earticle

영어

Tritium is the one of the dominant contributors to the internal radiation exposure of workers at pressurized heavy waterreactors (PHWRs). This nuclide is likely to release to work places as tritiated water vapor (HTO) from a nuclear reactor and getsrelatively easily into the body of workers by inhalation. Inhaled tritium usually reaches the equilibrium of concentration afterapproximately 2 hours inside the body and then is excreted from the body with a half-life of 10 days. Because tritium inside the bodytransports with body fluids, a whole body receives radiation exposure. Internal radiation exposure at PHWRs accounts forapproximately 20-40% of total radiation exposure; most internal radiation exposure is attributed to tritium. Thus, tritium is an importantnuclide to be necessarily monitored for the radiation management safety. In this paper, metabolism for tritium is established using itsexcretion rate results in urine samples of workers at PHWRs and an effective half-life, a key parameter to estimate the radiationexposure, was derived from these results. As a result, it was found that the effective half-life for workers at Korean nuclear power plantsis shorter than that of International Commission on Radiological Protection guides, a half-life of 10 days.