Detection of Missing Assemblies and Estimation of the Scattering Densities in a VSC-24 Dry Storage Cask with Cosmic-Ray-Muon-Based Computed Tomography

Abstract

Highly energetic, cosmic-ray muons can easily penetrate a dry storage cask and yield information about the material inside it by making use of the physics of multiple Coulomb scattering. Work by others has shown this information may be used for verification of dry storage cask contents after continuity of knowledge has been lost. In our modeling and simulation approach, we use ideal planar radiation detectors to record the trajectories and momentum of both incident and exiting cosmic ray muons; this choice allows us to demonstrate the fundamental limit of the technology for a particular measurement and reconstruction method. In a method analogous to computed tomography with attenuation coefficient replaced by scattering density is we apply a filtered back projection algorithm in order to reconstruct both the geometry and material information in modeled scenarios for concrete-walled cask VSC-24. A scenario where one of the middle four spent nuclear fuel assemblies is missing undetectable with a simple PoCA-based approach is expected to be readily detectable with CT-based approach. Moreover, a trickier scenario where the one or more assemblies is replaced by dummy assembly is put forward. In this case, we expect that this dry storage cask should be found to be not as declared based on our simulation and reconstruction results. Furthermore, we show that the material composition can be estimated if the momentum of individual muons can be precisely measured.