Design of an epithermal neutron beam for BNCT in thermal column of Tehran research reactor

A multi-moderator neutron spectrometer for use in BNCT studies of the Tehran research reactor

The Tehran Research Reactor is the only appropriate and available neutron source in Iran for clinical boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT). One of the requirements for BNCT is to carefully evaluate and measure the therapeutic neutron beam (epithermal neutrons) as well as the fast and thermal neutron components for successful treatment. In this research, a multi-moderator neutron spectrometer (MMNS) with LiI(Eu) scintillator as neutron counter was proposed for these measurements in the range of 10^-11 eV to 15 MeV. The results confirmed promising precision of the designed MMNS for the epithermal spectrum; however, the angular dependency of the therapeutic beam due to any probable change in the beam-shaping assembly should be considered.

A novel design of beam shaping assembly to use D-T neutron generator for BNCT

In order to use 14.1MeV neutrons produced by d-T neutron generators, two special and novel Beam Shaping Assemblies (BSA), including multi-layer and hexagonal lattice have been suggested and the effect of them has been investigated by MCNP4C Monte Carlo code. The results show that the proposed BSA can provide the qualified epithermal neutron beam for BNCT. The final epithermal neutron flux is about 6e9 n/cm2.s. The final proposed BSA has some different advantages: 1) it consists of usual and well-known materials (Pb, Al, Fluental and Cd); 2) it has a simple geometry; 3) it does not need any additional gamma filter; 4) it can provide high flux of epithermal neutrons. As this type of neutron source is under development in the world, it seems that they can be used clinically in a hospital considering the proposed BSA.