SRTC CALORIMETRY

During the mis-1980's, a renewed emphasis was placed on special nuclear material accountability by the DOE. Small measurement errors in the accountability of special nuclear materials in the 25 plus years of production were becoming signifigant. Better measurement instrumentation was needed. Savannah River Technology Center's (SRTC) contribution to this effort was the development of improved instrumentation in the form of calorimetry. The firt successoccurred in 1987 with the delivery of a new, innovative prototype calorimeter to SRS's tritium facilities. Calorimetry development has continued since that time and imporovements have been made to this design convept. Mulitiple units hav been designed, fabricated, tested and delievered to operationfacilites with feature variation in regard to precision, measurement well size, and power measurement capability. Novel concepts have also been investigated in an effort to reduce measurement time, farication time, and cost. New control techniques have been tested as well as compltely new calorimeter designs. In general, each of the fevelopment efforts has either rovided direct bennefir through more precise and accurate measurements, which translates to better material accountability, or indirect beefit through knowledge acquisition. This paper will provide and overview of the past ten years of SRTC's calorimetry development program.