Regular Article

INSIDER UC2: the BR3 biological shield preliminary results and future work

Belgian Nuclear Research Centre SCK•CEN, Boeretang 200, 2400 Mol, Belgium

^* e-mail: wouter.broeckx@sckcen.be

Received: 15 May 2019
Received in final form: 24 October 2019
Accepted: 6 November 2019
Published online: 30 March 2020

Abstract

Aiming at economical optimization, the characterisation of the biological shield of the Belgian Reactor 3 is one of the three use cases intended to validate the integrated characterization methodology developed within the INSIDER project. Pre-existing data were used to define the sampling design strategy. The additional sampling and analysis program consisted of total gamma measurements at the inner surface of the biological shield (secondary data) and gamma spectrometry measurements on drill core samples (primary data). The newly acquired data is supplemented with the historical available data. The full data set currently consists of a total of 283 secondary and 379 primary data points. Preliminary calculations already provide a clear-cut representation of the three different end-stage classes: unconditional clearance, conditional clearance and radioactive waste. On the short term, the current model will be further refined and completed with proper risk evaluation. On the longer term, we envisage a global uncertainty calculation and sensitivity analysis of the entire process.