Using a process for production of surrogate melt glass simulating a nuclear detonation previously provided through work at the University of Tennessee, a synthetic melt glass representative of material in several urban cities was produced.  The purpose of creating the synthetic melt glass is to examine the challenges to nuclear forensics that elemental and isotopic differences between major cities pose.  Previous work using Energy Dispersive (EDXRF) analysis indicated possible chemical composition changes of more than 10% between pre- and post-melt samples for the major elemental components.  This work focuses on resolving the pre- and post-melt differences and then adding trace quantities of rare earth elements to determine the practicality of XRF for chemical analysis of surrogate materials.  Samples were produced through melting powdered oxide compounds in a furnace at 1450 <sup>o</sup>C.  Pre- and post-melt samples were analyzed using EDXRF.  Additional samples containing higher compositions of rare earth elements were also analyzed.  The resulting chemical analysis comparing post-melt samples to the initial sample compositions will be shown.

Analysis of synthetic nuclear melt glass (urban) using x-ray fluoroscopy

2019 Spring National Meeting

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