BN-350 unattended safeguards system current status and initial fuel movement data
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
- IAEA
The Unattended and Remote Monitoring (UNARM) system at the BN-350 fast breeder reactor facility in Aktau, Kazakhstan continues to provide safeguards monitoring data as the spent fuel disposition project transitions from wet fuel storage to dry storage casks. Qualitative data from the initial cask loading procedures has been released by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and is presented here for the first time. The BN-350 fast breeder reactor in Aktau, Kazakhstan, operated as a plutonium-producing facility from 1973 W1til 1999. Kazakhstan signed the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) in February 1994, and shortly afterwards the IAEA began safeguarding the reactor facility and its nuclear material. Slnce the cessation of reactor operations ten years ago, the chief proliferation concern has been the spent fuel assemblies stored in the pond on-site. By 2002, all fuel assemblies in wet storage had been repackaged into proliferation-resistant canisters. From the beginning, the IAEA's safeguards campaign at the BN-350 included a constant unattended sensor presence in the form of UNARM which monitors nuclear material activities at the facility in the absence of inspector presence. The UNARM equipment at the BN-350 was designed to be modular and extensible, allowing the system to adapt as the safeguards requirements change. This has been particularly important at the BN-350 due to the prolonged wet storage phase of the project. The primary function of the BN-350 UNARM system is to provide the IAEA with an independent, radiation-centric Containment and Surveillance (C&S) layer in addition to the standard seals and video systems. The UNARM system has provided continuous Continuity of Knowledge (COK) data for the BN-350's nuclear material storage areas in order to ensure the validity of the attended measurements during the lifetime of the project. The first of these attended measurements was characterization of the spent fuel assemblies. This characterization utilized the Spent Fuel Coincidence Counter (SFCC) instrument [ref] to measure neutron multiplicity and calculate Pu mass. These calculated masses were then compared to modeling simulation of the assemblies as well as declarations from the facility in order to baseline the amount of material under IAEA safeguards [ref]. Once the baseline was established, bundles of four or six assemblies were repackaged into proliferati n-resistant canisters. This provided an additional physical barrier to material diversion and provided further protection by choosing assemblies for each canister so that the overall dose rate met self-protection requirements. Each of the canisters were then characterized using a similar technique to the SFCC, but with the Spent Fuel Attribute Monitor (SPAM) instnunent (ref). The data from these measurements were then used to calculate an attribute proportional to the total Pu mass in each canister. This attribute was then compared to the know Pu mass of each assembly in order to verify the accuracy of SPAM. In the event that COK is lost, the SPAM detector remains positioned to reverify Pu content of individual canisters without requiring the canister to be opened.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC52-06NA25396
- OSTI ID:
- 989825
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-09-03682; LA-UR-09-3682; TRN: US1007162
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Institute of Nuclear Materials Management ; July 13, 2009 ; Tucson, AZ
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL PROTECTION
BREEDER REACTORS
CASKS
CONTAINERS
CONTAINMENT
DOSE RATES
DRY STORAGE
FUEL ASSEMBLIES
IAEA
IAEA SAFEGUARDS
KAZAKHSTAN
MONITORING
NEUTRONS
NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY
NUCLEAR MATERIALS MANAGEMENT
PROLIFERATION
REACTOR OPERATION
SAFEGUARDS
SPENT FUELS
STORAGE
WET STORAGE