Performance studies of boron lined proportional counters for reactor applications

Boron-Coated Straw Collar for Uranium Neutron Coincidence Collar Replacement

“…These characteristics are exceedingly important in nuclear safeguards applications. Second, they can be operated with extremely high gammato-neutron discrimination, comparable or better than 3 He, which most credible alternatives cannot match, as evidenced by the use of commercial detectors in reactor applications [6]. Third, the neutron capture process may be confidently simulated using standard transport code options [7].…”

“…The latter is attributed to the more uniform dispersion of neutron absorber throughout the moderator. Other counters based on different replacement technologies, including 6 LiFdoped scintillators, and conventional boron-lined tubes did not reach the same level of performance (see Table 1), partly because of incomplete geometries. Acronyms: HLNCC = high-level neutron coincidence counter, BCS = boron-coated straw, and FOM = figure of merit.…”