Direct Measurement of Initial Enrichment, Burn-up and Cooling Time of Spent Fuel Assembly with a Differential Die-Away Technique Based Instrument

Conference · Fri Jul 13 04:00:00 EDT 2012

OSTI ID:1046511

Henzl, Vladimir ^[1]; Swinhoe, Martyn T ^[1]; Tobin, Stephen J ^[1]

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1. Los Alamos National Laboratory

An outline of this presentation of what a Differential Die-Away (DDA) instrument can do are: (1) Principle of operation of DDA instrument; (2) Determination of initial enrichment (IE) ({sigma} < 5%); (3) Determination of burn up (BU) ({sigma} {approx} 6%); (4) Determination of cooling time (CT) ({sigma} {approx} 20-50%); and (5) DDA instrument as a standalone device. DDA response (fresh fuel vs. spent fuel) is: (1) Fresh fuel => DDA response increases (die-away time is longer) with increasing fissile content; and (2) Spent fuel => DDA response decreases (die-away time is shorter) with higher burn-up (i.e. more neutron absorbers present).

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE/LANL
• DOE Contract Number: AC52-06NA25396
• OSTI ID: 1046511
• Report Number(s): LA-UR-12-22982
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
COOLING TIME
NEUTRON ABSORBERS
SPENT FUELS