The UC Berkeley Nuclear Engineering Department in collaboration with Los Alamos National Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory participates in the US DOE Next Generation Safeguards Initiative with a focus on developing advanced instruments and methods in nuclear material control and accountancy. Within this context, a delayed gamma non-destructive assay (NDA) technique is being investigated as a means to directly quantify both the fissile and fertile content of spent nuclear fuel, and as a general safeguards tool that can be easily integrated with other active interrogation instruments. In support of this research, a newly developed modeling technique was introduced, offering a versatile capability for time- and spatially-dependent, prompt and delayed discrete gamma source term and detector response calculations. The new modeling approach was validated in a series of experiments involving accelerator-driven neutron sources and samples of fissile and fertile materials and their combinations with varying parameters for interrogation setups.
Vladimir Mozin graduated from the Moscow Engineering Physical Institute in 2002 with an M.S. in Radiochemistry. He spent several years working as an engineer at a nuclear fuel reprocessing facility. Currently, he is a Ph.D. candidate participating in a collaborative research effort between the UC Berkeley Nuclear Engineering Department, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
