Radiation damage studies on the optical and mechanical properties of plastic scintillators

This paper describes the radiation damage studies on a large volume plastic scintillator based in polystyrene doped with PPO and POPOP. The consequences on their mechanical and scintillation properties were evaluated before and after irradiation with different dose rates of 60Co gamma radiation, in several doses. The optical results show a significant difference in the radiation susceptibility, when the plastic scintillator is irradiated at low rate (0.1 kGy/h) with that irradiated at high dose rate (85 kGy/h). The losses in the optical and mechanical properties increase as the irradiation dose is increased. The damage evaluated by the transmittance, emission intensity, pulse height and tensile strength was normalized as a damage fraction and fitted by a bi-exponential function. It was observed that the damage for irradiation is not permanent and it obeys a bi-exponential function.