ESTIMATING REPROCESSING PLANT IN-PROCESS INVENTORIES BY SIMULATION

Year
1995
Author(s)
H. Ai - Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited
I. Kadokura - Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited
K. Fujimaki - Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited
T.L. Burr - Los Alamos National Laboratory
E. A. Hakkila - Los Alamos National Laboratory
C. A. Coulter - Los Alamos National Laboratory
Abstract
The Safeguards Systems Group's generic simulation program FacSim was used to model the operation of the proposed Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant during an operating cycle consisting of a start-up phase, a period of steady-state operation, and a flush-out phase. The simulation results give a detailed account of nuclear material inventories in various process vessels as a function of time. As expected, it is found that the pulsed columns and the concentrator determine the rate at which the system responds to feed variations and transients; but the in-process inventory is dominated by the contents of the concentrator and tanks, and particularly by the contents of the tanks downstream from the concentrator. The results of the simulation were used for statistical studies of diversion detection, as described elsewhere in these Proceedings.