Year
2014
Abstract
Field trials are an essential step in the development of technologies for safeguards applications. While applicable measurement items can sometimes be accessed in laboratories and research institutions, tests performed at opera ting nuclear facilities provide the representative materials, field conditions, and real - world constraints necessary to validate the performance of an instrument prior to consideration for routine use by a safeguards inspectorate. Field trials also offer opportunit ies to incorporate operator feedback into the design and implementation concept for an instrument while it is still in the prototype stage. Relevant issues mi ght include lifecycle cost, reliability, maintenance, safety, data security, or physical size. In this paper, we discuss the planning and execution of a field trial of several nondestructive assay (NDA) systems for assaying UF 6 cylinders at a gas centrifug e enrichment plant. The field trial was notable in that it allowed for a side - by - side comparison of both mature and emerging technologies on a common set of cylinders under identical measurement conditions and count times. The subsequent technical analysis allow s direct performance comparison of candidate technologies that previously had been compared only across disparate testing conditions and cylinder populations . While key technical findings from the field trial are summarized, the focus of this paper is to share experiences and lessons regarding the negotiations, planning, execution , and subsequent documentation of a field trial examining the viability of candidate safeguards instrumentation and methods.