Prototype Development and Field Trials under the Next Generation Safeguards Initiative Spent Fuel Non-Destructive Assay Project

The Next Generation Safeguards Initiative Spent Fuel (NGSI-SF) Project started in 2009 with the general purpose of strengthening the technical toolkit of safeguard inspectors and the focused goal of measuring the Pu mass in spent fuel assemblies. Subsequently the safeguards goals of the projects have evolved to include verifying the correctness and completeness of the declaration. The first two years of the NGSI-SF Project research primarily involved Monte Carlo simulations used to quantify the expected non-destructive assay (NDA) signals from 14 different NDA techniques. In 2011, advised by an external review committee, the research focus evolved to the fabrication and fielding of a down-selected set of instruments as well as quantifying the expected performance of integrated systems. In 2013, we will start deploying NDA systems in collaboration with colleagues in Japan, the Republic of Korea and Sweden. This paper will describe the development of prototypes and the planned field trials of each deployed system. Additionally the general evolution in the overall NGSI-SF research project will be described including description of, and motivation for, the six NGSI-SF assembly libraries, and noteworthy technical highlights.