Nondestructive assay of plutonium in empty stainless steel boxes by apparent mass method

Apparent mass method (Venkataraman and Croft, Nucl Instrum Methods Phys Res A 505:527, 2003), initially standardized for the assay of Pu (Agarwal et al., J Nucl Mater 651:386, 2007) has been used to get Pu amount in empty stainless steel boxes generally used for storing and transferring plutonium oxide powders. The results have been compared with the neutron coincidence counting results and have been found to match well. The advantage of the method is that it can be used for any sample with nonstandard geometry and with uncertain source distribution.