Publications Details

Measurement techniques for verifying burnup

Ewing, R.I.

In this report we will consider how radiation measurements on spent fuel can contribute to verifying the loading of burnup credit casks. Measurements can be used in burnup credit operations to help prevent misloading of fuel that does not meet the minimum specifications for a particular cask design. Passive neutron and gross gamma-ray measurements are proposed as a means of qualifying spent fuel assemblies. Active systems to measure reactivity or fissile content are necessarily more complex and appear to offer no obvious advantage to burnup credit applications over simpler systems. 4 refs., 2 figs.