A new inventory tracking method for Mark-V electrorefiner

Abstract

This paper discusses the current practice of assessing the Mark-V electrorefiner inventory and a proposed new way of tracking this inventory. The current practice involves the estimation/calculation of the salt phase mass in the transferred material mass and the calculation of the holdup. The proposed method involves the mass measurement of the transferred materials and the total inventory volume measurement along with the consideration of metallic uranium phase in the inventory. Without estimating the involved salt inventory in the incoming and outgoing material streams, the proposed method yields the salt inventory agreeing with the current mass tracking practice. The estimated holdup in the current mass tracking practice is entirely explained with the introduced metallic uranium phase in the proposed model. The current practice of closing out the special nuclear material inventory is revisited with the insight gained from the proposed model. Suggestions are given to achieve the bounded uncertainty of the inventory estimates with the emerging in situ measurement technique on the molten salt density.