Precision estimates for tomographic nondestructive assay
Requirements for effective safeguards during the transition to environmental management at nuclear material production facilities within the DOE complex are deriving improvements in the accuracy of nondestructive assay (NDA) techniques. An important aspect of the transition is the need for facilities to terminate safeguards on waste materials, thus reducing the cost for safeguards at the facility. Requirements for the termination of safeguards on candidate waste material have been established by DOE to minimize the potential for diversion or theft of nuclear material. Because heterogenous waste and residue materials are stored in large containers such as 208-L drums, conventional assay techniques such as segmented gamma scanning (SGS) that were developed to assay small samples cannot always provide accurate measurements. Consequently, facilities using the conventional NDA instrumentation may be limited in their ability to discard waste materials in compliance with DOE requirements. One technique being applied to improve the accuracy of assays of waste in large containers is computerized tomography (CT). Research on the application of CT to improve both neutron and gamma-ray assays of waste is being carried out at Los Alamos National Laboratory. For example, tomographic gamma scanning (TGS) is a single-photon emission CT technique that corrects for attenuation of gamma rays emitted from the sample using attenuation images from transmission CT.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-36
- OSTI ID:
- 78598
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-95-323; CONF-950923-1; ON: DE95006279
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 5. international conference on facility-safeguards interface, Jackson Hole, WY (United States), 24-30 Sep 1995; Other Information: PBD: [1995]
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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