Am-Be neutron irradiator used for nuclear instrumentation training

• Autor(a) principal: MADI FILHO, TUFIC
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Outros Autores: CARDENAS, JOSE P.N., PETRI, ANNA R., SANTOS, ROBINSON A. dos, MARTINS, JOAO F.T., CARVALHO, DIEGO V.S., ALVARENGA, T., BELLEZZO, M., LARANJO, G., LIMA, M., OLIVEIRA, P., PEREIRA, MARIA da C.C., INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ADVANCEMENTS IN NUCLEAR INSTRUMENTATION, MEASUREMENT METHODS AND THEIR APPLICATIONS, 3rd
• Tipo de documento: Artigo de conferência
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional do IPEN
• Texto Completo: http://repositorio.ipen.br/handle/123456789/27643
• topic: half-life; indium 116; neutrons; nuclear decay; nuclear properties

A neutron irradiator was assembled at IPEN (Nuclear and Energy Research Institute) facility to perform qualitative-quantitative analysis of materials, using thermal and fast neutrons. In order to determine the 116mIn decay constant, a thermal flux obtained experimentally by Monte Carlo N-Particle Transport Code-MCNP, in a previous work, was used in the nuclear experiment. The activity calculated from the activation parameters was 13.51??0.17 kBq and the activity determined experimentally was 12.51?? 0.36 kBq. The decay constant determined by the pulse height analyzer (PHA) measures was 211.4 ????s-1, and that determined by fitting the data using a Multichannel Scaler (MCS) system was 200.3 ?? 1.6 ????s-1. The half-life of 116mIn found in the literature is 3256.8 s, which corresponds to a decay constant of 212.8 ????s-1. The present experiment does not intend to establish a new value for the decay constant: it solely aims students??? practical exercises in nuclear properties of elements. This experiment is part of the nuclear experimental course.