The Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear (CBRN) staff within CFI have broad knowledge across CBRN threat, effects, resourcing, response, and recovery. For this reason, a large portion of CBRN activity across the university is either co-ordinated from within CFI or can be accessed via it. There is deep expertise in CFI in CBRN terrorism and risk, deep knowledge across the pillars of CBRN capability, and connection to the C-IED space. Activities have ranged from supporting national procurements to supporting vulnerability assessments against CBRN attack.
Key physical assets include varied radiological sources, radiation detectors and versatile space within which to operate and experiment. CFI’s technical expertise benefits from the historical operation of accelerators and irradiation facilities. CFI’s Radiological Nuclear technical capability mirrors the Chemical Biological capability within the Centre for Defence Chemistry, with whom we cooperate very closely.
Radiological sources and detection
CFI hosts a range of strong and weak sources emitting alpha, beta gamma and neutron radiation. It has a range of EPDs, survey, monitoring and spectroscopy equipment, and a gamma imager.
Modelling radiological transport and detection
The group has employed various radiation transport models to understand shielding and atmospheric transport. This capacity has also been used to design X-ray imaging systems. The group has also developed (ongoing) a model to predict the efficacy of swarm/networked mobile sensor solutions.
