Pulsed power active interrogation of shielded fissionable material

• Published in: 2013 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference (2013 NSS/MIC) pp. 1 - 8
• Main Authors: Woolf, Richard S., Phlips, Bernard F., Hutcheson, Anthony L., Wulf, Eric A., Zier, Jacob C., Jackson, Stuart L., Commisso, Robert J., Schumer, Joseph W., Clemett, Ceri, O'Malley, John, Hill, Cassie, Maddock, Robert, Martin, Philip, Threadgold, Jim
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01-10-2013
• Subjects: Arrays; Detectors; Liquids; Logic gates; Neutrons; Steel
• ISSN: 1082-3654; 2577-0829
• DOI: 10.1109/NSSMIC.2013.6829791

We report on a collaborative test campaign conducted at the Naval Research Laboratory's Mercury pulsed power facility in December of 2012. The experiment sought to use Mercury in the Intense Pulsed Active Detection (IPAD) [1] mode to interrogate a fissionable material target (depleted uranium, DU) and benchmark the effects of shielding the target with either a low-Z (2% borated high-density polyethylene, BPE) or high-Z (steel) material. A large suite of instrumentation, including 3 He, BF 3 , NaI(Tl), and liquid scintillation detectors were used to measure the delayed γ and neutron signatures from the DU. The test campaign consisted of a series of single IPAD pulses, i.e., "shots," employing incremental shielding configurations of BPE (up to 50 g/cm 2 ) and steel (up to 150 g/cm 2 ) encapsulating the DU target. We show the results from each detector array, for varying amounts of shielding, in terms of the signal-to-noise vs. time.