Description
The Brazilian Multipurpose Reactor (RMB) project is going through a new phase of instru-mentation design. We are studying and designing instruments based on Monte Carlo simu-lations and experimental analysis and testing. The very first thermal neutron instrument to be designed is a neutron powder diffractometer. There are two steps to develop the final in-strument version according to the project description, since the reactor construction is in course, viz., the study and commissioning of the reactor at the IEA-R1 reactor in IPEN/Brazil and posteriorly its transfer and adaptation to the RMB reactor. As an outcome of the first step, we intend to improve the current knowledge that researchers have about the reactor by developing Monte Carlo models of the core, simulation instruments, etc. On that matter, there is already a diffractometer at the IEA-R1 reactor, namely, Aurora [1].
Designing and simulating Aurora on McStas allows us to investigate the correspondence between the experimental results and the simulations, with a particular emphasis on neutron flux behavior before and after interaction with the monochromator. The neutron flux spectra were analyzed by means of activation foils technique and the instrument detector’s re-sponse. Therefore, the present work demonstrates a previous study for benchmarking the McStas simulations by means of simulations and measurements as described in literature [2]. Once the McStas simulation is validated, we are able to perform accurate simulations and better estimations of the new IEA-R1/RMB diffractometer and its components.
References
[1] C.B.R. Parente, V.L. Mazzocchi, J. Mestnik-Filho, Y.P. Mascarenhas, R. Berliner, Aurora—A high-resolution powder diffractometer installed on the IEA-R1 research reactor at IPEN-CNEN/SP, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Volume 622, 2010.
[2] D. Potashnikov, A. Pesach, O. Rivin, O. Ozeri, Z. Yungrais, M. Bertelsen, E.N. Caspi, Verification of the McStas code using two double axis neutron diffractometers, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Volume 1063, 2024.