Development of a GaAs-based neutron tomography system for the assay of nuclear fuel

A GaAs-based neutron tomography system intended for the assay of nuclear fuel has been developed and tested. Its main components include a 16 pixel, dual in-line array of /sup 10/B coated GaAs neutron detectors, a step motor driven table capable of both linear and rotational motion, and custom data acquisition software capable of automated data collection. A filtered-backprojection based reconstruction algorithm was implemented to reconstruct tomographic slices. Results from thermal and epithermal neutron imaging experiments are presented and possible system improvements discussed.