Detector Networks International, LLC (DNI), which is developing an integrated straddle carrier that could be used at seaports worldwide to scan containers for the presence of radiological materials, has completed its preliminary design review and next month plans on going through the critical design review portion of the program, the company’s chief tells TR2.
The reviews are being done under a recent $23 million contract DNI won from the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for the design and production of up to six of the integrated straddlers, beginning with delivery of the first this fall (TR2, Jan. 7).
Straddle carriers are used at seaports to move and stack cargo containers, sometimes up to four high. The machines straddle the containers while moving and stacking them.
DNI is targeting ports where containers are transshipped, meaning they are offloaded from one vessel, and then loaded onto another ship without leaving the port via a land gate. That cargo doesn’t typically go through a radiation portal monitor before being loaded on a ship for its final destination, which in some cases is the U.S. Using straddlers integrated with radiation scanning equipment would solve that problem.
The radiation detecting straddlers being developed by DNI include a sodium iodide-based instrument for initial radiation detection and high-purity germanium detectors for isotope identification. The sodium iodide detector is based on work DNI has done with its teammate Thermo Fisher Scientific [TMO] on the Advanced Radio Isotope Identification System, which is a derivative of the technology being developed for the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office under the Advanced Spectroscopic Portal program, Louis Guillebaud of DNI says.
DNI is acquiring the germanium detection instruments from AMETEK‘s [AME] ORTEC division and will do the integration on the straddle carriers.
DNI is in discussions with MEI Technologies for help with systems integration although nothing has been finalized here, Guillebaud says.
The first straddler is in fabrication now by Isoloader, which makes straddle carriers and other heavy load machines.
The integrated straddle carrier will also feature optical character recognition technology allowing the electronic record of the container to include information contained from the radiation detecting scans. The carriers will also include Global Positioning Systems supplied by Geodetics that provide increased accuracy, Guillebaud says.
Before the first unit is delivered for a 30 day test at a port in September, DNI plans a round of testing in May to demonstrate the performance of the radiation detection package in a stationary mode, Guillebaud says. The New Mexico-based company will be conducting an “intense campaign of progressively more integrated tests leading to factory acceptance testing and then delivery,” he says.
At one time Guillebaud was contracted by Los Alamos National Laboratory to be the program manager for the first straddle carrier radiation detection system, a problem he has been working to solve for a number of years. The Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration funded that effort just as it is the contract with DNI.
DNI has 40 employees. The company is developing relationships with port terminal operators who would use the integrated straddlers and want to bring additional security to the global supply chain, Guillebaud says. DNI is also looking to team with a larger company that has a global footprint to get the product marketed and distributed and to help meet the non-proliferation objectives of the U.S. government, he says.
The new product will be ready to market come September when it is delivered to PNNL, he says.