Year
2004
Abstract
The BN-350 Unattended Monitoring System plays an important role for the Safeguards Department of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In 1998, the Los Alamos National Laboratory, in conjunction with the IAEA and sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, designed and installed an integrated multi-instrument safeguards system at the BN-350 reactor in Aktau, Kazakhstan, to monitor spent-fuel and blanket assembly conditioning and canning activities. The purpose of the system was to provide effective safeguards at this facility while reducing the manpower load on the IAEA. The system is composed of many individual nondestructive analysis and surveillance components, each having a unique function and working together to provide fully unattended measurement of spent-fuel assemblies. The BN-350 “Mirror System” was built to provide a similar system with like components at the IAEA Headquarters in Vienna to facilitate analysis and/or simulation of problems that might occur in the field and for training inspectors and other technical staff in preparation for their work in the field. In addition, the system is used to test new equipment and qualify new or modified software. This paper describes the main components of the Mirror System, how the components are integrated, and how the Mirror System has benefited the IAEA.