Pulsed Power Active Interrogation of Shielded Fissionable Material

Author

Woolf, Richard S. ; Phlips, Bernard F. ; Hutcheson, Anthony L. ; Wulf, Eric A. ; Zier, Jacob C. ; Jackson, Stuart L. ; Murphy, Donald P. ; Commisso, Robert J. ; Schumer, Joseph W. ; Clemett, Ceri D. ; OMalley, John ; Hill, Cassie ; Maddock, Robert C. ; Ma

Author_Institution

Space Sci. Div., U.S. Naval Res. Lab., Washington, DC, USA

Volume

62

Issue

3

fYear

2015

fDate

42156

Firstpage

1278

Lastpage

1287

Abstract

We irradiated a depleted uranium ( ²³⁸U) target with intense, single 50 ns pulses of bremsstrahlung to study the behavior of ³He, BF3, NaI(Tl), and liquid scintillation detectors in a harsh radiological environment. The target was exposed unshielded, and shielded with borated high-density polyethylene, or steel, and delayed γ-ray and neutron signatures were measured. We found that a high confidence measurement of the delayed emission could be obtained in this environment and show the results from each detector array, for varying amounts of shielding, in terms of the signal-to-noise ratio vs. time and the relationship between the mean of the signal-to-noise ratio vs. areal mass density.

Keywords

bremsstrahlung; liquid scintillation detectors; national security; uranium; areal mass density; borated high-density polyethylene; bremsstrahlung; depleted uranium; high confidence measurement; liquid scintillation detectors; pulsed power active interrogation; radiological environment; shielded fissionable material; signal-to-noise ratio; Arrays; Data acquisition; Detectors; Liquids; Logic gates; Neutrons; Photonics; Active interrogation; bremsstrahlung photons; gamma-ray detection; neutron detection; pulsed power;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Nuclear Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9499

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TNS.2015.2427152

Filename

7120197