Investigation and Simulation of Gamma-Neutron Shielding for Nuclear- Pumped Lasers

Shamsinasab, Mehrdad; Asgari, Mansour; Eshghi, Mahdi

doi:10.22034/rpe.2023.396172.1134

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

Department of Physics‎, ‎Imam Hossein Comprehensive University‎, ‎Tehran‎, ‎Iran

https://doi.org/10.22034/rpe.2023.396172.1134

Abstract

Nuclear-pumped lasers (NPL) are lasers that excite the active laser environment caused by nuclear reaction. Such lasers need ionizing radiation shielding for mixed neutron and gamma fields. In this work, a shielding system for NPL was designed which using ¹⁰B(n,α)⁷Li. In this simulation, we have used MCNPX 2.6.0 Monte Carlo code and the thermal neutron flux as 1×10¹⁶ n.cm^-2.s^-1 for excitation reaction. Such a large neutron flux can be obtained from a reactor source or a heavy ion accelerator. For this work, 10B fuel is covered on the surface of a rectangular cube aluminum shell by using the Monte Carlo method. In the design of the shielding, combinations with different materials have been used with various arrangements in three layers. According to the simulation, the arrangement of Fe₂-B-BPE-Pb is a suitable protection compound for such lasers.

Highlights

We have simulated a shielding system for Nuclear-pumped lasers by using the MCNPX code.
We have obtained a suitable protection compound as Fe₂B-BPE-Pb for such lasers.
The total dose rate due to neutrons and gamma in the arrangement of different materials in compounds was calculated.

Keywords

Main Subjects

Radiation Applications

References

Barnhart, V. J. and Anderson, R. T. (1989). Ductile iron cask with encapsulated uranium, tungsten or other dense metal shielding. US Patent 4,868,400.

Gulevich, A. V., Dyachenko, P. P., Fokin, G., et al. (2000). Status of the research for nuclear-pumped lasers in IPPE. In High-Power Laser Ablation III, volume 4065, pages 699–707. SPIE.

Hu, G., Hu, H., Yang, Q., et al. (2020). Study on the design and experimental verification of multilayer radiation shield against mixed neutrons and γ-rays. Nuclear Engineering and Technology, 52(1):178–184.

Karelin, A. V., Sinyanskii, A. A., and Yakovlenko, S. I. (1997). Nuclear-pumped lasers and physical problems in constructing a reactor-laser. Quantum Electronics, 27(5):375.

McParland, B. J. (2010). Nuclear medicine radiation dosimetry: advanced theoretical principles. Springer Science & Business Media.

Melnikov, S., Sinyanskii, A., Sizov, A., et al. (2015). Lasers with nuclear pumping, volume 455. Springer.

Mughabghab, S. (2003). Thermal neutron capture cross sections resonance integrals and g-factors.

Pelowitz, D. B. et al. (2005). MCNPXTM user’s manual. Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, 5:369.

Prelas, M. (2016). Nuclear-pumped lasers. Springer.

Sariyer, D. (2020). Investigation of neutron attenuation through FeB, Fe−2B and concrete. Acta Phys. Pol. A, 137(4):539.

Tomizawa, H., Salvermoser, M., Wieser, J., et al. (2000). In-fluence of water vapour impurities on the atomic Xe laser. Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, 33(2):181.

Tsoulfanidis, N. and Landsberger, S. (2021). Measurement and detection of radiation. CRC press.

Xu, H., Sun, W., Yan, Y., et al. (2022). Optimal shielding structure design for a typical 14 MeV neutron source. AIP Advances, 12(3).

Radiation Physics and Engineering

Investigation and Simulation of Gamma-Neutron Shielding for Nuclear- Pumped Lasers

References

References

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 20 August 2023

Investigation and Simulation of Gamma-Neutron Shielding for Nuclear- Pumped Lasers

References

References

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript Available Online from 20 August 2023

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 20 August 2023