Open AccessProduction Tests-240: Gamma spectrometer development and testing
Author(s) -
R.L. Miller
Publication year - 1979
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Reports
DOI - 10.2172/95594
Subject(s) - nuclear engineering , spectrometer , research reactor , environmental science , waste management , engineering , nuclear physics , physics , neutron , optics
The office of Safeguards and Nuclear Materials Management of the US Atomic Energy Commission has commissioned Battelle-Northwest to design, build, and test a gamma spectrometer with the specific purpose of measuring photo peaks emitted from irradiated fuel. The parameters of interest are not just the photo peaks but the variations of the rays with respect to irradiation time in the reactor and storage time after discharge from the reactor. The spectrometer is being built at Tech Shops in the 300 Area and is scheduled to be installed in the cobalt irradiation facility of the KE Reactor spent fuel storage basin during the first week of November, 1970. One complete tube of 38 natural uranium fuel elements, irradiated at KE Reactor, will be specifically discharged for this test program and will be scanned at weekly intervals for a period of one year following the date of discharge by Battelle-Northwest technicians using the spectrometer in the fuel basin. This production test defines the number of fuel assemblies required, the exposure criteria for the fuel, and the special handling procedure necessary to maintain identification of the fuel from the time of discharge. The objective of this test is to invent a system of gamma-ray measurements which can be used to derive the exposure and time after discharge of spent reactor fuel