Safeguards Modeling for Advanced Nuclear Facility Design.

Abstract

Future nuclear fuel cycle facilities will see a significant benefit from considering materials accountancy requirements early in the design process. The Material Protection, Accounting, and Control Technologies (MPACT) working group is demonstrating Safeguards and Security by Design (SSBD) for a notional electrochemical reprocessing facility as part of a 2020 Milestone. The idea behind SSBD is to consider regulatory requirements early in the design process to provide more optimized systems and avoid costly retrofits later in the design process. Safeguards modeling, using single analyst tools, allows the designer to efficiently consider materials accountancy approaches that meet regulatory requirements. However, safeguards modeling also allows the facility designer to go beyond current regulations and work toward accountancy designs with rapid response and lower thresholds for detection of anomalies. This type of modeling enables new safeguards approaches and may inform future regulatory changes. The Separation and Safeguards Performance Model (SSPM) has been used for materials accountancy system design and analysis. This paper steps through the process of designing a Material Control and Accountancy (MC&A) system, presents the baseline system design for an electrochemical reprocessing facility, and provides performance metrics from the modeling analysis. The most critical measurements in the electrochemical facility are the spent fuel input, electrorefiner salt, and U/TRU product output measurements. Finally, material loss scenario analysis found that measurement uncertainties (relative standard deviations) for Pu would need to be at 1% (random and systematic error components) or better in order to meet domestic detection goals or as high as 3% in order to meet international detection goals, based on a 100 metric ton per year plant size.