Analysis of criticality accident alarm system coverage in the X-700, X-705, and X-720 facilities at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion plant

Abstract

Additional services for the uranium enrichment cascade process, such as maintenance and decontamination operations, are provided by several ancillary facilities at the PORTS site. These facilities include the X-700 Maintenance Facility, the X-705 Decontamination Facility, and the X-720 Maintenance and Stores Facility. As uranium operations are performed within these facilities, the potential for a criticality accident exists. In the event of a criticality accident within one of these facilities at PORTS, a Criticality Accident Alarm System (CAAS) is in place to detect the criticality accident and sound an alarm. In this report, an analysis was performed to provide verification that the existing CAAS at PORTS provides complete criticality accident coverage in the X-700, X-705, and X-720 facilities. The analysis has determined that the X-705 and X-720 facilities have complete CAAS coverage; the X-700 facility has not been shown to have complete CAAS coverage at this time.