PNNL

Abstract

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors currently perform periodic inspections at uranium enrichment plants to verify UF6 cylinder enrichment declarations. Measurements are typically performed with handheld high-resolution sensors on a sampling of cylinders taken to be representative of the facility’s entire cylinder inventory. These enrichment assay methods interrogate only a small fraction of the total cylinder volume, and are time-consuming and expensive to execute for inspectors. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is developing an unattended measurement system capable of automated enrichment measurements over the full volume of Type 30B and Type 48 cylinders. This Integrated Cylinder Verification System (ICVS) could be located at key measurement points to positively identify each cylinder, measure its mass and enrichment, store the collected data in a secure database, and maintain continuity of knowledge on measured cylinders until IAEA inspector arrival. The focus of this paper is the development of nondestructive assay (NDA) methods that combine “traditional” enrichment signatures (e.g. 185-keV emission from U-235) and more-penetrating “non-traditional” signatures (e.g. high-energy neutron-induced gamma rays spawned primarily from U-234 alpha emission) collected by medium-resolution gamma-ray spectrometers (i.e. sodium iodide or lanthanum bromide). The potential of these NDA methods for the automated assay of feed, tail and product cylinders is explored through MCNP modeling and with field measurements on a cylinder population ranging from 0.2% to 5% in U-235 enrichment.