A Field Evaluation of a Prototype Global Identifier for UF6 Cylinders

The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA), members of the U.S. national laboratories, UF6 industry stakeholders, and international inspectorates have been working together on a concept for a global identifier for UF6 cylinders. This initiative has identified efficiency gains for facility operations, State and/or regional regulation, and inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The global identifier to be affixed to the cylinder would feature a standardized string of alphanumeric characters marked with a large font and a barcode for automated reading. Four years of active engagement among the stakeholders have resulted in a preferred design of the global identifier, the drafting of implementation guidelines for industry, and a set of user requirements for full utilization by the IAEA.Although this project was initiated by the DOE/NNSA to address international non-proliferation concerns, it has become an industry-driven initiative. A key activity leading to the eventual acceptance of the global identifier design is a successful demonstration of ….. When designing the objectives of a field evaluation, the NNSA team worked closely with a World Nuclear Transport Institute (WNTI) Working Group on UF6 Cylinder Identification and staff from the IAEA Department of Safeguards to determine the features that would provide the most benefit. The WNTI Working Group consists predominately of industry members associated with cylinder fabrication, UF6 conversion, UF6 enrichment, fuel fabrication, and cylinder transport. Even though the global identifier would be implemented by industry, the DOE/NNSA team recognized that receiving user requirements from the IAEA was necessary to provide for its full utilization of the global identifier for safeguards purposes which would serve as a catalyst for its eventual implementation.In April of 2016, the DOE/NNSA and IAEA teams conducted a simulated field exercise to demonstrate the key features of the global identifier in an operational setting and to evaluate potential IAEA benefits from its use. For the evaluation, a simulated cylinder raft containing ~50 UF6 cylinders was created at IAEA offices in Vienna, Austria. Three separate IAEA inspection teams conducted an item counting and tag-checking exercise representing three levels of utilization of the global identifier features. The first group of inspectors performed the exercise using their current inspection methods. For the second group, global identifiers were added to the simulated cylinders and the inspectors read the standardized identification information from the global identifier. The third inspector group used barcode readers to read the cylinder identification from the barcode included with the global identifiers. This paper describes the preparation and execution of the simulated field exercise, its results, and the next steps for the Global Cylinder Identifier Project.