Year
2011
Abstract
Implementing plutonium Material Control and Accountability (MC&A), safeguards measurements, material characterization, and standards certification requires analytical instrumentation that is reliably calibrated and traceable to the international measurement system with minimal measurement uncertainty and easy to operate. Savannah River Site (SRS) has used controlled-potential coulometric assay for select key accountability measurements, external exchange program measurements, and secondary standards characterization. These applications required the highest plutonium assay reliability available at the SRS Analytical Laboratory. The present vintage automated controlled-potential coulometer used at the SRS was designed by the authors and fabricated at the Savannah River National Laboratory’s Research and Development Engineering organization in the early 90’s. The 90’s vintage system used custom electronics installed in NIM modules with switches and dials. Many of the original components are now obsolete. To ensure long term viability of the SRS and external customer systems, a complete electronics and data acquisition system upgrade has been completed. All electronics have been combined on a large multilayer pc board with individual isolated ground and power planes. All switches, knobs and batteries have been eliminated in favor of floating high resolution digital to analog converters. The HT Basic software used to control the coulometer has been updated with new features and drivers to accommodate the electronics and data acquisition hardware. The details of the electronics and software upgrades will be presented.