All,
Hope I am putting this in the right part of the forum so here goes.
We are in the process of doing some security modifications at a spent fuel dry storage facility and have run in to a snag with our security monitoring. Our license requires that we maintain the capability to monitor for a specific amount of "special nuclear material" to the equivelant of approx 1/4 of a CANDU fuel pin. Up until now we have relied upon a PM7 to accomplish this with some difficulty (background variations due to movement of loaded storage containers causing false alarms).
Now the obvious solution would be to shield the area where the PM7 is located to ensure as stable a background as possible. Unfortunately due to restrictions imposed by facility design we do not have this option. When discussing this with the Health Physicist the idea has been tossed around to use Neutron monitoring to detect spontaneous fissions of Pu-239 to get around the variable gamma background levels. Does anyone have any experience with this sort of monitoring? I am hoping that some of the Lazy H folks that worked at PFP or PUREX might have some experiences to pass on. As a reformed Hanford tech I am hoping my former co-workers or anyone else can help a brother out
Thanks and please forgive me if I posted this in the wrong area.
Cheers,
Jim Rodgers
NRRPT
RP Supervisor
Ontario Power Generation
Western Waste Management Facility
