PREDICTION OF THE TRITIUM CONCENTRATION IN THE SOIL WATER AFTER THE OPERATION OF WOLSONG TRITIUM REMOVAL FACILITY

• Published in: Nuclear engineering and technology Vol. 37; no. 4; pp. 385 - 390
• Main Authors: CHOI HEUI-JOO, LEE HANSOO, SUH KYUNG SUK, KANG HEE SUK
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Korean
• Published: 2005
• Subjects: Tritium Removal Facility; Compartment; Model; Tritium; Environment; Deposition
• ISSN: 1738-5733; 2234-358X

The effect of the Wolsong Tritium Removal Facility on the change of tritium concentration in the soil water was assessed by introducing a dynamic compartment model. For the mathematical modeling, the tritium in the environment was thought to come from two different sources. Three global tritium cycling models were compared with the natural background concentration. The dynamic compartment model was used to model the behavior of the tritium from the nuclear power plants at the Wolsong site. The source term for the dynamic compartment model was calculated with the dry and wet deposition rates. The area around the Wolsong nuclear power plants was represented by the compartments. The mechanisms considered in deriving the transfer coefficients between the compartments were evaporation, runoff, infiltration, hydrodynamic dispersion, and groundwater flow. We predicted what the change of the tritium concentration around the Wolsong nuclear power plants would be after future operation of the tritium removal facility to show the applicability of the model. The results showed that the operation of the tritium removal facility would reduce the tritium concentration in topsoil water quickly.