Reviewing the impact of the revised INES Manual on transport activities - Presentation

The International Nuclear Event Scale was developed in 1990 by international experts convened jointly by the IAEA and the OECD/NEA with the aim of communicating the safety significance of events at nuclear installations. The INES has included ‘transport’ in its scope since 1992, however more recent revisions of INES have begun to ‘increasingly’ focus on transport activities and incidents involving sources. The latest manual adopts a hazard rating system (D values) originally intended for incidents where facilities which may be redundant or otherwise have lost control of radioactive sources capable of significant harm. The basis for the D values system is well founded and reflects several ‘real life events’. Typically these cases are a result of radioactive sources being ‘innocently’ found and collected by an individual(s), subsequently taken to their home or workplace, sometimes causing radiation damage to themselves their families and others, through close proximity to the source. For several reasons the reality of a transport event is likely to be quite different, primarily due to the inherent multiple barriers which are required to be established for transport. The author considers the suitability and correlation between ‘D values’ and ‘A values’ is worthy of further study and investigation. The proposed paper investigates the impact of using ‘D values’ over the ‘A values’ hazard rating system normally associated with the transport of radioactive materials in the public domain. The paper also discusses the ‘appropriateness’ and longer term impact of the D value system in assessing and categorizing transport events.