Year
2019
Abstract
Under the cooperation agreement between the United States Department of Energy (USDoE) and the Brazilian-Argentine Agency for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials (ABACC), five Argentine and Brazilian laboratories of ABACC analytical network have been participating in the Safeguards Measurement Evaluation Programs organized by the New Brunswick Laboratory (NBL), since 2008. The main objective of such participation is to enhance the nuclear measurement capabilities at the analytical facilities that support ABACC. The most recent participation is in 2018 through the Proficiency Testing Program of the NBL Program Office. It pertains to elemental uranium and isotopic composition measurements; test materials produced and characterized at the NBL are being analyzed at the different laboratories. The current ABACC/USDoE cooperative agreement is broad in its scope as it includes assessments by the NBL Program Office of quality control (QC) and quality assurance (QA) practices at ABACC laboratories in addition to the preparation, characterization, and measurements of analytical standards and test samples provided by the NBL Program Office. In particular, the measurement results are evaluated against the IAEA International Target Values (ITVs) for the precision and accuracy achieved in elemental and isotopic measurements. Furthermore, over the past decade this important cooperative activity has made additional material and training resources available to ABACC for making continuous improvements in measurements.