Guide to radiological accident considerations for siting and design of DOE nonreactor nuclear facilities

DOE Office of Nuclear Safety has sponsored preparation of a guidance document to aid field offices and contractors in their analyses of consequences of postulated major accidents. A summary of needs for such guidance was presented at the 4th Environmental Protection Conference in 1982. A guide will soon be issued for trial use after extensive peer review. The guide addresses the requirements of DOE Orders 5480.1A, Chapter V, and 6430.1, including the general requirement that DOE nuclear facilities be sited, designed, and operated in accordance with standards, codes, and guides consistent with those applied to comparable licensed nuclear facilities. The guide includes both philosophical and technical information in the areas of: siting guidelines doses applied to an offsite reference person; consideration also given to an onsite reference person; physical parameters, models, and assumptions to be applied when calculating doses for comparison to siting criteria; and, potential accident consequences other than radiological dose to a reference person which might affect siting and major design features of the facility, such as environmental contamination, population dose, and associated public health effects. Recommendations and/or clarifications are provided where this could be done without adding new requirements. In this regard, the guide is considered a valuable aid to the safety analyst, especially where requirements have been subject to inconsistent interpretation or where analysis methods are in transition, such as use of dose model (ICRP 2 or ICRP 30) or use of probabilistic methods of risk analysis in the siting and design of nuclear facilities