Verification of Spent Nuclear Fuel in Sealed Dry Storage Casks via Measurements of Cosmic-Ray Muon Scattering

Most of the plutonium in the world resides inside spent nuclear reactor fuel rods. This high-level radioactive waste is commonly held in long-term storage within large, heavily shielded casks. Currently, international nuclear safeguards inspectors have no stand-alone method of verifying the amount o...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review applied 2018-04, Vol.9 (4), Article 044013
Main Authors: Durham, J. M., Poulson, D., Bacon, J., Chichester, D. L., Guardincerri, E., Morris, C. L., Plaud-Ramos, K., Schwendiman, W., Tolman, J. D., Winston, P.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
muon radiography
muon tomography
safeguards
spent fuel
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Most of the plutonium in the world resides inside spent nuclear reactor fuel rods. This high-level radioactive waste is commonly held in long-term storage within large, heavily shielded casks. Currently, international nuclear safeguards inspectors have no stand-alone method of verifying the amount of reactor fuel stored within a sealed cask. In this paper, we demonstrate experimentally that measurements of the scattering angles of cosmic-ray muons, which pass through a storage cask, can be used to determine if spent fuel assemblies are missing without opening the cask. Finally, this application of technology and methods commonly used in high-energy particle physics provides a potential solution to this long-standing problem in international nuclear safeguards.
ISSN:2331-7019
2331-7019
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevApplied.9.044013