Estimation of Emergency Planning Zones (EPZs) for Nuclear Research Reactor Using Plume Dispersion Code

Abstract

After Fukushima nuclear power plant accident, a demand for re-evaluation of emergency planning zones for nuclear facilities has emerged to ensure that in case of nuclear accident, the population, the environment and the property should lie in the safe zone. Emergency planning zones (EPZs) around a facility are the designated areas where protective measures are adopted according to predefined emergency plan for different emergency situations. Deterministic and probabilistic approaches have been adopted to assess and design emergency planning zones for design base accidents (DBAs), however, after Fukushima nuclear power plant accident, multi-layer failure of the plant systems could not be ruled out. To estimate the dispersion of radioactive material and respective radiation doses received by the affected people, different techniques are used including on-field measurements through survey meters, on-line monitoring network and state-of the art codes for plume dispersion modeling. In this study plume dispersion modeling and estimation of emergency planning zones has been carried out using plume dispersion code for hypothetical accident scenarios at a 10MW nuclear research reactor. Different accident scenarios were considered with different release characteristic and environmental conditions to study the affect of the parameters including release height, heat content, release time, atmospheric stability. The simulation results have been analyzed to assess the existing emergency planning zones of nuclear research reactor.