Design of an Alternative Plutonium Canister Assay system (APCA) using ceramic scintillator neutron detectors for the safeguards NDA

Year
2013
Author(s)
M. Kureta - Nuclear Science and Engineering Directorate, Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA)
A. Ohzu - Nuclear Science and Engineering Directorate, Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA)
T. Nakamura - J-PARC Center, JAEA
M. Seya - Integrated Support Center for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Nuclear Security, JAEA
Abstract
The demonstrator named Alternative Plutonium Canister Assay system (APCA) on ceramic scintillator neutron detectors has been designed in order to evaluate the performance parameters for safeguards applications using a standard neutron source and the measurement accuracy of Pu mass by Known-Alpha technique using some MOX fuel canisters. The target of the demonstration is to achieve the same performance to that of the present He-3 PCAS which is operated by the IAEA at the JAEA Plutonium Conversion Development Facility in Japan. Here we present some analytical study which has been carried out using a ray-tracing code for the detector design and the neutron Monte-Carlo code MVP for the optimization of the APCA.