Preliminary examination of the applicability of imaging plates to fast neutron radiography

Fast neutron radiography is an attractive non-destructive inspection techni que because of the excellent penetration characteristics of fast neutrons i n matter. However, the difficulty of detecting fast neutrons reduces this a ttractive feature, As an experiment to overcome the difficulty, imaging pla tes were applied to fast neutron radiography. A simple combination of two s heets of imaging plates and a sheet of polyethylene as a proton emitter was examined with the (fast neutron, thermal neutron and gamma ray) FTG discri minator proposed by Yoneda et al.. The experimental results showed that the method could be applicable to fast neutron radiography with effective disc rimination of gamma -rays. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserv ed.