Characterization of dry tube location in KAMINI reactor towards the development of k 0-based IM-NAA

Characterization studies were carried out for the freshly installed dry tubes (DT-1 and DT-2) in KAMINI reactor. The maximum gold equivalent neutron flux at 20 kW for DT-1 and DT-2 were found to be (1.02 ± 0.02)E+10 cm−2 s−1 at 368 and (4.90 ± 0.30)E+7 cm−2 s−1 at 300 mm respectively. The sub-cadmium to epithermal neutron flux ratio (f) and epithermal neutron flux shape factor (α) were found to be 144 ± 7 and − 0.289 ± 0.010 respectively at this position for DT-1 alone. These parameters were validated by analyzing the IAEA standard (SL-1) and applied to analyze jarosite samples using k0-based internal monostandard neutron activation analysis.