THE CONSTRUCTION OF A SEMI-INDUSTRIAL TYPE GAMMA IRRADIATION FACILITY
The fuel element cooling chamber of EL3 pile at Saclay bas been especially arranged to permit the irradiation of chemical and food products on a semiindustrial scale. Computations have shown that the large quantities of radioactivity stored in this chamber will permit the attaining of a high flux density over a large volume by a special storage arrangement of the fuel elements. The installation is divided into two compartments with differing arrangements of fuel element which allow several irradiation geometries and specimen sizes. The first chamber is constructed of barytes concrete and maintained at a constant temperature. Alternate rows of uranium bars and specimen channels, with a minimum spacing, are used to obtain a compact assembly. The diameters of the channels are 10 and 20 cm and the effective loading height is 70 cm, the latter corresponding to the zone of uniform flux. The second chamber is fitted with a conveyor moving containers 35 cm diameter and 70 cm deep around a single row of twenty fuel elements. The temperature is maintained at --70 deg C in this latter chamber. The distribution of gamma flux within the chambers was calculated and verified with fuel elements from the EL2 pile at Saclay. The radiation field varies with time following unloading the elements from the pile and depends on the geometric arrangement of elements selected. The predicted theoretical dose rate will range between ten thousand and several million r/hour. These dose rates will be verified with chemical dosimeters of the ferrous sulfate and oxalic acid types. In addition, glass dosimeters calibrated with a cobalt-60 source will be placed in the conveyor container to determine quickly the total integrated dose. (auth)
- Research Organization:
- Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique, Paris
- NSA Number:
- NSA-13-007142
- OSTI ID:
- 4283311
- Report Number(s):
- A/CONF.15/P/1212
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: Orig. Receipt Date: 31-DEC-59
- Country of Publication:
- Country unknown/Code not available
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
CHEMICALS
COBALT 60
CONCRETES
CONFIGURATION
DISTRIBUTION
DOSEMETERS
EL-2
EL-3
EQUATIONS
FOOD
FUEL ELEMENTS
GAMMA RADIATION
GAMMA SOURCES
GLASS
IRON SULFATES
IRRADIATION
LOW TEMPERATURE
MEASURED VALUES
NUMERICALS
OXALIC ACID
RADIOACTIVITY
REACTOR FUELING
RODS
SHIELDING
STANDARDS
STORAGE
SULFATES
TEMPERATURE
URANIUM
VOLUME
ZONES