Improvement of INVS measurement uncertainty for Pu nitrate solution

Makino, Risa; Swinhoe, M. T.*; Suzuki, Hisanori ; Ikeda, Atsushi*; Menlove, H. O.*; Shimizu, Yasuyuki; Nakamura, Hironobu 

The Inventory Verification Sample system (INVS) is a non-destructive assay system for samples to quantify the Pu amount in Pu nitrate solutions and MOX with 31.3% of counting efficiency. It has been used for IAEA verification measurement for many years at the Plutonium Conversion Development Facility for the samples taken at the timing of PIV etc. as a partial defects verification system (uncertainty: about 3-5%). If the measurement uncertainty can be improved (to 1%), it is expected that the usage can be extended to the operator's own measurements in MC&A to reduce the number of destructive analyses. In order to improve the measurement uncertainty for solution samples, after optimization of detector parameter and sample position, we conducted 3 different types of calibration method that is passive calibration curve, known- and multiplicity method to achieve the target uncertainty. To perform calibration and control the measurement quality, MOX fuel pellets with known Pu amount are fabricated and used. In the range of concentration of typical solution samples, we could confirm good correlations between measured doubles and Pu effective mass in the three methods. Especially, it was confirmed that the conventional calibration curve method could meet our target uncertainty (1%).