Gas centrifuge enrichment plants inspection frequency and remote monitoring issues for advanced safeguards implementation
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
- GLASGOW UNIV.
Current safeguards approaches used by the IAEA at gas centrifuge enrichment plants (GCEPs) need enhancement in order to verify declared low enriched uranium (LEU) production, detect undeclared LEU production and detect high enriched uranium (BEU) production with adequate probability using non destructive assay (NDA) techniques. At present inspectors use attended systems, systems needing the presence of an inspector for operation, during inspections to verify the mass and {sup 235}U enrichment of declared cylinders of uranium hexafluoride that are used in the process of enrichment at GCEPs. This paper contains an analysis of how possible improvements in unattended and attended NDA systems including process monitoring and possible on-site destructive analysis (DA) of samples could reduce the uncertainty of the inspector's measurements providing more effective and efficient IAEA GCEPs safeguards. We have also studied a few advanced safeguards systems that could be assembled for unattended operation and the level of performance needed from these systems to provide more effective safeguards. The analysis also considers how short notice random inspections, unannounced inspections (UIs), and the concept of information-driven inspections can affect probability of detection of the diversion of nuclear material when coupled to new GCEPs safeguards regimes augmented with unattended systems. We also explore the effects of system failures and operator tampering on meeting safeguards goals for quantity and timeliness and the measures needed to recover from such failures and anomalies.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- DOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC52-06NA25396
- OSTI ID:
- 1033573
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-10-06168; LA-UR-10-6168
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL PROTECTION
DETECTION
ENRICHED URANIUM
GAS CENTRIFUGES
IAEA SAFEGUARDS
INSPECTION
MONITORING
NONDESTRUCTIVE TESTING
PERFORMANCE
PROBABILITY
PRODUCTION
REMOTE CONTROL
SAFEGUARDS
TIME DELAY
URANIUM 235
URANIUM HEXAFLUORIDE
VERIFICATION