Measurement Error Modeling and Simulation for Solution Monitoring

There are many types of data potentially available for solution monitoring for safeguards applications. Following a brief overview, we describe a relatively data-rich option that includes measured flows and constituent concentrations in all pipes entering and exiting connected tanks. True material flows and constituent masses for each of three tanks are simulated using a first-order approximation to the associated differential equations for mass balances. Associated measured flows are also simulated using basic measurement error modeling. Preliminary analysis of the resulting time series of associated vector-valued prediction errors is presented. Important differences are illustrated in the measurement error structures compared to those in the more common type of simulated solution monitoring data that does not assume flow rate measurements are available to help predict tank contents.