Robotic NDA of Holdup Deposits in Gaseous Diffusion Piping by Gamma Assay of Uranium-235 - 18331

Conference · Sun Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 2018

OSTI ID:22975469

Jones, Heather; Whittaker, William; Sapunkov, Oleg; Kohanbash, David; Maley, Siri; Teza, James; Fang, Eugene; McHugh, Max; Holst, Ian; Ng, Christopher ^[1]; Wilson, Taylor ^[2]; Riddle, Russell ^[3]

---

1. Carnegie Mellon University (United States)
2. University of Nevada, Reno (United States)
3. Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth LLC (United States)

This research exploits in-pipe access to develop robotically deployed, high-cadence, accurate, certain, paperless assay of U-235 in holdup deposits within process piping. Prior radiometric assay from outside the pipes suffered from manual deployment challenges, attenuation of detection through pipe walls, long counting times, approximate modeling, and shortfalls associated with transcription and human interpretation. These downsides limited the speed, quality, and economy of assay resulting in vast cost and budget consequences to D and D. D and D of outdated facilities cuts into these pipes as part of the demolition process, creating the unique, previously unexploited possibility of robotic in-pipe assay. The assay collimates radiation emanating from all but a short segment of pipe wall from reaching a gamma detector. Hence, the detector only views and measures source from a short segment of pipe at a given time. This is achieved by an innovative pair of collimating discs that are coaxial with the pipe and positioned fore and aft of the detector. The detector assembly is translated through pipes by an autonomous mobile robot. Beyond radiometric assay of U-235, the robot images and geometrically models the pipe interior and deposit appearance. The robot is recovered from the same pipe opening from which it is launched, hence it drives the same distance out and back, measuring the same deposits twice. This achieves redundant radiometric and odometric measurements which adds further to statistical significance of the method. (authors)

• Research Organization: WM Symposia, Inc., PO Box 27646, 85285-7646 Tempe, AZ (United States)
• OSTI ID: 22975469
• Report Number(s): INIS-US--20-WM-18331
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
ACCURACY
ATTENUATION
AUTOMATION
COLLIMATORS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
DECOMMISSIONING
DEMOLITION
GASEOUS DIFFUSION
NONDESTRUCTIVE ANALYSIS
PIPES
RADIATION DETECTORS
RADIOASSAY
RADIOMETRIC SURVEYS
ROBOTS
URANIUM 235