The Verification from Uranium Oxide Powders in Different Forms by Nondestructive Assay Using MCNP5 with Comparison MGAU

In this paper, the physical inventory taking of nuclear materials (under safeguards agreement) at a nuclear fuel research laboratory has been considered. Nuclear materials with different forms and sizes were verified. The verification method was based on nondestructive measurements of gamma radiation emitted from nuclear material. Some of the parameters which affect NM mass estimation were calculated using Monte Carlo method. The proposed procedure covers different forms found at the nuclear fuel research laboratory including spherical, parallelepipeds and cylindrical shapes with different sizes. The present procedure could be very useful for safeguards purposes. Average accuracies for the estimated 235U masses of about − 0.159% and − 0.0935% with a precision of about 2.4% and 7.85% are obtained for MCNP and MGAU, respectively. This work aims to verify experimental measurements of nuclear materials’ samples with different shapes and sizes in a short time. These experimental measurements verifications can be quickly performed using the general-purpose Monte Carlo N-Particle code (MCNP).