Determination of correction factors for alpha activity measurements in the environment (conditions of high dust loading)

Within the framework of a French national monitoring program to survey the man-made radioactivity in the environment, several power plants and research facilities on the territory use environmental air monitors for unwanted releases of radioactive aerosols. High sensitivity and lack of false alarms are all important for environmental air monitors. The project aims to conduct investigations to improve operation of environmental air monitors, particularly under conditions where a lot of nonradioactive dust may be deposited on the filters (conditions of high dust loading). The dust may increase the frequency with which filters must be changed and can lead to an underestimation of the real activity. This underestimation is due to deteriorated alpha energy resolution and response specificity to the radionuclides of interest. In this study, our objective was to find experimental correction factors for the degraded activity measurements taking into account the alpha absorption in the dust loading. © The Author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved

Experimental and simulation methods to evaluate the alpha self-absorption factors for radioactive aerosol fiber filters

Air sampling for particulate radioactive material involves collecting airborne particles on a filter in order to measure the radioactivity in the environment or in working areas. The amount of alpha radioactivity collected on the sampling filter is frequently determined by global alpha-particles measurements. Several factors can affect the alpha energy while passing through the filter to reach the detector. The most affecting factor on the alpha spectrum degradation is the absorption of alpha particle energies in the filter fibers. The fibers' density can range from 1 to 9 mg cm-2. The counting losses can accordingly be important, and the global activity in the filter can be underestimated. The complexity of the experiments and the diversity of the filter types, filtration conditions as well as detector types used for survey incite us to formulate a numerical model to simulate the correction factors of the degraded activity. Comparisons between experimental and simulated correction factors for a commonly used filter are presented. The good agreement found between experimental and calculated values validates the method in the studied conditions. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Application of the monte carlo method to study the alpha particle energy spectra for radioactive aerosol sampled by an air filter

An alpha spectrometer including a semi-conductor detector is commonly used for measurements of the emergent alpha particles from an air filter, on which was sampled a radioactive aerosol. The alpha spectrometry and the detection efficiency are necessary input information for real radioactivity measurements. The MCNPX code based on the Monte Carlo method has been applied to simulate the detection process in order to obtain spectrum peaks and determine the detection efficiency for modeled geometry. First simulations with MCNPX have been carried out in order to validate the alpha particle energy spectrometry of an electrodeposited solid source and an initial simulated filter model. Furthermore, to improve our first filter model, the real spatial distribution of radioactive aerosols across the filter thickness, found experimentally, is taken into account in a multi-layer filter model. Such an alpha particle distribution allows achieving an adequate simulation of the filter. Comparison between measured and simulated alpha spectra highlights the good agreement in spectral parameters and in detection efficiency even under different aerosol spatial distributions inside the volume of the filter. © 2009 Health Physics Society

Sorption properties of activated carbons for the capture of methyl iodide in the context of nuclear industry

International audienceIn the present study, some commercially available activated carbons were evaluated towards the methyl iodide (CH3I) capture in the context of nuclear industry. A specific methodology was implemented in order to establish structure-activity relationships between adsorbent characteristics and its adsorption behavior towards CH3I. On the one hand, the investigated adsorbents were characterized by a combination of physico-chemical techniques. On the other hand, CH3I retention performance from batch sorption tests under different conditions (temperature and relative humidity) was studied using an original experimental setup. In this work, two conditions were investigated: (i) T = 35°C, R.H. = 26 % ([H2O] ∼15,000 ppmv); (ii) T = 75°C, R.H. = 30 % ([H2O] ∼130,000 ppmv). Different trends were obtained depending on the investigated scenario. At ambient conditions (i), CH3I adsorption performance was affected after KI/TEDA impregnation because of partial pore blockage phenomena induced by the of impregnants presence within the microporosity. However, TEDA impregnation was found to be required to enhance the trapping stability and to capture CH3I with superior efficiency at higher temperature (ii)

