An explicit model-based diagnostic approach in a plutonium nitrate storagefacility

Any movement of special nuclear material must be properly identified and qu antified. An aid has been developed in support of this, which re-constructs the operational history of a storage facility from a limited amount of pla nt information. This re-construction is achieved via a quantitative compute r simulation, where the operational history is represented as a set of even ts. The events are obtained by applying a combination of explicit-model-bas ed reasoning with a simple change detector and with a knowledge-based appro ach. This approach enables alternative possibilities to be hypothesised and quantified. With the end-user in mind; emphasis is placed on the user inte rface. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. AII rights reserved.