Experimental studies on neutronic performance of coupled liquid-hydrogen moderator for pulsed spallation neutron sources

Abstract Optimization studies on a coupled liquid-hydrogen moderator system were performed experimentally and the results were compared with those of decoupled liquid-hydrogen and solid-methane moderators. A very large gain factor is obtained in the cold neutron region. Pulse characteristics were also studied and it was found that the pulse broadening by coupling is rather modest.