Generic Assessment of Radiation Exposures to Workers in a Portable Smelter and to the Surrounding Population

摘要

A scenario for operation of a proposed portable smelter has been developed by National Lead Company of Ohio to recycle radioactively contaminated ferrous scrap arising from modifications at nuclear facilities of the Department of Energy. The current generic study complements that work by developing tables of radiation dose conversion factors for estimation of external whole-body doses and 50-year whole-body internal dose commitments to routine workers in the smelter and to the public within 50 miles of the smelter. Applications of the tables to specific cases require site-specific source terms consisting of amounts of radionuclides present in scrap metal, separation efficiency for radionuclides, concentration of contaminated airborne particulates, ingested amount of contaminated material, and amount of metal released through the stack. Equations relating doses to tabular values and these source terms are developed, and hypothetical sample calculations are given. Assumptions, approximations, and limitations of the methods are discussed as well as nonroutine operations and nonradioactive hazards. (ERA citation 04:020449)