| The Thermo Scientific Burn-Up Measurement System (BUMS) is a spectroscopic instrument designed to measure the burn-up of PBMR fuel spheres by means of spectroscopic evaluation. Based on the spectroscopic evaluation, the BUMS classify spheres as graphite, used fuel or spent fuel. The BUMS includes three major components: a high purity germanium (HPGe) detector assembly with positioning table and cryogenic refrigeration system, a digital signal processor (DSP) based burn-up analysis system, and a photon collimator.
The BUMS will perform several different types of analysis
- graphite/fuel discrimination
- discrimination between low burn-up and high burn-up fuel
- categorization of higher burn-up fuels as either used fuel or spent fuel
The most challenging technical function is the spectral analysis of fuel element photon emissions for the quantitative determination of fuel element burn-up. As a result, the BUMS design has been optimized to maximize system performance in order to measure the burn-up of fuel elements having lifetime heavy metal utilization.
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