Iran is running a nuclear program where many aspects are not perfectly consistent to the asserted civil use. It has developed and installed a large infrastructure e.g. centrifuge production and large scale uranium enrichment (to 20% U-235), the small Teheran Research Reactor and is constructing a large heavy water research reactor. Furthermore it operates the Russian build nuclear Power Plant in Buschehr. All these activities are not per se non-peaceful. But for instance the amount of uranium enrichment seems to be above the demand of Iran and building a natural uranium fueled, heavy water moderated reactor would give Iran an excellent opportunity to produce weapon-grade plutonium. In addition Iran has not proven very cooperative with the IAEA in the past. A wealth of information about this issue is found in the IAEA reports of the Director General. All but the most recent of these reports have be derestricted and released to the general public. This talk gives an analysis the IAEA reports on Iran and summarizes the situation of the Iranian nuclear program.
In the context of the possible threat of illicit trafficking of radioactive or nuclear material it is of great importance to stop the transport of such material across international borders in order to prevent terrorist groups from facilitating nuclear explosive devices or radiological bombs containing this kind of material. The TACIS (Technical Assistance to the Commonwealth of Independent States) program of the European Commission comprises several projects concerning the enhancement of borders of former Soviet Union states to the European Union (EU) with respect to nuclear security. One of these projects refers to a common project of the European Commission and the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine concerning Ukrainian border stations. The Fraunhofer INT attends to this project as consortium leader. Other projects in that respect refer e.g. to Republic of Belarus and Republic of Armenia. Several Ukrainian border stations to EU states were examined concerning the necessities and options for installing radiation detection equipment for the purpose of monitoring of vehicles and pedestrians crossing the Ukrainian border. For that reason Fraunhofer INT scientists visited some of the Ukrainian border stations. To assure an appropriate selection of equipment several aspects were taken into consideration, e.g. general layout of the station, traffic flow, and detection systems which had already been installed at or near the station. Based on these considerations both the technological needs for the detection of radioactive and nuclear material including a priority list and the associated technical specifications were provided to the contracting entity by the Fraunhofer INT. The next step, which is currently under way, is an invitation to tender addressed to manufacturers of relevant equipment concerning appropriate measuring systems with requirements specifications based upon the Fraunhofer INT's expertise. After the acquisition and installation of the measuring devices at the border stations in question, demonstration exercises of the new detection systems will follow, also with participation of the Fraunhofer INT. Furthermore Fraunhofer INT will be involved in supporting the training of the Ukrainian experts. This project serves as a further step towards a higher degree of security in the nuclear sector at EU borders. The course and the preliminary results of the project will be presented.
Fraunhofer INT has a profound long lasting experience in the assessment of measurement devices for the detection of nuclear and radioactive material. This includes searching and identifying radioactive and nuclear material with hand-held and portable gamma and neutron measuring devices including electrically cooled germanium detectors. The latter were for example investigated concerning the outcome of the implemented analysis routines and the obtained spectra which were examined using different further analysis tools. Due to this long-lasting experience some researchers of the working group have been invited to participate as experts in the Illicit Trafficking Radiation Assessment Program (ITRAP+10). ITRAP+10 is a program initiated by the European Union and the United States to evaluate the performance of available commercial radiation detection equipment against consensus standards. The ITRAP+10 effort accentuated the need to have accredited testing laboratories in the EU to perform testing against the consensus standards in order to have reproducible test results, independent of testing location. Therefore the next step is to enable laboratories to work as such testing locations. Initiated by the EU, this is carried out in ITRAP+10 Phase II in work package 2. Fraunhofer INT has conceived and built a test environment to perform the corresponding dynamic and static test measurements using neutron and gamma sources. The development of the testing facility is part of the present paper. This testing facility can be used to qualify new devices as well as to test already deployed ones. Therefor a reliable comparison between different devices is possible. In the field of military detection equipment, this could be helpful for the procurement of additional components when the presently used version is no longer available or a replacement with new equipment has to be done.
In the frame of the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) the project SCINTILLA (Scintillation Detectors and new Technologies for Nuclear Security) aimed at building an innovative and comprehensive toolbox of devices and best-of-breed technologies for the enhanced detection and identification of difficult to detect radioactive sources and nuclear material. The three year project started in January 2012 and was headed by CEA as project leader. Nine partners from Germany, France, Italy Hungary and the United Kingdom worked on the development of reliable and cost effective radiological and nuclear detection systems, especially on the finding of a reliable replacement for Helium-3, which is the major detection material for today's Radiation Portal Monitors devices (RMPs) for neutron detection and has become hardly available in the European Union.
