Summary of recent BNCT Polish programme and future plans.
In this work we present Polish achievements on the ground of BNCT research. Starting from preliminary built therapeutic stand at MARIA reactor going through designing of unique detectors for in-phantom and in-beam measurements for mixed radiation fields and finally coming to boron carriers synthesizing and examination in cellular and animal models. Now it is planned to restart research on boron compounds in specially designed BIMA line, to set up epithermal neutron irradiation facility for BNCT research and education and to improve recombination detectors for neutron beams characterisation.
The filter/moderator arrangement-optimisation for the boron-neutron capture therapy (BNCT).
The paper presents results of the numerical modelling of the fission-converter-based epithermal neutron source designed for the boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) facility to be located at the Polish research nuclear reactor MARIA at Swierk. The unique design of the fission converter has been proposed due to a specific geometrical surrounding of the reactor. The filter/moderator arrangement has been optimised to moderate fission neutrons to epithermal energies and to remove both fast neutrons and photons from the therapeutic beam. The selected filter/moderator set-up ensures both high epithermal neutron flux and suitably low level of beam contamination. Photons originating from the reactor core are almost eliminated what is the exceptional advantage of the proposed design. It yields one order of magnitude lower gamma radiation dose than the maximum allowed dose in such a type of therapeutic facility. The MCNP code has been used for the computations.
In-House Industrial Production of the Superconducting Conductor for the 43 T Hybrid Magnet of LNCMI-Grenoble
The hybrid magnet being built at LNCMI-Grenoble is based on the combination of resistive inserts, made up of Bitter and polyhelix coils, with a large bore superconducting outsert. It will produce, in the first step, an overall continuous magnetic field of 43 T in a 34 mm warm bore aperture. The superconducting coil will provide a nominal magnetic field of 8.5 T in a 1.1 m cold bore diameter. It relies on the novel development of an Nb-Ti/Cu Rutherford Cable On Conduit Conductor (RCOCC) cooled down to 1.8 K by a bath of superfluid helium pressurized at 1200 mbar. After a brief reminder of the specificity of hybrid magnets, namely the strong electromechanical coupling between resistive and superconducting coils, the main requirements of the RCOCC for efficient and reliable magnet operation are given. The test and validation phases prior to the industrial production of the RCOCC are reported, including the trial production of the ½ hard-drawn (H02 cold-worked) Cu-Ag 0.05% hollow stabilizer in continuous lengths of 325 m. The novelty of the RCOCC development concerns the assembly and the induction soft-soldering of the Rutherford cable on the Cu-Ag hollow stabilizer allowing a strict control of the interstrand contact resistance. Studies, developments, and the integration of the industrial production line at LNCMI-Grenoble are presented together with the result of the production of all RCOCC unit lengths.