Year
1985
Abstract
Safekeeping of sensitive components or materials in the civil and military sector (e.g. nuclear material) requires the use of a container with opening and surface area protection, i.e. any unauthorized access to the container contents whether by opening or by damaging the container shell must be recorded. In order to avoid that a variety of such containers with different volumes must be built and kept in store, a modular constructed container has been developed which possesses an optoelectronical opening and surface area protection system. The container is composed of doublewalled aluminium plates in a reference grid of 1 m x 1 m. The surface area of each plate modul is controlled by means of a fibre-optic loop. Containers differing greatly in volume can be easily assembled by putting together as many plates as desired. The opening status as well as the integrity of the entire container surface can be verified at any time in a tamperproof manner. This can be done either on site or with the aid of a computerized remote monitoring system from a remotely located security control room. The prototype of such a container with a volume of 1 m3 has been successfully tested for several months at the Juelich Nuclear Research Center. The design and functioning of the container as well as the use of several containers in conjunction with a computerized remote monitoring system will be described.