MESORAD dose assessment model

MESORAD is a dose assessment code developed for use as an emergency response tool by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the US Department of Energy. The codes combines atmospheric dispersion and dose calculations to make dose estimates for releases containing as many as 50 radionuclides. It evaluates those dose pathways that are likely to be important during and immediately following a release. The pathways included are the internal dose commitment that is due to inhalation of radionuclides and the external dose that is caused by exposure to radionuclides in the air and deposited on the ground. External doses are computed using either the semi-infinite cloud approximation or the finite puff model. The finite puff model as developed to reduce computational time and is an approximation to the point-kernel integration technique found in other dose models. Initialization of MESORAD requires about 5 minutes, and simulation of the first 3 hours of a release can be completed in about an additional 3 minutes on a super-minicomputer