Activation experiment at the CERN-EU high-energy Reference Field (CERF) facility to benchmark ActiWiz and FLUKA predictions: A comparison after 30 days of cooling time

An experiment was carried out in June 2018 at CERN in order to benchmark FLUKA and ActiWiz activation calculations with experimental data. A first set of samples made of Copper, Aluminium, Stainless Steel and Kovar with a well-known elemental composition was irradiated by the direct impact of a mixed hadron beam of the CERF facility with a momentum 120 GeV/c. A second set of samples was located downstream of a 50 cm long copper target and irradiated by the secondary particles generated from this impact. This paper discusses first the experimental results obtained by $\gamma$-spectrometry measurements after 30 days of cooling time for the two set of samples. Then, it discusses the FLUKA simulations performed in order to get the radionuclide inventory as well as the mixed particle fluence spectra in the samples for the two positions. In a third part, it discusses the predictions given by the ActiWiz software compared with the FLUKA results. Finally, the experimental and theoretical results are compared and discussed.