Nondestructive NMR technique for moisture determination in radioactive materials.

This progress report focuses on experimental and computational studies used to evaluate nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for detecting, quantifying, and monitoring hydrogen and other magnetically active nuclei ({sup 3}H, {sup 3}He, {sup 239}Pu, {sup 241}Pu) in Spent nuclear fuels and packaging materials. The detection of moisture by using a toroid cavity NMR imager has been demonstrated in SiO{sub 2} and UO{sub 2} systems. The total moisture was quantified by means of {sup 1}H NMR detection of H{sub 2}O with a sensitivity of 100 ppm. In addition, an MRI technique that was used to determine the moisture distribution also enabled investigators to discriminate between bulk and stationary water sorbed on the particles. This imaging feature is unavailable in any other nondestructive assay (NDA) technique. Following the initial success of this program, the NMR detector volume was scaled up from the original design by a factor of 2000. The capacity of this detector exceeds the size specified by DOE-STD-3013-96