Assaying Used Nuclear Fuel Assemblies Using Lead Slowing-Down Spectroscopy and Singular Value Decomposition

This study investigates the use of a Lead Slowing-Down Spectrometer (LSDS) for the direct and independent measurement of fissile isotopes in light-water nuclear reactor fuel assemblies. The current study applies MCNPX, a Monte Carlo radiation transport code, to simulate the measurement of the assay...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on nuclear science 2013-04, Vol.60 (2), p.539-544
Main Authors: Kulisek, J. A., Anderson, K. K., Casella, A. M., Gesh, C. J., Warren, G. A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Assembly
Calibration
Isotopes
Lead Slowing Down Spectroscopy, LSDS, Neutron Spectroscopy, nondestructive assay, nuclear fuel cycle safeguards, nuclear fuels
Libraries
Neutron spectroscopy
Neutrons
nondestructive assay
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
nuclear fuel cycle safeguards
Nuclear fuels
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Summary:This study investigates the use of a Lead Slowing-Down Spectrometer (LSDS) for the direct and independent measurement of fissile isotopes in light-water nuclear reactor fuel assemblies. The current study applies MCNPX, a Monte Carlo radiation transport code, to simulate the measurement of the assay of the used nuclear fuel assemblies in the LSDS. An empirical model has been developed based on the calibration of the LSDS to responses generated from the simulated assay of six well-characterized fuel assemblies. The effects of self-shielding are taken into account by using empirical basis vectors calculated from the singular value decomposition (SVD) of a matrix containing the self-shielding functions from the assay of assemblies in the calibration set. The performance of the empirical algorithm was tested on version 1 of the Next-Generation Safeguards Initiative (NGSI) used fuel library consisting of 64 assemblies, as well as a set of 27 diversion assemblies, both of which were developed by Los Alamos National Laboratory. The potential for direct and independent assay of the sum of the masses of Pu-239 and Pu-241 to within 2%, on average, has been demonstrated.
ISSN:0018-9499
1558-1578
DOI:10.1109/TNS.2013.2250304