Year
2002
Abstract
For nuclear material control and accounting(MC&A) in DUPIC(Direct Use of Spent PWR Fuel in CANDU Reactors) Fuel Demonstration Facility, a well-type neutron coincidence counter, socalled DSNC(DUPIC Safeguards Neutron Counter), has been officially used for the MC&A of the facility by IAEA(International Atomic Energy Agency) and domestic safeguards body since the year 2000. The DSNC has also been used for quality control of DUPIC process in which spent fuels are directly refabricated to CANDU fuels only by thermal and mechanical treatment. This paper describes the performance of the DSNC in MC&A aspect and also add the quality control aspects of the DUPIC process. In order to obtain a little better performance, the selfmultiplication effect that could be generated in DUPIC process materials like sintered pellets and fuel bundles is examined and its results are reflected to calibration curve. On the whole, It is indicated that the DSNC is working very well as designed. In addition to the MC&A, the DSNC has been used for measurement of decladding performance of rod-cuts and homogeneity of mixing powder. To see the decladding performance, double rate of rod-cuts before decladding process and cladding hulls after decladding process are measured by DSNC and then compared. For the homogeneity measurement, powder after mixing process is spread out in a large tray and several samples are taken out at various points. Each sample is measured by DSNC and then double per g-powder is calculated and compared statistically. From several related experiments, we found that the DSNC could also give assistance to the quality control of DUPUC process as well as the MC&A in the DUPIC facility.