Quantitative fire risk assessment for a proposed tritium technology facility

A new Tritium Technology Facility has been proposed for the Chalk River Laboratories to support fusion research and the commercial use of tritium. One of the major safety and licensing issues for the new facility raised by the internal Safety Review Committee is the potential hazard fire poses to it. Fire could cause a large release from tritium from the facility's metal tritide storage beds, resulting in conversion of elemental tritium (HT) into oxide tritium (HTO). The radiological hazard of HTO is ∼10,000 times higher than that of HT. Because of the potential significance of fire in the tritium facility, a quantitative fire risk assessment has been conducted for the proposed new facility. The frequency of a large tritium release due to a fire in the Tritium Technology Facility was assessed as being on the order of 10-5 per year, which satisfies the safety goal requirement of the facility