Designing new nuclear chemical processing plants for safeguards accountability

New nuclear chemical processing plants will be required to develop material accountability control limits from measurement error propagation analysis rather than historical inventory difference data as performed in the past. In order for measurement error propagation methods to be viable alternatives, process designers must ensure that two nondimensional accountability parameters are maintained below 0.1. These parameters are ratios between the material holdup increase and the variance in inventory difference measurement uncertainty. Measurement uncertainty data for use in error propagation analysis is generally available in the open literature or readily derived from instrument calibration data. However, nuclear material holdup data has not been adequately developed for use in the material accountability design process. Long duration development testing on isolated unit operations is required to generate this necessary information.