Long-term radiation impact of conditionally cleared radioactive material from decommissioning of nuclear power plants reused in building industry

Abstract

In the process of decommissioning of nuclear facilities there is produced a lot of material with various levels of radioactivity. Large portion of the material could be conditionally cleared as an alternative to the treatment and disposal of this material as radioactive waste. Idea of conditional clearance is to facilitate the reuse of material with the radioactivity slightly above legislation limits of specific activity valid for unconditional clearance into the environment keeping dose criteria for the public. The radiation impact of cleared materials can be divided into short-term and long-term impact. Long-term radiation impact consists of inhalation or ingestion of radionuclides and external irradiation from the contaminated soil or dust. Transport of radionuclides from the conditionally cleared materials through the subsoil or waterways and subsequent intake of these radionuclides by humans was simulated and calculated using GOLDSIM software. Calculated models represent situations and geometries of the most probable future applications of conditionally cleared materials in building constructions. Output parameters are the clearance levels of radionuclides in conditionally cleared materials relevant to the legislation dose criteria (10 or 50 µSv/year) -the maximum clearable specific activity of radionuclides in the material from the dose point of view.

Assessment of potential options for conditional reuse of materials from nuclear installation decommissioning

“…The results for some of them could be found also in other papers presented in the ICRS-12 conference [7,10,11].…”