Measurement and characterisation of radioactive materials

List of naturally occuring radioactive materials and elements

The gamma spectrometric measurement system can be set to analyze any radioactive container (with the same kind of mass, volume and density than stated above) with qualitative (identification of radioelement) and quantitative results (calculation of activities). For now on, the dedicated and automatic software for that purposes is not available. In order to measure radioactive material other than plutonium, an expert on gamma spectrometric Craft supplies measurements would have to do the setting of the instrumentation and the spectrum analysis. Nevertheless, small effort would be required to adapt the existing tool for the characterization of a specific radioactive material.

The production of waste is simply made up of their waste activities. Each installation performs a sort according to its own criteria. The criteria used for this categorization are the nature of the waste (solid or liquid), the measuring devices, the type of packaging. Therefore, earth and demolition rubbish is found, (plaster, breeze blocks, metals, dismantled machinery), metallic waste (small part tooling, shells and end pieces, electrical cables, fuse bases), technological waste from installation operations (plastics, cloth, papers, glass and metals), liquid waste (liquid effluent, silts and used solvents), as well as resins and incineration ashes.