Year
2000
Abstract
The process of designing, specifying, fabricating and certifying NDA Reference Materials (RMs) is a complex task requiring the expertise of many disciplines. Careful specification of the desired attributes defines the required quality measures. A detailed preparation and characterization plan, agreed upon and documented before acquisition starts, is crucial to obtain a set of high quality reference materials. At present in Russia, there is a shortage of NDA RMs for purposes of control and accounting for nuclear materials (MC&A). In this situation, the Russian Methodological and Training Centre (RMTC) in the frame of TACIS project and under the subcontracts with the Joint Research Centre is dealing with the fabrication and characterisation of several sets of NDA National level RMs. The reference materials will be used for performance assessment of NDA measurement techniques, calibration of NDA instrumentation and training programs for NDA instrumentation in the Russian Federation. This paper will report about the preparation and characterization of 2 sets of PuO2 powder samples with different isotopic composition and mass and 2 sets of UO2 powder samples with different 235U abundance and mass. The main challenge is that these reference materials should be representative of nuclear materials that are most commonly encountered in the Russian fuel cycle. This work is carried out in conjunction with leading Russian organisations in the field of fabrication and characterisations of nuclear materials such as MBP (Electrostal), PA Mayak, Bochvar and Khlopin Institutes and IPPE. Plutonium oxide homogeneous batches have been prepared by RT-1 Reprocessing Plant (PA Mayak) and the starting material for uranium RMs has been produced by Electrostal MBP. The Joint Research centre of the European Commission contributes to the management and RMs characterization.