Gamma signatures of the C-BORD Tagged Neutron Inspection System

Abstract

Abstract-In the frame of C-BORD project (H2020 program of the EU), a Rapidly relocatable Tagged Neutron Inspection System (RRTNIS) is being developed to non-intrusively detect explosives, chemical threats, and other illicit goods in cargo containers. Material identification is performed through gamma spectroscopy, using twenty NaI detectors and four LaBr3 detectors, to determine the different elements composing the inspected item from their specific gamma signatures induced by fast neutrons. This is performed using an unfolding algorithm to decompose the energy spectrum of a suspect item, selected by Xray radiography and on which the RRTNIS inspection is focused, on a database of pure element gamma signatures. This paper reports on simulated signatures for the NaI and LaBr3 detectors, constructed using the MCNP6 code. First experimental spectra of a few elements of interest are also presented.Index Terms-C-BORD project, Rapidly Relocatable Tagged Neutron Inspection System, fast neutron activation analysis, inelastic scattering gamma rays, MCNP6

Non-intrusive inspection of cargo containers using the C-BORD Rapidly Relocatable Tagged Neutron Inspection System

“…If anomalies cannot be cleared in the first-line, the second-line technologies (RRTNIS or photofission) are selected and employed, depending on the density and atomic number of the anomaly. The RRTNIS is used to detect contraband of explosives, illicit drugs and chemical agents in specific voxels within the container [1,[3][4][5][6]8]. Voxels are elementary volume units, i.e.…”

“…The neutron-induced elemental signatures were measured during the RRTNIS calibration phase with pure element targets [5,8]. The RRTNIS gamma detectors are twenty (20) large-sized parallelepiped-shaped (5 × 5 10 ) NaI:Tl scintillation detectors, and three (3) cylindrical (3 × 3 ) LaBr 3 :Ce scintillation detectors (figure 2).…”

“…It is important to further refine the identification of organic materials, in order to distinguish between illicit drugs, explosives, and benign materials (such as wood, cotton, paper, etc.). To do so, the weights of carbon, nitrogen and oxygen, determined by the unfolding procedure, are transformed into chemical ratios, using conversion factors, that were determined by Monte Carlo simulations using the MCNP6 code [1,5,8]. The 2D likelihood histogram, associated to the N/C and O/C fractions,is represented in a barycentric triangle representation (figure 7, left) [27].…”

“…The European project C-BORD (effective Container inspection at BORDer control points) was aimed at developing and testing a comprehensive cost-effective solution for the generalized inspection of large-volume freight containers [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. In order to contribute to the protection of EU borders, the C-BORD collaboration developed a framework of Non-Intrusive Inspection (NII) technologies.…”

Performance comparison between signal digitizers and low-cost digital oscilloscopes: spectroscopic, pulse shape discrimination and timing capabilities for nuclear detectors

“…The data acquisition (DAQ) system used in this work is called ABCD and it was developed for the C-BORD project, funded under the European H2020 research programme [8][9][10][11][12]. It is an open-source1 distributed system, in which the tasks relative to the DAQ are spread over a set of independent modules.…”