Assessing Proliferation Resistance of Nuclear Reactor Systems Using Fuzzy Logic-Based Barrier Method

Development of a fuzzy logic-based barrier (FLB) method for the evaluation of proliferation resistance of nuclear fuel cycle systems is described in this paper. How useful is the FLB method and the resulting metric in quantifying the proliferation resistance of fuel cycle systems is also investigated. For this purpose, three fuel cycles (pressurized water reactor- once through (PWR-OT), pressurized water reactor with Mixed Oxide (MOX) fuel and Direct Use of Spent PWR Fuel in CANDU reactors (DUPIC) fuel cycle) are evaluated and compared by applying the FLB method. To address the issue of subjectivity in assigning barrier weighting factors or fuzzy numbers, sensitivity of the results to the definition of fuzzy numbers and weighting schemes was also investigated.