21-25 June 2021
Clarion Congress Hotel Prague
Europe/Prague timezone
Proceedings of the ANIMMA 2021 conference are now available online in open access: https://www.epj-conferences.org/animma-2021

#07-88 Neutron time-of-flight technique for nuclear material localization using plastic scintillators

22 Jun 2021, 15:00
20m
VIRGO (Clarion Congress Hotel Prague)

VIRGO

Clarion Congress Hotel Prague

Oral presentation 07 Nuclear Fuel Cycle, Safeguards and Homeland Security 07 Nuclear Fuel Cycle, Safeguards and Homeland Security

Speaker

DEYGLUN, Clément (IRSN)

Description

Reprocessing, nuclear fuel fabrication, or uranium enrichment require large facilities that contain many glove-boxes, tanks and pipes where uranium and/or plutonium can build up. During the cleaning and dismantling of these facilities, the quantity of fissile materials need to be evaluated for nuclear material accounting and control, criticality safety, radiation safety and waste management. Holdup measurements are usually performed using gamma-ray techniques, although neutron measurements with 3-He detectors are also used. During the measurement, many factors can influence the result, such as the location of the source, its distribution and isotopic composition.
Neutron time-of-flight event detection and fast coincidence counting are powerful techniques that can be used to discriminate neutron from gamma and establish the location of nuclear materials. MCNPX-PoliMi is used to model Pu-240 source in a glove-box and an array of plastic scintillators around the inspected object. A post-processing macro based on ROOT simulates the response of the acquisition system (energy threshold, energy resolution, time jitter, etc.). The neutron time-of-flight technique is performed to identify fission signatures. Afterwards, using time-of-flight distribution, the location is established and activity calculated.

Primary author

Presentation Materials