DEVELOPMENT OF THE ANTECH P SERIES HIGH PRECISION LARGE SAMPLE PLUTONIUM CALORIMETER

There is a continuing requirement for high precision calorimetry measurements of large volume plutonium samples. The present paper describes the development of the prototype ANTECH ‘P’ Series Plutonium Assay Calorimeter. The instrument is based on the design of the successful ANTECH ‘R’ Series plutonium calorimeter instruments, a number of which have been in service for over a two year period. The development has been undertaken as a process improvement project with the aim of making the instrument more robust. The objectives for the new calorimeter included improving transportability, reducing the instrument footprint, further improving reliability, reducing the susceptibility to electronic noise and maintaining or improving the levels of measurement precision and accuracy. The bulk of the development effort has been concentrated on redesigning the electronic instrumentation so the it is all contained on one cart, whereas the ‘R’ Series instruments consisted of the calorimeter thermal element on a cart with a separate instrument rack. A summary of the results of electrical calibration measurements is presented in the paper. As a part of the testing of robustness and reliability, the prototype instrument was transported to the INMM meeting and successful electrical calibration measurements were performed during that event. The results of these latter measurements are also reported.