Spark source mass spectrographical specification of mixed oxide reactor fuel for metallic and rare earth impurities

Abstract

This paper describes the adaptation of a spark source mass spectrograph to allow analysis of mixed oxide nuclear reactor fuel (UO 2-PuO 2). It is shown that analyses can be performed on relatively small amounts of sample, using extremely simple and straightforward sample preparation procedures. Nevertheless, detection sensitivities and confidence limits to be assigned to the concentration values certified easily reach the required specifications.