The Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) and the GFR, Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona (UAB) use Bonner spheres (BS) for neutron spectrometry at workplaces. The two systems, equipped with similar cylindrical 3He proportional counters, were simulated with the MCNP Monte-Carlo code to determine the response to neutrons of different energies for each polyethylene sphere. The BS systems were characterized at monoenergetic and thermal neutron fields. Measurements were performed at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) and at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) standard laboratories, and with the newly characterized IRSN 'SIGMA' thermal neutron facility. The energy distribution of the reference neutron fluence was folded with the response functions for comparison purposes with the experimental data. In almost all cases related to monoenergetic neutrons, a good agreement between the experimental and the calculated count rates was found, and some discrepancies of a few per cent were observed in the thermal region.

The new CANEL/T400 facility has been set-up at the Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) to produce a realistic neutron field. The accurate characterisation of this neutron field is mandatory since this facility will be used as a reference neutron source. For this reason an international measuring campaign, involving four laboratories with extensive expertise in neutron metrology and spectrometry, was organised through a concerted EUROMET project. Measurements were performed with Bonner sphere (BS) systems to determine the energy distribution of the emitted neutrons over the whole energy range (from thermal energy up to a few MeV). Additional measurements were performed with proton recoil detectors to provide detailed information in the energy region above 90 keV. The results obtained by the four laboratories are in agreement with each other and are compared with a calculation performed with the MCNP4C Monte-Carlo code. As a conclusion of this exercise, a reliable characterisation of the CANEL/T400 neutron field is obtained.

The MITOM code was developed at UAB (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) for unfolding neutron spectrometric measurements with a Bonner spheres system (BSS). One of the main characteristics of this code is that an initial parameterisation of the neutron energy components (thermal, intermediate and fast) is needed. This code uses the Monte Carlo method and the Bayesian theorem to obtain a set of solutions achieving different criteria and conditions between calculated and measured count rates. The final solution is an average of the acceptable solutions. The MITOM code was tested for ISO sources and a good agreement was observed between the reference values and the unfolded ones for global magnitudes. The code was applied recently to characterise both thermal SIGMA and CANEL/T400 sources of the IRSN facilities. The results of these applications were very satisfactory as well.

In some Spanish nuclear power plants of pressurised water reactor (PWR) type, albedo thermoluminescence dosemeters are used for personal dosimetry while survey meters, based on a thermal-neutron detector inside a cylindrical or spherical moderator, are used for dose rate assessment in routine monitoring. The response of both systems is highly dependent on the energy of the existing neutron fields. They are usually calibrated by means of ISO neutron sources with energy distributions quite different from those encountered at these installations. Spectrometric measurements with a Bonner sphere system (BSS) allow us to determine the reference dosimetric values. The UAB group, under request from the National Coordinated Research Action, was in charge of characterising the neutron fields and evaluating the response of personal dosemeters at several measurement points inside the containment building of the Catalan Nuclear Power Plant Vandellòs II. The neutron fields were characterised at five places using the UAB-BSS and a home made unfolding code called MITOM. The results obtained confirm the presence of low-energy components in the neutron field in most of the selected points. Moreover, we have found no influence of the nuclear fuel burning on the shape of the spectrum.

Measurement of the personal dose equivalent rates for neutrons is a difficult task because available dosemeters do not provide the required energy response and sensitivity. Furthermore, the available wide calibration spectra recommended by the International Standard Organisation does not reproduce adequately the spectra encountered in practical situations of the nuclear industry. There is a real necessity to characterise the radiation field, in which workers can be exposed, and to calibrate personal dosemeters in order to determine the dose equivalent in these installations. For this reason, we measure the neutron spectrum with our Bonner sphere system and we fold this spectrum with energy-dependent fluence-to-dose conversion coefficients to obtain the reference dose equivalent rate. This reference value is then compared with the personal dosemeter reading to determine a field-specific correction factor. In this paper, we present the values of this field-specific correction factor for etched track and albedo thermoluminescence dosemeters at three measurement locations inside the containment building of the Vandellòs II nuclear power plant. We have found that assigning to each personal dosemeter the mean value of the field-specific correction factors of the three measurement locations, allows the evaluation of neutron personal dose equivalent rate with a relative uncertainty of approximately 25 and 15% for the PADC and albedo dosemeters, respectively.