Analytical Techniques: Nuclear

 

    Nuclear forensics is a growing field that utilizes analytical and radiochemical techniques to assist in the attribution of interdicted nuclear materials or to determine the original device used in a detonation event.  

    This research focuses on the pre-detonation side of nuclear forensics by focusing on spent nuclear fuel from a research reactor.  When fission occurs, whether in a bomb or a nuclear reactor, two fission peaks occur at a high and low mass.  On the tail end of the high mass peak lanthanoid isotopes are produced in ratios that are very different from natural.  The production of these lanthanoid isotopes are perturbed based on the energy of the neutrons and on the fuel undergoing fission.

    This research measures the lanthanoid isotopic ratios in spent research reactor nuclear fuel.  These lanthanoid isotopic ratios will allow us to constrain models to better determine what type of research reactor produced the spent fuel.  To this end this research consists of three main goals: separation of the lanthanoids, precise isotopic measurements, and working with theoreticians on constraining ORIGEN (a spent nuclear fuel model) to better handle research reactor cores.

Nuclear Forensics

Savannah River National Laboratory

Above: column extraction

Right: Isotopic ratio determination

Danny Thai,

Undergraduate Student, Nuclear Analytical

 
Nicholas Sharp,

Graduate Student, Nuclear Analytical