| Development of Low-Level Environmental
Sampling Capabilities for Uranium at Brazilian and Argentine
Laboratories by ABACC
Olga
Mafra Guidicini, 1 Doyle
M. Hembree Jr., 2 Joel
A. Carter, 2 Khris Olsen, 3 Susan
Hayes, 2 and Michael
Whitaker 2
1 ABACC Headquarters, Rio de Janeiro, 2Oak Ridge National
Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and 3Pacific Northwest
National Laboratory, Richland, Washington.
The Brazilian-Argentine Agency for Accounting and Control
of Nuclear Materials (ABACC) with assistance from the U.S.
Department of Energy (DOE) began a program to evaluate environmental
sampling capabilities at laboratories in Argentina and Brazil
in June 1998. The program included staff training conducted
in South America and the United States. Several laboratory
evaluation exercises were also conducted using standard swipe
samples prepared by the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) and a National Institute of Standards & Technology
Standard Reference Material 1547, Peach Leaves. The results
of these exercises demonstrated that several laboratories
were capable of accurately determining the total uranium
and uranium isotopic distribution in the peach leaves. To
build on these successes, another exercise using standard
swipe samples prepared by the IAEA was conducted. A total
of 8 sets of 15 swipe samples were prepared and distributed
to the six ABACC support laboratories and to two of DOE’s
Network of Analytical Laboratories (NWAL) that support IAEA’s
environmental sampling program. Throughout this project,
the ABACC laboratories have shown steady progress in contamination
control and improvements to the accuracy and precision of
their measurements. The results of the latest exercises demonstrate
that ABACC now has support laboratories in both Argentina
and Brazil that have the capability to measure both the amount
and isotopic composition of uranium at levels expected in
typical environmental samples (i.e., sub-microgram quantities).
This presentation will discuss the final results for the
exercise with uranium swipe samples and discuss future activities
to develop measurement capabilities for total and isotopic
plutonium in environmental samples.
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  ABACC
Laboratories Quality Assurance Though Secondary
Standars Exchange Program
Considerations
on Safeguards Approach for Small Centrifuge Enrichment
Facilities
Development
of Low-Level Environmental Sampling Capabilities
For Uranium at Brazilian and Argentine Laboratories
by Abacc
Esarda nda working
group - Results of the Monte Carlo "simple case" benchmark
exercise
Ten
Years of Technical Cooperation Between the DOE and ABACC
Performance Values For Non Destructive Assay (Nda) - Techniques Applied to Safeguards:
The 2002 Evaluation by the Esarda NDA Working Group
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