Application of curium measurements for safeguarding at reprocessing plants. Study 1: High-level liquid waste and Study 2: Spent fuel assemblies and leached hulls

Technical Report · Fri Mar 01 04:00:00 EST 1996

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/212480· OSTI ID:212480

Rinard, P M; Menlove, H O

In large-scale reprocessing plants for spent fuel assemblies, the quantity of plutonium in the waste streams each year is large enough to be important for nuclear safeguards. The wastes are drums of leached hulls and cylinders of vitrified high-level liquid waste. The plutonium amounts in these wastes cannot be measured directly by a nondestructive assay (NDA) technique because the gamma rays emitted by plutonium are obscured by gamma rays from fission products, and the neutrons from spontaneous fissions are obscured by those from curium. The most practical NDA signal from the waste is the neutron emission from curium. A diversion of waste for its plutonium would also take a detectable amount of curium, so if the amount of curium in a waste stream is reduced, it can be inferred that there is also a reduced amount of plutonium. This report studies the feasibility of tracking the curium through a reprocessing plant with neutron measurements at key locations: spent fuel assemblies prior to shearing, the accountability tank after dissolution, drums of leached hulls after dissolution, and canisters of vitrified high-level waste after separation. Existing pertinent measurement techniques are reviewed, improvements are suggested, and new measurements are proposed. The authors integrate these curium measurements into a safeguards system.

• 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: 212480
• Report Number(s): LA--13134-MS; ON: DE96008723
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

05 NUCLEAR FUELS
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
CONTAINERS
CURIUM
DIAGNOSTIC TECHNIQUES
FEASIBILITY STUDIES
FUEL CANS
FUEL REPROCESSING PLANTS
HEAD END PROCESSES
HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTES
LIQUID WASTES
NEUTRON DETECTION
NONDESTRUCTIVE ANALYSIS
NUCLEAR MATERIALS MANAGEMENT
ON-LINE MEASUREMENT SYSTEMS
PLUTONIUM
RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT
SPECIFICATIONS
SPENT FUEL ELEMENTS