The fixed point formulation for large sample PGNAA—Part 2: experimental demonstration

We present composition estimation results using fixed point iteration compared to the true composition of sample for prompt gamma measurements. The analysis showed that the fixed point iteration algorithm converges very rapidly to true composition of the sample independent of the initial guess when there is no significant background contribution. Even in the presence of significant background contribution, the true composition of the sample was estimated with high precision but with slower convergence. Although approximate data for neutron source spectrum and relative efficiency of the detector was used for analysis, the results showed that the method is not very sensitive to the details of the model since it is based on ratios. Despite the approximate data used for computations, the composition estimation results are in excellent agreement with chemical analysis.