Sea container inspection with tagged neutrons

Pérot, Bertrand; Carasco, Cédric; Eléon, Cyrille; Bernard, Sébastien; Sardet, Alix; El Kanawati, Wassila; Deyglun, Clément; Perret, Grégory; Sannié, Guillaume; Valković, Vladivoj; Sudac, Davorin; Obhođaš, Jasmina; Moretto, Sandra; Nebbia, Giancarlo; Fontana, Cristiano; Pino, Felix; Donzella, Antonietta; Zenoni, Aldo; Iovene, Alessandro; Tintori, Carlo; Moszynski, Marek; Gierlik, Michal (2021) Sea container inspection with tagged neutrons. EPJ N - Nuclear Sciences and Technologies, 7 . ISSN 2491-9292

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Abstract

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).

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Associated Particle Technique
Subjects:	NATURAL SCIENCES NATURAL SCIENCES > Physics NATURAL SCIENCES > Physics > Nuclear Physics
Divisions:	Division of Experimental Physics
Projects:	Project title Project leader Project code Project type EURopean Illicit TRAfficking Countermeasures Kit-EURITRACK Vladivoj Valković 511471 EK European Ripost against Illicit Tra@ffiCking-ERITRACK Davorin Sudac JLS/2007/ISEC/550 EK
Depositing User:	Virna Brumnić
Date Deposited:	24 Mar 2026 11:35
URI:	http://fulir.irb.hr/id/eprint/11431
DOI:	10.1051/epjn/2021004

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