Carrying out calculations of radiation safety during unloading and disassembly of cores of spent removable parts of reactors with liquid metal coolant of submarines

Abstract

The results of calculations conducted to substantiate radiation safety while handling spent removable sections (SRS) of reactors with a liquid metal coolant (LMC) for nuclear submarines (NS) are presented in the article. The spent removable sections of reactors with liquid metal coolant for nuclear submarines are the sources of intense neutron and gamma radiation. Shielding should ensure the dose rate level for neutrons and gamma radiation which is not exceeding the values allowed for transportation of nuclear materials established by the NP-053-04 therefore it will attenuate emission of neutrons and gamma quanta by several orders of magnitude. A homogeneous model of the reactor core was used for calculations. Sources of neutrons and photons in the spent nuclear fuel (SNF) of the SRS, sources of photons in the reactor control devices and in construction materials (the reactor vessel and grids of fuel rods) have been taken into consideration while conducting the calculations. The computer code MCNP-4B was employed to calculate dose rates for neutrons and photons. In most cases direct calculations of dose rates for neutrons and secondary gamma-quanta using the MCNP-4B code provided acceptable results with admissible methodical errors. For the tasks with sources of gamma quanta direct calculation using the MCNP-4B brought unsatisfactory results due to strong attenuation. Various methods were applied to reduce dispersion: the first one is to assign importance to the cells and the second one is the method of weight windows iteration. Values of dose rates were obtained with acceptable errors. The results of the calculations provided necessary information to conduct operations to unload spent nuclear fuel from the SRS. The results of performed calculations were also used in the design and manufacturing of the shielding.