APPLICABILITY AND LIMITS OF THE MGAU CODE FOR THE DETERMINATION OF THE ENRICHMENT OF URANIUM SAMPLES

A new method for measuring the U-235 enrichment in uranium samples has recently been developed based on the analysis of the 89 to 120 keV re gion of a gamma ray spectrum. The analysis process requires no calibra tions and is capable of accuracies of 1-2% in measurement times of a f ew minutes, in favourable cases.Results are presented for a variety of samples which show that in general good performance can be achieved. However, performance becomes poor when measuring uranium through thick walled containers. To partially overcome this problem, a new option h as been tested which uses the intensities of the self-induced fluoresc ense X-rays of uranium. Initial results using this enhancements are en couraging.