Nuclear Waste Imaging and Spent Fuel Verification by Muon Tomography
arXiv:1210.1858 · doi:10.1016/j.anucene.2012.09.011
Abstract
This paper explores the use of cosmic ray muons to image the contents of shielded containers and detect high-Z special nuclear materials inside them. Cosmic ray muons are a naturally occurring form of radiation, are highly penetrating and exhibit large scattering angles on high Z materials. Specifically, we investigated how radiographic and tomographic techniques can be effective for non-invasive nuclear waste characterization and for nuclear material accountancy of spent fuel inside dry storage containers. We show that the tracking of individual muons, as they enter and exit a structure, can potentially improve the accuracy and availability of data on nuclear waste and the contents of Dry Storage Containers (DSC) used for spent fuel storage at CANDU plants. This could be achieved in near real time, with the potential for unattended and remotely monitored operations. We show that the expected sensitivity, in the case of the DSC, exceeds the IAEA detection target for nuclear material accountancy.
arXiv comment22 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in Annals of Nuclear Energy
References in corpus (4)
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- Muons tomography applied to geosciences and volcanology
- Imaging of high-Z material for nuclear contraband detection with a minimal prototype of a Muon Tomography station based on GEM detectors
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Cited by in corpus (17)
- Atmospheric muons as an imaging tool
- Cosmic ray muon computed tomography of spent nuclear fuel in dry storage casks
- Verification of spent nuclear fuel in sealed dry storage casks via measurements of cosmic ray muon scattering
- Analysis of Spent Nuclear Fuel Imaging Using Multiple Coulomb Scattering of Cosmic Muons
- Characterising encapsulated nuclear waste using cosmic-ray muon tomography
- Study of muon tomographic imaging for high Z material detection with a Micromegas-based tracking system
- A portable muon telescope based on small and gas-tight Resistive Plate Chambers
- Material Discrimination in Cosmic Muon Imaging using Pattern Recognition Method
- Measurement of directional muon beams generated at the Berkeley Lab Laser Accelerator
- One-sided muon tomography - A portable method for imaging critical infrastructure with a single muon detector
- Angular distribution of low momentum atmospheric muons at ground level
- TRec: A Muon Trajectory Reconstruction Algorithm for Enhanced Scattering Tomography
- A New Semi-Empirical Model for Cosmic Ray Muon Flux Estimation
- A Compact High-Resolution Muon Spectrometer Using Multi-Layer Gas Cherenkov Radiators
- Principle Study of Image Reconstruction Algorithms in Muon Tomography
- Investigation of the Impact of Magnetic Fields on Scattering Muography Images
- Verifying Spent Fuel Containers Before Deep Geological Storage with Cosmic Ray Muons