Noble gas atmospheric monitoring for international safeguards at reprocessing plants
The use of environmental sampling is a major component of the improvements of International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards being carried out under Program 93+2. Nonradioactive noble gas isotopic measurements in the effluent stream of large reprocessing facilities may provide useful confirmatory information on the burnup and reactor type of the spent fuel undergoing reprocessing. The authors have taken and analyzed stack samples at an operating facility. The data show clear fission signals. The authors are currently applying a maximum-likelihood estimation procedure to determine the fuel burnup from these data. They anticipate that the general features involved in the table noble gas problem--selection of appropriate signals, measurement of those signals under realistic conditions, and inverse calculation of parameters of interest from the environmental data--will be present in all environmental sampling problems. These methods should therefore be widely applicable.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-36
- OSTI ID:
- 548656
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR--97-2754; CONF-970744--; ON: DE98001016
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Noble gas atmospheric monitoring at reprocessing facilities
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