A System of Accountability and Quality Fuel Rod Scanning in a Fuel Fabrication Facility

Fuel rod scanning at General Electric's Nuclear Fuel Fabrication Facility was initiated in 1969 by the installation of a passive rod scanning operation. This operation eventually employed 42 passive rod scanners scanning the entire UC>2 rod output of the Wilmington facility. In early 1970, the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (LASL) fuel rod scanner was introduced into the Wilmington facility as a joint effort of the then USAEC and the General Electric Company. The LASL scanner was designed to assay the fissile content of fuel rods in contrast to the passive scanners which measured the variation of fissile content per unit length of fuel rod. This joint effort demonstrated the feasibility of scanning fuel rods for fissile content within the tolerances required for accountability purposes. Concurrent with the joint effort on the LASL scanner, the General Electric Company developed and built at the Vallecitos Nuclear Center, and installed in the Wilmington facility in 1971, a neutron-activated fuel rod scanning system. Initial operation of the system began in 1972 with the scanner being operated manually. That is, chart recording of fuel rod enrichment and density traces were evaluated manually by scanner operations personnel. Subsequent operation of the scanner has utilized a dedicated on-line computer for data retrieval and processing.