Measurements and FLUKA simulations of bismuth and aluminium activation at the CERN Shielding Benchmark Facility (CSBF)

The CERN High Energy AcceleRator Mixed field facility (CHARM) is located in the CERN Proton Synchrotron (PS) East Experimental Area. The facility receives a pulsed proton beam from the CERN PS with a beam momentum of 24 GeV/c with 5 ṡ10¹¹ protons per pulse with a pulse length of 350 ms and with a maximum average beam intensity of 6.7 ṡ10¹⁰ p/s that then impacts on the CHARM target.

The shielding of the CHARM facility also includes the CERN Shielding Benchmark Facility (CSBF) situated laterally above the target. This facility consists of 80 cm of cast iron and 360 cm of concrete with barite concrete in some places.

Activation samples of bismuth and aluminium were placed in the CSBF and in the CHARM access corridor in July 2015. Monte Carlo simulations with the FLUKA code have been performed to estimate the specific production yields for these samples. The results estimated by FLUKA Monte Carlo simulations are compared to activation measurements of these samples.

The comparison between FLUKA simulations and the measured values from γ-spectrometry gives an agreement better than a factor of 2.