A low-cost system for rapid automatic neutron activation analysis at small research reactors

A system for rapid automatic neutron activation analysis is governed by software performing irradiation control, neutron flux monitoring and gamma-spectrometry with real-time correction of counting losses as well as spectra evaluation, nuclide identification and calculation of concentrations in a fully automatic flow of operations.^1,2 Elemental concentrations are derived from a list of experimentally determined specific saturation activities. To expand this list, the “k0_IAEA” software³ is presently under evaluation and will be reported on in this paper. At a Triga reactor, reactor pulse activation may enhance the sensitivity for very short half-lives,⁴ and will be presented in our paper.