Testing the Ortec's Isotopic and Eberline's Snap Software for Uranium Waste Measurements

Uranium process plants normally generate lots of waste. The wastes are in various matrices such as clothing, glass, concrete, aluminum, and steel, etc. They are generally stored in 55-gallon drums in the quantity of few grams to many kilograms. For accountability, it is important to somewhat accurately determine the amount of uranium in the waste drums. There are several commercially available systems that can accurately determine the uranium mass in the waste drums such as Tomographic Gamma Scanner (TGS) or Segmented Gamma-Ray Scanner (SGS). However, those systems are cumbersome and expensive. Cheap and simple single detector systems are also available commercially from several companies. The workhorse of these systems is the software, which would work with any germanium detector system. We mocked up waste drums containing several hundred grams up to several kilograms of uranium with different uranium isotopic compositions in various matrices. We acquired data using a coaxial germanium detector. We tested two different software codes from two different companies, the Ortec's Isotopic software and the Eberline's Snap software. The results with the germanium detector were very encouraging which lead us to test with the NaI detectors. The NaI detectors have much worse resolution than the germanium detectors. However, they are simple, very cheap, can be very large and efficient, and do not require liquid nitrogen. The results, advantages, and disadvantages of the two software and the two detector systems will be discussed