Measurements and simulations of scattered neutrons in a water phantom (The 12th International Conference on Radiation Shielding (ICRS-12) and the 17th Topical Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division of ANS (RPSD-2012)) -- (Radiation Detections and Measurements)

A recoil neutron spectrometer based on NE230 deuterated liquid scintillator (25 mm diameter × 25 mm) has been used to investigate neutron energy spectra of scattered neutrons at positions in and near to the beam axis in a water phantom irradiated by a quasi-monoenergetic 64 MeV neutron beam. An important feature of the spectrometer is that it is able to discriminate against backgrounds that can arise from n-p scattering in the water. Neutron energy spectra are obtained from measurements of pulse height spectra by the NE230 spectrometer using the Bayesian unfolding code MAXED. The experimentally measured energy spectra are compared with spectra calculated by Monte Carlo simulation using the code MCNPX.