Abstract
Amongst the Non-Destructive Assay methods for spent fuel verifications being studied at the Belgian nuclear research centre, SCKoCEN, the Partial Defect Tester (PDET) is proposed for the detection of partial defects. The PDET detector employs a set of small neutron and gamma detectors that can be inserted in the guide tubes of the fuel assembly. A removal of fuel pins alters the baseline neutron and gamma distributions and allows detecting the anomaly.
In this work, a PWR LEU 17x17 fuel assembly was considered and 25 positions that can host the PDET instrumentation. The study was carried out with the Monte Carlo code MCNPX and focussed, in a first stage, on determining the impact on the detector response due to the spent fuel composition. The spent fuel composition was obtained with the Origen-ARP code by simulating different irradiation histories, according to different values of initial enrichment, burn up, and cooling time. In addition, the impact on the neutron detector response of the PDET due to the composition and radiation field of neighbouring fuel assembly was also assessed. The partial defect capabilities of the PDET were then determined by studying the expected change in the detector response when replacing fuel pins with dummy pins made of stainless steel.
| Original language | English |
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| Title of host publication | Institute for Nuclear Materials Management (INMM) |
| Publisher | INMM - Institute of Nuclear Materials Management |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| State | Published - 24 Jul 2016 |
| Event | INMM 2016 - 57th Annual Meeting of Institute of Nuclear Materials Management - Atlanta, Georgia Duration: 24 Jul 2016 → 28 Jul 2016 |
Conference
| Conference | INMM 2016 - 57th Annual Meeting of Institute of Nuclear Materials Management |
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| Abbreviated title | INMM 2016 |
| Country/Territory | United States |
| City | Atlanta, Georgia |
| Period | 2016-07-24 → 2016-07-28 |