HEU age determination

Technical Report · Tue Aug 01 00:00:00 EDT 1995

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/100140· OSTI ID:100140

Moorthy, A R; Kato, W Y

A technique has been developed to determine the Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) Age which is defined as the time since the HEU was produced in an enrichment process. The HEU age is determined from the ratios of relevant uranium parents and their daughters viz {sup 230}Th/{sup 234}U and {sup 231}Pa/{sup 235}U. Uranium isotopes are quantitatively measured by their characteristic gammas and their daughters by alpha spectroscopy. In some of the samples where HEU is enriched more than 99%, the only mode of HEU age determination is by the measurement of {sup 231}Pa since there is negligible quantity of {sup 230}Th due to very low atom concentrations of {sup 234}U in the sample. In this paper we have presented data and methodology of finding the age of two HEU samples.

• Research Organization: Brookhaven National Lab., Upton, NY (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-76CH00016
• OSTI ID: 100140
• Report Number(s): BNL--61977; CONF-950787--36; ON: DE95016015
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

05 NUCLEAR FUELS
45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEFENSE
ALPHA SPECTROSCOPY
DIAGRAMS
HIGHLY ENRICHED URANIUM
ISOTOPE DILUTION
NON-PROLIFERATION POLICY
NUMERICAL DATA
URANIUM ISOTOPES