Spent Nuclear Fuel passive gamma analysis and reproducibility: Application to SKB-50 assemblies

This work studies the reproducibility of passive gamma spectroscopy measurements for spent nuclear fuels (SNFs). The fifty assemblies used for this study span over a variety of initial enrichments, burnups, and cooling times. These SNFs have been measured in two different gamma axial measurement campaigns. The net peak counts are determined for Cs-137, Eu-154 and Cs-134. Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis of the relative position of the SNF and the detector is performed. Most importantly, this work describes a methodology using an intrinsic self-calibration procedure that can be used to compare the relative activities of the radionuclides without the need for detailed knowledge about the measurement set-up and its properties. The reproducibility of the Cs-137 net peak count rate ranges between 2% and 4%. Systematic reproducibility of the ratio of Eu-154 and Cs-134 to Cs-137 is between 0,4% - 5 % using the intrinsic self-calibration method.