TY - JOUR
T1 - Angular-resolution and material-characterization measurements for a dual-particle imaging system with mixed-oxide fuel
AU - Poitrasson-Rivière, Alexis
AU - Polack, J. Kyle
AU - Hamel, Michael C.
AU - Klemm, Dietrich D.
AU - Ito, Kai
AU - McSpaden, Alexander T.
AU - Flaska, Marek
AU - Clarke, Shaun D.
AU - Pozzi, Sara A.
AU - Tomanin, Alice
AU - Peerani, Paolo
N1 - Funding Information:
This work is supported, in-part, by the National Nuclear Security Administration through NA-22 funding opportunity DE-FOA-0000568 . It is also supported in part by the National Science Foundation and the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office of the Department of Homeland Security through the Academic Research Initiative Award # CMMI 0938909 . J. K. Polack and M. C. Hamel are funded by the University of Michigan / Sandia National Laboratories Excellence in Engineering Fellowship . This fellowship is supported in part by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program at Sandia National Laboratories (project 173669 ). Sandia is a multi-program laboratory managed and operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation, for the US Department of Energy׳s National Nuclear Security Administration under Contract No. DE-AC04-94AL85000. The prototype system is funded by the Department of Energy, Nuclear Energy University Program , Award # DE-NE0000324 .
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rightsreserved.
PY - 2015/7/25
Y1 - 2015/7/25
N2 - A dual-particle imaging (DPI) system, capable of simultaneously imaging fast neutrons and gamma rays, has been operated in the presence of mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel to assess the system's angular resolution and material-characterization capabilities. The detection principle is based on the scattering physics of neutrons (elastic scattering) and gamma rays (Compton scattering) in organic and inorganic scintillators. The detection system is designed as a combination of a two-plane Compton camera and a neutron-scatter camera. The front plane consists of EJ-309 liquid scintillators and the back plane consists of interleaved EJ-309 and NaI(Tl) scintillators. MCNPX-PoliMi was used to optimize the geometry of the system and the resulting prototype was built and tested using a Cf-252 source as an SNM surrogate. A software package was developed to acquire and process data in real time. The software was used for a measurement campaign to assess the angular resolution of the imaging system with MOX samples. Measurements of two MOX canisters of similar isotopics and intensity were performed for 6 different canister separations (from 5° to 30°, corresponding to distances of 21 cm and 131 cm, respectively). The measurements yielded a minimum separation of 20° at 2.5 m (86-cm separation) required to see 2 separate hot spots. Additionally, the results displayed good agreement with MCNPX-PoliMi simulations. These results indicate an angular resolution between 15° and 20°, given the 5° step. Coupled with its large field of view, and its capability to differentiate between spontaneous fission and (α,n) sources, the DPI system shows its potential for nuclear-nonproliferation applications.
AB - A dual-particle imaging (DPI) system, capable of simultaneously imaging fast neutrons and gamma rays, has been operated in the presence of mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel to assess the system's angular resolution and material-characterization capabilities. The detection principle is based on the scattering physics of neutrons (elastic scattering) and gamma rays (Compton scattering) in organic and inorganic scintillators. The detection system is designed as a combination of a two-plane Compton camera and a neutron-scatter camera. The front plane consists of EJ-309 liquid scintillators and the back plane consists of interleaved EJ-309 and NaI(Tl) scintillators. MCNPX-PoliMi was used to optimize the geometry of the system and the resulting prototype was built and tested using a Cf-252 source as an SNM surrogate. A software package was developed to acquire and process data in real time. The software was used for a measurement campaign to assess the angular resolution of the imaging system with MOX samples. Measurements of two MOX canisters of similar isotopics and intensity were performed for 6 different canister separations (from 5° to 30°, corresponding to distances of 21 cm and 131 cm, respectively). The measurements yielded a minimum separation of 20° at 2.5 m (86-cm separation) required to see 2 separate hot spots. Additionally, the results displayed good agreement with MCNPX-PoliMi simulations. These results indicate an angular resolution between 15° and 20°, given the 5° step. Coupled with its large field of view, and its capability to differentiate between spontaneous fission and (α,n) sources, the DPI system shows its potential for nuclear-nonproliferation applications.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.nima.2015.06.045
DO - 10.1016/j.nima.2015.06.045
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84937948307
VL - 797
SP - 278
EP - 284
JO - Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment
JF - Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment
SN - 0168-9002
ER -