Radiation safety monitoring instrumentation complex at the USSR nuclear power plants

In the USSR great importance is attached to the arrangement of a centralized radiation safety service, providing control of the measures taken to reduce comprehensively the internal and external irradiation of the operating personnel and the persons attached to the plant, and to decrease the contamination of the plant area and the environment. Central radiation monitoring stations are arranged, to which information concerning the nuclear power plant ''radioecological circuit'' state is supplied. To perform a required continuous radiation safety monitoring, apart from the plant operation and the nuclear power plant information and control complex, it is necessary to have available off-line data display devices located at different control desks, boards and on operating places. A radiation monitoring complex comprises a stationary information and measuring system, surface contamination monitors, personal monitors, apparatus and equipment for sample counting laboratories, as well as instruments designed to adjust and repair the complex devices. The information about the parameters under control is supplied to the computer over the communication lines or by means of a punched tape. The computer is intended to display the information, to determine the nuclear power plant radiation situation criterion, to analyse and classify data of the thermoluminescent dose meters, to analyse a radiation spectrum, measured by a whole-body counter. With the further development and accumulation of the standard technical means the problem of packaging of optimum combinations of units, instruments and devices, will be solved at the stage of the plant designing. (author)