Safety aspects related to decommissioning of nuclear facilities

The main objectives of decommissioning are the protection of workers, people and environment against the radiological and non-radiological hazards resulted from the shut-down of a nuclear facility. The decommissioning of a nuclear facility became a problem of great interest in Romania too because of the development of nuclear industry and especially of the WWR-S Research reactor of the Institute for Physics and Nuclear Engineering , a reactor of Russian design, operated from 1958. The paper presents and evaluate the safety principles related to the decommissioning activity of nuclear facility and the practical problems which must be taken into account to implement these principles. This study also introduces the licensing process for decommissioning applied all over the world and offers some proposals to implement it in Romania. (author). 1 fig.,9 refs