MONTE CARLO EVALUATION OF THE USE OF A 14 MEV ASSOCIATED PARTICLE SEALED TUBE NEUTRON GENERATOR FOR ONE-SIDED MEASUREMENTS ON HIGHLY ENRICHED URANIUM SAMPLES

In this paper, the Monte Carlo code MCNP-PoliMi was used to investigate the possibility of conducting active measurements on highly enriched uranium metal castings with an associated particle sealed tube neutron generator (APSTNG) as the interrogating source, and plastic scintillators as neutron and gamma ray detectors. The technique is based on the analysis of time-correlation functions of the signals from the source and the detectors to determine the mass and enrichment of the fissile samples. It is shown that the directionality of the APSTNG allows the measurement to be performed with the APSTNG and the detectors placed on the same side of the container.