• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.7
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• pp.1828-1834
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• 2019

The performance of a plastic scintillator for use in an in situ measurement system was analyzed using simulation and experimental methods. The experimental results of four major pure beta-emitting radionuclides, namely $^3H$, $^{14}C$, $^{32}P$, and $^{90}Sr/^{90}Y$, were compared with those obtained using a Monte Carlo N-particle (MCNP) code simulation. The MCNP simulation and experimental results demonstrated good agreement for $^{32}P$ and $^{90}Sr/^{90}Y$, with a relative difference of 1.95% and 0.43% between experimental and simulation efficiencies for $^{32}P$ and $^{90}Sr/^{90}Y$, respectively. However, owing to the short range of beta particles in water, the efficiency for $^{14}C$ was extremely low, and $^3H$ could not be detected. To directly measure the low-energy beta radionuclides considering their short range, a system where the source could flow directly to the scintillator was developed. The optimal thickness of the plastic scintillator was determined based on the suggested diameter. Results showed that the detection efficiency decreases with an increase in the depth of the water. The detection efficiency decreased drastically to approximately 10 cm, and the tendency was gradually constant.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.456-462
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• 2014

Scintillators were polished in four steps using polishing paper, to reduce the optical loss occurring at their cross section when radiation detectors are fabricated with plastic scintillators. We studied the correlation between the polishing steps and detection efficiency and assessed the detection characteristics that are dependent in the polishing steps. Our results showed that the detection efficiency increased by approximately 7.75 times for a detector that used a scintillator polished in four steps, compared to a detector that used an depolished scintillator. For detectors fabricated using scintillators polished in different steps, better detection characteristics were obtained in terms of the activity, distance, and location of radiation, compared to detectors fabricated with an depolished scintillator.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.5
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• pp.1677-1686
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• 2023

As the demand for the detection of special nuclear materials (SNMs) increases, the use of imaging instruments that can sensitively image both gamma-ray and neutron signatures has become necessary. This study compared the pulse shape discrimination (PSD) performance of gamma/neutron events when employing either a pixelated stilbene or a plastic (EJ-276) scintillator array coupled to a silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) array in a dual-particle imager. The stilbene array allowed a lower energy threshold above which neutron and gamma-ray events can be clearly distinguished. A greater number of events can, therefore, be used when forming both gamma-ray and neutron images, which shortens the time required to acquire the images by nearly seven times.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.50 no.7
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• pp.1154-1159
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• 2018

Precise prediction of the radiation interaction position in scintillators plays an important role in medical and industrial imaging systems. In this research, the incident position of the gamma rays was predicted precisely in a plastic rod scintillator by using attenuation technique and multilayer perceptron (MLP) neural network, for the first time. Also, this procedure was performed using nonlinear regression (NLR) method. The experimental setup is comprised of a plastic rod scintillator (BC400) coupled with two PMTs at two sides, a $^{60}Co$ gamma source and two counters that record count rates. Using two proposed techniques (ANN and NLR), the radiation interaction position was predicted in a plastic rod scintillator with a mean relative error percentage less than 4.6% and 14.6%, respectively. The mean absolute error was measured less than 2.5 and 5.5. The correlation coefficient was calculated 0.998 and 0.984, respectively. Also, the ANN technique was confirmed by leave-one-out (LOO) method with 1% error. These results presented the superiority of the ANN method in comparison with NLR and the other methods. The technique and set up used are simpler and faster than other the previous position sensitive detectors. Thus, the time, cost and shielding and electronics requirements are minimized and optimized.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.10
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• pp.3907-3912
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• 2023

Radiation portal monitors (RPMs) installed at airports and harbors to prevent illicit trafficking of radioactive materials generally use large plastic scintillators. However, their energy resolution is poor and radionuclide identification is nearly unfeasible. In this study, to improve isotope identification, a RPM system based on a multi-array plastic scintillator and convolutional neural network (CNN) was evaluated by measuring the spectra of radioactive sources. A multi-array plastic scintillator comprising an assembly of 14 hexagonal scintillators was fabricated within an area of 50 × 100 cm². The energy spectra of ¹³⁷Cs, ⁶⁰Co, ²²⁶Ra, and ⁴K (KCl) were measured at speeds of 10-30 km/h, respectively, and an energy-weighted algorithm was applied. For the CNN, 700 and 300 spectral images were used as training and testing images, respectively. Compared to the conventional plastic scintillator, the multi-arrayed detector showed a high collection probability of the optical photons generated inside. A Compton maximum peak was observed for four moving radiation sources, and the CNN-based classification results showed that at least 70% was discriminated. Under the speed condition, the spectral fluctuations were higher than those under dwelling condition. However, the machine learning results demonstrated that a considerably high level of nuclide discrimination was possible under source movement conditions.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.592-597
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• 2017

