Main Parameters Influencing The Level Of Labile Contamination And The Removal Factor

Abstract

Several nuclear facilities are currently dismantling in France, namely on CEA's and EDF's sites. The whole decommissioning and dismantling, cutting operations and nuclear waste management can significantly affect worker risks. In this context, this work aims to better assess the internal exposure risks for operations where removal factor and airborne release factor play an essential part in the uncertainties. For that purpose, developing a new method for assessing the risk of internal exposure is necessary to optimize the choice of Personal Protective Equipment during nuclear dismantling. Based on a bibliographic study and feedback, we identified most of the forces and parameters that influence labile contamination removal and particles resuspension. Their high number forced us to highlight the most relevant ones regarding data from the bibliography and worksite reality. Thus, the role of the drying temperature, relative humidity, roughness of the contaminated surface and the swiping pressure were particularly studied on the assessment of the labile contamination and the removal factor. For that, we performed successive wiping operations with cotton wipes on surface on which a simulated labile contamination was deposited to estimate the influence of different parameters on the total labile contamination and the removal factor. Thus, we have highlighted the high influence of roughness on these latter compare to the other identified parameters.