Bonn 2025 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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AGA: Arbeitsgruppe Physik und Abrüstung

AGA 9: Verification III – Antineutrino Detection

AGA 9.3: Vortrag

Freitag, 14. März 2025, 13:00–13:30, HS HISKP

Simulating the physics of spent nuclear fuel in an interim storage facility: a step towards a digital twin for nuclear safeguards — •Manuel Kreutle and Irmgard Niemeyer — Forschungszentrum Jülich, Institute of Fusion Energy and Nuclear Waste Management (IFN): IFN-2: Nuclear Waste Management

In support of the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, international safeguards are applied to nuclear material and activities in order to prevent and detect misuse of nuclear facilities and diversions of nuclear materials from peaceful purposes. This also holds true for spent nuclear fuel and other nuclear waste during the process of interim storage and, in the future, in deep-geological disposal. To achieve this goal, various technical measures are applied by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and regional safeguards authorities, such as seals, closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras, radiation detectors or laser scanning. These monitoring systems produce large amounts of data and become more and more interconnected and automated. At the same time, digital twin concepts increasingly gain popularity in industry contexts while enabling technologies, e.g. high-performance computing and machine learning, become more easily available. “Multi-physics” simulations are also often mentioned as a key aspect of digital twins.

In this talk, we will present the modelling and simulation aspects of a project that aims to explore the possibilities and limitations of digital twins for safeguards in nuclear waste management. We will discuss safeguards-relevant data traces like neutron and gamma measurements, light detection and ranging (LiDAR), as well as anti-neutrino and muon detection for the use case of containerised spent nuclear fuel in a dry interim storage facility. We will present a Python-centered simulation framework, currently consisting of neutron, gamma and LiDAR simulations and outline how this will be extended to a larger digital twin framework, where real measurement data can be processed and analysed alongside the simulated data, e.g. for experimental design optimisation and anomaly detection.