A new method of measuring a large pulsed neutron fluence or dose exploiting the die-away of thermalized neutrons in a polyethylene moderator

Computer simulations of the response to very short pulses of neutron and gamma radiation of a spherical polyethylene moderator with a central thermal neutron counter and a new, fast, active restore amplifier system have been carried out. A large neutron burst produces count rates in the detector that are too high to measure initially but when the exponential decay of the count rate falls below about 50 k per sec then counting can start. If the counts are recorded in contiguous time intervals (of 60 μs in this case) and the time is measured at which the measured count in an interval falls to 1 or 2 then the size of the initial burst can be calculated. It is shown that it should be possible to measure pulsed neutron ambient dose equivalent H*(10) or dose equivalent rate from about 2 nSv up to about 100 μSv per burst, or 7.2N μSv s h−1 to 360N mSv s h−1, where N is the number of neutron bursts per second. The calculations show that a gamma burst of about 10 μGy can be tolerated without affecting the measurement of the largest neutron bursts. This extends our earlier estimate of the maximum dose that can be measured for pulsed neutrons by more than 10 k. This method could also be used to measure the neutron fluence or dose from a single unplanned event such as a beam dump on an accelerator or a criticality incident from fissile material. Although the method described is new it is based on a combination of proven techniques.