Concepts, Methods and Techniques

The team is dedicated to advancing innovative concepts, methods, and technologies that enhance nuclear safeguards, improve inspection practices for nuclear facilities and support nuclear disarmament efforts in a national and international context.

State of the art methods and techniques are developed in cooperation with IAEA, Euratom and external partners to safeguard nuclear facilities such as non-destructive assay techniques and containment and surveillance measures. Moreover, facility specific safeguards approaches including statistical analysis methods, digital twins and processes based on data science are developed and tailored to meet the safeguards requirements throughout the entire nuclear fuel cycle including geological repositories. Beyond safeguards implementation, this work also contributes to nuclear disarmament by strengthening verification capabilities and building international confidence.

• New Safeguards Concepts & Techniques for Spent Fuel Storage Facilities (SFSF)

• Development and enhancement of Safeguards equipment (containment & surveillance (C/S) and non-destructive assay (NDA))

• Investigating muon tomography for safeguarding facilities at the backend of the nuclear fuel cycle:
  MUTOMCA: Muon Tomography for Spent Fuel Casks & Muons for Final Disposal @ Grimsel Test-Site

• Data Science in Nuclear Verification

• Design, evaluation and optimization of inspection/Verification activities and random inspection schemes

• Development of digital twins

• Technological bases and relevant mechanisms of nuclear disarmament verification