Energy and fluence calibration of the neutron spectrometer ROSPEC at the IRSN AMANDE facility between 70 keV and 4.5...

The ROSPEC device is a multi-detector system, which has been designed by Bubble Technologies Industries (BTI at Chalk River, ON, Canada) to assess neutron spectra, and hence neutron dose quantities, at workplace fields. It is made up of six gaseous proportional counters that detect neutrons via the elastic (n,p) scattering (four hydrogenous counters) and with the (3)He(n,p)T reaction (two (3)He-filled counters). Results of the calibration of a similar rotating spectrometer (ROSPEC) have been described by Rosenstock et al.((1)). For energy and fluence calibration purposes, measurements were performed with the accelerator for metrology and neutron applications in external dosimetry (AMANDE) facility at the Laboratory of Neutron Metrology and Dosimetry (Institute of Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety, IRSN, France). This facility provides monoenergetic neutron radiation fields from 2 keV to 20 MeV. Two kinds of experiments were carried out. First, the ROSPEC was used in its rotational mode for the ISO energies. Then, each detector was irradiated with all the available neutron energies, in a well defined position with the rotation of the device stopped. The energy values of the neutron beam were calculated using the TARGET code. A BC501-A liquid scintillation spectrometer provided the fluence values for energies beyond 1.2 MeV, a methane-filled SP2 counter from 800 keV to 1.4 MeV and an H(2)-filled SP2 counter from 144 to 800 keV. Reference data for 70 keV monoenergetic neutrons were obtained using the IRSN Long Counter. Results showed that the ROSPEC device was in agreement with the absolute neutron fluences within 10%. Moreover, the new energy calibration factors are in good agreement with those derived by BTI.