Development and testing of neutron pulse time stamping data acquisition system for neutron noise experiment

Statistical correlation techniques find applications in the analysis of zero power reactor noise and in passive neutron assay (PNA). A large number of apparently different techniques have been in use in these application areas and traditionally the electronics modules used for data acquisition and analysis is specific to the method used. In this paper we describe a data acquisition scheme developed by us, which is independent of the specific analysis method and can therefore be used for all of them. This is a neutron time stamping data acquisition system based on a timer card and an interface software to acquire and store the data in the required format. The system has been successfully tested with two statistically different types of neutron sources, namely a random Poisson source (Pu–Be) and a correlated source (a nuclear reactor).