Year
2001
Abstract
Unattended solution monitoring instrumentation for liquids in tanks has the immediate and obvious attraction of reduced inspection effort. The requirement is for reliability of operation in the unattended mode so that over long periods of time relevant data is collected and securely saved for eventual data evaluation. For some years now at the JRC Ispra, portable instrumentation units for inspector’s usage has been developed and deployed in various worldwide facilities. This paper describes our current developments in portable instrumentation inclusive of application software. These portable units are small and lightweight and can be easily and quickly installed in parallel to operator’s pressure measurement equipment. The pressure transducers are compact digital pressure modules of 0.01% precision and assembled in a tamper proof box with autonomous battery back up in case of power outage. Recent hardware developments have incorporated Ethernet/PCMCIA connections permitting direct remote access. This has the potential of giving an inspector from either his on-site or off-site office location further control and immediate information feedback, particularly on the status of the instrument and timely problem solving, NRTA and continuity of knowledge. Further developments have extended the hardware to include a scanning type valve system. This requirement results from the work currently underway in the frame of a TACIS project coordinated by the European Commission for enhancing safeguards in the ULBA fuel fabrication facility in the Republic of Kazakhstan. The ULBA facility has hundreds of tanks requiring process measurement upgrade. Application of the portable equipment associated with a scanning valve system and a Pt100 scanning system connected to a number of tanks minimizes costs yet allows all relevant measurements to be made for materials accountancy. The whole system is controlled by a dedicated software application package, which examines each tank in turn, taking measurements under pre-defined input data according to the category type of tank from a safeguards point of view. The software application package consists primarily of system set-up, data records to be taken for each tank and for how long, together with control of the scanning system. Acquired data are then analyzed either with a monitoring diagnostic package (MONDIAG) which examines the recorded data and assists the inspector in making rapid analysis and/or with the Volume Toolmaster package (VOLTO) which allows to analyze/compare acquisition periods and to validate operator’s results for calibration or reverification.