Year
1999
Abstract
The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Fissile Mass Flow Monitor (FMFM) was deployed at the Ural Electrochemical Integrated Plant (UEIP) highly enriched human uranium (HEU) blending facility in January and February 1999 at Novouralsk in Russia for the DOE HEU Transparency Program, The FMFM provides unattended monitoring of the fissile mass flow od uranium hexafluoride (UF)6) gas in the process lines of HEU, the low enriched uranium (LEU) blend stock, and the product LEU (P-LEU_ of the blending tee non-intrusively. To do this, uranium-235 (U-235) neutron source placed on each process line. A set of detectors, located downstream of source, measure delayed gamma rays emitted by the resulting fission fragments. The observed delay in time correlated measurement between the source and the detector signal provides the velocity of UF and its amplitude is related to the U-235 content in UF. An on-line computer controls the source modulator, process lines were implemented with minor modifications. The FMFM monitors the HEU blending operation by measuring UF flows in the process blending lines, and the traceability of the HEU flow from the blend point to the P-LEU. The detail operational characteristics of the FMFM software (FM2) and the measurement used are presented.