EVALUATING THE VULNERABILITY AND DETECTION PROBABILITY OF DETECTION MECHANISMS

This paper describes a procedural framework for evaluating the performance of instruments, equipment, watchmen and procedures designed to detect covert adversary actions that could lead to theft of nuclear material or sabotage of nuclear facilities. The evaluation of these detection mechanisms produces figures-of-merit, similar to detection probabilities, that are compiled into a data base used in a total safeguards system performance evaluation. The detection mechanism data base is generated by independently evaluating each mechanism against a defined threat (number of insiders and outsiders) and under defined initial conditions (plant operating state, mechanism operating state, and adversary state). The threat is divided into adversaries with and without access to the mechanism via operation, maintenance or calibration. The evaluation consists of two steps, a vulnerability analysis to identify tampering with or circumventing the mechanism so that it is completely prevented from functioning effectively and a probability analysis that assumes the mechanism is functioning correctly and the adversary is in the \"field-of-view\".