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VASARA: Finland's National Source Register Efficiency

Learn about VASARA, Finland's system for managing radioactive sources, ensuring control and safety. See how data is tracked, updated, and maintained for regulatory compliance.

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VASARA: Finland's National Source Register Efficiency

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  1. VASARA – Finnish national source registerInternational Workshop on National Sources RegistryIAEA, ViennaMarch 20-23, 2017 Eija Venelampi Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority – STUK, Finland

  2. General • STUK has maintained information on radioactive sealed sources in electric form since the beginning of 1980’s • The first applications were simple self-made databases planned for maintaining basic information on licenses and related individual sources • Since then, several development phases have taken place leading to establishment of the current Regulatory Authority Information System called VASARA in 2009 • VASARA is used for management of all regulatory processes and related data for the regulatory control of the use of radiation sources in Finland Eija Venelampi

  3. VASARA in general • House designed; technically created and maintained by an IT-company • Integration to other STUK’s IT-systems (e.g. electronic document management and archiving) • Includes information of safety licences, for example : • Data about the licensee and the radiation practice: places of the use of radiation, radiation safety officer, radiation appliances and sources etc. • Inspections: planning, observations, orders given, deadlines, links to the documents • Management of applications and information of decisions, links to the documents • Invoicing • Reports • Personal to-do lists: applications, deadlines… • The national dose register is also included in VASARA Eija Venelampi

  4. VASARA as the national source register • The devices containing radiation sources are included in the safety licenses on the basis of the licencees’ applications • Data on devices and sources are registered in VASARA • VASARA includes data on all sealed sources exceeding the exemption level • Extra data on high-activity sealed sources (HASS sources) is registered • The aim is to gather data from cradle to grave Eija Venelampi

  5. VASARA: Data on sources • Serial number • Manufacturer • Radionuclide • Activity and referencedate • Status (in use/inlicensee’sstorage/insupplier’sstorage/in national long-termstorage/returnedabroad/lost/cleared) • Latestleaktestdate • Disposalplan • High-activity sealed sources (HASS): physical and chemical characteristics Eija Venelampi

  6. VASARA: Data on the device (in which the source is attached to) • Serial number • Status (same status as the source has) • Purpose of use (e.g. level gauge or calibration device) • Transportable device: yes/no • Manufacturer • Model • Shield type • Inspection interval • Maintenance company • Installation year • Link to the latest inspection of the device (automatically created) Eija Venelampi

  7. VASARA’s operations • Sources can be searched from VASARA by different parameters: ID number, serial number or parts of it, radionuclide, activity (from…to), HASS sourceornot, status, data of the device etc. • Sources/devicescanbemovedfrom a safetylicence to another • No sourcesaredeletedfromVASARA afterdecommissioning; the status is changed • Historydata is gathered on everysource Eija Venelampi

  8. Development of VASARA • Since its establishment, the VASARA system has been under continuous development and updating • Automatic source activity updates based on the reference day and the half-life of the radionuclide will be added to VASARA • At the moment, a major updating project (REKE3) is ongoing for developing new features including • a specific interface for source suppliers so that they can insert all the source specific information into the system before the delivery to the user • an interface for the licensees for viewing their licensing data including source specific information and for submitting applications, for example, for the inclusion of new sources to their license -> the licensee only gives the source identification and not all the source data which have already been inserted to the system by the supplier Eija Venelampi

  9. Conclusions • Experiences in Finland have shown that maintaining an up to date national register of sealed radioactive sources is essential in maintaining control over them for their whole lifetime • However, any register is only as good as the validity of inserted data • Different mechanisms for continuous verification of the validity of the data needs to be in place • In addition to applications and other notifications from the users, these should include • regular on-site inspections • the cross-checking of supplier delivery notification data with the user application data • as appropriate, different types of licensee-targeted source inventory campaigns (e.g. a request to verify the validity of a source register extract). Eija Venelampi

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