General Design Criteria

DOE-STD-1128-98

Guide of Good Practices for Occupational Radiological Protection in Plutonium Facilities

-- The planned or unintentional release of radioactive materials from the facility should be

confined to the limits of DOE Order 5400.5, Ch. 2 (DOE, 1993c), and should be ALARA.

C.4.2 General Design Criteria

All planned processing, research and development (R&D), scrap- and waste-handling,

analytical, storage, shipping, and receiving operations should be accommodated. Receiving

operations that involve removal of radioactive material from protective shipping containers

should be performed in a handling area that has provisions for confinement.

Real-time or near real-time accountability systems should be incorporated if possible.

The possibility of operating with multishifts per day should be taken into account in

allocating space for personnel support facilities and for any special equipment that might be

required to support multishift operations.

Areas should be compartmented to isolate the high-risk areas, thereby minimizing

productivity and financial loss if an accident occurs.

A modular construction concept should be used where feasible to facilitate recovery from

operational accidents and DBAs and to provide versatility.

All movement of personnel, material, and equipment between the process area and the

uncontrolled area should be through a controlled area or an air lock. Doors that provide

direct access to the process area from the uncontrolled area (including the outside of the

building) should not be permitted. If such doors are required by existing design and

operating requirements for emergency exits, special administrative controls should be

implemented to ensure adequate ventilation and radioactivity control. All such doors should

have airtight seals. Doors without air locks should have alarms that sound when the doors

are opened to signal a breach in the contamination control system.

Personnel exits should be provided in accordance with the NFPA Life Safety Code (NFPA,

1985). Personnel working in areas where an accidental breach of primary confinement will

expose them to radioactive material should be located within 75 ft of an exit that leads into

the next confinement barrier. Such a barrier should be a partition separating two different

air-control zones, the area of refuge being on the upstream side of the barrier. The airflow

through the barrier should be in the opposite direction of the exit travel.

Normal administrative traffic should be restricted to the uncontrolled and controlled areas

and should not require passage through the process area. Process traffic should be restricted

to process and controlled areas and should not require passage through uncontrolled areas.

Consideration should be given for provision of a ready room near or within the process area

where maintenance, operating, and monitoring personnel may be readily available. The

room should be in a low background area. Storage should be provided for instruments and

tools needed for routine work.

Process areas should be located to permit ease of egress and material movement to ensure

rapid evacuation in case of an accident and minimum potential for contamination spread

during movement of material.

C-9