AN INVESTIGATION INTO RADIATION LEVELS ASSOCIATED WITH DISMANTLING THE KOREA RESEARCH REACTOR

Abstract

We confirmed that the dismantling of two research reactors with thermal power of 2MW th and 100kW th , respectively, reveals no significant difference between the radiation levels of the research reactor site and the surrounding environment far away from it, from the radiation level aspect. Radiation dose and radioactivity were measured at monitoring points around the research reactor site of the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) in Seoul and comparison points 0.5 km to 3.3 km from the site. To grasp trends in the radiation levels during dismantling from the end of 2002 to the end of 2007, the gamma radiation dose rate, the accumulated dose, and the radioactivity of the strontium, tritium, and gamma isotopes were statistically treated and estimated. The averages of these items between the two groups, the research reactor site and comparison points, were assessed by applying a T-test with a significance level of 0.05. P-values found by using the T-test were from 0.12 to 0.83 where the values were much higher than the significance level. As a result, no difference was observed between the radiation levels at the research reactor site and at the comparison points by this T-test. This study showed that dismantling activity of the Korea Research Reactor of the Seoul site did not expose the public or the environment to harmful levels of radiation.