Conduct of operations: The foundation of safety -- An overview

This paper discusses issues and approaches dealing with conceptualizing, implementing, and maintaining configuration control commensurate with the conduct of operations approach defined by DOE ORDER 5480.19. Specific topics reviewed will include key elements of assessments to determine the status quo such as assessment criteria, assessment personnel, and assessment scope; administrative programs to maintain the status quo such as organizational definition, responsibilities, interfaces, and priorities; oversight to determine control effectiveness via compliance and performance assessment

Radioactive Waste Disposal Characteristics of Candidate Tokamak Demonstration Reactors

Results from the current physics, materials and blanket R and D programs are combined with physics and engineering design constraints to characterize candidate tokamak demonstration plant (DEMO) designs. Blanket designs based on the principal structural materials, breeding materials and coolants being developed for the DEMO were adapted from the literature. Neutron flux and activation calculations were performed, and several radioactive waste disposal indices were evaluated, for each design. Of the primary low-activation structural materials under development in the US, it appears that vanadium and ferritic steel alloys, and possibly silicon carbide, could lead to DEMO designs which could satisfy realistic low-level waste (LLW) criteria, provided that impurities can be controlled within plausible limits. Allowable LLW concentrations are established for the limiting alloying and impurity elements. All breeding materials and neutron multipliers considered meet the LLW criterion

Organ and Effective Dose Coefficients for Cranial and Caudal Irradiation Geometries: Neutrons

With the introduction of new recommendations by ICRP Publication 103, the methodology for determining the protection quantity, effective dose, has been modified. The modifications include changes to the defined organs and tissues, the associated tissue weighting factors, radiation weighting factors, and the introduction of reference sex-specific computational phantoms (ICRP Publication 110). Computations of equivalent doses in organs and tissues are now performed in both the male and female phantoms and the sex-averaged values used to determine the effective dose. Dose coefficients based on the ICRP 103 recommendations were reported in ICRP Publication 116, the revision of ICRP Publication 74 and ICRU Publication 57. The coefficients were determined for the following irradiation geometries: anterior-posterior (AP), posterior-anterior (PA), right and left lateral (RLAT and LLAT), rotational (ROT), and isotropic (ISO). In this work, the methodology of ICRP Publication 116 was used to compute dose coefficients for neutron irradiation of the body with parallel beams directed upward from below the feet (caudal) and directed downward from above the head (cranial). These geometries may be encountered in the workplace from personnel standing on contaminated surfaces or volumes and from overhead sources. Calculations of organ and tissue absorbed doses for caudal and cranial exposures to neutrons ranging in energy from 10-9 MeV to 10 GeV have been performed using the MCNP6 radiation transport code and the adult reference voxel phantoms of ICRP Publication 110. At lower energies the effective dose per particle fluence for cranial and caudal exposures is less than AP orientations while above about 30 MeV the cranial and caudal values are greater

Organ and Effective Dose Coefficients for Cranial and Caudal Irradiation Geometries: Neutrons

With the introduction of new recommendations by ICRP Publication 103, the methodology for determining the protection quantity, effective dose, has been modified. The modifications include changes to the defined organs and tissues, the associated tissue weighting factors, radiation weighting factors, and the introduction of reference sex-specific computational phantoms (ICRP Publication 110). Computations of equivalent doses in organs and tissues are now performed in both the male and female phantoms and the sex-averaged values used to determine the effective dose. Dose coefficients based on the ICRP 103 recommendations were reported in ICRP Publication 116, the revision of ICRP Publication 74 and ICRU Publication 57. The coefficients were determined for the following irradiation geometries: anterior-posterior (AP), posterior-anterior (PA), right and left lateral (RLAT and LLAT), rotational (ROT), and isotropic (ISO). In this work, the methodology of ICRP Publication 116 was used to compute dose coefficients for neutron irradiation of the body with parallel beams directed upward from below the feet (caudal) and directed downward from above the head (cranial). These geometries may be encountered in the workplace from personnel standing on contaminated surfaces or volumes and from overhead sources. Calculations of organ and tissue absorbed doses for caudal and cranial exposures to neutrons ranging in energy from 10-9 MeV to 10 GeV have been performed using the MCNP6 radiation transport code and the adult reference voxel phantoms of ICRP Publication 110. At lower energies the effective dose per particle fluence for cranial and caudal exposures is less than AP orientations while above about 30 MeV the cranial and caudal values are greater

Calibration of personal dosemeters in terms of the ICRU operational quantities

The International Commission on Radiological Units and Measurements (ICRU) has defined several new operational quantities for radiation protection purposes. The quantities to be used for personal monitoring are defined at depths in the human body. Because these quantities are impossible to measure directly, the ICRU has recommended that personal dosemeters should be calibrated under simplified conditions on an appropriate phantom, such as the ICRU sphere. The US personal dosimetry accreditation programs make use of a 30 {times} 30 {times} 15 cm polymethymethacrylate (PMMA) phantom, therefore it is necessary to relate the response of dosemeters calibrated on this phantom to the ICRU operational quantities. Calculations of the conversion factors to compute dosemeter response in terms of the operational quantities have been performed using the code MCNP. These calculations have also been compared to experimental measurements using thermoluminescent (TLD) detectors