Coordinated safeguards for materials management in a mixed-oxide fuel facility

Shipley, J.P.; Cobb, D.D.; Dietz, R.J.; Evans, Mark; Schelonka, E.P.; Smith, D.B.; Walton, R.B.

doi:10.2172/7321765

Cited by 9 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…For 8 kg spread uniformly over 1000 items, 8/1000 kg per item is involved. 63 No matter which 20 items are sampled by the inspector, the sampling yields d = 8/1000 and D = 8. In other words, the sampling component corresponds to a histogram with a single bar at 8 kg.…”

Section: Ffl Measurement Errorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

International safeguards for a modern MOX (mixed-oxide) fuel fabrication facility

Pillay¹,

Stirpe²,

Picard³

1987

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARYThis report, prepared for the Office of Safeguards and Security of the Department of Energy, addresses safeguards issues relevant to materials accountancy and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verification activities at a modern mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel fabrication facility under IAEA safeguards. This work is an extension of an earlier study done by the Safeguards Systems Group at the Los Alamos National Laboratory during FY'85 under the sponsorship of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. The earlier study was limited to identifying key elements of IAEA safeguards at a modern MOX fuel fabrication facility that could detect abrupt diversions. The present work addresses several issues of primary importance to materials accountancy and IAEA verification of the operator's materials balances and physical inventories.This MOX fuel fabrication plant is a bulk-handling facility where large quantities of plutonium are handled in chemical forms that are easily separated and converted into materials directly useful for nuclear explosives. Several IAEA member states are adopting state-of-the-art fuel-cycle technologies in newly constructed MOX fuel fabrication facilities. The facility design considered here is intended to enhance safeguards effectiveness at such a facility; it incorporates new technologies, remote/automated process operations, and features to augment near-real-time materials accountancy. This reference facility is a large-throughput plant (2.2 Mt Pu/yr) with extensive storage facilities for both feed materials and products. The two process lines at the plant can produce fuel assemblies for both fast breeder reactors (FBRs) and advanced thermal light-water reactors (ATRs).In this report, a detailed process design is presented, along with the analysis results of materials accountancy based on both abrupt and protracted diversion scenarios. Appendixes A through D discuss assumptions and methods used in our analyses. In addition, we present sampling plans for IAEA attributes/variables verification and calculations of a /K/{TTp*_r\y wnere MUF is an incomplete MUF (materials unaccounted for), and of corresponding detection probabilities for specified material-loss scenarios and two IAEA resource allocations. Although generic aspects of (MUF-D) have been discussed in the literature, to our knowledge no detailed simulation illustrating (MUF-D) behavior (as described in Appendix D) has been undertaken.A detailed analysis of the detection sensitivity of materials accountancy was conducted; the variance contributions for the operator's monthly materials balance closings at the process materials balance area (MBA) have a standard! deviation of l.*^6 kg of plutonium, which represent about 0.8% of the throughput or about 0.2% of the plutonium inventory during steady-state operation. Current practices at some fuel fabrication facilities, where the facility operators use results of high-quality chemical analyses of fuel pellets in accounting for fuel pins and fuel assemblies, would show a mor...

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Section: Ffl Measurement Errorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

International safeguards for a modern MOX (mixed-oxide) fuel fabrication facility

Pillay¹,

Stirpe²,

Picard³

1987

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“…1) and convert it to plutonium-oxide feed material for the mixed-oxide fuel fabrication plant described in LA-6536 (Ref. 50). Under steady-state conditions, the conversion process effectively couples the chemical separations and fuel fabrication facilities previously studied and has enough, overcapacity to make up for production transients and periods of decoupled operation.…”

Section: Iv-23mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The safeguards coordination unit (SCU), described in more detail in Ref. 50, supervises SNM safeguarding in the facility. As the focal point for safeguards decisions, the unit interacts with management and process-control coordination to ensure effective safeguards.…”

Section: A Safeguards System Architecturementioning

confidence: 99%

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Coordinated safeguards for materials management in a nitrate-to-oxide conversion facility

Dayem¹,

Cobb²,

Dietz³

et al. 1977

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“…It is, of course, true that even the best designed systems are susceptible to periodic lapses. Yet, if physical safeguards are coupled with the proper use of a good accounting and control system, the probability of theft or loss of significant amounts of materials will be low [25].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Detection of Nuclear Materials Losses*

Prasad¹,

Booth

et al. 1995

Decision Sciences

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The identification and location of materials losses in nuclear facilities is an important issue. Many complexities arise in monitoring such losses. These complexities include the dependency among materials balance observations and the influence of errors (outliers) on parameter estimates of various monitoring methods. The proposed Joint Estimation procedure is superior to standard methods (control chart and CUSUM) and to methods that build in correlation (ARMA control chart, ARMA CUSUM, and the Generalized M procedure) in the detection of nuclear materials losses. The Joint Estimation procedure is robust to the influence of outliers, is flexible in accommodating a range of dependencies among observations, and provides information on the type of loss. Further, the procedure is reliable in that it yields a probability of false alarms and a probability of detecting losses closer to specifications.

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Coordinated safeguards for materials management in a mixed-oxide fuel facility

Cited by 9 publications

References 1 publication

International safeguards for a modern MOX (mixed-oxide) fuel fabrication facility

International safeguards for a modern MOX (mixed-oxide) fuel fabrication facility

Coordinated safeguards for materials management in a nitrate-to-oxide conversion facility

The Detection of Nuclear Materials Losses*

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