TY - JOUR
T1 - Determination of total plutonium content in spent nuclear fuel assemblies with the differential die-away self-interrogation instrument
AU - Kaplan, Alexis C.
AU - Henzl, Vladimir
AU - Menlove, Howard O.
AU - Swinhoe, Martyn T.
AU - Belian, Anthony P.
AU - Flaska, Marek
AU - Pozzi, Sara A.
N1 - Funding Information:
This material is partially based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security under Grant award no. 2012-DN-130-NF0001-02 . The authors also would like to acknowledge the support of the Next Generation Safeguards Initiative (NGSI), Office of Nonproliferation and International Security (NIS), the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security or the National Nuclear Security Administration. LA-UR-13-29465.
PY - 2014/11/11
Y1 - 2014/11/11
N2 - As a part of the Next Generation Safeguards Initiative Spent Fuel project, we simulate the response of the Differential Die-away Self-Interrogation (DDSI) instrument to determine total elemental plutonium content in an assayed spent nuclear fuel assembly (SFA). We apply recently developed concepts that relate total plutonium mass with SFA multiplication and passive neutron count rate. In this work, the multiplication of the SFA is determined from the die-away time in the early time domain of the Rossi-Alpha distributions measured directly by the DDSI instrument. We utilize MCNP to test the method against 44 pressurized water reactor SFAs from a simulated spent fuel library with a wide dynamic range of characteristic parameters such as initial enrichment, burnup, and cooling time. Under ideal conditions, discounting possible errors of a real world measurement, a root mean square agreement between true and determined total Pu mass of 2.1% is achieved.
AB - As a part of the Next Generation Safeguards Initiative Spent Fuel project, we simulate the response of the Differential Die-away Self-Interrogation (DDSI) instrument to determine total elemental plutonium content in an assayed spent nuclear fuel assembly (SFA). We apply recently developed concepts that relate total plutonium mass with SFA multiplication and passive neutron count rate. In this work, the multiplication of the SFA is determined from the die-away time in the early time domain of the Rossi-Alpha distributions measured directly by the DDSI instrument. We utilize MCNP to test the method against 44 pressurized water reactor SFAs from a simulated spent fuel library with a wide dynamic range of characteristic parameters such as initial enrichment, burnup, and cooling time. Under ideal conditions, discounting possible errors of a real world measurement, a root mean square agreement between true and determined total Pu mass of 2.1% is achieved.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.nima.2014.08.003
DO - 10.1016/j.nima.2014.08.003
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84906545614
SN - 0168-9002
VL - 764
SP - 347
EP - 351
JO - Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment
JF - Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment
ER -