Year
2004
Abstract
The Mobile Monitoring System for Container Transport (MMCT), an unattended monitoring system was installed in Rail Car #2 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) in the Ukraine. Sandia National Laboratories, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Aquila Technologies Group developed the MMCT for the International Atomic Energy Agency. The purpose of the system is to support future IAEA inspections at the Chernobyl NPP. This project was intended to design and install an unattended monitoring system using COTS technologies, while minimizing new hardware and software design. Design work mainly involved mechanical packaging of the equipment to survive harsh environmental conditions and to meet Safeguards-accepted requirements. The MMCT consists of radiation monitoring, video surveillance, and GPS location equipment supported by a “smart” power system. All data is collected and transferred via a network and made available for inspectors by an Ethernet connection. The data can be retrieved from a junction box mounted on the rail car or at the future Conditioning Facility. The MMCT system is capable of acquiring Safeguards data continuously for more than one week without recharging the batteries. This paper describes the MMCT system and initial test results obtained during the system installation in February 2003. Since the completion of the installation, the IAEA has recommended some changes be done to the system to enhance the maintainability of the system. These changes have been incorporated into a final documentation package. Introduction The MMCT system installation was completed in February 2003 in Railcar #2 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (NPP). Fig. 1 shows the configuration of the railcar. Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and Chernobyl NPP personnel cooperatively completed the successful installation of the system. The installation took place in the