HUNTER SYSTEM FOR LAND MINES DETECTION - NUCLEAR METHOD

OUR RESEARCH PROPOSAL OF LAND MINES DETECTION BY A NUCLEAR ACTIVATION METHOD IS BASED ON A NEW EXTREMELY INTENSE, COMPACT PULSED SOURCE OF 14.1 MEV NEUTRONS (WITH A YIELD Y(N)=5.10(12) NEUTRONS/50 NS PULSE AND A SOURCE REPETITION RATE 1 HZ). WE HAVE DEVELOPED AND CARRIED OUT EXPERIMENTS WITH (A) COMPACT ACCELERATOR PLASMA TARGET SYSTEMS (CAPT). THIS IS A NEW GENERATION OF DEVICES WHICH IS OBTAINED BY IMPROVING PLASMA FOCUS MACHINES OF THE MATHER TYPE. (B) POWERFUL 3D-MONTE CARLO (FOR TREATING RANDOM WALK OF RADIATION THROUGH MATTER; ANALOGUE, CONTINUOUS IN ENERGY AND SPACE, NUMERICAL CODE WHICH IS SUITABLE FOR HANDLING ANY GEOMETRY, MATERIALS, NUCLEAR PROCESSES). FOR PHASE I WE PROPOSE TO GENERATE-NUMERICALLY-ENERGY SPECTRA OF NEUTRONS AND GAMMS (INCLUDING THEIR TIME OF EMISSION) FROM NEUTRONIRRADIATED MINES (WE CONSIDER BURIED MINES IN THE GROUND; THE SPECTRA WILL BE DETERMINED AT THE LOCATION OF THE DETECTOR SURFACE). THIS WILL ESTABLISH THE OPTIMUM RANGES (ENERGY, TIME) OF THE DETECTION METHOD, THE CHARACTERISTIC PARAMETERS OF THE NEUTRON SOURCE, THE REQUIRED RADIATION SHIELDS FOR PERSONNEL PROTECTION. IN PHASE II WE PROPOSE (A) TO CONVERT THE CAPT SOURCE (USED IN LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS) INTO A PROTOTYPE FOR FIELD OPERATION TESTING; (B) TO PROVIDE A PROOF-OF-PRINCIPLE FOR THE OPERATION OF THE CHOOSEN DETECTION SYSTEM FROM PHASE I.