DEVELOPING STANDARD PERFORMANCE TESTING PROCEDURES FOR MC&A COMPONENTS AT A SITE

The condition of a nuclear material control and accountability system (MC&A) and its individual components, as with any system combining technical elements, documentation, and the human factor, may be characterized through an aggregate of values for the various parameters that determine the system’s ability to perform. The MC&A system's status may be functioning effectively, marginally, or not functioning based on a summary of the values of the individual parameters. This work includes a review of MC&A and Detection of Nuclear Material Loses elements. Subsystems or components comprise each of the main elements in the material control and accountability system. The ‘MC&A Elements' are comprised of the Information subsystem, the Measurement subsystem, the NM access subsystem, including a tamper-indicating device (TID) program, and the Automated information-gathering subsystems. The 'Detecting Nuclear Material (NM) Loses Elements' are comprised of the Inventory differences, the Shipper/receiver differences, Confirmatory measurements and Differences in accounting data, and TID or seal violations subsystems. In order to detect the absence or loss of nuclear material there must be appropriate interactions among the elements and their respective subsystems. Additionally, this work reviews the status of regulatory requirements for the MC&A system components characteristics and criteria that support the evaluation of the listed components. The listed components had performance testing algorithms and procedures developed that took into consideration the regulatory criteria. The developed MC&A performance-testing procedures were the basis for a Guide for MC&A Performance Testing at the Material Balance Areas (MBAs) of the State Scientific Center of the Russian Federation – Institute for Physics and Power Engineering.