The Criticality Safety at Los Alamos National

Transcription

1 Title The Criticality Safety at Los Alamos National Information Resource Center (CSIRC) Laboratory Author(s) Barbara D. Henderson, ESH-6 Roger A. Meade, CIC-10 Norman L. Pruvost, Galaxy Computer Services, Inc. Submitted to: The Sixth International Conference on Nuclear Criticality Versailles, France, September 20-24, 1999 RECEIVED 9W?71999 i LosAlamos NATIONAL LABORATORY Los Alamos National Laborstory, an affirmative actionlequal opfxwtunity empkfyer, is operated by the IJnjvemity Of California for the IJ.S. Depeflment of Energy under contract W-74Q5-ENG-36. By acceptance of this article, the pubkher ra&gnizes that the U.S. Government retajna a nonexclusive, royalty-free license to publish or reproduoe the published fomr of this contribution, or to allow others to do so, for U.S. Government purpasea. me Los Alamos National Laboratory requeststhatthepubliahet identifythkarticleas work~rformedunder theauspiceaofthe U.S.Departmeniof Energy. FormNo. SS6 R5 > ST26Z9 foisl

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4 THE CRITICALITY SAFETY INFORMATION RESOURCE CENTER (CSIRC) AT LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY Barbara D. Henderson Roger A. Meade Norman L. Pruvost Los Alamos Natl. Laboratory Los Alamos Natl. Laboratory Galaxy Computer Services, Inc. P.O. BOX 1663, MS F691 P.O. BOX 1663, MS C W. Cordova Rd., Suite 202 Los Alamos, NM USA Los Alamos, NM USA Santa Fe, NM USA phone: 505/ phone: 505/ phone: 505/ fax: 505/ fax: 505/ fax: 505/ Abstract The Criticality Safety Information Resource Center (CSIRC) at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is a program jointly fimded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in conjunction with the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) Recommendation The goal of CSIRC is to preserve primary criticality stiety documentation from U.S. critical experimental sites and to make this information available for the benefit of the technical community. Progress in archiving criticality safety primary documents at the LANL archives as well as efforts to make this information available to researchers are discussed. The CSIRC project has a natural linkeage to the International Criticality Safety Benchmark Evaluation Project (ICSBEP). This paper raises the possibility that the CSIRC project will evolve in a fashion similar to the ICSBEP. Exploring the implications of linking CSIRC to the international criticality safety community is the motivation for this paper. Background The Criticality Safety Information Resource Center (CSIRC) was established at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in The formal establishment of CSIRC and subsequent finding by theu.s. Department of Energy (DOE) in 1998 and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in 1999 represents the culmination of more than ten years of grass-roots efforts to save the logbooks. The mission of CSIRC is to preserve primary criticality safety documentation from U.S. critical experimental sites supporting nuclear criticality safety and make such information available to current researchers. In

5 ., many, but not all cases, this primary information consists of experimental ists notebooks. Other sources of primary criticality safety information include drawings, photographs, material descriptions, company reports and internal memoranda. In this paper we use the word logbooks to refer to any type of primary criticali~ safety information. Experience has shown that this information is vulnerable to loss, destruction, and degradation. Destruction of such primary data results in a permanent loss to the criticality safety community. We are aware that the logbooks from at least one U.S. critical experiment facility have been lost or discarded.] The initial aim of CSIRC was to acquire the original logbooks from all U.S. critical mass laboratories, archive them in a central location at the LANL Records Center and Archives for professional storage and preservation, and to provide easy accessibility to the documents for researchers. To date, CSIRC has been successful.in securing logbooks from Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site (RFETS). More recently, CSIRC has sought to acquire high-quality digitized copies of the logbooks located at the remaining U.S. critical experiment sites. As word of the co-location of the logbooks spread, those in need of benchmark critical data which was not available in the published sources began to come to LANL to search for such data. With that came the realization that the archived material may contain valuable, previously unreported critical experiment descriptions and measurement results. In some instances, even previously reported journal articles do not contain experiment description in the detail desired for today s benchmark purposes, and it has proven to be practical to return to original logbooks and extract additional valuable information. Within the past few years, reviews of logbooks from RFETS and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) by original experimenters have resulted in the discovering, further documenting, and publishing benchmark quality information through the International Benchmark Evaluation Project (ICSBEP~. A similar example from the LANL material is also referenced: While difficult to quanti~, the value of CSIRC data in an era of ever increasing costs for nuclear research, a lack of facilities in which to perform experiments, and tightening budgets, is substantial. Clearly, research in the archived logbooks is less expensive and faster than performing new critical experiments. Current Efforts Efforts are underway to electronically scan all the logbooks located at LANL as well as those at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and ORNL which have not been sent to Los Alamos. The CSIRC collection, together with the material from LLNL and ORNL, amounts to approximately 100,000 pages. This scanned material will be loaded onto the Los Alamos Nuclear Criticality Safety website and will be available for electronic review by researchers worldwide. CSIRC hopes to press for the declassification of as much of the remaining critical experimental data as possible in order to make that information accessible to researchers, and at the same time to undertake a parallei archiving and scanning effort with classified holdings from U.S. nuclear weapons-related facilities. Another important requirement to make the CSIRC material fully available to researchers is the review and indexing of the scanned information to make it keyword searchable. This will require a Iabor-inten siveeffort by current criticality

