Making the Optimal Decsion in Selecting Protective Clothing

Protective Clothing plays a major role in the decommissioning and operation of nuclear facilities. Literally thousands of employee dress-outs occur over the life of a decommissioning project and during outages at operational plants. In order to make the optimal decision on which type of protective clothing is best suited for the decommissioning or maintenance and repair work on radioactive systems, a number of interrelating factors must be considered, including: – Protection; – Personnel Contamination; – Cost; – Radwaste; – Comfort; – Convenience; – Logistics/Rad Material Considerations; – Reject Rate of Laundered Clothing; – Durability; – Security; – Personnel Safety including Heat Stress; – Disposition of Gloves and Booties. In addition, over the last several years there has been a trend of nuclear power plants either running trials or switching to Single Use Protective Clothing (SUPC) from traditional protective clothing. In some cases, after trial usage of SUPC, plants have chosen not to switch. In other cases after switching to SUPC for a period of time, some plants have chosen to switch back to laundering. Based on these observations, this paper reviews the “real” drivers, issues, and interrelating factors regarding the selection and use of protective clothing throughout the nuclear industry.