Analysis of muon radiography of the Toshiba nuclear critical assembly reactor

Morris, C. L.; Bacon, Jeffrey; Ban, Y.; Borozdin, K.; Fabritius, Joseph; Izumi, Mikio; Miyadera, Haruo; Mizokami, Shinya; Otsuka, Yasuyuki; Perry, J.; Ramsey, J.; Sano, Yuji; Sugita, Tsukasa; Yamada, Daichi; Yoshida, Noriyuki; Yoshioka, Kenichi

doi:10.1063/1.4862475

Cited by 24 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…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].…”

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confidence: 99%

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

Chatzidakis

Choi

Tsoukalas

2016

IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci.

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Cosmic ray muons passing through matter lose energy from inelastic collisions with electrons and are deflected from nuclei due to multiple Coulomb scattering. The strong dependence of scattering on atomic number Z and the recent developments on position sensitive muon detectors indicate that multiple Coulomb scattering could be an excellent candidate for spent nuclear fuel imaging. Muons present significant advantages over existing monitoring and imaging techniques and can play a central role in monitoring nuclear waste and spent nuclear fuel stored in dense well shielded containers. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the applicability of multiple Coulomb scattering for imaging of spent nuclear fuel dry casks stored within vertical and horizontal commercial storage dry casks. Calculations of muon scattering were performed for various scenarios, including vertical and horizontal fully loaded dry casks, half loaded dry casks, dry casks with one row of fuel assemblies missing, dry casks with one fuel assembly missing and empty dry casks. Various detector sizes (1.2 m x 1.2 m, 2.4 m x 2.4 m and 3.6 m x 3.6 m) and number of muons (10 5 , 5·10 5 , 10 6 and 10 7 ) were used to assess the effect on image resolution. The Point-of-Closest-Approach (PoCA) algorithm was used for the reconstruction of the stored contents. The results demonstrate that multiple Coulomb scattering can be used to successfully reconstruct the dry cask contents and allow identification of all scenarios with the exception of one fuel assembly missing. In this case, an indication exists that a fuel assembly is not present; however the resolution of the imaging algorithm was not enough to identify exact location.*Corresponding author: schatzid@purdue.edu I. INTRODUCTIONSince the pioneering work of E.P. 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]. It was suggested that muon momentum measurement which can be achieved by indirectly measuring muon scattering in several layers of materials with known thickness could improve image resolution.This was later demonstrate...

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confidence: 99%

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

Chatzidakis

Choi

Tsoukalas

2016

IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci.

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“…The technique has been previously applied by other groups to the study of the damaged core of the Fukushima nuclear power plant and of the core of the Toshiba facility at Kawasaki. Real data and Monte Carlo simulations [12,15] show almost similar performance in detecting a high-density, high-Z core (i.e. nuclear fuel) inside a containing structure depending on the geometry under study.…”

Section: Muon Absorptionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Assessing the feasibility of interrogating nuclear waste storage silos using cosmic-ray muons

et al. 2015

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Muon radiography is a fast growing field in applied scientific research. In recent years, many detector technologies and imaging techniques using the Coulomb scattering and absorption properties of cosmic-ray muons have been developed for the nondestructive assay of various structures across a wide range of applications. This work presents the first results that assess the feasibility of using muon radiography to interrogate waste silos within the UK Nuclear Industry. Two such approaches, using different techniques that exploit each of these properties, have previously been published, and show promising results from both simulation and experimental data for the detection of shielded high-Z materials and density variations from volcanic assay. Both detector systems used are based on scintillator and photomultiplier technologies.Results from dedicated simulation studies using both these technologies and image reconstruction techniques are presented for an intermediate-sized legacy nuclear waste storage facility filled with concrete and an array of uranium samples. Both results highlight the potential to identify uranium objects of varying thicknesses greater than 5 cm within real-time durations of several weeks. Increased contributions from Coulomb scattering within the concrete matrix of the structure hinder the ability of both approaches to resolve similar objects of 2 cm dimensions even with increased statistics. These results are all dependent on both the position of the objects within the facility and the locations of the detectors. Results for differing thicknesses of concrete, which reflect the unknown composition of the structures under interrogation, are also presented alongside studies performed for a series of data collection durations. It is anticipated that with further research, muon radiography in one, or both of these forms, will play a key role in future industrial applications within the UK Nuclear Industry.

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“…Consequently, muon detectors have been used to probe the interiors of large geological structures such as volcanoes, by observing how the muon flux varies with direction (Nagamine et al 1995;Tanaka et al 2007;Lesparre et al 2012;Carbone et al 2013). The technique has also been applied to large artificial structures, such as Egyptian and Mesoamerican pyramids (Burkhard et al 1970;Alfaro et al 2003;Morishima et al 2017), nuclear reactors (Perry et al 2013;Morris et al 2014) and water towers (Jourde et al 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimizing geophysical muon radiography using information theory

Benton

Mitchell

Coleman

et al. 2019

Geophysical Journal International

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The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. S U M M A R YCosmic ray muons are highly penetrating, with some reaching several kilometres into solid rock. Consequently, muon detectors have been used to probe the interiors of large geological structures, by observing how the muon flux varies with direction of arrival. There is an increasing need to discriminate between materials differing only slightly in bulk density. A particularly demanding application is in monitoring underground reservoirs used for CO 2 capture and storage, where bulk density changes of approximately 1 per cent are anticipated. Muon arrival is a random process, and it is the underlying expectation values, not the actual muon counts, which provide information on the physical parameters of the system. It is therefore necessary to distinguish between differences in muon counts due to real geological features, and those arising from random error. This is crucial in the low-contrast case, where the method can reach the information theoretic limit of what a data source can reveal, even in principle. To this end, methods to analyse information availability in low-contrast muon radiography have been developed, as have means to optimally interpret the available data, both for radiography and for tomography. This includes a method for calculating expectation values of muon flux for a given geological model directly, complementing existing Monte Carlo techniques. A case study, using a model of carbon capture is presented. It is shown that the new data analysis techniques have the potential to approximately double the effective sensitivity of the detectors.

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Analysis of muon radiography of the Toshiba nuclear critical assembly reactor

Cited by 24 publications

References 12 publications

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

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

Assessing the feasibility of interrogating nuclear waste storage silos using cosmic-ray muons

Optimizing geophysical muon radiography using information theory

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