Beryllium characterization in powders containing plutonium by photoneutron activation analysis using a 124Sb gamma source

C. Carasco (1) , B. Perot (1) , A. Mariani (2) , N. Saurel (3) , S. Colas (4)

1 LMN - Laboratoire de Mesures Nucléaires
2 PRISME - Laboratoire Pluridisciplinaire de Recherche en Ingénierie des Systèmes, Mécanique et Energétique
3 DAM/VALDUC - VALDUC
4 URC, hôpital Necker Enfants Maladies, Paris

The possibility to determine the amount of beryllium in cans containing a mixed powder of iron and plutonium by counting photoneutrons is investigated with Monte Carlo simulation. The sensitivity of the optimized measurement cell is larger than 3000 s−1 wt% of Be with a 3.7E10 Bq source of 124Sb. A heterogeneous distribution of beryllium induces a 30 % relative uncertainty, which dominates the total uncertainty, the relative counting statistics being lower than 1 % when the 124Sb source activity exceeds 3.7E9 Bq. © 2016, Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, Hungary.}, author_keywords={Beryllium; Monte Carlo simulation; Nondestructive nuclear measurement; Photonuclear neutron production

Keywords: neutron; neutron activation analysis; powder; radiation measurement; uncertainty; antimony; antimony 124; beryllium; plutonium; radioisotope; unclassified drug; Article; gamma radiation; Monte Carlo method

Domains: Physics [physics]; Nuclear Experiment [nucl-ex]

C. Carasco, B. Perot, A. Mariani, N. Saurel, S. Colas. Beryllium characterization in powders containing plutonium by photoneutron activation analysis using a 124Sb gamma source. Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, 2016, 309 (3), pp.967-971. ⟨10.1007/s10967-016-4710-z⟩. ⟨cea-01992406⟩