New Trends in Safeguards Measurement Technology

Safeguards measurement technology in the past has concentrated on improving precision and accuracy, including making available better standards and applying measurements to an ever increasing variety of materials. These will continue to play an important part in the future. However, other forces also will drive the skills of the measurement technologist. Process changes including larger facilities with higher throughputs, more automation of facility operation, and proposed changes in nuclear materials accounting techniques, such as near-real-time accounting, will impact safeguards measurement development. Larger plant throughputs, health and safety, and waste management requirements will influence development of in- or at-line measurement procedures, often to flowing solutions. Both nondestructive assay and conventional analytical methods are being applied to meet these new challenges.