Year
1971
Abstract
While there have been very concerted efforts to develop passive and active systems for the assay of drums of waste, scrap and/ or finished materials, little attention has been given to systems able to assay drums containing fissile materials at low-specificactivity (ISA) levels. For a typical Rocky Plats drum, the Department of..Transportation, definition of.. ISA wastes wpuld. .cqrrespond to ~ 10 mg of plutonium in a drum. These small amounts of • material are not particularly important from the viewpoint of accountability. However, LSA drums should be assayed from a safeguards viewpoint to insure that material has not been accidentally_ or covertly placed in LSA drums. They should be assayed from an environmental viewpoint to insure that there will not be an accidental release of material to the environment during waste disposal. Calculations will be presented to demonstrate the feasibility of detecting 1 to 10 mg quantities using a multipurpose reactor. An experimental verification of this feasibility has begun. Results available at the time of this meeting are presented.