Near Real Time Materials Accountancy at BNFL: Past, Present and Future

Materials Accountancy (NRTMA) is vastly superior to conventional accountancy in the following respects: • more timely detection of abrupt losses; • much higher probability of detection of abrupt losses or gross accountancy errors; • much greater control of protracted losses, biases and systematic measurement errors. It seems an appropriate time to reflect on how these conclusions were reached and what implications they may have for the future of NRTMA. This paper is not statistical in the technical sense; it considers the direct practical applications of this work in the operation of any specified plant.