Study on public exposure risk assessment for dismantling of radioactive components in decommissioning phase of nuclear reactor facilities

Shimada, Taro ; Kabata, Kazuhiko*; Takai, Shizuka ; Takeda, Seiji 

Nuclear regulatory inspections during the decommissioning phase of nuclear power plants need to be conducted based on risk information, but a method for quantitatively evaluating this risk has not been developed. Therefore, in this study, an event tree of accident events that may occur in the decommissioning phase has been developed, and a code DecAssess-R has been developed to evaluate the exposure risk, which is expressed as the product of the exposure dose and probability of occurrence according to the accident sequence for each equipment to be dismantled. In particular, we have taken into account that the amount of mobile radioactivity that may accumulate in HEPA filters and be released all at once during an accident varies temporally and spatially with the progress of dismantling work. The event tree was constructed based on the results of the survey of domestic and international trouble information in the decommissioning phase and similar dismantling and replacement operations. The event frequencies are based on information from general industries, and the event progression probabilities are based on the equipment failure probabilities in the operation phase. The safety functions to be reduced with the progress of decommissioning were taken into account according to the dismantling work schedule. As a result of the exposure risk assessment for dismantling operations of BWRs and PWRs in Japan, the exposure risk for fire events was the largest. In particular, the exposure risk was greater for the dismantling of components in the reactor building by airborne cutting than for the dismantling of reactor internals, which has the greatest radioactivity in underwater dismantling.