CALCULATING ACCURATE SHUFFLER COUNT RATES WITH APPLICATIONS

Shufflers are used to assay uranium and other fissile elements in bulk and waste quantities. They normally require physical calibration standards to achieve the most-accurate results, but such standards are generally rare and expensive, so inappropriate standards are often used out of necessity. This paper reports on a new technique that has been developed to calculate accurate count rates, in effect simulating physical standards with rapid and inexpensive calculations. The technique has been benchmarked on existing oxide and metallic standards, used to study a variety of conditions for which standards do not exist, and applied to inventory items needing verification measurements even though appropriate physical standards do not exist.