Year
2019
Abstract
The Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) and the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission are continuing to develop the delayed gamma-ray spectroscopy (DGS) nondestructive assay technique for nuclear safeguards. DGS has great potential to evaluate the fissile nuclide composition of mixed nuclear materials (NMs) by correlating the observed time-dependent gamma-ray (GR) energy spectrum to the unique fission product (FP) yield of the individual nuclides. While DGS can be used for low-radioactivity NMs such as MOX, this technique is especially useful for high-radioactivity NMs such as spent fuel solutions since many of the short-lived FPs produce GRs in excess of 3-MeV. Specifically, these GRs can more easily penetrate the shielding required to suppress the passively emitted, low-energy GRs from long-lived fission products. This collaboration is presently developing an interrogation system to utilize a deuterium-deuterium neutron generator for practical and efficient safeguards technology that can be immediately incorporated into verification laboratories. This presentation will first describe the basic DGS technique followed by the results and lessons learned for practical DGS measurements from experiments performed at PUNITA and PERLA in JRC-Ispra. Finally, a description will be given of our future measurement campaigns to be performed at the JRC-Geel MONNET facility and final development goals.