Year
1997
Abstract
Straight Line has been developed by Sandia National Laboratories over the past several years to monitor stored fissile materials for safety, security, and accountability applications. The ultimate goal of the project has been threefold: · To provide the right users immediate access to the right sensor information, · to reduce the need for human inspection of the stored materials and the accompanying risks and expense, and · to provide a comprehensive and approvable inventory method for international accountability without the need for frequent intrusion into storage areas. Working towards these goals, Straight Line has developed a system that currently consists of three demonstration sites interlinked via the Internet. These sites include upgrades to the storage magazine previously installed at Pantex, upgrades to the site at Cooperative Monitoring Center (CMC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and a new demonstration site at the Chemical and Radiation Detection Laboratory (CRDL) at Sandia National Laboratories/California. New features added this past year include an encrypted radiation dose rate sensor, improvements to the basic electronic sensor, the ability to field-program the sensors, upgraded magazine data unit hardware and software, and upgraded user interfaces. This paper discusses the basic operation of this system on a component level. Unless otherwise noted, the information in this paper is specific to the Storage Monitoring Systems installation at the Pantex Plant.