A Physical-Model-Based Diagnostic Aid for Safeguarding Nuclear Material in a Liquor Storage Facility

A prototype model-based diagnostic aid has been developed to help with the safeguarding of nuclear material in liquor storage facilities. Its primary purpose is to enhance confidence in the safeguarder's knowledge of the status of the facility and of its on-line instrumentation. As a consequence, this will enable physical inventories to be formed with confidence, when required. The basis behind the aid is outlined by showing how it could be used to diagnose three scenarios that might be observed on a simple storage facility. The implementation is then described briefly. The underlying concepts are generic; the long-term intention is to extend the system to cover all parts of a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant that contain liquid solutions.