Induced activity from Cu and SS-304 targets on proton bombardment

Presently accelerator facilities emphasizes on generating charged particles with enhanced energy and flux. The radiation protection practices at these facilities are considered in civil engineering designs and strictly implemented through different administrative, access control measures (Sarkar in Radiat Meas 45:1476–1483, 2010). However, concern arises from induced activities, during maintenance and decommissioning stages, when sections of accelerator and shielding materials become highly radioactive. Major contribution of induced activity arises from stainless steel (SS-304) beam enclosures and Cu-dumps. Present work focuses on the generation of induced radioactivity profiles with delay counting of SS-304 and Cu along with instantaneous gamma and neutron dose rate measurements at various proton energies for source term estimation.