PROCESS AND DEVICE OF SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL BURNUP DETECTION Russian patent published in 2008 - IPC G21C17/06 

FIELD: physics.

SUBSTANCE: can be applied in burnup control of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) at the facilities storing or operating with SNF, in order to increase efficiency of SNF technological processing cycle due to the optimal configuration. During fuel burnup check fuel assemblies by gamma-ray spectrometric method burnup check process is combined with fuel assembly canisters unloading from transport. At that, fuel assembly canister is fixed, so that fuel assembly core centre is placed at the detection unit axis. Flux of gamma-ray radiation emitted by the whole fuel assembly core is passed through a collimator. Then, the flux of gamma-ray radiation is passed through dissipating filter, and photon gamma-ray radiation spectrum is measured. Peak of total energy of Cesium-137 radioactive nuclide with energy of 662 keV shows Cesium-137 content in uranium. The device for spent nuclear fuel burnup detection includes bridge crane actuator, gamma-ray dissipating filter, while collimator and detection block protection are united in a single protection monoblock. At that, the hole of the collimator is a penetration in the protection monoblock, and bridge crane actuator holds fuel assembly canister steadily against detection block.

EFFECT: fast detection of fuel burnup in fuel assemblies on industrial scale; higher efficiency of spent nuclear fuel processing and simpler construction of measurement plant.

2 cl, 4 dwg