.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• 제51권1호
• /
• pp.263-268
• /
• 2019

The $^3He$ proportional chamber is widely used for neutron measurement owing to its high neutron detection efficiency and simplicity for gamma-ray rejection. In general, the neutron and gamma-ray signals obtained from the $^3He$ proportional chamber can be easily separated by the difference in the pulse heights. However, for a high gamma-ray field, the gamma-ray signal cannot be precisely eliminated by the pulse height due to gamma-ray pulse pileup which causes the pulse height of gamma-ray pulse to increase and making the pulses due to neutrons and gamma rays indistinguishable. In this study, an improved algorithm for $n/{\gamma}$ discrimination using a parameter, which is the ratio of the rise time to the pulse height, is proposed. The $n/{\gamma}$ discrimination performance of the algorithm is evaluated by applying it to $^{252}Cf$ neutron signal separation from various gamma-ray exposure rate levels ranging 0.1-5 R/h. The performance is compared to that of the conventional pulse-height analysis method in terms of the gamma elimination ratio. The suggested algorithm shows better performance than the conventional one by 1.7% (at 0.1 R/h) to 70% (at 5 R/h) for gamma elimination.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• 제55권12호
• /
• pp.4570-4575
• /
• 2023

Noise and Radio-frequency interference or RFI causes a significant restriction on the Free induction Decay or FID signal detection of the Nuclear Quadrupole Resonance procedure. Therefore, using this method in non-isolated environments such as industry and ports requires extraordinary measures. For this purpose, noise reduction algorithms and increasing signal-to-noise-and-interference ratio or SNIR have been used. In this research, sodium nitrite has been used as a sample and algorithms have been tested in a non-isolated environment. The resonant frequencies for the 150 g of test sample were measured at 303 K at about 1 MHz and 3.4 MHz. The main novelty in this study was, (1) using two types of antennas in the receiver to improve adaptive noise and interference cancellation, (2) using a separate helical antenna in the transmitter to eliminate the duplexer, (3) estimating the noise before sending the pulse to calculate the weighting factors and reduce the noise by adaptive noise cancellation, (3) reject the interference by blanking algorithm, (4) pulse integration in the frequency domain to increase the SNR, and (5) increasing the detection speed by new pulse integration technique. By interference rejection and noise cancellation, the SNIR is improved to 9.24 dB at 1 MHz and to 7.28 dB at 3.4 MHz, and by pulse integration 44.8 dB FID signal amplification is achieved, and the FID signals are detected at 1.057 MHz and 3.402 MHz at room temperature.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• 제52권2호
• /
• pp.360-365
• /
• 2020

A technique for the reduction of pulse pile-up effect in digital pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) of neutrons and gamma-rays with organic scintillation detectors is presented. The technique is based on an electronic reduction of the effective decay-time constant of scintillation pulses while retaining the PSD information of the pulses. The experimental results obtained with a NE213 liquid scintillation detector in a mixed radiation field of neutrons and gamma-rays are presented, demonstrating a figure of merit (FOM) of 1.20 ± 0.05 with an energy threshold of 350 keVee (electron equivalent energy) when the effective length of the pulses is reduced to 50 ns.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• 제56권1호
• /
• pp.56-63
• /
• 2024

In high radiation fields, gamma cameras suffer from pulse pile-up, resulting in poor energy resolution, count losses, and image distortion. To overcome this problem, various methods have been introduced to reduce the size of the aperture or pixel, reject the pile-up events, and correct the pile-up events, but these technologies have limitations in terms of mechanical design and real-time processing. The purpose of this study is to develop a real-time gamma camera to evaluate the radioactive contamination in high radiation fields. The gamma camera is composed of a pinhole collimator, NaI(Tl) scintillator, position sensitive photomultiplier (PSPMT), signal processing board, and data acquisition (DAQ). The pulse pile-up is corrected in real-time with a field programmable gate array (FPGA) using the start time correction (STC) method. The STC method corrects the amplitude of the pile-up event by correcting the time at the start point of the pile-up event. The performance of the gamma camera was evaluated using a high dose rate ¹³⁷Cs source. For pulse pile-up ratios (PPRs) of 0.45 and 0.30, the energy resolution improved by 61.5 and 20.3%, respectively. In addition, the image artifacts in the ¹³⁷Cs radioisotope image due to pile-up were reduced.

