The Effect of Moisture on (alpha,n) Neutron Source Rates and Energy Spectrums in Oxide Fuels

Year
2001
Author(s)
Michael Baker - Los Alamos National Laboratory
Abstract
Moisture content is frequently an unknown variable in the nondestructive assay of nuclear fuels. When designing assay instrumentation for tight accuracy requirements the effect of this variable must be included in the design analysis since it may be one of the major contributors to assay error. The bias due to this error component is discussed and the changes in energy spectrum and neutron source magnitude are described for typical oxide fuel compositions.