skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: AVNG system objectives and concept

Conference ·
OSTI ID:1009547

Any verification measurement performed on potentially classified nuclear material must satisfy two constraints. First and foremost, no classified information can be released to the monitoring party. At the same time, the monitoring party must gain sufficient confidence from the measurement to believe that the material being measured is consistent with the host's declarations concerning that material. The attribute measurement technique addresses both concerns by measuring several attributes of the nuclear material and displaying unclassified results through green (indicating that the material does possess the specified attribute) and red (indicating that the material does not possess the specified attribute) lights. The AVNG that we describe is an attribute measurement system built by RFNC-VNIIEF in Sarov, Russia. The AVNG measures the three attributes of 'plutonium presence,' 'plutonium mass >2 kg,' and 'plutonium isotopic ratio ({sup 240}Pu to {sup 239}Pu) <0.1' and was demonstrated in Sarov for a joint US/Russian audience in June 2009. In this presentation, we will outline the goals and objectives of the AVNG measurement system. These goals are driven by the two, sometimes conflicting, requirements mentioned above. We will describe the conceptual design of the AVNG and show how this conceptual design grew out of these goals and objectives.

Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
DOE Contract Number:
AC52-06NA25396
OSTI ID:
1009547
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-10-02625; LA-UR-10-2625; TRN: US1101528
Resource Relation:
Conference: INMM 51st Annual Meeting ; July 11, 2010 ; Baltimore, MD
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English