The Idaho National Laboratory, along with Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Idaho State University's Idaho Accelerator Center, are developing electron accelerator-based, photonuclear inspection technologies for the detection of shielded nuclear material within air-, rail-, and especially, maritime-cargo transportation containers. This paper describes a developing prototypical cargo container inspection system utilizing the Pulsed Photonuclear Assessment (PPA) technology, incorporates interchangeable, well-defined, contraband shielding structures (i.e., "calibration" pallets) providing realistic detection data for induced radiation signatures from smuggled nuclear material, and provides various shielded nuclear material detection results. Using a 4.8-kg quantity of depleted uranium, neutron and gamma-ray detection responses are presented for well-defined shielded and unshielded configurations evaluated in a selected cargo container inspection configuration.

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A photonuclear interrogation method was experimentally assessed for the detection of shielded nuclear materials. Proof-of-Concept assessment was performed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) TA-18 facility and used the INEEL VARITRON electron accelerator. Experiments were performed to assess and characterize the delayed neutron emission responses for different nuclear materials with various shield configurations using three "nominal" electron beam energies; 8-, 10-, and 11-MeV. With the exception of highly enriched uranium (HEU), the nuclear materials assessed represent material types commonly encountered in commerce. The specific nuclear materials studied include a solid 4.8-kg HEU sphere, a 5-kg multiple -object, depleted uranium (DU) [uranium with about 0.2% enrichment with U-235] target, and two 11-kg thorium disks. The shield materials selected include polyethylene, boratedpolyethylene, and lead. Experimental results, supported with numerical predictions, have shown that the photonuclear interrogation technique is quite capable of detecting shielded nuclear material via the direct measurement of the photofission-induced delayed neutron emissions. To identify or discriminate between nuclear material types (i.e., depleted uranium, HEU, and thorium), a ratio of delayed neutron counts at two different beam energies is utilized. This latter method, referred to as the dual-beam energy ratio Figure-

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