Reducing the Exposure Dose by Optimizing the Route of Personnel Movement When Visiting Specified Points and Taking into Account the Avoidance of Obstacles

Abstract

The data on the collective dose reduction of a nuclear power plant’s personnel after the introduction of new dose limits by the International Commission for Radiological Protection (ICRP) (Publication 60) in 1990 are presented. The main methods of personnel irradiation reduction are formulated, which are namely: to impact on radiation parameters, to increase the distance between a radiation source and a person, and to reduce the exposure time in radiation fields. The ways to implement one of the basic principles of radiation safety, the principle of optimization, are described. The possibility of route optimization in minimizing the personnel dose costs when moving in heterogeneous radiation fields is shown. The results of the algorithm development for solving the “dosimetrist problem” using the Dijkstra algorithm and dynamic programming are presented, including determining the optimal route with visiting given points in the room and bypassing possible obstacles. An interpolation algorithm based on the method of radial basic functions for constructing a radiation map of a room is proposed and implemented. The results of a computational experiment using the “Uran” supercomputer and the assessment of the developed algorithm efficiency are given. The results of experimental verification of the developed algorithm for solving the “dosimetrist problem” using interpolation in the operating nuclear power plant conditions are presented. © 2022 by the authors.