Occupational Safety Review of High Technology Facilities

Abstract

This report contains reviews of operating experiences, selected accident events, and industrial safety performance indicators that document the performance of the major US DOE magnetic fusion experiments and particle accelerators. These data are useful to form a basis for the occupational safety level at matured research facilities with known sets of safety rules and regulations. Some of the issues discussed are radiation safety, electromagnetic energy exposure events, and some of the more widespread issues of working at height, equipment fires, confined space work, electrical work, and other industrial hazards. Nuclear power plant industrial safety data are also included for comparison.ii SUMMARY An issue of interest with the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) design is the safety of the personnel who will operate and maintain the facility. Since the ITER machine is much larger than existing experiments and will handle higher power levels and input energies than present tokamaks, there is a concern that the personnel will be at higher risk than the presently accepted levels of risk seen in the existing fusion experiments. The existing US tokamaks have not had any personnel fatalities, and severe occupational accidents have also been rare. Similar operating experiences with the largest US particle accelerators have had fatalities during construction, but have experienced any fatalities in operation. The accelerators have had a few severe occupational accidents. The accelerators and fusion experiments have had occupational injury rates that were somewhat higher than other DOE research and development facilities. In recent years, the fission power plants have had lower occupational accident/injury rates than either fusion or the accelerators, but the power plant accident severity may be greater, and the power plants have had some occupational fatalities while fusion and accelerator operations have not. These data, along with safety performance statistics, have been documented in this report. The case history descriptions presented here are useful to understand the types of occupational events that have occurred and the energy sources involved in the events. These data will support occupational safety analysis of ITER operations, especially a room-by-room analysis of energies and hazards that ITER workers will experience during plant operation and maintenance. The safety performance statistics presented here highlight areas for improvement in occupational safety at fusion and accelerator facilities; ITER can use these data to form more robust occupational safety programs. The statistics also support setting occupational safety goals for ITER operation. Due to its size and power levels, ITER is envisioned to be greater than existing fusion experiments but less than a nuclear fission power plant, and safety goals can be set accordingly.iii CONTENTS ABSTRACT

Occupational Injury Rate Estimates in Magnetic Fusion Experiments

“…PPPL and several major particle accelerators, the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), the electron beam accelerator at Jefferson Lab (Jlab), and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), were examined for injury rate information. 6 The results are presented in Table I. Table II gives similar lost work values for JET.…”

“…To further analyze the data, the LWC rates for FNAL, Jlab, and SLAC were collected as well as the LWC rate for the U.S. nuclear power plant (NPP) industry. 6,7,14 These data are shown in Table IV. The NPP industrial accident rate is same as the LWC rate.…”

“…The PPPL injuries categorized in Ref. 6 show that the most frequently logged injuries are lacerations/abrasions (26%), strains (17%), and fractures (8%). Some of the PPPL injuries reported would be classified as major injuries under the UK RIDDOR rules.…”

“…These plants provide about 20% of the country's electrical power needs and employ about 40% of all U.S. utility workers. 6 There are 704 medium to large fossil-fueled power plants, 1,080 small hydroelectric dams, and 485 gas turbine facilities in the U.S. 17 All of these non-nuclear power plants have smaller staffs than the nuclear power plants.…”

Elements of successful and safe fusion experiment operations

“…Busick [20] credited this approach with reducing personnel radiation overexposures at particle accelerators. Some past events in high technology facilities that can serve as examples are documented by Cadwallader [21]. Keeping communication open and acting to resolve safety issues forms the basis that safety is important at a new facility.…”