INTERNATIONAL WORKING GROUP FOR SABOTAGE CONCERNS OF TRANSPORT AND STORAGE CASKS

The International Working Group for Sabotage Concerns of Transport and Storage Casks, IWGSTSC, gathers multiple organizations from different countries (For US party DOE, NRC, and Sandia National Laboratories, for German party GRS and Fraunhofer Institut, for the French party IRSN). The goal of the IWGSTSC is to continue cooperation to improve the analytic capabilities, through information sharing and collaborative research and development plus modeling, to understand the potential adverse public health effects and environmental impacts of radiological sabotage directed at or associated with the transport and storage of civilian nuclear material or other civilian radioactive materials. The Parties may also undertake collaborative research and development in other areas of the physical protection of civilian nuclear materials or other radioactive materials. Since 2000, the International Working Group for Sabotage Concerns of Transport and Storage Casks has conducted an extensive test program for the assessment of the aerosol source term produced in the case of spent fuel transport sabotage by a high energy density device, after having examined several scenarios. The major goal of this program is to produce an accurate estimate of the so called spent fuel ratio in the domain of respirable, aerosol particles produced. All the reports prepared by Sandia National Laboratories have precisely emphasized the important efforts they have made from the beginning and the amount of work already accomplished. In parallel, the IAEA, assisted by technical experts from different countries, has provided a draft document promised to become guidance for the security of radioactive or nuclear materials during transport. The IAEA document contains general guidance addressed to anyone who intends to implement or improve the security of material transports, but the text is, as of today, limited to rather general recommendations. Based on all the knowledge accumulated from past experiments and also based on the work done in Vienna at the IAEA, the IWGSTSC members have decided to work on the development of a method for the evaluation of the vulnerability and the source term. So for doing that, joint projects for the research, development, testing, and evaluation of the consequences of the malevolent actions during transport are being pursued and will be described.