The Development and Experience of Safeguards at the Plutonium Fuel Production Facility

A safeguards system was developed for the fully automated plutonium fuel production facility, Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corp. (PNC), Tokyo, Japan. An on-line real-time material accounting system that can provide timely declaration of nuclear material within the facility was adopted. Verification nondestructive assay systems (NDA) combined with an advanced containment and surveillance (ACS) system in a remote mode were developed mainly under the U.S. DOE/PNC cooperation agreement in consultation with the inspection authorities. Conventional material accountancy as well as nearreal- time accountancy (NRTA) are evaluated. It is proven that the unattended-mode safeguards scheme works well in the automated MOX fabrication plant. Further improvements for operator's nuclear material accounting and so on were investigated.