National Technical Reports Library

The National Technical Information Service acquires, indexes, abstracts, and archives the largest collection of U.S. government-sponsored technical reports in existence. The NTRL offers online, free and open access to these authenticated government technical reports. Technical reports and documents in its repository may be available online for free either from the issuing federal agency, the U.S. Government Publishing Office’s Federal Digital System website, or through search engines.

Details

Spent Nuclear Fuel Measurements.

DE141159319

Publication Date	2014
Personal Author	Fast, J. E.; Chenault, J. W.; Glasgow, B. D.; Rodriguez, D. C.; VanDevender, B. A.; Wood, L. S.
Page Count	30
Abstract	An unsolved longstanding challenge to expand the Safeguards regime is to assay spent nuclear fuel (SNF) for its plutonium content. Regardless of the process used to assay the fissile content, there must be a gamma-ray measurement to determine the plutonium mass. Fissile material isotopic measurements in the presence of the intense gamma-ray background from (sub 137)Cs and other fission products are difficult. Plutonium-mass measurements using high-resolution passive gamma-ray spectroscopy are practically impossible due to the approximately 10(sub 7) higher activity of isotopes such as (sub 137)Cs. Assay using measurements of gamma rays with energies above 3 MeV that are emitted from the short-lived decay products of neutron irradiated SNF is more promising but still requires gamma-ray spectroscopy at rates on the order of 1 million counts per second (Mcps) or higher in the gamma-ray spectrometers due to the passive gamma ray background. PNNL has developed new digital filtering and analysis techniques to produce an ultra high-rate gammaray spectrometer that can operate at these count rates. A standard coaxial approximately 40% efficient high-purity germanium (HPGe) crystal has made passive gamma-ray measurements of SNF at a throughput of about 400 kcps at an input rate of 1.3 Mcps. Optimized filtering algorithms have been developed to preserve the spectroscopic capability of the system even in the very short processing times between events at these high rates. This Ultra-High Rate HPGe (UHRGe) spectroscopy system also operates at real time using a field-programmable gate array to perform spectral operations.
Keywords	Spent fuels Spent fuel measurement Spent nuclear fuel Plutonium Gamma rays Plutonium mass Isotopes Neutrons Induced fission
Source Agency	Technical Information Center Oak Ridge Tennessee
NTIS Subject Category	77I - Reactor Fuels & Fuel Processing 77G - Radioactive Wastes & Radioactivity
Corporate Authors	Pacific Northwest National Lab., Richland, WA.; Department of Energy, Washington, DC.
Supplemental Notes	Sponsored by Department of Energy, Washington, DC.
Document Type	Technical Report
NTIS Issue Number	201509

Spent Nuclear Fuel Measurements.

Spent Nuclear Fuel Measurements.
DE141159319

Publication Date	2014
Personal Author	Fast, J. E.; Chenault, J. W.; Glasgow, B. D.; Rodriguez, D. C.; VanDevender, B. A.; Wood, L. S.
Page Count	30
Abstract	An unsolved longstanding challenge to expand the Safeguards regime is to assay spent nuclear fuel (SNF) for its plutonium content. Regardless of the process used to assay the fissile content, there must be a gamma-ray measurement to determine the plutonium mass. Fissile material isotopic measurements in the presence of the intense gamma-ray background from (sub 137)Cs and other fission products are difficult. Plutonium-mass measurements using high-resolution passive gamma-ray spectroscopy are practically impossible due to the approximately 10(sub 7) higher activity of isotopes such as (sub 137)Cs. Assay using measurements of gamma rays with energies above 3 MeV that are emitted from the short-lived decay products of neutron irradiated SNF is more promising but still requires gamma-ray spectroscopy at rates on the order of 1 million counts per second (Mcps) or higher in the gamma-ray spectrometers due to the passive gamma ray background. PNNL has developed new digital filtering and analysis techniques to produce an ultra high-rate gammaray spectrometer that can operate at these count rates. A standard coaxial approximately 40% efficient high-purity germanium (HPGe) crystal has made passive gamma-ray measurements of SNF at a throughput of about 400 kcps at an input rate of 1.3 Mcps. Optimized filtering algorithms have been developed to preserve the spectroscopic capability of the system even in the very short processing times between events at these high rates. This Ultra-High Rate HPGe (UHRGe) spectroscopy system also operates at real time using a field-programmable gate array to perform spectral operations.
Keywords	Spent fuels Spent fuel measurement Spent nuclear fuel Plutonium Gamma rays Plutonium mass Isotopes Neutrons Induced fission
Source Agency	Technical Information Center Oak Ridge Tennessee
NTIS Subject Category	77I - Reactor Fuels & Fuel Processing 77G - Radioactive Wastes & Radioactivity
Corporate Authors	Pacific Northwest National Lab., Richland, WA.; Department of Energy, Washington, DC.
Supplemental Notes	Sponsored by Department of Energy, Washington, DC.
Document Type	Technical Report
NTIS Issue Number	201509