Abstract:
This research aims to develop the technique of fast-neutron radiography with the X-rays imaging plate using the (n,p) reaction between the high energy of neutron and hydrogenous converter screen. In this study, the common and in expensive hydrogenous materials are chosen to be the neutron converter screen such as Duct tape, PVC sheet, and acrylic plate. Firstly, to confirm that particles coming out from the hydrogenous converter screen are the recoiled protons, the track-etching method on CR-39 film is used. The radiographs show that tracks formed on CR-39 are the recoiled proton. For details results of recoiled proton density per area, the duct tape thickness of 0.27 mm , the PVC sheet 0.1 mm, and the acrylic plate of 1 mm thickness provide the amount of proton density at 1.1328 x 105 particles/ cm2, 5.5692 x 104 particles/cm2, and 6.0412 x 104 particles/cm2 ,respectively. The fast-neutron for radiography produced from DD and DT reaction using the neutron generator model MP320 which gives neutron energy of 2.4 MeV and 14.1 MeV, respectively. Radiographic density is measured by the image plate reading machine of FLA-5100 model. The performance of fast-neutron converter screen using three-hydrogenous materials at thickness of approximately 0.1-5.0 mm is investigated. The test results show that the duct tape gives the highest density of 281.71 PSL/mm2 at 2.35 mm of thickness while the PVC sheet provides the highest density of 168.2 PSL/mm2 at 3 mm of thickness and the acrylic plate gives the highest density of 63.14 PSL/mm2 at 2 mm of thickness. The convertor screen at the thickness of the highest PSL/ mm2 for each material is radiographed with the step-wedge specimen made by the acrylic plate of 1-9 cm of varied thickness. The experimental results show that the converter screen made by PVC sheet gives the best image quality in term of image contrast and sharpness by considering the characteristic of the slope profile of the PSL value at the point of step-wedge changing thickness.