DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING OF PROCEDURES FOR CARRYING OUT EMERGENCY PHYSICAL INVENTORY TAKING AFTER DETECTING ANOMALY EVENTS CONCERNING NM SECURITY.
In the State Scientific Center of Russian Federation - Institute of Physics and Power Engineering (SSC RF-IPPE, Obninsk), which is under Minatom jurisdiction, the procedures for carrying out emergency physical inventory taking (EPIT) were developed and tested in cooperation with the Brookhaven National Laboratory (USA). Here the emergency physical inventory taking means the PIT, which is carried out in case of symptoms indicating a possibility of NM loss (theft). Such PIT often requires a verification of attributes and quantitative characteristics for all the NM items located in a specific Material Balance Area (MBA). In order to carry out the exercise, an MBA was selected where many thousands of NM items containing highly enriched uranium are used. Three clients of the computerized material accounting system (CMAS) are installed in this MBA. Labels with unique (within IPPE site) identification numbers in the form of digit combinations and an appropriate bar code have been applied on the NM items, containers and authorized locations. All the data to be checked during the EPIT are stored in the CMAS database. Five variants of anomalies initiating EPIT and requiring different types of activities on EPIT organization are considered. Automatic working places (AWP) were created on the basis of the client computers in order to carry out a large number of measurements within a reasonable time. In addition to a CMAS client computer, the main components of an AWP include a bar-code reader, an electronic scale and an enrichment meter with NaI--detector--the lMCA Inspector (manufactured by the Canberra Company). All these devices work together with a client computer in the on-line mode. Special computer code (Emergency Inventory Software-EIS) was developed. All the algorithms of interaction between the operator and the system, as well as algorithms of data exchange during the measurements and data comparison, are implemented in this software. Registration of detected anomalies and generation of reports on EPIT results can be also performed with the help of the EIS code. Since EPIT procedures in their essence are supposed to be used infrequently but suddenly, and taking into account that additional personnel should be involved, much attention was paid to the creation of a user-friendly interface. The effectiveness of the developed procedures, AWPs and EIS was confirmed by the exercise carried out at IPPE. All the anomalies specially created for this exercise were detected during the exercise.
- Research Organization:
- BROOKHAVEN NATIONAL LABORATORY (US)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- DOE/NATIONAL NUCLEAR SECURITY ADMINISTRATION (US)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC02-98CH10886
- OSTI ID:
- 15007385
- Report Number(s):
- BNL-72211-2004-CP; R&D Project: 04116; NN5003000; TRN: US0401758
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 44TH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE INSTITUTE OF NUCLEAR MATERIALS MANAGEMENT, PHOENIX, AZ (US), 07/13/2003--07/17/2003; Other Information: PBD: 13 Jul 2003
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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