Three plastic scintillators of 4.5 cm diameter and 2.5-cm length were fabricated for comparison with commercial plastic scintillators using polymerization of the styrene monomer 2.5-diphenyloxazole (PPO) and 1,4-bis benzene (POPOP). Their maximum emission wavelengths were determined at 426.06 nm, 426.06 nm, and 425.00 nm with a standard error of 0.2% using a Varian spectrophotometer (Agilent, Santa Clara, CA, USA). Compton edge spectra were measured using three gamma ray sources [i.e., cesium 137 ($^{137}Cs$), sodium 22 ($^{22}Na$), and cobalt 60 ($^{60}Co$)]. Energy was calibrated by analyzing the Compton edge spectra. The fabricated scintillators possessed more than 99.7% energy linearity. Light output was comparable to that of the BC-408 scintillator (Saint-Gobain, Paris, France). The fabricated scintillators showed a light output of approximately 59-64% of that of the BC-408 scintillator.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.244-249
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• 2005

In this study, radiation sensor tips are fabricated for remote sensing of X or gamma ray with inorganic scintillators and plastic optical fiber. The visible range of light from the inorganic scintillator that is generated by radiation source is guided by the plastic optical fiber and is measured by optical detector and power-meter. Two kinds of sensor tips are designed and fabricated such as film type and powder type. Many kinds of inorganic scintillators are used to fabricate both sensor tips, and the different wavelength of emitting lights from them are measured to determine the optimal inorganic scintillator which has maximum light output. As a radiation source X-ray generator and Ir-192 are selected to test a performance of sensor tip. It is expected that the fiber-optic radiation sensor is widely used in nuclear industry and medical applications due to its special characteristics such as good flexibility, easy in processing, long lengths and no interference to electro magnetic field.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.3
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• pp.1009-1014
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• 2023

Muon tomography is a useful method for monitoring special nuclear materials (SNMs) such as spent nuclear fuel inside dry cask storage. Multiple Coulomb scattering of muons can be used to provide information about the 3-dimensional structure and atomic number(Z) of the inner materials. Tomography using muons is less affected by the shielding material and less harmful to health than other measurement methods. We developed a muon detector for muon tomography, which consists of a plastic scintillator, 64 long wavelength-shifting (WLS) fibers attached to the top of the plastic scintillator, and silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) connected to both ends of each WLS fiber. The muon detector can acquire X and Y positions simultaneously using a position determination algorithm. The design parameters of the muon detector were optimized using DETECT2000 and Geant4 simulations, and a muon detector prototype was built based on the results. Spatial resolution measurement was performed using simulations and experiments to evaluate the feasibility of the muon detector. The experimental results were in good agreement with the simulation results. The muon detector has been confirmed for use in a muon tomography system.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.681-686
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• 2022

In this study, a scintillation resin for 3D printing was fabricated with 1.0 wt% of PPO organic scintillator, 5.0 wt% of MMA, and commercial acrylic resin. Using the scintillation resin, 3D-shaped plastic scintillator radiation sensors were successfully fabricated quickly and inexpensively with a commercial 3D DLP printer. The 3D printed plastic scintillator has a good dose-output linearity of R-square 0.998 was obtained in the range of 1 to 10 nA of beam current of the 45 MeV proton beam. The developed 3D plastic scintillator has low light output, so there is a limit to its use in low-dose-rate gamma-ray or X-ray dosimetry. However, it was confirmed that the tissue equivalent material could be usefully used for measuring high energy or high dose rates radiation, such as proton beams and ultra-high dose rate beams.

• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
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• 2005.11b
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• pp.269-279
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• 2005

In this study, detectors characteristics for simultaneous counting of alpha and beta ray in a pipe were estimated. The detector were composed of thin ZnS(Ag) scintillator and plastic detector. The scintillator for counting alpha particles has been applied a polymer composite sheet, having a double layer structure of an inorganic scintillator ZnS(Ag) layer adhered onto a polymer sub-layer. The other for counting beta particles used a commercially available plastic scintillator. It was confirmed that the detectors were suitable for counting the in-pipe contamination.