COLLABORATIVE RUSSIAN-US WORK IN NUCLEAR MATERIAL PROTECTION, CONTROL AND ACCOUNTING AT THE INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS AND POWER ENGINEERING. II. EXTENSION TO ADDITIONAL FACILITIES 1

Year
1996
Author(s)
Leslie G. Fishbone - Brookhaven National Laboratory
C.A. Rodriguez - Los Alamos National Laboratory
James E. Stewart - Los Alamos National Laboratory
C. R. Hatcher - Los Alamos National Laboratory
G.A. Sheppard - Los Alamos National Laboratory
Mark Rowland - Livermore National Laboratory
Bradley Weil - Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Kate Bricker - Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
R. Cross - PNNL
D. Ek - SNL
V.V. Kuzin - Institute of Physics and Power Engineering
A. P. Belov - Institute of Physics and Power Engineering
V. Ya Poplavko - Institute of Physics and Power Engineering
V.M. Skorkin - Institute of Physics and Power Engineering
N.I. Stasyuk - Institute of Physics and Power Engineering
Richard C, Baxter - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
John A. Blasy - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Wayne Ruhter - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
John Valente - Brookhaven National Laboratory
Bruce Erkkila - Los Alamos National Laboratory
Bruce W. Smith - Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Abstract
During 1995, collaborative Russian-US nuclear material protection, control, and accounting (MPC&A) tasks at the Institute of Physics and Power Engineering (IPPE) in Obninsk, Russia focused on improving the protection of nuclear materials at the BFS Fast Critical Facility. BFS has tens of thousands of fuel disks containing highly enriched uranium and weapons-grade plutonium that are used to simulate the core configurations of experimental reactors in two critical assemblies. Completed tasks culminated in demonstrations of newly implemented equipment (Russian and US) and methods that enhanced the MPC&A at BFS through computerized accounting, nondestructive inventory verification measurements, personnel identification and access control, physical inventory taking, physical protection, and video surveillance. The collaborative work with US Department of Energy national laboratories is now being extended. In 1996 additional tasks to improve MPC&A have been implemented at BFS, the Technological Laboratory for Fuel Fabrication (TLFF) the Central Storage Facility (CSF), and for the entire site. The TLFF reclads BFS uranium metal fuel disks (process operations and transfers of fissile material). The CSF contains many different types of nuclear material. MPC&A at these additional facilities will be integrated with that at BFS as a prototype site-wide approach. Additional site-wide tasks encompass communications and tamper-indicating devices. Finally, new storage alternatives are being implemented that will consolidate the more attractive nuclear materials in a better-protected “nuclear island.” The work this year represents not just the addition of new facilities and the site-wide approach, but the systemization of the MPC&A elements that are being implemented as a first step and the more comprehensive ones planned.