Year
1990
Abstract
Suitable standards for calibration of nondestructive assay (NDA) instruments are needed throughout the DOE complex. The standards must adequately represent the range of nuclear material content and physical characteristics of the samples to be assayed. At Los Alamos National Laboratory we have recently fabricated standards to be used for calibration of the segmented gamma scanners (SGS) located at the Plutonium Facility. These standards consist of well characterized, high-fired plutonium oxide blended with diatomaceous earth. Diatomaceous earth was selected as a diluent in order to evenly distribute the plutonium in a matrix so that an appropriate selfattenuation correction factor could be determined. The oxide and diatomaceous earth were doubly-contained in thin walled, stainless steel right-circularcylinder cans resistant to corrosion or leakage in the normal work environment.