Tomographic gamma scanning (TGS) to measure inhomogeneous nuclear material matrices from future fuel cycles

Conference · Tue Jun 01 04:00:00 EDT 1993

OSTI ID:10162280

Estep, R J; Prettyman, T H; Sheppard, G A

Current methods for the non-destructive assay (NDA) of special nuclear materials (SNM) in 208-L drums can give assay errors of 100% or more when the drum matrix and/or radionuclide distribution is nonuniform. To address this problem, we have developed the tomographic-gamma-scanner (TGS) method for assaying heterogeneous drummed SNM. TGS improves on the well-established segmented-gamma-scanner (SGS) method by performing low-resolution tomographic emission and transmission scans on the drum, yielding coarse three-dimensional images of the matrix density and radionuclide distributions. The images are used to make accurate, point-to-point attenuation corrections. The TGS geometric counting efficiency is 60% that of a typical SGS device, allowing a TGS assay time of only 28 min per drum with a one-detector system. TGS may also be useful for non-destructive examination (NDE). Currently, TGS is the only practical method of imaging SNM in drums.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-36
• OSTI ID: 10162280
• Report Number(s): LA-UR--93-1637; CONF-930913--4; ON: DE93014426
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

052000
12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
440101
46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
ACCURACY
ATTENUATION
CHEMICAL COMPOSITION
GENERAL DETECTORS OR MONITORS AND RADIOMETRIC INSTRUMENTS
HIGH-PURITY GE DETECTORS
IMAGES
RADIOACTIVE WASTES
TOMOGRAPHY
WASTE MANAGEMENT