Determination of total Pu content in a Spent Fuel Assembly by Measuring Passive Neutron Count rate and Multiplication with the Differential Die-Away Instrument
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
A key objective of the Next Generation Safeguards Initiative (NGSI) is to evaluate and develop non-destructive assay (NDA) techniques to determine the elemental plutonium content in a commercial-grade nuclear spent fuel assembly (SFA) [1]. Within this framework, we investigate by simulation a novel analytical approach based on combined information from passive measurement of the total neutron count rate of a SFA and its multiplication determined by the active interrogation using an instrument based on a Differential Die-Away technique (DDA). We use detailed MCNPX simulations across an extensive set of SFA characteristics to establish the approach and demonstrate its robustness. It is predicted that Pu content can be determined by the proposed method to a few %.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- DOE/LANL
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC52-06NA25396
- OSTI ID:
- 1046539
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-12-23129; TRN: US1203788
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: INMM 53rd Annual Meeting ; 2012-07-16 - 2012-07-19 ; Orlando, Florida, United States
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Direct Measurement of Initial Enrichment and Burn-up of Spent Fuel Assembly with a Differential Die-Away Technique Based Instrument
Optimization of combined delayed neutron and differential die-away prompt neutron signal detection for characterization of spent nuclear fuel assemblies