GEANT4 and PHITS simulations of the shielding of neutrons from $^{252}$Cf source

Abstract

Neutron shielding simulations by using GEANT4 and PHITS code are performed. As a neutron source, $^{252}$Cf is considered and the energy distribution of the neutrons emitted from $^{252}$Cf is assumed the Watt fission spectrum. The neutron dose equivalent rates with and without the shield are estimated for shielding materials such as graphite, iron, polyethylene, NS-4-FR and KRAFTON-HB. For the neutron shielding simulations by using GEANT4, high precision (G4HP) model with G4NDL 4.2 based on ENDF-VII data are used. And for PHITS simulations, JENDL-4.0 library are used for the same purpose. It is found that differences between the shielding calculations by using GEANT4 with G4NDL 4.2 and PHITS with JENDL-4.0 library are not significant for all cases considered in this work. We investigate the accuracy of the neutron dose equivalent rates obtained from GEANT4 and PHITS by comparing our simulation results with experimental data and other values calculated earlier. Calculated neutron dose equivalent rates agree well with the experimental dose equivalent rates within 20% errors except for polyethylene. For polyethylene material, discrepancy between the calculations and the experiments are up to 40% but all simulations show consistent features.