Development of the Hydra Tamper Indicating Seal and Seal Reader

Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) is developing a new loop seal called the Hydra tamper indicating seal. The Hydra Seal is a single-use loop seal with advanced authentication features that are created during seal application and can be verified in-situ. The Hydra Seal was originally conceived by the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), the United Kingdom’s (U.K.) Atomic Weapon Establishment (AWE) and Milagro Consulting, with most of the development performed by SRNL. The seal has a cubic shape with sides approximately 1.25” long. The external part of the seal is clear plastic, which allows the tamper indicating and authenticating features to be visible to both the monitoring and host parties. As part of the seal development, SRNL is developing a seal reader that assists with seal application and obtains reference and verification images of the seals for authentication and verification. It is envisioned that the Hydra Seal could be used in many applications where a robust low-cost passive seal is required. A vulnerability assessment of the seal design is currently being performed by Argonne National Laboratory and a field test of the seal is currently being performed in the K-Area Material Storage (KAMS) facility at the Savannah River Site (SRS).