Year
2006
Abstract
Confirmation of the fissile mass of a system containing plutonium can be done using neutron multiplicity techniques. This can be accomplished with a detector system that is smaller and less costly than a standard neutron multiplicity counter (NMC). Also the fissile mass of a uranium containing system can be confirmed by passive means. Recent work at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory1 has demonstrated that simple slab neutron detectors and a novel approach to data acquisition and analysis can be used to make an accurate measurement of the mass of fissile materials. Purely passive measurement of kilogram quantities of highly enriched uranium (HEU) have also been shown to be feasible. In this paper we discuss calculational tools for assessing the application of these techniques to fissile material transparency regimes. The tools required to adequately model the correlations and their application will be discussed.