NUCLEAR MATERIALS MANAGEMENT IN A URANIUM ENRICHMENT FACILITY BASED ON THE SEPARATION NOZZLE PROCESS

Over a foreseeable period of time the contribution made by nuclear power plants to the electricity supply of the Federal Republic of Germany will be made almost exclusive- ly by light water reactors. The fuel required is uranium which must be enriched to appr. 3% U-235. ^ For this purpose the separation nozzle process has been developed at the Karlsruhe Nuclear Research and has been tested on a semi-technical scale with the participation of industry. This paper describes a reference facility based on the sepa- ration nozzle method with an installed separative work capacity of 2OO t USW/a and outlines the basic aspects of a materials management system. It is well known, that a facility of this type, which is exported to Brazil by the Federal Republic of Germany, is safeguarded by IAEA on the basis of INFCIRC/66/ Rev. 2. The materials management system has been designed in such a way as to meet both the requirements of plant manage- ment and those of nuclear materials safeguards.