Evaluation of Natural Radioactivity Levels for Structural Material Used in the Construction of the Neutrino Detector

Abstract

In this work, the evaluation of natural radioactivity and spontaneous fission rates was performed for 8 nuclides from the natural radioactive 238U, 235U and 232Th decay chains. For this purpose, three samples of structural materials of the neutrino detector, i.e. aluminum, titanium and glass were analyzed by gamma spectroscopy and by neutron activation analysis to quantify a specific radioactivity of the samples. According to the results of this investigation, glass and aluminum samples have maximum values of the mean uranium concentrations 7.3(7) × 10-4% and 3.1(6) × 10-5%, respectively, while the lowest value for mean concentration of the uranium was found in titanium samples to be 4.7(3) × 10-6%. Aluminum sample had maximum values of the mean thorium concentrations, 2.5(8) × 10-3%, while the lowest value for mean concentration of the thorium was found in titanium samples to be 6.2(3) × 10-7%.