BNL ALARA Center's development of a computerized radiological assessment and design system (RADS).

摘要

The US Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Health Physics and Industrial Hygiene sponsored a study of Radiological Engineering Programs at selected DOE contractor facilities. This study was conducted to review, evaluate, and summarize techniques and practices that should be considered in the design phase that reduce dose and the spread of radioactive materials during subsequent construction and operation of DOE radiological facilities. As in a previous study on operational ALARA programs, a variety of good-practice documents will be generated. It is envisioned that these documents will serve as a resource to assist radiological engineers in the process of designing radiological facilities, and in performing radiological safety/ALARA design reviews. This paper presents the features for three good-practice documents and related software applications that are being developed based on the findings of this study. The proposed software called Radiological Assessment and Design System (RADS) will be a menu-driven database and spreadsheet program. It will be designed to provide easy, consistent, and effective implementation of the methodologies described in the three good-practice documents. These documents and the associated RADS software will provide the user with the following three functions: (1) enter dose assessment information and data into computer worksheets and provide printed tables of the results which can then be inserted into safety analysis reports or cost-benefit analyses, (2) perform a wide variety of sorts of radiological design criteria from DOE Orders and produce a checklist of the desired design criteria, and (3) enter cost/benefit data and qualitative rating of attributes for various design alternatives which reduce dose into computer worksheets and provide printed reports of cost-effectiveness results.