A wide energy range neutron shielding material based on natural rubber and boron

Abstract

© Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd. Neutron have been used in many applications. Neutrons have no electric charge and have high penetrating power. Therefore, the use of neutron shielding material is one of the methods to effectively prevent neutron radiation hazard. In this work, neutron shielding materials were designed using the Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) transport code in order to select proper materials for a wide energy range neutron shielding. Thicknesses of 1 cm and 4 cm were chosen for shielding neutron in the wide energy spectrum (10E-8 - 100 MeV). MCNP simulation results indicated that the best shielding material was 2 layers of 2 cm natural rubber (NR) and 2 cm NR with 20 part per hundred rubber (phr) boron powder. This shielding material can reduce the neutron dose by 17.91 ± 0.09 % with the total macroscopic cross section of 0.042 cm-1. The optimal neutron shielding materials were fabricated. The mechanical properties and aging properties of shielding materials was found to meet the requirement of Thai Industrial Standard (TIS 2377-2551 Rubber flooring). Therefore, the designed shielding material can be utilized to shield against wide energy range neutrons.