A Robust Infrastructure Design for Gas Centrifuge Enrichment Plant Unattended Online Enrichment Monitoring
- ORNL
An online enrichment monitor (OLEM) is being developed to continuously measure the relative isotopic composition of UF6 in the unit header pipes of a gas centrifuge enrichment plant (GCEP). From a safeguards perspective, OLEM will provide early detection of a facility being misused for production of highly enriched uranium. OLEM may also reduce the number of samples collected for destructive assay and if coupled with load cell monitoring can provide isotope mass balance verification. The OLEM design includes power and network connections for continuous monitoring of the UF6 enrichment and state of health of the instrument. Monitoring the enrichment on all header pipes at a typical GCEP could require OLEM detectors on each of the product, tails, and feed header pipes. If there are eight process units, up to 24 detectors may be required at a modern GCEP. Distant locations, harsh industrial environments, and safeguards continuity of knowledge requirements all place certain demands on the network robustness and power reliability. This paper describes the infrastructure and architecture of an OLEM system based on OLEM collection nodes on the unit header pipes and power and network support nodes for groupings of the collection nodes. A redundant, self-healing communications network, distributed backup power, and a secure communications methodology. Two candidate technologies being considered for secure communications are the Object Linking and Embedding for Process Control Unified Architecture cross-platform, service-oriented architecture model for process control communications and the emerging IAEA Real-time And INtegrated STream-Oriented Remote Monitoring (RAINSTORM) framework to provide the common secure communication infrastructure for remote, unattended monitoring systems. The proposed infrastructure design offers modular, commercial components, plug-and-play extensibility for GCEP deployments, and is intended to meet the guidelines and requirements for unattended and remotely monitored safeguards systems.
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC05-00OR22725
- OSTI ID:
- 1081953
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 53rd Annual INMM, Orlando, FL, USA, 20120715, 20120719
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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