Standoff enrichment analysis of UF6 cylinders

• Published in: Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment, 2020-02, Vol.954, p.161342, Article 161342
• Main Authors: Canion, B., Jarman, K., McDonald, B., Dreyer, J., Drury, O., Labov, S., Lawson, G., Forrestor, J., Myjak, M., Zalavadia, Z., Nelson, K., Seilhan, B., Pfund, D.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL PROTECTION; Safeguards; UF6 cylinder; Vehicle tracking
• ISSN: 0168-9002; 1872-9576
• DOI: 10.1016/j.nima.2018.10.020

We investigate a new safeguards approach for verification of uranium processing operations via standoff measurement of UF6 cylinder transports entering and leaving a facility. Current safeguards verification at facilities with UF6 cylinders includes attended enrichment measurements of several randomly-selected cylinders using handheld instruments with inspection of all the cylinders typically only once a year. This approach requires significant inspector effort and can only be performed intermittently. Here we explore an unattended, multi-sensor enrichment measurement system that can operate continuously on cylinders in motion. Such an approach could be used to enhance continuity of knowledge by verifying that all shipments entering and leaving a facility are consistent with declared operations. The challenges in developing a standoff enrichment technique include limited statistical significance of the collected data, and interpreting the complex signatures from a shipment of UF6 cylinders. These signatures vary with cylinder properties (e.g. the fuel cycle history, cylinder history, material distribution, material age, etc.) and measurement conditions (e.g. speed and distance of vehicle, detector response, cylinder orientation, attenuation from overpack and vehicle, etc.). In this paper, we demonstrate that we can extract useful enrichment signatures from standoff measurements of UF6 cylinders entering and leaving a facility. Our initial analysis demonstrates a measurable difference in enrichment-related signatures from a cylinder in motion, measured with modest detection efficiency from several meters away. We also demonstrate that the inclusion of vehicle tracking increases the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of our radiation signatures, and decreases uncertainty of parameters needed for enrichment analysis, e.g. distance and velocity.