Determination of fission neutron transmission through waste matrix material using neutron signal correlation from active assay of {sup 239}Pu

The accuracy of TRU (transuranic) waste assay using the differential die-away technique depends upon significant corrections to compensate for the effects of the matrix material in which the TRU waste is located. The authors have used a new instrument, the Combined Thermal/Epithermal Neutron (CTEN) instrument for the assay of TRU waste, to develop methods to improve the accuracy of these corrections. Neutrons from a pulsed 14-MeV neutron generator are moderated in the walls of the CTEN cavity and induce fission in the TRU material. The prompt neutrons from these fission events are detected in cadmium-wrapped {sup 3}He neutron detectors. They report new methods of data acquisition and analysis to extract correlation in the neutron signals resulting form fission during active interrogation. They use the correlation information in conjunction with the total number of neutrons to determine the fraction of fission neutrons transmitted through the matrix material into the {sup 3}He detectors. This determination allows them to cleanly separate the matrix effects into two processes: matrix modification upon the neutron interrogating flux and matrix modification upon the fraction of fission neutrons transmitted to the neutron detectors. This transmission information is also directly applied in a neutron multiplicity analysis in the passive assay of {sup 240}Pu