Stochastic sensitivity analysis of the biosphere model for Canadian nuclear fuel waste management

Journal Article · Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1993 · Waste Management; (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/0956-053X(93)90009-L· OSTI ID:6321616

Reid, J A.K.; Corbett, B J ^[1]

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1. AECL Research, Pinawa, Manitoba (Canada). Whiteshell Labs.

The biosphere model, BIOTRAC, was constructed to assess Canada's concept for nuclear fuel waste disposal in a vault deep in crystalline rock at some as yet undetermined location in the Canadian Shield. The model is therefore very general and based on the shield as a whole. BIOTRAC is made up of four linked submodels for surface water, soil, atmosphere, and food chain and dose. The model simulates physical conditions and radionuclide flows from the discharge of a hypothetical nuclear fuel waste disposal vault through groundwater, a well, a lake, air, soil, and plants to a critical group of individuals, i.e., those who are most exposed and therefore receive the highest dose. This critical group is totally self-sufficient and is represented by the International Commission for Radiological Protection reference man for dose prediction. BIOTRAC is a dynamic model that assumes steady-state physical conditions for each simulation, and deals with variation and uncertainty through Monte Carlo simulation techniques. This paper describes SENSYV, a technique for analyzing pathway and parameter sensitivities for the BIOTRAC code run in stochastic mode. Results are presented for [sup 129]I from the disposal of used fuel, and they confirm the importance of doses via the soil/plant/man and the air/plant/man ingestion pathways. The results also indicate that the lake/well water use switch, the aquatic iodine mass loading parameter, the iodine soil evasion rate, and the iodine plant/soil concentration ratio are important parameters.

• OSTI ID: 6321616
• Journal Information: Waste Management; (United States), Vol. 13:2; ISSN 0956-053X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
CANADA
RADIOACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL
B CODES
SPENT FUELS
UNDERGROUND DISPOSAL
BIOSPHERE
EARTH ATMOSPHERE
ENVIRONMENTAL EXPOSURE PATHWAY
FOOD CHAINS
IODINE 129
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MONTE CARLO METHOD
RADIATION DOSES
RADIONUCLIDE MIGRATION
SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS
SOILS
SURFACE WATERS
BETA DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
BETA-MINUS DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
CALCULATION METHODS
COMPUTER CODES
DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
DOSES
ENERGY SOURCES
ENVIRONMENTAL TRANSPORT
FUELS
INTERMEDIATE MASS NUCLEI
INTERNAL CONVERSION RADIOISOTOPES
IODINE ISOTOPES
ISOTOPES
MANAGEMENT
MASS TRANSFER
MATERIALS
NORTH AMERICA
NUCLEAR FUELS
NUCLEI
ODD-EVEN NUCLEI
RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT
RADIOISOTOPES
REACTOR MATERIALS
WASTE DISPOSAL
WASTE MANAGEMENT
YEARS LIVING RADIOISOTOPES
052002* - Nuclear Fuels- Waste Disposal & Storage
540330 - Environment
Aquatic- Radioactive Materials Monitoring & Transport- (1990-)
540230 - Environment
Terrestrial- Radioactive Materials Monitoring & Transport- (1990-)