High-intensity power-resolved radiation imaging of an operational nuclear reactor

Beaumont, Jonathan and Villa, Mario and Mellor, Matthew and Joyce, Malcolm John (2015) High-intensity power-resolved radiation imaging of an operational nuclear reactor. Nature Communications, 6 (8592): 8592. ISSN 2041-1723

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Abstract

Knowledge of the neutron distribution in a nuclear reactor is necessary to ensure the safe and efficient burnup of reactor fuel. Currently these measurements are performed by in-core systems in what are extremely hostile environments and in most reactor accident scenarios it is likely that these systems would be damaged. Here we present a compact and portable radiation imaging system with the ability to image high-intensity fast-neutron and gamma-ray fields simultaneously. This system has been deployed to image radiation fields emitted during the operation of a TRIGA test reactor allowing a spatial visualization of the internal reactor conditions to be obtained. The imaged flux in each case is found to scale linearly with reactor power indicating that this method may be used for power-resolved reactor monitoring and for the assay of ongoing nuclear criticalities in damaged nuclear reactors.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
Nature Communications
Additional Information:
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1300
Subjects:
?? biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology(all)chemistry(all)physics and astronomy(all) ??
ID Code:
76753
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
23 Nov 2015 09:38
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
31 Jan 2024 00:27