ML20236X267

Univ of Utah Triga Reactor Annual Operating Rept for Period 970701-980630

ML20236X267
Person / Time
Site:	University of Utah
Issue date:	06/30/1998
From:	Slaughter D UTAH, UNIV. OF, SALT LAKE CITY, UT
To:	NRC OFFICE OF INFORMATION RESOURCES MANAGEMENT (IRM)
References
NUDOCS 9808070248
Download: ML20236X267 (7)

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4 Center forExellencein Nuclear Technology, Engineering, and Research a

3 August 1998

' U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Document Control Desk Washington,' D.C. 20555 To Whom It May Concern:

' Enclosed is the Annual Operating Report for the University of Utah TRIGA Nuclear ' .

Reactor, License No. R-126, Docket No. 50-407, for the period of 1 July 1997 through 30 June 1998. This report fulfills the requirements of the TRIGA Technical Specifications (TTS) 6.10(5).

. If there air any questions or concerns regarding this report, please contact me at (801) 581-

, 8499..

Respectfully, a

david M. Staughter 6 _

, Reactor Administrator and Supervisor.

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.i s  : CENTER UniwrsityofUtah b' ,  % ~ 160 S. CentralChus Dr. Rm,104 "J4 Salt LakeCity,UsahM112-0561 (sol p al m l 9900070248'900630 -

! PDR ADOCK 05000407

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. The University of Utah TRIGA Reactor Annual Operating Report for the period 1 July 1997 through 30 June 1998 A. NARRATIVE. l

1. Operating Experience.

The University of Utah Center for Excellence in Nuclear Technology, Engineering, and Research (CENTER) TRIGA Reactor, License No. R-126, Docket No. 50-407, was critical 83.42 hours4.861111e-4 days <br />0.0117 hours <br />6.944444e-5 weeks <br />1.5981e-5 months <br /> and generated 6427.24 kilowatt-hours of thermal energy during this reponing year. The reactor was used for educational demonstrations, laboratory experiments systems tests, power measurements and sample irradiations. i]

2. Changes in Facility Design.

The documents are being prepared for submission to the NRC to suppon a i forthcoming application to upgrade licensed power from 100 kW to 1.1 MW.

No facilities changes have occurred.

3 SurveillanceTests. )

(Documentation of all surveillance activities is retained and filed within the facility.

a. Control Rod Wonhs ,

I Table I. Summary of Control rod worth, SDM, and ER j Core Configuration #22b 8/28/97 11/14S7 1/28/98 Dollars ($) Dollars ($) Dollars ($)

Safety Rod 2.30 2.03 2.20 Shim-Safety Rod 1.69 1.53 1.68 Regulating Rod 0.18 0.22 0.24 l Excess Reactivity 0.63 0.54 0.57 i Shutdown Marg'm 1.29 1.22 1.35

b. Control Rod Inspection.

Biennial control rod inspection was performed during Nov.1997. The shim rod requimd some standani maintenance and was restored to working condition. The control rods remain in good condition. Rod drop times were measured on 8/28/97, 11/14/97 and 1/28/98. All red drop times were less than 1.0 seconds.

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' actor Power LevelInstmmentation.

Calorimetric power calibrations were performed on 8/12/97, and 2/3/98. The following results were obtained.

Table II. Summary c. Thermal Power Calibrations a

Date h'casured % Power Calculated Power Level 8/12/97 90.2 kW 88.6 kW 2/3/98 90.0 kW 91.7 kW

d. Fuel Inspection.

The Biennial Fuel Inspection was performed during November 1997. Each fuel element was visually inspected while keeping it submerged for shielding. No deterioration or excessive corrosion of core fuel elements was observed since the previous inspection. Pool water is sampled and analyzed monthly for evidence of fission product activity indicative of defective or deteriorating fuel. Analyses of pool water following full-power reactor operations lasting several hours have not shown any indication of fission product leakage.

e. Fuel Temperature Calibration.

Fuel temperature circuits were calibrated on 8/15/97 and 3/3/98. The circuits were calibrated to less than a 5 C error over the range 20 C to 400 C. >

f. Reactor Safety Committee Audits.  !

K. Langely audited radiation safety and ALARA practices at the facility for the period 1 Jan.1997 through 3? ' ne 1997.

K. Langely audited the maintenance and operational activities of the facility for the period 1 Jan.1997 through 31 June 1997.

K. Langely audited radiation safety and ALARA practices at the facility for the period 1 July 1997 through 30 Dec.1997 G. Sandquist audited the maintenance and operational activities of the facility for the period 1 July 1997 through 30 Dec.1997.

No significant deviations from normal operating practices were identified by these l audits.

g. Environmental Surveys.

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K. Langely reported to the RSC a maximum total exposure of 40.0 millimm per quarter to environmental dosimeters located at various positions surrounding CENTER for the period,1 July 1997 through 30 June 1998. The average quanerly

( exposure for the six environmental monitoring stations was 31.6 millirem. J

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B. ENERGY OUTPUT.

The reactor was critical for 83.42 hours4.861111e-4 days <br />0.0117 hours <br />6.944444e-5 weeks <br />1.5981e-5 months <br /> and produced 0.2678 m 1 watt-days (6427.24 kilowatt-hours) of energy during this reporting period. 'ince initial criticality, the reactor has been operated for a total of 2751.6 ho> ; with an accumulated total energy output of 6.689 megawatt-days (1605 A) kilowatt-hours).

q C. EMERGENCY SHUTDOWNS AND INADVERTENT SCRAMS.

Two inadvertent (instrumental) scrams occurred while the reactor was critical during this mporting period. The type, cause and action taken by the operations staff for each scram are summarized below:

Quantity Type Cause Action 2 Linear Power Increasing / decreasing in power, Restart failure to scale properly j i

i D. MAJOR MAINTENANCE. l 1

No major maintenance activity was conducted for the period of 7/1/97-6/30/98. 1 E. CHANGES, TESTS AND EXPERIMENTS PURSUANT TO 10 CFR 50.59.

The membership of the Reactor Safety Committee (RSC) as designated by the j Licensee for the period of this report is as follows:  !

JoAnn S. Lighty, Chair / Reactor Administrator Gary M. Sandquist, Committee Secretary David M. Slaughter, Reactor Supervisor James Thompson, RSO of University of Utah James M. Byrne Karen Langely Melinda P. Krahenbuhl The RSC has reviewed and approved several CENTER procedures which were modified to update, improve, or correct perceived deficiencies. The CENTER staff continues to review and update facility documentation in order to assure compliance with applicable regulations.

F. RADIOACTIVE EFFLUENTS.

1. Liquid Waste - Total Activity Released: Negligible.

A total volume of approximately 5 gallons of liquid effluent was released to the sanitary sewage system. The liquid effluent consisted of mop water from routine maintenance operations. Prior to release, radiological analysis confirmed that the effluent contained no radioactivity in excess of naturally occurring radio nuclides l normally present in the potable water supply of this area 3

2. Gaseous Waste - Total Estimated Activity Released: 80.02 pCi.

The TRIGA Reactor was operated for 83.42 hours4.861111e-4 days <br />0.0117 hours <br />6.944444e-5 weeks <br />1.5981e-5 months <br /> at power levels up to approximately 90 kW. At this power level argon-41 production is substantially below effluent concentration limit for unrestricted areas. The minimum detectable concentration of Ar-41 for the stack monitor has been found to be one-third of the 10 CFR 20 (Appendix B) limit on release to unrestricted areas. He average annual calculated concentration of Ar-41 generated during operations is estimated at 3.57 x 10-10, pCi/ml which is less than 3.7% of the effluent concentration limit for this radionuclides. The total amount of Ar-41 released was estimated at 80.02 Ci. No phosphorus-32 was released from CENTER during this period. The total amount of all gaseous radioactivity released was estimated at 80.02 Ci. A monthly summary of gaseous releases is given in Table III. _

Table III. Summary of Monthly Gaseous Radioactive Effluent 1 July 1997 through 30 June 1998 Month Ar-41( Ci) Estimated Release Total (pCi)

P-32 and all others July 4.33 0 4.33 August 11.78 0 11.78 September 1.26 0 1.26 October 4.53 0 4.53 November 0.70 0 0.70 December 1.12 0 1.12 January 1.40 0 1.40 February 18.7 0 18.7 Maith 8.65 0 8.65-April 9.74 0 9.74 May 12.35 0 _

12.35 June 5.11 0 5.11 Total Activity of gaseous effluent ( Ci): 80.02

3. Solid Waste - Total Activity: 2.07 mci l Approximately 1.5 cubic meters of low level decontamination materials were t generated by the University of Uudi facility . The types of decontamination materials generated include the following: debris removed from the reactor tank during cleaning, and irradiated samples disposed of through the Radiological lle4Ji Department. Solid waste included 0.999 mci of deteriorating Pu dosimetry foils.

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G. RADIATION EXPOSURES.

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Personnel with duties in the reactor laboratory on either a regular or occasional basis have been issued a film-badge dosimeter by the University of Utah Radiological Health Department. The duty category and monitoring period of personnel are summarized in Table IV:

Table IV. Summary of Personnel, monitoring period, and duty category i

Name Monitoring Period Duty Category David M. Slaughter 7/1/97-6/30/98 regular i Gary M. Sandquist 7/1/97-6/30/98 regular Henry F. Moeller 7/1/97-6/30/98 - occasional ,

Ross Schmidtlein 7/1/97-6/30/98 regular Kevan Weaver 7/1/97-6/30/98 regular Cindy Henderson 7/1/97-6/30/98 occasional i Melinda Krahenbuhl l 7/1/97-6/30/98 regular i Dong-ok Choe 7/1/97-6 S 0/98 regular l Bymn Lawrence 7/1/97-10 SIS 7 regular /tenninated 1

Thomas Cantrell 7/1/97-6SO/98 regular / terminated Adam Rogers 7/1/97-10S l/97 regular / terminated Justin Wilde 7/1/97-6/30/98 regular Christy Seiger-Webster 7/1/97-6SO/98 regular Brenda Newton 7/1/97-6/30/98 regular Stephannie Mecham 7/1/97-6SO/98 regular

1. Measured Doses 7/1/97-6/30/98 Doses: <10 mrem average; 130 mrem highest measured.

2. Dose. Equivalent Limit I Maximum Permissible Dose Equivalent = 5000 mrem / year (1250/quaner).

Minimum Detectable Dose per Monthly Badge = 10 mrem.  ;

T>f the 450 visitors to the facility under the DOE Reactor Sharing Program for the reporting year, no visitor received a measurable dose. Therefore, the average maximum doses are all within NRC guidelines. A summary of whole body exposures is presented in Table V.

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. Table V. Summary of Whole Body Exposures 1 July 1997 through 30 June 1998 Estimated whole body exposure range Number ofindividuals in each range: l (rem):

No Measurable Dose 7 12ss than 0.10 7 0.10 to 0.25 1 0.25 to 0.50 0

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0.50 to 0.75 0  !

0.75 to 1.00 0 I

1.00 to 2.00 0 2.00 to 3.00 0 3.00 to 4.00 0 4.00 to 5.00 0 Greater than 5 rem 0 H. LABORATORY SURVEYS Monthly surveys of the facility were conducted by the University of Utah Radiological Health Depanment during the reporting period. Some of these surveys have identified minor localized removable contamination sources which were immediately cleaned. The surveys have not indicated any unusual radiation levels over previous years. Records of surveys are retained by the facility.

I. ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES Environmental monitoring conducted by the University of Utah Radiological Health Department indicated no unusual dose rates in the areas surrounding the Merrill Engineering Bu'Iding, which houses the r ctor facility.

Prepared by : z y

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t t i Date: $3 Submi , d by:[ ) J Sui fe' so

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Approved by:' b Date:

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Reactor Administrator 6

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