Determination of Buildup Factors in Titanium and Depleted Uranium
- University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM (United States)
- Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
Approximately 13% by volume of the US Department of Energy (DOE) current backlog of radioactive waste is characterized as high-level waste. Transportation of these wastes requires that the waste package have adequate shielding against gamma radiation. This project investigates the radiation shielding performance of titanium and depleted uranium, which have been proposed for use as gamma shielding materials in DOE transportation packages, by experimentally determining their buildup factors. Buildup factors are important in shield heating and radiation damage calculations. A point-isotropic-source type of buildup factor is the most useful for application in the point-kernal approach utilized in many simple shielding codes. The point-kernal method provides reasonable results for cases in which the shield is made of one solid material and the source can be approximated as one homogeneous material. The point-kernal method has been incorporated into a large number of shielding codes treating three-dimensional geometry using buildup factor data in some form. Buildup factors vary with a number of parameters such as the distance of penetration through the attenuating medium; the geometric configuration of the attenuating medium, source and detector position; the composition of the medium; the detector response function; and the energy and direction of emission of the source photons, ideally taken to be monoenergetic and isotropic.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States); Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000; AJ-9008
- OSTI ID:
- 174687
- Report Number(s):
- SAND-95-3019C; CONF-951203-15; ON: DE96003640; TRN: 96:003687
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: PATRAM `95: 11. international Conference on Packaging and Transportation of Radioactive Materials, Las Vegas, NV (United States), 3-8 Dec 1995; Other Information: PBD: [1995]
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTES
SHIELDING
BENCH-SCALE EXPERIMENTS
WASTE TRANSPORTATION
PACKAGING
TITANIUM
DEPLETED URANIUM
Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP)
Gamma Shielding Materials
DOE Transportation Packages
Buildup Factors