Preliminary study of nuclear fuel element testing based on coded source neutron imaging

Neutron radiography (NR) is one of the most important nondestructive testing methods, which is sensitive to low density materials. Especially, Neutron transfer imaging method could be used to test radioactivity materials refraining from γ effect, but it is difficult to realize tomography. Coded source neutron imaging (CSNI) is a newly NR method developed fast in the last several years. The distance between object and detector is much longer than traditional NR, which could be used to test radioactivity materials. With pre-reconstruction process from fold-cover projections, CSNI could easily realize tomography. This thesis carries out preliminary study on the nuclear fuel element testing by coded source neutron imaging. We calculate different enrichment, flaws and activity in nuclear fuel elements tested by CSNI with Monte-Carlo simulation. The results show that CSNI could be a useful testing method for nuclear fuel element testing. (authors)