Quantification of Fissile Materials by Photon Activation Method in a Highly Shielded Enclosure

For active and non-destructive quantitative identification of heavily shielded fissile materials, photo fission is one of the most often used techniques. High energy photon beams can be conveniently generated with the help of electron LINACs. 10MeV energy electron LINACs are extensively used for various industrial applications such as food irradiation, X-ray radiography, etc. The radiological safety consideration favours the use of electron beam of upto 10 MeV energy. The photonuclear data available on 10 MeV end point energy is very scarce. The present paper gives the results of our initial experiments carried out using natural uranium samples at 10 MeV LINAC facility. Water cooled tantalum target converter was used to produce intense Bremsstrahlung to induce photofission in the samples. Neutron detection system consists of six numbers of high sensitivity Helium-3 proportional counters and gamma detection system consists of two numbers of 76 mm diameter BGO scintillators. Delayed neutron and delayed gamma radiations were measured and analyzed. The mass to count rate relationship has been established for both delayed neutron and gamma radiations. Delayed gamma decay constants of natural uranium have been derived for the 10 MeV end point energy. (author)