Radiological safety assessment of Brazilian industrial facilities with electron accelerators

Abstract

Industrial electron accelerators are used by eight installations in Brazil, with a total of 14machines generating electron beams. These facilities are classified into categories I or II,according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) system. In category I areincluded the facilities with an integrally shielded unit with interlocks, where human accessduring operation is not physically possible owing to the configuration of the shielding. Incategory II are included the facilities with a unit housed in a shielded room that is keptinaccessible during operation by an entry control system. Of the 14 acceleratorsoperational in Brazil, 11 belong to category I and three to category II. In thepresent work a methodology for the assessment of the radiological safety of theseaccelerator facilities was developed and applied, mainly on the basis of specificrecommendations from the IAEA. The main safety items were evaluated at thoseeight installations. According to the results obtained here, no inadequacies wereobserved at the three installations in category II, from the radiological safety andradioprotection points of view. Nevertheless, two out of the five installations in categoryI showed several deficiencies. Most of these inadequacies have been correctedduring this work, and the rest are in the course of being corrected.