Reporting

Currently, AIMAS can generate the following reports: physical inventory, general ledger, inventory change document, material balance report, and any custom reports added by the facility. As noted, ad hoc reports can also be made in table view of the physical inventory. Microsoft Access provides many powerful reporting tools, which permit a wide range of other reports to be made.

Material Transfers

AIMAS has the capability to handle single or multiple item transfers within an MBA (intra-MBA transfer) or between MBAs (inter-MBA transfer). For a multiple item transfer, the user can either check off which items to transfer or use a select query to define the transfer set. If a transfer is made to a location corresponding to a database table on the same PC, the transfer is performed immediately and the physical inventory and historical data tables are updated. If the transferred is made to an MBA or KMP corresponding to a database on a different PC, then the item information must be transferred to the destination PC by creating an MBA Transfer Disk. AIMAS will prompt the user to insert a floppy diskette into the originating PC and generate the transfer file. The MBA transfer diskette must be inserted into the receiving PC to transfer the records. After the records have been transferred, the MBA transfer diskette must be returned to the originating PC to close out the transaction. Until the transaction is closed, the items are marked IN TRANSIT to indicate that the transfer transaction has not been verified.

AIMAS also has import and export capabilities to transfer records between other (non-AIMAS) computer systems. These capabilities are described in the section External Interface Support below.
 
System Administration Utilities
 
AIMAS provides the system administrator with several features for system configuration management and security. AIMAS has support for users that require different levels of access. The system administrator is a special user that has privileges to create other user accounts and configure the AIMAS systems. Below the system administrator are two classes of users: read/write user (has the ability to view, enter, modify, report, and transfer data), and the read/only user (can only view data and generate reports). The system administrator can also configure the drop-down lists that appear in AIMAS, as well as perform functions previously described during the initial setup.
 
EXTERNAL INTERFACE SUPPORT
 
AIMAS provides a generalized import/export feature to provide an external interface to other applications. The import feature permits users to read data and effect transactions from a file. Imports can be made from character delimited or fixed field-width ASCII files. Exports can be additionally made to a DBF (dBase) file. AIMAS permits the user to create and store templates describing the format of the import/export file. Items that are imported are held in a temporary table and examined by AIMAS for format errors (for example, does a date field contain a valid date?) and may be previewed in a data sheet before committing to the AIMAS database.

Templates can be reused later to simplify the process of performing periodic data imports or exports. For example, this feature could be used to make periodic burn-up adjustments, which are calculated by another computer program. Another common use of the import is to transfer records to AIMAS from another MC&A system due to the receipt of a shipment of items from another facility.

Bar Code Entry

An example of an external application used with AIMAS is a bar code reader. Bar code entry is a fast alternative to keyboard entry and is not susceptible to transcription errors. Modern bar code readers are actually microcomputers, so they can be programmed to prompt users and record data for use with AIMAS.

The bar code reader is programmed to display a menu on its liquid crystal display (LCD). The user selects an option from the menu and the bar code reader prompts the next action until the transaction is complete. In a typical transaction, the user will select a transaction type (new material, internal or external transfer). The item, location, and seal identifiers will be scanned to complete the transaction record. Data entry can be done as single transactions, or an entire room can be inventoried at once. Data is stored in an ASCII format and imported into the AIMAS database.

Burn-up Adjustments

A nuclear reactor operating under IAEA Safeguards is required to report the isotopic content of its fuel. Periodic burn-up calculations provide the means to obtain predicted partially burned and spent fuel isotopics. First, neutron cross sections must be generated in few-group form, accounting for basic fuel design parameters and prior exposure history. The AIMAS database provides necessary information for this step. Second, those cross sections are used in a multidimensional reactor neutronics solution for instantaneous flux and power distributions. Third, a burn-up calculation is made to account for neutron-induced reactions such as fission and capture, which lead to buildup and decay of fission products and transuranics.

The PSU-LEOPARD code has been selected for 4-group cross sections and modified to produce a standard output binary library usable by the neutronics/burn-up code VENTURE-PC. VENTURE-PC has been upgraded by eliminating problem size restrictions, benchmarked for validity, and modified to create output data files for interfacing to AIMAS, which in turn provides the end-of-step fuel isotopic composition and energy production information to AIMAS. Since cross section generation takes such little computation time, the above sequence of calculations are performed at nominally monthly intervals throughout the life of a reactor core loading, thereby obtaining burn-up-dependent cross sections.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

It was recognized early during the MPC&A Assistance Program that Ukrainian participation in the development efforts was needed to ensure success. AIMAS was designed to provide a starting point for joint U.S./Ukraine system development. The initial prototypes were delivered to sites in Ukraine to elicit comments and help direct subsequent effort. As the work continues the Ukrainian MC&A specialists are becoming more involved in customizing AIMAS to the needs of their facilities.

Additional training in automated data processing was an area identified by the MPC&A Assistance Program as valuable to Ukraine. The degree of computer literacy of the Ukrainian MC&A specialists who will be operating the nuclear material accounting systems varies widely. In order to prepare the MC&A specialists to work with a computerized accounting system, DOE is offering courses in automated data processing in Ukraine. These courses range from basic MS Windows operation to programming in MS Access. This training, together with that provided by LANL in MC&A systems and Measurement Statistics, will help prepare Ukrainian specialists for the automated MC&A systems used in the international community.

Ukrainian specialists are working to adapt AIMAS for the Ukrainian environment. Documentation and screens have been translated from English to Russian. The product is then reviewed by U.S. and Ukrainian specialists to insure that the translations are correct and can be understood by MC&A specialists. Ukrainian specialists are also testing and evaluating AIMAS against the needs of the facilities to track nuclear material and to provide reports for the state regulatory agency. Ukrainian and U.S. specialists will work together to produce a production version of the code which can be used by the facilities in routine operation.

AUTHORS

T. Ewing, C. McWilliams, A. Olson,
C. Roche, H. Forsmann, and G. Walters
Argonne National Laboratory
 
R. Chen and Gary Sheppard
Los Alamos National Laboratory
 
R. Ceo and K. Thompson
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
 
George Kuzmycz
U.S. Department of Energy Headquarters