Generalized analysis method for neutron resonance transmission analysis

原田 秀郎; 木村 敦; 北谷 文人; 小泉 光生; 土屋 晴文; Becker, B.*; Kopecky, S.*; Schillebeeckx, P.*

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 52(6), p.837 - 843, 2015/06

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2014.982738

Neutron resonance densitometry (NRD) is a non-destructive analysis method, which can be applied to quantify special nuclear materials (SNM) in small particle-like debris of melted fuel that is formed in severe accidents of nuclear reactors such as the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plants. NRD uses neutron resonance transmission analysis (NRTA) to quantify SNM and neutron resonance capture analysis (NRCA) to identify matrix materials and impurities. In order to generalize NRD for the characterization of arbitrary-shaped thick materials, a generalized method to analyze NRTA data has been developed. The method has been applied on data resulting from transmission through non-uniform thick samples with varying areal density of SNM up to 0.253 at/b (100 g/cm). The investigation shows that NRD could be used to quantify SNM in not only uniform samples made of small particle-like debris but also non-uniform samples made of large rock-like debris with high accuracy by utilizing the generalized analysis method for NRTA.