Border control of nuclear and other radioactive materials

In the second half of 2006, stationary detection systems for nuclear and other radioactive materials were installed at the border crossing of Bregana, Croatia. Yantar 2U, which is the commercial name of the system, is an integrated automatic system capable of detection of nuclear and other radioactive materials prepared for fixed site customs applications (of Russian origin). The installed system contains portal monitors, a camera, communication lines, communication boxes and a server. Two fully functional separate systems have been installed at the Bregana border crossing, one at the truck entrance and another one at the car entrance. In the paper, the operational experience of the installed system is presented. This includes a statistical analysis of the recorded alarms, an evaluation of the procedures for operational staff, and maintenance and typical malfunction experiences, as well as some recommendations for future use of the detection systems. (author)