Measurement of neutron source anisotropy using the Mini Labyrinth experimental setup

Abstract The Institute of Nuclear and Physical Engineering at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology of the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava is actively engaged in research on application of neutron sources and shielding. These neutron sources are regularly utilized for educational purposes and international research projects. Most current activities take place in the Laboratory of Reactor Physics, using Pu–Be, Am–Be, and Cf-252 neutron sources. The Mini Labyrinth is one of the most frequently used experiments. Since 2020, five versions have been developed and used for various purposes. In the previous activities of the research team, the measurements were usually compared with simulations using high-fidelity simulation codes. These comparisons identified two important effects that may influence the experiments and the simulations: room effects and source anisotropy. In this paper, we focus on determining the axial and radial anisotropy of the IBN-10 Pu–Be neutron source through two simple experiments and simulation tasks using state-of-the-art Monte Carlo simulation tools, MCNP6 and Monaco. The aim of this study is to determine the uncertainty that represents the geometry effects influencing the source emission rate.