Assessment of potential risk and radiological impact of accidental release from the Argonaut Reactor

In the early days of nuclear energy in Brazil, a reactor designed at the Argonne National Laboratory, originating the name Argonaut from the combination of the name of the Laboratory with the initials of Nuclear Assembly for University Training, reached criticality at the Institute of Nuclear Engineering. The Argonaut is a water moderated research reactor, which uses uranium enriched to 20% (²³⁵U) with prismatic graphite reflectors, designed to provide a thermal neutron flux up to 1010 n.cm^-2.s^-1 at an operating power of 5 kW. The presence of a nuclear research facility at the campus of Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) still cause concerns about radiological safety of the community around, even though this facility has been securely operating for more than fifty years. Besides, there were questioning about the potential risk of this facility to the IEN' by the Central of Harmonization Unit of Brazil (CGU). Thus, the present work aims to assess the potential risk of radiological accidents. Previously, the potential accidents evolving Argonaut reactor were considered to be the insertion of excess reactivity, catastrophic rearrangement of the core, graphite fire and fuel-handling accident. However, a recent accident scenario reassessment concluded that a severe physical damage of the core after reactor shutdown should be the emergency situation with the greater potential risk among the feasible postulated accidents. According with the shutdown procedure, the water, used as moderator and coolant, drains out of the core and the concrete covers (each weighing 2.5 tons) are routinely removed from the top of reactor using a crane. The damage caused by the failure of the crane dropping the covers on the core would lead to breaking of the aluminum coating and the nuclear fuel plates with their release to the reactor room. This study assesses the radiological impact to workers and members of the public caused by partial inventory release to the atmosphere. Generic gaussian model was used to estimate the relative concentrations of air at ground level through the calculation of dispersion factors derived from wind data. For the dose calculation, the conversion coefficients by inhalation and plume immersion established by the ICRP were used. The results show that potential risk is above 1/10 of the limit of annual dose for workers, while they stay below the limit for members of the public, within a radius greater than 1 km. (author)