Ricerc@Sapienza

In the frame of Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear defense European activities, the ENEA, the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, is proposing the Neutron Active Interrogation system (NAI), a device designed to find transuranic-based Radioactive Dispersal Devices hidden inside suspected packages. It is based on Differential Die-Away time Analysis, an active neutron technique targeted in revealing the presence of fissile material through detection of induced fission neutrons.

Self-Powered Neutron Detectors (SPNDs) are currently used in reactors’ environmentto sense the magnitude of neutron-?uxes, usually for spatial-distribution mapping ofthe fuel region as to optimize burn-up strategies. During the development of tailoredinstrumentation for Lead-cooled Fast Reactors, the possibility to perform online spec-tral deconvolution of fast neutron-?uxes was recognized. Seven geometrically simi-lar SPNDs with di?erent neutron-sensitive materials, have been characterized by theMonte Carlo transport code MCNPX. ?anks to a database of spectral sensitivitiesvs.