EVALUATION OF THE URANIUM ENRICHMENT MEASUREMENTS PERFORMED AT THE II WORKSHOP IN THE FABRICA DE ELEMENTOS COMBUSTIVEIS – FEC / INB

An evaluation was made of the NDA uranium enrichment measurements performed by the inspectors during the 2nd Workshop for the Training of Inspectors on Physical Inventory Verification - PIV. This workshop, organized within the frame of the Action Sheet 3, of the DOE/ABACC Safeguards Agreement, took place at the Fábrica de Elementos Combustíveis - FEC in Resende, Brazil on 16-20 June, 1997, with the cooperation of Los Alamos National Laboratory - DOE, Industrias Nucleares do Brasil - INB, and Comissão Nacional de Energia Nuclear - CNEN. The workshop simulated the activities usually carried out during a safeguards PIV. Brazilian and Argentine inspectors participated of this exercise, split in 3 independent groups, each performing all the activities at 3 working stations: Pellets, Scrap and Fuel Rods. At each of these stations, besides other activities, the inspectors performed uranium enrichment verification, by measuring the items using NDA techniques. Beyond its main purpose, the workshop has been utilized to evaluate some approaches and procedures for enrichment determination, under real inspection conditions. Special emphasis has been given to the analysis of the data obtained at the Pellets station, in order to evaluate the feasibility of replacing the taking of samples for destructive analysis by a nondestructive analysis performed in situ, by the inspectors. The obtained results were used to improve the ABACC historical NDA data base, and to evaluate the feasibility of replacing the taking of samples by non-destructive measurements.