Abstract
Metal hydrides have long been considered possible moderator and pre-moderator materials for neutron sources. These materials have hydrogen density comparable to liquid hydrogen or light water. They usually do not undergo phase transitions in the desired operating range of 0300 K, and display reasonable resistance to radiation damage. Magnesium hydride is such a simple, robust hydride system. To assess its neutronic usefulness as a moderator material, we determined experimentally the total scattering cross-section of the material. We compared our theoretical results to the experimental total neutron cross-section and to the data from quasi-elastic neutron scattering experiments, and produced a scattering kernel suitable for neutron transport calculations.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 251-259 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment |
| Volume | 629 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Feb 11 2011 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Funding
This work was supported by Readiness in Technical Base and Facilities (RTBF) which is funded by the Department of Energy's Office of National Nuclear Security Administration. It has benefited from the use of the Manuel Lujan, Jr. Neutron Scattering Center at Los Alamos National Laboratory, which is funded by the Department of Energy's Office of Basic Energy Sciences. Los Alamos National Laboratory is operated by Los Alamos National Security LLC under DOE Contract DE-AC52-06NA25396 .
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Office of Basic Energy Sciences | |
| U.S. Department of Energy | DE-AC52-06NA25396 |
| National Nuclear Security Administration | |
| Los Alamos National Laboratory |
Keywords
- Neutron moderator
- Neutron scattering
- Scattering kernel