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@PROCEEDINGS{Aymanns:1052661,
author = {Aymanns, Katharina and Niemeyer and Thompson, Lee and
Steer, Chris and Saum, Joseph and Mandel, Marcus and
Mildebrath, Maximilian and Martin, Andrew},
title = {{I}nvestigating {M}uon {T}omography for {S}afeguarding
{G}eological {R}epositories},
reportid = {FZJ-2026-01035},
year = {2025},
abstract = {Nuclear energy has experienced a renaissance in recent
years, with many countries set to expand their nuclear power
plant fleets. As a result, safeguarding the back end of the
nuclear fuel cycle is attracting more and more attention.
Most countries in the world plan to finally store the spent
fuel arising from nuclear power plants in deep geological
repositories (GRs) several hundred metres underground, while
the spent fuel, i.e. large quantities of nuclear material,
will remain under safeguards. The International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) verifies the GR design information
declared by States. Design information verification (DIV) in
general is intended to confirm the features and
characteristics of a nuclear facility through on-site
physical examination of the facility during all stages of
the facility’s life cycle. However, performing DIV
activities at GRs may become more challenging in the
operational phase and even more so in the post-closure
phase. In this context, muon tomography is a powerful tool
that can provide critical information about the overburden
of a prospective underground facility. Muon tomography would
be able to identify unknown features such as voids or
undocumented tunnels that have not been declared prior to
the construction of a GR. This extended abstract presents
the results of a simulation study investigating the
application of muon tomography for safeguarding spent fuel
in a geological repository (GR), and evaluating the
technical performance of the technology. A key result of
these simulations is that large underground features may be
detected in timescales of tenths of days.},
month = {Aug},
date = {2025-08-24},
organization = {Institute of Nuclear Materials
Management 66th Annual Meeting,
Washington (USA), 24 Aug 2025 - 28 Aug
2025},
cin = {IFN-2},
cid = {I:(DE-Juel1)IFN-2-20101013},
pnm = {1412 - Predisposal (POF4-141) / IAEA GER SP - Joint
Programme on the Technical Development and Further
Improvement of IAEA Safeguards between the Government of the
Federal Republic of Germany and the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA-19781005)},
pid = {G:(DE-HGF)POF4-1412 / G:(DE-Juel1)IAEA-19781005},
typ = {PUB:(DE-HGF)26},
url = {https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/1052661},
}