Approaches to characterization of nuclear material for establishment of nuclear forensics

Okazaki, Hiro ; Sumi, Mika; Sato, Mitsuhiro; Kayano, Masashi ; Kageyama, Tomio ; Martinez, P.*; Xu, N.*; Thomas, M.*; Porterfield, D.*; Colletti, L.*; Schwartz, D.*; Tnadon, L.*; Shinohara, Nobuo 

The quality control section of Plutonium Fuel Development Center (PFDC) in Japan Atomic Energy Agency has been analyzing isotopic compositions and content of plutonium and uranium as well as impurity and physics of nuclear materials in the process of MOX fuel fabrication for accountancy purpose as well as process control purposes. These analytical techniques are also effective for nuclear forensics to identify the source, history, and route of the material by determining a composition and chemical property of it. Therefore, PFDC cooperates with Los Alamos National Laboratory which has broad experience and established measurement skill for nuclear forensics, and evaluates the each method, procedure, and analytical data toward R&D of characterizing a nuclear fuel for forensics purposes. This paper describes the approaches to develop characterization techniques of nuclear fuel for nuclear forensic purpose at PFDC.