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A compact photoneutron source (PNS), based on an electron linac was designed and constructed to provide required nuclear data for the design of Thorium Molten Salt Reactor (TMSR). Many local shielding are built to reduce the background of neutron and {\gamma} rays, making the location of the time of flight (TOF) detector be fixed at 6.2 m place. Under the existing layout, some physical parameters are very difficult to get by the experiments, while can be obtained by the Monte Carlo simulation method. However, for the deep penetration problem of the neutron and {\gamma} rays transport in the channel of PNS with complex geometry, the normal Monte Carlo method is inefficient since electron transport calculation need a large amount of computing time and neutrons have little contribution to the detector in far-source region. In this work, the subsection method is applied in the simulation for PNS, which divide the simulation process in two steps, recording the neutron and {\gamma} rays information passing through the source window in the first step and adopting the covariance reduction techniques in the second step. The simulated neutron flux and energy spectrum at the TOF detector place with the relative error 1.6% are well agreement with the experimental results, achieving an efficiency 23 times better than the normal method. This method is fast and efficient in predicting the physical parameters, providing a required verification and initiating the foreseen physics experiment., Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables

In order to measure the total cross section for thermal neutrons, a photoneutron source (PNS, phase 1) has been developed for the acquisition of nuclear data for the Thorium Molten Salt Reactor (TMSR) at the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (SINAP). PNS is an electron LINAC pulsed neutron facility that uses the time-of-flight (TOF) technique. It records the neutron TOF and identifies neutrons and $\gamma$-rays by using a digital signal processing technique. The background is obtained by using a combination of employing 12.8 cm boron-loaded polyethylene(PEB) (5$\%$ w.t.) to block the flight path and Monte Carlo methods. The neutron total cross sections of natural beryllium are measured in the neutron energy region from 0.007 to 0.1 eV. The present measurement result is compared with the fold Harvey data with the response function of PNS., Comment: 9 pages,10 figures

The photoneutron source (PNS, phase 1), an electron linear accelerator (linac)-based pulsed neutron facility that uses the time-of-flight (TOF) technique, was constructed for the acquisition of nuclear data from the thorium molten salt reactor(TMSR) at the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (SINAP). The neutron detector signal, with the information on the pulse arrival time, pulse shape, and pulse height, was recorded by using a waveform digitizer (WFD). By using the pulse height and pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) analysis to identify neutrons and $\gamma$-rays, the neutron TOF spectrum was obtained by employing a simple electronic design, and a new WFD-based DAQ system was developed and tested in this commissioning experiment. The developed DAQ system is characterized by a very high efficiency with respect to millisecond neutron TOF spectroscopy, Comment: 5 pages, 7 figures