LAUSR

The paper presents an overview of the research into the available non-destructive methods of determining the 234U isotope content in uranium-bearing materials. An alternative approach to a problem of detector calibration by the characteristic “intrinsic” efficiency is proposed. Certified reference uranium-bearing materials CRM 969 and CRM 146 (a range of 235U enrichments studied was 0.3…93%) were used as test samples, measurements were carried out with a wide-range energy detector based on the high-purity BeGe 3830 germanium (Canberra, USA) with 38 cm2 area and 3 cm thickness. An approach used for the “intrinsic” efficiency calibration for the 234U analysis permits to decrease the measurement error to 7.5% in the whole range of 235U enrichment (from 0.3 to 93%) and 234U concentrations (20 to 9800 µg/g). The proposed method does not demand standard samples for equipment calibration and does not depend on the physical (chemical) form of the investigated material and measurement geometry.