High Reliability Safeguards approach to remotely handled nuclear processing facilities: Use of discrete event simulation for material throughput in fuel fabrication

The future, sustainable use of nuclear energy will require transition to advanced nuclear energy systems. Some of these systems will utilize remotely-handled facilities in which batch-type processing will occur in hot cells. These handling procedures, as well as differences in physical and chemical composition of the special nuclear material, create new challenges to safeguardability. The focus area of the High Reliability Safeguards is the continual development of methodologies and approaches which address the safeguardability of the advanced fuel cycle from a design-driven perspective. There is a need to develop models that can quantitatively assess the safeguardability of proposed facility designs. Herein is presented progress made in regards to a first-build, material-throughput model using a discrete event simulation modeling framework for the fuel fabrication system in a pyroprocessing facility. This model takes advantage of the synergy between safeguards, safety, and security when designing a nuclear handling facility. A commercial pyroprocessing facility is used as an example system. The intent of the model is to determine if nuclear materials accounting can potentially serve as a metric for safeguardability in facility designs.