Development of a Safeguards Monitoring System for Special Nuclear Facilities

Two important issues related to nuclear materials safeguards are the continuous monitoring of nuclear processing facilities to verify that undeclared uranium is not processed or enriched and to verify that declared uranium is accounted for. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is tasked wi...

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Main Author: Henkel, James Joseph
Format: Others
Published: Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange 2011
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Online Access:http://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/1081
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spelling ndltd-UTENN-oai-trace.tennessee.edu-utk_graddiss-22462011-12-13T16:06:46Z Development of a Safeguards Monitoring System for Special Nuclear Facilities Henkel, James Joseph Two important issues related to nuclear materials safeguards are the continuous monitoring of nuclear processing facilities to verify that undeclared uranium is not processed or enriched and to verify that declared uranium is accounted for. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is tasked with ensuring special nuclear facilities are operating as declared and that proper material safeguards have been followed. Traditional safeguards measures have relied on IAEA personnel inspecting each facility and verifying material with authenticated instrumentation. In newer facilities most plant instrumentation data are collected electronically and stored in a central computer. Facilities collect this information for a variety of reasons, most notably for process optimization and monitoring. The field of process monitoring has grown significantly over the past decades, and techniques have been developed to detect and identify changes and to improve reliability and safety. Several of these techniques can also be applied to international and domestic safeguards. This dissertation introduces a safeguards monitoring system developed for both a simulated Uranium blend down facility, and a water-processing facility at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. For the simulated facility, a safeguards monitoring system is developed using an Auto-Associative Kernel Regression model, and the effects of incorporating facility specific radiation sensors and preprocessing the data are examined. The best safeguards model was able to detect diversions as small as 1.1%. For the ORNL facility, a load cell monitoring system was developed. This monitoring system provides an inspector with an efficient way to identify undeclared activity and to identify atypical facility operation, included diversions as small as 0.1 kg. The system also provides a foundation for an on-line safeguards monitoring approach where inspectors remotely facility data to draw safeguards conclusion, possibly reducing the needed frequency and duration of a traditional inspection. 2011-08-01 text application/pdf http://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/1081 Doctoral Dissertations Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange nuclear safeguards process monitoring load cell monitoring Nuclear Engineering
collection NDLTD
format Others
sources NDLTD
topic nuclear safeguards
process monitoring
load cell monitoring
Nuclear Engineering
spellingShingle nuclear safeguards
process monitoring
load cell monitoring
Nuclear Engineering
Henkel, James Joseph
Development of a Safeguards Monitoring System for Special Nuclear Facilities
description Two important issues related to nuclear materials safeguards are the continuous monitoring of nuclear processing facilities to verify that undeclared uranium is not processed or enriched and to verify that declared uranium is accounted for. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is tasked with ensuring special nuclear facilities are operating as declared and that proper material safeguards have been followed. Traditional safeguards measures have relied on IAEA personnel inspecting each facility and verifying material with authenticated instrumentation. In newer facilities most plant instrumentation data are collected electronically and stored in a central computer. Facilities collect this information for a variety of reasons, most notably for process optimization and monitoring. The field of process monitoring has grown significantly over the past decades, and techniques have been developed to detect and identify changes and to improve reliability and safety. Several of these techniques can also be applied to international and domestic safeguards. This dissertation introduces a safeguards monitoring system developed for both a simulated Uranium blend down facility, and a water-processing facility at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. For the simulated facility, a safeguards monitoring system is developed using an Auto-Associative Kernel Regression model, and the effects of incorporating facility specific radiation sensors and preprocessing the data are examined. The best safeguards model was able to detect diversions as small as 1.1%. For the ORNL facility, a load cell monitoring system was developed. This monitoring system provides an inspector with an efficient way to identify undeclared activity and to identify atypical facility operation, included diversions as small as 0.1 kg. The system also provides a foundation for an on-line safeguards monitoring approach where inspectors remotely facility data to draw safeguards conclusion, possibly reducing the needed frequency and duration of a traditional inspection.
author Henkel, James Joseph
author_facet Henkel, James Joseph
author_sort Henkel, James Joseph
title Development of a Safeguards Monitoring System for Special Nuclear Facilities
title_short Development of a Safeguards Monitoring System for Special Nuclear Facilities
title_full Development of a Safeguards Monitoring System for Special Nuclear Facilities
title_fullStr Development of a Safeguards Monitoring System for Special Nuclear Facilities
title_full_unstemmed Development of a Safeguards Monitoring System for Special Nuclear Facilities
title_sort development of a safeguards monitoring system for special nuclear facilities
publisher Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange
publishDate 2011
url http://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/1081
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