The ability to detect neutrons from the spontaneous fission of 238U in samples of depleted uranium with organic liquid scintillation detectors is presented. In this paper we introduce a small modular organic liquid scintillator detector array that can detect changes in mass of 238U between 3.69 g and 14.46 g. To do this, 18-h assays of various masses of 0.3% wt. of depleted uranium dioxide were assessed using four EJ-309 detectors, a mixed field analyser operated in pulse gradient analysis mode, and associated counting components. We observe a background-corrected fast neutron count sensitivity of (2.0 ± 0.3) × 10-4 n g-1 s-1 per detector. This research demonstrates a proof of concept for depleted uranium quantity to be assessed passively on a non-intrusive basis via its spontaneous fission decay.

中文翻译：

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贫铀的被动，非侵入性测定。

提出了利用有机液体闪烁探测器从贫铀样品中238U的自发裂变中检测中子的能力。在本文中，我们介绍了一种小型模块化有机液体闪烁体检测器阵列，该阵列可检测到3.69 g至14.46 g之间的238U质量变化。为此，需要进行质量为0.3％wt的各种质量的18小时分析。使用四个EJ-309检测器，在脉冲梯度分析模式下运行的混合场分析仪以及相关的计数组件评估贫化的二氧化铀的质量。我们观察到每个探测器的经背景校正的快速中子计数灵敏度为（2.0±0.3）×10-4 n g-1 s-1。这项研究证明了贫铀量的概念证明，可以通过其自发裂变衰变在非侵入式的基础上进行被动评估。