TRIAL MANUFACTURE AND EVALUATION OF ADVANCED TRANSPARENT MATERIALS FOR NEUTRON SHIELDING

In order to develop advanced transparent radiation shielding materials against fast neutrons, three kinds of shielding materials were triall y manufactured by using hydrogen-rich acrylic resin and two kinds of c ycloolefin copolymers as raw materials. These three shielding material s were evaluated on their optical, mechanical and fast neutrons shield ing properties. Especially, the shielding property against fast neutro ns was evaluated by the experiments using Cf-252 and the calculation u sing MOX fuel as a neutron source, respectively. As a result, it was c larified that two shielding materials made of cycloolefin copolymer ha d better shielding property than that of acrylic resin, which was typi cal transparent neutron shielding material, and similar optical and me chanical properties to those of acrylic resin. Therefore, these cycloo lefin copolymer can be used practically as transparent neutron shieldi ng material to panels of grove boxes in nuclear fuel treatment facilit ies, and so on.