U.S./Russian cooperative efforts to enhance nuclear MPC&A at VNIITF, (Chelyabinsk-70)
The All Russian Scientific Research Institute of Technical Physics (VNIITF) is one of the major sites in the nuclear weapons complex in Russia. The site contains a number of research facilities which use nuclear material as well as assembly, disassembly, and testing of prototypes (pilot samples) of nuclear weapons. VNIITF also has ties to the major nuclear materials production facilities in the Urals region of Russia. The objective of the U.S./Russian Materials Protection Control and Accounting (MPC&A) cooperative program between the US Department of Energy and Russia's Ministry of Atomic Eneryy, at VNIITF is to improve the protection and accountability of nuclear material at VNIITF. Enhanced safeguards systems have been implemented at a reactor test area called the Pulse Research Reactor Facility (PRR) in Area 20. The area contains three pulse reactors with associated storage areas. The integrated MPC&A system at the PRR was demonstrated to US and Russian audiences in May, 1998. Expansion of work into several new facilities is underway both in Area 20 and at other locations. These include processing and production facilities some of which are considered sensitive facilities, by the Russian side. Methods have been developed to assure that work is done as agreed without actually having access to the buildings. C-70 has developed an extensive computerized system which integrates the physical security alarm station with elements of the nuclear material control system. Under the MPC&A program, the existing systems have been augmented with Russian and US technologies. This paper will describe the work completed at the PRR, and the on-going activities and cooperative effort between the Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, Sandia, Oak Ridge, Pacific Northwest, and Brookhaven US Department of Energy National Laboratories in support of VNIITF.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Nonproliferation and National Security (NN)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-Eng-48
- OSTI ID:
- 2464
- Report Number(s):
- UCRL-JC-131803; R&D Project: GJ0800000; ON: DE00002464
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: American Nuclear Society, 3rd topical Meeting, Charleston, SC, September 8-11, 1998
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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