The Specific (Alpha,N) Production Rate For U-234 In Uf6

Natural, depleted, and low enriched uranium hexafluoride is manufactured and transported on an industrial scale to support commercial nuclear power plant operation. One-way material production and flow is verified by nuclear safeguards inspectorates is by neutron counting. The dominant neutron source term is (alpha,n) production due to U-234 which gets enriched/depleted along with U-235. In this paper we describe recent efforts to accurately determine the (alpha,n)/s/g of U-234 in UF6. This piece of nuclear data is of direct value to the nuclear safeguards community in the science-based verification and assay of bulk uranium hexafluoride. It also provides a benchmark on codes that calculate yield curves for various compounds from cross section data, and hence, provides a scale or normalization constraint on evaluated basic cross section data. In turn, evaluated basic data allows the yield from other materials to be calculated; for instance, moist uranyl fluoride, which is of interest in holdup measurements.