Assessment of atmospheric dispersion stability based on the atmospheric boundary layer monitoring at the Belorussian nuclear power plant site

Abstract

Due to the fact that the potential threat to the health to the public living near nuclear power plants is largely determined by the level of air pollution by radionuclides, identification of the dispersion conditions of pollutants in the atmospheric boundary layer is of great importance in the development of engineering protection means for nuclear facilities. In turn, the engineering protection of nuclear power plants provides for the development of automated radiation monitoring systems and their main components, i. e. atmospheric boundary layer status monitoring systems. When analyzing and predicting the radiation situation in the vicinity of nuclear power plants, the determination of atmospheric dispersion variability parameters over time is essential. This research is aimed at assessing interannual and intra-annual variability of atmospheric dispersion parameters in the Belorussian nuclear power plant siting region based on the atmospheric boundary layer monitoring data. This study has revealed the relative interannual stability of the main average annual atmospheric dispersion characteristics throughout the observation period in 2015-2019. At the same time, the average seasonal values of the atmospheric boundary layer dispersion parameters are characterized by significant fluctuations thereof over the annual course. The feasibility of such monitoring for other potentially hazardous industrial facilities, such as thermal power plants and chemical plants, is also noted.

Assessment of tornado hazard in the nuclear facilities siting areas

“…Tor nado's im pact on haz ard ous in dus trial fa cil i ties can also lead to a re lease of harm ful im pu ri ties into the at mo sphere and their dis per sion in the at mo spheric bound ary layer, for ex am ple, ash from coal-fired ther mal power plants (TPP). The mech a nism of such trans fer is described in suf fi cient de tail in [36,37]. How ever, the short du ra tion of the im pact of the tor nado on TTP and the strong tur bu lence of the at mo sphere in the zone affected by the tor nado would hardly re sult in se ri ous en vi ron men tal con se quences.…”