Comparison and research on the GRAVEL and PRIP algorithms of neutron energy spectrum unfolding

Objective: Neutron energy spectrum unfolding is a key technique for neutron detection. It is essentially an inversion problem. The GRAVEL algorithm has been widely used in this field, and the PRIP algorithm transforms neutron energy spectrum unfolding into a typical nonnegative linear complementarity problem and solves it by interior point algorithm for potential reduction. Methods: These two algorithms are applied to unfold several different neutron energy test spectra and actual D-T fusion neutron energy spectrum. Results and Conclusion: By comparison, it can be concluded that the PRIP algorithm is highly computationally efficient and fast converging, and the GRAVEL algorithm solution results match up more with the expected results.