6 ... safety practitioners, and has been only minimally attempted to this point. The CSIRC project also encompasses other material of general interest to criticality safety practitioners. Documents such as the references to LA CriticalDimensions of Systems Containing 235U 239Pu and 233U4,LA Nuclear Criticality Safety Guides, and a Los Alamos document currehtly in the process of being written, A Review ofcritica/ity Accidents, along wifi the references to each document, will be scanned and loaded onto the Los Alamos website during the next two years. CSIRC has also undertaken the videotaping of U.S. pioneers in the fields of criticality safety and critical experiments sharing general reminiscences of their work. We have videotapes of one pioneer from RFETS7 and two from LANL*. Such recollections and reflections may become valuable teaching tools and serve as original sources for the practices and operational philosophies that were subsequently codified in the ANS-8 National Consensus Standards. As technology permits, the videotapes will be loaded onto the LANL website. Future Directions The ICSBEP is an example of a pioneering model for international cooperation in the field of criticality safety. The ICSBEP has successfully demonstrated that the review and approval of benchmarkquality experimental data can be accomplished on an international basis. The CSIRC project is one that might naturally expand in a similar way to encompass archiving efforts throughout the worldwide criticality safety community. CSIRC hopes to establish a working relationship with the international community by linking to non-u.s. websites that have information holdings similar to CSIRC, or, alternatively, by importing such information onto the LANL website. We hope that the sharing of information in this way wili be a benefit to the international criticality safety community. We also hope that the accomplishments of the CSIRC project will encourage other countries to begin their own document preservation efforts. Accessing CSIRC General questions regarding the operation of CSIRC and the LANL Nuclear Criticality Safety website may be addressed to the LANL Nuclear Criticality Safety group at 505/ , by fax at 505/ , or by to bdh@kml.gov. The LANL Nuclear Criticality Safety website can be accessed through the following address: Specific questions regarding the archived collection or pertaining to access to the LANL archives may be addressed to LANL archivist, Roger A. Meade, at 505/ , by fax at 505/ , or by to rzxm@kml.gov. U.S. Researchers who hold DOE Q clearances can readily obtain access to the LANL archives. Researchers from the international criticality safety community have access to CSIRC through the Freedom of Information Act. Please contact the LANL archives for a listing of the CSIRC collections

7 as well as the inventory of records contained in those collections. Acknowledgement Los Alamos National Laboratory is operated by the University of California for the United States Department of Energy under Contract W-7405-ENG-36. References 1. E. Duane Clayton (PNNL) and Courtney E. Apperson (Savannah River Site [SRS]), personal communication, March 31, 1997, and subsequent personal communications with SRS staff. 2. Charles D. Harmon II and Roger W. Brewer, Critical Experiments Performed with Nested AsymmetricalSpherical Plutonium Reflected by Oil, International Handbook of Evaluated Criticali~ Safety Benchmark Experiments, PU-MET-FAST-034, March 1999, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Paris, France. 3. R. W. Brewer, Critical Experiments Performed Using Plates of Plutonium-242, HEU, and Plutonium- 239, International Handbook of Evaluated Criticality Safety Benchmark Experiments, SPEC-MET-FAST- 004, September 1998, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development Paris, France. 4. LA MS, Critical Dimensions of Systems 239Pu,and 233U,1986 Revision, I-LC. Paxton and N. L. Pruvost, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, July LA-12808, Nuclear Safety Guide, Norman L. Pruvost and Hugh C. Paxton, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, September LA-XXXX, A Review of Criticali~ Accidents, Thomas P. McLaughlin, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alarnos, New Mexico, This repo~ which is in the final stages of being published, is a revision of DOE/NCT-04, A Review of Criticality Accidents, David R. Smith, 1989, expanded to include descriptions of Russian criticality accidents. 7. Robert E. Rothe, retired RFETS experimentalist. 8. Hugh C. Paxton and David R. Smith, retired LANL experimentalists.