Examination of criticality accident alarm coverage on the operating floors of the X-333, X-330, and X-326 facilities at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant

This report summarizes the results of an evaluation of Criticality Accident Alarm System (CAAS) coverage of the operating floors (first floors) of the X-333, X-330, and X-326 buildings. CAAS coverage of the process cell floors (second floors) has been evaluated in previous reports. Coverage of the roadways around the three processing buildings by the cell floor detectors in these buildings has also been verified in a previous report. In order to evaluate coverage, the facilities were modeled using the Monte Carlo N-Particle Transport Computer Code (MCNP). MCNP was then used to simulate criticality accidents at various locations throughout the operating floors of the buildings and the associated neutron flux at the current detector locations was calculated. The neutron flux was then converted to an absorbed dose rate (in tissue) and compared with the Portsmouth criticality accident alarm set-point of 5mrad/hr. The parameters defining the simulated criticality accidents have been calculated as ``the minimum accident of concern`` as defined in ANSI Standard ANS 8.3-1986. These calculations are documented in Portsmouth report number POEF-SH-31. The results of this evaluation indicate that the X-333 Operating Floor CAAS may not alarm in response to a minimum accident of concern. This is primarily because of shielding provided by the numerous concrete columns used to support the second floor of this building and the large distances between the CAAS detectors. Conversely, the results indicate that the X-326 and the X-330 CAAS systems would alarm in response to a minimum accident of concern occurring on the operating floors of these buildings. It should be noted that the cell floors in these two buildings are supported with steel I-beams instead of the concrete columns used in the X-333 building