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Characterization of TRIGA RC-1 neutron irradiation facilities for radiation damage testing

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Abstract

This paper presents the results of neutron flux measurements at two irradiation facilities of the TRIGA Mark II reactor at ENEA Casaccia Research Center, Italy. The goal of these measurements is to provide a complete characterization of neutron irradiation facilities for accurate and precise dose evaluation in radiation damage tests and, more generally, for all applications that need a good knowledge of neutron flux in terms of intensity, energy spectrum and spatial distribution. The neutron activation technique is used to measure the activation rates of several reactions, chosen so to cover the whole energy range of neutron flux spectrum. A multi-group neutron flux measurement is obtained through an unfolding algorithm based on a Bayesian statistical model. The obtained results prove that this experimental method allows to measure the total neutron flux within 2% statistical uncertainty, and to get at the same time a good description of its energy spectrum and spatial distribution.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the ENEA TRIGA RC-1 reactor staff, together with the ENEA Radiation Protection Experts, for their support and assistance during the experimental program. This work was carried out in the framework of the ASIF (ASI Supported Irradiation Facilities) project http://www.asif.asi.it, supported by the “Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI)”, the “Ente per le Nuove tecnologie, l’Energia e l’Ambiente” (ENEA), and the “Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare” (INFN) under ASI-ENEA ASIF implementation Agreement No. 2017-22-H.0 and ASI-INFN ASIF implementation Agreement No. 2017-15-H.0. This work makes use of the Arby software for Geant4-based Monte Carlo simulations, that has been developed in the framework of the Milano - Bicocca R&D activities and that is maintained by O. Cremonesi and S. Pozzi.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Fisica “G. Occhialini”, Università degli Studi di Milano - Bicocca, 20126, Milan, Italy

    Davide Chiesa, Massimiliano Nastasi, Stefano Pozzi, Ezio Previtali, Barbara Ranghetti & Mauro Tacconi

  2. INFN sezione di Milano Bicocca, 20126, Milan, Italy

    Davide Chiesa, Massimiliano Nastasi, Stefano Pozzi, Ezio Previtali, Pier Giorgio Rancoita, Barbara Ranghetti & Mauro Tacconi

  3. ENEA Centro Ricerche Casaccia, 00123, S. Maria di Galeria, Rome, Italy

    Mario Carta, Valentina Fabrizio, Luca Falconi, Angelo Grossi & Mario Palomba

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  1. Davide Chiesa
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Correspondence to Davide Chiesa.

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Chiesa, D., Carta, M., Fabrizio, V. et al. Characterization of TRIGA RC-1 neutron irradiation facilities for radiation damage testing. Eur. Phys. J. Plus 135, 349 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-020-00334-7

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