Uncertainty analysis of the calculated radioactivity in liquid effluent released as batch mode from a nuclear power plant

A series of factors such as sampling, pretreatment, measurement, volume estimation which induces uncertainty of the calculated radioactivity in liquid effluent released from a nuclear power plant were analyzed. It is innately impossible to estimate exact error of the calculated radioactivity, since most of the input parameters are determined by a single measurement and true value of the released radioactivity cannot be known. In this paper, a systematic model to calculate uncertainty of the released liquid radioactivity was developed based upon the guidance report published by the ISO in 1993, and the model was applied to a set of hypothetical batch release conditions. As a result, the priority of each input parameter was turned out to be (1) wastewater volume, (2) sample volume, and (3) measured radioactivity of the sample. In addition, probability distribution of the released radioactivity was simulated by Monte Carlo method combining the probability distribution of each input parameter. It was shown that the radioactivity released to the environment, which has been reported as a single value, has a certain form of probability distribution