[ RadSafe ] Neutron Spectrometry (BON5)

[JPreisig at aol.com]

Hmmmmm,

     This is from:    jpreisig at aol.com   .

      Hello Radsafer's,

           Hope all is well in your neck of the radiation world.

      BON5 is a PC friendly version of the computer code BON, which is
      used for neutron spectrum unfolding (i.e. iterative unfolding.  See 
Patterson
      & Thomas, Accelerator Health Physics).

           BON5 ultimately produces flux density results as a function of 
      neutron energy bin, from thermal neutron energies to about 400 MeV.
      This includes data from Bonner Sphere detectors and a plastic
       scintillator.   The units of the flux density are:   neutrons/(cm cm 
sec)  .
       (Sorry, not SI units, but useful units).  Norman Rohrig once wrote
       a research note to Health Physics describing why it is useful to
       not have energy in the flux density estimates.  Read it, if you are
       interested.

              Anyway, for data I measured at the Brookhaven Alternating 
Gradient
       Synchrotron (AGS) around 1998,  my BON5 flux density spectra
       show nice, well-resolved, peaks.  These peaks are from thermal
       neutrons, evaporation neutrons and (hadron) cascade neutrons.
       The characteristics of the neutron peaks vary by AGS location.
        BON5 does not plot these flux density spectra automatically, so one
        has to plot these results by hand, or by using  separate graphics
        software.

             BON5 arrives at these results using iterative unfolding.  There 
is
        no data deconvolution being done at all.  So, there you have it.

             Arriving at such results requires much time and effort.


                  Regards,                 Joseph R. (Joe) Preisig, Ph.D.