Control of the risk of exposure to alpha emitting radionuclides in French nuclear power plants: example of Cattenom.

Control of the risk of internal exposure of EDF PWR plant maintenance workers by alpha-emitting radioactive elements is based on identification and quantification of the contamination of the systems. In 2001, an experiment carried out at Cattenom Power Plant during a unit outage in the presence of a leaking fuel cladding, based on measurement of alpha-emitting radioactive elements, made it possible to determine a realistic particle resuspension coefficient. A resuspension coefficient of 10(-6) m(-1) was adopted for operational radiological protection. An appropriate monitoring system for workers was set in place in collaboration with the occupational medicine and radiological protection department. It was based on prior estimation of the level of alpha contamination, and confirmed by swipe measurements, atmospheric surveillance by monitors, and collective analysis by nose blow samples from workers selected on the basis of their workstations, as well as supplementary individual measurements (monitoring of faeces). This surveillance made it possible to validate an appropriate work area monitoring system.