Radiological assessment in case of an incident at the hot cells clean-up

• Main Authors: Dragolici Cristian A., Zorliu Adrian
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: VINCA Institute of Nuclear Sciences 2014-01-01
• Series: Nuclear Technology and Radiation Protection
• Subjects: hot cell; radiation protection; dose assessment; incident scenario; fire burst
• Online Access: http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/1451-3994/2014/1451-39941402157D.pdf

The clean-up and decontamination of the hot cells will be performed in the second phase of the WWR-S research reactor decommissioning. Identification of possible incidents or accidents is the key element in radiological assessment and prevention. As major incident it was considered a fire burst that occurred during the progress of the clean-up operations. The postulated incident has, as a consequence, thick smoke generation from the burned radioactive material and the dispersion of this material in the environment through the technological ventilation system and the evacuation chimney. From the performed analysis it can be seen that in the case of an incident to the reactor hot cells, an operator engaged in intervention operations could take an effective dose of 5.29 Sv per event, coming from both external and internal exposure. Such an incident, if it happens, would be classified of level 3 on the INES scale.