Process Monitoring For Nuclear Safeguards

Process Monitoring has long been used to evaluate industrial processes and operating conditions in nuclear and non-nuclear facilities. In nuclear applications there is a recognized need to demonstrate the safeguards benefits from using advanced process monitoring on spent fuel reprocessing technologies and associated facilities, as a complement to nuclear materials accounting. This can be accomplished by: defining credible diversion pathway scenarios as a sample problem; using advanced sensor and data analysis techniques to illustrate detection capabilities; and formulating 'event detection' methodologies as a means to quantify performance of the safeguards system. Over the past 30 years there have been rapid advances and improvement in the technology associated with monitoring and control of industrial processes. In the context of bulk handling facilities that process nuclear materials, modern technology can provide more timely information on the location and movement of nuclear material to help develop more effective safeguards. For international safeguards, inspection means verification of material balance data as reported by the operator through the State to the international inspectorate agency. This verification recognizes that the State may be in collusion with the operator to hide clandestine activities, potentially during abnormal process conditions with falsification of data to mask the removal. Records provided may show material is accounted for even though a removal occurred. Process monitoring can offer additional fidelity during a wide variety of operating conditions to help verify the declaration or identify possible diversions. The challenge is how to use modern technology for process monitoring and control in a proprietary operating environment subject to safeguards inspectorate or other regulatory oversight. Under the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration's Next Generation Safeguards Initiative, a range of potential safeguards applications for process monitoring are under conceptual development and evaluation. This paper reports on a study of process monitoring for a sample problem involving spent fuel reprocessing with aqueous reprocessing technologies. This includes modeling the processes in the context of a nuclear material diversion scenario and measuring the associated process chemistry. A systems-centric model is applied using actual and simulated plant data, advanced sensors, anomaly detection methods, statistical analysis and data authentication methods, to help illustrate the benefits of process monitoring applications.