TMSR白光中子源本底屏蔽设计

为了满足钍基熔盐堆对核数据的需求，中国科学院上海应用物理研究所自行设计并建造了紧凑型的15 MeV电子加速器驱动的白光中子源。电子直线加速器、中子产生靶以及探测器系统处于同一个实验大厅，中子/伽马射线本底较高，原有屏蔽并不能满足在低能区进行热中子物理实验测量的低中子本底需求。为了降低热中子本底，提高在热区的测量能力，需要对中子源进行局部屏蔽。根据调试运行经验以及模拟计算结果，分析了中子伽马射线本底的来源，利用MCNP5模拟计算了混凝土、铅、含硼聚乙烯对中子/伽马射线的屏蔽效果，优化设计了局部屏蔽方案。模拟计算结果显示，该屏蔽方案可将热中子本底降低三个量级，伽马本底降低两个量级。屏蔽后的实验测量结果表明，探测器处的有效热中子与本底热中子的比值达到约100:1，屏蔽效果显著，为后续在热中子能区顺利开展中子物理测量实验奠定了基础。

Background Shielding Design for TMSR Photoneutron Source

In order to meet the nuclear data requirement of Thorium Molten Salt Reactor (TMSR), a compact photoneutron source (PNS) driven by a 15 MeV electron LINAC was designed and built up by Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics. All devices including the LINAC, the neutron production target and the detector systems were all arranged in a shared hall, causing high backgrounds of neutron and γ-ray. The existing shields could not meet the requirements of low neutron background for the measurement in the thermal neutron energy regions. Therefore, more shields are needed to further reduce the neutron and γ-ray backgrounds. According to the analysis of neutron background source terms and the simulation of shielding effects of lead, concrete and boron polyethylene, the new local shields was designed. The MCNP5 simulation results show that, the new local shields can reduce the thermal neutron background by three orders of magnitude and the γ-ray background by two orders of magnitude. The experimental results with the new local shields show that, the ratio of effective thermal neutron to background thermal neutron is up to 100:1, which is of great significance for launching the foreseen physics program in the thermal neutron energy regions.