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 trially manufactured by using hydrogen-rich acrylic resin and two kinds of cycloolefin copolymers as raw materials. These three shielding materials were evaluated on their optical, mechanical and fast neutrons shielding properties. Especially, the shielding property against fast neutrons was evaluated by the experiments using 252Cf and the calculation using MOX fuel as a neutron source, respectively. As a result, it was clarified that two shielding materials made of cycloolefin copolymer had better shielding property than that of acrylic resin, which was typical transparent neutron shielding material, and similar optical and mechanical properties to those of acrylic resin. Therefore, these cycloolefin copolymer can be used practically as transparent neutron shielding material to panels of glove boxes in nuclear fuel treatment facilities, and so on.