Neutron kerma factors and water equivalence of some tissue substitutes

•We calculated the neutron kerma factors of tissue substitutes up to 29 MeV.•Water equivalence was observed above neutron energy 100 eV.•Natural rubber was found to be a water equivalent material.•Kerma factors are in agreement with those published in literatures.

The Kerma factors and Kerma relative to the air and water of 24 compounds that are used as tissue substitutes were calculated for neutron energies ranging from 2.53×10−8 to 29 MeV. The Kerma ratios of the tissue substitutes relative to air and water were calculated. The water equivalence of the selected tissue substitutes was observed above neutron energies of 100 eV. The Kerma ratio relative to the air for poly-vinylidene fluoride and Teflon were nearest to unity at very low energy (up to 1 eV) and above 63 eV, respectively. It was found that the natural rubber was a water-equivalent tissue substitute compound. The results of the Kerma factors in our investigation show good agreement with those published in ICRU-44. We found that at higher neutron energies, the Kerma factors and Kerma ratios of the selected tissue substitute compounds were approximately the same, but though the differences were large for energies below 100 eV.