Publications

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Next generation nuclear fuel cycle facilities will face strict requirements on security and safeguards of nuclear material. These requirements can result in expensive facilities. The purpose of this project was to investigate how to incorporate safeguards and security into one plant monitoring system early in the design process to take better advantage of all plant process data, to improve confidence in the operation of the plant, and to optimize costs. An existing reprocessing plant materials accountancy model was examined for use in evaluating integration of safeguards (both domestic and international) and security. International safeguards require independent, secure, and authenticated measurements for materials accountability--it may be best to design stand-alone systems in addition to domestic safeguards instrumentation to minimize impact on operations. In some cases, joint-use equipment may be appropriate. Existing domestic materials accountancy instrumentation can be used in conjunction with other monitoring equipment for plant security as well as through the use of material assurance indicators, a new metric for material control that is under development. Future efforts will take the results of this work to demonstrate integration on the reprocessing plant model.

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The US is currently on the brink of a nuclear renaissance that will result in near-term construction of new nuclear power plants. In addition, the Department of Energy’s (DOE) ambitious new Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) program includes facilities for reprocessing spent nuclear fuel and reactors for transmuting safeguards material. The use of nuclear power and material has inherent safety, security, and safeguards (SSS) concerns that can impact the operation of the facilities. Recent concern over terrorist attacks and nuclear proliferation led to an increased emphasis on security and safeguard issues as well as the more traditional safety emphasis. To meet both domestic and international requirements, nuclear facilities include specific SSS measures that are identified and evaluated through the use of detailed analysis techniques. In the past, these individual assessments have not been integrated, which led to inefficient and costly design and operational requirements. This report provides a framework for a new paradigm where safety, operations, security, and safeguards (SOSS) are integrated into the design and operation of a new facility to decrease cost and increase effectiveness. Although the focus of this framework is on new nuclear facilities, most of the concepts could be applied to any new, high-risk facility.

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An eddy-current scanning system is being developed to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to verify the integrity of nuclear material storage containers. Such a system is necessary to detect attempts to remove material from the containers in facilities where continuous surveillance of the containers is not practical. Initial tests have shown that the eddy-current system is also capable of verifying the identity of each container using the electromagnetic signature of its welds. The DOE-3013 containers proposed for use in some US facilities are made of an austenitic stainless steel alloy, which is nonmagnetic in its normal condition. When the material is cold worked by forming or by local stresses experienced in welding, it loses its austenitic grain structure and its magnetic permeability increases. This change in magnetic permeability can be measured using an eddy-current probe specifically designed for this purpose. Initial tests have shown that variations of magnetic permeability and material conductivity in and around welds can be detected, and form a pattern unique to the container. The changes in conductivity that are present around a mechanically inserted plug can also be detected. Further development of the system is currently underway to adapt the system to verifying the integrity and identity of sealable, tamper-indicating enclosures designed to prevent unauthorized access to measurement equipment used to verify international agreements.

The technology developed in this project uses biometric information printed on the document and public key cryptography to ensure that an adversary cannot issue identification documents to unauthorized individuals or alter existing documents to allow their use by unauthorized individuals. This process can be used to produce many types of identification documents with much higher security than any currently in use. The system is demonstrated using a security badge as an example. This project focused on the technologies requiring development in order to make the approach viable with existing badge printing and laminating technologies. By far the most difficult was the image processing required to verify that the picture on the badge had not been altered. Another area that required considerable work was the high density printed data storage required to get sufficient data on the badge for verification of the picture. The image processing process was successfully tested, and recommendations are included to refine the badge system to ensure high reliability. A two dimensional data array suitable for printing the required data on the badge was proposed, but testing of the readability of the array had to be abandoned due to reallocation of the budgeted funds by the LDRD office.

Monitoring agencies often use computer based equipment to control instruments and to collect data at sites that are being monitored under international safeguards or other cooperative monitoring agreements. In order for this data to be used as an independent verification of data supplied by the host at the facility, the software used must be trusted by the monitoring agency. The monitoring party must be sure that the software has not be altered to give results that could lead to erroneous conclusions about nuclear materials inventories or other operating conditions at the site. The host might also want to verify that the software being used is the software that has been previously inspected in order to be assured that only data that is allowed under the agreement is being collected. A description of a method to provide this verification using keyed has functions and how the proposed method overcomes possible vulnerabilities in methods currently in use such as loading the software from trusted disks is presented. The use of public key data authentication for this purpose is also discussed.

Reflective Particle Tags were developed for uniquely identifying individual strategic weapons that would be counted in order to verify arms control treaties. These tags were designed to be secure from copying and transfer even after being lift under the control of a very determined adversary for a number of years. This paper discusses how this technology can be applied in other applications requiring confidence that a piece of equipment, such as a seal or a component of a secure, has not been replaced with a similar item. The hardware and software needed to implement this technology is discussed, and guidelines for the sign of systems that rely on these or similar randomly formed features for security applications are presented. Substitution of identical components is one of the easiest ways to defeat security seals, secure containers, verification instrumentation, and similar equipment. This technology, when properly applied, provides a method to counter this defeat scenario. This paper presents a method for uniquely identifying critical security related equipment. Guidelines for implementing identification systems based on reflective particles or similar random features without compromising their intrinsic security are discussed.