A bustling academic reactor creates challenges and opportunities in the area of physical protection

The 250 kW TRIGA research reactor is located at the Atominstitut Vienna, Austria, only a few subway stations from the city centre of Vienna. Its main purpose is the training of university students in the field of nuclear engineering and radiation protection as well as in radiochemistry and neutron- and solid-state physics. The existing facility is visited during a normal academic year by about 300 persons per day falling into seven different categories including fully employed staff, students occasionally visiting a seminar, and IAEA personnel from all over the world. These different groups have to be accounted for daily and are separated into different categories in view of security and physical protection. The primary challenges with respect to physical protection have to do with changing requirements of an ageing TRIGA reactor. Such a university training facility has to make a compromise between strict security rules as is usual in nuclear facilities and easy access to academic premises. Too stringent restrictions would keep away the students, too easy access cannot be allowed due to the amount of nuclear material stored at the facility. Further, when the facility was established between 1959 and 1962, the security standards for physical protection were far below the requirements applied nowadays. It is especially difficult to upgrade existing buildings to today's standards while the normal academic life continues. Another problem is the fact that different building requirements contradict each other. For example, physical protection contradicts in some cases the fire protection standards and the requirement for emergency exists in large auditoriums. Therefore, very cautious implementations have to be performed to balance between the various requirements. During the past 39 years a number of physical, administrative and organisational procedures have been implemented to upgrade the physical protection of the institute. In the late seventies all entrance doors to the reactor hall and radioisotope laboratories were replaced by self-locking, fire-proof doors. The main access to the institute was strictly controlled and the room of the entrance guard was hardened. A closed TV system was installed to survey sensitive areas. In the reactor hall US and IR sensors were installed which are connected together with micro- switches in the access doors to a central security system. The system is activated during nights and week-ends with a direct connection to the nearest police station. Emergency units were established and emergency drills are carried out on a regular basis. Fire and smoke detectors were installed with an automatic alarm to the nearest fire brigade. All cable penetrations in the laboratories and the reactor hall were replaced by fire-proof penetrations. A sensitive radiation detector was installed at the main exit of the institute to monitor any illicit movement of radioactive sources in or out the institute in view of the high number of students moving in or out every day. (author)