Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology

The characterization of radiological contamination inside pipes generated during the decommission of a nuclear facility is necessary before pipes can be recycled or disposed. But, existing direct measurements of radioactive contamination level using the survey-meter can not estimate the characteristic of contamination on a local area such as the pipe inside. Moreover, the measurement of surface contamination level using the indirect methods has many problems of an application because of the difficulty of collecting sample and contamination possibility of a worker when collecting sample. In this work, plastic scintillator was simulated by using Monte Carlo simulation method for detection of beta radiation emitted from internal surfaces of small diameter pipe. Simulation results predicted the optimum thickness and geometry of plastic scintillator at which energy absorption for beta radiation was maximized. In addition, the problem of scintillator processing and transferring the detector into the pipe inside was considered when fabricating the plastic detector on the basis of simulation results. The characteristic of detector fabricated was also estimated. As a result, it was confirmed that detector capability was suitable for the measurement of contamination level. Also, the development of a detector for estimating the radiological characteristic of contamination on a local area such as the pipe inside was proven to be feasible.

Keywords

contamination level inside pipe,Monte Carlo simulation,beta radiation,plastic scintillator