Year
2001
Abstract
One of the most difficult problems in NDA of nuclear materials is identifying the chemical form of the nuclear material and the surrounding matrix. Recent work analyzing the calorimeter response of sources embedded in a variety of matrices has led to a possible solution to this problem. The wide range of thermal time constants exhibited by typical matrix materials lends itself to permitting the differentiation between materials, based on time constants extracted from the measured response. Potential applications include simple item identification, item fingerprinting as part of shipper-receiver measurements, and distinguishing between Pu metal and Pu oxide as required under certain proposed attribute measurements. The results of applying this technique to a variety of items will be presented and discussed.