Nuclear Engineering and Technology

Korean Nuclear Society (한국원자력학회)
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Evaluation of dose received by workers while repairing a failed spent resin mixture treatment device

  • Choi, Woo Nyun (Department of Nuclear Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST)) ;
  • Byun, Jaehoon (Department of Nuclear Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST)) ;
  • Kim, Hee Reyoung (Department of Nuclear Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST))
  • Received : 2021.03.09
  • Accepted : 2021.06.06
  • Published : 2022.02.25
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Abstract

Intermediate-level radioactive waste (ILW) is not subject to legal approval for cave disposal in Korea. To solve this problem, a spent resin treatment device that separates 14C-containing resin from zeolite/activated carbon and desorbs 14C through a microwave device has been developed. In this study, we evaluated the radiological safety of the operators performing repair work in the event of a failure in such a device treating 1 ton of spent resin mixture per day. Based on the safety evaluation results, it is possible to formulate a design plan that can ensure the safety of workers while developing a commercialized device. When each component of the resin treatment device can be repaired from the outside, the maximum and minimum allowable repair times are calculated as 263.2 h and 27.7 h for the 14C-detached resin storage tank and zeolite/activated carbon storage tank, respectively. For at least 6 h per quarter, the worker's annual dose limit remains within 50 mSv/year; further, over 5 years, it remained within 100 mSv. At least 6 h of repair time per quarter is considered, under conservative conditions, to verify the radiological safety of the worker during repair work within that time.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning; the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy of the Republic of Korea (grant no. 20191510301110); and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korean government (MSIP: Ministry of Science, ICT, and Future Planning) NRF-2016M2B2B1945082.

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