Integrating Safeguards into the Pit Disassembly & Conversion Facility

In September 2000, the United States and the Russian Federation entered into an agreement which stipulates each country will irreversibly transform 34 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium into material which could not be used for weapon purposes. Supporting the Department of Energy’s (DOE) program to dispose of excess nuclear materials, the Pit Disassembly and Conversion Facility (PDCF) is being designed and constructed to disassemble the weapon “pits” and convert the nuclear material to an oxide form for fabrication into reactor fuel at the separate Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility. The PDCF design incorporates automation to the maximum extent possible to facilitate material safeguards, reduce worker dose, and improve processing efficiency. This includes provisions for automated guided vehicle movements for shipping containers, material transport via automated conveyor between processes, remote process control monitoring, and automated Nondestructive Assay product systems. Such features afford an opportunity to plan and execute new strategies to meet Material Control and Accountability (MC&A) requirements, while offering new challenges to be considered. In addition, the mass balance engineered criticality control approach adopted affords the possibility of monitoring material in process perhaps more frequently than has generally been possible in the past. This paper presents the strategic approach developed by the design agency and accepted by the design authority to plan and engineer for implementing a design strategy that achieves enhanced facility safeguards by taking advantage of the automation and criticality measures incorporated in the design.