Abstract
This study presents a method for destructive analysis of irradiated uranium (U) targets, with a focus on collection and measurement of long-lived (t 1/2 > ~10 years) and stable fission product isotopes of ruthenium and cesium. Long-lived and stable isotopes of these elements can provide information on reactor conditions (e.g. flux, irradiation time, cooling time) in old samples (>5–10 years) whose short-lived fission products have decayed away. The separation and analytical procedures were tested on archived U reactor targets at Los Alamos National Laboratory as part of an effort to evaluate reactor models at low-burnup.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank two anonymous reviewers and the editor Zsolt Revay for their comments and input. The authors would also like to thank K. Garduno and E. Lujan for their technical support. Los Alamos National Laboratory supported this work through LDRD funding. This publication is LA-UR-15-22675.
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Byerly, B., Tandon, L., Hayes-Sterbenz, A. et al. Determination of initial fuel state and number of reactor shutdowns in archived low-burnup uranium targets. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 307, 1871–1876 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-015-4538-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-015-4538-y