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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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INL makes a case for eliminating ALARA and setting higher dose limits
A report just released by Idaho National Laboratory reviews decades of radiation protection standards and research on the health effects of low-dose radiation and recommends that the current U.S. annual occupational dose limit of 5,000 mrem be maintained without applying ALARA—the “as low as reasonably achievable” regulatory concept first introduced in 1971—below that threshold.
Noting that epidemiological studies “have consistently failed to demonstrate statistically significant health effects at doses below 10,000 mrem delivered at low dose rates,” the report also recommends “future consideration of increasing this limit to 10,000 mrem/year with appropriate cumulative-dose constraints.”
Ketan Mittal, Ahti Suo-Anttila, Miles Greiner
Nuclear Technology | Volume 192 | Number 2 | November 2015 | Pages 142-154
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management and Disposal | doi.org/10.13182/NT14-156
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The fire time of concern for a component within a used nuclear fuel transport package is the time after fire ignition when that component reaches its temperature of concern. In this work a legal weight truck package that is designed to transport one used pressurized water reactor fuel assembly is assumed to be in proximity to a 12-m-diameter jet propellant fuel pool fire. Container Analysis Fire Environment (CAFE) simulations are used to predict the fire times of concern for the fuel cladding, seal, lead gamma shield, and liquid neutron shield of the package, for different package locations relative to the fire under no-wind conditions. When the package was centered over the pool, the CAFE-predicted time of concern for the cladding to reach its possible burst rupture temperature (nominally 750°C) was between 11.8 and 13.3 h, depending on the modeling parameter values and mesh refinement. As the package was moved away from the pool center, the cladding time of concern increased, and its in-fire steady-state temperature (reached after being exposed to the fire for a long time) decreased. The cladding did not reach its temperature of concern when the package center was 6 m from the pool center (above the pool edge), even in infinitely long-lasting fires. This type of analysis can be used to determine a “safe distance” between the pool and package centers, beyond which certain components important to safety will not reach their temperature of concern, no matter how long a fire lasts. This will help risk analysts determine which accident scenarios can significantly affect public and environmental safety and those that cannot.
