Investigation into the Feasibility of Highly Enriched Uranium Detection by External Neutron Stimulation (Expanded Study)

This report studied the detectability of 1kg of HEU in a cargo container, whose dimensions are 20'x8'x8', by stimulating the HEU with neutron source located external to the container and counting the neutrons that would be produced with a high sensitivity thermal neutron detector. This project examined a wide variety of different energy sources, counting options, and the effect of different cargo materials present within the container. The study considered solution approaches using both deterministic and Monte Carlo techniques. The major project conclusion is that this approach would be successful in all common environments except one, if a pulsed 14MeV neutron source with a strength of 10E12 neutrons/sec was used and the delayed fission neutron are counted between pulses. The study also developed different facility designs, which included a shielding analysis, container activation and storage requirements, and overall concept economic feasibility using the Port of Baltimore as a benchmark. The original document contains color images.