A high-resolution neutron spectra unfolding method using the Genetic Algorithm technique

The Bonner sphere spectrometers (BSS) are commonly used to determine the neutron spectra within various nuclear facilities. Sophisticated mathematical tools are used to unfold the neutron energy distribution from the output data of the BSS. This paper highlights a novel high-resolution neutron spectra-unfolding method using the Genetic Algorithm (GA) technique. The GA imitates the biological evolution process prevailing in the nature to solve complex optimisation problems. The GA method was utilised to evaluate the neutron energy distribution, average energy, fluence and equivalent dose rates at important work places of a DIDO class research reactor and a high-energy superconducting heavy ion cyclotron. The spectrometer was calibrated with a 241Am/Be (α,n) neutron standard source. The results of the GA method agreed satisfactorily with the results obtained by using the well-known BUNKI neutron spectra unfolding code.