Development of Active Neutron NDA Techniques for Nuclear Non-Proliferation Applications

NDA techniques for high radioactive SNMs such as spent fuel and next-generation fuel cycle products are not established yet because of the technical difficulties. On the other hand, the needs of the NDA techniques are existing in the fields such as nuclear non-proliferation and development of the next-generation fuel reprocessing processes. With the support of the Japanese government (MEXT; Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science & Technology), Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) has started a new R&D project of “Development of active neutron NDA techniques” with DDA, DGS, PGA/NRCA and NRTA using a pulsed neutron source. The purpose of this project is to update following active neutron NDA techniques of nuclear material and study the combination for nuclear non- proliferation applications. (1) DDA (Differential Die-Away Analysis) for measurement of total amount of fissile materials. (2) DGS (Delayed Gamma-ray Spectroscopy) for the composition analysis of the nuclear materials. (3) PGA (Prompt Gamma-ray Analysis) and NRCA (Neutron Resonance Capture Analysis). (4) NRTA (Neutron Resonance Transmission Analysis) for analysis of special nuclear materials in powder or particle-like materials. In this paper, we presents overview of the new project. The development will be conducted in collaboration with EC-JRC.