Year
1988
Abstract
The basic elements of International Safeguards have long been recognized as (1) Accounting, (2) Destructive Analysis (DA), (3) Non Destructive Assay (NDA), and (4) Containment & Surveillance (C/S) . C/S is commonly referred to as a complementary safeguards measure, intended to maintain continuity of knowledge between inventory intervals. With the emergence of large, automated facilities, and extended dry storage of spent fuel in casks, nuclear material is often very difficult and costly to access for measurements associated with inventory taking. In these cases, and with the limited resources of the IAEA, much more reliance is expected to be placed on C/S. This paper describes the needs to enhance the role of C/S to a level which may permit consideration of reduced measurements without loss of safeguards assurances. Principal topics include recent opinions within the International Safeguards Community regarding the importance of C/S, redundancy of C/S equipment, and the emergence of integrated C/S systems provided by facility operators and the authentication thereof.