Technical approaches to calculating different components of the annual effective dose due to release of actinides into air during long-term operation of a BN-type reactor

Abstract

The aspect of ensuring NPP safety has always attracted scrupulous attention. Experience in operating power plants with different reactor types shows that radiation situation in the NPP area, environmental contamination depend very much on the integrity of the fuel cladding – one of the most important protective barriers.In practice, some fuel pins in the core can have certain cladding defects occurring during the normal plant operation, with a BN-type reactor used. Np, Pu, Am, Cm transuranic elements may take special part in contaminating the primary circuit with actinides. Presence of actinides in the process media of the reactor facility may have radiation effect not only on the NPP staff but also on the population living outside the buffer area.There is little information on the problem in scientific publications. Computer codes are mainly oriented to the calculation of the effective doses the population take as a result of release of radionuclides into the air during the first year of NPP operation. Increasing the duration of NPP operation results in significantly complicated calculations. This paper presents a simplified method of calculating the main components of the annual effective dose the population receive due to release of actinides into the air over «n» partial refuelings after reactor startup.