Intermediate level waste transport shielding study

In this paper a scoping study is carried out to determine the likely shielding requirements for containers to transport UK operational Intermediate Level Wastes. Each re-usable container will carry four 500-litre drums of immobilized waste. shielding calculations for gamma and neutron radiation are required for 300 waste streams; a scaling technique was developed to reduce the burden of computation. Dose rates at the container surface and at a distance of 2 metres were calculated as a function of container wall thickness, and were also calculated for the unshielded wastes. An example is presented for one waste stream. A histogram summarizing the whole study will enable the optimum numbers of containers of various wall thicknesses to be determined for the UK waste disposal programme