Friday, August 23, 2013

Top Story

New mobile scanner checks transshipment containers for radiation material

Photo credit: Greg Stihel/UPI
Acceptance testing has been completed on a huge mobile scanner designed to make smuggling radiological materials in shipping containers more difficult, according to scientists at the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque.

The Mobile Radiation Detection and Identification System will allow containers to be scanned as they’re moved from one cargo ship to another, SNL scientists said.

Traditionally, radiation detectors are installed at port entrances and exits, but there is no scan of containers being transferred from one ship to another within a port, said Greg Stihel of Sandia's Systems and Mission Assurance Department.

"In 2006, National Nuclear Security Administration recognized the need to also scan cargo that is taken off a ship and, in a short period of time, put on a second ship," Stihel said.

For more of the UPI.com story: www.upi.com

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