Back to home
Study on using the Monte Carlo simulation code for characterization of nuclear materials   K. ABD EL Gawad1, 2, ZHANG Zhijian2, and YUSHOU Song2   1. Fundamental Science on Nuclear Safety and Simulation Technology Laboratory, College of Nuclear Science and Technology- Harbin Engineering University, Harbin 150001, China (zhangzhijian@hrbeu.edu.cn; songyushou80@163.com) 2. Nuclear Safeguards & Physical Protection Dept., Egyptian Nuclear & Radiological Regulatory Authority, Cairo 11762, Egypt (Khaled_science@yahoo.com)   Abstract:Uranium is one of the most important nuclear materials (NMs) for nuclear safeguards purposes, thus the characterization of the nuclear materials (measurements of the mass content and the enrichment of 235U isotope) is very useful in fuel-fabrication plants, nuclear safeguards inspections and waste characterization at nuclear facilities. Gamma radiation detectors can be used as non-destructive assay (NDA) techniques for NMs characterization and measurements. Those detectors such as germanium detectors, NaI(Tl) detectors and Cadmium Zinc Telluride (CZT) detectors. The dependency on NMs standards which are necessary for other relative or semi-absolute methods could be eliminate during NMs measurements using absolute methods,. In the present work, Monte Carlo (MCNP) method could be used (a) as an alternative approach which was investigated, where the calibration is performed through Monte Carlo simulation (MCNP5) instead of experiment in advance, as the measurement bias was reduced to be around 5 % (b) as an absolute method to verify for the nuclear materials which used in the nuclear fuel cycle and (c) to fully simulate the experiments and consequently calibrate them mathematically in which detailed information about measuring system are available. Aim of this research is to evaluate and explore an approach to measure the enrichment of the samples using the efficiency factor method by the help of the Monte Carlo simulation code for nuclear safeguards purposes instead of depending on the standards nuclear materials which are not available for all geometries of the measured samples. Keywords: Monte Carlo simulation; detection efficiency; nuclear and radioactive materials; nondestructive assay; gamma-ray spectrometry; enrichment
	Click here for viewing full text.