A Novel gamma emission tomography instrument for enhanced fuel characterization capabilities within the OECD Halden Reactor Project

A computerized method (UPPREC) for quantitative analysis of irradiated nuclear fuel assemblies with gamma emission tomography at the Halden reactor

“…The HRP tomography instrument was manufactured with relatively small tolerances in order to ensure high precision control of the relative positions of the fuel and detector/collimator (Holcombe, et al, 2015) during the measurements. These high-precision components include the mechanisms that move the fuel and detector/collimator, as well as the fixtures in the instrument which hold the top and bottom of the measured fuel assembly.…”

“…Since irradiated nuclear fuel contains a wide array of gamma emitting radioisotopes, the tomographic technique may also be combined with the gamma spectroscopy technique, where the gamma peaks of certain isotopes of interest are selected for quantitative analysis. A recent development of this technique is the gamma tomography system at the Halden Reactor Project (HRP) (Holcombe, et al, 2015), for examining experimental and driver fuel assemblies irradiated in the Halden research reactor. The HRP gamma tomography system uses a spectroscopic high-purity Germanium (HPGe) detector with high energy resolution, allowing for analysis of the contents of various isotopes of interest, and tomographic reconstruction of the spatial distribution of the selected isotopes.…”

“…In parallel with the use of the HRP gamma tomography system, there is ongoing development of the methods and analysis techniques to best take advantage of this novel non-destructive characterization capability. Previously, two methods have been used for the tomographic reconstruction of HRP tomography data; an analytical filtered back projection (FBP) based reconstruction method for qualitative image reconstruction (Holcombe, et al, 2015); and an algebraic reconstruction code for quantitative pin activity assessment, further described in (Jacobsson Svärd, 2004) and .…”

Simulation of the response of a segmented high-purity germanium detector for gamma emission tomography of nuclear fuel

“…In recent years, various devices have been designed and operated in order to implement the GET technique for applications within nuclear safeguards [2,3], and for validation of power and burnup distributions [4][5][6][7]. In collaboration between Uppsala University, the OECD Halden Reactor Project and Westinghouse Electric Sweden, a gamma emission tomography instrument was recently designed, constructed and operated at the Halden boiling water reactor (HBWR) to allow for nondestructive studies of irradiated test fuel [8,9].…”

“…For a more thorough description of a GET system for nuclear fuel, we refer to Ref. [8] about the Halden GET system.…”