TY - JOUR
T1 - Boron coated straw-based neutron multiplicity counter for neutron interrogation of TRISO fueled pebbles
AU - Fang, Ming
AU - Lacy, Jeff
AU - Athanasiades, Athanasios
AU - Di Fulvio, Angela
N1 - This work was funded in part by the STTR-DOE grant DE-SC0020733. We thank Mr. Alex Sung for his assistance during the active measurement campaign. We would also like to thank The Program in Arms Control & Domestic & International Security (ACDIS) at UIUC for the ACDIS Summer 2022 Fellowship (to M. F.).
This work was funded in part by the STTR-DOE grant DE-SC0020733 . We thank Mr. Alex Sung for his assistance during the active measurement campaign. We would also like to thank The Program in Arms Control & Domestic & International Security (ACDIS) at UIUC for the ACDIS Summer 2022 Fellowship (to M. F.).
PY - 2023/7
Y1 - 2023/7
N2 - Pebble bed reactors (PBRs) can improve the safety and economics of the nuclear energy production. PBRs rely on TRIstructural-ISOtropic (TRISO) fuel pebbles for enhanced fission product retention. Accurate characterization of individual fuel pebbles would enable the validation of computational models, efficient use of TRISO fuel, and improve fuel accountability. We have developed and tested a new neutron multiplicity counter (NMC) based on 192 boron coated straw (BCS) detectors optimized for 235U assay in TRISO fuel. The new design yielded a singles and doubles neutron detection efficiency of 4.71% and 0.174%, respectively, and a die-away time of 16.7 μs. The NMC has a low intrinsic gamma-ray detection efficiency of 8.71×10−8 at an exposure rate of 80.3 mR/h. In simulation, a high-efficiency version of the NMC encompassing 396 straws was able to estimate the 235U in a pebble with a relative uncertainty and error both below 2% in 100 s.
AB - Pebble bed reactors (PBRs) can improve the safety and economics of the nuclear energy production. PBRs rely on TRIstructural-ISOtropic (TRISO) fuel pebbles for enhanced fission product retention. Accurate characterization of individual fuel pebbles would enable the validation of computational models, efficient use of TRISO fuel, and improve fuel accountability. We have developed and tested a new neutron multiplicity counter (NMC) based on 192 boron coated straw (BCS) detectors optimized for 235U assay in TRISO fuel. The new design yielded a singles and doubles neutron detection efficiency of 4.71% and 0.174%, respectively, and a die-away time of 16.7 μs. The NMC has a low intrinsic gamma-ray detection efficiency of 8.71×10−8 at an exposure rate of 80.3 mR/h. In simulation, a high-efficiency version of the NMC encompassing 396 straws was able to estimate the 235U in a pebble with a relative uncertainty and error both below 2% in 100 s.
KW - Boron-coated straw
KW - Neutron coincidence counting
KW - Neutron multiplicity counter
KW - PBR
KW - TRISO
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U2 - 10.1016/j.anucene.2023.109794
DO - 10.1016/j.anucene.2023.109794
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85150798993
SN - 0306-4549
VL - 187
JO - Annals of Nuclear Energy
JF - Annals of Nuclear Energy
M1 - 109794
ER -