• Journal of Magnetics
• /
• 제15권4호
• /
• pp.204-208
• /
• 2010

Local wall thinning in pipelines affects the structural integrity of industries like nuclear power plants (NPPs). In the present study, a pulsed eddy current (PEC) differential probe with two excitation coils and two Hall-sensors was fabricated to measure the wall thinning in insulated pipelines. A stainless steel test sample was prepared with a thickness that varied from 1 mm to 5 mm and was laminated by plastic insulation to simulate the pipelines in NPPs. The excitation coils in the probe were driven by a rectangular current pulse, the difference of signals from two Hall-sensors was measured as the resultant PEC signal. The peak value of the detected signal is used to describe the wall thinning. The peak value increased as the thickness of the test sample increased. The results were measured at different insulation thicknesses on the sample. Results show that the differential PEC probe has the potential to detect wall thinning in an insulated NPP pipelines.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• 제51권3호
• /
• pp.731-737
• /
• 2019

In this study, a new measurement method based on voltage transients in CdZnTe detectors response to low energy photon irradiations is applied to measure the electron mobility (${\mu}_e$) and electron mobility-lifetime product $({\mu}{\tau})_e$ in a CdZnTe detector. In the proposed method, the pulse rise times are derived from low energy photon response to 59.5 keV($^{241}Am$), 88 keV($^{109}Cd$) and 122 keV($^{57}Co$) ${\gamma}-rays$ for the irradiation of the cathode surface at each detector for different bias voltages. The electron $({\mu}{\tau})_e$ product was then determined by measuring the variation in the photopeak amplitude as a function of bias voltage at a given photon energy using a pulse-height analyzer. The $({\mu}{\tau})_e$ values were found to be $(9.6{\pm}1.4){\times}10^{-3}cm^2V^{-1}$ for $1000mm^3$, $(8.4{\pm}1.6){\times}10^{-3}cm^2V^{-1}$ for $1687.5mm^3$ and $(7.6{\pm}1.1){\times}10^{-3}cm^2V^{-1}$ for $2250mm^3$ CdZnTe detectors. Those results were then compared with the literature $({\mu}{\tau})_e$ values for CdZnTe detectors. The present results indicate that, the electron mobility ${\mu}_e$ and electron $({\mu}{\tau})_e$ values in CdZnTe detectors can be measured easily by applying voltage transients response to low energy photons, utilizing a fast signal acquisition and data reduction and evaluation.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• 제55권9호
• /
• pp.3359-3366
• /
• 2023

In this study, a spiking cortical model (SCM) based n-g discrimination method is proposed. The SCM-based algorithm is compared with three other methods, namely: (i) the pulse-coupled neural network (PCNN), (ii) the charge comparison, and (iii) the zero-crossing. The objective evaluation criteria used for the comparison are the FoM-value and the time consumption of discrimination. Experimental results demonstrated that our proposed method outperforms the other methods significantly with the highest FoM-value. Specifically, the proposed method exhibits a 34.81% improvement compared with the PCNN, a 50.29% improvement compared with the charge comparison, and a 110.02% improvement compared with the zero-crossing. Additionally, the proposed method features the second-fastest discrimination time, where it is 75.67% faster than the PCNN, 70.65% faster than the charge comparison and 38.4% slower than the zero-crossing. Our study also discusses the role and change pattern of each parameter of the SCM to guide the selection process. It concludes that the SCM's outstanding ability to recognize the dynamic information in the pulse signal, improved accuracy when compared to the PCNN, and better computational complexity enables the SCM to exhibit excellent n-γ discrimination performance while consuming less time.

• 한국원자력학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 한국원자력학회 1995년도 추계학술발표회논문집(2)
• /
• pp.973-979
• /
• 1995

The input equivalent noise charge (ENC) of hydrogenated amorphous silicon radiation detector diodes was measured and analyzed. The noise sources of amorphous silicon diodes were analyzed into three sources; shot noise, flicker noise and thermal noise from the contact resistance. By comparing the measured ENC with the calculated signal charge in uniform generation case, the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) for the sample diodes is estimated as a function of the detector bias and the shaping time of Gaussian pulse shaper. The maximum S/N occurred at the bias level just above the full depletion voltage for shaping time of 2∼3 ${\mu}$sec. The developed method is useful in optimum design or amorphous silicon p-i-n diodes for charged particulate radiation spectroscopy.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• 제56권2호
• /
• pp.745-752
• /
• 2024

A method for gamma/neutron event classification based on frequency-domain analysis for mixed radiation environments is proposed. In contrast to the traditional charge comparison method for pulse-shape discrimination, which requires baseline removal and pulse alignment, our method does not need any preprocessing of the digitized data, apart from removing saturated traces in sporadic pile-up scenarios. It also features the identification of neutron events in the detector's full energy range with a single device, from thermal neutrons to fast neutrons, including low-energy pulses, and still provides a superior figure-of-merit for classification. The proposed frequency-domain analysis consists of computing the fast Fourier transform of a triggered trace and integrating it through a simplified version of the transform magnitude components that distinguish the neutron features from those of the gamma photons. Owing to this simplification, the proposed method may be easily ported to a real-time embedded deployment based on Field-Programmable Gate Arrays or Digital Signal Processors. We target an off-the-shelf detector based on a small CLYC (Cs2LiYCl6:Ce) crystal coupled to a silicon photomultiplier with an integrated bias and preamplifier, aiming at lightweight embedded mixed radiation monitors and dosimeter applications.