Sandia labs testing vessel-based radiation detectors

Sandia labs testing vessel-based radiation detectors Researchers from Sandia National Laboratories are field testing sensing equipment that may become the front line in detecting radiological devices in containers before they get to U.S. shores.
   Mobile radiation detectors, built at Sandia facilities in California and installed aboard Matson Navigation vessels, are being tested to determine if radiological material can be accurately detected in containers aboard the vessels while in transit between Oakland and Honolulu.
   Researchers hope the detectors provide a viable alternative to land-based detectors in foreign ports. U.S. Congress recently passed legislation that would require 100 percent scanning of cargo containers for radiological materials before they enter the United States. Technology, both deployed and considered in the legislation, is based around radiation detectors installed at foreign ports.
   The current tests are hoping to solve a major problem with all radiation detectors, namely interference from background radiation. The researchers have found that at sea, the level of background radiation is significantly less than at land-based detection sites. This also presents problems, cautioned the researchers. With a reduction in background radiation, false alerts from naturally occurring radiation sources such as manufactured aluminum and fertilizer rise dramatically.
   The field tests were to originally comprise eight runs on vessels operated by the Oakland-based Matson, but the number has been increased at the request of the Department of Homeland Security.
   The Sandia equipment, housed in containers aboard the test vessels, includes a variety of detectors such as high-purity germanium gamma-ray detectors, bonner spheres neutron spectrometers, fission meter multiplicity detectors and muon-neutron correlation detectors.