Tritium measurement and monitoring in experimental and process systems with ionization chambers

Conference · Sun Mar 01 04:00:00 EST 1992 · Fusion Technology; (United States)

OSTI ID:5087029

Rodrigo, L; Miller, J M; Bokwa, S R; Johnson, R E; MacDonald, B M; Senohrabek, J ^[1]

---

1. Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., Chalk River, ON (Canada). Chalk River Nuclear Labs.

Historically, ionization chambers have been used successfully to measure low-level tritium concentrations in air for radiation protection purposes. Problems have been encountered in applying this technique to measure much higher concentrations of tritium in gases other than air, particularly to measure tritium in argon and helium. This paper reports on an experimental program initiated to investigate the various factors that affect the response of ionization chambers. Carrier gas effects on the measurement of elemental tritium were investigated in the concentration range 0-150 Ci/m{sup 3}. Higher than theoretical calibration factors were obtained consistently with low-level tritium gas standards in both helium and argon, while with high-level gas standards the experimental calibration factors were close to the theoretical value. Use of a commercial ionization chamber to measure tritiated water vapor in dry air streams resulted in severe contamination of the chamber. Water swamping of the dry air stream reduced the ionization chamber contamination to a negligible level, allowing reliable measurements to be made. The calibration of ionization chambers with representative process gases and operating conditions is necessary to ensure reliable tritium concentration measurements.

• OSTI ID: 5087029
• Report Number(s): CONF-910920--
• Conference Information: Journal Name: Fusion Technology; (United States) Journal Volume: 21:2
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

440104 -- Radiation Instrumentation-- High Energy Physics Instrumentation
46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
560101* -- Biomedical Sciences
Applied Studies-- Radiation Effects-- Dosimetry & Monitoring-- (1992-)
61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY
AIR
AIR FLOW
ARGON
BETA DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
BETA-MINUS DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
CALIBRATION
COMMERCIAL SECTOR
CONTAMINATION
ELEMENTS
EXPERIMENT PLANNING
FLUID FLOW
FLUIDS
GAS FLOW
GASES
HEAVY WATER
HELIUM
HYDROGEN COMPOUNDS
HYDROGEN ISOTOPES
IONIZATION CHAMBERS
ISOTOPES
LIGHT NUCLEI
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
MEASURING METHODS
MONITORING
NONMETALS
NUCLEI
ODD-EVEN NUCLEI
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PLANNING
RADIATION DETECTORS
RADIATION PROTECTION
RADIOISOTOPES
RARE GASES
TRITIUM
TRITIUM COMPOUNDS
WATER
YEARS LIVING RADIOISOTOPES