  A combined measurement and Monte-Carlo simulation study was carried out in
order to characterize the particle self-shielding effect of B4C grains in
neutron shielding concrete. Several batches of a specialized neutron shielding
concrete, with varying B4C grain sizes, were exposed to a 2 {\AA} neutron beam
at the R2D2 test beamline at the Institute for Energy Technology located in
Kjeller, Norway. The direct and scattered neutrons were detected with a neutron
detector placed behind the concrete blocks and the results were compared to
Geant4 simulations. The particle self-shielding effect was included in the
Geant4 simulations by calculating effective neutron cross-sections during the
Monte-Carlo simulation process. It is shown that this method well reproduces
the measured results. Our results show that shielding calculations for
low-energy neutrons using such materials would lead to an underestimate of the
shielding required for a certain design scenario if the particle self-shielding
effect is not included in the calculations.
