Monitoring Burn-Up of Spent Fuel Assemblies by Gamma Spectrometry

Author

Nguyen, Chuong T. ; Almasi, Istvan ; Hlavathy, Z. ; Zsigrai, J. ; Lakosi, L. ; Nagy, Peter ; Parko, T. ; Pos, I.

Author_Institution

Centre for Energy Res., Budapest, Hungary

Volume

60

Issue

2

fYear

2013

fDate

Apr-13

Firstpage

1107

Lastpage

1110

Abstract

High-resolution gamma-spectrometry (HRGS) has been used for monitoring burn-up of VVER-440 spent fuel assemblies. The objective is to support burn-up calculations by an independent experimental method. Measurements were carried out using a collimator tube built into the concrete wall of the service pit in the reactor block at the Paks Nuclear Power Plant. Fuel assemblies were sunk down into the service pit, positioned in front of the collimator, and moved down and up under water by the refueling machine. The measured Cs-134/Cs-137 activity ratio is in good correlation with the calculated burn-up of the assemblies. Experimental results were simulated by model calculations and excellent agreement was found between calculation and measurement.

Keywords

collimators; fission reactor fuel; fission reactor instrumentation; gamma-ray spectroscopy; light water reactors; nuclear power stations; HRGS; Paks nuclear power plant; VVER-440 spent fuel assemblies; burn-up calculations; burn-up monitoring; calculation model; collimator tube; experimental result simulation; high-resolution gamma-spectrometry; independent experimental method; measured Cs-134-Cs-137 activity ratio; reactor block; refueling machine; service pit concrete wall; Assembly; Collimators; Detectors; Fuels; Inductors; Isotopes; Uncertainty; Cs-134/Cs-137 ratio; HRGS; NDA; nuclear fuel burn-up;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Nuclear Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9499

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TNS.2013.2241790

Filename

6464616