Increase in role of destructive analysis in a new nuclear era

Kuno, Yusuke

Since many clandestine nuclear activities in the Middle East, the Korean peninsula and other areas of the world have been disclosed during the last 15 years, a series of the counter-measures have been proposed and taken. The Destructive Analysis (DA) for environmental sampling for safeguards (ESS), based on the Additional Protocol to the NPT Safeguards Agreement has played very important role since 1990s. Among the verification tools for the comprehensive Safeguards agreement, DA for nuclear material accountancy and its verification is extremely important for drawing quantitative Safeguards conclusions. Nuclear accountancy and verification based on the DA with a state-of-the-art determination technique providing highest possible measurement accuracy is the fundamental and essential technology, without which Safeguards cannot be concluded. This paper describes the role of DA for both environmental sampling and verification of nuclear material accountancy.