Nuclear waste imaging and spent fuel verification by muon tomography

摘要

This paper explores the use of cosmic ray muons to image the contents ofshielded containers and detect high-Z special nuclear materials inside them.Cosmic ray muons are a naturally occurring form of radiation, are highlypenetrating and exhibit large scattering angles on high Z materials.Specifically, we investigated how radiographic and tomographic techniques canbe effective for non-invasive nuclear waste characterization and for nuclearmaterial accountancy of spent fuel inside dry storage containers. We show thatthe tracking of individual muons, as they enter and exit a structure, canpotentially improve the accuracy and availability of data on nuclear waste andthe contents of Dry Storage Containers (DSC) used for spent fuel storage atCANDU plants. This could be achieved in near real time, with the potential forunattended and remotely monitored operations. We show that the expectedsensitivity, in the case of the DSC, exceeds the IAEA detection target fornuclear material accountancy.