Study on estimation of radioactivity concentration of biological shielding at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (Contract Research)

Collaborative Laboratories for Advanced Decommissioning Science; NAIS*

For planning radioactive waste management at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station of the Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Incorporated, estimation of radioactivity is essential with considering both contamination from the damaged fuel and activation during reactor operation; with regard to the latter, biological shielding is an important object due to its large amount. It is difficult to conduct field investigations or collect analysis samples at the site, hence the radioactivity should be estimated by calculative analysis with considering the actual conditions of the constituent materials, especially for activation of minor components and water, which affects the neutron flux. Besides it is important to assess the uncertainties involved in the calculation analysis. In this study, the trace composition and water content in the biological shielding concrete were investigated, and a three-dimensional computational model was constructed for the Unit 2 reactor building at the site to estimate the radioactivity concentration. In order to evaluate the uncertainty in the results, the factors contributing to the uncertainty were extracted and the uncertainty resulted from those factors on the calculation results, i.e. the influence of the diversity of the calculation model the parameters used in the calculation model. Based on the results, the dominant factors contributing to the uncertainty were extracted, and the handling as radioactive waste was discussed.