Non-destructive analysis of materials by neutron resonance transmission

In this paper a non-destructive technique Neutron Resonance Transmission Analysis (NRTA) is presented and demonstrated. The technique has been applied at the Time-Of-Flight facility GELINA of the Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements at Geel in Belgium to characterize a radioactive PbI2 sample, which was used to study the transmutation capabilities of 129I. A transmission experiment divided into three measuring sequences allowed the identification and quantification of light (16O, 23Na and 32S) and heavy nuclei (127I, 206Pb, 207Pb and 208Pb) with an accuracy better than 7%. In addition, an upper limit of the hydrogen content was deduced from the attenuation of the neutron beam by the non-resonant scattering contribution.