A new spectrometer-radiometer has been worked out by the Department of Applied Nuclear Physics employees, the Institute of Industrial and Nuclear Technologies MEPhI together with the open joint-stock company “Specialized Scientific and Research Institute of Instrumentation”. It is aimed at increasing of measurement accuracy of the activity concentration of inert radioactive gases by registration of dependence of radiometer sensitivity on the energy of the measured inert radioactive sample.
The monitoring of radiation factors created by APP is an integral part of the radiation safety system. The majority of nuclear reactors and plants discard from inert gases, including radioactive ones.
Nowadays there are similar devices, mainly foreign ones, and their disadvantage is a narrow range of measurements. Our university developers have managed to broaden the range of the measured activity from 103 Bq/m3 to 1017 Bq/m3. One device can’t handle such range hence the scientists have suggested to unite 3 radiometers and 1 spectrometer into one device.
The first radiometer functions at 103 to 108 Bq/m3 range - this is a scintillation counter. The measurement of higher ranges is done by 2 solid-state detectors. One of them measures the activity at 107 to 1013 Bq/m3 on average and the second tracks the highest activity, it is practically an alarm detector for beyond design basis accidents. The spectrometer gives a conversion equivalent of the count rate conversion into the activity concentration based on the radioactive gases composition.
