Transmission and Reflection of Neutrons Using Foil Activation Technique

A new neutron irradiation facility has been designed, constructed .and located at the Experimental Nuclear Physics Department, NRC, AEA, cairo. The neutrons were obtained from CNIF2 (Second Cairo Neutron Irradiation Facility) that is based on one ²⁴¹ Am-Be(α, n) isotopic neutron source with a present activity of about 175 GBq results in a neutron yield of about 1.04 x10⁷ n/s. The geometrical arrangements of the facility consider the safety and protection rules aspects. MCNP5 code is used to estimate radiation doses and neutron fluxes. This new irradiation facility provides fast and epithermal neutrons that can be used in basic research and industrial applications. The aim of the present work is to study the characteristics of this new irradiation facility and to develop methods able to use fast and epithermal neutron in some different applications. Experimental measurements for the transmission and reflection of neutrons were carried out via a number of hydrogenous materials using the activation foil technique. A comparison of the experimental results with that calculated by using Monte Carlo simulation method is presented Using the neutron transmission technique in combination with foil activation method, our arrangement is used to measure the total neutron microscopic cross-sections for some compounds. The facility is calibrated and suitable to estimate the hydrogen content H (wt %) and the weight ratios C/H in hydrocarbon materials and was used to measure these ratios for some Egyptian crude oil samples. A brief overview of the neutron activation analysis methods for elemental concentrations in bulk samples in natural conditions is presented.