A neutron monitor for D-T neutron generator in the PGNAA-based online measurement system

Abstract

A new type of neutron detector, which consists of polyethylene, an EJ200 plastic scintillator and fused silica, was proposed and optimized by the GEANT4 Monte Carlo simulation toolkit in our previous studies. The calculation method was also described for calculating the neutron flux in the preset condition. This paper reports the manufacturing of the prototype detector. Experiments are conducted to validate the feasibility of this detector. A D–T neutron generator and a 60Co gamma-ray source are used in the experiments. The designed detector and a He-3 proportional counter are simultaneously used to monitor the yield of the D–T neutron generator. A more universal calculation method is developed to enable the application of this detector to common conditions. The experimental results show that the performance of the designed detector is comparable to that of the He-3 proportional counter. The relative deviations between their normalized counts are less than 5%.