Use of Infrasound to Monitor Nuclear Facilities

Nuclear fuel-cycle facilities including mines, uranium conversion plants, uranium enrichment facilities, target and fuel fabrication facilities, nuclear reactors, target and fuel reprocessing facilities, and uranium and plutonium metal fabrication facilities, all have the potential of emitting infrasound and low-frequency acoustic signals from heavy machinery and installed systems. Observation of these signatures has the potential to help answer operational questions related to understanding the status of activities occurring within these facilities. To explore the feasibility of this idea, field tests were performed to record and assess the acoustic emissions emanating from research reactors and hot cell facilities. Initial results have confirmed the presence of a rich acoustic environment both within these facilities and outdoors, near these facilities. This presentation will discuss findings from these scoping studies, including data showing examples correlating observations with facility activities. It is hypothesized that candidate infrasonic and low-frequency acoustic signatures associated with nuclear fuel-cycle process activities could be collected by remote sensing stations, on-site inspectors, or citizens empowered with ubiquitous sensing systems to support verification of declared operations in such facilities, or detect the presence of undeclared activities.