IAEA Safeguards Equipment Survey and Assessment: An Example of Fruitful Operations/Support Co-operation

Safeguards equipment and instrumental techniques are essential components of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards inspection and verification activities. Owing to the increasing quantities of nuclear material under IAEA safeguards, to the more complicated forms and composition in which nuclear material is being increasingly used and to expanding fuel cycle activities resulting in new safeguards requirements and a need to increase the effectiveness of IAEA safeguards, substantial budgetary resources for the procurement, maintenance and replacement of safeguards equipment will be required during the coming years. New and better safeguards equipment developed with the support of Member States is becoming available commercially. Taking into account these factors and the growing number of inspectors, a comprehensive survey and assessment of IAEA safeguards equipment requirements for 1983 to 1988 was recently carried out in the IAEA Department of Safeguards. A preliminary overview of the survey and assessment was presented in the Board of Governors document GOV/INF/429 (February 1983) and a somewhat more detailed summary is presented here. Safeguards equipment requirements as indicated by the comprehensive survey have been summarized in two ways: 1) by Safeguards Operations Region and 2) by facility type. The survey clearly shows a strong field requirement for reliable, simple-to operate instrumentation that provides the inspector with direct in-situ measurement and verification results (e.g., assay results in grams, and direct reading of enrichment or isotopic fractions). Instruments having such automated measurement capability are now becoming commercially available and the anticipated growing use of microprocessor-based gamma ray and neutron coincidence counting nondestructive assay (NBA) instruments, as well *0n leave from Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, U.S.A. as advanced C&S equipment, is readily apparent from the survey projections. Throughout the survey, the entire process of input data gathering, collation and assessment involved extensive discussion and interactions with all IAEA Safeguards Operations Divisions/Regions as well as those concerned in the Division of Development and elsewhere throughout the Department of Safeguards. The periodic review and assessment of equipment usage, effectiveness and requirements in the future will continue to provide an excellent opportunity for exchange of new knowledge and field experience among the various Safeguards Operations Divisions, as well as technical consultation, cross-fertilization of ideas and fruitful co-operation between operations and support staff at all levels.