Year
1989
Abstract
This paper reports (i) the extension of the applicability of the simplified contactor inventory estimation model, developed previously for nuclear fuel reprocessing plants with mixersettler contactors [1-4], to reprocessing plants with pulse column contactors; and (ii) the development of a computer program, PUPART, for simulating near-real-time accounting data which includes effects of process variation as well as measurement error. The simplified inventory estimation model estimates the contactor inventories from the measured nuclear material concentrations in the tanks feeding each purification cycle. The remaining factors affecting contactor inventory are accounted for parametrically. Simulations of a plant with a flow sheet like the PNC-Tokai plant using PUPART demonstrates that accounting for the contactor inventory with the simplified contactor inventory models would substantially improve the accuracy of the CUMUF test. The simulations also demonstrated other systematic increases in CUMUF of the order of 1/2 Kg may occur following sudden increases in the plutonium throughput. This occurs because the input increase is more accurately measured than the resulting output which occurs over a much longer time period due to the dispersive action of the process.