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The safety of Pajarito Site critical assembly operations depends upon protection built into the facility, upon knowledgeable personnel, and upon good practice as defined by operating procedures and experimental plans. Distance, supplemented by shielding in some cases, would protect personnel against an extreme accident generating 1019 fissions. During the facility's 28-year history, the direct cost of criticality accidents has translated to a risk of less than $200 per year.--P. 1.
The Los Alamos critical assembly layout is designed to facilitate personnel protection by means of remote operation and stringent procedural controls during nonoperating periods. Public protection is straightforward because of the small fission-product inventory, essentially ambient pressures, and moderate temperatures.
Detailed consideration of the Skua burst assembly is provided, thereby supplementing the facility Safety Analysis Report covering the operation of other critical assemblies at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. As with these assemblies the small fission-product inventory, ambient pressure, and moderate temperatures in Skua are amenable to straightforward measures to ensure the protection of the public.
Emergency response at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is handled through a graded approach depending on the specific emergency situation . LANL maintains a comprehensive capability to respond to events ranging from minor facility events (alerts) through major community events (general emergencies), including criticality accidents . Criticality safety and emergency response apply to all activities involving significant quantities of fissile material at LANL, primarily at Technical Area 18 (TA-18, the Los Alamos Critical Experiments Facility) and Technical Area 55 (TA-55, the Plutonium Facility). This discussion focuses on response to a criticality accident at TA-55; the approach at TA-18 is comparable.
Plutonium research and development activities have resided at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) since 1943. The function of the Plutonium Facility (PF-4) has been to perform basic special nuclear materials research and development and to support national defense and energy programs. The original Final Safety Analysis Report (FSAR) for PF-4 was approved by DOE in 1978. This FSAR analyzed design-basis and bounding accidents. In 1986, DOE/AL published DOE/AL Order 5481.1B, ''Safety Analysis and Review System'', as a requirement for preparation and review of safety analyses. To meet the new DOE requirements, the Facilities Management Group of the Nuclear Material Technology Division submitted a draft FSAR to DOE for approval in April 1991. This draft FSAR analyzed the new configurations and used a limited-scope probabilistic risk analysis for accident analysis. During the DOE review of the draft FSAR, DOE Order 5480.23 ''Nuclear Safety Analysis Reports'', was promulgated and was later officially released in April 1992. The new order significantly expands the scope, preparation, and maintenance efforts beyond those required in DOE/AL Order 5481.1B by requiring: description of institutional and human-factor safety programs; clear definitions of all facility-specific safety commitments; more comprehensive and detailed hazard assessment; use of new safety analysis methods; and annual updates of FSARs. This paper describes the safety analysis report (SAR) upgrade program at the Plutonium Facility in LANL. The SAR upgrade program is established to meet the requirements in DOE Order 5480.23. Described in this paper are the SAR background, authorization basis for operations, hazard classification, and technical program elements.