Intrinsic Sure structures to improvised chemical and explosive devices (IED) – TRISTAN

Protecting critical infrastructure, in particular public spaces such as railway stations, airports, hospitals or high buildings, against terrorist attacks and other antagonistic acts is one of the major challenges of the 21st century. Improving their overall level of security requires a better characterization of the vulnerabilities of these infrastructures. To this challenge, TRISTAN aims at:
• characterizing the threats with a "catalog" of significant scenarios: two families of antagonist acts (explosion and toxic release) will be proposed;
• developing a method for the vulnerability assessment for public areas and underground infrastructures, which can be applied for new installations as well as existings ones;
• developing good practices or codes for the design of new public and undergroung infrastructures, and also existing ones, considering occurrence and consequences of malicious acts (processes and materials, technical systems, provision of architectural and interior design);
• developing good practices or codes for the protection of new and existing infrastructures which will integrate technical measures (detection, sensors…) as well as organisational measures (procedures, emergency plans, evacuation…);


Regarding the explosion phenomenon, which is highly transient, an action on the development of the phenomenon, ie the wave propagation is impossible, has to be achieved thanks to constructive measures. On the opposite, toxic effluent dispersion kinetics is managed by the aerodynamics of the system. Considering this, it is possible to act on the phenomenon to reduce its intensity. Thus, to limit the effects of toxic dispersion, a tool will be developped to facilitate the choice of the better ventilation strategy available using a real time analyze of the situation. These stages will offer operators and specifiers of technical and technological innovative solutions to diminish the effects of acts of malice or terrorism on critical infrastructures. Connexion possibilities between the two studied infrastrutucre will be kept in mind during the project achevement ensuring that proposed measures to be compatible.

For such facilities, specific documentation will be written and two real cases will sit the evidence adduced considering the two types of infrastructure considered in thi projetc. The case studies concision(?) to a "public space", a train station and underground infrastructure, a network station guide.
Operators and authorities will be involved in the project, both as partinaire but also through the steering committee. Three seminars will be organised during the project involving all partners, operators and authorities. These seminars will ensure, at different key stages of the project, a match between needs and achievements.