Uncertainty in transport factors used to calculate historical dose from 131I releases at the Savannah River Site.

During the 1950's, atmospheric release of 131I was one of the largest contributors to offsite dose at the Savannah River Site. Computer models used to estimate offsite dose involve the use of many parameters with wide ranges of uncertainty. The overall uncertainty in dose can be estimated by propagating the uncertainty of each parameter through the model. A major component of the calculational model can be solved for a given release scenario and condensed into a transport factor, which, when multiplied by the air concentration (or deposition) and the appropriate dose conversion factor, can be used to estimate a specific pathway dose. Uncertainties are estimated for the period of 1955-1961 for all parameters contributing to the 131I transport factor for each pathway. The overall transport factor including all pathways has ranges characterized by maximum-to-minimum ratios (95% to 5%) of about 40. The parameter shown to have the greatest impact on the transport factor calculation was the fraction of elemental iodine released.