Abstract from 1996 SRA Annual Meeting Abstract of Meeting Paper Society for Risk Analysis 1996 Annual Meeting Risk and Safety Analysis at the Tail End of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle.
Hazard is a non-quantitative concept defining that which causes damage.
As far as nuclear materials are concerned, the hazard comes from the effect of radiation on living matter. The effects of high exposures are known and in fact are somatic effects of a deterministic character. As regards irradiated fuel, we define the idea of radiotoxicity, which is the product of the activity A and the engaged effective dose E, also known as dose factor. The radiotoxicity is then converted to a quantitative unit which is defined according to the application. For risk measured during operations, the radiotoxicity will be normalised to the mass of spent fuel.