Determinations of beam quality and transmission character for continuum neutron beam

Continuum neutron beams are frequently used in neutron radiography. A transmission character of arbitrary materials and arbitrary neutron beams can be expressed by an effective total macroscopic (ETM) cross section depending on neutron spectrum which will be characterized by an effective energy. A beam quality indicator (BQI) to determine an effective energy is described in this study as an indicator to characterize a beam quality for unknown beams. Experimental results using the BQI will be summarized for fifteen different neutron beams in world. The ETM cross sections as a function of effective energy will be expected as an important parameter to keep traceability between a beam to the others. A possibility of the traceability will be also discussed in this study. (author)