• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권10호
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• pp.3604-3613
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• 2022

The Physical Protection System (PPS) plays an important role and must effectively deal with various adversary attacks in nuclear security. In specific single adversary path scenarios, we can calculate the PPS effectiveness by EASI (Estimated Adversary Sequence Interruption) through Probability of Interruption (P_I) calculation. EASI uses a single value of the probability of detection (P_D) and the probability of alarm communications (P_C) in the PPS. In this study, we develop a multi-path analysis code based on EASI to evaluate the effectiveness of PPS. Our quantification method for P_I considers the variability and uncertainty of P_D and P_C value by Monte Carlo simulation. We converted the 2-D scheme of the nuclear facility into an Adversary Sequence Diagram (ASD). We used ASD to find the adversary path with the lowest probability of interruption as the most vulnerable paths (MVP). We examined a hypothetical facility (Hypothetical National Nuclear Research Facility - HNNRF) to confirm our code compared with EASI. The results show that implementing the variability extension can estimate the P_I value and its associated uncertainty. The multi-path analysis code allows the analyst to make it easier to assess PPS with more extensive facilities with more complex adversary paths. However, the variability of the P_D value in each protection element allows a significant decrease in the PI value. The possibility of this decrease needs to be an important concern for PPS designers to determine the P_D value correctly or set a higher standard for PPS performance that remains reliable.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권6호
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• pp.2135-2146
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• 2022

A nuclear energy facility is one of the most critical facilities to be safely protected during and after operation because the physical destruction of its barriers by an external attack could release radioactivity into the environment and can cause harmful effects. The barrier walls of nuclear energy facilities should be sufficiently robust to protect essential facilities from external attack or sabotage. Physical protection system (PPS) vulnerability assessment of a typical small nuclear research reactor was carried out by simulating an external attack with a tri-nitro toluene (TNT) shaped charge and results are presented. The reinforced concrete (RC) barrier wall of the research reactor located at a distance of 50 m from a TNT-shaped charge was the target of external attack. For the purpose of the impact assessment of the RC barrier wall, a finite element method (FEM) is utilized to simulate the destruction condition. The study results showed that a hole-size of diameter 342 mm at the front side and 364 mm at the back side was created on the RC barrier wall as a result of a 143.35 kg TNT-shaped charge. This aperture would be large enough to let at least one person can pass through at a time. For the purpose of the PPS vulnerability assessment, an Estimate of Adversary Sequence Interruption (EASI) model was used, which enabled the determination of most vulnerable path to the target with a probability of interruption equal to 0.43. The study showed that the RC barrier wall is vulnerable to a TNT-shaped charge impact, which could in turn reduce the effectiveness of the PPS.