Developing a Signature Based Safeguards Approach for the Electrorefiner and Salt Cleanup Unit Operations in Pyroprocessing Facilities

Technical Report · Wed Jan 27 04:00:00 EST 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1237220· OSTI ID:1237220

Murphy, Chantell Lynne-Marie ^[1]

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1. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Traditional nuclear materials accounting does not work well for safeguards when applied to pyroprocessing. Alternate methods such as Signature Based Safeguards (SBS) are being investigated. The goal of SBS is real-time/near-real-time detection of anomalous events in the pyroprocessing facility as they could indicate loss of special nuclear material. In high-throughput reprocessing facilities, metric tons of separated material are processed that must be accounted for. Even with very low uncertainties of accountancy measurements (<0.1%) the uncertainty of the material balances is still greater than the desired level. Novel contributions of this work are as follows: (1) significant enhancement of SBS development for the salt cleanup process by creating a new gas sparging process model, selecting sensors to monitor normal operation, identifying safeguards-significant off-normal scenarios, and simulating those off-normal events and generating sensor output; (2) further enhancement of SBS development for the electrorefiner by simulating off-normal events caused by changes in salt concentration and identifying which conditions lead to Pu and Cm not tracking throughout the rest of the system; and (3) new contribution in applying statistical techniques to analyze the signatures gained from these two models to help draw real-time conclusions on anomalous events.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC52-06NA25396
• OSTI ID: 1237220
• Report Number(s): LA--UR-16-20421
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL PROTECTION
ABUNDANCE
ACCOUNTING
DETECTION
ELECTROREFINING
FISSIONABLE MATERIALS
LOSSES
MATERIAL BALANCE
METRICS
MONITORS
PYROCHEMICAL REPROCESSING
RADIOACTIVE WASTE PROCESSING
REAL TIME SYSTEMS
REMEDIAL ACTION
SAFEGUARDS
SALTS
SENSORS
STEADY-STATE CONDITIONS