Enrichment Determination of Uranium Metal in Shielded Configurations Without Calibration Standards
Enrichment Determination of Uranium Metal in Shielded Configurations Without Calibration Standards

Author: Jason Michael Crye

Publisher:

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13:

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The determination of the enrichment of uranium is required in many safeguards and security applications. Typical methods to determine the enrichment rely on detecting the 186 keV gamma ray emitted by uranium-235. In some applications the uranium is surrounded by external shields, and removal of the shields is undesirable. In these situations, methods relying on the detection of 186 keV gamma rays fail because these gamma rays are shielded easily. This research presents a novel method to estimate the enrichment of uranium metal when heavily shielded by high-Z materials. The method uses fast neutron tomography to estimate the geometry and materials inside the shielding. With the geometry and materials information, the components suspected of being enriched uranium metal are modeled with different enrichments in Monte Carlo simulations. For each modeled enrichment, a simulation predicts the time correlations expected from plastic scintillation detectors following interrogation of the uranium with a deuterium-tritium neutron generator. The simulated time correlations that best match the measured time correlations are used to estimate the actual enrichment. The method was demonstrated with measurements of a 93% enriched storage casting surrounded by different combinations of depleted uranium shields. For each combination, the fast neutron imaging techniques provided reasonable estimates of the known geometry and materials. Using the estimated geometry, the storage casting was modeled with several enrichments. The comparison of the measured time correlations to the predicted ones for each shielding combination clearly shows that the enrichment of the casting is greater than 80%. By comparing the total doubles measured to the total doubles predicted from the simulations, the estimated enrichment of the casting is between 82% and 95% for the shielding combinations considered. Even though the worst estimate differs from the actual enrichment by 11%, the accuracy of the method is likely acceptable for many nonproliferation applications, including arms control and treaty verification where the goal may be simply to identify the presence of highly enriched uranium.

Enrichment Determination of Uranium in Shielded Configurations
Enrichment Determination of Uranium in Shielded Configurations

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 2011

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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The determination of the enrichment of uranium is required in many safeguards and security applications. Typical methods of determining the enrichment rely on detecting the 186 keV gamma ray emitted by 235U. In some applications, the uranium is surrounded by external shields, and removal of the shields is undesirable. In these situations, methods relying on the detection of the 186 keV gamma fail because the gamma ray is shielded easily. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has previously measured the enrichment of shielded uranium metal using active neutron interrogation. The method consists of measuring the time distribution of fast neutrons from induced fissions with large plastic scintillator detectors. To determine the enrichment, the measurements are compared to a calibration surface that is created from Monte Carlo simulations where the enrichment in the models is varied. In previous measurements, the geometry was always known. ORNL is extending this method to situations where the geometry and materials present are not known in advance. In the new method, the interrogating neutrons are both time and directionally tagged, and an array of small plastic scintillators measures the uncollided interrogating neutrons. Therefore, the attenuation through the item along many different paths is known. By applying image reconstruction techniques, an image of the item is created which shows the position-dependent attenuation. The image permits estimating the geometry and materials present, and these estimates are used as input for the Monte Carlo simulations. As before, simulations predict the time distribution of induced fission neutrons for different enrichments. Matching the measured time distribution to the closest prediction from the simulations provides an estimate of the enrichment. This presentation discusses the method and provides results from recent simulations that show the importance of knowing the geometry and materials from the imaging system.

Uranium Enrichment Standards of the Y-12 Nuclear Detection and Sensor Testing Center
Uranium Enrichment Standards of the Y-12 Nuclear Detection and Sensor Testing Center

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 2012

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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The Y-12 National Security Complex has recently fabricated and characterized a new series of metallic uranium standards for use in the Nuclear Detection and Sensor Testing Center (NDSTC). Ten uranium metal disks with enrichments varying from 0.2 to 93.2% 235U were designed to provide researchers access to a wide variety of measurement scenarios in a single testing venue. Special care was taken in the selection of the enrichments in order to closely bracket the definitions of reactor fuel at 4% 235U and that of highly enriched uranium (HEU) at 20% 235U. Each standard is well characterized using analytical chemistry as well as a series of gamma-ray spectrometry measurements. Gamma-ray spectra of these standards are being archived in a reference library for use by customers of the NDSTC. A software database tool has been created that allows for easier access and comparison of various spectra. Information provided through the database includes: raw count data (including background spectra), regions of interest (ROIs), and full width half maximum calculations. Input is being sought from the user community on future needs including enhancements to the spectral database and additional Uranium standards, shielding configurations and detector types. A related presentation are planned for the INMM 53rd Annual Meeting (Hull, et al.), which describe new uranium chemical compound standards and testing opportunities at Y-12 Nuclear Detection and Sensor Testing Center (NDSTC).

Uranium Enrichment and Nuclear Weapon Proliferation
Uranium Enrichment and Nuclear Weapon Proliferation

Author: Allan S. Krass

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-11-20

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 100020054X

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Originally published in 1983, this book presents both the technical and political information necessary to evaluate the emerging threat to world security posed by recent advances in uranium enrichment technology. Uranium enrichment has played a relatively quiet but important role in the history of efforts by a number of nations to acquire nuclear weapons and by a number of others to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. For many years the uranium enrichment industry was dominated by a single method, gaseous diffusion, which was technically complex, extremely capital-intensive, and highly inefficient in its use of energy. As long as this remained true, only the richest and most technically advanced nations could afford to pursue the enrichment route to weapon acquisition. But during the 1970s this situation changed dramatically. Several new and far more accessible enrichment techniques were developed, stimulated largely by the anticipation of a rapidly growing demand for enrichment services by the world-wide nuclear power industry. This proliferation of new techniques, coupled with the subsequent contraction of the commercial market for enriched uranium, has created a situation in which uranium enrichment technology might well become the most important contributor to further nuclear weapon proliferation. Some of the issues addressed in this book are: A technical analysis of the most important enrichment techniques in a form that is relevant to analysis of proliferation risks; A detailed projection of the world demand for uranium enrichment services; A summary and critique of present institutional non-proliferation arrangements in the world enrichment industry, and An identification of the states most likely to pursue the enrichment route to acquisition of nuclear weapons.