Reducing radiation exposure in nuclear power plants by appropriate maintenance policies

Abstract

This paper refers to preventive maintenance policies for liquid waste disposal filters in a nuclear power plant with pressurized water reactor. Up to now mainly technical and work methods have been used to reduce the radiation dose to maintenance personnel. The utilization of specific preventive maintenace policies rather than only replacing the filters when critical values are reached opens up an additional optimization potential. The radiation dose can be substantially reduced by using simple periodical policies. This statement, derived from simulation of preventive maintenance policies, is in fact limited by the restricted availability of empirical data, however, the tendency of the statement remains. It is also shown that methods of operations reserach can be used in the field of maintenance in nuclear power plants to improve working conditions, i.e., minimizing radiation exposure.