Book Description

In accordance with the definition of a Material Balance Area (MBA) as a well-defined geographical area involving an Integral operation, the building housing the BFS-1 and BFS-1 critical facilities is considered to consist of one MBA. The BFS materials are in the form of small disks clad in stainless steel and each disk with nuclear material has its own serial number. Fissile material disks in the BFS MBA can be located at three key monitoring points: BFS-1 facility, BFS-2 facility and main storage of BFS fissile materials (storage 1). When used in the BFS-1 or BFS-2 critical facilities, the fissile material disks are loaded in tubes (fuel rods) forming critical assembly cores. The following specific features of the BFS MBA should be taken into account for the purpose of computerized accounting of nuclear material: (1) very large number of nuclear material items (about 70,000 fissile material items); and (2) periodically very intensive shuffling of nuclear material items. Requirements for the computerized system are determined by basic objectives of nuclear material accounting: (1) providing accurate information on the identity and location of all items in the BFS material balance area; (2) providing accurate information on location and identity of tamper-indicating devices; (3) tracking nuclear material inventories; (4) issuing periodic reports; (5) assisting with the detection of material gains or losses; (6) providing a history of nuclear material transactions; (7) preventing unauthorized access to the system and data falsification. In August 1995, the prototype computerized accounting system was installed on the BFS facility for trial operation. Information on two nuclear material types was entered into the data base: weapon-grade plutonium metal and 36% enriched uranium dioxide. The total number of the weapon-grade plutonium disks is 12,690 and the total number of the uranium dioxide disks is 1,700.