PROCESS MONITORING IN THE URANIUM PROCESSING FACILITY (UPF) AT Y-12

Upon completion, the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) at Y-12 will be a comprehensive uranium processing facility, appropriately sized and capable of meeting our national security demands. It is on schedule for a 2018 completion. The design will include key measurement points and the appropriate measurement equipment for use in a comprehensive process monitoring program. The material balance areas are designed such that material will move through the process units in glove boxes and/or secured enclosures reducing opportunities for exposure and increasing the accurate accountability for product and waste streams. Material accountability information collected via electronic methods will be integrated with the shop floor control processes and used to calculate statistical limits for process monitoring. Unlike the current methodologies for capturing process monitoring and nuclear material accounting, eventually in the UPF all material information will reside in one integrated system and will ensure material safeguards, criticality, and processing requirements are all met and monitored. The goal for process monitoring in the UPF is to provide enhanced safeguarding of the special nuclear material and to provide a continuous inventory thus eliminating the need to shut down processes and perform a physical inventory. A continuous inventory ensures prompt process monitoring balances, accurate accountability, reduces production downtime and personnel risk due to equipment cleanout necessary during a physical inventory.