Year
2006
Abstract
The gathering momentum for reprocessing in the US and the desire to promote clean nuclear energy across the world is requiring a renewed look at the state of the art in safeguards technologies for the fuel cycle. In current reprocessing plants, material accountancy is based on a physical inventory, requiring cessation of processing; this approach is often not optimized for cost or effectiveness for either the inspector or the operator. Increased automation can allow more precise on-line measuring instrumentation, but it also requires a safeguards approach that can handle all of the data and provide monitoring in a more efficient manner. The goal of this work is to use automated process control and data collection for advanced materials accountancy and monitoring to improve global transparency. This work will support the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Department of State, the Department of Energy, and the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership and Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiatives. Advanced process control methodologies and high-precision instrumentation are being examined to verify facility processes and declarations. It is anticipated that authenticated inspector data will be required at critical processing points to validate the overall information, but the goal of this work is to minimize the deployment of inspector-owned equipment while increasing the detection limits for material diversion. A material and uncertainty tracking model has been developed based on the UREX+ reprocessing concept. This model is being used to examine fault detection, optimize sampling strategies for both operator and inspector-owned monitoring equipment, and test the impact of new instrumentation that can reach higher levels of precision. The primary objective is to identify where instrumentation is most helpful to monitor the process and detect diversions with minimal false alarms. The process for meeting this objective involves conducting a set of statistically designed simulation experiments that explore a wide range of operating conditions and instrument deployments. The efficacy of a particular accountancy strategy is measured by how quickly the diversion was detected (in cases of a diversion) and the false alarm rate. The results are analyzed across the range of operating conditions to assess the value of the measurement instruments (alone and in combination). The presentation will discuss observations and results of this analytical approach.