Passive 3D imaging of nuclear waste containers with Muon Scattering Tomography

Abstract

General rightsThis document is made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the reference above. Full terms of use are available: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/pure/about/ebr-terms ABSTRACT: The non-invasive imaging of dense objects is of particular interest in the context of nuclear waste management, where it is important to know the contents of waste containers without opening them. Using Muon Scattering Tomography (MST), it is possible to obtain a detailed 3D image of the contents of a waste container on reasonable timescales, showing both the high and low density materials inside. We show the performance of such a method on a Monte Carlo simulation of a dummy waste drum object containing objects of different shapes and materials. The simulation has been tuned with our MST prototype detector performance. In particular, we show that both a tungsten penny of 2 cm radius and 1 cm thickness, and a uranium sheet of 0.5 cm thickness can be clearly identified. We also show the performance of a novel edge finding technique, by which the edges of embedded objects can be identified more precisely than by solely using the imaging method.

A generalized muon trajectory estimation algorithm with energy loss for application to muon tomography

“…Recently, cosmic ray muons have been investigated for volcano imaging [7][8][9] and cargo scanning applications [10][11][12]. Their use has been extended to nuclear waste imaging [13][14][15][16] and determination of nuclear fuel debris location in nuclear reactors having suffered from the effects of a severe accident such as the one that occurred in Fukushima [17,18].…”

Analysis of Spent Nuclear Fuel Imaging Using Multiple Coulomb Scattering of Cosmic Muons

“…George [1] and L. Alvarez [2], relativistic muons have been shown to have the ability to penetrate dense materials and by monitoring the subsequent scattering and/or attenuation of muons, a measurable signal about the structure and composition of the interrogated material can be obtained [3]. Recently, cosmic ray muons have been investigated for volcano imaging and cargo scanning applications and their use has been extended to nuclear waste imaging and determination of molten nuclear fuel location in nuclear reactors having suffered from the effects of a severe accident similar to the one happened in Fukushima [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23].Earlier muon radiographic techniques were based on attenuation principles. A new promising method based on multiple Coulomb scattering was developed and demonstrated at LANL for detection of high-Z materials hidden in a large volume of low-Z materials, a situation representative of shielded material shielded hidden in a cargo container [24,25].…”

Discrimination of high-Z materials in concrete-filled containers using muon scattering tomography

“…For example, in [9] the total data taking time for a complete 3D image is 2 weeks. If the edge finding method is also used, the data taking time becomes even longer.…”

“…This is possible using several different methods, such as the one described in [6], [5], [7] and [8]. In [9] a method is described to identify the edges of small blocks of material inside concrete, with a precision of 1.20 ± 0.37 mm. Hence, it is possible to find lumps and using this technique as a second step to find their edges.…”