International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Research Applications and Utilization of Accelerators

4-8 May 2009, Vienna

Active Inspection Fission Signatures for the Detection, Quantification and Identification of Fissionable Materials

A.W. Hunt^1,2, S.J. Thompson^2,1, H.A. Seipel^2,1, E.T.E. Reedy^2,1, E.S. Cardenas^2,1, and B.H. Failor³

¹Idaho Accelerator Center, Idaho State University, Pocatello, Idaho, United States of America
²Department of Physics, Idaho State University, Pocatello, Idaho, United States of America
³L-3 Communications, Applied Technologies Pulse Sciences, San Leandro, California, United States of America

Corresponding Author: alwhunt@iac.isu.edu

Recently there has been heightened interest in active inspection techniques that can nondestructively detect, identify and quantify fissionable materials for security, nonproliferation and nuclear forensics applications. These active techniques use a source of neutrons or high energy photons to stimulate nuclear reactions in the inspection object and then monitor the emitted secondary radiation for unique fissionable material signatures. These signatures are based on detecting emissions from fission reactions (e.g., prompt and delayed neutrons) and/or non fission reactions (e.g., nuclear resonance fluorescence). In this presentation, the authors will present recent experimental results using prompt neutrons, delayed neutrons and delayed γ rays as fissionable material signatures. The research first focused on how to detect these emissions in an intense radiation environment and the algorithms required to produce unique fissionable material signatures. The sensitivity, accuracy, speed and isotope specificity of each signature was then explored. Current work is focusing on how to effectively combine multiple signatures.