An SAR-compliant radionuclide inventory management system for a DOE research and development laboratory

The US Department of Energy Complex contains many laboratories that require inventory management and control of large stores of radionuclides. While the overall quantities of radionuclides are bounded by Authorization-Basis (AB) documents, the spatial distribution may change rapidly according to facility experimentation and storage limits. Thus, the consequences of postulated accident events may be difficult to quantify as the location of radiological species becomes uncertain. Furthermore, a situation of this nature may be compounded by management of fissile materials in the same laboratory. Although radionuclide inventory management, fissile material control, and compliance with AB limits may be handled individually, a systematic and consistent approach would be to integrate all three functions. A system with these characteristics, an upgraded Radionuclide Inventory and Administrative Control (RI-AC) System, has been implemented for the Savannah River Technology Center (SRTC) located on the Savannah River Site (SRS), and is summarized in this paper.