https://doi.org/10.1051/epjn/2021004
Regular Article
Sea container inspection with tagged neutrons
1
CEA, DES, IRESNE, CEA Cadarache, F-13108 Saint-Paul-lez-Durance, France
2
Now with Lebanese University, Beirut, Lebanon
3
Now with IRSN - PDS-DEND/SESN/L2MN, B.P. 17 - 92262 Fontenay-aux-Roses Cedex, France
4
Now with Paul Scherrer Institute, Forschungsstrasse 111, 5232 Villigen PSI, Suisse
5
CEA, DRT, LIST, Saclay, F-91191 Gif-Sur-Yvette, France
6
Ruder Boskovic Institute, Bijenickac.54, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia
7
INFN and Università Degli Studi di Padova, via Marzolo, 8, Padova I-35131, Italy
8
Dipartimento di Ingegneria Meccanica e Industriale, Università degli Studi di Brescia, via Branze 38, Brescia 25123, Italy
9
INFN Sezione di Pavia, Via Bassi, 6, Pavia 27100, Italy
10
CAEN S.p.A., Via Vetraia, 11, Viareggio LU 55049, Italy
11
National Centre for Nuclear Research (NCBJ), Otwock 05-400, Poland
* e-mail: bertrand.perot@cea.fr
Received:
2
December
2020
Received in final form:
23
January
2021
Accepted:
10
February
2021
Published online: 17 March 2021
Neutron inspection of sea-going cargo containers has been widely studied in the past 20 yr to non-intrusively detect terrorist threats, like explosives or Special Nuclear Materials (SNM), and illicit goods, like narcotics or smuggling materials. Fast 14 MeV neutrons are produced by a portable generator with the t(d, n)α fusion reaction, and tagged in both direction and time thanks to the alpha particle detection. This Associated Particle Technique (APT) allows focusing inspection on specific areas of interest in the containers, previously identified as containing suspicious items with X-ray radiographic scanners or radiation portal monitors. We describe the principle of APT for non-nuclear material identification, and for nuclear material detection, then we provide illustrations of the performances for 10 min inspections with significant quantities (kilograms) of explosives, illicit drugs, or SNM, in different cargo cover loads (e.g. metallic, organic, or ceramic matrices).
© B. Pérot et al., published by EDP Sciences, 2021
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
