Basic Safety Research of A Facility Damaged by An Accident

Period: 2003-2004

Customer: Nuclear Safety Research Association of Japan (NSRA)

Research objective: carry out experiments on comprehensive, large-scale and long-term decontamination of the Shelter Object’s contaminated premises; determine surface contamination value, depth of radioactive material penetration into the concrete surfaces.

The following activities were accomplished within the framework of the project:

  • sampling of concrete walls’ cores using portable drilling rig, following dispatch of the samples to a laboratory in the town of Chornobyl for a research;
  • prior to start working with core samples, research of the core samples surfaces using radiometers of MKS and UIM types was performed in order to assess their radiometric parameters (identification of the parameters allowed determining handling techniques and envisaging a required protection);
  • in accordance with the methods described in 8E-RSS instruction, smears were taken from the core samples’ surface; this allowed determining a surface contamination value subject to removal, the value amounted to 3% of the contaminated surfaces’ total activity;
  • the devices to carry out experiments on studying a depth of radioactive material penetration into concrete under the excessive pressure of 0.1 and 0.5 Pa were designed and produced; the pilot samples were subject to hydraulic tests with double excess of maximum operating pressure in autoclaves.

Contact:
Head of Production Basis Development and Project Management Department

Tetiana Kalashnikova  
Тel. +38 04479 2 23 67
Fax +38 04479 2 81 44
sfedorchenko@chornobyl.net

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