NUKLEONIKA 2006, 51(3):169-173
Adam Wasilewski, Sławomir Wronka
Establishment for Nuclear Equipment, The Andrzej Sołtan Institute for Nuclear Studies,
05-400 Otwock-Świerk, Poland
Neutron generator consisting of an electron linear accelerator and a tungsten X-ray converter can produce
a neutron flux of 109 n/s and 1011 n/s at electron energies of 10 and 15 MeV,
respectively, with an electron beam intensity of 1014 e/s which means 160 and 240 W of
electron incident beam power, respectively. Two stage neutron production with an electron to photon
natural tungsten converter and a photon to neutron 9Be converter are equal or less efficient
than one stage tungsten converter only. There is a low neutron separation energy of 9Be
and a small cross section for the photonuclear reaction g(9Be,8Be*)n
in comparison to photonuclear cross section in all tungsten isotopes for the photon energy range in and
below resonance region. Results of the neutron generator modeling performed with the Fluka
Monte-Carlo code are presented in this article.