Simulated observables for spent fuel non-destructive assay

Measurements on spent fuel assemblies are a complex task due to the fact that the assemblies are typically stored underwater, the contamination and irradiation risks, and the safety concerns associated to fuel handling. For these reasons the development or study of new techniques relies strongly on simulations with often little possibilities for an experimental verification with actual spent fuel. This paper reports about the work being done at SCK•CEN to develop a spent fuel observables library for several detector types. This work builds upon previous efforts to develop a spent fuel library containing the radionuclide composition, gamma and neutron emissions of PWR and BWR spent fuel assemblies for 2940 irradiation cases. The detector considered are the Fork Ball detector in wet and dry conditions and a SINRD prototype for measurements in air. The current status of the observables library and future plans are discussed as well as a strategy to use artificial neural networks to process the data and verify operator declared data from a limited set of observables.