January 2010
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2 Citations
Current safeguards approaches used by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at gas centrifuge enrichment plants (GCEPs) need enhancement in order to verify declared low-enriched (LEU) production, detect undeclared LEU production and detect highly enriched uranium (HEU) production with adequate detection probability using nondestructive 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 ²³U enrichment of declared UF containers used in the process of enrichment at GCEPs. In verifying declared LEU production, the inspectors also take samples for off-site destructive assay (DA) which provide accurate data, with 0.1% to 0.5% measurement uncertainty, on the enrichment of the UF feed, tails, and product. However, taking samples of UF for off-site analysis is a much more labor and resource intensive exercise for the operator and inspector. Furthermore, the operator must ship the samples off-site to the IAEA laboratory which delays the timeliness of results and interruptions to the continuity of knowledge (CofK) of the samples during their storage and transit. This paper contains an analysis of possible improvements in unattended and attended NDA systems such as process monitoring and possible on-site analysis of DA samples that could reduce the uncertainty of the inspector's measurements and provide more effective and efficient IAEA GCEPs safeguards. We also introduce examples advanced safeguards systems that could be assembled for unattended operation.