A Framework for Evaluating the Effectiveness of Nuclear Safeguards Systems

This paper describes an analytical tool for evaluating the effectiveness of safeguards that protect special nuclear material (SNM). The tool quantifies the effectiveness using several measures, including probabilities and expected times to detect and respond to malevolent attempts against the facility. These measures are computed for a spectrum of threats involving outsiders, insiders, collusion, falsification, and deceit. Overall system effectiveness is judged using performance indices aggregated over all threats. These indices can be used by designers and regulators when comparing costs and benefits of various safeguards. The framework is demonstrated with an example in which we assess vulnerabilities of a safeguards system and identify cost-effective design modifications.