Total Ambient Dose Equivalent Buildup Factors for Portland Concrete.

In this work, total ambient dose equivalent buildup factors for Portland concrete slabs are calculated using Monte Carlo n-particle software MCNP6™. Buildup factor calculations could approach intractable solutions in general as they depend on a large number of variables. These include geometry, source energy, and the composition of the shield (which itself can be heterogeneous). In this work, Cf and americium-beryllium sources are considered, as well as monoenergetic incident neutrons in the energy range from 0.025 eV to 14 MeV at multiple incident angles. The shielding material of interest was taken to be standard Portland concrete. The transmitted neutron and gamma-ray ambient dose rate was calculated first and then used for total buildup factor calculations. Perhaps more telling than the calculated theoretical buildup factor, the credible dispersion in expected resultant buildup factors was also calculated by conducting a very rudimentary sensitivity analysis, varying the water content in the first case and then varying the amount of aggregate. An additional aim of this work is to provide a model based on the machine-learning technique called the support vector regression method in the calculation of concrete buildup factors.

Reconstruction of A Radiological Release Using Aerosol Sampling.

Reconstructing a radiological release using offsite air sampling is considered using measurements from the WIPP site event. Demonstration of the capabilities is shown using the HotSpot code as an example of the approach in general. The results show the empirical steps that could be folded into an iterative approach to back extrapolation of a radiological release from a nuclear facility. It is shown here that the limiting factor in detection is not counting statistics of the activity but rather the statistics for aerosols having small sample population numbers due to the lognormal distribution of particle radii.

Implementation of a Portable HPGe for Field Contamination Assay.

Using MCNP to construct a detector model based initially on x-ray images of a portable high purity germanium (HPGe) detector followed by normalizing covering material values to also agree with check source responses, a validation of the model was attained. By calibrating the detector parameters using large count spectra, rigorous reproducibility is attained for high activity measurements but does not prevent deviations from normality in error distributions at the very low count events where spectral peaks are not always identifiable. The resulting model was created to allow operational assay of contamination over large areal distributions that could not otherwise be measured, such as the exhaust shaft at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). Results indicate that contamination levels of activity in the exhaust shaft can be assayed to within a factor of 2. Detection limits are evaluated to be well below the contamination levels, which would constitute a legal environmental release if unfiltered ventilation of the underground facility were used.

Consequence Assessment of the WIPP Radiological Release from February 2014.

On 14 February 2014, a continuous air monitor (CAM) alarm at the exit of panel 7 in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) underground facility caused the mine ventilation to shift from unfiltered air over to HEPA filtration for its effluent. Subsequent measurements of the effluent at both pre- and post-HEPA filtration using representative sampling demonstrated that a release had occurred. Using modeling based on measured effluent activity, onsite dose estimates were calculated and later measured via bioassay to be less than 0,1 mSv from intakes of radioactivity. The maximum offsite dose potential to nearby dwellings was modeled to be 1 µSv or less, which was consistent with air samples being taken at those dwellings during the release, demonstrating impressive accuracy and precision. No worker or public dose limits have been exceeded, and the release was substantially below the annual release limits for the WIPP site.