FIELD-TESTING OF A NEW PORTABLE HPGe DETECTOR SYSTEM USING THE ENRICHMENT METER PRINCIPLE FOR THE INSPECTION OF URANIUM OXIDE AND HEXAFLUORIDE IN CONTAINERS

Year
1996
Author(s)
S. John Luke - Livermore National Laboratory
Douglas A. Leich - Livermore National Laboratory
David A. Knapp - Livermore National Laboratory
Mark Rowland - Livermore National Laboratory
Dan Klem - Livermore National Laboratory
Ralph Royce - Lockheed-Martin Energy Systems
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to develop a new portable detector system for the measurement of uranium enrichment of Uranium Oxide and Uranium Hexafluoride samples in containers. In this paper we describe such an apparatus that consisted of high purity germanium detector, a collimator, Canberra InSpector™ and a laptop computer. In addition, the portable enrichment measurement system used Canberra Genie-PC™ software for data acquisition and specialized software written for this application for the data analysis. In this paper we will briefly discuss the unique features of this system. We will also give the results of measurements made on both Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) and Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) samples at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant.