NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE:

Nuclear Source
Characterization
T. Downar
Nuclear Engineering
Purdue University
March, 2005

THE NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE

The Nuclear Fuel Cycle consists of

sequence of steps in which uranium ore
is mined, milled, enriched, and
fabricated into nuclear fuel and then
irradiated in a reactor for several years.

The entire fuel cycle lifetime from

mining to discharge is about 8 years.

Fuel Cycle Economics

Transaction

Ore
Conversion
Enrichment
Fabrication
Disposal
Misc

Total

Cost:mills/kwhr(e)
1.00
0.15
1.10
1.60
1.00
0.25

5.10

Nuclear Energy Costs

Fuel Cycle
Busbar Cost*

0.5 cents/ kwhr(e)

~5.0 cents/ kwhr(e)

Total annual Value of electricity from typical nuclear

plant:
1000E3KW x 8760hr x 0.90 x 0.05 = 394E6dollars

Value of annual fuel loading in a nuclear plant

0.5E6 dollars/fuel assembly x 64 assemblies =
32E6dollars

Nuclear Electricity Cost

Model
e f Ci M i Fi

Fuel Cycle Cost: ef

i 1

A
eb e f
L

Busbar Cost: eb

Io O
A ( )
K K

es Leb (1 L)er

i=fuel cycle transaction (e.g. enrich,

fabrication, etc)
C=Cost for transaction i
M=Mass of fuel for transaction i
F=Financing Factor
L=Capacity Factor
A=capital costs
I=construction costs
O=operating costs
K=plant power rating

System energy costs: es

er = replacement energy costs

THE NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE

After irradiation the fuel is cooled in the

spent fuel pit for several years and then
moved to dry cask storage on the reactor
site.
Current plans are to open the YUCCA
Mountain high level waste repository in
2015

Spent Nuclear Fuel Pool

Keep spent fuel rods

under at least 20 feet of
water to provide
adequate shielding from
the radiation for anyone
near the pool
Spent Fuel Pools were
designed as TEMPORARY
storage for fuel while
short lived isotopes
decay (<1 yr)

Nuclear Plant Schematic

Containment
(Hardened
Structure)

Fuel Building
(Soft Structure)

NUCLEAR REACTOR CORE

Long Lived Radioactive

Isotopes in Discharged
Nuclear Fuel
Fission Products
Over 60 isotopes
7 isotopes have significant gamma decay
during first 20 years that can be useful to
identify the source: Zr95, Nb95, Ru103, Cs134,
Cs137, Ce141, Ce144
Actinides
Over 20 isotopes
The gamma rays generated by Actinides have
lower energy

Fission Product build up in

a Nuclear Reactor
Nuclide balance:
Parent 1

Fission

Parent 2

Yield

Decay

Decay

Yk

Capture
Neutron
j->k

Iso. j

Iso. k

Capture
Neutron
k

Decay

Governing
Equation:
dN k
Yk f i ,k i N i N j j k k N k N k k
dt
i parent ( k )
k

Half Life:

T1/ 2

T1/ 2

ln 2

Fission Product Decay

Chains
0.8%

Zr
64d
95

99.2%
94.6%
Cs
30.17y
137

5.4%

Nb
86.6h
94.5%

99.7%

95m

Ru
39.35d
103

Nb
35d
95

Ba
2.552m

0.3%
1.4%

137m

137

Ba

Ce
284.3d
144

98.6%

Rh
56.12m
103m

103

Rh

Pr
7.2m
144m

Pr
17.28m
144

Ru
368.2d

Rh
29.9s

106

103m

Cs
2.026y
134

Ce
32.5d
141

Eu
8.8y
154

Red isotopes have short half lives, they decay out within one year
Blue isotopes have gamma decays in longer period
Other isotopes are either stable, such as

Rh, or very short half lives.

103

The gamma decay from very short half life isotope can be taken count with their
parent isotopes

Fission Product Decay

Gamma rate (Ci/yr)
isotope

Half life(year)

Gamma energy
(Kev)

Zr95

0.179452

756.7

2.03E+07

4.15E+06

6.97E-11

Nb95

0.09589

765.8

3.75E+07

1.42E+07

5.73E-25

Ru103

0.108219

497

3.02E+07

2.17E+06

3.31E-22

Cs134

2.046

604.7

6.54E+06

5.69E+06

1.92E+05

Cs137

30

661.6

2.50E+06

2.48E+06

1.97E+06

Ce141

0.089041

145

1.83E+07

7.45E+05

1.16E-28

Ce144

0.778082

133

3.35E+06

2.32E+06

3.14E+02

At discharge

150 days

10years

Decay rates of Actinides in

typical PWR spent fuel
isotope

150 days after

discharge
half-life(yr)
Decay rate(Ci/yr)

isotope

half-life(yr)

Decay rate(Ci/yr)

U234

2.47E+05

1.94E+01

Pu240

6580

1.30E+04

U235

7.10E+08

4.61E-01

Pu241

13.2

2.81E+06

U236

2.39E+07

7.22E+00

Pu242

3.79E+05

3.76E+01

U237

0.018493

7.47E+01

Am241

4.58E+02

4.53E+03

U238

4.51E+09

8.56E+00

Am242m

152

1.16E+02

Np237

2.14E+06

1.44E+01

Am243

7950

4.77E+02

Np239

0.006438

4.78E+02

Cm242

0.446575

4.40E+05

Pu236

2.85

1.34E+02

Cm243

32

9.03E+01

Pu238

8.60E+01

1.01E+05

Cm244

1.76E+01

7.38E+04

Pu239

24400

8.82E+03

Cm245

9300

9.79E+00

Pu240

6580

1.30E+04

Cm246

5500

1.92E+00

Inventory of Nuclear Fuel

United States
103 nuclear power plants
22% of electrical power
World
438 nuclear power plants (33 under
construction)
17% of electrical power
30 countries use nuclear power
16 countries produce more than 25% of
electrical power using nuclear energy

US Nuclear Power Plants

Proliferation of Nuclear
Materials

Worldwide there exists on the order of a

million metric tons of nuclear material from
the commercial nuclear industry alone (400
plants x 50 tons/year x >20 years).

