The completion of a field trial of safeguards monitoring equipment at a natural uranium conversion plant (NUCP) demonstrated the need for a facility capable of performing full-scale equipment testing under controlled conditions prior to field deployment. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has developed the Uranyl Nitrate Calibration Loop Equipment (UNCLE) facility to reproduce full-scale operating conditions for a purified uranium-bearing aqueous stream exiting the solvent extraction process conducted in an NUCP. UNCLE's design permits the testing of in-line monitoring instruments-whether commercially available or prototype-including mass and volumetric flow meters, spectrophotometers, and radiation detectors. Currently installed at UNCLE is the Endress+Hauser Promass 83F Coriolis meter that was used in the field test, as well as the multitube ~3He neutron detector developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). UNCLE's design specification accommodates various flow rates, solution concentrations, and solution enrichments. The construction of UNCLE was completed in June 2009, with the first-generation design of the LANL neutron detector tests completed in August 2010. A second-generation design neutron detector arrived at ORNL in July 2010 and was installed on a background stand for a one month calibration. The second neutron detector has now been installed in UNCLE and is currently undergoing the same tests as the first detector. The capabilities of the new neutron detector design, in tandem with the Coriolis meter installed at UNCLE, will be presented.
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