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Why should safeguards by design be a global effort?
Jeremy Whitlock
I can’t think of a more exciting time to be working in nuclear, with the diversity of advanced reactor development and increasing global support for nuclear in sustainable energy planning. But we can’t lose sight of the need to plan for efficient international safeguards at the same time.
Global nuclear deployment has been underpinned since 1970 by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), making it a key customer requirement for governments to demonstrate unequivocally that the technology is not being misused for weapons development.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has helped verify this commitment for more than 50 years, but it has never safeguarded many of the advanced reactors (and related fuel cycle processes) being developed today.
Jorge Navarro, Terry A. Ring, David W. Nigg
Nuclear Technology | Volume 190 | Number 2 | May 2015 | Pages 183-192
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT14-4
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A deconvolution methodology aimed to reduce the uncertainty for nondestructively predicting fuel burnup using gamma spectra collected with LaBr3 scintillators was developed. Deconvolution techniques have been used in the past to improve photopeak resolution of data collected using gamma detectors; however, they have not been used as a tool to more accurately predict fuel burnup. The deconvolution methodology consisted of calculating the detector response function using Monte Carlo simulations, validating the detector response function against experimental data, and implementing the maximum likelihood expectation maximization algorithm to enhance the LaBr3 gamma spectra. The deconvolution methodology was first tested on single-isotopic simulated data; later it was applied to fuel simulated data that were based on Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) fuel gamma spectra. The study showed that LaBr3 gamma spectra photopeak resolution and quality can be improved significantly using deconvolution methods, in addition to proving that enhancement techniques can be used to nondestructively predict ATR fuel burnup more accurately than using LaBr3 data without enhancements.