When combined with military waste and

medical isotopes, the potential data base to
catalogue the complete inventory of
nuclear materials can not be accessed in
real time

Motivation for Radiation

Source Characterization

The decision making for response to the detonation of a

Dirty Bomb requires methods that can rapidly
characterize and identify the origin of the nuclear
materials used in the bomb.

If the material is from nuclear spent fuel, three

parameters are important to identify the origin of
the source:

Cooling time: time after it is discharged from the

reactor
Burnup: the amount of fuel used up in the reactor
Reactor type: whether it comes from a PWR (Pressured
Water Reactor) or a BWR (Boiling Water Reactor)

PWR vrs BWR

Are the nuclide inventories sufficiently different between
these two types of reactors to enable distinguishing
whether proliferated nuclear source came a PWR or a
BWR?

PWR (1/8) Assembly

BWR Assembly

Fission Product Densities in PWR as a

Function of Fuel Irradiation Time
(Burnup)
Fission Products Nuclide Density in PWR Fuel Rods
1.E-04
0

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Zr95
Nb95
Ru103
Ru106
Cs134
Cs137
Ce141
Ce144
Eu154

N u c l i d e D e n s i t y (E 2 4 / c m 3 )

1.E-05

1.E-06

1.E-07

1.E-08
Burnup (GwD/T)

Difference in Fission Product

Inventory in BWR and PWR
50%

Fission Products Density Difference between BWR and

PWR

Nuclides Density Difference

40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
-10%

10

15

20

25

-20%
-30%
-40%
-50%
Burnup (GwD/T)

30

35

40

Zr95
Nb95
Ru103
Ru106
Cs134
Cs137
Ce141
Ce144
Eu154

Actinide Difference
Between BWR and PWR
Np,Am,Cm Density Difference between BWR and PWR
50%
40%

N u c lid e s D e n s ity R a tio

30%
20%
10%
0%

-10%

10

20

-20%
-30%
-40%
-50%
Burnup (GwD/T)

30

40

Np237
Np239
Am241
Am242m
Am243
Cm242
Cm243
Cm244
Cm245
Cm246

Radiation Detection Equipment

www.canberra.com

Commercial Field Detection Equipment

Inspector1000 Handheld Radiation
Identifier
Inspector2000 Portable Spectroscopy
Workstation
Multichannel Analyzer

Nuclide Identification / Activity

The technology exists to rapidly

characterize a nuclear source by isotope
and activity
How do we identify the origin of the
nuclear source?

Artificial Neural Networks

(ANN)

Artifical Neural Networks (ANN) have been well

established as accurate and efficient tools for a wide
variety of practical applications.* In the work here we
will train neural networks using isotopics data from all
known possible sources of radionuclides.

Sufficient differences exist in the radioactive decay of the

nuclides and in the irradiation spectrum of the various
nuclear power plants in the world that there should be
sufficient differences in the characteristics of the nuclear
materials and their radiation fingerprint.

* [Tsoukalas, 1997] Tsoukalas, Uhrig Fuzzy and Neural

Approaches in Engineering, Wiley, 1997.

Nuclear Source
Characterization/ Identification
with ANNs
Mdiecal

Military

BWR

PWR

Hand-held
Detector

Gamma
Spectra

Pattern Transformation

Neural Networks Pattern

Recognition

Decision
Making

Artificial Neural Networks (ANN)

A hierarchical approach is used to isolate the origin

of the source.

For example, at the highest level, the ANN will be trained

to identify whether the nuclear materials came from a
commercial reactor, a military waste site, medical facility,
etc.

At the next level, the ANN will be trained to identify the

specific type of commercial power reactor (e.g. pressurized
vrs boiling water reactor) and then to identify the specific
plant by using information on the plant operating history.

A Typical Run of the Neural

Network
Reactor Type

0.082832
0.023573

0.000069

Ru106/Cs137
Cs134/Cs137
Ce141/Cs137
Ce144/Cs137
Eu154/Cs137

-1
(PWR)

Target
:

-1
(PWR)

0.25371
0.005213
Trained Neural Net

1
9.9999

1.0002

Correct
Decision !

Ratios as Inputs

NN:

Neural Net Output

Burnup
NN:

Target
:

9.9999
10.0

0.001% Error !

1
10

1.0

-1: PWR
+1: BWR
GwD/T
Year

Desired Target
Cooling Time
NN:
Target
:

1.0002
1.0

0.02% Error !

Summary

The ANN approach is an advanced analysis algorithm that can be

integrate with any hand-held gamma detector and is capable of
identifying commonly seen isotopes.

It provides forensic clues of sources origins: medical uses,

industrial or nuclear spent fuel. For nuclear spent fuel, it further
provides possible type of reactor: BWR, PWR, etc.

The required resources (CPU time and memory storage) are

nominal and can be easily integrated with any hand-held device
to provide information in real time on the scene.

It relies on advanced software technologies and the

implementation is very low cost and operates automatically
without human operators interferences.