Nuclear material production cycle vulnerability analysis. Revision

This paper discusses a method for rapidly and systematically identifying vulnerable equipment in a nuclear material or similar production process and ranking that equipment according to its attractiveness to a malevolent attacker. A multi-step approach was used in the analysis. First, the entire production cycle was modeled as a flow diagram. This flow diagram was analyzed using graph theoretical methods to identify processes in the production cycle and their locations. Models of processes that were judged to be particularly vulnerable based on the cycle analysis then were developed in greater detail to identify equipment in that process that is vulnerable to intentional damage. The information generated by this analysis may be used to devise protective features for critical equipment. The method uses directed graphs, fault trees, and evaluation matrices. Expert knowledge of plant engineers and operators is used to determine the critical equipment and evaluate its attractiveness to potential attackers. The vulnerability of equipment can be ranked and sorted according to any criterion desired and presented in a readily grasped format using matrices