Experimental measurements of short-lived fission products from uranium, neptunium, plutonium and americium

Abstract

Fission yields are especially well characterized for long-lived fission products. Modeling techniques incorporate numerous assumptions and can be used to deduce information about the distribution of short-lived fission products. This work is an attempt to gather exper- imental (model-independent) data on short-lived fission products. Fissile isotopes of uranium, neptunium, pluto- nium and americium were irradiated under pulse conditions at the Washington State University 1 MW TRIGA reactor to achieve *10 8 fissions. The samples were placed on an HPGe (high purity germanium) detector to initiate counting in less than 3 min post irradiation. The data was analyzed to determine which radionuclides could be quantified and compared to the published fission yield data.