Radiation protection and shielding design--strengthening the link

The improvement in quality and flexibility of shielding methods and data has been progressive and beneficial in opening up new opportunities for optimising radiation protection in design. The paper describes how these opportunities can best be seized by taking a holistic view of radiation protection, with shielding design being an important component part. This view is best achieved by enhancing the role of 'shielding assessors' so that they truly become 'radiation protection designers'. The increase in speed and efficiency of shielding calculations has been enormous over the past decades. This has raised the issue of how the assessor's time now can be best utilised; pursuing ever greater precision and accuracy in shielding/dose assessments, or improving the contribution that shielding assessment makes to radiological protection and cost-effective design. It is argued in this paper that the latter option is of great importance and will give considerable benefits. Shielding design needs to form part of a larger radiation protection perspective based on a deep understanding/appreciation of the opportunities and constraints of operators and designers, enabling minimal design iterations, cost optimisation of alternative designs (with a 'lifetime' perspective) and improved realisation of design intent in operations. The future of shielding design development is argued to be not in improving the 'toolkit', but in enhanced understanding of the 'product' and the 'process' for achieving it. The holistic processes being developed in BNFL to realise these benefits are described in the paper and will be illustrated by case studies.