Analysis of the effectiveness of gas centrifuge enrichment plants advanced safeguards

Current safeguards approaches used by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at gas centrifuge enrichment plants (GCEPs) need enhancement in order to verify declared low-enriched uranium (LEU) production, detect undeclared LEU production and detect highly enriched uranium (HEU) production with adequate detection probability using non destructive assay (NDA) techniques. At present inspectors use attended systems, systems needing the presence of an inspector for operation, during inspections to verify the mass and 235U enrichment of declared UF6 containers used in the process of enrichment at GCEPs. This paper contains an analysis of possible improvements in unattended and attended NDA systems including process monitoring and possible on-site destructive assay (DA) of samples that could reduce the uncertainty of the inspector's measurements. These improvements could reduce the difference between the operator's and inspector's measurements providing more effective and efficient IAEA GCEPs safeguards. We also explore how a few advanced safeguards systems could be assembled for unattended operation. The analysis will focus on how unannounced inspections (UIs), and the concept of information-driven inspections (IDS) can affect probability of detection of the diversion of nuclear materials when coupled to new GCEPs safeguards regimes augmented with unattended systems.