Student Projects
The topic of our project is Automatic Neutron Dosimeter.I,Santhosh Balaji from Anand Institute of higher Technology,Chennai,TN,India.Team members are R.Sangeetha,P.Nivetha,A.Anjali and M.Sumathy.
The common means of detecting the neutron radiation in industries and laboratories is by using a Bubble Detector. It is a radiation sensor that can be used to measure neutron dose. Inside the detector, tiny droplets of superheated liquid are dispersed throughout a clear polymer. When a neutron strikes a droplet, the droplet immediately vaporizes, forming a visible gas bubble trapped in the gel. The number of bubbles provides a direct measurement. Counting the number of bubbles so formed poses a challenge. After counting the bubble rate the bubble detector is squeezed before 6 hours. Currently used methodologies include manual counting in the case of fewer numbers of droplets and ultrasonic methods for larger number of bubbles. These methods have a maximum accuracy of 70%. To improve the efficiency of the entire system and to minimize human intervention, Neutron Radiation Reader can be used. The purpose of these reader systems is to accurately and reproducibly count the number of bubbles generated in a bubble detector by irradiation with neutrons. The reader uniquely identifies the bubble detector and its calibration information, counts the bubbles, calculates the neutron dose and dose rate, and stores the detector image and associated information.
The detector is driven by a stepper motor.A stepper motor(or step motor)used is a brushless DC electric motor that divides a full rotation into a number of equal steps.The motor's position can then be commanded to move and hold at one of these steps without any sensor,but by an NI LabVIEW pogram.Then the images are captured through smart camera.By using NI Image Acquisition system and NI vision development module,counting the number of bubbles & the process of detecting the neutron dose is done.Based on the neutron level,the intimation is send to the station using wireless network.By this technique of detection, the neutron radiation in space applications, military personnel, hospitals involved in radiation therapy, nuclear power stations and research laboratories can be measured easily.
