During the week of October 24-28, a group of TAMU Nuclear Engineering students visited Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Oak Ridge, TN, to participate in the “Non-Destructive Assay (NDA) Applications for International Safeguards” practical short course at ORNL’s Safeguards Laboratory as part of the “Radiation Detection and Nuclear Material Measurements” class at TAMU (NUEN-605).
The class consisted of both lectures and valuable hands-on experience with safeguards instrumentation and software, providing the students with practical understanding of a number of NDA techniques used for measurements and characterization of special nuclear material.
Topics covered during the class included: uranium enrichment measurements, uranium holdup measurements, neutron coincidence counting using an AWCC, portal monitors, and portable NDA instrumentation operation.
In addition, students attended several technical tours to the Spallation Neutron Source, ORTEC’s High Purity Germanium Detector Assembly Facility, the X-10 Graphite Reactor, ORNL’s Supercomputer Facility, the Y-12 National Security Complex, and the National Transportation Research Center.
The students were accompanied by NSSPI faculty members Dr. Alexander Solodov, Dr. Sunil Chirayath, and Dr. Craig Marianno.