ORNL NESLS 1st Place Poster Session Winner: Angela Simone
Angela Simone, won first prize at the Nuclear Engineering Science Laboratory Synthesis Program (NESLS) Poster Competition at ORNL.
Characterizing the Oak Ridge Large Volume Active Well Coincidence Counter for Nuclear Safeguards Applications
A.T. Simone, S. Croft, R. Venkataraman, and J.P. Hayward
The Oak Ridge Large Volume Active Well Coincidence Counter (LV AWCC) is a variant of the LANL-designed AWCC but with a larger cavity and 48 3He tubes. Various measurements including a high-voltage characteristic, count rate as a function of predelay time, and dead time were taken with the LV AWCC to characterize this system. Non-ideal behaviors of the counter were discovered through pulse train analysis. Double pulsing, a form of non-ideal behavior, is an unwanted artifact of the electronics design and operation of neutron detectors. It contributes to an increased count rate when assaying samples and is therefore necessary to identify and characterize before absolute measurements can be taken. By running the LV AWCC at 1900 V (far above the recommended setting of 1720 V), this phenomenon was studied more easily.
The authors thank the DOE/NNSA Office of Nonproliferation and Arms Control (NA-24) for the support given to enable this work.