Updated Accident Consequence Analyses for ITER at Cadarache

• Published in: Fusion science and technology Vol. 52; no. 3; pp. 359 - 366
• Main Authors: Taylor, Neill P., Raskob, Wolfgang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis 01.10.2007
• ISSN: 1536-1055; 1943-7641
• DOI: 10.13182/FST07-A1514

Throughout the various phases of the ITER project, extensive safety analyses have been performed to ensure that potential hazards to the public, the environment, and personnel are minimized. This work, done before a location for ITER had been chosen, resulted in a very comprehensive assessment of ITER safety in terms of the impact at a "generic site". By making good use of the favourable safety and environmental characteristics of fusion, a very good outcome was achieved. Now that the Cadarache site, in southern France, has been selected for ITER construction, it is necessary to reanalyze the impact of postulated accidental releases of tritium and activated material, taking into account the specific conditions of the site. These include regulatory requirements on dose limits and on assumptions to be made in analyses, as well as local environmental factors such as weather conditions, population demographics, and local food production and consumption patterns. This paper discusses the impact on the ITER safety case of new dispersion and dose calculations for accidental releases, taking into account these site-specific conditions. These indicate that doses arising from the release masses calculated for the most challenging accident scenario in previous generic-site studies will meet the new dose limits by a very large margin.