A Paradigm for the Nondestructive Assay of Spent Fuel Assemblies and Similar Large Objects, with Emphasis on the Role of Photon-Based Techniques

摘要

The practice of nondestructive assay (NDA) of nuclear materials has, until now, been focused primarily (1) on smaller objects (2) with less fissile material and (3) with less self-generated radiation. The transition to the application of NDA to spent fuel assemblies and similar large objects violates these three conditions, thereby bringing the assumptions and paradigm of traditional NDA practice into question for the new applications. In this paper, a new paradigm for these new applications is presented which is based on the fundamental principles of nuclear engineering. It is shown that the NDA of spent fuel assemblies is mostly a three-dimensional problem that requires the integration of three independent NDA measurements in order to achieve a unique and accurate assay. The only NDA techniques that can avoid this requirement are those that analyze signals that are characteristic to specific isotopes (such as those caused by characteristic resonance interactions), and that are neither distorted nor overly attenuated by the other surrounding material. Some photon-based NDA techniques fall into this exceptional category. Such exceptional NDA techniques become essential to employ when assaying large objects that, unlike spent fuel assemblies, do not have a consistent geometry. With this new NDA paradigm, the advanced photon-based NDA techniques can be put into their proper context, and their development can thereby be properly motivated.