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Title: Fresh Fuel Measurements With the Differential Die-Away Self-Interrogation Instrument

Journal Article · · IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science
 [1];  [2]; ORCiD logo [1];  [1];  [3];  [3]
  1. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
  2. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Washington, DC (United States)
  3. Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)
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The purpose of the Next Generation Safeguards Initiative (NGSI)-Spent Fuel (SF) Project is to strengthen the technical toolkit of safeguards inspectors and/or other interested parties. Thus the NGSI-SF team is working to achieve the following technical goals more easily and efficiently than in the past using nondestructive assay measurements of spent fuel assemblies: 1) verify the initial enrichment, burnup, and cooling time of facility declaration; 2) detect the diversion or replacement of pins; 3) estimate the plutonium mass; 4) estimate decay heat; and 5) determine the reactivity of spent fuel assemblies. The differential die-away self-interrogation (DDSI) instrument is one instrument that was assessed for years regarding its feasibility for robust, timely verification of spent fuel assemblies. The instrument was recently built and was tested using fresh fuel assemblies in a variety of configurations, including varying enrichment, neutron absorber content, and symmetry. The early die-away method, a multiplication determination method developed in simulation space, was successfully tested on the fresh fuel assembly data and determined multiplication with a root-mean-square (RMS) error of 2.9%. The experimental results were compared with MCNP simulations of the instrument as well. Low multiplication assemblies had agreement with an average RMS error of 0.2% in the singles count rate (i.e., total neutrons detected per second) and 3.4% in the doubles count rates (i.e., neutrons detected in coincidence per second). High-multiplication assemblies had agreement with an average RMS error of 4.1% in the singles and 13.3% in the doubles count rates.

Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-06NA25396
OSTI ID:
1440432
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-15-29495; TRN: US1900730
Journal Information:
IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, Vol. 64, Issue 7; ISSN 0018-9499
Publisher:
IEEECopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 1 work
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Related Subjects

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION
Fuels
Instruments
Neutrons
Detectors
Electron tubes
Electronic mail
Data models
Evaluation safeguards applications
neutron detection
performance