DETERMINING THE WEIGHT VALUE OF SAFEGUARDABILITY
EVALUATION FACTORS USING THE ANALYTIC HIERARCHY
PROCESS (AHP) METHODOLOGY

New nuclear facilities, such as small modular reactors and dry storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel, are expected to be built in the Republic of Korea (ROK). To implement safeguards in new nuclear facilities more effectively, the concept of “Safeguards-by-Design” (SBD) has been proposed to integrate nuclear safeguards and safety provisions in the design of nuclear facilities in the earliest stages. To address this, the Korea Institute of Nuclear Non-proliferation and Control has researched establishing domestic nuclear regulations to consider SBD in new nuclear facilities. In a previous study, two rounds of a Delphi survey were conducted to assess the validity of the safeguardability evaluation parameters. Twenty-six experts on safeguards in the ROK confirmed 30 safeguardability evaluation parameters. In this study, the weight value of safeguardability evaluation parameters was calculated using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) methodology. The AHP technique is "an accurate approach to quantifying the weights of decision criteria. Individual experts’ opinions are utilized to estimate the relative magnitudes of factors through pair-wise comparisons." In the result, experts judged that “nuclear materials accountancy” is approximately twice as important as “design information verification” and “containment and surveillance” Among the sub-factors of “design information verification”, “completed design information” “access of inspectors to essential equipment for nuclear facilities” and “access of inspectors to nuclear facilities during construction or operation” were evaluated as more important than other factors. This result can be used in future studies to evaluate the safeguardability of nuclear facilities. In other words, when evaluating the ease of safeguards measures of the International Atomic Energy Agency, qualitative factors can be quantitatively evaluated if the weight value of safeguardability factors, which is the result of this study, is used. The weight value of safeguardability factors derived can be used to develop a facility safeguardability analysis program in which the SBD can be checked and reviewed for new nuclear facilities in the ROK.