Analysis and improvement of the influence of sample shape on Pu measurement results

ABSTRACT

The analysis method of Fast Neutron Multiplicity Counting (FNMC) plays an increasingly important role in the measurement of nuclear material properties. Based on the assumption of point model, fast neutron multiplicity measurement equation is derived which can be used to measure the mass of Pu sample. However, the deviation of the simulated measurement of 1 kg Pu sample reaches 16.6% and increases with mass. Because nonpoint source samples of different shapes do not fully satify the hypothesis. To correct this deviation, a set of fast neutron multiplicity counters was built by Geant4 to simulate and study the mass attribute of Pu samples.The cylindrical sources of different shapes and different masses were simulated, the self-multiplication factor and α coefficient were corrected.And the corresponding third-order polynomial fitting equation was obtained, the goodness of fit was greater than 0.970. In the same way, the spherical and spherical shell source samples in the mass range of 0–5 kg were analyzed, the corrected mass deviation of samples was less than 10% in this interval. The results show that the combination of the fast neutron multiplicity counter and parameter correction can accurately measure the sample mass attribute.