Uranium Holdup Monitoring with Compton Imaging as Function of Depth and Mass

Conference · Wed Sep 01 04:00:00 EDT 2021

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1826191· OSTI ID:1826191

Preston, Jeff ^[1]; Bennett, Brittany ^[1]; Connatser, R. Maggie ^[1]; Venkataraman, Ramkumar ^[2]; Ziock, Klaus Peter ^[2]; Lefebvre, Jordan ^[2]; Bledsoe, Keith ^[2]; Garishvili, Irakli ^[2]; Lousteau, Angela ^[2]

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1. Y-12 National Security Complex, Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
2. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

Material Control and Accountability (MC&A) programs track masses of materials flowing through production processes, where some material remains in process equipment as holdup. Quantification of these masses using gamma emissions typically involves usage of a well characterized radiation detector and assumptions of geometric configuration to constrain detection efficiencies, where the Generalized Geometry Holdup (GGH) method is often used. Uncertainties on the order of ±50% are observed, where the difficulties arise based on the asymmetric and gradient distributions of material that do not fall within the bounds of GGH. Gamma imagers provide a possible means to improve this geometric knowledge. This work describes the process used in creating a series of mass standards to aid the development of imaging algorithms for quantification.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge Y-12 Plant (Y-12), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: NA0001942
• OSTI ID: 1826191
• Report Number(s): IROS38849
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY