Improving the analysis performance of gamma spectrometer using the Monte Carlo code for accurate measurements of uranium samples

• Main Authors: K. Abd El Gawad, Zhang Zhijian, M.H. Hazzaa
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2020-06-01
• Series: Results in Physics
• Subjects: Gamma spectrometry; Uranium samples; Computational code; Optimized detector model
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211379720300358

Uranium quantification and measurements represent a vital task for all used nuclear materials in nuclear technology. This work emphasizes the improvements and optimization of gamma spectrometer performance based on estimation techniques. The optimization was carried out for accurate uranium samples characterization based on modeling using the Monte Carlo code (MC). The used samples are certified and nuclear materials. The measured masses were determined based on non-destructive method using a germanium detector. Using the initial MC model based on the nominal detector parameters, wide discrepancies up to 55% between measured and simulated results were obtained. Consequently, the calculated uranium masses have a high relatively variations up to 35% than the reference values. To overcome such variations, the MC model was developed through optimization of the detector dimensions. A good agreement between the results of the MC optimized model and the certified values has been obtained with a variation less than 2%.