Production of reference sources of radioactive aerosols in filters for proficiency testing

International audienceIn the framework of the organization of proficiency testing, filters with deposits of 137Cs and 90Sr+90Y radioactive aerosols have been submitted to laboratories for radionuclide measurement. Procedures for the special preparation and characterization of filters have been developed. The different steps of filter preparation, determination of the deposited radionuclide activity and characterization of the homogeneity of these deposits are presented. This method of filter preparation can also be used in the production of secondary standards, whose properties are more adapted to the needs of laboratories measuring radioactivity in filters than are the solid sources that they typically use. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd

KI and TEDA influences towards the retention of radiotoxic CH3I by activated carbons

International audienceActivated carbons (ACs) are widely used within the ventilation networks of nuclear facilities to trap volatile iodine species. In this paper, the performances of various commercial activated carbons towards the trapping of γ-labelled methyl iodide were evaluated in semipilot scale under different R.H. according to normalized procedures. A combination between the retention performances and the physico-chemical properties as deduced from several techniques was performed to gain insights about the AC influencing parameters on γ-CH3I capture. Different trends were obtained depending on the impregnant nature and the studied conditions. A high sensitivity of KI/ACs towards water vapor was outlined. At R.H. = 40%. The enhancement of water uptake by KI/ACs as deduced from water adsorption experiments, leads to decrease the available microporosity for CH3I physisorption, inducing therefore the reduction of performances as a function of KI content at these conditions. At R.H. = 90%, the adsorption mechanism was found to be governed by isotopic exchange reaction since 90% of the microporosity was occupied by water molecules. Therefore, a slight increase of DF was obtained in these conditions. This sensitivity was found to be of a lesser extent for TEDA/ACs displaying the highest retention performances whatever the studied condition

Combined Temperature and Radiation Effects on Radiation-Sensitive Single-Mode Optical Fibers

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Radiation vulnerability of standard and radiation-hardened optical glasses at MGy dose: Towards the design of tolerant optical systems

International audienceFacing the need of cameras able to withstand high levels (MGy) of ionizing radiation and the limited set of radiation-hardened optical glasses available to manufacture the lenses of their optical systems (OS), we performed an evaluation of standard and radiation hardened glasses. One of our objectives was to understand if selecting only radiation hardened glasses is always the best choice to reduce OS radio-darkening that is the main radiation-induced macroscopic degradation. For this, we performed X-ray in situ measurements of the radiation-induced attenuation (RIA) up to 100 kGy(SiO2) for several Ce-doped glasses from SCHOTT. Their responses are compared to their Ce-free counterparts. Due to the strong intrinsic attenuation of radiation hardened glasses caused by the Ce-codoping at shorter wavelengths, we found nearly no advantage to use radiation-hardened glasses at doses below 1 kGy(SiO2). We also performed post-irradiation RIA measurements on 31 standard glasses irradiated up to 1 MGy (γ-rays). The outcome is that several standard glasses especially the ones with a low Abbe number and a high refractive index are sufficiently radiation tolerant in terms of RIA and can serve as promising alternative to rad-hard ones. The use of these glasses less affect the color rendering of OS and strongly reduce their costs

Investigations of the MGy dose level radiation effects on the photometric budget of a radiation-hardened CMOS-based camera

International audienceWe studied the impact of ionizing radiation at high dose levels (megagray, MGy) on the photometric budget of a radiation-resistant complementary metal oxide semi-conductor (CMOS)-based camera. This is achieved by measuring the radiation-induced degradation of each subpart, namely its illumination system, its optical system, and its CMOS image sensor. The acquired experimental results allow performing a rather realistic simulation of the radiation effects at the system level. Thanks to appropriate mitigation techniques, limited image darkening and color change are obtained at MGy dose levels. The presented results confirm the feasibility of a CMOS-based camera able to resist to MGy dose level of ionizing radiations with an acceptable degradation of the image quality, opening the way to its implementation in the most challenging harsh environments