Progress of Cryogenics and Isotopes Separation

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The National Conference with international participation on New Cryogenic and Isotope Technologies for Energy and Environment - EnergEn 2018 is organized by the National Research-Development Institute for Cryogenic and Isotopic Technologies - ICSI Rm. Valcea with the scientific participation of the University of Pitesti and the University of Craiova and will be held at Baile Govora, in 2018.

AN EVALUATION METHOD FOR POTENTIALLY PACKAGE’S NON-FIXED RADIOACTIVE CONTAMINATION IN TRANSPORT OF RADIOACTIVE WASTE Print

AN EVALUATION METHOD FOR POTENTIALLY PACKAGE’S NON-FIXED RADIOACTIVE CONTAMINATION IN TRANSPORT OF RADIOACTIVE WASTE

 

 

Ramona Mihaiu*, Gheorghe Vieru, Viorica Nistor

 

Reliability and Testing Laboratory, Institute for Nuclear Research,

0300 Pitesti, P.O. Box 78, Romania

 

 

ABSTRACT

 

Packages to be used for transport and storage of Radioactive Materials (RAM) may routinely or inadvertently become contaminated with radioactive substances in the form of fixed (non-removable) or non-fixed (removable) surface contamination during transport.

The non-fixed radioactive contaminants may subsequently be transferred, from external surface of the package to the equipment, trucks, train and transport personnel or to the environment areas accessible to the public.

The IAEA Regulations for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Material, TS-R-1 prescribe certain limits (in units of Bq/cm2) for fixed and non-fixed contamination on the surfaces of packages or shipments.

Within the Reliability and Testing Laboratory of INR Pitesti there is now available a High-Purity Germanium Detector System-HPGe, of high performance having possibilities to analyze and to evaluate the non-fixed contamination limits for radioactive waste packages.

The paper presents a method to evaluate and control the non-fixed contamination values, according to the national regulations and following the recommendations of the IAEA Standard, particularly for a type A package used for transport and storage of radioactive waste to the National Repository (DNDR) Baita Bihor.

 

KEYWORDS: non-fixed contamination, spectrometry, method of analysis.