Radiological Monitoring Equipment For Real-Time Quantification Of Area Contamination In Soils And Facility Decommissioning
The environmental restoration industry offers several sys¬tems that perform scan-type characterization of radiologically contaminated areas. The Idaho National Laboratory (INL) has developed and deployed a suite of field systems that rapidly scan, characterize, and analyse radiological contamination in surface soils. The base system consists of a detector, such as sodium iodide (NaI) spectrometers, a global positioning system (GPS), and an integrated user-friendly computer interface. This mobile concept was initially developed to provide precertifica¬tion analyses of soils contaminated with uranium, thorium, and radium at the Fernald Closure Project, near Cincinnati, Ohio. INL has expanded the functionality of this basic system to create a suite of integrated field-deployable analytical systems. Using its engineering and radiation measurement expertise, aided by computer hardware and software support, INL has streamlined the data acquisition and analysis process to provide real-time information presented on wireless screens and in the form of coverage maps immediately available to field technicians. In addition, custom software offers a user-friendly interface with user-selectable alarm levels and automated data quality monitoring functions that validate the data. This system is deployed from various platforms, depending on the nature of the survey. The deployment platforms include a small all-terrain vehicle used to survey large, relatively flat areas, a hand-pushed unit for areas where manoeuvrability is important, an excavator-mounted system used to scan pits and trenches where personnel access is restricted, and backpack- mounted systems to survey rocky shoreline features and other physical settings that preclude vehicle-based deployment. Variants of the base system include sealed proportional counters for measuring actinides (i.e., plutonium-238 and americium-241) in building demolitions, soil areas, roadbeds, and process line routes at the Miamisburg Closure Project near Dayton, Ohio. In addition, INL supports decontamination operations at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
- Research Organization:
- Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- DOE - EM
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC07-99ID-13727
- OSTI ID:
- 911744
- Report Number(s):
- INL/CON-05-00442; TRN: US0800116
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: The 10th International Conference on Environmental Remediation and Radioactive Waste Management,Glasgow, Scotland,09/04/2005,09/08/2005
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
ACTINIDES
AMERICIUM 241
COMPUTERS
CONTAMINATION
DATA ACQUISITION
DECOMMISSIONING
DECONTAMINATION
GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM
MONITORING
PLUTONIUM 238
PROPORTIONAL COUNTERS
RADIATIONS
RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT
RADIUM
SODIUM IODIDES
SOILS
SPECTROMETERS
THORIUM
URANIUM
areal contamination
radiological monitoring equipment