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An Integral Experiment on Polyethylene Using Radiative Capture in Indium Foils in a High Flux D-D Neutron Generator

The Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of California Berkeley built a D-D neutron generator called the High Flux Neutron Generator (HFNG). It operates in the range of 100-125 keV of accelerating voltage. The generator produces neutron current of about 10^8 per second. These neutrons have energies between 2.2-2.8 MeV. We report here the results of a measurement of the scattered vs unscattered neutron fluence on polyethylene determined via neutron activation of multiple natural indium foils from a D-D neutron generator. Both the angle-integrated spectrum and the angle differential results are consistent with the predictions of the Monte Carlo N-Particle Transport (MCNP) code, using the ENDF/B-VII.1. This supports shielding calculations in the fast energy region with high density polyethylene (HDPE). To the best of our knowledge no integral benchmark experiment has been performed on polyethylene using D(D,n)alpha neutron spectrum.