Neutron production by hadron-induced spallation reactions in thin and thick Pb and U targets from 1 to 5 GeV

The reliability and relevance of experimental data and calculations for the design and construction of the target assembly of spallation neutron sources are discussed. New experimental data obtained in a new approach for neutron production in thick targets of Pb and U are presented for 2–5 GeV/c hadrons. It is found that the observed mean neutron multiplicities depend essentially on the incident available energy only while the variation with particle species for p, d, p, K, and π is within 10%.