Attenuation of californium-252 neutrons in water and heavy water moderators

This work is concerned with the investigation of the slowing down and attenuation properties of water and heavy water moderators. This was performed by calculating the flux and energy distribution of fast neutrons emitted from a californium-252 point isotropic source in spherical moderators of and heavy water. calculations have been carried-out with the multigroup diffusion and removal diffusion equations. Results show that the flux intensity calculated is much higher in heavy water than in water for neutrons of intermediate slow and thermal energies. In addition, the derived values of with the values given by others