Nuclear Accountability in Dry Vault Storage

Abstract

Veritication of storage by physical inventory checks using optical surveillance and fissile material content checks by Non Destructive Assay (NDA) are difficult to achieve at acceptable costs in many dry storage systems. The Modular Dry Vault Store (MVDS) allows direct optical inspection, NDA survey of individual fuel assemblies and monitoring of the gaseous storage environment for each fuel assembly without significant capital or operating costs. MVDS has been developed for the interim dry storage of LWR fuel but can also be applied to all fuel types, including CANDU and to the storage of vitrified fuel reprocessing wastes.