Process Attribute Monitoring Techniques for Gas Centrifuge Enrichment Plant Safeguards

With respect to meeting the International Atomic Energy Agency’s gas centrifuge enrichment plant (GCEP) safeguards objectives, process attribute monitoring techniques have the potential to significantly strengthen safeguards at GCEPs. GCEPs are delicately balanced systems of mathematical precision; consequently, a change anywhere in the system results in changes everywhere in the system. By monitoring GCEP attributes, such as flow rates and uranium isotopic concentrations of the feed, product, and tails streams, systemic changes associated with misuse and diversion are detectable using existing equipment, procedures, and legal authorities.