Improvement of evaluation methodology of plutonium for intrinsic feature of proliferation resistance based on its isotopic barrier

The present paper is prepared for the peaceful use of the nuclear energy. It is important to develop the methodology to evaluate the proliferation resistance of nuclear energy systems, and the concept of evaluation function “Attractiveness (ATTR)” has been proposed as a new evaluation function for one of the intrinsic features of proliferation resistance, fissile material characteristics based on its isotopic barriers. In the present paper, the improvement of the function ATTR to evaluate plutonium is examined and performed. The terms of the characteristics of potential explosive energy and the technical difficulty for fission explosive device use in the evaluation function ATTR are both improved to refer their physical nature. The effect of compression on Rossi-alpha is introduced to improve the term of the characteristics of potential explosive energy. A relation between Rossi-alpha and potential explosive energy is also studied theoretically for the improvement of the evaluation function ATTR. Radiation barrier of plutonium is also introduced as a new technical difficulty factor. The improved evaluation function ATTR is applied for the categorizations of plutonium produced in typical reactors.

► We improve the evaluation function “Attractiveness” for Pu proliferation resistance.
► The effect of compression is introduced to the numerator of the evaluation function.
► A relation between Rossi-alpha and explosive energy is studied theoretically.
► Radiation barrier of plutonium in introduced as a new technical difficulty factor.
► We apply the evaluation function to categorize Pu produced in typical reactors.